Relative Positioning Research Articles

Designs of lattice truss core sandwich structures with improved compressive strength and stiffness

Lattice truss core sandwich composite (LTCSC) panels can exhibit high compressive performance until failure is caused by compressive fracture of the composite strut. Early failure of the core-facesheet and central nodes, as well as fiber misalignment, can hinder the full potential of an LTCSC. This study aimed at improving the compressive stiffness and strength of LTCSC panels through minimizing the fiber misalignment and fabrication issues, while strengthening the central and core-facesheet nodes. The lost-molding technique was used to fabricate LTCSC panels, which were then subjected to quasi-static flatwise compression testing. Relative positioning of neighboring composite struts, modification of the carbon fiber path, and strengthening of the core-facesheet node significantly improved the compressive performance of the panels. Based on the findings, compressive strength and stiffness of LTCSC panels can be improved about 100% and 300%, respectively, with minimal increase in weight. Fabricated LTCSC panels were found to demonstrate competitive specific compressive properties in comparison with conventional core materials.

Left to their own devices: Radio, radiomen and radio stations in the making of Tibet’s modern political landscape

Abstract This article illuminates a correlation between Tibet’s national identity and technological peripheralization through three intertwined tales involving Chinese, British and Tibetan radio stations in Lhasa between 1934 and 1950. Instead of a political backwater, Tibet was crucial to the competition between an expansionist British Empire and a growingly nationalistic Republic of China in the Himalayas throughout the first half of the twentieth century. As Britain and China monopolized the radio to substantiate their respective political ambitions, Tibet was compelled to adopt an image of geographical remoteness and technological underdevelopment. Upon breaking the foreign monopoly, the Tibetan government managed to appropriate this image for the propagation of its definitions of Tibetan state and national identities. Both the radio and the lack thereof in Tibet, therefore, became key to the Chinese, British and Tibetan governments’ efforts in furthering their respective portrayals of the Tibetan state and nation, as well as Tibet’s position in relation to its neighbours and the rest of the world. In addition to illustrating the interaction of power and technology in the creation of peripheral regions and competing identities, the history of radio in Tibet also reveals the essential roles played by the individuals who oversaw the radio’s daily operations in such processes. Refusing to remain mere extensions of the state that they represented or the machine that they operated, these agents and technicians actively pursued their individual objectives, sometimes against the interests of their employers, shaping Tibet’s modern political landscape in unexpected yet significant ways

Study on Talent Skills Analysis and Talent Demand of Cross-border E-Commerce Enterprises in Wuhan

Since Wuhan became a comprehensive pilot zone for cross-border e-commerce, the city has seen a significant rise in import and export trade by virtue of its superior geographical location and continued ability to sustain talent. However, with the continuous development of the digital economy, related positions have tended to become more complex and refined, and cross-border e-commerce practitioners need to continuously improve their comprehensive ability and professionalism. Although there are many universities in Wuhan, which can deliver a large number of cross-border e-commerce and related professional graduates every year, a large amount of data shows that there is a large discrepancy between the supply of talents and the demand of enterprises. This study focuses on investigating and analysing the skills of employees in cross-border e-commerce enterprises in Wuhan, through conducting surveys on supply chain management positions, trade service positions, sales positions, operation positions and design positions, to understand and analyse the skills mastery of employees working in cross-border enterprises in Wuhan, and to summarise the situation, so as to provide advice on the curriculum setting and talent training programmes of cross-border e-commerce majors in Wuhan and universities in other regions. The survey will provide advice on the adjustment of the curriculum and talent training programmes for cross-border e-commerce majors in Wuhan and other regional universities, so as to promote the better and sustainable development of cross-border e-commerce in China.

Decision-making About Premortem Interventions for Donation: Navigating Legal and Ethical Complexities.

Premortem interventions (PMIs) for organ donation play a vital role in preserving opportunities for deceased donation or increasing the chances of successful transplantation of donor organs. Although ethical considerations relating to use of particular PMIs have been well explored, the ethical and legal aspects of decision-making about the use of PMIs have received comparatively little attention. In many countries, there is significant uncertainty regarding whether PMIs are lawful or, if they are, who can authorize them. Furthermore, emphasis on consideration of therapeutic goals in substitute decision-making frameworks may discourage consideration of donation goals. In this article, we examine the fundamental questions of who should have the authority to make decisions about the use of PMIs on behalf of a potential donor and how such decisions should be made. We draw on international examples of legal reform that have sought to clarify the legal position in relation to administering PMIs and identify potential elements of an effective regulatory model for PMIs. In doing so, we argue that reforms are needed in many countries to provide legal certainty for clinicians who are responsible for supporting decision-making about PMIs and to ensure that the goals and preferences of potential donors are accorded due consideration in the decision-making process.

Mixed-species groups and aggregations: shaping ecological and behavioural patterns and processes

Mixed-species groups of birds, fishes and mammals have traditionally been described in taxa-specific journals. However, mixed-species systems are actually more widely found when one includes aggregative (non-moving) systems, such as those common in amphibians and invertebrates. The objective of this special issue is to dispel the idea that mixed-species phenomena are a 'niche topic' to ecology and instead explore how taking a mixed-species perspective can change our conception of important ecological patterns and processes. A mixed-species perspective starts by understanding the relative abundance and positioning of individuals of different species and their behavioural synchrony; it is enriched by understanding differences between species in their vulnerability/attractiveness to predators, their potential for competing with other group participants and their use as a source of public information. Contributions to the special issue show how the mixed-species perspective can change our ideas about invasion ecology, island biogeography, keystone species, mimicry, predator eavesdropping and more. Rather than seeking synthesis, the special issue celebrates the taxonomic and conceptual breadth of the field of mixed-species groups, with detailed descriptions of many distinctive systems. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mixed-species groups and aggregations: shaping ecological and behavioural patterns and processes'.

Vehicular Relative Positioning With Measurement Outliers and GNSS Outages

Relative positioning among vehicles finds many applications regarding location-based services in intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). This article introduces a hybrid relative positioning strategy integrating global navigation satellite system (GNSS), inertial navigation system (INS), and ultrawideband (UWB) observations, which addresses measurement outliers and GNSS outages simultaneously. An improved extended Kalman filter (IEKF) based on tracking an appropriately weighted window of past innovations is developed to deal with measurement outliers. To perform relative positioning during GNSS outages, a nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs (NARX) is developed to predict GNSS measurements increments, with the least-squares support vector machine (LSSVM) algorithm identifying the NARX model. The NARX-LSSVM module learns the relationship between GNSS pseudorange and Doppler shift increments of a target vehicle and its local and neighbors’ dynamics. Whereas during GNSS outages, the increments of GNSS measurements are generated by this prediction algorithm. The feasibility of the proposed methodology is evaluated on empirical road data, and improved positioning accuracy is achieved in cooperative positioning (CP) systems.

Impact of occlusal reconstruction positions on airway dimensions in patients with edentulism and long centric occlusion

ObjectiveTo study the airway changes of edentulous patients with a magnitude of long centric (MLC) ≥ 1.5 mm during occlusal reconstruction at the centric relation position (CRP) and muscular position (MP).MethodsThe CRP and MP were determined by Gothic arch. The cephalometric analysis was taken at the two occlusal positions. The sagittal distance of each part of the upper airway was measured. The differences between two occlusal positions were compared. The difference values were calculated by subtracting the two. The correlation between the MLC and the difference value was analyzed.ResultsThe sagittal diameters of palatopharynx and glossopharynx airway at MP were statistically larger than those at CRP (P < 0.05). The MLC had a strong correlation with the ANB angle (r = 0.745, P < 0.001).ConclusionCompared with the occlusal position of CRP, occlusion reconstruction at MP can provide better airway condition for edentulous patients with large MLC.

Investment Analysis on Precision Medicine Project in Saudi Arabia

In recent years, precision medicine has increased public awareness, particularly since 2020, when the COVID-19 epidemic struck almost every country in the world. Saudi Arabia is one of the affected countries, and this public health issue has affected many aspects of the country, including some key decision making in political, economic, healthcare and other major sector. Saudi Arabia is a country with the largest oil export in the world, and controlling the second largest oil reserves and the fourth largest gas reserves in the world, all these significant advantages make it occupy an important position in international relations. However, these advantages have also been a problem in the national development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For example, the revenue of the nation is too dependent on oil, resulting in uneven industrial development. With the launch of Saudi Vision 2030, the government shows its ambition in non-oil sectors and the nation also shows high interest on healthcare sector, such as precision medicine. In order to analyse the investment feasibility in precision medicine related projects in Saudi Arabia, data from different directions, such as political, economic, social and technological factors have been analysed.

