How radical is “radical efficiency”?: can it still be useful in a time of cuts?.

With some Whitehall departments facing 25 per cent budget cuts over the next five years, there should be a good market in government for the promise of “Radical Efficiency” in a recent report by the Innovation Unit for NESTA. Yet Jane Tinkler and Patrick Dunleavy find there are only some good but small ideas (reliant perhaps on more prosperous times) – but no far-reaching response to the problems of innovating in big-scale government that could really cut costs without damaging services.

Visualizing a control strategy for estimating electricity consumption

This paper investigates the potential of applying different control measures on low power and high power appliances with the goal of evolving efficiency in electricity consumption. The research involves carrying out simulations on their power consumption readings to set up a control system. The study discovers savings on all appliances under study to be 12.8% Kw, not minding occupancy rate of the building. Air-conditioners have the greatest impact of a 6% Kw contribution on savings. This would lead to a substantial contribution when converted to pricing rates. The results from the study indicate that control measures should be extended to peak periods and power saving measures extended to more appliances

REF Advice Notes 3: What will Hefce count as ‘under-pinning’ research?

Many possible Impact Cases are likely to raise issues about whether they are sufficiently grounded on what the REF audit Panels can recognize as ‘2* research’. The Funding Council’s overly restrictive ‘physical science’ view of how research influences policy has created an artificial minefield of pointless obstacles. However, Jane Tinkler and Patrick Dunleavy show how with skill and persistence, departments can navigate successfully past these dangers

The impacts agenda is an autonomous push for opening up and democratizing academia, not part of a neo-liberal hegemony

Improving academic impact has been given a bad name in some academic circles, who link it to a near-conspiracy theory view of the powers of ‘neo-liberalism’. But Patrick Dunleavy and Jane Tinkler argue that (despite one or two bureaucratic distortions, like the REF), the impacts agenda is centrally about enhancing the efficacy of scientific and academic work, democratizing access to knowledge and culture, and fostering rational thinking

The Manuscript of James Thomson\u27s Scots Elegy

Discusses Elegy on James Therburn in Chatto, the only known poem written in Scots by James Thomson (1740-1748), author of The Seasons; provides a text and collation of variants for the poem, based on a recently-discovered photostat of the manuscript, which had long been missing, recording variants also from all previously-published texts; and argues that rather than Thomson revising his poem to Anglicize his language, in this instance he used revision to Scoticize it

Utilising 3D printing techniques when providing unique assistive devices : a case report

Background – The evolution of 3D printing into prosthetics has opened conversations about the availability, and cost of prostheses. This report will discuss how a Prosthetic team incorporated additive manufacture techniques into the treatment of a patient with a amputation to create and test a unique assistive device which he could use to hold his French horn. Case Description and Methods –Using a process of shape capture, photogrammetry, CAD and Finite Element Analysis (FEA), a suitable assistive device was designed and tested. The design was fabricated using 3D printing. Patient satisfaction was measured using a Pugh’s Matrix, and a cost comparison was made between the process used and traditional manufacturing. Findings – Patient satisfaction was high. The 3D printed devices were 56% cheaper to fabricate than a similar laminated device. Outcome and Conclusion – CAD and 3D printing proved an effective method for designing, testing and fabricating a unique assistive device

The DREEM, part 2: psychometric properties in an osteopathic student population

Background The Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) is widely used to assess the educational environment in health professional education programs. A number of authors have identified issues with the psychometric properties of the DREEM. Part 1 of this series of papers presented the quantitative data obtained from the DREEM in the context of an Australian osteopathy program. The present study used both classical test theory and item response theory to investigate the DREEM psychometric properties in an osteopathy student population. Methods Students in the osteopathy program at Victoria University (Melbourne, Australia) were invited to complete the DREEM and a demographic questionnaire at the end of the 2013 teaching year (October 2013). Data were analysed using both classical test theory (confirmatory factor analysis) and item response theory (Rasch analysis). Results Confirmatory factor analysis did not demonstrate model fit for the original 5-factor DREEM subscale structure. Rasch analysis failed to identify a unidimensional model fit for the 50-item scale, however model fit was achieved for each of the 5 subscales independently. A 12-item version of the DREEM was developed that demonstrated good fit to the Rasch model, however, there may be an issue with the targeting of this scale given the mean item-person location being greater than 1. Conclusions Given that the full 50-item scale is not unidimensional; those using the DREEM should avoid calculating a total score for the scale. The 12-item ‘short-form’ of the DREEM warrants further investigation as does the subscale structure. To confirm the reliability of the DREEM, as a measure to evaluate the appropriateness of the educational environment of health professionals, further work is required to establish the psychometric properties of the DREEM, with a range of student populations

Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the human spinal cord during vibration stimulation of different dermatomes

Introduction: We investigated noninvasively areas of the healthy human spinal cord that become active in response to vibration stimulation of different dermatomes using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The objectives of this study were to: (1) examine the patterns of consistent activity in the spinal cord during vibration stimulation of the skin, and (2) investigate the rostrocaudal distribution of active pixels when stimulation was applied to different dermatomes. Methods: FMRI of the cervical and lumbar spinal cord of seven healthy human subjects was carried out during vibration stimulation of six different dermatomes. In separate experiments, vibratory stimulation (about 50Hz) was applied to the right biceps, wrist, palm, patella, Achilles tendon and left palm. Results: The segmental distribution of activity observed by fMRI corresponded well with known spinal cord neuroanatomy. The peak number of active pixels was observed at the expected level of the spinal cord with some activity in the adjacent segments. The rostrocaudal distribution of activity was observed to correspond to the dermatome being stimulated. Cross-sectional localization of activity was primarily in dorsal areas but also spread into ventral and intermediate areas of the gray matter and a distinct laterality ipsilateral to the stimulated limb was not observed. Conclusion: We demonstrated that fMRI can detect a dermatome-dependent pattern of spinal cord activity during vibratory stimulation and can be used as a passive stimulus for the noninvasive assessment of the functional integrity of the human spinal cord. Demonstration of cross-sectional selectivity of the activation awaits further methodological and experimental refinement