1,636 research outputs found
Project Retrosight. Understanding the returns from cardiovascular and stroke research: Case Studies
No full textCopyright @ 2011 RAND Europe. All rights reserved. The full text article is available via the link below.This project explores the impacts arising from cardiovascular and stroke research funded 15-20 years ago and attempts to draw out aspects of the research, researcher or environment that are associated with high or low impact. The project is a case study-based review of 29 cardiovascular and stroke research grants, funded in Australia, Canada and UK between 1989 and 1993. The case studies focused on the individual grants but considered the development of the investigators and ideas involved in the research projects from initiation to the present day. Grants were selected through a stratified random selection approach that aimed to include both high- and low-impact grants. The key messages are as follows: 1) The cases reveal that a large and diverse range of impacts arose from the 29 grants studied. 2) There are variations between the impacts derived from basic biomedical and clinical research. 3) There is no correlation between knowledge production and wider impacts 4) The majority of economic impacts identified come from a minority of projects. 5) We identified factors that appear to be associated with high and low impact. This report presents the key observations of the study and an overview of the methods involved. It has been written for funders of biomedical and health research and health services, health researchers, and policy makers in those fields. It will also be of interest to those involved in research and impact evaluation.This study was initiated with internal funding from RAND Europe and HERG, with continuing funding from the UK National Institute for Health Research, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the National Heart Foundation of Australia. The UK Stroke Association and the British Heart Foundation provided support in kind through access to their archives
The synthesis of monodisperse alkanes with long chains
No full textThis thesis discusses reasons for the interest in monodisperse long chain alkanes and describes attempts, past and present, to synthesise such molecules. Chapter 1 discusses why the synthesis of such molecules are important and the objectives of this project. Chapter 2 reviews the methods previous groups have devised to prepare pure samples of long chain alkanes. In particular, work carried out by Whiting et al. at Bristol, whose scheme formed the basis of the early work in Durham. Chapter 3 describes the work in Durham and improvements which were made to Whiting's method, allowing the synthesis of longer chain lengths and greater quantities of materials to be achieved. Chapter 4 provides a summary of the practical work carried out by the author. Chapter 5 gives experimental details of the work described in Chapter 4
Microstructure Development during Solidification of Aluminium Alloys
No full textThis Thesis demonstrates studies on microstructure development during the solidification of aluminium alloys. New insights of structure development are presented here. Experimental techniques such as quenching and in-situ High-brilliance X-ray microscopy were utilized to study the microstructure evolution during solidification.Materials Science and EngineeringMechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineerin
Fuzzy logic controller with neurol network signal predictors for complex split-range control of a hybrid actuator
No full textThis paper presents an integrated fuzzy logic controller (FLC) to address challenges associated with complex
split-range control of a two-valves-in-parallel hybrid actuator. Split-range hybrid valve (HV) control
aims to provide a more effective strategy to overcome flow problems associated with nonlinear valve
flow coefficients and discontinuities while extending rangeability. The main issue is the trade-off between
system performance, control scheme complexity, and the cost of extra equipment (multiple actuators).
The hybrid configuration facilitates a large and small valve in an overlapping operating regime, providing
the controller with some freedom to minimize the feedback error. The control challenge lies at the
control valve boundaries where nonlinear transitions in mass flow rate occur. The aim of the complex
split-range control is therefore to minimize the disturbance in the mass flow rate due to the mentioned
valve non-idealities during critical valve transitions. A novel split-range control scheme is devised that
comprises an integrated FLC, upper and lower boundary neural network (NN) signal predictors, a fuzzy
logic inference system (FLIS), and a crisp controller to quantify all the control decisions that cannot be
fuzzified. The NN predictors envisage the necessity for a large valve nonlinear transition in order to minimize
its effect on the flow rate of the HV. Expert knowledge is used as basis for parameter definitions in
the FLIS, thereby facilitating the implementation of control structures to address phenomena such as nonlinear
mass flow transitions, valve stiction, and poor valve resolution. Simulation results indicate that the
integrated FLC effectively coordinates and switches actuators for complex input requests, significantly
reducing nonlinear transitions in the total mass flow rate compared to PID controlNational Research Foundation of South Africa TP2011072600022
(UID) 72003; and M-Tech Industrial (Pty) Lt
Swaziland's relations with Britain and South Africa since 1968
No full textThis work looks into Swaziland's political, economic, social and cultural relations with Britain (its former colonial master) and South Africa (its big and rich neighbour) in the period since Swaziland's Independence in 1968. The focus is on how Swaziland's relations with Britain and South Africa influence its socio-economic and political developments, and its internal and external security. As a micro-state, with a population of less than 0.7 million people, the assumption is made that Swaziland's progress and security can be reasonably assessed by examining its relations with the two powerful states with whom it has close links. This assumption arises from the fact that (i) Swaziland inherited political institutions from Britain, (ii) there were strong economic links (investments, trade, aid) between it and Britain at Independence and these ties continue today, (iii) there were, and still are, economic links in almost every aspect between Swaziland and South Africa at Independence and (iv) South Africa dominates the Southern Africa region - militarily and economically. The main arguments in the Thesis are (a) that the economic links between Swaziland and the two states provide economic growth for the former, thus helping to maintain stability, although South African domination threatens to undermine Swaziland's independence (b) that Swaziland has pursued a "tightrope policy" in Southern Africa, and that this regional strategy has, on the whole, succeeded in helping the country's survival; and (c) that the political system of Swaziland has an in-built tension in that the traditional institutions exist alongside modern ones and this is a threat to political stability
D.G. Ritchie's ethics
