Advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Improved Communications

Reestablishing communication channels is one of the most important yet time-consuming procedures to carry out following a natural disaster. After Hurricane Katrina impacted Louisiana in 2005, more than 60% of networks were still down 3 weeks after the event.1 In 2017, when Hurricane Mara devastated Puerto Rico, 95% of cellular sites failed island-wide, leaving many civilians disconnected for months.2 One viable approach to this challenge is increasing the capabilities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, which could provide sustained communication outlets in hard-to-access areas while emergency response efforts are underway

The imperial war museum’s social interpretation project

This report represents the output from research undertaken by University of Salford and MTM London as part of the joint Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture, operated by Nesta, Arts Council England and the AHRC. University of Salford and MTM London received funding from the programme to act as researchers on the Social Interpretation (SI) project, which was led by the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and their technical partners, The Centre for Digital Humanities, University College London, Knowledge Integration, and Gooii. The project was carried out between October 2011 and October 2012

Precedent in Law

A Review of Precedent in Law edited by Laurence Goldstei

I feel fat : how do therapists help recovering female anorectic clients overcome body image issues?

This study was undertaken to explore how therapists help their adult, female anorectic clients (who are post-medical stabilization and have committed to some therapeutic level of treatment and recovery) overcome body image issues related to the pursuit of thinness prescribed by Western culture and the media. Through interviews with ten therapists who had extensive experience working with anorectic women in recovery, this exploratory study examined clinicians\u27 experiences with clients\u27 body image issues and chief complaints, their strategies for treating the body image disturbance in their clients, their perceptions of what factors help someone to fully recover and what the most powerful messages are that someone who is fully recovered takes away, and finally their experience with treatment issues regarding women of color. The findings revealed that therapists reported being blended in their psychological orientations, using a variety of interventions simultaneously – thus approaching the complex construct of body image in anorexia from multiple angles. The study also unveiled a creative range of 22 different interventions and approaches that therapists found helpful in approaching body image healing in anorexia. Finally some therapists believed strongly that there are specific issues pertaining to race, ethnicity and the legacy of racism that are unique to the treatment of body image in women of color with anorexia

Learning and interaction in groups with computers: when do ability and gender matter?

In the research reported in this paper, we attempt to identify the background and process factors influencing the effectiveness of groupwork with computers in terms of mathematics learning. The research used a multi-site case study design in six schools and involved eight groups of six mixed-sex, mixed-ability pupils (aged 9-12) undertaking three research tasks – two using Logo and one a database. Our findings suggest that, contrary to other recent research, the pupil characteristics of gender and ability have no direct influence on progress in group tasks with computers. However, status effects – pupils' perceptions of gender and ability – do have an effect on the functioning of the group, which in turn can impede progress for all pupils concerned

17 ways to say yes:Toward nuanced tone of voice in AAC and speech technology

People with complex communication needs who use speech-generating devices have very little expressive control over their tone of voice. Despite its importance in human interaction, the issue of tone of voice remains all but absent from AAC research and development however. In this paper, we describe three interdisciplinary projects, past, present and future: The critical design collection Six Speaking Chairs has provoked deeper discussion and inspired a social model of tone of voice; the speculative concept Speech Hedge illustrates challenges and opportunities in designing more expressive user interfaces; the pilot project Tonetable could enable participatory research and seed a research network around tone of voice. We speculate that more radical interactions might expand frontiers of AAC and disrupt speech technology as a whole

Typewriter Keyboards via Simulated Annealing

We apply the simulated annealing algorithm to the combinatorial optimization problem of typewriter keyboard design, yielding nearly optimal key-placements using a figure of merit based on English letter pair frequencies and finger travel-times. Our keyboards are demonstrably superior to both the ubiquitous QWERTY keyboard and the less common Dvorak keyboard. The paper is constructed as follows: first we discuss the historical background of keyboard design; this includes August Dvorak\u27s work, and a figure-of-merit (scalar) metric for keyboards. We discuss a theory of keyboard designs: why keyboard design is a combinatorial problem, how combinatorial problems are typically solved, what is simulated annealing, and why it is especially suitable for the problem at hand. Next we discussed the results, and compare the keyboards produced by simulated annealing to QWERTY and Dvorak\u27s keyboard. Finally, we suggest some future lines of inquiry

