4,609 research outputs found
Response to ‘Protected areas and climate change Reflections from a practitioner's perspective
Cliquet et al. 1 provide a thought-provoking analysis of the challenges posed to
the EU's protected areas by climate change. This paper seeks to build on some of
the perspectives they brought to what is a highly challenging area of nature
conservation law, policy and practice. While there is much to support in their
analysis of the relationships between protected areas and climate change, there
are two key strands we seek to develop further, based on the RSPB's experience
of this area of nature conservation policy and practice: first, is the
ecological model for adapting to climate change and second, the legal framework
provided by the Birds2 and Habitats3 Directives (the Nature Directives) as it
relates to the delivery of such adaptive actions
Quantitative information flow under generic leakage functions and adaptive adversaries
We put forward a model of action-based randomization mechanisms to analyse
quantitative information flow (QIF) under generic leakage functions, and under
possibly adaptive adversaries. This model subsumes many of the QIF models
proposed so far. Our main contributions include the following: (1) we identify
mild general conditions on the leakage function under which it is possible to
derive general and significant results on adaptive QIF; (2) we contrast the
efficiency of adaptive and non-adaptive strategies, showing that the latter are
as efficient as the former in terms of length up to an expansion factor bounded
by the number of available actions; (3) we show that the maximum information
leakage over strategies, given a finite time horizon, can be expressed in terms
of a Bellman equation. This can be used to compute an optimal finite strategy
recursively, by resorting to standard methods like backward induction.Comment: Revised and extended version of conference paper with the same title
appeared in Proc. of FORTE 2014, LNC
Understanding and optimising the packing density of perylene bisimide layers on CVD-grown graphene
The non-covalent functionalisation of graphene is an attractive strategy to
alter the surface chemistry of graphene without damaging its superior
electrical and mechanical properties. Using the facile method of aqueous-phase
functionalisation on large-scale CVD-grown graphene, we investigated the
formation of different packing densities in self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of
perylene bisimide derivatives and related this to the amount of substrate
contamination. We were able to directly observe wet-chemically deposited SAMs
in scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) on transferred CVD graphene and
revealed that the densely packed perylene ad-layers adsorb with the conjugated
{\pi}-system of the core perpendicular to the graphene substrate. This
elucidation of the non-covalent functionalisation of graphene has major
implications on controlling its surface chemistry and opens new pathways for
adaptable functionalisation in ambient conditions and on the large scale.Comment: 27 pages (including SI), 10 figure
The Effect of Fluid Consumption and Exercise on Segmental Bioelectrical Impedance
Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is a simple, non-invasive technique to determine body composition. The fundamental principle of determining body composition via bioelectrical impedance is to determine the resistance to, or conductance of, a low voltage current applied to biological tissue. Bioelectrical impedance analysis is well correlated to total body water. Bioelectrical impedance is sensitive to fluid shifts namely changes in blood flow, changes in electrolyte concentration, and changes in hydration status and consequently bioelectrical impedance has been used as a tool to measure such changes. Thirty college-aged students, 18-25 years old, 18 men and 12 women were subjects for this study. Bioelectrical impedance was determined with the Tanita BC-418 at two time points. Subjects were instructed to drink 490ml of water then exercised on the treadmill for 30mins. Our results show a significant decrease in resistance in both the sum of the upper limbs and the sum of the lower limbs indicating a fluid shift that is related to the fluid consumed by the subjects, but independent of tonicity
Effects of Strong Magnetic Fields on the Hadron-Quark Deconfinement Transition
The aim of the present work is to investigate the effects of strong magnetic
fields on the hadron-quark phase transition point at zero temperature. To
describe the hadronic phase, a relativistic mean field (RMF) model is used and
to describe the quark phase a density dependent quark mass model (DDQM) is
employed. As compared with the results obtained with non-magnetised matter, we
observe a shift of the transition point towards higher pressures and, generally
also towards higher chemical potentials. An investigation of the phase
transitions that could sustain hybrid stars is also performed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Two Transitions of Care Programs
Type: Clinical Experienc
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