200,672 research outputs found
A descriptive model of the offence chain for imprisoned adult male firesetters (descriptive model of adult male firesetting)
Purpose: Firesetting has devastating consequences. Although some theoretical efforts have been made to explain firesetting (i.e., a small number of multi- and single-factor theories), little effort has been devoted to understand how deliberate firesetting unfolds across time (i.e., micro or offence chain theories). This research aimed to produce the first descriptive offence chain theory for incarcerated adult male firesetters.Methods: Thirty-eight adult male firesetters—recruited from prison establishments in England and Wales—were interviewed about the events, thoughts and feelings leading up to, surrounding, and immediately following a deliberate incident of firesetting. Results: Using Grounded Theory analysis, the Descriptive Model of Adult male Firesetting (DMAF) was developed documenting the cognitive, behavioural, affective and contextual factors leading to a single incident of deliberate firesetting. Conclusions: New information generated from the DMAF is presented and its contributions to the current evidence base are highlighted. Clinical implications, limitations and future research directions are also discussed
A wildland fire model with data assimilation
A wildfire model is formulated based on balance equations for energy and
fuel, where the fuel loss due to combustion corresponds to the fuel reaction
rate. The resulting coupled partial differential equations have coefficients
that can be approximated from prior measurements of wildfires. An ensemble
Kalman filter technique with regularization is then used to assimilate
temperatures measured at selected points into running wildfire simulations. The
assimilation technique is able to modify the simulations to track the
measurements correctly even if the simulations were started with an erroneous
ignition location that is quite far away from the correct one.Comment: 35 pages, 12 figures; minor revision January 2008. Original version
available from http://www-math.cudenver.edu/ccm/report
How To Model Supernovae in Simulations of Star and Galaxy Formation
We study the implementation of mechanical feedback from supernovae (SNe) and
stellar mass loss in galaxy simulations, within the Feedback In Realistic
Environments (FIRE) project. We present the FIRE-2 algorithm for coupling
mechanical feedback, which can be applied to any hydrodynamics method (e.g.
fixed-grid, moving-mesh, and mesh-less methods), and black hole as well as
stellar feedback. This algorithm ensures manifest conservation of mass, energy,
and momentum, and avoids imprinting 'preferred directions' on the ejecta. We
show that it is critical to incorporate both momentum and thermal energy of
mechanical ejecta in a self-consistent manner, accounting for SNe cooling radii
when they are not resolved. Using idealized simulations of single SN
explosions, we show that the FIRE-2 algorithm, independent of resolution,
reproduces converged solutions in both energy and momentum. In contrast, common
'fully-thermal' (energy-dump) or 'fully-kinetic' (particle-kicking) schemes in
the literature depend strongly on resolution: when applied at mass resolution
>100 solar masses, they diverge by orders-of-magnitude from the converged
solution. In galaxy-formation simulations, this divergence leads to
orders-of-magnitude differences in galaxy properties, unless those models are
adjusted in a resolution-dependent way. We show that all models that
individually time-resolve SNe converge to the FIRE-2 solution at sufficiently
high resolution. However, in both idealized single-SN simulations and
cosmological galaxy-formation simulations, the FIRE-2 algorithm converges much
faster than other sub-grid models without re-tuning parameters.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures (+8 pages, 6 figures in appendices). MNRAS
(updated to match published version
Balancing operating revenues and occupied refurbishment costs 1: problems of defining project success factors and selecting site planning methods
In planning the refurbishment of railway stations the spatial needs of the contractor and of the ongoing business stakeholders have to be balanced. A particular concern is the disruptive effect of construction works upon pedestrian movement. RaCMIT (Refurbishment and Customer Movement Integration Tool) was a research project aimed at addressing this problem. The objective of the research was to develop a decision protocol facilitating optimisation of overall project value to the client's business. This paper (the first of two) presents a framework for considering public disruption in occupied refurbishment using two case studies in large railway stations as examples. It briefly describes new tools which (combined with existing techniques) assist decision making in the management of disruption. It links strategic with sitebased decision making and suggests how public disruption may be treated as a variable to be jointly optimised along with traditional criteria such as time, cost and quality. Research observations as well as current literature suggest that for overall decision-making, opportunities may be lost (under current practice) for minimising joint project cost/revenue disruption, and, for spatio-temporal site decision-making, effective and efficient tools now exist to model both sides of the construction site boundary
Introducing a new technology to enhance community sustainability: An investigation of the possibilities of sun spots
The introduction of the Sun SPOT, Small Programmable Object Technology, developed by Sun Microsystems has been depicted as providing a revolutionary change in cyber physical interaction. Based on Sun Java Micro Edition (ME), this sensor technology has the potential to be used across a number of discipline areas to interface with systems, the environment and biological domains. This paper will outline the potential of Sun SPOTs to enhance community sustainability. An action based research project was carried out to investigate the potential uses of these technologies and develop a prototype system as a proof of concept. The research will compare Sun SPOTs with similar technologies, provide an assessment of the technology, and propose a number of possible implementations of the technology to enhance community sustainability
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