Magnetostrictive Transducers (MsT) Utilizing Reversed Wiedemann Effect

Magnetostrictive transduction has been widely utilized in NDE applications and, specifically, for generation and reception of guided waves for long-range inspection of components such as pipes, vessels, and small tubes. Transverse-motion guided wave modes (e.g., torsional vibrations in pipes) are the most typical choice for long-range inspection applications because the wave motion is in the plane of the structure. Magnetostrictive-based sensors have been available for the last several years for these wave modes based on the Wiedemann effect. For these sensors, a permanent magnetic bias is applied that is perpendicular to the direction of the propagated guided wave. This bias field strains the material preferentially in the desired particle motion direction. A time-varying magnetic field that is much smaller than the bias field is induced in the material and is oriented parallel to the direction of guided wave propagation. This time-varying field is induced using an electric coil located near the surface. The interaction of these two fields produces the guided waves and an inverse effect is present for the receive process. An alternative configuration of a sensor for generating and receiving these traverse-motion guided waves is to reverse the biasing and time-varying magnetic fields directions. Since transverse-motion guided wave sensors are typically much wider in the particle motion direction, the net effect is the magnetic biasing length is shorter and different coil designs can be used. Because of this, the alternative design known as a magnetostrictive transducer (MsT), exhibits a number of unique features compared to the Wiedemann sensor described above, such as: 1) the ability to use smaller rare earth permanent magnets and achieve uniform and self-sustained bias field strengths, 2) the choice of more efficient electric coil arrangements to induce a stronger time-varying magnetic field for a given coil impedance, 3) more easily exhibit nonlinear operating characteristics given the efficiency improvements in both magnetic fields, and 4) the ability to generate unidirectional guided waves when the field arrangement is combined with a magnetostrictive patch. MsT designs will be presented that are suitable for different inspection applications, one using electromagnetic generation and reception directly in a ferromagnetic material and another design that integrates a magnetostrictive patch to improve the efficiency and allow special operating characteristics

The Contemporary Significance of the Holocaust for Australian Psychiatry.

In this paper we survey briefly the components of the Holocaust directly relevant to the psychiatric profession and identify the main themes of relevance to contemporary psychiatry. The euthanasia program, the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) citizens and the complex relationship between the psychiatric profession and Nazi state are the main themes to emerge from this survey. We then compare this period with key themes in the history of Australian psychiatry and link these themes to some of the contemporary ethical challenges the profession faces

Psychiatry, genocide and the National Socialist State: lessons learnt, ignored and forgotten.

The genocide of European Jews perpetrated by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany and its satellites was a distinctly modern event. The bureaucratised and industrialised nature of the Nazi plan (the Endlösung or Final Solution) is generally considered the defining characteristic of the Nazi regime’s genocide. It placed that particular genocidal endeavour in a modernist context, unparalleled in human history. Prior to the establishment of extermination camps in Poland, the Nazi regime had perpetrated or fomented both sporadic massacres and a militarised program of executions in Eastern Europe, in what has been termed “Holocaust by bullets” (Desbois, 2008). Yet despite the murder of 1.5 million Jews by SS and police mobile killing squads (Einsatzgruppen), the defining symbol of the Holocaust was the industrialised killing centre at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Importantly, the gas chambers of the Reinhard camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka II) and Auschwitz-Birkenau did not appear de novo for the purposes of killing Europe’s Jews (Friedlander, 1995). The medical profession, in collusion with Adolf Hitler’s Chancellery (KdF), had developed and refined a large scale, state-financed and well-concealed program of victim selection and mass transportation to dedicated killing centres with effective techniques of gassing and disposal of victims’ remains. The template for the Endlösung evolved as a medical procedure, developed primarily by psychiatrists (Burleigh M, 2002)