Integrating control and electronics

Previously the author described how control engineering can be introduced using little mathematics in a first year course, the aim being to make the subject accessible across different degrees. One reaction to this was that it was a good idea, but there was not space to include it in the curriculum where, typically control engineering is not introduced until the second year. This paper describes how the author has used a review of the first year teaching to develop a module in which feedback, control and electronics are integrated coherently. This is beneficial as concepts in control and electronics mutually reinforce each other. This has been achieved during a reduction in the available time for teaching the material. This paper describes the strategy used to successfully develop the module, the integrated module and positive student reaction.

Making electronics more accessible to people with learning disabilities

We extended 'littleBits' electronic components by attaching them to a larger base that was designed to help make them easier to pick up and handle, and easier to assemble into circuits for people with learning disabilities. A pilot study with a group of students with learning disabilities was very positive. There were fewer difficulties in assembling the components into circuits, and problems such as attempting to connect them the wrong way round or the wrong way up were eliminated completely.

Evaluation of the trade development strategies of UKTI Sectors Group: Stage 2

An evaluation of the activities of UK Trade & Investment's Sectors Group. It assessed the contribution of trade development activities to high-level objectives such as productivity growth and critically examined the rationale for interventions.

The olive oil and cotton lint sectors in the European Union

This paper examines and analyses the impacts of the reformed CAP as well as the decisions of the new round of negotiations for the olive oil and cotton sectors in the European Union. The aim of this study is to estimate changes in supply (agricultural supply plus intermediate demand and final production), demand (consumption), price and stock formation (import, export, beginning and ending stocks, national price formation) for both the olive oil and cotton sectors. The model designed for this purpose is partial equilibrium and policy oriented. The objectives of this model are to estimate changes in the production and consumption of the two products concerned, to determine how the reformed CAP and the new round of negotiations of the WTO affect these two sectors to analyse the evolution of export and import volumes, and finally to determine how this evolution will influence the welfare situation of the olive and cotton sectors.

Facts, scope, style: a guide to writing papers for IEEE transactions on consumer electronics

In a previous article, I wrote a brief piece on how to enhance papers that have been published at one of the IEEE Consumer Electronics (CE) Society conferences to create papers that can be considered for publishing in IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics (T-CE) [1]. Basically, it included some hints and tips to enhance a conference paper into what is required for a full archival journal paper and not fall foul of self-plagiarism. This article focuses on writing original papers specifically for T-CE. After three years as the journal’s editor-in-chief (EiC), a previous eight years on the editorial board, and having reviewed some 4,000 T-CE papers, I decided to write this article to archive and detail for prospective authors what I have learned over this time. Of course, there are numerous articles on writing good papers—some are really useful [2], but they do not address the specific issues of writing for a journal whose topic (scope) is not widely understood or, indeed, is often misunderstood.

littleBits go LARGE: making electronics more accessible to people with learning disabilities

The “littleBits go LARGE" project extends littleBits electronic modules, an existing product that is aimed at simplifying electronics for a wide range of audiences. In this project we augment the littleBits modules to make them more accessible to people with learning disabilities. We will demonstrate how we have made the modules easier to handle and manipulate physically, and how we are augmenting the design of the modules to make their functions more obvious and understandable.

Choosing international linkage strategies in the electronics industry: the role of multinational experience

This paper examines how different aspects of multinational experience affect the choice of international linkage strategy. Integrating transaction cost and dynamic efficiency considerations, we empirically test the determinants of the choice between acquisitions, joint ventures (JV), and strategic alliances (SA) for the world’s largest electronics corporations in 1993–1997. We show that “country specific experience” increases the probability of commitment intensive linkage modes (such as acquisitions and joint ventures), while a positive effect on strategic alliances is caused by “variety experience”, deriving from the heterogeneity of international contexts, and by “internationalisation experience” reflecting overall involvement in international markets.

