Alain Badiou's anabasis: Rereading Paul Celan against Heidegger

The essay examines Alain Badiou's concept of ‘anabasis’ and its disclosure in the poetry of Paul Celan. As a conceptualisation of the process of subject formation, anabasis is read as a rejoinder to that of ‘homecoming’, found in Martin Heidegger's appropriation of Friedrich Hölderlin's poems. Following an excursus on the philosophical and the ethical stakes at the heart of these movements, the essay close-reads two of Celan's poems in order to reveal poetry's own attempts to think through trajectories of emergent subjectivities in the wake of twentieth-century violence, as well as the as yet understated centrality of Celan's poetry to Badiou's wider philosophical project

A methodology for aggregate assembly modelling and planning

The introduction of Concurrent Engineering highlights the need for a link between the early stages of product design and assembly planning. This thesis presents aggregate assembly process planning as a novel methodology to provide this link. The theory behind the research is to bring all aspects of product development together to consider assembly planning at the conceptual stage of design. Decisions taken during the early design stage not only have the greatest influence on production times and costs, but also should ensure that a design is easy to manufacture and assemble. An automated computer-based system has been developed to implement the methodology. The system generates aggregate assembly process plans which give details of feasible sequences, assembly process times and costs, resource requirements, and factory loadings. The Aggregate Assembly Modelling and Planning (AAMP) system employs object-oriented modelling techniques to represent designs, process planning knowledge, and assembly resources. The minimum information requirements have been identified, and a product model encompassing this data has been developed. An innovative factor of this thesis is to employ Assembly Feature Connections (AFCs) within the product model to represent assembly connectivity. Detailed generic assembly process models, functioning with limited design data, are used to calculate assembly criteria. The introduction of a detailed resource model to represent assembly facilities enables the system to calculate accurate assembly times, dependent on which resources are used within a factory, or even which factory is employed. A new algorithm uses the structure of the product model, process constraints and assembly rules to efficiently generate accurate assembly sequences. Another new algorithm loads the assembly operations onto workstations, ensuring that the capability and capacity are available. The aggregate assembly process planning functionality has been tested using products from industry, and has yielded accurate results that prove to be both technically feasible and realistic. Industrial response has been extremely favourable. Specific comments on the usefulness and simplicity of such a comprehensive system gives encouragement to the concept that aggregate assembly process planning provides the required link between the early stages of product design and assembly planning

Tile settlement of modernity: A study of the relationship between national polices and local culture and the significance of technology in the transition from community to society on Whiddy Island, Bantry Bay, County Cork, Eire

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis is based on an ethnographic study of the inhabitants of Whiddy Island, and focuses on the change from one form of societal organisation to another on this island. The thesis is not an ethnography proper, but an attempt to link the local perceptions of change and the changes in the islanders' daily lives, to the wider political economy. Throughout the course of the study my original intention of exploring the tension between technology and community was replaced with the wider hypothesis that there is tension between modernity and community. Technology was revealed as both a product and producer of modernity, and modern state capitalist societies as the antonym not the synonym of community. The 40 remaining islanders represent the last of the transient phase in which community disappears and is replaced by society. The changes in the daily lives of the islanders were not total nor revolutionary. Rather the products of modernity - both policies and artefacts, were absorbed into the islanders' daily lives, and once absorbed the products of modernity promoted modernity in the daily lives of those using them. Modernity is thus a circular process, yet it settled on the island in layers. Each layer produced a new set of paradoxes and reformed the old practices and the old ideology to fit the new setting. The settlement of modernity culminated in the replacement of community members with state citizens. By focusing on the interrelationship and dialogue between modernity, the state and the citizen the processes by which modernity settled on this small island are revealed. It settled both as a result of the direct intervention of state policies on education, emigration and employment, and as a result of local decisions to embrace mechanised transport, domestic technologies and the mass media. By accepting the policies and the artefacts of modernity, the islanders were prohibited from resisting their transformation from community members to state citizens. The island citizen, like all citizens to-day, has a direct dialogue with, and relationship to modernity, and an indirect one mediated by the state

