Development of warm SST errors in the southern tropical Atlantic in CMIP5 decadal hindcasts

SST errors in the tropical Atlantic are large and systematic in current coupled general-circulation models. We analyse the growth of these errors in the region of the south-eastern tropical Atlantic in initialised decadal hindcasts integrations for three of the models participating in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project 5. A variety of causes for the initial bias development are identified, but a crucial involvement is found, in all cases considered, of ocean-atmosphere coupling for their maintenance. These involve an oceanic “bridge” between the Equator and the Benguela-Angola coastal seas which communicates sub-surface ocean anomalies and constitutes a coupling between SSTs in the south-eastern tropical Atlantic and the winds over the Equator. The resulting coupling between SSTs, winds and precipitation represents a positive feedback for warm SST errors in the south-eastern tropical Atlantic.

Dispersal of soil-dwelling clover root weevil (Sitona lepidus Gyllenhal, Coleoptera: Curculionidae) larvae in mixed plant communities

Insect pests that have a root-feeding larval stage often cause the most sustained damage to plants because their attrition remains largely unseen, preventing early diagnosis and treatment. Characterising movement and dispersal patterns of subterranean insects is inherently difficult due to the difficulty in observing their behaviour. Our understanding of dispersal and movement patterns of soil-dwelling insects is therefore limited compared to above ground insect pests and tends to focus on vertical movements within the soil profile or assessments of coarse movement patterns taken from soil core measurements in the field. The objective of this study was to assess how the dispersal behaviour of the clover root weevil (CRW), Sitona lepidus larvae was affected by differing proportions of host (clover) and non-host (grass) plants under different soil water contents (SWC). This was undertaken in experimental mini-swards that allowed us to control plant community structure and soil water content. CRW larval survival was not affected either by white clover content or planting pattern or SWC in either experiment; however, lower clover composition in the sward resulted in CRW larvae dispersing further from where they hatched. Because survival was the same regardless of clover density, the proportion of infested plants was highest in sward boxes with the fewest clover plants (i.e. the low host plant density). Thus, there is potential for clover plants over a larger area to be colonised when the clover content of the sward is low.

Public values and community energy: lessons from the US and UK

This paper examines some of the normative aspects of community energy programmes — defined here as decentralized forms of energy production and distributed energy technologies where production decisions are made as close as possible to sources of consumption. Such projects might also display a degree of separation from the formal political process. The development of a community energy system often generates a great deal of debate about both the degree of public support for such programmes and the values around which programmes ought to be organized. Community energy programmes also raise important issues regarding the energy choice problem, including questions of process, that is, by whom a project is developed and the influence of both community and exogenous actors, as well as certain outcome issues regarding the spatial and social distribution of energy. The case studies, drawn from community energy programmes in both the United States and the United Kingdom, allow for a careful examination of all of these factors, considering in particular the complex interplay and juxtaposition between the ideas of 'public value' and 'public values'.

The long-term safety and efficacy of bilateral transplantation of human fetal striatal tissue in patients with mild to moderate Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is a fatal autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease involving progressive motor, cognitive and behavioural decline, leading to death approximately 20 years after motor onset. The disease is characterised pathologically by an early and progressive striatal neuronal cell loss and atrophy, which has provided the rationale for first clinical trials of neural repair using fetal striatal cell transplantation. Between 2000 and 2003, the 'NEST-UK' consortium carried out bilateral striatal transplants of human fetal striatal tissue in five HD patients. This paper describes the long-term follow up over a 3-10-year postoperative period of the patients, grafted and non-grafted, recruited to this cohort using the 'Core assessment program for intracerebral transplantations-HD' assessment protocol. No significant differences were found over time between the patients, grafted and non-grafted, on any subscore of the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale, nor on the Mini Mental State Examination. There was a trend towards a slowing of progression on some timed motor tasks in four of the five patients with transplants, but overall, the trial showed no significant benefit of striatal allografts in comparison with a reference cohort of patients without grafts. Importantly, no significant adverse or placebo effects were seen. Notably, the raclopride positron emission tomography (PET) signal in individuals with transplants, indicated that there was no obvious surviving striatal graft tissue. This study concludes that fetal striatal allografting in HD is safe. While no sustained functional benefit was seen, we conclude that this may relate to the small amount of tissue that was grafted in this safety study compared with other reports of more successful transplants in patients with HD.

