Now showing items 568-587 of 624

• #### Throwing sheep in the bandroom: Visualising a social and economic network of musicians in Cheshire and North Wales

The aim of this session is to apply some of the visual and technological tools of 21st-Century online social networking, e.g. network visualisation using "friend wheels", to a densely interconnected network of jazz and dance band musicians active in the Chester (UK) area in the 1950s, as revealed by research on the "hidden history" of live music in the area. Over 30 interviews with musicians, dancers and promoters have been collected, plus more than 200 photographs from personal collections, and an M.U. diary/address book belonging to local bandleader Wilf Field. The recent dramatic growth of online social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace has led to a revival of interest in the economic importance of social networks; Fraser and Dutta’s "Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom" provides an interesting survey of the issues, and was an inspiration for this session. But working musicians have long known the importance of knowing (and impressing) the "right people" in order to get work. Have social networks changed fundamentally since the advent of Web 2.0, or were they always there, and just a little harder to visualise when held in a pocket diary, rather than displayed on a Facebook wall?
• #### A time discretization scheme for a nonlocal degenerate problem modelling resistance spot welding

In the current work we construct a nonlocal mathematical model describing the phase transition occurs during the resistance spot welding process in the industry of metallurgy. We then consider a time discretization scheme for solving the resulting nonlocal moving boundary problem. The scheme consists of solving at each time step a linear elliptic partial differential equation and then making a correction to account for the nonlinearity. The stability and error estimates of the developed scheme are investigated. Finally some numerical results are presented confirming the efficiency of the developed numerical algorithm.
• #### Titanium Dioxide Engineered for Near-dispersionless High Terahertz Permittivity and Ultra-low-loss

Realising engineering ceramics to serve as substrate materials in high-performance terahertz(THz) that are low-cost, have low dielectric loss and near-dispersionless broadband, high permittivity, is exceedingly demanding. Such substrates are deployed in, for example, integrated circuits for synthesizing and converting nonplanar and 3D structures into planar forms. The Rutile form of titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been widely accepted as commercially economical candidate substrate that meets demands for both low-loss and high permittivities at sub-THz bands. However, the relationship between its mechanisms of dielectric response to the microstructure have never been systematically investigated in order to engineer ultra-low dielectric-loss and high value, dispersionless permittivities. Here we show TiO2 THz dielectrics with high permittivity (ca. 102.30) and ultra-low loss (ca. 0.0042). These were prepared by insight gleaned from a broad use of materials characterisation methods to successfully engineer porosities, second phase, crystallography shear-planes and oxygen vacancies during sintering. The dielectric loss achieved here is not only with negligible dispersion over 0.2 - 0.8 THz, but also has the lowest value measured for known high-permittivity dielectrics. We expect the insight afforded by this study will underpin the development of subwavelength-scale, planar integrated circuits, compact high Q-resonators and broadband, slow-light devices in the THz band.
• #### Torsion Units for a Ree group, Tits group and a Steinberg triality group

We investigate the Zassenhaus conjecture for the Steinberg triality group ${}^3D_4(2^3)$, Tits group ${}^2F_4(2)'$ and the Ree group ${}^2F_4(2)$. Consequently, we prove that the Prime Graph question is true for all three groups.
• #### Torsion Units for Some Almost Simple Groups

We prove that the Zassenhaus conjecture is true for $Aut(PSL(2,11))$. Additionally we prove that the Prime graph question is true for $Aut(PSL(2,13))$.
• #### Torsion Units for some Projected Special Linear Groups

In this paper, we investigate the Zassenhaus conjecture for $PSL(4,3)$ and $PSL(5,2)$. Consequently, we prove that the Prime graph question is true for both groups.
• #### Torsion units for some untwisted exceptional groups of lie type

In this paper, we investigate the Zassenhaus conjecture for exceptional groups of lie type $G_2(q)$ for $q=\{3,4\}$. Consequently, we prove that the Prime graph question is true for these groups.
• #### Torsion units in the integral group ring of PSL(3,4)

We investigate the Zassenhaus Conjecture for the integral group ring of the simple group PSL(3,4).
• #### Total war and its effects on the live music industry in Cheshire and North Wales

