Flexible delivery: A model for analysis and implementation of flexible programme delivery

The approach to quality and standards in Scotland is enhancement-led and learner-centred. It was developed through a partnership of the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Universities Scotland, the National Union of Students in Scotland (NUS Scotland) and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) Scotland. The Higher Education Academy has also joined that partnership. The Enhancement Themes are a key element of a five-part framework which has been designed to provide an integrated approach to quality assurance and enhancement, supporting learners and staff at all levels in enhancing higher education in Scotland drawing on developing, innovative practice within the UK and internationally. The five elements of the framework are: * a comprehensive programme of subject-level reviews undertaken by the higher education institutions themselves; guidance on internal reviews is published by SFC (www.sfc.ac.uk) * enhancement-led institutional review (ELIR) run by QAA Scotland (www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/ELIR) * improved forms of public information about quality; guidance on the information to be published by higher education institutions is provided by SFC (www.sfc.ac.uk) * a greater voice for students in institutional quality systems, supported by a national development service - student participation in quality scotland (sparqs) (www.sparqs.org.uk) * a national programme of Enhancement Themes aimed at developing and sharing good practice to enhance the student learning experience, which are facilitated by QAA Scotland (www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk). The topics for the Themes are identified through consultation with the sector and implemented by steering committees whose members are drawn from the sector and the student body. The steering committees have the task of developing a programme of development activities, which draw upon national and international good practice. Publications emerging from each Theme are intended to provide important reference points for higher education institutions in the ongoing strategic enhancement of their teaching and learning provision. Full details of each Theme, its steering committee, the range of research and development activities, and the outcomes are published on the Enhancement Themes website (www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk). To further support the implementation and embedding of a quality enhancement culture within the sector, including taking forward the outcomes of the various Enhancement Themes, a new overarching committee has been established, chaired by Professor Kenneth Miller (Vice-Principal, University of Strathclyde). It has the important dual role of supporting the overall approach of the enhancement themes, including the five-year rolling plan, and of supporting institutional enhancement strategies and management of quality. We very much hope that the new committee, working with the individual topic-based Themes' steering committees, will provide a powerful vehicle for the progression of the enhancement-led approach to quality and standards in Scottish higher education

Flexible workforces and low profit margins: electronics assembly between Europe and China

This book investigates restructuring in the electronics industry and in particular the impact of a \u2018Chinese\u2019 labour regime on work and employ - ment practices in electronics assembly in Europe.1 Electronics is an extremely dynamic sector, characterized by an ever-changing organi - zational structure, as well as cut-throat competition, particularly in manufacturing. Located primarily in East Asia, electronics assembly has become notorious for poor working conditions, low unionisation and authoritarian labour relations. However, hostile labour relations and topdown HR policies are not unique to East Asia. They have become associated with the way the sector is governed more broadly, with a number of Western companies also coming to rely on such practices

Designing a flexible support system in dialogue with students to meet their needs

A more stringent financial climate, alongside technological and lifestyle changes, have diversified student needs and promoted the use of inclusive learning and support strategies. This paper reports on the development and evaluation of academic skills centres at an English Higher Education Institution and considers ways in which the service is able to benefit users and providers, it goes on to argue that, by fostering a dialogue with students and using a range of delivery models, the provision has been made flexible, diversified and student centred and thereby addresses issues of current significance within the institution and sector more broadly

Flexible affine cones and flexible coverings

We provide a new criterion for flexibility of cones over varieties covered by flexible affine varieties. We apply this criterion to prove flexibility of affine cones over secant varieties of Segre--Veronese embeddings and over certain Fano threefolds. We further prove flexibility of total coordinate spaces of Cox rings of del Pezzo surfaces.Comment: 19 page

Flexible isotopy classification of flexible links

In this paper we define and study flexible links and flexible isotopy in projective space. Flexible links are meant to capture the topological properties of real algebraic links. We classify all flexible links up to flexible isotopy using Ekholms interpretation of Viros encomplexed writhe

Fabrication, properties, and applications of flexible magnetic films

Flexible magnetic devices, i.e., magnetic devices fabricated on flexible substrates, are very attractive in application of detecting magnetic field in arbitrary surface, non-contact actuators, and microwave devices due to the stretchable, biocompatible, light-weight, portable, and low cost properties. Flexible magnetic films are essential for the realization of various functionalities of flexible magnetic devices. To give a comprehensive understanding for flexible magnetic films and related devices, we have reviewed recent advances in the studies of flexible magnetic films including fabrication methods, magnetic and transport properties of flexible magnetic films, and their applications in magnetic sensors, actuators, and microwave devices. Three typical methods were introduced to prepare the flexible magnetic films. Stretching or bending the flexible magnetic films offers a good way to apply mechanical strain on magnetic films, so that magnetic anisotropy, exchanged bias, coercivity, and magnetoresistance can be effectively manipulated. Finally, a series of examples were shown to demonstrate the great potential of flexible magnetic films for future applications.Comment: 30 pages, 24 figure

Flexible Queueing Architectures

We study a multi-server model with $n$ flexible servers and $n$ queues, connected through a bipartite graph, where the level of flexibility is captured by the graph's average degree, $d_n$. Applications in content replication in data centers, skill-based routing in call centers, and flexible supply chains are among our main motivations. We focus on the scaling regime where the system size $n$ tends to infinity, while the overall traffic intensity stays fixed. We show that a large capacity region and an asymptotically vanishing queueing delay are simultaneously achievable even under limited flexibility ($d_n \ll n$). Our main results demonstrate that, when $d_n\gg \ln n$, a family of expander-graph-based flexibility architectures has a capacity region that is within a constant factor of the maximum possible, while simultaneously ensuring a diminishing queueing delay for all arrival rate vectors in the capacity region. Our analysis is centered around a new class of virtual-queue-based scheduling policies that rely on dynamically constructed job-to-server assignments on the connectivity graph. For comparison, we also analyze a natural family of modular architectures, which is simpler but has provably weaker performance.Comment: Revised October 2016. A preliminary version of this paper appeared at the 2013 ACM Sigmetrics conference; the performance of the architectures proposed in the current paper is significantly better than the one in the conference versio

Flexible cross-polytopes in spaces of constant curvature

We construct self-intersected flexible cross-polytopes in the spaces of constant curvature, that is, the Euclidean spaces, the spheres, and the Lobachevsky spaces of all dimensions. In dimensions greater than or equal to 5, these are the first examples of flexible polyhedra. Moreover, we classify all flexible cross-polytopes in each of the spaces of constant curvature. For each type of flexible cross-polytopes, we provide an explicit parametrization of the flexion by either rational or elliptic functions.Comment: 38 page