China and Sub Saharan Africa: impacts and challenges of a growing relationship

The existing literature is clear that China is impacting on Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). What is not clear is the precise nature of that impact. Does it come mainly from trade in cheap manufactured goods? Does it come from China's seemingly insatiable hunger for oil and minerals? What countries benefit and in what sectors? What role do Chinese companies operating in Africa play? How beneficial is Chinese aid and/or international cooperation? Who is losing out, and why

Drag Reduction of a Modern Straight Truck

A wind tunnel test program was conducted at the Langley Full Scale Tunnel (LFST) to evaluate the performance of five passive drag reduction configurations on a modern straight truck at full scale. Configurations were tested in a build-up fashion with results representing a cumulative effect. Tested configurations include a front valance, a front box fairing, a boat-tail, an ideal side-skirt, and a practical side-skirt. Configurations were evaluated over a nominal 9 degree yaw sweep to establish wind averaged drag coefficients using SAE J1252. Genuine replicate yaw sweeps were used in an uncertainty analysis. Results show up to 28% improvement in wind-averaged drag coefficient and that significant gains can be made in straight truck fuel economy, even at non-highway speeds. © 2011 SAE International

Engaging the disengaged indefinitely, and with no budget: creating a sustainable model for student library ambassadors

University Libraries offer a wide range of services and facilities to help enhance the student learning experience and to aid the transition into learning at University. Often, too few Science and Engineering students fully engage with the services and facilities on offer and therefore do not benefit from the opportunities available to them. Drawing on research highlighting the value of peer support, and the fact that students are far more likely to use their peers as an information source than ‘experts’, Loughborough University Library obtained small project funding in 2010 to employ four Student Ambassadors in a pilot project to improve student engagement with the Library. The successful project demonstrated the potency of the idea in engaging with students, particularly non-users, a large proportion of which are based in the Science and Engineering Faculties. In the absence of continued funding, the challenge, addressed here, is how to make such posts sustainable. Past experience at both Nottingham and Loughborough Universities has proven how difficult it is to recruit students on a voluntary basis to engage with University Libraries. In this paper, an innovative and creative method of recruiting and supporting “Learning Resource Leaders” (LRLs) at Nottingham and Loughborough Universities is discussed. The strategies employed have resulted in the recruitment of four LRLs – two at each institution – supported by an industrial sponsor who provides a package of non-monetary incentives. The paper also describes the techniques used by the LRLs to disseminate information about the resources offered by the University Libraries and to engage with the student cohort

Nutrients

While vital for the survival of all organisms, nutrients can also pose a threat to aquatic life. Surplus nutrients from agriculture and sewage can cause excess growth of plant life and algae in a process called eutrophication. Eutrophication can have various damaging ecological impacts, including low DO, blocking light from the water column, and blooms of toxic blue-green algae

Relative influence of environmental factors on the timing and occurrence of multi-species coral reef fish aggregations

Reef configuration and hydrodynamics were identified as the principle physical drivers behind coral reef fish aggregations on a mid-shelf patch reef in the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef (-16.845°, 146.23°). The study was carried out over a six-year period at a large reef pass on the oceanic margin of the northern Great Barrier Reef. Over this period (February 2006 –December 2012) tidal state, moon phase and surface seawater temperature were monitored. The timing of sampling was organised to assess variation in physical environment at daily, monthly, seasonal and annual time scales. Over these time scales, temporal patterns of occurrence of 10 species of coral reef fish from 5 families representing 5 defined trophic groups were monitored. The study incorporated 1,357 underwater visual census counts involving 402,370 fish and these estimates were collated with data on tidal state, water temperature, lunar and seasonal periodicity. Aggregated boosted regression trees analysed the univariate responses of fish abundance and species richness to the variation in the physical environment of the reef pass. Flood tides or when water flows from open water through the pass and into the Moore Reef lagoon had 2.3 times as many fish and 1.75 times as many species compared to counts made on ebb tides. Fish abundance was highest in late winter and spring months (Austral calendar), but notably when water temperatures were below the long-term mean of 27°C. Multivariate regression trees and Dufrêne-Legendre indicator predicted 4 out of 10 times the occurrence of all 10 species at any temporal scale ranging from hours to years. Flood tides were the principle driver underlying the occurrence of all 10 species regardless of their trophic classification and produced distinct seasonal assemblages, indicative of fishes aggregating to forage and reproduce

Revealing the Changing Spatial Structure of Cities from Human Activity Patterns

Identifying changes in the spatial structure of cities is a prerequisite for the development and validation of adequate planning strategies. Nevertheless, current methods of measurement are becoming ever more challenged by the highly diverse and intertwined ways of how people actually make use of urban space. Here, we propose a new quantitative measure for the centrality of locations, taking into account not only the numbers of people attracted to different locations, but also the diversity of the activities they are engaged in. This ‘centrality index’ allows for the identification of functional urban centres and for a systematic tracking of their relative importance over time, thus contributing to our understanding of polycentricity. We demonstrate the proposed index using travel survey data in Singapore for different years between 1997 and 2012. It is shown that, on the one hand, the city-state has been developing rapidly towards a polycentric urban form that compares rather closely with the official urban development plan. On the other hand, however, the downtown core has strongly gained in its importance, and this can be partly attributed to the recent extension of the public transit system