Prediction of PWR fuel cladding failure strain in a loss-of-coolant accident

Imperial Users onl

A note on the discovery of stone tools and a stratified prehistoric site on King Island, Bass Strait

The main archaeological site (Locality 2), located some 400m to the south of the tourist area, is backed by a wind-eroded arena approximately 80m long and 30m wide, cut into a series of sand units which display three main soil formations totaling about 5m in depth, all resting on the basal calcarenite

Research Report for 1974, by the Department of Prehistory Research School of Pacific Studies

The Department is concerned with the prehistory of the Indo-Pacific region. During the year, research was carried out in the following areas; the original human colonisation and the later man-environment relations in south eastern Australia, including Tasmania and Kangaroo Island; the ecology and camp site geography of modern Aboriginal hunters in the Central Desert and Arnhem Land; the evolution of horticultural systems in the New Guinea Highlands; the articulation and history of sea-borne trading systems in the coastal mosaic of Melanesia; development of absolute and relative dating methods involving radioactive isotopes, thermo luminescent energy, ion diffusion rates and shell growth rings; the ecology of Pleistocene faunas, including the problem of the extinction of the giant marsupials; and the implication of recent human palaeontological discoveries in the region to the broader question of the evolution of modern Homo sapiens

Governing the future and the search for spatial justice:Wales' Well-being of Future Generations Act

Recent contributions in Geography and beyond have examined historical and more contemporary efforts to govern the future. Work in this area has highlighted some important conceptual considerations by drawing attention to the way in which states, regions and other organisations view the future as an object of governance for a variety of reasons: as something that constitutes a threat that needs to be managed; as something that can be predicted, thus leading to an improvement in governance; as something that allows a more hopeful and just society, economy and environment to be expressed (and achieved). In this paper, I use this context as a way of making an argument for the need to: 1) consider more explicitly the many geographies associated with governing the future; and 2) explore how these geographies might impact on the definition and promotion of spatial justice. I illustrate these arguments through an empirical discussion of the development and implementation of Wales’ Well-being of Future Generations Act, an Act that seeks to create a better and more just Wales by the year 2050. I conclude by exhorting geographers to take the lead in exploring the impact that geographical themes might have on states’ and regions’ attempts to achieve spatial justice in the present and the future

The Shi'a Muslims of the United Provinces of India, c 1890-1940

This dissertation examines religious, social and political change among the Shia Muslims of the United Provinces of colonial India, c. 1890-1940. Focusing especially, upon the towns of Lucknow and Amroha but discussing the region as a whole, it traces the formation of a community identity among Shia Muslims, and questions how disparate Shi'a populations were able to construct a consciousness of solidarity. The dissertation is based on a combination of archival and printed sources in English and Urdu. The first chapter assesses processes of sectarian organisation and the formation of a number of Shia institutions and societies in Lucknow in the thirty year period from 1890, including several madrasas and the All India Shi'a Conference. The second chapter examines manifestations of religious renewal among Indian Shi'as. Forms of religious proselytisation are discussed, particularly the contribution of the printing press and the changing role of preaching. The development of religious conflict is outlined, through examinations of religious debates and the reformation of Muharram rites. A third chapter examines Shia responses to the so-called '`Aligarh movement', considering reactions to educational reform and the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at `Aligarh. A fourth chapter discusses Shia responses to the campaigns of jihad and pan-Islamism current among many Muslims in the early twentieth century. Together, these two chapters demonstrate the expansion and politicisation of sectarian differences, and the attempts by some Shi'as to organise separately from wider Muslim institutions. The final chapter assesses a series of Shi'a-Sunni conflicts in Lucknow in the 1930s. It examines some of the contributory factors and discusses the conflicts in the light of the processes of sectarian organisation discussed in earlier chapters. The conclusion evaluates the implications of the thesis for our understanding of Indian Shia Muslims and, more generally, of sectarian identities and conflicts in Indian Islam

