Coated silicon comprising material for protection against environmental corrosion

In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, an article is disclosed. The article comprises a gas turbine engine component substrate comprising a silicon material; and an environmental barrier coating overlying the substrate, wherein the environmental barrier coating comprises cerium oxide, and the cerium oxide reduces formation of silicate glass on the substrate upon exposure to corrodant sulfates

Education for development policy and management: impacts on individual and organizational capacity-building

This research investigates the impact of postgraduate programmes in Development Policy and Management (DPAM) on individual students and on the organizations in which they work. Such programmes have the potential to enhance the capacities of individuals working in a range of organizations directed to poverty reduction, development and wealth creation, from development NGOs to commercial enterprises. The study focused on four programmes in DPAM, three in Southern Africa and one in the UK with a global reach. Three were distance learning programmes and one was block release. All the programmes were informed by an interactive approach and a reflective practitioner philosophy in which course content informs practice and students’ experience is brought to bear on their understandings and use of course content. The study used a survey of students and their line managers (or colleagues who knew their work well), and case studies of students and organizations known to have built capacity and/or brought about changes as a result of students being on a programme. The purpose of the case studies was not simply to corroborate or deepen the survey evidence, but to investigate how capacity-building and change comes about

On the Buckling of Elastic Rings by External Confinement

We report the results of an experimental and numerical investigation into the buckling of thin elastic rings confined within containers of circular or regular polygonal cross section. The rings float on the surface of water held in the container and controlled removal of the fluid increases the confinement of the ring. The increased compressive forces can cause the ring to buckle into a variety of shapes. For the circular container, finite perturbations are required to induce buckling, whereas in polygonal containers the buckling occurs through a linear instability that is closely related to the canonical Euler column buckling. A model based on Kirchhoff–Love beam theory is developed and solved numerically, showing good agreement with the experiments and revealing that in polygons increasing the number of sides means that buckling occurs at reduced levels of confinement. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Patterning through instabilities in complex media: theory and applications.

What can management theories offer evidence-based practice? A comparative analysis of measurement tools for organisational context

Background: Given the current emphasis on networks as vehicles for innovation and change in health service delivery, the ability to conceptualise and measure organisational enablers for the social construction of knowledge merits attention. This study aimed to develop a composite tool to measure the organisational context for evidence-based practice (EBP) in healthcare. Methods: A structured search of the major healthcare and management databases for measurement tools from four domains: research utilisation (RU), research activity (RA), knowledge management (KM), and organisational learning (OL). Included studies were reports of the development or use of measurement tools that included organisational factors. Tools were appraised for face and content validity, plus development and testing methods. Measurement tool items were extracted, merged across the four domains, and categorised within a constructed framework describing the absorptive and receptive capacities of organisations. Results: Thirty measurement tools were identified and appraised. Eighteen tools from the four domains were selected for item extraction and analysis. The constructed framework consists of seven categories relating to three core organisational attributes of vision, leadership, and a learning culture, and four stages of knowledge need, acquisition of new knowledge, knowledge sharing, and knowledge use. Measurement tools from RA or RU domains had more items relating to the categories of leadership, and acquisition of new knowledge; while tools from KM or learning organisation domains had more items relating to vision, learning culture, knowledge need, and knowledge sharing. There was equal emphasis on knowledge use in the different domains. Conclusion: If the translation of evidence into knowledge is viewed as socially mediated, tools to measure the organisational context of EBP in healthcare could be enhanced by consideration of related concepts from the organisational and management sciences. Comparison of measurement tools across domains suggests that there is scope within EBP for supplementing the current emphasis on human and technical resources to support information uptake and use by individuals. Consideration of measurement tools from the fields of KM and OL shows more content related to social mechanisms to facilitate knowledge recognition, translation, and transfer between individuals and groups

Devising an Online Resource to Help Undergraduate Science Students Critically Evaluate Research Articles

Critically evaluating research papers is an important vehicle for promoting acculturation into a scientific discipline. As science students progress through their undergraduate studies, their critical abilities are expected to become heightened, and research papers are read and cited in order to support a variety of assignments, such as essays, critical reviews and presentations, progressing to shaping laboratory research projects and dissertation-writing. This article describes the process of designing a modular online resource. The resource is aimed at familiarising students with the structural conventions and argumentative devices used in research papers and supporting them in deep-reading a research paper in life sciences or chemistry. The modules employ audio- and video-recorded extracts from interviews with a key author to provide a context for the origins, motivations and processes behind the writing of a specific paper, plus scaffolded questions to encourage critical evaluation of the paper. Notable features of the project were the employment of a multi-disciplinary team of staff and research postgraduates coupled with the developmental testing of the resource by undergraduates. Lessons learnt from the project are considered, including the resource’s integration within the curriculum and the challenges of writing such interactive resources for different disciplines