Given the profound effect which World War II had on the economy of the UK as a whole, it would be surprising if specific areas of that economy – such as live music in the provinces – were not affected as well. How did ‘total war’ affect the live music industry on a local level? Evidence I have collected for a study of musicians active in and around Chester during the period suggests that the large number of military bases in the area, combined with the effects of other wartime factors such as conscription, rationing and the need to maintain both military and civilian morale, did indeed affect the size and nature of the market for live dance music locally. For instance, the large US Air Force base at Burtonwood was a source of work for local musicians, as well as an opportunity to mix with American musicians and music fans. As well as presenting information obtained through interviews with musicians and their relatives, I will also look briefly at what happened to the musicians and the bands after the war, when economic and social conditions changed again, at the same time as advances occurred in music-related technology.
• #### Towards Cyber-User Awareness: Design and Evaluation

Human reliance on interconnected devices has given rise to a massive increase in cyber activities. There are about 17 billion interconnected devices in our World of about 8 billion people. Like the physical world, the cyber world is not void of entities whose activities, malicious or not, could be detrimental to other users who remain vulnerable as a result of their existence within cyberspace. Developments such as the introduction of 5G networks which advances communication speed among interconnected devices, undoubtedly proffer solutions for human living as well as adversely impacting systems. Vulnerabilities in applications embedded in devices, hardware deficiencies, user errors, are some of the loopholes that are exploited. Studies have revealed humans as weakest links in the cyber-chain, submitting that consistent implementation of cyber awareness programs would largely impact cybersecurity. Cyber-active systems have goals that compete with the implementation of cyber awareness programs, within limited resources. It is desirable to have cyber awareness systems that can be tailored around specific needs and considerations for important factors. This paper presents a system that aims to promote user awareness through a flexible, accessible, and cost-effective design. The system implements steps in a user awareness cycle, that considers human-factor (HF) and HF related root causes of cyber-attacks. We introduce a new user testing tool, adaptable for administering cybersecurity test questions for varying levels and categories of users. The tool was implemented experimentally by engaging cyber users within UK. Schemes and online documentations by UK Cybersecurity organisations were harnessed for assessing and providing relevant recommendations to participants. Results provided us with values representing each participants’ notional level of awareness which were subjected to a paired-T test for comparison with values derived in an automated assessment. This pilot study provides valuable details for projecting the efficacy of the system towards improving human influence in cybersecurity.
• #### Towards Organisational Learning Enhancement: Assessing Software Engineering Practice

• Purpose – Issues surrounding knowledge management, knowledge transfer and learning within organisations challenge continuity and resilience in the face of changing environments. While initiatives are principally applied within large organisations, there is scope to assess how the processes are handled within small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and to consider how they might be enhanced. This paper presents an evaluation of practice within an evolving software development unit to determine what has been learned and how the knowledge acquired has been utilised to further organisational development. These results provide the basis for the design and implementation of a proposed support tool to enhance professional practice. • Design/methodology/approach – A small software development unit, which has successfully delivered bespoke systems since its establishment a number of years ago, was selected for analysis. The unit operates as a team whose actions and behaviours were identified and validated by the following means: in-depth interviews were carried out with each member of the team to elicit an understanding of individual and collective development. Interview data were recorded and transcribed and subjected to qualitative analysis to identify key themes underpinning knowledge acquisition and utilisation. Samples of project documentation were scrutinised to corroborate interview data. After analysing the data, a focus-group meeting was held to validate the results and to generate further insights into learning within the team. • Findings - Qualitative analysis of the data revealed key changes in thinking and practice within the team as well as insight into the development of individual and collective contextual knowledge, tacit understanding and learning. This analysis informed the proposal of a bespoke, lightweight, web-based system to support knowledge capture and organisational learning (OL). This approach has the potential to promote resilience and to enhance practice in similar small or start-up enterprises. • Research limitations/implications – Purposeful sampling was used in selecting a small software development team. This enabled in-depth interviewing of all members of the team. This offered a rich environment from which to derive awareness and understanding of individual and collective knowledge acquisition and learning. Focusing on a single small enterprise limits the extent to which the findings can be generalised. However, the research provides evidence of effective practice and learning and has identified themes for the development of a support tool. This approach can be extended to similar domains to advance research into learning and development. • Practical implications – Results of the work undertaken so far have generated promising foundations for the proposed support tool. This offers software developers a system within which they can reflect upon, and record, key learning events affecting technical, managerial and professional practice. • Originality/value – Small enterprises have limited resources to support OL. The qualitative research undertaken so far has yielded valuable insight into the successful development of a single software development team. The construction of a support tool to enhance knowledge acquisition and learning has the capacity to consolidate valuable, and potentially scarce, expertise. It also has the potential to facilitate further research to determine how the prototype might be extended or revised to improve its contribution to the team’s development.
• #### Towards sustainable methanol from industrial CO2 sources

