Low-noise microwave polarimeter

Two quarterwave-plate polarizers inserted between rotary waveguide joints transform received signals from arbitrary linear to circular polarizations and then from circular to fixed linear polarizations. Fixed linear polarizations are applied to amplifiers and filters in usual fashion

‘Whole earth?’ using an exhibition to raise sustainability awareness at a UK University

Despite mounting evidence of global environmental stress, many educationalists appear to be discounting warnings of ecological collapse from scientists, futurists and community leaders. One way of promoting sustainability awareness may be to combine cognitive reasoning with emotional awareness. This article considers the complex dynamics relating to attitudinal and behavioural institutional change by exploring the impact of a large-scale exhibition called ‘Whole Earth?’ on the staff and students at a UK university over a 15-month period. The exhibition contained a wide range of powerful visual images and drew on a famous protest song to frame its wider message. Although there were a variety of responses, the exhibition had the overall effect of raising the profile of sustainability across the university. Could initiatives of this kind, which are open-ended in character and which harness the arts to engender an emotional response, offer a model which could be used more widely

Interference between a large number of independent Bose-Einstein condensates

We study theoretically the interference patterns produced by the overlap of an array of Bose-Einstein condensates that have no phase coherence among them. We show that density-density correlations at different quasimomenta, which play an important role in two-condensate interference, become negligible for large $N$, where $N$ is the number of overlapping condensates. In order to understand the physics of this phenomenon, it is sufficient to consider the periodicity of the lattice and the statistical probability distribution of a random-walk problem. The average visibility of such interference patterns decreases as $N^{-1/2}$ for large $N$.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Human-wildlife interactions in conservation translocations: Developing guidelines

Workshop: Reintroductions and rewilding can be powerful tools in biodiversity recovery. We will introduce key Human-Wildlife Interaction issues that take place along the life cycle of a conservation translocation project, from planning to post-exit stages. Participants will be invited to discuss their experiences in HWI related to each of these stages, aiming to expand on findings from the Guidelines to Facilitate Human-Wildlife Interactions in Conservation Translocations (2022) to inform planning and promote wildlife conservation, collaboration amongst groups and coexistence

Developing guidelines for the human-wildlife interactions in conservation translocations

Workshop: Conservation translocation is a widely used management intervention to restore locally extinct or augment severely depleted species. Human dimension issues that influence the achievement of these aims are encountered at five different stages of the project life cycle: 1) Planning, 2) Initiation, 3) Implementation, 4) Ending, and 5) Post-exit stage. Overlooking such dimension may jeopardise the success of the project. Understanding and addressing human-wildlife interaction issues improve community involvement, peers’ acceptance and the support from various interest groups. In this workshop we propose to discuss participants’ experiences in human dimensions related to each of the 5 stages of a project’s life cycle.  Discussions aims to expand on findings from the IUCN/SSC CTSG HWIWG 2022 Guidelines to Facilitate Human-Wildlife Interactions in Conservation Translocations, to identify best practice and key issues for each stage to inform planning and promote wildlife conservation, collaboration amongst groups and coexistence

The fierce urgency of now? Navigating paradoxes in sustainability education

This special section of the IJSHE brings together five papers originally presented at the fifth sustainability in higher education (SHE) conference, “The fierce urgency of now? Navigating Paradoxes in Sustainability Education,” hosted by Canterbury Christ Church, UK, in May 2020. Challenged by the words of Greta Thunberg spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019, our aim was to provide a space to explore the role and responsibility of universities in a time of global crisis and to explore what it means to act as “if our house is on fire”. And then the Covid-19 pandemic struck […] and the focus we had planned took on new relevance. Under lockdown conditions, the conference (and HE more generally) had to move to an online format, and we all found ourselves working in unchartered territory. Although challenging, this opened up unexpected opportunities for colleagues and students from different institutions nationally and internationally to participate, increasing diversity and repositioning the SHE networks as more outward-facing. This apparent contradiction (that is, locking down, opportunities may be opened up) illustrates one of the many apparent paradoxes in the contemporary higher educational landscape

First exit times and residence times for discrete random walks on finite lattices

In this paper, we derive explicit formulas for the surface averaged first exit time of a discrete random walk on a finite lattice. We consider a wide class of random walks and lattices, including random walks in a non-trivial potential landscape. We also compute quantities of interest for modelling surface reactions and other dynamic processes, such as the residence time in a subvolume, the joint residence time of several particles and the number of hits on a reflecting surface.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Dielectric resonances of ordered passive arrays

The electrical and optical properties of ordered passive arrays, constituted of inductive and capacitive components, are usually deduced from Kirchhoff's rules. Under the assumption of periodic boundary conditions, comparable results may be obtained via an approach employing transfer matrices. In particular, resonances in the dielectric spectrum are demonstrated to occur if all eigenvalues of the transfer matrix of the entire array are unity. The latter condition, which is shown to be equivalent to the habitual definition of a resonance in impedance for an array between electrodes, allows for a convenient and accurate determination of the resonance frequencies, and may thus be used as a tool for the design of materials with a specific dielectric response. For the opposite case of linear arrays in a large network, where periodic boundary condition do not apply, several asymptotic properties are derived. Throughout the article, the derived analytic results are compared to numerical models, based on either Exact Numerical Renormalisation or the spectral method.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

The role of zoos in attitudes towards biodiversity and the reintroduction of native wild carnivores to the UK: results from a pilot study

This paper presents preliminary findings from a pilot study involving focus groups and semi-structured interviews with members of the public at three locations in Kent, UK. The pilot study aims to inform a large scale baseline survey of attitudes, beliefs and values towards biodiversity, the focus species (lynx and Pine Marten) and their conservation and reintroduction in the UK

The effects of salivas on occlusal forces

Contacting surfaces of opposing teeth produce friction that, when altered, changes the contact force direction and/or magnitude. As friction can be influenced by several factors, including lubrication and the contacting materials, the aim of this study was to measure the occlusal load alterations experienced by teeth with the introduction of different salivas and dental restorative materials. Pairs of molar teeth were set into occlusion with a weighted maxillary tooth mounted onto a vertical sliding assembly and the mandibular tooth supported by a load cell. The load components on the mandibular tooth were measured with three opposing pairs of dental restorative materials (plastic denture, all-ceramic and stainless steel), four (human and three artificial) salivas and 16 occlusal configurations. All lateral force component measurements were significantly different (P < 0·0001) from the dry (control) surface regardless of the crown material or occlusal configuration, while the effects of the artificial salivas compared to each other and to human saliva depended on the crown material