Training for design of experiments using a catapult

Design of experiments (DOE) is a powerful approach for discovering a set of process (or design) variables which are most important to the process and then determine at what levels these variables must be kept to optimize the response (or quality characteristic) of interest. This paper presents two catapult experiments which can be easily taught to engineers and managers in organizations to train for design of experiments. The results of this experiment have been taken from a real live catapult experiment performed by a group of engineers in a company during the training program on DOE. The first experiment was conducted to separate out the key factors (or variables) from the trivial and the second experiment was carried out using the key factors to understand the nature of interactions among the key factors. The results of the experiment were analysed using simple but powerful graphical tools for rapid and easier understanding of the results to engineers with limited statistical competency

Determining the essential characetristics of Six Sigma Black Belts

A Six Sigma Black Belt (SSBB) plays the role of a full-time team leader responsible for implementing process improvement projects using the Six Sigma methodology (Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control) within the business to drive up customer satisfaction levels and business productivity. Black Belt projects are typically defined so that they can be completed in less than 6 months, and are generally focused on high-priority business issues and are targeted to add $175,000 to$250,000 to the bottom-line of organisations (Snee, 2004). A fully trained BB will be expected to deliver a minimum of $500,000 to well over$1,000,000 in direct cost savings to the bottom-line of an organisation per year (Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Moreover, a BB is expected to complete between 4 to 6 projects per annum depending on the scope of the project, complexity of the project and availability of data. The BB program of study focuses on an understanding of the Six Sigma philosophy, key principles and concepts, tactics, application of tools and techniques, project management skills, etc. So,why the martial arts terminology? The sole function of a BB is to focus on disciplined problem solving using the DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control) methodology and a specific set of tools and techniques with speed (i.e. project completion in a short period of time). The purpose here is to defeat the enemy – variation in processes which lead to customer dissatisfaction (Brue and Howes, 2006)

Η επιστροφή του Σεφέρη στη Μικρά Ασία: τόπος – ταυτότητα – Μνήμη

Please note: this article is in Greek

Pop-up Library Makerspace: academic libraries provide flexible, supportive space to explore emerging technologies.

The word Makerspace is a general term for a place where people get together to make things, create things and learn together. Antony Groves presents a look at a recent university library experiment hosting a pop-up makerspace. Working with local edtech leaders MakerClub and colleagues the library organised a two-hour workshop which offered the opportunity for students and staff to explore emerging technologies

The full squeezed CMB bispectrum from inflation

The small-scale CMB temperature we observe on the sky is modulated by perturbations that were super-horizon at recombination, giving differential focussing and lensing that generate a non-zero bispectrum even for single-field inflation where local physics is identical. Understanding this signal is important for primordial non-Gaussianity studies and also parameter constraints from the CMB lensing bispectrum signal. Because of cancellations individual effects can appear larger or smaller than they are in total, so a full analysis may be required to avoid biases. I relate angular scales on the sky to physical scales at recombination using the optical equations, and give full-sky results for the large-scale adiabatic temperature bispectrum from Ricci focussing (expansion of the ray bundle), Weyl lensing (convergence and shear), and temperature redshift modulations of small-scale power. The delta N expansion of the beam is described by the constant temperature 3-curvature, and gives a nearly-observable version of the consistency relation prediction from single-field inflation. I give approximate arguments to quantify the likely importance of dynamical effects, and argue that they can be neglected for modulation scales l <~ 100, which is sufficient for lensing studies and also allows robust tests of local primordial non-Gaussianity using only the large-scale modulation modes. For accurate numerical results early and late-time ISW effects must be accounted for, though I confirm that the late-time non-linear Rees-Sciama contribution is negligible compared to other more important complications. The total corresponds to f_NL ~ 7 for Planck-like temperature constraints and f_NL ~ 11 for cosmic-variance limited data to lmax=2000. Temperature lensing bispectrum estimates are affected at the 0.2 sigma level by Ricci focussing, and up to 0.5 sigma with polarization.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; typos corrected, minor edit

Generalized Fourier-Mukai Transforms

The paper sets out a generalized framework for Fourier-Mukai transforms and illustrates their use via vector bundle transforms. A Fourier-Mukai transform is, roughly, an isomorphism of derived categories of (sheaves) on smooth varieties X and Y. We show that these can only exist if the first Chern class of the varieties vanishes and, in the case of vector bundle transforms, will exist if and only if there is a bi-universal bundle on XxY which is "strongly simple" in a suitable sense. Some applications are given to abelian varieties extending the work of Mukai.Comment: 13 pages, AMSLaTeX 1.

Book Review: Population, Consumption, and the Environment: Religious and Secular Responses

A review of Population, Consumption, and the Environment: Religious and Secular Responses, edited by Harold Coward

SAGA API Extension: Service Discovery API

SAGA API Extension: Service Discovery AP

Understanding e-book usage: using citation analysis to inform study skills teaching

To deliver effective information literacy teaching, an accurate understanding of user behaviour is vital. The increasing availability and use of e-books will impact upon student information seeking behaviour. We need to understand the extent of this if we wish to include the most appropriate content in the teaching that we deliver. This poster will show the findings of a recent piece of research at the University of Sussex that has taken an innovative approach to exploring user behaviour. The research considers the establishment of a more sophisticated measure of e-book usage that will inform information literacy teaching by focusing on user behaviour. Specifically this involves measuring e-book usage based on a new methodology concerning citation analysis and qualitative interviews instead of solely gathering data relating to traditional access counts such as full-text download. By analysing e-book citations in student coursework it has been possible to get a more complete picture of the e-books being used by our students, not just those that are held by the library. In addition, interviewing students directly has helped to uncover the ways in which students are searching for and interacting with e-books. This allows us to see exactly how students are using e-books and their reasons for doing so, as opposed to simply relying on our interpretations of the usage data that we collect. This poster will share our findings. Gathering information about these various aspects of user behaviour will help to identify gaps in practice and enable us to improve the information seeking and evaluation skills of our users. Furthermore it will help us to understand the barriers that our students face in accessing e-books and by highlighting these we can work towards making our collections as discoverable as possible, in addition to equipping our students with the skills needed to discover them