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Features of Designing Control Systems of Tested Aviation Moving Platforms
Full text linkThis paper describes the features of designing control systems for moving platforms with equipment of different types including optical sensors, antennas, video cameras, and observation equipment. The features of linearization of the mathematical description are described. Such features include the influence of the hysteresis in the gyroscopic device and the backlash in the controlling drive of the platform. The recommendations for linearization of the non-linearities as mentioned earlier are given. The features of introducing disturbances in the mathematical description of moving platforms are represented. The technique of creating forming filters for the simulation of disturbances caused by irregularities of relief of road and terrain is described. Such an approach is relevant for moving platforms operated on land vehicles. The procedure for creating a robust controller resistant to internal and external disturbances is given. The synthesis of the control system for the moving platform has been realized. The simulation results are represented. The obtained results can be useful for the control systems of the different moving vehicle
Creativity as a transferable concept in arts education curriculum: Synergies and tensions in the Irish context
Full text linkIn many countries, there is now an emphasis on creativity as a core capability and skill throughout arts education and wider education curriculum. Focusing on draft curriculum and broader policy documents from the Republic of Ireland, discourses of creativity are firstly
identified in this paper. Here, within a “key competency” framing, creativity is established as a concept that moves across multiple subject contexts rather than one located in specific disciplines. This is linked to the identification of the needs of a future work force. Following
this, versions of creativity that are “transferable” across multiple contexts and subject areas are explored. These include the facilitation of work within creative models and the prioritization of personal traits and characteristics related to creativity. This leads to a discussion on versions
of creativity that are in tension with notions of transferability. These include emphasis on judgements and insights from biographies of creative individuals within specific fields. A focus is placed on music education to further illustrate the importance of specific discrete
spaces for creativity. The discussion in the paper draws out how an assumed shared common or transferable creative process, against the backdrop of under-theorization in policy documents, means that some claims about creativity in curriculum are valued to a much
higher degree than others. Implications and recommendations at the levels of policy making, teacher education and school curricular planning are identified
Investigation into students’ understanding of graphs representing a qualitative physics scenario
Full text linkGraphs are an ever increasingly important tool used in our everyday lives, and yet there is a lack of research in this area. This is especially true in relation to the construction of qualitative graphs. Based on this gap in the existing literature, I decided to investigate first year undergraduate students that were enrolled in a physics module aimed for non-physics majors. My main focus was their thought process when asked to draw a qualitative graph representing a physics scenario.
I developed a series of questions which were issued to students over the past two years. These questions all followed the same format: students were given a diagram of a hypothetical physics experiment and a piece of text describing the situation. They were also given a partially completed graph and then asked what the completed graph would look like. FInally, they were asked to explain their reasoning.
The following text showcases my detailed analysis of the students’ responses. I studied all aspects of the collected data, from the spacings they drew on the axes of their graphs, to the language they used in their explanations of why they had drawn the graph as they had. I varied both the context of the experiment (ranging from everyday scenarios to more abstract physics) as well as the way in which the experiment was described (ranging from a brief description to a more detailed explanation).
My research shows that both of these factors, context and level of detail, have a strong effect on students’ ability to draw the correct graph. I also found that students who made explicit reference to their graph when explaining it, were more likely to have drawn the correct graph than those who did not. On the other hand, students who mentioned “time” or “friction” were more inclined to draw an incorrectly shaped graph
Development of hydroxyapatite and wollastonite coatings for orthopaedic implant biomedical applications
Full text linkThe project aims to develop orthopaedic implants for biomedical applications. At present, millions of people suffer from hip issues; therefore, total hip replacement surgery has become more common; thus, finding a better hip implant is imperative. This study uses the titanium implant as a substrate due to its lightness, strength, durability, and biocompatibility despite its low bioactivity. Hydroxyapatite has a similar chemical composition to inorganic bone due to its bioactive nature. Biocoating fulfils both the function of bioactivity of Hydroxyapatite and the superior mechanical property of titanium. However, the major drawbacks of this Hydroxyapatite coated titanium implant are the poor mechanical properties of Hydroxyapatite and the bioinertness of the titanium. The present study intends to add Wollastonite as an additive to improve its mechanical and bioactive properties suitable for load-bearing applications.
