Growing our own - recruiting high quality research students by stealth

Most design students assume that their education is preparing them for a career in professional practice. Until recently the idea of working as researchers or studying for a research degree was not an option. In the early 1990s, the Art and Design Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University was set up with a focus on "designerly" research. At that time we did not have a ready supply of suitable experienced researchers, and design graduates were not coming forward as candidates for research degrees. The university's policy at the time required us to include a substantial research methods element in all postgraduate courses, including the vocationally focused MA Design programme. As a result of adopting this policy in a very whole-hearted way, making research methods central to the MA and framing the creative practice of design as both research-driven and investigative, we have "subverted" a number of postgraduate students who might never have considered a research degree, but are now registered for, or in the process of transferring to, PhD studies. This paper describes the features of the MA programme that foster an investigative culture and provides some examples of PhD students whose research has grown from opportunities encountered in the MA. It also discusses the relationship between professional practice and research and the ways in which a research-centred education can prepare graduates for professional leadership. </p

RF shielded connectors

Gap, where cable joins connector housing, is shielded effectively by composite RF shielding made from suitable potting resin material (fumed silica, thixotropic prepolymer composition), conductive coating (silver-filled, flexible, polyurethane resin), and protective jacket (wax coated housing formed around another wax form having contours shaped to match configuration)

Moral imagination or heuristic toolbox? Events and the risk assessment of structured financial products in the financial bubble

The paper uses the example of the failure of bankers and financial managers to understand the risks of dealing in structured financial products, prior to the financial collapse, to investigate how people respond to crises. It focuses on whether crises cause people to challenge their habitual frames by the application of moral imagination. It is proposed that the structure of financial products and their markets triggered the use of heuristics that contributed to the underestimation of risks. It is further proposed that such framing heuristics are highly specialised to specific contexts, and are part of a wider set of heuristics that people carry in their cognitive ‘adaptive tool boxes’. Consequently, it is argued, when a crisis occurs the heuristics are not challenged, but are simply put away, and other more appropriate heuristics put to use until a sense of normality returns, and the use of the old heuristics is resumed

Calculations for mosaics with plane and curved grating elements quarterly progress report no. 4

Review of calculations of plane grating mosaic for photon energ

Precise time and time interval data handling and reduction

In the past year, the increase in Precise Time And Time Interval data to be reduced to the U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock and the requirement for its quick dissemination has necessitated development of more efficient methods of data handling and reduction. An outline of the data involved and of the Time Service computerization of these functions is presented

The state of state and local government finance

This paper provides an overview of the state-local government sector, a review of the short-run impact of the 2007-09 recession on state and local governments, and a brief summary of key long-run challenges state and local governments will encounter in the next decade. State and local governments in aggregate represent about one-seventh of the U.S. economy, with education and welfare (mostly Medicaid) accounting for more than half. These governments currently face nearly unprecedented fiscal turmoil as a result of the recent recession. Even after the economy recovers, states and localities will face challenges both to improve effectiveness and efficiency in public service provision and to generate revenue sufficient to fund these crucial public services.Municipal finance ; State finance ; Fiscal policy

A new approach for data acquisition at the JPL space simulators

In 1990, a personal computer based data acquisition system was put into service for the Space Simulators and Environmental Test Laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The new system replaced an outdated minicomputer system which had been in use since 1980. This new data acquisition system was designed and built by JPL for the specific task of acquiring thermal test data in support of space simulation and thermal vacuum testing at JPL. The data acquisition system was designed using powerful personal computers and local-area-network (LAN) technology. Reliability, expandability, and maintainability were some of the most important criteria in the design of the data system and in the selection of hardware and software components. The data acquisition system is used to record both test chamber operational data and thermal data from the unit under test. Tests are conducted in numerous small thermal vacuum chambers and in the large solar simulator and range in size from individual components using only 2 or 3 thermocouples to entire planetary spacecraft requiring in excess of 1200 channels of test data. The system supports several of these tests running concurrently. The previous data system is described along with reasons for its replacement, the types of data acquired, the new data system, and the benefits obtained from the new system including information on tests performed to date