The multi modal study of transport investment plans.

In 1998 the UK Department for Transport commissioned a programme of 22 studies to examine the most acute congestion problems on the English road network. The studies promised a new approach to reducing road congestion by examining the contribution that all modes of transport could make to solve these problems. The studies have provided the most convincing evidence to date that road building alone will not be able to solve congestion and pollution problems. Extra road infrastructure will, in most cases, buy a few years’ respite from congestion on the inter-urban road network. The studies have proposed substantial packages of road and public transport improvements, combined with demand management and traffic restraint measures, to tackle the problems. The evidence suggests that some form of road-user charging will be required in many areas to ensure that the efficiency benefits gained from the extra road capacity will not simply be eroded by traffic growth as has been seen to date on routes such as the M25. The outcomes of the studies have prompted the Government to undertake a review of the potential for a national road-user charging system. The multimodal studies have undoubtedly brought about a more balanced and integrated approach to transport planning. There have been quite significant changes to the roads schemes that were initially remitted to the studies and evidence to suggest that significant environmental concerns are now playing a much stronger role in decisions taken by the Department for Transport. The challenge now is to ensure that all of the major parts of the integrated strategies proposed are delivered. A failure to do so will not only reduce the benefits the proposals offer but will also devalue the multi-modal approach taken to the studies

Report on geophysical and geological surveys at Blackmount, Argyllshire

Blackmount, on the southern fringe of Rannoch Moor is largely drift covered but, where exposed, the underlying Precambrian Moine psammite contains granitic veins which probably stem from the adjacent (Devonian) Moor of Rannoch granite. These veins are generally pyritiferous and, at one locality, carry small amounts of molybdenite. Blackmount is also traversed by the Ericht-Laidon Fault, which, in theory, and by analogy with a similar fault to the south-east (the Tyndrum Fault), could be a site of significant sulphide mineralisation. Magnetic, very low frequency electro-magnetic (VLF EM), slingram EM and induced polarisation measurements carried out in the area of the veins suggest that the mineralisation has little or no lateral or depth continuation. Similar surveys were successful in locating the Ericht-Laidon Fault beneath drift, but suggest no associated mineralisation down to the\ud greatest depth investigated

Road traffic pollution monitoring and modelling tools and the UK national air quality strategy.

This paper provides an assessment of the tools required to fulfil the air quality management role now expected of local authorities within the UK. The use of a range of pollution monitoring tools in assessing air quality is discussed and illustrated with evidence from a number of previous studies of urban background and roadside pollution monitoring in Leicester. A number of approaches to pollution modelling currently available for deployment are examined. Subsequently, the modelling and monitoring tools are assessed against the requirements of Local Authorities establishing Air Quality Management Areas. Whilst the paper examines UK based policy, the study is of wider international interest

Disseminated sulphide mineralisation at Garbh Achadh, Argyllshire, Scotland

A brief investigation of low-grade copper mineralisation associated with a small, talc-alkaline porphyry intrusion of Caledonian age is described. Geological mapping has delineated a small stock of biotite-feldspar 2 porphyry, 0.25 km in area, intruded into a sequence of Dalradian schists and quartzites with inter-bedded epidiorites. Disseminated sulphides occur within the porphyry and the hornfelsed epidiorite but do not normally , exceed 3% of the rock by volume. Assays of both rock types obtained maximum levels of 0.24% Cu. Hydrothermal alteration is prominent within the porphyry, with the widespread development of sericite and kaolinite. Subsequent faulting apparently exerted some control on the present limits of alteration and mineralisation. Several small strata-bound lenses of massive sulphide within the metasediments were recorded but were not investigated in detail. Geochemical rock-sampling delineated a strong arcuate copper anomaly over the northern epidiorite/porphyry contact and a more subdued anomaly along the southern faulted contact. Molybdenum shows a similar distribution but is more closely confined to the porphyry. Overburden sampling demonstrated that little or no metal dispersion occurred within the overlying till, and stream sediment sampling of the catchment area showed that concentrations of copper decrease to background levels within 1 km of the intrusion. 1 Induced polarisation (IP) surveys produced a clearly defined grouping of chargeability anomalies around the edges of the porphyry stock but these showed no increase in magnitude at depth. Above background chargeability values recorded over the centre of the intrusion increase markedly towards the margins , possibly reflecting a pyritic halo. Most resistivity 'lows' coincide with fault zones and the results of a total intensity magnetometer 1 survey showed that, while most magnetic anomalies occur over epidiorites, I significant anomalies are also produced in the vicinity of fault zones. The results of the geological, petrographic, geochemical and I geophysical studies demonstrate the presence of several features : characteristic of 'porphyry copper style' mineralisation but the small 1 surface area and low grade of the deposit, combined with a lack of encouraging geophysical responses at depth, suggest that there is little II chance of discovering an economic orebody by exploratory drilling

