The assignment brief

This article is available open access under a creative commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Copyright @ 2009 Elsevier Ltd.This paper reports on the results of a pilot study conducted in The School of Engineering and Design at Brunel University, which considered how easily students could extract ‘meaningful’ information from an assignment brief. The study used two documents, a ‘standard’ module specific assignment brief (PB1), which used a proforma document issued by the Taught Programmes Office (TPO) and a ‘redesigned’ assessment brief (RB2), which also used the ‘basic’ proforma document as the design template. Both documents used the same data but the redesigned version used principles of Information Architecture to structure the data. The study used a designed questionnaire to elicit responses from students at Level 2, which compared and contrasted the two documents

TUGS: I feel what you see

This article identifies how navigation aids can assist a wide range of visually impaired individuals, particularly focussing on the currently available GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) linked mobile technology systems. Some of the problems with these systems are identified (audio messaging masking critical ambient sound signals) and describes the design and development of a passive tactile interface, which uses the body as the method of communicating navigational information to the user

Is UK agriculture sustainable? Environmentally adjusted economic accounts for UK agriculture

Agricultural sectors in most advanced economies have come under severe criticism for lacking the characteristics of 'sustainability'. What is usually meant is that a combination of subsidies and modern farming methods is producing an economically and environmentally non-viable agricultural sector. Using economic valuation techniques, and adjusting for prevailing subsidies, we seek to re-estimate the contribution that the agricultural sector made to the UK economy in the year 1998. The sector is markedly smaller if adjustments are made for subsidies. But these subsidies allow the sector to be a generator of both substantial environmental benefits, and also of extensive environmental damages

A-D-E Polynomial and Rogers--Ramanujan Identities

We conjecture polynomial identities which imply Rogers--Ramanujan type identities for branching functions associated with the cosets $({\cal G}^{(1)})_{\ell-1}\otimes ({\cal G}^{(1)})_{1} / ({\cal G}^{(1)})_{\ell}$, with ${\cal G}$=A$_{n-1}$ \mbox{$(\ell\geq 2)$}, D$_{n-1}$ $(\ell\geq 2)$, E$_{6,7,8}$ $(\ell=2)$. In support of our conjectures we establish the correct behaviour under level-rank duality for $\cal G$=A$_{n-1}$ and show that the A-D-E Rogers--Ramanujan identities have the expected $q\to 1^{-}$ asymptotics in terms of dilogarithm identities. Possible generalizations to arbitrary cosets are also discussed briefly.Comment: 19 pages, Latex, 1 Postscript figur

TUGS – The tactile user guidance system

The Electronic System and Information Technology Research Group at Brunel University has designed a multifaceted navigation system for blind and visually impaired pedestrians. The primary operation of the system mimics the advantages of an informed sighted guide by using Global Positioning Systems and remote (sighted on the user) video cameras as navigational sensors. The information generated is streamed to a central control centre. This allows the system to operate in a fully automatic or operator assisted mode dependent on the users requirements. Initially the system used an audio link to transfer information to the user, however this has proved problematic. Clear unimpeded access to ambient sound is vital for visually impaired and blind pedestrians, both for efficient wayfinding and safety. Any system which has a continuing dialogue with the user, for example, navigational instructions received through an audio link, interferes with the users ability to process ambient sounds. To solve this problem a novel Tactile User Guidance System (TUGS) with vibrating actuators, has been designed and experimentally tested. In this paper we present the design and experimental verification of TUGS with both visually impaired and sighted users. Although we have taken the visually impaired user as the ‘worst case scenario’ a practical ability to transfer information through the tactile sense has considerable value to other groups who may find themselves in restricted or overloaded visual or audio situations. These groups include; front line responders in the emergency services, railroad workers, pilots and remote vehicle operators

Lattice realizations of unitary minimal modular invariant partition functions

The conformal spectra of the critical dilute A-D-E lattice models are studied numerically. The results strongly indicate that, in branches 1 and 2, these models provide realizations of the complete A-D-E classification of unitary minimal modular invariant partition functions given by Cappelli, Itzykson and Zuber. In branches 3 and 4 the results indicate that the modular invariant partition functions factorize. Similar factorization results are also obtained for two-colour lattice models.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, with minor corrections and clarification

The effect of radiative cooling on scaling laws of X-ray groups and clusters

We have performed cosmological simulations in a ΛCDM cosmology with and without radiative cooling in order to study the effect of cooling on the cluster scaling laws. Our simulations consist of 4.1 million particles each of gas and dark matter within a box size of 100 h-1 Mpc, and the run with cooling is the largest of its kind to have been evolved to z = 0. Our cluster catalogs both consist of over 400 objects and are complete in mass down to ~1013 h-1 M☉. We contrast the emission-weighted temperature-mass (Tew-M) and bolometric luminosity-temperature (Lbol-Tew) relations for the simulations at z = 0. We find that radiative cooling increases the temperature of intracluster gas and decreases its total luminosity, in agreement with the results of Pearce et al. Furthermore, the temperature dependence of these effects flattens the slope of the Tew-M relation and steepens the slope of the Lbol-Tew relation. Inclusion of radiative cooling in the simulations is sufficient to reproduce the observed X-ray scaling relations without requiring excessive nongravitational energy injection

Velocity Coefficients of the Reaction between Ethyl Iodide and Silver Nitrate in Ethyl and Methyl Alcohol and Mixtures of These Solvents

The study of chemical reactions in various solvents is one that has been occupying the attention of chemists for a long time, for by this means it is thought that we may in time gain a closer insight into the mechanism of chemical reactions in general. A reaction frequently studied is that between alkyl halides and silver nitrate