Design Practice in the UK Car Industry: How Coventry University is Addressing the Needs

This paper considers the needs of the UK car industry and identifies specific situations that have serious implications upon design practice. The response at Coventry University to these needs is discussed and our PAKTS model for Design Education introduced

Discrete element models of soil-geogrid interaction

Geogrids are the geosynthetics of choice for soil reinforcement applications. To evaluate the efficiency of geogrid reinforcement, several methods are used including field tests, laboratory tests and numerical modeling. Field studies consume long period of time and conducting these investigations may become highly expensive because of the need for real-size structures. Laboratory studies present also significant difficulties: large-size testing machines are required to accommodate realistic geogrid designs. The discrete element method (DEM) may be used as a complementary tool to extend physical testing databases at lower cost. Discrete element models do not require complex constitutive formulations and may be fed with particle scale data (size, strength, shape) thus reducing the number offree calibration parameters. Discrete element models also are well suited to problems in which large displacements are present, such as geogrid pullout. This paper reviews the different approaches followed to model soil-geogrid interaction in DEM and presents preliminary results from pull-out conditions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Exploring surface cleaning strategies in hospital to prevent contact transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

published_or_final_versio

Vertical mixing, critical depths, and phytoplankton growth in the Ross Sea

Phytoplankton growth and biomass accumulation vary spatially and temporally in the Ross Sea, largely as a function of ice concentrations, vertical mixing depths, and iron concentrations. To assess the role of vertical mixing in bloom initiation, we used a high-resolution numerical model to estimate changes in mixed layer depths from October 1 through early December, the period where phytoplankton growth begins and biomass accumulates, and estimate critical depths for this period. Mixed layers in October ranged from the complete water column (\u3e600 m) to ca. 200 m; over a 60-day period, the mixed layers decreased on average by 70%. Estimated critical depths were exceeded in October, but would allow growth to proceed in late October due to shoaling of mixed layer depths, consistent with the known onset of the spring bloom in the Ross Sea. We also analysed a series of stations sampled near the Ross Ice Shelf during January 2012. Mean vertical profiles for the stations indicated deep vertical mixing; mixed layer depths averaged 60 m and ranged up to 96 m. Chlorophyll concentrations within the mixed layer averaged 6.60 mu g l(-1), and the pigment contributions were dominated by Phaeocystis antarctica. We suggest that this mesoscale region near the ice shelf is elevated in phytoplankton biomass due to frequent mixing events that redistribute biomass to depth and replenish nutrients, which in turn are utilized by an assemblage capable of utilizing low mean irradiance levels. Thus, the deep mixed layers and high biomass concentrations represent growth over long periods under reduced mixing punctuated by short periods of deeper vertical mixing that redistribute biomass. Water column vertical mixing and phytoplankton biomass in the Ross Sea are consistent with the critical depth concept as originally proposed by Sverdrup

Dynamic Control of Explore/Exploit Trade-Off In Bayesian Optimization

Bayesian optimization offers the possibility of optimizing black-box operations not accessible through traditional techniques. The success of Bayesian optimization methods such as Expected Improvement (EI) are significantly affected by the degree of trade-off between exploration and exploitation. Too much exploration can lead to inefficient optimization protocols, whilst too much exploitation leaves the protocol open to strong initial biases, and a high chance of getting stuck in a local minimum. Typically, a constant margin is used to control this trade-off, which results in yet another hyper-parameter to be optimized. We propose contextual improvement as a simple, yet effective heuristic to counter this - achieving a one-shot optimization strategy. Our proposed heuristic can be swiftly calculated and improves both the speed and robustness of discovery of optimal solutions. We demonstrate its effectiveness on both synthetic and real world problems and explore the unaccounted for uncertainty in the pre-determination of search hyperparameters controlling explore-exploit trade-off.Comment: Accepted for publication in the proceedings of 2018 Computing Conferenc

The transferability of diatoms to clothing and the methods appropriate for their collection and analysis in forensic geoscience

AbstractForensic geoscience is concerned with the analysis of geological materials in order to compare and exclude environmental samples from a common source, or to identify an unknown provenance in a criminal investigation. Diatom analysis is currently an underused technique within the forensic geoscience approach, which has the potential to provide an independent ecological assessment of trace evidence. This study presents empirical data to provide a preliminary evidence base in order to be able to understand the nature of diatom transfers to items of clothing, and the collection of transferred diatom trace evidence from a range of environments under experimental conditions. Three diatom extraction methods were tested on clothing that had been in contact with soil and water sites: rinsing in water (RW), rinsing in ethanol (RE), and submersion in H2O2 solution (H). Scanning electron microscopy (S.E.M.) analysis was undertaken in order to examine the degree of diatom retention on treated clothing samples. The total diatom yield and species richness data was recorded from each experimental sample in order to compare the efficacy of each method in collecting a representative sample for analysis. Similarity was explored using correspondence analysis. The results highlight the efficiency of H2O2 submersion in consistently extracting high diatom counts with representative species from clothing exposed to both aquatic and terrestrial sites. This is corroborated by S.E.M. analysis. This paper provides an important empirical evidence base for both establishing that diatoms do indeed transfer to clothing under forensic conditions in a range of environments, and in identifying that H2O2 extraction is the most efficient technique for the optimal collection of comparative samples. There is therefore potentially great value in collecting and analysing diatom components of geoforensic samples in order to aid in forensic investigation

Altered expression of glutamate signaling, growth factor, and glia genes in the locus coeruleus of patients with major depression.

Several studies have proposed that brain glutamate signaling abnormalities and glial pathology have a role in the etiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). These conclusions were primarily drawn from post-mortem studies in which forebrain brain regions were examined. The locus coeruleus (LC) is the primary source of extensive noradrenergic innervation of the forebrain and as such exerts a powerful regulatory role over cognitive and affective functions, which are dysregulated in MDD. Furthermore, altered noradrenergic neurotransmission is associated with depressive symptoms and is thought to have a role in the pathophysiology of MDD. In the present study we used laser-capture microdissection (LCM) to selectively harvest LC tissue from post-mortem brains of MDD patients, patients with bipolar disorder (BPD) and from psychiatrically normal subjects. Using microarray technology we examined global patterns of gene expression. Differential mRNA expression of select candidate genes was then interrogated using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and in situ hybridization (ISH). Our findings reveal multiple signaling pathway alterations in the LC of MDD but not BPD subjects. These include glutamate signaling genes, SLC1A2, SLC1A3 and GLUL, growth factor genes FGFR3 and TrkB, and several genes exclusively expressed in astroglia. Our data extend previous findings of altered glutamate, astroglial and growth factor functions in MDD for the first time to the brainstem. These findings indicate that such alterations: (1) are unique to MDD and distinguishable from BPD, and (2) affect multiple brain regions, suggesting a whole-brain dysregulation of such functions