Opening Eyes to Opera: the process of translation for blind and partially-sighted audiences

In today’s rapidly developing digital age and increasingly socially-aware society, the notion of media accessibility is evolving in response to shifting audience expectations. Performing arts and media, such as opera, are called upon to include all audiences, and related audiovisual translation methods are progressing in this direction. These comprise audio description and touch tours for the blind and partially-sighted, two relatively new translation modalities which are consumer-oriented and require an original research design for the analysis of the translation processes involved. This research design follows two fundamental principles: (1) audience reception studies should be an integral part of the investigation into the translation process; and (2) the translation process is regarded as a network. Therefore, this chapter explores the unique translation processes of audio description and touch tours within the context of live opera from the perspective of actor-network theory and by providing an overview of a reception project. Through discussion of the methodology and findings, this chapter addresses the question of the impact of audience reception on the translation process.

DEVELOPING AN INTELLIGENT DIGITAL MOCK UP TO INTEGRATE DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING DISCIPLINES

This paper presents an approach to develop an intelligent digital mock-up (DMU) through integration of design and manufacturing disciplines to enable a better understanding of assembly related issues during design evolution. The intelligent DMU will contain tolerance information related to manufacturing capabilities so it can be used as a source for assembly simulations of realistic models to support the manufacturing decision making process within the design domain related to tolerance build ups. A literature review of the contributing research areas is presented, from which identification of the need for an intelligent DMU has been developed. The proposed methodology including the applications of cellular modelling and potential features of the intelligent DMU are presented and explained. Finally a conclusion examines the work to date and the future work to achieve an intelligent DMU.

Passive Intermodulation of Analog and Digital Signals on Transmission Lines with Distributed Nonlinearities: Modelling and Characterization

Passive intermodulation (PIM) often limits the performance of communication systems with analog and digitally-modulated signals and especially of systems supporting multiple carriers. Since the origins of the apparently multiple physical sources of nonlinearity causing PIM are not fully understood, the behavioral models are frequently used to describe the process of PIM generation. In this paper a polynomial model of memoryless nonlinearity is deduced from PIM measurements of a microstrip line with distributed nonlinearity with two-tone CW signals. The analytical model of nonlinearity is incorporated in Keysight Technology’s ADS simulator to evaluate the metrics of signal fidelity in the receive band for analog and digitally-modulated signals. PIM-induced distortion and cross-band interference with modulated signals are compared to those with two-tone CW signals. It is shown that conventional metrics can be applied to quantify the effect of distributed nonlinearities on signal fidelity. It is found that the two-tone CW test provides a worst-case estimate of cross-band interference for two-carrier modulated signals whereas with a three-carrier signal PIM interference in the receive band is noticeably overestimated. The simulated constellation diagrams for QPSK signals demonstrate that PIM interference exhibits the distinctive signatures of correlated distortion and this indicates that there are opportunities for mitigating PIM interference and that PIM interference cannot be treated as noise. One of the interesting results is that PIM distortion on a transmission line results in asymmetrical regrowth of output PIM interference for modulated signals.

A Novel Methodology to Characterize the Constitutive Behaviour of Polyethylene terephthalate for the Stretch Blow Moulding process

The stretch blow moulding (SBM) process is the main method for the mass production of PET containers. And understanding the constitutive behaviour of PET during this process is critical for designing the optimum product and process. However due to its nonlinear viscoelastic behaviour, the behaviour of PET is highly sensitive to its thermomechanical history making the task of modelling its constitutive behaviour complex. This means that the constitutive model will be useful only if it is known to be valid under the actual conditions of interest to the SBM process. The aim of this work was to develop a new material characterization method providing new data for the deformation behaviour of PET relevant to the SBM process. In order to achieve this goal, a reliable and robust characterization method was developed based on an instrumented stretch rod and a digital image correlation system to determine the stress-strain relationship of material in deforming preforms during free stretch-blow tests. The effect of preform temperature and air mass flow rate on the deformation behaviour of PET was also investigated.

Free-stretch-blow Investigation of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) over a Large Process Window

This paper highlights for the first time a full comprehension of the deformation procedure during the injection stretch blow moulding (ISBM) process of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) containers, namely thin-walled rigid bottles. The processes required to form PET bottles are complicated and extensive; any development in understanding the nature of material deformation can potentially improve the bottle optimisation process. Removing the bottle mould and performing free-stretch-blow (FSB) experiments revealed insight into the bottle forming characteristics at various preform temperatures and blowing rates. Process outputs cavity pressure and stretch-rod force were recorded using at instrumented stretch-rod and preform surface strain mapping was determined using a combination of a unique patterning procedure and high speed stereoscopic digital image correlation. The unprecedented experimental analysis reveals that the deformation behaviour varies considerably with contrasting process input parameters. Investigation into the effect on deformation mode, strain rate and final bottle shape provide a basis for full understanding of the process optimisation and therefore how the process inputs may aid development of the preferred optimised container.