Controls on the Distribution of Volcanism and Intra-Basaltic Sediments in the Cambo-Rosebank Region, West of Shetland

This paper forms part of a NERC Oil & Gas CDT PhD. PGS and TGS are thanked for donation of the FSB2011/12 MultiClient GeoStreamer® Survey without which this research would have been impossible. Stephen Morse is thanked for his constant input and support throughout the project. Chevron North Sea Limited are thanked for their interest and discussions on the Rosebank Field. All views, interpretations and opinion expressed in this article are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views, interpretations or opinions of Chevron North Sea Limited. Jonathan Dietz is thanked for fieldwork in Iceland.Peer reviewedPostprin

Emplacement of the Little Minch Sill Complex, Sea of Hebrides Basin, NW Scotland

Acknowledgements The work contained in this paper contains work conducted during a PhD study undertaken as part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Oil & Gas [grant number RG12649-12] and is fully funded by NERC whose support is gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful to IHS Markit for provision of, and permission to publish an example from their 2D seismic data volumes and gravity and magnetics database, and to Schlumberger for the donation of Petrel seismic interpretation software licences to Aberdeen University. We acknowledge the UKOilandGasData.com website owned by UK National Data Repository administered by Schlumberger, for access to the seismic data volumes and released UK well database. Stephen Jones and Thomas Phillips are thanked for considered and constructive reviews which helped improved and broaden the appeal of the paper. Stephen Daly is thanked for giving helpful editorial steer and comments on how to improve paper. Funding This work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (RG12649-12). Dougal Jerram is partly supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Center of Excellence funding scheme, project 223272 (CEED)Peer reviewedPostprin

Celebrity culture and public connection: bridge or chasm?

Media and cultural research has an important contribution to make to recent debates about declines in democratic engagement: is for example celebrity culture a route into democratic engagement for those otherwise disengaged? This article contributes to this debate by reviewing qualitative and quantitative findings from a UK project on 'public connection'. Using self-produced diaries (with in-depth multiple interviews) as well as a nationwide survey, the authors argue that while celebrity culture is an important point of social connection sustained by media use, it is not linked in citizens' own accounts to issues of public concern. Survey data suggest that those who particularly follow celebrity culture are the least engaged in politics and least likely to use their social networks to involve themselves in action or discussion about public-type issues. This does not mean 'celebrity culture' is 'bad', but it challenges suggestions of how popular culture might contribute to effective democracy

Palaeogeographical evolution of the Rattray Volcanic Province, Central North Sea

Funded by Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland PHD060365Peer reviewedPostprin

Incorporating prior knowledge improves detection of differences in bacterial growth rate

BACKGROUND: Robust statistical detection of differences in the bacterial growth rate can be challenging, particularly when dealing with small differences or noisy data. The Bayesian approach provides a consistent framework for inferring model parameters and comparing hypotheses. The method captures the full uncertainty of parameter values, whilst making effective use of prior knowledge about a given system to improve estimation. RESULTS: We demonstrated the application of Bayesian analysis to bacterial growth curve comparison. Following extensive testing of the method, the analysis was applied to the large dataset of bacterial responses which are freely available at the web-resource, ComBase. Detection was found to be improved by using prior knowledge from clusters of previously analysed experimental results at similar environmental conditions. A comparison was also made to a more traditional statistical testing method, the F-test, and Bayesian analysis was found to perform more conclusively and to be capable of attributing significance to more subtle differences in growth rate. CONCLUSIONS: We have demonstrated that by making use of existing experimental knowledge, it is possible to significantly improve detection of differences in bacterial growth rate

Challenges of future exploration within the UK Rockall Basin

We would like to acknowledge the two reviewers, Tony Dore and Clayton Grove for their constructive, positive and enthusiastic reviews which substantially improved this manuscript. The editor Matt Allen is thanked for encouragement and support in putting the paper together. We acknowledge a governmental research grant from the Oil and Gas Authority Frontier Basins Research Program and British Government for funding the project “Evaluating the Prospectivity of the Rockall Trough – Towards a Complete View of the Petroleum System West of Britain”. Schofield would like to acknowledge the 8th Petroleum Geology of Northwest Europe Conference for the DG Roberts/Peter Zeigler Best Paper Award. This contribution forms part of the theme “Key Future Geoscience Challenges” held at the 8th Petroleum Geology Conference. We would like to Acknowledge PGS for the donation of datasets in Rockall, and for continued support of research. CDA are acknowledged for providing publically released well and seismic data. Spectrum Geophysical are also thanked for donation of data for research in the Rockall. Interpretation was carried out using IHS Kingdom software. WGM 2012 gravity data courtesy of International Gravimetric Bureau. Maersk are thanked for use of Gravity Maps.Postprin

Global Dam Watch: curated data and tools for management and decision making

Dams, reservoirs, and other water management infrastructure provide benefits, but can also have negative impacts. Dam construction and removal affects progress toward the UN sustainable development goals at local to global scales. Yet, globally-consistent information on the location and characteristics of these structures are lacking, with information often highly localised, fragmented, or inaccessible. A freely available, curated, consistent, and regularly updated global database of existing dams and other instream infrastructure is needed along with open access tools to support research, decision-making and management needs. Here we introduce the Global Dam Watch (GDW) initiative (www.globaldamwatch.org ) whose objectives are: (a) advancing recent efforts to develop a single, globally consistent dam and instream barrier data product for global-scale analyses (the GDW database); (b) bringing together the increasingly numerous global, regional and local dam and instream barrier datasets in a directory of databases (the GDW directory); (c) building tools for the visualisation of dam and instream barrier data and for analyses in support of policy and decision making (the GDW knowledge-base) and (d) advancing earth observation and geographical information system techniques to map a wider range of instream structures and their properties. Our focus is on all types of anthropogenic instream barriers, though we have started by prioritizing major reservoir dams and run-of-river barriers, for which more information is available. Our goal is to facilitate national-scale, basin-scale and global-scale mapping, analyses and understanding of all instream barriers, their impacts and their role in sustainable development through the provision of publicly accessible information and tools. We invite input and partnerships across sectors to strengthen GDW’s utility and relevance for all, help define database content and knowledge-base tools, and generally expand the reach of GDW as a global hub of impartial academic expertise and policy information regarding dams and other instream barriers

Single-stranded DNA ligation and XLF-stimulated incompatible DNA end ligation by the XRCC4-DNA ligase IV complex: influence of terminal DNA sequence

The double-strand DNA break repair pathway, non-homologous DNA end joining (NHEJ), is distinctive for the flexibility of its nuclease, polymerase and ligase activities. Here we find that the joining of ends by XRCC4-ligase IV is markedly influenced by the terminal sequence, and a steric hindrance model can account for this. XLF (Cernunnos) stimulates the joining of both incompatible DNA ends and compatible DNA ends at physiologic concentrations of Mg2+, but only of incompatible DNA ends at higher concentrations of Mg2+, suggesting charge neutralization between the two DNA ends within the ligase complex. XRCC4-DNA ligase IV has the distinctive ability to ligate poly-dT single-stranded DNA and long dT overhangs in a Ku- and XLF-independent manner, but not other homopolymeric DNA. The dT preference of the ligase is interesting given the sequence bias of the NHEJ polymerase. These distinctive properties of the XRCC4-DNA ligase IV complex explain important aspects of its in vivo roles