Costs and benefits of orthographic inconsistency in reading:evidence from a cross-linguistic comparison

We compared reading acquisition in English and Italian children up to late primary school analyzing RTs and errors as a function of various psycholinguistic variables and changes due to experience. Our results show that reading becomes progressively more reliant on larger processing units with age, but that this is modulated by consistency of the language. In English, an inconsistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs earlier on and it is demonstrated by faster RTs, a stronger effect of lexical variables and lack of length effect (by fifth grade). However, not all English children are able to master this mode of processing yielding larger inter-individual variability. In Italian, a consistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs later and it is less pronounced. This is demonstrated by larger length effects which remain significant even in older children and by larger effects of a global factor (related to speed of orthographic decoding) explaining changes of performance across ages. Our results show the importance of considering not only overall performance, but inter-individual variability and variability between conditions when interpreting cross-linguistic differences.

Stabilisation of isocyanate cross linked polybutadiene binder

Isocyanate cross-linked hydroxy terminated polybutadiene is used as a binder for solid rocket propellant. Rocket motors containing this propellant require a storage life of at least 20 years. During storage it has been found that the important rubbery properties of the binder can be lost due to oxidative cross-linking of the polybutadiene chains. This could cause catastrophic failure when the rocket motor is required. At present the bis-hindered phenol Calco 2246 is used as a thermal oxidative stabiliser, but it's performance is only adequate. This has led to the search for a more efficient stabiliser system. To hasten the evaluation of new antioxidant systems the use of dynamic thermal analysis was investigated. Results showed that a tentative relationship existed between predictions by thermal analysis and the long term oven ageing for simple single antioxidant systems. But for more complex systems containing either autosynergistic or mixed antioxidants no relationship was observed suggesting that results for such an "accelerated" technique cannot be used for the purpose of extrapolation for long term performance. This was attributed to the short time and more aggressive condition used (hjgher temperature and oxygen rich atmosphere in thermal analysis) altering the mechanism of action of the antioxidants and not allowing time for co-operative effect of the combined antioxidant system to form. One potential problem for the binder system is the use of an diisocyanate as a cross-linking agent. This reacts with the hydroxyl hydrogen on the polymer as well as other active hydrogens such as those contained in a number of antioxidants, affecting both cross-linking and antioxidant effectiveness. Studies in this work showed that only antioxidants containing amine moieties have a significant affect on binder preparation, with the phenolic antioxidants not reacting. This is due to the greater nucleophilicity of the amines. Investigation of a range of antioxidant systems, including potentially homo, hetero and autosynergistic systems, has highlighted a number of systems which show considerably greater effectiveness than the currently used antioxidant Calco 2246. The only single antioxidant which showed improvement was the partially unhindered phenol y-Tocopherol. Of the mixed systems combinations of the sulphur containing antioxidants e.g. DLTP with higher levels of chain-breaking antioxidants, especially Calco 2246, were the most promising. Also the homosynergistic mix of an aromatic amine and a phenol was seen to be very effective but the results were inconsistent. This inconsistency could be explained by the method of sample preparation used. It was shown that the efficiency of a number of antioxidant.s could be dramatically improved by the use of ultrasound during the mixing stage of preparation. The reason for this increase in performance is unclear but in the case of the homosynergistic amine/phenol mix both more efficient mixing and/or the production of a novel mechanism of action are suggested

