Narrative musical structures: a composer’s perspective on form, process and product

My composition portfolio, developed over a three-and-a-half year period, is concerned with the development of expressive narrative musical structures. This is achieved through the creation of distinctive sound-worlds within two specific areas of compositional activity, these being original compositions and re-compositions. The portfolio of compositions itself stands alone as evidence of research inquiry; the following commentary, meanwhile, consists of a personal reflection on my compositional processes. Here, I explore the motivating impulses of both these processes and of the completed works. This portfolio consists of ten original compositions and two re-compositions of an original: Original Compositions: 1. Alone (baritone and cello) 2. Light Upon Darkness (5 players) 3. Sonorization for Solo Clarinet 4. (…through the clouds towards the rising sun) (piano) 5. Glaciers (strings, piano and percussion) 6. Adrift (amplified ensemble of 7 players) 7. Embrace (clarinet and cello) 8. From Darkness (string orchestra) 9. Ambition: the Fury of the Blind Driver (violin and piano) 10. …to a beginning from no end (original of a set of three including two re-compositions) (oboe and piano) Re-compositions of an Original Work: 11. Thebes and the Burden of Rulership (re-composition one of a set of three) (flute/alto flute, oboe and English horn) 12. …to a beginning from no end (re-composition two of a set of three) (baroque trio: baroque flute, bass viola da gamba and harpsichord

The effects of restoration on biodiversity, water quality and greenhouse gas fluxes in a rich fen peatland

Rich fens are globally significant wetlands due to their high biodiversity and provision of multiple ecosystem services, such as water purification and climate mitigation. However, many U.K. rich fens have become botanically degraded. This is principally due to abandonment, following the cessation of management (mowing/grazing) and has led to a decline in plant species richness. Although the response to mowing on plant species richness has been well documented across Europe, there is no prior knowledge of this research being undertaken at U.K rich fens. Additionally, the effects of mowing on water quality are largely unquantified. Furthermore, the spatial heterogeneity of greenhouse gases across and within botanically rich and botanically poor sites is also unknown. Two rich fen plant communities: Cladio-Molinietum (n=9) and Scheonus nigricans - Juncus subnodulosus (n=8) were examined across three sites; chosen for their conservation value and current degraded condition. A 50 % success rate was achieved following mowing to increase species richness, which meant assumptions were not met for both plant communities. Nitrate, phosphate and dissolved organic carbon concentrations did not reduce following mowing, however there was a beneficial increase in concentration of base cations at both sites. The greenhouse gas investigation revealed that the net gaseous carbon flux between both sites was comparable, which did not meet expectations that the botanically impoverished site would have higher carbon emissions, however, expected differences between plant communities were observed at both sites. Therefore, this study shows the complexity of the botanical, hydro-chemical and greenhouse gas spatial heterogeneity at rich fens. Careful examination prior to restoration is needed to determine whether environmental/ecological barriers have been removed, so that restoration is not in any way inhibited. In addition, this study has demonstrated that objectives for biodiversity may be in conflict with objectives to manage for other ecosystem services, in these multi-functional wetlands

Preliminary Design and Validation of the Automation Logic Supervisor Module for an Integrated Mission Management System

This paper is focused on the design, implementation and validation, in the MATLAB/Simulink/Stateflow environment, of a software prototype, named Automation Logic Supervisor (ALS) module, for the internal execution logic automation of the various systems constituting an Integrated Mission Management System (IMMS). The Automation Logic Supervisor module has been developed by CIRA as a part of a thesis work within the international project COAST (Cost Optimized Avionics System), funded by the European Union in the framework of the Clean Sky 2 - Systems ITD Programme, in which CIRA is a core partner. In the paper, after an introduction about the operational framework and motivations of the ALS design, it is described the preliminary conceptual design of the module, emphasizing the various considered logical states and their connections and associated transition conditions. Then, the implementation of the ALS as preliminary software prototype in Matlab/Simulink/Stateflow nvironment is outlined. Finally, the numerical validation of the ALS model is described, by outlining the considered test scenarios, which have been on purpose defined to stimulate all the ALS finite state machine modelled transitions, and reporting the results of the numerical simulations that show the correct behavior of the ALS, whose development successfully reached TRL 3

Review of the effectiveness of on-site habitat management to reduce atmospheric nitrogen deposition impacts on terrestrial habitats

1. Given the widespread impacts on habitats in the UK it is essential to understand how habitat management measures could mitigate N deposition impacts and promote recovery. This project reviews the effectiveness of ‘on-site’ land management methods to mitigate nitrogen deposition impacts on sensitive habitats; assesses what effect current management practice has on habitat response to nitrogen deposition; considers how measures may be affected by climate change; and recommends realistic and practical management measures for different habitat types which could be used to mitigate nitrogen impacts or speed recovery. 2. The potential for management to mitigate N deposition impacts was considered across the following broad habitats: broadleaved, mixed and yew woodland & (natural) coniferous woodland; neutral grassland; calcareous grassland; acid grassland; dwarf shrub heath; bog; coastal dunes and slacks; other coastal habitats. For all habitats we were able to identify management techniques with some potential to mitigate N deposition impacts. 3. Management techniques may improve habitat suitability (e.g. control dominant species), remove nitrogen from the system, or both. 4. However, all management techniques also have unintended consequences meaning that their implementation might conflict with other conservation priorities. 5. There are a range of schemes and handbooks providing habitat management advice in the UK. The following techniques were reviewed in detail: grazing; cutting; burning; fertilisation; liming; hydrological management; scrub and tree management; disturbance. 6. Current management may already be partially offsetting the impact of N deposition. 7. Management for N is unlikely to make habitats more vulnerable to climate change. There is complementarity in the management options required to tackle N deposition and climate change. The frequency or intensity of measures such as grazing, cutting or burning will all need to increase. Regional variation in climate change may lead to different emphasis of management options in the wetter north west and the drier south east. 8. Climate change will alter habitat sensitivity to N deposition, via changes in ecosystem processes. Overall, climate change will make woodlands less sensitive to N deposition, but will make heathlands more sensitive to N deposition. Effects on other habitats have not yet been evaluated. 9. There is some potential for mitigating the impacts of N deposition through on-site management although this varies greatly between habitat and management practice. It is likely that small changes in management and adherence to appropriate guidelines could partially improve habitat suitability and/or increase N removal. 10. The majority of management practices do not remove significant quantities of N (with the exception of removing biomass or topsoil). Furthermore, management of a suitable intensity to remove sufficient N to fully offset N added by atmospheric deposition is likely to damage the habitat and result in a number of unintended consequences. 11. Further research is needed to determine the impacts of individual management practices on the N budget in different habitats. Further research is also needed to explore the potential for novel management techniques to remove N from sites. 12. For an individual site where N is identified as a pressure, a manager can look at current management and compare this with the management recommendations in the report to make changes where appropriate. 13. All management recommendations that remove N from the site move it elsewhere and have the potential for unintended consequences. Consequently there is no substitute for reducing the amount of N deposited onto a site which can only be achieved through emission controls

Final report on project SP1210: Lowland peatland systems in England and Wales – evaluating greenhouse gas fluxes and carbon balances

Lowland peatlands represent one of the most carbon-rich ecosystems in the UK. As a result of widespread habitat modification and drainage to support agriculture and peat extraction, they have been converted from natural carbon sinks into major carbon sources, and are now amongst the largest sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the UK land-use sector. Despite this, they have previously received relatively little policy attention, and measures to reduce GHG emissions either through re-wetting and restoration or improved management of agricultural land remain at a relatively early stage. In part, this has stemmed from a lack of reliable measurements on the carbon and GHG balance of UK lowland peatlands. This project aimed to address this evidence gap via an unprecedented programme of consistent, multi year field measurements at a total of 15 lowland peatland sites in England and Wales, ranging from conservation managed ‘near-natural’ ecosystems to intensively managed agricultural and extraction sites. The use of standardised measurement and data analysis protocols allowed the magnitude of GHG emissions and removals by peatlands to be quantified across this heterogeneous data set, and for controlling factors to be identified. The network of seven flux towers established during the project is believed to be unique on peatlands globally, and has provided new insights into the processes the control GHG fluxes in lowland peatlands. The work undertaken is intended to support the future development and implementation of agricultural management and restoration measures aimed at reducing the contribution of these important ecosystems to UK GHG emissions

LPMLE3 : a novel 1-D approach to study water flow in streambeds using heat as a tracer

We introduce LPMLE3, a new 1-D approach to quantify vertical water flow components at streambeds using temperature data collected in different depths. LPMLE3 solves the partial differential equation for coupled water flow and heat transport in the frequency domain. Unlike other 1-D approaches it does not assume a semi-infinite halfspace with the location of the lower boundary condition approaching infinity. Instead, it uses local upper and lower boundary conditions. As such, the streambed can be divided into finite subdomains bound at the top and bottom by a temperature-time series. Information from a third temperature sensor within each subdomain is then used for parameter estimation. LPMLE3 applies a low order local polynomial to separate periodic and transient parts (including the noise contributions) of a temperature-time series and calculates the frequency response of each subdomain to a known temperature input at the streambed top. A maximum-likelihood estimator is used to estimate the vertical component of water flow, thermal diffusivity, and their uncertainties for each streambed subdomain and provides information regarding model quality. We tested the method on synthetic temperature data generated with the numerical model STRIVE and demonstrate how the vertical flow component can be quantified for field data collected in a Belgian stream. We show that by using the results in additional analyses, nonvertical flow components could be identified and by making certain assumptions they could be quantified for each subdomain. LPMLE3 performed well on both simulated and field data and can be considered a valuable addition to the existing 1-D methods

