Fulfilling Lives: Supporting people with multiple needs, Evaluation Report, Year 1

This report is prepared for the Big Lottery Fund (the Fund) by the national evaluationteam and provides emerging findings and lessons learned from the first year of thenational evaluation of the Fulfilling Lives: Supporting people with multiple needsinitiative hereafter referred to as Fulfilling Lives (multiple needs).The national evaluation has been designed to determine the degree to which the initiativeis successfully achieving its aims and how they are being achieved. The evaluation will beboth formative and summative in nature, in that, it will inform the ongoing design and delivery of Fulfilling Lives (multiple needs) and its component projects as well as assessoverall achievements and value for money to inform future decision and policy making.Within this context, the evaluation has a number of objectives:— To track and assess the achievements of the initiative and to estimate the extent to whichthese are attributable to the projects and interventions delivered.— To calculate the costs of the projects and the corresponding value of benefits to theexchequer and wider society. This will enable an assessment of value for money of theprogramme and for individual interventions.— To identify what interventions and approaches work well, for which people, families andcommunities and in which circumstances and contexts.— To assess the extent to which the Big Lottery Fund's principles are incorporated into projectdesign and delivery and to determine the degree to which these principles affect successfuldelivery and outcomes.— To explore project implementation, understand problems faced and to facilitate theidentification of solutions and lessons learned

Spatial incoherence of solar granulation: a global analysis using BiSON 2B data

A poor understanding of the impact of convective turbulence in the outer layers of the Sun and Sun-like stars challenges the advance towards an improved understanding of their internal structure and dynamics. Assessing and calibrating these effects is therefore of great importance. Here we study the spatial coherence of granulation noise and oscillation modes in the Sun, with the aim of exploiting any incoherence to beat-down observed granulation noise, hence improving the detection of low-frequency p-modes. Using data from the BiSON 2B instrument, we assess the coherence between different atmospheric heights and between different surface regions. We find that granulation noise from the different atmospheric heights probed is largely incoherent; frequency regions dominated by oscillations are almost fully coherent. We find a randomised phase difference for the granulation noise, and a near zero difference for the evanescent oscillations. A reduction of the incoherent granulation noise is shown by application of the cross-spectrum.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, MNRAS in pres

Two-Dimensional Helioseismic Power, Phase, and Coherence Spectra of {\it Solar Dynamics Observatory} Photospheric and Chromospheric Observables

While the {\it Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager} (HMI) onboard the {\it Solar Dynamics Observatory} (SDO) provides Doppler velocity [$V$], continuum intensity [$I_C$], and line-depth [$Ld$] observations, each of which is sensitive to the five-minute acoustic spectrum, the {\it Atmospheric Imaging Array} (AIA) also observes at wavelengths -- specifically the 1600 and 1700 Angstrom bands -- that are partly formed in the upper photosphere and have good sensitivity to acoustic modes. In this article we consider the characteristics of the spatio--temporal Fourier spectra in AIA and HMI observables for a 15-degree region around NOAA Active Region 11072. We map the spatio--temporal-power distribution for the different observables and the HMI Line Core [$I_L$], or Continuum minus Line Depth, and the phase and coherence functions for selected observable pairs, as a function of position and frequency. Five-minute oscillation power in all observables is suppressed in the sunspot and also in plage areas. Above the acoustic cut-off frequency, the behaviour is more complicated: power in HMI $I_C$ is still suppressed in the presence of surface magnetic fields, while power in HMI $I_L$ and the AIA bands is suppressed in areas of surface field but enhanced in an extended area around the active region, and power in HMI $V$ is enhanced in a narrow zone around strong-field concentrations and suppressed in a wider surrounding area. The relative phase of the observables, and their cross-coherence functions, are also altered around the active region. These effects may help us to understand the interaction of waves and magnetic fields in the different layers of the photosphere, and will need to be taken into account in multi-wavelength local helioseismic analysis of active regions.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, to be published in Solar Physic

Misleading variations in estimated rotational frequency splittings of solar p modes: Consequences for helio- and asteroseismology

