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Investigation of the microwave curing of the PR500 epoxy resin system
Get PDFMicrowave heating has been used to cure a resin system, PR500 (3M). The same resin has been cured using a conventional oven. The cured resins have been compared using a number of techniques including modulated differential scanning calorimetry (MDSC), dynamic thermal analysis, infrared spectroscopy (IR) and solid-state NMR spectroscopy. The reaction path appears to be slightly different depending upon the nature of the heating. The epoxy-amine reaction occurs to a greater extent than the epoxy-hydroxyl reaction in the microwave cured resin compared to the thermally cured resin. The dielectric properties for the thermally and microwave cured materials were measured for degrees of cure greater than 75% and over this range are similar for materials cured by the two techniques and thus not sensitive to this change. Broadening of the glass transition for microwave-cured epoxy resins was observed. Since the IR and solid-state NMR results show small differences as does the DMA behaviour of materials cured using the two routes the broadening is attributed to a difference in network structur
Salivary and fecal cortisol as measures of stress in horses
No full textValid measures of stress are needed in horses to determine over-all stress levels and to identify stress triggers, used to ensure management is kept within the animals’ ability to cope and welfare is not compromised. Levels of circulating cortisol reflect HPA-axis activity, and excretion into saliva and faeces allow non-invasive sampling. We validated an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) for horse salivary and faecal cortisol and validated these as indicators of acute and over-all stress levels in riding horses. Saliva was swabbed every 30-minutes over three days in N=15 horses with eight in light exercise. Faeces were collected from N=9 working horses on stabled workdays and at rest at grass for three consecutive weeks. Immunological validity of the ELISA was demonstrated by high specificity, accuracy, precision and sensitivity. Biological validity of salivary cortisol was demonstrated by diurnal decline and elevation post-exercise both mirroring known patterns in plasma cortisol; and by a trend towards elevation following 10 minute exposure to a known stressor. Faecal cortisol was biologically validated by decline between working and rest days. Large individual differences in assay values were found and not all individuals followed the group means. Salivary cortisol was labile, and although it has a close temporal relationship to circulating cortisol, measures may be confounded by environmental disturbance, pulsatile release patterns and diurnal rhythm. Careful sampling protocols are therefore needed. Faecal cortisol as an index of circulating cortisol has a 24-hour time lag to excretion, and collection protocols must evenly sample total faecal mass due to uneven hormone distribution and be frozen immediately post-excretion to avoid degradation. With careful sampling, salivary cortisol may be used to measure acute stress responses to identify stress triggers, and faecal cortisol may be used to compare over-all stress levels over longer-term conditions
Homelessness in Wrexham: Contemporary patterns and profiles of homeless people with complex needs
Get PDFThis study, which was funded jointly by Wrexham Temperance Hall Trust, Wrexham Council Supporting People team and Wrexham and Flintshire Community Safety Office, explores patterns and profiles of homeless people with complex needs in Wrexham, North Wales.
The study draws primarily on the perceptions of a sample of providers of a wide range of services catering to the homeless in Wrexham, and on the perceptions of a sample of homeless people (including those who occupy supported accommodation). The aim of the study was to elicit key issues surrounding homelessness in Wrexham from the perspectives of these two groups. The presentation of key issues, in user accounts, is enhanced by the inclusion of five vignettes which tell abbreviated stories of a selection of some of the study’s participants.
In addition to service provider and user perceptions, the report presents statistical data from a range of services catering to the needs of homeless people in Wrexham. While these data do not provide a complete picture, nor are they comparable in that different agencies do not collect the same type of data in the same way, they do highlight some important issues for services and their users.
