Outside the Voucher: Evaluating the Creative Voucher Scheme

This chapter seeks to elaborate on what one might have expected to be the straightforward task of delivering and evaluating Creativeworks London’s (CWL) Creative Voucher scheme.1 What made the project difficult was that the notion of the “creative” voucher has not been used before; it was not a policy developed from a direct evidence base. Moreover, the Creativeworks London project was premised on the delivery of three funding streams of which the vouchers were one; indeed something approaching half of these funds were targeted to resource creative vouchers. This chapter offers a discussion of how we implemented the creative vouchers, the product of which makes up most of this volume. It also raises the question of what and how one might evaluate vouchers; something, we argue, that does not gain from a reduction to a limited set of quantitative indicators. Indeed, our reflections on the process projected us into a far more exploratory and nuanced narrative account of the vouchers; hence the chapters of this book which represent a range of different facets and experiences of the creative voucher scheme. Traditional evaluations of innovation and knowledge transfer are based upon simplistic mono-causal models whereby the dominant notion is that knowledge will naturally diffuse from high concentrations to low concentrations: like a gas; this of course is a social physics model. The failure to diffuse evenly, it is normally hypothesized, must be due to some “blockage” or “barrier.” In keeping with mechanical analogies, much policy action is focused on “fixing the plumbing” that is the leaky knowledge pipelines. The challenge is that the logic behind knowledge transfer, let alone policies such as vouchers, are seldom explicitly stated, but rather assumed as common sense. As we experience the transformation from mass production economies to those based on what are variously termed service economies, knowledge economies, or even cultural economies the physical movement of goods, innovation and ideas materialized as “solutions” (as “technology” has commonly been) has been replaced by weightless or virtual goods: ideas. Physicalist analogies might have been helpful in an old manufacturing economy; it is clear that they are less helpful in either dematerialized production, or the realm of ideas exclusively. Moreover, the Creativeworks London project was explicitly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) with a view to demonstrating the role of what the arts and humanities can contribute to the processes of knowledge transfer between universities and the creative economy (see Chapter One). It is obvious that the arts and humanities favor different approaches to knowledge than that of the sciences; in particular the humanities focus on the nature of human experience and ideas—one might argue that it is the ideal type of knowledge transfer. The humanities has a rather more nuanced and relational perspective on knowledge and human experience than the sciences, focused as they often are on physical processes and outcomes. We saw it as our task to explore and reflect on creative vouchers and meanings. Whereas the individual voucher stories provide a rich narrative of what the knowledge exchange process “looks like” and at times what it might “feel like,” and what meanings it produces for those involved, this chapter attempts to examine a linked story across the voucher process. It is not seeking to generalize or summarize, rather it explores the voucher process. In this sense we resist the traditional notion of evaluation, arguing that it is necessary to understand the process before we can possibly evaluate it against objectives, personal, institutional or political

An approach to market analysis for lighter than air transportation of freight

An approach is presented to marketing analysis for lighter than air vehicles in a commercial freight market. After a discussion of key characteristics of supply and demand factors, a three-phase approach to marketing analysis is described. The existing transportation systems are quantitatively defined and possible roles for lighter than air vehicles within this framework are postulated. The marketing analysis views the situation from the perspective of both the shipper and the carrier. A demand for freight service is assumed and the resulting supply characteristics are determined. Then, these supply characteristics are used to establish the demand for competing modes. The process is then iterated to arrive at the market solution

High-performance thermionic converter Quarterly progress report, 13 Aug. - 13 Nov. 1965

Fabrication and testing of cesium loaded thermionic converter test vehicl

CSI sensing and control: Analytical and experimental results

Recent work on structural identification and large-angle maneuvers with vibration suppression was presented. The recent work has sought to balance structural and controls analysis activities by involving the analysts directly in the validation and experimental aspects of the research. Some new sensing, actuation, system identification, and control concepts were successfully implemented. An overview of these results is given

High-performance thermionic converter Quarterly progress report, 13 Nov. 1965 - 13 Feb. 1966