It all just clicked: a longitudinal perspective on transitions within University

This paper explores the transitions that a group of students, admitted from further education colleges as part of broader widening access initiative at a Scottish research–intensive university, made across the lifetime of their degrees. It investigates how they negotiate their learning careers beyond the first year, and how they (re)define their approaches to independent learning as they progress to the later years of their courses. Evidence is drawn from 20 students who were interviewed during each of their three or four years of study to provide a longitudinal account of their experiences of engagement and participation at the university. We draw attention to three ways in which the students made transitions across the course of their degrees: to increased knowledge of the conventions of academic writing; to enhanced critical skills; and to practical strategies to prioritise learning

Professional capacity and organizational change as measures of educational effectiveness: assessing the impact of postgraduate education in development policy and management

We tend to measure educational performance by students' attainment in coursework or examinations. In the case of professional education, the impact of the educational programme on the students' own capacities to enhance their work practices, and the wider organizational effects of the students' education and training, are also key 'products' of the educational process. This is particularly important with education for Development Policy and Management (DPAM), which is directly concerned with capacity-building. This article adopts a work-related approach to educational effectiveness and examines four professional programmes in DPAM--three in Southern Africa and one in the UK. Through the analysis of the results of surveys and case studies, the article demonstrates how a positive learning experience is related to the application of learning at work. However the conditions for applying learning also depend strongly on organizational context, as do the wider organizational impacts of learning. The article presents a broad approach to assessing educational effectiveness in professional programmes which incorporate these factors

Deciphering tectonic controls on fluvial sedimentation within the Barmer Basin, India: The lower cretaceous Ghaggar-Hakra formation

The Cretaceous of NW India is poorly known from sparse outcrops in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Here, we describe the stratigraphy and sedimentology of outcrops of the Ghaggar-Hakra Formation of probable Lower Cretaceous age from the Sarnoo Hills, eastern Barmer Basin, Rajasthan and correlate them with equivalent sediments in core from the subsurface of the Barmer Basin. At outcrop the Ghaggar-Hakra Formation contains three fluvial sandstone sequences of varying depositional type and geometry interbedded with associated floodplain deposits. At the base of the exposure the Darjaniyon-ki Dhani Sandstone is composed of compositionally mature, granule-grade quartzitic conglomerates that form braid bars. The deposits represent a poorly-developed braided system. Subsequently, the Sarnoo Sandstone constitutes medium- to very coarse-grained, cross-bedded sandstones, that fine upwards into fine-grained rippled and laminated sandstones, forming in-channel bars and point bars, implying the development of a meandering system. Lastly, capping the exposed sequence, the Nosar Member is composed of very coarse- to medium-grained, planar and trough cross-bedded quartz-arenites. These deposits represent in-channel dunes that display evidence of braiding, indicating the establishment of a well-developed braided system. The intervening mudrocks are characteristic of floodplain deposits, which are mottled, with vertical fractures, soil slickenlines and a pedogenic nature.Within the core the sequence differs from outcrop as there are two separate environments a braided system with associated floodplain deposits and a lacustrine system. The braided river comprises of very coarse- to fine-grained cross-bedded and rippled sandstones. The associated floodplain deposits are mottled, rooted, fractured and have rizoliths within. The detrital composition of the braidplain sandstones does not vary greatly from the outcrop as the minerals are quartz, lithics, heavy minerals and clays. However, the authigenic minerals do vary, as in the subsurface we see kaolinite clays, quartz overgrowths, siderite, pyrite and chlorite cements, whereas at the surface there are quartz overgrowths, calcite, dolomite and haematite cements with kaolinite clays. It is likely that the braided river in core is the same sequence as seen at outcrop. We interpret the successions here into a single fluvial system that has been affected by regional tectonics from the separation of Madagascar (Aptian) from the Indian continent and the continent drifting northwards. This heavily influenced the localised tectonics, which alludes to why there is a significant change in fluvial style from the Sarnoo Sandstone (meandering) to the Nosar Member (braided)