Conceptualising transitions from higher education to employment: navigating liminal spaces

ABSTRACT This article develops and applies the concept of liminality and liminal identities to illustrate the relative positioning of graduates within the transitional spaces of moving from one institutional context to another and navigating an uncertain and challenging labour market. The current pandemic-affected labour market provided a rich context through which recent graduates have to sense-make and negotiate a future identity trajectory, exacerbating challenges evident over the past several decades. Drawing on qualitative interview data with recent graduates, this article depicts the liminal spaces they occupy through a typology of transitional positionings, including movement between these spaces. These ideas carry wider implications for supporting graduates’ transition to a challenging and volatile labour market.

Humour and the stretchy temporality of peer conflict in a group early childhood setting: An analysis of relational power

While research on children’s humour is growing, few investigations have focused on how children use humour in conflict interactions, and specifically in group early childhood settings. Using data extracts from a project that investigated children’s naturally occurring conflict interactions in a multi-ethnic early childhood setting, we use interactional sociolinguistics to analyse how children used humour at unexpected moments during conflict situations. The analysis probes different meanings carried in the children’s use of humour, illustrating how humour intersected with personal and relational power to resolve or defuse conflict, or to coerce compliance with existing peer relational positions. The analysis broadens understandings of the significance of humour in children’s lives in early childhood settings, and particularly in the context of conflict interactions that have a ‘stretchy temporality’ connecting interactive moves to others in the past, and to existing power positions in peer relationships.

Moral Economies of Life and Death: Agricultural Improvement, Imperialism, and Chemical Kinships with Reactive Nitrogen

What does it mean to think of chemicals as kin? Building on the concepts of chemical kinships and pollution as colonialism, I use a feminist storytelling methodology grounded in relational ontology to explore my kinship relationships with reactive nitrogen, and the way it both hurts me and gives me life. Agriculture and organic chemistry are close kin to imperialism, capitalism, and environmental destruction, and, as a white British woman, I argue these are also my own more-than-human family: my close kin. To take the call to kinship seriously, I argue for approaching kinship personally, and accepting clear positionality in relation: exploring my relation to how these kin both abuse and support me, our ancestral entanglement, and my own complicity and responsibility in enabling their abuse.

The ‘Deluge’ of 25 October 1822 in Genoa, Italy

The ‘Deluge’ of 25 October 1822 in Genoa, Italy

Prenatal diagnosis of non-janiceps type of cephalopagus conjoined twins: a case report

BackgroundConjoined twin pregnancy is a very rare variety of twin pregnancy which results from the failure of complete separation of a zygote after 13 days, ‘cephalopagus’ being the rarest variety of such twin pregnancies. Two forms of cephalopagus conjoined twins have been described in the literature: Janiceps (two faces are on the either side of the head) and non-janiceps (with one head and a single face); non-janiceps type being even rarer. The features that may hint towards the diagnosis on ultrasound include inseparable fetal bodies, unvarying relative positioning of the two fetuses, both heads persistently at the same level to each other, bi-breech or bicephalic presentations and a single umbilical cord with more than three vessels. 3-D ultrasound and Fetal MRI may help in confirmation of this rare entity.Case presentationA 19-year-old primigravida, presented at 12 weeks of gestation for antenatal ultrasound. Ultrasonography showed evidence of a conjoined twin with a single head and single face, fused thoracic cavities with single heart, two lungs, fused upper abdomen with shared stomach and liver, separate pelvic cavities with two different urinary bladders and two pairs of upper and lower limbs. Fetal MRI corroborated these findings. The pregnancy was terminated vaginally, and cephalopagus fetus was delivered. The parents were appropriately counselled for future pregnancies.ConclusionsA very rare case of non-Janiceps variety of cephalopagus conjoined twin gestation which was detected at 12 weeks of gestation by antenatal ultrasound and confirmed on fetal MRI. Early antenatal diagnosis is extremely important for appropriate and timely management as the prognosis is very poor in such twins. Antenatal ultrasound and fetal MRI prove very beneficial in this aspect as well as for diagnosis of other associated fetal abnormalities.

