The Solway Estuary: A socio-cultural evaluation of a coastal energy landscape

No abstract available

MicroRNAs influence reproductive responses by females to male sex peptide in Drosophila melanogaster

Across taxa, female behavior and physiology changes significantly following the receipt of ejaculate molecules during mating. For example, receipt of sex peptide (SP) in female Drosophila melanogaster significantly alters female receptivity, egg production, lifespan, hormone levels, immunity, sleep and feeding patterns. These changes are underpinned by distinct tissue- and time-specific changes in diverse sets of mRNAs. However, little is yet known about the regulation of these gene expression changes, and hence the potential role of microRNAs (miRNAs), in female post-mating responses. A preliminary screen of genomic responses in females to receipt of SP suggested that there were changes in the expression of several miRNAs. Here we tested directly whether females lacking four of the candidate miRNAs highlighted (miR-279, miR-317, miR-278 and miR-184) showed altered fecundity, receptivity and lifespan responses to receipt of SP, when mated once or continually to SP null or control males. The results showed that miRNA-lacking females mated to SP null males exhibited altered receptivity, but not reproductive output, in comparison to controls. However, these effects interacted significantly with the genetic background of the miRNA-lacking females. No significant survival effects were observed in miRNA-lacking females housed continually with SP null or control males. However, continual exposure to control males that transferred SP resulted in significantly higher variation in miRNA-lacking female lifespan than did continual exposure to SP null males. The results provide the first insight into the effects and importance of miRNAs in regulating post-mating responses in females

Pragmatic approach to the development of robust real-time protocols

This research is concerned with the development of distributed real-time systems, in which software is used for the control of concurrent physical processes. These distributed control systems are required to periodically coordinate the operation of several autonomous physical processes, with the property of an atomic action. The implementation of this coordination must be fault-tolerant if the integrity of the system is to be maintained in the presence of processor or communication failures. Commit protocols have been widely used to provide this type of atomicity and ensure consistency in distributed computer systems. The objective of this research is the development of a class of robust commit protocols, applicable to the coordination of distributed real-time control systems. Extended forms of the standard two phase commit protocol, that provides fault-tolerant and real-time behaviour, were developed. Petri nets are used for the design of the distributed controllers, and to embed the commit protocol models within these controller designs. This composition of controller and protocol model allows the analysis of the complete system in a unified manner. A common problem for Petri net based techniques is that of state space explosion, a modular approach to both the design and analysis would help cope with this problem. Although extensions to Petri nets that allow module construction exist, generally the modularisation is restricted to the specification, and analysis must be performed on the (flat) detailed net. The Petri net designs for the type of distributed systems considered in this research are both large and complex. The top down, bottom up and hybrid synthesis techniques that are used to model large systems in Petri nets are considered. A hybrid approach to Petri net design for a restricted class of communicating processes is developed. Designs produced using this hybrid approach are modular and allow re-use of verified modules. In order to use this form of modular analysis, it is necessary to project an equivalent but reduced behaviour on the modules used. These projections conceal events local to modules that are not essential for the purpose of analysis. To generate the external behaviour, each firing sequence of the subnet is replaced by an atomic transition internal to the module, and the firing of these transitions transforms the input and output markings of the module. Thus local events are concealed through the projection of the external behaviour of modules. This hybrid design approach preserves properties of interest, such as boundedness and liveness, while the systematic concealment of local events allows the management of state space. The approach presented in this research is particularly suited to distributed systems, as the underlying communication model is used as the basis for the interconnection of modules in the design procedure. This hybrid approach is applied to Petri net based design and analysis of distributed controllers for two industrial applications that incorporate the robust, real-time commit protocols developed. Temporal Petri nets, which combine Petri nets and temporal logic, are used to capture and verify causal and temporal aspects of the designs in a unified manner

Method of making high strength articles from forged powder steel alloys

High strength steel parts or articles are made from a powder alloy by compacting the powder into a preform, sintering the preform in a sintering furnace or the like under a highly-reducing atmosphere and at a temperature of at least 1150° C., cooling the preform, preheating the sintered preform in a highly-reducing atmosphere, such as an inert gas-based atmosphere containing hydrogen or pure hydrogen, to a temperature of at least 1000° C. and transferring the preheated preform to an impact forging device and impacting the preform at a peak averaging forging pressure of at least about 1000 MPa to obtain a forged part or article. The time period between removal of the preheated preform from the preheater and the first forging impact is no more than about 8 seconds. The sintering and preheating steps can be combined with the sintered preform being cooled to the preheating temperature in the sintering furnace and transferred directly from the sintering furnace to the impact forging device.https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/patents/1087/thumbnail.jp