Harmonizing Agricultural Growth and Nighttime Sky: Municipal Strategies for Mitigating Commercial Greenhouse-Related Light Pollution in Ontario, Canada

This comprehensive research investigates the intricate interplay between the thriving commercial greenhouse industry and the pressing concern of nocturnal light pollution in a focussed area of Ontario, Canada, and the Netherlands. The study addresses the multifaceted challenge of managing greenhouse-related light pollution, which emerges as an unintended consequence of employing supplementary lighting to extend growing seasons and enhance crop yields. The analysis of jurisdictional approaches reveals the complexities and the varied success achieved in addressing this issue.In Ontario, particularly in and near the County of Essex, the response to greenhouse-related light pollution has primarily been reactive, with municipalities passing light nuisance by-laws under the province’s Municipal Act. However, the lack of a comprehensive legal framework addressing greenhouse lighting in other provincial acts, such as the Planning Act and the Environmental Protection Act, has led to a fragmented approach, resulting in inconsistent outcomes. The jurisdictional scan indicates that Ontario\u27s current approach may benefit from greater coordination and harmonization of efforts to minimize disturbances for nearby residents.In contrast, the Netherlands has adopted a proactive and comprehensive approach, driven by decentralized policies targeting specific challenges unique to different regions. The country leverages the Light/Dark Handbook as a guiding resource, facilitating collaboration between provinces and stakeholders. This decentralized model allows local authorities to implement targeted strategies, resulting in a cohesive and efficient response to light pollution concerns. Moreover, successful examples of greenhouse clusters in the Netherlands, such as Agriport A7, and which are akin to industrial parks in North America, demonstrate the effectiveness of private-public partnerships and the involvement of stakeholders in policy development.The research highlights the importance of a coordinated and collaborative approach that aligns the interests of governmental bodies, greenhouse growers, and the public. By drawing lessons from the Netherlands\u27 multifaceted model, Ontario can implement more cohesive efforts to combat light pollution while fostering sustainable and environmentally conscious greenhouse practices. The research underscores the significance of involving stakeholders, creating centralized guiding documents, and providing financial incentives to ensure the harmonious coexistence of agricultural productivity and environmental preservation. As awareness of light pollution\u27s impact continues to grow, the adoption of comprehensive and integrated strategies becomes essential for balancing the needs of the greenhouse industry with the imperative of environmental stewardship

Modelling large LNG pool fires on water

PresentationThere has been a rising demand for natural gas across the World. In many countries, this demand is being satisfied through an increasing number of marine LNG Carrier (LNGC) deliveries and hence there is a safety requirement to understand the consequences of significant accidents that could lead to the catastrophic failure resulting in a large spill of LNG in a harbor. The impact of thermal radiation on LNGCs, terminal facilities and the public outside the site fence-line from an LNG pool fire on water could extend a long distance according to current empirical models. The Phoenix pool fire experiments were conducted by Sandia laboratories to validate these models for large LNG spills on water. It was observed that the pool fire did not extend across the entire area of an 80 m diameter LNG pool. In addition, the flame height was greater than expected and there was very little smoke obscuration compared to the 35 m tests at Montoir. This combination of physical phenomena made it difficult to use existing models to predict the consequences of thermal radiation, especially when extrapolating to different and potentially larger spill sizes. A recent study using empirical analysis and CFD demonstrated that the thermal updraft of a large fire will drive an inward flow of air and natural gas from the non-burning region with a velocity greater than the burning velocity of the outwardly spreading pool fire. Medium scale tests using a 4 x 1 m LNG pool in a fire tunnel confirmed that an artificially generated air-flow of 2.8 m/s was sufficient to stop the flame spread across the pool and confirmed the previous analysis. This paper describes an empirical model that has been developed based upon this analysis to account for the reduced pool fire size and successfully model the larger flame height that was observed during the Phoenix test. An analysis of large spills using this model showed that the calculated flame view factor was significantly reduced compared to pool fire models that predict that the fire will extend across the whole spill surface. The paper will also discuss the effect of water on combustion and hence provide an explanation for the reduced smoke obscuration that was seen during the Phoenix tests