Hobbits on the Map of Britain

Geographic distributions of names can be relatively static over many generations. This paper applies a mapping of English names to places in Great Britain to extract implicit correspondences between the names of hobbit families and their roles in The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien is found to have used family names that predominate near his childhood home in the West Midlands to connote characters close to Bilbo and Frodo, names from other parts of Britain to indicate relationships that are not so congenial, and names that do not occur widely in Britain to designate characters who are exotic or strange. The mapping is applied to the story of the Gamgee family, which exposes a story hidden in the Appendices

Boundaries of the Future in Two William Gibson Novels

Actuality is a border between the world that is and the future worlds that could be. Science- fiction stories look across the border, into the frontiers of 'the future'. William Gibson did his part in the 1980s to invent cyberpunk fiction as a slick, stylish view into a bleak dystopian future, but by the turn of the century, much of what he'd written about had recognizably come to pass. For Gibson, adapting to a fiction-writer's worst nightmare meant returning to one of his old books. Pattern Recognition (2003) is essentially the same story as Count Zero (1986), but aimed sideways along the frontier instead of across it. This paper explores the relationships between the two novels, showing how the common theme, the relationship of art to society, turns from a quasi-religious respect to a cynical quest for commercial exploitation. In our new dystopian present, a transformed frontier emerges between the reader and the story

On Thermal Aging Prevention in Polymer Core Composite Conductor Rods

Increased energy usage in the United States and worldwide is driving the demand for new technologies to transmit electrical power in greater quantities and with reliable, safe, and more efficient methods. One recent innovation is to replace the standard Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced electrical transmission conductor with a new conductor design that utilizes a fiber reinforced polymer core rod to support a fully annealed aluminum conductor. This new technology that includes a hybrid carbon fiber/epoxy and glass fiber/epoxy support core allows for better efficiency and for greater current to be transmitted in the same size and weight line. These new conductor lines are part of a new class of conductors called High Temperature Low Sag (HTLS) for their ability to transmit more current while still providing appropriate ground clearance over vegetation. However, long-term exposure to high temperatures can diminish the flexural properties of the hybrid composite core rods. This dissertation contributes unique and innovative multiscale approaches to understand and reduce the impact of thermal aging on the core rods. The research demonstrates that the source of flexural failure in the rods moves from predominantly physical aging to predominantly chemical aging as a function of time and temperature, a brand new explanation that is validated both experimentally and numerically. Further, for the first time, it is shown that coating the rods with a barrier that may delay thermal oxidation is an effective method of reducing and delaying chemical aging and therefore can be a practical method for increasing their service life. It also finds that while the detrimental impact of physical aging escalates with increasing temperature as expected, the effect of chemical aging is in fact mitigated by moving from aging at 180 °C to 200 °C. In addition, the dissertation evaluates the benefit of increasing radiative cooling on the operating temperature of the conductor in order to find a method of transmitting the same current while reducing the thermal aging. Lastly, the impact of incorporating nanoparticles into the epoxy matrix is assessed to identify an additional method of retarding thermal aging. Thus, instead of simply identifying and explaining problems, this research goes a step further and offers a comprehensive approach to preventing thermal aging of the conductors and other structures utilizing polymer matrix composites. It offers significant advances in the use of nanotechnology to reduce aging of polymer composites; it identifies a coating to reduce the impact of chemical aging; and it suggests a radiative cooling as an important approach to reduce both physical and chemical aging in the rods. All of these tactics are evaluated both experimentally and numerically in this work. Most importantly, this research advances the understanding and improves the performance of polymer core HTLS conductors along with other polymer composites subjected to high temperatures. With the improvement and adoption of the techniques presented, confidence in the safety and endurance of the novel conductor is increasing its implementation in this country and around the world

Oxoborane Formation Turns on Formazanate-Based Photoluminescence

The synthesis of compounds containing multiple bonds to boron has challenged main-group chemists for decades. Despite significant progress, the possibility that the formation of such bonds can turn on photoluminescence has received minimal attention. We report an oxoborane (B=O) complex that is electronically stabilized by a formazanate ligand in the absence of significant steric bulk and, unlike the common BX2 (X = F, Cl) formazanate adducts, exhibits intense photoluminescence. The latter property was rationalized through density-functional calculations which indicated that the B=O bond enhances photoluminescence by drastically reducing differences between the ligand\u27s geometries in the ground and excited states. The title oxoborane compound was synthesized from an air- and moisture-stable BCl2 formazanate complex and subsequently converted to a redox-active boroxine. Each of these species may also serve as a precursor to functional materials

