Lion and The Unicorn

Exhibition 2-10 May 2011 to mark 60 years of RCA participation in post war UK design. Sponsored by Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, Sandersins and Napier heritage Trust, RCA Gulbenkian Gallery Kensington Gore, Catalogue of exhibition boards by Claire Pajaczkowska and Henrietta Goodden and curatorial essay 1851-1951-2011 by Claure Pajaczkowska and Barry Curti

'There is no such thing as a boring place': architecture and the built environment as a televisual experience

The essay will look at a number of documentaries that relate to architecture with a view to analysing and defining their characteristic visual strategies, modes of address, and the ways in which they relate to key issues of heritage, innovation and timely controversies over social contexts and use. It will consider the documentary traditions that programmes draw on, and how the characteristics of television shape the mediation of buildings and environments. It will take a particular interest in the part played by expert and polemical commentators, both in terms of their ideological import and their function as expert narrators, advocates and avatars

Age and Physical Activity Among Canadian Women and Men: Findings From Longitudinal National Survey Data

This study reports on age-group differences in leisure-time sport and physical activity involvement among a large sample of Canadians interviewed at 2 points during the 1980s. Comparisons are made for 5 age cohorts, for men and women, and without and with multivariate controls. The results contradict the usual finding of an inverse relationship between age and level of physical activity. On measures of (a) activity necessary to produce health benefits and (b) energy expenditure, Canadians over 65 were as active as, or more active than, their younger counterparts, and their activities did not decline over the 7 years between interviews. The extent of change varied by age and across women and men. Among women, increases in involvement were greatest in the middle-aged. Among men, the greatest increase was in the oldest age groups. For both genders, the youngest age cohort showed the smallest change over time, and there was evidence of slight declines in activity levels among young men

Gas Flow Detection System

This system provides a portable means to detect gas flow through a thin-walled tube without breaking into the tubing system. The flow detection system was specifically designed to detect flow through two parallel branches of a manifold with only one inlet and outlet, and is a means for verifying a space shuttle program requirement that saves time and reduces the risk of flight hardware damage compared to the current means of requirement verification. The prototype Purge Vent and Drain Window Cavity Conditioning System (PVD WCCS) Flow Detection System consists of a heater and a temperature-sensing thermistor attached to a piece of Velcro to be attached to each branch of a WCCS manifold for the duration of the requirement verification test. The heaters and thermistors are connected to a shielded cable and then to an electronics enclosure, which contains the power supplies, relays, and circuit board to provide power, signal conditioning, and control. The electronics enclosure is then connected to a commercial data acquisition box to provide analog to digital conversion as well as digital control. This data acquisition box is then connected to a commercial laptop running a custom application created using National Instruments LabVIEW. The operation of the PVD WCCS Flow Detection System consists of first attaching a heater/thermistor assembly to each of the two branches of one manifold while there is no flow through the manifold. Next, the software application running on the laptop is used to turn on the heaters and to monitor the manifold branch temperatures. When the system has reached thermal equilibrium, the software application s graphical user interface (GUI) will indicate that the branch temperatures are stable. The operator can then physically open the flow control valve to initiate the test flow of gaseous nitrogen (GN2) through the manifold. Next, the software user interface will be monitored for stable temperature indications when the system is again at thermal equilibrium with the test flow of GN2. The temperature drop of each branch from its "no flow" stable temperature peak to its stable "with flow" temperature will allow the operator to determine whether a minimum level of flow exists. An alternative operation has the operator turning on the software only long enough to record the ambient temperature of the tubing before turning on the heaters and initiating GN2 flow. The stable temperature of the heated tubing with GN2 flow is then compared with the ambient tubing temperature to determine if flow is present in each branch. To help quantify the level of flow in the manifolds, each branch will be bench calibrated to establish its thermal properties using the flow detection system and different flow rates. These calibration values can then be incorporated into the software application to provide more detailed flow rate information

Evaluating Workplace Mandates with Flows versus Stocks: An Application to California Paid Family Leave

Abstract. Employer mandates often have small effects on wages and employment. Such effects should be most evident using data on employment transitions and wages among new hires. Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) provides county by quarter by demographic group data on the number and earnings of new hires, separations, and recalls (extended leaves). The QWI is used to examine the effects of California’s 2004 paid family leave (CPFL) program, comparing outcomes for young women in California to those for other workers within and outside of California. CPFL had little effect on earnings for young women, but increased separations, hiring, and worker mobility. JEL codes: J32 (nonwage labor costs), J38 (public policy

ImageJ2: ImageJ for the next generation of scientific image data

ImageJ is an image analysis program extensively used in the biological sciences and beyond. Due to its ease of use, recordable macro language, and extensible plug-in architecture, ImageJ enjoys contributions from non-programmers, amateur programmers, and professional developers alike. Enabling such a diversity of contributors has resulted in a large community that spans the biological and physical sciences. However, a rapidly growing user base, diverging plugin suites, and technical limitations have revealed a clear need for a concerted software engineering effort to support emerging imaging paradigms, to ensure the software's ability to handle the requirements of modern science. Due to these new and emerging challenges in scientific imaging, ImageJ is at a critical development crossroads. We present ImageJ2, a total redesign of ImageJ offering a host of new functionality. It separates concerns, fully decoupling the data model from the user interface. It emphasizes integration with external applications to maximize interoperability. Its robust new plugin framework allows everything from image formats, to scripting languages, to visualization to be extended by the community. The redesigned data model supports arbitrarily large, N-dimensional datasets, which are increasingly common in modern image acquisition. Despite the scope of these changes, backwards compatibility is maintained such that this new functionality can be seamlessly integrated with the classic ImageJ interface, allowing users and developers to migrate to these new methods at their own pace. ImageJ2 provides a framework engineered for flexibility, intended to support these requirements as well as accommodate future needs

Arc-textured metal surfaces for high thermal emittance space radiators

Carbon arc electrical discharges struck across the surfaces of metals such as Nb-1 percent Zr, alter the morphology to produce a high thermal emittance surface. Metal from the surface and carbon from the arc electrode vaporize during arcing, and then condense on the metal surface to produce a microscopically rough surface having a high thermal emittance. Quantitative spectral reflectance measurements from 0.33 to 15 microns were made on metal surfaces which were carbon arc treated in an inert gas environment. The resulting spectral reflectance data were then used to calculate thermal emittance as a function of temperature for various methods of arc treatment. The results of arc treatment on various metals are presented for both ac and dc arcs. Surface characterization data, including thermal emittance as a function of temperature, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic oxygen durability, are also presented. The ac arc texturing was found to increase the thermal emittance at 800 K from 0.05 to 0.70

OHMI: The Ontology of Host-Microbiome Interactions

Host-microbiome interactions (HMIs) are critical for the modulation of biological processes and are associated with several diseases, and extensive HMI studies have generated large amounts of data. We propose that the logical representation of the knowledge derived from these data and the standardized representation of experimental variables and processes can foster integration of data and reproducibility of experiments and thereby further HMI knowledge discovery. A community-based Ontology of Host-Microbiome Interactions (OHMI) was developed following the OBO Foundry principles. OHMI leverages established ontologies to create logically structured representations of microbiomes, microbial taxonomy, host species, host anatomical entities, and HMIs under different conditions and associated study protocols and types of data analysis and experimental results