New direct payments scheme: targeting and redistribution in the future CAP

The Commission has proposed that a revised version of the present regime of direct payments should be rolled forward into the post-2013 CAP. There would be a limited redistribution of funds between Member States. Thirty per cent of the budget would be allocated to a new greening component, which would be problematic in the WTO. Non-active farmers would not qualify for aid; and payments would be capped. Special schemes would be introduced for small farmers, for young new entrants, and for disadvantaged regions.

The monitoring of ecological quality and the classification of standing waters in temperate regions: a review and proposal based on a worked scheme for British waters

This paper reviews the ways that quality can be assessed in standing waters, a subject that has hitherto attracted little attention but which is now a legal requirement in Europe. It describes a scheme for the assessment and monitoring of water and ecological quality in standing waters greater than about I ha in area in England & Wales although it is generally relevant to North-west Europe. Thirteen hydrological, chemical and biological variables are used to characterise the standing water body in any current sampling. These are lake volume, maximum depth, onductivity, Secchi disc transparency, pH, total alkalinity, calcium ion concentration, total N concentration,winter total oxidised inorganic nitrogen (effectively nitrate) concentration, total P concentration, potential maximum chlorophyll a concentration, a score based on the nature of the submerged and emergent plant community, and the presence or absence of a fish community. Inter alia these variables are key indicators of the state of eutrophication, acidification, salinisation and infilling of a water body.

Elevated CO2 enrichment induces a differential biomass response in a mixed species temperate forest plantation

• In a free-air CO2 enrichment study (BangorFACE) Alnus glutinosa, Betula pendula and Fagus sylvatica were planted in areas of one, two and three species mixtures (n=4). The trees were exposed to ambient or elevated CO2 (580 µmol mol-1) for four years, and aboveground growth characteristics measured. • In monoculture, the mean effect of CO2 enrichment on aboveground woody biomass was +29, +22 and +16% for A. glutinosa, F. sylvatica, and B. pendula respectively. When the same species were grown in polyculture, the response to CO2 switched to +10, +7 and 0%, for A. glutinosa, B. pendula, and F. sylvatica respectively. • In ambient atmosphere our species grown in polyculture increased aboveground woody biomass from 12.9 ± 1.4 kg m-2 to 18.9 ± 1.0 kg m-2, whereas in an elevated CO2 atmosphere aboveground woody biomass increased from 15.2 ± 0.6 kg m-2 to 20.2 ± 0.6 kg m-2. The overyielding effect of polyculture was smaller (+7%) in elevated CO2 than in an ambient atmosphere (+18%). • Our results show that the aboveground response to elevated CO2 is significantly affected by intra- and inter-specific competition, and that elevated CO2 response may be reduced in forest communities comprised of tree species with contrasting functional traits.

Differential effects of two fermentable carbohydrates on central appetite regulation and body composition

BACKGROUND: Obesity is rising at an alarming rate globally. Different fermentable carbohydrates have been shown to reduce obesity. The aim of the present study was to investigate if two different fermentable carbohydrates (inulin and b-glucan) exert similar effects on body composition and central appetite regulation in high fat fed mice. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Thirty six C57BL/6 male mice were randomized and maintained for 8 weeks on a high fat diet containing 0% (w/w) fermentable carbohydrate, 10% (w/w) inulin or 10% (w/w) b-glucan individually. Fecal and cecal microbial changes were measured using fluorescent in situ hybridization, fecal metabolic profiling was obtained by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), colonic short chain fatty acids were measured by gas chromatography, body composition and hypothalamic neuronal activation were measured using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and manganese enhanced MRI (MEMRI), respectively, PYY (peptide YY) concentration was determined by radioimmunoassay, adipocyte cell size and number were also measured. Both inulin and b-glucan fed groups revealed significantly lower cumulative body weight gain compared with high fat controls. Energy intake was significantly lower in b-glucan than inulin fed mice, with the latter having the greatest effect on total adipose tissue content. Both groups also showed an increase in the numbers of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus-Enterococcus in cecal contents as well as feces. b- glucan appeared to have marked effects on suppressing MEMRI associated neuronal signals in the arcuate nucleus, ventromedial hypothalamus, paraventricular nucleus, periventricular nucleus and the nucleus of the tractus solitarius, suggesting a satiated state. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Although both fermentable carbohydrates are protective against increased body weight gain, the lower body fat content induced by inulin may be metabolically advantageous. b-glucan appears to suppress neuronal activity in the hypothalamic appetite centers. Differential effects of fermentable carbohydrates open new possibilities for nutritionally targeting appetite regulation and body composition.

