Analysis of tower/blade interaction in the cancellation of the tower fore-aft mode via control

With the increase in size of wind turbines, there is increasing interest in exploiting the pitch control capability of variable speed turbines to alleviate tower fatigue loads. The most direct method is to modify the blade pitch angle in response to a measurement of tower acceleration. It is shown that the ap mode has a central role in determining whether this approach is effective since there is a strong interaction between the blade ap-wise mode and the tower fore-aft mode. Several different approaches to the design of the controller for the tower speed feedback loop are investigated. It is concluded that a reduction in the tower loads of up to 18% is possible for multi-megawatt sized wind turbines

Playing it Metro

Emma Spruce on ‘Playing it Straight’ -the dynamics of articulating sexuality in popular culture. Metro-sexuality as a challenge to hyper-masculinity? This article has been published collaboratively by LSE Equality and Diversity and LSE Engenderings blog to mark LGBT History Month

Book review: posthuman urbanism: mapping bodies in contemporary space by Debra Benita Shaw

In Posthuman Urbanism: Mapping Bodies in Contemporary Space, Debra Benita Shaw examines the disciplinary control and classification built into the design of the contemporary city and explores practices of posthuman resistance, from squatting, dumpster diving and protest to parkour. This book provides excellent insight into how urban space can both stabilise and disrupt notions of ‘the human’ and other dominant ideologies, writes Hannah Spruce

Matching Municipal Challenges and Resources: Intergovernmental Options

For most of the era since 1960, when environmental policy and resource policy have been central public issues, the focus of public debates on those policies was at the federal and state levels. Now, more and more of the decisions and policies that will determine the quality of life for citizens are being made at the local level. There is concern over the ability of small governmental units, which often rely heavily on the New England tradition of volunteer government, to manage the new array of technical issues. Christopher Spruce asks if we should not think more carefully about the creation of an increasingly complex set of intergovernmental special districts at the municipal level. Might a single broad-based general governmental unit, perhaps a form of reinvigorated county-level government, provide a better umbrella for cooperative efforts by local governments

The Cosmopolitanization of the EU's Borders?

For centuries the political geography of Europe has been based around borders of its nation states. The ability of the nation state to control its territory has been essential to the practices of war and diplomacy, the legitimacy of governments, immigration policies and trade. But processes of globalization and EU integration have transformed the borders of the European nation state. While globalization theorists tend to posit an opening up of borders to global flows of capital, information and people, the changed nature of the border is itself often left unexamined and is assumed to have simply disappeared. But scholars and activists are now arguing that, rather than fading away, borders are proliferating in the globalized world and their functions spreading into many different areas of society. This article examines the transformation of the `classical border of the nation-state into its recent forms, using the work of theorists such as Balibar, Mezzadra, Rigo and Walters. It then examines how these theories have been applied in recent literature, and in particular Chris Rumfords analysis of the European Neighbourhood policy and his argument that this represents a `cosmopolitanisation of European borders

One Question at a Time, Please!

In the Margaret Chase Smith Essay, Chris Spruce addresses the conundrum of public referenda, championed by many as the most direct form of democracy and criticized by others for creating winners and losers without the traditional give and take of American politics. He reviews the recent history of public referenda in Maine, including the recent clear-cutting initiative. Perhaps we lose more than we gain when we oversimplify complex public issues with inherently conflicting values biases

LGBTQ situated memory, place-making, and the sexual politics of gentrification

This article draws on material from an ethnographic study in the gentrifying/gentrified London neighbourhood of Brixton to analyse the relationship between practices of LGBTQ territorialisation and the politics of neighbourhood change. It proceeds with two interrelated aims: to think critically about the ways in which LGBTQ claims to place-based belonging interact with racialised and classed ideologies of displacement and disciplining; and to explore memory’s significance in framing the relationship between LGBTQ people and place. ‘LGBTQ situated memory’ is thus introduced here as a concept that draws attention to the complex, contradictory and dynamic role that site-specific evocations of the past play in contemporary LGBTQ urban politics. By exploring three memory tropes that emerge in Brixton, I show that LGBTQ situated memory can be used to claim spatialised belonging, negotiate culpability for gentrification, and disturb progress narratives. Ultimately this article both calls for, and works towards, an approach to sexual geography that foregrounds multiplicity: a multiplicity of LGBTQ situated histories and – as is reflected in the memories explored – a multiplicity of relationships between LGBTQ people and neighbourhood development