Road User Charging – Pricing Structures.

This project considers the extent to which the public could cope with complex price or tariff structures such as those that might be considered in the context of a national congestion pricing scheme. The key elements of the brief were: • to review existing studies of road pricing schemes to assess what information and evidence already exists on the key issues; • to identify what can be learned about pricing structures from other transport modes and other industries and in particular what issues and conclusions might be transferable; • to improve the general understanding of the relationship between information and people’s ability to respond; and • to recommend what further research would be most valuable to fill evidence gaps and enable conclusions to be drawn about an effective structure

Hot methane line lists for exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheres

We present comprehensive experimental line lists of methane (CH4) at high temperatures obtained by recording Fourier transform infrared emission spectra. Calibrated line lists are presented for the temperatures 300 - 1400 degC at twelve 100 degC intervals spanning the 960 - 5000 cm-1 (2.0 - 10.4 microns) region of the infrared. This range encompasses the dyad, pentad and octad regions, i.e., all fundamental vibrational modes along with a number of combination, overtone and hot bands. Using our CH4 spectra, we have estimated empirical lower state energies (Elow in cm-1) and our values have been incorporated into the line lists along with line positions (cm-1) and calibrated line intensities (S' in cm molecule-1). We expect our hot CH4 line lists to find direct application in the modeling of planetary atmospheres and brown dwarfs.Comment: Supplementary material is provided via the Astrophysical Journal referenc

Evaluating Gismondi's Representation of Portus, the Port of Imperial Rome

[EN] This paper introduces the Portus Project, an inter-disciplinary collaborative fieldwork project focussed on the ancient port of Rome. It demonstrates the use that is being made of a plaster model of the port produced by Italo Gismondi in 1937, initially as a means for focussing re-evaluations of the various illustrative and other data available relating to the port’s topography, and then as a source for background and comparative digital geometric data within the project’s work to remodel the entire site. The Portus Project employs three-dimensional computer graphics throughout the data gathering, analysis, modelling and representation phases and the paper considers the role that Gismondi’s model is playing in the development and evaluation of such a process.The Portus Project is directed by Simon Keay, and funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Ostia Antica, the University of Southampton, the British School at Rome and the University of Cambridge. It involves many partners including the British School at Rome, the Universities of Southampton, Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Bath, Aixen-Provence and Seville, the Institut Català d’Arqueología Clàssica, Parsifal Cooperativa Di Archeologia (Rome) and L-P Archaeology. The project is grateful to the Duke Sforza Cesarini for continued access to his land. Access to Gismondi’s model was provided by the Sorprintendenza per I Beni Archaeologici di Ostia Antica.Earl, GP.; Keay, SJ.; Beale, GC. (2010). Evaluating Gismondi's Representation of Portus, the Port of Imperial Rome. Virtual Archaeology Review. 1(1):21-25. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2010.4752OJS212511FORTE M., PESCARIN S., PIETRONI E. (2005) "The Appia Antica Project", in Forte, M., Williams, P.R. (eds) The Reconstruction of Archaeological Landscapes through Digital Technologies, Atti del II Convegno Italia-USA. British Archaeological Reports. International Series 1379, 2005: pp. 79-95FRISCHER, B. Rome Reborn http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/ [Consult: 1-04-2009].FRISCHER, B. (2008) "The Rome Reborn Project. How Technology is helping us to study history,", in OpEd, November 10, 2008. University of Virginia.GAIANI, M., BALZANI, M. AND UCCELLI, F. (2000) "Reshaping the Coliseum in Rome: An Integrated Data Capture and Modeling Method at Heritage Sites", in Gross, M. and Hopgood, F.R.A. (eds.) Proceedings of Eurographics 2000: European Association. for Computer Graphics, Interlaken, Switzerland, 2000 pp. 369-78 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8659.00429GUIDI, G., B. FRISCHER, ET AL. (2005) "Virtualizing Ancient Rome: 3D Acquisition and Modeling of a Large Plaster-of-Paris Model of Imperial Rome,", in Beraldin, J.-A., El-Hakim, S.F., Gruen, A., Walton, J.S. (eds) Videometrics VIII 18-20 January 2005, San Jose, California, USA, SPIE, vol. 5665, pp. 119-133. http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.587355GUILLEMAIN, J. (2002) "Pierre-Joseph Garrez (1802-1852), porto di Traiano a Ostia, 1834", in Italia antiqua. Envois degli architetti franesi (1811-1950) - Italia e area mediterranea pp. 393-8. Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts.HAPPA, J., WILLIAMS, M., TURLEY, G., EARL, G., DUBLA, P., BEALE, G., GIBBONS, G., DEBATTISTA, K. AND CHALMERS, A. (2009) "Virtual Relighting of a Roman Statue Head from Herculaneum, A Case Study", in Hardy, A., Marais, P., Spencer, SN., Gain, JE., Straßer, W. (eds): Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Graphics, Virtual Reality, Visualisation and Interaction in Africa, Afrigraph 2009, Pretoria, South Africa, February 4-6, 2009. ACM 2009 pp 5-12HASELBERGER, L & HUMPHREY, J H. (2006) Imaging Ancient Rome: Documentation - Visualization - Imagination. Proceedings of the Third Williams Symposium on Classical Architecture. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 61. JRA, Portsmouth R.I.KEAY, S., (2006). "Portus", in Current World Archaeology 20: 11-20KEAY, S., EARL, G., HAY, S., KAY, S., OGDEN, J., & STRUTT, K. (2008) "The Potential of Archaeological Geophysics. The Work of the British School at Rome in Italy", in Geofisica per l'archeologia: Possibilita e Limiti. Roma 10 Dicembre 2008. pp. 25-44. Rome, CISTEC.KEAY, S., MILLETT, M., PAROLI, L., STRUTT, K. (2005). Portus: An Archaeological Survey of the Imperial Port of Rome. Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome 15. London.LUGLI, G. & FILIBECK, G. (1935) Il Porto di RomaiImperiale e l'agro portuense. Bergamo, Officine dell'Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche.MALAFARINA, G. (2005) La Galleria delle carte geografiche. The Gallery of Maps in the Vatican. Modena, Franco Cosimi Panini.MALZBENDER, T., GELB, D., WOLTERS, H . (2001) Polynomial Texture Mapping www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Tom_Malzbender/papers/PTM.pdf [Consult: 1-04-2009]POLLARD, J. & GILLINGS, M. (1998) "Romancing the Stones: towards a virtual and elemental Avebury", in Archaeological Dialogues 5:2, pp. 143-164 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1380203800001276REDDÉ, M. & GOLVIN, J-C. (2008) I Romani e il Mediterraneo. Rome, Istituto e Zecca dello Stato. Libreria dello Stato.RICKMAN, G. (1971) Roman Granaries and Store Buildings. Cambridge.TESTAGUZZA, O. (1970) Portus: illustrazione dei Porti di Claudio e Traiano e della cittá di Porto a Fiumicino. Rome, Julia Editrice.VERDUCHI, P. (2007) "Porto", in Filippi, F. (ed.) Ricostruire l'Antico prima del virtuale. Italo Gismondi. Un architetto per l'archeologia (1887- 1974). pp. 245-52. Rome, Edizioni Quasar.VERDUCHI, P. (1999) "Il porto di Traiano, dépliant, Roma". Model available from: http://www2.rgzm.de/Navis2/Home/HarbourFullTextOutput.cfm?HarbourNR=Ostia-Traiano [Consult: 1-04- 2009]