The imprint of the interaction between dark sectors in galaxy clusters

Based on perturbation theory, we study the dynamics of how dark matter and dark energy in the collapsing system approach dynamical equilibrium when they are in interaction. We find that the interaction between dark sectors cannot ensure the dark energy to fully cluster along with dark matter. When dark energy does not trace dark matter, we present a new treatment on studying the structure formation in the spherical collapsing system. Furthermore we examine the cluster number counts dependence on the interaction between dark sectors and analyze how dark energy inhomogeneities affect cluster abundances. It is shown that cluster number counts can provide specific signature of dark sectors interaction and dark energy inhomogeneities.

A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE ENERGY TRANSFER BETWEEN THE DARK SECTORS OF THE UNIVERSE

We study the mutual interaction between the dark sectors (dark matter and dark energy) of the Universe by resorting to the extended thermodynamics of irreversible processes and constrain the former with supernova type Ia data. As a by-product, the present dark matter temperature results are not extremely small and can meet the independent estimate of the temperature of the gas of sterile neutrinos.

Stability of the curvature perturbation in dark sectors` mutual interacting models

We consider perturbations in a cosmological model with a small coupling between dark energy and dark matter. We prove that the stability of the curvature perturbation depends on the type of coupling between dark sectors. When the dark energy is of quintessence type, if the coupling is proportional to the dark matter energy density, it will drive the instability in the curvature perturbations: however if the coupling is proportional to the energy density of dark energy, there is room for the stability in the curvature perturbations. When the dark energy is of phantom type, the perturbations are always stable, no matter whether the coupling is proportional to the one or the other energy density. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Electronics Students

A class room full of electronics students are depicted hard at work. Note the rows of light bulbs in the ceiling. Black and white photograph.

Gestão verde de tecnologia da informação e comunicação: fatores que influenciam a sua adoção em grandes empresas usuárias no Brasil

A crescente utilização de recursos de informática e comunicação nas empresas, visando modernização, agilidade, redução de custos e outros, tem trazido diversos benefícios, mas tem também se tornado um enorme problema para o planeta. A quantidade de lixo eletrônico (e-waste) gerada pelos equipamentos de informática e comunicação tem dobrado a cada cinco anos, se tornando um dos principais focos de atenção nos últimos anos. O volume de lixo eletrônico gerado pelo descarte de equipamentos de informática e comunicação (TIC), já ultrapassa a marca de 50 milhões de toneladas por ano, o que equivale a oito vezes a produção total de resíduos da cidade de São Paulo. O mercado brasileiro total de eletrônicos é considerado o quinto do mundo, depois da China, Estados Unidos, Japão e Rússia. A produção total de lixo eletrônico no Brasil em 2011 foi de um milhão de toneladas e a parte referente a equipamentos de TIC foi estimada em 98 mil toneladas. Frente a este contexto este estudo visa contribuir para a expansão do conhecimento na gestão verde da cadeia de suprimentos (GSCM) aplicado à realidade empresarial brasileira de TIC. Especificamente pretende-se identificar quais fatores influenciam o processo de adoção e aplicação da gestão verde de TIC, em grandes empresas usuárias de TIC no Brasil, a partir dos modelos propostos por Molla (2008) e Molla e Coopers (2008). Desta forma buscou-se responder ao seguinte problema de pesquisa: quais fatores influenciam grandes empresas usuárias de tecnologia da informação e comunicação (TIC) no Brasil na adoção de conceitos de gestão de verde? Para isto, foi realizado estudo de caso em seis grandes empresas, todas lideres em seus setores, representando grandes áreas de serviços e manufatura. Como resultado final, foi proposto um novo modelo analítico, que pareceu mais adequado ao setor de serviços. O estudo também identificou que na gestão verde de TIC empresas manufatureiras tem prioridades diferentes das de serviço. Muitas vezes seus desafios operacionais são mais críticos em relação à sustentabilidade, que a gestão verde de TIC em si. Por outro lado, o estudo dos serviços prestados pelo setor público apesar dos grandes orçamentos anuais, apontou restrições quanto aos aspectos legais e deficiência de qualificação e capacitação de seus colaboradores como fatores limitantes para a implantação de programas de gestão verde mais abrangentes.

