EQUAL: New horizons for ageing research

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) extending quality of life (EQUAL) initiative, specifically supports interdisciplinary user-focused design, engineering and technology research concerned with enhancing the independence and quality of life of older and disabled people. This paper briefly describes a recent programme to encourage the adoption of a broader perspective on the lives and needs of older people that have been pursued by EPSRC through its extending quality life (EQUAL) initiative. EPSRC is the principle supporter design, engineering and technology research in UK universities. The paper illustrates the scope of EQUAL.

Carbon fractions associated with silt-size particles in surface and subsurface soil horizons

Information on the distribution and behavior of C fractions in soil particle sizes is crucial for understanding C dynamics in soil. At present little is known about the behavior of the C associated with silt-size particles. We quantified the concentrations, distribution, and enrichment of total C (TC), readily oxidizable C (ROC), hotwater- extractable C (HWC), and cold-water-extractable C (CWC) fractions in coarse (63–20-mm), medium (20–6.3-mm), and fine (6.3–2-mm) silt-size subfractions and in coarse (2000–250 mm) and fine (250–63 mm) sand and clay (<2-mm) soil fractions isolated from bulk soil (<2 mm), and 2- to 4-mm aggregate-size fraction of surface (0–25 cm) and subsurface (25–55 cm) soils under different land uses. All measured C fractions varied significantly across all soil particle-size fractions. The highest C concentrations were associated with the <20-mm soil fractions and peaked in the medium (20–6.3-mm) and fine (6.3–2-mm) silt subfractions in most treatments. Carbon enrichment ratios (ERC) revealed the dual behavior of the C fractions associated with the medium silt-size fraction, demonstrating the simultaneous enrichment of TC and ROC, and the depletion of HWC and CWC fractions. The medium silt (20–6.3-mm) subfraction was identified in this study as a zone where the associated C fractions exhibit transitory qualities. Our results show that investigating subfractions within the silt-size particle fraction provides better understanding of the behavior of C fractions in this soil fraction.

Bioscience Horizons: the national journal of undergraduate research

Bioscience Horizons (BH)commenced publication in 2008 and features research papers and reviews written by graduating UK bioscience students. The journal is run by a consortium of UK universities (the Universities of Nottingham, Reading, Leeds and Chester) in association with Oxford University Press. Its submissions encompass the full range of subjects taught by UK bioscience departments, ranging from agronomy to zoology and including animal behaviour, cancer research, environmental biology, microbial sciences, molecular biology, pharmacolgy, primatology, taxonomy and other areas. BH receives manuscripts from recent graduates (with a bachelor of science or equivalent first degree) describing research carried out during their undergraduate studies, usually as a final-year research project. All submissions undergo expert review and have to meet strict criteria for scientific excellence and originality. Articles are written by a single author and published with the agreement of the graduate's home university department. The journal has an ISSN number and is open-access; articles are freely 'cite-able' contributions to the bioscience research literature.

The perfect death - Horizons ( title of painting Horizon )

The exhibition investigates the unrepresentable and considers the distinct ways invisible forces can be given visual manifestation through painted images.

Cultural heritage as a document: transdisciplinary reflections to new horizons in Information Science

The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the issues and actions on the Brazilian cultural heritage and then to discuss contributions as well as relationships that may be established from the principles of Information Science. The first item is concerned with the relationship between heritage and the concept of document, the second relates the documentary processes and the information scientist and finally, an approach of cultural heritage mediation and appropriation is presented.

Using common features to understand the behavior of metal-commodity prices and forecast them at different horizons

The objective of this article is to study (understand and forecast) spot metal price levels and changes at monthly, quarterly, and annual horizons. The data to be used consists of metal-commodity prices in a monthly frequency from 1957 to 2012 from the International Financial Statistics of the IMF on individual metal series. We will also employ the (relatively large) list of co-variates used in Welch and Goyal (2008) and in Hong and Yogo (2009) , which are available for download. Regarding short- and long-run comovement, we will apply the techniques and the tests proposed in the common-feature literature to build parsimonious VARs, which possibly entail quasi-structural relationships between different commodity prices and/or between a given commodity price and its potential demand determinants. These parsimonious VARs will be later used as forecasting models to be combined to yield metal-commodity prices optimal forecasts. Regarding out-of-sample forecasts, we will use a variety of models (linear and non-linear, single equation and multivariate) and a variety of co-variates to forecast the returns and prices of metal commodities. With the forecasts of a large number of models (N large) and a large number of time periods (T large), we will apply the techniques put forth by the common-feature literature on forecast combinations. The main contribution of this paper is to understand the short-run dynamics of metal prices. We show theoretically that there must be a positive correlation between metal-price variation and industrial-production variation if metal supply is held fixed in the short run when demand is optimally chosen taking into account optimal production for the industrial sector. This is simply a consequence of the derived-demand model for cost-minimizing firms. Our empirical evidence fully supports this theoretical result, with overwhelming evidence that cycles in metal prices are synchronized with those in industrial production. This evidence is stronger regarding the global economy but holds as well for the U.S. economy to a lesser degree. Regarding forecasting, we show that models incorporating (short-run) commoncycle restrictions perform better than unrestricted models, with an important role for industrial production as a predictor for metal-price variation. Still, in most cases, forecast combination techniques outperform individual models.

