9,466 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Can Big Media do "Big Society"?: A Critical Case Study of Commercial, Convergent Hyperlocal News
The UK Government is committed to helping ‘nurture a new generation of local media companies’. Changes to local media ownership rules allowing companies to follow their customers from platform to platform are supposed to assist in this by encouraging economies of scale. This paper provides a timely case study examining a UK-based commercial local news network owned by Daily Mail & General Trust that leverages economies of scale: Northcliffe Media’s network of 154 Local People websites. The study evaluates the level of audience engagement with the Local People sites through a user survey, and by looking at the numbers of active users, their contributions and their connections with other users. Interviews with ten of the ‘community publishers’ who oversee each site on the ground were conducted, along with a content survey. Although the study reveals a demand for community content, particularly of a practical nature, the results question the extent to which this type of ‘big media’ local news website can succeed as a local social network, reinvigorate political engagement, or encourage citizen reporting. The Government hopes that communities, especially rural ones, will increasingly use the Internet to access local news and information, thereby supporting new, profitable local media companies, who will nurture a sense of local identity and hold locally-elected politicians to account. This case study highlights the difficulties inherent in achieving such outcomes, even using the Government’s preferred convergent, commercial model
Nurturing the young shoots of talent: Using action research for exploration and theory building
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 19(4), 433-450, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1350293X.2011.623515.This paper reports the outcomes of a set of action research projects carried out by teacher researchers in 14 local education authorities in England, working collaboratively with university tutors, over a period of three years. The common aim of all the projects was to explore practical ways of nurturing the gifts and talents of children aged four–seven years. The project was funded by the Department of Education and Skills in England as part of the government's gifted and talented programme. The project teachers felt that their understanding of issues relating to nurturing the gifts and talents of younger children was enhanced through their engagement in the project. It was possible to map the findings of the projects to the English government's National Quality Standards for gifted and talented education which include: (1) identification; (2) effective provision in the classroom; (3) enabling curriculum entitlement and choice; (4) assessment for learning; (5) engaging with community, families and beyond. The findings are also analysed within the framework of good practice in educating children in the first years of schooling. Participating practitioners felt that action research offered them a suitable methodology to explore the complexity of the topic of giftedness through cycles of planning, action and reflection and personal theory building
Upper critical field of CeCoIn5
We present a detailed analysis of the upper critical field for CeCoIn5 under
high pressure. We show that, consistently with other measurements, this system
shows a decoupling between maximum of the superconducting transition
temperature Tc and maximum pairing strength. This puts forward CeCoIn5 as an
important paradigm for this class of unconventional, strongly correlated
superconductors.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, author version, published in New J. Phy
Multilevel Contracts for Trusted Components
This article contributes to the design and the verification of trusted
components and services. The contracts are declined at several levels to cover
then different facets, such as component consistency, compatibility or
correctness. The article introduces multilevel contracts and a
design+verification process for handling and analysing these contracts in
component models. The approach is implemented with the COSTO platform that
supports the Kmelia component model. A case study illustrates the overall
approach.Comment: In Proceedings WCSI 2010, arXiv:1010.233
Violation of action--reaction and self-forces induced by nonequilibrium fluctuations
We show that the extension of Casimir-like forces to fluctuating fluids
driven out of equilibrium can exhibit two interrelated phenomena forbidden at
equilibrium: self-forces can be induced on single asymmetric objects and the
action--reaction principle between two objects can be violated. These effects
originate in asymmetric restrictions imposed by the objects' boundaries on the
fluid's fluctuations. They are not ruled out by the second law of
thermodynamics since the fluid is in a nonequilibrium state. Considering a
simple reaction--diffusion model for the fluid, we explicitly calculate the
self-force induced on a deformed circle. We also show that the action--reaction
principle does not apply for the internal Casimir forces exerting between a
circle and a plate. Their sum, instead of vanishing, provides the self-force on
the circle-plate assembly.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. V2: New title; Abstract partially rewritten;
Largely enhanced introductory and concluding remarks (incl. new Refs.
Sludge drying reed beds for septage treatment: towards design and operation recommendations
International audienceWith decentralized treatment system development, a new concern emerges: the future of the septage. The aim of this paper is to assess the feasibility of septage treatment by SDRB, and to compare its efficiencies to those of activated sludge treatment in same conditions. The study took place on ten 2m² pilot-scales SDRB. Different designs and operation conditions have been tested on sludge treatment efficiency and will be presented as: (i) the top filtration layer (sand or compost), (ii) the load (from 30 to 50 kgSS/m-2/y). After one year and half commissioning period, we focus on the results obtained at nominal loads presenting: sludge characteristic, filtration efficiency, percolate quality and sludge deposit behaviour. Although results show better filtration efficiency for activated sludge (98.4%) than for septage (87.5%), the feasibility of septage treatment with drying reed bed has been demonstrated. Sludge accumulation is about 7.9 cm/y, when fed at 50 kgSS/m-2/y, and dry matter content of the sludge can reach 70% in summer period. The paper will present sludge characteristics, system efficiency, to finish on design and operation condition recommendations for SDRB treating septage
Embedded Systems Requirements Verification Using HiLeS Designer
International audienceOne of the issues related to systems design is the early verification in first design steps: system specifications verification. Nowadays, it is common to use text-based specifications to begin a system design. However, these specifications cannot be verified until a software model is made. In this work, we show how can we use HiLeS Designer to model and verify, formally and by simulation an embedded system specification. This tool makes easier to build the model, using graphical concepts which are familiar to designers. It also helps to verify formally the structure and some logical behavior, and by simulation, it is possible to verify the consistence of the embedded system specification. We model and verify System Display Selector Requirements applying HiLeS Designer
RKKY and magnetic field interactions in coupled Kondo quantum dots
We investigate theoretically the transport properties of two independent
artificial Kondo impurities. They are coupled together via a tunable
Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yoshida (RKKY) interaction. For strong enough
antiferromagnetic RKKY interaction, the impurity density of states increases
with the applied in-plane magnetic field. This effect can be used to
distinguish between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic RKKY interactions.
These results may be relevant to explain some features of recent experiments by
Craig et al. (cond-mat/0404213).Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
The mixed analog/digital shaper of the LHCb preshower
The LHCb preshower signals show so many fluctuations at low energy that a classical shaping is not usable at all. Thanks to the fact that the fraction of the collected energy during a whole LHC beam crossing time is 85%, we studied the special solution we presented at Snowmass 1999 workshop. This solution consists of 2 interleaved fast integrators, one being in integrate mode when the other is digitally reset. Two track-and-hold systems and an analog multiplexer are used to give at the output 85% of the signal plus 15% of the previous one. These 15% are digitally computed from the previous sample, and subtracted. A completely new design of this solution had to be made. This new design is described, including new methods to decrease the supply voltage and the noise, as well as to increase the quality of the reset and the linearity. An output stage, consisting of an AB class push-pull using only NPN transistors is also described. Laboratory and beam test results are given. (5 refs)
- …