Depositional processes in Saldanha Bay and Langebaan Lagoon

Bibliography: pages 147-161.This study deals with the physical aspects of sedimentation in Saldanha Bay and Langebaan Lagoon. On the basis of detailed textural investigations the depositional history of the study area has been established. The sediments in the bay and in the lagoon consist of a fine terrigenous quartz population and a coarser skeletal carbonate population, which have been mixed in various proportions. In order to gain size parameters that are more closely related to the hydraulic nature of depositional processes observed in the marine environment, grain size analyses were performed with an automatically recording settling tube system. The instrument was developed in the course of this study. Construction costs were kept extremely low without, however, impairing the scientific requirements of the instrument. Over 500 sediment samples were recovered on a closely-spaced grid; in each case, a size analysis was performed on the total sample and on the insoluble, terrigenous fraction. By subtracting the terrigenous size distribution from that of the total sediment, the relevant size parameters of the bioclastic component were calculated. In this manner 1500 individual size distributions were available for interpretation

Proton-induced noise in digicons

The Space Telescope, which carries four Digicons, will pass several times per day through a low-altitude portion of the radiation belt called the South Atlantic Anomaly. This is expected to create interference in what is otherwise anticipated to be a noise-free device. Two essential components of the Digicon, the semiconductor diode array and the UV transmitting window, generate noise when subjected to medium-energy proton radiation, a primary component of the belt. These trapped protons, having energies ranging from 2 to 400 Mev and fluences at the Digicon up to 4,000 P+/sec-sq cm, pass through both the window and the diode array, depositing energy in each. In order to evaluate the effect of these protons, engineering test models of Digicon tubes to be flown on the High Resolution Spectrograph were irradiated with low-flux monoenergetic proton beams at the University of Maryland cyclotron. Electron-hole pairs produced by the protons passing through the diodes or the surrounding bulk caused a background count rate. This is the result of holes diffusing over a distance of many diode spacings, causing counts to be triggered simultaneously in the output circuits of several adjacent diodes. Pulse-height spectra of these proton-induced counts indicate that most of the bulk-related counts overlap the single photoelectron peak. A geometrical model will be presented of the charge collection characteristics of the diode array that accounts for most of the observed effects

Toward a Jurisprudence of Free Expression in Russia: The European Court of Human Rights, Sub-National Courts, and Intersystemic Adjudication

Protection of free expression in Russia is headed the wrong direction, but one institution may still be able to slow its backward slide: the Russian judiciary. In particular, sub-national courts-those operating at the ground level-have the potential to shape a renewed jurisprudence of free expression in Russia. To encourage as much, the European Court ofHuman Rights (ECHR) should engage the Russian courts in a pattern of intersystemic adjudication, pressing them to embrace ideas about the role of courts, the law, human rights, and free expression more in line with international norms. Hopefully, this can reverse Russia\u27s current path toward the suppression of free expression

Convergence rates in expectation for Tikhonov-type regularization of Inverse Problems with Poisson data

In this paper we study a Tikhonov-type method for ill-posed nonlinear operator equations \gdag = F( ag) where \gdag is an integrable, non-negative function. We assume that data are drawn from a Poisson process with density t\gdag where $t>0$ may be interpreted as an exposure time. Such problems occur in many photonic imaging applications including positron emission tomography, confocal fluorescence microscopy, astronomic observations, and phase retrieval problems in optics. Our approach uses a Kullback-Leibler-type data fidelity functional and allows for general convex penalty terms. We prove convergence rates of the expectation of the reconstruction error under a variational source condition as $t\to\infty$ both for an a priori and for a Lepski{\u\i}-type parameter choice rule

Evolution of precipitates, in particular cruciform and cuboid particles, during simulated direct charging of thin slab cast vanadium microalloyed steels

A study has been undertaken of four vanadium based steels which have been processed by a simulated direct charging route using processing parameters typical of thin slab casting, where the cast product has a thickness of 50 to 80mm ( in this study 50 mm) and is fed directly to a furnace to equalise the microstructure prior to rolling. In the direct charging process, cooling rates are faster, equalisation times shorter and the amount of deformation introduced during rolling less than in conventional practice. Samples in this study were quenched after casting, after equalisation, after 4th rolling pass and after coiling, to follow the evolution of microstructure. The mechanical and toughness properties and the microstructural features might be expected to differ from equivalent steels, which have undergone conventional processing. The four low carbon steels (~0.06wt%) which were studied contained 0.1wt%V (V-N), 0.1wt%V and 0.010wt%Ti (V-Ti), 0.1wt%V and 0.03wt%Nb (V-Nb), and 0.1wt%V, 0.03wt%Nb and 0.007wt%Ti (V-Nb-Ti). Steels V-N and V-Ti contained around 0.02wt% N, while the other two contained about 0.01wt%N. The as-cast steels were heated at three equalising temperatures of 1050C, 1100C or 1200C and held for 30-60 minutes prior to rolling. Optical microscopy and analytical electron microscopy, including parallel electron energy loss spectroscopy (PEELS), were used to characterise the precipitates. In the as-cast condition, dendrites and plates were found. Cuboid particles were seen at this stage in Steel V-Ti, but they appeared only in the other steels after equalization. In addition, in the final product of all the steels, fine particles were seen, but it was only in the two titanium steels that cruciform precipitates were present. PEELS analysis showed that the dendrites, plates, cuboids, cruciforms and fine precipitates were essentially nitrides. The two Ti steels had better toughness than the other steels but inferior lower yield stress values. This was thought to be, in part, due to the formation of cruciform precipitates in austenite, thereby removing nitrogen and the microalloying elements which would have been expected to precipitate in ferrite as dispersion hardening particles