Elements of Mechanics

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Addressing School Related Gender Based Violence in Zambia: A Scoping Study

This report presents findings from a scoping study of policy, practice and evidence on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in Zambia, which was carried out in 2016. The main objective of the study was to analyse responses to gender-based violence in and around schools in Zambia, in order to inform future planning of policy and practice initiatives. The study was a collaboration between the government of Zambia, UNICEF, and researchers at the UCL Institute of Education working alongside consultant, Romana Maumbu. Its core elements consist of: analysis of legislation and policy; analysis of programming on SRGBV; mapping of stakeholders working on SRGBV; and the identification and evaluation of research and data sets. The findings presented here will be used to guide decision making for phase two of the initiative which will take place during 2017, as well as longer term planning and action on SRGBV in Zambia. The findings will provide the basis for reflection and the development of the action plan for the next phase of the EGVS initiative

A selected ion flow tube study of the ion-molecule reactions of monochloroethene, trichloroethene and tetrachloroethene

Data for the rate coefficients and product cations of the reactions of a large number of atomic and small molecular cations with monochloroethene, trichloroethene and tetrachloroethene in a selected ion flow tube at 298 K are reported. The recombination energy of the ions range from 6.27 eV (H$_3$O$^+$) through to 21.56 eV (Ne$^+$). Collisional rate coefficients are calculated by modified average dipole orientation theory and compared with experimental values. Thermochemistry and mass balance predict the most feasible neutral products. Together with previously reported results for the three isomers of dichloroethene (J. Phys. Chem. A., 2006, 110, 5760), the fragment ion branching ratios have been compared with those from threshold photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy over the photon energy range 9-22 eV to determine the importance or otherwise of long-range charge transfer. For ions with recombination energy in excess of the ionisation energy of the chloroethene, charge transfer is energetically allowed. The similarity of the branching ratios from the two experiments suggest that long-range charge transfer is dominant. For ions with recombination energy less than the ionisation energy, charge transfer is not allowed; chemical reaction can only occur following formation of an ion-molecule complex, where steric effects are more significant. The products that are now formed and their percentage yield is a complex interplay between the number and position of the chlorine atoms with respect to the C=C bond, where inductive and conjugation effects can be important

Political economics, collective action and wicked socio-ecological problems: A practice story from the field

Empowering integrative, sustainable and equitable approaches to wicked socio-ecological problems requires multiple disciplines and ways of knowing. Following calls for greater attention to political economics in this transdisciplinary work, we offer a practitioner perspective on political economy and collective action and their influences on our community engagement practice and public policy. Our perspective is grounded in a pervasive wicked problem in Australia, invasive rabbits, and the emergence of the Victorian Rabbit Action Network. The network grew out of a publically funded research project to support community-led action in rabbit management. Victorian residents and workers affected by rabbits – public and private land managers, scientists, government officers and others – were invited to engage in a participatory planning process to generate sustainable strategies to address the rabbit problem. Each stage in the process, which involved interviews, a workshop and consultations, was designed to nurture the critical enquiry, listening and learning skills of participants, advance understandings of the problem from multiple perspectives, generate collective options to guide decision-making, and encourage community-led collective action. We reflect on our understanding of these processes using the language and lens of political economics and, in particular, the context of democratic professionalism. In so doing, we define terms and refer to information resources that have enabled us to bring a practical working knowledge of political economics to our professional practice. Our intent is to motivate academics, community members, government officials, and scientists alike, to draw on their knowledge and field experiences and to share practice stories through the lens of political economics and collective action. This is an opportunity to engage each other in small ‘p’ politics of how we understand and act on wicked problems, to negotiate and connect across disciplines, practical experiences and human difference, so that people may work more creatively and effectively together to address the challenging issues of our time. &nbsp

Managing the delivery of iconic football stadiums in England

The English football premier league has become the most popular sports league in the world; with ardent fans and audiences all over the world. The potential business opportunities that this growth holds have therefore attracted investors who are keen to buy shares in the clubs and sign up the best footballers that money can buy. Underpinning the growth in all of the premier league clubs is a desire to make a distinct statement of identity as part of a competitive strategy. One way to achieve this is through the design and construction of iconic football stadiums. This paper explores the specific project management challenges associated with delivery of iconic football stadiums in England and draws lessons for the management of similar iconic infrastructure projects. A study of project management best practice and some case studies shows that key issues which are common to these projects are centred on design management; choice of procurement route; client management; and stakeholder expectation management. These issues are not necessarily unique to the project management of iconic football stadiums but are amplified by the context of these projects. The emphasis on iconic status in a competitive market also means that stadium projects should be conceived and delivered in the context of other strategic projects which should be clearly understood by the project management team

The derivation of the formyl-group oxygen of chlorophyll b in higher plants from molecular oxygen.

