The UK Employment and Skills almanac 2010 (Evidence Report 26)

"Employment and skills are not the only determinants of productivity and a fairer and more inclusive society; other external drivers include economic, technological, institutional and political factors and fall outside the remit of the UK Commission. This study has sought to recognise these other drivers and incorporate them into the evidence base where necessary and possible. The latest data included within the Almanac runs to 2009, covering the recessionary period in part. Where relevant to the discussion the implication of the recession is noted, and we have included in our concluding chapter a spotlight feature on the impact of the recession on young people. This report and accompanying workbooks hosted on the Almanac Online website form the evidence base." - Page 15

Management of multi-method engineering design research: a case study

There is a need for a research management methodology that will utilise research methods on an individual basis and when combined in a multi-method approach. An agreed methodology would enable rapid progress in achieving agreement on the main issues within engineering design research. Researchers at the University of Glasgow have developed a conceptual management methodology, testing it on three engineering design research projects. This paper describes the methodology and presents results indicating its ability to enable rigorous triangulation of research results obtained via different methods and across different research projects forming the basis of an effective management tool

Accuracy and Stability of Virtual Source Method for Numerical Simulations of Nonlinear Water Waves

The virtual source method (VSM) developed by Langfeld et al., (2016) is based upon the integral equations derived by using Green’s identity with Laplace’s equation for the velocity potential. These authors presented preliminary results using the method to simulate standing waves. In this paper, we numerically model a non-linear standing wave by using the VSM to illustrate the energy and volume conservation. Analytical formulas are derived to compute the volume and potential energy while the kinetic energy is computed by numerical integration. Results are compared with both theory and boundary element method (BEM)

Microbes as Engines of Ecosystem Function: When Does Community Structure Enhance Predictions of Ecosystem Processes?

Microorganisms are vital in mediating the earth’s biogeochemical cycles; yet, despite our rapidly increasing ability to explore complex environmental microbial communities, the relationship between microbial community structure and ecosystem processes remains poorly understood. Here, we address a fundamental and unanswered question in microbial ecology: ‘When do we need to understand microbial community structure to accurately predict function?’ We present a statistical analysis investigating the value of environmental data and microbial community structure independently and in combination for explaining rates of carbon and nitrogen cycling processes within 82 global datasets. Environmental variables were the strongest predictors of process rates but left 44% of variation unexplained on average, suggesting the potential for microbial data to increase model accuracy. Although only 29% of our datasets were significantly improved by adding information on microbial community structure, we observed improvement in models of processes mediated by narrow phylogenetic guilds via functional gene data, and conversely, improvement in models of facultative microbial processes via community diversity metrics. Our results also suggest that microbial diversity can strengthen predictions of respiration rates beyond microbial biomass parameters, as 53% of models were improved by incorporating both sets of predictors compared to 35% by microbial biomass alone. Our analysis represents the first comprehensive analysis of research examining links between microbial community structure and ecosystem function. Taken together, our results indicate that a greater understanding of microbial communities informed by ecological principles may enhance our ability to predict ecosystem process rates relative to assessments based on environmental variables and microbial physiology

AGREEMENT BETWEEN ATTRIBUTES ASSOCIATED WITH BILATERAL JUMP ASYMMETRY

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between bilateral countermovement jump (bCMJ) asymmetry and asymmetries in lower extremity flexibility, anthropometry, strength and single leg jump performance. Three criteria were identified for each of these attributes. Thresholds were determined to diagnose asymmetry in all criteria based on exceeding the mean ± sd of the absolute difference between limbs. A total of 145 subjects across a variety of sports were tested. The overall agreement in diagnoses compared to bCMJ were 49.7% flexibility, 58.6% anthropometry, 66.9% strength and 70.3% single leg jumps. Individual attributes had associations of between 27.5-32.5% with actual bCMJ asymmetries and this rose to 72.5% when all attributes were combined. 82.9% of subjects possessed at least one lower extremity asymmetry