CONCAP 4: A Complex Autonomous Payload (CAP) for growing organic thin films in microgravity

A GAS facility has been developed for carrying out low temperature experiments. The arrangement being used on CONCAP IV-01 is designed for thin film growth in microgravity and can process up to twelve samples per mission. The nonlinear optical oven hardware can also be made suitable for other low temperature applications, such as gradient freeze and solution growth of crystals

The Language of the Church: Westminster in Review

This paper reflects on the recent decision of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to reconsider the role of the Westminster Confession as its subordinate standard.  A number of objections to the Overture were raised at the Assembly citing church decline as a matter of greater importance than theological reflections on a 400-year-old document.  The paper argues however that church decline is precisely the reason the Church ought to re-examine its doctrinal statements.  It begins by reflecting on the use of the Book of Confessions in the PC(USA) and suggests that the framework justifying the development of creedal statements in the US Church is apropos in the Scottish context as well.  Following on, it offers a more extended reflection on the purpose of doctrine by borrowing two of McGrath’s four categories (social demarcator and interpretation of experience) followed by a third category, sapience.Note: This paper was originally published in Theology in Scotland vol. 26, no. 1 (2019

Virtual Dissection of White Matter Tracts in a Human brain using applied Game Design and Virtual Reality imaging

Visualisation of neural tracts in the human brain has previously been accomplished using two dimensional (2D) representational formats. In most cases, pre-operative visualisation is through the medium of 2D MRI image slices, representing coordinates in the brain through a combination of axial, sagittal, and coronal orthographic viewpoints. Software such as ExploreDTI can visualise off-axis viewpoints, however this method is limited to 2.5D image representations. The use of such 2D representations can require significant training in order to contextualise real-world 3D positions and accurately locate and identify neural tract pathways in the brain. Utilising anonymised tract data and advanced neuroimaging technologies pioneered by Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN), the Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) School of Media created an interactive visualisation environment using the Unity 3D game engine. This virtual reality visualisation utilises the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality (VR) peripheral to realise the first ever virtual dissection of the fornix in-vivo in a highly interactive full 3D environment. Ethical approval was granted by St James/Tallaght Research & Ethics Committee. MRI tract coordinate data in the form of .wrl format 3D objects were converted to game-engine ready formats such as .obj through a 3D editing program (3DS Max) then imported into Unity. A virtual representation of a human brain was created, and scale, position, and rotation manipulation of the VR environment implemented, using natural motion tracking and minimal button usage. Isolation of individual or groups of neural tracts was achieved using hand tracking and spatial selection. Positional data was mapped to MRI image planes in order to overlay traditional MRI images at each position to aid diagnostic accuracy. In summary, virtual dissection of the fornix pathway in the human brain, first individuated by TCIN was transcribed into a 3D VR gaming environment for spatially intuitive visualisation, manipulation, and analysis

Becoming Christian: redeeming the secular through the ordo of baptism

This thesis presents an argument for the development of a catechumenate for the Church of Scotland. It does so first by drawing attention to the wide discrepancy between the assumptions of the secular culture and those of the church, specifically the Church of Scotland, with a view to understanding the substantial differences in the beliefs of those baptised and the beliefs of the church. It argues that the church has yet to come to terms with this discrepancy and consequently has weakened its distinctive baptismal witness. Secondly, the thesis considers in depth the development and reception of two major studies on the subject of baptism conducted by the Church of Scotland in the last sixty years. It indicates that both remain largely unknown quantities within the church and have subsequently failed to provide practical guidance to the church in its practice of baptism. This thesis considers the experience and practice of adult baptism in contemporary Scotland and concludes with an extended argument justifying the need for a fully developed catechumenate

The Language of the Church: Westminster in Review

This paper reflects on the debate at the 2018 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on reviewing the status of the Westminster Confession of Faith as its principal subordinate standard of faith. It considers the role of doctrine in the church; whether it is appropriate to devote time and resources to consideration of doctrinal statements at this juncture when the church may be seen to be seen to be facing more pressing issues; and whether a framework such as the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Book of Confessions might serve as a useful model for the way ahead – or whether such an approach would in fact only hamper lasting renewal in the church

Spectroscopic Analysis of H I Absorption Line Systems in 40 HIRES Quasars

We list and analyze H I absorption lines at redshifts 2 < z < 4 with column density (12 < log(N_HI) < 19) in 40 high-resolutional (FWHM = 8.0 km/s) quasar spectra obtained with the Keck+HIRES. We de-blend and fit all H I lines within 1,000 km/s of 86 strong H I lines whose column densities are log(N_HI/[cm^-2]) > 15. Unlike most prior studies, we use not only Lya but also all visible higher Lyman series lines to improve the fitting accuracy. This reveals components near to higher column density systems that can not be seen in Lya. We list the Voigt profile fits to the 1339 H I components that we found. We examined physical properties of H I lines after separating them into several sub-samples according to their velocity separation from the quasars, their redshift, column density and the S/N ratio of the spectrum. We found two interesting trends for lines with 12 < log(N_HI) < 15 which are within 200-1000 km/s of systems with log(N_HI) > 15. First, their column density distribution becomes steeper, meaning relatively fewer high column density lines, at z < 2.9. Second, their column density distribution also becomes steeper and their line width becomes broader by about 2-3 km/s when they are within 5,000 km/s of their quasar.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. A complete version with all tables and figures is available at http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/misawa/pub/Paper/40hires.ps.g

Modelling long-term impacts of fertilization and liming on soil acidification at Rothamsted experimental station

Liming is widely used to reduce the impacts of soil acidification and optimize soil pH for agricultural production. Whether models can simulate the effect of liming on soil pH, and base saturation (BS), and thereby guide lime application, is still largely unknown. Long-term experimental data from a grassland (Park Grass, 1965–2012)and arable land (Sawyers Field, 1962–1972) at Rothamsted Research, UK, were thus used to assess the ability of the VSD+ model to simulate the effects of long-term fertilization and liming on soil acidification. The VSD+model was capable of simulating observed soil pHand BS changes over time in the long-termliming experiments, except for a treatment in which sulphur (S) was added. NormalizedMean Absolute Errors (NMAE) and Normalized Root Mean Square Errors (NRMSE) of simulated and observed pH values, averaged over the observation periods varied between 0.02 and 0.08 (NMAE) and 0.01–0.05 (NRMSE). The acidity budget results for Park Grass suggest that nitrogen (N) transformations contributed most to acidity production, causing predominantly aluminium (Al) exchange in the topsoil (0–23 cm) followed by base cation (BC) release, but in the treatment with S addition, BC uptake had a nearly similar effect on acidity production.However, in Sawyers Field, the acidity budget suggested that BC uptakewas the dominant cause of soil acidification,while the impacts of N transformations were limited. Liming was found to sufficiently replenish BC and decrease Al exchange in the topsoil layer. Overall, the VSD+ model can adequately reconstruct the impacts of fertilizer and liming applications on acid neutralizing processes and related soil pH and BC changes at the soil exchange complex