Becoming a Lean University: the case of the University of St Andrews

This article looks at how “lean” can be successfully introduced into a higher education setting by discussing what has become known as ‘The St Andrews Model’. The article demonstrates that “lean” can be adapted to suit the particular circumstances of an institution. Lean, underpinned by a manufacturing heritage, and the subject of a small but growing collection of academic and practitioner analysis, is readily transferrable to other sectors. This article will show that although the model draws on a common body of knowledge, there is not a one size fits all approach. The successful implementation of a lean programme is not an overnight activity; it is, rather, a journey where learning is done by doing.Publisher PD

Affordability of Housing: Concepts, Measurement and Evidence

There has recently been widespread public debate and media attention around housing affordability. This paper discusses the concept of affordability as it applies to housing, examines the approaches used to measure affordability, and then documents the aggregate evidence for New Zealand over the last twenty years. We largely use the Household Economic Survey conducted by Statistics New Zealand to obtain our data. We conclude that affordability is difficult to define and that there is no consensus as to the best way to measure it. Using a range of measures, we examine the trends over time. Our data reveals no long-term trend in affordability when considering all measures. Different measures show different movements over time. Affordability has appeared to move in cycles over the last twenty years.housing; affordability; New Zealand

An Agent-based approach to modelling integrated product teams undertaking a design activity.

The interactions between individual designers, within integrated product teams, and the nature of design tasks, all have a significant impact upon how well a design task can be performed, and hence the quality of the resultant product and the time in which it can be delivered. In this paper we describe an ongoing research project which aims to model integrated product teams through the use of multi-agent systems. We first describe the background and rationale for our work, and then present our initial computational model and results from the simulation of an integrated product team. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the model will evolve to improve the accuracy of the simulation

Ariel - Volume 4 Number 1

Editors David A. Jacoby Eugenia Miller Tom Williams Associate Editors Paul Bialas Terry Burt Michael Leo Gail Tenikat Editor Emeritus and Business Manager Richard J. Bonnano Movie Editor Robert Breckenridg

Pang and Lambourn Hydrometric Review 2009

This Review covers the streamflow, soil water, groundwater and weather data collected from the hydrological infrastructure networks in the Pang and Lambourn catchments. The period covered here is primarily for the calendar year 2009, but because the dataset extends back nearly a decade the earlier years are included in some of the graphs and accompanying text to provide a longer term context

Temperature Fluctuations as a Source of Brown Dwarf Variability

A number of brown dwarfs are now known to be variable with observed amplitudes as large as 10-30% at some wavelengths. While spatial inhomogeneities in cloud coverage and thickness are likely responsible for much of the observed variability, it is possible that some of the variations arise from atmospheric temperature fluctuations instead of, or in addition to, clouds. To better understand the role that thermal variability might play we present a case study of brown dwarf variability using a newly-developed one-dimensional, time-stepping model of atmospheric thermal structure. We focus on the effects of thermal perturbations, intentionally simplifying the problem through omission of clouds and atmospheric circulation. Model results demonstrate that thermal perturbations occurring deep in the atmosphere (at pressures greater than 10 bar) of a model T-dwarf can be communicated to the upper atmosphere through radiative heating via the windows in near-infrared water opacity. The response time depends on where in the atmosphere a thermal perturbation is introduced. We show that, for certain periodic perturbations, the emission spectrum can have complex, time- and wavelength-dependent behaviors, including phase shifts in times of maximum flux observed at different wavelengths. Since different wavelengths probe different levels in the atmosphere, these variations track a wavelength-dependent set of radiative exchanges happening between different atmospheric levels as a perturbation evolves in time. We conclude that thermal--as well as cloud--fluctuations must be considered as possible contributors to the observed brown dwarf variability.Comment: updated reference & DOI; some movies of results available at https://sites.google.com/site/tdrobinsonscience/science/brown-dwarf