Extrusion of aluminium-lithium alloys

Imperial Users onl

Contrasting Management Styles and Differing Outcomes of Capping and Orphaning of Utah Oil and Gas Wells by Conditions and Land Types

The issue of public lands management and ownership in the West has long been contentious. This thesis takes a quantitative approach examining outcomes of the rates at which oil and gas wells in the state of Utah are orphaned and/or capped. Findings indicate that orphanings occur at a statistically significant higher rate on state owned land as opposed to federal and private, and wells on tribal land have no recorded orphaning. No other variables were significant in their relationship to orphaning. The proposed explanations for this disparity are two-fold: First the longer periods of inactivity permitted by the state simply increase the chance a lessee will dissolve, leaving the well orphaned. Secondly, potential access to a greater amount of land upon which to drill incentivizes lessees to cap wells upon federal land at a higher rate. Tribal and private wells both allow for a more individualized approach and additional contractual agreements that minimize orphanings. This analysis demonstrates that the state of Utah’s management system results in a higher rate of orphanings, and in addition paves the way for comparative analyses in other aspects of land management. This allows for a more nuanced discussion and better understanding of differences in management systems and outcomes

An In Depth Study into Using EMI Signatures for Appliance Identification

Energy conservation is a key factor towards long term energy sustainability. Real-time end user energy feedback, using disaggregated electric load composition, can play a pivotal role in motivating consumers towards energy conservation. Recent works have explored using high frequency conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI) on power lines as a single point sensing parameter for monitoring common home appliances. However, key questions regarding the reliability and feasibility of using EMI signatures for non-intrusive load monitoring over multiple appliances across different sensing paradigms remain unanswered. This work presents some of the key challenges towards using EMI as a unique and time invariant feature for load disaggregation. In-depth empirical evaluations of a large number of appliances in different sensing configurations are carried out, in both laboratory and real world settings. Insights into the effects of external parameters such as line impedance, background noise and appliance coupling on the EMI behavior of an appliance are realized through simulations and measurements. A generic approach for simulating the EMI behavior of an appliance that can then be used to do a detailed analysis of real world phenomenology is presented. The simulation approach is validated with EMI data from a router. Our EMI dataset - High Frequency EMI Dataset (HFED) is also released

Value Congruence and Unethical Decision-Making: The Dark Side of Person-Organization Fit

Unethical decision-making (UDM) in organizations is a topic with a long history in practice and a short history in research. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore whether individual and organizational values interacted to predict Person-Organization Fit (P-O Fit) and UDM. Across two studies I tested the idea that individuals would report better P-O Fit in caring ethical climates to the degree that they reported greater trait empathy, and better P-O Fit in instrumental ethical climates to the degree that they reported greater levels of the Dark Triad traits. I also tested the idea that better P-O Fit would lead to more UDM, and that P-O Fit would mediate the interaction of ethical climate and personality on UDM. Study 1 (n =119) was an experimental study with undergraduate students wherein ethical climate was manipulated and personality was measured. Study 2 was a survey study (n = 83) with organizational employees wherein ethical climate was measured. Study 1 found support for the predicted interaction between climate and trait empathy on P-O fit. However, empathy was related to lower rather than higher UDM in caring climates. Study 2 provided support for the hypothesis that employees high in the Dark Triad would report better P-O fit in instrumental climates compared to caring climates, but P-O Fit remained unrelated to UDM. Further, the observed interaction between climate and Dark Triad held only for discrete and not continuous measures of climate. Limitations of the current designs and implications for research and practice are discussed

