Changes of partitioning and increased root lengths of spruce and beech exposed to ambient pollution concentrations in southern England

International audienc

Resistance to Digitisation: Curated Memory Cards Artefact

date-added: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000 date-modified: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000date-added: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000 date-modified: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000The act of networking in any context has some element of ceremonial performance attached to it. In an analogue world these performances have historically included the act of exchanging business cards. This ‘ceremony of networking’ has the potential to be altered by the emergence of new media, especially digital technology, displacing the old ceremony of business card exchanges and disrupting what can traditional be seen as networking. The history of business cards have shown that, despite several digital alternatives, they are still resistant to digitisation and so predominantly still physical and tangible. So, we sought to explore the ceremony around giving business cards as the sharing of ‘curated memory’, to better understand how and why we share and co-create curated memories with others. Including the sharing curated memories more generally, and the changing nature of networking, arising from the ever-increasing connectivity and digital embeddedness associated with the information age. Therefore, exploring the ceremony around needing, creating, sharing and using business cards, within different contexts and cultures. Also, identifying the tasks that people are trying to perform and optimise at different stages (before, during, and after) in a range of scenarios. Also, to explore how the ceremonies of networking might be significantly altered as a result of digital media and tools. The approach of using sets of cards around Who, How, Why and Where emerged from the need for a tool that could build narratives around the considerable diversity of the disjointed scenarios of networking we observed. So, the cards provide a reference by which to share general understanding in an entertaining and easily accessible manner. Second, provides a tool to summarise narratives from the scenarios we observed, and that we could then use to create new scenarios to explore insights such as post-meeting curation of ‘shared memories’ when networking. Third, define a number of ‘games’ to help anyone explore how to better understand and utilise aspects of networking in their current approaches, and challenge them to develop new approaches. Therefore, generating debate and self-reflection on the ways players use business cards themselves

Technical Note: The CREDIBLE Uncertainty Estimation (CURE) toolbox: facilitating the communication of epistemic uncertainty

There is a general trend for increasing inclusion of uncertainty estimation in the environmental modelling domain. We present the CREDIBLE Uncertainty Estimation (CURE) Toolbox, an open source MATLABTM toolbox for uncertainty estimation aimed at scientists and practitioners that are not necessarily experts in uncertainty estimation. The toolbox focusses on environmental simulation models and hence employs a range of different Monte Carlo methods for forward and conditioned uncertainty estimation. The methods included span both formal statistical and informal approaches, which are demonstrated using a range of modelling applications set up as workflow scripts. The workflow scripts provide examples of how to utilise toolbox functions for a variety of modelling applications and hence aid the user in defining their own workflow: additional help is provided by extensively commented code. The toolbox implementation aims to increase the uptake of uncertainty estimation methods within a framework designed to be open and explicit, in a way that tries to represent best practice in applying the methods included. Best practice in the evaluation of modelling assumptions and choices, specifically including epistemic uncertainties, is also included by the incorporation of a condition tree that allows users to record assumptions and choices made as an audit trail log.</p

A novel framework for discharge uncertainty quantification applied to 500 UK gauging stations

Benchmarking the quality of river discharge data and understanding its information content for hydrological analyses is an important task for hydrologic science. There is a wide variety of techniques to assess discharge uncertainty. However, few studies have developed generalized approaches to quantify discharge uncertainty. This study presents a generalized framework for estimating discharge uncertainty at many gauging stations with different errors in the stage‐discharge relationship. The methodology utilizes a nonparametric LOWESS regression within a novel framework that accounts for uncertainty in the stage‐discharge measurements, scatter in the stage‐discharge data and multisection rating curves. The framework was applied to 500 gauging stations in England and Wales and we evaluated the magnitude of discharge uncertainty at low, mean and high flow points on the rating curve. The framework was shown to be robust, versatile and able to capture place‐specific uncertainties for a number of different examples. Our study revealed a wide range of discharge uncertainties (10–397% discharge uncertainty interval widths), but the majority of the gauging stations (over 80%) had mean and high flow uncertainty intervals of less than 40%. We identified some regional differences in the stage‐discharge relationships, however the results show that local conditions dominated in determining the magnitude of discharge uncertainty at a gauging station. This highlights the importance of estimating discharge uncertainty for each gauging station prior to using those data in hydrological analyses

