The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector during 2011 data taking

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the 2011 data taking period is described. During 2011 the LHC provided proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and heavy ion collisions with a 2.76 TeV per nucleon–nucleon collision energy. The ATLAS trigger is a three level system designed to reduce the rate of events from the 40 MHz nominal maximum bunch crossing rate to the approximate 400 Hz which can be written to offline storage. The ATLAS jet trigger is the primary means for the online selection of events containing jets. Events are accepted by the trigger if they contain one or more jets above some transverse energy threshold. During 2011 data taking the jet trigger was fully efficient for jets with transverse energy above 25 GeV for triggers seeded randomly at Level 1. For triggers which require a jet to be identified at each of the three trigger levels, full efficiency is reached for offline jets with transverse energy above 60 GeV. Jets reconstructed in the final trigger level and corresponding to offline jets with transverse energy greater than 60 GeV, are reconstructed with a resolution in transverse energy with respect to offline jets, of better than 4 % in the central region and better than 2.5 % in the forward direction

British discretion in Dutch planning: Establishing a comparative perspective for regional planning and local development in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

Regional planning and development is continuing to take an important role in planning agendas throughout Europe. In the United Kingdom (UK), the planning system has been reformed during the last decades, marking a noticeable shift from a development-led towards a more plan-led system. In the Netherlands, strictly regulated growth-control policies have been abandoned to some degree, in favor of more decentralized planning policies featuring negotiated development. Dutch planners have been specifically interested in a more British approach, that is, a more discretionary and development-led type of approach to spatial planning. In this paper, we will discuss current efforts in Dutch regional planning to adopt new principles for planning delivery and will provide a comparative perspective between spatial planning in the UK and the Netherlands. This paper discusses the changing structure of planning delivery in both countries. At the same time, it establishes a framework for identifying critical lessons for Dutch regional planning practice as opposed to planning in the UK. Three characteristics are pivotal for the comparison: (1) the establishment of comprehensive principles for project coordination; (2) options for the settlement of planning gain, packaging interests, and regional redistribution; and (3) the institution for development-oriented planning and discretion for planning decisions. The evidence used is based on a literature review of recent debates in both countries and illustrative cases, including the Dutch ‘Heart of the Heuvelrug’ plan

Balancing regional developments in order to improve the overall quality in urban regions: the case of the North Wing tragedy of the offices

Metropolitan regions embody arrays of spatial externalities operating on multiple spatial scales. Actions of all players have some inescapable consequences for others in the region and intra-regional competition might harm the extra-regional competitive performance of a region as a result of these externalities problems. The failure to provide adequate incentives to generate positive externalities or mitigate negative ones decreases the overall quality of the urban region. In order to improve the competitive performance this quality should be improved. Here some measured form of collective response is thus called for although within urban regions the relevant collectivity may not be easily mobilized or even identified. What kind of regional coordination models might be used to overcome the collective action problem? In this paper will be dealt with four coordination models to arrive at more balanced and less competitive regional development with respect to the ‘office problem’ in the North Wing of the Randstad in the Netherlands. In the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area the rate of office oversupply is quite unhealthy at the moment, due to intraregional competition. To what extent would it be possible to organize a collective response for this problem, taking into account the difficulty of integrating actions with the divers players in a region as the interests are very different, which hardens fine-tuning