Public Participation in Resolving Environmental Disputes and the Problem of Representativeness

Dr. Allen, the symposium organizer, reviews recent .efforts to increase public involvement in environmental disputes

Procedures to prevent the occurrence of potentially dangerous situations during the operation of the Mackereth 1-metre mini or short sediment corer

During the 1950s and 1960s, F.J.H. Mackereth developed and published plans for a series of pneumatic samplers for lake sediments. Unfortunately, as the equipment was continually evolving during ensuing research, no user manuals, beyond the original publication, had been produced. Over the last few years there have been a few potentially very serious accidents with the 1-metre corer, which has prompted the authors to carry out a risk assessment. This highlighted two weaknesses in the design and its later developments. They can be corrected simply by checking for screw threads that may have been added to the exhaust port on the mini-corer, and by changing the operating procedure. An A4 nine-page user manual is now available from the authors. A small charge ( pound sterling 10 in 1998) will be made to cover handling costs and postage

Dense H-free graphs are almost (Χ(H)-1)-partite

By using the Szemeredi Regularity Lemma, Alon and Sudakov recently extended the classical Andrasfai-Erdos-Sos theorem to cover general graphs. We prove, without using the Regularity Lemma, that the following stronger statement is true. Given any (r+1)-partite graph H whose smallest part has t vertices, there exists a constant C such that for any given ε>0 and sufficiently large n the following is true. Whenever G is an n-vertex graph with minimum degree δ(G)≥(1 − 3/3r−1 + ε)n, either G contains H, or we can delete f(n,H)≤Cn2−1/t edges from G to obtain an r-partite graph. Further, we are able to determine the correct order of magnitude of f(n,H) in terms of the Zarankiewicz extremal function

Articulated Pose Estimation Using Hierarchical Exemplar-Based Models

Exemplar-based models have achieved great success on localizing the parts of semi-rigid objects. However, their efficacy on highly articulated objects such as humans is yet to be explored. Inspired by hierarchical object representation and recent application of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) on human pose estimation, we propose a novel formulation that incorporates both hierarchical exemplar-based models and DCNNs in the spatial terms. Specifically, we obtain more expressive spatial models by assuming independence between exemplars at different levels in the hierarchy; we also obtain stronger spatial constraints by inferring the spatial relations between parts at the same level. As our method strikes a good balance between expressiveness and strength of spatial models, it is both effective and generalizable, achieving state-of-the-art results on different benchmarks: Leeds Sports Dataset and CUB-200-2011.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

A national UK survey of peripatetic support teams for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disability who display challenging behaviour

Background: The service provision model of peripatetic support teams for people with intellectual disabilities who present challenging behaviour has been well established in the United Kingdom, with a small but growing evidence base. The current context in the UK would appear to indicate an ever-increasing role for such teams, in order to support people in their own communities and reduce the reliance on out-of-area placements. This study sought to establish the current position of such teams within the UK. Method and materials: 46 teams were given the opportunity to complete an online questionnaire regarding the team's day to day functioning. Results: 20 services responded to the survey providing a range of data. The results suggested that the services were mainly targeted towards adults, had a range of working practices and therapeutic orientations, with broadly successful outcomes (albeit self reported). The data would also suggest that this type of provision had diminished in recent years. Conclusions: The implications of the survey are discussed within the context of the current policy in the UK. In particular, the lack of provision for children, the use of evidence based practice and what appears to be a diminishing resource just at the time when it is most needed are explored

Spatial de-correlation of the UTRA-FDD radio channel

For smart antenna deployment in Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) applications the downlink weight vector can be derived from the uplink steering vector, assuming a degree of correlation between these channels. It is shown here that de-correlation between uplink and downlink power azimuth spectrums (PAS) is significant for frequency offsets as small as 5MHz in urban environments. Results reported here are computed from measured data taken within the UTRA (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Interface) frequency band for cluttered urba

Multi-utility service companies: a complex systems model of increasing resource efficiency

Domestic households account for a significant portion of energy consumption and carbon emissions in the United Kingdom. Gains in energy and resource efficiency are undermined by the continuing rise in consumption. A multiutility service company (MUSCo) could enable households to make efficiency improvements through energy technologies and demand management, thus reducing overall consumption. We present a system dynamics model for the domestic energy demand and supply system in the United Kingdom, in which MUSCos compete with traditional utility providers. The market transition toward a leasing contracted service is examined and various potential business models explored