Kiss and Fly - a study of the impacts at a UK regional airport

In the light of the forecast growth in air transport the UK Government has placed a requirement on all airports with substantial air transport movements to implement surface access strategies. The emphasis of surface access policy has been to increase the proportion of people arriving at airports by public transport by a variety of means such as managing parking supply and pricing and improving public transport. The extent to which these policies will be effective will depend on a number of factors such as the quality and availability of the alternatives, the availability of competing off-site parking and the extent to which kiss and fly is feasible. This paper reports on two studies of passenger access to Leeds-Bradford International Airport in the summers of 2004 and 2005. The airport has an aspiration to increase public transport use to the airport from its current level of 3% to 10% by 2010. The principal means by which this is currently planned to be achieved is through the expansion of scheduled bus services to Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate. The 2004 study found that 49% of passengers were dropped off at the airport by friends and that the potential for larger quantities of people to reach the airport by conventional bus services was limited. The 2005 study investigated the extent to which these kiss and fly journeys generate extra travel on the road network. The results show that for an airport with around 2.5 million passengers the Kiss & Fly journeys are creating an extra 19.4 million kilometres, an increase of 36% over the distance that would have been travelled if people had driven and parked. The paper concludes that a charge levied on all vehicles accessing the airport, similar to a congestion charge, is likely to have the greatest impact on travel behaviour and will have a far greater impact on the environment than the current emphasis on public transport improvements and parking restrictions

Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather

The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence, stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure

Measurement of the cross section for isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector

The dynamics of isolated-photon production in association with a jet in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are studied with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using a dataset with an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb−1. Photons are required to have transverse energies above 125 GeV. Jets are identified using the anti- algorithm with radius parameter and required to have transverse momenta above 100 GeV. Measurements of isolated-photon plus jet cross sections are presented as functions of the leading-photon transverse energy, the leading-jet transverse momentum, the azimuthal angular separation between the photon and the jet, the photon–jet invariant mass and the scattering angle in the photon–jet centre-of-mass system. Tree-level plus parton-shower predictions from Sherpa and Pythia as well as next-to-leading-order QCD predictions from Jetphox and Sherpa are compared to the measurements

A search for resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a new particle X in the XH → qqbb final state with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy resonances decaying into a Higgs boson (H) and a new particle (X) is reported, utilizing 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at collected during 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The particle X is assumed to decay to a pair of light quarks, and the fully hadronic final state is analysed. The search considers the regime of high XH resonance masses, where the X and H bosons are both highly Lorentz-boosted and are each reconstructed using a single jet with large radius parameter. A two-dimensional phase space of XH mass versus X mass is scanned for evidence of a signal, over a range of XH resonance mass values between 1 TeV and 4 TeV, and for X particles with masses from 50 GeV to 1000 GeV. All search results are consistent with the expectations for the background due to Standard Model processes, and 95% CL upper limits are set, as a function of XH and X masses, on the production cross-section of the resonance

Search for an invisibly decaying Higgs boson or dark matter candidates produced in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

SCOAP

TOI-257b (HD 19916b): A warm sub-saturn orbiting an evolved F-type star

We report the discovery of a warm sub-Saturn, TOI-257b (HD 19916b), based on data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The transit signal was detected by TESS and confirmed to be of planetary origin based on radial velocity observations. An analysis of the TESS photometry, the Minerva-Australis, FEROS, and HARPS radial velocities, and the asteroseismic data of the stellar oscillations reveals that TOI-257b has a mass of MP = 0.138 ± 0.023 M J (43.9 ± 7.3, M⊕), a radius of RP = 0.639 ± 0.013 R J (7.16 ± 0.15, R ⊕), bulk density of 0.65+0.12-0.11 (cgs), and period 18.38818 +0.00085 -0.00084 days. TOI-257b orbits a bright (V = 7.612 mag) somewhat evolved late F-type star with M∗ = 1.390 ± 0.046 rm M sun, R∗ = 1.888 ± 0.033 Rsun, Teff = 6075 ± 90 rm K, and vsin i = 11.3 ± 0.5 km s-1. Additionally, we find hints for a second non-transiting sub-Saturn mass planet on a ∼71 day orbit using the radial velocity data. This system joins the ranks of a small number of exoplanet host stars (∼100) that have been characterized with asteroseismology. Warm sub-Saturns are rare in the known sample of exoplanets, and thus the discovery of TOI-257b is important in the context of future work studying the formation and migration history of similar planetary systems