Learning computing heritage through gaming – whilst teaching digital development through history

This paper analyses the potential of computer games and interactive projects within the learning programmes for cultural heritage institutions through our experiences working in partnership between higher education and a museum. Gamification is cited as a key disruptive technology for the business and enterprise community, and developments in games technology are also driving the expansion of digital media into all different screen spaces, and various platforms. Our research aims to take these as beneficial indicators for pedagogic development, using gaming to support knowledge transfer related to a museum setting, and using the museum as a key scenario for our students to support the practice of game development. Thus gamification is applied as both a topic and a methodology for educational purposes

Case study: Bio-inspired self-adaptive strategy for spike-based PID controller

A key requirement for modern large scale neuromorphic systems is the ability to detect and diagnose faults and to explore self-correction strategies. In particular, to perform this under area-constraints which meet scalability requirements of large neuromorphic systems. A bio-inspired online fault detection and self-correction mechanism for neuro-inspired PID controllers is presented in this paper. This strategy employs a fault detection unit for online testing of the PID controller; uses a fault detection manager to perform the detection procedure across multiple controllers, and a controller selection mechanism to select an available fault-free controller to provide a corrective step in restoring system functionality. The novelty of the proposed work is that the fault detection method, using synapse models with excitatory and inhibitory responses, is applied to a robotic spike-based PID controller. The results are presented for robotic motor controllers and show that the proposed bioinspired self-detection and self-correction strategy can detect faults and re-allocate resources to restore the controller’s functionality. In particular, the case study demonstrates the compactness (~1.4% area overhead) of the fault detection mechanism for large scale robotic controllers.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2012-37868-C04-0

A rational path towards a Pareto optimum for reforms of large state-owned enterprise in China, past, present and future

Since Deng Xiaoping’s historic move towards a market economy in post-Mao China during the 1980s, by far, the most challenging task in China’s reforms has been that related to the moribund state-owned sector due to a range of ideological, political, as well as economic reasons. Such reforms have so far been slow and hesitant, moving forward and backward with mixed results. This paper tackles the pros and cons of such reforms and aims to square a rational strategy based on what has been done so far in the state sector. Unlike a narrow approach currently prevailing in the literature, this paper establishes a partial equilibrium model which incorporates the principal-agent problem into a mixed oligopoly model to explore an optimal strategy for state-owned enterprise reforms in China. We argue that ceteris paribus the current illnesses of low efficiency and rent-seeking commonly suffered by China’s state-owned sector can be cured by a two-pronged strategy in which the importance of property rights holds the key. We have identified two ‘Coase Property Right Points’ in the commonly known choices of institutional changes in a reforming Soviet economy to firstly, make it more efficient, and then Pareto optimal. One institutional change is a ‘joint-stock reform’; the other, a ‘full privatisation reform’. In particular, this study regards ‘social-extra policy burdens’ as the main obstacle to improve much needed efficiency in the state sector. Coase Property Right Points show the necessity for a reduction of the social-extra policy burdens vis-à-vis the state sector’s true comparative advantag

A Spectral Lyapunov Function for Exponentially Stable LTV Systems

This paper presents the formulation of a Lyapunov function for an exponentially stable linear timevarying (LTV) system using a well-defined PD-spectrum and the associated PD-eigenvectors. It provides a bridge between the first and second methods of Lyapunov for stability assessment, and will find significant applications in the analysis and control law design for LTV systems and linearizable nonlinear time-varying systems

Modal Logics for Mobile Processes Revisited

We revisit the logical characterisations of various bisimilarity relations for the finite fragment of the ?-calculus. Our starting point is the early and the late bisimilarity, first defined in the seminal work of Milner, Parrow and Walker, who also proved their characterisations in fragments of a modal logic (which we refer to as the MPW logic). Two important refinements of early and late bisimilarity, called open and quasi-open bisimilarity, respectively, were subsequently proposed by Sangiorgi and Walker. Horne, et. al., showed that open and quasi-bisimilarity are characterised by intuitionistic modal logics: OM (for open bisimilarity) and FM (for quasi-open bisimilarity). In this work, we attempt to unify the logical characterisations of these bisimilarity relations, showing that they can be characterised by different sublogics of a unifying logic. A key insight to this unification derives from a reformulation of the four bisimilarity relations (early, late, open and quasi-open) that uses an explicit name context, and an observation that these relations can be distinguished by the relative scoping of names and their instantiations in the name context. This name context and name substitution then give rise to an accessibility relation in the underlying Kripke semantics of our logic, that is captured logically by an S4-like modal operator. We then show that the MPW, the OM and the FM logics can be embedded into fragments of our unifying classical modal logic. In the case of OM and FM, the embedding uses the fact that intuitionistic implication can be encoded in modal logic S4

Electrochemical Insertion/extraction of Lithium in Multiwall Carbon Nanotube/Sb and SnSb₀.₅ Nanocomposites

Multiwall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were synthesized by catalytic chemical vapor deposition of acetylene and used as templates to prepare CNT-Sb and CNT-SnSb₀.₅ nanocomposites via the chemical reduction of SnCl₂ and SbCl₃ precursors. SEM and TEM imagings show that the Sb and SnSb₀.₅ particles were uniformly dispersed in the CNT web and on the outside surface of CNTs. These CNT-metal composites are active anode materials for lithium ion batteries, showing improved cyclability compared to unsupported Sb and SnSb particles; and higher reversible specific capacities than CNTs. The improvement in cyclability may be attributed to the nanoscale dimensions of the metal particles and CNT’s role as a buffer in containing the mechanical stress arising from the volume changes in electrochemical lithium insertion and extraction reactions.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

Ex Post Evaluation of Economic Infrastructure Assets: Significance of Regional Heterogeneities in Australia

The process of evaluation is pivotal for ensuring infrastructure assets meet the demands and needs of business and the wider community. An empirical ex-post evaluation of the impact of regional heterogeneities for economic infrastructure assets in Australia is undertaken using a panel error correction model. The paper provides governments with an invaluable insight into the nature of ex-post evaluation, which is needed to develop and implement new performance measures to improve the public sector’s ability to future-proof their infrastructure assets