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Identifying attributes of sustainable transitions for traditional regional manufacturing industry sectors – A conceptual framework
No full textTraditional manufacturing industry is facing significant transformation. Fundamental to this transformation, are the challenges of a changing social, economic, political and environmental future in response to climate change, global competition and limits to finite resources. These challenges have motivated a transition towards a new sustainable trajectory. Within a range of disciplinary fields, scholars have studied and developed conceptual frameworks to explain the processes, outcomes and effectiveness of particular transitions, yet, there remains limited evidence drawing together these conceptual approaches to identify the elements and attributes essential to holistic, practical and long lasting transitions within established manufacturing regions. To address this gap, this paper introduces an interdisciplinary framework, ‘Attributes of Sustainable Transitions’, by reviewing and integrating four existing conceptual approaches (Advanced Manufacturing, Sustainability Transitions, Spatiality of Regions and Transition Regions) to identify attributes of sustainable transitions within the manufacturing industry sector. In the process, this article also focuses on regions as important spaces for transitions, an emphasis currently missing from traditional economic approaches. Examples from international and Australian case studies are used to support the conceptual analysis, paving the way for future empirical research based on Australian firms.12 page(s
Fine-grained module-based error recovery in FPGA-based TMR systems
No full textSpace processing applications deployed on SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are vulnerable to radiation-induced Single Event Upsets (SEUs). Compared with the well-known SEU mitigation solution — Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) with configuration memory scrubbing — TMR with module-based error recovery (MER) is notably more energy efficient and responsive in repairing soft-errors in the system. Unfortunately, TMR-MER systems also need to resort to scrubbing when errors occur in sub-components, such as nets, which are not recovered by MER. This paper addresses this problem by proposing a fine-grained module-based error recovery technique that without additional system hardware can localize and correct errors that classic MER fails to do. We evaluate our proposal via a fault-injection campaign on a Xilinx Artix-7 application circuit and compare the reliability, the error correction latency and the energy cost of repairing errors, of our proposal with those of a conventional MER approach and with periodic and on-demand blind scrubbing. We find the reliability of our proposal to be the highest and the energy expenditure to be the lowest amongst those methods considered.8 page(s
Recreating the image of Chan master Huineng : the role of personal pronouns
No full textThe article is on the recreation of the image of Chan master Huineng in four English translations of the Platform Sutra through the choice of personal pronouns. Adopting SysConc as analytical tool, the study looks at the use of personal pronouns and the image of Huineng recreated in each translation. In Wong (1930a), the use of we in combination with you presents Huineng as both friendly and authoritative; in Heng (1977b), Huineng tends to avoid personal pronouns and seems to be detached; in Cleary (1998b), Huineng is more involved in the interaction and uses many I’s as well as you; in Cheng (2011), Huineng speaks in an elegant way and uses generic one as personal reference. It is argued that both the choices of personal pronouns and the images of Huineng recreated can be better understood in terms of the context of translation.23 page(s
Thermal modelling and heat management of supercapacitor modulus
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 55-57.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Literature review -- Chapter 3. Methodology -- Chapter 4. Model and mesh verification -- Chapter 5. Simulation results and discussion -- Chapter 6. Conclusions and future work -- Abbreviations -- References -- Appendices.Supercapacitors, which are considered as one of the most useful electrochemical storage devices, have a variety of applications in different industrial and transport sectors. Their more recent and important application is to store energy produced by renewable energy sources to enable efficient use of the stored energy when required. Due to the quick and repeating nature of charge and discharge in these devices, they are a major source of heat generation. This generated heat is required to be ventilated from the system, because it may lead to malfunction, aging or even fire. Air is commonly used for heat ventilation in these systems. Given the compact size of supercapacitor stacks, the cooling strategy and cell arrangement has a significan impact on the operation temperature of individual capacitors within the stack.In this study, computational fluid mechanics (CFD) is applied using the commercial package ANSYS to simulate heat transfer and fluid dynamics around a series of supercapacitors in a stack. The heat transfer analysis is carried out and the thermal characteristics of the stack components are represented with different initial conditions and under different scenarios. Four different velocities for cooling air are considered which represent different fan speeds; and four different heat fluxes for supercapacitors are considered, which represent different working loads of the supercapacitors. At each velocity, different heat fluxes are used and the temperatures field is investigated. In addition, for each heat flux value, the inlet velocity of the cooling air has been changed to elaborate on its influence on the cooling process. In this respect, the most appropriate cooling air velocity for each heat flux condition has been identified to pave the way for future studies. Overall, the outcome of this research will be useful to have a clear understanding of the requirements for an efficient and safe cooling strategy for a typical supercapacitor stack, where overheating might lead to expensive and unsafe damage.Mode of access: World wide web.1 online resource (67 pages colour illustrations
CFD modelling of flow at the epiglottis
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 65-67.1. Introduction -- 2. Background -- 3. Experimental method -- 4. Results -- 5. Discussion -- 6. Conclusions -- Appendix -- References.The upper airway is an important component of the human body, particularly the epiglottis and surrounding region. Studies have shown that in terms of retaining drug particles, the epiglottis is the most prominent region involved. However, a significan amount of research has not been completed in order to investigate and define a potential relationship between epiglottis geometry and airflow through the region. This project will involve the creation of upper airway models and airflow simulations to determine whether a relationship exists, potentiall laying a platform for new methods to be developed with respect to drug particle retention within the region.Mode of access: World wide web.1 online resource (xvi, 67 pages illustrations(some colour)
Thermal performance of metallic nanofluids in microchannel heat sink
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 51-53.1. Introduction -- 2. Literature review -- 3. Mathematical models -- 4. Simulation model -- 5. Verification -- 6. Impact of density and heat capacity on thermal performance -- 7. Impact of viscosity on thermal performance -- 8. Impact of thermal conductivity on fluid flow -- 9. Results -- 10. Abbreviations -- Appendix -- Bibliography.A numerical investigation of the heat transfer enhancement of a two-dimensional microchannel heat sink (MCHS) using Al2O3-water, CuO-water and TiO2-water was conducted. The numerical methodology uses mathematical models for continuity, momentum, energy and solid temperature to model the fluid flow through the MCHS. The effect of the metallic nanoparticles on the thermal performance of the heat transfer fluid (HTF) in the heat sink was examined for the volume concentrations of 1%, 3% and 5%. Techniques for increasing the thermal performance of HTF are to raise the thermal conductivity of the fluid and/or to reduce the viscosity. Analysis of the effect the individual thermo-physical properties have on the thermal boundary layer and the total thermal performance is conducted. The results depict that for Al2O3-water and Cuo-waternanofluids the overall thermal performance is increased compared to the pure base fluid of water, with the most effective volume concentrations at 5% and 3%. TiO2-water nanofluid decreased in thermal perfomance at all volume concentrations. Overall, Al2O3-water nanofluid at the volume concentration of 5% shows the most effective heat transfer capabilities in the MCHS.Mode of access: World wide web.1 online resource (xiii, 53 pages diagrams, graphs, tables
Remote redundancy: artificial reliability in a remote camera device
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: page 181.1. Introduction -- 2. Background -- 3. Supervised parallel redundancy -- 4. Supervised parallel resetting redundancy -- 5. Self-supervised parallel redundancy -- 6. Self-supervised redundant camera device -- 7. Conclusions and future work -- 8. Abbreviations -- Appendices -- Bibliography.A self-supervised redundancy system has been developed for open-source microcontrollers, to tolerate hardware faults, and to recover from software faults. This device is intended to enable reliable deployment in rural and difficult access situations. An exclusion lock is used to prevent additional microcontrollers from simultaneously controlling the system. Watchdog timers provide resetting capability, to enable error recovery. The implementation of this system into a camera monitoring device was not completed, because of clashes in the intialisation of the modules.Mode of access: World wide web.1 online resource (xvii, 181 pages colour illustrations
Fusion bonding
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 47-49.1. Introduction -- 2. Background & theory -- 3. Methodology -- 4. Results -- Bibliography.In nanofluidic applications and MEMS applications two pieces of glass substrate often need to be bonded together permanently. in these cases, it can be difficult or cumbersome to use adhesives. Fusion bonding represents an alternative which can bond pieces of glass substrate to each other permanently without the hassle of adhesives or extra materials. In order to bond the glass substrates, it is necessary to clean them to remove any contamination. There are different ways of going about this, and this project aims to investigate these different cleaning procedures in order to determine the optimal one.Mode of access: World wide web.1 online resource (xv, 49 pages colour illustrations
Statistical relational artificial intelligence for event recognition
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 111-114.1. Introduction -- 2. Background and related work -- 3. Requirements -- 4. System architecture -- 5. User interface -- 6. Dialogue interpreter and query constructor -- 7. Scenarion -- 8. The event calculus as a probabilitsic logic program -- 9. Experimentation and results -- 10. Conclusions and future work --11. Abbreviations -- Appendices -- Bibliography.Event recognition is one of the main areas of artificial intelligence research at present. It has many real world applications and syste4ms for event recognition are built around action logic and the forms of calculus that make up this logic. These systems are then implemented, commonly with logic or functional programming, with the exact syntax decide by the chosen calculus. Recent developments show a trend towards video recognition and improvement in this area. A successful implementation would be a combination of the event calculus and pobabilistic logic programming. We attempt to imlement a system that uses the event calculus and pobabilistic logic programming to learn the intangible rules that govern what effect events in the environment have on the environment and the agents residing in it. The objective of this project is to answer the question of how we can combine logic with probabilities, allowing us to learn the parameters and the structure of domain-dependent axioms in the event calculus.Mode of access: World wide web.1 online resource (xv, 114 pages diagrams, tables
Power efficient clean water generation from air
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 73-74.1. Introduction -- 2. Background and literature review -- 3. Methodology -- 4. Results -- 5. Discussion -- 6. Conclusion -- 7. Limitations and future work -- 8. Abbreviations -- Appendices -- Bibliography.Clean water is a vital building block for life, but what do you do if you live in an area where clean water is hard to come by? Promising efforts from all over the world have begun to create devices which produce water straight from the air around them in what are known as atmospheric water generators. These devices rely on the relative humidity in the atmosphere around a certain area to convert air into usable, drinkable water. This is discussed in further detail in the report. Several design considerations led to a thermoelectric module driven system which would utilise the Peltier effect and forced induction to force air across a cooled heat sink which induces condensation of the air, thus allowing water to be collected. Results concluded that environmental conditions such as humidity level and air flow, as well as power requirements, are important factors in water generation. Limitations arise based on the humidity in the air and access to an efficient power source. This thesis paper provides a design and prototype for a portable device capable of atmospheric water generation.Mode of access: World wide web.1 online resource (xv, 74 pages colour illustrations, colour maps