The Extension of a Non-Hydrostatic Dynamical Core into the Thermosphere

The non-hydrostatic dynamical core ENDGame (Even Newer Dynamics for the General Atmospheric Modelling of the Environment) is extended into the thermosphere to test its feasability as a whole-atmosphere dynamical core that can simulate the large scale fluid dynamics of the whole atmosphere from the surface to the top of the thermosphere at 600km. This research may have applications in the development of a Sun-to-Earth modelling system involving the Met Office Unified Model, which will be useful for space weather forecasting and chemical climate modelling. Initial attempts to raise the top boundary of ENDGame above ∼100km give rise to instabilities. To explore the potential causes of these instabilities, a one dimensional column version of ENDGame: ENDGame1D, is developed to study the effects of vertically propagating acoustic waves in the dynamical core. A 2D ray-tracing scheme is also developed, which accounts for the numerical effects on wave propagation. It is found that ENDGame’s numerics have a tendency towards the excessive focussing of wave energy towards vertical propagation, and have poor handling of large amplitude waves, also being unable to handle shocks. A key finding is that the physical processes of vertical molecular viscosity and diffusion prevent the excessive growth of wave amplitudes in the thermosphere in ENDGame, which may be crucial to improving ENDGame’s stability as it is extended upwards. Therefore, a fully implicit-in-time implementation of vertical molecular viscosity and diffusion is developed in both ENDGame1D and the full three-dimensional version of ENDGame: ENDGame3D. A new scheme is developed to deal with the viscous and diffusive terms with the dynamics terms in a fully coupled way to avoid time-splitting errors that may arise. The combination of a small amount of off-centring of ENDGame’s semi-implicit formulation and the inclusion of vertical molecular viscosity and diffusion act to make ENDGame significantly more stable, as long as the simulation is able to remain stable up to the molecularly diffused region above an altitude of ∼130km.EPSRCNER

A Day in the Life of Dzaleka Camp: From Malawi to Quebec

A photo essay of one woman\u27s time at a refugee camp in Malawi

Recovery of endurance running capacity: effect of carbohydrate-protein mixtures

Including protein in a carbohydrate solution may accelerate both the rate of glycogen storage and the restoration of exercise capacity following prolonged activity. Two studies were undertaken with nine active men in study A and seven in study B. All participants performed 2 trials, each involving a 90 min run at 70% VO2max followed by a 4 h recovery. During recovery, either a 9.3% carbohydrate solution (CHO) or the same solution plus 1.5% protein (CHO-PRO) was ingested every 30 min in volumes providing either 1.2 g CHO · kg-1 · h-1 (study A) or 0.8 g CHO · kg-1 · h-1 (study B). Exercise capacity was then assessed by run time to exhaustion at 85% VO2max. Ingestion of CHO-PRO elicited greater insulinemic responses than CHO (P less than or equal to 0.05) but with no differences in run times to exhaustion. Within the context of this experimental design, CHO and CHO-PRO restored running capacity with equal effect

An Inventory and Assessment of Street Amenities and Vacant Lots in Downtown Lewiston, Maine: Defining Potential to Create a Healthier Neighborhood

