Externalities revisited: the use of an environmental equity account

This exploratory paper attempts to restart a debate about the incorporation of environmental externalities into the cost structure of the organisation. A number approaches are considered; regulation together with all that would follow such as audit and policing; pollution permits, which probably can only be used with a sinking lid application; and other charging mechanisms such as making the private sector pay for public sector capital funding. The fourth alternative, the use of an environmental equity account, has not been widely considered in the literature. The paper proposes the use of an environmental equity account (after Boone and Rubenstein, 1997) with the express intent of generating a charge for environmental impact based on the cost of control. That is, the cost of implementing state of the art technology compared to that currently in use within the organisation, is used as a balance which may be either paid as a capital sum or carried as a balance sheet entry upon which dividend payments would have to be made. It is envisaged that both capital sums and dividend payments would go to an agency responsible for environmental remediation activity

Deformations of calibrated subbundles of Euclidean spaces via twisting by special sections

We extend the "bundle constructions" of calibrated submanifolds, due to Harvey--Lawson in the special Lagrangian case, and to Ionel--Karigiannis--Min-Oo in the cases of exceptional calibrations, by "twisting" the bundles by a special (harmonic, holomorphic, parallel) section of a complementary bundle. The existence of such deformations shows that the moduli space of calibrated deformations of these "calibrated subbundles" includes deformations which destroy the linear structure of the fibre.Comment: 16 pages, no figures. Version 2: Only minor cosmetic and typographical revisions. To appear in "Annals of Global Analysis and Geometry.

A Slowly Precessing Disk in the Nucleus of M31 as the Feeding Mechanism for a Central Starburst

We present a kinematic study of the nuclear stellar disk in M31 at infrared wavelengths using high spatial resolution integral field spectroscopy. The spatial resolution achieved, FWHM = 0."12 (0.45 pc at the distance of M31), has only previously been equaled in spectroscopic studies by space-based long-slit observations. Using adaptive optics-corrected integral field spectroscopy from the OSIRIS instrument at the W. M. Keck Observatory, we map the line-of-sight kinematics over the entire old stellar eccentric disk orbiting the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at a distance of r<4 pc. The peak velocity dispersion is 381+/-55 km/s , offset by 0.13 +/- 0.03 from the SMBH, consistent with previous high-resolution long-slit observations. There is a lack of near-infrared (NIR) emission at the position of the SMBH and young nuclear cluster, suggesting a spatial separation between the young and old stellar populations within the nucleus. We compare the observed kinematics with dynamical models from Peiris & Tremaine (2003). The best-fit disk orientation to the NIR flux is [$\theta_l$, $\theta_i$, $\theta_a$] = [-33 +/- 4$^{\circ}$, 44 +/- 2$^{\circ}$, -15 +/- 15$^{\circ}$], which is tilted with respect to both the larger-scale galactic disk and the best-fit orientation derived from optical observations. The precession rate of the old disk is $\Omega_P$ = 0.0 +/- 3.9 km/s/pc, lower than the majority of previous observations. This slow precession rate suggests that stellar winds from the disk will collide and shock, driving rapid gas inflows and fueling an episodic central starburst as suggested in Chang et al. (2007).Comment: accepted by Ap

Referencing Sources of Molecular Spectroscopic Data in the Era of Data Science: Application to the HITRAN and AMBDAS Databases

The application described has been designed to create bibliographic entries in large databases with diverse sources automatically, which reduces both the frequency of mistakes and the workload for the administrators. This new system uniquely identifies each reference from its digital object identifier (DOI) and retrieves the corresponding bibliographic information from any of several online services, including the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data Systems (ADS) and CrossRef APIs. Once parsed into a relational database, the software is able to produce bibliographies in any of several formats, including HTML and BibTeX, for use on websites or printed articles. The application is provided free-of-charge for general use by any scientific database. The power of this application is demonstrated when used to populate reference data for the HITRAN and AMBDAS databases as test cases. HITRAN contains data that is provided by researchers and collaborators throughout the spectroscopic community. These contributors are accredited for their contributions through the bibliography produced alongside the data returned by an online search in HITRAN. Prior to the work presented here, HITRAN and AMBDAS created these bibliographies manually, which is a tedious, time-consuming and error-prone process. The complete code for the new referencing system can be found at \url{https://github.com/hitranonline/refs}.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, already published online at https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms802001

