Filling knowledge gaps:knowledge sharing across inter-firm boundaries and occupational communities

This paper explores the micro-level processes of interaction across organisational boundaries and occupational communities. Based on a retrospective processual analysis, this study shows that in filling knowledge gaps, organisations put in place a series of knowledge mechanisms, which lead them to socially interact with their alliance partners. Both the deployment of existing knowledge and the creation of new knowledge are based on processes of interaction, which derive from the interplay between alliance actors. It is suggested that through both social interaction and the use of boundary objects, individuals are able to communicate, engage in problem-solving activities and share their ideas to fill knowledge gaps.

Place-based economic development strategy in England:filling the missing space

This paper examines the implications of a place-based economic strategy in the context of the UK Coalition government's framework for achieving local growth and the creation of Local Economic Partnerships in England. It draws on the international literature to outline the basic foundations of place-based policy approaches. It explores two key features, particularly as they relate to governance institutions and to the role of knowledge. After examining key concepts in the place-based policy literature, such as 'communities of interest' and 'capital city' and 'local elites', it shows how they might be interpreted in an English policy context. The paper then discusses a place-based approach towards an understanding of the role of knowledge, linked to debates around 'smart specialisation'. In doing so, it shows why there is an important 'missing space' in local growth between the 'national' and the 'local' and how that space might be filled through appropriate governance institutions and policy responses. Overall, the paper outlines what a place-based approach might mean in particular for Central Government, in changing its approach towards sub-national places and for local places, in seeking to realise their own potential. Furthermore, it outlines what the 'missing space' is and how it might be filled, and therefore what a place-based sub-national economic strategy might address. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

New SR drive with integrated charging capacity for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) provide much promise in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, thus, are a focal point of research and development. Existing on-board charging capacity is effective but requires the use of several power conversion devices and power converters, which reduce reliability and cost efficiency. This paper presents a novel three-phase switched reluctance (SR) motor drive with integrated charging functions (including internal combustion engine and grid charging). The electrical energy flow within the drivetrain is controlled by a power electronic converter with less power switching devices and magnetic devices. It allows the desired energy conversion between the engine generator, the battery, and the SR motor under different operation modes. Battery-charging techniques are developed to operate under both motor-driving mode and standstill-charging mode. During the magnetization mode, the machine's phase windings are energized by the dc-link voltage. The power converter and the machine phase windings are controlled with a three-phase relay to enable the use of the ac-dc rectifier. The power converter can work as a buck-boost-type or a buck-type dc-dc converter for charging the battery. Simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink and experiments on a 3-kW SR motor validate the effectiveness of the proposed technologies, which may have significant economic implications and improve the PHEVs' market acceptance.

New integrated multilevel converter for switched reluctance motor drives in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with flexible energy conversion

This paper presents an integrated multilevel converter of switched reluctance motors (SRMs) fed by a modular front-end circuit for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) applications. Several operating modes can be achieved by changing the on-off states of the switches in the front-end circuit. In generator driving mode, the battery bank is employed to elevate the phase voltage for fast excitation and demagnetization. In battery driving mode, the converter is reconfigured as a four-level converter, and the capacitor is used as an additional charge capacitor to produce multilevel voltage outputs, which enhances the torque capability. The operating modes of the proposed drive are explained and the phase current and voltage are analyzed in details. The battery charging is naturally achieved by the demagnetization current in motoring mode and by the regenerative current in braking mode. Moreover, the battery can be charged by the external AC source or generator through the proposed converter when the vehicle is in standstill condition. The SRM-based PHEV can operate at different speeds by coordinating the power flow between the generator and battery. Simulation in MATLAB/Simulink and experiments on a three-phase 12/8 SRM confirm the effectiveness of the proposed converter topology.

Bryan Delius (MS student, left) takes a small muscle plug from a bull shark with the help of Derek Burkholder (PhD student, right), Shark River

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Cooperative Agreements #DBI-0620409 and #DEB-9910514. This image is made available for non-commercial or educational use only.

Hybrid Power System Intelligent Operation and Protection Involving Plug-in Electric Vehicles

Two key solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and increase the overall energy efficiency are to maximize the utilization of renewable energy resources (RERs) to generate energy for load consumption and to shift to low or zero emission plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) for transportation. The present U.S. aging and overburdened power grid infrastructure is under a tremendous pressure to handle the issues involved in penetration of RERS and PEVs. The future power grid should be designed with for the effective utilization of distributed RERs and distributed generations to intelligently respond to varying customer demand including PEVs with high level of security, stability and reliability. This dissertation develops and verifies such a hybrid AC-DC power system. The system will operate in a distributed manner incorporating multiple components in both AC and DC styles and work in both grid-connected and islanding modes. The verification was performed on a laboratory-based hybrid AC-DC power system testbed as hardware/software platform. In this system, RERs emulators together with their maximum power point tracking technology and power electronics converters were designed to test different energy harvesting algorithms. The Energy storage devices including lithium-ion batteries and ultra-capacitors were used to optimize the performance of the hybrid power system. A lithium-ion battery smart energy management system with thermal and state of charge self-balancing was proposed to protect the energy storage system. A grid connected DC PEVs parking garage emulator, with five lithium-ion batteries was also designed with the smart charging functions that can emulate the future vehicle-to-grid (V2G), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-house (V2H) services. This includes grid voltage and frequency regulations, spinning reserves, micro grid islanding detection and energy resource support. The results show successful integration of the developed techniques for control and energy management of future hybrid AC-DC power systems with high penetration of RERs and PEVs.