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In this practice report, the author describes the setting up of Chiswick Women's Aid, the first refuge1 for the care and treatment of battered women and their children. A key differentiation is made between ‘battered women’ and ‘violence‐prone women’ and the author summarises past objection and opposition to her work and theories.It is then contended that the issue of family violence must be seen in the personal and psychological realm, rather than in the political domain, and this is discussed in relation to a statistical survey of answers provided in questionnaires self‐completed by 100 female residents of Chiswick Women's Aid, London during 1975. This study shows evidence of a link between violence in childhood and the recreation of violent relationships in adult life and thus suggests that violence appears to be intergenerational.

The purpose of this study is to provide the full-state mathematical model and devise a nonlinear controller for a balloon-supported unmanned aerial vehicle (BUAV).

Newtonian mechanics is used to establish the nonlinear mathematical model of the proposed vehicle assembly which incorporates the dynamics of both balloon and quadrotor UAV. A controllable form of the nine degrees of freedom model is derived. Backstepping control is designed for the proposed model and simulations are performed to assess the tracking performance of the proposed control.

The results show that the proposed methodology works well for smooth trajectories in presence of wind gusts. Moreover, the final mathematical model is affine and various nonlinear control techniques can be used in the future for improved system performance.

Multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (MUAVs) are equipped with controllers but are constrained by smaller flight endurance and payload carrying capability. On the contrary, lighter than air (LTA) aerial vehicles have longer flight times but have poor control performance for outdoor operations. One of the solutions to achieve better flight endurance and payload carrying capability is to augment the LTA balloon to MUAV. The novelty of this research lies in full-order mathematical modeling along with transformation to controllable form for the BUAV assembly.

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

Real flight is cognitively demanding; accordingly, both indicators and display panel layout should be user-friendly to improve pilot-aircraft interaction. Poor pilot-interface interactions in aircrafts could result in accidents. Although a general reason of accidents is improper displays, relatively few studies were conducted on interfaces. This study aims to present an optimization model to create intuitively integrated user-friendly cockpit interfaces.

Subjectivity within most usability evaluation techniques could bring about interface design problems. A priori information about indicator’s possible locations may be available or unavailable. Thus different analytical approaches must be applied for modifications and new interface designs. Relative layout design (RLD) model was developed and used in new interface designs to optimize locations of indicators. This model was based on layout optimization and constructed in accordance with design requirements, ergonomic considerations with the pilot preferences. RLD model optimizes interface design by deploying indicators to the best locations to improve usability of display panel, pilot-aircraft interaction and flight safety.

Optimum interfaces for two problem instances were gathered by RLD model in 15.77 CPU(s) with 10 indicators and 542.51 CPU(s) with 19 indicators. A comparison between relative and existing cockpit interfaces reveals that locations of six navigation and four mechanical system indicators are different. The differences may stem from pilots’ preferences and relativity constraints. Both interfaces are more similar for the central part of the display panel. The objective function value of relative interface design (Opt: 527938) is far better than existing interface (737100). The RLD model improved usability of existing interface (28.61 per cent considering decrease in the objective function values from 737100 to 527938.

Future cockpit and new helicopter interface designs may involve RLD model as an alternative interface design tool. Furthermore, other layout optimization problems, e.g. circuit boards, microchips and engines, etc. could be handled in a more realistic manner by RLD model.

Originality and impact of this study related to development and employment of a new optimization model (RLD) on cockpit interface design for the first time. Engineering requirements, human factors, ergonomics and pilots’ preferences are simultaneously considered in the RLD model. The subjectivity within usability evaluation techniques could be diminished in this way. The contributions of RLD model to classical facility layout models are relativity constraints with the physical constrictions and ergonomic objective function weights. Novelty of this paper is the development and employment of a new optimization model (RLD) to locate indicators.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

If child custody decisions are based on erroneous beliefs, family courts may not be acting in the best interests of children. This study examined family court professionals' beliefs about family violence. Respondents (N = 410) of diverse professions, including child custody mediators, evaluators, and therapists, family law attorneys and judges, victim advocates and university students, completed a 10‐item multiple‐choice quiz. Results revealed low rates of correct responding, with respondents correctly answering approximately three out of 10 items on average, based on current research in the field. Overall, response rates were highly consistent with the discredited patriarchal paradigm. Shelter workers and victim advocates had the lowest average score, and men were found to have slightly higher scores than women. More troubling, students' scores were not significantly lower than those of family court professionals. Implications are discussed with respect to decision‐making in the context of child custody disputes.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a chemotherapy scheduling template that accounts for nurse resource availability and patient treatment needs to alleviate the mid-day patient load and provide quality services for patients.

