‘No Solution to the Immediate Crisis’: The Uncertain Political Economy of Energy Conservation in 1970s Britain

This article traces one aspect of Britain's approach to the political economy of energy conservation. It focuses on the forecasting work of Royal Dutch Shell and the deliberations of the Heath government. In the late 1960s, the oil major Shell predicted that oil-producing states would impose an embargo on oil-consuming states. Energy conservation policies would be necessary. In tracing the reception of Shell's ‘crisis’ scenario and its proposed resolution, this article details how these ideas were received by Edward Heath's Conservative government, particularly its ‘think-tank’, the Central Policy Review Staff. In the short term, interventionist policies were proposed so as to demonstrate Britain's ability to operate without ever-increasing oil consumption, while in the long term the idea was that the energy-saving capacities of a freely-operating market could address the problem. The article recounts the confusion these proposed conservation policies provoked, and how the second idea gradually coalesced and ultimately outlasted the Heath government, providing one justification for the eventual privatisation of Britain's formerly nationalised energy industries

Thermal expansion of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg-chain compound Cu(C4_4H4_4N2_2)(NO3_3)2_2

Compounds containing magnetic subsystems representing simple model spin systems with weak magnetic coupling constants are ideal candidates to test theoretical predictions for the generic behavior close to quantum phase transitions. We present measurements of the thermal expansion and magnetostriction of the spin-1/2-chain compound copper pyrazine dinitrate Cu(C$_4$H$_4$N$_2$)(NO$_3$)$_2$. Of particular interest is the low-temperature thermal expansion close to the saturation field $H_c \simeq 13.9 \mathrm{T}$, which defines a quantum phase transition from the gapless Luttinger liquid state to the fully saturated state with a finite excitation gap. We observe a sign change of the thermal expansion for the different ground states, and at the quantum critical point $H_c$ the low-temperature expansion approaches a $1/\sqrt{T}$ divergence. Thus, our data agree very well with the expected quantum critical behaviour.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the ICM 09 held in Karlsruhe, German

Price Formation under Small Numbers Competition: Evidence from Land Auctions in Singapore

This paper examines the price formation process under small numbers competition using data from Singapore land auctions. The theory predicts that bid prices are less than the zero-profit asset value in these first-price sealed-bid auctions. The model also shows that expected sales price increases with the number of bidders both because each bidder has an incentive to offer a higher price and because of a greater likelihood that a high-value bidder is present. The empirical estimates are consistent with auction theory and show that the standard land attributes are reflected in auction prices as expected. Working Paper No. 04-0

Understanding evidence-based thermal care in the low birth weight neonate: Part 1: An overview of principles and current practice

Neonates are at a high risk of temperature loss. Those born at less than 30 weeks' gestation should be placed in a plastic bag or wrapped immediately at birth, drying the head and putting on a hat, while maintaining routine precautions, such as warming the delivery room, pre-warming surfaces and eliminating draughts. Environmental humidity greater than 50 per cent is required, with up to 85 per cent for extreme prematurity, subject to individual assessment. Using regular or, ideally, continuous monitoring, the child's central (core) body temperature should be maintained at 36.7-37.3 degrees C with a core-peripheral difference, if measured, of 0.5-1 degrees C. Stabilised newborns can be transferred from an incubator into an unheated bassinet or open cot at an optimum weight of > 1.6kg, however individual assessment of each neonate is essential before transferring out of the incubator. In the absence of sufficient research, fully evidence-based recommendations cannot be made and individual unit protocols should be followed with careful clinical judgement. In resource-limited settings--in developing countries around the globe, for example--staff should be trained in simple resuscitation techniques, with keeping newborns warm as a key objective.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

b anti-b Higgs production at the LHC: Yukawa corrections and the leading Landau singularity

