Intertidal biodiversity and physical habitat complexity on historic masonry walls: A comparison with modern concrete infrastructure and natural rocky cliffs.

Maritime built heritage (e.g., historic seawalls) represents an important component of coastal infrastructure around the world.

Development of an international template to support patient submissions in Health Technology Assessments.

Objectives: To develop an international template to support patient submissions in Health Technology Assessments (HTAs). This was to be based on the experience and feedback from the implementation and use of the Scottish Medicines Consortium's (SMC) Summary Information for Patient Groups (SIP).

Methods: To gather feedback on the SMC experience, web-based surveys were conducted with pharmaceutical companies and patient groups familiar with the SMC SIP.

Thermal blanketing by ivy (Hedera helix L.) can protect building stone from damaging frosts.

The impact of plants growing on buildings remains controversial, especially for vulnerable historic walls and ruins requiring on-going conservation. English ivy (Hedera helix L.) can cause considerable damage where it is able to grow into deteriorating masonry, yet in some circumstances it may be protective.

Cool barnacles: Do common biogenic structures enhance or retard rates of deterioration of intertidal rocks and concrete?

Sedentary and mobile organisms grow profusely on hard substrates within the coastal zone and contribute to the deterioration of coastal engineering structures and the geomorphic evolution of rocky shores by both enhancing and retarding weathering and erosion. There is a lack of quantitative evidence for the direction and magnitude of these effects. This study assesses the influence of globally-abundant intertidal organisms, barnacles, by measuring the response of limestone, granite and marine-grade concrete colonised with varying percentage covers of Chthamalus spp.