Decimal to Binary Number Conversion can be Fun

Numbering systems are of great importance in Computer Science and Engineering education. The binary numbering system can be considered as one of the most fundamental, since its understanding is essential for the understanding of other Computer Science and Engineering concepts, such as data representation, data storage, computer architecture, networking, and many more. Yet, students are having difficulties understanding it. One approach which has been shown to improve learning of different science and mathematics concepts is the use of educational games. Educational games have the potential to engage and motivate learners through fun activities. This paper presents a small exploratory survey on an electronic educational game for practicing decimal to binary number conversions

Service quality management and customer satisfaction in higher education: quality of services, customer satisfaction and customer behavioural intention in higher education

For the purpose of this project, a modified SERVQUAL instrument has been used to investigate undergraduate student perception of service quality at Cyprus College by determining if gaps existed in student expectation versus the perception of the actual experiences. The researcher acquired answers for five research questions designed to determine the relationship between service quality, student satisfaction, student behavioural intention, and certain demographic variables (gender, nationality, and number of years at the college). The population consisted of 1,398 students, which represented the fall 2006 semester enrolment. A cluster sampling methodology was used for the selection of 434 respondents. The researcher has tested the reliability and internal consistency of the survey instrument and it was found to be reliable and have adequate internal consistency. The Cronbach's total alpha was .919. Each research question was analysed individually usmg descriptive data for expectation, perceptions, and gap scores. The results of the survey indicated that there was a wide gap between student's perceived performance and expectations in twenty out of the twenty-two measured items. The most problematic dimension appears to be the Empathy and the least problematic the Tangible dimension. The researcher found that gender, nationality and number of years at Cyprus College are of a little value in predicting student's evaluation of service quality. There were, however, statistical and practical significance found in the ANOV As for each dependent variable. In addition, the researcher has found that respondents, who stated that overall the quality of service is good or very good, appeared to be satisfied or very satisfied with Cyprus College. The same group of respondents appeared also to be more willing than the rest of the respondents to say positive things about the college and less willing to complain if they experience a problem. The findings were discussed among the academic and administration leaders of the college and a set of actions were decided and some have been implemented including service related procedural changes, employee motivation and training, and the establishment of a system of continuous assessment. The results that emerged from the study and the discussions can be useful for other institutions which are concerned about their own quality practices

Tribological Studies on Scuffing Due to the Influence of Carbon Dioxide Used as a Refrigerant in Compressors

The refrigeration and air conditioning industry has expressed a great interest in the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a refrigerant. CO2 is anticipated to replace HFC refrigerants, which are known to have a negative effect on the environment. The reason behind the interest in CO2 is the fact that it is a natural refrigerant, thus environmentally acceptable. Of course, such a replacement raises concerns regarding design criteria and performance due to the different thermodynamic properties of CO2 and the very different range of pressures required for the CO2 refrigeration cycle. So far, work related to CO2 has been done from a thermodynamics point of view and researchers have made significant progress developing automotive and portable air-conditioning systems that use the environmentally friendly carbon dioxide as a refrigerant. The purpose of this work is to develop an understanding of how CO2 plays a role from a tribology standpoint. More specifically, the goal of this work is to gain an understanding on how CO2 influences friction, lubrication, wear and scuffing of tribological pairs used in compressors. Work in the area of tribology related to CO2 is very limited. Preliminary work by Cusano and coworkers showed that consistent data for tests using CO2 could not be acquired nor could a satisfactory explanation be offered for the inconsistency. Their results triggered the initiation of the work presented here. In this first attempt to understand the tribological behavior of CO2 several problems were encountered. During this work we noted that its behavior, unlike conventional refrigerants, could not always be predicted. We believe that this can be attributed to the thermodynamic properties of CO2, which cannot be ignored when studying its tribological behavior. Thermodynamic Properties such as miscibility are very important when tribological testing is performed. A limiting factor with our tester was that it was not designed for CO2 testing, but for other conventional refrigerants and therefore made previously developed testing protocols non-applicable with CO2. Through a different approach and some modifications to our tester we were able to establish a protocol for testing under the presence of CO2. CO2 was then compared to R134a and the experimental results showed that it performs equally well.Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Project 13

