Architectural Urbanism: Melbourne/Seoul

Architectural Urbanism is an ambition and sensibility for propositions that address the context of the city within the operative scale of the small architectural project. Architectural urbanism represents a tailoring of projects to the local; to the materiality and specificity of the everyday; and to the grain and substance of the location above all else. Architectural urbanism is less about erasure and more about insertion; infill; the weaving of old and new and the dynamics that evolve from subtle and careful manipulation of the city in detail. The exhibition explores commonality in the apparently different contexts of both cities – speculating on these as forms of ‘architectural urbanism' in the contemporary city of the Asia-Pacific at its northern and southern extremes. Architectural projects from five Melbourne architectural practitioners have been selected to exhibit in Seoul. The practices are: Muir Mendes, Baracco + Wright, Iredale Pederson Hook, NMBW Architecture Studio and Kerstin Thompson Architects - all of whom have strong links to the RMIT Architecture design research and teaching community. Melanie Dodd co-curated the exhibition

Practical considerations in aeroelastic design

The structural design process for large transport aircraft is described. Critical loads must be determined from a large number of load cases within the flight maneuver envelope. The structural design is also constrained by considerations of producibility, reliability, maintainability, durability, and damage tolerance, as well as impact dynamics and multiple constraints due to flutter and aeroelasticity. Aircraft aeroelastic design considerations in three distinct areas of product development (preliminary design, advanced design, and detailed design) are presented and contrasted. The present state of the art is challenged to solve the practical difficulties associated with design, analysis, and redesign within cost and schedule constraints. The current practice consists of largely independent engineering disciplines operating with unorganized data interfaces. The need is then demonstrated for a well-planned computerized aeroelastic structural design optimization system operating with a common interdisciplinary data base. This system must incorporate automated interfaces between modular programs. In each phase of the design process, a common finite-element model for static and dynamic optimization is required to reduce errors due to modeling discrepancies. As the design proceeds from the simple models in preliminary design to the more complex models in advanced and detailed design, a means of retrieving design data from the previous models must be established

Nonlinear Band Gap Transmission in Optical Waveguide Arrays

The effect of nonlinear transmission in coupled optical waveguide arrays is theoretically investigated via numerical simulations on the corresponding model equations. The realistic experimental setup is suggested injecting the beam in a single boundary waveguide, linear refractive index of which ($n_0$) is larger than one ($n$) of other identical waveguides in the array. Particularly, the effect holds if $\omega(n_0-n)/c>2Q$, where $Q$ is a linear coupling constant between array waveguides, $\omega$ is a carrier wave frequency and $c$ is a light velocity. Making numerical experiments in case of discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation it is shown that the energy transfers from the boundary waveguide to the waveguide array above certain threshold intensity of the injected beam. This effect is explained by means of the creation and propagation of gap solitons in full analogy with the similar phenomenon of nonlinear supratransmission [F. Geniet, J. Leon, PRL, {\bf 89}, 134102, (2002)] in case of discrete sine-Gordon lattice.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures. Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press

Entrepreneurship as nexus of change: the syncretistic production of the future

This paper deals with the issue of how the future is created and the mechanisms through which it is produced and conceived. Key to this process appears to be social interaction and how it is used to bring about change. Examining the entrepreneurial context by qualitative longitudinal research techniques, the study considers the situations of three entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that the web of relationships in which individuals are engaged provide the opportunity to enact the environment in new ways, thus producing organizations for the future. It further provides empirical evidence for a Heideggerian reading of strategy-as-practice, extending this conceptualization to account for the temporal dimension

A simple operational interpretation of the fidelity

This note presents a corollary to Uhlmann's theorem which provides a simple operational interpretation for the fidelity of mixed states.Comment: 1 pag

Variation in Lepidopteran Occurrence in Hemlock-Dominated and Deciduous-Dominated Forests of Central Appalachia

