Strumble-Preseli ancient communities and environment study (SPACES); Sixth report 2007-08

This paper reports the results of field surveys and geophysical surveys in the eastern Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, Wales, together with petrological descriptions of rock samples taken from key outcrops and quarry sites

Neolithic and Bronze Age Pembrokeshire

This chapter tells the story of Pembrokeshire between about 4000 BC and 700 BC, a remote period of more than 3000 years when life was quite different from that of more recent times. It is conventionally referred to as the Neolithic (4000–2000 BC), early Bronze Age (2000–1600 BC), middle Bronze Age (1600–1000 BC), and late Bronze Age (1000–700 BC), although advances in radiocarbon dating over recent decades provide a secure chronological framework that now allows us to talk in terms of specific millennia and centuries. What we present here is a summary based on currently available archaeological evidence that has survived to be described, investigated, studied, and interpreted by prehistorians and other specialists working in related fields. There are no written records to help us in this task; all we have to go on are the lumps, bumps, structures, monuments, deposits, and stray finds that survive in the modern landscape. Some remains, for example the Pentre Ifan megalithic tomb and the Gors Fawr stone circle, are truly spectacular in their form and setting, and have long been recognized as tourist destinations and places for spiritual nourishment through their connections with the distant past. Other sites and finds may seem less impressive, but their contribution to understanding prehistory is no less important

Stonehenge remodelled

We are pleased to present the latest account of the sequence of burial and construction at the site of Stonehenge, deduced by its most recent excavators and anchored in time by the application of Bayesian radiocarbon modelling. Five prehistoric stages are proposed, of varied duration, and related by our authors to neighbouring monuments in the Stonehenge environs. While it may never be possible to produce a definitive chronology for this most complex of monuments, the comprehensive and integrated achievement owed to these researchers has brought us much closer to that goal. It is from this firm platform that Stonehenge can begin its new era of communication with the public at large

Prioritising support for cost effective rare breed conservation using multi-criteria decision analysis

<p>Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR) are threatened by breed homogenisation. Rare breeds may carry important genes that allow breeders to respond to global production challenges including climate change and emerging disease risk. Yet, exploration of approaches to improve cost-effectiveness of investments in farm animal genetic diversity has been limited. We employ multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to investigate how rare breed incentive schemes can be rationalised. A performance matrix was used to assess 19 UK cattle native breeds at risk, in terms of diversity, marketability, and endangerment criteria, and an expert workshop was used to assign weights for prioritisation. The workshop participants suggested that criteria pertaining to diversity, marketability and endangerment should be weighted 30, 20, and 50%, respectively. A principal component analysis (PCA) on the criteria suggested that fewer criteria could be used to characterise breed status but that each criteria node contributed effectively in explaining variation in breed scores. Breed scores from the MCDA model were used in a hypothetical exercise to rationalise monetary investments across the case study breeds. The allocation of the hypothetical breed improvement fund (BIF) revealed that the greatest variation in the allocation of incentives occurred when marketability was weighted highest, while least variation occurred when endangerment received the highest weight. We suggest MCDA can support more targeted investments in diversity by considering the multiple factors that may be driving extinction risk in addition to the cultural and diversity attributes that compliment conservation.</p

Wireless aquatic navigator for detection and analysis (WANDA)

The cost of monitoring and detecting pollutants in natural waters is of major concern. Current and forthcoming bodies of legislation will continue to drive demand for spatial and selective monitoring of our environment, as the focus increasingly moves towards effective enforcement of legislation through detection of events, and unambiguous identification of perpetrators. However, these monitoring demands are not being met due to the infrastructure and maintenance costs of conventional sensing models. Advanced autonomous platforms capable of performing complex analytical measurements at remote locations still require individual power, wireless communication, processor and electronic transducer units, along with regular maintenance visits. Hence the cost base for these systems is prohibitively high, and the spatial density and frequency of measurements are insufficient to meet requirements. In this paper we present a more cost effective approach for water quality monitoring using a low cost mobile sensing/communications platform together with very low cost stand-alone ‘satellite’ indicator stations that have an integrated colorimetric sensing material. The mobile platform is equipped with a wireless video camera that is used to interrogate each station to harvest information about the water quality. In simulation experiments, the first cycle of measurements is carried out to identify a ‘normal’ condition followed by a second cycle during which the platform successfully detected and communicated the presence of a chemical contaminant that had been localised at one of the satellite stations

Can participatory emissions budgeting help local authorities to tackle climate change?