A restatement of the welafare costs of inflation. The wast of scarce resources in the manufacturing , banking and household sectors

Lucas (2000) estimates that the US welfare costs of inflation are around 1% of GDP. This measurement is consistent with a speci…c distorting channel in terms of the Bailey triangle under the demand for monetary base schedule (outside money): the displacement of resources from the production of consumption goods to the household transaction time à la Baumol. Here, we consider also several new types of distortions in the manufacturing and banking industries. Our new evidences show that both banks and firms demand special occupational employments to avoid the inflation tax. We de…ne the concept of ”the foat labor”: The occupational employments that are aflected by the in‡ation rates. More administrative workers are hired relatively to the bluecollar workers for producing consumption goods. This new phenomenon makes the manufacturing industry more roundabout. To take into account this new stylized fact and others, we redo at same time both ”The model 5: A Banking Sector -2” formulated by Lucas (1993) and ”The Competitive Banking System” proposed by Yoshino (1993). This modelling allows us to characterize better the new types of misallocations. We …nd that the maximum value of the resources wasted by the US economy happened in the years 1980-81, after the 2nd oil shock. In these years, we estimate the excess resources that are allocated for every speci…c distorting channel: i) The US commercial banks spent additional resources of around 2% of GDP; ii) For the purpose of the firm foating time were used between 2.4% and 4.1% of GDP); and iii) For the household transaction time were allocated between 3.1% and 4.5 % of GDP. The Bailey triangle under the demand for the monetary base schedule represented around 1% of GDP, which is consistent with Lucas (2000). We estimate that the US total welfare costs of in‡ation were around 10% of GDP in terms of the consumption goods foregone. The big di¤erence between our results and Lucas (2000) are mainly due to the Harberger triangle in the market for loans (inside money) which makes part of the household transaction time, of the …rm ‡oat labor and of the distortion in the banking industry. This triangle arises due to the widening interest rates spread in the presence of a distorting inflation tax and under a fractionally reserve system. The Harberger triangle can represent 80% of the total welfare costs of inflation while the remaining percentage is split almost equally between the Bailey triangle and the resources used for the bank services. Finally, we formulate several theorems in terms of the optimal nonneutral monetary policy so as to compare with the classical monetary theory.

The Brazilian and the french private equity sectors from 2006 to present: a comparative analysis

Private equity, ou o ato de fundos ou investidores de investir em empresas não cotadas em bolsa pública, assumiu uma importância crescente no mundo financeiro nos últimos anos. De fato, enquanto o surgimento de um setor de private equity (PE) tem sido um grande fenômeno em mercados emergentes desde meados dos anos 2000, a crise financeira mundial enfraqueceu private equity no mundo desenvolvido. Assim, esta pesquisa vai se concentrar em dois países com dinâmicas supostamente muito diferentes em relação a este sector: França e Brasil. O objetivo será o de discernir padrões gerais de comportamento em ambos os sectores de PE durante todo o período compreendido 2006-2013, e tentar determinar em que medida eles são comparáveis. Utilizando a literatura como fonte conceitual para o quadro comparativo a ser desenvolvido, será analisado se as condições do mercado e do ambiente institucional evoluíram durante o período estudado na França e no Brasil, se comparar, e se eles impactaram o nível de atividade de private equity - oferta e demanda de fundos - em ambos os países. Para identificar esses padrões, a pesquisa contará com uma análise de dados exploratória qualitativa, com base em um quadro dos determinantes do setor de PE identificados e retirados da literatura acadêmica. Esta pesquisa trazera sua contribuição para o trabalho acadêmico existente sobre private equity, graças à sua natureza comparativa e para a sua conclusão sobre a relevância dos determinantes acima mencionados sobre a atividade de private equity na França e no Brasil.