Science and innovation for catchment management: report of scientific workshop May 2019

The India-UK Water Centre (IUKWC) promotes cooperation and collaboration between the complementary priorities of NERC-MoES water security research. This report represents an overview of the participation, activities and conclusions at a Scientific Workshop, held at Warwick Conferences at the University of Warwick, UK from 8th to 10th May, 2019. The workshop was convened by the India-UK Water Centre and led by Mr Ant Parsons (ALP Synergy Ltd) and Dr Kapil Gupta (IIT Bombay). The three-day workshop aimed to explore and build on existing knowledge and research to enhance collaboration and identify pathways to impact (including relevant NERC-MoES Science), identify gaps in research and innovation that are constraining sustainable catchment management, explore innovative approaches to monitoring and management, and consider the potential for SMART Rivers as part of integrated catchment management. The aims of the workshop were met by bringing together early career researchers, seasoned professors and experienced professionals from India and the UK, who covered a wide range of topics across the themes of climate, water quality, water quantity, and land and catchment management. The following report outlines some common challenges, cross-cutting themes and activities required for improving catchment management, potential solutions to catchment management and shares some of the ideas for new collaborative projects that were developed. The report is intended for the workshop participants, India-UK Water Centre members and stakeholders

Eco-geomorphological processes within grasslands, shrublands and badlands in the semi-arid Karoo, South Africa

Vegetation type and cover play an important role in the operation of geomorphological processes by controlling runoff and sediment dynamics. In drylands, land degradation is particularly sensitive to these eco-geomorphic interactions. Although many geomorphological studies of land degradation focus on the change in hydrological response as a function of vegetation cover, few have investigated how the autogenic response of plants may influence the susceptibility of soil to erosion through a change of soil resources. This study investigates the hypothesis that shrub communities possess greater soil parameter heterogeneity compared with grasslands and assesses how these different scales of heterogeneity can influence the susceptibility of soil to erosion.  Soil samples were taken from seven 60 m × 60 m plots within grasslands, shrublands and badlands situated in the Sneeuberg uplands of the central Karoo. One hundred and eight samples per plot were analysed for bulk density, organic matter, pH, conductivity and available sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. Geostatistical analyses determined that the grassland landscape was largely homogenous in its distribution of soil parameters, whereas shrublands demonstrated an increase in heterogeneity. Periodicity in the semi-variograms indicated that regular patterns across the landscape were evident for all parameters and thus likely to represent the differences between shrub and intershrub regions, areas of high and low erodibility. More pronounced patterns were identified in the badlands. This indicates that, if the conditions are right, changes in plant-soil interactions caused by soil parameter redistribution in shrubland landscapes can exacerbate erosion, leading to further degradation in the form of badlands

Social origins, school type and higher education destinations

To what extent and why do social origins matter for access to higher education, including access to elite universities? What is the role of private and selective schooling? This paper uses the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) to analyse the trajectories of a generation currently in early middle age. We find that the influence of social origins, especially parental education, remains when both a wide range of cognitive measures and school attainment are controlled. Attending a private school is powerfully predictive of gaining a university degree, and especially a degree from an elite institution, while grammar schooling does not appear to confer any advantage

Reading the razor blade: the problematic reception of contemporary French extreme cinema

From the early 1990s onwards, a trend in French cinema took the body, especially the violated body, as the starting point of an engagement with the spectator which moved beyond the traditional ocular relationship between film and viewer and into a more physical mode. The reception of these films has been difficult, for a variety of reasons. In this dissertation we look at how this trend, herein described as Contemporary French Extreme Cinema, has been damaged by its critical reception, by its refusal to occupy understood cinematic spaces, and by censorship. The basis for the analysis herein rests in the phenomenological film analyses of Linda Williams, Vivian Sobchack and Laura Marks, through which we draw a new model for film spectatorship based on an awareness of genre and an understanding of the haptic rapport which these films engender. Analysis of this trend is complex, with a multitude of possible approaches, but this dissertation offers a series of suggestions which will hopefully assist in the navigation of such difficult territory. While it would be imprudent to claim to offer any firm conclusions on a trend that, we argue, might not yet be finished, this dissertation nonetheless suggests where the failures might lie, how these might be reclaimed, and how these films might have influenced French cinema as it stands today

