"Lessons to flight" to start living again. Visual narrative in a state time of emergency. The ridescovery of educational potential

In the months of lockdown, in that suspended time, we recovered the «lessons of the Open» that books have to offer (Recalcati, 2018). Narratives, art expressions which «fit on the shelf» (Lee, 2012, p.170), allowed children to live an enveloping experience (Petit, 2002/2010), to discover fragments of beauty, thus contrasting boredom and educational poverty in its diverse forms. This essay will look into how beauty was unexpectedly found in the visual narrative, nurturing hope to overcome fears, to seize the emergency as an occasion to free oneself of what is excess, to be strong in bravely accepting adversities and to cultivate the ability to look at reality from original perspectives, as the picture book Flight lessons teaches us. Here, through the use of metaphor, the young readers are taught that living is a little like flying and that it is “not necessary to reach the stars to touch the sky” (Vainio, 2008/2021).

Power spectra reveal distinct BOLD resting-state time courses in white matter

Accurate characterization of the time courses of blood-oxygen-level–dependent (BOLD) signal changes is crucial for the analysis and interpretation of functional MRI data. While several studies have shown that white matter (WM) exhibits distinct BOLD responses evoked by tasks, there have been no comprehensive investigations into the time courses of spontaneous signal fluctuations in WM. We measured the power spectra of the resting-state time courses in a set of regions within WM identified as showing synchronous signals using independent components analysis. In each component, a clear separation between voxels into two categories was evident, based on their power spectra: one group exhibited a single peak, and the other had an additional peak at a higher frequency. Their groupings are location specific, and their distributions reflect unique neurovascular and anatomical configurations. Importantly, the two categories of voxels differed in their engagement in functional integration, revealed by differences in the number of interregional connections based on the two categories separately. Taken together, these findings suggest WM signals are heterogeneous in nature and depend on local structural-vascular-functional associations.

Sizing Directional Pneumatic Valves Based on the Characteristic Dynamic Behavior of Linear Actuators

In this paper, a novel approach to size directional pneumatic valves based on the analysis of the characteristic behavior of pneumatic actuators applied for pick and place tasks is presented. The study evidences the existence of three characteristic times in the displacement of a standard pneumatic actuation system, which are the emptying time, the transient-state time, and the steady-state time. The results also indicate that there is a close correlation between the velocity profile and the relative size of the piston area, where the steady-state time might be negligible when the piston is correctly sized. The emptying time, characterized by the depressurization of the counterpressure chamber, occurs predominantly with choked mass flow rate and constant volume. In this way, an analytical equation to estimate the emptying time has been determined. Moreover, during the transient-state time, the velocity profile is similar to the characteristic behavior of a first order system, therefore, the transient-state time is estimated by the time constant of the system, which was obtained by a linear first order model developed using the fundamental equations that govern the system behavior. The total displacement time, which is a design requirement to size directional valves, can be expressed as the sum of the emptying and transient-state time. Consequently, a set of equations are proposed to size the directional valve using design parameters such as displacement time, piston volume, load force, and supply pressure. The proposed equations were evaluated along with simulation and experimental results, demonstrating their validity and accuracy.

Mindfulness Meditation Influences Implicit but Not Explicit Coding of Temporal Simultaneity

In the meditative state time appears to slow down and in the present moment it expands. However, to date, there is no investigation of the effect of meditative state on the structure of the “psychological moment”; this is the measurable, minimal duration of the moment “now.” In this study, we examined the effect on the psychological moment of a mindfulness intervention against an intervention in which participants listened to classical music. The psychological moment was measured using a simultaneity-detection paradigm from which the threshold between reports that two targets changed luminance simultaneously or with an asynchrony is normally taken as the duration of the moment. In line with previous research, this paradigm allowed for examination of the effects of the subthreshold synchronized, or asynchronized target onsets, which occurred prior to the luminance change of the targets. While there was no overall difference in the psychological moment pre- and post-, and as a function of the type of intervention, a bias against reporting simultaneity following presentation of a subthreshold asynchrony, which lowered thresholds and so shortened the psychological moment, was reduced after the mindfulness intervention. From this we conclude that even brief mindfulness meditation can encourage a more focalized attentional response, which can in turn be used to normalize psychological time.

Analisa Peralihan Tanggapan Tegangan Sistem Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) Tipe Arus Searah Dengan Pengendali 2 Derjat Kebebasan

This journal discusses the design and analysis of the transfer response of the direct cuurent type of Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) system with 2 degrees of freedom controller. Direct current type of the AVR system is represented in the form of transfer function. For 2 degrees of freedom controllers are designed using a parallel architecture with the help of Matlab software using predefined design criteria. The types of controllers used consist of Proportional Differential (PD), Proportional Integral (PI), Proportional Integral Differential (PID), Proportional Differential with First Order Filters in the Differential Section (PDF) and Proportional Intregral Differential with First Order Filters in the Differential Section (PIDF). For the transition analysis, the observed parameters consist of rise time, peak time, steady state time, maximum pass value and peak value. The results of the analysis show that the controller that meets the design criteria is a Proportional Differential (PD) controller with an uptime parameter value of 0.2808 seconds, a peak time of 1.3354 seconds, a steady state time of 0.7017 seconds, a maximum pass of 0% and a peak value of 0.9512. For the Proportional Differential controller with First Order Filter in the Differential Section (PDF) with an increase time parameter value of 0.4177 seconds, a peak time of 1.4684 seconds, a steady state time of 0.8453 seconds, a maximum pass of 0% and a peak value of 0.9502.