System for determining the angle of impact of an object on a structure

A method for determining the angle of impact of an object on a thin-walled structure which determines the angle of impact through analysis of the acoustic waves which result when an object impacts a structure is presented. Transducers are placed on and in the surface of the structure which sense the wave caused in the structure by impact. The waves are recorded and saved for analysis. For source motion normal to the surface, the antisymmetric mode has a large amplitude while that of the symmetric mode is very small. As the source angle increases with respect to the surface normal, the symmetric mode amplitude increases while the antisymmetric mode amplitude decreases. Thus, the angle of impact is determined by measuring the relative amplitudes of these two lowest order modes

Reduced heat flow in light water (H2O) due to heavy water (D2O)

The flow of heat, from top to bottom, in a column of light water can be decreased by over 1000% with the addition of heavy water. A column of light water cools from 25 C to 0 C in 11 hours, however, with the addition of heavy water it takes more than 100 hours. There is a concentration dependence where the cooling time increases as the concentration of added (D2O) increases, with a near maximum being reached with as little as 2% of (D2O) added. This phenomenon will not occur if the water is mixed after the heavy water is added.Comment: 18 pages, 22 figures, PD

In Synch but Not in Step: Circadian Clock Circuits Regulating Plasticity in Daily Rhythms

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is a network of neural oscillators that program daily rhythms in mammalian behavior and physiology. Over the last decade much has been learned about how SCN clock neurons coordinate together in time and space to form a cohesive population. Despite this insight, much remains unknown about how SCN neurons communicate with one another to produce emergent properties of the network. Here we review the current understanding of communication among SCN clock cells and highlight a collection of formal assays where changes in SCN interactions provide for plasticity in the waveform of circadian rhythms in behavior. Future studies that pair analytical behavioral assays with modern neuroscience techniques have the potential to provide deeper insight into SCN circuit mechanisms

Human-livestock relationships and community supported agriculture (CSA) in the UK

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a system of food production and distribution aiming to involve local communities in the growing and rearing of their food. Whilst traditionally conceptualised as a mainly horticultural movement, recent developments have seen a number of CSA projects rearing and keeping livestock alongside their vegetable cultivation with consumers embracing the model as a means of access to a greater variety of produce. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with representatives from CSA farms across the UK and the Republic of Ireland this article explores the rationales, roles, and relationships that shape interactions between humans and non-human animals within this niche and alternative agricultural model. Livestock are implicated within CSA projects for diverse reasons, with animals strongly linked to the food based values and identities of each individual community group. Through the development of closer relationships between humans and animals, CSAs become additionally reframed as enterprises producing not just food, but also sources of animal encounters, with members joining the schemes for the encounter value of non-human life, rather than solely in a quest for alternative food (systems). Relationships between humans and animals result in new and different practices, performances, and imaginations of agriculture and agricultural space. Animals' involvement in CSA comes to be as much about producing an ‘alternative place’ as it is about producing ‘alternative food’.This research was conducted as part of a 3 year Ph.D. scholarship, jointly funded by an Economic and Social Research Council studentship (grant reference ES/J500197/1) and a Cardiff University President’s Scholarship

Changing ethnographic mediums: the place-based contingency of smartphones and scratchnotes

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.The medium by which ethnographic notes are taken within the field is changing. Increasingly researchers are turning to jotting short notes using smartphone notation apps, leaving pen and paper behind. While this has practical benefits, there is a need to recognise explicitly how the medium by which notes are taken can influence the content, style and practice of contemporaneous ethnographic note-taking. There is a place-based contingency to the acceptability of the smartphone as a research tool; phones carry different social connotations to paper notebooks, and can act to reinforce difference, making statements of privilege, power and culture. The medium by which fieldnotes are taken actively impacts the field and is capable of influencing relationships with participants and altering the power dynamic of research. The changing tools of note-taking also result in a changing visibility of the act of writing, bringing additional challenges to managing consent and ensuring the ethicality of research.This research was conducted as part of a 3 year PhD scholarship, jointly funded by an Economic and Social Research Council studentship (grant reference ES/J500197/1) and a Cardiff University President’s Scholarship

Thinking critically about health and human-animal relations: Therapeutic affect within spaces of care farming

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.This article draws on a more-than-representational approach to reconsider how geographers engage with ideas of ‘health’. Health can be understood as the constant reshaping of an individual's capacity to affect and be affected, the way in which a body's powers to act are dynamically augmented or diminished by different affective relations. The article also addresses calls for health geography to engage with the more-than-human. The article mobilises a qualitative study of ‘care farming’ within England and Wales to highlight the generative potential of human-animal relations in (re)shaping the diverse affective relations gathered together to produce new bodily capacities. The article demonstrates how animal presence and agency can break down barriers, allowing people to navigate and negotiate adverse contexts and access support in a manner and space in which they feel comfortable. Additionally, human-animal relations are shown to produce affective experiences that act to re-place identities, understandings, and ways of ‘being-with’ the world that can enact what different actants may become. Human-animal relations matter for health.This research was conducted as part of a 3-year Ph.D. scholarship, jointly funded by an Economic and Social Research Council studentship (grant reference ES/J500197/1) and a Cardiff University President's Scholarship

What’s in it for the animals? Symbiotically considering ‘therapeutic’ human-animal relations within spaces and practices of care farming

This is the final version. Available from BMJ Publishing group via the DOI in this record.Human-animal relations are increasingly imbricated, encountered, and experienced in the production of medicine and health. Drawing on an empirical study of care farms in the UK, this article utilises the language of symbiosis to develop a framework for critically considering the relationships enrolled within inter-species therapeutic practices. Care farming is an emerging paradigm that aims to deploy farming practices as a form of therapeutic intervention, with human-animal relations framed as providing important opportunities for human health. This article moves to attend to multispecies therapeutic interventions and relationships from a more-than-human perspective, drawing attention to the often-troubling anthropocentrism in which such practices are framed and performed. Attempting to perform and realise human imaginations of ‘therapeutic’ affects, spaces, and relationships can rely on processes that reduce animals’ own opportunities for flourishing. Yet, the therapeutic use of other species does not have to be forever anthropocentric or utilitarian. The article explores whether relations between humans and animals might result in a level of mutual proliferation of affective capacities, reciprocally beneficial. These human-animal entanglements highlight opportunities to think more critically about how to practice interspecies relationships and practices in ways that are less parasitic, and instead framed more by attempts at producing opportunities for mutualistic flourishing.Economic and Social Research CouncilCardiff UniversityWellcome Trus

Operationally-relevant test lengths : a decision-analysis approach.

This thesis approaches the question of How much testing is enough? by formulating a model for the combat situation in which the weapon (e.g., missile) will be used. Methods of Bayesian statistics are employed to allow the decision maker to benefit from prior information gained in the testing of similar systems by forecasting the operational gain from acceptance. A Microsoft Excel V7.0 spreadsheet serves as the user interface, and Visual Basic for Applications, Excel's built in macro-language, is the language used to produce the source code. The methodology accommodates two different tactical usages for the missile: a single shot, or a salvo of two shots. The missile might be acceptable if used in the two-shot salvo mode, but not in the single shot mode, and this would imply a greater cost per mission. In the end the missile might not be judged cost effective as compared to a competitive system. If the model proposed is (or can become) adequate much can be calculated/estimated before any operational tests are made. This could assist in economizing on operational testinghttp://archive.org/details/operationallyrel00gormApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited