Share and share alike

Nearly 90 higher education libraries in the UK are participating in a reciprocal access and borrowing scheme which will benefit lifelong learners. UK Libraries Plus enables part-time, distance, and placement students to borrow from other libraries close to where they live or work. It also offers staff and full-time students access to each other’s libraries for reference. It is just over a year ago since a meeting of representatives from 19 libraries in membership of the Coalition of Modern Universities (CMU) took place at the University of Derby. The meeting was convened within the context of the increasing challenge posed in providing adequate support for off-campus learners. In particular, all of our libraries were grappling with the issue of supporting distance learners. How do we help students on courses, that do not require regular attendance at the University, gain access to the information resources that they need for their studies

New system for bathing bedridden patients

Multihead shower facility can be used with minimal patient handling. Waterproof curtain allows patient to bathe with his head out of shower. He can move completely inside shower to wash his face and hair. Main advantage of shower system is time saved in giving bath

Testing hypotheses of the cause of peripheral thinning of the Greenland Ice Sheet: is land-terminating ice thinning at anomalously high rates?

Recent observations have shown that the periphery of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is thinning rapidly and that this thinning is greatest around marine-terminating outlet glaciers. Several theories have been proposed which provide a link between climate and ice thinning. We present surface elevation change (<i>dh/dt</i>) data from NASA's Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) laser altimetry surveys for fourteen and eleven of the largest outlet glaciers in Southern Greenland from 1993 to 1998 and 1998 to 2006 respectively to test the applicability of these theories to the GrIS. <br><br> Initially, outlet glacier <i>dh/dt</i> data are compared with data from concurrent surveys over inland ice (slow flowing ice that is not obviously draining into an outlet glacier) to confirm the effect of ice flow on surface thinning rates. Land-terminating and marine-terminating outlet glacier <i>dh/dt</i> data are then compared from 1993 to 1998 and from 1998 to 2006. Finally, ablation anomalies (the difference between the "normal" ablation rate from 1970 to 2000 and the ablation rate in the time period of interest) calculated with a positive degree day model are compared to both marine-terminating and land-terminating outlet glacier <i>dh/dt</i> data. <br><br> Our results support earlier conclusions that certain marine-terminating outlet glaciers have thinned much more than land-terminating outlet glaciers during both time periods. Furthermore we show that these differences are not limited to the largest, fastest-flowing outlet glaciers – almost all marine-terminating outlet glaciers are thinning more than land-terminating outlet glaciers. There was a four fold increase in mean marine-terminating outlet glacier thinning rates below 1000 m elevation between the periods 1993 to 1998 and 1998 to 2006, while thinning rates of land-terminating outlet glaciers remained statistically unchanged. This suggests that a change in a controlling mechanism specific to the thinning rates of marine-terminating outlet glaciers occurred in the late 1990s and that this change did not affect thinning rates of land-terminating outlet glaciers. <br><br> Thinning rates of land-terminating outlet glaciers are statistically the same as ablation anomalies, while thinning rates of marine-terminating outlet glaciers are not. Thinning of land-terminating outlet glaciers therefore seems to be a response to changes in local mass balance (principally increases in air temperature) while thinning of marine-terminating outlet glaciers is principally controlled by ice dynamics. The mechanism by which this dynamic thinning occurs is still not clear although its association with marine-terminating outlet glaciers suggests perturbations at marine termini (calving) as the likely cause

Spectroscopy of drums and quantum billiards: perturbative and non-perturbative results

We develop powerful numerical and analytical techniques for the solution of the Helmholtz equation on general domains. We prove two theorems: the first theorem provides an exact formula for the ground state of an arbirtrary membrane, while the second theorem generalizes this result to any excited state of the membrane. We also develop a systematic perturbative scheme which can be used to study the small deformations of a membrane of circular or square shapes. We discuss several applications, obtaining numerical and analytical results.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, 7 tabl

Analytical trade study of the STS payload environment

The current predicted acoustic environment for the shuttle orbiter payload bay will produce random vibration environments for payload components and subsystems which potentially will result in design, weight and cost penalties if means of protecting the payloads are not developed. Results are presented of a study to develop, through design and cost effectiveness trade studies, conceptual noise suppression device designs for space shuttle payloads. The impact of noise suppression on environmental levels and associated test costs, and on test philosophy for the various payload classes is considered with the ultimate goal of reducing payload test costs. Conclusions and recommendations are presented

RGB generation by four-wave mixing in small-core holey fibers

We report the generation of white light comprising red, green, and blue spectral bands from a frequency-doubled fiber laser by an efficient four-wave mixing process in submicron-sized cores of microstructured holey fibers. A master-oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) source based on Yb-doped fiber is employed to generate 80 ps pulses at 1060 nm wavelength with 32 MHz repetition rate, which are then frequency-doubled in an LBO crystal to generate up to 2 W average power of green light. The green pump is then carefully launched into secondary cores of the cladding of photonic bandgap fibers. These secondary cores with diameters of about 400 to 800 nm act as highly nonlinear waveguides. At the output, we observe strong red and blue sidebands which, together with the remaining green pump light, form a visible white light source of about 360 mW. The generating process is identified as four-wave mixing where phase matching is achieved by birefringence in the secondary cores which arises from non-symmetric deformation during the fiber fabrication. Numerical models of the fiber structure and of the nonlinear processes confirm our interpretation. Finally, we discuss power scaling and limitations of the white light source due to the damage threshold of silica fibers

Rangeland surveys : a basis for improved land use

In mis 1988, the Department of Agriculture started a three-year programme to assist pastoralists in the Murchison River catchment to update land management planning of their stations. This Project, which is funded by the National Soil Conservation Program, will use interim results from a recent rangeland survey which has investigated and mapped the grazing recources throughout the region. Elsewhere in Western Australia\u27s pastoral areas, information on the productive potential of each area - and the management problems inherent for each class of land - are being used to help pastoral managers of Soil Conservation Districts rehabilitate degraded areas. This information will also encourage them to adopt management practices that conserve the land and improve the long-term economic performance of the grazing enterprise

New methods for stress assessment and monitoring at the workplace

The topic of stress is nowadays a very important one, not only in research but on social life in general. People are increasingly aware of this problem and its consequences at several levels: health, social life, work, quality of life, etc. This resulted in a significant increase in the search for devices and applications to measure and manage stress in real-time. Recent technological and scientific evolution fosters this interest with the development of new methods and approaches. In this paper we survey these new methods for stress assessment, focusing especially on those that are suited for the workplace: one of today’s major sources of stress. We contrast them with more traditional methods and compare them between themselves, evaluating nine characteristics. Given the diversity of methods that exist nowadays, this work facilitates the stakeholders’ decision towards which one to use, based on how much their organization values aspects such as privacy, accuracy, cost-effectiveness or intrusivenes

Study of state-of-the-art static inverter design Final report, 6 Jan. - 6 Jun. 1966

Multiple purpose inverter design based on phase demodulated inverter circuit selected from state-of-the-art assessment of ten inverter circuit

Validation of the inverted adsorption structure for free-base tetraphenyl porphyrin on Cu(111)

Utilising normal incidence X-ray standing waves we rigourously scrutinise the “inverted model” as the adsorption structure of free-base tetraphenyl porphyrin on Cu(111). We demonstrate that the iminic N atoms are anchored at near-bridge adsorption sites on the surface displaced laterally by 1.1 ± 0.2 Å in excellent agreement with previously published calculations