17 research outputs found
Dynamically Scaling Biomimetic Robots Through Parallel Viscoelastic Actuators
No full textRobots provide a unique proving ground for testing scientists’ understanding of neuromuscular systems. Synergistically, mimicking biological control laws and mechanics could offer robotics the robust and adaptive locomotion of animals. Previous work has utilized the wealth of research on insect biomechanics to develop scaled robotic models but doing so presented a problem: while these robots’ larger scale has simplified manufacturing, the scale has also shifted its mechanics from those of the modeled organisms. While animals walk, forces are generated that describe their mechanics and influence motor control. The musculoskeletal structure and stretch of muscles result in viscous and elastic forces, while the raising and motion of limbs result in gravitational and inertial forces. These forces are dependent on the scale and speed of an animal. Larger, faster animals experience greater inertial forces due to their mass. At smaller scales viscoelastic forces dominate. How these forces balance determines the phase between active muscle force and displacement of limbs which has descending repercussions on control. This phase represents an animal’s dynamic scale. To make more accurate biomechanical models and grant legged robots’ animal- like mechanics, I developed a Parallel Viscoelastic Actuator (PVA) using 3D printed torsional springs. The PVA successfully reduced the phase between motor actuation and limb displacement. Through the introduction of a PVA, a robotic limb resembling an inertially dominated animal was able to operate at the same speed with the dynamic scale of an insect. Furthermore, this introduction im- proved responses to perturbations and enabled faster motions to be produced using less active force. PVAs will enable robotic models of insects to be built on a scale of convenience while maintaining the dynamic scale of their biomechanical model. A robot fully equipped with PVAs may offer unprecedented biomechanical accuracy and the ability to integrate biological control strategies, furthering understanding in biol- ogy and performance in robotics
Preparing the environment for the EPPO
No full text The adoption on the 12 October 2017 of the Council Regulation (European Union [EU]) 2017/1939 ‘implementing enhanced cooperation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office‘ (the EPPO) marks a turning point in the development of the EU as an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, by the creation of the first EU investigating and prosecuting authority. However, the structure and functioning of such a new body, together with the limited scope of its competence established by referring to provisions in the Directive (EU) 2017/1371 – the PIF Directive – ‘as implemented by national law‘, make the EPPO as an authority whose legal environment largely builds on the national legal systems. Therefore, the putting in place of the new investigative body is far from fully eradicating in itself the various difficulties of judicial cooperation in criminal matters. Instead, its implementation strongly revives the crucial need to foster mutual legal understanding and mutual trust that the experience showed is not achieved yet among the member states. After shortly presenting the main features of the recently adopted EPPO regulation, the article focuses on the crucial need to reshape training of all legal practitioners involved in criminal investigations (first of all when dealing with PIF offences) as the essential condition for the new European investigating body to function smoothly. The author stresses the need for improving mutual understanding of the different legal systems and above all awareness of the common legal grounds already in place as the primary way to boost the necessary mutual trust among practitioners and establish the first embryo of a genuine European legal culture. The article then analyses the main features of a proposal for a training curriculum based on an ius commune perspective recently drafted in the framework of the EUPenTRAIN project run by the Centro di Diritto Penale Europeo of Catania and co-financed by Olaf. </jats:p
The social weaving of a reading atmosphere
No full textThis paper discusses how public library readers in Almeida Garrett, Porto, create a reading atmosphere, focusing on meanings associated with aural conditions. Through a qualitative, single case study, ethnographic and interview techniques were applied.
Readers’ actual practices and discourses, through a theoretical sample, and those of managers, staff and architects were analysed; a spatial analysis was conducted within the framework of social inequalities and power relations. The paper proposes the concept of reading atmosphere and suggests that its social production is based on a tacit, informal code of conduct in which some regular readers played an influential role. Some recommendations on service provision are made
An English Version of Oehlenschlaeger\u27s \u3ci\u3eHakon Jarl\u3c/i\u3e
No full textThe tragedy Hakon Jarl the Mighty was completed toward the latter part of the year 1805 at Halle, Germany. The author, Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlaeger, wrote the work in Danish and later on translated it into German. It was first published in November, 1807, in Nordiske Digte, and was presented for the first time at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, January 30, 1808. Before this, Oehlenschlaeger had used the same materials in his poem, The Death of Hakon Jarl, which appeared in 1802 .. These materials were taken from the fragments of old Icelandic court poetry as given in the Elder Edda. In many cases Oehlenschlaeger departs from the historical facts, and he does not always present the incidents in their, true chronological order. The two principal characters, which alone will be considered here, are Hakon Jarl and Olaf Trygveson. The date of Hakon\u27s birth is uncertain. When we find him in history he is the most famous of an already famous family, whose genealogy and notable deeds are celebrated by Eywind, the poet, in Haleyia-tal. His grandfather, Hakon I, foster-son of King Athelstan of England and a close friend and advisor of King Harald Fairhair, was Earl of Yriar. His father\u27s name was Sigurd. Both were great men in their day as law-makers and famous for their power of organization. The present translation is made from the text of F. L. Liebenberg, Copenhagen, 1895. So far as ascertained no complete translation of Hakon Jarl is extant. Mention should be made of a certain Mr. Gillies .. probably Robert Percy Gillies of literary fame, who is spoken of in an unsigned article on Hakon Jarl in Blackwood\u27s Magazine .. 1820, vol. 7, p. 73, as having made—presumably from the German version—a translation of the play. Sampson Low\u27s English Catalogue of Books (1835-1863) mentions a translation published by Hookam in 1840, but the translator is not named. Whether either of these translations was complete can not, from present means be ascertained. For the chief sources, from which the author constructed five characters in the play, consult Vigfusson and Powell\u27s Corpus Poeticum Boreale. which has been used, in definite citation, in references above made. The present translation is made from the text of F. L. Liebenberg, Copenhagen, 1895
Do Gaming Simulations Substantiate That We Know More Than We Can Tell?
No full textBackground. Revealing tacit knowledge often is seen as very valuable for organizations, although it is usually challenging to enunciate and share this type of knowledge. Methods. This study uses a participatory design and the application of a board gaming simulation as instruments to extract tacit knowledge. To illustrate this application, the gaming simulation is played with entrepreneurs from horticulture. Horticulture represents a complex social system where tacit knowledge plays a major role in the trade process. A participatory design process is used to explore whether the design and play of gaming simulations enable participants to explicate their tacit knowledge. Participants’ participation in designing the gaming simulation explicated that reconstructing reality was a prerequisite for their commitment. Results. The results from playing simulation sessions show that participants were able to: (1) narrow down the anecdotic behaviour to a few factors; (2) to structure these factors; (3) explore how these factors relate to trade barriers and (4) to explain which tactics are applied to foster trade. Conclusion. The educational value of this study is that it helped entrepreneurs in understanding complex real-life situations.System EngineeringPolicy Analysi
Making Sense of the Census: Classifying and Counting Ethnicity in Oceania, 1965-2011
No full textAs the flagship government effort to count and classify its population, censuses are a key site for rendering and making visible group boundaries. Despite claims to objective rationality, however, census taking is a political and inherently subjective exercise. Censuses help shape the very categories they claim to capture: censuses do more than reflect social reality, they also participate in the social construction of this reality (Kertzer and Arel, 2002b, p. 2). While ethnicity – as a social construct – is imagined, its effects are far from imaginary, and census categorisations may have significant material consequences for the lives of citizens.
Although an increasing number of studies have examined how and why governments in particular times or places count their populations by ethnicity, studies that are both cross-national and longitudinal are rare. Attempting to in part bridge this gap, this thesis studies census questionnaires from 1965 to 2011 for 24 countries in Oceania. In doing so, it explores three general questions: 1) how ethnicity is conceptualised and categorised in Oceanic censuses over time; 2) the relationship between ethnic counting in territories to that of their metropoles; and 3) Oceanic approaches towards multiple ethnic identities. Spread over an area of thirty million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean, Oceania provides an interesting context to study ethnic counting. The countries and territories which make up the region present an enormous diversity in physical geography and culture, languages and social organization, size and resource endowment. As the last region in the world to decolonise, Oceania includes a mix of dependencies and sovereign states.
