Environmental and economic information for aggregates provision

This report describes a one-year research project entitled ‘Environmental and economic information systems for aggregates provision’. This project is an extension to previous research on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and future aggregates extraction, which was carried out by the British Geological Survey (BGS) and reported in early 2004 (Steadman, et al., 2004). Both phases of the research were co-funded by the BGS and the Mineral Industry Sustainable Technology Programme (MIST). Environmental, economic and social information are essential for sustainable planning for the provision of aggregates. There is a need to bring together disparate information relating to aggregate extraction. Datasets include the location of resources and their potential end-uses, as well as those on the environment and transport. Bringing this digital information together into one location or system will assist in supporting a more balanced and informed approach to the decision making process. A number of regulatory mechanisms are currently driving the gathering and compilation of relevant environmental, economic and social information. Current drivers for information relevant to aggregate provision include environmental appraisal of the provision of aggregates, SEA and Sustainability Appraisal (SA). The objective of this research was to provide an interactive ‘tool’ or information system for the minerals industry, land-use planners and other stakeholders to use when considering options for future aggregate provision. The study area for the research was the East Midlands Region of England. The project had three main deliverables: 1. To provide an online Geographic Information System (GIS) to access the ‘environmental sensitivity’ map which was developed for the East Midlands Region during the first phase of research; 2. to compile aggregate end-use suitability maps for the East Midland Region; and 3. to hold a stakeholder consultation exercise and dissemination seminars. Each of these was met within the agreed timeframe. The environmental sensitivity map information and associated attributes have been made available on the internet via the BGS ‘Minerals information online’ web GIS for the East Midlands Region (www.mineralsuk.com/web_gis). Accommodating these data in a web GIS environment has entailed some compromises on data resolution and system functionality. A methodology has been developed to integrate a range of aggregate technical property data. This can be used to summarise the distribution of aggregate resources suitable for particular end-uses. These summary technical data are useful in communicating issues of variable aggregate quality and economic value to non-technical stakeholders in the mineral planning process. Availability of appropriate technical property data for different aggregate resources across a wide geographical area is critical in developing these maps. Feedback from an extensive consultation and dissemination exercise has generally been very positive. Two critiques by independent consultants of the environmental sensitivity map were also undertaken. These were deemed an important aspect of the consultation process. Stakeholders raised several issues. There were some concerns about updating and maintenance of asset data and about the lack of social information. In addition, some fundamental issues of approach (particularly asset weighting) raised in the previous phase of this research resurfaced during this consultation. Environmental sensitivity mapping will be carried out for the whole of England by the BGS in the near future. The data will be made available online as each region becomes available. It is anticipated that the mineral GISs for all regions of England (except London) will be completed by December 2005. New datasets may be added to the environmental sensitivity layer as they become available. The research into end-use suitability maps will be carried on by the BGS under its Minerals Programme, with the support of co-funding where possible. The project team continue to welcome feedback and criticism of this research

Gaussian quantum operator representation for bosons

We introduce a Gaussian quantum operator representation, using the most general possible multimode Gaussian operator basis. The representation unifies and substantially extends existing phase-space representations of density matrices for Bose systems and also includes generalized squeezed-state and thermal bases. It enables first-principles dynamical or equilibrium calculations in quantum many-body systems, with quantum uncertainties appearing as dynamical objects. Any quadratic Liouville equation for the density operator results in a purely deterministic time evolution. Any cubic or quartic master equation can be treated using stochastic methods

Reionization by active sources and its effects on the cosmic microwave background

We investigate the possible effects of reionization by active sources on the cosmic microwave background. We concentrate on the sources themselves as the origin of reionization, rather than early object formation, introducing an extra period of heating motivated by the active character of the perturbations. Using reasonable parameters, this leads to four possibilities depending on the time and duration of the energy input: delayed last scattering, double last scattering, shifted last scattering and total reionization. We show that these possibilities are only very weakly constrained by the limits on spectral distortions from the COBE FIRAS measurements. We illustrate the effects of these reionization possibilities on the angular power spectrum of temperature anisotropies and polarization for simple passive isocurvature models and simple coherent sources, observing the difference between passive and active models. Finally, we comment on the implications of this work for more realistic active sources, such as causal white noise and topological defect models. We show for these models that non-standard ionization histories can shift the peak in the CMB power to larger angular scales.Comment: 21 pages LaTeX with 11 eps figures; replaced with final version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

iNOS activity is critical for the clearance of Burkholderia mallei from infected RAW 264.7 murine macrophages