A study of the modulation of Toll-like receptor signalling in macrophages by Annexin-1

PhDAnnexin-A1 (AnxA1) is an endogenous anti-inflammatory protein that has been shown to exert a protective role against the lethal effects induced by the Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 agonist lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The aim of this PhD studentship was to expand these observations and investigate the possible cross-talk between AnxA1 and other TLR signalling pathways in macrophages. To this aim, we compared the response in vitro of AnxA1-/- to AnxA1+/+ bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) after stimulation with TLR2, 3, 5, 7 and 9 ligands. AnxA1-/- BMDMs exhibited higher expression of the activation markers MHC II and co-stimulatory molecules CD40, CD80, CD86 at the basal level, but a similar upregulation after stimulation with different TLR agonists. Stimulation of AnxA1-/- BMDMs with MyD88-dependent TLR agonists caused an increased production of TNF- and IL-6 compared to AnxA1+/+. Conversely, stimulation with the TRIF-dependent ligand poly (I:C) caused a decreased production of IL-6, but not TNF-, by these cells. Interestingly, comparison of MyD88 and TRIF-dependent downstream signalling pathways in AnxA1+/+ and AnxA1-/- BMDMs showed different kinetics of NF-B DNA-binding activity, IB- degradation and ERK1/2 phosphorylation. Consistent with this, measurement of MyD88-dependent or TRIF-regulated genes in AnxA1+/+ and AnxA1-/- BMDMs indicated a different time course of expression following stimulation with TLR3 (TRIF-dependent), TLR9 (MyD88-dependent) and TLR4 (TRIF and MyD88-dependent) ligands. Finally, AnxA1-/- mice showed an increased survival after challenge with poly (I:C), in contrast to increased lethality after injection of LPS, compared to AnxA1+/+ mice. These results suggest that endogenous AnxA1 influences mainly the MyD88-dependent pathway and to a lesser extent the TRIF-dependent pathway both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, this study provides future venues for the investigation of molecular mechanisms by which endogenous AnxA1 preferentially interferes with specific TLR signalling pathways.Saint Bartholomew's and the royal London Charitable Foundatio

The Gender Wage Gaps, 'Sticky Floors' and 'Glass Ceilings' of the European Union

We consider and attempt to understand the gender wage gap across 24 EU member states, all of which share the objective of gender equality, using 2007 data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. The size of the gender wage gap varies considerably across countries and selection corrections affect the offered gap, sometimes substantially. Most of the gap cannot be explained by the characteristics available in this data set. Quantile regressions show that, in most countries, the wage gap is wider at the top of the wage distribution ('glass ceilings') and, in fewer countries, it is wider at the bottom of the wage distribution ('sticky floors'). These features are related to country-specific characteristics that cannot be evaluated at the member state level. We use the cross-country variation in this large sample of member states to explore the influence of (i) policies concerned with reconciling work and family life and (ii) wage-setting institutions. We find that policies and institutions are systematically related to unexplained gender wage gaps.gender wage gap, selection, quantile effects, work-family reconciliation, wage-setting institutions

A distributed networked approach for fault detection of large-scale systems

Networked systems present some key new challenges in the development of fault diagnosis architectures. This paper proposes a novel distributed networked fault detection methodology for large-scale interconnected systems. The proposed formulation incorporates a synchronization methodology with a filtering approach in order to reduce the effect of measurement noise and time delays on the fault detection performance. The proposed approach allows the monitoring of multi-rate systems, where asynchronous and delayed measurements are available. This is achieved through the development of a virtual sensor scheme with a model-based re-synchronization algorithm and a delay compensation strategy for distributed fault diagnostic units. The monitoring architecture exploits an adaptive approximator with learning capabilities for handling uncertainties in the interconnection dynamics. A consensus-based estimator with timevarying weights is introduced, for improving fault detectability in the case of variables shared among more than one subsystem. Furthermore, time-varying threshold functions are designed to prevent false-positive alarms. Analytical fault detectability sufficient conditions are derived and extensive simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the distributed fault detection technique