This chapter discusses the opportunity of using CO2 from industrial sources to produce sustainable methanol. Some important industrial sectors that could be seen as potential sources of CO2 are reviewed: ammonia, steel, ethanol, ethylene, natural gas, cement and power industries. In most cases, despite a promising potential for CO2 re-use, only few projects have been identified and methanol production from CO2 is still marginal. A model for the CO2-to-methanol process is presented based on CO2-rich gas coming from ammonia production process. This model takes into account the different steps from the CO2 capture to the methanol purification, and heat integration is performed in order to determine the reduction of heat consumption achievable for the global process. Even if the economic relevance of the CO2 re-use into methanol still has to be qualified, it offers an estimation of the process efficiency.
• #### Training Powered Wheelchair Manoeuvres in Mixed Reality

We describe a mixed reality environment that has been designed as an aid for training driving skills for a powered wheelchair. Our motivation is to provide an improvement on a previous virtual reality wheelchair driving simulator, with a particular aim to remove any cybersickness effects. The results of a validation test are presented that involved 35 able bodied volunteers divided into three groups: mixed reality trained, virtual reality trained, and a control group. No significant differences in improvement was found between the groups but there is a notable trend that both the mixed reality and virtual reality groups improved more than the control group. Whereas the virtual reality group experienced discomfort (as measured using a simulator sickness questionnaire), the mixed reality group experienced no side effects.
• #### Translational Medicine: Challenges and new orthopaedic vision (Mediouni-Model)

Background: In North America and three European countries Translational Medicine (TM) funding has taken center stage as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for example, has come to recognize that delays are common place in completing clinical trials based upon benchside advancements. Recently, there are several illustrative examples whereby the translation of research had untoward outcomes requiring immediate action. Methods: Focus more on three-dimensional (3D) simulation, biomarkers, and Artificial Intelligence may allow orthopaedic surgeons to predict the ideal practices before orthopaedic surgery. Using the best medical imaging techniques may improve the accuracy and precision of tumor resections. Results: This article is directed at the young surgeon scientist and in particular orthopaedic residents and all other junior physicians in training to help them better understand TM and position themselves in career paths and hospital systems that strive for optimal TM. It serves to hasten the movement of knowledge garnered from the benchside and move it quickly to the bedside. Conclusions: Communication is ongoing in a bidirectional format. It is anticipated that more and more medical Centers and institutions will adopt TM models of healthcare delivery.
• #### Traversing social networks in the virtual dance hall: visualizing history in VR

Digital recreations of historical sites and events are important tools both for academic researchers and for public interpretation. Current 3D visualization and VR technologies enable these recreations to be increasingly immersive and engaging. This poster describes a case study based on a mid-twentieth century Chester dance hall, examining the possibilities and limitations of 3D VR for recreating a public music venue which no longer physically exists, and also for visualizing and analyzing the professional network of musicians who played there, and at many other local venues.
• #### Treating wastewater by indigenous microalgae strain in pilot platform located inside a municipal wastewater treatment plant

