Knowing otherness: the experience of doing educational ethnography in a Chinese community

This doctoral research is a reflexive ethnography, having as its aim, to understand and learn about 'others.' It is an educational journey to explore the methodological issues related to ethnography, and to get to know and write about, another culture. The elements that are drawn upon to address a given problem, and influence interpretations, differ from culture to culture. Drawing in Foucault and Agamben, I explored such elements in terms of what is called a 'dispositif' (or its English translation, ‘device’ or ‘apparatus’). Such issues and problems in fieldwork are difficult to solve without knowing key dispositifs operating in peoples’ lives. Methods for collecting data, including interview and observation, enable us to gain insight into the ways of seeing and acting, that members recognise, as being like an insider. This led me to exploring language as having a central role to understand those key dispositifs. Identity-in-question, pattern of thinking, and language, are involved in coming to understand the aesthetics of communication, and are steps for building trust relations, through which, one becomes visible for others as an insider. Then, analytical methods, to draw identity boundaries, such as, polythetic and monothetic, would be appropriate. I also looked at the ways in which dispositifs are operationalized through schooling and public pedagogy in order to capture behaviours, and in order to empower themselves through creative educative acts. However, when these dispositifs are hijacked by power, to shape behaviours, creating obedience, and managing consents, the issue is raised of how the legitimating practices of the multitude are to be managed. Thus, this thesis has discussed and contributed insights into the significance for ethnographic researchers, of coming, to understand the key dispositifs through which members of communities come to see their worlds and legitimate their activities

A dynamic test platform for evaluating control algorithms for a supercavitating vehicle

The use of supercavitation to enable marine vehicles to travel at extraordinary speeds is a topic of considerable interest. The control of these vehicles poses new challenges not faced with fully wetted vehicles due to a complex interaction between the vehicle and the cavity that it rides in. Some of the existing models make assumptions that may not be valid for a maneuverable vehicle. Furthermore, since there are various models being suggested for planing forces as well as different ways of obtaining fin and cavitator forces, there is a lack of unity among the equations used to calculate the hydrodynamic forces imparted on such a vehicle. Experimental test platforms have been developed at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory to enable testing and validation of control algorithms and hydrodynamic models. Previous efforts have revealed the destabilization of marginal supercavities by control surfaces, especially when a cavity is being maintained with ventilation [1]. Our latest water tunnel test platform is a body of revolution with an actuated cavitator on the model forebody, actuated fins that protrude through the cavity surface, and variable pitch of the model body, all supported by a six-axis force balance. In this paper we will present a brief description of the forces present in our mathematical model of a supercavitating vehicle, and then present the new experimental test platform that will be used to validate, and expand on this model.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/84290/1/CAV2009-final110.pd

New Constraints for the On‐Shore Makran Subduction Zone Crustal Structure

Funder: Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100007513Abstract: The Makran Subduction Zone is the primary seismic/tsunami hazard of the northwestern Indian Ocean, but little is known of its on‐shore seismic structure. We derived a shear wave velocity model extending to > $>$ 100 km depth beneath a ∼400 km‐long seismic profile oriented parallel to the convergence vector of the Arabian Sea Plate. Receiver function/surface wave analysis shows that the average structure in the coastal region comprises a ∼22–28 km‐thick low wavespeed sedimentary cover and a 6–8 km‐thick gradient zone overlying > $>$ 100 km‐thick high wavespeed upper mantle. The ocean‐basement interface dips gently northward, remaining a positive impedance contrast to ∼50 km depth at ∼250 km north of the coast where it disappears as the basaltic/gabbroic oceanic crust has probably transformed to eclogite. Further north, a weak arrival at ∼5 s in the receiver functions appears, grading northward into the Moho arrival of the continental Iranian Plateau. This disruption in the seismic signature of the Moho occurs in the forearc region where the dip of the subducting oceanic plate steepens. The southern Iranian Plateau's continental crust has an average V s of 3.55 ± 0.05 km s−1, an almost flat Moho 40–45 km deep, and a sub‐Moho mantle V s of 3.75 ± 0.05 km s−1 in the 50–80 km depth range. Weak Moho conversions probably result from ∼20% serpentinization of peridotite in the mantle wedge. Receiver functions indicate a flat continental Moho – no crustal root beneath the high topography region of the volcanic belt, which therefore must be compensated by low upper mantle densities. The high V p /V s ratio observed for the mantle wedge suggests ∼1%–2% partial melt

Numerical study and comparison with experiment of dispersion of a heavier-than-air gas in a simulated neutral atmospheric boundary layer

