Information Systems Undergraduate Degree Project: Gaining a Better Understanding of the Final Year Project Module

The place of an individual project in the final year of Information Systems (IS) undergraduate degrees at UK universities is well established. In this paper we compare the final year project modules at four UK universities: the University of Brighton, the University of South Wales, University of West London and the University of Westminster. We find that the aims of the projects are similar, emphasising the application of the knowledge and skills from the taught element of their course in a complex development project, often including interactions with a real client. Although we show in this analysis that projects serve a similar purpose in the IS degree courses, the associated learning outcomes and the assessment practice varies across the institutions. We identify some gaps in the skills and abilities that are not being assessed. In further work we are planning to consult final year students undertaking their projects and their supervisors, in order to gain an understanding of how project assessment criteria are actually put to use

Analysis of spread multi-jet VTOL aircraft in hover

An investigation of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft lift losses in hover was conducted to evaluate a method for a simplified test technique. Three flat plate models were tested to determine their usefulness in predicting hover characteristics by comparing results between plate and three-dimensional models. Data obtained for the plate models were correlated to three-dimensional results by the application of a geometrical equivalent height correction factor. The correlation of plate and tunnel models indicated that lift losses in ground effect were essentially independent of the efflux characteristics for the engine simulators

Dark Matter in the USSM

We discuss the neutralino dark matter within classes of extended supersymmetric models, referred to as the USSM, containing one additional SM singlet Higgs plus an extra Z', together with their superpartners the singlino and bino'.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs. Talk given at LCWS08, Chicago, IL, USA, 11/16-20/200

A clinically relevant model of osteoinduction: a process requiring calcium phosphate and BMP/Wnt signalling

In this study, we investigated a clinically relevant model of in vivo ectopic bone formation utilizing human periosteum derived cells (HPDCs) seeded in a Collagraft carrier and explored the mechanisms by which this process is driven. Bone formation occurred after eight weeks when a minimum of one million HPDCs was loaded on Collagraft carriers and implanted subcutaneously in NMRI nu/nu mice. De novo bone matrix, mainly secreted by the HPDCs, was found juxta-proximal of the calcium phosphate (CaP) granules suggesting that CaP may have triggered the 'osteoinductive program'. Indeed, removal of the CaP granules by ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid decalcification prior to cell seeding and implantation resulted in loss of bone formation. In addition, inhibition of endogenous bone morphogenetic protein and Wnt signalling by overexpression of the secreted antagonists Noggin and Frzb, respectively, also abrogated osteoinduction. Proliferation of the engrafted HPDCs was strongly reduced in the decalcified scaffolds or when seeded with adenovirus-Noggin/Frzb transduced HPDCs indicating that cell division of the engrafted HPDCs is required for the direct bone formation cascade. These data suggest that this model of bone formation is similar to that observed during physiological intramembranous bone development and may be of importance when investigating tissue engineering strategies.Published versio

A Gaussian process framework for modelling instrumental systematics: application to transmission spectroscopy

Transmission spectroscopy, which consists of measuring the wavelength-dependent absorption of starlight by a planet's atmosphere during a transit, is a powerful probe of atmospheric composition. However, the expected signal is typically orders of magnitude smaller than instrumental systematics, and the results are crucially dependent on the treatment of the latter. In this paper, we propose a new method to infer transit parameters in the presence of systematic noise using Gaussian processes, a technique widely used in the machine learning community for Bayesian regression and classification problems. Our method makes use of auxiliary information about the state of the instrument, but does so in a non-parametric manner, without imposing a specific dependence of the systematics on the instrumental parameters, and naturally allows for the correlated nature of the noise. We give an example application of the method to archival NICMOS transmission spectroscopy of the hot Jupiter HD 189733, which goes some way towards reconciling the controversy surrounding this dataset in the literature. Finally, we provide an appendix giving a general introduction to Gaussian processes for regression, in order to encourage their application to a wider range of problems.Comment: 6 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRA

Induced encystment improves resistance to preservation and storage of Acanthamoeba castellanii

Several conditions that allow the preservation, storage and rapid, efficient recovery of viable Acanthamoeba castellanii organisms were investigated. The viability of trophozoites (as determined by time to confluence) significantly declined over a period of 12 months when stored at −70°C using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO; 5 or 10%) as cryopreservant. As A. castellanii are naturally capable of encystment, studies were undertaken to determine whether induced encystment might improve the viability of organisms under a number of storage conditions. A. castellanii cysts stored in the presence of Mg2+ at 4°C remained viable over the study period, although time to confluence was increased from approximately 8 days to approximately 24 days over the 12-month period. Storage of cysts at −70°C with DMSO (5 or 10%) or 40% glycerol, but not 80% glycerol as cryopreservants increased their viability over the 12-month study period compared with those stored at room temperature. Continued presence of Mg2+ in medium during storage had no adverse effects and generally improved recovery of viable organisms. The present study demonstrates that A. castellanii can be stored as a non-multiplicative form inexpensively, without a need for cryopreservation, for at least 12 months, but viability is increased by storage at −70°C

Scars of Nation: Surgical Penetration and the Ecuadorian State

In Ecuador, middle‐class women, and increasingly more working‐class women, eagerly pay to be scarred. Cesarean sections carried out in private clinics leave a lateral scar—the mark of women not subject to the indignities of devalued public medical services. It is not citizenship per se that these women are after with their scars, since in Ecuador, citizenship, especially in the medical realm, is denigrated. Instead, the scar is a sign of a woman's ability to remain distinct from the governed masses who need to make citizenship claims for social services on state institutions. Scars and the bodies that carry them enact a racialized relationship to the nation. Browner bodies can withstand vaginal birth within the disciplines of public maternity care. When women pay for cesarean sections, the private scars make them whiter and more worthy of the nation. After all, they have not taken anything from the state.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/92454/1/jlca1223.pd

WHAT GETS INSIDE: Violent Entanglements and Toxic Boundaries in Mexico City

Entanglement is a key concept in contemporary anthropology and science and technology studies. By tracing the contingent and uncertain relations that endow objects with seemingly stable boundaries, entanglement allows us to see how such boundaries restrict our ability to know the world better. This article examines the concept of entanglement in the context of contemporary life in a working‐class Mexico City neighborhood, Colonia Periférico, and a longitudinal environmental health project that studies the neighborhood’s residents. While entanglement has its uses, the entanglement of working‐class bodies with globalizing processes like NAFTA and the ongoing War on Drugs shows that the concept has its limits. For working‐class residents, life is already deeply entangled with chronic economic and political instability shaped through the violent ravages of transnational capital. Instead, I trace how residents in Colonia Periférico secure stability through toxic boundaries that protectively keep out the disruptive effects of police and public health surveillance. Colonia Periférico’s boundaries, which include a sewage‐filled dam, cement dust, and freeway exhaust, are clearly entangled with residents’ bodies. They get inside. These entanglements are the price paid for a remarkable stability, in which children can play on the streets and attentive care for drug‐addicted and disabled residents is part of everyday life. With the goal of knowing the world better, then, we might complicate celebratory calls for the uncertainty of entanglement by taking into account both the practices that make boundaries and what boundaries have to offer.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140030/1/cuan32407_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140030/2/cuan32407.pd

Abandonment and Accumulation: Embryonic Futures in the United States and Ecuador

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98284/1/j.1548-1387.2011.01151.x.pd