Ministry and stress : listening to Anglican clergy in Wales

This study set out to examine the experiences of stress in ministry among a sample of Anglican clergy serving in Wales. Building on recent quantitative studies of work-related psychological health among Anglican clergy in England, the study employed mainly qualitative methods to illustrate eight issues: the clergy's overall assessment of their present health, their understanding of the characteristics of stress, their assessment of the levels of symptoms of stress within their own lives, their identification of the causes of stress within their experience of ministry, the people on whom they call for support in times of stress, their strategy for and styles of recreation, their assessment of the pastoral care provision available to clergy, and their views on enhancing initial clergy training to equip clergy to cope with stress. Data provided by 73 clergy (10 female and 63 male) portray a group of professionally engaged men and women who are well aware of the stress-related dynamics of their vocation, who are displaying classic signs of work-overload, and who are critical of and resistant to strategies that may confuse the pastoral care of stressed clergy with the accepted management role of the Church's hierarchy of bishops and archdeacons

Suspension and levitation in nonlinear theories

I investigate stable equilibria of bodies in potential fields satisfying a generalized Poisson equation: divergence[m(grad phi) grad phi]= source density. This describes diverse systems such as nonlinear dielectrics, certain flow problems, magnets, and superconductors in nonlinear magnetic media; equilibria of forced soap films; and equilibria in certain nonlinear field theories such as Born-Infeld electromagnetism. Earnshaw's theorem, totally barring stable equilibria in the linear case, breaks down. While it is still impossible to suspend a test, point charge or dipole, one can suspend point bodies of finite charge, or extended test-charge bodies. I examine circumstances under which this can be done, using limits and special cases. I also consider the analogue of magnetic trapping of neutral (dipolar) particles.Comment: Five pages, Revtex, to appear in Physics Letters

Residual Stress in Wheels: Comparison of Neutron Diffraction and Ultrasonic Methods, with Trends in RCF

The critical damage mechanism on many GB passenger train wheels is Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF) cracking in the rim. Evidence from field observations suggests that RCF damage occurs much more quickly as the wheelsets near the end of their life. Wheel manufacturing processes induce a compressive hoop stress in the wheel rim; variations in residual stress through the life of a wheel may influence the observed RCF damage rates. This paper describes experiments to measure residual stresses in new and used wheel rims to identify whether this could be a significant factor, and compares the findings from neutron diffraction and ultrasonic birefringence methods. The scope goes beyond previous applications of neutron diffraction to railway wheels and identifies key considerations for future testing. Assuming that the as-manufactured stress distribution was similar for all three wheels tested, it is found that the stresses are redistributed within the wheel rim during its life as material is removed and plastic flow occurs. However, the hoop stress near the running surface remains compressive and may not have a large influence on the RCF damage rates

Smartbay: the development and implementation of an advanced marine technology platform on the west coast of Ireland

This paper is about the development, implementation and operation of SmartBay - a subsea cabled observatory and supporting infrastructure to stimulate the development of marine technology in Ireland. Blue Growth is the long term strategy of the European Union to support sustainable growth in the marine sector and offers great potential for innovation. The development of Ocean Technologies currently presents a number of challenges globally in terms of costs, reliability and longevity of infrastructure in the development of Renewable Energy, Blue Biotechnology, Water, and Environmental Monitoring & Management as well as more established markets such as Oil and Gas, Shipping and Security and Fishing and Aquaculture. We discuss the rationale behind the development of SmartBay in terms of addressing these challenges and focus particularly in the area of marine renewable energy technology development The design and installation phases of SmartBay are discussed. Costs were minimised, whilst maximising the range of features and applications that the infrastructure can provide to scientific and commercial users. The scientific subsea instrument node is also described in detail, along with the advanced supporting cyber-infrastructure that ensures the data is collected, processed archived and displayed as per end user requirements. The facility provides access to state of the art marine assets and resources for Researchers, Designers, Innovators and Entrepreneurs within Ireland and the EU and is a unique catalyst in the attraction of inward investment and venture capital investment. The SmartBay infrastructure platform centres on a core technology or service, the provision of high quality, time-series marine data. This is essential for a broader, interdependent ecosystem of businesses to develop and supply complementary value-added products and applications to wide multidisciplinary set of users. SmartBay’s role as a key technology node in broader European initiatives Ocean Observation initiatives like the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column observatory (EMSO), which has been established as a European Research Infrastructure consortium (ERIC) is also discussed.Peer Reviewe

