England’s municipal waste regime: challenges and prospects

This paper provides a synthetic account of England’s municipal waste regime at the end of the 2010s, drawing on quantitative data (WasteDataFlow), a dataset of 1604 local authority waste management contracts and an archive assembled from publicly available minutes and papers of 125 (or ~40%) of England’s 348 local authorities. In technical-material terms, the regime, previously heavily dependent upon landfill, is now characterised by energy-fromwaste and recycling and/or composting in fairly equal measure. This infrastructural transformation, enacted over some 20 years, has been underpinned by the financialization and marketization of England’s municipal waste. Residual waste has been constituted as a financial asset whilst both residual waste and materials collected for recycling are the basis for further commodity production. The corporate landscape is dominated by large, European-based transnationals. As well as documenting the regime and its emergence, the paper highlights, and accounts for, the multiple challenges it now faces – chiefly, the technical failure of residual waste solutions which necessitate a continued reliance on landfill for some councils, the collapse of the export markets on which England’s resource recovery has depended, and a radically changed policy landscape that seeks to move England towards a more circular economy. It concludes by urging the need for a far ranging discussion of the role of local authorities in this new policy landscape, whose waste infrastructure, procured in response to a linear economy, is argued both to threaten, and be threatened by, these new policy directions

The Identity Paradox and an Expanded Framework of Organizational Identity

This conceptual paper is guided by three objectives: First, to bolster the argument for organizational identity as a defined concept, as compared with a metaphor or paradigmatic perspective. Second, articulate a clearer and more fully developed connection between the concepts of individual identity and organizational identity. Third, specify a distinctive, defensible conceptual domain for the concept of organizational identity and align the definition of organizational identity with that domain. Guided by these objectives, we argue that the tension between being similar and different is a fundamental and distinguishing feature of identity – and that this “identity paradox” exists at both the individual and organizational levels. We then propose a two-dimensional form of this identity paradox and suggest that the resulting framework serve as the conceptual domain of organizational identity. In the end, we examine the implications of the proposed conceptual space for Albert and Whetten’s (1985) definition of organizational identity and propose two new definitional elements

The Identity Paradox and an Expanded Framework of Organizational Identity

This conceptual paper is guided by three objectives: First, to bolster the argument for organizational identity as a defined concept, as compared with a metaphor or paradigmatic perspective. Second, articulate a clearer and more fully developed connection between the concepts of individual identity and organizational identity. Third, specify a distinctive, defensible conceptual domain for the concept of organizational identity and align the definition of organizational identity with that domain. Guided by these objectives, we argue that the tension between being similar and different is a fundamental and distinguishing feature of identity – and that this “identity paradox” exists at both the individual and organizational levels. We then propose a two-dimensional form of this identity paradox and suggest that the resulting framework serve as the conceptual domain of organizational identity. In the end, we examine the implications of the proposed conceptual space for Albert and Whetten’s (1985) definition of organizational identity and propose two new definitional elements

SNR Enhancement in Brillouin Microspectroscopy using Spectrum Reconstruction

Brillouin imaging suffers from intrinsically low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). Such low SNRs can render common data analysis protocols unreliable, especially for SNRs below $\sim10$. In this work we exploit two denoising algorithms, namely maximum entropy reconstruction (MER) and wavelet analysis (WA), to improve the accuracy and precision in determination of Brillouin shifts and linewidth. Algorithm performance is quantified using Monte-Carlo simulations and benchmarked against the Cram\'er-Rao lower bound. Superior estimation results are demonstrated even at low SNRS ($\geq 1$). Denoising was furthermore applied to experimental Brillouin spectra of distilled water at room temperature, allowing the speed of sound in water to be extracted. Experimental and theoretical values were found to be consistent to within $\pm1\%$ at unity SNR

Multi-Choice Questions and Their Problems When Used for Assessment of Aircraft Engineers Education

Licensed aircraft engineers under the European Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, undertake academic training to complement their practical and type specific studies. These exams are mainly Multi-Choice Questions, MCQ, and four 20-minute essays. The MCQ exams are as few as 16 questions to a maximum of 140 questions. A score of 75% is needed to pass each exam, and each question has three possible answers. This authors of this paper reviews the theory and design of the MCQ and asks if the assumptions are valid and that it achieves the academic level assumed for engineers who will be maintaining some of the most complex system in the world, and the safety of passengers. It will argue that there are failings and how this can be address, in particular, that repeated tests should have a higher pass level

Determination of the three-dimensional orientation of single molecules

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