A lack of concerted action on the part of local authorities and their citizens to respond to climate change is argued to arise partly from a poor relationship between the two. Meanwhile, local authorities could have a significant impact on community-wide levels of greenhouse gas emissions because of their influence over many other actors, but have had limited success with orthodox voluntary behaviour change methods and hold back from stricter behaviour change interventions. Citizen participation may offer an effective means of improving understanding between citizens and government concerning climate change and, because it is inherently a dialogue, avoids many of the pitfalls of more orthodox attempts to effect behaviour change. Participatory budgeting is a form of citizen participation which seems well suited to the task in being quantitative, drawing a diverse audience and, when successfully run, engendering confidence amongst authority stakeholders. A variant of it, participatory emissions budgeting, would introduce the issue of climate change in a way that required citizens to trade off greenhouse gas emissions with wider policy goals. It may help citizens to appreciate the nature of the challenge and the role of local government in responding; this may in turn provide authority stakeholders with increased confidence in the scope to implement pro-environmental agendas without meeting significant resistance

One-dimensional and two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis: a tool for protein characterisation in aquatic samples

Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) represents the least understood part of the nitrogen cycle. Due to recent methodological developments, proteins now represent a potentially characterisable fraction of DON at the macromolecular level. We have applied polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis to characterise proteins in samples from a range of aquatic environments in the Everglades National Park, Florida, USA. Sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) showed that each sample has a complex and characteristic protein distribution. Some proteins appeared to be common to more than one site, and these might derive from dominant higher plant vegetation. Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) provided better resolution; however, strong background hindered interpretation. Our results suggest that the two techniques can be used in parallel as a tool for protein characterisation: SDS-PAGE to provide a sample-specific fingerprint and 2D-PAGE to focus on the characterisation of individual protein molecules

Re-Os and HSE in individual base metal sulfide grains: Evaluating micro-analytical procedures using a sulfide reference material

Two Fe-Ni sulfides, resembling the chemical composition of a typical mantle base metal sulfide (BMS), were synthesized and used to test micro-analytical procedures (sample digestion and chemical separation) to determine 187Os/188Os and highly siderophile element (HSE) mass fractions in single BMS grains. The bulk 187Os/188Os and HSE mass fractions of the synthetic sulfides were independently determined after high pressure asher (HPA) digestion and conventional HSE separation (Os solvent extraction and Ir, Ru, Pt, Pd, Re separation via anion exchange chromatography), while the homogenous distribution of HSE was assessed via LA-ICP-MS. Tests were performed following the protocol of Pearson et al. (1998), where sulfides are digested in H2SO4/CrO3 and Os is simultaneously extracted as OsO4. Additional tests were performed adding a pre-digestion step in HBr and/or HCl. The duration and the temperature of the pre-digestion and micro-distillation steps, as well as different chromatographic separations of the HSE were also evaluated. While the majority of the tests yielded 187Os/188Os in agreement with that obtained after HPA digestion, HSE mass fractions show large deviations from the reference content, depending on the used procedure. Such variations are interpreted as the result of incomplete sulfide digestion, Os spike loss, and the possible presence of undigested sub-micrometric platinum group minerals (PGM). Overall, the bulk sulfide HSE mass fractions obtained after HPA digestion are best reproduced (mean deviations ≤10%) using a pre-digestion step in HBr + HCl at 120 °C. This study highlights the need for matrix-matched sulfide reference materials for routine use in laboratories determining HSE mass fractions and Os isotope ratios on single BMS grains. Such an approach is fundamental for comparing and compiling Re-Os ages collected on BMS in many different laboratories. This study also demonstrates that there is need for further testing and for methodological developments/improvement of the analytical procedure(s) used for Re-Os dating and HSE mass fraction determinations in single BMS grains.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe