An Analytical Study of Surplus Value using a Value Driven Design Methodology

People are now becoming more environmentally aware and as a consequence of this, industries such as the aviation industry are striving to design more environmentally friendly products. To achieve this, the current design methodologies must be modified to ensure these issues are considered from product conception through to disposal. This paper discusses the environmental problems in relation to the aviation industry and highlights some logic for making the change from the traditional Systems Engineering approach to the recent design paradigm known as Value Driven Design. Preliminary studies have been undertaken to aid in the understanding of this methodology and the existing surplus value objective function. The main results from the work demonstrate that surplus value works well bringing disparate issues such as manufacture and green taxes together to aid decision making. Further, to date studies on surplus value have used simple sensitivity analysis, but deeper consideration shows non-linear interactions between some of the variables and further work will be needed to fully account for complex issues such as environmental impact and taxes.

Rapid changes in the level of Kluane Lake in Yukon Territory over the last millennium

The level of Kluane Lake, the largest lake in Yukon Territory, was lower than at present during most of the Holocene. The lake rose rapidly in the late seventeenth century to a level 12 m above present, drowning forest and stranding driftwood on a conspicuous high-stand beach, remnants of which are preserved at the south end of the lake. Kluane Lake fell back to near its present level by the end of the eighteenth century and has fluctuated within a range of about 3 m over the last 50 yr. The primary control on historic fluctuations in lake level is the discharge of Slims River, the largest source of water to the lake. We use tree ring and radiocarbon ages, stratigraphy and sub-bottom acoustic data to evaluate two explanations for the dramatic changes in the level of Kluane Lake. Our data support the hypothesis of Hugh Bostock, who suggested in 1969 that the maximum Little Ice Age advance of Kaskawulsh Glacier deposited large amounts of sediment in the Slims River valley and established the present course of Slims River into Kluane Lake. Bostock argued that these events caused the lake to rise and eventually overflow to the north. The overflowing waters incised the Duke River fan at the north end of Kluane Lake and lowered the lake to its present level. This study highlights the potentially dramatic impacts of climate change on regional hydrology during the Little Ice Age in glacierised mountains. © 2006 University of Washington.

Interplay of Octahedral Tilts and Polar Order in BiFeO3 Films

Heterointerface stabilization of a distinct nonpolar BiFeO3 phase occurs simultaneously with changes in octahedral tilts. The resulting phase arises via suppression of polarization by a structural order parameter and can thus be identified as anti-ferroelectric (Fe displacements - bottom panel). The phase is metastable and can be switched into a polar ferroelectric state (top panel) under an applied electric bias.

Multi-standard sub-pixel interpolation architecture for video motion estimation

A new domain-specific reconfigurable sub-pixel interpolation architecture for multi-standard video Motion Estimation (ME) is presented. The mixed use of parallel and serial-input FIR filters achieves high throughput rate and efficient silicon utilisation. Flexibility has been achieved by using a multiplexed reconfigurable data-path controlled by a selection signal. Silicon design studies show that this can be implemented using 34.8K gates with area and performance that compares very favourably with existing fixed solutions based solely on the H.264 standard. ©2008 IEEE.

The hydrodynamics of small seabed mounted bottom hinged wave energy converters in shallow water:PhD thesis

This thesis investigates the hydrodynamics of a small, seabed mounted, bottom hinged, wave energy converter in shallow water. The Oscillating Wave Surge Converter is a pitching flap-type device which is located in 10-15m of water to take advantage of the amplification of horizontal water particle motion in shallow water. A conceptual model of the hydrodynamics of the device has been formulated and shows that, as the motion of the flap is highly constrained, the magnitude of the force applied to the flap by the wave is strongly linked to the power absorption.

An extensive set of experiments has been carried out in the wave tank at Queen’s University at both 40th and 20th scales. The experiments have included testing in realistic sea states to estimate device performance as well as fundamental tests using small amplitude monochromatic waves to determine the force applied to the flap by the waves. The results from the physical modelling programme have been used in conjunction with numerical data from WAMIT to validate the conceptual model.