Incorporation of a physically based melt pond scheme into the sea ice component of a climate model

The extent and thickness of the Arctic sea ice cover has decreased dramatically in the past few decades with minima in sea ice extent in September 2005 and 2007. These minima have not been predicted in the IPCC AR4 report, suggesting that the sea ice component of climate models should more realistically represent the processes controlling the sea ice mass balance. One of the processes poorly represented in sea ice models is the formation and evolution of melt ponds. Melt ponds accumulate on the surface of sea ice from snow and sea ice melt and their presence reduces the albedo of the ice cover, leading to further melt. Toward the end of the melt season, melt ponds cover up to 50% of the sea ice surface. We have developed a melt pond evolution theory. Here, we have incorporated this melt pond theory into the Los Alamos CICE sea ice model, which has required us to include the refreezing of melt ponds. We present results showing that the presence, or otherwise, of a representation of melt ponds has a significant effect on the predicted sea ice thickness and extent. We also present a sensitivity study to uncertainty in the sea ice permeability, number of thickness categories in the model representation, meltwater redistribution scheme, and pond albedo. We conclude with a recommendation that our melt pond scheme is included in sea ice models, and the number of thickness categories should be increased and concentrated at lower thicknesses.

Rights, symbolic violence and the micro-politics of the rural: the case of the Parish Paths Partnership scheme

In this paper microlevel politics and conflict associated with social and economic change in the countryside and linked changes in rural governance are explored with a focus upon research carried out on a recent rural policy initiative aimed at local 'empowerment'. This acts as a touchstone for a wider theoretical discussion. The paper is theorised within a conceptual framework derived and extended from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and others in order to explore case studies of the English Countryside Commission's Parish Paths Partnership scheme. The micropolitics involved with this scheme are examined and used to highlight more general issues raised by increased 'parish empowerment' in the 'postrural'.

Femtosecond pulse shaping using differential evolutionary algorithm and wavelet operators

Evolutionary meta-algorithms for pulse shaping of broadband femtosecond duration laser pulses are proposed. The genetic algorithm searching the evolutionary landscape for desired pulse shapes consists of a population of waveforms (genes), each made from two concatenated vectors, specifying phases and magnitudes, respectively, over a range of frequencies. Frequency domain operators such as mutation, two-point crossover average crossover, polynomial phase mutation, creep and three-point smoothing as well as a time-domain crossover are combined to produce fitter offsprings at each iteration step. The algorithm applies roulette wheel selection; elitists and linear fitness scaling to the gene population. A differential evolution (DE) operator that provides a source of directed mutation and new wavelet operators are proposed. Using properly tuned parameters for DE, the meta-algorithm is used to solve a waveform matching problem. Tuning allows either a greedy directed search near the best known solution or a robust search across the entire parameter space.

Interpreting Differential Temperature Trends at the Surface and in the Lower Troposphere

Estimated global-scale temperature trends at Earth's surface (as recorded by thermometers) and in the lower troposphere (as monitored by satellites) diverge by up to 0.14°C per decade over the period 1979 to 1998. Accounting for differences in the spatial coverage of satellite and surface measurements reduces this differential, but still leaves a statistically significant residual of roughly 0.1°C per decade. Natural internal climate variability alone, as simulated in three state-of-the-art coupled atmosphere-ocean models, cannot completely explain this residual trend difference. A model forced by a combination of anthropogenic factors and volcanic aerosols yields surface-troposphere temperature trend differences closest to those observed.

MICPA: a client-assisted channel assignment scheme for throughput enhancement in WLANs

The emergence of high-density wireless local area network (WLAN) deployments in recent years is a testament to the insatiable demands for wireless broadband services. The increased density of WLAN deployments brings with it the potential of increased capacity, extended coverage, and exciting new applications. However, the corresponding increase in contention and interference can significantly degrade throughputs, unless new challenges in channel assignment are effectively addressed. In this paper, a client-assisted channel assignment scheme that can provide enhanced throughput is proposed. A study on the impact of interference on throughput with multiple access points (APs)is first undertaken using a novel approach that determines the possibility of parallel transmissions. A metric with a good correlation to the throughput, i.e., the number of conflict pairs, is used in the client-assisted minimum conflict pairs (MICPA) scheme. In this scheme, measurements from clients are used to assist the AP in determining the channel with the minimum number of conflict pairs to maximize its expected throughput. Simulation results show that the client-assisted MICPA scheme can provide meaningful throughput improvements over other schemes that only utilize the AP’s measurements.

Spectral theory of some non-selfadjoint linear differential operators

We give a characterisation of the spectral properties of linear differential operators with constant coefficients, acting on functions defined on a bounded interval, and determined by general linear boundary conditions. The boundary conditions may be such that the resulting operator is not selfadjoint. We associate the spectral properties of such an operator $S$ with the properties of the solution of a corresponding boundary value problem for the partial differential equation $\partial_t q \pm iSq=0$. Namely, we are able to establish an explicit correspondence between the properties of the family of eigenfunctions of the operator, and in particular whether this family is a basis, and the existence and properties of the unique solution of the associated boundary value problem. When such a unique solution exists, we consider its representation as a complex contour integral that is obtained using a transform method recently proposed by Fokas and one of the authors. The analyticity properties of the integrand in this representation are crucial for studying the spectral theory of the associated operator.