Absolute differential positronium-formation cross sections

The first absolute experimental determinations of the differential cross-sections for the formation of ground-state positronium are presented for He, Ar, H2 and CO2 near 0○. Results are compared with available theories. The ratio of the differential and integrated cross-sections for the targets exposes the higher propensity for forward-emission of positronium formed from He and H2

Pelletizing

DURING the last 15 or 20 years we have witnessed an extra-ordinary increase in the quantity of artificial agglomera-tes used in blast-furnace burdens. This expansion has occurred in two fields, the first being sintering, a technique applied particularly to the agglomeration of low grade 'earthy' ores and to screenings from high quality Jump

From Poison Peddlers to Civic Worthies: The Reputation of the Apothecaries in Georgian England

Trust is not automatically granted to providers of professional services. The doctors of Georgian England were, by later standards, deficient in medical knowhow, particularly before the mid-nineteenth-century scientific understanding of antiseptics, and much satirised. Nonetheless, the emergence of a coherent medical profession indicates that the picture was far more intricate and positive than the satirists implied. Patients sought care as well as cure; and medical practitioners had no problems in finding custom. This essay reassesses the apothecaries’ role in the slow transition whereby reputable practitioners differentiated themselves from ‘quacks’. The change was propelled by three linked processes: firstly, the intersection of expanding medical supply with insistent consumer demand, noting that demand plays a key role alongside supply; secondly, the intersection of local power-broking within Britain's growing towns with an ethos of community service, whereby apothecaries joined the ranks of ‘civic worthies’ and trusted care-givers; and, lastly, the intersection of shared medical knowledge among practitioners at all levels with the creation of a distinctive professional identity. As public trust grew, so Parliament was emboldened in 1815 to license the Apothecaries Society as the regulatory body for the medical rank-and-file, so launching the distinctive Anglo-American system of arm's-length state regulation