The mechanism of formation of the formyl group of chlorophyll b has long been obscure but, in this paper, the origin of the 7-formyl-group oxygen of chlorophyll b in higher plants was determined by greening etiolated maize leaves, excised from dark-grown plants, by illumination under white light in the presence of either H218O or 18O2 and examining the newly synthesized chlorophylls by mass spectroscopy. To minimize the possible loss of 18O label from the 7-formyl substituent by reversible formation of chlorophyll b-71-gem-diol (hydrate) with unlabelled water in the cell, the formyl group was reduced to a hydroxymethyl group during extraction with methanol containing NaBH4: chlorophyll a remained unchanged during this rapid reductive extraction process. Mass spectra of chlorophyll a and [7-hydroxymethyl]-chlorophyll b extracted from leaves greened in the presence of either H218O or 18O2 revealed that 18O was incorporated only from molecular oxygen but into both chlorophylls: the mass spectra were consistent with molecular oxygen providing an oxygen atom not only for incorporation into the 7-formyl group of chlorophyll b but also for the well-documented incorporation into the 131-oxo group of both chlorophylls a and b [see Walker, C. J., Mansfield, K. E., Smith, K. M. & Castelfranco, P. A. (1989) Biochem. J. 257, 599–602]. The incorporation of isotope led to as much as 77% enrichment of the 131-oxo group of chlorophyll a: assuming identical incorporation into the 131 oxygen of chlorophyll b, then enrichment of the 7-formyl oxygen was as much as 93%. Isotope dilution by re-incorporation of photosynthetically produced oxygen from unlabelled water was negligible as shown by a greening experiment in the presence of 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea. The high enrichment using 18O2, and the absence of labelling by H218O, unequivocally demonstrates that molecular oxygen is the sole precursor of the 7-formyl oxygen of chlorophyll b in higher plants and strongly suggests a single pathway for the formation of the chlorophyll b formyl group involving the participation of an oxygenase-type enzyme

Absolute calibration of the intramolecular site preference of 15N fractionation in tropospheric N2O by FT-IR spectroscopy

Nitrous oxide (N2O) plays important roles in atmospheric chemistry both as a greenhouse gas and in stratospheric ozone depletion. Isotopic measurements of N2O have provided an invaluable insight into understanding its atmospheric sources and sinks. The preference for 15N fractionation between the central and terminal positions (the “site preference”) is particularly valuable because it depends principally on the processes involved in N2O production or consumption, rather than the 15N content of the substrate from which it is formed. Despite the value of measurements of the site preference, there is no internationally recognized standard reference material of accurately known and accepted site preference, and there has been some lack of agreement in published studies aimed at providing such a standard. Previous work has been based on isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS); in this work we provide an absolute calibration for the intramolecular site preference of 15N fractionation of working standard gases used in our laboratory by a completely independent technique—high-resolution Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. By reference to this absolute calibration, we determine the site preference for 25 samples of tropospheric N2O collected under clean air conditions to be 19.8‰ ± 2.1‰. This result is in agreement with that based on the earlier absolute calibration of Toyoda and Yoshida (Toyoda, S. and Yoshida, N. Anal. Chem. 1999, 71, 4711−4718) who found an average tropospheric site preference of 18.7‰ ± 2.2‰. We now recommend an interlaboratory exchange of working standard N2O gases as the next step to providing an international reference standard

The N=2(4) string is self-dual N=4 Yang-Mills

N=2 string amplitudes, when required to have the Lorentz covariance of the equivalent N=4 string, describe a self-dual form of N=4 super Yang-Mills in 2+2 dimensions. Spin-independent couplings and the ghost nature of SO(2,2) spacetime make it a topological-like theory with vanishing loop corrections.Comment: 7 pg., ITP-SB-92-24 (uuencoded dvi file; otherwise same as original

Report of the Working Group on `W Mass and QCD' (Phenomenology Workshop on LEP2 Physics, Oxford, April 1997)

The W Mass and QCD Working Group discussed a wide variety of topics relating to present and future measurements of M(W) at LEP2, including QCD backgrounds to W+W- production. Particular attention was focused on experimental issues concerning the direct reconstruction and threshold mass measurements, and on theoretical and experimental issues concerning the four jet final state. This report summarises the main conclusions.Comment: 43 pages LaTeX and 15 encapsulated postscript figures. Uses epsfig and ioplppt macros. Full Proceedings to be published in Journal of Physics

Reduction of Couplings in Quantum Field Theories with applications in Finite Theories and the MSSM

We apply the method of reduction of couplings in a Finite Unified Theory and in the MSSM. The method consists on searching for renormalization group invariant relations among couplings of a renormalizable theory holding to all orders in perturbation theory. It has a remarkable predictive power since, at the unification scale, it leads to relations between gauge and Yukawa couplings in the dimensionless sectors and relations involving the trilinear terms and the Yukawa couplings, as well as a sum rule among the scalar masses and the unified gaugino mass in the soft breaking sector. In both the MSSM and the FUT model we predict the masses of the top and bottom quarks and the light Higgs in remarkable agreement with the experiment. Furthermore we also predict the masses of the other Higgses, as well as the supersymmetric spectrum, both being in very confortable agreement with the LHC bounds on Higgs and supersymmetric particles.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures. To appear in the proceedings of LT-10, Varna. Based on invited talks given at: LT-10, Varna; PACT-2013, Madrid; SQS'2013, Dubna; CORFU 2013, Corfu, and in several invited seminar