Speaking of clans: language in Awyu-Ndumut communities of Indonesian West Papua

The place of language in Awyu-Ndumut speech communities of the Indonesian province of West Papua is investigated from the point of view of the parallel but interconnected worlds of clan lands and nation-state sponsored settlements, with institutions such as schools and churches. First, language and identity, language names, multilingualism, linguistic ideologies and special speech registers are discussed from the perspective of clan-based cultural and linguistic practices. Second, the relationship between Papuan languages and Indonesian is investigated from the perspective of the dynamics of the clan land/settlement opposition. Indonesian is talked about by Awyu-Ndumut speakers both positively and negatively. Positively, they speak of it as an interethnic lingua franca. Negatively, they speak of it as the language of "demons", that is people outside the boundaries of Awyu-Ndumut social personhood

The Question of Generation Adequacy in Liberalised Electricity Markets

This paper presents an overview of the reasons why unregulated markets for the production of electricity cannot be expected to invest sufficiently in generation capacity on a continuous basis. Although it can be shown that periodic price spikes should provide generation companies with sufficient investment incentives in theory, there are a number of probable causes of market failure. A likely result is the development of investment cycles that may affect the adequacy of capacity. The experience in California shows the great social costs associated with an episode of scarce generation capacity. Another disadvantage is that generation companies can manipulate price spikes. This would result in large transfers of income from consumers to producers and reduce the operational reliability of electricity supply during these price spikes. We end this paper by outlining several methods that have been proposed to stabilise the market, which provide better incentives to generation companies and consumers alike.Generation adequacy, Liberalised electricity market

Some notes on the Tsaukambo language of West Papua

This article presents some first observations on the Tsaukambo language of West Papua's Digul Basin. It is entirely based on the language learning and field notes of missionary Baas (1981). The Tsaukambo speech community, on the Lower Dawi river, is culturally very similar to its Awyu-Dumut and Ok neighbors, for example in clan-based organization, feast cycles, Omaha kinship system and an extended body-part system of counting. Linguistically, Tsaukambo has its closest ties to its western neighbor Korowai and its northern neighbor Komyandaret. It is argued that these three languages form a group of closely related languages that we call the Becking-Dawi group. This BeckingDawi group shares ancestry with the Awyu-Dumut family in the Greater Awyu family. \ud \u

The generation of bending sequences in a CAPP system for sheet-metal components

An important process-planning task in sheet-metal manufacturing is the determination of bending sequences for individual components. Computer-aided generation of these sequences, as part of a computer-aided process-planning (CAPP) system, can relieve the workload of process-planning departments, this being especially important in small batch manufacturing environments. This paper discusses the functions that have to be performed during the determination of bending sequences, focusing on accuracy aspects. The generation of bending sequences is also put into the broader perspective of an integrated CAPP system such as PART-S, which is under development presently in the author's laboratory

Detection of static and dynamic activities using uniaxial accelerometers

Rehabilitation treatment may be improved by objective analysis of activities of daily living. For this reason, the feasibility of distinguishing several static and dynamic activities (standing, sitting, lying, walking, ascending stairs, descending stairs, cycling) using a small set of two or three uniaxial accelerometers mounted on the body was investigated. The accelerometer signals can be measured with a portable data acquisition system, which potentially makes it possible to perform online detection of static and dynamic activities in the home environment. However, the procedures described in this paper have yet to be evaluated in the home environment. Experiments were conducted on ten healthy subjects, with accelerometers mounted on several positions and orientations on the body, performing static and dynamic activities according to a fixed protocol. Specifically, accelerometers on the sternum and thigh were evaluated. These accelerometers were oriented in the sagittal plane, perpendicular to the long axis of the segment (tangential), or along this axis (radial). First, discrimination between the static or dynamic character of activities was investigated. This appeared to be feasible using an rms-detector applied on the signal of one sensor tangentially mounted on the thigh. Second, the distinction between static activities was investigated. Standing, sitting, lying supine, on a side and prone could be distinguished by observing the static signals of two accelerometers, one mounted tangentially on the thigh, and the second mounted radially on the sternum. Third, the distinction between the cyclical dynamic activities walking, stair ascent, stair descent and cycling was investigated. The discriminating potentials of several features of the accelerometer signals were assessed: the mean value, the standard deviation, the cycle time and the morphology. Signal morphology was expressed by the maximal cross-correlation coefficients with template signals for the different dynamic activities. The mean signal values and signal morphology of accelerometers mounted tangentially on the thigh and the sternum appeared to contribute to the discrimination of dynamic activities with varying detection performances. The standard deviation of the signal and the cycle time were primarily related to the speed of the dynamic activities, and did not contribute to the discrimination of the activities. Therefore, discrimination of dynamic activities on the basis of the combined evaluation of the mean signal value and signal morphology is propose