Digital student skills study

A report on the findings from the Jisc Digital Student Skills study into skills learners expectations and experiences of technology.

Women, workplace militancy and political subjectivity in Britain, 1968-1985

This thesis examines the experiences and political subjectivity of women who engaged in workplace protest in Britain between 1968 and 1985. The study covers a period that has been identified with the ‘zenith’ of trade-union militancy in British labour history. The women’s liberation movement also emerged in this period, which produced a shift in public debates about gender roles and relations in the home and the workplace. Women’s trade union membership increased dramatically and trade unions increasingly committed themselves to supporting ‘women’s issues’. Industrial disputes involving working-class women have frequently been cited as evidence of women’s growing participation in the labour movement. However, the voices and experiences of female workers who engaged in workplace protest remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses this space through an original analysis of the 1968 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford, Dagenham; the 1976 equal pay strike at Trico, Brentford; the 1972 Sexton shoe factory occupation in Fakenham, Norfolk; the 1981 Lee Jeans factory occupation in Greenock, Inverclyde and the 1984-1985 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford Dagenham. Drawing upon a combination of oral history and written sources, this study contributes a fresh understanding of the relationship between feminism, workplace activism and trade unionism during the years 1968-1985. In every dispute considered in this thesis, women’s behaviour was perceived by observers as novel, ‘historic’ or extraordinary. But the women did not think of themselves as extraordinary, and rather understood their behaviour as a legitimate and justified response to their everyday experiences of gender and class antagonism. The industrial disputes analysed in this thesis show that women’s workplace militancy was not simply a direct response to women’s heightened presence in trade unions. The women involved in these disputes were more likely to understand their experiences of workplace activism as an expression of the economic, social and subjective value of their work. Whilst they did not adopt a feminist identity or associate their action with the WLM, they spoke about themselves and their motivations in a manner that emphasised feminist values of equality, autonomy and self-worth.

Mathematical models for cellular aggregation: the chemotactic instability and clustering formation

In this thesis we present a mathematical formulation of the interaction between microorganisms such as bacteria or amoebae and chemicals, often produced by the organisms themselves. This interaction is called chemotaxis and leads to cellular aggregation. We derive some models to describe chemotaxis. The first is the pioneristic Keller-Segel parabolic-parabolic model and it is derived by two different frameworks: a macroscopic perspective and a microscopic perspective, in which we start with a stochastic differential equation and we perform a mean-field approximation. This parabolic model may be generalized by the introduction of a degenerate diffusion parameter, which depends on the density itself via a power law. Then we derive a model for chemotaxis based on Cattaneo's law of heat propagation with finite speed, which is a hyperbolic model. The last model proposed here is a hydrodynamic model, which takes into account the inertia of the system by a friction force. In the limit of strong friction, the model reduces to the parabolic model, whereas in the limit of weak friction, we recover a hyperbolic model. Finally, we analyze the instability condition, which is the condition that leads to aggregation, and we describe the different kinds of aggregates we may obtain: the parabolic models lead to clusters or peaks whereas the hyperbolic models lead to the formation of network patterns or filaments. Moreover, we discuss the analogy between bacterial colonies and self gravitating systems by comparing the chemotactic collapse and the gravitational collapse (Jeans instability).

Estudio de factibilidad de importación de calzado

Este proyecto de investigación es un estudio de factibilidad de importación del calzado para dama desde China para la empresa colombiana Kenzo Jeans a través del cual se evalúan a profundidad estrategias en producto, precio y distribución para que la empresa valore la conveniencia del proceso. El objetivo de esta investigación es generar herramientas y estrategias necesarias para que la empresa logre tener una visión más completa al importar calzado desde China para la distribución en el mercado colombiano. Este estudio se realizó con el fin de brindar información para que la gerencia pueda tomar decisiones correctas, eliminando el desconocimiento que pueda generar mayor incertidumbre al involucrarse en un proceso de importación. Para llevar a cabo este proceso se determinaron unos criterios de evaluación y selección mínimos respecto al diseño del producto, precio, calidad, número de unidades mínimas para realizar el pedido, empaque y etiquetado con el que debían contar los posibles proveedores en China. Esto se realizó a través de un acercamiento a los potenciales proveedores y permitió filtrar a aquellos que podrían cumplir con los criterios exigidos por Kenzo Jeans. Una vez realizado el proceso de clasificación y selección se logró determinar que existe potencial en la importación de calzado de dama desde China. Hecho este proceso se sugiere a Kenzo Jeans realizar contacto directo con estas empresas a través de un posible viaje de negocios.

Dinamica delle galassie a spirale e delle galassie ellittiche

La Dinamica Stellare è la disciplina che si occupa di descrivere la struttura e l'evoluzione dei sistemi stellari. Quest'elaborato si pone come obiettivo quello di illustrare una panoramica sui modelli e le tecniche necessari allo studio dei moti delle stelle all'interno delle galassie, per poi tradurli in pratica tramite applicazioni alle due tipologie principali di galassie. Dopo aver introdotto le principali caratteristiche delle galassie attraverso la Classificazione di Hubble, verrà affrontata la peculiarità di questi sistemi, ovvero la non collisionalità, introducendo il concetto di Tempo di Rilassamento a due corpi. In seguito, si illustreranno le equazioni che permettono di descrivere un sistema non collisionale, ovvero l'Equazione di Boltzmann e le Equazioni di Jeans, con conseguente caratterizzazione del Teorema del Viriale per questo tipo di sistemi. In conclusione, si approfondirà dapprima la dinamica delle galassie ellittiche attraverso lo studio della loro anisotropia, del profilo di brillanza e del Piano Fondamentale; successivamente, per quanto concerne le galassie a spirale, si tratterà la Curva di Rotazione, la Legge di Tully Fisher che ne descrive la luminosità e si terminerà con una descrizione della dinamica dei bracci a spirale attraverso la teoria delle Onde di Densità di Lin e Shu.

Energia gravitazionale in astrofisica

In questa trattazione, sarà data una definizione di energia potenziale partendo dal modello della gravità Newtoniana, e verranno illustrati - molto brevemente, e senza entrare troppo nei dettagli - alcuni fenomeni astrofisici nei quali l’interazione gravitazionale tra corpi (e dunque il concetto di energia gravitazionale) gioca un ruolo fondamentale. In particolare, verrà introdotto il concetto di buco nero, per poi accennare alla fisica dell’accrescimento caratteristica dei nuclei galattici attivi. In seguito, verrà esposto il teorema del Viriale in forma scalare, se ne accennerà il ruolo nella catastrofe gravotermica riguardante gli ammassi globulari, e quello nella nascita di nuove stelle tramite l’instabilità di Jeans. Infine, verrà trattata la curva di rotazione delle galassie a spirale, e si parlerà del ragionamento che ha portato all’intuizione della materia oscura, di cui l’Universo è pervaso.