Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring & Modelling Programme - ERAMMP Report-30: Analysis of National Monitoring Data in Wales for the State of Natural Resources Report 2020

The Glastir Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (GMEP, https://gmep.wales/) was at the forefront of the ecosystem approach to monitoring the impact of Pillar II schemes across the European Union - as recognised by the European Commission’s Monitoring and Evaluation Help Desk. GMEP also recruited a large sample of counterfactual “wider Wales” sites, thus enabling additional all Wales reporting. GMEP and other assimilated data represents a significant source of robust, timely and spatially relevant evidence which can contribute to SoNaRR. To facilitate use of GMEP data in SoNaRR, we present new analyses of national monitoring data which has been co-developed with SoNaRR technical leads at Natural Resources Wales (NRW)

A perspective on the landscape problem

I discuss the historical roots of the landscape problem and propose criteria for its successful resolution. This provides a perspective to evaluate the possibility to solve it in several of the speculative cosmological scenarios under study including eternal inflation, cosmological natural selection and cyclic cosmologies.Comment: Invited contribution for a special issue of Foundations of Physics titled: Forty Years Of String Theory: Reflecting On the Foundations. 31 pages, no figure

Red, straight, no bends: primordial power spectrum reconstruction from CMB and large-scale structure

We present a minimally parametric, model independent reconstruction of the shape of the primordial power spectrum. Our smoothing spline technique is well-suited to search for smooth features such as deviations from scale invariance, and deviations from a power law such as running of the spectral index or small-scale power suppression. We use a comprehensive set of the state-of the art cosmological data: Planck observations of the temperature and polarisation anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background, WiggleZ and Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 galaxy power spectra and the Canada-France-Hawaii Lensing Survey correlation function. This reconstruction strongly supports the evidence for a power law primordial power spectrum with a red tilt and disfavours deviations from a power law power spectrum including small-scale power suppression such as that induced by significantly massive neutrinos. This offers a powerful confirmation of the inflationary paradigm, justifying the adoption of the inflationary prior in cosmological analyses

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Attachment Style and Affect Regulation: Relationships With Health Behavior and Family Experiences of Illness in a Student Sample

Questionnaire measures of attachment style and health behavior were completed by 287 university students on 2 occasions, 10 weeks apart. At Time 1, Ss also provided reports of emotionality and early family experiences of illness. Reports of early family illness showed theoretically meaningful relationships with attachment style. Symptom reporting was predicted most strongly by anxious/ambivalent attachment and negative emotionality, with the link between anxious/ambivalent attachment and symptom reporting partially mediated by negative emotionality. Visits to health professionals at Time 2 were directly related to reports of chronic illness in the family but inversely related to paternal illness and avoidant attachment, controlling for symptom reporting. The results are discussed in terms of theories of attachment and affect regulation

MIMO communications within the HF band using compact antenna arrays

Measurements have been made over a 255 km radio path between Durham and Leicester in the UK in order to investigate the potential applicability of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques to communications within the HF band. This paper describes the results from experiments in which compact heterogeneous antenna arrays have been employed. The results of these experiments indicate that traditional spaced HF antenna arrays can be replaced by compact, active, heterogeneous arrays in order to achieve the required levels of decorrelation between the various antenna elements. An example case study is also presented which highlights the importance of the variable nature of the ionosphere in the context of HF-MIMO radio links

The use of heterogeneous antenna arrays in experimental HF-MIMO links

International audienc

Capacity estimation of HF MIMO systems

Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems utilize multiple antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver. This paper describes some recent experimental work that has been carried out in order to investigate the feasibility of applying MIMO techniques within the high frequency (HF) band. It is a significant development because the potential increase in data rates will benefit not only the existing HF radio systems but also open this band to new low cost communication applications. The capacity estimates for systems employing multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver in the HF band are computed. Specifically a comparison is made between MIMO configurations employing homogenous antenna arrays and collocated antenna arrays in terms of their envelope correlation and capacity. The results indicate that the HF band can be used for MIMO applications and that compact collocated antennas can replace large homogenous arrays to provide potential capacity gains