ICI optical data storage tape

Optical data storage tape is now a commercial reality. The world's first successful development of a digital optical tape system is complete. This is based on the Creo 1003 optical tape recorder with ICI 1012 write-once optical tape media. Several other optical tape drive development programs are underway, including one using the IBM 3480 style cartridge at LaserTape Systems. In order to understand the significance and potential of this step change in recording technology, it is useful to review the historical progress of optical storage. This has been slow to encroach on magnetic storage, and has not made any serious dent on the world's mountains of paper and microfilm. Some of the reasons for this are the long time needed for applications developers, systems integrators, and end users to take advantage of the potential storage capacity; access time and data transfer rate have traditionally been too slow for high-performance applications; and optical disk media has been expensive compared with magnetic tape. ICI's strategy in response to these concerns was to concentrate its efforts on flexible optical media; in particular optical tape. The manufacturing achievements, media characteristics, and media lifetime of optical media are discussed

ICI optical data storage tape

Optical data storage tape is now a commercial reality. The world's first successful development of a digital optical tape system is complete. This is based on the Creo 1003 optical tape recorder with ICI 1012 write-once optical tape media. Flexible optical media offers many benefits in terms of manufacture; for a given capital investment, continuous, web-coating techniques produce more square meters of media than batch coating. The coated layers consist of a backcoat on the non-active side; on the active side there is a subbing layer, then reflector, dye/polymer, and transparent protective overcoat. All these layers have been tailored for ease of manufacture and specific functional characteristics

POPULATION DYNAMICS OF PEST BIRDS

We want to talk now about population principles; this is our main problem dealing with populations. We should discuss the general application of population principles and the management of bird populations. The reason we can discuss this is because many species follow established principles; population growth and later regulation of its size follow certain basic rules. Many pest species follow these principles, but not always to the letter. Populations of different species, as well as of a species, vary depending upon local conditions. Local environments dictate what population levels and the growth of populations will be. Minor variabilities still fit into the general picture. To apply these principles we must consider the level of reduction desired in the pest population. This is determined usually by 1) eco¬nomic damage or 2) disease potential or much too often by 3) the budget. You can go from a complete reduction or local eradication of a species to a very minor change in the population level depending upon the methods you use. One of the major questions which I am sure most of you are faced with is: Which method does what? We\u27ll briefly go through some of the basic principles of what we call population ecology. First, we\u27ll consider the natural growth of a population. We can describe the theoretical natural growth of a number of animals compared to time by what we call an S shape or sigmoid curve. This shape is the result of a change in the rate of increase in the population. We have a very low population at the outset and it increases, and the reason we have an S shape is that the rate of in¬crease changes with time. So we can see that there is a maximum rate of increase at the mid-point. At the beginning of population growth we have fewer animals, and of course, a lower rate of increase. And, at mid-point, you have your maximum rate of increase. Looking at this theoretical graph we see that the population levels off near the end of our given time span. This is what is commonly referred to as the carrying capacity of a particular environment or how many animals the environment can support; the K, some people call it. The carrying capacity changes with local conditions

POPULATION DYNAMICS OF PEST BIRDS

We want to talk now about population principles; this is our main problem dealing with populations. We should discuss the general application of population principles and the management of bird populations. The reason we can discuss this is because many species follow established principles; population growth and later regulation of its size follow certain basic rules. Many pest species follow these principles, but not always to the letter. Populations of different species, as well as of a species, vary depending upon local conditions. Local environments dictate what population levels and the growth of populations will be. Minor variabilities still fit into the general picture. To apply these principles we must consider the level of reduction desired in the pest population. This is determined usually by 1) eco¬nomic damage or 2) disease potential or much too often by 3) the budget. You can go from a complete reduction or local eradication of a species to a very minor change in the population level depending upon the methods you use. One of the major questions which I am sure most of you are faced with is: Which method does what? We\u27ll briefly go through some of the basic principles of what we call population ecology. First, we\u27ll consider the natural growth of a population. We can describe the theoretical natural growth of a number of animals compared to time by what we call an S shape or sigmoid curve. This shape is the result of a change in the rate of increase in the population. We have a very low population at the outset and it increases, and the reason we have an S shape is that the rate of in¬crease changes with time. So we can see that there is a maximum rate of increase at the mid-point. At the beginning of population growth we have fewer animals, and of course, a lower rate of increase. And, at mid-point, you have your maximum rate of increase. Looking at this theoretical graph we see that the population levels off near the end of our given time span. This is what is commonly referred to as the carrying capacity of a particular environment or how many animals the environment can support; the K, some people call it. The carrying capacity changes with local conditions

Students’ Relationships with First-Year Advisors and the Transition to Faculty Advisors: A Qualitative Study of Appreciative Advising and its Effects on College Students.

This qualitative study investigated questions that were created to (a) help improve the quality of academic advising within professional advising and faculty advising at a public university in the Midwest as well as (b) provide additional support to the importance of Appreciative Advising in the advising role and in student services. The theoretical framework for this thesis was Appreciative Education also known as Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Advising (Bloom, Hutson, He & Konkle, 2013). Student testimonials were gauged through face-to-face, one-on-one interviews to analyze students’ interactions with their professional and faculty academic advisors and to determine which connections with their advisors were of importance. This study found that students differed in their degree of satisfaction and levels of motivation to go back to their professional and faculty advisors, with professional advisors being rated higher in those services. In addition, this study found the importance of a student-advisor relationship especially during students’ transition from an undeclared to a declared major. While there are some limitations of this study, the findings of this research add to the body of literature by highlighting the need and importance of support and quality academic advising during students’ transitional period from a professional to a faculty advisor. Recommendations for further research and practice are discussed

Pseudo proximate analysis: method using wireline logs to estimate components of coal bearing rock matrix without control data

>Magister Scientiae - MScLab conducted proximate analysis of coal bearing rock units calculates the weight percentage of ash, moisture, fixed carbon and volatile matter through a series of combustion steps. The data obtained is quintessential in establishing the coal rank and in the case of coal bed methane the gas-in-place estimates. In this study 105 proximate analysis samples, from 7 drilled wells, are taken from the south-eastern Kalahari Basin in Botswana. The pseudo proximate analysis, the method proposed in this thesis, calculates the lab proximate analysis results using the neutron, density and gamma ray wireline logs. The uniqueness of the method lies in the fact that no cut off values are needed for the wireline logs, nor are the results of the lab proximate analysis required for calibration. An in depth study of the relationship between the wireline logs and proximate analysis is conducted using a principle component analysis and the results tested using a combination of statistical techniques to determine the significance of the relationship. It is shown that the density and neutron logs model the proportion of ash and volatile matter in the rock matrix, respectively, with a high degree of accuracy. The multiple regression analysis shows that percentages fixed carbon and moisture components of the rock matrix correlate poorly to the proposed well logs, thus most error lies in the determination of these two components. It is statistically proven that the pseudo proximate analysis results are significantly different to the lab measured proximate analysis. This implies that the proposed pseudo proximate analysis method is unable to accurately determine the components of a coal bearing rock matrix using the density, neutron and gamma ray wireline logs. The application of the proposed method is a model to identity the coal bearing rock matrix and provide a predictive estimation of the coal quality, a priori lab measured data

The Emergence of Major Avian Diseases in North America: West Nile Virus and More

Some major diseases of wild birds have emerged dramatically in North America recently due in part to the rapid global movement of animals and pathogens and major changes in the size, quality, and continuity of natural habitats. These diseases include invasive pathogens, emergence of new disease agents or syndromes, and reemergence of some established diseases. A prominent example is West Nile virus that invaded North America, became easily established, and has expanded throughout the continent within 4 years. A number of factors have influenced the frequency of occurrence, the variety of species affected, and the geographical extent of these emergent diseases. Management and control is limited by the transitory nature of many bird species, difficulties in diagnosing the diseases, and the lack of adequate resources

An investigation of executive function abilities in adults with Prader-Willi Syndrome

Background: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a genetic disorder caused by the absence of expression of maternally imprinted genes on chromosome 15. There are two main genetic sub-types, deletion and uniparental disomy (UPD). In addition to mild/borderline intellectual disability and the almost universal feature of hyperphagia, PWS is associated with high rates of behaviour problems. The present study seeks to explore whether these behaviour problems are associated with relative deficits in executive function (EF), which comprises the non-automatic processes utilized by an individual when faced with a novel situation.Methods: Nineteen adult participants with a clinical diagnosis of PWS (12 with deletion sub¬ type, 6 with UPD, and 1 with an uncertain genetic diagnosis) were recruited from a PWS clinic, and compared with 15 participants of similar age and verbal ability on a series of EF tasks and Digit Span Forwards. An informant completed two ratings of behaviour, the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) and the Dysexecutive questionnaire (DEX).Results: The PWS group had significantly higher scores on the ABC but not the DEX. There were no significant differences between the whole PWS group and the comparison group on any of the EF tasks, but there was a non-significant trend for the deletion group to show more efficient performance on a planning task. The deletion group was significantly poorer at Digit Span Forwards.Conclusions The lack of relative deficits in EF task performance does not support the hypothesis that EF differences could account for the high levels of behaviour problems found in PWS. Applying the Baddeley and Hitch model of working memory it is suggested the PWS deletion group may have a relative impairment in the capacity of the phonological store. As differences in EF ability were not found, it is suggested that the orbitofrontal cortex, which is involved in the modulation of emotion but not EF, may be implicated in the behaviour problems reported in PWS