Impact of European Water Framework Directive Article 7 on Drinking Water Directive compliance for pesticides: challenges of a prevention-led approach

Article 7 of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) promotes a prevention-led approach to European Drinking Water Directive (DWD) compliance for those parameters that derive from anthropogenic influences on raw water quality. However, the efficacy of pollution prevention interventions is currently uncertain and likely to be variable, which makes absolute compliance with the drinking water standard a significant challenge. Member State governments, the WFD competent authority, the DWD competent authority, water suppliers and agriculture are all affected by and have a different perspective on the nature of this challenge. This paper presents a discussion of these perspectives applicable to stakeholders in all European Member States; the analysis is supported with examples from England and Wales. Improved understanding of the challenges faced by each group is needed if these groups are to achieve the shared goals of WFD Article 7 compliance and DWD compliance without a disproportionately negative impact on agricultural productivity. In addition, the European Commission needs to be aware of and address a potential incompatibility between WFD Article 7 and the DWD. With this in mind, targeted recommendations for action are presented for each stakeholder group

The Self Organised Learning Environment (SOLE) School Support Pack.

This document is designed to support the implementation of Sugata Mitra’s Self Organised Learning Environment (SOLE) into multiple school contexts. It contains ‘whole school’ related information for Head Teachers and senior staff in addition to teaching and learning support for teachers and support staff. A kindle version of Sugata Mitra's "Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning" is available here http://goo.gl/iaL4B

Thermodynamic Volumes and Isoperimetric Inequalities for de Sitter Black Holes

We consider the thermodynamics of rotating and charged asymptotically de Sitter black holes. Using Hamiltonian perturbation theory techniques, we derive three different first law relations including variations in the cosmological constant, and associated Smarr formulas that are satisfied by such spacetimes. Each first law introduces a different thermodynamic volume conjugate to the cosmological constant. We examine the relation between these thermodynamic volumes and associated geometric volumes in a number of examples, including Kerr-dS black holes in all dimensions and Kerr-Newman-dS black holes in D=4. We also show that the Chong-Cvetic-Lu-Pope solution of D=5 minimal supergravity, analytically continued to positive cosmological constant, describes black hole solutions of the Einstein-Chern-Simons theory and include such charged asymptotically de Sitter black holes in our analysis. In all these examples we find that the particular thermodynamic volume associated with the region between the black hole and cosmological horizons is equal to the naive geometric volume. Isoperimetric inequalities, which hold in the examples considered, are formulated for the different thermodynamic volumes and conjectured to remain valid for all asymptotically de Sitter black holes. In particular, in all examples considered, we find that for fixed volume of the observable universe, the entropy is increased by adding black holes. We conjecture that this is true in general.Comment: 13 pages, no figures v2:includes comments on the Nariai limit and compressibility of the black hole horizon, added reference

Isolated critical point from Lovelock gravity

For any K(=2k+1)th-order Lovelock gravity with fine-tuned Lovelock couplings, we demonstrate the existence of a special isolated critical point characterized by non-standard critical exponents in the phase diagram of hyperbolic vacuum black holes. In the Gibbs free energy this corresponds to a place wherefrom two swallowtails emerge, giving rise to two first-order phase transitions between small and large black holes. We believe that this is a first example of a critical point with non-standard critical exponents obtained in a geometric theory of gravity.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

A systems biology approach to DNA damage repair

PhD ThesisThe presence of DNA double-stranded breaks in a mammalian cell typically activates the Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ) pathway to repair the damage and signal to downstream systems that govern cellular decisions such as apoptosis or senescence. The signalling system also stimulates effects such as the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which in turn feed back into the damage response. Although the overall process of NHEJ is well documented, and much is known about downstream processes that together constitute the DNA damage response (DDR), we know little of the dynamics and how the system operates as a whole. To further our understanding of this we have constructed computational models which integrate current knowledge of the DNA repair process and key downstream signalling systems. The models are coded in Systems Biology Mark-up Language and BioNetGen Language and are quantified as far as possible with experimental data generated within our own laboratories or otherwise gathered from the literature. They are designed to simulate the observed stochastic dynamics of repair by DNA Protein Kinase (DNA-PK) dependent NHEJ (D-NHEJ) and back-up NHEJ mechanisms (B-NHEJ) following damage induced by gamma irradiation in human fibroblasts and the response this causes in the p53-p21 senescence signalling pathway. We have used the models to investigate a number of issues relevant to the study of ageing cells. Our work suggests that this observed heterogeneity in the repair of DNA damage foci that is influenced by levels of damage cannot be explained solely by inherent stochasticity in the NHEJ system. We find that the presence of multiple repair mechanisms and the modulation of key repair factors by oxidation along with further damage inducing feedback triggered by p53 and changes brought about by cellular processes such as senescence all play a cumulative role in causing the differences between stressed and unstressed cells. Our model highlights the importance of Ku oxidation which leads to increased Ku dissociation rates from DNA damage foci and shifts in favour of the less efficient B-NHEJ system. Furthermore we have utilised the model to investigate the role that various levels of DNA damage and repair have on the maintenance of the important p53 oscillations in a cell. We find that, contrary to the current view, p53 levels are affected by temporal dynamics of DNA damage and have used our model to inform the design of further experimental work to investigate the effect of iii maintained low levels of DNA damage induced by frequent low pulses of γ irradiation on the p53 mediated DDR

Selection-Bias Correction in an Evaluation of the Vocational Rehabilitation Program

The article applies a fixed-effect methodology to evaluate the training impacts of the Vocational Rehabilitation program. Two central issues are identification of an acceptable comparison group and adjusting for sources of selection-bias. The use of program dropouts as a comparison group is examined with a modified Hausman test. The results suggest spending on VR may be ore cost-effective in view of the high public cost of serving the disabled in a full dependency mode. These estimates of VR training impacts are compared with the performance of CETA, a public program serving the non-disabled which has been examined extensively using the fixed-effect estimator

Estimating Earning Impacts of the Vocational Rehabilitation Program

This paper estimates earnings impacts of services provided by a state agency of the Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) program. To appreciate the significance of this effort requires some historical perspective on evaluation of the VR program as well as familiarity with more recent developments within the manpower training literature in general. Today VR is a $1 billion dollar program, and it certainly appears that this level of public funding is well founded on a long history of demonstrated cost-effectiveness. In fact, however, considerable skepticism exists with regard to the data and methods that have generated impressive benefit-cost ratios in the past. In the most recent survey, Berkowitz et al. provide a comprehensive discussion of the problems facing program evaluation. A major conclusion of this report is that the data currently collected on VR activities is simply inadequate to support meaningful inferences about program performance. Generally, the report concludes that evaluators lack a comprehensive accounting of program inputs as well as sufficient breadth in measuring clients outcomes

Renormalization of modular invariant Coulomb gas and Sine-Gordon theories, and quantum Hall flow diagram

Using the renormalisation group (RG) we study two dimensional electromagnetic coulomb gas and extended Sine-Gordon theories invariant under the modular group SL(2,Z). The flow diagram is established from the scaling equations, and we derive the critical behaviour at the various transition points of the diagram. Following proposal for a SL(2,Z) duality between different quantum Hall fluids, we discuss the analogy between this flow and the global quantum Hall phase diagram.Comment: 10 pages, 1 EPS figure include