A national suitability dataset for infiltration-based sustainable drainage systems

The Floods and Water Management Act 2010, includes the provision for sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) which aim, in part, to reduce flooding and improve water quality. Infiltration-to-the-ground is a key SuDS component that can provide effective and practical opportunities for the attenuation of surface water, however systems must complement ground conditions to ensure effective drainage, stability of ground and protection against groundwater quality deterioration. This paper reports on the development of a national suitability GIS dataset that provides subsurface information that may be useful for the planning and design of effective infiltration-based SuDS, whilst also highlighting those circumstances where infiltration may cause unintended negative consequences including flooding or severe ground instability. The dataset focuses on four key themes: a) severe constraints that preclude infiltration-systems; b) subsurface drainage properties; c) vulnerability of groundwater from infiltration water and d) presence of geological hazards triggered by infiltration. The dataset is populated with a wealth of subsurface data, derived by the British Geological Survey (BGS), enabling rapid assessment of subsurface conditions

Surface water flooding : sustainable drainage to the ground

During the exceptional rainfall events of summer 2007, floods inundated 7,300 businesses and 48,000 homes across the UK (PITT Review) with estimated costs of £3.2 billion. A review of the causes and consequences of these events (PITT review) identified that extreme rainfall and overwhelmed drainage systems led to surface water being a primary cause of flooding. This type of flooding is particularly problematic in urban areas where rapid run-off from impermeable surfaces (roofs, pavements), exceeds the drainage capacity of that area leading to flooding in locations that are difficult to predict. The impacts are not restricted to water volume; the quality of water in receiving watercourses can also be compromised by pollutants entrained in run-off water and sewage contamination derived from Combined Sewer Overflow surcharging

Excellent patient environments within acute NHS trusts: external influences and trust characteristics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible common factors in 15 Acute Hospital Trusts in the UK that achieved excellent scores at all their sites in four years of national Patient Environment audits. Design/methodology/approach – A desk-based study tested for external factors, organisational commonalities or particular contractual arrangements which the sample might have in common. A second piece of work was then undertaken; an ethnographic study that examined the behaviours exhibited by 22 managers in six of the trusts. The second phase of research will be described in a separate paper. Findings – The research found that no external, organisational or contractual commonalities could be identified as shared by the trusts that formed the Research Group. This led the researchers to ask further questions as to the management/leadership of the FM Managers who had achieved consistantly high standards of Patient Environment over the four year period. Practical implications – The research reveals that the trusts which achieved high standards of Patient Environment had no shared advantage in terms of external, organisational or contract characteristics. Thus, it should be possible for all trusts to achieve consistently high standards. Originality/value – This is believed to be the only study looking at influences and characteristics that are outside the FM Managers’ control and impact on the FMs’ ability to deliver consistantly high standards.</p

Poly(ether imide)s: Synthesis and Properties

The synthesis of strong polymers is crucial to the creation of heat-resistant, durable, and mechanically useful plastics that we use every day. Poly(ether imide)s are used in applications such as food service, aerospace, automotive, and many more. This thesis will discuss the synthesis and properties of these plastics to help express a larger understanding of these polymers

Global crop yield response to extreme heat stress under multiple climate change futures

Extreme heat stress during the crop reproductive period can be critical for crop productivity. Projected changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climatic events are expected to negatively impact crop yields and global food production. This study applies the global crop model PEGASUS to quantify, for the first time at the global scale, impacts of extreme heat stress on maize, spring wheat and soybean yields resulting from 72 climate change scenarios for the 21st century. Our results project maize to face progressively worse impacts under a range of RCPs but spring wheat and soybean to improve globally through to the 2080s due to CO2 fertilization effects, even though parts of the tropic and sub-tropic regions could face substantial yield declines. We find extreme heat stress at anthesis (HSA) by the 2080s (relative to the 1980s) under RCP 8.5, taking into account CO2 fertilization effects, could double global losses of maize yield (ΔY = −12.8 ± 6.7% versus − 7.0 ± 5.3% without HSA), reduce projected gains in spring wheat yield by half (ΔY = 34.3 ± 13.5% versus 72.0 ± 10.9% without HSA) and in soybean yield by a quarter (ΔY = 15.3 ± 26.5% versus 20.4 ± 22.1% without HSA). The range reflects uncertainty due to differences between climate model scenarios; soybean exhibits both positive and negative impacts, maize is generally negative and spring wheat generally positive. Furthermore, when assuming CO2 fertilization effects to be negligible, we observe drastic climate mitigation policy as in RCP 2.6 could avoid more than 80% of the global average yield losses otherwise expected by the 2080s under RCP 8.5. We show large disparities in climate impacts across regions and find extreme heat stress adversely affects major producing regions and lower income countries

