GAS-611 firefly in zero gravity

The Get Away Special 611 (GAS-611) project will carry a small, self-contained biological experiment into a microgravity environment for a period of 120 hours. The payload will be a colony of Lampyridae (fireflies). The ability of this beetle to produce light with an efficiency of 98 pct will be evaluated in the micro-G environment. The chemical process that occurs could be assisted by the earth's gravitational pull and the very complex tracheae system found within this species of beetle. The effects of microgravity on mating and beetle larvae will also be studied

Grettir in Sheffield: Rewriting Icelandic saga as a contemporary novel

My novel NUTCASE (2017) rewrites the medieval Icelandic Saga of Grettir the Strong as the story of Aidan, a young man growing up in Sheffield in the UK in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is also an attempt to reproduce the style and structure of an Íslendingasaga [saga of Icelanders] in a contemporary novel. This article sets out the project’s rationale, surveys other relevant novel engagements with saga, and articulates my research process with particular focus on violence, style and voice, the monstrous, and gender. The project represents the first attempt by a novelist writing in English to adopt wholesale the style and structure of the family sagas, and the first English rewriting of a specific saga into a contemporary setting. This article provides a reflective account of that rewriting process, and in doing so it provides a model for other writers to learn from the forms and techniques of other medieval literatures. It argues that treating medieval texts not merely as sources to be plundered for content but as practical paradigms we can learn from enables our contemporary practice to be expanded and reinvigorated by the writing practices of the past

Scaling Recurrent Neural Network Language Models

This paper investigates the scaling properties of Recurrent Neural Network Language Models (RNNLMs). We discuss how to train very large RNNs on GPUs and address the questions of how RNNLMs scale with respect to model size, training-set size, computational costs and memory. Our analysis shows that despite being more costly to train, RNNLMs obtain much lower perplexities on standard benchmarks than n-gram models. We train the largest known RNNs and present relative word error rates gains of 18% on an ASR task. We also present the new lowest perplexities on the recently released billion word language modelling benchmark, 1 BLEU point gain on machine translation and a 17% relative hit rate gain in word prediction

Individual Quality and Double-brooding in a Highly Synchronous Songbird Population

Multiple brooding, the production of more than one set of offspring per breeding season, is a life history trait potentially doubling or tripling fecundity, but the factors responsible for variation in occurrence of multiple brooding within species remain poorly understood. We investigated the potential causes and consequences of double-brooding in the highly-synchronously breeding European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), where we predicted that ‘date’ (clutch initiation) would have little effect on double-brooding propensity compared to individual ‘quality’. Double-brooding effectively doubled annual fecundity in European starlings (based on annual number of chicks fledged), but on average only 38% of individual females was double-brooded. Furthermore, 39% of females that initiated a second clutch experienced total failure of their second brood, thus accrued no fecundity advantage from their decision to double-brood. As we predicted variation in propensity for, and success of double-brooding was independent of laying date, but also of other putative measures of individual ‘quality’ (clutch size, egg mass, relative age, and provisioning rate). However, we found no evidence of a cost of double-brooding; double-brooded females had significantly higher return rate, and similar breeding productivity in the year after double-brooding compared with single-brooding females. Thus, a small proportion (~20%) of “high quality” female European starlings effectively double their potential breeding productivity through double-brooding without apparently paying a cost or experiencing simple trade-offs

Designing whole-systems commissioning: lessons from the English experience

The paucity of formal evidence, allied to the requirement for strategies that are sensitive to local history and context, means that a ‘blueprint’ for successful strategic commissioning is not currently available for adoption. We are therefore confined to proposing ‘design principles’ for those seeking to embark upon a transition towards a whole systems approach to strategic commissioning. People and relationships are of critical importance all the way through the chain from strategic commissioning to micro-commissioning. Most crucially, experience suggests that structural solutions alone cannot deliver effective relationships and will not be effective when relationships are neglected. The need to ensure staff, partner and political buy-in suggests that relationship management and consensus-building are an integral component of the leadership role in moving toward strategic commissioning. As with any major re-organisation, the move to strategic commissioning is essentially a change management initiative and therefore will stand or fall according to whether it adheres to good practice in the change management process. Central to this, and to achieving commissioning outcomes, is the requirement for meaningful service user and public engagement. Effective commissioning emphasizes individual capabilities as well as needs, and community assets as well as deficits and problems. Adoption of strategic commissioning approaches is still at the developmental and learning stage and arguably all structural arrangements should be regarded as transitional

ZeroWIN Vision Conference

*Test* to check feasibility for use for ZeroWIN conferenc

Analysis of the value of home automation systems

Smart technology involves the integration of a variety of home systems including lighting, climate control, security etc. to enhance the comfort, convenience and economy of the home for its users. It is currently unknown if homebuyers believe that these systems add value to the home. This study used the market value of home sales and an attitudinal survey of homebuyers, to determine the increased value of homes containing smart technology. The results demonstrated that a significant price premium was paid for the incorporation of the technology into new homes. In addition, the research suggests that the use of this technology is not limited to high-income earners or other demographic stereotypes. Instead it has broad market appeal and the potential to save energy for the community at large.<br /