The human factors of computer input using a mouse device

This thesis investigates how people select items from a computer display using the mouse input device. The term computer mouse refers to a class of input devices which share certain features, but these may have different characteristics which influence the ways in which people use the device. Although task completion time is one of the most commonly used performance measures for input device evaluation, there is no consensus as to its definition. Furthermore most mouse studies fail to provide adequate assurances regarding its correct measurement.Therefore precise and accurate timing software were developed which permitted the recording of movement data which by means of automated analysis yielded the device movements made. Input system gain, an important task parameter, has been poorly defined and misconceptualized in most previous studies. The issue of gain has been clarified and investigated within this thesis. Movement characteristics varied between users and within users, even for the same task conditions. The variables of target size, movement amplitude, and experience exerted significant effects on performance. Subjects consistently undershot the target area. This may be a consequence of the particular task demands. Although task completion times indicated that mouse performance had stabilized after 132 trials the movement traces, even of very experienced users, indicated that there was still considerable room for improvement in performance, as indicated by the proportion of poorly made movements. The mouse input device was suitable for older novice device users, but they took longer to complete the experimental trials. Given the diversity and inconsistency of device movements, even for the same task conditions, caution is urged when interpreting averaged grouped data. Performance was found to be sensitive to; task conditions, device implementations, and experience in ways which are problematic for the theoretical descriptions of device movement, and limit the generalizability of such findings within this thesis.

Results of the IEA round Robin on viscosity and aging of fast pyrolysis bio-oils:long-term tests and repeatability

An international round robin study of the viscosity measurements and aging of fast pyrolysis bio-oil has been undertaken recently, and this work is an outgrowth from that effort. Two bio-oil samples were distributed to two laboratories for accelerated aging tests and to three laboratories of long-term aging studies. The accelerated aging test was defined as the change in viscosity of a sealed sample of bio-oil held for 24 h at 80 °C. The test was repeated 10 times over consecutive days to determine the intra-laboratory repeatability of the method. Other bio-oil samples were placed in storage at three temperatures, 21, 5, and -17 °C, for a period of up to 1 year to evaluate the change in viscosity. The variation in the results of the accelerated aging test was shown to be low within a given laboratory. The long-term aging studies showed that storage of a filtered bio-oil under refrigeration can minimize the amount of change in viscosity. The accelerated aging test gave a measure of change similar to that of 6-12 months of storage at room temperature for a filtered bio-oil. Filtration of solids was identified as a key contributor to improving the stability of the bio-oil as expressed by the viscosity based on results of the accelerated aging tests as well as long-term aging studies. Only the filtered bio-oil consistently gave useful results in the accelerated aging and long-term aging studies. The inconsistency suggests that better protocols need to be developed for sampling bio-oils. These results can be helpful in setting standards for use of bio-oil, which is just coming into the marketplace. © 2012 American Chemical Society.

Culture and behaviour in the English National Health Service:overview of lessons from a large multimethod study

Background - Problems of quality and safety persist in health systems worldwide. We conducted a large research programme to examine culture and behaviour in the English National Health Service (NHS). Methods - Mixed-methods study involving collection and triangulation of data from multiple sources, including interviews, surveys, ethnographic case studies, board minutes and publicly available datasets. We narratively synthesised data across the studies to produce a holistic picture and in this paper present a highlevel summary. Results - We found an almost universal desire to provide the best quality of care. We identified many 'bright spots' of excellent caring and practice and high-quality innovation across the NHS, but also considerable inconsistency. Consistent achievement of high-quality care was challenged by unclear goals, overlapping priorities that distracted attention, and compliance-oriented bureaucratised management. The institutional and regulatory environment was populated by multiple external bodies serving different but overlapping functions. Some organisations found it difficult to obtain valid insights into the quality of the care they provided. Poor organisational and information systems sometimes left staff struggling to deliver care effectively and disempowered them from initiating improvement. Good staff support and management were also highly variable, though they were fundamental to culture and were directly related to patient experience, safety and quality of care. Conclusions - Our results highlight the importance of clear, challenging goals for high-quality care. Organisations need to put the patient at the centre of all they do, get smart intelligence, focus on improving organisational systems, and nurture caring cultures by ensuring that staff feel valued, respected, engaged and supported.

Towards flexible parsing of structured textual model representations

Existing parsers for textual model representation formats such as XMI and HUTN are unforgiving and fail upon even the smallest inconsistency between the structure and naming of metamodel elements and the contents of serialised models. In this paper, we demonstrate how a fuzzy parsing approach can transparently and automatically resolve a number of these inconsistencies, and how it can eventually turn XML into a human-readable and editable textual model representation format for particular classes of models.