Search

Power line communication (PLC) technology has become very attractive in the automotive sector. As vehicle manufacturers aim to produce vehicles with improved fuel economy, comfort and technology, they are limited by current vehicle communication networks due to increased bulk and complexity. PLC technology has been suggested as a solution for this issue by utilizing existing power wires as a communication channel. However reliability is a big challenge with PLC technology, especially with critical systems such as braking, steering and engine control. This thesis studies the feasibility, reliability and possible improvements of PLC for controlling vehicle subsystems such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system. In order to determine feasibility, several modems were examined for cost and ease of implementation. After selecting a modem solution, the PLC prototype modem was tested on an HVAC system test bed to control various fans, blowers and pumps over a DC power line. The PLC solution was then tested using a 2003 Ford Focus ZTS and a 2011 Ford Edge SE. The tests consisted of repeatedly sending a code from a transmitter connected to the vehicle battery while a receiver was connected to a power port inside the vehicle. The tests were run in several vehicle states e.g. Off, electronics on engine off and engine idle. The results from the tests showed that communication can be established over a vehicle power line with reasonable cost and ease. However reliability of the proposed solution needs to be improved before it can be implemented in vehicles. To improve performance of the proposed PLC solution, an impedance matching network for PLC was proposed. From current research an adaptive matching network utilizing active inductors and capacitor banks was designed and simulated. The designed matching network was simulated with several different automotive loads such as a vehicle battery and various lights. Simulations results showed the proposed matching network was capable of matching impedances with all the simulated automotive loads. When the circuit was built up and tested, there were issues with stability and cost of construction. The results show that more work needs to be done before PLC can become a suitable solution in vehicle communication network. With improvements such as impedance matching, line drive ability and robust modulation schemes, it won't be long before PLC will be a viable vehicle network solution.

Can corporate social responsibility (CSR) complement or even replace unalloyed market forces, or state regulation and intervention? This article examines the scope of CSR amongst a test case of transnational food manufacturing corporations. It focuses on the determinants of CSR that stem from the financialization of business strategies and how these define and prioritize social commitments and roles within such firms' internal organization. CSR policies, shareholder-value strategies and the rationalization of UK operations amongst four of the biggest global firms show a bias towards 'external' and brand-related priorities rather than 'internal' ones of job security and the social capital of workplace communities. The negotiated closure of two specific plants confirms an incompatibility between treating employees as stakeholders and, on the other hand, CSR as a business strategy. The 'financialized' approach to shareholder value shapes business strategy to prioritize corporate brand image and reputation rather than attempting sustainable operations and stakeholder partnerships.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to assess whether employment insecurity/instability is a necessary consequence of operating as a self‐employed worker in the external labour market (ELM) and to examine the role for social capital to influence any such potential insecurity/instability.Design/methodology/approachA total of 124 workers in the UK construction industry – 78 self‐employed and 46 directly employed – and 12 employers were interviewed in a period spanning the New Construction Industry Scheme in 1999 to provide the empirical evidence for this research.FindingsBelying the common assumptions of atomistic dependence in the face of employers hiring from a competitive and undifferentiated labour pool in an ELM, the results of this research clearly demonstrate a key role for social capital to influence the allocation of work in the ELM and thus minimise the importance of job tenure in determining perceptions of employment security/stability.Practical implicationsThe role for social capital to influence the allocation of work has attracted increasing attention in recent years. This paper provides further evidence that job tenure by itself, cannot be used as a definitive measure of employment security/insecurity in both internal and ELMs.Originality/valueThere is relatively little empirical research on the role of social capital to influence the distribution of work; particularly in the ELM. This paper responds to the increasing call for research in this area to focus on micro/social action rather than on macro/structural variables and mechanisms.

Attempts to show the wider social impact of collective redundancy creating recruits for the “flexible” sector of the labour force, those on temporary contracts, part time and self employed. Considers the way collective redundancy has changed the demographic structure of the UK labour force including a sizeable number of older unemployed individuals and many female part time workers. Argues that this could be seen as limited empowerment, labour market enfranchisement for women or marginalization of the traditional older male worker.

