Measurement of thermal conductance of multilayer and other insulation materials Final report

Thermal conductance measurements of multilayer, aluminumized polymeric films for space suit insulation material

International Product Differentiation Through a Country Brand: An Economic Analysis of National Branding as a Marketing Strategy for Agricultural Products

branding, marketing, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

International Product Differentiation through a Country Brand: An Economic Analysis of National Branding as a Marketing Strategy for Agricultural Products

Trade policy initiatives of developed country governments are in flux. Governments’ need for new trade policy measures has arisen partly because of constraints imposed on the use of export subsidies by the Agreement on Agriculture reached as part of the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1994. Further disciplines on export subsidies and other policy measures may be agreed on in the Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, accentuating the need for new policy measures. While the Doha Round may not successfully reach an agreement, the current modalities show provisional agreement on the elimination of multiple forms of export subsidies. There is provisional agreement on more stringent restrictions on the use of export credit programs. Controls on exporting state trading agencies’ ability to subsidize exports are tentatively agreed (Furtan, 2005). Food aid, which can also be used to circumvent disciplines on export subsidies, is also likely to be subject to WTO disciplines.International Relations/Trade,

Detecting Pulsars with Interstellar Scintillation in Variance Images

Pulsars are the only cosmic radio sources known to be sufficiently compact to show diffractive interstellar scintillations. Images of the variance of radio signals in both time and frequency can be used to detect pulsars in large-scale continuum surveys using the next generation of synthesis radio telescopes. This technique allows a search over the full field of view while avoiding the need for expensive pixel-by-pixel high time resolution searches. We investigate the sensitivity of detecting pulsars in variance images. We show that variance images are most sensitive to pulsars whose scintillation time-scales and bandwidths are close to the subintegration time and channel bandwidth. Therefore, in order to maximise the detection of pulsars for a given radio continuum survey, it is essential to retain a high time and frequency resolution, allowing us to make variance images sensitive to pulsars with different scintillation properties. We demonstrate the technique with Murchision Widefield Array data and show that variance images can indeed lead to the detection of pulsars by distinguishing them from other radio sources.Comment: 8 papes, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

A Bayesian parameter estimation approach to pulsar time-of-arrival analysis

The increasing sensitivities of pulsar timing arrays to ultra-low frequency (nHz) gravitational waves promises to achieve direct gravitational wave detection within the next 5-10 years. While there are many parallel efforts being made in the improvement of telescope sensitivity, the detection of stable millisecond pulsars and the improvement of the timing software, there are reasons to believe that the methods used to accurately determine the time-of-arrival (TOA) of pulses from radio pulsars can be improved upon. More specifically, the determination of the uncertainties on these TOAs, which strongly affect the ability to detect GWs through pulsar timing, may be unreliable. We propose two Bayesian methods for the generation of pulsar TOAs starting from pulsar "search-mode" data and pre-folded data. These methods are applied to simulated toy-model examples and in this initial work we focus on the issue of uncertainties in the folding period. The final results of our analysis are expressed in the form of posterior probability distributions on the signal parameters (including the TOA) from a single observation.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Introducing a Calculus of Effects and Handlers for Natural Language Semantics

In compositional model-theoretic semantics, researchers assemble truth-conditions or other kinds of denotations using the lambda calculus. It was previously observed that the lambda terms and/or the denotations studied tend to follow the same pattern: they are instances of a monad. In this paper, we present an extension of the simply-typed lambda calculus that exploits this uniformity using the recently discovered technique of effect handlers. We prove that our calculus exhibits some of the key formal properties of the lambda calculus and we use it to construct a modular semantics for a small fragment that involves multiple distinct semantic phenomena

Professional attitudes to sex offenders: implications for multiagency and collaborative working

Recent years have seen the development and implementation of a range of multi-disciplinary and partnership approaches to managing risk in known sex offenders, involving collaboration between justice and human services agencies. Potential barriers to the development of effective multidisciplinary practices arise when participating professionals hold different attitudes about those they are responsible for managing. This paper examines differences in attitudes towards sex offenders in two professional groups – police officers and allied health workers. The results suggest that police officers tend to hold more negative views than those who deliver treatment and support services. They are more likely to believe that offenders cannot change their behaviour and should be subject to more punitive sanctions. These findings are discussed in relation to judgements of both risk and dangerousness and associated decisions about the appropriate management of sex offenders in multi-agency and multi-disciplinary working forums