Urban geology of Swansea: Neath : Port Talbot

The conurbation of Swansea–Neath–Port Talbot is one of the main centres of industrial development in South Wales. A long history of mineral extraction and processing, which stoked the initial growth of the towns, declined during the 20th Century. Many of these former industries have left a legacy of groundwater, watercourse and land contamination. A project funded by the Environment & Hazards Directorate (British Geological Survey) between 2000-2005 used available geological data to determine potential areas of contaminated land and understand the influence of the geology to pollutant pathways (Waters et al., In press a). The study covered 100 km2 of the Swansea- Neath-Port Talbot area (Fig. 2.1) and was aimed at providing data relevant to contaminated land issues, to augment the study by Arup (1997) on earth science information relevant to planning and development for the Swansea-Llanelli district, and look at new methodologies of presenting the data

Displaying the Heterogeneity of the SN 2002cx-like Subclass of Type Ia Supernovae with Observations of the Pan-STARRS-1 Discovered SN2009ku

SN2009ku, discovered by Pan-STARRS-1, is a Type Ia supernova (SNIa), and a member of the distinct SN2002cx-like class of SNeIa. Its light curves are similar to the prototypical SN2002cx, but are slightly broader and have a later rise to maximum in g. SN2009ku is brighter (~0.6 mag) than other SN2002cx-like objects, peaking at M_V = -18.4 mag - which is still significantly fainter than typical SNeIa. SN2009ku, which had an ejecta velocity of ~2000 kms^-1 at 18 days after maximum brightness is spectroscopically most similar to SN2008ha, which also had extremely low-velocity ejecta. However, SN2008ha had an exceedingly low luminosity, peaking at M_V = -14.2 mag, ~4 mag fainter than SN2009ku. The contrast of high luminosity and low ejecta velocity for SN2009ku is contrary to an emerging trend seen for the SN2002cx class. SN2009ku is a counter-example of a previously held belief that the class was more homogeneous than typical SNeIa, indicating that the class has a diverse progenitor population and/or complicated explosion physics. As the first example of a member of this class of objects from the new generation of transient surveys, SN2009ku is an indication of the potential for these surveys to find rare and interesting objects.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Real time calorimetric characterisation of clay – drug complex dispersions and particles

Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) along with attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were employed to investigate the process of adsorption of propranolol hydrochloride (PPN) onto magnesium aluminium silicate (MAS) and to characterise the MAS-PPN particles formed upon complexation. The composition of MAS was confirmed by infrared (IR) spectroscopy and a calcimeter. The calorimetric results confirmed the binding between PPN and MAS at various pHs and temperatures. The overall change in enthalpy was found to be exothermic with a comparatively small entropic contribution to the total change in Gibbs free energy. These findings suggest that the binding process was enthalpically driven and entropically unfavourable (lower affinity) suggesting hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions dominating the interaction. The variation of pH and temperature did not have a great impact on the thermodynamics of the binding process, as observed from the similarity in enthalpy (ΔH), entropy (ΔS) or Gibbs free energy (ΔG). A slight reduction in the binding affinity (Ka) with varing pH and temperature was however observed. SEM/EDX studies showed the occurrence of changes in the microstructural properties of MAS following complexation which may explain the potential of MAS-PPN complexes for controlled drug release promoting pharmaceutical innovation

The Optical-infrared Extinction Curve and Its Variation in the Milky Way

The dust extinction curve is a critical component of many observational programs and an important diagnostic of the physics of the interstellar medium. Here we present new measurements of the dust extinction curve and its variation toward tens of thousands of stars, a hundred-fold larger sample than in existing detailed studies. We use data from the APOGEE spectroscopic survey in combination with ten-band photometry from Pan-STARRS1, the Two Micron All-Sky Survey, and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. We find that the extinction curve in the optical through infrared is well characterized by a one-parameter family of curves described by R(V). The extinction curve is more uniform than suggested in past works, with $\sigma (R(V))=0.18$, and with less than one percent of sight lines having $R(V)\gt 4$. Our data and analysis have revealed two new aspects of Galactic extinction: first, we find significant, wide-area variations in R(V) throughout the Galactic plane. These variations are on scales much larger than individual molecular clouds, indicating that R(V) variations must trace much more than just grain growth in dense molecular environments. Indeed, we find no correlation between R(V) and dust column density up to $E(B-V)\approx 2$. Second, we discover a strong relationship between R(V) and the far-infrared dust emissivity