‘Unleashing Demons: The inside story of Brexit’: event review

Department of Government MSc Public Policy and Administration student Perry Scott reflects on the recent public lecture by Craig Oliver, who discussed his new book ‘Unleashing Demons: The Inside Story of Brexit’, at LSE on Monday 14 November

Silver-based Microbial Check Valve for Spacecraft Potable Water Systems

As human space exploration increases, the development of a more efficient potable water treatment system suited for spacecraft becomes crucial. This Waste-management Education Research Consortium (WERC) challenge was designed to explore the viability of microbial control through the utilization of silver ions as a biocide for possible integration into the Tranquility Node 3 water purification system aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Current systems using iodine risk causing hyperthyroidism from overexposure; however, silver can be safely ingested without this side effect. After researching silver delivery methods including electrochemical ion production, controlled release, or a combination of the two, our team decided to design a controlled release system capable of meeting the constraints listed in the problem statement. By using a membrane similar to those within dialysis devices a system was designed to deliver silver ions to a stream of water that requires arguably no power and is exceptionally lightweight. While the silver delivery system fulfilled the constraints of the WERC problem statement, our team also examined the use of resins like those contained in the current Microbial Check Valve (MCV). Resin substitutes capable of selective silver sorption are recommended as replacements for those within the current MCV to prevent backwards microbial diffusion through the system. Multiple designs will be presented in this paper. First, our membrane-controlled release silver delivery system (SDS) is presented to specifically address the WERC Task 1 deliverables. Second, a proposed upgrade to the ISS water system is described that replaces the ion exchange resin beds with silver-selective media prevent microbial contamination of water in the potable water system of the spacecraft. Given the extreme lightweight nature of the SDS, nil power requirement, and minor modification to the existing system, Hogs In Space has delivered a highly effective method to deliver and control silver based on the WERC Task 1 requirements

A Study of Methane-Liquid Absorption Characteristics for Gas Influx Management

The study of absorption mass transfer kinetics in non-aqueous base fluids and the investigation of the parameters that influence this process is crucial in the application to gas influx management. While there have been a large number of studies investigating the interaction and solubility of methane in non-aqueous drilling fluids, relatively little attention has been placed on studying the mass transfer kinetics for different scenarios within the wellbore and riser. During the drilling process, there are multiple ways in which the formation gas can come into contact with the drilling fluid via a gas kick. Once the gas influx dissolves into the liquid and is circulated up the wellbore, the gas will come out of solution in the riser due to a decrease in pressure. During managed pressure drilling (MPD), the desorbed gas could potentially be redissolved back into the drilling fluid due to an increase in riser pressure from a MPD choke or backpressure pump manipulation. Absorption mass transfer can also be applied in other drilling or completion applications. This study investigates several parameters that influence the absorption mass transfer kinetics experimentally, such as operating pressure, superficial gas velocity, fluid type, column diameter and sparger design are investigated. In the analysis of the results and supported by previous literature studies, superficial gas velocity and operating pressure have the most significant influence on the volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kLa). As a result, a correlation has been developed under the ranges of operating conditions for kLa as a function of superficial gas velocity and operating pressure. Following the development of the correlation, an image analysis of the experiments was conducted to separate the kLa values into the liquid-side mass transfer coefficient (kL) and interfacial area (a). This study is expected to help future applications of gas influx management and well control events

String Quartet No. 1

String Quartet No. 1, by Jeffrey Scott Perry, is absolute music. It uses unconventional techniques that challenge the interpretations of performers and listeners. Performers treat tempos and phrasing flexibly that yields a different version of the piece with each performance. The structure is Rounded Binary, but is manipulated to be purposefully obscure until the last measures of the piece. This is accomplished by incorporating ideas of motivic development into the overall form. The first four motifs are the source of all subsequent material. Therefore, motivic development is vital to the construction of the piece and becomes a unifying factor between both melodic and formal identities. There is no intentional harmonic progression. This directs the listener to focus on the tension and release that occurs linearly and not vertically. Musical color, without the use of tertian harmony, relies on other music elements such as timbre, texture, tempo, dynamics, and transposition

Clinical considerations in transitioning patients with epilepsy from clonazepam to clobazam: a case series.