Presentational Immediacy in the Poetry of James Dickey

The thesis explores the presentational immediacy of the poetry of James Dickey. Presentational immediacy is a phrase used by the poet, himself, to describe his attempt to provide a verbal equivalent of an intense experience. He also defines the phrase in stating that his aim is to effect spontaneity and reader involvement in the experience of the poems. This is a relatively difficult objective to accomplish. However, as is shown in the study of the poems in Chapter V, Dickey\u27s handling of the general diction and imagery of the poems does fulfill his objective of presenting an experience in a vivid, forceful manner. The desire for a compulsive presentation seems related to the fact that many poems present situations which move in the direction of mystical experience. Chapter IV discusses the elements of mystical experience and the difficulty faced by the mystic in communicating his experience. This difficulty is essentially the same as that faced by Dickey in his aim for presentational immediacy. Frequent in mystical writings are the use of oxymora and paradox and references to light in the description of mystical experience. These features are also found in Dickey\u27s poems which share elements of mysticism--the quasi-mystical poems discussed in Chapter VI. The imagery of the poems is frequently based on a consciousness of light and motion, an element of paradox, and at times, a transferal of the intense attitude of the speaker to an object. In Chapter V it is shown that these characteristics are also found in the non-mystical poems. The presentational immediacy of these poems involves the same elements as the quasi-mystical poems, for in both there is a vivid re-creation of an intense experience--the experience is made presentationally immediate. Thus the study of the poems in Chapters V and VI demonstrates that Dickey\u27s aim is achieved in his poetry. The thesis concludes that the desire to achieve presentational immediacy serves as a guiding motive in Dickey\u27s choice of words and that an understanding of this principle is fundamental in seeking to understand and to experience the meaning and emotion of the poetry. During the initial stage of research all materials available in books and periodicals were read in three categories: material written about James Dickey and his poetry; material written by Dickey about the work of other poets; material written by Dickey about himself and about his own poetry. With the exception of one short article at the end of Babel to Byzantium in which Dickey gives an account of his development as a poet, there were no materials available in the last three categories. In reading and rereading the poems published between 1957 and 1970, I found a body of poetry which is largely spontaneous and forthright in presenting the subject matter. I found, in addition, that the quality which makes Dickey\u27s poetry unique and which repeatedly stimulates comments about his work is the intensity of the experience presented in the poems. It is with the use of imagery that his technique is most evidently his own. The review of the critical literature on Dickey\u27s poetry did \u27not yield any complete treatment on his use of language. Several writers assented that Dickey\u27s technique is valid in that it proves effective in presenting his material. However, the greater portion of the critical comment on Dickey\u27s work is limited to generalizing reviews in periodicals and two books. No writer has undertaken a formal analysis of the poems in order to demonstrate the validity of their assertions. This thesis provides such an analysis of the poetry of James Dickey

Role of tyrosine M210 in the initial charge separation of reaction centers of Rhodobacter sphaeroides

Femtosecond spectroscopy was used in combination with site-directed mutagenesis to study the influence of tyrosine M210 (YM210) on the primary electron transfer in the reaction center of Rhodobacter sphaeroides. The exchange of YM210 to phenylalanine caused the time constant of primary electron transfer to increase from 3.5 f 0.4 ps to 16 f 6 ps while the exchange to leucine increased the time constant even more to 22 f 8 ps. The results suggest that tyrosine M210 is important for the fast rate of the primary electron transfer

Cardiac Autonomic Imbalance in Newly Diagnosed and Established Diabetes Is Associated with Markers of Adipose Tissue Inflammation

Introduction. Diabetics die from cardiovascular disease at a much greater rate than nondiabetics. Cardiac autonomic imbalance predicts increased cardiovascular risk and mortality. We studied the relationship between cardiac autonomic imbalance and adipose tissue-derived inflammation in newly diagnosed and established type 2 diabetes. Materials and Methods. Non-diabetics, newly diagnosed diabetics, and established diabetics were included. Anthropomorphic and biochemical measurements were obtained, and insulin resistance was approximated. Cardiac autonomic function was assessed using conventional measures and with power spectral analysis of heart rate. Results and Discussion. Heart rate variability was reduced in all diabetics. Interleukin-6 was higher in diabetics, as was the high molecular weight adiponectin-to-leptin ratio. Interleukin-6 correlated negatively with measures of autonomic balance. Ratios of adiponectin to leptin correlated positively with measures of autonomic balance. Cardiac autonomic imbalance and inflammation occur early in diabetes and are interrelated. Conclusions. Cardiac autonomic imbalance correlates with the adipose tissue-derived inflammation seen early in type 2 diabetes

Temperature dependence of the primary electron transfer in photosynthetic reaction centers from Rhodobacter sphaeroides

The primary electron transfer (ET) in reaction centers (RC) of Rhodobacter sphaeroides is investigated as a function of temperature with femtosecond time resolution. For temperatures from 300 to 25 K the ET to the bacteriopheophytin is characterized by a biphasic time dependence. The two time constants of τ1=3.5±0.4 ps and τ2=1.2±0.3 ps at T=300 K decrease continously with temperature to values of τ1=1.4±0.3 ps and τ2=0.3±0.15 ps at 25 K. The experimental results indicate that the ET is not thermally activated and that the same ET mechanisms are active at room and low temperatures. All observations are readily rationalized by a two-step ET model with the monomeric bacteriochlorophyll as a real electron carrier