Backtracks: a devised performance

Backtracks aimed to investigate critical relationships between audio-visual technologies and live performance, emphasising technologies producing sound, contrasted with non-amplified bodily sound. Drawing on methodologies for studying avant garde theatre, live performance and the performing body, it was informed by work in critical and cultural theory by, for example, Steven Connor and Jonathan Rée, on the body's experience and interpretation of sound. The performance explored how shifting national boundaries, mobile workforces, complex family relationships, cultural pluralities and possibilities for bodily transformation have compelled a re-evaluation of what it means to feel 'at home' in modernity. Using montages of live and mediated images, disrupted narratives and sound, it evoked destablised identities which characterise contemporary lived experience, and enacted the displacement of certainties provided by family and nation, community and locality, body and selfhood. Homer's Odyssey framed the performance: elements could be traced in the mise-en-scène; in the physical presence of Athene, the narrator and Penelope weaving mementoes from the past into her loom; and in voice-overs from Homer's work. The performance drew on personal experiences and improvisations, structured around notions of journey. It presented incomplete narratives, memories, repressed anxieties and dreams through different combinations of sounds, music, mediated images, movement, voice and bodily sound. The theme of travel was intensified by performers carrying suitcases and umbrellas, by soundtracks incorporating travel effects, and by the distorted video images of forms of transport playing across 'screens' which proliferated across the space (sails, umbrellas, the loom, actors' bodies). The performance experimented with giving sound and silence performative dimensions, including presenting sound in visual and imagistic ways, for example by using signs from deaf sign language. Through-composed soundtracks of live and recorded song, music, voice-over, and noise exploited the viscerality of sound and disrupted cognitive interpretation by phenomenological, somatic experience, thereby displacing the impulse for closure/destination/home.

Storytelling in song: television music, narrative and allusion in 'The O.C.'

Television’s long-form storytelling has the potential to allow the rippling of music across episodes and seasons in interesting ways. In the integration of narrative, music and meaning found in The O.C. (Fox, FOX 2003-7), popular song’s allusive and referential qualities are drawn upon to particularly televisual ends. At times embracing its ‘disruptive’ presence, at others suturing popular music into narrative, at times doing both at once. With television studies largely lacking theories of music, this chapter draws on film music theory and close textual analysis to analyse some of the programme's music moments in detail. In particular it considers the series-spanning use of Jeff Buckley’s cover of ‘Hallelujah’ (and its subsequent oppressive presence across multiple televisual texts), the end of episode musical montage and the use of recurring song fragments as theme within single episodes. In doing so it highlights music's role in the fragmentation and flow of the television aesthetic and popular song’s structural presence in television narrative. Illustrating the multiplicity of popular song’s use in television, these moments demonstrate song’s ability to provide narrative commentary, yet also make particular use of what Ian Garwood describes as the ability of ‘a non-diegetic song to exceed the emotional range displayed by diegetic characters’ (2003:115), to ‘speak’ for characters or to their feelings, contributing to both teen TV’s melodramatic affect and narrative expression.

Evidence for changes in stratospheric transport and mixing over the past three decades based on multiple data sets and tropical leaky pipe analysis

Variability in the strength of the stratospheric Lagrangian mean meridional or Brewer-Dobson circulation and horizontal mixing into the tropics over the past three decades are examined using observations of stratospheric mean age of air and ozone. We use a simple representation of the stratosphere, the tropical leaky pipe (TLP) model, guided by mean meridional circulation and horizontal mixing changes in several reanalyses data sets and chemistry climate model (CCM) simulations, to help elucidate reasons for the observed changes in stratospheric mean age and ozone. We find that the TLP model is able to accurately simulate multiyear variability in ozone following recent major volcanic eruptions and the early 2000s sea surface temperature changes, as well as the lasting impact on mean age of relatively short-term circulation perturbations. We also find that the best quantitative agreement with the observed mean age and ozone trends over the past three decades is found assuming a small strengthening of the mean circulation in the lower stratosphere, a moderate weakening of the mean circulation in the middle and upper stratosphere, and a moderate increase in the horizontal mixing into the tropics. The mean age trends are strongly sensitive to trends in the horizontal mixing into the tropics, and the uncertainty in the mixing trends causes uncertainty in the mean circulation trends. Comparisons of the mean circulation and mixing changes suggested by the measurements with those from a recent suite of CCM runs reveal significant differences that may have important implications on the accurate simulation of future stratospheric climate.

