Swift\u27s Attack On Pedantry

It may seem to the modern reader that Jonathan Swift fell short in his attempt to ridicule pedantry, for Swift\u27s most sarcastic illustrations of the follies of learned men might well find their parallel as commonplace news items in the magazines or newspapers of today. Swift must have felt that he was exaggerating to absurdity the follies of the learned of his time in the fields of science and the arts; and in order to accord him the proper credit, we must look at his works in the light of historical perspective

Tarski monoids: Matui's spatial realization theorem

We introduce a class of inverse monoids, called Tarski monoids, that can be regarded as non-commutative generalizations of the unique countable, atomless Boolean algebra. These inverse monoids are related to a class of etale topological groupoids under a non-commutative generalization of classical Stone duality and, significantly, they arise naturally in the theory of dynamical systems as developed by Matui. We are thereby able to reinterpret a theorem of Matui on a class of \'etale groupoids as an equivalent theorem about a class of Tarski monoids: two simple Tarski monoids are isomorphic if and only if their groups of units are isomorphic. The inverse monoids in question may also be viewed as countably infinite generalizations of finite symmetric inverse monoids. Their groups of units therefore generalize the finite symmetric groups and include amongst their number the classical Thompson groups.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1407.147

Assembly for recovering a capsule Patent

Assembly for opening flight capsule stabilizing and decelerating flaps with reference to capsule recover

Space capsule ejection assembly Patent

Describing assembly for opening stabilizing and decelerating flaps of flight capsules used in space researc

Development of an automated aircraft subsystem architecture generation and analysis tool

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new computational framework to address future preliminary design needs for aircraft subsystems. The ability to investigate multiple candidate technologies forming subsystem architectures is enabled with the provision of automated architecture generation, analysis and optimization. Main focus lies with a demonstration of the frameworks workings, as well as the optimizers performance with a typical form of application problem. Design/methodology/approach – The core aspects involve a functional decomposition, coupled with a synergistic mission performance analysis on the aircraft, architecture and component levels. This may be followed by a complete enumeration of architectures, combined with a user defined technology filtering and concept ranking procedure. In addition, a hybrid heuristic optimizer, based on ant systems optimization and a genetic algorithm, is employed to produce optimal architectures in both component composition and design parameters. The optimizer is tested on a generic architecture design problem combined with modified Griewank and parabolic functions for the continuous space. Findings – Insights from the generalized application problem show consistent rediscovery of the optimal architectures with the optimizer, as compared to a full problem enumeration. In addition multi-objective optimization reveals a Pareto front with differences in component composition as well as continuous parameters. Research limitations/implications – This paper demonstrates the frameworks application on a generalized test problem only. Further publication will consider real engineering design problems. Originality/value – The paper addresses the need for future conceptual design methods of complex systems to consider a mixed concept space of both discrete and continuous nature via automated methods

‘Thinking under fire’: managing therapeutic boundaries in inner-city secondary schools

School-based counselling has become widespread over the last ten years as schools and clinics struggle to cope with the dramatic increase in young people presenting with mental health problems. Until recently, there was little research on school-based counselling in the UK. However, several large scale quantitative studies along with a handful of smaller qualitative studies have now been published. One clear gap in this literature concerns how counsellors experience the educational context, particularly the nature of boundaries in schools. It has been recognised that secondary schools present numerous challenges to practitioners, particularly with regard to boundaries which create the appropriate conditions needed for therapeutic work. This study used constructivist grounded theory in order to explore the nature of boundaries and boundary management in school-based counselling. It focused on practitioners working in the complex setting of inner-city secondary schools where stretched resources and highly vulnerable young people pose numerous challenges to the work. Ten school counsellors were interviewed. The findings which emerged from this research demonstrate that the management of therapeutic boundaries in schools is a complex process which develops over time. A theory is proposed whereby boundary management evolves over three stages driven by internal and external processes. Three boundary dynamics are put forth: reactive, responsive and reflective. This study argues that these dynamics serve as useful and important constructs for thinking about boundaries and maintaining a sound, ethical stance in schools work and other related contexts. This may be the only study which explores in depth the impact of the inner city secondary school environment on therapeutic work with adolescents from a therapist’s point of view. The findings therefore provide a unique and valuable snapshot of therapy at the ‘chalkface’ of urban secondary education in the UK

