Bystander Apathy –An Enquiry Into The Expression Of Humanity And Empathy In China (2013-2014)

Aim To explore the apparent lack of personal concern for the welfare of others in China? To develop concepts to understand this  social phenomena in natural  settings using ethnographic and participatory research. Research Question How can the knowledge derived from qualitative research be used to improve the welfare of the poor in Shanghai? Ethics The study was carried out within the guidelines of the declaration of Helsinki. The study was characterised by anonymity, beneficence, non maleficence, and the  maintainence of  the dignity of participants Method Collection of data. The principle data source was “observation” spot observation”(Baksh 1990)”, participant observation”(Hammersley and Atkinson 1983)vignettes(Finch 1987, Sani Bin Gabi 1990), oral history(narrative) Conclusion The study was conducted ethically. It was a worthwhile study attempted to deal with current problems. The publication of this paper can be used to stimulate further enquiry into the problem of those in need of social welfare in Shanghai and China, in the hope it will improve services where they are needed. Suggested solutions In a country where intergenerational family ties are so strong and “guanxi” exists it is paradoxical there is  little empathy for others. Confuscian values, changed family beliefs, and education at school and  university may assist in increasing empathy. Learnt conditioning, to ignore or dissociate, from another human being in   need of help, can be slowly overcome by implementing universal and improved changes in societal living conditions. This can be achieved  by improving social welfare programs, spearheaded by a compassionate government. There is a view that it is an egregious and transparent fiction, to promulgate and publically promote, the philosophies and policies of communism, yet allow these curable social ills to remain. ”Rex ipsa Loquiter”. The healthy should help the sick, the rich should help the poor and the employed should help the unemployed, Proportionately, in accordance with what they have they should give. The promotion of a “ forward thinking, humane, listening and open society, rather than a closed, narrow, opaque, inward looking “weltanschaung” would assist societal reform. We “bystanders”, we must all try to imagine we are in the  place  of those in need, and  feel aas they do, in their situation. We must follow the advice of Mencius (372-289BC) and develop and use “empathy” As Mencius  said, ”a  developed  human heart is the basis  of a moral life”

Robust Smooth Model-Free Control Methodologies for Industrial Applications

Model free control methodologies are popular in industry due to their easy implemen- tation. Minor tuning of controller gains yields satisfactory performance from a dy- namical system. The main drawback of the techniques is their lack of robustness. On the other hand, robust control techniques e.g. sliding mode control require mathemati- cal model of the system and their aggressive control effort is the main barrier in their implementation for mechanical systems. The proposed robust smooth control tech- niques with robust state-disturbance observer in the closed loop are the solution to the problem. The proposed state-disturbance observer is model free and relies on input and output of the system only; consequently it estimates states as well as drift term of the system. The estimated drift term is used to cancel out internal and external distur- bances of the system and this cancellation transforms the system into an nth order in- tegrator system. The observed states are used to design any modern or classical state- space control technique e.g. pole placement, Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) or Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) methods etc. The finite time stability analysis of ro- bust state-disturbance observer is given in noisy and noise free environments. In this thesis, two novel control methodologies i.e. robust smooth real twisting second order sliding mode and robust feedback linearization are also proposed. The finite time sta- bility analysis of the robust smooth real twisting control is proven using Lyapunov method along with homogeneity concepts. The stability analyses of overall closed loop systems are given using separation principle. Simulations as well as experimental results with academic bench mark DC motor validate the ideas. The proposed tech- niques are also compared with robust LMI based polytopic controller on an industrial stabilized platform to verify their usage for industry.