State regulation and management of the system of ownership and use of agricultural land. Part II

A huge country, sparsely populated over large areas, with an abundance of natural resources, inherited from the ancestors, this is a blessing and a burden at the same time - the territory and resources must not only be protected from envious neighbors and countries that are historically accustomed to obtain natural resources at an inexpensive price, but also populate and equip vast territories by establishing production, and not mainly engage in gathering and selling the gifts of nature, constantly being in a state of “lagging development model”. With an abundance of land resources, and at least half of the untapped potential of productive agricultural lands, the ever-increasing need for food in the world creates geopolitical and economic opportunities for increasing agricultural production through a more complete use of vacant agricultural lands of the Non-Black Earth Region and intensification of agriculture in regions with more fertile black soil. Land policy plays a decisive role in realizing the existing opportunities to increase agricultural production, legislation, and the quality of legal regulation of land relations, management of the use of productive agricultural land, institutional environment and land management infrastructure. The article considers long-term problems of land policy, land legislation, the quality of regulation and management of land resources in agriculture and the need to determine ways and means of their improvement. “Administrative labor occupies a dominant position in relation to executive labor, as well as to the services of the land. It forms “the third factor” of production (capital + land + labor. A significant part of capital is knowledge and the organization of production). Labor is as passive as natural objects (for economic theory). Labor and land are just an instrument” (Josef Alois Schumpeter, 1883-1950, Theory of Economic Development, p. 69).

Introduction: The Future of British Political History

AbstractPolitics and history are closely intertwined and historians play a vital role in British public life. Yet, British political history, which has a critical contribution to make for understanding British politics today, faces two urgent challenges. First, academic history has retreated from subjects that remain hugely popular in media and trade publishing and of interest to social scientists, such as the histories of political institutions and formal power structures. Second, political history is disconnected from innovative trends in the wider historiography of modern Britain. Combined, these issues leave political historians in an ambiguous position in relation to the wider field, to other academic disciplines and to contemporary political debates. After discussing these challenges, this introduction surveys this special issue, which reflects on what (if anything) is distinctive about political history as practised today, and what its contribution to historiography, social science and public life should be. It ends by posing key questions for historians of all methodological stripes who investigate Britain's political past.

АРТ-МЕНЕДЖМЕНТ ЯК СКЛАДОВА ЧАСТИНА СОЦІОКУЛЬТУРНОЇ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ

In the article, the author considers art management as an integral part of socio-cultural activities. The relevance of this problem is determined by the complex socio-cultural situation that has developed in our country in recent years. The transformations that took place during the last decades in the economic, technological, and social spheres were largely connected with the large-scale influence of the mass media, the expansion of intercultural contacts with different countries, the implementation of project technologies, the introduction of a market economy, etc., as a result of which the modern young a person is forced to change his worldview positions in relation to people, himself and the surrounding reality. In modern society, socio-cultural activities aimed at the preservation and transmission of cultural values, development, self-affirmation and self-realization of both an individual and a group of people in the form of their involvement in these values are gaining more and more importance, and today socio-cultural activities are an integral part of existence and active activity individuals, organizations, states. One of the most urgent is the problem of training future specialists in the field of culture and art in the conditions of integration into the global general education space based on art management technologies. The introduction of modern art management technologies into the system of higher education involves putting creative and productive tasks to the fore; «immersion» in artistic project activity with further processing of individual elements and actions; following the logic of creative tasks of growing creativity, cognitive and developmental significance; motivation for self-realization in professional activities, setting new goals and creative ideas. Target guidelines for the application of art management technologies in a higher education institution include: updating the subject content, combining in it different forms of activity, semantic spectrums and value orientations; providing students with opportunities for personal self-development, self-awareness in professional activities.

Introduction, Summary, Questions for the Future

Introduction, Summary, Questions for the Future

Sodalism as Open Worldview: Conspiring to Dismantle the White Franchise

Sodalism as Open Worldview: Conspiring to Dismantle the White Franchise

The Life and Legacy of Danijela Kulezic-Wilson

The Life and Legacy of Danijela Kulezic-Wilson

Thermally driven dynamics of interacting droplet-pairs in micro-confined shear flow: Beyond the realm of droplet coalescence

Pattern formation and dynamics of interacting droplets in confined passages are ubiquitous in a variety of natural, physical, and chemical processes and appears to be contrasting as compared to single droplet dynamics. However, while the dynamical evolution of single droplets under various forces, including their thermally driven motion, has been explored extensively, the concerned physical facets cannot be trivially extended for addressing the motion of multiple droplets. By considering temperature-gradient-driven interfacial transport, here, we unveil four different modes of thermally activated migration of a droplet-pair in microchannels. These include pure reversing motion, sliding-over motion, follow-up motion, and direct coalescence. The presence of follow-up motion, because of the imposed temperature gradient, has not been investigated before. We further put forward the possibility of conversion of one pattern to another by modulating different tuning parameters, such as the wall temperature, channel dimension, and the relative initial positioning of the droplets. These results may turn out to be of profound importance in a wide variety of applications ranging from materials processing to micro-reactor technology.