No full textThe British idealists of the late 19th and early 20th century are best known for their contribution to metaphysics, logic, and political philosophy. Yet they also made important contributions to social and public policy, social and moral philosophy and moral education, as shown by this volume.book chapterpublished
Painting in Poetry and Poetry in Painting: Aesthetic Reflections in D.G. Rossetti
No full textBright eyed and bushy-tailed poems and paintings are very rare, so are their past masters who create them. The history of the world literature is often brimming with such rare authors as are the unparalleled amalgamator of paintings and writings. In this field, the names, which are counted highly with boundless esteem, are of William Blake, Lewis Carroll, Hans Christian Andersen, Elizabeth Bishop, Leo Tolstoy, Lorraine Hansberry, Victor Hugo, Sylvia Plath, George Sand, Jack Kerouac, Herman Hesse, Gunter Grass, Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, E.E. Cummings, Tennessee Williams, Carlo Levi, J.B. Priestley, and R.N. Tagore. Undisputedly, D.G. Rossetti is one such figure. When the world literature is deconstructed, two clusters of the authors appear on the literary landscape. The first cluster consists of those authors who are painters and writers as well. The painters who have painted the literary pieces of the authors fall into the second cluster. D.G. Rossetti somewhere stands in- between. He is painter (especially illustrator) as well author-poet. But the flabbergasting certitude is that his elite poetry is found in his pieces of mural, and his elite mural in his pieces of poesy. His all creations, be they paintings, or poems, fall in three categories. In the first faction fall such pieces of his poems as are only poems—without any illustration, in the second faction fall such pieces of his paintings as are without poems, while in the third faction fall such pieces of his paintings as are with poems, or with mythical illustrations, or on certain literary pieces. Nothing to say about these groups, but one thing is clear that all of them possess aesthetic reflections. Keeping this very fact in mind, the present article aims at exploring, analyzing, and presenting the three-dimensional view in Rossetti painting and poetry with the help of the textual analysis, visual methods, and descriptive and explorative approach
Classifying sediments on Dutch riverbeds using multi-beam echo-sounder systems
No full textThe economic importance of the Dutch rivers is very high as they are heavily used for inland waterway transport between the Netherlands and their neighbouring countries. A minimum depth must be guaranteed to keep the rivers navigable but also to ensure that the ships can carry maximum cargo. An attractive system for obtaining information about the riverbed bathymetry is the multi-beam echo-sounder (MBES). Furthermore, the MBES received echoes due to acoustic backscatter from the sediments in theory also allow for discriminating between different sediments. The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to develop methods for discriminating between different river sediments using MBES measurements. In order to fulfil this aim, MBES surveys were performed in the Rhine river and the Meuse river between 2007 and 2010. The research shows that indeed the MBES system can be used for discriminating between the different sediments present in the river areas. In addition an important finding is that areas differing in sediment type require different classification approaches.Air Transport and OperationsAerospace Engineerin
Aircraft noise calculation and synthesis in a non-standard atmosphere
No full textThe atmosphere modifies the emitted sound waves of an aircraft during propagation and is therefore important in the calculation of noise contours or synthesis. Noise contours present the resulting noise levels on the ground and are, as such, often applied for regulatory purposes. Aircraft noise synthesis is a technique that allows to transform a calculated prediction into audible sound that can be experienced in a virtual reality environment. Noise synthesis techniques allow people to be subjected to aircraft, routes or procedures that are still being designed. This dissertation describes recent research to improve the modeling of atmospheric propagation effects in aircraft noise contours as well as aircraft noise synthesis. Multi-event noise contours are usually calculated with standardized models that take non-standard propagation into account in an empirical fashion. A propagation algorithm was developed to augment such a model. Signal processing steps can be applied to transform a source noise prediction into an audible result. Furthermore, such steps can be utilized to apply propagation effects to a source noise signal. For a non-standard atmosphere this is not trivial. The role of a non-standard atmosphere is described by a dedicated simulation framework developed in this dissertation. The framework is applied to a flyover to demonstrate the effects associated with multiple ray paths and shadow zones. Besides demonstrating non-standard atmospheric effects, the framework was used to create synthesized results of actual flyovers near an airport. Subsequently, a comparison between measured results and synthesized results was executed. Furthermore, a method was designed to include the effect of turbulence-induced coherence loss of the direct and ground reflected ray in noise synthesis.Aircraft Noise & Climate EffectsAerospace Engineerin
“Dangerous modernity!”, or the shadow play of modernity and its characters: instrumental rationality — money — technology (Part 2)
No full textThe article is the second part of the essay on the phenomenon of alienation and its forms in modern societies (the first part was published in 2021, No. 4). In this part, the author focuses on technology as ‘fetishized’ by the modern thinking and on various manifestations of alienation in labor, which are not only (and not so much) a consequence of private ownership of the ‘means of production’ (according to Marx), but also a by-product of objective tendencies of social differentiation as aggravated in the course of historical development (division of labor) and the subordination of most spheres of the modern social experience to the logic of instrumental rationality. Excessive specialization, standardization, algorithmization, routinization of activities, technological and functional operationalization of the work process and professional roles, the dominance of means over goals, administrative and bureaucratic regulation and control have become ‘signs of the time’ and distinctive features of the ‘rhythm of activity’ not only in industrial enterprises, but also in non-physical labor. An important aspect (and a background circumstance) in the diagnosis of modernity is the fact that in recent centuries, modern societies have developed mainly in the urban social-ecological environment. The format and style of urban life with its role-based fragmentation and specific depersonification (and an increase in anonymity) also provoked a range of consequences that make alienation a challenge for modern societies. The author uses the concepts of classical sociological theory as a key tool for analyzing and describing the ‘universe of modernity’, and refers to the ideas of M. Weber, G. Simmel, L. Wirth, H.M. McLuhan, H. Marcuse, G. Friedmann, С. Lefort and others. © D.G. Podvoyskiy, 2022
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