Burkholderia mallei is a facultative intracellular pathogen that can cause fatal disease in animals and humans. To better understand the role of phagocytic cells in the control of infections caused by this organism, studies were initiated to examine the interactions of B. mallei with RAW 264.7 murine macrophages. Utilizing modified kanamycin-protection assays, B. mallei was shown to survive and replicate in RAW 264.7 cells infected at multiplicities of infection (moi) of ≤ 1. In contrast, the organism was efficiently cleared by the macrophages when infected at an moi of 10. Interestingly, studies demonstrated that the monolayers only produced high levels of TNF-α, IL-6, IL-10, GM-CSF, RANTES and IFN-β when infected at an moi of 10. In addition, nitric oxide assays and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) immunoblot analyses revealed a strong correlation between iNOS activity and clearance of B. mallei from RAW 264.7 cells. Furthermore, treatment of activated macrophages with the iNOS inhibitor, aminoguanidine, inhibited clearance of B. mallei from infected monolayers. Based upon these results, it appears that moi significantly influence the outcome of interactions between B. mallei and murine macrophages and that iNOS activity is critical for the clearance of B. mallei from activated RAW 264.7 cells

Evidence of Color Coherence Effects in W+jets Events from ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV

We report the results of a study of color coherence effects in ppbar collisions based on data collected by the D0 detector during the 1994-1995 run of the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, at a center of mass energy sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV. Initial-to-final state color interference effects are studied by examining particle distribution patterns in events with a W boson and at least one jet. The data are compared to Monte Carlo simulations with different color coherence implementations and to an analytic modified-leading-logarithm perturbative calculation based on the local parton-hadron duality hypothesis.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for Higgs bosons decaying to tautau pairs in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We present a search for the production of neutral Higgs bosons decaying into tautau pairs in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb-1, were collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We set upper limits at the 95% C.L. on the product of production cross section and branching ratio for a scalar resonance decaying into tautau pairs, and we then interpret these limits as limits on the production of Higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and as constraints in the MSSM parameter space.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PL

Measurement of the photon+b+b-jet production differential cross section in ppˉp\bar{p} collisions at \sqrt{s}=1.96~\TeV

We present measurements of the differential cross section dsigma/dpT_gamma for the inclusive production of a photon in association with a b-quark jet for photons with rapidities |y_gamma|< 1.0 and 30<pT_gamma <300 GeV, as well as for photons with 1.5<|y_gamma|< 2.5 and 30< pT_gamma <200 GeV, where pT_gamma is the photon transverse momentum. The b-quark jets are required to have pT>15 GeV and rapidity |y_jet| < 1.5. The results are based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 8.7 fb^-1, recorded with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ Collider at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV. The measured cross sections are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations using different sets of parton distribution functions as well as to predictions based on the kT-factorization QCD approach, and those from the Sherpa and Pythia Monte Carlo event generators.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Limits on anomalous trilinear gauge boson couplings from WW, WZ and Wgamma production in pp-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We present final searches of the anomalous gammaWW and ZWW trilinear gauge boson couplings from WW and WZ production using lepton plus dijet final states and a combination with results from Wgamma, WW, and WZ production with leptonic final states. The analyzed data correspond to up to 8.6/fb of integrated luminosity collected by the D0 detector in pp-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. We set the most stringent limits at a hadron collider to date assuming two different relations between the anomalous coupling parameters Delta\kappa_\gamma, lambda, and Delta g_1^Z for a cutoff energy scale Lambda=2 TeV. The combined 68% C.L. limits are -0.057<Delta\kappa_\gamma<0.154, -0.015<lambda<0.028, and -0.008<Delta g_1^Z<0.054 for the LEP parameterization, and -0.007<Delta\kappa<0.081 and -0.017<lambda<0.028 for the equal couplings parameterization. We also present the most stringent limits of the W boson magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PL