The culture of amber in Scotland

The last place most people will associate with amber is Scotland. Yet, it is the place where some of the oldest inclusions (from the Carboniferous) in tree resin have been found. Amber is defined differently by different cultures. Its precise origin is unknown, but is fossilised tree resin and not the sap. Some consider Baltic amber (or succinite) as the only true amber, but most would accept that other fossilised tree resins (such as the amber from the Eocene of the Dominican Republic, or the Cretaceous amber from the Isle of Wight) also exhibit similar properties. It may be surprising to some that the oldest ‘amber’ (also known as middletonite) to have been found with inclusions was found from the coalfields of Ayrshire in Scotland. John Smith published this discovery in 1894, describing the inclusions as parts of coniferous plants and fungi. Although the actual specimens John Smith studied are now lost to science, new research using some of the more modern techniques like 3D X-ray imaging, which looks at opaque amber, may eventually reveal evidence of such inclusions in this type of resin. There are also folklore and traditions associated with amber in Scotland, but, as yet, no sources for any amber (post-Carboniferous). So where has all this amber-lore come from? It was most likely brought by visitors and immigrants from Scandinavia and northern Europe over the millennia. Scotland has had strong historical and commercial links with these Baltic and other northern amber states that is reflected in the place names (such as John O’Groats or Valtos) and language (words like ‘Kirk’ or ‘Bairn’)

Deep time travel: inside the mind of the intrepid palaeontologist as the rocks reveal their tale

When I read Trewin’s introduction I was intrigued by the story line of time travelling in a bus to study prehistory. It brought to mind the book I used to read to my daughter: The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole (1995). After the first few pages it was evident that Trewin has written a book that will very much appeal to the adult reader. He has taken his favourite Scottish fossil localities, built a picture of each landscape and environment at the time the fossils were alive, and brought us on a fact-filled adventure to prehistoric Scotland. We discover the delights of collecting at these classic fossil localities, and are entertained by the sounds, smells and feel of the living fossils from the Devonian to the Jurassic. This book will appeal to the same audience that enjoy Hugh Miller, the famous nineteenth century natural history writer and populariser of palaeontology who wrote The Old Red Sandstone; or,New Walks in an Old Field (1841). Sir Roderick Impey Murchison – the director general of the British Geological Survey in the mid nineteenth century - wrote that Miller’s book “to a beginner, is worth a thousand didactic treatises”. I believe that the same is true of Trewin’s book. Trewin bases his knowledge on facts extracted from publications dating back over 150 years as well as his own researches into the Rhynie Chert, Devonian fishes, as well as Carboniferous, Permian, and Jurassic fossils and palaeoenvironments. It is also apt that Miller and Trewin were both inspired by the fishes of the Devonian Period of the north of Scotland in their pursuit of palaeontological understanding

Occurence and Habits of Somatochlora Incurvata, New for Pennsylvania (Odonata: Corduliinae)

Excerpt: On July 21, 1969, two males and three females of the little-known species Somatochlora incurvata Walker were taken by the author at a tamarack bog in Clinton County, Pennsylvania. The bog, called Tamarack Swamp on the Pennsylvania State Geologic Survey map (15 minute series, topographic, Renovo West Quadrangle) is situated east and southeast of the small village of Tamarack. Three additional males were collected on July 26, 1969, and four females on August 9, 1969. Other individuals, mostly males, were seen on each occasion

Some numerical methods for integrating systems of first-order ordinary differential equations

Report on numerical methods of integration includes the extrapolation methods of Bulirsch-Stoer and Neville. A comparison is made nith the Runge-Kutta and Adams-Moulton methods, and circumstances are discussed under which the extrapolation method may be preferred

Multichannel in a complex world

The proliferation of devices and channels has brought new challenges to just about every organisation in delivering consistently good customer experiences and effectively joining up service provision with marketing activity, data and content. A good multichannel strategy and execution is increasingly becoming essential to marketers and customer experience professionals from every sector. This report seeks to identify the key issues, challenges and opportunities that surround multichannel and provide some best practice insight and principles on the elements that are key to multichannel success. As part of the research for this report, we spoke to six experienced customer experience and marketing practitioners from large organisations across different sectors. In Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success, Akin Arikan (2008) said: ‘Because customers are multichannel beings and demand relevant, consistent experiences across all channels, businesses need to adopt a multichannel mind-set when listening to their customers.’ It was clear from the companies interviewed for this report that it remains challenging for many organisations to maintain consistency across so many customer touchpoints. Not only that, but the ability to balance consistency with the capability to fully exploit the unique attributes of each channel remains an aspiration for many. The proliferation of devices and digital channels has added complexity to customer journeys, making issues around the joining up of customer experience and the attribution of value of key importance to many. Whilst senior leaders within the organisations spoken to seem to be bought in to multichannel, this buy-in was not always replicated across the rest of the organisation and did not always translate into a cohesive multichannel strategy. A number of companies were undertaking work around customer journey mapping and customer segmentation, using a variety of passive and actively collected data in order to identify specific areas of poor customer experience and create action plans for improvement. Others were undertaking projects using sophisticated tracking and tagging technologies to develop an understanding of the value and role of specific channels and to provide better intelligence to the business on attribution that might be used to inform future investment decisions. A consistent barrier to improving customer experience is the ability to join up many different legacy systems and data in order to provide a single customer view and form the basis for delivery of a more consistent and cohesive multichannel approach. Whilst there remain significant challenges around multichannel, there are some useful technologies allowing businesses to develop better insight into customer motivation and activity. Nonetheless, delivery of seamless multichannel experience remains a work-inprogress for many

Multichannel integration evidence from the States and a review of the field

Members of the Henley Centre for Customer Management requested a report on the status of multichannel marketing. The focus of the research examines best practice examples from the United States and a detailed review of the field. The research was conducted over the summer of 2012 and identified over 240 quality articles for inclusion in the review. Using systematic review methodology a number of key themes and respective indicators emerged from the field. Results of the study identified common multichannel platforms, tools that assist management in determining high-quality multichannel decisions, features of consumer behaviour, successful investment decision-making processes, channel optimisation and a review of consumer expectations of a multichannel marketing world

Combustion and Society: A Fire-Centred History of Energy Use

Fire is a force that links everyday human activities to some of the most powerful energetic movements of the Earth. Drawing together the energy-centred social theory of Georges Bataille, the fire-centred environmental history of Stephen Pyne, and the work of a number of ‘pyrotechnology’ scholars, the paper proposes that the generalized study of combustion is a key to contextualizing human energetic practices within a broader ‘economy’ of terrestrial and cosmic energy flows. We examine the relatively recent turn towards fossil-fuelled ‘internal combustion’ in the light of a much longer human history of ‘broadcast’ burning of vegetation and of artisanal pyrotechnologies – the use of heat to transform diverse materials. A combustion-centred analysis, it is argued, brings human collective life into closer contact with the geochemical and geologic conditions of earthly existence, while also pointing to the significance of explorative, experimental and even playful dispositions towards energy and matter. © 2014, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

Studies of the scattering/absorption of minerals

Reflectance spectra were computed for water ice and ammonia ice mixtures as functions of weight fraction, grain size, and viewing geometry to simulate possible outer solar system satellite surfaces. Reflectance spectra of planetary surfaces are most affected by the weight fraction and grain sizes of the minerals in the surface. The reflectance can range from 1.0 to about 0.01 by changing the grain size or weight fraction, a factor of 100. Viewing geometry changes the reflectance by about 25 percent or less