Fracture Systems : Digital Field Data Capture

Fractures, such as joints, faults and veins, strongly influence the transport of fluids through rocks by either enhancing or inhibiting flow. To understand the control that these structures play on subsurface flow, a range of empirical measurements are collected and used for attributing 3D models for flow simulations. Digital field data capture is becoming increasingly popular in the earth sciences as it allows for the rapid data collection and post-collection processing. There are many software platforms available including; SIGMA mobile, FieldMove and Strabo Point, however, these applications are either restricted to specific platforms or are designed for general field data capture and not specifically for fracture data capture. The open source Kobotoolbox in combination with XLSform was used to create 4 forms; Scanline Survey, Circular Survey, Fault Survey and International Society of Rock Mechanics (ISRM) Discontinuity Survey for rapid digital field data capture of fracture networks and rockmass characterisation. The use of a digital form-based approach is advocated as it ensures that data is collected consistently and validated in the field. This system allows for platform independence as it can be run through a mobile application or directly from a web browser. The aim of this application is to allow crowd-sourcing of fracture data through a well constrained and validated methodology that is quick to undertake and easy to understand. In return for data submission, users should be able to retrieve their data as well as any other open data and be able to produce professional reports

The Inquisitional Impulse: Bernard MacLaverty’s ‘Walking the Dog’

De nombreux critiques du recueil de nouvelles Walking the Dog de Bernard MacLaverty (1994) ont été captivés par la nouvelle éponyme qui raconte l’enlèvement et l’interrogatoire d’un homme durant le conflit nord-irlandais (les Troubles). « Walking the Dog » n’a pas seulement été acclamée par les critiques, elle a également provoqué un désaccord sur ce que le protagoniste cache à ses ravisseurs et ce que l’auteur cache à ses lecteurs. L’essai suivant retrace cette divergence critique par le prisme de l’herméneutique rhétorique, que Stephen Mailloux définit comme « une lecture des études de la rhétorique culturelle ». Celle-ci se concentre sur les tropes, arguments et formes de narrations qui constituent l’interprétation des textes en des lieux et époques spécifiques. De plus, cette analyse des lectures antithétiques de « Walking the Dog » participe au débat sur les caractéristiques générales de la forme de la nouvelle

The Inquisitional Impulse: Bernard MacLaverty’s ‘Walking the Dog’

De nombreux critiques du recueil de nouvelles Walking the Dog de Bernard MacLaverty (1994) ont été captivés par la nouvelle éponyme qui raconte l’enlèvement et l’interrogatoire d’un homme durant le conflit nord-irlandais (les Troubles). « Walking the Dog » n’a pas seulement été acclamée par les critiques, elle a également provoqué un désaccord sur ce que le protagoniste cache à ses ravisseurs et ce que l’auteur cache à ses lecteurs. L’essai suivant retrace cette divergence critique par le prisme de l’herméneutique rhétorique, que Stephen Mailloux définit comme « une lecture des études de la rhétorique culturelle ». Celle-ci se concentre sur les tropes, arguments et formes de narrations qui constituent l’interprétation des textes en des lieux et époques spécifiques. De plus, cette analyse des lectures antithétiques de « Walking the Dog » participe au débat sur les caractéristiques générales de la forme de la nouvelle

Review: Michèle Mendelssohn, Making Oscar Wilde (Oxford University Press, 2018) & Matthew Sturgis, Oscar: A Life (Head of Zeus Ltd, 2018)

In ‘The Critic as Artist’ (1890; 1891), Oscar Wilde’s spokesperson Gilbert declares ‘Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.’ One book that bears out Gilbert’s claim is Lord Alfred Douglas’ Oscar Wilde and Myself (1914), but many later biographers have served Wilde more charitably, and none more so than Richard Ellmann, whose influential 1987 account concludes that Wilde was ‘so generous, so amusing, and so right’

Structural and stochastical modelling of possible contaminant pathways below nuclear installations

