The Edge of Public Amenity

<p>We have the techniques to design smaller and more efficient apartments, but those small apartments are often less attractive than their suburban alternatives. Some of the most attractive suburban houses are adjacent to significant natural public amenities, like beaches and parks, which gives the occupants convenient access to these public amenities. Valuable waterfront houses, for example, often open directly onto the beach. Houses adjacent to the town belt in Wellington often have direct access to these natural environments. While some small apartments can also have high value when adjacent to public amenities, they seldom have direct access to interior public amenities. What opportunities are there to making apartments more attractive by providing a shared interior public space directly accessible from the apartments door step? What is the interior equivalent of a beach front house? This project explores the possibility of setting apartment’s directly adjacent to interior public amenities like a gallery space, giving occupants privilege access to these spaces. With a growing urban population, our cities can either become denser or sprawl. The latter is not a positive outcome. Cities with limited access to land often handle density better since it is an urgent issue while others do not face these issues the same way but it is a reality. There are many benefits to living in the city; however we require places for recreation such as public amenities like the beaches and parks. Distinctively they are an escape from the built environment where there is a growing demand for density. Apartments are the norm in inner city living and they do not have relative proximity to these public amenities. Interiors also can be public amenities and there is an opportunity to bring these interior public amenities into the apartment. This opportunity could well improve the quality of apartment interiors because of this new adjacency to a public interior amenity. There are many examples of flexible designs but all are individual cases, such as the building in which Gary Chang lives. It is a small 32m² apartment known as a domestic transformer because of its sliding walls. Out of the hundreds of similar sized apartments, none is as flexible as Chang’s apartment. Typical apartments have a systematic problem of cramping more space at the cost a spatial configuration. Furthermore apartments rarely have any significant interior spaces that are adjacent to them.</p>

The Edge of Public Amenity

<p>We have the techniques to design smaller and more efficient apartments, but those small apartments are often less attractive than their suburban alternatives. Some of the most attractive suburban houses are adjacent to significant natural public amenities, like beaches and parks, which gives the occupants convenient access to these public amenities. Valuable waterfront houses, for example, often open directly onto the beach. Houses adjacent to the town belt in Wellington often have direct access to these natural environments. While some small apartments can also have high value when adjacent to public amenities, they seldom have direct access to interior public amenities. What opportunities are there to making apartments more attractive by providing a shared interior public space directly accessible from the apartments door step? What is the interior equivalent of a beach front house? This project explores the possibility of setting apartment’s directly adjacent to interior public amenities like a gallery space, giving occupants privilege access to these spaces. With a growing urban population, our cities can either become denser or sprawl. The latter is not a positive outcome. Cities with limited access to land often handle density better since it is an urgent issue while others do not face these issues the same way but it is a reality. There are many benefits to living in the city; however we require places for recreation such as public amenities like the beaches and parks. Distinctively they are an escape from the built environment where there is a growing demand for density. Apartments are the norm in inner city living and they do not have relative proximity to these public amenities. Interiors also can be public amenities and there is an opportunity to bring these interior public amenities into the apartment. This opportunity could well improve the quality of apartment interiors because of this new adjacency to a public interior amenity. There are many examples of flexible designs but all are individual cases, such as the building in which Gary Chang lives. It is a small 32m² apartment known as a domestic transformer because of its sliding walls. Out of the hundreds of similar sized apartments, none is as flexible as Chang’s apartment. Typical apartments have a systematic problem of cramping more space at the cost a spatial configuration. Furthermore apartments rarely have any significant interior spaces that are adjacent to them.</p>

A new stress-based topology optimization approach for finding flexible structures

This paper presents a new FE-based stress-related topology optimization approach for finding bending governed flexible designs. Thereby, the knowledge about an output displacement or force as well as the detailed mounting position is not necessary for the application. The newly developed objective function makes use of the varying stress distribution in the cross section of flexible structures. Hence, each element of the design space must be evaluated with respect to its stress state. Therefore, the method prefers elements experiencing a bending or shear load over elements which are mainly subjected to membrane stresses. In order to determine the stress state of the elements, we use the principal stresses at the Gauss points. For demonstrating the feasibility of the new topology optimization approach, three academic examples are presented and discussed. As a result, the developed sensitivity-based algorithm is able to find usable flexible design concepts with a nearly discrete 0 − 1 density distribution for these examples.

Resonant Subwavelength and Nano-Scale Grating Structures for Biosensing Application: A Comparative Study

Resonant-based sensors are attractive optical structures due to the easy detection of shifts in the resonance location in response to variations in the analyte refractive index (RI) in comparison to non-resonant-based sensors. In particular, due to the rapid progress of nanostructures fabrication methods, the manufacturing of subwavelength and nano-scale gratings in a large area and at a low cost has become possible. A comparative study is presented involving analysis and experimental work on several subwavelength and nanograting structures, highlighting their nano-scale features’ high potential in biosensing applications, namely: (i) Thin dielectric grating on top of thin metal film (TDGTMF), which can support the excitation of extended surface plasmons (ESPs), guided mode resonance, or leaky mode; (ii) reflecting grating for conventional ESP resonance (ESPR) and cavity modes (CMs) excitation; (iii) thick dielectric resonant subwavelength grating exhibiting guided mode resonance (GMR) without a waveguide layer. Among the unique features, we highlight the following: (a) Self-referenced operation obtained using the TDGTMF geometry; (b) multimodal operation, including ESPR, CMs, and surface-enhanced spectroscopy using reflecting nanograting; (c) phase detection as a more sensitive approach in all cases, except the case of reflecting grating where phase detection is less sensitive than intensity or wavelength detection. Additionally, intensity and phase detection modes were experimentally demonstrated using off-the-shelf grating-based optical compact discs as a low-cost sensors available for use in a large area. Several flexible designs are proposed for sensing in the visible and infrared spectral ranges based on the mentioned geometries. In addition, enhanced penetration depth is also proposed for sensing large entities such as cells and bacteria using the TDGTMF geometry.

It All Works Out in the End

Qualitative research enables flexible designs unlike quantitative research, but those designs can be modified up to a point. It sometimes happens that the study at hand takes an unexpected turn of events and the researchers have then to find ways to cope with the changes. When the matter being investigated involves online surveys, there is even more leeway for uncertainty, as difficulties such as finding participants and time constraints may arise. This chapter presents a study conducted by two researchers in an American midwestern university and the challenges they encountered after answering a call for papers about technology and language learner psychology. They used an online survey to inquire about students' experience in an online language course. However, the lack of time intertwined with unexpected events involved readjustments and a need for more research and training. In the current article, the researchers share their project timeline, the issues they encountered, and offer some solutions.

The prototypes of nanozyme-based nanorobots

Artificial nanorobot is a type of robots designed for executing complex tasks at nanoscale. The nanorobot system is typically consisted of four systems, including logic control, driving, sensing and functioning. Considering the subtle structure and complex functionality of nanorobot, the manufacture of nanorobots requires designable, controllable and multi-functional nanomaterials. Here, we propose that nanozyme is a promising candidate for fabricating nanorobots due to its unique properties, including flexible designs, controllable enzyme-like activities, and nano-sized physicochemical characters. Nanozymes may participate in one system or even combine several systems of nanorobots. In this review, we summarize the advances on nanozyme-based systems for fabricating nanorobots, and prospect the future directions of nanozyme for constructing nanorobots. We hope that the unique properties of nanozymes will provide novel ideas for designing and fabricating nanorobotics.

Smartphone-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment of Well-Being: A Systematic Review and Recommendations for Future Studies

Feelings of well-being and happiness fluctuate over time and contexts. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) studies can capture fluctuations in momentary behavior, and experiences by assessing these multiple times per day. Traditionally, EMA was performed using pen and paper. Recently, due to technological advances EMA studies can be conducted more easily with smartphones, a device ubiquitous in our society. The goal of this review was to evaluate the literature on smartphone-based EMA in well-being research in healthy subjects. The systematic review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Searching PubMed and Web of Science, we identified 53 studies using smartphone-based EMA of well-being. Studies were heterogeneous in designs, context, and measures. The average study duration was 12.8 days, with well-being assessed 2–12 times per day. Half of the studies included objective data (e.g. location). Only 47.2% reported compliance, indicating a mean of 71.6%. Well-being fluctuated daily and weekly, with higher well-being in evenings and weekends. These fluctuations disappeared when location and activity were accounted for. On average, being in nature and physical activity relates to higher well-being. Working relates to lower well-being, but workplace and company do influence well-being. The important advantages of using smartphones instead of other devices to collect EMAs are the easier data collection and flexible designs. Smartphone-based EMA reach far larger maximum sample sizes and more easily add objective data to their designs than palm-top/PDA studies. Smartphone-based EMA research is feasible to gain insight in well-being fluctuations and its determinants and offers the opportunity for parallel objective data collection. Most studies currently focus on group comparisons, while studies on individual differences in well-being patterns and fluctuations are lacking. We provide recommendations for future smartphone-based EMA research regarding measures, objective data and analyses.

Novel Feature Based Approach for Turbomachinery Design and Analysis

Current turbomachinery design and analysis is a time consuming process, involving multiple teams and multi-disciplinary physics to be considered during the design stages. The geometry definition is a key enabler requiring better, clean and flexible designs at desired level of fidelity for all analyses. In order to achieve this, a fully parametric approach has been developed using a feature library (user defined features – UDFs) in a CAD package together with multiple tools to prepare the geometry for analysis. The paper will describe the approach towards feature library creation for a whole aero engine application, the relevant steps to prepare the geometry for analysis, and the limitations. The feature library has been used to enable a new aero engine conceptual design from the whole engine aerodynamic gas path definition all the way to the structural design, providing the additional flexibility to perform trade-off studies through design of experiments (DOE). Results will be shown on variation of critical design parameters such as casing thicknesses, flange positions, and number of struts. The selected example will clearly demonstrate the time-saving and better-quality product achieved compared to the traditional process, and the ability of the engineer to explore the design space better with inter-linked analysis tools through a master geometry definition.

Payload dropping control of an unmanned quadrotor helicopter based on backstepping controller

Quadrotors have generated considerable interest in both the control community due to their simple dynamics and widely applications because of their advantages over regular air vehicles. Unlike other control algorithms that tend to linearize nonlinear systems, backstepping control does not work to cancel the nonlinearities in the system. This leads to more flexible designs since some of the nonlinear terms can contribute to the stability of the system. The backstepping control is implemented in this paper for the robustness of the quadrotor helicopter in the payload dropping process. This control algorithm is implemented on the parameters of an unmanned quadrotor helicopter platform known as Qball-X4 available at the Networked Autonomous Vehicles Lab of Concordia University. Simulation results carried out using a nonlinear model, and wherein the performance achieved with this control strategy is shown.