4,668 research outputs found
Towards developing an industry led educational framework using LEAN approach
The poor performance and inefficient manner in which the construction industry operates has been recognised through a variety of combined government and industry initiatives over the years. A major challenge towards improvement is recognised as lying with education and industry stakeholders actively creating closer and more effective relationships to facilitate a greater mutual understanding.
The application of Information Technology (IT) systems can well enhance âLeanâ initiatives through improving process flow, reduction of the non-added value activities, better meet customersâ requirements and adding value which will increase the performance of the industry.
This paper presents a project that is focused on developing an industry led framework for educational training programmes. The outcomes of two workshops organised with the industry that have resulted in a Continued Professional Development (CPD) training framework comprising of three distinct levels in terms of strategic, operational and technology aspects of that particular key area are discussed. The essence of this work is based on adopting the âLeanâ approach and adding value by identifying the IT skills gaps recognised âby the industryâ âfor the industryâ and addressing them in developing training programmes
Monte Carlo aided design of the inner muon veto detectors for the Double Chooz experiment
The Double Chooz neutrino experiment aims to measure the last unknown
neutrino mixing angle theta_13 using two identical detectors positioned at
sites both near and far from the reactor cores of the Chooz nuclear power
plant. To suppress correlated background induced by cosmic muons in the
detectors, they are protected by veto detector systems. One of these systems is
the inner muon veto. It is an active liquid scintillator based detector and
instrumented with encapsulated photomultiplier tubes. In this paper we describe
the Monte Carlo aided design process of the inner muon veto, that resulted in a
detector configuration with 78 PMTs yielding an efficiency of 99.978 +- 0.004%
for rejecting muon events and an efficiency of >98.98% for rejecting correlated
events induced by muons. A veto detector of this design is currently used at
the far detector site and will be built and incorporated as the muon
identification system at the near site of the Double Chooz experiment
Thin-film flow in helically wound rectangular channels with small torsion
Laminar gravity-driven thin-film flow down a helically-wound channel of rectangular cross-section with small torsion in which the fluid depth is small is considered. Neglecting the entrance and exit regions we obtain the steady-state solution that is independent of position along the axis of the channel, so that the flow, which comprises a primary flow in the direction of the axis of the channel and a secondary flow in the cross-sectional plane, depends only on position in the two-dimensional cross-section of the channel. A thin-film approximation yields explicit expressions for the fluid velocity and pressure in terms of the free-surface shape, the latter satisfying a non-linear ordinary differential equation that has a simple exact solution in the special case of a channel of rectangular cross-section. The predictions of the thin-film model are shown to be in good agreement with much more computationally intensive solutions of the small-helix-torsion NavierâStokes equations. The present work has particular relevance to spiral particle separators used in the mineral-processing industry. The validity of an assumption commonly used in modelling flow in spiral separators, namely that the flow in the outer region of the separator cross-section is described by a free vortex, is shown to depend on the problem parameters
Experiment definition phase shuttle laboratory (LDRL-10.6 experiment): Shuttle sortie to elliptical orbit satellite
The following topics were reviewed: (1) design options for shuttle terminal, (2) elliptical orbit satellite design options, (3) shuttle terminal details, (4) technology status and development requirements, (5) transmitter technology, and (6) carbon dioxide laser life studies
Experiment definition phase shuttle laboratory, LDRL-10.6 experiment. Shuttle sortie to ground receiver terminal
System development and technology are described for a carbon dioxide laser data transmitter capable of transmitting 400 Mbps over a shuttle to ground station link
Exponentially small heteroclinic breakdown in the generic Hopf-zero singularity
In this paper we prove the breakdown of an heteroclinic connection in the
analytic versal unfoldings of the generic Hopf-Zero singularity in an open set
of the parameter space. This heteroclinic orbit appears at any order if one
performs the normal form around the origin, therefore it is a phenomenon
"beyond all orders". In this paper we provide a formula for the distance
between the corresponding stable and unstable one dimensional manifolds which
is given by an exponentially small function in the perturbation parameter. Our
result applies both for conservative and dissipative unfoldings
Pure O-sequences and matroid h-vectors
We study Stanley's long-standing conjecture that the h-vectors of matroid
simplicial complexes are pure O-sequences. Our method consists of a new and
more abstract approach, which shifts the focus from working on constructing
suitable artinian level monomial ideals, as often done in the past, to the
study of properties of pure O-sequences. We propose a conjecture on pure
O-sequences and settle it in small socle degrees. This allows us to prove
Stanley's conjecture for all matroids of rank 3. At the end of the paper, using
our method, we discuss a first possible approach to Stanley's conjecture in
full generality. Our technical work on pure O-sequences also uses very recent
results of the third author and collaborators.Comment: Contains several changes/updates with respect to the previous
version. In particular, a discussion of a possible approach to the general
case is included at the end. 13 pages. To appear in the Annals of
Combinatoric
Qudit Quantum State Tomography
Recently quantum tomography has been proposed as a fundamental tool for
prototyping a few qubit quantum device. It allows the complete reconstruction
of the state produced from a given input into the device. From this
reconstructed density matrix, relevant quantum information quantities such as
the degree of entanglement and entropy can be calculated. Generally orthogonal
measurements have been discussed for this tomographic reconstruction. In this
paper, we extend the tomographic reconstruction technique to two new regimes.
