The Battle of the Windmill Revisited: As recounted by Lieutenant Andrew Agnew, 93rd Highland Regiment of Foot, 8 December 1838

The failure of William Lyon McKenzie, Louis Joseph Papineau, and other like-minded reformers to bring about meaningful change in the political, economic, and social structure of Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 did not end the greater possibility of rebellion, and in fact a greater threat came in 1838, with widespread filibustering along the American border. On 11 November 1838, a force of about 400 men set out from New York State for Prescott, Upper Canada, its goal being the capture of Fort Wellington and the severance of communications between Upper and Lower Canada. The force, led by Nils von Schoultz, a true character in every sense of the word, landed and took up positions in a windmill and six stone house at the village of New Jerusalem, where they intended to hold out until reinforcements arrived from Ogdensburg, New York, and from Upper Canada itself. The reinforcements never arrived and the ‘sympathizers’ were left to fight a strong force of British regulars and militia. Contemporary accounts of the Battle of Windmill are difficult to find, and are often limited in scope. Several brief accounts have been reprinted in J.A. Morris, Prescott 1810–1967 (1967), and accounts of the conflict may also be found in contemporary issues of the Kingston Chronicle and Gazette. However, the information remains somewhat cursory and limited in colour and detail. The letter reprinted below was written on 8 December 1838, the very day Nils von Schoultz was executed, by an officer of the 93rd Highland Regiment of Foot who had taken an active part in the conflict. The letter’s author, Lieutenant Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw, was the eldest son of one of southern Scotland’s prominent landed families

Applications of Irreversible Thermodynamics to Transport Processes in Electrolyte Solutions

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is applied to isothermal vector transport processes in concentrated aqueous binary electrolyte solutions, It is shown that this branch of thermodynamics gives rise to linear mobility coefficients, Lij, and frictional coefficients, Rij , which measure the effect on ion-constituent, i, of a thermodynamic force on ion-constituent, j. The cross coefficients, Lij and Rij where i = j , are of especial interest as they provide a measure of the interactions between species i and j. The transport coefficients are considered to he more fundamental than the more commonly reported transport properties which can he shown to be combinations of the Lij or the Rij. The interpretation of the concentration dependance of transport coefficients is qualitative and must therefore be based on a comparison between similar salts. Zinc chloride and zinc perchlorate were selected for experimental study as zinc chloride exhibits extensive self complexing in aqueous solution whereas zinc perchlorate does not. The effects of self-completing are therefore assessed using the experimental results for these two salts, in conjunction with transport coefficients available in the literature for several other salts. Four experimental measurements are required to evaluate the four independent transport coefficients of a binary electrolyte solution. These are of electrical conductivity, salt diffusion coefficient, Hittorf transference number, and cell emf transference number, as a function of concentration. Each of these experiments is analysed and equations are derived which express the mobility and frictional coefficients in terms of these experimental quantities. It is shown that the equality of the two transference numbers is a consequence of the Onsager reciprocal relations, which state that Lij = Lij and Rij = Rij for i = j . These relations require experimental proof which is given. The experimental section describes the preparation of aqueous solutions of zinc chloride and zinc perchlorate and the measurement of their transport properties. Electrical conductivity was measured using standard methods. Diffusion coefficients were measured using an optical technique which allowed the progress of restricted diffusion in a closed rectangular glass cell to be followed as a function of time. Eittorf transference numbers were measured for both salts using a glass cell based on the design of Maclnnes and Dole. Cell emf transference numbers were measured for zinc chloride only using cells of similar design to those described by Pikal and Miller. Values for zinc perchlorate were obtained from the literature. The experimental results are collected and used to calculate the transport coefficients for zinc chloride and zinc perchlorate. The relative merits of the mobility and frictional coefficients for interpretative purposes are discussed. Both schemes have merits, but the frictional representation has the advantage that it provides coefficients which measure the interactions between ions and solvent as well as those which measure interactions between ion and ion. Also the cation - anion frictional coefficient: reflects the difference between strong ion association, as exhibited by aqueous silver nitrate, and self-complexing, as exhibited by the zinc and cadmium halides, whereas the corresponding mobility coefficient does not. Finally it is demonstrated that the mobility coefficients of a self-complexing salt can be expressed as a combination of the mobility coefficients of each of the individual species. The concentration dependence of each of these latter coefficients can be estimated qualitatively from theoretical considerations and combined to explain experimental trends. In the final chapter the effect of the weak ion association in dilute aqueous solutions of 2:2 electrolytes on their diffusion coefficients is considered. It is shown that for the four salts for which experimental data are available the observed diffusion coefficient is equal to the diffusion coefficient calculated from electrolyte theory using the concentration of free ions in solution. This relation is found to be valid within experimental error to a total salt concentration of 0.1mol dm -1. Calculations were also carried for three weak organic acids for which experimental diffusion coefficients are available, but in these systems the above relation was found not to be valid

