Has there been an economic dividend from devolution?

It is now over twelve years since the restoration of Scotland's parliament, after a hiatus of almost three centuries. Sufficient time has therefore elapsed that it is possible to provide some evidence on whether Scotland's economy has indeed performed better under devolution. Thus we look at productivity, GVA per head, employment, and R&D to see if there has been any relative improvement post-1999. Having done this, two of the channels through which devolution may affect these variables will be discussed: the composition of expenditure and policy innovation2. This is particularly timely given that the UK and Scottish parliaments are currently considering proposals which will give further fiscal powers to the Scottish parliament, and the Scottish government is planning to hold a referendum on full independence in the autumn of 2014

A Wideband, Four-Element, All-Digital Beamforming System for Dense Aperture Arrays in Radio Astronomy

Densely-packed, all-digital aperture arrays form a key area of technology development required for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope. The design of real-time signal processing systems for digital aperture arrays is currently a central challenge in pathfinder projects worldwide. We describe interim results of such work; an heirarchical, frequency-domain beamforming architecture for synthesising a sky beam from the wideband antenna feeds of digital aperture arrays.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Enhancement of thrust reverser cascade performance using aerodynamic and structural integration

This paper focuses on the design of a cascade within a cold stream thrust reverser during the early, conceptual stage of the product development process. A reliable procedure is developed for the exchange of geometric and load data between a two dimensional aerodynamic model and a three dimensional structural model. Aerodynamic and structural simulations are carried out using realistic operating conditions, for three different design configurations with a view to minimising weight for equivalent or improved aerodynamic and structural performance. For normal operational conditions the simulations show that total reverse thrust is unaffected when the performance of the deformed vanes is compared to the un-deformed case. This shows that for the conditions tested, the minimal deformation of the cascade vanes has no significant affect on aerodynamic efficiency and that there is scope for reducing the weight of the cascade. The pressure distribution through a two dimensional thrust reverser section is determined for two additional cascade vane configurations and it is shown that with a small decrease in total reverse thrust, it is possible to reduce weight and eliminate supersonic flow regimes through the nacelle section. By increasing vane sections in high pressure areas and decreasing sections in low pressure areas the structural performance of the cascade vanes in the weight reduced designs, is improved with significantly reduced levels of vane displacement and stress

Shrimp and conventional U-Pb age, Sm-Nd isotopic characteristics and tectonic significance of the K-rich Itapuranga suite in Goiás, Central Brazil

The Itapuranga alkali granite and Uruana quartz syenite are large K-rich EW-elongated intrusions, in the central part of the Neoproterozoic Brasília Belt, central Brazil. They are associated with Pireneus lineaments, which cut the regional NNW-SSE structures of the southern part of the belt. SHRIMP and conventional U-Pb data for the Itapuranga and Uruana intrusions indicate crystallization ages of 624 ± 10 Ma and 618 ± 4 Ma, respectively. Three zircon cores from the Itapuranga granite yielded U-Pb ages between 1.79 and 1.49 Ga. Sm-Nd TDM ages for both intrusions are 1.44 Ga and eNd(T) values are -5.1 and -5.7, suggesting the input of material derived from older (Paleo- to Mesoproterozoic) sialic crust in the origin of the parental magmas. Magma mixing structures indicate co-existence of mafic and felsic end-members. The felsic end-member of the intrusions is dominantly represented by crust-derived melts, formed in response to the invasion of Paleo/Mesoproterozoic sialic crust by alkali-rich mafic magmas at ca. 620 Ma. These intrusions are roughly contemporaneous with, or perhaps slightly younger than, the peak of regional metamorphism in the southern Brasília Belt. Their emplacement along the Pireneus lineament suggest a syn-tectonic origin for them, most probably in transtensional settings along these faults

TANGO: Transparent heterogeneous hardware Architecture deployment for eNergy Gain in Operation

The paper is concerned with the issue of how software systems actually use Heterogeneous Parallel Architectures (HPAs), with the goal of optimizing power consumption on these resources. It argues the need for novel methods and tools to support software developers aiming to optimise power consumption resulting from designing, developing, deploying and running software on HPAs, while maintaining other quality aspects of software to adequate and agreed levels. To do so, a reference architecture to support energy efficiency at application construction, deployment, and operation is discussed, as well as its implementation and evaluation plans.Comment: Part of the Program Transformation for Programmability in Heterogeneous Architectures (PROHA) workshop, Barcelona, Spain, 12th March 2016, 7 pages, LaTeX, 3 PNG figure

U-pb detrital zircon data from the paleozoic Sierra Grande Formation, north patagonian massif, Argentina

Fil: Uriz, Norberto J.. División Científica de Geología-Facultad Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La PlataFil: Cingolani, Carlos Alberto. División Científica de Geología-Facultad Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La PlataFil: Chemale, Farid. Laboratorio de Geología Isotópica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Bento Gonçalves 9500, Porto Alegre, BrazilFil: Armstrong, Richard. The Australian National University, Canberra 0200, ACT, Australi

Shrimp U-Pb age and Sr-Nd isotopes of the Morro do Baú mafic intrusion: implications for the evolution of the Arenópolis volcano-sedimentary sequence, Goiás Magmatic Arc

The Arenópolis volcano-sedimentary sequence is located in the southern part of the Goiás Magmatic Arc and includes a ca. 900 Ma calc-alkaline arc sequence made of volcanic rocks ranging in composition from basalts to rhyolites, metamorphosed under greenschist to amphibolite facies. Small calc-alkaline gabbro to granite sub-volcanic bodies are also recognized. The Morro do Baú intrusion is the largest of these intrusions, and is made of gabbros and diorites. Zircon grains separated from one gabbro sample and analyzed by SHRIMP I yielded the mean 206Pb/238U age of 890 +/– 8 Ma, indicating that the intrusion is roughly coeval or only slightly younger than the Arenópolis volcanics. Contrary to the metavolcanics, which are juvenile, the Nd isotopic composition of the Morro do Baú gabbro indicates strong contamination with archean sialic material (TDM of 2.8 Ga and EpsilonNd(T) of –9.7), represented in the area by an allochthonous sliver of archean/paleoproterozoic gneisses (Ribeirão gneiss) which are the country-rocks for the gabbro/dioritic intrusion. The emplacement age of ca. 890 Ma represents a minimum age limit for the tectonic accretion of the gneiss sliver to the younger rocks of the Arenópolis sequence. The data suggest that this happened early in the evolution of the Goiás Magmatic Arc, between ca. 920 and 890 Ma