Crosstalk-Preventing Scheduling in AWG-Based Cell Switches

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Mitigating Cascading Failures in Interdependent Power Grids and Communication Networks

In this paper, we study the interdependency between the power grid and the communication network used to control the grid. A communication node depends on the power grid in order to receive power for operation, and a power node depends on the communication network in order to receive control signals for safe operation. We demonstrate that these dependencies can lead to cascading failures, and it is essential to consider the power flow equations for studying the behavior of such interdependent networks. We propose a two-phase control policy to mitigate the cascade of failures. In the first phase, our control policy finds the non-avoidable failures that occur due to physical disconnection. In the second phase, our algorithm redistributes the power so that all the connected communication nodes have enough power for operation and no power lines overload. We perform a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the performance of our control policy, and show that our control policy achieves close to optimal yield for many scenarios. This analysis can help design robust interdependent grids and associated control policies.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, submitte

Researcher-led teaching:embodiment of academic practice

This paper explores the embodied practices of leading researchers(and/or leading scholars/practitioners), suggesting that distinctive‘researcher-led teaching’ depends on educators who are willing and able to be their research in the teaching setting. We advocate an approach to the development of higher education pedagogy which makes lead-researchers the objects of inquiry and we summarise case study analyses (in neuroscience and humanities) where the knowledge-making‘signatures’ of academic leaders are used to exhibit the otherwise hidden identities of research. We distinguish between learning readymade knowledge and the process of knowledge in the making and point towards the importance of inquiry in the flesh. We develop a view of higher education teaching that depends upon academic status a priori, but we argue that this stance is inclusive because it has the propensity to locate students as participants in academic culture

Alister Hardy: biologist of the spirit

In September 1969, almost exactly 110 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, another biologist and enthusiastic Darwinian, Alister Hardy, founded the Religious Experience Research Unit in Manchester College, Oxford. Hardy’s vision was of a new kind of natural theology that would grow out of the scientific investigation of the spiritual experience of the human species. Towards the end of his first series of Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Aberdeen in 1964, he had stated: Those who are concerned lest our civilization will change its nature under the influence of a materialistic philosophy might, I believe, do well to consider how they might encourage further research into the nature of human personality, in the hope of finding more about the nature of God. The great institutes for scientific research having a bearing on man’s bodily comfort – upon medical problems direct and indirect, agriculture and fisheries, food, transport and so on – are dotted about the country, and are as symbolic of the present age as our glorious cathedrals and parish churches are symbolic of our spiritual past. If only one per cent of the money spent on the physical and biological sciences could be spent ... it might not be long before a new age of faith dawned upon the world. It would, I believe, be a faith in a spiritual reality to match that of the middle ages; one based not upon a belief in a miraculous interference with the course of nature, but upon a greatly widened scientific outlook. What might mankind not do if he used the tools of modern science with the faith and inspiration of the cathedral builders? Can the scientific method help to re-establish such a faith? This vision of Hardy’s was heavily overlaid, if not entirely obscured, for almost all of his professional career as one of the world’s leading marine biologists. Indeed, the Alister Hardy Society is not the only organisation that currently bears his name. SAHFOS, the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, has its headquarters in Plymouth, a staff of 20 and an annual operating budget last year of two-thirds of a million pounds. It monitors the nearsurface plankton on a network of routes covering the whole of the North Atlantic and North Sea on a monthly basis, using the Continuous Plankton Recorder which Hardy invented more than 60 years ago. In this essay I want to turn away from that highly salient aspect of Alister’s originality to explore the origins and nature of the creative vision that grew out of his central preoccupation – the relation between biology and religion

Controlling the finances of primary schools

On cover: Commentaries and applied research for practitioners and educators. The Lincoln series of papers are designed to inform professionals and educators of developments and issues in finance and accounting today. The papers cover both commentaries and applied research. Professionals and educators who would like to share their views and research findings are welcome to contribute to the series.The reforms to school administration in New 7.ealand gave more control of school finances to members of the community and school principals and staff. I used a qualitative approach to examine the problems of providing control over these resources. It was difficult for schools to provide control over finances (internal control). This was not only because the organisations concerned were small and were run by people without business training. In addition, school management is characterised by confrontation with the central funding authorities. This project was conducted to test new ideas in internal control as well as to examine school administration. I found that the 'culture of control' is not an effective means of control. However some features of running a school provide hope that control can be provided in alternative ways, based on new concepts of internal control