Change management in higher education: an exploration of a cross-organisational change initiative and the development of a framework to support such endeavours

This action research project was based on the leadership of a collaborative change initiative which sought to effect changes across a consortium of higher education institutions in Ireland. The changes sought were defined and agreed with the Higher Education Authority as funding agency for the initiative. The changes sought to ensure that the higher education provision was more relevant and accessible to learners in the work place. Four specific strands of activity formed the basis of the initiative and in all cases the change processes were informed through an exploration and sharing of current practice and a collective agreement on priorities and actions arising from the exploration stages. A variety of research techniques was used in the collection of information on the existing practice and these were distilled into guidelines for the improvement of practice generally. In the case of each of the strands of activity the major outcome, in the form of a report, was widely disseminated throughout the Irish higher education sector and has had a significant impact on practice within the nine higher education institutions which formed the consortium and beyond. The particular leadership challenges associated with leading a collaborative project such as this are addressed. An analysis of the extant literature points to the lack of a suitable framework to support this type of cross-organisational change management initiative. Through an action research approach and the inclusion of a number of different perspectives in building a three dimensional focus of informed enquiry, a revised Framework for Change is developed. The Framework is informed by the analysis of in-depth interviews with participants in the change initiative and it is developed as a re-usable framework which will inform the design and leadership of broad, collaborative, cross-organisational change endeavours generally

Laser cooling and control of excitations in superfluid helium

Superfluidity is an emergent quantum phenomenon which arises due to strong interactions between elementary excitations in liquid helium. These excitations have been probed with great success using techniques such as neutron and light scattering. However measurements to-date have been limited, quite generally, to average properties of bulk superfluid or the driven response far out of thermal equilibrium. Here, we use cavity optomechanics to probe the thermodynamics of superfluid excitations in real-time. Furthermore, strong light-matter interactions allow both laser cooling and amplification of the thermal motion. This provides a new tool to understand and control the microscopic behaviour of superfluids, including phonon-phonon interactions, quantised vortices and two-dimensional quantum phenomena such as the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. The third sound modes studied here also offer a pathway towards quantum optomechanics with thin superfluid films, including femtogram effective masses, high mechanical quality factors, strong phonon-phonon and phonon-vortex interactions, and self-assembly into complex geometries with sub-nanometre feature size.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary information attache

Microphotonic Forces From Superfluid Flow

In cavity optomechanics, radiation pressure and photothermal forces are widely utilized to cool and control micromechanical motion, with applications ranging from precision sensing and quantum information to fundamental science. Here, we realize an alternative approach to optical forcing based on superfluid flow and evaporation in response to optical heating. We demonstrate optical forcing of the motion of a cryogenic microtoroidal resonator at a level of 1.46 nN, roughly one order of magnitude larger than the radiation pressure force. We use this force to feedback cool the motion of a microtoroid mechanical mode to 137 mK. The photoconvective forces demonstrated here provide a new tool for high bandwidth control of mechanical motion in cryogenic conditions, and have the potential to allow efficient transfer of electromagnetic energy to motional kinetic energy.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Human Machine Interfaces for Teleoperators and Virtual Environments

In Mar. 1990, a meeting organized around the general theme of teleoperation research into virtual environment display technology was conducted. This is a collection of conference-related fragments that will give a glimpse of the potential of the following fields and how they interplay: sensorimotor performance; human-machine interfaces; teleoperation; virtual environments; performance measurement and evaluation methods; and design principles and predictive models

Ion Trap Mass Spectrometers for Identity, Abundance and Behavior of Volatiles on the Moon

NASA GSFC and The Open University (UK) are collaborating to deploy an Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer on the Moon to investigate the lunar water cycle. The ITMS is flight-proven throughthe Rosetta Philae comet lander mission. It is also being developed under ESA funding to analyse samples drilled from beneath the lunar surface on the Roscosmos Luna-27 lander (2025).Now, GSFC and OU will now develop a compact ITMS instrument to study the near-surface lunar exosphere on board a CLPS Astrobotic lander at Lacus Mortis in 2021

Progenitors for the corneal endothelium and trabecular meshwork: a potential source for personalized stem cell therapy in corneal endothelial diseases and glaucoma

