A variational technique and its application to model-reference control

Algorithms for effecting adaptive control in aircraft system

Moebius strip enterprises and expertise in the creative industries: new challenges for lifelong learning?

The paper argues that the emergence of a new mode of production – co-configuration is generating new modes of expertise that EU policies for lifelong learning are not designed to support professionals to develop. It maintains that this change can be seen most clearly when we analyse Small and Medium Size (SMEs) enterprises in the creative industries. Drawing on concepts from Political Economy - ‘Moebius strip enterprise/expertise’ and Cultural Historical Activity Theory - project-object’ and the ‘space of reasons’, the paper highlights conceptually and through a case study of an SME in the creative industries what is distinctive about the new modes of expertise, before moving on to reconceptualise expertise and learning and to consider the implications of this reconceptualisation for EU policies for lifelong learning. The paper concludes that the new challenge for LLL is to support the development of new forms expertise that are difficult to credentialise, yet, are central to the wider European goal of realising a knowledge economy

Work Experience and VET: Insights from the Connective Typology and the Recontextualisation Model

The chapter compares two models of work experience – connective typology of work experience and recontextualisation of knowledge model – and uses the term work experience to refer to the way that young people enrolled in both school- and apprenticeship-based VET learn to relate their experience of education as represented by the acquisition of domain knowledge and their experience of work as represented by occupational values, skill and knowledge to one another. The common link between the two models is that they accept the existence of a mediated relationship between education and work. The former explores this relationship from a boundary-crossing perspective, focusing on learners’ movement between education and work, and identifies the outcomes associated with different models of work experience. The latter focuses on the interplay between the manifestation of knowledge in the contexts of education and work and learners’ movement within and between both contexts. It differs from the connective typology, because it takes account of the mediated nature of the contexts of education and work as well as the process of learning through work experience. The chapter concludes by using the concept of recontextualisation to highlight how digital and mobile technologies could serve as resources to facilitate learning through work experience in school- and apprenticeship-based VET

Diet and bone mineral density study in postmenopausal women from the TwinsUK registry shows a negative association with a traditional English dietary pattern and a positive association with wine

Background: The effect of diet on bone mineral density (BMD) remains controversial, mainly because of difficulties in isolating dietary factors from the confounding influences of age, lifestyle, and genetic factors. Objective: The aim of this study was to use a novel method to examine the relation between BMD and diet. Design: A co-twin control study design with linear regression modeling was used to test for associations between BMD and habitual intakes of calcium, vitamin D, protein, and alcohol plus 5 previously identified dietary patterns in postmenopausal women from the TwinsUK registry. This approach exploited the unique matching of twins to provide an estimate of an association that was not confounded by age, genetic background, or shared lifestyle. Results: In >2000 postmenopausal women (BMD data on 1019, 1218, and 1232 twin pairs at the hip neck, hip, and spine, respectively), we observed a positive association between alcohol intake (from wine but not from beer or spirits) and spine BMD (P = 0.01) and a negative association with a traditional 20th-century English diet at the hip neck (P = 0.01). Both associations remained borderline significant after adjustment for mean twin-pair intakes (P = 0.04 and P = 0.055, respectively). Other dietary patterns and intakes of calcium, vitamin D, and protein were unrelated to BMD. Conclusion: Our results showed that diet has an independent but subtle effect on BMD; wine intake was positively associated with spine BMD, whereas a traditional (20th-century) English diet had a negative association with hip BMD

Thermal relaxation of magnetic clusters in amorphous Hf_{57}Fe_{43} alloy

The magnetization processes in binary magnetic/nonmagnetic amorphous alloy Hf_{57}Fe_{43} are investigated by the detailed measurements of magnetic hysteresis loops, temperature dependence of magnetization, relaxation of magnetization and magnetic ac susceptibility, including a nonlinear term. Blocking of magnetic moments at lower temperatures is accompanied with the slow relaxation of magnetization and magnetic hysteresis loops. All of the observed properties are explained with the superparamagnetic behaviour of the single domain magnetic clusters inside the nonmagnetic host, their blocking by the anisotropy barriers and thermal fluctuation over the barriers accompanied by relaxation of magnetization. From magnetic viscosity analysis based on thermal relaxation over the anisotropy barriers it is found out that magnetic clusters occupy the characteristic volume from 25 up to 200 nm3 . The validity of the superparamagnetic model of Hf_{57}Fe_{43} is based on the concentration of iron in the Hf_{100-x}Fe_{43} system that is just below the threshold for the long range magnetic ordering. This work throws more light on magnetic behaviour of other amorphous alloys, too

The contribution of diet and genotype to iron status in women:a classical twin study

This is the first published report examining the combined effect of diet and genotype on body iron content using a classical twin study design. The aim of this study was to determine the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors in determining iron status. The population was comprised of 200 BMI- and age-matched pairs of MZ and DZ healthy twins, characterised for habitual diet and 15 iron-related candidate genetic markers. Variance components analysis demonstrated that the heritability of serum ferritin (SF) and soluble transferrin receptor was 44% and 54% respectively. Measured single nucleotide polymorphisms explained 5% and selected dietary factors 6% of the variance in iron status; there was a negative association between calcium intake and body iron (p = 0.02) and SF (p = 0.04)

Idiopathic benign retroperitoneal cyst: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Retroperitoneal cysts are uncommon, with an estimated incidence of 1/5750 to 1/250,000.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A male patient was admitted with an abdominal pain, jaundice and fever. Clinical examination and investigations confirmed an idiopathic benign retroperitoneal cyst. He underwent surgery and was discharged after making good recovery.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Retroperitoneal cysts are very rare, and most of the time they are discovered incidentally. Patients may be asymptomatic or present with abdominal pain, referred pain to the legs or weight loss. Imaging may help diagnose these lesions, but surgery is the keystone in confirming the diagnosis. This case is very rare and very educational as it highlights an unusual presentation of a benign retroperitoneal cyst. In our patient, the course of the disease was unique as the patient presented with jaundice.</p

Magnetic confinement of an electric arc in transverse supersonic flow

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77344/1/AIAA-2803-657.pd

Comfort radicalism and NEETs: a conservative praxis

Young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) are construed by policy makers as a pressing problem about which something should be done. Such young people's lack of employment is thought to pose difficulties for wider society in relation to social cohesion and inclusion and it is feared that they will become a 'lost generation'. This paper(1) draws upon English research, seeking to historicise the debate whilst acknowledging that these issues have a much wider purchase. The notion of NEETs rests alongside longstanding concerns of the English state and middle classes, addressing unruly male working class youth as well as the moral turpitude of working class girls. Waged labour and domesticity are seen as a means to integrate such groups into society thereby generating social cohesion. The paper places the debate within it socio-economic context and draws on theorisations of cognitive capitalism, Italian workerism, as well as emerging theories of antiwork to analyse these. It concludes by arguing that ‘radical’ approaches to NEETs that point towards inequities embedded in the social structure and call for social democratic solutions veer towards a form of comfort radicalism. Such approaches leave in place the dominance of capitalist relations as well as productivist orientations that celebrate waged labour