Road back to Damascus

Letter in response to Georgina Ward’s ‘Damascene Dereliction

School rules

Gordon Murray and Alan Dunlop Architects designed an extraordinary, internationally award-winning school that started with a most challenging set of constraints. Completed in July 2007, the designers took on the project with a 'research and development' perspective that set a high bar for innovative. Designing a school for children of varying ages, needs and disabilities presented a not inconsiderable challenge as Dunlop reveals: 'We didn't have a brief we had client requirements, we had design objectives. This building has to be absolutely brilliant kind of thing.' Secured by design proved to be a heavy imposition on the architectural team, this necessitated the use of CCTV cameras and strenuous health and safety requirements

Education for a smarter profession

We must build for this nation a big passion for innovation. We must make the development of the creative mind a national agenda. Unless we get really serious about cultivating creativity and promoting innovation, the transformation to an innovation economy will not really happen

A critical assessment of marine aquarist biodiversity data and commercial aquaculture:identifying gaps in culture initiatives to inform local fisheries managers

It is widely accepted that if well managed, the marine aquarium trade could provide socio-economic stability to local communities while incentivising the maintenance of coral reefs. However, the trade has also been implicated as having potentially widespread environmental impacts that has in part driven developments in aquaculture to relieve wild collection pressures. This study investigates the biodiversity in hobbyist aquaria (using an online survey) and those species currently available from an aquaculture source (commercial data and hobbyist initiatives) in the context of a traffic light system to highlight gaps in aquaculture effort and identify groups that require fisheries assessments. Two hundred and sixty nine species including clown fish, damsels, dotty backs, angelfish, gobies, sea horses and blennies, have reported breeding successes by hobbyists, a pattern mirrored by the European and US commercial organisations. However, there is a mismatch (high demand and low/non-existent aquaculture) for a number of groups including tangs, starfish, anemones and hermit crabs, which we recommend are priority candidates for local stock assessments. Hobbyist perception towards the concept of a sustainable aquarium trade is also explored with results demonstrating that only 40% of respondents were in agreement with industry and scientists who believe the trade could be an exemplar of a sustainable use of coral reefs. We believe that a more transparent evidence base, including the publication of the species collected and cultured, will go some way to align the concept of a sustainable trade across industry stakeholders and better inform the hobbyist when purchasing their aquaria stock. We conclude by proposing that a certification scheme established with government support is the most effective way to move towards a self-regulating industry. It would prevent industry "greenwashing" from multiple certification schemes, alleviate conservation concerns, and, ultimately, support aquaculture initiatives alongside well managed ornamental fisheries

Particle production processes in high energy physics

Imperial Users onl

Crime campus Gartcosh

This report describes the original research-by-design content of a major architectural project, undertaken by Professor Gordon Murray. The project proposes a state-of-the-art facility to promote collaboration and innovation across services. The Campus will comprise Offices, Forensic Laboratories and Support facilities

Experiments on the polarization of electrons and the conservation of parity

A new method for the determination of the degree of longitudinal polarization of ß-particles has been successfully developed. The results obtained by its use are of better statistical accuracy than any hitherto published. Further, experimental evidence has been obtained which suggests that the results are relatively free of systematic errors.The degree of longitudinal polarization of 100 keV ß - particles from S³⁵ is P = (1.14 ± 0.01) v/cIt is estimated that the systematic error in the value of P is about This value is not in agreement with that predicted by Lee and Yang on the basis of the two component theory of the neutrino. It is considered that the major part of the discrepancy between theory and experiment is due to the use of theoretical values of the Mott asymmetry which do not include the effects of the screening of the nuclear scattering field by atomic electrons. Accurate theoretical values which include the effects of screening are not, at present, available. The experimental value of P does not exclude the possibility of the presence of a small Coulomb effect in the degree of longitudinal polarization. If such an effect exists then it would appear that it is positive in sign