7,298 research outputs found
Active control of resiliently-mounted beams with a moment pair actuator
No full textVarious strategies are considered for the active control of a flexible beam, mounted on springs at either end. As the spring stiffness is decreased from an infinite value to zero, the boundary conditions of the beam change from being simply supported to being free–free, and a rich variety of behaviour is observed. Feedforward control of either the beam's kinetic energy or radiated sound power using a moment pair actuator is considered first. It is found that for small spring stiffness minimization of radiated sound power leads to significant increases in overall beam vibration.The stability and performance of feedback controllers is then considered. It is found that using a moment pair actuator and a velocity sensor the feedback controller is only conditionally stable, particularly when the actuator and the sensor are close to the ends of the beam and the supporting stiffness is small. The reductions in sound and vibration are small under these conditions
The transfer of property rights from the public to the private sector in Hong Kong: A critical assessment
No full textThe privatization idea may have lost some of its luster in recent years, but it remains relevant in today’s socio-economic environment and is pursued consistently in industrialized and industrializing countries alike. Hong Kong has followed the general pattern in a manner reflecting its particular circumstances and its institutional modus operandi. The underlying logic may not appear highly compelling, from a short-term perspective, yet there are sound grounds for approaching the task positively, if viewed from a multi-year standpoint. Rather surprisingly, for such a quintessentially capitalist society, Hong Kong has not confronted the privatization challenge astutely on the political front and has handled it somewhat mechanically in managerial terms. The benefits to the community may have thus been more modest than one could legitimately expect, given the historical backdrop
Aquatic flower-inspired cell culture platform with simplified medium exchange process for facilitating cell-surface interaction studies
No full textThe political economy of loose regulation: Modernity meets tradition in Hong Kong
No full textHong Kong is a fascinating social laboratory where one can observe the interplay between powerful forces of modernization and deeply-entrenched pre-industrial consumption patterns. For decades, the former had not encroached on the autonomy of grassroots-style forms of health care, but the enactment of the Chinese Medicine Ordinance in 1999 has brought the latter under the grip of the state, albeit in the weak sense of the term. This particular episode may offer insights into the dynamics of the two-way adjustment that takes place when the divergent paths of the mainstream and traditional sectors inevitably cross, prompting regulatory and developmental responses
Walter E. Oberer Retirement Luncheon
No full textDean Oberer was emeritus of law and former dean of the S.J. Quinney College of Law. He received the Burlington Resources Foundation Faculty Achievement Award in 1991 and was particularly noted for his scholarship in labor law and was co-author of a book, "Cases and Materials on Labor Law: Collective Bargaining in a Free Society.
Metabolic flux profiling and clustering: new strategies for identification of microbial metabolic characteristics
No full textNational education in a democratizing society: An ethnographic study of education for citizenship in a Hong Kong school
No full textAfter its sovereignty transfer to China in 1997, Hong Kong has seen added new national components to its currently practiced school civic education curriculum which promotes basically a local democracy. The study is thus to examine what national curriculum is implemented in schools in building the 'one country, two systems' China locally. This is a case study, consisting of ethnographic participant observations for a period of 14 months in a secondary school, of ethnographic interviews with 9 secondary 6 and 5 student informants, of eight class observations ranging from secondary 1 to 7, and of documentary research about the school's civic education programme, which is focused on the exploration and explanation of how students learn, from their viewpoint, the different facets and levels of a national citizenship being developed in the school. Different from what it has in the mainland China, it is found that the national identity students have learnt is territorialized in the sense that it is a composite identity of nationalism and democracy, with a two-tier loyalty towards Hong Kong and China, a democratic Hong Kong and de-politicized ethno-cultural China. Also, the making of the national identity is more an interactive process of consensus and of cultural decisions among various participants like the government, teachers, parents, students and past students, media and outside bodies rather than a national imprinting. It demonstrates characteristics very like Smith' ร plural model of nation building at its macro-process level and at its micro-process level Anderson's national theory of imagination with a modification. The study hints that the school's national programme turns out to be citizenship education for divergence rather than for convergence as it is initially planned. While the school enlarges the commonality of the ethno-cultural base for national identification, it at the same time widens the political differences of the two sides of the border through its deliberate neglect and avoidance of teaching of mainland politics and its focus on local politics. Despite the fact that the national civic education is the school-based programme and the study is context-specific, there are points and possible lines of development found in the case school, the author believes, more commonly shared than distinct in other local schools which imagine in more or less the same way that they face similar - situations in conducting-the- civic education programme in the HKSAR in the early post-handover years
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B-spline neural networks based PID controller for Hammerstein systems
No full textA new PID tuning and controller approach is introduced for Hammerstein systems based on input/output data. A B-spline neural network is used to model the nonlinear static function in the Hammerstein system. The control signal is composed of a PID controller together with a correction term. In order to update the control signal, the multi-step ahead predictions of the Hammerstein system based on the B-spline neural networks and the associated Jacobians matrix are calculated using the De Boor algorithms including both the functional and derivative recursions. A numerical example is utilized to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approaches
Leadership styles, school effective, needs of 'mien' (face) behaviour: the interactions in Hong Kong private schools
No full textNational cultures vary and the variations challenge the conventional wisdom of the Western management theory and practice in other cultural contexts. Specifically, the national characteristic of 'face(mien) behaviour' is immensely important at all levels in Chinese interpersonal communications. The notion of 'mien' permeates every aspect of interpersonal relationships in Chinese culture because of the culture’s overarching concern with relationships. This study examines the nature of 'mien' behaviour, explores how 'mien' functions in the Hong Kong educational context, and how leadership styles of secondary school principals interact with 'mien' as perceived by their teaching staff and how, eventually, these interactions influence the effectiveness of the schools. Whenever Chinese behaviour is discussed, the social philosophy of Confucianism is relevant. The Confucian ethical system regulating social behaviour has three principle ideas: ren(), yi() and li(); benevolence, righteousness or justice, and propriety or courtesy. This study also examines how these three principles nurture 'mien' and considers whether any alternate style of leadership in Hong Kong context can be formulated
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