The cultural and historical geographies of onshore oil exploration in the British East Midlands during the 20th century

This thesis tells the hitherto neglected story of onshore oil exploration in the British East Midlands from 1908 to 1964. Drawing on a series of case studies it provides a regional historical geography, connecting science and industry to the exploratory field science of geology. During the period examined, two low key discoveries – Hardstoft, in Derbyshire (1919), and Eakring, in Nottinghamshire (1939) - altered Britain’s energy prospects, supplementing coal with liquid mineral oil. Using archival research methods and oral testimonies, the thesis reveals how a diverse assemblage of earth scientists, oilfield technologies and techniques, institutions and private companies developed a regional laboratory for oil exploration. Liquid energy fuelled heated political debates over land nationalisation and private ownership rights, the science of subsurface quantification and governance, and the role of industry in exploration. Though small when compared with global consumption and production figures, oil discovered in the British East Midlands provided a time critical supply of oil during World War Two. It also facilitated technological advances in oilfield development, contributed towards a new arm of economic geology (geophysics) and encouraged earth scientists to think of territory as a three dimensional entity, extending beneath, as well as along the land surface

Developing manufacturing control software: A survey and critique

The complexity and diversity of manufacturing software and the need to adapt this software to the frequent changes in the production requirements necessitate the use of a systematic approach to developing this software. The software life-cycle model (Royce, 1970) that consists of specifying the requirements of a software system, designing, implementing, testing, and evolving this software can be followed when developing large portions of manufacturing software. However, the presence of hardware devices in these systems and the high costs of acquiring and operating hardware devices further complicate the manufacturing software development process and require that the functionality of this software be extended to incorporate simulation and prototyping.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45542/1/10696_2005_Article_BF01328739.pd

The cultural and historical geographies of onshore oil exploration in the British East Midlands during the 20th century

This thesis tells the hitherto neglected story of onshore oil exploration in the British East Midlands from 1908 to 1964. Drawing on a series of case studies it provides a regional historical geography, connecting science and industry to the exploratory field science of geology. During the period examined, two low key discoveries – Hardstoft, in Derbyshire (1919), and Eakring, in Nottinghamshire (1939) - altered Britain’s energy prospects, supplementing coal with liquid mineral oil. Using archival research methods and oral testimonies, the thesis reveals how a diverse assemblage of earth scientists, oilfield technologies and techniques, institutions and private companies developed a regional laboratory for oil exploration. Liquid energy fuelled heated political debates over land nationalisation and private ownership rights, the science of subsurface quantification and governance, and the role of industry in exploration. Though small when compared with global consumption and production figures, oil discovered in the British East Midlands provided a time critical supply of oil during World War Two. It also facilitated technological advances in oilfield development, contributed towards a new arm of economic geology (geophysics) and encouraged earth scientists to think of territory as a three dimensional entity, extending beneath, as well as along the land surface

Discovery of a multiply lensed submillimeter galaxy in early HerMES Herschel/SPIRE data

‘In these times, during the rise in the popularity of institutional repositories, the Society does not forbid authors from depositing their work in such repositories. However, the AAS regards the deposit of scholarly work in such repositories to be a decision of the individual scholar, as long as the individual's actions respect the diligence of the journals and their reviewers.’ Original article can be found at: http://iopscience.iop.org/ Copyright American Astronomical SocietyWe report the discovery of a bright (f (250 μm)>400 mJy), multiply lensed submillimeter galaxy HERMES J105751.1+573027 in Herschel/SPIRE Science Demonstration Phase data from the HerMES project. Interferometric 880 μm Submillimeter Array observations resolve at least four images with a large separation of ∼9″. A high-resolution adaptive optics Kp image with Keck/NIRC2 clearly shows strong lensing arcs. Follow-up spectroscopy gives a redshift of z = 2.9575, and the lensing model gives a total magnification of μ ∼ 11 ± 1. The large image separation allows us to study the multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) of the lensed source unobscured by the central lensing mass. The far-IR/millimeter-wave SED is well described by a modified blackbody fit with an unusually warm dust temperature, 88 ± 3 K. We derive a lensing-corrected total IR luminosity of (1.43 ± 0.09) × 1013 L⊙, implying a star formation rate of ∼2500 M⊙ yr-1. However, models primarily developed from brighter galaxies selected at longer wavelengths are a poor fit to the full optical-to-millimeter SED. A number of other strongly lensed systems have already been discovered in early Herschel data, and many more are expected as additional data are collected.Peer reviewe