Structural and stochastical modelling of possible contaminant pathways below nuclear installations 1Richard Haslam, 1Stuart Clarke, 1Peter Styles & 2Clive Auton 1Earth Sciences and Geography, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom 2British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3LA, United Kingdom Dounreay Nuclear Power station is situated on the northern coast of Caithness, Scotland on complex normally faulted Devonian sedimentary rocks with a thin, intermittent cover of superficial deposits, predominantly comprising glacial tills of varying provenance. Bedrock structure, fracture patterns and the relationships between bedrock and the superficial deposits have a considerable impact on the transmissivity of any possible contaminants. Consequently, an understanding of the bedrock-superficial boundary and how fractures and faults influence and control the transport of fluids are a key concern. The principal aims of this work are to gain an understanding of the processes and controls on fluid flow pathways within such complex geological terrains, and develop methods of stochastatically evaluating likely contamination transport within the subsurface. This work focuses on the near-surface bedrock geology and superficial deposits. The near surface geology of the Dounreay site comprises cyclic sequences of lacustrine rocks; their cyclicity has enabled a reference stratigraphy to be created and correlated across the site. This stratigraphy, the coastal exposures and the extensive amount of borehole data available, provide a unique opportunity to construct and constrain a three-dimensional bedrock model; the interpretive element of which has been robustly test using structural restoration techniques. In the bedrock of Dounreay, three principal fracture sets have been identified. The first two sets of fractures are approximately orthogonal, trending north-northwest and west-southwest respectively; they represent the regional fracture set. It is proposed that these fractures where produced during loading and burial of the Devonian sediments. The final fracture set is predominantly parallel to bedding of the laminated sediments; it gives the Caithness Flagstones their ‘flaggy’ nature. The regional fracture sets are approximately constant over the site area and vary little with depth, whereas the bedding parallel fracture set shows a marked decrease in the number of fractures per meter with depth, on a logarithmic trend. This relationship is also visible in the Rock Quality Designation (RQD) values and hydraulic conductivity data from boreholes. It follows that the bedding parallel fractures are the major controlling factor of flow in the shallow subsurface and that the RQD values can be used as a proxy for fracture density. RQD values are a commonly collected during borehole drilling and the relationship between hydraulic conductivity and RQD values offer a method for stochastically populating a 3D geological model with hydraulic conductivity values. Current geological interpretations of the superficial deposits are based primarily on their genesis. Consequently, subdivisions based on the origin of the sediments do not relate directly to their fluid transmissivity. The superficial deposits generally have a very low hydraulic conductivity, compared to that of the bedrock, impeding the flow of water from the surface to the groundwater system at depth. A combination of driller’s description and comparisons of grain-size distribution enables subdivisions of the Quaternary strata to be established based on their properties instead of their genesis. These properties can then be stochastically interpolated throughout the 3D geological model. This work provides a framework from which likely contamination scenarios can be modelled, both in the well-constrained subsurface of Dounreay, and at other nuclear installations where the nature of the subsurface is less well constrained

“This Wonderful Machine”: How Should We Teach Humanities Texts like Gulliver’s Travels in the Time of ChatGPT?

The quoted phrase in the essay title comes from a passage in Jonathan Swift\u27s Gulliver’s Travels in which a Grand Academy of Lagado professor demonstrates a “wonderful Machine” that can generate scores of books “without the least Assistance from Genius or Study.” The essay explore the challenge for teaching classic humanities texts like Gulliver that the (perhaps not so) “wonderful Machine” called ChatGPT poses. Student Owen Terry’s Chronicle essay (May 12, 2023) identifies two crucial aspects of that challenge: “We don’t fully lean into AI and teach how to best use it, and we don’t fully prohibit it to keep it from interfering with exercises in critical thinking.” The essay explains my rationale not to “lean into AI but to prohibit it and to promote instead “critical thinking

Predicting the subsurface

Britain is blessed with a magnificent variety of landscapes, much of it the result of the diverse range of rock types that form our small island, and the different ways in which they respond to weathering and erosion. Nowhere is this clearer than when enjoying a walk along many of the paths that snake around our coastline; dramatic colour changes in the cliffs, steep climbs and descents between headlands and bays all reflect changes in the underlying geology. Sometimes the connection is obvious, such as the contrast between the low, sandy and muddy cliffs that tumble into the sea along the coast of Essex, and the rugged white cliffs on the south coast of England. These natural features, which we take for granted, have a significant impact on how we live and move about our island

Choice of Host Cell Line Is Essential for the Functional Glycosylation of the Fc Region of Human IgG1 Inhibitors of Influenza B Viruses

Abs are glycoproteins that carry a conserved N-linked carbohydrate attached to the Fc whose presence and fine structure profoundly impacts on their in vivo immunogenicity, pharmacokinetics, and functional attributes. The host cell line used to produce IgG has a major impact on this glycosylation, as different systems express different glycosylation enzymes and transporters that contribute to the specificity and heterogeneity of the final IgG-Fc glycosylation profile. In this study, we compare two panels of glycan-adapted IgG1-Fc mutants expressed in either the human endothelial kidney 293-F or Chinese hamster ovary–K1 systems. We show that the types of N-linked glycans between matched pairs of Fc mutants vary greatly and in particular, with respect, to sialylation. These cell line effects on glycosylation profoundly influence the ability of the engineered Fcs to interact with either human or pathogen receptors. For example, we describe Fc mutants that potently disrupted influenza B–mediated agglutination of human erythrocytes when expressed in Chinese hamster ovary–K1, but not in human endothelial kidney 293-F cells

Lipid remodelling: unravelling the response to cold stress in Arabidopsis and its extremophile relative Eutrema salsugineum

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Crown Copyright © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.Environmental constraints limit the geographic distribution of many economically important crops. Cold stress is an important abiotic stress that affects plant growth and development, resulting in loss of vigour and surface lesions. These symptoms are caused by, among other metabolic processes, the altered physical and chemical composition of cell membranes. As a major component of cell membranes lipids have been recognized as having a significant role in cold stress, both as a mechanical defence through leaf surface protection and plasma membrane remodelling, and as signal transduction molecules. We present an overview integrating gene expression and lipidomic data published so far in Arabidopsis and its relative the extremophile Eutrema salsugineum. This data enables a better understanding of the contribution of the lipidome in determining the ability to tolerate suboptimal temperature conditions. Collectively this information will allow us to identify the key lipids and pathways responsible for resilience, enabling the development of new approaches for crop tolerance to stress.Peer reviewe