2,811 research outputs found
What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works
This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger â this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors â marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment
Analytical maximum likelihood estimation of stellar magnetic fields
The polarised spectrum of stellar radiation encodes valuable information on
the conditions of stellar atmospheres and the magnetic fields that permeate
them. In this paper, we give explicit expressions to estimate the magnetic
field vector and its associated error from the observed Stokes parameters. We
study the solar case where specific intensities are observed and then the
stellar case, where we receive the polarised flux. In this second case, we
concentrate on the explicit expression for the case of a slow rotator with a
dipolar magnetic field geometry. Moreover, we also give explicit formulae to
retrieve the magnetic field vector from the LSD profiles without assuming mean
values for the LSD artificial spectral line. The formulae have been obtained
assuming that the spectral lines can be described in the weak field regime and
using a maximum likelihood approach. The errors are recovered by means of the
hermitian matrix. The bias of the estimators are analysed in depth.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA
Effect of Backgrounding System on Steer Performance and Carcass Characteristics
The impact of 3 backgrounding systems: grazing corn residue with distillers grains supplementation at 0.86% BW/d, grazing an oats-brassica forage, or feeding a grower ration in a drylot on finishing performance and carcass characteristics were evaluated. Backgrounding phase gains were greatest for steers fed a grower ration in the drylot (3.58 lb/d), intermediate for steers grazing oats-brassica forage and then fed the grower ration for short period (2.65 lb/d), and least for steers grazing corn residue while supplemented distillers grains and then fed the grower ration for short period (2.22 lb/d). These backgrounding treatment differences did not affect ADG during the finishing period (3.73 lb/d). However, the 2 grazing treatments had greater DMI resulting in poorer F:G. Overall, these backgrounding systems did not affect carcass quality. Increased finishing phase cost for the 2 grazing treatments due to poorer F:G, can be off set by less input cost during backgrounding, but ultimately the cost effectiveness is dependent on the production resources and scenarios of each individual producer
Perceptions of Crop Consultants and Crop Producers on Grazing Corn Residue in Nebraska
We conducted a survey to evaluate factors influencing consultant recommendations on grazing and producer grazing practices in Nebraska. Producers who did not graze cited soil compaction, inconvenience (lack of watering and fencing), and lack of access to livestock as major reasons for not grazing. Producers who allowed grazing and consultants who recommended grazing were more likely than those who did not favor grazing to perceive that grazing increased subsequent grain yields. Most consultants and producers reported making decisions on the basis of their personal observations. Findings from the survey can be used for enhanced Extension dissemination and research activities regarding grazing of residues
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Driving macro-scale transformations in three-dimensional-printed biopolymers through controlled induction of molecular anisotropy at the nanoscale
Motivated by the need to harness the properties of renewable and biodegradable polymers for the design and manufacturing of multi-scale structures with complex geometries, we have employed our additive manufacturing platform that leverages molecular self-assembly for the production of metre-scale structures characterized by complex geometries and heterogeneous material composition. As a precursor material, we used chitosan, a chemically modified form of chitin, an abundant and sustainable structural polysaccharide. We demonstrate the ability to control concentration-dependent crystallization as well as the induction of the preferred orientation of the polymer chains through the combination of extrusion-based robotic fabrication and directional toolpathing. Anisotropy is demonstrated and assessed through high-resolution micro-X-ray diffraction in conjunction with finite element simulations. Using this approach, we can leverage controlled and user-defined small-scale propagation of residual stresses to induce large-scale folding of the resulting structures
High Precision Astrometry with MICADO at the European Extremely Large Telescope
In this article we identify and discuss various statistical and systematic
effects influencing the astrometric accuracy achievable with MICADO, the
near-infrared imaging camera proposed for the 42-metre European Extremely Large
Telescope (E-ELT). These effects are instrumental (e.g. geometric distortion),
atmospheric (e.g. chromatic differential refraction), and astronomical
(reference source selection). We find that there are several phenomena having
impact on ~100 micro-arcsec scales, meaning they can be substantially larger
than the theoretical statistical astrometric accuracy of an optical/NIR
42m-telescope. Depending on type, these effects need to be controlled via
dedicated instrumental design properties or via dedicated calibration
procedures. We conclude that if this is done properly, astrometric accuracies
of 40 micro-arcsec or better - with 40 micro-arcsec/year in proper motions
corresponding to ~20 km/s at 100 kpc distance - can be achieved in one epoch of
actual observationsComment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables. Accepted by MNRA
Radial Star Formation Histories in 32 Nearby Galaxies
The spatially resolved star formation histories are studied for 32 normal
star-forming galaxies drawn from the the Spitzer Extended Disk Galaxy
Exploration Science survey. At surface brightness sensitivities fainter than 28
mag arcsec, the new optical photometry is deep enough to complement
archival ultraviolet and infrared imaging and to explore the properties of the
emission well beyond the traditional optical extents of these nearby galaxies.
Fits to the spectral energy distributions using a delayed star formation
history model indicate a subtle but interesting average radial trend for the
spiral galaxies: the inner stellar systems decrease in age with increasing
radius, consistent with inside-out disk formation, but the trend reverses in
the outermost regions with the stellar age nearly as old as the innermost
stars. These results suggest an old stellar outer disk population formed
through radial migration and/or the cumulative history of minor mergers and
accretions of satellite dwarf galaxies. The subset of S0 galaxies studied here
show the opposite trend compared to what is inferred for spirals:
characteristic stellar ages that are increasingly older with radius for the
inner portions of the galaxies, and increasingly younger stellar ages for the
outer portions. This result suggests that either S0 galaxies are not well
modeled by a delayed- model, and/or that S0 galaxies have a more
complicated formation history than spiral galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. arXiv admin
note: text overlap with arXiv:1511.0328
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