Closed-Cycle, Frequency-Stable CO2 Laser Technology

These proceedings contain a collection of papers and comments presented at a workshop on technology associated with long-duration closed-cycle operation of frequency-stable, pulsed carbon dioxide lasers. This workshop was held at the NASA Langley Research Center June 10 to 12, 1986. The workshop, jointly sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE), was attended by 63 engineers and scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom. During the 2 1/2 days of the workshop, a number of issues relating to obtaining frequency-stable operation and to the catalytic control of laser gas chemistry were discussed, and specific recommendations concerning future activities were drafted

Robust optimisation of computationally expensive models using adaptive multi-fidelity emulation

Computationally expensive models are increasingly employed in the design process of engineering products and systems. Robust design in particular aims to obtain designs that exhibit near-optimal performance and low variability under uncertainty. Surrogate models are often employed to imitate the behaviour of expensive computational models. Surrogates are trained from a reduced number of samples of the expensive model. A crucial component of the performance of a surrogate is the quality of the training set. Problems occur when sampling fails to obtain points located in an area of interest and/or where the computational budget only allows for a very limited number of runs of the expensive model. This paper employs a Gaussian process emulation approach to perform efficient single-loop robust optimisation of expensive models. The emulator is enhanced to propagate input uncertainty to the emulator output, allowing single-loop robust optimisation. Further, the emulator is trained with multi-fidelity data obtained via adaptive sampling to maximise the quality of the training set for the given computational budget. An illustrative example is presented to highlight how the method works, before it is applied to two industrial case studies

Rural piped-water enterprises in Cambodia: A pathway to women's empowerment?

© 2019 by the authors. This research examined the extent to which women's ownership and management of water supply schemes led to their empowerment, including their economic empowerment, in rural Cambodia. Privately managed water supply schemes in rural Cambodia serve over one million people. This study is the first of its kind to systematically investigate the experiences and needs of female water supply scheme owners, using well-established theoretical frameworks for women's empowerment, namely Longwe's stages of empowerment, and Rowlands, VeneKlasen and Miller's elaboration on different types of power. Business management frameworks relevant to the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector were also drawn on to assess operational constraints and enablers. Fifteen structured interviews were conducted with female water entrepreneurs in rural Cambodia. Female entrepreneurs reported encountering four key barriers to establishing and managing water supply schemes. The first were operational, and government and regulatory related issues, followed by financial issues and limited demand for water services. Three important enablers were reported by entrepreneurs: social enablers, economic enablers and program support from government, associations and non-government organisations (NGOs). This study found that, whilst there was evidence of empowerment reported by female water enterprise owners, the complexity of the ongoing empowerment process, challenges and limitations were also observed. Women's empowerment can be advanced through leadership of, and involvement in water enterprises, as evidenced by this study, however, gender norms constrained women, especially with respect to mobility (leaving the home for extended periods), and household and family duties impacting on income-generating work or vice versa. As such, targeted strategies are needed by a range of actors to address such constraints. The findings of this study can assist NGOs, donors and governments incentivizing entrepreneurship in water services, to ensure that these interventions are not gender blind, and to draw on evidence of the barriers and enablers for female entrepreneurs and how these are influenced by contextualized gender norms

Nurses’ and Managers’ Perceptions of and Experiences with Continuing Nursing Education Programmes

Background: Continuing nursing education programs are defined as educational activities, which aim to keep health practitioners abreast with the latest developments in their specialties and related fields. The aim of the study: This study sought to understand the value / benefit of continuing nursing education programs, from the different perspectives, of staff nurses and nurse managers who are working in public rural hospitals in Saudi Arabia.Study design: A qualitative, descriptive methodology was chosen to achieve an in-depth understanding of the study question. Semi- structured, individual interviews were used to collect the data. Audio recorded interviews were conducted with registered nurses (n= 6) and nurse managers (n=5) working in public hospitals. Activity theory was chosen as the theoretical conceptual framework for the study. Implications: Higher education providers need to consider creating a website to promote professional development that nurses could access at any time to meet their needs.Conclusion: The support of a healthcare organisation inclusive of administration is applicable to promoting personal professional development. Nurses and nurse managers are aware that continuing nursing education programs are designed to upgrade their knowledge and skills. It was also determined that identifying learning needs is important to monitor useful continuing nursing education programs. Keywords: Continuing nursing education, professional development, nurses’ perceptions, managers’ perceptions and hospita