Design of Roads in Harmony with Wildlife

Abstract‘Procedures for the Design of Roads in Harmony with Wildlife’ or ‘Harmony’ is a project that aims to develop sustainable solutions to road transport challenges that are in harmony with wildlife. This paper summarises Harmony's work in the areas of Environmental Legislation and Guidelines, Project Appraisal, and Procurement Practices. The project mainly focuses on practices in the eight reference countries of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary, Austria, Sweden and Denmark.A review of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Appropriate Assessment (AA) is carried out. As part of this review, a database of over 80 Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and Appropriate Assessment reports is analysed to identify the similarities and differences between countries in the implementation of the duties required by EU Environmental Legislation. It is found that the degree of implementation under the headings considered varies greatly between countries. It is concluded that increased guidance on monitoring be provided in all countries.Project Appraisal for transport infrastructure is the process of assessing whether capital expenditure is justified for a project and ensuring that it is allocated to the best transport solution to achieve the objectives of that project whilst complying with planning policy and national and EU legislation. The project appraisal methodologies used in the reference countries are compared with the aim of identifying a set of tools to enable rational and sensible decisions to be made. The approach used in the UK is recommended for adoption by all Member States.This paper then examines existing approaches to the procurement of road constructions in the reference countries. The different types of contracts used for procurement are described and the benefits and disadvantages of different contract types are discussed. Recommendations are then made as to which contracts are the most favourable for ensuring the environmental commitments of the Environmental Impact Statement are carried out. Early contractor involvement as well as construction contracts that incorporate maintenance, with monitoring, for an extended period afterwards were cited as key recommendations to ensure a good outcome for wildlife

Observation of an Exotic S=+1S=+1 Baryon in Exclusive Photoproduction from the Deuteron

In an exclusive measurement of the reaction $\gamma d \to K^+ K^- p n$, a narrow peak that can be attributed to an exotic baryon with strangeness $S=+1$ is seen in the $K^+n$ invariant mass spectrum. The peak is at $1.542\pm 0.005$ GeV/c$^2$ with a measured width of 0.021 GeV/c$^2$ FWHM, which is largely determined by experimental mass resolution. The statistical significance of the peak is $5.2 \pm 0.6 \sigma$. The mass and width of the observed peak are consistent with recent reports of a narrow $S=+1$ baryon by other experimental groups.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Complete measurement of three-body photodisintegration of 3He for photon energies between 0.35 and 1.55 GeV

The three-body photodisintegration of 3He has been measured with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab, using tagged photons of energies between 0.35 GeV and 1.55 GeV. The large acceptance of the spectrometer allowed us for the first time to cover a wide momentum and angular range for the two outgoing protons. Three kinematic regions dominated by either two- or three-body contributions have been distinguished and analyzed. The measured cross sections have been compared with results of a theoretical model, which, in certain kinematic ranges, have been found to be in reasonable agreement with the data.Comment: 22 pages, 25 eps figures, 2 tables, submitted to PRC. Modifications: removed 2 figures, improvements on others, a few minor modifications to the tex

Onset of asymptotic scaling in deuteron photodisintegration

We investigate the transition from the nucleon-meson to quark-gluon description of the strong interaction using the photon energy dependence of the $d(\gamma,p)n$ differential cross section for photon energies above 0.5 GeV and center-of-mass proton angles between $30^{\circ}$ and $150^{\circ}$. A possible signature for this transition is the onset of cross section $s^{-11}$ scaling with the total energy squared, $s$, at some proton transverse momentum, $P_T$. The results show that the scaling has been reached for proton transverse momentum above about 1.1 GeV/c. This may indicate that the quark-gluon regime is reached above this momentum.Comment: Accepted by PRL; 5 pages, 2 figure