MODULATION OF THE CGMP-GATED CHANNEL BY CALCIUM

Calcium acting through calmodulin has been shown to regulate the affinity of cyclic nucleotide-gated channels expressed in cell lines. But is calmodulin the Ca-sensor that normally regulates these channels

The Qualification and Experience of New Zealand's Key Decision Makers

In order to be more competitive, New Zealand's labour force must be more skilled and educated. Having a qualification is seen as a key to getting into the labour market, into employment and into work. Obtaining information and data on what qualifications New Zealanders have and need is relatively easy. But little is known about the distribution of individuals in relation to their qualifications. There have been many claims made that "New Zealand has too many accountants and lawyers in key positions and not enough scientists and engineers". Earlier studies have suggested there is an over-emphasis on accountancy and law as business qualifications. What is not clear is the extent to which other fields of study are represented amongst New Zealand's key decision makers. This paper is based on a comprehensive survey of the qualifications and experience of New Zealand's key decision makers, that is, individuals likely to affect significant decisions made in the private and public sectors within New Zealand. It aims to provide a clearer picture of the extent to which business versus technology related and other qualifications and experience exist amongst senior personnel

Array Failure Correction Using Different Optimization Techniques

An approach to synthesize array antenna is proposed on the context of detecting single and multiple fault in any array of elements, analysis of radiation pattern degradation because of the fault, and finding a recovery solution of the array, the recovered excitations fed to the array of healthy elements to get the radiation pattern close to the original form , For this a self-recoverable antenna array is created (SRA). The SRA concept and realization of the different recovery algorithms challenges are discussed. The resulting radiation pattern generated from the new excitation is found by three optimizing algorithm and compared

Design rationale for the regulatory approval of medical devices

Design rationale is a methodology aimed at capturing and representing design decisions according to a designated structure. Additionally, these design decisions and their underlying arguments can be made available for examination at a later date. The literature review identified that there is currently a lack of information describing the use of design rationale methods and computational support tools with the medical device domain. Furthermore, the review of literature has also recognised that there are no existing guidelines available for medical device manufacturers and regulatory authorities to follow in order to capture and represent the design decisions in the case of medical devices. Medical devices are instruments which are used for diagnosis, screening, monitoring, or the treating of patients suffering from disease, injury, or disability. Medical devices are products that require rigorous regulation before they can be placed onto the market. If problems are encountered with a device once it has been placed onto the market, the device is recalled by the relevant regulatory authority. Device recalls can often result in the device manufacturers having to evaluate the design decisions that were made during the product development stages in order to address the reported problems and implement a solution. As a result, medical device manufacturers can incur unexpected rework and/or redesign costs, and in even more severe circumstances, incur high litigation costs. This research; reviews the state-of-the-art in design rationale and identifies its key capabilities, analyses design rationale’s feasibility for use with the medical device domain, identifies the regulatory approval processes for medical devices and compares them, analyses the possibilities of utilising design rationale with the regulatory approval of medical devices, and develops a set of guidelines. The guidelines detail the necessary steps that are required to capture and represent the design decisions for medical devices. The utility of this contribution has been verified through the process of validation with experts and researchers.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Counci

A decision support system for evaluating local authority housing maintenance strategies in the United Kingdom