Forward Error Correction in Memoryless Optical Modulation

The unprecedented growth in demand for digital media has led to an all-time high in society’s demand for information. This demand will in all likelihood continue to grow as technology such as 3D television service, on-demand video and peer-to-peer networking continue to become more common place. The large amount of information required is currently transmitted optically using a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network structure. The need to increase the capacity of the existing WDM network infrastructure efficiently is essential to continue to provide new high bandwidth services to end-users, while at the same time minimizing network providers’ costs. In WDM systems the key to reducing the cost per transported information bit is to effectively share all optical components. These components must operate within the same wavelength limited window; therefore it is necessary to place the WDM channels as close together as possible. At the same time, the correct modulation format must be selected in order to create flexible, cost-effective, high-capacity optical networks. This thesis presents a detailed comparison of Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (DQPSK) to other modulation formats. This comparison is implemented through a series of simulations in which the bit error rate of various modulation formats are compared both with and without the presence of forward error correction techniques. Based off of these simulation results, the top performing modulation formats are placed into a multiplexed simulation to assess their overall robustness in the face of multiple filtering impairments

Maximality and Applications of Subword-Closed Languages

Characterizing languages D that are maximal with the property that D* ⊆ S⊗ is an important problem in formal language theory with applications to coding theory and DNA codewords. Given a finite set of words of a fixed length S, the constraint, we consider its subword closure, S⊗, the set of words whose subwords of that fixed length are all in the constraint. We investigate these maximal languages and present characterizations for them. These characterizations use strongly connected components of deterministic finite automata and lead to polynomial time algorithms for generating such languages. We prove that the subword closure S⊗ is strictly locally testable. Finally, we discuss applications to coding theory and encoding arbitrary blocks of information on DNA strands. This leads to very important applications in DNA codewords designed to obtain bond-free languages, which have been experimentally confirmed

The effect of growth conditions upon the solvent tolerance and aromatic oxidation activity of Pseudomonas putida ML2

Pseudomonas putida ML2 converts fluorobenzene to fluorocatechol, a compound of commercial value. The addition of a second immiscible solvent to the biotransformation could maintain low aqueous concentration of fluorobenzene (which inhibited growth and oxygen uptake of the bacterium). The impact of fermentation conditions on the solvent tolerance and aromatic oxidation activity was examined. Analytical techniques to quantify biocatalytic activity and solvent tolerance were developed. Growth of the bacterium at dissolved oxygen tensions (DOT) of 5 % air saturation resulted in specific aromatic oxidation activity increasing to approximately double that of cultures grown at 20 % DOT. Two phases to the growth phase were detected by online gas analysis and correlated to the changes in biocatalytic activity. A slow down in growth as a result of oxygen or iron limitation resulted in at least a doubling of aromatic oxidation activity, which was attributed to the change in the rate of growth. Fermentation samples lost biocatalytic activity within a few hours of harvesting, but shake flask cultures remained active for at least 24hr. Solvent tolerance was examined using chloroxylenol as a test solvent. The bacterial oxygen uptake rate (OUR) decreased exponentially reaching a steady value at the end of the assay. An equation was fitted to the data obtained for chloroxylenol, octanol and other solvents allowing specific decay rates to be calculated. The solvent tolerance of the bacterium was highest at the end of the fermentations controlled at 5 and 20 % DOT with a specific decay rate constant below 8 hr-1. A decrease in growth temperature from 30°C to 26°C resulted in a decrease in solvent biocompatibility when assayed at 30°C. At a growth temperature of 34°C the OUR was close to linearity signifying little loss of activity but bacterial growth at 34°C was slow and not reproducible. Addition of magnesium sulphate to the solvent tolerance assay increased tolerance of the bacterium to chloroxylenol, fluorobenzene and dichloroethane. A reduction in temperature of the solvent tolerance assay from 30°C to 23°C increased bacterial tolerance to dichloroethane. Significant improvement in solvent tolerance of the bacteria was dependent upon biotransformation conditions rather than changes in the growth conditions