Stability and optimization parameters of cesium vapor thermionic converters studied in high performance long life equipment fabrication projec

Dissipation enhanced vibrational sensing in an olfactory molecular switch

Motivated by a proposed olfactory mechanism based on a vibrationally-activated molecular switch, we study electron transport within a donor-acceptor pair that is coupled to a vibrational mode and embedded in a surrounding environment. We derive a polaron master equation with which we study the dynamics of both the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom beyond previously employed semiclassical (Marcus-Jortner) rate analyses. We show: (i) that in the absence of explicit dissipation of the vibrational mode, the semiclassical approach is generally unable to capture the dynamics predicted by our master equation due to both its assumption of one-way (exponential) electron transfer from donor to acceptor and its neglect of the spectral details of the environment; (ii) that by additionally allowing strong dissipation to act on the odorant vibrational mode we can recover exponential electron transfer, though typically at a rate that differs from that given by the Marcus-Jortner expression; (iii) that the ability of the molecular switch to discriminate between the presence and absence of the odorant, and its sensitivity to the odorant vibrational frequency, are enhanced significantly in this strong dissipation regime, when compared to the case without mode dissipation; and (iv) that details of the environment absent from previous Marcus-Jortner analyses can also dramatically alter the sensitivity of the molecular switch, in particular allowing its frequency resolution to be improved. Our results thus demonstrate the constructive role dissipation can play in facilitating sensitive and selective operation in molecular switch devices, as well as the inadequacy of semiclassical rate equations in analysing such behaviour over a wide range of parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, close to published version, comments welcom

Mixing ratios of trace gases in the austral polar atmosphere during August and September of 1987

Mixing ratios are presented for a number of long-lived trace gases in the austral polar atmosphere during August and September of 1987. The recent discovery of a 12-year trend of increasing depletion of ozone over the Antarctic Continent in the spring of each year led to numerous theoretical interpretations and several scientific expeditions to the region. The results herein were obtained as part of a major effort involving penetration of the region of ozone depletion by NASA's multi-instrumented aircraft. One of the 14 instruments on the high-altitude ER-2 aircraft collected pressurized air samples between latitudes of 53 degrees and 72 degrees south at pressure altitudes up to 21 km in a series of 12 flights from Punta Arenas, Chile, over the Palmer Peninsula. The sampling system, located in the nose section of ER-2, has an inlet tube in the free airstream, a metal-bellows air pump, and 14 specially treated 1.6 l stainless-steel canisters for containing the pressurized air at 350 kPa. A typical flight profile consisted of a southbound path on the 428 K potential temperature surface, a descent to a pressure altitude of 13.7 km, a climb to the 460 K surface, and return on this surface. Mixing ratios for the trace gases were obtained from gas chromatographic analyses of the pressurized air samples. Of the species measured, the mixing ratios for CH4, CO, N2O, CF2 Cl2, CFCl3, CH3, CCl3, CCl4, and C2F3Cl3 are reported here

Subcellular localization of transcripts in Drosophila photoreceptor neurons: chaoptic mutants have an aberrant distribution

Photoreceptor neurons in the Drosophila retina are long (100 mu) and narrow, providing a system for the study of the intracellular distribution of transcripts and proteins. The chaoptic gene is expressed exclusively in photoreceptor neurons, and mutations of the gene result in reduced developmental competence of cells to generate normal rhabdomeric membranes. The mutant protein exhibited altered distribution both in developing and adult photoreceptor neurons. Furthermore, the transcript distribution in mutants was altered, decreasing with distance from the nucleus, instead of the normal uniform distribution throughout the cell soma. The deficit of transcript concentration correlated with the severity of developmental defect in rhabdomere formation along the cell. In contrast, the distribution of the opsin transcript was not affected by the chaoptic mutation. To observe RNA localization at the ultrastructural level, a high-resolution, electron microscopic in situ hybridization protocol was developed. The results indicate that the normal chaoptic transcript is present on the rough endoplasmic reticulum, which may be a vehicle for specific transcript distribution