The work finds that tuning the OWSC to the incident wave periods is problematic and only results in a marginal increase in power capture. It is also found that the addition of larger diameter rounds to the edges of the flap reduces viscous losses and has a greater effect on the performance of the device than tuning. As wave force is the primary driver of device performance it is shown that the flap should fill the water column and should pierce the water surface to reduce losses due to wave overtopping.

With the water depth fixed at approximately 10m it is shown that the width of the flap has the greatest impact on the magnitude of wave force, and thus device performance. An 18m wide flap is shown to have twice the absorption efficiency of a 6m wide flap and captures 6 times the power. However, the increase in power capture with device width is not limitless and a 24m wide flap is found to be affected by two-dimensional hydrodynamics which reduces its performance per unit width, especially in sea states with short periods. It is also shown that as the width increases the performance gains associated with the addition of the end effectors reduces. Furthermore, it is shown that as the flap width increases the natural pitching period of the flap increases, thus detuning the flap further from the wave periods of interest for wave energy conversion.

The effect of waves approaching the flap from an oblique angle is also investigated and the power capture is found to decrease with the cosine squared of the encounter angle. The characteristic of the damping applied by the power take off system is found to have a significant effect on the power capture of the device, with constant damping producing between 20% and 30% less power than quadratic damping. Furthermore, it is found that applying a higher level of damping, or a damping bias, to the flap as it pitches towards the beach increases the power capture by 10%.

A further set of experiments has been undertaken in a case study used to predict the power capture of a prototype of the OWSC concept. The device, called the Oyster Demonstrator, has been developed by Aquamarine Power Ltd. and is to be installed at the European Marine Energy Centre, Scotland, in 2009.

The work concludes that OWSC is a viable wave energy converter and absorption efficiencies of up 75% have been measured. It is found that to maximise power absorption the flap should be approximately 20m wide with large diameter rounded edges, having its pivot close to the seabed and its top edge piercing the water surface.

Shadowed fading in body–to–body communications channels in an outdoor environment at 2.45 GHz

In this paper a number of outdoor body-to-body communications channels at 2.45 GHz which are deemed to be susceptible to shadowed fading are analyzed. The newlyproposed shadowed K-Il model is used to characterize thesechannels. Its probability density function is shown to provide an improved fit to the distribution of the signal fading compared to established models such as lognormal, Nakagamiand Rice.

Enhancing Linear Programming with Motion Modeling for Multi-target Tracking

In this paper we extend the minimum-cost network flow approach to multi-target tracking, by incorporating a motion model, allowing the tracker to better cope with longterm occlusions and missed detections. In our new method, the tracking problem is solved iteratively: Firstly, an initial tracking solution is found without the help of motion information. Given this initial set of tracklets, the motion at each detection is estimated, and used to refine the tracking solution.
Finally, special edges are added to the tracking graph, allowing a further revised tracking solution to be found, where distant tracklets may be linked based on motion similarity. Our system has been tested on the PETS S2.L1 and Oxford town-center sequences, outperforming the baseline system, and achieving results comparable with the current state of the art.

Ballykinler-Ballykinlar

Ballykinler / Ballykinlar, on the Co. Down coastline with the Mourne Mountains as a backdrop is a village of 250 inhabitants, beside a British army base with 1500 inhabitants. It is a complex situation with a troubled and contested history, reflected by the two different spellings on the village road signs. The village is viewed as having low levels of community capacity and longstanding sectarian problems.
PS2 has been working with the artist, Anne Marie Dillon and the local community of Ballykinler / Ballykinlar since April 2009, facilitating and curating a range of ‘live’ projects that address the lack of shared community and cultural space. A series of projects has modestly advanced the village’s ambition- realising alternative cultural centres.

