Report on Knowledge Exchange workshop Price of keeping knowledge: financial streams for digital preservation

In contrast to cost modeling activities, the pricing of services must be simple and transparent. Calculating and thus knowing price structures, would not only help identify the level of detail required for cost modeling of individual instititutions, but also help develop a ”public” market for services as well as clarify the division of task and the modeling of funding and revenue streams for data preservation of public institutions. This workshop has built on the results from the workshop ”The Costs and Benefits of Keeping Knowledge” which took place 11 June 2012 in Copenhagen. This expert workshop aimed at: •Identifying ways for data repositories to abstract from their complicated cost structures and arrive at one transparent pricing structure which can be aligned with available and plausible funding schemes. Those repositories will probably need a stable institutional funding stream for data management and preservation. Are there any estimates for this, absolute or as percentage of overall cost? Part of the revenue will probably have to come through data management fees upon ingest. How could that be priced? Per dataset, per GB or as a percentage of research cost? Will it be necessary to charge access prices, as they contradict the open science paradigm? •What are the price components for pricing individual services, which prices are currently being paid e.g. to commercial providers? What are the description and conditions of the service(s) delivered and guaranteed? •What types of risks are inherent in these pricing schemes? •How can services and prices be defined in an all-inclusive and simple manner, so as to enable researchers to apply for specific amount when asking for funding of data-intensive projects?Please

A note on the shallow ponds on the gravel ridge of Epping Forest, Essex

In a recent study in Freshwater Forum on Speakman's Pond (also known as Nursery Pond) the impression was given that it had been a permanent water-filled pond which had recently dried out due to exceptionally low rainfall. In fact, Nursery Pond was created by the extraction of gravel and was never more than 50 cm deep, until the creation of trenches in 1989 to provide a refuge for aquatic life. The Nursery Pond followed a seasonal pattern of filling with winter rain and slowly drying out between 1940 to 1970. It had no established aquatic vegetation, no fish, and only rarely amphibians. Permanent water was present only from about 1979 until 1995 due to leakage from a Thames water storage reservoir.

Plankton associated with medusae of the freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbyi (Lankester) in a Thames backwater

Samples of plankton were taken from Broom Water in August 1997 after a sighting of medusae on 11th August. Broom Water is about 8 m wide, and extends 250 m from the main channel of the Thames, above the weir at Teddington. On 11th August medusae were so abundant that it was possible to collect 20 in ten minutes. They were rising to the surface in bright sunlight, then sinking slowly down through the water. Examination of a medusa's tentacles under a microscope revealed the presence of a commensal protozoan, a ciliate Trichodina pediculus. Over 20 species of phytoplankton were found in Broom Water. Most of the species are common and widespread, but it was a surprise to find Errerella bornhemiensis with its characteristic pyramidal colonies, which is a relatively rare species. Zooplankters in Broom Water consisted of Rotifera and Crustacea. Zooplankton is the main food of Craspedacusta and it was found that the crustaceans but not the rotifers did undergo significant changes during the period 11-19th August. The major changes were a big increase in the percentage of cyclopoids, and a marked decrease in Bosmina. This could be because the delicate cuticle of Bosmina is much more susceptible to the stinging cells of the medusae compared with the tougher exoskeleton of the cyclopoid.

The impact of year-to-year changes in the weather on the seasonal dynamics of lakes

Year-to-year changes in the weather have a pronounced effect on the quality of the water abstracted from many reservoirs in the UK. In upland reservoirs, the most common weather-related problem is the appearance of coloured water following dry summers and the re-wetting of peat during the winter (Naden & McDonald 1989; George 2000). In lowland reservoirs, the most serious weather-related issue is the growth of bloom- forming species of algae during warm, calm summers (National Rivers Authority 1989). Both of these problems are likely to get worse as the climate becomes warmer and extreme variations in the weather become more common. In this article, the authors describe some of the ways in which recent changes in the weather have influenced the quality of the water stored in a large reservoir in the south-east of England. The reservoir selected for study is the Queen Elizabeth II (QEII), a bankside reservoir situated in the Thames valley. The quality of water stored in this reservoir is generally very good but summer blooms of algae have become increasingly common in recent years.

Comparative investigation of up-conversion luminescence in Tm3+/Yb3+-codoped germanate-niobic and germanium-bismuth glasses: effect of phonon density on up-conversion emission

Tm3+/Yb3+-codoped gernianate-niobic (GN) and germanium-bismuth (GB) glasses have been synthesized by conventional ruching and quenching method. Intense blue and weak red emissions centered at 477 and 650 nm, corresponding to the transitions (1)G(4)->H-3(6) and (1)G(4)->H-3(4), respectively, were observed at room temperature. The possible Up-conversion mechanisms are discussed and estimated. GN glass showed a weaker up-conversion emission than GB glass, which is inconsistent with the prediction from the difference of maximum phonon energy between GN and GB glasses. In this paper, Raman spectroscopy was employed to investigate the origin of the difference in up-conversion luminescence in the two glasses. Compared with phonon side-band spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy extracts more information including both phonon energy and phonon density. For the first time, our results reveal that, besides the maximum phonon energy, the phonon density of host glasses is also an important factor in determining the up-conversion efficiency. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influence of oxygen partial pressure on the structure and photoluminescence of direct current reactive magnetron sputtering ZnO thin films

The effects of oxygen partial pressure on the structure and photoluminescence (PL) of ZnO films were studied. The films were prepared by direct current (DC) reactive magnetron sputtering with various oxygen concentrations at room temperature. With increasing oxygen ratio, the structure of films changes from zinc and zinc oxide phases, single-phase ZnO, to the (002) orientation, and the mechanical stresses exhibit from tensile stress to compressive stress. Films deposited at higher oxygen pressure show weaker emission intensities, which may result from the decrease of the oxygen vacancies and zinc interstitials in the film. This indicates that the emission in ZnO film originates from the oxygen vacancy and zinc interstitial-related defects. From optical transmittance spectra of ZnO films, the plasma edge shifts towards the shorter wavelength with the improvement of film stoichiometry. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The assessment and exploitation of eel (ANGUILLA ANGUILLA. L) stocks in the River Thames and its catchment.

This is the assessment and exploitation of eel (Anguilla anguilla. L) stocks in the River Thames and its catchment performed by the Polytechnic of Central London and The Thames Water Authority Research Project between April 1985 and April 1986. The report makes an examination of the pre-pollution history of the Thames eel fishing industry to permit an assessment of the recovery of the eel stock following the cleaning up of the Tideway. Archive material shows that the 19th Century stock was larger and more widely distributed than it is today, and the natural recruitment of elvers to the system is now much smaller. Sampling of commercial catches and trapping studies, including comparisons of different mesh sizes, have been undertaken in order to develop a statistical model of the Inner Estuary eel stock and its fishery. Local migrations and activity throughout the year are studied. Electro—fishing methods and eel traps are compared using mark-recapture techniques in order to develop an accurate means of assessing relative abundance and distribution. Work so far has concentrated mainly on the Rivers Darent and Roding but a preliminary distribution map for the whole catchment has been prepared. An experimental trapping site was established on the River Darent to investigate natural recruitment and up—river migration of elvers and juvenile eels. 1790 small eels were taken in 1985 providing information on the scale, timings and factors affecting the migration.

Study of high performance Re-timing using a 40 Gb/s hybrid-integrated mach-zehnder all-optical regenerator

We experimentally show that a hybrid-integrated Mach-Zehnder switch with a high performance gate profile allows retiming of optical signals with an accuracy of 500-700fs even if the input timing jitter is increased to 3ps. © 2004 Optical Society of America.