Accounting for practice in an age of theory: Charles Taylor’s theory of social imaginaries

No abstract available

Hyperkahler geometry and Teichmuller space

We consider the hyperk???????hler extension of Teichm???????ller space with the Weil- Petersson metric. We describe its recent construction as a hyperk???????hler quotient and examine the defining equations for the resulting moduli space. We examine relations between this moduli space and the quasi-Fuchsian deformation space of the surface, with particular attention to the connection with the canonical holomorphic symplectic structure. We also consider the connection with Taubes moduli space of hyperbolic germs and whether it is possible to extend the hyperk???????hler structure in any fashion.Imperial Users onl

Electrochemical processing of single-walled carbon nanotubes and related materials

The remarkable properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and potential applications are hindered by current solution-phase processing strategies. The initial dissolution of SWNTs remains a fundamental challenge, reliant on aggressive chemistry or ultrasonication and lengthy ultracentrifugation. In this thesis, a simple non-aqueous electrochemical reduction process that leads to spontaneous dissolution of individualised SWNTs from raw, unprocessed powders is outlined. The intrinsic electrochemical stability and conductivity of these nanoparticles allows their electrochemical dissolution from a pure SWNT cathode to form solutions of well-defined nanoparticle anions with characteristic charge density. Other than a reversible change in redox/solvation state, there is no obvious chemical functionalisation of the structure, suggesting an analogy to conventional atomic electrochemical dissolution. The heterogeneity of as-synthesised SWNT samples leads to the sequential dissolution of distinct fractions over time. Initial preferential dissolution of defective nanotubes and carbonaceous debris provides a simple, non-destructive means to purify raw materials without recourse to the usual, damaging, competitive oxidation reactions. During early stage developments, the process showed remarkable affinity for dissolving metallic SWNTs, providing a potentially scalable route for separation by electronic character, vital for many applications. However, selectivity was lost with significantly increased process yields (complete dissolution) following several optimisations. Subsequently, the electrochemical deposition of SWNTs is proposed as a new route to selectively plate specific SWNT species and avoid unwanted functionalisations that occur when exposing reduced SWNTs to different atmospheres. Finally, the extension of electrochemical processing to related materials including activated and graphitic nanocarbons, metallic and metal chalcogenide nanomaterials was also investigated, with great promise for the development of new applications.Open Acces

Alabama\u27s Public Wilderness: Reconstruction, Natural Resources, and the End of the Southern Commons, 1866-1905

“Alabama’s Public Wilderness: Reconstruction, Natural Resources, and the End of the Southern Commons, 1850-1905,” examines the environmental history of the longleaf pine forest in nineteenth-century Alabama. The research draws on newspapers and census reports, and the records of a federal land office in the state’s capitol. Once the domain of innumerable American Indian tribes, the public lands owned by the federal government became a common resource for a range of people in the antebellum period, used for foraging, grazing, and squatting. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Republican legislators passed the Southern Homestead Act, which reserved southern public lands – numbered at some 47-million acres in 1865 – for African Americans naturalized by the Fourteenth Amendment, and for small-scale white settlers. This experiment in promoting the Republican goal of “free soil” failed. Poor soil conditions and a wave of white backlash doomed the Act, and its repeal by ex-Confederate Democrats in 1876 opened these marginalized lands to direct purchase. Northern lumber companies came, bought much of the remaining public domain, and within two decades cut down the ancient longleaf forest. A new generation of scientific experts first promoted this economic development, and later raised concerns about the environmental devastation of poorly regulated logging. A once-great forest, with its original inhabitants removed, became a space for democracy, but the southern captains of industry privatized even these most rural places on the road to the Jim Crow Era. This dissertation argues that a pitched battle between the forces of industrial capitalism and egalitarian democracy took place not only in city centers or scientific laboratories, but in the “middle of nowhere.” In the nineteenth century, the public domain – an area cleared of its original inhabitants, then held-in-trust by the federal government, used but unsettled, and not owned in fee-simple by its citizens – became an arena where industrialists and citizens alike sought to bend natural resources, namely land, lumber, and minerals, to their own economic benefits

Accounting for practice in an age of theory: Charles Taylor’s theory of social imaginaries

No abstract available

Performance and the Stratigraphy of Place: Everything You Need to Build a Town is Here

Referencing the public art project project Everything You Need to Build a Town is Here, Wrights & Sites invite the reader to treat the chapter as a site rather than as a treatise. We have structured the text in four layers. Some materials drop through from one layer to another. Elements are introduced at one level and imitated or digested at another. The layers are variously unfinished and indiscrete, subject to influences and interferences, partly reconciled and partly not. While each of the layers has been written towards something, they were all attenuated at approximately the same time. There are coincidences. The writing attempts to address the editor's brief to: consider how archaeological methodologies and techniques might be used to reflect more directly on the contemporary world itself; how we might undertake archaeologies of, as well as in the present

Social imaginaries in education research

No abstract available

Garlic compounds selectively kill childhood pre-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells in vitro without reducing T-cell function: Potential therapeutic use in the treatment of ALL

Drugs used for remission induction therapy for childhood precursor-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are nonselective for malignant cells. Several garlic compounds have been shown to induce apoptosis of cancer cells and to alter lymphocyte function. To investigate the effect of garlic on the apoptosis of ALL cells and lymphocyte immune function, cells from newly diagnosed childhood ALL patients were cultured with several commonly used chemotherapeutic agents and several garlic compounds. Apoptosis, lymphocyte proliferation and T-cell cytokine production were determined using multiparameter flow cytometry. At concentrations of garlic compounds that did not result in significant increases in Annexin V and 7-AAD staining of normal lymphocytes, there was a significant increase in apoptosis of ALL cells with no alteration of T-cell proliferation as determined by CD25/CD69 upregulation or interferonγ, interleukin-2 or tumor necrosis factor-α intracellular cytokine production. In contrast, the presence of chemotherapeutic agents resulted in nonselective increases in both lymphocyte and ALL apoptosis and a decrease in T-cell proliferation and cytokine production. In conclusion, we show selective apoptosis of malignant cells by garlic compounds that do not alter T-cell immune function and indicate the potential therapeutic benefit of garlic compounds in the treatment of childhood ALL

Core-Shell Electrospun Polycrystalline ZnO Nanofibers for Ultra-Sensitive NO2 Gas Sensing.

This Research Article discusses the growth of polycrystalline, self-supporting ZnO nanofibers, which can detect nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas down to 1 part per billion (ppb), one of the smallest detection limits reported for NO2 using ZnO. A new and innovative method has been developed for growing polycrystalline ZnO nanofibers. These nanofibers have been created using core-shell electrospinning of inorganic metal precursor zinc neodecanoate, where growth occurs at the core of the nanofibers. This process produces contamination-free, self-supporting, polycrystalline ZnO nanofibers of an average diameter and grain size 50 and 8 nm, respectively, which are ideal for gas sensing applications. This process opens up an exciting opportunity for creating nanofibers from a variety of metal oxides, facilitating many new applications especially in the areas of sensors and wearable technologies.Llodys Register foundatio