Geology of the Brixton Deverill - East Knoyle district (Wiltshire), 1:10000 sheets ST83NE (Brixton Deverill) and ST83SE (East Knoyle) : part of 1:50000 sheet 297 (Wincanton)

The Brixton Deverill-East Knoyle d i s t r i c t lies at the western endof Salisbury Plain and encompasses the north-western part of the Vale of Wardour. The central part of the d i s t r i c t forms part of a dissected plateau developed on Upper Chalk (Figure 1); this reaches a maximum height of 238 m south-east of Brixton Deverill. In the north-west, there are prominent escarpments capped by the Lewes Chalk on either side of the Wylye valley. In the south, the Mere Fault and associated monoclinal structure play an important part in shaping the landscape. In the west, the chalk rises steeply on the north side of the fault from the clay vale to the south. Between West Knoyle and East Knoyle, the steeply dipping Upper Greensand and Chalk strata give rise to strongly featured ground. The principal drainage in the northern part of the d i s t r i c t is northwards by the River Wylye, the only permanent river on the chalk outcrop and its tributaries. In the south-central area, drainage is eastwards by a series of valleys that coalesce just west of Hindon and ultimately join the River Nadder at Tisbury. In the south, on the clay vale, drainage is southwestwards by tributaries of the River Lodden, and south-eastwards by tributaries of the River Nadder. The lowest point in the d i s t r i c t , c.96 m OD, lies in the southern tract. Soils developed on the Upper Greensand and most of the Chalk are light and w e l l drained. However, s o i l s on the West Melbury Chalk, together with some on the clay-with-flint deposits and Kimmeridge Clay are much heavier and poorly drained. Agriculture is a mixture of arable and pasture, with the latter dominant on the Kimmeridge Clay Vale. There are few woods, with deciduous woods confined mostly to the clay vale and the relatively newly planted coniferous plantations on the Chalk and Upper Greensand. Agriculture is the only industry in the area

Towards The Sustainable City: The Impact Of Transport-Land Use Interactions, Deliverable 6. The Final Report.

Very few transport studies have been able to demonstrate that transport policy measures alone can improve sustainability by reducing fuel consumption and emissions below existing levels. There is therefore an increasing interest in the use of coordinated transport-land use policies, but a lack of understanding of relevant relationships. This research sought to obtain greater insight into these relationships. The main objectives were: (i) to increase our understanding of the impact of accessibility and environmental quality on individuals’ and firms’ location decisions; (ii) to use the findings of (i) to enhance a newly developed strategic transport and land use interaction model; (iii) to use the enhanced model to assess the implications for urban sustainability of the impact of transport policy on location choice; and (iv) to use the enhanced model to assess the relative performance of different combinations of transport and land use strategy. There were two main strands to the work. The first involved the use of a newly developed strategic transport-land use model DELTA/START to test the effects of a range of values for environmental and accessibility coefficients. The tests were based on Edinburgh, and included several combinations of road pricing, fares reductions and light rail, and an alternative land use strategy. The second strand involved a literature review and survey work undertaken in Edinburgh using a stated preference approach to identify values for environmental indicators and accessibility to feed into the model. The survey work of households and businesses was successful in producing values for environmental quality and accessibility. We found that changes in air quality were valued more highly than corresponding changes in noise levels. The survey also revealed some interesting issues that merit further investigation: deteriorations in environmental quality were valued more highly than improvements, there was a greater resistance to increases in council tax beyond current levels than up to current levels and valuations were higher where conditions were worse. The transport strategies were predicted to induce considerable shifts in activity, with city centre populations increasing by up to 20%. However, these substantial changes in activity had relatively small impacts on the transport indicators. The results for the alternative land use scenario showed similar effects. Generally it appears, from the tests involving the strategic transport model that the effects on transport indicators of land use changes, whether induced through transport strategies or imposed through land use planning, are an order of magnitude lower than those of the transport strategies themselves. This is an important policy result since it calls into question how much can be achieved by pursuing coordinated land use and transport strategies

The management of plantar warts - a podiatric perspective

The number of treatments offered for a particular condition is often indicative of the unsatisfactory success rate in curing the problem. This can be demonstrated by the documented plethora of treatments suggested for plantar warts (or verrucae), which range from the traditional to the bizarre — including banana skins, hypnosis and nail varnish. This paper aims to review the problem of plantar warts and take an evidence-based approach, balancing research findings coupled with the authors’ combined 40 years of experience in managing this common problem

New opportunities for public policy

Rural areas ; Rural development

Seasonal Response of Workers of the Allegheny Mound Ant, \u3ci\u3eFormica Exsectoides\u3c/i\u3e (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) to Artificial Honeydews of Varying Nutritional Content

Field colonies of Allegheny mound ants, Formica exsectoides, were tested at monthly intervals throughout the summer to assess their preference for artificial honeydews containing varying compositions of sugars and amino acids. In choice tests, foragers significantly preferred high sugar honeydews early in the season, but shifted in mid-season to a strong preference for high amino acid honeydews. Late-season foragers slightly preferred sugars. When offered in equal concentrations, the honeydew sugar, melezitose, was consistently less attractive to foragers than sucrose. However both sugars were readily fed upon, and appeared to attract ants in an additive fashion. No single amino acid was significantly preferred; however the combination of asparagine, glutamine and serine was highly attractive during the mid-season sampling period. The seasonal switch in forager preference between sugars and amino acids coincides with an increase in the amount of actively growing brood

MCA4climate: A Practical Framework for Planning Pro-Development Climate Policy

MCA4climate is a major new UNEP initiative providing 1 Introduction practical assistance to governments in preparing their climate change mitigation and adaptation plans and strategies. It aims to help governments, particularly in developing countries, identify policies and measures that are low cost, environmentally effective and consistent with national development goals. It does this by providing a structured approach to assessing and prioritizing climate-policy options, while taking into consideration associated social, economic, environmental and institutional costs and benefits. In doing so, it seeks to counter the widely held perception that tackling climate change is costly, highlight the potential developmental benefits of addressing climate change and encourage action to that end

Sex Ratio and Sexual Dimorphism in \u3ci\u3eFormica Exsectoides\u3c/i\u3e, the Allegheny Mound Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

We excavated 66 mounds from 6 populations of Formica exsectoides in Michigan jack pine, collecting sexual caste pupae for sex ratio estimates and measurement of dimorphism. Reproductive caste brood was present in only 37 ofthe 66 mounds, and presence of reproductive caste brood was associated with larger mound surface area. Females were heavier than males, but did not differ from males in energy density. Sexes did not differ in timing or rate of development. Sex ratio estimates based on individual mounds ranged from 1.0 (all male) to 0.08 (female·biased). Four of the six study populations were strongly male·biased, while sex ratio estimates for the remaining populations did not differ from equal investment. While this interpopulation variation may be caused by genetic factors, the equal investment populations were 10· cated in or near patches of clear·cut forest, suggesting that environmental impacts should be investigated