Various resources from a municipal wastewater treatment plant (MWTP) are available for microalgae cultivation plants, suggesting that a combination of these technologies can be used to produce microalgae biomass and remove contaminants at a low cost. In this study, the growth performance and nutrient removal efficiency of an indigenous Scenedesmus sp. in various wastewater media with different exchange patterns were investigated firstly, then transferred to a pilot-scale photobioreactor (located inside a MWTP) for bioremediation use. The temperature and pH of the platform were maintained at 15–30°C and 7.6, respectively. The NH+4− N, NO−3− N, and PO3−4− P of the wastewater could be reduced to below 0.05, 0.40, and 0.175 mg L–1, respectively. Our results indicate that microalgae cultivation using the resources of a MWTP can achieve high algal biomass productivity and nutrient removal rate. Our study also suggests that efficient technology for controlling zooplankton needs to be developed.
• #### Trion formation in a two-dimensional hole-doped electron gas

The interaction between a single hole and a two-dimensional, paramagnetic, homogeneous electron gas is studied using diffusion quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Electron-hole relaxation energies, pair-correlation functions, and electron-hole center-of-mass momentum densities are reported for a range of electron-hole mass ratios and electron densities. We find numerical evidence of a crossover from a collective excitonic state to a trion-dominated state in a density range in agreement with that found in recent experiments on quantum-well heterostructures.
• #### Twenty-Eight Orders of Parametric Resonance in a Microelectromechanical Device for Multi-band Vibration Energy Harvesting

This paper contends to be the first to report the experimental observation of up to 28 orders of parametric resonance, which has thus far only been envisioned in the theoretical realm. While theory has long predicted the onset of n orders of parametric resonance, previously reported experimental observations have been limited up to about the first 5 orders. This is due to the rapid narrowing nature of the frequency bandwidth of the higher instability intervals, making practical accessibility increasingly more difficult. Here, the authors have experimentally confirmed up to 28 orders of parametric resonance in a micromachined membrane resonator when electrically undamped. While the implication of this finding spans across the vibration dynamics and transducer application spectrum, the particular significance of this work is to broaden the accumulative operational frequency bandwidth of vibration energy harvesting for enabling self-powered microsystems. Up to 5 orders were recorded when driven at 1.0g of acceleration across a matched load of 70kΩ. With a natural frequency of 980Hz, the fundamental mode direct resonance had a −3dB bandwidth of 55Hz, in contrast to the 314Hz for the first order parametric resonance; furthermore, the half power bands of all 5 orders accumulated to 478Hz.
• #### Two high-order time discretization schemes for subdiffusion problems with nonsmooth data

Two new high-order time discretization schemes for solving subdiffusion problems with nonsmooth data are developed based on the corrections of the existing time discretization schemes in literature. Without the corrections, the schemes have only a first order of accuracy for both smooth and nonsmooth data. After correcting some starting steps and some weights of the schemes, the optimal convergence orders $O(k^{3- \alpha})$ and $O(k^{4- \alpha})$ with $0< \alpha <1$ can be restored for any fixed time $t$ for both smooth and nonsmooth data, respectively. The error estimates for these two new high-order schemes are proved by using Laplace transform method for both homogeneous and inhomogeneous problem. Numerical examples are given to show that the numerical results are consistent with the theoretical results.
• #### A two-channel, Thermal Dissociation Cavity-Ringdown Spectrometer for the detection of ambient NO2, RO2NO2 and RONO2

We describe a thermal dissociation cavity ring-down spectrometer (TD-CRDS) for measurement of ambient NO2, total peroxy nitrates (ΣPNs) and total alkyl nitrates (ΣANs). The spectrometer has two separate cavities operating at  ∼  405.2 and 408.5 nm. One cavity (reference) samples NO2 continuously from an inlet at ambient temperature, the other samples sequentially from an inlet at 473 K in which PNs are converted to NO2 or from an inlet at 723 K in which both PNs and ANs are converted to NO2, difference signals being used to derive mixing ratios of ΣPNs and ΣANs. We describe an extensive set of laboratory experiments and numerical simulations to characterise the fate of organic radicals in the hot inlets and cavity and derive correction factors to account for the bias resulting from the interaction of peroxy radicals with ambient NO and NO2. Finally, we present the first measurements and comparison with other instruments during a field campaign, outline the limitations of the present instrument and provide an outlook for future improvements.