Exploring design trade-offs for achieving social inclusion in multi-tiered design problems

ABSTRACT

The digital age of the future is ‘not out there to be discovered’, but it needs to be ‘designed’. The design challenge has to address questions about how we want to live, work, and learn (as individuals and as communities) and what we value and appreciate, e.g.: reflecting on quality of life and creating inclusive societies. An overriding design trade-off for the digital age is whether new developments will increase the digital divide or will create more inclusive societies. Sustaining inclusive societies means allowing people of all ages and all abilities to exploit information technologies for personally meaningful activities. Meta-design fosters the design of socio-technical environments that end-user developers can modify and evolve at use time to improve their quality of life and favour their inclusion in the society. This paper describes three case studies in the domain of assistive technologies in which end users themselves cannot act as end-user developers, but someone else (e.g.: a caregiver or a clinician) must accept this role requiring multi-tiered architectures. The design trade-offs and requirements for meta-design identified in the context of the case studies and other researchers’ projects are described to inform the development of future socio-technical environments focused on social inclusion.     

Semirigid inclusions in elastic bodies: Mechanical interplay and optimal control

The paper concerns an analysis of an equilibrium problem for 2D elastic body with two semirigid inclusions. It is assumed that inclusions have a joint point, and we investigate a junction problem for these inclusions. The existence of solutions is proved, and different equivalent formulations of the problem are proposed. We investigate a convergence to infinity of a rigidity parameter of the semirigid inclusion. It is proved that in the limit, we obtain an equilibrium problem for the elastic body with a rigid inclusion and a semirigid one. A parameter identification problem is investigated. In particular, the existence of a solution to a suitable optimal control problem is proved.     

胡状集北部沙一下段盐岩沉积与油气分布规律研究

运用层序地层学的方法,利用地震岩性反演手段,对东濮凹陷胡状集北部沙一下段盐岩透镜体形成古环境、盐湖层序结构模式以及盐岩透镜体所在区域油气分布规律进行了研究.结果认为：岩性透镜体是湖泊中心或斜坡带底部发育的盐类扇体,其盐间薄层白云岩、泥质白云岩和砂岩为有利的勘探目标;对研究区寻找隐蔽油气圈闭具有重要的指导意义.     

东营凹陷王庄-宁海地区流体包裹体分析与流体充注研究

利用流体包裹体分析技术，系统地分析了东营凹陷王庄-宁海地区覆盖所有含油层位的流体包裹体样品。包裹体荧光观察和均一温度特征分析揭示了包裹体发育期次为5期，说明该区油藏存在5次流体充注过程；据此确定了备期烃类的成藏期次。东营组沉积时期和明化镇组沉积末期的油气运聚均在成藏后遭受大气淡水淋滤和降解作用。沙三段原油可能经历至少2期稠油化作用。荧光观察进一步证实该区主要发生2期充注、2期成藏。     

环糊精降低重整汽油的苯含量

选用β环糊精（β-CD）和羟丙基-β环糊精（HP-β-CD）的水溶液分离混合烃中的苯，通过比较得出HP-β-CD对苯的分离具有较高的选择性。在重整原料油中采用HP-β-CD实现液-液分离，运用正交实验设计方法设计实验，得出最佳分离条件为：HP-β-CD溶液的含量30％，HP-β-CD溶液与重整汽油的体积比3：1，萃取次数9。在此工艺条件下，萃取后重整汽油中的苯含量从5．72％降到1．08％。     

烧结NdFeB合金中的夹杂物

使用金相显微镜、扫描电镜及Ｘ射线能谱和波谱观察并分析了ＮｄＦｅＢ烧结材料中夹杂物的形态、数量和组成。磁粉制备后立即烧结的ＮｄＦｅＢ磁体中的夹杂物是氧化钕；而在不同环境条件下放置后的ＮｄＦｅＢ粉再烧结的材料中发现，除了氧化钕的夹杂物外，还有钕的氮化物及钕的氮氧复合夹杂物。同时还论讨了这些夹杂物对于ＮｄＦｅＢ材料磁性能的影响。     

冶金过程中复杂夹杂物和钢液化学平衡计算

本文提出一个同温冶炼过程中预测非金属夹杂物沉淀的计算机程序。本研究中，多元硅酸盐溶体的Ｇｉｂｂｓ自由能由基于统计热力学的晶胞模型来计算，该晶胞模型按照氧与周围的阳离子构成的对称和非对称晶胞来描述硅酸盐熔体结构，假定高温冶炼时认与非金属夹杂物平衡，钢液中氧化物元素的活度由Ｗａｇｎｅｒ交互作用系数来计算，利用本程序可以估计炼钢时沉淀的非金属氧化物的成分，为调整冶炼工艺和提高产品质量提供指导，进一步可计     

Rate of ammonia oxidation in a synthetic saline wastewater by a nitrifying mixed‐culture

Most of the kinetic studies on nitrification have been performed in diluted salts medium. In this work, the ammonia oxidation rate (AOR) was determined by respirometry at different ammonia (0.01 and 33.5 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1), nitrite (0–450 mg N‐NO₂^? L^?1) and nitrate (0 and 275 mg N‐NO₃^? L^?1) concentrations in a saline medium at 30 °C and pH 7.5. Sodium azide was used to uncouple the ammonia and nitrite oxidation, so as to measure independently the AOR. It was determined that ammonia causes substrate inhibition and that nitrite and nitrate exhibit product inhibition upon the AOR. The effects of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were represented by the Andrews equation (maximal ammonia oxidation rate, r_AOMAX, = 43.2 [mg N‐NH₃ (g VSS_AO h)^?1]; half saturation constant, K_SAO, = 0.11 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1; inhibition constant K_IAO, = 7.65 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1), by the non‐competitive inhibition model (inhibition constant, K_INI, = 176 mg N‐NO₂^? L^?1) and by the partially competitive inhibition model (inhibition constant, K_INA, = 3.3 mg N‐NO₃^? L^?1; α factor = 0.24), respectively. The r_AOMAX value is smaller, and the K_SAO value larger, than the values reported in diluted salts medium; the K_IAO value is comparable to those reported. Process simulations with the kinetic model in batch nitrifying reactors showed that the inhibitory effects of nitrite and nitrate are significant for initial ammonia concentrations larger than 100 mg N‐NH₄⁺ L^?1. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry