The career choice of first year occupational therapy students: A follow up study

This study replicated a survey of first-year occupational therapy students at Brunel University (Craik et al 2001) and 114 students (91.2%) responded. Their profile was similar to that of the students in the previous study, with 90% being female, 65% being over 21 years of age and 20% coming from minority ethnic groups. The most frequent way that the students had heard about occupational therapy remained through informal means, with variety and challenge continuing to be the most important factors in attracting potential students to the profession. The results of this study, taken with those of Craik et al (2001), provide data on 444 first-year students and further emphasise the importance of occupational therapists in encouraging recruitment to the professio

T-Duality in Sigma Models with Kaluza-Klein Metric as Electric-Magnetic Duality

It is shown that the T-duality in \sigma-model with Kaluza-Klein metric, without or with a torsion term, can be interpreted as electric-magnetic duality for some of their solitonic solutions. Actually Buscher's duality transformation interchanges the topological and Noether charges.Comment: 12 Pages, Late

Penn State axial flow turbine facility: Performance and nozzle flow field

The objective is to gain a thorough understanding of the flow field in a turbine stage including three-dimensional inviscid and viscid effects, unsteady flow field, rotor-stator interaction effects, unsteady blade pressures, shear stress, and velocity field in rotor passages. The performance of the turbine facility at the design condition is measured and compared with the design distribution. The data on the nozzle vane static pressure and wake characteristics are presented and interpreted. The wakes are found to be highly three-dimensional, with substantial radial inward velocity at most spanwise locations

An Experimental Investigation of Steady and Unsteady Flow Field in an Axial Flow Turbine

Measurements were made in a large scale single stage turbine facility. Within the nozzle passage measurements were made using a five hole probe, a two-component Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV), and a single sensor hot wire probe. These measurements showed weak secondary flows at midchord, and two secondary flow loss cores at the nozzle exit. The casing vortex loss core was the larger of the two. At the exit radial inward flow was found over the entire passage, and was more pronounced in the wake. Nozzle wake decay was found to be more rapid than for an isolated vane row due to the rotor's presence. The midspan rotor flow field was measured using a two-component LDV. Measurements were made from upstream of the rotor to a chord behind the rotor. The distortion of the nozzle wake as it passed through the rotor blade row was determined. The unsteadiness in the rotor flow field was determined. The decay of the rotor wake was also characterized

Mechanisms of Self-Organization and Finite Size Effects in a Minimal Agent Based Model

We present a detailed analysis of the self-organization phenomenon in which the stylized facts originate from finite size effects with respect to the number of agents considered and disappear in the limit of an infinite population. By introducing the possibility that agents can enter or leave the market depending on the behavior of the price, it is possible to show that the system self-organizes in a regime with a finite number of agents which corresponds to the stylized facts. The mechanism to enter or leave the market is based on the idea that a too stable market is unappealing for traders while the presence of price movements attracts agents to enter and speculate on the market. We show that this mechanism is also compatible with the idea that agents are scared by a noisy and risky market at shorter time scales. We also show that the mechanism for self-organization is robust with respect to variations of the exit/entry rules and that the attempt to trigger the system to self-organize in a region without stylized facts leads to an unrealistic dynamics. We study the self-organization in a specific agent based model but we believe that the basic ideas should be of general validity.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Critical Overview of Agent-Based Models for Economics

We present an overview of some representative Agent-Based Models in Economics. We discuss why and how agent-based models represent an important step in order to explain the dynamics and the statistical properties of financial markets beyond the Classical Theory of Economics. We perform a schematic analysis of several models with respect to some specific key categories such as agents' strategies, price evolution, number of agents, etc. In the conclusive part of this review we address some open questions and future perspectives and highlight the conceptual importance of some usually neglected topics, such as non-stationarity and the self-organization of financial markets.Comment: 51 pages, 9 figures, Proceedings of the School of Physics "E. Fermi", course CLXXVI, 2010, Varenn

Nonclassical Light in Interferometric Measurements

It is shown that the even and odd coherent light and other nonclassical states of light like superposition of coherent states with different phases may replace the squeezed light in interferometric gravitational wave detector to increase its sensitivity. (Contribution to the Second Workshop on Harmonic Oscillator, Cocoyoc, Mexico, March 1994)Comment: 8 pages,LATEX,preprint of Naples University, INFN-NA-IV-94/30,DSF-T-94/3

Optimal Design for Vibration Mitigation of a Planar Parallel Mechanism for a Fast Automatic Machine

This work studies a planar parallel mechanism installed on a fast-operating automatic machine. In particular, the mechanism design is optimized to mitigate experimentally-observed vibrations. The latter are a frequent issue in mechanisms operating at high speeds, since they may lead to low-quality products and, ultimately, to permanent damage to the goods that are processed. In order to identify the vibration cause, several possible factors are explored, such as resonance phenomena, elastic deformations of the components, and joint deformations under operation loads. Then, two design optimization are performed, which result in a significant improvement in the vibrational behaviour, with oscillations being strongly reduced in comparison to the initial design

Minimal Agent Based Model for Financial Markets II: Statistical Properties of the Linear and Multiplicative Dynamics

We present a detailed study of the statistical properties of an Agent Based Model and of its generalization to the multiplicative dynamics. The aim of the model is to consider the minimal elements for the understanding of the origin of the Stylized Facts and their Self-Organization. The key elements are fundamentalist agents, chartist agents, herding dynamics and price behavior. The first two elements correspond to the competition between stability and instability tendencies in the market. The herding behavior governs the possibility of the agents to change strategy and it is a crucial element of this class of models. The linear approximation permits a simple interpretation of the model dynamics and, for many properties, it is possible to derive analytical results. The generalized non linear dynamics results to be extremely more sensible to the parameter space and much more difficult to analyze and control. The main results for the nature and Self-Organization of the Stylized Facts are, however, very similar in the two cases. The main peculiarity of the non linear dynamics is an enhancement of the fluctuations and a more marked evidence of the Stylized Facts. We will also discuss some modifications of the model to introduce more realistic elements with respect to the real markets