The study finds that engagement with ethnic classification and counting is near-ubiquitous across the time period, with most countries having done so in all five cross-sectional census rounds. In general terms, in ethnic census questions ‘racial’ terminology of race and ancestry has been displaced over the focal period by ‘ethnic’ terminology of ethnicity and ethnic origin. Overall, the concept of ethnic origins predominates, although interestingly it is paired with race in the US territories, reflecting the ongoing social and political salience of race in the metropole. With respect to ethnic categories provided on census forms (and thus imbued with the legitimacy of explicit state recognition) the study finds a shift away from the imagined and flawed Melanesian/Micronesian/ Polynesian racial typology and other colonial impositions to more localised and self-identified Pacific identities. It is theorised that these shifts are emblematic of broader global changes in the impetuses for ethnic counting, from colonially-influenced ‘top down’ counting serving exclusionary ends to more inclusive, ‘bottom up’ approaches motivated by concerns for minority rights and inclusive policy-making
Exports and Firm Characteristics in German Manufacturing Industries
No full textReliable information on the characteristics of exporting and non-exporting firms is important to guide theorists and policy makers in an evidence based way. This holds true especially for Germany, a leading actor on the world markets for goods and services. This paper makes three contributions towards this aim: (1) It provides a synopsis and a critical assessment of 51 empirical studies on exports and firm characteristics that use data for German establishments or enterprises, arguing that this literature is not suited to extract the stylized facts needed. (2) It uses recently released rich high quality data for a large representative panel of enterprises from German manufacturing industries to investigate the links between firm characteristics and export activities, demonstrating the decisive role of human capital intensity for exporting. (3) It links these findings to the recent literature from the new new trade theory on international activities of heterogeneous firms that emphasises the role of productivity for exporting. It shows that productivity is important for exporting as is hypothesized in the formal theoretical models, but that contrary to the assumption made in these models productivity is not (only) the result from a random draw from the productivity distribution – it is strongly positively related to human capital intensity.exports, firm characteristics, Germany
Juvenile homicide : a criminological study on the possible causes of juvenile homicidal delinquency in Jamaica
No full textJamaica, the so-called land of wood and water, normally is the embodiment of a dream holiday destination with white sandy beaches, tropical palm trees, dazzling sunshine and the typical Caribbean flair. Generally, murder and manslaughter are not associated with Jamaica. However, international comparisons of crime rates reveal that Jamaica has persistently had one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Jamaica has been described as the murder capital of the world in 2006 by the BBC news after more than 1’600 people were killed in the year 2005; a tally of at least five people murdered a day. The majority of the homicides are caused by young men. Despite the dimension and severity of the homicidal problem in Jamaica, it is astonishing that literature on this phenomenon in Jamaica is very sparse and the literature that is available either doesn’t conform to the current homicide situation in Jamaica anymore or is inconsistent with other studies. The aim of the present research study was thus to close this gap and to help the process of comprehending the problem of fatal juvenile delinquency by engaging empirical research in serious efforts to describe and explain the epidemic. According to the author, understanding juvenile homicidal delinquents and their actions and thus ascertaining a plausible explanation for their high homicide rate can only be achieved by going back to those whose acts are to be explained: The juvenile homicidal delinquents themselves. The findings of the present study are therefore based upon the data gathered by means of 20 face-to-face, semi-standardised interviews with young men who have committed at least one homicide during the last five years prior to the interview and were aged between 12 and 25 years at the time of the respective homicide(s). The author acts on the assumption that homicides by juveniles can be understood as a reaction that emerges situationally and is based on a complex bundle of causes which leads to an increased susceptibility to homicides. The aim of the present study was to generate a plausible and scientifically substantiated hypothesis to explain the high proportion of male juveniles responsible for the homicide rate in Jamaica. Three groupings were examined: The individual personality characteristics of the homicide delinquents, the social context influencing the individual’s thoughts and actions and the triggering factors in the homicide context.
The study comes to the conclusion that the homicides of the respondents of the present study – additionally to the basic prerequisites of the occurrence of homicides in general such as a life in deprivation and the failure of the institutions of socialisation to sufficiently socialise their members – can be explained in high gear by the widely dispread culture of violence. Within this culture, violence constitutes a part of every-day behaviour and killing is perceived as a legitimate form of dispute resolution to which one has adapted because it utterly works. This is an instrumental understanding of violent behaviour. This apparent culture of violence of the underclass society with the deeply embedded willingness to apply violence to solve even seemingly minor disputes is intensified by a high gun prevalence and easy firearm accessibility as well as the wide distribution of and attachment to gangs. Firearms as well as delinquent gangs are two powerful factors that accord power, a feeling of strength and superiority to the individual. Status, power and respect rank high within the impecunious underclass society in Jamaica. Violence is perceived as a necessary instrument to sustain the own identity, status and respect. Thus, the fight for respect in the street culture of Jamaica’s urban inner-city youth depicts an act in self-defence for the parties involved. And such an act in self-defence legitimises to kill
The Russian advance in Central Asia and the British response 1834 - 1884.
No full textSIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DX192790 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
Iowa History and Culture : A Bibliography of Materials Published Between 1952 and 1986, 1989
No full textThis bibliography was compiled by two reference librarians, Patricia Dawson and David Hudson with the goal of making it easier of tracking down material on Iowa history and culture. This supplements the Iowa History Reference Guide published in 1952 by William Petersen