Hydroxyapatite was initially spray-dried with the previous process parameters. Wollastonite was spray-dried with the same process parameters as Hydroxyapatite. As observed by scanning electron microscope, spray-dried Wollastonite showed acicular shape morphology, which affected its flowability. Therefore, Hydroxyapatite, Wollastonite, and Hydroxyapatite/Wollastonite composite powder were coated on the titanium substrate using a dip-immersion technique to address this issue. In the dip coating, the precursors of calcium, phosphate and silicate were used to dip coat Hydroxyapatite and Wollastonite on to a titanium substrate, respectively and Wollastonite powder in 10, 20 and 30 wt.%, respectively was added to Hydroxyapatite gel to form a Hydroxyapatite/Wollastonite composite coating. For spray coating, Hydroxyapatite, Wollastonite was spray coated onto a titanium substrate with parameters obtained from spray drying and Wollastonite was added in 20-50 wt.% to Hydroxyapatite slurry and spray coated onto a prepared titanium substrate. Overall, for dip-coated composite samples, the addition of 10 wt.% Wollastonite to composite coatings presented optimal results, whereas for spray-coated composite samples, 20 wt.% Wollastonite added to the composite coatings showed better coating cracks, porosity, microstructure results with better crystallinity. Therefore, new coating techniques requiring further research were produced as an outcome of the research
Designing the future newsroom: Using human-centred design for audience-oriented innovation in four leading legacy newspapers. Implications for journalism.
Full text linkIn recent years, design has become an increasingly important function in news organisations seeking to support their digital-first strategies and business models, gain a deeper understanding of what their audiences want, and what drives engagement and conversion. While the use of audience metrics is well-documented and studied in journalism research, news organisations’ design efforts—not only in the context of the appearance and functionality of products but as a set of processes and mindset directed at fostering a culture of audience-centred innovation—remain relatively under-explored. By operationalising Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, this research explores how The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Irish Times have incorporated humancentred design in their products, services, and audience research and the implications for journalism. It also explores how this audience-oriented culture affects journalistic professional boundaries and how journalists perceive the changing structural dynamics in
the newsroom.
Following a multiple case study design, with in-depth expert interviews as the primary data collection method, this research does not aim to extract broad inferences but to analyse the processes and effects of the same phenomenon across different newspapers and countries.
Field theory allows for a study of journalism that focuses both on its broader institutional conditions and the importance of relationships between its agents and new entrants. This research shows that while design practices facilitate the development of several crossfunctional projects, ranging from UX and UI applications to audience research and innovation efforts related to audience engagement and trust, they are sometimes obstructed by outside pressures and organisational limitations and are met with resistance in the newsroom. At the same time, while journalists recognise the audience-centric culture, it is viewed as a challenge to long-standing norms and the prevailing journalistic doxa, confirming Bourdieu’s view of journalism as a site of struggle and competing logics
The impact of gender quotas on women’s socio-economic empowerment in rural Rwanda.
Full text linkGender quotas have significantly improved women's socio-economic empowerment, political representation, economic opportunities, social status, and overall societal development. Rwanda's gender quota system has significantly enhanced women's representation in parliament and decision-making positions. The rise in female representation in national governance has been accompanied by increased encouragement and mandatory participation in local leadership; with gender quotas applied to all local councils and governance structures. The impact of gender quotas on Rwandan society is not well-documented, with little evidence suggesting a negative effect on female economic and power autonomy. It suggests that urban men feel disadvantaged, leading to them withdrawing from civic life, while rural women face exploitation and unpaid work, and men prevent their wives from participating in politics. This study builds on fieldwork conducted in rural Rwanda for five months between June and November 2018. The research involves 56 survey respondents, 186 interviews, 28 focus groups, and 268 participants, including women local leaders, ordinary rural men, and rural women from 15 districts across four Rwanda provinces as of East, West, North, South, including Gakenke, Karongi, Rwamagana, Gatsibo, Gicumbi, Muhanga, Nyamagabe, Ngororero, Huye, Kirehe, Nyamasheke, Musanze, Rusizi, Burera and Nyaruguru. Districts were selected based on their outstanding achievements in economic, social welfare, good governance, justice, and gender equality-related programs as of Imihigo performance contracts’ results of 2016 and 2017. Results from field research indicated that increasing rural women's political participation has boosted earned income, job opportunities, household incomes, and makes women more valuable and respected in rural society. While some men were positive about the recent changes in rural Rwanda, other men were negative and resented women’s economic independence, claiming that empowering rural women socially and economically has led to women disrespecting men
Technologies and the future of translation: two perspectives