Purpose The lack of smart resources management and servicescape strategies within the social housing sector in the late 1970s influenced the rise of successive Governments to consider the restructuring of the traditional ‘cumbersome’ Local Authority based structures and approaches toward more ‘enterprise focussed’ management organisations (Sharp & Jones 2012). This change in central Government policy encouraged Local Authorities to assign through outsourcing their housing stock (including associated asset management services) as part of a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT) via a process of compulsory competitive tendering to Housing Associations and / or set up Housing Trusts to increase the accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of social housing and healthcare provision in the local community. As part of this modernisation process, all social housing and community care providers (also known as ‘Registered Social Landlords’ - RSLs) became subject to statutory audits, inspections and regulation, and performance management, to ensure the service quality delivery requirements. More recently, however, changes in the legislative framework have introduced choice-based letting policy, putting the customer first, service delivery and additionally RSLs are required to act as ‘Corporate Social Landlords’. These changes have focused RSLs attention on the need to sharpen service responsiveness, especially in the area of housing maintenance management (DETR 2000). Previous research (Holmes 1985; Spedding 1990; Johnston 1993; Stewart & Stoker 1995; Olubodun 1996, 2000, 2001; Sagoo et al. 1996; El-Haram & Horner 2002; Kangwa & Olubodun 2003, 2005; Boussabaine & Kirkham 2004; Jones & Cooper 2007; Prowle 2009; Babangida et al. 2012) has mainly concentrated on analysing maintenance management factors at the micro level; developing maintenance models and framework design for operational level. However, in the social housing sector, there have been no studies undertaken to date that have been focused on housing maintenance strategies – for example, how this is formulated, the key drivers of change and the impact on customer orientated service delivery. The purpose of this study is to identify the critical factors that drive the decision-making process in order to formulate responsive housing maintenance strategies and to develop a decision support model to improve customer service delivery of social housing provision. Research methodology Through a process of qualitative case study, pilot questionnaire surveys, workshops and qualitative in-depth interviews, the research has identified how the housing maintenance strategies are formulated and how social housing providers could enhance customer service delivery. The study comprised four phases in order to reflect the key objectives of the research. The first phase comprised a review of literature on social housing provision in the UK, identifying relevant changes in the legislative framework, an assessment of the challenges faced by RSLs and the key factors influencing performance of social housing provision. This phase also included undertaking a case study based on five different RSLs to examine the ‘real problems’ as to how and to what extent RSLs have adopted their organisation in order to meet the changes and challenges which they now face. The second phase investigated the key service factors impacting on housing maintenance strategy design and development through the use of a pilot study questionnaire directed to the asset managers (participating in the survey) and also included a selection of end users of the services (tenants). This phase identified the differences between the perceptions of service providers and the expectations of the service users. A key feature of this phase entailed conducting a workshop to disseminate findings of the pilot study. The workshop also formed a basis for ‘in-depth’ discussions for identifying the key factors, their descriptions, their interactions with each other, their inter-relationships with the tenant type, and their combined impact on formulating responsive housing maintenance strategy. The third phase of the study entailed eliciting qualitative data from the participants using the Repertory Grid (RG) ‘in-depth’ interview technique - a psychology tool in order to gain a deeper understanding of the core important ‘constructs’ and sub-constructs, their characteristics, their inter-relationships in the design and development of effective housing asset maintenance strategies. The fourth phase of this study entailed the development of a decision support system and the qualitative validation of the relationships found to exist between the constructs examined in phase three together with the testing of the model over a period of two months with four of the participating social housing providers. Findings The key findings arising from this research suggest that the design and development of value for money maintenance strategies within the public housing sector, are not solely based on physical factors related to the age, condition, location, construction type for example, but rather it was found that the majority of the asset management decisions made, were dependent upon a multivariate of key factors. The study identified 52 key factors, which when grouped together formed seven key cluster (Customer risk factors, Asset manager risk factors, Tenancy risk factors, Neighbourhood and community sustainability risk factors, Financial and economic risk factors, continuous service improvement risk factors and corporate risk factors) which are both ‘unique’ and ‘novel’ and are identified as having a direct influence on the formulation of housing maintenance strategy. These factors should not be considered in isolation and are more akin to the business success factors. The business ‘Balanced Scorecard’ (BSC) was evaluated and used as the basis for a ‘best fit’ model which was tested against four RSL to confirm its validity and its appropriateness. The responses obtained from these trials has indicated that the BSC provides a working tool capable of enhancing RSL organisational capabilities and service delivery effectiveness but also able to incorporate customer views regarding service delivery. This research makes major contributions to the existing limited pool of knowledge relating to strategic asset management within social housing sector and in addition, provides an insight into how housing maintenance strategy can be developed to incorporate feedback from customers (tenants) regarding the quality and responsive service delivery. The research also demonstrates the potential value of the BSC approach to the management tool capable of generating a competitive edge in line with government policy which is currently directed towards encouraging RSLs to adopt a commercial business approach to their operations. The research also demonstrates that the adoption of a decision support system in the form of BSC has the potential to provide useful assistance to RSLs intending to move away from the traditional public sector approaches to management (a more private sector orientated) approach to their operations. The research also shows that asset managers experience little difficulty in understanding the principles behind the BSC approach and its application. In addition, the cascading effect of BSC in housing maintenance strategy means that the strategy can be converted into measurable actions at the operational levels thereby providing a direct link between strategy and its implementation. Due to the absence of suitable benchmarking data, score rating derived from the RG were adopted by asset managers. This approach was found to be highly sensitive in assessing service delivery constructs. Furthermore, the research revealed that the individual constructs (52 key factors) had a profound influence in relation to the strategy formation and the assessment of customer service delivery. The study found that RSLs need to develop a deeper understanding and awareness of their customers concerns in that these factors may have a major impact in the development of a responsive housing maintenance strategy and overall improvements on RSLs performance. A close link was found between customer profile, their financial standing and their service expectations, patterns of behaviour and their interaction with their RSLs. High performance expectation was found on the part of affordable customers, presumably reflecting a higher level of social and economic dependency within this group and greater need for access to services thereby challenging RSLs to deliver higher standards of performance including housing maintenance provision. Other customer groups were noted as placing demand on their RSLs to adopt more holistic approach to formulation of housing maintenance strategy and embrace business-like approach to service delivery in order to facilitate a smooth transition from traditional public sector ethos to one closely akin to that associated with the private sector organisation. Practical implications The practical implications of this research are, that, if RSLs are to meet the demands of complying with a changed legislative framework, deliver responsive housing maintenance services to reflect the ever-changing customer expectations, and to adopt commercial approaches to the development of housing maintenance strategies, RSLs will need to re-engineer their business processes if the demands are to be satisfactorily accommodated. RSLs must also be prepared to adopt ‘smart business’ practices in the future, given that existing Key Line Of Enquiry (KLOEs) approaches now provide an inadequate tool for assessing performance in housing asset management nor are KLOEs sufficiently robust or possessing a sufficient degree of agility for modelling complex service delivery scenarios. As a result of this research, the BSC model has demonstrated its usefulness and its appropriateness to housing maintenance decision making within the current economic conditions and changed regulatory regime. The BSC model is simple in nature but nonetheless sufficiently flexible to allow factors to be added or omitted to accommodate the requirements and structures of individual RSLs. Academic implications To date, most housing asset management have concentrated on the technical and cost aspects of maintenance management aimed at the micro level and have attached little attention to the needs of strategic management or the potential significance of the customer. These earlier researches have limited application to the needs of strategy management particularly under the current conditions which social housing providers are now required to operate (Sharp & Jones 2012). This study is first of its kind to attempt to evaluate housing maintenance strategy giving considerations to end user ‘the customer’ dimension in service delivery within the social housing sector. This study has adopted a novel approach to this area of research by employing a technique frequently encountered in clinical psychology, based upon the use of a Repertory Grid – a qualitative tool for triadic elicitation of key drivers with a view to providing a robust tool for assisting housing asset managers involved in the development of housing maintenance strategy. The RG personal interviews with senior asset managers revealed hidden and latent factors, which would not have been easily identified had a quantitative questionnaire been used. The hidden constructs which were identified as a result of the applications of this technique are considered to be ‘akin’ to business success factors. Originality This study is also unique in that it has given particular considerations to the provision of housing maintenance service as perceived from the view point of the end users rather than directing itself to the constructional and technical aspects of housing asset management. Also, the research recognises the need for asset managers to become more aware of the implications of social factors and the need for these aspects to be incorporated into strategic maintenance models. A further unique aspect of this research is that it has endeavoured to obtain an insight into the cognitive processes (mind mapping and analytical mental processes) behind the decision making of asset management, in order to identify and understand the nature of the drivers behind these processes to develop a rational decision support model for assisting in the rational formulating of housing maintenance strategy. KEYWORDS Social Housing, Registered Social Landlords, Social Housing Providers, Customer Service Delivery, Asset Managers, Customer, Tenants, Repertory Gri