The survival of witchcraft prosecutions and witch belief in South West Scotland

During the era of the Scottish witch-hunts, Dumfries and Galloway was one of the last regions to initiate witch prosecutions, but it was also one of the most reluctant to completely surrender all belief in witches until a comparatively late date. In the late seventeeth and early eighteenth centuries south-west Scotland, better known for the persecution of covenanters, took the practice of witchcraft and charming very seriously indeed, and for perhaps longer than other parts of Scotland, though the area has received surprisingly little scholarly investigation. The trial evidence is not incompatible with that found elsewhere though there is less demonic content. Accusations of witchcraft in this region were mostly concerned with the troubles of everyday life, agricultural problems, family tensions and disagreements between neighbours. From 1670 to about 1740, the very decades that were giving birth to the Scottish Enlightenment, learned interest in the supernatural was actually on the increase and the topic received an unprecedented level of questioning, investigation, and scrutiny. Ironically, the ‘superstitions’ that both church and state had been attempting to eradicate for some two hundred years were now being used to defend religion against the growing threat of atheism. The zeal of the ministers does seem to have contributed to the endurance of witch beliefs in the South West, as elsewhere. Against this backdrop, the survival of witch belief and the continued prosecution of witches in southwest Scotland is examined, thus contributing to our understanding of the individualistic nature of witch persecution and the various dynamics at play within the Scottish witch-hunting experience

TMB-Hunt: An amino acid composition based method to screen proteomes for beta-barrel transmembrane proteins

BACKGROUND: Beta-barrel transmembrane (bbtm) proteins are a functionally important and diverse group of proteins expressed in the outer membranes of bacteria (both gram negative and acid fast gram positive), mitochondria and chloroplasts. Despite recent publications describing reasonable levels of accuracy for discriminating between bbtm proteins and other proteins, screening of entire genomes remains troublesome as these molecules only constitute a small fraction of the sequences screened. Therefore, novel methods are still required capable of detecting new families of bbtm protein in diverse genomes. RESULTS: We present TMB-Hunt, a program that uses a k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN) algorithm to discriminate between bbtm and non-bbtm proteins on the basis of their amino acid composition. By including differentially weighted amino acids, evolutionary information and by calibrating the scoring, an accuracy of 92.5% was achieved, with 91% sensitivity and 93.8% positive predictive value (PPV), using a rigorous cross-validation procedure. A major advantage of this approach is that because it does not rely on beta-strand detection, it does not require resolved structures and thus larger, more representative, training sets could be used. It is therefore believed that this approach will be invaluable in complementing other, physicochemical and homology based methods. This was demonstrated by the correct reassignment of a number of proteins which other predictors failed to classify. We have used the algorithm to screen several genomes and have discussed our findings. CONCLUSION: TMB-Hunt achieves a prediction accuracy level better than other approaches published to date. Results were significantly enhanced by use of evolutionary information and a system for calibrating k-NN scoring. Because the program uses a distinct approach to that of other discriminators and thus suffers different liabilities, we believe it will make a significant contribution to the development of a consensus approach for bbtm protein detection

TMB-Hunt: a web server to screen sequence sets for transmembrane β-barrel proteins

TMB-Hunt is a program that uses a modified k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) algorithm to classify protein sequences as transmembrane β-barrel (TMB) or non-TMB on the basis of whole sequence amino acid composition. By including differentially weighted amino acids, evolutionary information and by calibrating the scoring, a discrimination accuracy of 92.5% was achieved, as tested using a rigorous cross-validation procedure. The TMB-Hunt web server, available at , allows screening of up to 10 000 sequences in a single query and provides results and key statistics in a simple colour coded format

Simultaneous entanglement swapping of multiple orbital angular momentum states of light

Entanglement swapping generates remote quantum correlations between particles that have not interacted and is the cornerstone of long-distance quantum communication, quantum networks, and fundamental tests of quantum science. In the context of spatial modes of light, high-dimensional entanglement provides an avenue to increase the bandwidth of quantum communications and provides more stringent limits for tests of quantum foundations. Here we simultaneously swap the entanglement of multiple orbital angular momentum states of light. The system is based on a degenerate filter that cannot distinguish between different anti-symmetric states, and thus entanglement swapping occurs for several thousand pairs of spatial light modes simultaneously

The music of Ahmad Jamal from 1951 to 1961

Thesis (B.A.) in Music -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1987.Bibliography: leaves 84-86.Microfiche of typescript. [Urbana, Ill.]: Photographic Services, University of Illinois, U of I Library, [1987]. 3 microfiches (134 frames): negative

Entangled Bessel beams

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) entanglement is investigated in the Bessel-Gauss (BG) basis. Having a readily adjustable radial scale, BG modes provide a more favourable basis for OAM entanglement over Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes. The OAM bandwidth in terms of BG modes can be increased by selection of particular radial modes and leads to a flattening of the spectrum. The flattening of the spectrum allows for higher entanglement. We demonstrate increased entanglement in terms of BG modes by performing a Bell-type experiment and violating the appropriate Clauser Horne Shimony Holt (CHSH) inequality. In addition, we reconstruct the quantum state of BG modes entangled in high-dimensions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure