Mitigation and screening for environmental assessment

This article considers how, as a matter of law and policy, mitigation measures should be taken into account in determining whether a project will have significant environmental effects and therefore be subject to assessment under the EU Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive. This is not straightforward: it is problematic to distinguish clearly between an activity and the measures proposed to minimise or mitigate for the adverse consequences of the activity. The issue is a salient one in impact assessment law, but under-explored in the literature and handled with some difficulty by the courts. I argue that there is an unnecessarily and undesirably narrow approach currently taken under the EIA Directive, which could be improved upon by taking a more adaptive approach; alternatively a heightened standard of review of ‘significance’, and within this of the scope for mitigation measures to bring projects beneath the significance threshold, may also be desirable

Critical Behaviour of the 3d Gross-Neveu and Higgs-Yukawa Models

We measure the critical exponents of the three dimensional Gross-Neveu model with two four-component fermions. The exponents are inferred from the scaling behaviour of observables on different lattice sizes. We also calculate the exponents, through a second order epsilon-expansion around 4d, for the three dimensional Higgs-Yukawa model, which is expected to be in the same universality class and we find that the exponents agree. We conclude that the equivalence of the two models remains valid in 3d at fixed small N_f values.Comment: 14 Latex pages 8 PSfigures included at the end,BI-TP-93/31,AZPH-TH/93-19,SPhT 93/0

Development of Lightweight CubeSat with Multi-Functional Structural Battery Systems

This collaborative multi-disciplinary effort aims to develop a lightweight, 1-unit (1U) CubeSat (10x10x10 cm) which utilizes improved and fully integrated structural battery materials for mission life extension, larger payload capability, and significantly reduced mass.The electrolytic carbon fiber material serves the multifunctional capacitive energy system as both a lightweight, load bearing structure and an electrochemical battery system. This implementation will improve traditional multifunctional energy storage concepts with a highly effective energy storage capability

The Three Dimensional Thirring Model for Small N_f

We formulate the three dimensional Thirring model on a spacetime lattice and study it for various even numbers of fermion flavors N_f by Monte Carlo simulation. We find clear evidence for spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking at strong coupling, contradicting the predictions of the 1/N_f expansion. The critical point appears to correspond to an ultra-violet fixed point of the renormalisation group; a fit to a RG-inspired equation of state in the vicinity of the fixed point yields distinct critical exponents for N_f=2 and N_f=4, while no fit is found for N_f=6, suggesting there is a critical number N_fc<6 beyond which no chiral symmetry breaking occurs. The spectrum of the N_f=2 theory is studied; the states examined vary sharply but continuously across the transition.Comment: 50 pages LaTeX, including 16 tables and 20 figures - uses style file ldd_art.sty (included

The effect of age and font size on reading text on handheld computers

Though there have been many studies of computer based text reading, only a few have considered the small screens of handheld computers. This paper presents an investigation into the effect of varying font size between 2 and 16 point on reading text on a handheld computer. By using both older and younger participants the possible effects of age were examined. Reading speed and accuracy were measured and subjective views of participants recorded. Objective results showed that there was little difference in reading performance above 6 point, but subjective comments from participants showed a preference for sizes in the middle range. We therefore suggest, for reading tasks, that designers of interfaces for mobile computers provide fonts in the range of 8-12 point to maximize readability for the widest range of users

Variation of the omega-3 content of Australian food products

Abstract from the 2008 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Nutrition Society of Australia, 30 November - 3 December 2008, Glenelg, Australia

Optical and visual quality with physical and visually simulated presbyopic multifocal contact lenses

16 pags. 6 figs., 1 tab.Purpose: As multifocal contact lenses (MCLs) expand as a solution for presbyopia correction, a better understanding of their optical and visual performance becomes essential. Also, providing subjects with the experience of multifocal vision before contact lens fitting becomes critical, both to systematically test different multifocal designs and to optimize selection in the clinic. In this study, we evaluated the ability of a simultaneous vision visual simulator (SimVis) to represent MCLs. Methods: Through focus (TF) optical and visual quality with a center-near aspheric MCL (low, medium and high near adds) were measured using a multichannel polychromatic Adaptive Optics visual simulator equipped with double-pass, SimVis (temporal multi-plexing), and psychophysical channels to allow measurements on-bench and in vivo. On bench TF optical quality of SimVis-simulated MCLs was obtained from double-pass (DP) images and images of an E-stimulus using artificial eyes. Ten presbyopic subjects were fitted with the MCL. Visual acuity (VA) and DP retinal images were measured TF in a 4.00 D range with the MCL on eye, and through SimVis simulations of the same MCLs on the same subjects. Results: TF optical (on bench and in vivo) and visual (in vivo) quality measurements captured the expected broadening of the curves with increasing add. Root mean square difference between real and SimVis-simulated lens was 0.031/0.025 (low add), 0.025/0.015 (medium add), 0.019/0.011 (high add), for TF DP and TF LogMAR VA, respectively. A shape similarity metric shows high statistical values (lag κ = 0), rho = 0.811/0.895 (low add), 0.792/0.944 (medium add), and 0.861/0.915 (high add) for TF DP/LogMAR VA, respectively. Conclusions: MCLs theoretically and effectively expand the depth of focus. A novel simulator, SimVis, captured the through-focus optical and visual performance of the MCL in most of the subjects. Visual simulators allow subjects to experience vision with multifocal lenses prior to testing them on-eye. Translational Relevance: Simultaneous visual simulators allow subjects to experience multifocal vision non-invasively. We demonstrated equivalency between real multifocal contact lenses and SimVis-simulated lenses. The results suggest that SimVis is a suitable technique to aid selection of presbyopic corrections in the contactology practice.Supported by the European Research Council (ERC-2011-AdC 294099) to SM; Spanish Government (FIS2017-84753R) to SM, and pre-doctoral fellowship (FPU16/01944) to SA; Collaborative agreement with Johnson & Johnson Vision, Inc., Research & Development, Jacksonville, FL, USA