Contraction of the Roots and Crowns Medicago and Melilotus

The longitudinal contraction, a natural phenomenon of many plants, which results in lowering the basal portion of the plant deeper in the soil, is apparently accomplished in various ways. In both alfalfa and sweet clover the crowns are pulled vertically downward two to four inches during the first season. This is accomplished chiefly by the contraction vertically and the expansion radially and tangentially of parenchymatous cells that are continuously being formed in isolated groups scattered among the vascular elements. The development and expansion of these intercalated masses of parenchyma separate the vascular elements into tortuous strands, the tortuosity of which results in the shortening of the entire vascular cylinder. The strands of libriform fibers in the cortex are shortened in the same manner

Dust generation on a proglacial floodplain, West Greenland

The interplay of glacial dynamics, glaciofluvial and aeolian transport in proglacial landscapes plays an important role in local environmental systems and in the global context by affecting the amount of dust generated and transported at different phases of glacial-interglacial cycles. Glacial outwash plains are a significant source of dust, however the processes involved in dust generation on proglacial floodplains are poorly documented. We report a study of the quantity and characteristics of aeolian suspended sediment transport in Sandflugtdalen, a valley containing a proglacial floodplain and aeolian dunefield in West Greenland. Although the surface sediment of both the floodplain and dunefield contain a considerable amount of sand-sized material, wind speeds recorded were insufficiently strong to mobilise this material; this is probably due to the armouring effect of coarser particles in the surface deposits. Nevertheless, fine (dust-sized) aeolian sediments were transported down valley in suspension and the source of this material was a silt-dominated meltwater deposit up valley from the monitoring sites. Dust transport ranged from 0.0008-0.082 g m-w s-1 over seven days and 0.0035-0.011 g m-w s-1 over a further 57 days during which no additional fluvial sediments were deposited. The reduction in sediment transport rate is attributed to both a depleted sediment supply and a decrease in above threshold winds. The supply of fine sediments to this proglacial region is dependent on meltwater suspended sediment loads which are predicted to increase during glacier retreat; reworking of the floodplain during ice retreat may also make more material available for aeolian transport

Transnational development cultures:navigating production, market, and cultural difference within European-Chinese game development teams

Discourse on the global games industry draws attention to the growth of China, in terms of both its consumer market and the games publishing landscape. Trade associations and government agencies have sought routes for Western games studios, publishers, and rights holders to connect with similar organisations in China. However, there has been limited focus on how Western and Chinese game developers understand and navigate the challenges of transnational collaboration and creativity in games production. This article presents a case study of five transnational game development teams, all of which were composed predominantly of developers from the UK and China who were tasked with producing game prototypes for both markets. Data gathered during game production included development diaries, interview data, game prototypes, and production documentation. Three themes emerged from analysis of the data: production practices and transnational working, navigating regulations and restrictions, and market and cultural differences. Findings highlight that developers encounter challenges around political and cultural difference that could inhibit production or lead to uncertainties in design decision making, but also that developers can quickly establish routes to collaboration and knowledge sharing that can help to overcome these barriers

Integrated Organizational Machine Learning for Aviation Flight Data

An increased availability of data and computing power has allowed organizations to apply machine learning techniques to various fleet monitoring activities. Additionally, our ability to acquire aircraft data has increased due to the miniaturization of small form factor computing machines. Aircraft data collection processes contain many data features in the form of multivariate time-series (continuous, discrete, categorical, etc.) which can be used to train machine learning models. Yet, three major challenges still face many flight organizations 1) integration and automation of data collection frameworks, 2) data cleanup and preparation, and 3) embedded machine learning framework. Data cleanup and preparation has been a well known challenge since database systems were first invented. While integration and automation of data collection efforts within many organizations is quite mature, there are special challenges for flight-based organizations (i.e., the automatic and efficient transmission of aircraft flight data to centralized analytical data processing systems). Furthermore, this creates additional constraints for the operationalization of embedded machine learning methods for classical tasks such as classification and prediction; and magnifying design challenges for the more novel ‘prescriptive-based’ architectures. Our research is focused on the application of a design pattern for a) the integration and automation of data collection and b) an organizationally embedded ensemble machine learning method

Navigating China game publishing::a case study of Steam China

This case study focuses on engagement with publishing platforms in China and involves a collaboration with Steam China. Our goal was to develop a playable game prototype that was both framed and informed by China publishing and market expertise. By developing the game concept and pitch from the ground up with these restrictions and requirements in mind, our hope was that the resulting case study would serve as a useful pathfinder for other UK-based developers who want to learn more about game publishing for China markets

The Libriform Fibers in the Roots and Crown of Medicago and Melilotus

The libriform fibers, long known to be especially prominent in many of the Leguminsoae, particularly the papilionaceae, constitute a large part of the xylem and are present in the phloem of the roots and crowns of the alfalfas and sweet clovers. They deserve mentioning in these legumes because the modifications they undergo at different periods in the plant\u27s growth cycle indicate that they function as storage structures, and have an importance relative to the nutrition of the plant

Ballistic thermal phonons traversing nanocrystalline domains in oriented polyethylene

Thermally conductive polymer crystals are of both fundamental and practical interest for their high thermal conductivity that exceeds that of many metals. In particular, polyethylene fibers and oriented films with uniaxial thermal conductivity exceeding 50 W⋅m^(-1)⋅K^(-1) have been reported recently, stimulating interest into the underlying microscopic thermal transport processes. While ab initio calculations have provided insight into microscopic phonon properties for perfect crystals, such properties of actual samples have remained experimentally inaccessible. Here, we report the direct observation of thermal phonons with mean free paths up to 200 nm in semicrystalline polyethylene films using transient grating spectroscopy. Many of the mean free paths substantially exceed the crystalline domain sizes measured using small-angle X-ray scattering, indicating that thermal phonons propagate ballistically within and across the nanocrystalline domains; those transmitting across domain boundaries contribute nearly one-third of the thermal conductivity. Our work provides a direct determination of thermal phonon propagation lengths in molecular solids, yielding insights into the microscopic origins of their high thermal conductivity

Exploring the opportunities for UK games businesses in China:a case study of two industry-led mobile game prototypes

This case study of game development R&amp;D brought together researchers, developers, and industrial partners to explore co-production of experimental games for UK-China markets. Postgraduate teams comprising British, Chinese and international developers were tasked with responding to industry-led challenges related to UK-China games industry interests. The case study examines issues such as bringing British IP to China, how social play is managed in the Chinese market, and cross cultural representation both within game products and within development teams.The final work comprises two original game prototypes that serve as pathfinders for UK games businesses with interests in the Chinese games market, and a final project video documenting the experiences of industry, academic, and developer experience on the project.<br/

Particle Migration in Large Cross-Section Ceramic On-Demand Extrusion Components

Ceramic On-Demand Extrusion (CODE) is a direct ink writing process which allows for the creation of near theoretically dense ceramic components with large cross-sections due to oil-assisted drying. Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) colloidal pastes (∼d50 ≲ 1 µm) were used in CODE to produce dense (multi-road infill and ≳ 98% relative density), large continuous volume (\u3e 1 cm3), and high fidelity (nozzle diameters ≲ 1 mm) structural ceramic components. However, many of these printed components underwent significant particle migration after forming. The reason for this particle migration defect was investigated using the coffee-ring effect for dilute solutions and rheological methods for dense suspensions. Modifications to the colloidal paste, such as changes in solids loading, pH, or surfactant concentration were explored as to their effectiveness to mitigate the defect. Ultimately, paste formulation and printing trade-offs are discussed with respect to the post-printing defect and as to general direct-write patterning