Contributions of LANDSAT to natural resource protection and future recreational development in the state of West Virginia

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Investigation of Noise Field and Velocity Profiles of an Afterburning Engine

Sound pressure levels, frequency spectrum, and jet velocity profiles are presented for an engine-afterburner combination at various values of afterburner fuel - air ratio. At the high fuel-air ratios, severe low-frequency resonance was encountered which represented more than half the total energy in the sound spectrum. At similar thrust conditions, lower sound pressure levels were obtained from a current fighter air craft with a different afterburner configuration. The lower sound pressure levels are attributed to resonance-free afterburner operation and thereby indicate the importance of acoustic considerations in afterburner design

Academic citizenship and wellbeing: An exploratory cross-cultural study of South African and Swedish academic perceptions

Academic citizenship is, conceptually speaking, closely related to organisational citizenship behaviour, as both concepts can be regarded as consisting essentially of personal co-worker and organisational support behaviours. Academics across the world operate in widely divergent settings in different socioeconomic and political situations and higher education environments. Such differing circumstances might be expected to have a bearing on the priorities that academics face in different countries and the ways academic citizenship is understood. This paper uses a mixed methods approach to analyse perceptions of academic citizenship and employee well-being in one Swedish and one South African university which operate in starkly different socioeconomic circumstances. The findings of the exploratory study suggest that despite wide-ranging differences in socioeconomic environments between the two countries, there is a high degree of common understanding of the form and substance of academic citizenship and its bearing on well-being. Key words Academic citizenship, organisational citizenship behaviour, South African and Swedish universities, well-bein

Three phase integrated load and harmonic flows.

This thesis investigates two algorithms for the steady state analysis of HVDC convertor plant. The first is an already well established frequency domain technique, known as IHA (Iterative Harmonic Analysis), and the investigation centres on the nature of the algorithm under divergent conditions. In particular, a mathematical analysis of the algorithm is used to prove that divergence of the algorithm is not necessarily indicative of a physical harmonic instability. The second algorithm is developed to exploit the IHA technique within the context of the three phase a.c.-d.c. loadflow as an alternative convertor model which incorporates (rather than ignores) the effects of harmonics. The resulting three phase integrated load and harmonic flow algorithm is a significant improvement on the existing single phase load & harmonic flow algorithms. Finally, the integrated algorithm is applied to two test systems drawn from the New Zealand primary network, and is shown to be a significant improvement over the IRA algorithm alone, resolving the inconsistencies which exist between the fundamental frequency and harmonic models of the convertor

Field dependence of the vortex core size in a multi-band superconductor

The magnetic field dependence of the vortex core size in the multi-band superconductor NbSe2 has been determined from muon spin rotation measurements. The spatially extended nature of the quasiparticle core states associated with the smaller gap leads to a rapid field-induced shrinkage of the core size at low fields, while the more tightly bound nature of the states associated with the larger gap leads to a field-independent core size for fields greater than 4 kOe. A simple model is proposed for the density of delocalized core states that establishes a direct relationship between the field-induced reduction of the vortex core size and the corresponding enhancement of the electronic thermal conductivity. We show that this model accurately describes both NbSe2 and the single-band superconductor V3Si.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Version accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Improving student support in professional placement learning: findings from the South west peninsula pilot of a new english national placement quality assurance and enhancement process.

English stakeholder collaboration has resulted in a new quality assurance process for non-medical health and social care placement providers and higher education institutions. This study aimed to discover the impact on student support that taking part in a pilot had on participating placement areas. Using a questionnaire survey with longitudinal follow-up one year later, we found that placement staff valued the opportunity to review and improve student support practices. This was still in evidence a year later where the pilot was described as giving the opportunity to provide evidence of aspects of student support practice; communicating and changing or developing aspects of that practice. Benefits accrued from interdisciplinary working in sharing and collaborating with other professions and organisations. Such activity could enhance clinical support staff activities and facilitate strategic partnerships between placement providers and higher education institutions

Labour supply and skills demands in fashion retailing

If, as Adam Smith once famously suggested, Britain was a nation of shopkeepers then it is now a nation of shopworkers. Retail is now a significant part of the UK economy, accounting for £256 billion in sales and one-third of all consumer spending (Skillsmart, 2007). It is the largest private sector employer in the UK, employing 3m workers, or 1 in 10 of the working population. For future job creation in the UK economy retail is also similarly prominent and the sector is expected to create a further 250,000 jobs to 2014 (Skillsmart, 2007). The centrality of retail to economic success and job creation is apparent in other advanced economies. For example, within the US, retail sales is the occupation with the largest projected job growth in the period 2004-2014 (Gatta et al., 2009) and in Australia retail accounts for 1 in 6 workers (Buchanan et al., 2003). Within the UK these workers are employed in approximately 290,000 businesses, encompassing large and small organizations and also a number of sub-sectors. This variance suggests that retail should not be regarded as homogenous in its labour demands. Hart et al. (2007) note how skill requirements and the types of workers employed may differ across the sector. This chapter further opens up this point, providing an analysis of the labour supply and skills demands for the sub-sectors of clothing, footwear and leather goods, which are described by Skillsmart (2007: 48) as being 'significant categories in UK retailing'

The Johnson-Segalman model with a diffusion term in Couette flow

We study the Johnson-Segalman (JS) model as a paradigm for some complex fluids which are observed to phase separate, or ``shear-band'' in flow. We analyze the behavior of this model in cylindrical Couette flow and demonstrate the history dependence inherent in the local JS model. We add a simple gradient term to the stress dynamics and demonstrate how this term breaks the degeneracy of the local model and prescribes a much smaller (discrete, rather than continuous) set of banded steady state solutions. We investigate some of the effects of the curvature of Couette flow on the observable steady state behavior and kinetics, and discuss some of the implications for metastability.Comment: 14 pp, to be published in Journal of Rheolog

'Those first few months were horrible': cross-cultural adaptation and the J-curve in international students experience in the UK and Norway

Since the 1970s, international students have represented a growing proportion of the global student body, yet how they adjust and how universities can support them is relatively unexplored. We conducted a qualitative study of 36 international students of 11 nationalities studying in Norway and the UK, and found that their experience did not fit the dominant ‘U-Curve’ of adaptation that suggests there is a honeymoon period on arrival. Confirmed with conversations with student wellbeing staff, who suggest that anxiety and culture shock are the norm, the data allows us to suggest factors that trigger adjustment and interventions to improve students’ experience. Our contribution is a ‘J-Curve’ model comprising cultural challenge, adjustment and mastery, to reflect the reality of international student experience