Overview on Oscillating Water Column Devices

Oscillating-water-column (OWC) converters, of fixed structure or floating, are an important class of wave energy devices. A large part of wave energy converter prototypes deployed so far into the sea are of OWC type. The paper presents a review of recent advances in OWC technology, including sea-tested prototypes and plants, new concepts, air turbines, model testing techniques and control.

Understanding virtual patients efficiently and rigorously by combining machine learning with dynamical modelling

Individual biological organisms are characterized by daunting heterogeneity, which precludes describing or understanding populations of ‘patients’ with a single mathematical model. Recently, the field of quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) has adopted the notion of virtual patients (VPs) to cope with this challenge. A typical population of VPs represents the behavior of a heterogeneous patient population with a distribution of parameter values over a mathematical model of fixed structure. Though this notion of VPs is a powerful tool to describe patients’ heterogeneity, the analysis and understanding of these VPs present new challenges to systems pharmacologists. Here, using a model of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, we show that an integrated pipeline that combines machine learning (ML) and bifurcation analysis can be used to effectively and efficiently analyse the behaviors observed in populations of VPs. Compared with local sensitivity analyses, ML allows us to capture and analyse the contributions of simultaneous changes of multiple model parameters. Following up with bifurcation analysis, we are able to provide rigorous mechanistic insight regarding the influences of ML-identified parameters on the dynamical system’s behaviors. In this work, we illustrate the utility of this pipeline and suggest that its wider adoption will facilitate the use of VPs in the practice of systems pharmacology.

Timing in Palaran: Coordination, Control, and Excitement in Javanese Collaborative Vocal Accompaniment

Palaran are elements within gamelan repertoire that are derived from the melodies used to recite texts written in Javanese poetic metres. When used as palaran within gamelan performance (rather than in their original form as poetic recitation, or macapat), these melodies are supported and constrained by a metrically fixed structure of core instrumental notes and surrounded by a web of spontaneous melodic accompaniment, involving multiple musicians. This chapter explores the complex ways in which musicians control, negotiate, and coordinate timing in this flexible yet precise form of musical interaction. It examines the rules of ideal cohesive performance, the transmission of strategies for successfully learning how to achieve this, and what can be learnt from occasions when palaran go wrong and the coordination of timing goes awry. It then argues that the sense of risk involved in managing timing in these ways is a significant part of what makes palaran one of the most popular elements within the gamelan repertoire.

Research on Solar Power Generation Control System Based on 360 Degree Rotate Double-Motor

Aiming at the problems of low utilization rate of solar energy and poor anti-interference ability of tracking structure solar energy control system in fixed structure solar energy device, this paper designs a dual axis high-precision solar tracking system based on four quadrant rule. The system adopts two ways: automatic tracking and manual correction. The system uses four photoresistors as detection elements, uses the four quadrant principle to judge the tracking offset angle, and drives two-dimensional two axis stepper motor through STC89C52 processor to achieve the purpose of vertical angle, so as to ensure that the solar panel is always in the state of maximum light receiving surface; When the system is disturbed, it can be judged according to the change of the photosensitive resistance in the energy monitoring system, and the artificial correction can be realized by modulating the size of the divider resistance, which can basically achieve 360° Automatic rotation tracking. In addition, the energy monitoring system based on LabView is designed. Through the real system analysis, it can be concluded that the photoelectric energy conversion rate of the fixed solar device is increased by 32.4%.

The Music of Organisations: an Aesthetic Ethnography

<p>Arts-based expressions are becoming an increasingly important for understanding and improving business practice. More specifically, drama, painting and music are all artistic tools being used as ways of helping leaders gain insights into organisational life. However, there is a gap between art as a consulting practice, and its theoretical underpinning. Organisational aesthetics is a relatively new theory of organisations that endeavours to close the gap between the theoretical underpinnings of art and its application as a consulting practice. This thesis contributes to the theory-building efforts of this rapidly expanding field by exploring and developing a novel research methodology: Aesthetic Ethnography. This method is a means whereby researchers work at the arts-business nexus to investigate the ever-changing landscape of organisational life. In order to show how this occurs, the Auckland Philharmonia is offered as an exemplar. Its developments are observed during a time of governance restructure. As an aesthetic ethnography, the case study positions the orchestra as a work of art and describes how it is intentionally presenced as an artistic piece. Its concretisation is described as a construct by both the researcher and the stakeholders within the enterprise, occurring in three ethnographic movements: Emotional Attachment, Cognitive Detachment and Integrated Synthesis. The thesis concludes that the aesthetic lens can be turned on other artistic enterprises, and indeed beyond these, to the wider organisational world. To do this, further research is proposed into the music of organisations. Specifically, it is suggested that the nature of ensemble be explored and that the artistry of composition be used as a way of further teasing out the musicality of organisational life. Furthermore, music's temporality and its reliance on both fixed structure and sensitivity to the moment make it an apt tool to reflect on management practice.</p>

The Music of Organisations: an Aesthetic Ethnography

<p>Arts-based expressions are becoming an increasingly important for understanding and improving business practice. More specifically, drama, painting and music are all artistic tools being used as ways of helping leaders gain insights into organisational life. However, there is a gap between art as a consulting practice, and its theoretical underpinning. Organisational aesthetics is a relatively new theory of organisations that endeavours to close the gap between the theoretical underpinnings of art and its application as a consulting practice. This thesis contributes to the theory-building efforts of this rapidly expanding field by exploring and developing a novel research methodology: Aesthetic Ethnography. This method is a means whereby researchers work at the arts-business nexus to investigate the ever-changing landscape of organisational life. In order to show how this occurs, the Auckland Philharmonia is offered as an exemplar. Its developments are observed during a time of governance restructure. As an aesthetic ethnography, the case study positions the orchestra as a work of art and describes how it is intentionally presenced as an artistic piece. Its concretisation is described as a construct by both the researcher and the stakeholders within the enterprise, occurring in three ethnographic movements: Emotional Attachment, Cognitive Detachment and Integrated Synthesis. The thesis concludes that the aesthetic lens can be turned on other artistic enterprises, and indeed beyond these, to the wider organisational world. To do this, further research is proposed into the music of organisations. Specifically, it is suggested that the nature of ensemble be explored and that the artistry of composition be used as a way of further teasing out the musicality of organisational life. Furthermore, music's temporality and its reliance on both fixed structure and sensitivity to the moment make it an apt tool to reflect on management practice.</p>

μ-Synthesis FO-PID for Twin Rotor Aerodynamic System

μ-synthesis is a NP-hard optimization problem based on the generalized Robust Control framework which manages to find a controller which fulfills both robust stability and robust performance. In order to solve such problems, nonsmooth optimization techniques are employed to find nearly-optimal parameters values. However, the free parameters available for tuning must be involved only in classical arithmetic operations, which leads to a problem for the fractional-order operator or for its integer-order approximation, exponential operations being involved. The main goal of the current article consists of presenting a possibility to integrate a fixed-structure multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) fractional-order proportional-integral-derivative (FO-PID) controller in the μ-synthesis optimization problem. The solution consists in a possibility to find a set of tunable parameters isomorphic with the fractional-order such that the coefficients involved in the approximation of the fractional element, along with the formulation of a fixed-structure mixed-sensitivity loop shaping μ-synthesis control problem. The proposed design procedure is applied to a twin rotor aerodynamic system (TRAS) using both MATLAB numerical simulation and practical experiments on laboratory scale equipment. Moreover, a comparison with the unstructured μ-synthesis is performed, highlighting the advantages of the proposed solution: simpler form and guaranteed robust stability and performance.