UK Strategy for Data Resources for Social and Economic Research 2009-2012

In the United Kingdom a group has been established to help ensure that the right data resources are created and made available to help inform the important choices that decision makers need to make. The group is the UK Data Forum. The members of the Forum come from national research councils, chief statisticians and researchers within government, the national statistics office, national library and national archives, devolved administrations, sub-national bodies and other organisations in the private, public and not for profit sectors. The current Strategy for Data Resources for Social and Economic Research: 2009-2012 sets out practical actions on areas for collaboration and the development of cross-cutting facilities. The strategy is owned by the members of the Forum and represents a statement of intent by them. A central feature of the current strategy, and one of the strongest themes from the consultation undertaken to inform its development, is the internationalisation of the research agenda. Actions in the strategy include initiatives to make collaborative agreements with other agencies within and outside the UK at national, European Union and international levels. The Forum believes that the potential for close working with colleagues in the UK and Germany is likely to be especially valuable.Sharing the strategy with you on this site is a first step in encouraging what we hope will be a deep and fruitful relationship in the future.

Investigation of diesel generator shaft and bearing failures

A shaft failure in a 634 kW diesel generator after 4000 hours of operation required investigation, especially when similar sets began to show signs of excessive bearing housing wear. The failure was found to be due to torsional fatigue caused by operation at an unforeseen resonant condition. The damage to the bearing housing of this type of set was also attributed to this behaviour. Replacement of the bearings and housings and redesign of the flexible coupling has been undertaken to prevent further failures. Modifications to design procedures are now being adopted to ensure similar problems do not occur in other existing or new machines

HELIN Data Analytics Task Force Final Report

The main task undertaken by the HELIN Data Analytics Task Force was to conduct a proof-of-concept usability test of HELIN OneSearch, which is the Consortium’s brand name for the Encore Duet discovery service. After the initial meeting in November 2014, the Task Force met 6 times in 2015 to plan and execute a prototype test. Staff members from EBSCO Information Services’ User Research group acted as usability test advisers and coordinators and attended all meetings, either onsite or via WebEx. Task Force members collaborated to come up with specific scenarios and personas which would best emphasize patron likes, dislikes and general understanding of OneSearch. Using a small sample of volunteer student test subjects from 3 different HELIN institutions, testing took place in mid-April. The results were analyzed by EBSCO and presented at the final meeting of the Task Force on April 28. Based on this limited testing, general findings were as follows: Students who don’t receive prior information instruction are generally not aware of OneSearch. Students who do know about OneSearch do not necessarily understand the difference between OneSearch and the HELIN Catalog. Most students still continue to do their research by searching database lists, LibGuides, the Journal A to Z list, and the HELIN catalog (although not necessarily in that order). When features and operation of OneSearch are explained to students, they recognize its usefulness (especially facets, which many referred to as “filters”). Lack of clarity on how to get directly to full text items causes frustration. A larger and more comprehensive usability test would be needed to draw out more specific conclusions. Secondary tasks undertaken by the Task Force included trials and reviews of 5 data analysis tools, as well as a review of EBSCO User Research, which is quantitative data on the use of OneSearch available directly from EBSCO. The remainder of this document is a detailed account of the proceedings of the HELIN Data Analytics Task Force

B lifetime measurements with exclusively reconstructed B decays

Data collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC are used to study the lifetime of the B0 and B+ mesons. The data sample consists of 7.4 fb-1 collected near the Y(4S) resonance. B0 and B+ mesons are fully reconstructed in several exclusive hadronic decay modes to charm and charmonium final states. The B lifetime are determined from the flight length difference between the two B mesons. The preliminary measurements of the lifetimes are tau_{B0} = 1.506 +/- 0.052 (stat) +/- 0.029 (syst) ps tau_{B+} = 1.602 +/- 0.049 (stat) +/- 0.035 (syst) ps and of their ratio is tau_{B+}/tau_{B0} = 1.065 +/- 0.044 (stat) +/- 0.021 (syst).Comment: 4 pages, 2 postscript figues, submitted to DPF200

Magnetic moments and electromagnetic radii of nucleon and Δ(1232)\Delta(1232) in an extended GBE model

We derive the exchange currents of pseudoscalar, vector, and scalar mesons from Feynman diagrams, and use them to calculate the magnetic form factors of nucleon and $\Delta(1232)$. The magnetic moments and electromagnetic radii are obtained by using those form factors and the parameters determined from the masses of nucleon and $\Delta(1232)$. We find the magnetic moments and electromagnetic radii of nucleon and $\Delta(1232)$ can be produced very well in the extended Goldstone-boson-exchange model (GBE) in which all of pseudoscalar, vector and scalar meson nonet are included. The magnetic moments of $\Delta(1232)$ are closer to experiment values and results from lattice calculation than the results obtained by the model without other mesons except for pion and sigma.Comment: 15 pages,5 figure