Full text linkThis chapter considers reactions to two types of artificial intelligence (AI), conventional neural machine translation (NMT), and large language models (LLMs), in two very different contexts, multilingual news production and literary translation. In news production NMT is seen as a trusted technology that allows journalists to make existing content accessible to new audiences. LLMs, as an instance of generative AI, meanwhile, are considered potentially dangerous and in need of monitoring and regulation. In literary translation, antagonism towards both technologies is common, with prominent literary translators arguing that machine translation is not really translation and that there are no good applications of AI in their field. The implications of these widely diverging understandings are considered, and the chapter concludes that it is not the technology alone that will shape the future; rather it is the way in which AI is accommodated in the wider socio-cultural, legal, and economic context that will have the greatest bearing on the lives of journalists and literary translators alike
Reconstituting the ‘good woman’: Gendered visual politics on social media during 2021 state election in West Bengal, India
Full text linkTThis paper explores the visual politics of gender in electoral politics in West Bengal (WB). We examine how women political candidates visually construct their non-verbal political performance on social media, and how such visuals relate to social mores and societal expectations surrounding
femininity. Drawing on theories of the social construction of gender and visual political communication, we conducted a content analysis of 1,033 visual artefacts from eight individual women candidates and 205 from the Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) pages of the four main political
parties taking part in the January-April 2021 electoral campaign for state-level elections in WB. We analysed how these candidates construct gendered relationships with the electorate through different cues on the platforms, such as sartorial choices (traditional or Western attire), use of
culture-specific religious symbols (sindoor or vermillion, bindi – forehead marking worn by married Hindu women), and gendered/non-gendered political actions like cooking or serving food, giving speeches or meeting constituents in political processions. Our findings about the visually performed politics show a combination of cultural, political, and gender signifiers, which are mediated and remain connected to societal expectations, and historical narratives. The candidates’ negotiation of
these aspects, in turn, underscores a reproduction of colonial legacies and, in the present day, an ongoing production of societal differences. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on visual politics of gender, particularly in Asian contexts. It sheds light on the nuanced ways women politicians use social media to construct their visual identities, and how the deployment of body politics into the relatively ‘new’ online sphere reifies ‘old’ social, political, cultural symbolisms, and
norms regarding gender. In this way, this article highlights the importance of considering pre-digital forms of gendered identity construction and visual representation when analysing the contested terrain of digital visibilities
Student learning outcomes in the Irish context: mixing curriculum paradigms, cultures, and design models
Full text linkLearning outcomes rather than syllabus content have become a key feature of curriculum design across many jurisdictions. The authors' intentions are to provide a theoretical framework for their planned study of this changing approach to curriculum design in the Republic of Ireland. These changes are situated in the broad context of educational paradigms, curriculum cultures, and models of curriculum design. The introduction of teleological learning outcomes is placed in the historical context of the Learning Outcomes Movement. Drawing on a desk-based study, the key characteristics of these outcomes are identified. Involving elements of both Anglo-American and Didaktik curriculum cultures, the emerging picture is one of hybridisation. While fully recognising the importance of curriculum aims and pedagogical intentions, the authors raise significant concerns regarding the ‘canonisation’ of pre-determined learning outcomes, that, being teleological rather than emergent (Stoller, 2015) in nature, are expressed in behavioural language. Philosophical and ideological aspects of this emerging hybridisation are discussed, along with associated curriculum implementation matters. Key issues and conundrums are identified which provide valuable reference points for engagement with actors at the macro, meso, and nano levels during subsequent phases of the proposed study
Neurophysiology of Perceptual Decision-Making and Its Alterations in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Full text linkDespite the prevalence of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), efforts to develop a detailed understanding of the
neuropsychology of this neurodevelopmental condition are complicated by the diversity of interindividual presentations and the
inability of current clinical tests to distinguish between its sensory, attentional, arousal, or motoric contributions. Identifying
objective methods that can explain the diverse performance profiles across individuals diagnosed with ADHD has been a long-held
goal. Achieving this could significantly advance our understanding of etiological processes and potentially inform the development of
personalized treatment approaches. Here, we examine key neuropsychological components of ADHD within an electrophysiological
(EEG) perceptual decision-making paradigm that is capable of isolating distinct neural signals of several key information processing
stages necessary for sensory-guided actions from attentional selection to motor responses. Using a perceptual decision-making task
(random dot motion), we evaluated the performance of 79 children (aged 8–17 years) and found slower and less accurate responses,
along with a reduced rate of evidence accumulation (drift rate parameter of drift diffusion model), in children with ADHD (n = 37; 13 female) compared with typically developing peers (n = 42; 18 female). This was driven by the atypical dynamics of discrete electrophysiological signatures of attentional selection, the accumulation of sensory evidence, and strategic adjustments reflecting urgency of response. These findings offer an integrated account of decision-making in ADHD and establish discrete neural signals that might be used to understand the wide range of neuropsychological performance variations in individuals with ADHD