Consumerisation in UK Higher Education Business Schools: Higher fees, greater stress and debatable outcomes

For many UK Higher Education Business Schools, the continued recruitment of UK, EU and International students is crucial for financial stability, viability and independence. Due to increasingly competitive funding models across the sector many institutional leaders and administrators are making decisions typical of highly marketised consumer environments. Thus, this paper explores, academics’ perceptions of the impact of consumerisation in UK Higher Education Business Schools. To achieve this 22 Business School academics were interviewed within three UK Higher Education institutions (HEIs) in the North of England. Participants had a minimum of three years teaching experience. Data was analysed using template analysis taking an interpretive approach. The findings indicate that academics perceived the introduction of tuition fees to have been the catalyst for students increasing demonstration of customer-like behaviour: viewing the education process as transactional, with the HEI providing a ‘paid for’ service. It is argued that these changes in UK Higher Education have created tensions between university leaders and academics, creating genuine dilemmas for those with decision-making responsibilities who must balance academic integrity and long term institutional financial viability

Numerical analysis of antenna by a surface patch modeling

A cylindrical dipole antenna is numerically analyzed by the moment method. The surface of the antenna is approximated by triangular patches and the electric field integral equation is used for direct calculation of the surface current distribution. Therefore, the cylinder antenna can be treated in open or closed boundary form. The current expansion functions and the testing functions of the electric field boundary condition are of the triangular type. The surface integrals are numerically solved by a 33-point Gaussian quadrature approximation. The current distribution on a flat plate illuminated by a plane wave and the input admittance of a hollow cylindrical dipole as the near field quantities has been investigated. The convergence of the input admittance against the number of the triangular patches is presented, and the admittance solution is compared with the thin-wire approximation and theoretical results. Finally the CPU time and memory storage size for different numbers of patches are presented. Rapid admittance convergence and few required unknowns per square wavelength are the advantages of surface patch modeling </p

Non Inflammatory Boronate Based Glucose-Responsive Insulin Delivery Systems

Boronic acids, known to bind diols, were screened to identify non-inflammatory cross-linkers for the preparation of glucose sensitive and insulin releasing agglomerates of liposomes (Agglomerated Vesicle Technology-AVT). This was done in order to select a suitable replacement for the previously used cross-linker, ConcanavalinA (ConA), a lectin known to have both toxic and inflammatory effects in vivo. Lead-compounds were selected from screens that involved testing for inflammatory potential, cytotoxicity and glucose-binding. These were then conjugated to insulin-encapsulating nanoparticles and agglomerated via sugar-boronate ester linkages to form AVTs. In vitro, the particles demonstrated triggered release of insulin upon exposure to physiologically relevant concentrations of glucose (10 mmoles/L–40 mmoles/L). The agglomerates were also shown to be responsive to multiple spikes in glucose levels over several hours, releasing insulin at a rate defined by the concentration of the glucose trigger