Street amenities are publicly available resources, physical or biological, that have an aesthetic, functional, and/or ecological value (i.e. street trees, benches, traffic calming measures and community gardens). Healthy Neighborhoods (HN) is an organization working to improve the quality of life for residents of downtown Lewiston, Maine, USA through community engagement in increasing the number of street amenities and improving the local housing stock. With their work, HN hopes to encourage more people to get outside, improving health outcomes, and to foster greater cross-cultural community building and an enhanced sense of place. These goals of HN create a value system of which they plan to create a model corridor (a street of one or two blocks in length that demonstrates the values of HN) as a stimulus for increased equitable revitalization of this area with street amenities, improvements to housing, and development of vacant lots. This project created an ArcGIS inventory of the street amenities that exist in a section of downtown Lewiston as outlined by HN. From this inventory, a scoring index was created as a tool to compare streets by their amenities and other factors. A brief assessment of vacant lots was conducted to evaluate the potential for future development by HN. A promotional brochure for HN that included maps was created. After creation of the ArcGIS maps, it was found that trees greatly outnumbered the other various amenities that were collected and assessed. A significant variation in sidewalk smoothness was discovered, with vacant lots more commonly found in places where the sidewalk was bumpy, unleveled, or had multiple flaws. Community gardens and open access green spaces have a non-uniform distribution within the neighborhood and the amount of each was limited. High amenity density by block was found where the sidewalk was smoother, although there were outliers. The highest model corridor block score was a 2.7 (with a maximum of 4 for a score) with the lowest score being a 0.4, which shows that no block is perfect in its current condition. The distribution of the composite scores was rather uniform, but it was noted that blocks with similar scores have different amenities and characteristics. The index demonstrates that there are multiple paths to obtaining a higher model corridor score. Vacant lots were assessed for potential development and the top three lots for future development, based on population density, distance from open access green space, and unit price per acre were: 111 Pine Street, 114 Bartlett Street, and 94 Howe Street. Lewiston has immense potential for development and community engagement in this field, and this study has outlined visually where resources can be most effectively used. For future projects, it is suggested that Healthy Neighborhoods continues with their plan of engaging the neighborhood in their work (possibly using the brochure created), complete a more thorough evaluation of vacant lots and analyze more innovative possibilities for redevelopment, and to consider the impact of adding small commercial space into the neighborhood

Sample Rubric: Art Sketchbook

The following sketchbook rubric was designed by Dr. David Griffin in collaboration with Emilie Brancato, English Language Specialist (WLC) and Joe Lipsett, Educational Developer (FCDC). This resource features student friendly language and criteria descriptions to help clarify grading expectations for students. It was distributed at the start of semester

Connected Women: How Mobile Can Support Women's Economic and Social Empowerment

This report explores how mobile services provided by Vodafone and the Vodafone Foundation are enabling women to seize new opportunities and improve their lives. Accenture Sustainability Services were commissioned to conduct research on the services and to assess their potential social and economic impact if they were widely available across Vodafone's markets by 2020. It showcases the projects and the work of those involved and also poses the question -- what would the benefit to women and to society at large be if projects such as these were taken to scale and achieved an industrialscale of growth? This reflects the Foundation's commitment not solely to the development of pilots but rather the Trustees' ambition to see projects which lead to transformational change. In order to understand this more deeply, the Report looks at the benefits for women and society and providessome financial modelling for how the engagement of commercial players could achieve industrial, sustainable growth in these areas. Accenture has provided the modelling and, given the public benefit and understanding which the report seeks to generate, these are shared openly for all in the mobile industry to understand and share. It is the Trustees' hope that the collaboration with Oxford University and Accenture in the delivery of this Report will stimulate not only the expansion of existing charitable programmes but will also seed other philanthropic, social enterprise or commercial initiatives

The Role of Social Media and Social Networking as Marketing Delivery Systems for Preventive Health Care Information

The use of social media and social networking (SM&N) is prevalent in health care. Through social media, individuals can access information to enhance their overall health and well-being. Given that prevention is crucial to a long healthy life, as well as restraining escalating health care costs, this study offers insights into the types of social media and networking platforms that health care consumers consider most important, especially with regard to obtaining Preventive Health Care Information (PHCI). Further, it goes on to identify the demographics of persons who consider social media and social networking platforms as most important. This research used an online survey that yielded a sample of 930, whose demographics were comparable to the U.S. population. The results indicated the most important SM&N platforms were traditional digital sources such as WebMD, Wiki’s, and internet search browsers such as Google. Also, prestigious hospitals, such as John Hopkins, MD Anderson, Cleveland Clinic and public health websites were important delivery systems for PHCI. Lastly, social media platforms like Facebook are increasing in importance, while YouTube is used more often by health consumers. Demographically SM&N was most important for (1) those whose employers offered health promotion or wellness programs, (2) those employed part-time, (3) younger health consumers mostly in the 19-24 age group, (4) African-Americans, and (5) single people who have never been married. The next generation of health consumers are expected to make greater use of SM&N platforms to secure their PHCI

A Study of the Contributions to the Texas Health Education Program Made by North Texas State College and Co-Operating Public Schools

The problem undertaken in this study was that of making an investigation of the nature of the contributions of the North Texas State College and the co-operating public schools under its supervision to the Texas Health Education Program during the three-year period from December, 1946, to December, 1949