Development of a new running gear for the Spectrum intermodal vehicle

The European Union (EU) Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) project Spectrum [12] set out to develop a freight vehicle which would facilitate the exploitation of the low density, high value (LDHV) goods market. Key to the performance criteria for the vehicle were: increased speed to enable mixed running with passenger services; improved ride quality to avoid damage to the LDHV goods; and reduced track damage for longevity and sustainability on increasingly stressed infrastructure. This paper presents aspects of the development of a novel running gear arrangement for the Spectrum vehicle, focussing on the dynamic performance of a Vampire vehicle model and the steps to realising stable running. Finally, the estimated performance of the Spectrum vehicle concept is compared against calculations for a conventional freight wagon with respect to curving, vertical track forces and potential savings in track access charges through implementation of Network Rail’s Variable Track Access Charge Calculator. It was found that the novel Spectrum concept could offer savings in Variable Usage Charges of between 8% and 16% compared to the conventional equivalent

A 0.45pJ/conv-step 1.2Gs/s 6b full-Nyquist non-calibrated flash ADC in 45nm CMOS and its scaling behavior

A 6-bit 1.2 Gs/s non-calibrated flash ADC in a standard 45nm CMOS process, that achieves 0.45pJ/conv-step at full Nyquist bandwidth, is presented. Power efficient operation is achieved by a full optimization of amplifier blocks, and by innovations in the comparator and encoding stage. The performance of a non-calibrated flash ADC is directly related to device properties;\ud a scaling analysis of our ADC in and across CMOS technologies gives insight into the excellent usability of 45nm technology for AD converter design

The Spectrum Bogie

This poster, providing an overview of the Spectrum freight bogie, was presented at the Railway Engineers Forum (REF) Technical Seminar held at the Institution of Civil Engineers on the 15th June 2015

Surface plasmon polaritons and surface phonon polaritons on metallic and semiconducting spheres: Exact and semiclassical descriptions

We study the interaction of an electromagnetic field with a non-absorbing or absorbing dispersive sphere in the framework of complex angular momentum techniques. We assume that the dielectric function of the sphere presents a Drude-like behavior or an ionic crystal behavior modelling metallic and semiconducting materials. We more particularly emphasize and interpret the modifications induced in the resonance spectrum by absorption. We prove that "resonant surface polariton modes" are generated by a unique surface wave, i.e., a surface (plasmon or phonon) polariton, propagating close to the sphere surface. This surface polariton corresponds to a particular Regge pole of the electric part (TM) of the S matrix of the sphere. From the associated Regge trajectory we can construct semiclassically the spectrum of the complex frequencies of the resonant surface polariton modes which can be considered as Breit-Wigner-type resonances. Furthermore, by taking into account the Stokes phenomenon, we derive an asymptotic expression for the position in the complex angular momentum plane of the surface polariton Regge pole. We then describe semiclassically the surface polariton and provide analytical expressions for its dispersion relation and its damping in the non-absorbing and absorbing cases. In these analytic expressions, we more particularly exhibit well-isolated terms directly linked to absorption. Finally, we explain why the photon-sphere system can be considered as an artificial atom (a ``plasmonic atom" or "phononic atom") and we briefly discuss the implication of our results in the context of the Casimir effect.Comment: v2: Typos corrected; v3: Paper extended to absorbing media, references added and title change

The Influence of Route Characteristics, Train Design and Maintenance Policy on Wheel Tread Damage, Wheel Life and Costs for Multiple-Unit Trains

In the UK, the use of similar vehicle types by a range of privatised operators gives the opportunity to assess the influence of different route conditions and maintenance practices on wheel tread damage, wheelset life and costs. This paper investigates these influences, using data obtained directly from the train operators and maintainers. By disseminating best practice it is expected that wheelset life can be improved on many fleets, with resultant cost savings

A semiclassical approach to the Dirac equation

We derive a semiclassical time evolution kernel and a trace formula for the Dirac equation. The classical trajectories that enter the expressions are determined by the dynamics of relativistic point particles. We carefully investigate the transport of the spin degrees of freedom along the trajectories which can be understood geometrically as parallel transport in a vector bundle with SU(2) holonomy. Furthermore, we give an interpretation in terms of a classical spin vector that is transported along the trajectories and whose dynamics, dictated by the equation of Thomas precession, gives rise to dynamical and geometric phases every orbit is weighted by. We also present an analogous approach to the Pauli equation which we analyse in two different limits