Staging De Quincey: Soundscape and Literary Language in Tess De Quincey’s Ghost Quarters

A door opens partially, and a hand appears, then a face, blurred in the half-light. The advancing figure makes its entrance with a slow fluidity that suggests ectoplasm, and in fact this is not a physical entity. It hovers in space for a few seconds, semitransparent, before dematerialising, along with the traces of the portal through which it just passed. Then, as the light grows and the eye discovers more of the surrounding space, another figure is revealed, with the same aura of pale hair surrounding the upturned face-but this is a gravity-bound presence, and as it rises from the floor, its movements are a confusion of impulses. It is quite literally finding its fee

A randomized trial of brief intervention strategies in patients with alcohol-related facial trauma as a result of interpersonal violence

Facial trauma is associated with male gender, low socioeconomic status, alcohol misuse, and violence. Brief intervention (BI) for alcohol is effective at reducing consumption in patients presenting with facial trauma. Singlesession control of violence for angry impulsive drinkers(SS-COVAID) is a new intervention that attempts to address alcohol-related violence. This study assessed the effect of SS-COVAID and BI on drinking and aggression in facial trauma patients. Male facial trauma patients who sustained their injuries as a result of interpersonal violence while drinking and who had Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores of ≥8 were randomized to either BI or SS-COVAID. Patients were followed up at six and 12 months, and drinking and aggression outcomes were analyzed. One hundred ninety-nine patients entered the trial, and 187 were included in the analysis. Of these, 165 (89%) considered themselves to be victims, 92 (51%) had sustained a previous alcohol-related injury, and 28 (15%) had previous convictions for violence. Both interventions resulted in a significant decrease in negative drinking outcomes over 12 months of follow-up (p<0.001). Neither intervention had a significant effect on aggression scores, nor was there a significant difference between interventions in terms of either outcome. Both SS-COVAID and BI had a significant effect on drinking variables in this patient cohort. No effect on aggressionwas seen despite the fact that SS-COVAID specifically addresses the relationship between alcohol and violence. One reason for this may be that the facial trauma patients in this study considered themselves to be victims rather than aggressors. Another possibility is that, while BI may successfully address lifestyle factors such as hazardous or harmful drinking, it may not be effective in modifying personality traits such as aggression

Optimizing the performance of gypsum wall board in wood frame shear walls

The overall goal of this project was to design a wood frame shear wall that could withstand greater displacement before damage occurred to the Gypsum Wall Board (GWB). More specifically, the objectives of the study were: (1) to evaluate damage to the GWB in alternative shear wall designs at 1%, 2% and 3% drift levels and compare these results to current performance-based design standards, (2) to evaluate quantitatively the relative displacement between the GWB and the wood frame under monotonic loading and (3) to evaluate the value of alternative shear wall designs considering damage sustained from design drift levels. A total of 14 shear walls consisting of seven different designs with two walls built per design were tested to failure. Six of these walls had 1105 mm x 610 mm window openings and eight did not. All shear walls were 2440 mm x 2440 mm in size and built from 38 mm x 89 mm Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) studs at 610 mm on center (o. c.). The seven shear wall designs tested included two control designs based on the minimum 2009 International Residential Code requirements. One control design included a window opening and another did not. The SEPSTUD wall design included a larger screw to GWB edge distance, while the 3INNAIL design included a closer OSB nail spacing. The 2OSBWIN and 2OSB wall designs, respectively, with and without a window opening, included Oriented Strand Board (OSB) panels attached to both sides of the wood frame and the GWB attached on top of the OSB. The 4PNLWIN design attached the GWB as four different panels around the window opening, instead of two panels. Shear wall test behavior generally agreed with the ASCE/SEI 41-06 performance-based drift criteria. 1% drift occurred between 57-80% of total wall capacity, 2% drift occurred between 84-97% of wall capacity and 3% drift occurred between 97-100% of wall capacity. The results of the visual failure comparison indicated that little damage was observed in the GWB for walls loaded to the NDS allowable strength. The results of the shear wall visual failure comparison indicated that all innovative shear wall designs outperformed the control designs at 1% drift. This was because less GWB damage was observed in the innovative shear wall designs. At 2% and 3% drift, the 4PNLWIN and SEPSTUD designs performed worse than the control. The 3INNAIL design performed slightly better, and the 2OSB and 2OSBWIN designs performed superior to the control designs at 2% and 3% drift. The greater performance of all these designs can be attributed to the increase in strength and stiffness of these shear walls. However, superior performance of the 2OSB and 2OSBWIN designs was due to the similar stiffness of both sides of the shear wall, resulting in equal load sharing and less damage to the GWB. Shear walls with magnitudes of the relative displacement vectors above the visual failure limit of 3 mm exhibited inferior GWB performance, which is consistent with the visual failure results. A shear wall value comparison indicated that the 3INNAIL, 2OSB and 2OSBWIN designs all exhibited a more efficient use of shear wall materials at 1% and 2% drift than the control designs. However, when considering a design earthquake drift level, 2OSB and 2OSBWIN designs demonstrate the most efficient use of shear wall materials

