48,039 research outputs found

    Product design-Process selection-Process planning Integration based on Modelling and Simulation

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    As a solution for traditional design process having many drawbacks in the manufacturing process, the integration of Product design-Process selection-Process planning is carried out in the early design phase. The technological, economic, and logistic parameters are taken into account simultaneously as well as manufacturing constraints being integrated into the product design. As a consequence, the most feasible alternative with regard to the product’s detailed design is extracted satisfying the product’s functional requirements. Subsequently, a couple of conceptual process plans are proposed relied on manufacturing processes being preliminarily selected in the conceptual design phase. Virtual manufacturing is employed under CAM software to simulate fabrication process of the potential process plans. Ultimately, the most suitable process plan for fabricating the part is recommended based upon a multi-criteria analysis as a resolution for decision making

    Modelling the Developing Mind: From Structure to Change

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    This paper presents a theory of cognitive change. The theory assumes that the fundamental causes of cognitive change reside in the architecture of mind. Thus, the architecture of mind as specified by the theory is described first. It is assumed that the mind is a three-level universe involving (1) a processing system that constrains processing potentials, (2) a set of specialized capacity systems that guide understanding of different reality and knowledge domains, and (3) a hypecognitive system that monitors and controls the functioning of all other systems. The paper then specifies the types of change that may occur in cognitive development (changes within the levels of mind, changes in the relations between structures across levels, changes in the efficiency of a structure) and a series of general (e.g., metarepresentation) and more specific mechanisms (e.g., bridging, interweaving, and fusion) that bring the changes about. It is argued that different types of change require different mechanisms. Finally, a general model of the nature of cognitive development is offered. The relations between the theory proposed in the paper and other theories and research in cognitive development and cognitive neuroscience is discussed throughout the paper

    Cross sector policy and practice at the department for international development (DFID) in the UK and Nepal

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    Within international development, global agreement around the goals of poverty elimination and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has led to renewed emphasis on ‘joined-up working’, partnership, and cross-sectoral approaches. This emphasis has been motivated by concerns to ensure coherent policy and practice between the plurality of actors in an increasingly complex global arena. The realisation that previous sectoral approaches to development have often failed to impact beneficially on poor people, has added to the calls for more cross-sectoral approaches that better reflect poor people’s crosssectoral lives. This paper is based on research into cross-sector policy and practice at the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID), in the UK and Nepal. Definitions and concepts of cross-sector policy and practice are explored including a ‘cross-sector continuum’ model representing different levels of collaboration. Visual diagramming and other participatory methods were utilised as techniques for exploring and representing cross-sectoral processes and relationships. DFID have made some significant structural changes and have engaged in discussion to improve cross-sectorality. There are examples of varying levels of cross-sectoral engagement throughout the organisation, but these were strongest at country and project levels. Gender, sustainable livelihoods and HIV, along with individuals that have a particular commitment to collaborative approaches, can act as catalysts for institutional change in cross-sector policy and practice. Other factors that facilitate cross-sectoral approaches were also identified. However, the research found that collaborative rhetoric within DFID documentation is not matched by the same level of commitment to operationalising cross-sectoral approaches. DFID face some major barriers to adopting cross-sectoral approaches including: a disjuncture between its role as a government bureaucracy and its role as a development organisation; a primary focus on product rather than processes; and the current pursuit of central level and sectoral approaches thought by some to be incompatible with cross-sectorality. The challenge is exacerbated by ‘disciplinarity’ and ‘territoriality’ within DFID, particularly involving the health sector. Although this study focused on DFID, the findings and some of the participatory methods used in this research offer lessons about cross-sectoral and broader collaborative working to a much wider audience

    Statistical Evidence, Normalcy, and the Gatecrasher Paradox

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    Martin Smith has recently proposed, in this journal, a novel and intriguing approach to puzzles and paradoxes in evidence law arising from the evidential standard of the Preponderance of the Evidence. According to Smith, the relation of normic support provides us with an elegant solution to those puzzles. In this paper I develop a counterexample to Smith’s approach and argue that normic support can neither account for our reluctance to base affirmative verdicts on bare statistical evidence nor resolve the pertinent paradoxes. Normic support is, as a consequence, not a successful epistemic anti-luck condition

    Connections between education for citizenship and equality between women and men (analysis of the claims against this subject before the Spanish courts and their rulings

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    This paper seeks to analyse the debate on equality between women and men found in the claims against the subjects related to Education for Citizenship. These claims were resolved in the Spanish Supreme Court and High Courts of the Autonomous Communities. In this debate, there is a strong rejection of antidiscrimination law assumptions, namely that the different roles and social roles of women and men have a cultural and social base and it is unnatural, as evidenced by the concept of gender. But many appellants and judgments defend the difference between women and men as if it was informed and legitimated on human nature. Hence gender is considered an ideology, that is, a category of analysis by means of which the reality of true human nature can be concealed or distorted. But these arguments are opposed to recent legal reforms since they are questioning its normative value, by prioritizing certain moral principles against these laws. We are talking about the Organic Law for Effective Equality between Women and Men, the Law on Integrated Protection Measures against Gender Violence and the Law on Education. However their arguments are not fully justified

    Reductionism and the Universal Calculus

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    In the seminal essay, "On the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences," physicist Eugene Wigner poses a fundamental philosophical question concerning the relationship between a physical system and our capacity to model its behavior with the symbolic language of mathematics. In this essay, I examine an ambitious 16th and 17th-century intellectual agenda from the perspective of Wigner's question, namely, what historian Paolo Rossi calls "the quest to create a universal language." While many elite thinkers pursued related ideas, the most inspiring and forceful was Gottfried Leibniz's effort to create a "universal calculus," a pictorial language which would transparently represent the entirety of human knowledge, as well as an associated symbolic calculus with which to model the behavior of physical systems and derive new truths. I suggest that a deeper understanding of why the efforts of Leibniz and others failed could shed light on Wigner's original question. I argue that the notion of reductionism is crucial to characterizing the failure of Leibniz's agenda, but that a decisive argument for the why the promises of this effort did not materialize is still lacking.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
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