Risk assessments for herbicides applied to roads are limited by the lack of knowledge on the fate and behaviour of the compounds in the urban environment. This study was designed to address this deficiency by quantifying the percentage loss of six herbicides following application to a roadside. Herbicides were applied on two occasions to a 16-m length of roadside and kerb edge. An automatic water sampler was used to collect run-off, draining to a single gulley pot, until 25 mm of rain had fallen. Samples were analysed for glyphosate, atrazine, diuron, oxadiazon and oryzalin, and peak concentrations were 650, 2210, 1810, 390 and 70 micrograms litre-1 respectively. Isoxaben was also applied, but concentrations in run-off were below the limit of detection (10 micrograms litre-1). Herbicide concentrations all followed a similar pattern of rapid decline throughout the first rain event following application, with the majority of loss occurring within the first 10 mm of accumulated rainfall, but compounds of high solubility and low Koc produced the highest peak concentrations. For those compounds of relatively low solubility and moderate Koc, application rate may be an influential factor in determining herbicide loss for these compounds. The percentage loss of the active substances applied differed between compounds, ranging from < 10% to 73%. The ecotoxicological significance of the results is discussed.

Railways have been identified as a potential source of herbicides detected in surface and groundwaters, but there are few data to support this theory. Two studies were undertaken to investigate the fate of herbicides applied to railway trackbeds: a pilot study in a section of a disused, but intact, cutting where runoff and throughflow were sampled from trenches adjacent to the treated area, and a larger scale study on 0.75 km of embankment where surface water from the drainage ditch at the base of the embankment and groundwater were sampled. In the pilot study, peak concentrations of atrazine, diuron and glyphosate (1280, 210 and 15 microg litre(-1) respectively) were detected 6days after treatment (DAT). Oxadiazon, oryzalin and isoxaben were not detected above their limits of quantification. Lower concentrations were detected 81 DAT (10 and 0.8 microg litre(-1) of atrazine and glyphosate respectively). In the larger scale study, herbicides were not detected, in either the surface water or groundwater, at concentrations above the limit of detection that could be attributed to application to the railway. Rainfall volume and depth to sampling point may partly explain the different results obtained from the two studies. The findings are compared with herbicide losses from other 'hard surfaces'.

Precision Teaching (PT) is an evidence based intervention which research indicates is frequently not implemented following training, with few teachers using it in schools after training events. This research, undertaken with 10 schools, explored whether a web-based programme would provide favourable implementation rates and support the fidelity of the programme delivery. The PT programme focuses on word level reading skills and targets blending and segmenting skills rather than whole word reading. The study also measured the impact of the programme on word decoding and sight word reading using the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (Torgesen, Wagner & Rashotte, 2012). Results show favourable implementation rates with 7 of the 10 schools implementing the programme. Full impact data for 34 children show that the programme has a positive impact on decoding (effect size 0.7) and sight word reading skills (effect size 0.6). A timed assessment provides evidence that fluency improved as well as accuracy. Gains were sustained at 2 month follow up.

The water industry in England and Wales has developed over the last century, from small organisations serving local communities to large integrated companies in private ownership, overseen by a government regulator. Asset management practice has developed greatly in the 17 years since privatisation, with companies able to plan their operations and investment as they believe appropriate for the provision of customer services, subject to justifying their plans to the economic, quality and environmental regulators. Investment has flowed into the industry to replace deteriorated assets and to improve the quality of drinking water and rivers. The asset base is complex and, with a replacement value of approximately £231 billion at the 2002–2003 price base index suitable approaches are required to ensure that both the water service and the sewerage service are delivered at the most appropriate long‐term cost. The 2004 UK water industry price review was supported by the introduction of a Capital Maintenance Planning Common Framework to help companies understand and explain their maintenance investment requirement. In this paper, a service‐performance model is proposed to improve managers' understanding of the way in which businesses and the environment change over time, taking account of maintenance and other strategic requirements. Although developed with the water industry in mind, the model is equally applicable to other asset‐intensive industries.

Several studies, both anthropological and archaeological, have drawn attention to the broader social, economic, and political implications of Aboriginal ceremonial activities, as well as highlighted the role of ceremonial involvement as a mechanism of change in Aboriginal Australia (e.g., Altman 1983, 1987; Barker 1976; Bern 1979; Hamilton 1980; Lourandos 1980, 1983, 1985; Myers 1980a, 1980b; Satterthwait 1987; Thomson 1949). The difficulty from an archaeological perspective is to locate demonstrable evidence of these activities.