An assessment of the influence of CCAFS' climate data and tools on outcomes achieved 2010-2016

These four volumes comprise an evaluation report commissioned by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The evaluation was undertaken by the independent evaluators Kornelia Rassmann and Tonya Schuetz and supported by the CCAFS internal evaluation team led by Philip Thornton and Laura Cramer. It mainly used Outcome Harvesting (OH) but also elements from Impact Pathway thinking and Contribution Analysis to describe and analyze ‘development outcomes’ that were directly or indirectly influenced by one of three CCAFS’ climate products – the GCM Climate Portal, MarkSimGCM, and the Climate Analogues tool. Volume 1 is the main evaluation report. Volume 2 presents survey results and user perspectives. Volume 3 contains outcome stories. Volume 4 has definitions of terms and the coding book used during the evaluation

The condensation phase transition in random graph coloring

Based on a non-rigorous formalism called the "cavity method", physicists have put forward intriguing predictions on phase transitions in discrete structures. One of the most remarkable ones is that in problems such as random $k$-SAT or random graph $k$-coloring, very shortly before the threshold for the existence of solutions there occurs another phase transition called "condensation" [Krzakala et al., PNAS 2007]. The existence of this phase transition appears to be intimately related to the difficulty of proving precise results on, e.g., the $k$-colorability threshold as well as to the performance of message passing algorithms. In random graph $k$-coloring, there is a precise conjecture as to the location of the condensation phase transition in terms of a distributional fixed point problem. In this paper we prove this conjecture for $k$ exceeding a certain constant $k_0$

Non- and Minimally-Invasive Methods to Investigate Megalithic Landscapes in the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site (Ireland) and Rousay, Orkney Islands in North-Western Europe

The paper summarizes results of an on-going project in the Boyne Valley in Ireland and in Orkney in the north of Scotland. The research of the Romano-Germanic Commission and our partners aimed to investigate the interaction of social, economic, cultural and environmental phenomena in different types of landscapes in a diachronic perspective. Our exploration of the landscapes was based on geophysical prospection, remote sensing and sedimentological analysis, and we adopted a systematic approach that integrated the various approaches in a GIS. In the Boyne Valley large areas were investigated on the periphery of the monuments of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. The field work on the Orkney Islands is focussing on tracing settlement patterns connected to chambered tombs, on the Island of Rousay. The use of a similar research design in both regions produces compound databases, something that is crucial for comparing trajectories of change in Neolithic land use, and in understanding those changes

Identities overseas? The long barrows in Denmark and Britain

Neolithic scholars have debated the significance of similarities between British and south Scandinavian ceramic styles and burial methods since the 1930s. Close parallels in design and practice between these two geographically distant areas have often been interpreted as the result of both direct and indirect contact and exchange. This paper engages with the central issue of this debate by examining contact and identity through the prism of non-megalithic long barrows. Can these structures be understood as a medium through which interactions were negotiated? Could they have been the means of articulating a shared “overseas” identity? In this paper, the various and sundry criteria associated with non-megalithic long barrows (i. e. barrow construction, grave design, grave goods, ritual practices) are qualitatively and quantitatively analysed. The object is not only to assess the levels of similarity between these various  criteria, but also to determine if those selfsame categories can be combined in such a way as to make a British / south Scandinavian collective identity a viable focus for academic pursuit

Effects of processing conditions on the mechanical and water absorption properties of resin transfer moulded kenaf fibre reinforced polyester composite laminates.

This paper focuses on the mechanical and water absorption properties of kenaf fibre reinforced polyester laminates manufactured by resin transfer moulding. Varying processing conditions were considered as alternatives to fibre treatments, thereby potentially avoiding additional cost and complexity in the manufacturing process. Laminates were produced by altering fibre moisture content, mould temperature and mould pressure following injection. Tensile, flexural, impact and water absorption tests were conducted. Processing conditions were found to have little effect on properties except for pressurisation which increased tensile and flexural strength and decreased water absorption at low fibre volume fractions. Examinations using a scanning electron microscope showed that all the laminates failed by fibre pull-out.MvdH2016http://www.journals.elsevier.com/composites-part-a-applied-science-and-manufacturin