A study of the motion of high current arcs in splitter plates using an arc imaging system

Arc modelling is a valuable tool in the evaluation of the switching performance of low-voltage switching devices (LVSDs) prior to testing real products. All modelling process requires a validation of the results against experimental studies. In this study an arc imaging system is used to investigate the arcing phenomena in splitter plates. The imaging system is applied to a flexible test apparatus which allows the control of important feature of a typical LVSD. The results show the formation of the arc into the plates and the separation of the arc as a restrike occurs in the main arc chamber. The phenomena results in a rapid reduction in the arc voltage before the arc reenters the plates

3D seismic imaging of buried Younger Dryas mass movement flows: Lake Windermere, UK

Windermere is a glacially overdeepened lake located in the southeastern Lake District, UK. Using the threedimensional(3D) Chirp subbottom profiler, we image mass movement deposits related to the Younger Dryas(YD) within a decimetre-resolution 3D seismic volume, documenting their internal structure and interactionwith preexisting deposits in unprecedented detail. Three distinct flow events are identified and mappedthroughout the 3D survey area. Package structures and seismic attributes classify them as: a small (totalvolume of c. 1500 m3) debris flow containing deformed translated blocks; a large (inferred total volume ofc. 500,000 m3), homogeneous fine-grained mass flow deposit; and a debris flow (inferred total volume ofc. 60,000 m3) containing small (c. 8.0×2.0 m) deformed translated blocks. Geomorphological mapping oftheir distribution and interaction with preexisting sediments permit the reconstruction of a depositionalhistory for the stratigraphic units identified in the seismic volume.<br/

Importance of Baseline Specification in Evaluating Conservation Interventions and Achieving No Net Loss of Biodiversity

There is an urgent need to improve the evaluation of conservation interventions. This requires specifying an objective and a frame of reference from which to measure performance. Reference frames can be baselines (i.e., known biodiversity at a fixed point in history) or counterfactuals (i.e., a scenario that would have occurred without the intervention). Biodiversity offsets are interventions with the objective of no net loss of biodiversity (NNL). We used biodiversity offsets to analyze the effects of the choice of reference frame on whether interventions met stated objectives. We developed 2 models to investigate the implications of setting different frames of reference in regions subject to various biodiversity trends and anthropogenic impacts. First, a general analytic model evaluated offsets against a range of baseline and counterfactual specifications. Second, a simulation model then replicated these results with a complex real world case study: native grassland offsets in Melbourne, Australia. Both models showed that achieving NNL depended upon the interaction between reference frame and background biodiversity trends. With a baseline, offsets were less likely to achieve NNL where biodiversity was decreasing than where biodiversity was stable or increasing. With a no‐development counterfactual, however, NNL was achievable only where biodiversity was declining. Otherwise, preventing development was better for biodiversity. Uncertainty about compliance was a stronger determinant of success than uncertainty in underlying biodiversity trends. When only development and offset locations were considered, offsets sometimes resulted in NNL, but not across an entire region. Choice of reference frame determined feasibility and effort required to attain objectives when designing and evaluating biodiversity offset schemes. We argue the choice is thus of fundamental importance for conservation policy. Our results shed light on situations in which biodiversity offsets may be an inappropriate policy instrumen

Procedural and Organizational Measures to Assist Operations During an Accident in a Nuclear Power Plant in Europe

This paper is concerned with aspects of organization and procedure in nuclear accident management. Because all accidents can be argued to have common characteristics, a comparative approach is taken here for the discussion of emergency planning for nuclear accidents. This approach reveals several deficiencies in selected European emergency plans, the most important concerning formal and informal communication channels. The most important principle which emerges from this discussion, and which was reinforced by the recent U.S. nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, is that planning efforts should be directed toward reducing the information Load carried by each person involved in managing an acciden

Study of Effect on Teeth of Intermittent Fluoridation of a Community Water Supply

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67913/2/10.1177_00220345530320011601.pd

Cosmological distance indicators

We review three distance measurement techniques beyond the local universe: (1) gravitational lens time delays, (2) baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), and (3) HI intensity mapping. We describe the principles and theory behind each method, the ingredients needed for measuring such distances, the current observational results, and future prospects. Time delays from strongly lensed quasars currently provide constraints on $H_0$ with < 4% uncertainty, and with 1% within reach from ongoing surveys and efforts. Recent exciting discoveries of strongly lensed supernovae hold great promise for time-delay cosmography. BAO features have been detected in redshift surveys up to z <~ 0.8 with galaxies and z ~ 2 with Ly-$\alpha$ forest, providing precise distance measurements and $H_0$ with < 2% uncertainty in flat $\Lambda$CDM. Future BAO surveys will probe the distance scale with percent-level precision. HI intensity mapping has great potential to map BAO distances at z ~ 0.8 and beyond with precisions of a few percent. The next years ahead will be exciting as various cosmological probes reach 1% uncertainty in determining $H_0$, to assess the current tension in $H_0$ measurements that could indicate new physics.Comment: Review article accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews (Springer), 45 pages, 10 figures. Chapter of a special collection resulting from the May 2016 ISSI-BJ workshop on Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Ag

Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations