Advanced heat receiver conceptual design study

Solar Dynamic space power systems are candidate electrical power generating systems for future NASA missions. One of the key components of the solar dynamic power system is the solar receiver/thermal energy storage (TES) subsystem. Receiver development was conducted by NASA in the late 1960's and since then a very limited amount of work has been done in this area. Consequently the state of the art (SOA) receivers designed for the IOC space station are large and massive. The objective of the Advanced Heat Receiver Conceptual Design Study is to conceive and analyze advanced high temperature solar dynamic Brayton and Stirling receivers. The goal is to generate innovative receiver concepts that are half of the mass, smaller, and more efficient than the SOA. It is also necessary that these innovative receivers offer ease of manufacturing, less structural complexity and fewer thermal stress problems. Advanced Brayton and Stirling receiver storage units are proposed and analyzed in this study which can potentially meet these goals

Road traffic accidents and their implications for management

It has been known for some time that police records collected by the Department of Transport could be unreliable. Local Authorities use these data as an aid to the decision making process and to assist with objective setting. Studies warning of deficiencies in the accuracy of Stats 19 police data show confusing and often differing levels of inaccuracy. Due to the atypical nature of Road Traffic Accident typology the thesis sets out to examine a methodology for use by professional safety practitioners in order to test the reliability and accuracy of existing data and to test how in an operational environment these data might be expanded to meet the needs of the practitioner responsible for education, training and publicity measures rather than the pure highway engineering function which exists at the present time. Saunders, in 'Road Safety Management in a shire county' showed how tactical objectives were set by safety practitioners but concluded that operational resource planning was a vital stepping stone between the tactical and operational objective setting phase. The thesis examines this aspect in depth from a theoretical backcloth but illustrates throughout how this is-necessary to improve management efficiency and effectiveness within a public sector organisation. The thesis examines the levels of under-reporting in the local area from a management standpoint and considers the effects this information will have on the organisation. At the same time, aids to accident analysis such as statements made to the police and methods for improving the quality and reliability of data collection in an operational setting are considered. From this, the thesis examines the current and a proposed revision of the resource base and considers how these findings affect the operational resource plan for the organisation. This, and the methodology discussed, is a necessary management consideration if it is to enable an organisation to meet its aims and objectives

Three-way error analysis between AATSR, AMSR-E and in situ sea surface temperature observations

Using co-locations of three different observation types of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) gives enough information to enable the standard deviation of error on each observation type to be derived. SSTs derived from the Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instruments are used, along with SST observations from buoys. Various assumptions are made within the error theory including that the errors are not correlated, which should be the case for three independent data sources. An attempt is made to show that this assumption is valid and also that the covariances between the observations due to representativity error are negligible. Overall, the AATSR observations are shown to have a very small standard deviation of error of 0.16K, whilst the buoy SSTs have an error of 0.23K and the AMSR-E SST observations have an error of 0.42K. 1

Commercial Bank Underwriting of Credit-Enhanced Bonds: Are there Certification Benefits to the Issuer?

Recent studies have expanded the commercial bank certification hypothesis to include banks acting in an underwriting capacity. This paper further develops that research by focusing on the industrial revenue bond market in which banks have the unique opportunity to simultaneously act as both credit guarantor and underwriter. When explicitly allowing for bank-issued standby letters of credit (guarantees), we find significantly greater yield spreads for those bonds underwritten by commercial banks compared to bonds underwritten by investment banks. Overall, no net benefit appears to accrue to the bond issuer when attempting to achieve joint (or double) certification benefits by employing commercial banks as both credit guarantor and underwriters except in the special case where the same bank acts as both guarantor and underwriter. This limited certification effect is further validated when the credit quality of participating banks is accounted for. This result is consistent with an "economy of scope" in monitoring and reusing information

Commercial Bank Underwriting of Credit-Enhanced Bonds: Are there Benefits to the Issuer?

Recent studies have expanded the commercial bank certification hypothesis to include banks acting in an underwriting capacity. This paper further develops that research by focusing on the industrial revenue bond market in which banks have the unique opportunity to simultaneously act as both credit guarantor and underwriter. When explicitly allowing for bank-issued standby letters of credit (guarantees), we find significantly greater yield spreads for those bonds underwritten by commercial banks compared to bonds underwritten by investment banks. Overall, no net benefit appears to accrue to the bond issuer when attempting to achieve joint (or double) certification benefits by employing commercial banks as both credit guarantor and underwriters except in the special case where the same bank acts as both guarantor and underwriter. This latter result is consistent with an "economy of scope" in monitoring and reusing information

Commercial Bank Underwriting of Credit-Enhanced Bonds: Are there Certification Benefits to the Issuer?

Recent studies have expanded the commercial bank certification hypothesis to include banks acting in an underwriting capacity. This paper further develops that research by focusing on the industrial revenue bond market in which banks have the unique opportunity to simultaneously act as both credit guarantor and underwriter. When explicitly allowing for bankissued standby letters of credit (guarantees), we find significantly greater yield spreads for those bonds underwritten by commercial banks compared to bonds underwritten by investment banks. Overall, no net benefit appears to accrue to the bond issuer when attempting to achieve joint (or double) certification benefits by employing commercial banks as both credit guarantor and underwriters except in the special case where the same bank acts as both guarantor and underwriter. This limited certification effect is further validated when the credit quality of participating banks is accounted for. This result is consistent with an "economy of scope" in monitoring and reusing information

Promoting Awareness Of, And Sharing Good Practices On, Supporting Engineering Students With Disabilities

The amount of literature that focuses on diversity and inclusion within engineering education continues to grow. However, research traditionally focuses on gender, and despite the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) being passed in 2016, there is still a lack of work which describes the experience of students with disabilities....Robot Dynamic

Staring at a screen: reflections on remote learning

open access journalA personal reflection on the experience of delivering seminars online