Technical note: The CREDIBLE Uncertainty Estimation (CURE) toolbox: facilitating the communication of epistemic uncertainty

There is a general trend toward the increasing inclusion of uncertainty estimation in the environmental modelling domain. We present the Consortium on Risk in the Environment: Diagnostics, Integration, Benchmarking, Learning and Elicitation (CREDIBLE) Uncertainty Estimation (CURE) toolbox, an open-source MATLABTM toolbox for uncertainty estimation aimed at scientists and practitioners who are not necessarily experts in uncertainty estimation. The toolbox focusses on environmental simulation models and, hence, employs a range of different Monte Carlo methods for forward and conditioned uncertainty estimation. The methods included span both formal statistical and informal approaches, which are demonstrated using a range of modelling applications set up as workflow scripts. The workflow scripts provide examples of how to utilize toolbox functions for a variety of modelling applications and, hence, aid the user in defining their own workflow; additional help is provided by extensively commented code. The toolbox implementation aims to increase the uptake of uncertainty estimation methods within a framework designed to be open and explicit in a way that tries to represent best practice with respect to applying the methods included. Best practice with respect to the evaluation of modelling assumptions and choices, specifically including epistemic uncertainties, is also included by the incorporation of a condition tree that allows users to record assumptions and choices made as an audit trail log.</p

Breakup branches of Borromean beryllium-9

The breakup reaction 9Be(4He, 3α)n was measured using an array of four double-sided silicon strip detectors at beam energies of 22 and 26 MeV. Excited states in 9Be up to 12 MeV were populated and reconstructed through the measurement of the charged reaction products. It is proposed that limits on the spins and parities of the states can be derived from the way that they decay. Various breakup paths for excited states in 9Be have been explored including the 8Be(g.s.) + n, 8Be(2+) + n and 5He(g.s.) + 4He channels. By imposing the condition that the breakup proceeded via the 8Be ground state, clean excitation spectra for 9Be were reconstructed. The remaining two breakup channels were found to possess strongly-overlapping kinematic signatures and more sophisticated methods (referenced) are required to completely disentangle these other possibilities. Emphasis is placed on the development of the experimental analysis and the usefulness of Monte-Carlo simulations for this purpose

Disentangling unclear nuclear breakup channels of beryllium-9 using the three-axis Dalitz plot

The three-axis Dalitz plot has been applied to the breakup of a nucleus into unequal mass fragments for the first time. The Dalitz plot allows clear identification of the various breakup channels of 9Be → 2α + n process. The method has allowed the branching ratio for the 6.38 MeV level in9Be to be provisionally calculated when examining the 9Be(4He, α)ααn reaction. The effects of non-uniform angular distributions on the Dalitz plot must still be properly investigated along with the effects of contaminant reaction channels. It is proposed that this method could be used to determine the breakup branching ratio of a newly-measured level in this nucleus

Evidence for a 3.8 MeV state in 9Be

The breakup reaction 9Be(4He,3a)n was measured using an array of four double-sided silicon strip detectors at beam energies of 22 and 26 MeV. Excited states in 9Be up to 8 MeV were populated and reconstructed through measurements of the charged reaction products. Evidence is given for a state in 9Be at 3.82-0.09+0.08 MeV with width=1240-90+270 keV. This is consistent with two recent measurements of a state with similar properties in the mirror nucleus 9B. An analysis of the reduced widths (Beg.s.8 channel) of this state along with the proposed mirror state has led to a firm limit of J<=7/2 and a tentative assignment of J^pi=1/2- or 3/2-