The changing UK careers landscape : tidal waves, turbulence and transformation

This article explores how the UK careers landscape in each of the four home nations is changing in response to neo-liberal policies. In this context, careers services are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate their added value, impact and returns on investment. As fiscal arrangements tighten and governments state their preferences and priorities for national careers services, differing strategic responses are beginning to emerge. A quasi-market, experimental approach is now the dominant discourse in England, in contrast to differing and complementary arrangements in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The article suggests that insofar as these developments are transforming national careers services, they are also creating significant challenges which require new forms of policy imagery and imagination for high-impact, all-age careers services

Muon spin rotation and relaxation in magnetic materials

A review of the muon spin rotation and relaxation ($\mu$SR) studies on magnetic materials published from July 1993 is presented. It covers the investigation of magnetic phase diagrams, of spin dynamics and the analysis of the magnetic properties of superconductors. We have chosen to focus on selected experimental works in these different topics. In addition, a list of published works is provided.Comment: Review article, 59 pages, LaTeX with IoP macro

Grain refinement of Al-Mg-Sc alloy by ultrasonic treatment

In foundry practice, ultrasonic treatment has been used as an efficient technique to achieve grain refinement in aluminium and magnesium alloys. This article shows the strong effect of pouring temperature and ultrasonic treatment at various temperatures on the grain refinement of Al-1 wt% Mg-0.3 wt% Sc alloy. Without ultrasonic treatment, a fine grain structure was obtained at the pouring temperature of 700 °C. The average grain size sharply decreases from 487 ± 20 to 103 ± 2 μm when the pouring temperature decreases from 800 to 700 °C. Ultrasonic vibration proved to be a potential grain refinement technique with a wide range of pouring tem- perature. A microstructure with very fine and homogeneous grains was obtained by applying ultrasonic treatment to the melt at the temperature range between 700 and 740 °C, before pouring. Cavitation-enhanced hetero- geneous nucleation is the mechanism proposed to explain grain refinement by ultrasound in this alloy. Moreover, ultrasonic treatment of the melt was found to lead to cast samples with hardness values similar to those obtained in samples submitted to precipitation hardening, suggesting that ultrasonic treatment can avoid carrying out heat treatment of cast parts.This research was supported by The Project Bridging The Gap, funded by the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window Programme. Acknowledgements also to the University of Minho, for the provision of research facilities

Accurate ab initio spin densities

We present an approach for the calculation of spin density distributions for molecules that require very large active spaces for a qualitatively correct description of their electronic structure. Our approach is based on the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm to calculate the spin density matrix elements as basic quantity for the spatially resolved spin density distribution. The spin density matrix elements are directly determined from the second-quantized elementary operators optimized by the DMRG algorithm. As an analytic convergence criterion for the spin density distribution, we employ our recently developed sampling-reconstruction scheme [J. Chem. Phys. 2011, 134, 224101] to build an accurate complete-active-space configuration-interaction (CASCI) wave function from the optimized matrix product states. The spin density matrix elements can then also be determined as an expectation value employing the reconstructed wave function expansion. Furthermore, the explicit reconstruction of a CASCI-type wave function provides insights into chemically interesting features of the molecule under study such as the distribution of $\alpha$- and $\beta$-electrons in terms of Slater determinants, CI coefficients, and natural orbitals. The methodology is applied to an iron nitrosyl complex which we have identified as a challenging system for standard approaches [J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2011, 7, 2740].Comment: 37 pages, 13 figure

Enumeration of States in a Periodic Glass

We present an analytic enumeration of the metastable states, $N_s$, in a periodic long-range Josephson array frustrated by a transverse field. We find that the configurational entropy, $S_{conf} \equiv \ln N_s$, is extensive and scales with frustration, confirming that the non-random system is glassy. We also find that $S_{conf}$ is different from that of its disordered analogue, despite that fact that the two models share the same dynamical equations

THE ROLE OF INTERDEPENDENCE IN THE MICRO-FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANIZATION DESIGN: TASK, GOAL, AND KNOWLEDGE INTERDEPENDENCE

Interdependence is a core concept in organization design, yet one that has remained consistently understudied. Current notions of interdependence remain rooted in seminal works, produced at a time when managers’ near-perfect understanding of the task at hand drove the organization design process. In this context, task interdependence was rightly assumed to be exogenously determined by characteristics of the work and the technology. We no longer live in that world, yet our view of interdependence has remained exceedingly task-centric and our treatment of interdependence overly deterministic. As organizations face increasingly unpredictable workstreams and workers co-design the organization alongside managers, our field requires a more comprehensive toolbox that incorporates aspects of agent-based interdependence. In this paper, we synthesize research in organization design, organizational behavior, and other related literatures to examine three types of interdependence that characterize organizations’ workflows: task, goal, and knowledge interdependence. We offer clear definitions for each construct, analyze how each arises endogenously in the design process, explore their interrelations, and pose questions to guide future research

Statistical signatures of critical behavior in small systems

The cluster distributions of different systems are examined to search for signatures of a continuous phase transition. In a system known to possess such a phase transition, both sensitive and insensitive signatures are present; while in systems known not to possess such a phase transition, only insensitive signatures are present. It is shown that nuclear multifragmentation results in cluster distributions belonging to the former category, suggesting that the fragments are the result of a continuous phase transition.Comment: 31 pages, two columns with 30 figure

Has Devolution Changed the 'British Policy Style'?

The term ‘policy style' simply means the way that governments make and implement policy. Yet, the term ‘British policy style' may be confusing since it has the potential to relate to British exceptionalism or European convergence. Lijphart's important contribution identifies the former. It sets up a simple distinction between policy styles in majoritarian and consensual democracies and portrays British policy-making as top down and different from a consensual European approach. In contrast, Richardson identifies a common ‘European policy style'. This suggests that although the political structures of each country vary, they share a ‘standard operating procedure' based on two factors - an incremental approach to policy and an attempt to reach a consensus with interest groups rather than impose decisions. This article extends these arguments to British politics since devolution. It questions the assumption that policy styles are diverging within Britain. Although consultation in the devolved territories may appear to be more consensual, they are often contrasted with a caricature of the UK process based on atypical examples of top-down policy-making. While there may be a different ‘feel' to participation in Scotland and Wales, a similar logic of consultation and bureaucratic accommodation exists in the UK. This suggests that, although devolution has made a difference, a British (or European) policy style can still be identified

String-like Clusters and Cooperative Motion in a Model Glass-Forming Liquid

A large-scale molecular dynamics simulation is performed on a glass-forming Lennard-Jones mixture to determine the nature of dynamical heterogeneities which arise in this model fragile liquid. We observe that the most mobile particles exhibit a cooperative motion in the form of string-like paths (``strings'') whose mean length and radius of gyration increase as the liquid is cooled. The length distribution of the strings is found to be similar to that expected for the equilibrium polymerization of linear polymer chains.Comment: 6 pages of RevTex, 6 postscript figures, uses epsf.st

Optical properties of quantum wires: Disorder-scattering in the Lloyd-model

The Lloyd model is extended to the exciton problem in quasi one-dimensional structures to study the interplay between the Coulomb attraction and disorder scattering. Within this model the averaging and resummation of the locator series can be performed analytically. As an application, the optical absorption in quantum box wires is investigated. Without electron-hole interaction, fluctuations in the well-width lead to an asymmetric broadening of the minibands with respect to the lower and upper band-edges.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure