Conserved charges and thermodynamics of the spinning Godel black hole

We compute the mass, angular momenta and charge of the Godel-type rotating black hole solution to 5 dimensional minimal supergravity. A generalized Smarr formula is derived and the first law of thermodynamics is verified. The computation rests on a new approach to conserved charges in gauge theories that allows for their computation at finite radius.Comment: 4 pages revtex file, additional discussion on conical deficit solutions and on alternative parameterization, additional reference

Bruno von Rappoltstein: Power relationships in later medieval Alsace

This thesis uses three key episodes from the career of the fourteenth-century Alsatian nobleman, Bruno von Rappoltstein (c.1335-1398) to paint an image of noble power and aristocratic self-consciousness in a border region between Francophone and German speaking spheres of influence in one of the traditional heartlands of the Holy Roman Empire. Bruno von Rappoltstein came to prominence in the second half of the fourteenth century. This was period of significant change in the wake of the Black Death. Bruno was an inveterate feuder and became involved in a series of disputes which occupied most of his adult life and which brought him into conflict with a range of powerful authorities. The manner in which Bruno conducted himself in the face of threats and pressure from the city of Strassburg, the Empire, Richard II of England, the Pope and other greater lords and the ways in which a number of these sought to use the circumstances to further their own agendas provides an insight into the realities of political power within the Empire at that time. Bruno’s mentality and his sense of personal and dynastic identity are explored. His inability to adapt behaviour that was acceptable within his own domain to his dealings with greater authorities is shown to have been a leading cause of his ultimate failure which left his heirs with substantial debts and which may be seen as the beginning of a process leading to the family coming increasingly under Habsburg control over the following century. The thesis also considers the extent to which Bruno was manipulated in his feuding by more powerful princes in the context of recent scholarship (most notably that of Dr. Hillay Zmora) which suggests that such manipulation was an important factor in princely state-building. Dr. Zmora's thesis is based on a study of noble feuding in Franconia in the sixteenth century. This thesis finds nothing to contradict Zmora's views but raises a question as to the extent to which they are necessarily valid outside of the period and region of his research. An appendix to the thesis details the career of the English knight. Sir John Harlestone, who played a central role in one of Bruno's disputes and who is an interesting figure in his own right

Controlling precipitation of value added zirconia

Advanced zirconia-based materials have many important applications in electronics and medical applications, and of most interest to this research, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) which is a key technology for alternative and hydrogen-based energy generation. The SOFC in its most basic form is a device for converting hydrogen and oxygen into water with a resulting generation of power. Most SOFC manufacturers/developers are using zirconia doped with yttria as the electrolyte with variations on the amount of yttria. The SOFC places high demands on the ceramic components, placing significant demands on powder processing technology to enable fabrication of reliable components. It has been shown that the process of co-precipitation of three initially mixed chlorides, aluminium chloride, yttrium chloride and zirconium oxychloride in aqueous solutions, can produce an oxide powder that can be used in SOFC manufacture. Zirconia powders synthesised from aqueous solution in this way have been found, however, to include hard agglomerates which are detrimental to further processing and applications.Industrial manufacture of zirconia and zirconia-yttria products can best be summarised as four step operation; (1) hydrolyse of zirconyl chloride and mixing of other solutions, (2) precipitation, (3) calcination (4) forward processing for particle size, surface area and handle-ability characteristics . The use of aqueous solutions allows for lower costs of production and reduced waste. However such production is hampered by limited understanding of the fundamental chemistry particularly during aqueous processing which limits the development of better powders for the widespread use of SOFC’s. The aim of this project was to develop an understanding of these problems based on an industrial process that is in use within Western Australia. The work has been broken up into five sections, with the first four dealing with predominately non-stabilized zirconia and tracks the process from aqueous chemistry through to final ceramic. The final section does the same for a 3 mole% yttrium partially stabilised zirconia.The influence of concentration and added chloride salts on the solution speciation of zirconyl chloride solutions, and the precipitate formed upon addition of aqueous ammonia, has been investigated using a combination of techniques, such as SAXS, DLS, ICP-OES, TEM and SEM.To further investigate the precipitation process the effect of pH of precipitation, starting solution concentration, and agitation levels on the particle size of hydrous zirconia precipitates have been investigated. The pH of precipitation was also found to have a significant impact on the type of hydrous zirconia produced. TGA/DTA, micro combustion and TEM / EDS were used to investigate the difference in the powders produced at pH 3 and 12.The two hydrous zirconium manufactured at pH 3 and 12 have been studied as further processing consistent with industrial procedures was undertaken, including how the differences in structure due to the pH of precipitation, may effect the calcination, in situ and ex situ x-ray diffraction was used for this.With the knowledge developed thus far, two 3 mol% partially stabilised zirconia (P-SZ) samples suitable for the SOFC market were manufactured from solutions through to ceramics.The combination of SAXS, DLS, in situ XRD, TEM, ICP, TGA/DTA, micro combustion, and standard ceramic testing was found to be excellent for providing comprehensive information on changes through an industrial process and will allow optimisation to produce powders suitable for SOFC applications

Design and Construction of a Liquid-Cooled Solid-State Digital Television Transmitter

With the advent of terrestrial digital broadcasting, new and improved digital transmitter technologies are required since existing analog transmitter technology is, for the most part, unable to adequately transmit a decodable digital television signal. This study focuses on the design and construction of a solid-state, liquid-cooled UHF digital television transmitter. Emphasis is placed on the design of the amplifier module including the amplifier card, Wilkinson splitter and combiner, input and output matching circuits, DC bias network and the system mask filter. The results of this research are also presented for two television transmitters that are installed and continue to be in use today, including analyses of specific failures that have occurred while in the field. The overall objective of this study is not only to document the research that is behind the design of this system, but also to document the construction of the transmitter for reference in system maintenance and repair as well as a basis for future design

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationAppendices Pulled from a Study on Light comprises three sections. The first section focuses on the Greek island of Siphnos. The middle section focuses primarily on medieval illuminated manuscripts. And the final section (re-)marries foci and material from the previous two sections. While the first two sections discuss disparate subjects, they share the topical concerns of history, gold, replication, religion, ritual, miracles, the Virgin Mary, and light. They are also unified in their collage methodology and in their thematic exploration of perception, aura, light, ethics, mystic experience, and the indeterminate sublime within both compressed lyric modes and fragmented nonfiction essays. The final section further develops and fuses the manuscript's thematic explorations in a verse-form essay. Appendices Pulled from a Study on Light makes use not only of verse and prose but also of image. Several "ekphrastic" poems respond to images of illuminated manuscripts. The images and the prose fulfill a similar function: they moor the project. The images ground the poems referentially, at least momentarily, and the prose provides representational fixedness. Off of these concretizing forces, the poems are free to bounce, descant, play, diverge, harmonize, elaborate, conflict discordantly, comment, or veer off entirely. I hope my poetry structures itself not according to argument or narrative but to virtues of the manner of its movement and to the sequences of its sounds

Design and Construction of a Liquid-Cooled Solid-State Digital Television Transmitter

With the advent of terrestrial digital broadcasting, new and improved digital transmitter technologies are required since existing analog transmitter technology is, for the most part, unable to adequately transmit a decodable digital television signal. This study focuses on the design and construction of a solid-state, liquid-cooled UHF digital television transmitter. Emphasis is placed on the design of the amplifier module including the amplifier card, Wilkinson splitter and combiner, input and output matching circuits, DC bias network and the system mask filter. The results of this research are also presented for two television transmitters that are installed and continue to be in use today, including analyses of specific failures that have occurred while in the field. The overall objective of this study is not only to document the research that is behind the design of this system, but also to document the construction of the transmitter for reference in system maintenance and repair as well as a basis for future design

Development and Testing of Down-the-Hole Deployabe X-Ray Florescence Spectrometer

