A Suit of Silver: The Underdress of a Knight of the Garter in the Late Seventeenth Century

This paper describes the cut and construction of the doublet and hose worn as underdress to the robes and insignia of the Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter at the English Court under Charles II. This example belonged to Charles Stuart, sixth Duke of Lennox and third Duke of Richmond (1639–1672), who was created a knight of the Garter in 1661. It is interesting on several counts: the dominant textile is a very pure cloth of silver; the elaborate hose are constructed with reference to earlier seventeenth-century models; the garments exemplify Charles II’s understanding of the importance of ceremony to successful kingship. The suit was conserved for an exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the essay gives some account of discoveries made through this process. In addition, the garments are placed in the context of late seventeenth- century dress.     

Dynamics of a six degrees-of-freedom parallel robot actuated by three two-wheel carts

This paper deals with a new, six degrees-of-freedom parallel manipulator comprising a platform, three links and three two-wheel carts supporting the links. The wheels are independently driven, allowing the manipulator a workspace which is limited only by the lengths of the links and the size of the plane on which the carts move. The direct and inverse dynamic problems of the manipulator are solved. It is shown that the Jacobian associated with the direct problem becomes identically singular when used to solve the inverse problem, and hence must be redefined; and that once redefined, it losses its standard structure and cannot be used to solve the direct problem. Three solution methods to the inverse problem are presented and are shown to lead to indistinguishable results.     

Subharmonic resonance of a trapped wave near a vertical cylinder by narrow-banded random incident waves

It is well-known that near an infinite linear array of periodically spaced cylinders trapped waves of certain eigenfrequencies can exist. If there are only a finite number of cylinders in an infinite sea, trapping is imperfect. Simple harmonic incident waves can excite a nearly trapped wave at one of the eigen frequencies through a linear mechanism. However, the maximum amplification ratio increases monotonically with the number of the cylinders; hence the solution is singular in the limit of infinitely many cylinders. Recently, a nonlinear theory of subharmonic resonance of perfectly trapped waves has been completed. In this article the theory is further extended to random incident waves with a narrow spectrum centered near twice the natural frequency of the trapped wave. The effects of detuning and bandwidth of the spectrum are examined. Dedicated to Professor J. N. Newman on his 70th birthday. We wish to express our profound admiration for Professor Newman’s scientific contributions and leadership in the ship-hydrodynamics discipline. The relation between this article and an early work of his reflects in part his impact on us.     

Contribution by a psychologist in the public interest gold medal award: Stuart W. Cook.

The Gold Medal Awards, which include a check for $2,000 and a gold medallion, are given to American psychologists who are 65 years of age or older and residents of North America in recognition of a distinguished and long-continued record of accomplishments in three individual areas: professional, scientific, and public interest. This article provides a citation and a biography for Stuart W. Cook, recipient of the Contribution by a Psychologist in the Public Interest Gold Medal Award. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The students of the “systematic deviations from ordinary rectilineal construction” in the Athenian Parthenon

Certain small “systematic deviations from the straight line” were engineered by Athenian architects of the 5th c B.C. with the aim of attaining visual aesthetic excellence for certain sacred buildings on the Acropolis. Here, we describe more-or-less in chronological order, the work of the 18th and 19th c architects such as Stuart and Pennethorne who measured and then attempted to rationalise such deviations. Buildings where aesthetic appeal somewhat based on mathematics precedes fitness for structural function, are rare. This paper is to be read in conjunction with Ref. ^[1].     

Development and application of a white box approach to integration testing

Program testing techniques can be classified in many ways. One classification is that of “black box” vs. “white box” testing. In black box testing, test data are selected according to the purpose of the program independent of the manner in which the program is actually coded. White box testing, on the other hand, makes use of the properties of the source code to guide the testing process. A white box testing strategy, which involves integrating a previously validated module into a software system is described. It is shown that, when doing the integration testing, it is not enough to treat the module as a “black box,” for otherwise certain integration errors may go undetected. For example, an error in the calling program may cause an error in the module's input which only results in an error in the module's output along certain paths through the module. These errors can be classified as Integration Domain Errors, and Integration Computation Errors. The results indicate that such errors can be detected by the module by retesting a set of paths whose cardinality depends only on the dimensionality of the module's input for integration domain errors, and on the dimensionality of the module's inputs and outputs for integration computation errors. In both cases the number of paths that need be retested do not depend on the module's path complexity. An example of the strategy as applied to the path testing of a COBOL program is presented.     

New Approaches in Monitoring Multivariate Categorical Processes based on Contingency Tables in Phase II

In some statistical process control (SPC) applications, quality of a process or product is characterized by contingency table. Contingency tables describe the relation between two or more categorical quality characteristics. In this paper, two new control charts based on the WALD and Stuart score test statistics are designed for monitoring of contingency table‐based processes in Phase‐II. The performances of the proposed control charts are compared with the generalized linear test (GLT) control chart proposed in the literature. The results show the better performance of the proposed control charts under small and moderate shifts. Moreover, new schemes are proposed to diagnose which cell corresponding to different levels of categorical variables is responsible for out‐of‐control signal. In addition, we propose EWMA–WALD and EWMA–Stuart score test control charts to improve the performance of Shewhart‐based control charts in detecting small and moderate shifts in contingency table parameters. Meanwhile, we compare the performances of two proposed EWMA‐based control charts with the ones of three existing control charts called EWMA–GLT, EWMA–GLRT and an EWMA‐type control chart for multivariate binomial/multinomial processes along with the ones of the corresponding Shewhart‐based control charts. A numerical example is given to show the efficiency of the proposed methods. Finally, the effect of parameter estimation in Phase I based on m historical contingency table on the performance of the Shewhart‐based control charts is studied. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental evaluation of software design principles: An investigation into the effect of module coupling on system modifiability

The importance of the scientific investigations of software design principles is discussed, and an experimental investigation of the importance of the design principle of module coupling is described. One important dimension of coupling, as promoted by the authors of the structured design methodology, is that of global variable vs. parameterized methods of intermodule communication. It is shown that different proposed software metrics provide conflicting conclusions as to the preferred method of intermodule communication. The three experiments reported herein were performed in university software engineering courses taken by graduate students and upper level undergraduate majors in computer science. They address the effect of global vs. parameterized interfaces on system modifiability. While the type of modification being performed significantly influenced the modifiability of the system, there were no consistent effects due to the type of coupling present in the system.     

Metaphysics of genetic architecture and computation

Karl Chu ruminates on the far-reaching impact that the convergence of computation and biogenetics will have on the unfolding history of man and nature. Could the world be ‘moving into the so-called Post-Human Era, which will bring forth a new kind of biomachinic mutation of organic and inorganic substances’? How can architects reconfigure the practice of their discipline in order to meet the demands of this computational and biogenetic revolution? Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The City Beyond Analogy

Is the city really all that complex? Can urban social behaviour be explained in the evolutionary drama of cross-species competition? Is urban self-organisation in fact the urban norm? Is the emphasis on systems that the ‘system city’ tag conjures up unduly restrictive? Colin Fournier , Emeritus Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL), prods and probes the precepts behind the System City issue, while being simultaneously fascinated and enthralled by it.