Professor Jim Rhodes

Jim Rhodes has championed research in the area of Thin Walled Structures (TWS) for almost 40 years. His contribution to the understanding of the behaviour of TWS is second to none and he has consequently enjoyed a high international standing in the field. He was educated at St Michael's College in Irvine and served a craft apprenticeship with Laird & Sons Ltd, Irvine, before moving to Massey Ferguson Ltd. He was awarded an HNC (with distinction) in Mechanical Engineering from Kilmarnock College, which he then followed by degree studies at the University of Strathclyde, where he graduated with a first class honours BSc in Mechanical Engineering in 1966 before progressing to Doctoral study under Professor James Harvey (Head of Department and later Vice Principal of the University). He was awarded a PhD degree at Strathclyde in 1969 for research in Mechanics of Materials. His external examiner for his PhD was Professor Henry Chilver, later Lord Chilver and Vice Chancellor of Cranfield University

Pennsylvania and Pornography: CDT v. Pappert Offers a New Approach to Criminal Liability, 23 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 411 (2005)

The rapid expansion of information technology in the past few years has left states and the Federal government struggling desperately to keep up and many of the laws attempting to regulate the Internet and information technology show a lack of understanding how the affected technology actually works and could possibly the growth and distribution of new ideas and inventions even incapacitate the Internet. One area in particular that has been the subject of widespread concern and attention is online pornography, a business that few people only realize just how big it truly is. This article focuses on the recent District Court of Pennsylvania decision in Center for Democracy & Technology et al vs. Pappert, the latest in a string of decisions striking down laws aimed at regulating online access to pornography and other sexually explicit material. After briefly presenting how the Pennsylvania Internet Child Pornography Act applies to online content regulation, a brief explanation of the technology involved is offered, arguing that the answer to problems involving technology is not more technology. It then examines the issues raised by the Pennsylvania statute and others like it, relating to the First Amendment and due process as well as constitutional issues relating to the Commerce Clause. It is a generally acceptable fact that federal and state governments have a legitimate interest in regulating child pornography but Internet regulation both at the state and federal level, such as the Communications Decency Act, have been proven unconstitutional and ineffective. The author argues that the answer is to find a balance between recognizing the challenges and features of the Internet and utilizing existing legislation in a more efficient and practical manner while adapting the methods of law enforcement agencies to the new demands in order to save time and money as well as prosecute criminals. Ultimately, the best answer to furthering the legitimate interests of controlling access to obscenity and child pornography lies in a combination of federal/international legislation, self-regulation by the adult industry, and most importantly, common sense by individual users

Composition and change of maritime hammock flora in east-central Florida after 20 years

The vegetation of eight east-central Florida maritime hammocks studied in 1997 were compared to similar data collected over 20 years ago. Study sites are located in the northern half of the Indian River Lagoon system mostly within Canaveral National Seashore and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The upland hammock vegetation throughout the state generally has an oak-palm association, but here these species dominate. Results show that sabal palm, live oak, laurel oak, and pignut hickory, the four dominant tree species in 1976-77, are still dominant in 1997; however, there has been a loss in tree species richness. Most shrub species found during both studies increased in dominance over the 20 years and there was almost a complete turnover in the composition of herbs. Variability in winter freeze events has caused a unique mixture of plant species to occur here. Many of the maritime hammock’s tropical plants are in the northern limit of their range, giving these hammocks a unique ecotonal character. Tropical invasive exotics have increased in frequency, density, and basal area and pose a threat to this diverse floral complex

Implementation of the Federal water project recreation act in Colorado: miscellaneous report, OWRR project no. A-015-COLO

Submitted to Office of Water Research and Technology, U.S. Dept. of Interior.Report prepared originally as a Master's thesis, Colorado State University, 1974.June 1974.Bibliography: pages 169-175

Two-Locus Likelihoods under Variable Population Size and Fine-Scale Recombination Rate Estimation

Two-locus sampling probabilities have played a central role in devising an efficient composite likelihood method for estimating fine-scale recombination rates. Due to mathematical and computational challenges, these sampling probabilities are typically computed under the unrealistic assumption of a constant population size, and simulation studies have shown that resulting recombination rate estimates can be severely biased in certain cases of historical population size changes. To alleviate this problem, we develop here new methods to compute the sampling probability for variable population size functions that are piecewise constant. Our main theoretical result, implemented in a new software package called LDpop, is a novel formula for the sampling probability that can be evaluated by numerically exponentiating a large but sparse matrix. This formula can handle moderate sample sizes ($n \leq 50$) and demographic size histories with a large number of epochs ($\mathcal{D} \geq 64$). In addition, LDpop implements an approximate formula for the sampling probability that is reasonably accurate and scales to hundreds in sample size ($n \geq 256$). Finally, LDpop includes an importance sampler for the posterior distribution of two-locus genealogies, based on a new result for the optimal proposal distribution in the variable-size setting. Using our methods, we study how a sharp population bottleneck followed by rapid growth affects the correlation between partially linked sites. Then, through an extensive simulation study, we show that accounting for population size changes under such a demographic model leads to substantial improvements in fine-scale recombination rate estimation. LDpop is freely available for download at https://github.com/popgenmethods/ldpopComment: 32 pages, 13 figure

Reducing Spectral Analyte Prediction Error with Penalties on Interferents

A goal of chemometric multivariate calibration (modeling) is to predict analyte concentration in a sample using spectral data. Multiple types of modeling methods have been used to predict analyte concentration. However, the samples contain interferents that influence the model and if not fully corrected by the model, analyte concentration prediction errors occur. To reduce the prediction errors caused by interferent species in the system, two new methods were designed to incorporate interferent information. One of the methods uses interferent spectra to require the model to be orthoganol to the interferents. The other method uses interferent spectra to form an orthogonal or oblique model to the interferents. The methods are compared to ridge regression and partial least squares using a near infrared data set. Sum of ranking is used to select models. The new methods have better analyte prediction errors and robustness, but more data sets need to be tested to confirm that both new methods are more effective