IntroductionIn treating refractory epilepsy, many clinicians are interested in methods used to transition patients receiving clonazepam to clobazam to maintain or increase seizure control, improve tolerability of patients' overall drug therapy regimens, and to enhance quality of life for patients and their families. However, no published guidelines assist clinicians in successfully accomplishing this change safely.Case presentationsThe following three case reports provide insight into the transition from clonazepam to clobazam. First, an 8-year-old Caucasian boy with cryptogenic Lennox-Gastaut syndrome beginning at 3.5 years of age, who was experiencing multiple daily generalized tonic-clonic, absence, myoclonic, and tonic seizures at presentation. Second, a 25-year-old, left-handed, White Hispanic man with moderate mental retardation and medically refractory seizures that he began experiencing at 1 year of age, secondary to tuberous sclerosis. When first presented to an epilepsy center, he had been receiving levetiracetam, valproate, and clonazepam, but reported having ongoing and frequent seizures. Third, a 69-year-old Korean woman who had been healthy until she had a stroke in 2009 with subsequent right hemiparesis; as a result, she became less physically and socially active, and had her first convulsive seizure approximately 4 months after the stroke.ConclusionsFrom these cases, we observe that a rough estimate of final clobazam dosage for each mg of clonazepam under substitution is likely to be at least 10-fold, probably closer to 15-fold for many patients, and as high as 20-fold for a few. Consideration and discussion of the pharmacokinetic, pharmacologic, and clinical properties of 1,4- and 1,5-benzodiazepine action provide a rationale on why and how these transitions were successful

Doubly infinite separation of quantum information and communication

We prove the existence of (one-way) communication tasks with a subconstant versus superconstant asymptotic gap, which we call "doubly infinite," between their quantum information and communication complexities. We do so by studying the exclusion game [C. Perry et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 030504 (2015)] for which there exist instances where the quantum information complexity tends to zero as the size of the input $n$ increases. By showing that the quantum communication complexity of these games scales at least logarithmically in $n$, we obtain our result. We further show that the established lower bounds and gaps still hold even if we allow a small probability of error. However in this case, the $n$-qubit quantum message of the zero-error strategy can be compressed polynomially.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures. v4: minor errors fixed; close to published version; v5: financial support info adde

UAS Public Perception Towards Privacy and Multimedia Configuration

The purpose of this study was to reveal public perception on the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) configurations of multimedia and provide a greater understanding of specific UAS configuration with respect to privacy. The participants were presented with four scenarios: audio multimedia, video multimedia, audio/video multimedia, and no multimedia. The data suggests that citizens are most concerned about privacy when the UAS was equipped with either video or audio/video capabilities. Privacy concerns were close to neutral when the UAS had no equipment on-board. In general, females were more concerned over privacy than males, except in the no equipment scenario. These findings may be of interest to UAS operators or those in government to help understand citizen privacy concerns when UAS are operated and based on the type of equipment that may be on-board

Methods and Materials of Corporal Punishment

Although teachers may not usually be held financially liable for instances of corporal punishment they put their positions in danger

Transitions in coral reef accretion rates linked to intrinsic ecological shifts on turbid-zone nearshore reefs

Nearshore coral communities within turbid settings are typically perceived to have limited reef-building capacity. However, several recent studies have reported reef growth over millennial time scales within such environments and have hypothesized that depth-variable community assemblages may act as equally important controls on reef growth as they do in clear-water settings. Here, we explicitly test this idea using a newly compiled chronostratigraphic record (31 cores, 142 radiometric dates) from seven proximal (but discrete) nearshore coral reefs located along the central Great Barrier Reef (Australia). Uniquely, these reefs span distinct stages of geomorphological maturity, as reflected in their elevations below sea level. Integrated age-depth and ecological data sets indicate that contemporary coral assemblage shifts, associated with changing light availability and wave exposure as reefs shallowed, coincided with transitions in accretion rates at equivalent core depths. Reef initiation followed a regional ∼1 m drop in sea level (1200–800 calibrated yr B.P.) which would have lowered the photic floor and exposed new substrate for coral recruitment by winnowing away fine seafloor sediments. We propose that a two-way feedback mechanism exists where past growth history influences current reef morphology and ecology, ultimately driving future reef accumulation and morphological change. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that nearshore reef growth trajectories are intrinsically driven by changes in coral community structure as reefs move toward sea level, a finding of direct significance for predicting the impacts of extrinsically driven ecological change (e.g., coral-algal phase shifts) on reef growth potential within the wider coastal zone on the Great Barrier Reef

Boys' cotton flannel shirts

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