The Solway Estuary: A socio-cultural evaluation of a coastal energy landscape

No abstract available

Context, Curriculum, and Community Matter: Leadership Practices of Primary School Principals in the Otago Province of New Zealand

This research examined the leadership practices of rural primary school principals in the Otago province of New Zealand. Principals of large (\u3e150 students) and small (students) rural schools served as participants in an investigation to learn how their practice creates and maintains effective rural schools. The goals were to investigate the interrelationships of principal, curriculum, and community and effective leadership in their schools. A mixed methods approach included a survey completed by rural principals (n = 63), followed by observations and interviews. Key findings were that leadership practices varied across contexts of large rural and small rural schools; having a local curriculum was critical; and, communication and involvement with parents and the community were essential. The survey had good psychometric qualities; validation through future research use is needed. Results are discussed in terms of factors to consider for effective leadership in rural schools

Ames Infusion Stories for NASA Annual Technology Report: Nano Entry System for CubeSat-Class Payloads

The Nano Entry System for CubeSat-Class Payloads led to the development of the Nano-Adaptable Deployable Entry and Placement Technology ("Nano-ADEPT"). Nano-ADEPT is a mechanically deployed entry, descent, and landing (EDL) system that stows during launch and cruise (like an umbrella) and serves as both heat shield and primary structure during EDL. It is especially designed for small spacecraft where volume is a limiting constraint

Electrical characteristics of n-InSb crystals used for sub-mm wave emission and detection

A detailed study of the electrical characteristics of high purity n-InSb has been under taken. The main aim was to determine the effect of the electrical characteristics on the emission and detection properties of n-InSb. Several samples of high purity n-InSb, with different electrical properties, were used. Calculations of the individual and combined effects of the relaxation and excitation mechanisms on the samples were made. Lattice temperatures of 1.5, 4.2 & 77 Kelvins were considered. The electrical properties predicted, agree well with previous results. The variation of current density with electric field was measured at lattice temperatures of 1.5 & 4.2 K, from which the conductivity was calculated. The carrier concentrations of the crystals were measured and the mobilities were then calculated. At an electric field of 0.25 Vcm-1, a sharp rise in conductivity was observed in all samples and attributed to a transition between energy relaxation mechanisms. At an electric field of 20 Vcm-1, one sample showed a sharp rise in conductivity, which was shown (by Hall measurements) to be due to the ionisation of deep donors. At an electric field of 80 Vcm-1, a large increase in conductivity with an associated hysteresis was observed. Reasons for both are suggested. The hysteresis was also observed in the variation of the crystal resistance with lattice temperature. The implications of this work on the possibilities for a tuneable sub-mm wave source or laser has been discussed

A values-based wood-fuel landscape evaluation: building a fuzzy logic framework to integrate socio-cultural, ecological, and economic value

In meeting the UK Government's national and international renewable energies commitments and their role in UK energy security, decarbonisation of energy use, carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, the recognition of a potential for considerable scaling up of UK woodland coverage is emphasised. Also, UK forestry has increasingly become realigned with the global sustainability agenda encompassing issues such as native woodlands, the decline of woodland biodiversity, the Government’s quality of life indicators, and ideas of socio-cultural, ecological and economic landscape scale values. Accordingly, socio-cultural interaction with the natural world places structure and components into the landscape, the subsequent combinations of which are characterised by consequent ecological and economic conditions. As a consequence compositional, structural, spatial and temporal differences produce different value outcomes. This thesis explores these value outcomes illustrating the multi-dimensional nature of the relationships that society experience with their surrounding landscape, across a range of case study wood-fuel producing landscapes. The case study landscapes describe traditional silvo-pastoral management, Natura 2000 forest, primarily managed around ideas of ecosystem goods and services, co-operatively and commercially owned sustainable forestry. Differences in value are observed between and within landscapes, value domains and value components. These differences reflect tensions that exist between sustainability and society’s continued use of natural resources. Consequently value articulates the nature of relationships between and within multiple value components, characterised by competing socio-cultural, ecological, economic interests. Thus value, as a concept, is built through an understanding of the connected, embedded nature of society’s relationship with the natural world. Using a novel fuzzy logic modelling based approach to valuation, the consequences of land-use choices and the associated changes across socio-cultural, ecological and economic value domains are made visible. Understanding the complex nature of these interrelated and interdependent relationships can inform the political and institutional decision making and policy setting process. In this manner knowledge of interaction, interdependence and the reality of trade-offs, consistent with systems describe by finitude, can support and facilitate deliberative discourse. Where the true nature of value is considered an emergent property expressed through an appreciation of the value components and the outcomes of their relationships. Thus value is fundamentally a comparative property and not the outcome of an accumulative argument