23,572 research outputs found

    A study of the usefulness of Skylab EREP data for earth resources studies in Australia

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    There are no author-identified significant results in this report

    The disappearing women: North West ICT project final report

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    Project Context The Disappearing Women: Northwest ICT project was embarked upon to further understand why more women leave the sector than are being recruited, 36% of new ICT recruits in the UK (in the first quarter of 2002) were women, yet in the same period, women accounted for 46% of all leavers or ‘disappearing’ women (The DTI Women in IT Champions report 2003, Grey and Healy 2004). This continuing trend shows a decline from 27% of women making up the ICT workforce in 1997 with a drop to 21% in 2004 (The DTI Women in IT Industry report 2005b). The number of women in the ICT sector remains disappointingly small considering that women make up around 50% of the total UK workforce and significantly this figure has gradually continued to fall despite numerous initiatives to attract more women into the sector (see Griffiths and Moore 2006 for a list of high profile ‘women in ICT’ initiatives). The research team’s first gender research project - Women in IT (WINIT) - ran for two years from January 2004 until March 2006 at the Information Systems Institute at The University of Salford and dealt solely with women who worked in the ICT sector in England. The WINIT Project via an online questionnaire and in-depth interviews gathered the stories and experiences of up to 500 participants and 19 interviewees respectively. The project enabled these women’s voices to be heard but the research team were constantly aware that a certain part of the female ICT workforce - the ‘disappearing’ women who had left ICT vowing never to return - had been overlooked and effectively silenced. It was these women who once found, may be able to facilitate a more in-depth understanding of why women were leaving the ICT sector. Having amassed skills and expertise, qualifications in ICT and crossed ICT recruitment barriers (DTI 2005a) the ‘disappearing’ women for whatever reasons decided to change their career trajectories and leave the sector. What ‘chilly’ (Falkner 2004) workplaces, disinterested organisational cultures and indifferent working conditions had these women encountered that became determining factors in leaving the ICT sector? There has been little (if any) research conducted involving this specific cohort of women and The Disappearing Women: North West ICT (DW: NW ICT) project seeks to make a research contribution to what is a continuing statistical and symbolic under-representation of women in the ICT labour market. The DW: NW ICT project was partly funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) from April 2006 until December 2006 under ESF Objective 3, Policy Field 5.1: Improving the Participation of Women. The DW: NW ICT project contributes research to priority 5 and its strategic objective to reduce the level of disadvantage faced by women in the labour market. The project was run in the Information Systems Group, Salford Business School of The University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK. The report is structured as follows. The first section presents the backdrop for the research, looking in general at women in the ICT labour market in England and then women leaving the ICT sector focussing on the North West of England and more explicitly women leaving ICT employment in the North West of England. The research aims of the project form the following section; they have been loosely classified in to two groupings, the push and pull factors that are contributing to the high attrition rate of women leaving ICT. The methodology follows with the route taken in how this ‘hard to reach’ target sample were finally located, once contacted the life history interview process and procedures adopted is explained in full. The vignettes of the ‘disappearing’ women are included to allow the reader an opportunity to ‘get to know’ these women a little more closely. Key themes that have naturally emerged throughout the interview data analysis process are presented, including hostilities in the ICT workplace, significant events and the process of leaving ICT workplaces and finally stories of the ‘appearing’ women and their current situations are heard. A discussion regarding the findings of the DW: NW ICT project concludes this report

    Factorization and reduction methods for optimal control of distributed parameter systems

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    A Chandrasekhar-type factorization method is applied to the linear-quadratic optimal control problem for distributed parameter systems. An aeroelastic control problem is used as a model example to demonstrate that if computationally efficient algorithms, such as those of Chandrasekhar-type, are combined with the special structure often available to a particular problem, then an abstract approximation theory developed for distributed parameter control theory becomes a viable method of solution. A numerical scheme based on averaging approximations is applied to hereditary control problems. Numerical examples are given

    Performance potential of combined cycles integrated with low-Btu gasifiers for future electric utility applications

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    A comparison and an assessment of 10 advanced utility power systems on a consistent basis and to a common level of detail were analyzed. Substantial emphasis was given to a combined cycle systems integrated with low-Btu gasifiers. Performance and cost results from that study were presented for these combined cycle systems, together with a comparative evaluation. The effect of the gasifier type and performance and the interface between the gasifier and the power system were discussed

    Pair production rates in mildly relativistic, magnetized plasmas

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    Electron-positron pairs may be produced by either one or two photons in the presence of a strong magnetic field. In magnetized plasmas with temperatures kT approximately sq mc, both of these processes may be important and could be competitive. The rates of one-photon and two-photon pair production by photons with Maxwellian, thermal bremsstrahlung, thermal synchrotron and power law spectra are calculated as a function of temperature or power law index and field strength. This allows a comparison of the two rates and a determination of the conditions under which each process may be a significant source of pairs in astrophysical plasmas. It is found that for photon densities n(gamma) or = 10 to the 25th power/cu cm and magnetic field strengths B or = 10 to the 12th power G, one-photon pair production dominates at kT approximately sq mc for a Maxwellian, at kT approximately 2 sq mc for a thermal bremsstrahlung spectrum, at all temperatures for a thermal synchrotron spectrum, and for power law spectra with indices s approximately 4

    A study of the usefulness of Skylab EREP data for earth resources studies in Australia

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    The author has identified the following significant results. Preliminary results show that the high resolution imagery has, potentially, an operational role in geological surveying and the design of major engineering works, and is much more promising in this regard than the low resolution Skylab and ERTS-1 imagery

    Structures in granitic bathyliths and associated foldbelts in relation to mineral resources

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    There are no author-identified significant results in this report

    Topological entropy and blocking cost for geodesics in riemannian manifolds

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    For a pair of points x,yx,y in a compact, riemannian manifold MM let nt(x,y)n_t(x,y) (resp. st(x,y)s_t(x,y)) be the number of geodesic segments with length ≀t\leq t joining these points (resp. the minimal number of point obstacles needed to block them). We study relationships between the growth rates of nt(x,y)n_t(x,y) and st(x,y)s_t(x,y) as t→∞t\to\infty. We derive lower bounds on st(x,y)s_t(x,y) in terms of the topological entropy h(M)h(M) and its fundamental group. This strengthens the results of Burns-Gutkin \cite{BG06} and Lafont-Schmidt \cite{LS}. For instance, by \cite{BG06,LS}, h(M)>0h(M)>0 implies that ss is unbounded; we show that ss grows exponentially, with the rate at least h(M)/2h(M)/2.Comment: 13 page

    GREG LYNN’S EMBRYOLOGICAL HOUSE PROJECT: THE "TECHNOLOGY" AND METAPHORS OF METORSMOF ARCHITECTURE

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    This paper offers a close reading of one architectural text engaged in “knowledge transfer”: the use of evolutionary biology discourse as an explanatory account and authority claim supporting Greg Lynn’s Embryological House Project (2000). This essay addresses the twin conference themes of knowledge transfer and the potential threat posed to the specificity of architectural techniques. By offering a detailed reading, this paper argues that information transfer is not an innocuous activity, but involves the critical transformation of source material. This paper argues that technology transfer should acknowledge the workings of an ever-present technology, the “technology of architecture”. This term designates the set of techniques governing the reworking of material from domains exterior to architecture, into material pliable for architecture. In this paper architecture’s evolutionary theory borrowings, provides an exemplary instance of information transfer marked by displacement, not straightforward transmission
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