Species delimitation and phylogeny of a New Zealand plant species radiation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Delimiting species boundaries and reconstructing the evolutionary relationships of late Tertiary and Quaternary species radiations is difficult. One recent approach emphasizes the use of genome-wide molecular markers, such as amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), to identify distinct metapopulation lineages as taxonomic species. Here we investigate the properties of AFLP data, and the usefulness of tree-based and non-tree-based clustering methods to delimit species and reconstruct evolutionary relationships among high-elevation <it>Ourisia </it>species (Plantaginaceae) in the New Zealand archipelago.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>New Zealand <it>Ourisia </it>are shown to comprise a geologically recent species radiation based on molecular dating analyses of ITS sequences (0.4–1.3 MY). Supernetwork analyses indicate that separate tree-based clustering analyses of four independent AFLP primer combinations and 193 individuals of <it>Ourisia </it>produced similar trees. When combined and analysed using tree building methods, 15 distinct metapopulations could be identified. These clusters corresponded very closely to species and subspecies identified on the basis of diagnostic morphological characters. In contrast, Structure and PCO-MC analyses of the same data identified a maximum of 12 and 8 metapopulations, respectively. All approaches resolved a large-leaved group and a small-leaved group, as well as a lineage of three alpine species within the small-leaved group. We were unable to further resolve relationships within these groups as corrected and uncorrected distances derived from AFLP profiles had limited tree-like properties.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p><it>Ourisia </it>radiated into a range of alpine and subalpine habitats in New Zealand during the Pleistocene, resulting in 13 morphologically and ecologically distinct species, including one reinstated from subspecies rank. Analyses of AFLP identified distinct metapopulations consistent with morphological characters allowing species boundaries to be delimited in <it>Ourisia</it>. Importantly, Structure analyses suggest some degree of admixture with most species, which may also explain why the AFLP data do not exhibit sufficient tree-like properties necessary for reconstructing some species relationships. We discuss this feature and highlight the importance of improving models for phylogenetic analyses of species radiations using AFLP and SNP data.</p

Only connect: addressing the emotional needs of Scotland's children and young people

A report on the SNAP (Scottish Needs Assessment Programme) Child and Adolescent Mental Health Phase Two survey. It describes a survey of a wide range of professionals working with children and young people in Scotland, and deals with professional perspectives on emotional, behavioural and psychological problems. Conclusions and recommendations are presented

Spectral and Spin Measurement of Two Small and Fast-Rotating Near-Earth Asteroids

In May 2012 two asteroids made near-miss "grazing" passes at distances of a few Earth-radii: 2012 KP24 passed at nine Earth-radii and 2012 KT42 at only three Earth-radii. The latter passed inside the orbital distance of geosynchronous satellites. From spectral and imaging measurements using NASA's 3-m Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF), we deduce taxonomic, rotational, and physical properties. Their spectral characteristics are somewhat atypical among near-Earth asteroids: C-complex for 2012 KP24 and B-type for 2012 KT42, from which we interpret the albedos of both asteroids to be between 0.10 and 0.15 and effective diameters of 20+-2 and 6+-1 meters, respectively. Among B-type asteroids, the spectrum of 2012 KT42 is most similar to 3200 Phaethon and 4015 Wilson-Harrington. Not only are these among the smallest asteroids spectrally measured, we also find they are among the fastest-spinning: 2012 KP24 completes a rotation in 2.5008+-0.0006 minutes and 2012 KT42 rotates in 3.634+-0.001 minutes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Icaru