First we show how non-orthogonal measurement allow the reconstruction of the
state of the system provided the measurements span the Hilbert space. We then
detail how quantum state tomography can be performed for multi qudits with a
specific example illustrating how to achieve this in one and two qutrit
systems.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR
Scaled free energies, power-law potentials, strain pseudospins and quasi-universality for first-order structural transitions
We consider ferroelastic first-order phase transitions with
order-parameter strains entering Landau free energies as invariant polynomials,
that have structural-variant Landau minima. The total free energy
includes (seemingly innocuous) harmonic terms, in the {\it
non}-order-parameter strains. Four 3D transitions are considered,
tetragonal/orthorhombic, cubic/tetragonal, cubic/trigonal and
cubic/orthorhombic unit-cell distortions, with respectively, and 2; and and 6. Five 2D transitions are also considered, as
simpler examples. Following Barsch and Krumhansl, we scale the free energy to
absorb most material-dependent elastic coefficients into an overall prefactor,
by scaling in an overall elastic energy density; a dimensionless temperature
variable; and the spontaneous-strain magnitude at transition .
To leading order in the scaled Landau minima become
material-independent, in a kind of 'quasi-universality'. The scaled minima in
-dimensional order-parameter space, fall at the centre and at the
corners, of a transition-specific polyhedron inscribed in a sphere, whose
radius is unity at transition. The `polyhedra' for the four 3D transitions are
respectively, a line, a triangle, a tetrahedron, and a hexagon. We minimize the
terms harmonic in the non-order-parameter strains, by substituting
solutions of the 'no dislocation' St Venant compatibility constraints, and
explicitly obtain powerlaw anisotropic, order-parameter interactions, for all
transitions. In a reduced discrete-variable description, the competing minima
of the Landau free energies induce unit-magnitude pseudospin vectors, with values, pointing to the polyhedra corners and the (zero-value) center.Comment: submitted to PR
In situ measurement of root reinforcement using corkscrew extraction method
Mechanical root reinforcement is an important parameter to evaluate for stability analysis of rooted slopes. The contribution of roots is however difficult to quantify in situ without time-consuming methods or heavy equipment. Here we report field testing using the newly developed âcorkscrewâ method at two different sites with plantings of conifers and blackcurrant. In both sites we found positive correlations between root quantity and root reinforcement in surface layers where many roots were found. Below 125 mm depth, no correlations could be found, probably due to variability in soil stress and gravel content. Roots were shown not only to increase the soil peak strength, but also to add ductility to the soil, i.e., adding strength over much larger displacement ranges. Measured reinforcement, although similar to other experimental studies, was smaller than predicted using existing models. This may be attributed to the distinct difference in shear displacement required to mobilize the strength of rooted soil as compared with fallow soil. At displacements sufficient to mobilize root strength, the soil strength component has reduced from peak to a much smaller residual strength. The corkscrew method proved a promising tool to quantify root reinforcement in field conditions due to its ease of use and short test duration.</p
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