Eastern hemlock, (Tsuga canadensis Carrière, Pinaceae), is threatened with extirpation by an exotic invasive herbivore, the hemlock woolly adelgid, (Adelges tsugae Annand, Homoptera: Adelgidae). Given this threat, a broader and more detailed knowledge of the community associated with eastern hem- lock is merited. As Lepidoptera are important members of forest communities, this study was initiated to determine the relative occurrence of Lepidoptera in hemlock-dominated and deciduous-dominated habitats by evaluating abundance, species richness, temporal variation, and composition overlap. Lepidoptera were surveyed using blacklight traps from May – August 2010 at two collection sites in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky. The first collection site was within a forest stand dominated by mixed deciduous species, the second site possessed an overstory of eastern hemlock. Lepidoptera ≥ 20 mm in wingspan were identified and enumerated, yielding a total of 1,020 individuals of ≥ 137 species and 18 families. The total number of Lepidoptera captured in May and June was fewer than in July and August (P ≤ 0.05). The composition of the assemblage varied between collection sites as well as seasonally; 85 species were identified at the deciduous site and 107 species were identified at the hemlock site. While 27 species were recorded only at the deciduous site, 49 species were unique to the hemlock site. Of those unique to the hemlock site, five species were either detritivores or conifer specialists. These data demonstrate the importance of both deciduous and hemlock-dominated forest habitats for many species of Lepidoptera in Appalachia. Our study forms a foundation for understanding species richness patterns of Lepidoptera in hemlock forests in North America and is a useful baseline for comparisons of richness and diversity post invasion by the hemlock woolly adelgid

Effect of side chains on the dielectric properties of alkyl esters derived from palm kernel oil

Alkyl ester derivatives were synthesized from laboratory purified palm kernel oil. The steps in the synthesis involved transesterification of palm kernel oil to produce a methyl ester, followed by epoxidation and then the grafting of side chains by esterification with propionic and butyric anhydride. The dielectric and thermal properties of the ester derivatives were analyzed and compared with the methyl ester. The melting point of the ester derivatives were found to reduce with side chain attachment and antioxidant improved its thermal stability. The dielectric loss was dominated by mobile charged particles and the chemical modification appeared to increase the rate at which electric double layer was formed at the electrode-liquid interface. The esters possessed excellent breakdown strengths suggesting that the processing to optimize their physical properties did not have a negative influence on their electrical breakdown strength. This product may prove useful as an insulation fluid in Electrical Power Transformers

Influence of the temperature on the dielectric properties of epoxy resins

Electrical degradation processes in epoxy resins, such as electrical treeing, were found to be dependent on the temperature at which the experiments were carried out. Therefore, it is of considerable research interest to study the influence of temperature on the dielectric properties of the polymers and to relate the effect of temperature on these properties to the possible electrical degradation mechanisms. In this work, the dielectric properties of two different epoxy resin systems have been characterized via dielectric spectroscopy. The epoxy resins used were bisphenol-A epoxy resins Araldite CY1301 and Araldite CY1311, the later being a modified version of the former with added plasticizer. The CY1301 samples were tested below and above their glass transition temperature, while the CY1311 were tested well above it. Both epoxy systems possess similar behaviour above the glass transition temperature, e.g. in a flexible state, which can be characterized as a low frequency dispersion (LFD). On the other hand, it was found that below the glass transition temperature CY1301 samples have almost “flat” dielectric response in the frequency range considered. The influence of possible interfacial features on the measured results is discussed

Influence of absorbed moisture on the dielectric properties of epoxy resins

The dielectric response of two bisphenol-A epoxy resin systems Araldite CY1301 (Tg ~ 50°C) and Araldite CY1311 (Tg ~0°C) was studied at different levels of absorbed moisture. The dielectric measurements were carried out over the frequency range 1 mHz to 100 kHz and the results were characterised in terms of dc bulk electrical conduction and dielectric processes. The characteristic parameters (frequency and magnitude) of all processes have been found to be moisture dependent. In both resins above the glass transition temperature, absorbed moisture was found to be implicated in the formation of a bulk quasi-dc dielectric response consistent with cluster formation of the absorbed water molecules