Post-primary education in West Ham, 1918-39.

This thesis is concerned with post-primary education in West Ham 1918-39, with particular reference to secondary education. The realities of local educational experience are set against a background of educational acts an economies. The economic difficulties of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s were keenly felt in West Ham despite the efforts of the predominantly Labour council to mitigate poverty. A gap sometimes existed between the educational opportunities Labour councillors wished to provide and those they were able to provide. Generally a pragmatic approach was taken and certainly a secondary education was not seen as essential for all. Chapter One outlines West Ham's pre-1918 history and growth with reference to local politics and immigrant and religious groupings. West Ham's interwar history is told in greater detail. Chapter Two relates the difficulties encountered by the West Ham Education Committee in its decision to establish compulsory continuation schools, not least from the parents of West Ham. West Ham was one of the few areas in the country which succeeded in implementing compulsory continuation education albeit for a limited period. A section on technical education is also included in this chapter, although detailed treatment is hampered by a scarcity of records. Chapter Three examines West Ham's secondary school scholarships in the context of the national situation. West Ham's higher elementary/central school scholarships are subjected to the same scrutiny. Each of West Ham's secondary schools shared a broadly similar curriculum and ethos. Chapter Four highlights these similarities but also points out differences. Of the five interwar secondary schools, two catered for girls, one for boys and two were mixed. Two of the secondary schools were Catholic institutions, although both accepted non-Catholic pupils. Three of the schools were aided and two municipal. A section is included on West Ham's higher elementary/central schools but records are less full than those for the secondary schools. Chapter Five compares and contrasts West Ham's interwar secondary school system with that in East Ham, its sister borough. Chapter Six discusses both the economic and cultural factors underlying local attitudes to post-compulsory schooling. The main conclusions drawn relate to these attitudes which militated against any easy acceptance of such education as necessarily beneficial

SiO₂–RuO₂: A Stable Electrocatalyst Support

High surface area SiO₂–RuO₂ (SRO) supports with various SiO₂: RuO₂ ratios were synthesized using a wet chemical method. The supports were catalyzed by depositing platinum nanoparticles on their surface. The synthesized materials were characterized by XRD, TEM, BET, and linear sweep voltammetry to study microstructure and properties. The electrochemical stability, electrochemical surface area, electrocatalytic activity and fuel cell performance were also measured. The optimal 1:1 mol ratio of SiO₂–RuO₂ (SRO-1) possessed a BET surface area of 305 m²/g and an electrical conductivity of 24 S/cm. This SRO support demonstrated 10-fold higher electrochemical stability than Vulcan XC-72R carbon when subjected to an aggressive accelerated stability test (AST) involving 10,000 potential cycles between 1 and 1.5 V. The mass activity of Pt-doped SRO-1 was 54 mA/mg_Pt, whereas its specific activity was 115 μA cm_Pt^–2. The fuel cell performance obtained with this catalyst was lower, but compared favorably against a commercial Pt/C baseline. Analysis of fuel cell performance data confirmed that the lower fuel cell performance resulted largely from ohmic and mass transport losses within the unoptimized electrocatalyst layer

CeO₂ Surface Oxygen Vacancy Concentration Governs in Situ Free Radical Scavenging Efficacy in Polymer Electrolytes

Nonstoichiometric CeO₂ and Ce_0.25Zr_0.75O₂ nanoparticles with varying surface concentrations of Ce³⁺ were synthesized. Their surface Ce³⁺ concentration was measured by XPS, and their surface oxygen vacancy concentrations and grain size were estimated using Raman spectroscopy. The surface oxygen vacancy concentration was found to correlate well with grain size and surface Ce³⁺ concentration. When incorporated into a Nafion polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM), the added nonstoichiometric ceria nanoparticles effectively scavenged PEM-degradation-inducing free radical reactive oxygen species (ROS) formed during fuel cell operation. A 3-fold increase in the surface oxygen vacancy concentration resulted in an order of magnitude enhancement in the efficacy of free radical ROS scavenging by the nanoparticles. Overall, the macroscopic PEM degradation mitigation rate was lowered by up to 2 orders of magnitude using nonstoichiometric ceria nanoparticles with high surface oxygen vacancy concentration

Perfluorinated Polymer Electrolytes Hybridized with In situ Grown Titania Quasi-Networks

Perfluorinated Nafion membranes, neutralized to various extents, were hybridized with titania quasi-networks that were grown in situ via catalyzed sol–gel reactions of an titanium isopropoxide precursor. The formation of Ti–O–Ti groups within the ionomer was verified by FTIR-ATR spectroscopy. EDAX studies confirmed that the extent of propagation of titania quasi-networks into the bulk of the ionomer film increased with ionomer neutralization. Compared to the unmodified control membrane, the hybrid membranes exhibited superior dimensional stability, modulus, stress, and strain at break and gas barrier properties. All hybrid membranes exhibited superior resistance to degradation when subjected to an accelerated stress test in an operating fuel cell environment, as a resultant of the better dimensional stability and gas barrier properties induced through addition of the inorganic titania phase

