Development of the electricity supply industry in Great Britain

The purpose of this thesis is to furnish a brief analysis of the economic, social and, to a limited extent, technical aspects of the Elec- :tricity Supply Industry in Great Britain and to outline a history of its development as a public utility service. Further, to trace the main trends and changes in its administrative and service structure; to present its economic and financial achievements; to show its technical progress since its birth up to its present phase of development. I propose to discuss also the political and legislative influences and forces, which have played such an important part in its natural growth. These political forces are still a determining factor in shaping its future. For this reason, I thought it necessary to consider the development of the Electricity Supply Industry within (a) wider framework of the National Economy, A study of the development of this particular {l l- Industry will, I believe, serve as a useful illustration of the revolutionary and most conspicuous growth of one of the New Industries in our times. It will also be very interesting to bring into the open those economic and political views, which formed the basis of many changes that the Electricity Supply Industry went through within a comparatively short, but consist- • :ently progressive time. During this period it became one of the most important of the public ' utility services. It is not a mistake to say that the history of the Electricity Supply Industry has, indeed, few parallels in the long chain of epochal discoveries and inventions so successfully made by man

Laser heating control with polarized light in isolated multi-walled carbon nanotubes

We are proposing a novel method of laser heating control only through change in polarization of the incident light, keeping its power density constant. The idea combines antenna effect found in isolated multi-walled carbon nanotubes and the possibility of their heating by light illumination. To observe this we used Raman spectroscopy technique, where the heating manifests itself in a pronounced downshift of the Raman G and 2D lines as a function of the polarization angle. Our method can be useful in field electron emission devices or in selective nanotubes heating and destruction. It can also be extended to other one dimensional nanoobjects, if only certain conditions are fulfilled.Comment: 11 page

Airborne Endotoxin Is Associated with Respiratory Illness in the First 2 Years of Life

To determine the influence of endotoxin on the incidence of acute respiratory illness during the first 2 years of life, we carried out a longitudinal follow-up study, beginning at birth, of 332 children born in Prince Edward Island, Canada. We measured 5-day averaged air endotoxin in the homes of children, whose parents provided information by daily symptom diaries and twice-monthly telephone contact for up to 2 years. Endotoxin concentration was 0.49 ± 3.49 EU/m(3) (geometric mean ± geometric SD), and number of annualized illness episodes was 6.83 ± 2.80 (mean ± SD). A doubling of the air endotoxin concentration was associated with an increase of 0.32 illness episodes per year (p = 0.0003), adjusted for age, year of study, breast-feeding, environmental tobacco smoke, child care attendance, indoor temperature, and income. Indoor mold surface area and fungal ergosterol were not significantly associated with endotoxin. Airborne endotoxin appears to be a risk factor for clinically symptomatic respiratory illnesses during the first 2 years of life independent of indoor fungus

Ultrafast optical properties of stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric refractory metal nitrides TiNx, ZrNx, and HfNx

Refractory metal nitrides have recently gained attention in various fields of modern photonics due to their cheap and robust production technology, silicon-technology compatibility, high thermal and mechanical resistance, and competitive optical characteristics in comparison to typical plasmonic materials like gold and silver. In this work, we demonstrate that by varying the stoichiometry of sputtered nitride films, both static and ultrafast optical responses of refractory metal nitrides can efficiently be controlled. We further prove that the spectral changes in ultrafast transient response are directly related to the position of the epsilon-near-zero region. At the same time, the analysis of the temporal dynamics allows us to identify three time components - the "fast" femtosecond one, the "moderate" picosecond one, and the "slow" at the nanosecond time scale. We also find out that the non-stoichiometry does not significantly decrease the recovery time of the reflectance value. Our results show the strong electron-phonon coupling and reveal the importance of both the electron and lattice temperature-induced changes in the permittivity near the ENZ region and the thermal origin of the long tail in the transient optical response of refractory nitrides

Association of the Frequency of Respiratory Illness in Early Childhood with a Change in the Distribution of Blood Lymphocyte Subpopulations

Little is known about the distribution of lymphocyte phenotypes in young children and the association specific phenotypes may have with respiratory illnesses. The objective of this study was to describe lymphocyte distributions in children at approximately 2 years of age and to test for associations with the frequency of respiratory illness during the first 2 years of life. We hypothesized that an increased frequency of illness would be associated with those phenotypes that reflect previous antigen exposure and/or immune activation. Seventy-three children were followed during their first 2 years of life with daily symptom diaries and twice-monthly telephone calls to ascertain the incidence of respiratory illness. After the children reached 2 years of age, the phenotypes of circulating blood lymphocytes were measured by flow cytometry. Associations between illness and phenotypes were adjusted for education level of parents; hours per week in day care; hours per week exposed to environmental tobacco smoke, mould, or water damage in bedroom; and parental history of allergy and asthma. The resulting median lymphocyte count was 4.0 × 109 per litre (standard deviation, 1.3) with a CD4/CD8 count of 2.28, consistent with published values. Illness rates were positively associated with the percentage of CD8+ CD38+ T cells (unadjusted p = .03, adjusted p = .014), CD8+ CD45RO+ T cells (unadjusted p = .06, adjusted p = .036), and CD4+ CD45RO+ T cells (unadjusted p = .01, adjusted p = .005). Our conclusions is that there is an association between the distribution of lymphocyte phenotypes and the incidence of respiratory illness early in life. Future research is recommended to determine the directionality of this association

Application of Least Squares with Conditional Equations Method for Railway Track Inventory Using GNSS Observations

Satellite geodetic networks are commonly used in surveying tasks, but they can also be used in mobile surveys. Mobile satellite surveys can be used for trackage inventory, diagnostics and design. The combination of modern technological solutions with the adaptation of research methods known in other fields of science offers an opportunity to acquire highly accurate solutions for railway track inventory. This article presents the effects of work carried out using a mobile surveying platform on which Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers were mounted. The satellite observations (surveys) obtained were aligned using one of the methods known from classical land surveying. The records obtained during the surveying campaign on a 246th km railway track section were subjected to alignment. This article provides a description of the surveying campaign necessary to obtain measurement data and a theoretical description of the method employed to align observation results as well as their visualisation. Document type: Articl