Pathway to accountability: A strategic framework for evaluating climate adaptation interventions

A key factor contributing to the success of climate adaptation interventions is the use of government-wide strategic evaluation processes that analyze the impacts of the various adaptation interventions used across government departments. There are currently no overarching strategic policies or frameworks for the cross-governmental evaluation of adaptation interventions in Canada. To find a potential solution to this problem, this study analyzes best practices in evaluation design for climate adaptation and government accountability assessments using a mixed-methodology approach. These methodologies are a literature review, theory-based approach, bowtie methodology, and understanding of jurisdictional issues. The findings are used to develop a scalable and replicable Climate Adaptation Accountability Framework that establishes a process governments’ can use to evaluate whether they are meeting their adaptation commitments. To contextualize this issue in a pragmatic context, the study is centered on the provincial climate adaptation approaches employed by British Columbia in the transportation infrastructure sector

Teaching of Asian mother tongues in Scottish schools : an analysis of their roles in cognitive, social and personal development

Abstract available: p. i-ii

A New Class of Cluster–Matrix Nanocomposite Made of Fully Miscible Components

Nanocomposite materials, consisting of two or more phases, at least one of which has a nanoscale dimension, play a distinctive role in materials science because of the multiple possibilities for tailoring their structural properties and, consequently, their functionalities. In addition to the challenges of controlling the size, size distribution, and volume fraction of nanometer phases, thermodynamic stability conditions limit the choice of constituent materials. This study goes beyond this limitation by showing the possibility of achieving nanocomposites from a bimetallic system, which exhibits complete miscibility under equilibrium conditions. A series of nanocomposite samples with different compositions are synthesized by the co-deposition of 2000-atom Ni-clusters and a flux of Cu-atoms using a novel cluster ion beam deposition system. The retention of the metastable nanostructure is ascertained from atom probe tomography (APT), magnetometry, and magnetotransport studies. APT confirms the presence of nanoscale regions with ≈100 at% Ni. Magnetometry and magnetotransport studies reveal superparamagnetic behavior and magnetoresistance stemming from the single-domain ferromagnetic Ni-clusters embedded in the Cu-matrix. Essentially, the magnetic properties of the nanocomposites can be tailored by the precise control of the Ni concentration. The initial results offer a promising direction for future research on nanocomposites consisting of fully miscible elements

Scenario of Accelerating Universe from the Phenomenological \Lambda- Models

Dark matter, the major component of the matter content of the Universe, played a significant role at early stages during structure formation. But at present the Universe is dark energy dominated as well as accelerating. Here, the presence of dark energy has been established by including a time-dependent $\Lambda$ term in the Einstein's field equations. This model is compatible with the idea of an accelerating Universe so far as the value of the deceleration parameter is concerned. Possibility of a change in sign of the deceleration parameter is also discussed. The impact of considering the speed of light as variable in the field equations has also been investigated by using a well known time-dependent $\Lambda$ model.Comment: Latex, 9 pages, Major change

Present state and future perspectives of using pluripotent stem cells in toxicology research

The use of novel drugs and chemicals requires reliable data on their potential toxic effects on humans. Current test systems are mainly based on animals or in vitro–cultured animal-derived cells and do not or not sufficiently mirror the situation in humans. Therefore, in vitro models based on human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have become an attractive alternative. The article summarizes the characteristics of pluripotent stem cells, including embryonic carcinoma and embryonic germ cells, and discusses the potential of pluripotent stem cells for safety pharmacology and toxicology. Special attention is directed to the potential application of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for the assessment of developmental toxicology as well as cardio- and hepatotoxicology. With respect to embryotoxicology, recent achievements of the embryonic stem cell test (EST) are described and current limitations as well as prospects of embryotoxicity studies using pluripotent stem cells are discussed. Furthermore, recent efforts to establish hPSC-based cell models for testing cardio- and hepatotoxicity are presented. In this context, methods for differentiation and selection of cardiac and hepatic cells from hPSCs are summarized, requirements and implications with respect to the use of these cells in safety pharmacology and toxicology are presented, and future challenges and perspectives of using hPSCs are discussed

Measurement of the tt¯tt¯ production cross section in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of four-top-quark production using proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 is presented. Events are selected if they contain a single lepton (electron or muon) or an opposite-sign lepton pair, in association with multiple jets. The events are categorised according to the number of jets and how likely these are to contain b-hadrons. A multivariate technique is then used to discriminate between signal and background events. The measured four-top-quark production cross section is found to be 26+17−15 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) significance of 1.9 (1.0) standard deviations over the background-only hypothesis. The result is combined with the previous measurement performed by the ATLAS Collaboration in the multilepton final state. The combined four-top-quark production cross section is measured to be 24+7−6 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) signal significance of 4.7 (2.6) standard deviations over the background-only predictions. It is consistent within 2.0 standard deviations with the Standard Model expectation of 12.0 ± 2.4 fb

Measurements of Higgs bosons decaying to bottom quarks from vector boson fusion production with the ATLAS experiment at √=13TeV

The paper presents a measurement of the Standard Model Higgs Boson decaying to b-quark pairs in the vector boson fusion (VBF) production mode. A sample corresponding to 126 fb−1 of s√=13TeV proton–proton collision data, collected with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, is analyzed utilizing an adversarial neural network for event classification. The signal strength, defined as the ratio of the measured signal yield to that predicted by the Standard Model for VBF Higgs production, is measured to be 0.95+0.38−0.36 , corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 2.6 (2.8) standard deviations from the background only hypothesis. The results are additionally combined with an analysis of Higgs bosons decaying to b-quarks, produced via VBF in association with a photon

Measurement and interpretation of same-sign W boson pair production in association with two jets in pp collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the measurement of fducial and diferential cross sections for both the inclusive and electroweak production of a same-sign W-boson pair in association with two jets (W±W±jj) using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed by selecting two same-charge leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with large invariant mass and a large rapidity diference. The measured fducial cross sections for electroweak and inclusive W±W±jj production are 2.92 ± 0.22 (stat.) ± 0.19 (syst.)fb and 3.38±0.22 (stat.)±0.19 (syst.)fb, respectively, in agreement with Standard Model predictions. The measurements are used to constrain anomalous quartic gauge couplings by extracting 95% confdence level intervals on dimension-8 operators. A search for doubly charged Higgs bosons H±± that are produced in vector-boson fusion processes and decay into a same-sign W boson pair is performed. The largest deviation from the Standard Model occurs for an H±± mass near 450 GeV, with a global signifcance of 2.5 standard deviations