A picture worth millions: state of the young people’s workforce

"This is a three year project, sponsored by the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) and the Children’s Workforce Network, to establish the most up to date picture of the young people’s workforce in England and to improve the data for effective workforce planning to achieve the Aiming High for Young People Strategy."

An Analysis of Drug Dissolution in Vivo

The testing of drug dissolution rates from solid dosage forms is a very important area of research within the pharmaceutical industry. The ability to produce drugs with a given dissolution rate will lead to improved performance in the treatment of patients and will be of economic benefit to the pharmaceutical industry. However, dissolution testing in laboratories, aimed at reflecting in-vivo conditions, can be both time consuming and costly. Currently, most simulations of drug dissolution take place in standardized USP (United States Pharmaceutical) apparatuses. A number of these apparatuses exist, and it is the aim of this thesis to analyse drug dissolution in both the USP Paddle Apparatus and the USP Flow Through Apparatus. The first part of this thesis examines drug dissolution from a solid dosage form (compact) in the USP Paddle Apparatus. The process is set up as a boundary layer problem for which there exists both a momentum boundary layer and a concentration boundary layer. The dominant mass transfer mechanism is that of forced convection. A semi-analytical technique is used to solve the boundary layer equations for which velocity data has been provided from computational fluid dynamic simulations. Wherever possible the results from this semi-analytical approach have been compared with that of an exact solution. The second part of the thesis concentrates on the USP Flow Through Apparatus. As the process of drug dissolution in the Flow Through Apparatus is dependent on a vertical flow, the analysis is complicated by the introduction of buoyancy effects. Chapters five to nine analyse a number of general cases for buoyancy driven flows on both flat and curved surfaces. Later, in chapter ten, these general cases are then applied to the process of drug dissolution from the surface of a compact in the USP Flow Through Apparatus. Throughout the thesis, the predicted dissolution rates from the theoretical approach are compared with those of experiment

Microscopic Description of Nuclear Fission at Finite Temperature

While a predictive, microscopic theory of nuclear fission has been elusive, advances in computational techniques and in our understanding of nuclear structure are allowing us to make significant progress. Through nuclear energy density functional theory, we study the fission of thorium and uranium isotopes in detail. These nuclides have been thought to possess hyperdeformed isomers in the third minima of their potential energy surfaces, but microscopic theories tend to estimate either shallow or non- existent third minima in these nuclei. We seek an explanation in terms of neutron shell effects. We study how the fission pathways, the symmetry, and the third minima of these nuclei evolve with increasing excitation energy. We then study the fission of mercury-180, in which a recent experiment unexpectedly discovered that this nucleus fissions asymmetrically. We find that the fission of mercury-180 and mercury-198 is driven by subtleties in shell effects on the approach to scission. We finally survey fission barrier heights and spontaneous fission half-lives of several actinide nuclei, from radium to californium. For a new energy density functional, we find good agreement between our calculations and available experimental data, lending confidence to the predictions of our theory beyond experimentally measured nuclei

Integrating AR Technology Into CBM Laboratory Experiments

This paper examines the pilot phase integration of Augmented Reality (AR) technology into a Condition Based Monitoring (CBM) engineering taught module. Students participate in a laboratory cycle within the CBM module, engaging in multiple experiments on a weekly basis, including Shaft Alignment, which provides meaningful, industry-relevant experience in an engineering environment. During the laboratory sessions, multiple pairs of students complete the experiment simultaneously on multiple custom engineering rigs. The Shaft Alignment procedure, although very relevant to industry needs, is also complex and time consuming, with students often struggling to complete the task within the designated laboratory time. AR technology has been introduced into this module to improve the experimental instructional design, improve the learning experiences for the students and reduce unavoidable practical delays during the experimental cycle. Existing experimental procedures have been implemented as AR content including re-crafted instructional content, multimedia content (videos and images), and custom CAD data overlaid on the engineering rigs as AR reference geometry. The newly-introduced AR-based experiments were completed by multiple students over the course of a number of weeks in April and May 2023. Students provided participant feedback via survey before and after engagement with the AR technology. Test groups were aligned within the class as comparators in terms of using existing non-AR procedures and new AR-enhanced procedures. The outcomes from this pilot phase are presented in this paper, with particular focus on student and lecturer experience, knowledge gained in the context of content creation pathways for future AR integration and increased productivity within the laboratory

Management Research on Multinational Corporations: A Methodological Critique

In the context of burgeoning research on multinational corporations (MNCs), this paper addresses the issue of the representativeness of databases of MNCs in Ireland. It identifies some important deficiencies in existing databases much used by scholars in the field. Drawing on the international literature, it finds that this problem also characterises research on MNCs in many other countries. In the Irish context, we find that the extant empirical research has generally excluded two key categories of MNCs, namely, (a) foreign MNCs which are not grant-aided by the main industrial promotions agencies and (b) Irish-owned MNCs. The paper outlines our experience in identifying and addressing these deficiencies and describes the methods that might be employed in more precisely defining the MNC population in Ireland. More generally the paper reviews some of the issues and obstacles confronting scholars investigating the MNC sector in Ireland and abroad.

Possible breaches of the TPA

This research project has been an active collaboration between the ACCC, CAEPR and ATSIC

Heat Transfer through the Boundary Layer on a Moving Cylindrical Fibre

This paper applies boundary layer theory to the process of manufacturing polymer fibres known as the melt spinning process. The rate of heat loss of the fibre during this process, characterised by the local Nusselt number, is evaluated by means of a Pohlhausen integral method

International charitable connections:variation in the countries of operation of overseas charities

Charities are long-established and increasingly prominent non-state actors in social policy. However, these organisations remain understudied within social policy research, particularly their presence in the delivery of global social policy. This paper provides new cross-national evidence about charities operating internationally. It makes use of a comprehensive administrative dataset covering the country of operation of every overseas charity registered in England and Wales, Australia, and Canada. The international connections of charities are extensive, and these organisations are much more likely to work in countries with shared colonial and linguistic ties, and less likely to work in those with poor governance or high levels of corruption. This paper goes beyond a binary focus on either “developing” or “developed” country contexts, and provides insight into the international connections of “non-elite” as well as “elite” social policy actors