39 research outputs found

    Acceleration feedback control of human-induced floor vibrations

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    Active vibration control (AVC) via a proof-mass actuator is considered to be a suitable technique for the mitigation of vibrations caused by human motions in floor structures. It has been observed that actuator dynamics strongly influence structure dynamics despite considering collocated actuator/sensor control. The well-known property of the interlacing of poles and zeros of a collocated control system is no longer accomplished. Therefore, velocity-based feedback control, which has been previously used by other researchers, might not be a good solution. This work presents a design process for a control scheme based on acceleration feedback control with a phase-lag compensator, which will generally be different from an integrator circuit. This first-order compensator is applied to the output (acceleration) in such a way that the relative stability and potential damping to be introduced are significantly increased accounting for the interaction between floor and actuator dynamics. Additionally, a high-pass filter designed to avoid stroke saturation is applied to the control signal. The AVC system designed according to this procedure has been assessed in simulation and successfully implemented in an in-service open-plan office floor. The actual vibration reductions achieved have been approximately 60% for walking tests and over 90% for a whole-day vibration monitoring. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

    Trajectories of Solidarities in France Across Fields of Vulnerability

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    This chapter approaches the study of solidarity in France by comparing three important vulnerable groups, namely, the disabled, the unemployed, and refugees. The way we approach solidarity hinges on an important distinction between two different meanings of solidarity: solidarity understood as an input and solidarity understood as an output. In particular, we distinguish between two main \u201ctrajectories of solidarity\u201d, which helps us to understand the way certain individual variables (such as self-identification and proximity) combine with political variables (like voting, an interest in politics, or the reading of newspapers) in very different ways. Our main finding is the political trajectory of solidarity can have a remarkable potential even when it comes to helping vulnerable people outside the national boundaries of the political community in France

    Guilds in the transition to modernity: the cases of Germany, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands

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    One important aspect of the transition to modernity is the survival of elements of the Old Regime beyond the French Revolution. It has been claimed that this can explain why in the late 19th and early 20th centuries some Western countries adopted national corporatist structures while others transformed into liberal market economies. One of those elements is the persistence or absence of guild traditions. This is usually analyzed in a national context. This paper aims to contribute to the debate by investigating the development of separate trades in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands throughout the 19th century. We distinguish six scenarios of what might have happened to crafts and investigate how the prevalence of each of these scenarios in the three countries impacted on the emerging national political economies. By focusing on trades, rather than on the national political economy, our analysis demonstrates that in each country the formation of national political economies and citizenship rights was not the result of a national pattern of guild survival. Rather, the pattern that emerged by the end of the 19th century was determined by the balance between old and new industries, and between national and regional or local government

    Turkey\u27s Gender Equality Puzzle: Navigating the difference between policy and practice

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    Given extensive reforms targeted at improving gender equality in Turkey since the 1920’s, one would assume that women and men enjoy a comparable social status, but this is far from the case. To explore this puzzle, I analyze the disconnect between what the state wanted to do in regards to improving women’s rights, and what it actually could do on the ground. While the majority of feminist literature relies on a restrictive understanding of the state as uniformly patriarchal, I will expand these explanations to factor in an assessment of state strength and implementation capabilities. By looking at education and labor reforms from the early Turkish Republic and under the current ruling party, I will outline the ways in which the Turkish state simplified the woman question, then failed to adapt their proposed reforms to a variety of Turkish contexts, leading to significant local resistance. By acknowledging the limits to state power and the variety of interactions between state and society, my approach provides more concrete evidence necessary to fairly evaluate states’ commitment to gender equality and social change

    The prospects for transnational social policy: A reappraisal

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    Implications of Receiver Plane Uncertainty for the Static Stress Triggering Hypothesis

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    Static stress transfer from major earthquakes is commonly invoked as the primary mechanism for triggering aftershocks, but evaluating this mechanism depends on aftershock rupture plane orientations and hypocenter locations, which are often subject to significant observational uncertainty. We evaluate static stress change for an unusually large data set comprising hundreds to thousands of aftershocks following the 1997 Umbria-Marche, 2009 L’Aquila (Italy), and 2019 Ridgecrest (California) earthquake sequences. We compare failure stress resolved on aftershock focal mechanism planes and planes that are optimally oriented (OOPs) in the regional and earthquake perturbed stress field. Like previous studies, we find that failure stress resolved on OOPs overpredicts the percentage (>70%) of triggered aftershocks relative to that predicted from observed aftershock rupture planes (∼50%–65%) from focal mechanisms solutions, independent of how nodal plane ambiguity is resolved. Further, observed aftershock nodal planes appear statistically different from OOPs. Observed rupture planes, at least for larger magnitude events (M > 3), appear to align more closely with pre-existing tectonic structures. The inferred observational uncertainty associated with nodal plane ambiguity, plane orientation, and, to second order, hypocentral location yields a broad range of aftershocks potentially triggered by static stress changes, ranging from slightly better than random chance to nearly any aftershock promoted, particularly those further than 5 km from the causative fault. Dynamic stresses, afterslip, pore fluids, and other sources of unresolved small-scale heterogeneity in the post-mainshock stress field may also contribute appreciably to aftershock occurrence closer to the mainshock. © 2022. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.6 month embargo; first published: 23 April 2022This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]
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