(RE) creating a theatre of myth : pedagogy and cultural heritage in a theatre for Cypriot youth

This thesis will argue that the contemporary educational system of Cyprus denies young people opportunities to participate in the creation of their culture, which can provide the nest for the exploration and understanding of their individual and collective lives. Culture, in schools, is treated not as a dynamic process in which the young people can play the main role but instead as a static field of knowledge that should be studied and learnt. This approach, however, contradicts the same principles that were the foundations of the ancient culture that the young Greeks have inherited from the past whose performative and participatory nature ascribed to it a proactive and democratic public life that guaranteed everyone the right to speak and act. This thesis argues that the Greek young people of contemporary Cyprus should be entitled to participation in recreating and reconstructing the meanings and values of those stories that have inherited from the past and that bind them together as one people in ways that help them make sense of their contemporary private and public roles. The thesis argues that the myths of the past should be reinterpreted and repositioned again in the present to respond to the immediate social context of the young people in a participatory and democratic way so as to enable a progress of this culture and a connection between the past, the present and the future. The thesis shows that culture is under continuous reconstruction taking on the example of fifth century BC Athens where theatre and public life fed one another and developed to respond to the current socio-historical context of the time. Throughout, the thesis shows in what ways theatre can provide the means for the investigation of the inherent meanings in the myths of the past and also its significance in playing the role of the social agent that can enable transformation and progress. The thesis consists of an introduction, eight chapters and a conclusion. In the Introduction I identify the problem that exists in the contemporary educational system of Cyprus concerning the way that the field of culture is approached and present the conceptual framework that provides the foundation for proposing a new Theatre of Myth. Chapter one provides a critical reflection on and analysis of the oral culture of Homer to the democratic fifth century BC Athens and the birth of tragedy. Chapter two studies, both from the ideal and the material aspect, the social role of the Athenian tragic theatre and its polis during the fifth century. Chapter three seeks to base the arguments made in the thesis of the educational and political role of the fifth century theatre through a critical analysis of its form and content. Chapter four identifies and supports the principles of the proposed Theatre of Myth, drawing from the twentieth century developments in Modem Drama whilst chapter five shows how the Drama-in-Education tradition attempts to bridge the practices in the Modem Drama paradigm to come closer to the proposed theatre model. Chapter six provides the methodology followed for a pilot case study that attempts to transfer the Theatre of Myth into practice, which is the preoccupation of chapter seven. Chapter eight discusses and analyses the findings of the case study to inform the theoretical lines of the model of the Theatre of Myth. Some conclusions are discussed concerning the potential and the limitations of the Theatre of Myth in the end of the thesis

High-frequency techniques for RCS prediction of plate geometries and a physical optics/equivalent currents model for the RCS of trihedral corner reflectors

Part 1 of this report continues the investigation, initiated in previous reports, of scattering from rectangular plates coated with lossy dielectrics. The hard polarization coefficients given in the last report are incorporated into a model, which includes second- and third-order diffractions, for the coated plate. Computed results from this model are examined and compared to measured data. A breakdown of the contribution of each of the higher-order terms to the total radar cross section (RCS) is given. The effectiveness of the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD) model in accounting for the coating effect is investigated by examining a Physical Optics (PO) model which incorporates the equivalent surface impedance approximation used in the UTD model. The PO, UTD, and experimental results are compared. Part 2 of this report presents a RCS model, based on PO and the Method of Equivalent Currents (MEC), for a trihedral corner reflector. PO is used to account for the reflected fields, while MEC is used for the diffracted fields. Single, double, and triple reflections and first-order diffractions are included in the model. A detailed derivation of the E(sub theta)-polarization, monostatic RCS is included. Computed results are compared with finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) results for validation. The PO/MEC model of this report compares very well with the FDTD model, and it is a much faster model in terms of computational speed