Performing immobility / protesting immobility: The risks & rewards of public space protest performances

Though there is much interest in mobilities and performing mobilities as a characteristic of modern, urban, social life today, this is not always matched by attention to immobilities, as the flipside of mobility in modern life. In this paper, I investigate public space performances designed to draw attention to precisely this counterpoint to current discourses of mobilities – performances about the socially produced immobilities many people with disabilities find a more fundamental feature of day-to-day life, the fight for mobility, and the freedom found when accommodations for alternative mobilities are made available. Although public policy is increasingly aligned with a social model of disability, which sees disability as socially constructed through systems, institutions and infrastructure deliberately designed to exclude specific bodies – stairs, curbs, queues and so forth – and although governments in the US, UK, and to a lesser degree Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth nations aim to address these inequalities, the experience of immobility is still every-present for many people. This often comes not just from pain, or from impairment, or event from lack of accommodations for alternative mobilities, but from fellow social performers’ antipathy to, appropriation of, or destruction of accommodations designed to facilitate access for a range of different bodies in public space, and thus the public sphere. The archetypal instance of this tension between the mobile, and those needing accommodations to allow mobility, is, of course, the antipathy many able bodied people feel towards the provision of disabled parking spaces. A cursory search online shows thousands of accounts of antagonism, vitriol, and even violence prompted by disputes which began when a disabled person asked an able person to exit a designated disabled parking space. For many, it seems, expecting them to pass by such parks so others can experience the mobility they take for granted is too much. In this paper, I examine a number of protest performances in public space in which activist present actions – for example, placing wheelchairs in every regular parking space in a precinct – to give bystanders, passersby and spectators, as well as antagonistic fellow social performers, a sense of what socially produced immobility feels like. I examine responses to such protest performances, and what they say about the potential social, political and ethical impacts of such protests, in terms of their potential to produce new attitudes to mobility, alternative mobility, and access to alternative modes of mobility.

Synthesis of plane linkages to generate functions of two variables using point-position reduction—Part 1. Rotary inputs and output

The paper presents simple graphical procedures for position synthesis of plane linkage mechanisms to generate functions of two independent variables. The procedures are based on point-position reduction and permit synthesis of the linkage to satisfy up to six arbitrarily selected precision positions.

Bounded-input/bounded-output stability of linear multidimensional time- varying systems

The present study of the stability of systems governed by a linear multidimensional time-varying equation, which are encountered in spacecraft dynamics, economics, demographics, and biological systems, gives attention the lemma dealing with L(inf) stability of an integral equation that results from the differential equation of the system under consideration. Using the proof of this lemma, the main result on L(inf) stability is derived according; a corollary of the theorem deals with constant coefficient systems perturbed by small periodic terms. (O.C.)

The Formation, Numbers And Radio Output Of Giant Radio Galaxies

The numbers and mean radio luminosities of giant radio galaxies (GRGs) have been calculated for redshifts up to z = 0.6, assuming a sensitivity limit of 1 Jy at 1 GHz for the observations. The estimates are obtained with a model for the beam propagation, first through the hot gaseaous halo around the parent galaxy, and thereafter, through the even hotter but less dense intergalactic medium. The model is able to accurately reproduce the observed numbers and mean radio luminosities of GRGs at redshifts of less than 0.1, and it predicts that a somewhat larger number of GRGs should be found at redshifts of greater than 0.1.

Design of Single-Input-Single-Output Compliant Mechanisms for Practical Applications Using Selection Maps

We present an interactive map-based technique for designing single-input-single-output compliant mechanisms that meet the requirements of practical applications. Our map juxtaposes user-specifications with the attributes of real compliant mechanisms stored in a database so that not only the practical feasibility of the specifications can be discerned quickly but also modifications can be done interactively to the existing compliant mechanisms. The practical utility of the method presented here exceeds that of shape and size optimizations because it accounts for manufacturing considerations, stress limits, and material selection. The premise for the method is the spring-leverage (SL) model, which characterizes the kinematic and elastostatic behavior of compliant mechanisms with only three SL constants. The user-specifications are met interactively using the beam-based 2D models of compliant mechanisms by changing their attributes such as: (i) overall size in two planar orthogonal directions, separately and together, (ii) uniform resizing of the in-plane widths of all the beam elements, (iii) uniform resizing of the out-of-plane thick-nesses of the beam elements, and (iv) the material. We present a design software program with a graphical user interface for interactive design. A case-study that describes the design procedure in detail is also presented while additional case-studies are posted on a website. DOI:10.1115/1.4001877].