1. Bus Stop (April 2009)
www.pssquared.org/Ballykinler.php
2. Rhyzom Network Workshop (June 2010)
www.pssquared.org/research.php
3. Beach Huts (March 2011)
www.pssquared.org/beachhuts.php
4. Up Down (May 2011) (included village fair)
www.pssquared.org/UP-Down.php villageworks.org.uk/wp/
5. Transfer Tests (March 2012)
www.pssquared.org/streesociety2012.php
6. Links Community Gardens (May 2012)
www.pssquared.org/LinksGardens.php

Hyperbolic Polaritonic Crystals Based on Nanostructured Nanorod Metamaterials

Surface plasmon polaritons usually exist on a few suitable plasmonic materials; however, nanostructured plasmonic metamaterials allow a much broader range of optical properties to be designed. Here, bottom-up and top-down nanostructuring are combined, creating hyperbolic metamaterial-based photonic crystals termed hyperbolic polaritonic crystals, allowing free-space access to the high spatial frequency modes supported by these metamaterials.

Dublin 1916: theatre of revolt

In his essay, Anti-Object, Kengo Kuma proposes that architecture cannot and should not be understood as object alone but instead always as series of networks and connections, relationships within space and through form. Some of these relationships are tangible, others are invisible. Stan Allen and James Corner have also called for an architecture that is more performative and operative – ‘less concerned with what buildings look like and more concerned with what they do’ – as means of effecting a more intimate and promiscuous relationship between infrastructure, urbanism and buildings. According to Allen this expanding filed offers a reclamation of some of the areas ceded by architecture following disciplinary specialization:

‘Territory, communication and speed are properly infrastructural problems and architecture as a discipline has developed specific technical means to deal with these variables. Mapping, projection, calculation, notation and visualization are among architecture’s traditional tools for operating at the very large scale’.

The motorway may not look like it – partly because we are no longer accustomed to think about it as such – but it is a site for and of architecture, a territory where architecture can be critical and active. If the limits of the discipline have narrowed, then one of the functions of a school of architecture must be an attempt occupy those areas of the built environment where architecture is no longer, or has yet to reach. If this is a project about reclamation of a landscape, it is also a challenge to some of the boundaries that surround architecture and often confine it, as Kuma suggests, to the appreciation of isolated objects.

M:NI 2014-15
We tend to think of the motorway as a thing or an object, something that has a singular function. Historically this is how it has been seen, with engineers designing bridges and embankments and suchlike with zeal … These objects like the M3 Urban Motorway, Belfast’s own Westway, are beautiful of course, but they have caused considerable damage to the city they were inflicted upon.

Actually, it’s the fact that we have seen the motorway as a solid object that has caused this problem. The motorway actually is a fluid and dynamic thing, and it should be seen as such: in fact it’s not an organ at all but actually tissue – something that connects rather than is. Once we start to see the motorway as tissue, it opens up new propositions about what the motorway is, is used for and does. This new dynamic and connective view unlocks the stasis of the motorway as edifice, and allows adaptation to happen: adaptation to old contexts that were ignored by the planners, and adaptation to new contexts that have arisen because of or in spite of our best efforts.

Motorways as tissue are more than just infrastructures: they are landscapes. These landscapes can be seen as surfaces on which flows take place, not only of cars, buses and lorries, but also of the globalized goods carried and the lifestyles and mobilities enabled. Here the infinite speed of urban change of thought transcends the declared speed limit [70 mph] of the motorway, in that a consignment of bananas can cause soil erosion in Equador, or the delivery of a new iphone can unlock connections and ideas the world over.

So what is this new landscape to be like? It may be a parallax-shifting, cognitive looking glass; a drone scape of energy transformation; a collective farm, or maybe part of a hospital. But what’s for sure, is that it is never fixed nor static: it pulses like a heartbeat through that most bland of landscapes, the countryside. It transmits forces like a Caribbean hurricane creating surf on an Atlantic Storm Beach: alien forces that mutate and re-form these places screaming into new, unclear and unintended futures.

And this future is clear: the future is urban. In this small rural country, motorways as tissue have made the whole of it: countryside, mountain, sea and town, into one singular, homogenous and hyper-connected, generic city.

Goodbye, place. Hello, surface!