To allow a truly in-situ elemental analysis, an Australian resource company commissioned the development and building of a down-the-hole deployable ED-XRF sensor. The instrument was designed to be deployable up to a depth of 30 m for drill holes of varying diameters as well as being run in a bench-top mode. Following the development and upon commissioning, the ED-XRF system was investigated in the laboratory for its suitability for use in the Iron Ore industry by using well characterised crushed iron ore samples, standards made from analytical reagents and large iron ore rocks that had been sectioned to provide a curved surface for presentation to the XRF. The effects of operating conditions and other parameters were studied using the standards made from the analytical reagents. It was found that the system could be used to determine the elemental Fe content with reasonable accuracy when used on crushed powder samples. The curved surfaces of the sectioned rocks increased the variability of the amount of Fe detected. Two trace elements, Al and Si were also investigated using the same methodology. It was found that the ED-XRF system was not suitable for distinguishing the Al and Si. This paper outlines the ED-XRF system used, the testing methodology employed and the results of the laboratory testing

Three dimensional origin of Godel spacetimes and black holes

We construct Godel-type black hole and particle solutions to Einstein-Maxwell theory in 2+1 dimensions with a negative cosmological constant and a Chern-Simons term. On-shell, the electromagnetic stress-energy tensor effectively replaces the cosmological constant by minus the square of the topological mass and produces the stress-energy of a pressure-free perfect fluid. We show how a particular solution is related to the original Godel universe and analyze the solutions from the point of view of identifications. Finally, we compute the conserved charges and work out the thermodynamics.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, twocolumn revtex style, reference added, acknowledgments correcte

Black Workers and BME networks organising against racism in the NHS workplace

This research, conducted against the backdrop of neoliberal NHS austerity cuts and the Health and Social Care Act 2012 accelerating privatisation and outsourcing of NHS services, investigates the political differences and similarities of two forms of Black and minority ethnic self-organisation challenging racism in the NHS workplace. Based on case studies of two organisations – a local NHS BME Network and a local UNISON Black Self-Organised Group – the research explores the hypothesis that BME Diversity Networks may be seen as more effective ‘collective voices’ than trade union Black Self-Organised Groups for promoting race equality in the NHS workplace. The research documents the local NHS BME Network’s affiliation to the independent NHS BME Network, capturing a moment in time - 2012 -2018 - when the activism and lobbying of NHS Black workers led to the implementation in 2015 of the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard. As an empirical qualitative study of a relatively under-researched group of BME NHS support workers and Allied Health Professionals, along with BME nurses, the thesis makes a contribution to knowledge by foregrounding the voices, agency, and everyday lived experience of BME workers challenging racism in the NHS workplace. The research uses a Black Radical Tradition theoretical framework drawing on scholars applying Marxism to conceptualise modes of ‘resistance and accommodation’ in anti-racist Black politics. The concept ‘racial capitalism’ is also linked to race and class theories of Black self-organised resistance to racism in the UK context. The research makes a theoretical contribution by applying the concept of ‘common sense neoliberalism’ alongside the concept of ‘racial capitalism’ to consider the implications of forms of race equality which, in aligning with neoliberal corporate diversity management agendas, operate to privilege Black professional middle class identities whilst marginalising Black working class perspectives

The effect of processing parameters on particle size in ammonia-induced precipitation of zirconyl chloride under industrially relevant conditions

The effect of pH of precipitation, starting solution concentration, and agitation levels on the particle size of hydrous zirconia precipitates have been investigated. It was found that all three variables affect the particle size of the hydrous zirconia. The smallest particle size is produced by a 0.81 M starting solution, precipitated at pH 12 with a high agitation level. The pH of precipitation was also found to have a significant impact on the type of hydrous zirconia produced. TGA/DTA, micro combustion and TEM / EDS were used to investigate the difference in the powders produced at pH 3 and 12. This work suggests that powders produced at pH 3 will have a structure similar to Zr[OH]4 whilst those at pH 12 are more likely ZrO[OH]2. XRD and micro-combustion suggest that the powders produced at pH 3 retained ammonium chloride whilst those produced at pH 12 did not. The filtration rates for the pH 3 product were significantly faster than that of the powders made at pH 12 which is significant in the industrial production of these materials