Cylinders with a steel-concrete-steel wall to resist external pressure

[EN] In the 1980’s Manchester University carried out over 110 tests on cylinders with a composite wall (steel-concrete-steel) subjected to external pressure as already reported in the literature. This paper describes further tests on 9 cylinders with a composite wall and a dome end subjected to external pressure and reports the results and compares them with theory. The cylinders were 500 mm diameter and 1250 mm long and four of them had penetrations through the cylinder wall. These tests were carried out under contract for Tecnomare SpA of Italy and have not been previously reported because of confidentiality reasons. The agreement between test behaviour, failure load and the theory developed at Manchester University is good. The philosophy for the design of such vessels for seabed structures is discussed and a ‘depth margin’ method proposed as it is a more realistic way of applying safety. Examples of designs for different depths are given and compared with the predicted failure pressure.Tecnomare SpA of Italy is thanked for providing the financial support for this work. The tests were carried out at Manchester University by Dr. Tom Nash, John Smith & Alan Graham under the direction of the late Professor Peter Montague.Goode, C.; Nash, T. (2018). Cylinders with a steel-concrete-steel wall to resist external pressure. En Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Steel-Concrete Composite Structures. ASCCS 2018. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 647-652. https://doi.org/10.4995/ASCCS2018.2018.7066OCS64765

GestureChords: Transparency in gesturally controlled digital musical instruments through iconicity and conceptual metaphor

This paper presents GestureChords, a mapping strategy for chord selection in freehand gestural instruments. The strategy maps chord variations to a series of hand postures using the concepts of iconicity and conceptual metaphor, influenced by their use in American Sign Language (ASL), to encode meaning in gestural signs. The mapping uses the conceptual metaphors MUSICAL NOTES ARE POINTS IN SPACE and INTERVALS BETWEEN NOTES ARE SPACES BETWEEN POINTS, which are mapped respectively to the number of extended fingers in a performer’s hand and the abduction or adduction between them. The strategy is incorporated into a digital musical instrument and tested in a preliminary study for transparency by both performers and spectators, which gave promising results for the technique

How can music visualisation techniques reveal different perspectives on musical structure?

Standard western notation supports the understanding and performance of music, but has limited provisions for revealing overall musical characteristics and structure. This paper presents several visualisers for highlighting and providing insights into musical structures, including rhythm, pitch, and interval transitions, also noting how these elements modulate over time. The visualisations are presented in the context of Shneiderman's Visual Information-Seeking Mantra, and terminology from the Cognitive Dimensions of Music Notations usability framework. Such techniques are designed to make understanding musical structure quicker, easier, less error prone, and take better advantage of the intrinsic pattern recognition abilities of humans

Climate-relevant behavioral spillover and the potential contribution of social practice theory

Urgent and radical transition to lower-carbon forms of society is imperative to limit current and future climate change impacts. Behavioral spillover theory offers a way to catalyze broad lifestyle change from one behavior to another in ways that generate greater impacts than piecemeal interventions. Despite growing policy and research attention, the evidence for behavioral spillover and the processes driving the phenomenon are unclear. The literature is split between studies that provide evidence for positive spillover effects (where an intervention targeting an environmentally conscious behavior leads to an increase in another functionally related behavior) and negative spillover effects (where an intervention targeting an environmentally conscious behavior leads to a decrease in another functionally related behavior). In summarizing findings, particular attention is given to the implications for climate-relevant behaviors. While few examples of climate-relevant behavioral spillover exist, studies do report positive and negative spillovers to other actions, as well as spillovers from behavior to support for climate change policy. There is also some evidence that easier behaviors can lead to more committed actions. The potential contribution of social practice theory to understanding spillover is discussed, identifying three novel pathways to behavioral spillover: via carriers of practices, materiality, and through relationships between practices within wider systems of practice. In considering future research directions, the relatively neglected role of social norms is discussed as a means to generate the momentum required for substantial lifestyle change and as a way of circumventing obstructive and intransigent climate change beliefs

Changing nurses’ views of the therapeutic environment: randomised controlled trial

Background Although patients value evidence-based therapeutic activities, little is known about nurses’ perceptions. Aims To investigate whether implementing an activities training programme would positively alter staff perceptions of the ward or be detrimental through the increased workload (trial registration: ISRCTN 06545047). Method We conducted a stepped wedge cluster randomised trial involving 16 wards with psychology-led nurse training as the intervention. The main outcome was a staff self-report measure of perceptions of the ward (VOTE) and secondary outcomes measuring potential deterioration were the Index of Work Satisfaction (IWS) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Data were analysed using mixed-effects regression models, with repeated assessments from staff over time. Results There were 1075 valid outcome measurements from 539 nursing staff. VOTE scores did not change over time (standardised effect size 0.04, 95% CI –0.09 to 0.18, P = 0.54), neither did IWS or MBI scores (IWS, standardised effect size 0.02, 95% CI –0.11 to 0.16, P = 0.74; MBI standardised effect size –0.09, 95% CI –0.24 to 0.06, P = 0.24). There was a mean increase of 1.5 activities per ward (95% CI –0.4 to 3.4, P = 0.12) and on average 6.3 more patients attended groups (95% CI –4.1 to 16.6, P = 0.23) following training. Staff feedback on training was positive. Conclusions Our training programme did not change nurses’ perceptions of the ward, job satisfaction or burnout. During the study period many service changes occurred, most having a negative impact through increased pressure on staffing, patient mix and management so it is perhaps unsurprising that we found no benefits or reduction in staff skill

The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), marking the completion of the original goals of the SDSS and the end of the phase known as SDSS-II. It includes 11663 deg^2 of imaging data, with most of the roughly 2000 deg^2 increment over the previous data release lying in regions of low Galactic latitude. The catalog contains five-band photometry for 357 million distinct objects. The survey also includes repeat photometry over 250 deg^2 along the Celestial Equator in the Southern Galactic Cap. A coaddition of these data goes roughly two magnitudes fainter than the main survey. The spectroscopy is now complete over a contiguous area of 7500 deg^2 in the Northern Galactic Cap, closing the gap that was present in previous data releases. There are over 1.6 million spectra in total, including 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars, and 460,000 stars. The data release includes improved stellar photometry at low Galactic latitude. The astrometry has all been recalibrated with the second version of the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC-2), reducing the rms statistical errors at the bright end to 45 milli-arcseconds per coordinate. A systematic error in bright galaxy photometr is less severe than previously reported for the majority of galaxies. Finally, we describe a series of improvements to the spectroscopic reductions, including better flat-fielding and improved wavelength calibration at the blue end, better processing of objects with extremely strong narrow emission lines, and an improved determination of stellar metallicities. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 10 embedded figures. Accepted to ApJS after minor correction