A miniature triaxial apparatus for investigating the micromechanics of granular soils with in situ X-ray micro-tomography scanning

The development of a miniature triaxial apparatus is presented. In conjunction with an X-ray microtomography (termed as X-ray μCT hereafter) facility and advanced image processing techniques, this apparatus can be used for in situ investigation of the micro-scale mechanical behavior of granular soils under shear. The apparatus allows for triaxial testing of a miniature dry sample with a size of 8 mm × 16 mm (diameter × height). In situ triaxial testing of a 0.4–0.8 mm Leighton Buzzard sand (LBS) under a constant confining pressure of 500 kPa is presented. The evolutions of local porosities (i.e., the porosities of regions associated with individual particles), particle kinematics (i.e., particle translation and particle rotation) of the sample during the shear are quantitatively studied using image processing and analysis techniques. Meanwhile, a novel method is presented to quantify the volumetric strain distribution of the sample based on the results of local porosities and particle tracking. It is found that the sample, with nearly homogenous initial local porosities, starts to exhibit obvious inhomogeneity of local porosities and localization of particle kinematics and volumetric strain around the peak of deviatoric stress. In the post-peak shear stage, large local porosities and volumetric dilation mainly occur in a localized band. The developed triaxial apparatus, in its combined use of X-ray μCT imaging techniques, is a powerful tool to investigate the micro-scale mechanical behavior of granular soils

Determination of fission neutron transmission through waste matrix material using neutron signal correlation from active assay of {sup 239}Pu

The accuracy of TRU (transuranic) waste assay using the differential die-away technique depends upon significant corrections to compensate for the effects of the matrix material in which the TRU waste is located. The authors have used a new instrument, the Combined Thermal/Epithermal Neutron (CTEN) instrument for the assay of TRU waste, to develop methods to improve the accuracy of these corrections. Neutrons from a pulsed 14-MeV neutron generator are moderated in the walls of the CTEN cavity and induce fission in the TRU material. The prompt neutrons from these fission events are detected in cadmium-wrapped {sup 3}He neutron detectors. They report new methods of data acquisition and analysis to extract correlation in the neutron signals resulting form fission during active interrogation. They use the correlation information in conjunction with the total number of neutrons to determine the fraction of fission neutrons transmitted through the matrix material into the {sup 3}He detectors. This determination allows them to cleanly separate the matrix effects into two processes: matrix modification upon the neutron interrogating flux and matrix modification upon the fraction of fission neutrons transmitted to the neutron detectors. This transmission information is also directly applied in a neutron multiplicity analysis in the passive assay of {sup 240}Pu

The Mechanics of a Saturated Silty Loess and Implications for Landslides

The results from an intensive experimental investigation on a loess that was retrieved from a typical silty loess zone in the north-western Chinese Loess Plateau are presented and interpreted. Triaxial and oedometer tests were performed on intact and reconstituted samples in a saturated condition. The soil behavior was found to be strongly affected by structure. The compression paths of the intact samples crossed the intrinsic compression line of the reconstituted soil and reached well-defined gross yield points, after which the compression paths converged towards the intrinsic compression lines. Two critical state lines were defined for the intact and reconstituted soils in the volumetric plane as a result of a robust element of natural structure. Comparisons were made with a structured clayey loess retrieved from the south-eastern Loess Plateau. It was found that the effects of structure on the behavior of the two loess soils are similar though they are very different in natural properties. This indicates that their natural structures might have experienced similar forming processes, perhaps related to their common origin. Catastrophic flowslides commonly occur in the study area, and the patterns of behavior observed in the laboratory tests may create some new insights into mechanisms of landslide initiation and subsequent movement as discussed in the study

An Investigation of Particle Breakage under One-Dimensional Compression of Sand Using X-ray Micro-Tomography

Particle breakage alters particle-scale properties of granular soils including particle size, shape, and contact conditions, and changes macro-scale properties including soil compressibility, shear strength, and permeability. This study monitors the crushing of natural quartz sands under one-dimensional compression with in-situ X-ray tomography, i.e., X-ray scans during loading. We use the assembly-scale and particle-scale images to characterise particle failure patterns, e.g., chipping, major splitting and comminution. Image processing and analysis enable us to determine the failure patterns around the yield stress, and the influence of initial density and particle morphology on the particle survival probability. We further quantify the degree of particle breakage with fractal dimension, breakage factor, and specific surface. Particle shape and coordination number both show a scale-dependent evolution pattern

Using Population Mixtures to Optimize the Utility of Genomic Databases: Linkage Disequilibrium and Association Study Design in India

When performing association studies in populations that have not been the focus of large-scale investigations of haplotype variation, it is often helpful to rely on genomic databases in other populations for study design and analysis – such as in the selection of tag SNPs and in the imputation of missing genotypes. One way of improving the use of these databases is to rely on a mixture of database samples that is similar to the population of interest, rather than using the single most similar database sample. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the mixture approach in the application of African, European, and East Asian HapMap samples for tag SNP selection in populations from India, a genetically intermediate region underrepresented in genomic studies of haplotype variation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65949/1/j.1469-1809.2008.00457.x.pd

Political brand image: an investigation into the operationalisation of the external orientation of David Cameron’s Conservative brand

This paper seeks to address the limited understanding of how to operationalise the external brand image of a political brand. More specifically, this research critically assesses the transfer potential of the six variables of brand image by Bosch, Venter, Han and Boshoff to deconstruct the UK Conservative Party brand from the perspective of young people aged 18–24 years during the 2010 UK General Election campaign. This research demonstrates the applicability of the six variables otherwise known as the ‘brand image framework’ to the political environment. However, the application of the brand image framework in its original conceptualisation proved problematic. Many of the brand image variables were clarified, rearticulated and simplified to address the political context. This refined conceptualisation provided an in-depth understanding of how to investigate the political brand image of David Cameron’s Conservative Party. This study addresses the paucity of research that operationalises external brand image and provides practitioners and academics within and beyond the context of political branding a mechanism to understand the external orientation of brands. This research may also be used by political and non-political brands as a basis to explore external brand image and compare its consistency with internal brand identity

Learning intrinsic excitability in medium spiny neurons

We present an unsupervised, local activation-dependent learning rule for intrinsic plasticity (IP) which affects the composition of ion channel conductances for single neurons in a use-dependent way. We use a single-compartment conductance-based model for medium spiny striatal neurons in order to show the effects of parametrization of individual ion channels on the neuronal activation function. We show that parameter changes within the physiological ranges are sufficient to create an ensemble of neurons with significantly different activation functions. We emphasize that the effects of intrinsic neuronal variability on spiking behavior require a distributed mode of synaptic input and can be eliminated by strongly correlated input. We show how variability and adaptivity in ion channel conductances can be utilized to store patterns without an additional contribution by synaptic plasticity (SP). The adaptation of the spike response may result in either "positive" or "negative" pattern learning. However, read-out of stored information depends on a distributed pattern of synaptic activity to let intrinsic variability determine spike response. We briefly discuss the implications of this conditional memory on learning and addiction.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure