Cultures within a culture: the role of nationality and religion for environmentally significant behaviour in students living in university accommodation

Reducing global warming cannot be achieved through technological interventions alone; it requires a change in human behaviour. Households are a major contributor to carbon emissions, and thus play an integral part in strategies aiming at a more sustainable living. Behaviour changes in the household can make a significant contribution towards reducing CO2 emissions. However, people vary strongly in their household practices; differences in behaviour account for a substantial amount of variance in heat, electricity, and water consumption (Gill et al., 2010). What causes these differences? In addition to age and education, nationality and religion play a role: They impact on physical aspects of well-being and on environmental attitudes (e.g., Isaacs et al., 2010; Guth et al., 1995). The physical aspect such as perception of warmth is of importance insofar as that comfort practices could influence on environmentally significant behaviour. The Eurobarometer 295 (2008), a study on the attitudes of European citizens towards the environment, also revealed differences in attitudes and behaviour of Europeans towards the environment. Therefore, steps to promote more sustainable living have to be adapted to different cultures. Rising globalization brings about more heterogeneous populations, meaning that there will be increasingly "cultures within a culture." An important question is what happens to cultural differences in environmentally significant behaviour in such a setting. It could be that differences are diluted by a largely shared environment, or that they continue to persist, thanks to being deeply rooted in one’s origin and to the non-shared part of the environment. Our study: The aim of this study was to examine the variation in pro-environmental attitudes, behaviour, and values in members of a community now living in a very similar setting but coming from diverse backgrounds. If personal background accounts for differences in the variables at stake, then this has important implications, e.g. for all national interventions launched to change behaviour. Data was collected through a web-based survey. The survey was sent out to first-year students living in university accommodation at the University of Greenwich. Religion, strength of religion, nationality, years living in the UK, program studied, gender and age were recorded and the impact of these variables on a variety of measures such as pro- environmental attitudes, values, and actual behaviour was assessed. Results are currently being analysed but preliminary data suggest that sub-culture does play a role and thus needs to be considered when developing carbon reduction interventions. The implications of these findings for the University and national policies are discussed

Synthesis of [3-C-13]-2,3-dihydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde

An efficient synthesis of [3-13C]-2,3-dihydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde, an isotopically labelled probe of a common intermediate used in the synthesis of a number of biologically relevant molecules, has been achieved in 9 steps from an acyclic, non-aromatic precursor. A 13C label for molecular imaging was introduced in a linear synthesis from the reaction of [13C]-labelled methyl iodide with glutaric monomethyl ester chloride. Cyclisation then aromatisation gave 1,3-dimethoxybenzene and an additional methoxy group was introduced by a formylation/Baeyer–Villiger/hydrolysis/methylation sequence. Subsequent ortho-formylation and selective demethylation yielded the desired [3-13C]-2,3-dihydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde

A pre-design sensitivity analysis tool for consideration of full electrical aircraft propulsion electrical power system architectures

Turbo-electric distributed power (TeDP) systems proposed for hybrid wing body (HWB) N3-X aircraft are complex, superconducting electrical networks, which must be developed to meet challenging weight, efficiency and propulsor power requirements. An integrated system sensitivity analysis tool is presented, which can be used to support rapid appraisal studies of architectures, protection systems and redundancy requirements for TeDP systems. The use of this tool can help direct future research on TeDP systems towards the key challenges relevant to meeting the stringent weight and efficiency targets set out for N+3 aircraft concepts

Climate Change in Queensland's Grazing Lands. I. Approaches and Climatic Trends

Climate change is an important global issue but is yet to be recognised as such by many rangelands users. This paper reviews some of the uncertainties relating to pre-instrumental and future climate change and documents current trends and fluctuations in climate of Queensland's grazing lands. Analysis of daily climate surfaces for Queensland's pastoral/cropping zone shows high variability in annual rainfall which is influenced by the El NiHo-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. This relationship, when examined using moving windows, has changed during this century with the 1930-40s being a period of low correlation. Minimum temperatures taken from the climate surfaces also changed, showing a significant (P<0.01) increase over time especially in May. Over the 40 years since 1957, annual minimum temperatures have increased by l.0°C for the pastoral/cropping zone and coastal sub-zone, winter minimum temperatures by 1.2°C for the pastoral/cropping zone (1.3°C for the coastal sub-zone), summer minimum temperatures by 0.7°C for the pastoral/cropping zone and coastal sub-zone, and May minimum temperatures by 2.8°C for the pastoral/cropping zone (3.0°C for the coastal sub-zone). Consistent significant trends in vapour pressure (increasing, P<0.001) and solar radiation (decreasing, P<0.05) also occurred in May. The mechanisms for the identified climate trends and unusual behaviour of ENS0 are the subject of speculation with attribution of causes to natural variability or the enhanced greenhouse effect being unresolved. Continued monitoring of these trends and fluctuations will be important for the future management of Queensland's grazing lands with this analysis highlighting the need for discrimination of trends from natural variability. In terms of grazing management and degradation processes, this work also highlights that general changes in climate averages may disguise important variation at yearly and decadal time scales

Phase sensitive amplification in a highly nonlinear lead-silicate fibre

We experimentally demonstrate phase-sensitive amplification in a highly nonlinear lead-silicate W-type fibre. A phase-sensitive gain swing of 6dB was observed in a 1.56m sample of the fibre for a total launched power of 33dBm

Collective vs local measurements in qubit mixed state estimation

We discuss the problem of estimating a general (mixed) qubit state. We give the optimal guess that can be inferred from any given set of measurements. For collective measurements and for a large number $N$ of copies, we show that the error in the estimation goes as 1/N. For local measurements we focus on the simpler case of states lying on the equatorial plane of the Bloch sphere. We show that standard tomographic techniques lead to an error proportional to $1/N^{1/4}$, while with our optimal data processing it is proportional to $1/N^{3/4}$.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, minor style changes, refs. adde

Quantum inference of states and processes

The maximum-likelihood principle unifies inference of quantum states and processes from experimental noisy data. Particularly, a generic quantum process may be estimated simultaneously with unknown quantum probe states provided that measurements on probe and transformed probe states are available. Drawbacks of various approximate treatments are considered.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Experimentally feasible measures of distance between quantum operations

We present two measures of distance between quantum processes based on the superfidelity, introduced recently to provide an upper bound for quantum fidelity. We show that the introduced measures partially fulfill the requirements for distance measure between quantum processes. We also argue that they can be especially useful as diagnostic measures to get preliminary knowledge about imperfections in an experimental setup. In particular we provide quantum circuit which can be used to measure the superfidelity between quantum processes. As the behavior of the superfidelity between quantum processes is crucial for the properties of the introduced measures, we study its behavior for several families of quantum channels. We calculate superfidelity between arbitrary one-qubit channels using affine parametrization and superfidelity between generalized Pauli channels in arbitrary dimensions. Statistical behavior of the proposed quantities for the ensembles of quantum operations in low dimensions indicates that the proposed measures can be indeed used to distinguish quantum processes.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Gravitational waves from self-ordering scalar fields

Gravitational waves were copiously produced in the early Universe whenever the processes taking place were sufficiently violent. The spectra of several of these gravitational wave backgrounds on subhorizon scales have been extensively studied in the literature. In this paper we analyze the shape and amplitude of the gravitational wave spectrum on scales which are superhorizon at the time of production. Such gravitational waves are expected from the self ordering of randomly oriented scalar fields which can be present during a thermal phase transition or during preheating after hybrid inflation. We find that, if the gravitational wave source acts only during a small fraction of the Hubble time, the gravitational wave spectrum at frequencies lower than the expansion rate at the time of production behaves as $\Omega_{\rm GW}(f) \propto f^3$ with an amplitude much too small to be observable by gravitational wave observatories like LIGO, LISA or BBO. On the other hand, if the source is active for a much longer time, until a given mode which is initially superhorizon ($k\eta_* \ll 1$), enters the horizon, for $k\eta \gtrsim 1$, we find that the gravitational wave energy density is frequency independent, i.e. scale invariant. Moreover, its amplitude for a GUT scale scenario turns out to be within the range and sensitivity of BBO and marginally detectable by LIGO and LISA. This new gravitational wave background can compete with the one generated during inflation, and distinguishing both may require extra information.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, added discussion about numerical integration and a new figure to illustrate the scale-invariance of the GW power spectrum, conclusions unchange