Whilst a large body of plot and field-scale research exists on the sources, behaviour and mitigation of diffuse water pollution from agriculture, putting this evidence into a practical, context at large spatial scales to inform policy remains challenging. Understanding the behaviour of pollutants (nutrients, sediment, microbes and pesticides) and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies over whole catchments and long timeframes requires new, interdisciplinary approaches to organise and undertake research. This paper provides an introduction to the demonstration test catchments (DTC) programme, which was established in 2009 to gather empirical evidence on the cost-effectiveness of combinations of diffuse pollution mitigation measures at catchment scales. DTC firstly provides a physical platform of instrumented study catchments in which approaches for the mitigation of diffuse agricultural water pollution can be experimentally tested and iteratively improved. Secondly, it has established national and local knowledge exchange networks between researchers and stakeholders through which research has been co-designed. These have provided a vehicle to disseminate emerging findings to inform policy and land management practice. The role of DTC is that of an outdoor laboratory to develop knowledge and approaches that can be applied in less well studied locations. The research platform approach developed through DTC has brought together disparate research groups from different disciplines and institutions through nationally coordinated activities. It offers a model that can be adopted to organise research on other complex, interdisciplinary problems to inform policy and operational decision-making.

Until now there are no suitable injection moulding machines available for the production of single micro parts, so injection moulders produce big, but precise sprues to achieve the necessary shot weight. Very often over 90 % of the polymer are wasted and this waste can be an important cost factor. Moreover, the big sprue increases cooling time and, along with that, cycle time.To open new dimensions for the minimum shot weight (<0.01 g), IKV, Aachen, Ferromatik Milacron Maschinenbau GmbH, Malterdingen, and Otto Männer Heißkanalsysteme GmbH, Bahlingen, with support of AGA Gas GmbH, Hamburg, have developed a new micro injection moulding machine.The very small amount of plastics needed is plasticised in an electrically heated cylinder and fed into the injection cylinder by a plunger. A second plunger with a diameter of just 2 mm injects the molten material into the cavity. It is driven by an electric motor and a precise linear drive. A central element for the operation of the machine is the nozzle. It is heated electrically and can be cooled down rapidly by injecting liquid CO 2 (TOOLVAC technology). In this way the gate is closed after the injection and the holding phase. The moulded part can be demoulded and a new injection moulding cycle starts. This processing technology reduces the sprue to about 15 to 20 mg.The ability to function of the thermal shut-off-nozzle could be proven theoretically by calculations with the IKV software CADMOULD/MEX. These calculations were verified by temperature measurements on a prototype machine. With the results of these investigations the design of nozzle and mould was optimized. After the injection unit and all the necessary drives and controlling devices have been integrated, the operation characteristics of the machine prototype are analysed.In the next step of the project, the focus is on improving the plasticising efficiency, because the prototype is equipped with a simply electrically heated plastification. For the thermal layout of the plasticising unit the recently developed 3D software SIGMASOFT was used. Moreover, different plasticising concepts are analysed, as there are a ''Weißenberg''-extruder using the normal stress effect or plastification by ultrasonics.Especially the plastification by ultrasonics is a very promising idea for very small amounts of plastics and therefore analysed further. Ultrasonics are used successfully for welding and riveting in plastics processing, as it is fast and neat bondings are produced. A test unit was built to prove the ability to operate as a plasticising device and to optimize the necessary components and processing parameters. The plastification results regarding homogenization and morphology of the molten mass have been evaluated by microscopy.The presentation will give detailed information about the trials and their results of the topics summed up above.

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The range of metadata needed to run a digital library and preserve its collections in the long term is much more extensive and complicated than anything in its traditional counterpart. It includes the same 'descriptive' information which guides users to the resources they require but must supplement this with comprehensive 'administrative' metadata: this encompasses technical details of the files that make up its collections, the documentation of complex intellectual property rights and the extensive set needed to support its preservation in the long-term. To accommodate all of this requires the use of multiple metadata standards, all of which have to be brought together into a single integrated whole.<br><br><i>Metadata in the Digital Library </i>is a complete guide to building a digital library metadata strategy from scratch, using established metadata standards bound together by the markup language XML. The book introduces the reader to the theory of metadata and shows how it can be applied in practice. It lays out the basic principles that should underlie any metadata strategy, including its relation to such fundamentals as the digital curation lifecycle, and demonstrates how they should be put into effect. It introduces the XML language and the key standards for each type of metadata, including Dublin Core and MODS for descriptive metadata and PREMIS for its administrative and preservation counterpart. Finally, the book shows how these can all be integrated using the packaging standard METS. Two case studies from the Warburg Institute in London show how the strategy can be implemented in a working environment.<br><br>The strategy laid out in this book will ensure that a digital library's metadata will support all of its operations, be fully interoperable with others and enable its long-term preservation. It assumes no prior knowledge of metadata, XML or any of the standards that it covers. It provides both an introduction to best practices in digital library metadata and a manual for their practical implementation.

The archival community is presently addressing questions of semantic interoperability, which have been raised by linked open data and the Semantic Web. Current discussions on revisions to encoded archival description (EAD), for instance, are moving from document-based to more database-like element sets to facilitate greater interoperability. But to realise fully the potential benefits offered by such developments, further steps are needed. This article outlines a new experimental schema, which allows collection descriptions to be encoded in a more interoperable manner. Devised for the Collaborative European Digital Archive Architecture Project, it complements the descriptive elements of a collection-level record with more semantically precise metadata components. The schema was devised to form the core of a 'digital ecosystem', a rapidly changing research environment of which archival descriptions form a core part. The advantages of semantic interoperability and the data requirements to achieve it are discussed before a detailed description of the schema itself. The article then suggests some initial ways in which it could be employed to enhance access to collection descriptions, its compatibility with the Semantic Web and standards such as ISAD(G), and how it may be used in conjunction with EAD. The schema has yet to be evaluated in detail in working environments, and so is offered as a heuristic proof-of-concept for community discussion.