How can you estimate the value of a bus service? Evaluating buses in tourist areas

Bus services are currently threatened with cuts to reduce local government spending. Services provided for leisure activities in rural areas are particularly at risk as leisure travel is seen as less important than utility travel and the people using the buses are often from outside the area. This paper reports the findings of an ESRC funded project monitoring the benefits of such services and how their benefits to the area and passengers can be quantified. Although the goals of reducing car use, increasing social inclusion and access to areas of recreation, generating local spending and improving health and well-being are largely shared by different organisations, the project found very different priorities among stakeholders. Also, value for money was not the only criterion when budgets were allocated

Travel Disruption: Three Case Studies

This report draws together the findings of three studies of travel disruption and its impacts on travellers: the volcanic ash cloud which disrupted aviation in Europe in 2010, the loss of road bridges between November 2009 and April 2010 at Workington, Cumbria and the severe winter weather across the UK in the winter of 2010-2011. It proposes a six phase cycle: normality, when transport provision matches expectations drawn from experience, tickets, timetables, etc;, disruption, when the transport provision fails to meet expectations; touching the new context when travellers seek to assess how the changed conditions affect their travel plans; the revised plan, when travellers make new plans on the basis of what they know about the context, the consequences, which includes counting the cost of changed travel plans in terms of extra expenditure of time, money, effort, prolonged absences as well as any benefits emanating from the experience; reflection and incorporation whereby the experience of disruption is assimilated int the new normality; this can include trust of agents, information, travelling more prepared for disruption or being aware of new channels of information or help

Real-time data compression of broadcast video signals

A non-adaptive predictor, a nonuniform quantizer, and a multi-level Huffman coder are incorporated into a differential pulse code modulation system for coding and decoding broadcast video signals in real time

Continued fractions for some transcendental numbers

We consider series of the form $p/q + \sum_{j=2}^\infty 1/x_j$, where $x_1=q$ and the integer sequence $x_n$ satisfies a certain non-autonomous recurrence of second order, which entails that $x_n|x_{n+1}$ for n?1. It is shown that the terms of the sequence, and multiples of the ratios of successive terms, appear interlaced in the continued fraction expansion of the sum of the series, which is a transcendental number

Worthy is the Lamb: Pastoral Symbols of Salvation in Christian Art and Music

This paper examines the role of the lamb and the Good Shepherd as Christian symbols of atonement in art and music. Christians adopted the lamb as a religious symbol from ancient cultures and from Jewish sacrificial traditions. It reflects their understanding of how redemption is achieved. The author demonstrates that the lamb, as well as the Good Shepherd, became emblems commonly used by visual artists and composers to represent theories of atonement which were generally accepted during their own times, as well as those which had enjoyed popularity in the past. Significant works explored here which employ the lamb and Good Shepherd as iconic figures include early Christian funerary art, the Agnus Dei of the mass, the Easter Sequence, Hubert and Jan Van Eyck\u27s Ghent altarpiece, Matthias Grunewald\u27s Isenheim altarpiece, George Friderich Handel\u27s oratorio, Messiah, and many Christian hymns. Some of these artistic works are shown to represent more than one idea about atonement

Interaction-induced Interlayer Charge Transfer in the Extreme Quantum Limit

An interacting bilayer electron system provides an extended platform to study electron-electron interaction beyond single layers. We report here experiments demonstrating that the layer densities of an asymmetric bilayer electron system oscillate as a function of perpendicular magnetic field that quantizes the energy levels. At intermediate fields, this interlayer charge transfer can be well explained by the alignment of the Landau levels in the two layers. At the highest fields where both layers reach the extreme quantum limit, however, there is an anomalous, enhanced charge transfer to the majority layer. Surprisingly, when the minority layer becomes extremely dilute, this charge transfer slows down as the electrons in the minority layer condense into a Wigner crystal. Furthermore, by examining the quantum capacitance of the dilute layer at high fields, the screening induced by the composite fermions in an adjacent layer is unveiled. The results highlight the influence of strong interaction in interlayer charge transfer in the regime of very high fields and low Landau level filling factors.Comment: Please see the formal version on PR