2,478 research outputs found
Book review: sexual politics in modern Ireland
This edited volume is not a comprehensive overview of the role and experience of sexual politics in modern Ireland, but rather a diverse range of topics that explores the gaps in gender studies within Irish history, writes Muireann O’Dwyer. Sexual Politics in Modern Ireland sets out to explore gender, sex and sexuality using new data to explore stories that have yet to be told, and to add to our understanding of who and what make up Irish society
Toward critical, constructive assessments of CEFR-based language teaching in Japan and beyond
From institutional integration to institutional demise: The disintegration of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)
This paper presents an in-depth contextual analysis of the rise and recent demise of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). The IIRC entered its ‘Breakthrough Phase’ for Integrated Reporting (<IR>) in 2013 and progressed to its ‘Momentum Phase’ in late 2018. The ‘Global Adoption Phase’ of <IR> was expected to commence in 2021 and conclude in 2026. However, by the middle of 2023, the IIRC ceased to exist as a separate entity and the future adoption of its much vaunted <IR> Framework was fundamentally uncertain. Drawing on a comprehensive examination of documentary evidence and a series of 34 in-depth interviews with key players associated with the IIRC’s development, this paper studies how and why the IIRC went so rapidly from being a notable ‘is’ to a definitive ‘was’ in less than a decade. Our analysis traces the IIRC’s shifting strategic priorities in pursuit of a new corporate reporting norm and illustrates how these priorities underpinned a concerted effort at institutional integration in the corporate reporting field. We show how the nature of this attempted integration eventually led to the IIRC’s demise. In seeking to understand the IIRC’s strategic choices and actions we pinpoint the significance of ‘invisibilities and exclusions’, ‘the dance of agency’, and ‘conceptual promiscuity’. We conclude that the IIRC’s ultimate legacy may not be what it integrated in terms of corporate reporting but what it chose or was required to exclude or to forget
Concept study for a high-efficiency nanowire-based thermoelectric
Materials capable of highly efficient, direct thermal-to-electric energy
conversion would have substantial economic potential. Theory predicts that
thermoelectric efficiencies approaching the Carnot limit can be achieved at low
temperatures in one-dimensional conductors that contain an energy filter such
as a double-barrier resonant tunneling structure. The recent advances in growth
techniques suggest that such devices can now be realized in heterostructured,
semiconductor nanowires. Here we propose specific structural parameters for
InAs/InP nanowires that may allow the experimental observation of near-Carnot
efficient thermoelectric energy conversion in a single nanowire at low
temperature
Intertrochanteric fracture below Birmingham Hip Resurfacing: Successful non-operative management in two cases
LOWER LIMB COORDINATIVE STRUCTURE IN HUMAN WALKING
Human movement engages many body segments which are highly coupled. These couplings, known as synergies, have been widely investigated using principal components analysis (PCA). A primary limitation of the correlation matrices underlying PCA is that they do not account for phase differences or frequency-dependent variations in amplitude ratio between signals, yet such properties are widespread in relations between signals in the sensorimotor system. Coherence derived from dynamic linear systems analyses was introduced here to PCA applied to lower limb movements during normal walking. The results showed that one component could account for over 90% of the total variance in 26 joint angles. The findings confirm that the coordinative structure of walking is very low dimensional, comprising only a single degree of freedom
Simulation of guiding of multiply charged projectiles through insulating capillaries
Recent experiments have demonstrated that highly charged ions can be guided
through insulating nanocapillaries along the direction of the capillary axis
for a surprisingly wide range of injection angles. Even more surprisingly, the
transmitted particles remain predominantly in their initial charge state, thus
opening the pathway to the construction of novel ion-optical elements without
electric feedthroughs. We present a theoretical treatment of this
self-organized guiding process. We develop a classical trajectory transport
theory that relates the microscopic charge-up with macroscopic material
properties. Transmission coefficients, angular spread of transmitted particles,
and discharge characteristics of the target are investigated. Partial agreement
with experiment is found
Data-Driven Predictive Control With Improved Performance Using Segmented Trajectories
A class of data-driven control methods has recently emerged based on Willems’ fundamental lemma. Such methods can ease the modeling burden in control design but can be sensitive to disturbances acting on the system under control. In this article, we propose a restructuring of the problem to incorporate segmented prediction trajectories. The proposed segmentation leads to reduced tracking error for longer prediction horizons in the presence of unmeasured disturbance and noise when compared with an unsegmented formulation. The performance characteristics are illustrated in a set-point tracking case study in which the segmented formulation enables more consistent performance over a wide range of prediction horizons. The method is then applied to a building energy management problem using a detailed simulation environment. The case studies show that good tracking performance is achieved for a range of horizon choices, whereas performance degrades with longer horizons without segmentation
- …