19,222 research outputs found
Nature-based solutions in flood risk management
Book Introduction: Nature-Based Solutions in Flood Risk Management on Private Lan
Conclusion: Nature-Based Solutions in Flood Risk Management
Book Conclusion: Nature-Based Solutions in Flood Risk Management on Private Lan
Constitutive and life modeling of single crystal blade alloys for root attachment analysis
Work to develop fatigue life prediction and constitutive models for uncoated attachment regions of single crystal gas turbine blades is described. At temperatures relevant to attachment regions, deformation is dominated by slip on crystallographic planes. However, fatigue crack initiation and early crack growth are not always observed to be crystallographic. The influence of natural occurring microporosity will be investigated by testing both hot isostatically pressed and conventionally cast PWA 1480 single crystal specimens. Several differnt specimen configurations and orientations relative to the natural crystal axes are being tested to investigate the influence of notch acuity and the material's anisotropy. Global and slip system stresses in the notched regions were determined from three dimensional stress analyses and will be used to develop fatigue life prediction models consistent with the observed lives and crack characteristics
Extremely metal-poor stars from the SDSS
We give a progress report about the activities within the CIFIST Team related
to the search for extremely metal-poor stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's
spectroscopic catalog. So far the search has provided 25 candidates with
metallicities around or smaller -3. For 15 candidates high resolution
spectroscopy with UVES at the VLT has confirmed their extremely metal-poor
status. Work is under way to extend the search to the SDSS's photometric
catalog by augmenting the SDSS photometry, and by gauging the capabilities of
X-shooter when going to significantly fainter targets.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings paper of the conference "A stellar
journey: A symposium in celebration of Bengt Gustafsson's 65th birthday
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The financial impact of pet ownership in rental properties
Report URL: https://www.battersea.org.uk/about-us/publications / Online pdf: https://bdch.org.uk/files/The_Financial_Impact_Pet_Ownership_Rental_Properties.pdf .[Foreword]
At Battersea, we take in any dog or cat in need of our help, irrespective of age, condition or breed. In 2023 we directly helped nearly 5,000 animals, caring for dogs and cats who have either strayed and can’t get home or whose owners find themselves unable to look after them. Housing is one of the main reasons animals are given up by their owners into our care. This is why we first launched our Pet Friendly Properties campaign in 2018, working initially with the social rented sector where a number of partners have since made their policies more pet friendly. Landlord concerns about pets in their properties mean many owners have to make the traumatic choice between keeping their home or keeping their pet, while many more are denied the benefits of pet ownership because of the terms of their rental agreement. With 28% of all UK households now living in rented accommodation, and the Private Rented Sector only set to grow, landlord decisions about pets are affecting an ever-increasing number of animals and tenants. The positives of pet ownership are strong, showing health benefits for owners, social benefits for communities and economic benefits for the nation. Less attention has been given to the impact on landlords of accepting pets in their properties, and the link to the scarcity of pet-friendly properties. Many landlords are not opposed to pets. Indeed, many will own pets themselves. However, many hold legitimate concerns over the impact of pets on a property for which they may care deeply. For this reason, we decided to commission this high-quality study of the financial impact on landlords of allowing their tenants to keep a pet dog or cat. We recognised that the existing evidence was too anecdotal or methodologically weak to adequately test the conventional wisdom amongst some landlords that pet dogs and cats present an unacceptable financial risk. This question was important enough to warrant our investment in answering it. I hope that, upon seeing the myth-busting findings of this research, landlords will be reassured that accepting tenants with pets is financially viable and may not be the cost burden that they expect. There is less risk to their property than they may fear, while tenants are happier and stay longer in their home. This research is an important addition to the evidence base. I hope it will support and encourage decision-making that better balances the needs of animals, tenants and landlords, leading to more animals finding happy homes with a greater number of tenants and landlords enjoying greater peace of mind.Charity registered in England and Wales (charity no. 206394): Battersea Dogs & Cats Hom
Sensing and interferometry, including design and characterisation of special optical fibres
This thesis presents my work in the area of optical fibre sensing, and optical fibre design and characterisation along with the interferometric and signal processing techniques that were developed along the way
Search for clusters at high redshift - I. Candidate Lya emitters near 1138-262 at z=2.2
Radio, optical and X-ray observations of the powerful radio galaxy PKS
1138-262 at z=2.156 have suggested that this galaxy is a massive galaxy in the
center of a forming cluster. We have imaged 1138-262 and the surrounding 38
square arcminute field with the Very Large Telescope in a broad band and a
narrow band encompassing the redshifted Lya emission. We detect 50 objects with
rest equivalent width larger than 20 A and a luminous, highly extended Lya halo
around 1138-262. If the radio galaxy is at the center of a forming cluster,
these objects are candidate Lya emitting cluster galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A as Letter, 4 pages, 4 figure
Slit2 guides both precrossing and postcrossing callosal axons at the midline in vivo
Commissural axons generally cross the midline only once. In the Drosophila nerve cord and mouse spinal cord, commissural axons are guided by Slit only after they cross the midline, where Slit prevents these axons from recrossing the midline. In the developing corpus callosum, Slit2 expressed by the glial wedge guides callosal axons before they cross the midline, as they approach the corticoseptal boundary. These data highlighted a potential difference between the role of Slit2 in guiding commissural axons in the brain compared with the spinal cord. Here, we investigate whether Slit2 also guides callosal axons after they cross the midline. Because such questions cannot be addressed in conventional gene knock-out animals, we used in utero injections of antisense oligonucleotides to specifically deplete Slit2 on only one side of the brain. We used this technique together with a novel in vitro assay of hemisected brain slices to specifically analyze postcrossing callosal axons. We find that in the brain, unlike the spinal cord, Slit2 mediates both precrossing and postcrossing axonal guidance. Depletion of Slit2 on one side of the brain causes axons to defasciculate and, in some cases, to aberrantly enter the septum. Because these axons do not recross the midline, we conclude that the principle function of Slit2 at the cortical midline maybe to channel the axons along the correct path and possibly repel them away from the midline. We find no evidence that Slit2 prevents axons from recrossing the midline in the brain
Laboratory and tentative interstellar detection of trans-methyl formate using the publicly available Green Bank Telescope PRIMOS survey
The rotational spectrum of the higher-energy trans conformational isomer of
methyl formate has been assigned for the first time using several pulsed-jet
Fourier transform microwave spectrometers in the 6-60 GHz frequency range. This
species has also been sought toward the Sagittarius B2(N) molecular cloud using
the publicly available PRIMOS survey from the Green Bank Telescope. We detect
seven absorption features in the survey that coincide with laboratory
transitions of trans-methyl formate, from which we derive a column density of
3.1 (+2.6, -1.2) \times 10^13 cm-2 and a rotational temperature of 7.6 \pm 1.5
K. This excitation temperature is significantly lower than that of the more
stable cis conformer in the same source but is consistent with that of other
complex molecular species recently detected in Sgr B2(N). The difference in the
rotational temperatures of the two conformers suggests that they have different
spatial distributions in this source. As the abundance of trans-methyl formate
is far higher than would be expected if the cis and trans conformers are in
thermodynamic equilibrium, processes that could preferentially form
trans-methyl formate in this region are discussed. We also discuss measurements
that could be performed to make this detection more certain. This manuscript
demonstrates how publicly available broadband radio astronomical surveys of
chemically rich molecular clouds can be used in conjunction with laboratory
rotational spectroscopy to search for new molecules in the interstellar medium.Comment: 40 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables; accepted for publication in Ap
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