Proton Conducting Self-Assembled Metal–Organic Framework/Polyelectrolyte Hollow Hybrid Nanostructures

Herein, a room temperature chemical process to synthesize functional, hollow nanostructures from zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) and poly­(vinylphosphonic acid) (PVPA) is reported. Syntheses are initiated by physically blending the componentsa process that is accompanied first by encapsulation of ZIF-8 crystallites by PVPA and then by fragmentation of the crystallites. The fragmentation process is driven by partial displacement of the methyl-imidazolate ligands of Zn­(II) in ZIF-8 by phosphonate groups on PVPA. Differences in rates of diffusion for the components of the reactive mixture yield a Kirkendall-like effect that is expressed as a hollow-particle morphology. The obtained hollow nanostructures feature hybrid shells containing PVPA, ZIF-8, and their cross-reacted products. The hybrid structures display substantial proton conductivities that increase with increasing temperature, even under the anhydrous conditions prevailing at temperatures above the boiling point of water. For example, at <i>T</i> = 413 K the proton conductivity of ZIF-8@PVPA reaches 3.2 (±0.12) × 10^–3 S cm^–1, a value comparatively higher than that for PVPA (or ZIF-8) in isolation. The high value may reflect the availability in the hybrid structures of free (and partially free), amphoteric imidazole species, and their hydrogen-bonding interactions with phosphonate and/or phosphonic acid units. The persistence of ample conductivity at high temperature reflects the elimination of phosphonic acid group dehydration and dimerizationan effect that strikingly degrades the conductivity of pure PVPA under anhydrous conditions

Additional file 1: Table S1. of Bipartite structure of the inactive mouse X chromosome

Summary of allele-specific contacts. (XLSX 10 kb

Additional file 5: Figure S3. of Bipartite structure of the inactive mouse X chromosome

Mapping of the hinge region. Contact maps at the hinge region in F1 brain and Patski cells. Data are shown at a 100 kb resolution for a region of chrX:70,000,000–75,099,999 (left) and at a 40 kb resolution for chrX:70,000,000–75,039,999 (right). The estimated boundaries of the superdomains 1 and 2 (at 100 kb or 40 kb) are marked by dotted red lines and the hinge region located in between the superdomains contains the least number of contacts. (PDF 825 kb

Additional file 8: Figure S5. of Bipartite structure of the inactive mouse X chromosome

Intrachromosomal contacts at Kcnk9 and at imprinted genes, excluding those located on chromosome 7. a Significant contacts are detected at the maternally expressed gene Kcnk9 on the maternal allele (Mat). Allelic mRNA-seq profiles show expression on the maternal allele at imprinted genes Kcnk9, Trappc9, Chrac1 and Ago2, and on the paternal allele (Pat) at Peg13, in agreement with a previous study [62]. Allelic CTCF profiles show absence of binding to the differentially methylated region (DMR) on the maternal allele (arrow) presumably facilitating the formation of contacts between the Kcnk9 promoter region and an unidentified distant enhancer, similar to the situation in human [62]. The needle plot of contact counts between a 40 kb window that overlaps Kcnk9 (grey bar) and other regions shows more interactions on the maternal (pink) than the paternal allele (blue). Genes with maternal or paternal expression are colored pink or blue, non-imprinted genes black, and non-expressed genes grey, respectively. Contact regions showing significant allelic biases are marked by asterisks. b Distribution of maternal-to-paternal allelic contacts at autosomal genes and X-linked genes determined by DNase Hi-C at 40 kb resolution in F1 brain in which the paternal chromosomes are from spretus. c Violin plots show the distribution of maternal-to-paternal allelic contacts at maternally and paternally imprinted genes at 40 kb resolution in F1 brain, after removing genes located on chromosome 7, which changes the shape of the distribution, due to fewer genes showing a low maternal-to-paternal contact ratio (see also Fig. 7). Dotted line indicates median ratios of maternal-to-paternal contacts at autosomal genes. (PDF 1263 kb

Additional file 3: Figure S1. of Bipartite structure of the inactive mouse X chromosome

Allelic differences between contact maps for the X chromosomes are not seen for homologous autosomes. Allelic intrachromosomal chromatin contact heatmaps of chromosome 1 homologs based on SNP reads at 1 Mb resolution obtained by DNase Hi-C and in situ DNase Hi-C in F1 brain and in Patski cells. Contact maps for chromosomes 1 appear remarkably similar between maternal (BL6) and paternal (spretus) chromosomes. See Fig. 1a for comparison with contacts maps obtained for the Xa and Xi, which demonstrate striking differences. (PDF 1178 kb

Additional file 4: Figure S2. of Bipartite structure of the inactive mouse X chromosome

TADs are more prominent on Xa versus Xi. Contact maps for the Xa and Xi at 100 kb resolution for chrX:98,500,00–103,499,999 in F1 brain (top) and Patski cells (bottom). (PDF 717 kb