A Checklist of Megaloptera and Neuroptera (Planipennia) of Indiana

Sixty-five species of the insect orders Megaloptera and Neuroptera have been confirmed as being distributed in the state of Indiana, with the majority representing new state records

Environmental Impact Assessment, on the Operation of Conventional and More Electric Large Commercial Aircraft

Global aviation is growing exponentially and there is a great emphasis on trajectory optimization to reduce the overall environmental impact caused by aircraft. Many optimization techniques exist and are being studied for this purpose. The CLEAN SKY Joint Technology Initiative for aeronautics and Air transport, a European research activity run under the Seventh Framework program, is a collaborative initiative involving industry, research organizations and academia to introduce novel technologies to improve the environmental impact of aviation. As part of the overall research activities, "green" aircraft trajectories are addressed in the Systems for Green Operations (SGO) Integrated Technology Demonstrator. This paper studies the impact of large commercial aircraft trajectories optimized for different objectives applied to the on board systems. It establishes integrated systems models for both conventional and more electric secondary power systems and studies the impact of fuel, noise, time and emissions optimized trajectories on each configuration. It shows the significant change in the fuel burn due to systems operation and builds up the case as to why a detailed aircraft systems model is required within the optimization loop. Typically, the objective in trajectory optimization is to improve the mission performance of an aircraft or reduce the environmental impact. Hence parameters such as time, fuel burn, emissions and noise are key optimization objectives. In most instances, trajectory optimization is achieved by using models that represent such parameters. For example aircraft dynamics models to describe the flight performance, engine models to calculate the fuel burn, emissions and noise impact, etc. Such techniques have proved to achieve the necessary level of accuracy in trajectory optimization. This research enhances previous techniques by adding in the effect of systems power in the optimization process. A comparison is also made between conventional power systems and more electric architectures. In the conventional architecture, the environmental control system and the ice protection system are powered by engine bleed air while actuators and electrics are powered by engine shaft power off-takes. In the more electric architecture, bleed off take is eliminated and the environmental control system and ice protection system are also powered electrically through engine shaft power off takes

Formation flight investigation for highly efficient future civil transport aircraft

Formation flight could greatly assist the air transport industry in tackling the challenges of environmental impact, excessive reliance on fuel and overcapacity. Previous studies have shown drag reductions leading to significant fuel savings for aircraft in formation relative to their solo flight. Safety is guaranteed with the use of extended formation distances, and practical implementation issues could be solved in the near future. Since studies so far have focused on existing aircraft configurations and technology, a case study using a strut-braced wing airliner was carried out to ascertain its applicability to less conventional craft. The present results did not indicate such clear-cut benefits. If formation flight is to be successful and beneficial for the next generations of aircraft, it will be vital to consider its interaction with new technologies developed for highly efficient operation, in particular those aimed at reduction of aircraft drag such as laminar flow, and to do so early in the design of aerospace vehicles and wider systems

Electron impact excitation of N IV: calculations with the DARC code and a comparison with ICFT results

There have been discussions in the recent literature regarding the accuracy of the available electron impact excitation rates (equivalently effective collision strengths $\Upsilon$) for transitions in Be-like ions. In the present paper we demonstrate, once again, that earlier results for $\Upsilon$ are indeed overestimated (by up to four orders of magnitude), for over 40\% of transitions and over a wide range of temperatures. To do this we have performed two sets of calculations for N~IV, with two different model sizes consisting of 166 and 238 fine-structure energy levels. As in our previous work, for the determination of atomic structure the GRASP (General-purpose Relativistic Atomic Structure Package) is adopted and for the scattering calculations (the standard and parallelised versions of) the Dirac Atomic R-matrix Code ({\sc darc}) are employed. Calculations for collision strengths and effective collision strengths have been performed over a wide range of energy (up to 45~Ryd) and temperature (up to 2.0$\times$10$^6$~K), useful for applications in a variety of plasmas. Corresponding results for energy levels, lifetimes and A-values for all E1, E2, M1 and M2 transitions among 238 levels of N~IV are also reported.Comment: This paper with 5 Figs. and 8 Tables will appear in MNRAS (2016