UK regional scale modelling of natural geohazards and climate change

For over 10 years, the British Geological Survey (BGS) has been investigating geotechnical and mineralogical factors controlling volume change behaviour of UK clay soils and mudrocks. A strong understanding of the relationship between these parameters and the clays' shrink-swell properties has been developed. More recently, partly resulting from concerns of users of this knowledge, a study of the relationships between climate change and shrink-swell behaviour over the last 30 years has been carried out. Information on subsidence insurance claims has been provided by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the UK Meteorological Office (UKMO) historical climate station data has also been utilised. This is being combined with the BGS's GeoSure national geohazard data, to build a preliminary GIS model to provide an understanding of the susceptibility of the Tertiary London Clay to climate change. This paper summarises the data analysis and identifies future work for model construction and refinement

PROJECTIONS OF ACRES, YIELDS, AND PRODUCTION: FOUR SOUTHERN REGIONS AND THE U.S.

Crop Production/Industries,

Some essentials of monetary stability

Harrison was the Bank's chief executive during a period of national economic hardship and financial instability: the early years of his term coincided with the stock market collapse of 1929, the Great Depression, and the bank failures that culminated in the banking crisis of 1933. In this speech, Harrison advocates reforms to strengthen the U.S. banking system and calls for the removal of remaining barriers to international trade. He argues that domestic financial stability in the major trading nations, along with a reestablished system of fixed exchange rates and orderly international payments, is crucial to stabilizing the world economy.International economic relations ; Monetary policy ; Federal Reserve System - History

SKA Engineering Change Proposal: Gridded Visibilities to Enable Precision Cosmology with Radio Weak Lensing

This document was submitted as supporting material to an Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). This ECP requests gridded visibilities as an extra imaging data product from the SKA, in order to enable bespoke analysis techniques to measure source morphologies to the accuracy necessary for precision cosmology with radio weak lensing. We also discuss the properties of an SKA weak lensing data set and potential overlaps with other cosmology science goals.Comment: Comments welcome. 4 pages, 3 figures. Progress can be tracked at the SKA ECP register https://skaoffice.atlassian.net/wiki/display/EP/ECP+Registe

Increasing innovative activity in the UK? Where now for government support for innovation and technology transfer?

In this Briefing Note, we present new evidence on the UK’s innovative performance and provide a summary of government business support programmes aimed at fostering innovative activity and technology transfer. Following recent reviews of policy in this area, there remain a number of such schemes in operation. We discuss the rationales for each, including the extent to which they overlap, and suggest some ways in which evidence on take-up and on effectiveness might be used to guide any future policy changes in this area

The wall effect in cavity flow

A non-linear theory for the calculation of the flow field of an oblique flat plate under blockage condition is given using the techniques of integral equations. Numerical results are obtained with the aid of a high speed digital computer for the plate situated mid-channel at values of the angle of attack from 50 to 90° and the channel width-chord ratio from 3 to 20. Also obtained are results for the plate situated at two different off-center positions for a channel width-chord ratio 5 and angles of attack less than 30°

\u3ci\u3eAgonopterix Alstroemeriana\u3c/i\u3e (Oecophoridae) and Other Lepidopteran Associates of Poison Hemlock \u3ci\u3e(Conium Maculatum)\u3c/i\u3e in East Central Illinois

Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) (Apiaceae), a noxious Eurasian weed extensively naturalized throughout North America, is characteristically attacked by few insects. Over the past two decades, an introduced oecophorid caterpillar, Agonopterix alstroemeriana, has been reported infesting poison hemlock, its sole host in its area of indigeneity, in parts of the northeastern and western United States. We report for the first time evidence of established midwestern populations of this species. We also report poison hemlock as a host plant for the polyphagous lepidopterans Eupithecia miserulata, Trichoplusia ni, and Spilosoma virginica

Radio-Optical Galaxy Shape Correlations in the COSMOS Field

We investigate the correlations in galaxy shapes between optical and radio wavelengths using archival observations of the COSMOS field. Cross-correlation studies between different wavebands will become increasingly important for precision cosmology as future large surveys may be dominated by systematic rather than statistical errors. In the case of weak lensing, galaxy shapes must be measured to extraordinary accuracy (shear systematics of $< 0.01\%$) in order to achieve good constraints on dark energy parameters. By using shape information from overlapping surveys in optical and radio bands, robustness to systematics may be significantly improved without loss of constraining power. Here we use HST-ACS optical data, VLA radio data, and extensive simulations to investigate both our ability to make precision measurements of source shapes from realistic radio data, and to constrain the intrinsic astrophysical scatter between the shapes of galaxies as measured in the optical and radio wavebands. By producing a new image from the VLA-COSMOS L-band radio visibility data that is well suited to galaxy shape measurements, we are able to extract precise measurements of galaxy position angles. Comparing to corresponding measurements from the HST optical image, we set a lower limit on the intrinsic astrophysical scatter in position angles, between the optical and radio bands, of $\sigma_\alpha > 0.212\pi$ radians (or $38.2^{\circ}$) at a $95\%$ confidence level.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figure, 5 tables. Updated to match published version with a number of typographical correction