1,165 research outputs found
Statistics Norway from cell offices to open landscape. A survey from Department of Administration
The Statistics Norway (SN) office relocation survey was conducted from February
4th to 15th, 2013 and covered all administration department employees who
regularly work in Oslo. The survey aimed at investigating employees’ satisfaction
with the current physical environment of the office and their preferences to open
and cell offices. The total number of respondents was 62 of which 42 returned the
questionnaires. The survey shows that a majority of the administration staff were
satisfied with the current physical environment of the office and their preference is
towards cell office design. Key findings include:
Almost half of the respondents travel between 30 and 59 minutes to reach the
office from where they stay
65 percent of the respondents arrive at office before 08:30 am to have enough
concentration, to get off early from work and to avoid traffic during normal
hours
95 percent of the respondents agreed that they can communicate effectively in
the current offices
75 percent of the respondents do not consider their job to be rather unpleasant
More females believe that open offices encourages communication
27 percent of the respondents agreed that closed offices limit knowledge sharing
and 24 percent were not sure
87 percent of the respondents preferred cell office to other types of office design
61 percent of the respondents do not know the type of office they will occupy
after relocation
51 percent of the respondents were neutral on their satisfaction with the role of
the trade unions in the preparation of office relocation
39 percent of the respondents disagreed that they are looking forward to
working in the new offices
42 percent were not looking forward to working at the new location
58 percent of the respondents were aged 50 and above
More than 60 percent of the respondents have been working at SN for 10 or
more year
A comparison of full-spectrum and complex-symbol combining techniques for the Galileo S-band mission
Full-spectrum combining (FSC) and complex-symbol combining (CSC) are two antenna-arraying techniques being considered for the Galileo spacecraft's upcoming encounter with Jupiter. This article describes the performance of these techniques in terms of symbol signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) degradation and symbol SNR loss. It is shown that both degradation and loss are approximately equal at low values of symbol SNR but diverge at high SNR values. For the Galileo S-band (2.2 to 2.3 GHz) mission, degradation provides a good estimate of performance as the symbol SNR is typically below -5 dB. For the following arrays - two 70-m antennas, one 70-m and one 34-m antenna, one 70-m and two 34-m antennas, and one 70-m and three 34-m antennas - it is shown that FSC has less degradation than CSC when the subcarrier and symbol window-loop bandwidth products are above 3.0, 10.0, 8.5, and 8.2 mHz at the symbol rate of 200 sym/sec, and above 1.2, 4.5, 4.0, and 3.5 mHz at a symbol rate of 400 sym/sec, respectively. Moreover, for an array of four 34-m antennas, FSC has less degradation than CSC when the subcarrier and symbol window-loop bandwidth products are above 0.32 mHz at the symbol rate of 50 sym/sec and above 0.8 mHz at the symbol rate of 25 sym/sec
Health financing at district level in Malawi: an analysis of the distribution of funds at two points in time.
There is growing attention to tracking country level resource flows to health, but limited evidence on the sub-national allocation of funds. We examined district health financing in Malawi in 2006 and 2011, and equity in the allocation of funding, together with the association between financing and under five and neonatal mortality. We explored the process for receiving and allocating different funding sources at district level. We obtained domestic and external financing data from the Integrated Financial Management Information System (2006-11) and AidData (2000-12) databases. Out-of-pocket payment data came from two rounds of integrated household budget surveys (2005; 2010). Mortality data came from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2006) and Demographic and Health Survey (2010). We described district level health funding by source, ran correlations between funding and outcomes and generated concentration curves and indices. 41 semi-structured interviews were conducted at the national level and in 10 districts with finance and health managers. Per capita spending from all sources varied substantially across districts and doubled between 2006 and 2011 from 7181 Kwacha to 15 312 Kwacha. In 2011, external funding accounted for 74% of funds, with domestic funding accounting for 19% of expenditure, and out of pocket (OOP) funding accounting for 7%. All funding sources were concentrated among wealthier districts, with OOP being the most pro-rich, followed by domestic expenditure and external funding. Districts with higher levels of domestic and external funding had lower levels of post-neonatal mortality, and those with higher levels of out-of-pocket payments had higher levels of 1-59 month mortality in 2006. There was no association between changes in financing and outcomes. Districts reported delayed receipt of lower-than-budgeted funds, forcing them to scale-down activities and rely on external funding. Governments need to track how resources are allocated sub-nationally to maximize equity and ensure allocations are commensurate to health need
Residual and suppressed-carrier arraying techniques for deep-space communications
Three techniques that use carrier information from multiple antennas to enhance carrier acquisition and tracking are presented. These techniques in combination with baseband combining are analyzed and simulated for residual and suppressed-carrier modulation. It is shown that the carrier arraying using a single carrier loop technique can acquire and track the carrier even when any single antenna in the array cannot do so by itself. The carrier aiding and carrier arraying using multiple carrier loop techniques, on the other hand, are shown to lock on the carrier only when one of the array elements has sufficient margin to acquire the carrier on its own