Finally, a literature review on homelessness, which focusses primarily upon the UK and on Wales in particular, provides context to some of the report findings
Open borders for system-on-a-chip buses: A wire format for connecting large physics controls
Get PDFSystem-on-a-chip (SoC) bus systems are typically confined on-chip and rely on higher level components to communicate with the outside world. The idea behind the EtherBone (EB) protocol is to extend the reach of the SoC bus to remote field-programmable gate arrays or processors. The EtherBone core implementation connects a Wishbone (WB) Ver. 4 Bus via a Gigabit Ethernet based network link to remote peripheral devices. EB acts as a transparent interconnect module towards attached WB Bus devices. EB was developed in the scope of the WhiteRabbit Timing Project at CERN and GSI/FAIR. WhiteRabbit will make use of EB as a means to issue commands to its timing nodes and control connected accelerator hardware
Principles of Eliminating Access Control Lists within a Domain
Get PDFThe infrastructure of large networks is broken down into areas that have a common security policy called a domain. Security within a domain is commonly implemented at all nodes. However this can have a negative effect on performance since it introduces a delay associated with packet filtering. When Access Control Lists (ACLs) are used within a router for this purpose then a significant overhead is introduced associated with this process. It is likely that identical checks are made at multiple points within a domain prior to a packet reaching its destination. Therefore by eliminating ACLs within a domain by modifying the ingress/egress points with equivalent functionality an improvement in the overall performance can be obtained. This paper considers the effect of the delays when using router operating systems offering different levels of functionality. It considers factors which contribute to the delay particularly due to ACLs and by using theoretical principles modified by practical calculation a model is created. Additionally this paper provides an example of an optimized solution which reduces the delay through network routers by distributing the security rules to the ingress/egress points of the domain without affecting the security policy
The Relationship between Paranormal Belief and the HEXACO Domains of Personality
Get PDFThe HEXACO-PI-R (Ashton & Lee, 2007) has been presented as an alternative measure of the Five Factor Model, with the inclusion of the dimension of honesty/humility. This new measure of personality was utilised alongside the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS) in a correlational design among 137 undergraduate students in Wales. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that superstition was significantly negatively correlated with conscientiousness and openness to experience, while precognition was significantly negatively correlated with honesty/humility. No other personality factors were statistically significant predictors of any dimensions of paranormal belief. While these results do not provide strong support for previous findings, it is concluded that the inclusion of the honesty/humility dimension renders the HEXACO-PI-R a useful measure for considering relationships between personality and paranormal belief
Assessing learning in the early years’ outdoor classroom: examining challenges in practice
Get PDFThe benefit the outdoor environment has for young children’s development is widely documented. However, there is less literature outlining practitioners’ experiences of assessing learning in the outdoors and factors which impact the level and quality of assessments undertaken. This study, based on a pragmatic mixed methods approach, undertaken in 9 early years’ settings in North Wales, reports the findings of 37 practitioners. The research suggests that assessing children in the outdoors is not used to its potential. Factors impeding the use of the outdoor classroom include: lack of appropriate resources; level of staff expertise; child-staff ratio; adverse weather; and changes to curriculum policy which place emphasis on the formal assessment of children. There appears to be assumptions about learners most likely to benefit from outdoor learning and assessment: boys; children in socio-economically deprived areas; and children with additional learning needs. The paper highlights the need for broader training opportunities for practitioners on planning for learning and assessment in the outdoors that go beyond a single course focus. With creative planning, there is no reason why summative assessments of all areas of learning within the early years’ curriculum cannot be done as effectively outdoors as they may be being done indoors
Criticality Performed: Performative Learning Through Agonistic Interventions
Get PDFThe Art School can often be an anathema to teaching and learning. Its constraining modules, timetables and architectures often control the learning experience producing narrow subject foci, devoid of risk and failure.
In this paper, we argue that pedagogical performance is key to the challenges of space (the school as a physical constraint) and time (the ticking clock of the module). Through a close reading of what Chantal Mouffe (2013) describes as a multiplicity of social spaces, where the students engage in practices that reveal new and novel ways of creating social relationships and sites of learning, we will interrogate how cross disciplinary practise across art and design delivers participatory experiences designed to scale from local to national to international contexts, examining performative pedagogy not as mimicry but performance as activation. The contribution of actor/theatre training to ‘disruptive’ teaching (in the age of ecological emergency)
Contouring with a sweeping brush as a catalyst for social engagement and urban renewal
Get PDFRuins make for a naturally good metaphor for my circumstance as an artist and a human
being, in that they provide me with both a symbol for my uncertainty and supply a kind of
creative energy that I can channel and a psychological space I can occupy. They seem
paradoxical - pointing in two directions. In one direction, they point towards the past,
something lost or fading away and yet they also seem to point simultaneously to something
yet to be – something as yet undetermined - something that indicates possibility or hope.
They are incomplete, contradictory, ambivalent. They signal doubt and uncertainty. But at
the same time, they are embryonic - marching time - waiting. To me ruins are dynamic,
energizing, enthralling.
In this presentation, I reflect on some of the works I have been making in relation to ruin,
waiting and the unfinished
High-Level Analysis of Audio Features for Identifying Emotional Valence in Human Singing
Get PDFEmotional analysis continues to be a topic that receives much attention in the audio and music community. The potential to link together human affective state and the emotional content or intention of musical audio has a variety of application areas in fields such as improving user experience of digital music libraries and music therapy. Less work has been directed into the emotional analysis of human acapella singing. Recently, the Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song (RAVDESS) was released, which includes emotionally validated human singing samples. In this work, we apply established audio analysis features to determine if these can be used to detect underlying emotional valence in human singing. Results indicate that the short-term audio features of: energy; spectral centroid (mean); spectral centroid (spread); spectral entropy; spectral flux; spectral rolloff; and fundamental frequency can be useful predictors of emotion, although their efficacy is not consistent across positive and negative emotions