On misunderstanding Heraclitus: The justice of organisation structure

Writers on organisational change often refer to the cosmology of Heraclitus in their work. Some use these references to support arguments for the constancy and universality of organisational change and the consignment to history of organisational continuity and stability. These writers misunderstand the scope of what Heraclitus said. Other writers focus exclusively on the idea that originated with Heraclitus that the universe is composed of processes and not of things. This idea, which has been particularly associated with Heraclitus’s thought from the time of Plato, does indeed provide a rich source of insights into organisational analysis, not least the current trends towards giving proper attention to processual studies of organisational change. Yet there is some uncertainty as to whether Heraclitus actually said that the universe was composed exclusively of processes rather than things, and even if that was what he thought, he intended his ideas on flux to be understood not in isolation but in the context of other aspects of his cosmology. Writers on organisational change seldom make reference to this wider context. Heraclitus was a rational but also a religious thinker. A central element in his thought was the notion of divine Justice, which to a Greek of his era meant the order of the universe. Remote as his Olympian theology may seem today, it sets a crucial and entirely rational context for understanding his ideas about flux. It means that ideas about continuity and stability were quite as important in Heraclitus’s cosmology as his more commonly quoted ideas about change. This paper sets out an overview of Heraclitus’s philosophy, insofar as it appears to have potential relevance to organisational analysis, and discusses how far it supports or contradicts the ideas that organisational change scholars have drawn from it

Adaptive Chain Coding for Arbitrary Curves

An adaptive chain coding algorithm based on using multiple templates is developed. The algorithm differentially encodes a curve using a directional template whose angle is dynamically scaled to accomodate a variety of curvature properties. A second template is occasionally used for reorientation if abrupt changes occur in the properties of the underlying curve. By exploiting the piecewise regularity of most curves, our technique provides substantially more accurate and efficient encodings compared with standard chain coding algorithms. 1. INTRODUCTION The encoding of arbitrary two-dimensional curves is important in a wide range of applications --- e.g., transmission of pictorial data, shape synthesis in CAD systems, shape analysis in object detection and recognition 1 , 2 . Chain coding, originally proposed by Freeman 3 , is a common boundary encoding 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 T T (a) (b) Figure 1: (a) 4-connected and (b) 8-connected templates technique. Standard chain codes use st..

Modeling of photovoltaic cells and arrays based on singular value decomposition

An accurate photovoltaic (PV) model is developed based on singular value decomposition (SVD) using measured or simulated data for PV current in terms of cell temperature, solar irradiance and output voltage. The SVD model projects the problem onto a space described by a small number of orthogonal basis functions (or modes). The number of modes adopted for constructing the model is determined based on the magnitudes of the singular values and the desired accuracy. This model is further implemented in a circuit simulator and applied to modeling of a PV array. Two PV test cells are used to verify the validity of the developed model. The SVD model is also demonstrated in a PV array with a non-uniform temperature profile. The developed SVD PV model requires no assumption to construct the model and is remarkably simple and accurate. To our best knowledge, this is the first application of SVD to modeling of semiconductor device characteristics and the first representation of SVD as an electric circuit

Locating Norway in ‘the North’: the Cultural Geography of Norway in Strickland’s ‘Arthur Ridley; or, a Voyage to Norway’ (1826) and Andersen’s ‘Elverhøi’ (1845)

This book explores various forms of cultural influence and exchange between Britain and the Nordic countries in the late eighteenth century and romantic period