Measuring European real estate investment performance: A comparison of different approaches

The performance of real estate investment markets is difficult to monitor because the constituent assets are heterogeneous, are traded infrequently and do not trade through a central exchange in which prices can be observed. To address this, appraisal based indices have been developed that use the records of owners for whom buildings are regularly re-valued. These indices provide a practical solution to the measurement problem, but have been criticised for understating volatility and not capturing market turning points in a timely manner. This paper evaluates alternative ‘Transaction Linked Indices’ that are estimated using an extension of the hedonic method for index construction and with Investment Property Databank data. The two types of indices are compared over Q4 2001 to Q4 2012 in order to examine whether movements in these indices are consistent. The Transaction Linked Indices show stronger growth and sharper declines than their appraisal based counterparts over the course of the cycle in different European markets and they are typically two to four times more volatile. However, they have some limitations; for instance, only country level indicators can be published in many cases owing to low trading volumes in the period studied.

Convergent structure of multitrophic communities over three continents

Ecological theory predicts that communities using the same resources should have similar structure, but evolutionary constraints on colonization and niche shifts may hamper such convergence. Multitrophic communities of wasps exploiting fig fruits, which first evolved about 75MYA, do not show long-term “inheritance” of taxonomic (lineage) composition or species diversity. However, communities on three continents have converged ecologically in the presence and relative abundance of five insect guilds that we define. Some taxa fill the same niches in each community (phylogenetic niche conservatism). However, we show that overall convergence in ecological community structure depends also on a combination of niche shifts by resident lineages and local colonizations of figs by other insect lineages. Our study explores new ground, and develops new heuristic tools, in combining ecology and phylogeny to address patterns in the complex multitrophic communities of insect on plants, which comprise a large part of terrestrial biodiversity.

The persistent challenge of encouraging public participation in the low-carbon transition

In order to address the growing urgency of issues around environmental and resource limits, there is a clear need to develop policies that promote changes in behavior and the ways in which society both views and consumes goods and services. However, there is an argument to suggest that, in order to develop effective policies in this area, we need to move beyond a narrow understanding of ‘how individuals behave’ in order to cultivate a more nuanced approach that encompasses behavioral influences in different societies, contexts and settings. In this opinion article we therefore draw on a range of our own recent comparative research studies in order to provide fresh insights into the continued problem of how to engage people individually and collectively in establishing more sustainable, low-carbon societies.

On the lack of stratospheric dynamical variability in low-top versions of the CMIP5 models

We describe the main differences in simulations of stratospheric climate and variability by models within the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) that have a model top above the stratopause and relatively fine stratospheric vertical resolution (high-top), and those that have a model top below the stratopause (low-top). Although the simulation of mean stratospheric climate by the two model ensembles is similar, the low-top model ensemble has very weak stratospheric variability on daily and interannual time scales. The frequency of major sudden stratospheric warming events is strongly underestimated by the low-top models with less than half the frequency of events observed in the reanalysis data and high-top models. The lack of stratospheric variability in the low-top models affects their stratosphere-troposphere coupling, resulting in short-lived anomalies in the Northern Annular Mode, which do not produce long-lasting tropospheric impacts, as seen in observations. The lack of stratospheric variability, however, does not appear to have any impact on the ability of the low-top models to reproduce past stratospheric temperature trends. We find little improvement in the simulation of decadal variability for the high-top models compared to the low-top, which is likely related to the fact that neither ensemble produces a realistic dynamical response to volcanic eruptions.