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there are any 11-yr or quasi-biennial solar cycle-related variations in solar rotational splitting frequencies of low-degree solar p modes. Although no 11-yr signals were observed, variations on a shorter timescale (~2yrs) were apparent. We show that the variations arose from complications/artifacts associated with the realization noise in the data and the process by which the data were analyzed. More specifically, the realization noise was observed to have a larger effect on the rotational splittings than accounted for by the formal uncertainties. When used to infer the rotation profile of the Sun these variations are not important. The outer regions of the solar interior can be constrained using higher-degree modes. While the variations in the low-l splittings do make large differences to the inferred rotation rate of the core, the core rotation rate is so poorly constrained, even by low-l modes, that the different inferred rotation profiles still agree within their respective 1sigma uncertainties. By contrast, in asteroseismology, only low-l modes are visible and so higher-l modes cannot be used to constrain the rotation profile of stars. Furthermore, we usually only have one data set from which to measure the observed low-l splitting. In such circumstances the inferred internal rotation rate of a main sequence star could differ significantly from estimates of the surface rotation rate, hence leading to spurious conclusions. Therefore, extreme care must be taken when using only the splittings of low-l modes to draw conclusions about the average internal rotation rate of a star.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

The integral monodromy of hyperelliptic and trielliptic curves

We compute the \integ/\ell and \integ_\ell monodromy of every irreducible component of the moduli spaces of hyperelliptic and trielliptic curves. In particular, we provide a proof that the \integ/\ell monodromy of the moduli space of hyperelliptic curves of genus $g$ is the symplectic group \sp_{2g}(\integ/\ell). We prove that the \integ/\ell monodromy of the moduli space of trielliptic curves with signature $(r,s)$ is the special unitary group \su_{(r,s)}(\integ/\ell\tensor\integ[\zeta_3])

Solar Interior Rotation and its Variation

This article surveys the development of observational understanding of the interior rotation of the Sun and its temporal variation over approximately forty years, starting with the 1960s attempts to determine the solar core rotation from oblateness and proceeding through the development of helioseismology to the detailed modern picture of the internal rotation deduced from continuous helioseismic observations during solar cycle 23. After introducing some basic helioseismic concepts, it covers, in turn, the rotation of the core and radiative interior, the "tachocline" shear layer at the base of the convection zone, the differential rotation in the convection zone, the near-surface shear, the pattern of migrating zonal flows known as the torsional oscillation, and the possible temporal variations at the bottom of the convection zone. For each area, the article also briefly explores the relationship between observations and models.Comment: 91 pages, 32 figures: Accepted by Living Reviews in Solar Physics 10th Feb 2009 Published version http://www.livingreviews.org/lrsp-2009-1 (Updated to reflect publication info and improve fig 27

Solar-Cycle Variation of Large-Scale Flows in the Near-Surface Shear Layer from SC 23 to SC 26

We study the long-term variation of the zonal and meridional flows from Solar Cycle 23 to 26 throughout the near-surface shear layer (NSSL) derived with ring-diagram analysis (RDA) applied to Dopplergrams obtained mainly by Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and compare them with global helioseismic results. We also create super-synoptic maps of the divergence of the meridional and the acceleration of the zonal flow. The bands of decelerating zonal and converging meridional flows of a given solar cycle coincide with the locations of magnetic activity at mid- to low latitudes. They begin their latitudinal migration near 50◦ at or shortly after the maximum of the previous cycle, such as near 2015 for Solar Cycle 25, while the band of fast zonal flow is close to two years ahead of these bands at mid- to low latitudes. The patterns move 5.20 ± 0.29◦/Yr from 37.5◦ to 7.5◦ averaged over both hemispheres during Solar Cycle 25. The zonal-flow patterns vary little with depth throughout the NSSL at 7.5◦ to 30.0◦ where most active regions are present. However, the bands of converging meridional flows appear somewhat earlier at greater depths than at shallower ones. The bands of fast zonal flow of Solar Cycle 25 have reached latitudes near the equator during 2024, which is close to Solar Cycle 25 maximum. A band of fast zonal flow appeared at about 50◦ at the same time and thus indicates the beginning of Solar Cycle 26. The amplitudes of the bands of fast zonal flows are anti-correlated with the strength of the associated solar cycles except close to the equator. The divergence minima are also anti-correlated with magnetic activity, while the acceleration minima are only weakly anti-correlated. With the derived flow parameters, we estimate the timing and strength of Solar Cycle 26 and predict that it will be close to an average sunspot cycle