Pilot in loop assessment of fault tolerant flight control schemes in a motion flight simulator

This research presents the pilot in the loop tests carried out in a Six-Degree of Freedom (6-DOF) motion flight simulator to evaluate failure detection, isolation and identification (FDII) schemes for an advanced F-15 aircraft. The objective behind this study is to leverage the capability of the flight simulator at West Virginia University (WVU) to carry out a performance assessment of neurally augmented control algorithms developed on a Matlab/Simulink RTM platform. The experimental setup features an interface setup of Gen-2 SimulinkRTM schemes with MOTUS Flight Simulator (MFS). The set up is a close substitute to a real flight and thus is helpful in evaluation of the schemes in a realistic manner. The graphics in X-plane is used to obtain visual cues and the motion platform is used to obtain motion cues in the simulator cockpit. The whole set-up enables the pilot to respond with a joystick in the advent of a failure as he would otherwise in a real flight. The pilot response in maintaining the mission profile is different for different neural network augmentations and thus an indication of performance comparison of these schemes. Secondly, FDII schemes are developed for a sensor and actuator failure using an adaptive threshold for cross-correlation coefficients of the angular rates of the aircraft. Failure detection, isolation and identification logic is formulated based on monitoring the cross-correlation parameters with their Floating Limiter (FL) bounds. The FDII scheme developed shows a good performance with desktop simulation because of no pilot activity but with a pilot in the loop significant cross-correlation of the rates occur and hence the scheme become more susceptible to wrongs FDII. In addition, the pilot might induce some coupling of the cross-correlation parameters between detection and identification time which may trigger false detections and may configure the controller differently based on incorrect detection. Thus it is necessary that FDII scheme accommodate real flight conditions. The performance of the FDII schemes is improved with a pilot in the loop by monitoring the cross-correlation parameters and fine tuning FDII algorithms for real situations. This study has set up an excellent example to effectively utilize the aural, visual and motion cues to create a higher level of simulation complexity in designing control algorithms

Squamous cell carcinoma of the conjunctiva

Squamous cell carcinoma of the conjunctiva is the end-stage of a spectrum of disease referred to as ocular surface squamous neoplasia (OSSN). OSSN is a malignant disease of the eyes that can lead to loss of vision and, in severe cases, death. The main risk factors for both are exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation outdoors, HIV/AIDS, human papilloma virus and allergic conjunctivitis. The limbal epithelial cells appear to be the progenitors of this disease