Universal Pitter

Fruits with pits in them have been cumbersome to eat due to the delicate quality of the fruit and the rigid structure of the pits that must be removed. Many types of pitters already exist, but any are for small pits such as cherries and olives or involve to much manual action. This pitter will remove the pit out of multiple types of fruit while holding the fruit in a manner that does not damage the fruit. This projected was initiated by Rachel Venn, an engineering student at Washington University in St. Louis, who took a pole amongst family and friends to discover that a multi-fruit pitter is the next necessary kitchen gadget invention. We anticipate this product to be beneficial to the everyday domestic kitchen user by having to do less manual work, removing the pit without waste, and having less damage to the fruit

Unmet Needs and Opportunities for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the G5 Sahel Region

This report provides an overview of potential opportunities and gaps in the G5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) in relation to the impacts of climate change. The report focuses on four main areas of interest, with additional sections giving a brief outline of the expected impacts of climate change in the Sahel and national policies related to climate change. The main sections are: ‘Low-carbon development trajectories and strategies’; ‘Adaptation and management’; ‘Climate change and migration’; and ‘Climate change and conflict’. The review is not exhaustive, but provides a summary of key literature, findings, and where appropriate, opportunities for engagement. This report is based on academic literature assessing potential adaption strategies, changes in migration patterns, and drivers of localised conflict; donor and international organisation literature detailing both donor strategies and programmes, and potential areas for engagement; and literature suggested by geographic and sectoral experts. There is a large body of work related to both agriculture and pastoralism in the G5 Sahel region including the impacts of climate change, and potential adaptation and management strategies. However, there is only a small body of work related to low-carbon development strategies for the countries included in this study

Simply tell me how -- On Trustworthiness and Technology Acceptance of Attribute-Based Credentials

Attribute-based Credential Systems (ACS) have been long proposed as privacy-preserving means of attribute-based authentication, yet neither been considered particularly usable nor found wide-spread adoption, to date. To establish what variables drive the adoption of \ACS as a usable security and privacy technology, we investigated how intrinsic and presentation properties impact their perceived trustworthiness and behavioral intent to adopt them. We conducted two confirmatory, fractional-factorial, between-subject, random-controlled trials with a total UK-representative sample of $N = 812$ participants. Each participant inspected one of 24 variants of Anonymous Credential System Web site, which encoded a combination of three intrinsic factors (\textsf{provider}, \textsf{usage}, \textsf{benefits}) and three presentation factors (\textsf{simplicity}, presence of \textsf{people}, level of available \textsf{support}). Participants stated their privacy and faith-in-technology subjective norms before the trial. After having completed the Web site inspection, they reported on the perceived trustworthiness, the technology adoption readiness, and their behavioral intention to follow through. We established a robust covariance-based structural equation model of the perceived trustworthiness and technology acceptance, showing that communicating facilitating conditions as well as demonstrating results drive the overall acceptance and behavioral intent. Of the manipulated causal variables, communicating with simplicity and on the everyday usage had the greatest and most consistently positive impact on the overall technology acceptance. After earlier correlational empirical research on ACS technology acceptance, ours is the first research showing cause-effect relations in a structural latent factor model with substantial sample size.Comment: 15 pages. Work funded by the ERC Starting Grant CASCAde (GA no 716980