The rise in the number of self-employed workers in the UK has been paralleled by increasing concern that the use of such `peripheral' labour may result in the operation of a dual-labour market acting to reinforce segregation between `good' core employment, characterised by higher pay, fringe benefits and job security, and `bad' peripheral employment with adverse characteristics. In contrast, using evidence gained from a survey of workers in the UK construction industry, this paper shows that, for any occupation/level of skill, there are discrete advantages and disadvantages in both direct and self-employment. It is, therefore, argued that worker preference for a particular mode of employment is the key criterion which determines the case for either relative advantage or disadvantage. In particular, the evidence shows that the large majorities of both direct and self-employed workers who prefer their existing mode of employment undermines dualist conclusions of relative disadvantage arising from self-employment per se.

The possibility of creating a scaleable quantum network by interconverting photonic and atomic qubits shows great promise. The fundamental requirement for such a network is deterministic control over the emission and absorption of photons from single atoms. This thesis reports on the experi-mental construction of a photon source that can emit single-photons with arbitrary spatio-temporal shape, phase, and frequency. The photon source itself is a strongly-coupled atom cavity system based on a single 87 Rb atom within a macroscopic high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity. It operates intermittently for periods of up to 100µs, with single-photon repetition rates of 1.0 MHz and an efficiency of almost 80%. Atoms are loaded into the cavity using an atomic fountain, with the upper turning point near the centre of the cavity mode. This ensures long interaction times without any disturbances introduced by trapping potentials. The photons’ indistinguishability was tested, with a two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel visibility of 87%. This ability to both generate, and control, the photons’ properties, for example producing photons with symmetric or multi-peaked spatio-temporal shapes, allows for the production of photons in an n-time-bin superposition state where each time-bin has an arbitrarily defined amplitude and phase. These photons can be used as photonic qubits, qutrits and qquads, and their properties have been tested using a small linear-optics network.

We investigate the feasibility of implementing an elementary building block for quantum information processing. The combination of a deterministic single photon source based on vacuum stimulated adiabatic rapid passage [1,2], and a quantum memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic vapour is outlined [3]. Both systems are able to produce and process temporally shaped wavepackets which provides a way to maintain the indistinguish ability of retrieved and original photons. We also propose an efficient and robust repeat-until-success quantum computation scheme based on this hybrid architecture. © 2011 IEEE.

We investigate the feasibility of implementing an elementary building block for quantum information processing. The combination of a deterministic single photon source based on vacuum stimulated adiabatic rapid passage, and a quantum memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic vapour is outlined. Both systems are able to produce and process temporally shaped wavepackets which provides a way to maintain the indistinguishability of retrieved and original photons. We also propose an efficient and robust `repeat-until-success' quantum computation scheme based on this hybrid architecture., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures

Considerable effort is being made to realize all the elements required for a distributed quantum network [1]. Ideally such a network would be composed of individual nodes acting as quantum gates/memories, connected together by optical links. Recent work in cavity-QED has shown that it is possible to deterministically create single photons. The narrow bandwidth (MHz) and coherence properties of these photons can be controlled to create atom-photon, as well as photon-photon entanglement [2]. The goals of our work are to build on photon sources for implementing the quantum memories and state mapping schemes required in a quantum network.

Using data gained from a study of the insurance and accounting industries, this article demonstrates the importance of the relationship between enterprise size and enterprise susceptibility to the employment effects of information technology in the service sector.

This article investigates the reasons underlying the high propensity of UK firms to directly invest in the United States via acquisition and merger. Using a binomial logit model, this study analyses data from 142 firms in five industrial sectors over the period 1984-1994. Together, these sectors account for more than 80% of UK foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sample period. The results highlight the role of diversification in explaining this behaviour. In contrast, the relative lack of evidence to support the role of exchange rates and leverage in influencing the decision to merge/acquire continues to fuel division as to the role of capital market imperfections in determining mode of entry.

Does flexibility in employment relations necessarily mean a polarisation into desirable and undesirable jobs? The Core/Periphery labour force structure was developed as the model which would facilitate the attainment of numerical, financial and functional flexibility. In particular, numerical flexibility is achieved via the expansion of the peripheral workforce as variations in the supply of non‐firm specific activities occur in response to the demands of the firm.