Several adult stem cell types have been found in different parts of the eye, including the corneal epithelium, conjunctiva, and retina. In addition to these, there have been accumulating evidence that some stem-like cells reside in the transition area between the peripheral corneal endothelium (CE) and the anterior nonfiltering portion of the trabecular meshwork (TM), which is known as the Schwalbe's Ring region. These stem/progenitor cells may supply new cells for the CE and TM. In fact, the CE and TM share certain similarities in terms of their embryonic origin and proliferative capacity in vivo. In this paper, we discuss the putative stem cell source which has the potential for replacement of lost and nonfunctional cells in CE diseases and glaucoma. The future development of personalized stem cell therapies for the CE and TM may reduce the requirement of corneal grafts and surgical treatments in glaucoma.published_or_final_versio

Revista de Indias y Anuario de Estudios Americanos. Visibilidad y uso de la edición electrónica

Una década americanista en línea, 2010, [En línea], Puesto en línea el 25 mayo 2010[EN] In this article we analyze the online visibility and content usage of two Americanist Journals published by CSIC, Revista de Indias and Anuario de Estudios Americanos. The online edition dates back to 2007; contents are comparable in terms of accessible documents, and both Journals are published in Open Access, with a 6-months embargo. We also discuss some methodological issues in terms of the need of a data normalization allowing the measurement of genuine downloads assimilable to document reading. Both Journals registered close to 500,000 normalized downloads along 2008 and 2009, most coming from Latin America and the United States (70%). Data show a high degree of repeated downloads of the same document from the same user (25% of total downloads) and indexation downloads (25% of normalized downloads), and also the lack of correlation between Journal’s visibility (webpage visits) and content usage (document downloads). Access restriction has a negative effect, as evidenced by the low downloading of embargoed documents[ES] En este artículo analizamos los datos de visibilidad y uso de las dos revistas de temática americanista editadas por el CSIC, Revista de Indias y Anuario de Estudios Americanos. La edición electrónica de ambas data de 2007, y su contenido en artículos accesibles es comparable; ambas se publican en Acceso Abierto (OA) con un embargo de acceso de 6 meses. También analizamos cuestiones metodológicas relativas al análisis de descargas, en el sentido de la necesidad de una normalización de los datos que permita determinar las descargas reales, asimilables a una lectura del documento. Durante los años 2008 y 2009, ambas revistas han recibido cerca de 500.000 descargas normalizadas, que provienen en su mayoría de Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos (70%). Los datos muestran el elevado número de descargas repetidas de documentos en periodos cortos de tiempo por el mismo usuario (25% de las totales registradas) y de descargas de indización (25% de las descargas normalizadas), y también la falta de correlación entre visibilidad de las revistas (visitas a páginas web) y uso de los contenidos (descarga de documentos). La restricción de acceso tiene un efecto perjudicial, evidenciado por el bajo nivel de descarga de los documentos sometidos a embargoPeer reviewe

Low CO/CO₂ ratios of comet 67P measured at the Abydos landing site by the <i>Ptolemy</i> mass spectrometer

Comets are generally considered to contain the best-preserved material from the beginning of our planetary system, although the mechanism of their formation and subsequent evolution are still poorly understood. Here we report the direct in situ measurement of H2O, CO, and CO2 by the Ptolemy mass spectrometer onboard the Philae lander, part of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, at the Abydos site of the Jupiter-family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. A CO/CO2 ratio of around 0.07 ± 0.04 is found at the surface of the comet, a value substantially lower than the one measured by ROSINA in the coma. Such a major difference is a potential indication of heterogeneity of the nucleus and not of changes in the CO/CO2 ratio of the coma with radial distance

Characterization of the Subsurface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's Abydos Site

We investigate the structure of the subsurface of the Abydos site using a cometary nucleus model with parameters adapted to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and the Abydos landing site. We aim to compare the production rates derived from our model with those of the main molecules measured by Ptolemy. This will allow us to retrieve the depths at which the different molecules still exist in solid form

Beagle 2: Mission to Mars — current status

Beagle 2, developed in the UK, was launched on June 2, 2003. It landed on Mars on December 25th, 2003 in Isidis Planitia, a large sedimentary basin. To date, the team is awaiting signals from the Beagle 2 lander. Current status of the mission will be reported