Distributions of fecal markers in wastewater from different climatic zones for human fecal pollution tracking in Australian surface waters

Recreational and potable water supplies polluted with human wastewater can pose a direct health risk to humans. Therefore, sensitive detection of human fecal pollution in environmental waters is very important to water quality authorities around the globe. Microbial source tracking (MST) utilizes human fecal markers (HFMs) to detect human wastewater pollution in environmental waters. The concentrations of these markers in raw wastewater are considered important because it is likely that a marker whose concentration is high in wastewater will be more frequently detected in polluted waters. In this study, quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays were used to determine the concentrations of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) Escherichia coli and Enterococcus spp., HFMs Bacteroides HF183, human adenoviruses (HAdVs), and polyomaviruses (HPyVs) in raw municipal wastewater influent from various climatic zones in Australia. E. coli mean concentrations in pooled human wastewater data sets (from various climatic zones) were the highest (3.2 × 10 gene copies per ml), followed by those of HF183 (8.0 × 10 gene copies per ml) and Enterococcus spp. (3.6 × 10 gene copies per ml). HAdV and HPyV concentrations were 2 to 3 orders of magnitude lower than those of FIB and HF183. Strong positive and negative correlations were observed between the FIB and HFM concentrations within and across wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). To identify the most sensitive marker of human fecal pollution, environmental water samples were seeded with raw human wastewater. The results from the seeding experiments indicated that Bacteroides HF183 was more sensitive for detecting human fecal pollution than HAdVs and HPyVs. Since the HF183 marker can occasionally be present in nontarget animal fecal samples, it is recommended that HF183 along with a viral marker (HAdVs or HPyVs) be used for tracking human fecal pollution in Australian environmental waters

Council tax valuation bands, socio-economic status and health outcome: a cross-sectional analysis from the Caerphilly Health and Social Needs Study

Council tax valuation bands (CTVBs) are a categorisation of household property value in Great Britain. The aim of the study was to assess the CTVB as a measure of socio-economic status by comparing the strength of the associations between selected health and lifestyle outcomes and CTVBs with two measures of socio-economic status: the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) and the 2001 UK census-based Townsend deprivation index. METHODS: Cross-sectional analysis of data on 12,092 respondents (adjusted response 62.7%) to the Caerphilly Health and Social Needs Study, a postal questionnaire survey undertaken in Caerphilly county borough, south-east Wales, UK. The CTVB was assigned to each individual by matching the sampling frame to the local authority council tax register. Crude and age-gender adjusted odds ratios for each category of CTVB, NS-SEC and fifth of the ward distribution of Townsend scores were estimated for smoking, poor diet, obesity, and limiting long-term illness using logistic regression. Mean mental (MCS) and physical (PCS) component summary scores of the Short-Form SF-36 health status questionnaire were estimated in general linear models. RESULTS: There were significant trends in odds ratios across the CTVB categories for all outcomes, most marked for smoking and mental and physical health status. The adjusted odds ratio for being a smoker in the lowest versus highest CTVB category was 3.80 (95% CI: 3.06, 4.71), compared to 3.00 (95% CI: 2.30, 3.90) for the NS-SEC 'never worked and long-term unemployed' versus 'higher managerial and professional' categories, and 1.61 (95% CI: 1.42, 1.83) for the most deprived versus the least deprived Townsend fifth. The difference in adjusted mean MCS scores was 5.9 points on the scale for CTVB, 9.2 for NS-SEC and 3.2 for the Townsend score. The values for the adjusted mean PCS scores were 6.3 points for CTVB, 11.3 for NS-SEC, and 2.5 for the Townsend score. CONCLUSION: CTVBs assigned to individuals were strongly associated with the health and lifestyle outcomes modelled in this study. CTVBs are readily available for all residential properties and deserve further consideration as a proxy for socio-economic status in epidemiological studies in Great Britain

Asymptotically stable particle-in-cell methods for the Vlasov-Poisson system with a strong external magnetic field

International audienceThis paper deals with the numerical resolution of the Vlasov-Poissonsystem with a strong external magnetic field by Particle-In-Cell(PIC) methods. In this regime, classical PIC methods are subject tostability constraints on the time and space steps related to the smallLarmor radius and plasma frequency. Here, we propose anasymptotic-preserving PIC scheme which is not subjected to theselimitations. Our approach is based on first and higher order semi-implicit numericalschemes already validated on dissipative systems. Additionally, when the magnitude of the external magneticfield becomes large, this method provides a consistent PICdiscretization of the guiding-center equation, that is, incompressibleEuler equation in vorticity form. We propose several numerical experiments which provide a solid validation of the method and its underlying concepts