Owing to treatment complexity in chemotherapy administration, nurses are required at the beginning, end and during treatment. When nurses are not available to continue treatment, the service is compromised, and the resource constraint is violated, which leads to inevitable delay that risks service quality. Consequently, an optimization method is used to create a scheduling template that minimizes the violation between resource assignment and treatment requirements, while leveling patient load throughout a day. A case study from a typical clinic day is presented to understand current scheduling issues, describe nursing resource constraints, and develop a constraint-based optimization model and leveling algorithm for the final template.

The approach is expected to reduce the variation in the system by 24 percent and result in five fewer chemo chairs used during peak hours. Adjusting staffing levels could further reduce resource constraint violations and more savings on chair occupancy. The actual implementation results indicate a 33 percent reduction on resource constraint violations and positive feedback from nursing staff for workload.

Other delays, including laboratory test, physician visit and treatment assignment, are potential research areas.

The study demonstrates significant improvement in mid-day patient load and meeting treatment needs using optimization with a unique objective.

This paper aims to study the impact of pyro-electricity, moisture and temperature diffusivity on the energy distribution of plane waves at the free surface of an orthotropic piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic medium.

This study presents the novel creation of governing equations for an anisotropic piezothermoelastic medium with moisture impact, which is a significant contribution of this paper.

In addition to providing numerical data for the amplitude ratios and energy ratios of reflected waves, this study identifies five different kinds of coupled reflected plane waves, namely, quasi-longitudinal P wave, quasi-thermal wave, quasi-transverse wave, quasi-moisture wave and electric potential wave.

The graphical analysis examines the impact of various factors, such as the angle of incidence, moisture and temperature diffusivity, pyro-electricity and frequency, on energy distribution.

This paper's results significantly impact the development of more efficient piezoelectric materials and their applications in geophysics.

The authors of the submitted document initiated and produced it collectively, with equal contributions from all members.

Motivated by the debate on the patterns and sources of commodity futures returns, this paper investigates the performance of three investment trading strategies, namely, the momentum strategy of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993), the 52-week high momentum strategy of George and Hwang (2004) and the pairs trading strategy of Gatev et al. (2006) in the commodity futures market.

The three strategies are those given by Jegadeesh and Titman (1993), George and Hwang (2004) and Gatev et al. (2006), respectively.

The authors find that there is no significant reversal profit across 189 formation-holding windows for all the three strategies. However, there are statistical and economically significant momentum profits, and the profitability increases with the rising of formation-holding periods. Momentum returns are quite sensitive to market conditions but the crash of momentum returns is partly predictable. Return seasonality, risk and herding also provide partial explanation of the momentum profits.

The authors are the first to compare the performances of the pairs trading strategy of Gatev et al. (2006), the conventional momentum of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993), and the 52-week high momentum of George and Hwang (2004) under 189 formation-holding windows. Also, the authors are the first to investigate the association between herding behaviour and momentum returns in the commodity futures market.

Contact problems are among the most difficult ones in mechanics. Due to its practical importance, the problem has been receiving extensive research work over the years. The finite element method has been widely used to solve contact problems with various grades of complexity. Great progress has been made on both theoretical studies and engineering applications. This paper reviews some of the main developments in contact theories and finite element solution techniques for static contact problems. Classical and variational formulations of the problem are first given and then finite element solution techniques are reviewed. Available constraint methods, friction laws and contact searching algorithms are also briefly described. At the end of the paper, a bibliography is included, listing about seven hundred papers which are related to static contact problems and have been published in various journals and conference proceedings from 1976.