Numerical investigation of aeroelastic mode distribution for aircraft wing model in subsonic air flow

In this paper, the numerical results on two problems originated in aircraft wing modeling have been presented. The first problem is concerned with the approximation to the set of the aeroelastic modes, which are the eigenvalues of a certain boundary-value problem. The affirmative answer is given to the following question: can the leading asymptotical terms in the analytical formulas be used as reasonably accurate description of the aeroelastic modes? The positive answer means that these leading terms can be used by engineers for practical calculations. The second problem is concerned with the flutter phenomena in aircraft wings in a subsonic, incompressible, inviscid air flow. It has been shown numerically that there exists a pair of the aeroelastic modes whose behavior depends on a speed of an air flow. Namely, when the speed increases, the distance between the modes tends to zero, and at some speed that can be treated as the flutter speed these two modes merge into one double mode

Building Community Practice Competencies Globally through the Community Tool Box

People throughout the world are working together to improve conditions in which they live. Although the issues and resources vary by context, what people actually do to effect change—core competencies of assessment, planning, action, evaluation, and sustainability—may be quite similar. To examine what competencies may be most valued in community practice, this report uses data analytics for what users are accessing in the Community Tool Box http://ctb.ku.edu/. This free resource for community health and development, with over 1.7 million unique visitors annually from over 200 countries, showed a six-fold increase in users during the past year (from November 2011 to November 2012). When we examined what users were accessing, the results showed greater interest in some particular competencies such as assessing community needs and resources, developing strategic and action plans, and enhancing cultural competence. Patterns of use suggest that there may be core competencies valued by community members seeking to change conditions and outcomes that matter, which may help inform training and professional development for the millions of people worldwide working to promote health, human development, and social justice.&nbsp

Building Community Practice Competencies Globally through the Community Tool Box

People throughout the world are working together to improve conditions in which they live. Although the issues and resources vary by context, what people actually do to effect change—core competencies of assessment, planning, action, evaluation, and sustainability—may be quite similar. To examine what competencies may be most valued in community practice, this report uses data analytics for what users are accessing in the Community Tool Box http://ctb.ku.edu/. This free resource for community health and development, with over 1.7 million unique visitors annually from over 200 countries, showed a six-fold increase in users during the past year (from November 2011 to November 2012). When we examined what users were accessing, the results showed greater interest in some particular competencies such as assessing community needs and resources, developing strategic and action plans, and enhancing cultural competence. Patterns of use suggest that there may be core competencies valued by community members seeking to change conditions and outcomes that matter, which may help inform training and professional development for the millions of people worldwide working to promote health, human development, and social justice.&nbsp

An Expert System-Driven Method for Parametric Trajectory Optimization During Conceptual Design

During the early phases of engineering design, the costs committed are high, costs incurred are low, and the design freedom is high. It is well documented that decisions made in these early design phases drive the entire design's life cycle cost. In a traditional paradigm, key design decisions are made when little is known about the design. As the design matures, design changes become more difficult in both cost and schedule to enact. The current capability-based paradigm, which has emerged because of the constrained economic environment, calls for the infusion of knowledge usually acquired during later design phases into earlier design phases, i.e. bringing knowledge acquired during preliminary and detailed design into pre-conceptual and conceptual design. An area of critical importance to launch vehicle design is the optimization of its ascent trajectory, as the optimal trajectory will be able to take full advantage of the launch vehicle's capability to deliver a maximum amount of payload into orbit. Hence, the optimal ascent trajectory plays an important role in the vehicle's affordability posture yet little of the information required to successfully optimize a trajectory is known early in the design phase. Thus, the current paradigm of optimizing ascent trajectories involves generating point solutions for every change in a vehicle's design parameters. This is often a very tedious, manual, and time-consuming task for the analysts. Moreover, the trajectory design space is highly non-linear and multi-modal due to the interaction of various constraints. When these obstacles are coupled with the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories (POST), an industry standard program to optimize ascent trajectories that is difficult to use, expert trajectory analysts are required to effectively optimize a vehicle's ascent trajectory. Over the course of this paper, the authors discuss a methodology developed at NASA Marshall's Advanced Concepts Office to address these issues. The methodology is two-fold: first, capture the heuristics developed by human analysts over their many years of experience; and secondly, leverage the power of modern computing to evaluate multiple trajectories simultaneously and therefore enable the exploration of the trajectory's design space early during the pre- conceptual and conceptual phases of design. This methodology is coupled with design of experiments in order to train surrogate models, which enables trajectory design space visualization and parametric optimal ascent trajectory information to be available when early design decisions are being made

Workers in the vanguard: the 1960 Industrial Relations Ordinance and the struggle for independence in Aden