The effect of oxygen pickup during selective laser melting on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Ti–6Al–4V lattices

Additive manufacturing techniques such as Selective Laser Melting (SLM) can produce complex shapes with relatively thin sections and fine detail. However, common materials for the process, such as Ti–6Al–4V, have microstructure and properties that are sensitive to the pickup of interstitial impurities, such as oxygen, which the material will be exposed to during the process. This problem would be especially severe for parts with thin sections, where surface effects can be more significant, and where poor properties may coincide with locally-elevated stress. Here we explore the effects of oxygen level in thin sections with the use of lattice materials (materials which can be considered to consist exclusively of near-surface material). Oxygen levels are artificially raised using repeated melting passes to result in more pickup, leading to significantly reduced ductility and hence reduced strength measured in compression. A ductile to brittle transition in strut failure mechanism is found with increasing number of melting passes, with significant modification in chemistry and crystallographic structure, despite the presence of a similar fine plate-like microstructure throughout

The Effect of Electronic Structure on the Phases Present in High Entropy Alloys

Multicomponent systems, termed High Entropy Alloys (HEAs), with predominantly single solid solution phases are a current area of focus in alloy development. Although different empirical rules have been introduced to understand phase formation and determine what the dominant phases may be in these systems, experimental investigation has revealed that in many cases their structure is not a single solid solution phase, and that the rules may not accurately distinguish the stability of the phase boundaries. Here, a combined modelling and experimental approach that looks into the electronic structure is proposed to improve accuracy of the predictions of the majority phase. To do this, the Rigid Band model is generalised for magnetic systems in prediction of the majority phase most likely to be found. Good agreement is found when the predictions are confronted with data from experiments, including a new magnetic HEA system (CoFeNiV). This also includes predicting the structural transition with varying levels of constituent elements, as a function of the valence electron concentration, n, obtained from the integrated spin-polarised density of states. This method is suitable as a new predictive technique to identify compositions for further screening, in particular for magnetic HEAs

Soil microbial communities with greater investment in resource acquisition have lower growth yield

Resource acquisition and growth yield are fundamental microbial traits that affect biogeochemical processes and have consequences for ecosystem functioning. However, there is a lack of empirical observations linking these traits. Using a landscape-scale survey of temperate near-neutral pH soils, we show tradeoffs in key community-level parameters linked to these traits. Increased investment into extracellular enzymes estimated using specific potential enzyme activity was associated with reduced growth yield obtained using carbon use efficiency measures from stable isotope tracing. Reduction in growth yield was linked more to carbon than nitrogen acquisition highlighting smaller stoichiometric than energetic constraints on community metabolism in examined soils

Structural dependency of some multiple principal component alloys with the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac electron density

The interplay between semi-empirical parameters for multi-principle-component alloy (or High-entropy alloy) phase prediction may be partly attributed to deviations in the Miedema mixing enthalpy from quantum principles. Thus, the electron density, n(r ws ) is investigated using a Runge-Kutta solution of the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac equation from Wigner-Seitz radius values approximated experimentally from the weighted mean volume-per-atom, following the fraction of each phase present. The results show that 1) Phase stability may be affected by alloy periodicity; and 2) A rapid drop of n(r ws ) is observed even when small amounts of the complex phase are detected, < 1%), indicating the importance of understanding electronic effects