Polymorphism in cyclohexanol

The crystal structures and phase behaviour of phase II and the metastable phases III0 and III of cyclohexanol, C6H11OH, have been determined using high-resolution neutron powder, synchrotron X-ray powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction techniques. Cyclohexanol-II is formed by a transition from the plastic phase I cubic structure at 265 K and crystallizes in a tetragonal structure, space group P�4421c (Z0 = 1), in which the molecules are arranged in a hydrogen-bonded tetrameric ring motif. The structures of phases III0 and III are monoclinic, space groups P21/c (Z0 = 3) and Pc (Z0 = 2), respectively, and are characterized by the formation of hydrogen-bonded molecular chains with a threefold-helical and wave-like nature, respectively. Phase III crystallizes at 195 K from a sample of phase I that is supercooled to ca 100 K. Alternatively, phase III may be grown via phase III0, the latter transforming from supercooled phase I at ca 200 K. Phase III0 is particularly unstable and is metastable with respect to both I and II. Its growth is realised only under very restricted conditions, thus making its characterization especially challenging. The cyclohexanol molecules adopt a chair conformation in all three phases with the hydroxyl groups in an equatorial orientation. No evidence was found indicating hydroxyl groups adopting an axial orientation, contrary to the majority of spectroscopic literature on solid-state cyclohexanol; however, the H atom of the equatorial OH groups is found to adopt both in-plane and out-of-plane orientations

Streambed scour and fill in low‐order dryland channels

Reproduced with permission of the publisher. ©2005. American Geophysical UnionDistributions of scour and fill depths recorded in three low‐order sand bed dryland rivers were compared with the Weibull, gamma, exponential, and lognormal probability density functions to determine which model best describes the reach‐scale variability in scour and fill. Goodness of fit tests confirm that the majority of scour distributions conform to the one‐parameter exponential model at the 95% significance level. The positive relationship between exponential model parameters and flow strength provides a means to estimate streambed scour depths, at least to a first approximation, in comparable streams. In contrast, the majority of the fill distributions do not conform to the exponential model even though depths of scour and fill are broadly similar. The disparities between the distributions of scour and fill raise questions about notions of channel equilibrium and about the role of scour and fill in effecting channel change

Reading the razor blade: the problematic reception of contemporary French extreme cinema

From the early 1990s onwards, a trend in French cinema took the body, especially the violated body, as the starting point of an engagement with the spectator which moved beyond the traditional ocular relationship between film and viewer and into a more physical mode. The reception of these films has been difficult, for a variety of reasons. In this dissertation we look at how this trend, herein described as Contemporary French Extreme Cinema, has been damaged by its critical reception, by its refusal to occupy understood cinematic spaces, and by censorship. The basis for the analysis herein rests in the phenomenological film analyses of Linda Williams, Vivian Sobchack and Laura Marks, through which we draw a new model for film spectatorship based on an awareness of genre and an understanding of the haptic rapport which these films engender. Analysis of this trend is complex, with a multitude of possible approaches, but this dissertation offers a series of suggestions which will hopefully assist in the navigation of such difficult territory. While it would be imprudent to claim to offer any firm conclusions on a trend that, we argue, might not yet be finished, this dissertation nonetheless suggests where the failures might lie, how these might be reclaimed, and how these films might have influenced French cinema as it stands today

Trichloromethyl chloroformate ("diphosgene"), ClC(O)OCCl 3: Structure and conformational properties in the gaseous and condensed phases

The conformational properties of gaseous trichloromethyl chloroformate (or “diphosgene”), ClC(O)- OCCl3, have been studied by vibrational spectroscopy [IR (gas), IR (matrix), and Raman (liquid)] and quantum chemical calculations (MP2 and B3LYP with 6-311G* basis sets); in addition, the structure of a single crystal at low temperature has been determined by X-ray diffraction. ClC(O)OCCl3 exhibits only one conformational form having Cs symmetry with a synperiplanar orientation of the C-O single bond relative to the CdO double bond. The calculated energy difference between the syn and anti forms, 5.73 kcal mol-1 (B3LYP) or 7.06 kcal mol-1 (MP2), is consistent with the experimental findings for the gas and liquid phases. The crystalline solid at 150 K [monoclinic, P21/n, a ) 5.5578(5) Å, b ) 14.2895(12) Å, c ) 8.6246(7) Å, â ) 102.443(2)°, Z ) 4] likewise consists only of molecules in the syn form.Fil: Arce, Valeria Beatriz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino"; ArgentinaFil: Della Vedova, Carlos Omar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino"; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Química. Laboratorio de Servicios a la Industria y al Sistema Científico; ArgentinaFil: Downs, Anthony J.. University of Oxford; Reino UnidoFil: Parsons, Simon. University of Edinburgh; Reino UnidoFil: Romano, Rosana Mariel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino"; Argentin