Using common features to understand the behavior of metal-commodity prices and forecast them at different horizons

The objective of this article is to study (understand and forecast) spot metal price levels and changes at monthly, quarterly, and annual frequencies. Data consists of metal-commodity prices at a monthly and quarterly frequencies from 1957 to 2012, extracted from the IFS, and annual data, provided from 1900-2010 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). We also employ the (relatively large) list of co-variates used in Welch and Goyal (2008) and in Hong and Yogo (2009). We investigate short- and long-run comovement by applying the techniques and the tests proposed in the common-feature literature. One of the main contributions of this paper is to understand the short-run dynamics of metal prices. We show theoretically that there must be a positive correlation between metal-price variation and industrial-production variation if metal supply is held fixed in the short run when demand is optimally chosen taking into account optimal production for the industrial sector. This is simply a consequence of the derived-demand model for cost-minimizing firms. Our empirical evidence fully supports this theoretical result, with overwhelming evidence that cycles in metal prices are synchronized with those in industrial production. This evidence is stronger regarding the global economy but holds as well for the U.S. economy to a lesser degree. Regarding out-of-sample forecasts, our main contribution is to show the benefits of forecast-combination techniques, which outperform individual-model forecasts - including the random-walk model. We use a variety of models (linear and non-linear, single equation and multivariate) and a variety of co-variates and functional forms to forecast the returns and prices of metal commodities. Using a large number of models (N large) and a large number of time periods (T large), we apply the techniques put forth by the common-feature literature on forecast combinations. Empirically, we show that models incorporating (short-run) common-cycle restrictions perform better than unrestricted models, with an important role for industrial production as a predictor for metal-price variation.

Studies on the cooling minimum quantity and conventional cooling at hardened steels in grinding process

The purpose of this work is to explain the concept of cutting fluids reasonable usage through the fluid minimum quantity in grinding processes. on that purpose, the development of a new nozzle and an own and adequate methodology should be required in order to obtain good results and compare them to the conventional methods. The analysis of the grinding wheel/cutting fluid performance was accomplished from the following input parameters: flow rate variation by nozzle diameter changes (three diameters values: 3mm, 4mm and 5mm), besides the conventional round nozzle already within the machine. Integral oil and a synthetic emulsion were used as cutting fluids and a conventional grinding wheel was employed. The workpieces were made of steel VC 131, tempered and quenched with 60HRc. Thus, as the flow rate and the nozzle diameter changes, keeping steady fluid jet velocity (equal to cutting velocity), attempted to find the best machining conditions, with the purpose to obtain a decrease on the cutting fluid volume, taking into consideration the analysis of the process output variables such as cutting strength, cutting specific energy, grinding wheel wear and surface roughness. It was verified that the 3mm diameter optimized nozzle and the integral oil, in general, was the best combination among all proposed.

Influence of the grinding wheel's dive speed on the damage of rectified hardened steels

The world tendency is the increase of the productivity and the production of pieces more and more sophisticated, with high degree of geometric and dimensional tolerances, with good surface finish and low cost. Rectification is responsible for the final finish in the machining process of a material. However, damages generated in this production phase affect all the resources used in the previous processes. Great part of the problems happennig in the rectification process is due to the enormous temperature generated in this activity because of the machining conditions. The dive speed, which is directly related to the productivity, is considered responsible for the damages that occur during rectification, limiting its values to those that do not cause such damages. In this work, through the variation of the dive speed in the process of cylindrical grinding of type ABNT D6 steel, rationalizing the application of two cutting fluids and using a CBN (cubic boron nitrate) abrasive wheel with vitrified blond, the influence of the dive speed on the surface damages of hardened steels was evaluated. The results allowed to say that the dive speed, associated to an efficient cooling and lubrication, didn't provoke thermal damages (including heated zones, cracks and tension stresses) to the material. Residual stresses and the roughness of rectified materials presented a correlation with the machining conditions. The work concluded that it is possible to increase the productivity without provoking damages in the rectified components.