Broker use and the cost of liquidity in commercial real estate investment

Purpose – Commercial real estate is a highly specific asset: heterogeneous, indivisible and with less information transparency than most other commonly held investment assets. These attributes encourage the use of intermediaries during asset acquisition and disposal. However, there are few attempts to explain the use of different brokerage models (with differing costs) in different markets. This study aims to address this gap. Design/methodology/approach – The study analyses 9,338 real estate transactions in London and New York City from 2001 to 2011. Data are provided by Real Capital Analytics and cover over $450 billion of investments in this period. Brokerage trends in the two cities are compared and probit regressions are used to test whether the decision to transact with broker representation varies with investor or asset characteristics. Findings – Results indicate greater use of brokerage in London, especially by purchasers. This persists when data are disaggregated by sector, time or investor type, pointing to the role of local market culture and institutions in shaping brokerage models and transaction costs. Within each city, the nature of the investors involved seems to be a more significant influence on broker use than the characteristics of the assets being traded. Originality/value – Brokerage costs are the single largest non-tax charge to an investor when trading commercial real estate, yet there is little research in this area. This study examines the role of brokers and provides empirical evidence on factors that influence the use and mode of brokerage in two major investment destinations.

Optical dating of quartz from young samples and the effects of pre-heat temperature

The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) signal within quartz may be enhanced by thermal transfer during pre-heating. This may occur via a thermally induced charge transfer from low temperature traps to the OSL traps. Thermal transfer may affect both natural and artificially irradiated samples. The effect, as empirically measured via recuperation tests, is typically observed to be negligible for old samples (<1% of natural signal). However, thermal transfer remains a major concern in the dating of young samples as thermal decay and transfers of geologically unstable traps (typically in the TL range 160–280°C) may be incomplete. Upon pre-heating such a sample might undergo thermal transfer to the dating trap and result in a De overestimate. As a result, there has been a tendency for workers to adopt less rigorous pre-heats for young samples. We have investigated the pre-heat dependence of 23 young quartz samples from various depositional environments using pre-heats between 170°C and 300°C, employing the single aliquot regeneration (SAR) protocol. SAR De's were also calculated for 25 additional young quartz samples of different depositional environments and compared with previous multiple aliquot additive dose (MAAD) data. Results demonstrate no significant De dependence upon pre-heat temperatures. A close correspondence between MAAD data and the current SAR data for the samples tested is also illustrated.

Meta-analysis of the INSIG2 association with obesity including 74,345 individuals: does heterogeneity of estimates relate to study design?

The INSIG2 rs7566605 polymorphism was identified for obesity (BMI> or =30 kg/m(2)) in one of the first genome-wide association studies, but replications were inconsistent. We collected statistics from 34 studies (n = 74,345), including general population (GP) studies, population-based studies with subjects selected for conditions related to a better health status ('healthy population', HP), and obesity studies (OB). We tested five hypotheses to explore potential sources of heterogeneity. The meta-analysis of 27 studies on Caucasian adults (n = 66,213) combining the different study designs did not support overall association of the CC-genotype with obesity, yielding an odds ratio (OR) of 1.05 (p-value = 0.27). The I(2) measure of 41% (p-value = 0.015) indicated between-study heterogeneity. Restricting to GP studies resulted in a declined I(2) measure of 11% (p-value = 0.33) and an OR of 1.10 (p-value = 0.015). Regarding the five hypotheses, our data showed (a) some difference between GP and HP studies (p-value = 0.012) and (b) an association in extreme comparisons (BMI> or =32.5, 35.0, 37.5, 40.0 kg/m(2) versus BMI<25 kg/m(2)) yielding ORs of 1.16, 1.18, 1.22, or 1.27 (p-values 0.001 to 0.003), which was also underscored by significantly increased CC-genotype frequencies across BMI categories (10.4% to 12.5%, p-value for trend = 0.0002). We did not find evidence for differential ORs (c) among studies with higher than average obesity prevalence compared to lower, (d) among studies with BMI assessment after the year 2000 compared to those before, or (e) among studies from older populations compared to younger. Analysis of non-Caucasian adults (n = 4889) or children (n = 3243) yielded ORs of 1.01 (p-value = 0.94) or 1.15 (p-value = 0.22), respectively. There was no evidence for overall association of the rs7566605 polymorphism with obesity. Our data suggested an association with extreme degrees of obesity, and consequently heterogeneous effects from different study designs may mask an underlying association when unaccounted for. The importance of study design might be under-recognized in gene discovery and association replication so far.