New essays on life writing and the body (Review)

Copyright @ 2010 The Autobiography Societ

“Discover your own Ireland”: Virtual Ireland(s) for an international audience

Copyright @ 2009 University of GlasgowThe opening years of the twenty-first century can be characterised by the increased overlap between cyberspace and the physical world; virtual reality is more real than it has ever been. The rising popularity of web 2.0 forms of self-expression and user generated content such as Facebook, MySpace and blogging have resulted in it becoming the largest growth area on the internet. This essay hopes to explore how the uptake and familiarity with web technology by Irish people has overflowed into their lives and cultural expressions via the use of ‘virtual communities’. As the forums for representing the virtual self continue to evolve and multiply, debates over the multiple meanings of Irishness will thrive as the ‘new Irish’ continue to reinterpret the complexities of their identity using web technology

Who do you think you are? Intimate pasts made public

This is the official published version of the Article - Copyright @ 2011 University of Hawaii Pres

Dynamic Input/Output Automata: a Formal and Compositional Model for Dynamic Systems

We present dynamic I/O automata (DIOA), a compositional model of dynamic systems. In DIOA, automata can be created and destroyed dynamically, as computation proceeds, and an automaton can dynamically change its signature, i.e., the set of actions in which it can participate. DIOA features operators for parallel composition, action hiding, action renaming, a notion of automaton creation, and a notion of behavioral subtyping by means of trace inclusion. DIOA can model mobility, using signature modification, and is hierarchical: a dynamically changing system of interacting automata is itself modeled as a single automaton. We also show that parallel composition, action hiding, action renaming, and (subject to some technical conditions) automaton creation are all monotonic with respect to trace inclusion: if one component is replaced by another whose traces are a subset of the former, then the set of traces of the system as a whole can only be reduced.Comment: 65 pages, 11 figures, Information and Computation, Available online 21 March 201

Innovative techniques for the production of energetic radicals for lunar processing including cold plasma processing of local planetary ores

Hydrogen reduction of ilmenite has been studied by a number of investigators as a potential means for recovery of oxygen from lunar soil. Interest in this process has always rested with the simplicity of the flow diagram and the utilization of established technology. Effective utilization of hydrogen in the reduction process at temperatures of 1200 C and below has always been disappointing and, as such, has led other investigators to focus attention on other systems. Effective utilization of hydrogen in the reduction of ilmenite can be significantly enhanced in the presence of a non-equilibrium hydrogen plasma. Ilmenite at solid specimen temperatures of 600 C to 970 C were reacted in a hydrogen plasma. Those experiments revealed that hydrogen utilization can be significantly enhanced. At a specimen temperature of 850 C the fraction of H2 reacted was 24 percent compared to the 7 percent theoretical limit calculated with thermodynamic theory for the same temperature. An added advantage for a hydrogen plasma involves further reduction of TiO2. Reduction of the iron oxide in ilmenite yields TiO2 and metallic iron as by products. Titanium forms a number of oxides including TiO, Ti2O3, Ti3O5 and the Magneli oxides (Ti4O7 to Ti50O99). In conventional processing of ilmenite with hydrogen it is possible to reduce TiO2 to Ti7O13 within approximately an hour, but with poor utilization of hydrogen on the order of one mole of H2 per thousand. In the cold or non-equilibrium plasma TiO2 can be rapidly reduced to Ti2O3 with hydrogen utilization exceeding 10 percent. Based on design considerations of the plasma reactor greater utilization of the hydrogen in the reduction of TiO2 is possible

Constraints on the development of coal mining in arctic Alaska based on review of Eurasian arctic practices

Arctic Alaska's enormous reserves of coal may be a significant future source of energy for the United States and for the Pacific Basin. Large coal reserves have been developed in the Arctic portions of Eurasia, where problems similar to those that might be encountered in Alaska have already been faced. To determine the nature of these problems, the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory of the University of Alaska, under contracts S 0133057 with the U.S. Bureau of Mines, has conducted a literature review on Eurasian coal mining and visited mines in Svalbard, Norway; Carmacks, Y.T.; and Healy, Alaska. The purpose was to establish the most significant physical constraints which may apply to the eventual development of Northwestern Arctic Alaskan coal.Contract S 0133057 with the U.S. Bureau of Mine

Chlorination processing of local planetary ores for oxygen and metallurgically important metals

The use of chlorine to extract, reclaim, and purify metals has attractive possibilities for extraterrestrial processing of local planetary resources. While a complete cyclic process has been proposed for the recovery of metallurgically significant metals and oxygen, herein the chlorination step of the cycle is examined. An experimental apparatus for reacting refractory materials, such as ilmenite, in a microwave induced plasma is being built. Complex equilibria calculations reveal that stable refractory materials can, under the influence of a plasma, undergo chlorination and yield oxygen as a by-product. These issues and the potential advantages for plasma processing in space are reviewed. Also presented is a discussion of the complex equilibria program used in the analysis