Ariel - Volume 4 Number 6

Editors David A. Jacoby Eugenia Miller Tom Williams Associate Editors Paul Bialas Terry Burt Michael Leo Gail Tenikat Editor Emeritus and Business Manager Richard J. Bonnano Movie Editor Robert Breckenridge Staff Richard Blutstein Mary F. Buechler J.D. Kanofsky Rocket Weber David Maye

A high-quality pedigree and genetic markers both reveal inbreeding depression for quality but not survival in a cooperative mammal

Inbreeding depression, the reduced fitness of offspring of closely related parents, is commonplace in both captive and wild populations and has important consequences for conservation and mating system evolution. However, because of the difficulty of collecting pedigree and life history data from wild populations, relatively few studies have been able to compare inbreeding depression for traits at different points in the life cycle. Moreover, pedigrees give the expected proportion of the genome that is identical by descent (IBDg) whereas in theory with enough molecular markers realised IBDg can be quantified directly. We therefore investigated inbreeding depression for multiple life-history traits in a wild population of banded mongooses using pedigree-based inbreeding coefficients (fped) and standardised multilocus heterozygosity (sMLH) measured at 35-43 microsatellites. Within an information theoretic framework, we evaluated support for either fped or sMLH as inbreeding terms and used sequential regression to determine whether the residuals of sMLH on fped explain fitness variation above and beyond fped. We found no evidence of inbreeding depression for survival, either before or after nutritional independence. By contrast, inbreeding was negatively associated with two quality related traits, yearling body mass and annual male reproductive success. Yearling body mass was associated with fped but not sMLH, while male annual reproductive success was best explained by both fped and residual sMLH. Thus, our study not only uncovers variation in the extent to which different traits show inbreeding depression, but also reveals trait-specific differences in the ability of pedigrees and molecular markers to explain fitness variation and suggests that for certain traits genetic markers may capture variation in realised IBDg above and beyond the pedigree expectation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Damage Tolerance Analysis of a Pressurized Liquid Oxygen Tank

A damage tolerance assessment was conducted of an 8,000 gallon pressurized Liquid Oxygen (LOX) tank. The LOX tank is constructed of a stainless steel pressure vessel enclosed by a thermal-insulating vacuum jacket. The vessel is pressurized to 2,250 psi with gaseous nitrogen resulting in both thermal and pressure stresses on the tank wall. Finite element analyses were performed on the tank to characterize the stresses from operation. Engineering material data was found from both the construction of the tank and the technical literature. An initial damage state was assumed based on records of a nondestructive inspection performed on the tank. The damage tolerance analyses were conducted using the NASGRO computer code. This paper contains the assumptions, and justifications, made for the input parameters to the damage tolerance analyses and the results of the damage tolerance analyses with a discussion on the operational safety of the LOX tank

Sparing of the Dystrophin-Deficient Cranial Sartorius Muscle Is Associated with Classical and Novel Hypertrophy Pathways in GRMD Dogs

Both Duchenne and golden retriever muscular dystrophy (GRMD) are caused by dystrophin deficiency. The Duchenne muscular dystrophy sartorius muscle and orthologous GRMD cranial sartorius (CS) are relatively spared/hypertrophied. We completed hierarchical clustering studies to define molecular mechanisms contributing to this differential involvement and their role in the GRMD phenotype. GRMD dogs with larger CS muscles had more severe deficits, suggesting that selective hypertrophy could be detrimental. Serial biopsies from the hypertrophied CS and other atrophied muscles were studied in a subset of these dogs. Myostatin showed an age-dependent decrease and an inverse correlation with the degree of GRMD CS hypertrophy. Regulators of myostatin at the protein (AKT1) and miRNA (miR-539 and miR-208b targeting myostatin mRNA) levels were altered in GRMD CS, consistent with down-regulation of myostatin signaling, CS hypertrophy, and functional rescue of this muscle. mRNA and proteomic profiling was used to identify additional candidate genes associated with CS hypertrophy. The top-ranked network included α-dystroglycan and like-acetylglucosaminyltransferase. Proteomics demonstrated increases in myotrophin and spectrin that could promote hypertrophy and cytoskeletal stability, respectively. Our results suggest that multiple pathways, including decreased myostatin and up-regulated miRNAs, α-dystroglycan/like-acetylglucosaminyltransferase, spectrin, and myotrophin, contribute to hypertrophy and functional sparing of the CS. These data also underscore the muscle-specific responses to dystrophin deficiency and the potential deleterious effects of differential muscle involvement