At tree-level Higgs production in association with a b-quark pair proceeds through the small Yukawa bottom coupling in the Standard Model. Even in the limit where this coupling vanishes, electroweak one-loop effects, through the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling in particular, can still trigger this reaction. This contribution is small for Higgs masses around 120GeV but it quickly picks up for higher Higgs masses especially because the one-loop amplitude develops a leading Landau singularity and new thresholds open up. These effects can be viewed as the production of a pair of top quarks which rescatter to give rise to Higgs production through WW fusion. We study the leading Landau singularity in detail. Since this singularity is not integrable when the one-loop amplitude is squared, we regulate the cross section by taking into account the width of the internal top and W particles. This requires that we extend the usual box one-loop function to the case of imaginary masses. We show how this can be implemented analytically in our case. We study in some detail the cross section at the LHC as a function of the Higgs mass and show how some distributions can be drastically affected compared to the tree-level result.Comment: 48 pages, 20 figures. Phys.Rev.D accepted version. Conclusions unchanged, minor changes and references adde

Catholics in a changing Scotland: the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, 1878-1965

Between 1878 and 1965, the Catholic Church in Scotland changed from a small, reclusive and relatively unassertive community to become a force to be reckoned with in social and political terms. The thesis (the first to be based on a thorough examination of the episcopal correspondence of St Andrews and Edinburgh 1878-1965 held in the Scottish Catholic Archives, Edinburgh), argues that this change was caused by the combination of two momentous but unexpected and unconnected events in the 1850s and after — first, the arrival in Scotland of large numbers of economic migrants from Ireland (most of them Catholics) and second, the conversion (through the influence of John Henry Newman) of influential members of the Scottish aristocracy. The former were mainly confined to what is today the geographically small but very densely populated province of Glasgow, the latter, to the geographically more extensive province of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where Irish migrants, much fewer in numbers, integrated more successfully. While Irish migration has been extensively studied by scholars, the conversion of the aristocracy has, with some notable exceptions, remained unappreciated. The thesis contends that it was principally the simultaneous impact of these two phenomena which accounted for the development of the Catholic community in modern Scotland; that it was not only the critical mass of migrants which gave the Catholic Church political leverage but also the networking skills and the funds ofthe convert elites. Other changes in the Catholic Church were subsumed into this larger picture: the role of the clergy was transformed from a pastoral one in 1886 to a combative one in the 1930s and 1940s, while at the same time shifting vis-a-vis the laity (who were themselves moving from subjugation to co-responsibility). The thesis, however, deals not only with the secular clergy but also with the activities of religious orders — the important national provincial Council of Fort Augustus (1886), for example, and the consecration in 1929 of the dynamic Benedictine Abbot Andrew J. McDonald as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. By 1918, the virtual collapse of the Catholic school system played into the hands of the government; the resulting financial compromise was mutually beneficial but its price (while it affirmed the Catholic community by providing the educational tools for better employment opportunities), was the loss of autonomy and control. After a series of financial scandals in the 1880s and other examples of mismanagement in the first two decades of the twentieth century, episcopal and parish finances gradually recovered as stricter safeguards were imposed. Between the first and second Vatican Councils a sea-change is visible, not only in the relationship between pope and bishop but also between clergy and laity. The pressure of social and political events 11 gradually transformed the hierarchical pyramid that was the Catholic Church of 1878 into the more egalitarian model of the People of God as embraced in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council

THREE NEW NEPENTHES FROM SULAWESI TENGAH

Three new high mountain forest taxa of Nepenthaceae are described from Central Sulawesi. The new species are Nepenthes glabratus, N. hamatus and N. infundibuliformis. Existing material at Herbarium Bogoriense indicated that all three are widespread in Central Sulawes

Towards Ecologically Sustainable Management of the Torres Strait Prawn Fishery. CRC Torres Strait Task T1.5 – Final Report

This publication, which is the final report to the Torres Strait Cooperative Research Centre, provides an overview of all the research that was conducted as part of the Torres Strait CRC Task 1.5 - Towards Ecologically Sustainable Management of the Torres Strait Prawn Fishery The objectives of the task were: To develop cost-effective protocols to monitor and quantify the bycatch and environmental impacts of commercial prawn trawling. To monitor the status of target species using both fishery dependent and fishery independent data. To develop biological reference points for target species and undertake management strategy evaluation, in particular a risk assessment of fishing at various levels of fishing mortality. This report focuses on the second component of objective 1 and details a comparative analysis of bycatch samples collected from areas of the Torres Strait that were both closed and open to prawn trawl fishing. The report also reviews the research conducted in relation to objectives 2 and 3 which are detailed in a separate report, Stock Assessment of the Torres Strait Tiger Prawn Fishery (Penaeus esculentus)