Correlation of seasonal changes in sperm output with endocrinological changes in the adult male bonnet monkey, Macaca radiata

We have examined the monthly variations in sperm output and attempted to correlate the profiles of endocrine hormones secreted with the sperm counts throughout the ,year in the adult male bonnet monkey. As previously reported, there was a distinct spurt in sperm output beginning September through December months. A concomitant increase in serum testosterone and prolactin concentrations were also noted during September through November (mid and post-monsoon season). Although there was a marked increase in gonadotropin releasing hormone stimulated testosterone secretion, the peak testosterone concentrations post gonadotropin releasing hormone injection did not vary significantly (P>0.05) throughout the year. Basal serum follicle stimulating hormone concentrations did not vary significantly (P>0.05) during April to June months compared to September-November months. Serum inhibin concentration remained unaltered throughout the year, except in the month of March. The results of this study provide evidence for annual rhythms in prolactin and testosterone secretion and a distinct seasonality in the sperm output of the adult male bonnet monkey, but the pituitary responsiveness to exogenous gonadotropin releasing hormone remains unaltered throughout the year. Because of the existence of seasonality as noted in the present study, future studies which utilize the adult male bonnet monkey as an experimental model need to take into consideration the seasonal effects on reproductive function in this species.

Layered Tabu Search Algorithm for Large-MIMO Detection and a Lower Bound on ML Performance

In this paper, we are concerned with low-complexity detection in large multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with tens of transmit/receive antennas. Our new contributions in this paper are two-fold. First, we propose a low-complexity algorithm for large-MIMO detection based on a layered low-complexity local neighborhood search. Second, we obtain a lower bound on the maximum-likelihood (ML) bit error performance using the local neighborhood search. The advantages of the proposed ML lower bound are i) it is easily obtained for MIMO systems with large number of antennas because of the inherent low complexity of the search algorithm, ii) it is tight at moderate-to-high SNRs, and iii) it can be tightened at low SNRs by increasing the number of symbols in the neighborhood definition. Interestingly, the proposed detection algorithm based on the layered local search achieves bit error performances which are quite close to this lower bound for large number of antennas and higher-order QAM. For e. g., in a 32 x 32 V-BLAST MIMO system, the proposed detection algorithm performs close to within 1.7 dB of the proposed ML lower bound at 10(-3) BER for 16-QAM (128 bps/Hz), and close to within 4.5 dB of the bound for 64-QAM (192 bps/Hz).

Cell versus message level performances in ATM networks

The goal of this paper is to provide some insight into the relations that exist between cell level and message level performance guarantees in the context of ATM networks. Cell level guarantees are typically what the network is capable of providing, while message level guarantees are the ones of interest to users. It is, therefore, important to understand how the two are related, and which factors influence this relation. There are many different performance measures that are of importance, and in this paper we try to touch on the (three) most relevant ones. This includes comparing cell and message loss probabilities, average cell and message delays, and cell and message jitter. Specifically, we show that cell and message loss probabilities can exhibit significant differences, which strongly depend on traffic characteristics such as peak rate and burst size, i.e., for a fixed cell loss probability, the message loss probability can greatly vary when peak rate and burst size change. One reason for this sensitivity, is that message loss depends on what happen to all the cells in a message. For delay and jitter, we also find that peak rate and burst size play a role in determining the relation between cell and message performance. However, this sensitivity is not as acute as with losses since message delay and jitter are typically determined by the performance seen by only one cell, the last cell in a message. In the paper, we provide quantitative examples that illustrate the range of behaviors and identify the impact of different parameters.

Relative performances of textural models in estimating soil moisture characteristic

The soil moisture characteristic (SMC) forms an important input to mathematical models of water and solute transport in the unsaturated-soil zone. Owing to their simplicity and ease of use, texture-based regression models are commonly used to estimate the SMC from basic soil properties. In this study, the performances of six such regression models were evaluated on three soils. Moisture characteristics generated by the regression models were statistically compared with the characteristics developed independently from laboratory and in-situ retention data of the soil profiles. Results of the statistical performance evaluation, while providing useful information on the errors involved in estimating the SMC, also highlighted the importance of the nature of the data set underlying the regression models. Among the models evaluated, the one possessing an underlying data set of in-situ measurements was found to be the best estimator of the in-situ SMC for all the soils. Considerable errors arose when a textural model based on laboratory data was used to estimate the field retention characteristics of unsaturated soils.

Design of output dv/dt filter for motor drives

Modern PWM inverter output voltage has high dv/dt, which causes problems such as voltage doubling that can lead to insulation failure, ground currents that results in electromagnetic interference concerns. The IGBT switching device used in such inverter are becoming faster, exacerbating these problems. This paper proposes a new procedure for designing the LC clamp filter. The filter increases the rise time of the output voltage of inverter, resulting in smaller dv/dt. In addition suitable selection of resonance frequency gives LCL filter configuration with improved attenuation. By adding this filter at output terminal of inverter which uses long cable, voltage doubling effect is reduced at the motor terminal. The design procedure is carried out in terms of the power converter based per unit scheme. This generalizes the design procedure to a wide range of power level and to study optimum designs. The effectiveness of the design is verified by computer simulation and experimental measurements.