The Burlington Races Revisited: A Revised Analysis of an 1813 Naval Battle for Supremacy on Lake Ontario

From the safety of the Lake Ontario shore near Burlington, military and civilian observers witnessed the jockeying for position for many sailing vessels during the afternoon of Tuesday, September 28, 1813. They likened the event to a yacht race. Thus, a pivotal naval engagement that would determine the outcome of the War of 1812 was facetiously labelled, The Burlington Races. The facts of this important piece of Canadiana, have, like so many significant historical events, been cloaked by myth and misconception until recently. The discovery in the US National Archives of the log of the British flagship of the Lake Ontario Squadron, HMS Wolfe, has made it possible to interpret this episode in Canadian history more accurately

In the mood to innovate : a multilevel study on the interaction of entrepreneurs' innovative work behaviour and affect : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Studies in Management, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Affect is a hot topic in entrepreneurial research. However, extant literature is lagging behind in its use of affective theory and methodology, and furthermore, attention resides in isolated topics of inquiry, rendering the field stunted and disjointed. The purpose of this research is to adopt burgeoning affective theoretical perspectives to anticipate daily fluctuation in entrepreneurs’ innovative behaviour. The circumplex model of affect is utilised in this research to challenge the rhetoric that all spectrum of pleasant moods lead to beneficial work behaviour. Though multilevel modelling based on 3360 data points nested within 160 entrepreneurs (21 surveys per participant, completed over two weeks), support is found for the proposition that pleasant moods do not necessarily result in productive behaviour. Specifically, activation (the energising dimension of affect) has greater influence on propelling entrepreneurs’ innovative behaviour than valence (affect’s pleasant or unpleasant nature), such that high activation unpleasant and pleasant affect (worried, anxious, inspired, enthusiastic) predicts innovative work behaviour, while low activation pleasant affect (calm, relaxed) does not. The affect-behaviour relationship is examined from several perspectives resulting in a feedback model between high activation moods and innovative work behaviour engagement. Engagement in innovative work behaviour positively correlated to entrepreneurs’ experience of high activation unpleasant affect, and negatively related to high and low activation pleasant affect. Thus although innovative work behaviour benefits from high activation pleasant moods, engagement essentially decreases them. Affective dispositions correlated with daily affective experiences also, as such entrepreneurs with low levels of trait negative affect experienced more pleasant moods during the day and visa versa. Findings confirmed the hypothesis that the quality of previous night’s sleep both moderates the link between affect and innovative work behaviour, plus predisposes entrepreneurs to pleasant or conversely unpleasant affective daily experiences – illustrating the importance of sleep in affective research. Additionally innovative work behaviour was predicted via “the affective shift model”, which was adapted to include the influence of activation. The results further attest to the relevance of temporal dynamics of affect perspectives in entrepreneurial research. Specifically, the model demonstrated that innovative work behaviour ensued when high activation unpleasant affect was followed by high activation pleasant affect, or simply with an increase in the level of high activation affect, of either valence between morning and afternoon. Empirical, theoretical, and practical implications of the findings are discussed

The Eastern transition to a market economy: a global perspective.

This paper contains the text of a series of public lectures given by Professor Williamson at the LSE on February 24 and 25 1992. Professor Williamson is the first holder of the British Petroleum Professorship, awarded annually to a visiting academic of the highest standing. The lecture covers the failure of socialism, and the design of the subsequent reform programmes. He argues that although with hindsight the transition process could have been handled slightly differently, aborting the transition process because of the problems associated with it is not the answer.

Multi-excitons in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots: A pseudopotential, many-body approach

We use a many-body, atomistic empirical pseudopotential approach to predict the multi-exciton emission spectrum of a lens shaped InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot. We discuss the effects of (i) The direct Coulomb energies, including the differences of electron and hole wavefunctions, (ii) the exchange Coulomb energies and (iii) correlation energies given by a configuration interaction calculation. Emission from the groundstate of the $N$ exciton system to the $N-1$ exciton system involving $e_0\to h_0$ and $e_1\to h_1$ recombinations are discussed. A comparison with a simpler single-band, effective mass approach is presented

Evaluation of Salford Carers' Development Service (SCDS)

“A carer spends a significant proportion of their life providing unpaid support to family or potentially friends. This could be caring for a relative, partner or friend who is ill, frail, disabled or has mental health or substance misuse problems.” (Department of Health 2008) Between July 2007 and July 2009, a Carers’ Support Service operated within one area of Salford City (Charlestown and Lower Kersal). This original service was the pre-cursor to a different service known as the Salford Carers’ Development Service (SCDS). The SCDS was set up to meet carers’ support needs in other areas of the City from August 2009 using the learning from this original service. The SCDS comprised staff who had provided the Charlestown and Lower Kersal service and its senior management remained the same. The plan for the SCDS was that it would focus on three other areas of the City consecutively, with each one receiving dedicated SCDS input for a year-long period.In spring 2010, the SCDS manager (Chief Executive of Unlimited Potential – a social enterprise in the form of a community benefit society) negotiated an evaluation study to be undertaken by researchers from the University of Salford’s School of Nursing and Midwifery. Groundwork for the evaluation took place over the summer of 2010, with data collection commencing in October 2010 and completing in February 2011. This report shares the findings from this project which is an example of public engagement activity

Granular synthesis for display of time-varying probability densities

We present a method for displaying time-varying probabilistic information to users using an asynchronous granular synthesis technique. We extend the basic synthesis technique to include distribution over waveform source, spatial position, pitch and time inside waveforms. To enhance the synthesis in interactive contexts, we "quicken" the display by integrating predictions of user behaviour into the sonification. This includes summing the derivatives of the distribution during exploration of static densities, and using Monte-Carlo sampling to predict future user states in nonlinear dynamic systems. These techniques can be used to improve user performance in continuous control systems and in the interactive exploration of high dimensional spaces. This technique provides feedback from users potential goals, and their progress toward achieving them; modulating the feedback with quickening can help shape the users actions toward achieving these goals. We have applied these techniques to a simple nonlinear control problem as well as to the sonification of on-line probabilistic gesture recognition. We are applying these displays to mobile, gestural interfaces, where visual display is often impractical. The granular synthesis approach is theoretically elegant and easily applied in contexts where dynamic probabilistic displays are required