The promulgation in 1960 of a new Industrial Relations Ordinance in Aden was a singular event in the history of British decolonisation because it made many forms of strike action illegal. Earlier initiatives to liberalise trade union law in the colonies were intended to channel and manage the discontent of workers; but for nationalist movements, the new order in industrial relations provided an opportunity to mobilise workers in the cause of independence. Aden, which was the location of a significant British base, a major oil refinery and a key commercial port, became the site of a bitter confrontation between the nascent trade union movement and the colonial administration. Three aspects of the conflict were of particular significance. First, Aden’s unique political status as a British colony in the Arab world and it strategic and economic value, contributed to the fractious industrial relations environment. Secondly, conflicts between workers and the colonial government demonstrate continuity with wider British efforts to suppress anti-colonial dissent and demonstrate that charges of appeasement in the last years of empire are not well founded. Lastly, the exceptional nature of the new legislation attracted the critical attention of the ILO and the major international trade union confederations, which internationalised the dispute over the IRO. An examination of the manner in which the British government sought to regulate its relations with various labour organisations, including the British TUC, the colonial ATUC and the two rival international labour confederations of the WFTU and ICFTU, demonstrates that the conduct of industrial relations in Aden was significant in the context of both the Cold War and decolonisation

Protocol for the 'e-Nudge trial' : a randomised controlled trial of electronic feedback to reduce the cardiovascular risk of individuals in general practice [ISRCTN64828380]

Background: Cardiovascular disease (including coronary heart disease and stroke) is a major cause of death and disability in the United Kingdom, and is to a large extent preventable, by lifestyle modification and drug therapy. The recent standardisation of electronic codes for cardiovascular risk variables through the United Kingdom's new General Practice contract provides an opportunity for the application of risk algorithms to identify high risk individuals. This randomised controlled trial will test the benefits of an automated system of alert messages and practice searches to identify those at highest risk of cardiovascular disease in primary care databases. Design: Patients over 50 years old in practice databases will be randomised to the intervention group that will receive the alert messages and searches, and a control group who will continue to receive usual care. In addition to those at high estimated risk, potentially high risk patients will be identified who have insufficient data to allow a risk estimate to be made. Further groups identified will be those with possible undiagnosed diabetes, based either on elevated past recorded blood glucose measurements, or an absence of recent blood glucose measurement in those with established cardiovascular disease. Outcome measures: The intervention will be applied for two years, and outcome data will be collected for a further year. The primary outcome measure will be the annual rate of cardiovascular events in the intervention and control arms of the study. Secondary measures include the proportion of patients at high estimated cardiovascular risk, the proportion of patients with missing data for a risk estimate, and the proportion with undefined diabetes status at the end of the trial

Control of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus in Health Care Facilities in a Region

Background In late 1996, vancomycin-resistant enterococci were first detected in the Siouxland region of Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. A task force was created, and in 1997 the assistance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was sought in assessing the prevalence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in the region’s facilities and implementing recommendations for screening, infection control, and education at all 32 health care facilities in the region. Methods The infection-control intervention was evaluated in October 1998 and October 1999. We performed point-prevalence surveys, conducted a case– control study of gastrointestinal colonization with vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and compared infection-control practices and screening policies for vancomycin-resistant enterococci at the acute care and long-term care facilities in the Siouxland region. Results Perianal-swab samples were obtained from 1954 of 2196 eligible patients (89 percent) in 1998 and 1820 of 2049 eligible patients (89 percent) in 1999. The overall prevalence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci at 30 facilities that participated in all three years of the study decreased from 2.2 percent in 1997 to 1.4 percent in 1998 and to 0.5 percent in 1999 (P Conclusions An active infection-control intervention, which includes the obtaining of surveillance cultures and the isolation of infected patients, can reduce or eliminate the transmission of vancomycinresistant enterococci in the health care facilities of a region. (N Engl J Med 2001;344:1427-33.

Digital PCR provides sensitive and absolute calibration for high throughput sequencing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Next-generation DNA sequencing on the 454, Solexa, and SOLiD platforms requires absolute calibration of the number of molecules to be sequenced. This requirement has two unfavorable consequences. First, large amounts of sample-typically micrograms-are needed for library preparation, thereby limiting the scope of samples which can be sequenced. For many applications, including metagenomics and the sequencing of ancient, forensic, and clinical samples, the quantity of input DNA can be critically limiting. Second, each library requires a titration sequencing run, thereby increasing the cost and lowering the throughput of sequencing.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We demonstrate the use of digital PCR to accurately quantify 454 and Solexa sequencing libraries, enabling the preparation of sequencing libraries from nanogram quantities of input material while eliminating costly and time-consuming titration runs of the sequencer. We successfully sequenced low-nanogram scale bacterial and mammalian DNA samples on the 454 FLX and Solexa DNA sequencing platforms. This study is the first to definitively demonstrate the successful sequencing of picogram quantities of input DNA on the 454 platform, reducing the sample requirement more than 1000-fold without pre-amplification and the associated bias and reduction in library depth.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The digital PCR assay allows absolute quantification of sequencing libraries, eliminates uncertainties associated with the construction and application of standard curves to PCR-based quantification, and with a coefficient of variation close to 10%, is sufficiently precise to enable direct sequencing without titration runs.</p

Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations

Teachers are an important source of information for traditionally disadvantaged students. However, little is known about how teachers form expectations and whether they are systematically biased. We investigate whether student-teacher demographic mismatch affects high school teachers’ expectations for students’ educational attainment. Using a student fixed effects strategy that exploits expectations data from two teachers per student, we find that non-black teachers of black students have significantly lower expectations than do black teachers. These effects are larger for black male students and math teachers. Our findings add to a growing literature on the role of limited information in perpetuating educational attainment gaps

Evolution of predator dispersal in relation to spatio-temporal prey dynamics : how not to get stuck in the wrong place!

Peer reviewedPublisher PD