A search for rapidly pulsating hot subdwarf stars in the GALEX survey
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) provided near- and far-UV
observations for approximately 77 percent of the sky over a ten-year period;
however, the data reduction pipeline initially only released single NUV and FUV
images to the community. The recently released Python module gPhoton changes
this, allowing calibrated time-series aperture photometry to be extracted
easily from the raw GALEX data set. Here we use gPhoton to generate light
curves for all hot subdwarf B (sdB) stars that were observed by GALEX, with the
intention of identifying short-period, p-mode pulsations. We find that the
spacecraft's short visit durations, uneven gaps between visits, and dither
pattern make the detection of hot subdwarf pulsations difficult. Nonetheless,
we detect UV variations in four previously known pulsating targets and report
their UV pulsation amplitudes and frequencies. Additionally, we find that
several other sdB targets not previously known to vary show promising signals
in their periodograms. Using optical follow-up photometry with the Skynet
Robotic Telescope Network, we confirm p-mode pulsations in one of these
targets, LAMOST J082517.99+113106.3, and report it as the most recent addition
to the sdBVr class of variable stars.Comment: 11 Pages, 8 Figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Ram pressure stripping of the cool core of the Ophiuchus Cluster
(abridged) We report results from a Chandra study of the central regions of
the nearby, X-ray bright, Ophiuchus Cluster (z = 0.03), the second-brightest
cluster in the sky. Our study reveals a dramatic, close-up view of the
stripping and potential destruction of a cool core within a rich cluster. The
X-ray emission from the Ophiuchus Cluster core exhibits a comet-like morphology
extending to the north, driven by merging activity, indicative of ram-pressure
stripping caused by rapid motion through the ambient cluster gas. A cold front
at the southern edge implies a velocity of 1000200 km/s (M~0.6). The X-ray
emission from the cluster core is sharply peaked. As previously noted, the peak
is offset by 4 arcsec (~2 kpc) from the optical center of the associated cD
galaxy, indicating that ram pressure has slowed the core, allowing the
relatively collisionless stars and dark matter to carry on ahead. The cluster
exhibits the strongest central temperature gradient of any massive cluster
observed to date: the temperature rises from 0.7 keV within 1 kpc of the
brightness peak, to 10 keV by 30 kpc. A strong metallicity gradient is also
observed within the same region. This supports a picture in which the outer
parts of the cool core have been stripped by ram-pressure due to its rapid
motion. The cooling time of the innermost gas is very short, ~5
yrs. Within the central 10 kpc radius, multiple small-scale fronts and a
complex thermodynamic structure are observed, indicating significant motions.
Beyond the central 50 kpc, and out to a radius ~150 kpc, the cluster appears
relatively isothermal and has near constant metallicity. The exception is a
large, coherent ridge of enhanced metallicity observed to trail the cool core,
and which is likely to have been stripped from it.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS. 11 pages, 9 figure
GDR Feeding of the Highly-Deformed Band in 42Ca
The gamma-ray spectra from the decay of the GDR in the compound nucleus
reaction 18O+28Si at bombarding energy of 105 MeV have been measured in an
experiment using the EUROBALL IV and HECTOR arrays. The obtained experimental
GDR strength function is highly fragmented, with a low energy (10 MeV)
component, indicating a presence of a large deformation and Coriolis effects.
In addition, the preferential feeding of the highly-deformed band in 42Ca by
this GDR low energy component is observed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the Zakopane2004 Symposium, to be
published in Acta Phys. Pol. B36 (2005
Feedback under the microscope II: heating, gas uplift, and mixing in the nearest cluster core
Using a combination of deep 574ks Chandra data, XMM-Newton high-resolution
spectra, and optical Halpha+NII images, we study the nature and spatial
distribution of the multiphase plasma in M87. Our results provide direct
observational evidence of `radio mode' AGN feedback in action, stripping the
central galaxy of its lowest entropy gas and preventing star-formation. This
low entropy gas was entrained with and uplifted by the buoyantly rising
relativistic plasma, forming long "arms". These arms are likely oriented within
15-30 degrees of our line-of-sight. The mass of the uplifted gas in the arms is
comparable to the gas mass in the approximately spherically symmetric 3.8 kpc
core, demonstrating that the AGN has a profound effect on its immediate
surroundings. The coolest X-ray emitting gas in M87 has a temperature of ~0.5
keV and is spatially coincident with Halpha+NII nebulae, forming a multiphase
medium where the cooler gas phases are arranged in magnetized filaments. We
place strong upper limits of 0.06 Msun/yr on the amount of plasma cooling
radiatively from 0.5 keV and show that a uniform, volume-averaged heating
mechanism could not be preventing the cool gas from further cooling. All of the
bright Halpha filaments appear in the downstream region of the <3 Myr old shock
front, at smaller radii than ~0.6'. We suggest that shocks induce shearing
around the filaments, thereby promoting mixing of the cold gas with the ambient
hot ICM via instabilities. By bringing hot thermal particles into contact with
the cool, line-emitting gas, mixing can supply the power and ionizing particles
needed to explain the observed optical spectra. Mixing of the coolest X-ray
emitting plasma with the cold optical line emitting filamentary gas promotes
efficient conduction between the two phases, allowing non-radiative cooling
which could explain the lack of X-ray gas with temperatures under 0.5 keV.Comment: to appear in MNRA
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