Innovative forward looking SAR systems for UAV guidance navigation and landing

The future evolution of the Airspace System includes various manned and unmanned vehicles flying contemporaneously in an unstructured environment, to support civil, commercial and military applications. During various phases of the flight, it is of paramount importance to offer an advanced “see-understand” system either to the pilot or finalized to autonomous flight and operation. Sensing and Avoid, Emergency control and landing and assistance to navigation are fundamentally based on acquiring and analyzing high geometric and radiometric resolution all-weather day and night images along the flight path of the vehicle. The conducted studies here presented had the main purpose to reply at this increasing need of the airspace system researching for the most suitable system able to provide an aircraft with a forward looking real time vision. In the study several solutions are proposed, analyzed and simulated by a sophisticated simulation system. All systems are based on SAR technology to provide the aircraft with a system totally independent on the daylight or weather conditions. The main challenge of the work indeed lies in using a SAR system in a forward looking configuration. In fact, it is well known that in such a configuration a SAR shows the typical limitations of its technology like a dramatic decrease of the Doppler bandwidth, the characteristic left-right ambiguity and also increases the needed image-time thus decreasing the refresh rate. The new FL SAR systems here proposed aim to solve these problems using new solutions and well tested technologies recombined together in order to overcome or bypass the classical FL SAR problems. The intermediate systems also presented along the dissertation, point out the main problems we faced with and provide the logic evolution of the ideas path that leaded to the ultimate FL SAR system able to offer a continuous and hi-resolution FL SAR vision

The effects of restoration on biodiversity, water quality and greenhouse gas fluxes in a rich fen peatland

Rich fens are globally significant wetlands due to their high biodiversity and provision of multiple ecosystem services, such as water purification and climate mitigation. However, many U.K. rich fens have become botanically degraded. This is principally due to abandonment, following the cessation of management (mowing/grazing) and has led to a decline in plant species richness. Although the response to mowing on plant species richness has been well documented across Europe, there is no prior knowledge of this research being undertaken at U.K rich fens. Additionally, the effects of mowing on water quality are largely unquantified. Furthermore, the spatial heterogeneity of greenhouse gases across and within botanically rich and botanically poor sites is also unknown. Two rich fen plant communities: Cladio-Molinietum (n=9) and Scheonus nigricans - Juncus subnodulosus (n=8) were examined across three sites; chosen for their conservation value and current degraded condition. A 50 % success rate was achieved following mowing to increase species richness, which meant assumptions were not met for both plant communities. Nitrate, phosphate and dissolved organic carbon concentrations did not reduce following mowing, however there was a beneficial increase in concentration of base cations at both sites. The greenhouse gas investigation revealed that the net gaseous carbon flux between both sites was comparable, which did not meet expectations that the botanically impoverished site would have higher carbon emissions, however, expected differences between plant communities were observed at both sites. Therefore, this study shows the complexity of the botanical, hydro-chemical and greenhouse gas spatial heterogeneity at rich fens. Careful examination prior to restoration is needed to determine whether environmental/ecological barriers have been removed, so that restoration is not in any way inhibited. In addition, this study has demonstrated that objectives for biodiversity may be in conflict with objectives to manage for other ecosystem services, in these multi-functional wetlands

Sviluppo di metodologie di calcolo numerico per la simulazione dello stampaggio ad iniezione di materiali polimerici

L’idustria termoplastica, negli ultimi anni, ha riconosciuto che le tecniche di computer-aided engineering (CAE) migliorano notevolmente l’abilità dell’ingegnere di cogliere tutti gli aspetti del processo di stampaggio ad iniezione incrementando la produttività, la qualità del prodotto, tempo ciclo e costi. Ciò è confermato dalla ricca letteratura disponibile e dal crescente aumento di utenti di software CAE dedicati nell’industria dello stampaggio della plastica. È stata simulata la fase di riempimento di una guarnizione per elettrodomestici in blend polimerica a base di TPV e TPU, caratterizzata sperimentalmente in laboratorio. È stato mostrato come sia possibile simulare mediante l’ausilio di software dedicati allo stampaggio ad iniezione, il comportamento di una qualunque miscela e come, mediante simulazione, sia possibile intervenire sulla geometria del componente da stampare in maniera tale da ottimizzare la fase di iniezione stessa, in particolare la pressione di iniezione. Successivamente è stata effettuata la simulazione del processo di stampaggio ad iniezione di un paraurti automobilistico in polipropilene caricato talco, confrontando i risultati numerici con i risultati sperimentali ottenuti mediante collaborazione con centri specializzati del settore automotive. Le analisi parametriche condotte, hanno permesso, in primo luogo, di constatare l’aderenza dei risultati numerici con i dati sperimentali ed in secondo luogo, di avere una stima dei principali parametri che possono influenzare le performance di prodotto