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Abstract: Contour tracking is one of the most common control problems encountered by many industrial manipulators and robots to achieve high precision contour performance. In this paper, a new contour tracking control method developed in position domain is proposed aiming at improving the contour tracking performance. To develop the new control algorithm, a multi-axis motion system is treated as a master–slave cooperative motion system; the master motion is sampled equidistantly and used as a reference, while the slave motions are expressed as functions of the master motion according to desired contour requirements. A dynamic model of the multi-axis motion system represented in position domain is developed based on the master motion through one to one mapping from time domain to position domain. A PD type position domain control is proposed, and the stability analysis is conducted based on the Lyapunov function method. The developed position domain control is applied to contour tracking of linear motion and circular motion, and some comparison studies are performed between time domain control and position domain control. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the position PD control compared with traditional PD control and the crossed-coupled control. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We consider cross-border migration through the lens of the capabilities approach, with special reference to transnational migration and to implications for the approach itself. Cross-border migration has profound and diverse effects, not least because it accelerates change in the nature of political community. A capabilities approach can be helpful through its insistence on multi-dimensional, inter-personally disaggregated, reflective evaluation. At the same time, the realities of migration exercise pressure on capabilities thinking, to deepen its underlying social and political theory and nuance its efforts to counter communitarian tendencies. By extending its attention to migrants and the locality-spanning social and political spaces in which they live, the capabilities approach will be able to better concretize and situate the picture of the 'we' who 'have (or seek) reason to value' purported goods and rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interface between migration and human trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa fromthe two angles of governance and poverty. A salient feature in the emerging frameworks of migration management is its implicit bifurcated vision of mobility. Trade-connected mobility is well protected by government rules whereas mobility to sustain livelihoods is subject to a punitive regime with a limited scope for resolving the discrepancy between the legal and social interpretations of human rights and well-being. The rise of migration by women, children and young people within and outside traditional practices under risky conditions may reflect deeper structural transformations than are commonly acknowledged by policy-makers. Reactions based on human rights concerns have contributed to new international, regional and national legislative frameworks for preventing abusive and exploitative practices in migration. The prevalence of glaring differences of interests in the variant policy approaches to all these issues – migration management, crime control, labour standards, poverty reduction and the particular needs of communities at risk – requires the concept of best practices to address the relationship between dominant forms of social knowledge and the policy field to situate and tackle issues of rights violation in different scales of governance and their interrelationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development ethics as practice-oriented thought has arisen at an intersection of theorising about norms and values with various streams of experience. New ethical questions are now triggered by changes that accompany the process of globalisation. The latter has tended to erode national boundaries, create new spaces and practices, and generate simultaneously new opportunities and forms of suffering. These emerging ethical questions require a corresponding social analysis and additional sources of ethical thought. In this paper, we will trace the progress of development ethics and suggest that the field would benefit from linkages to ethical traditions that emphasise the transformation of consciousness and attitudes in service of human security as a higher goal. We show the value of the addition to the human development discourse of ‘human security’, particularly its motivational basis and focus on right. But both human development and human security discourses require a further consolidation by way of greater focus on sources of ethical commitment and recognition of others as fellow human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]