This paper presents a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation of the dispersion of a heavier-than-air gas from a ground level line source in a simulated atmospheric boundary layer. A previously published experimental study has been used to define the computational domain and boundary conditions, as well as to compare with the predicted results. The dispersed material is a mixture of 97% carbon-dioxide and 3% propane by concentration, where the latter gas was used as a tracer in the experiments. The floor of the computational domain was populated with vertical fences in order to simulate a rough surface for boundary layer development, as in the experiments. This also helped in obtaining streamwise homogeneity for mean velocity and turbulence kinetic energy. The results and comparisons with the experimental data are presented for concentration profiles as well as a number of derived parameters, such as entrainment velocity. The cases presented are for three Richardson numbers of 0.1, 7 and 16. Sensitivity tests are carried out to show the effects of boundary conditions at the inlet to the flow domain, turbulence model, namely, the standard k-ε model and RNG k-ε model, and the turbulent Schmidt number. The results showed significant sensitivity to the value of turbulent Schmidt number. By optimizing the value of this parameter, it was possible to obtain close comparisons between the predicted and measured parameters. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd

Numerical study and comparison with experiment of dispersion of a heavier-than-air gas in a simulated neutral atmospheric boundary layer

This paper presents a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation of the dispersion of a heavier-than-air gas from a ground level line source in a simulated atmospheric boundary layer. A previously published experimental study has been used to define the computational domain and boundary conditions, as well as to compare with the predicted results. The dispersed material is a mixture of 97% carbon-dioxide and 3% propane by concentration, where the latter gas was used as a tracer in the experiments. The floor of the computational domain was populated with vertical fences in order to simulate a rough surface for boundary layer development, as in the experiments. This also helped in obtaining streamwise homogeneity for mean velocity and turbulence kinetic energy. The results and comparisons with the experimental data are presented for concentration profiles as well as a number of derived parameters, such as entrainment velocity. The cases presented are for three Richardson numbers of 0.1, 7 and 16. Sensitivity tests are carried out to show the effects of boundary conditions at the inlet to the flow domain, turbulence model, namely, the standard k-ε model and RNG k-ε model, and the turbulent Schmidt number. The results showed significant sensitivity to the value of turbulent Schmidt number. By optimizing the value of this parameter, it was possible to obtain close comparisons between the predicted and measured parameters. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd

A stereo optical comparison method for detection of metallic surface defects based on machine vision and laser triangulation

Quality of metallic surfaces is essential to maintain performance and longevity of industrial products. The surface defects of products like holes and cracks not only affect their appearances and performance, but also may even result in potential danger to human health in some cases. Traditional surface inspection methods for metallic surfaces rely on manual inspection methods by naked eyes or with the help of close circuit cameras, presenting the problems of low efficiency, low accuracy, high labour intensity due to monotonous work. Today manual inspection is not possible in many applications, therefore an automated method with a high accuracy is desirable. In this paper we propose a novel stereo optical comparison method to detect defects on metallic surface based on machine vision and laser triangulation

UNCERTAIN TRAINING DATA EDITION FOR AUTOMATIC OBJECT-BASED CHANGE MAP EXTRACTION

Due to the rapid transformation of the societies, and the consequent growth of the cities, it is necessary to study these changes in order to achieve better control and management of urban areas and assist the decision-makers. Change detection involves the ability to quantify temporal effects using multi-temporal data sets. The available maps of the under study area is one of the most important sources for this reason. Although old data bases and maps are a great resource, it is more than likely that the training data extracted from them might contain errors, which affects the procedure of the classification; and as a result the process of the training sample editing is an essential matter. Due to the urban nature of the area studied and the problems caused in the pixel base methods, object-based classification is applied. To reach this, the image is segmented into 4 scale levels using a multi-resolution segmentation procedure. After obtaining the segments in required levels, training samples are extracted automatically using the existing old map. Due to the old nature of the map, these samples are uncertain containing wrong data. To handle this issue, an editing process is proposed according to K-nearest neighbour and k-means algorithms. Next, the image is classified in a multi-resolution object-based manner and the effects of training sample refinement are evaluated. As a final step this classified image is compared with the existing map and the changed areas are detected

NEWTON-PRODUCT INTEGRATION FOR A TWO-PHASE STEFAN PROBLEM WITH KINETICS Communicated by Mohammad Asadzadeh

Abstract. We reduce the two phase Stefan problem with kinetic to a system of nonlinear Volterra integral equations of second kind and apply Newton's method to linearize it. We provide the product integration solution of the linear form. Sufficient conditions for convergence of the numerical method are given and their applicability is illustrated with an example