Impact cratering: The process and its effects on planetary evolution

The potential for silicate-carbon dioxide reactions as a geochemical weathering agent on Venus was studied. A tholetitic basalt close to the composition determined by the XRF experiment at the Venera 14 sites was subjected to high temperature and pressure (with pure CO2 as the pressure medium) for varying time durations. The starting basalt material and the run products were examined optically and by X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy. The kinetics of the silicate-carbonate reactions is discussed. A study to elucidate details of impact processes and to assess the effects of impact cratering on planetary evolution is mentioned

Stronger instruments and refined covariate balance in an observational study of the effectiveness of prompt admission to intensive care units

Instrumental variable methods, subject to appropriate identification assumptions, enable consistent estimation of causal effects in the presence of unobserved confounding. Near–far matching has been proposed as one analytic method to improve inference by strengthening the effect of the instrument on the exposure and balancing observable characteristics between groups of subjects with low and high values of the instrument. However, in settings with hierarchical data (e.g. patients nested within hospitals), or where several covariate interactions must be balanced, conventional near–far matching algorithms may fail to achieve the requisite covariate balance. We develop a new matching algorithm, that combines near–far matching with refined covariate balance, to balance large numbers of nominal covariates while also strengthening the instrumental variable. This extension of near–far matching is motivated by a case-study that aims to identify the causal effect of prompt admission to an intensive care unit on 7-day and 28-day mortality

Impact phenomena as factors in the evolution of the Earth

It is estimated that 30 to 200 large impact basins could have been formed on the early Earth. These large impacts may have resulted in extensive volcanism and enhanced endogenic geologic activity over large areas. Initial modelling of the thermal and subsidence history of large terrestrial basins indicates that they created geologic and thermal anomalies which lasted for geologically significant times. The role of large-scale impact in the biological evolution of the Earth has been highlighted by the discovery of siderophile anomalies at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary and associated with North American microtektites. Although in neither case has an associated crater been identified, the observations are consistent with the deposition of projectile-contaminated high-speed ejecta from major impact events. Consideration of impact processes reveals a number of mechanisms by which large-scale impact may induce extinctions

Wear and Fatigue of Railway Track Caused by Contamination, Sanding and Surface Damage

The wheel rail contact operates in an arduous environment. Damage to the surface of either component is possible during manufacture, installation, or operation. The question arises as to how tolerant is the railway wheel or section of track to surface indentation or damage. In this work a twin disc simulation has been used to relate the level of surface damage (as well as the way it is generated) to the fatigue life of the surfaces. A related problem is the presence of solid contamination on the track. Sand (applied for improved adhesion) or track ballast material can cause damage to the rail and wheel surfaces. These mechanisms have been explored to assess the effect on contact fatigue life and wear. The disc specimens have been either artificially damaged (with dents and scratches) or run with particles of sand or ballast material. The discs were then loaded and rotated at realistic conditions of contact pressure and controlled slip. For normal operation of the contact, either dry or with water lubrication, surface dents and scratches have little effect on fatigue life. The normal plastic flow in the rail surface layer acts to close up dents. The failure of the disc is then by fatigue cracking across the whole surface with no particular preference to the dent location. Alternatively, if the contact is lubricated with oil then this plastic flow is greatly reduced and the dents act as stress raisers and fatigue cracks initiate from their trailing edge. Sand or ballast particles are crushed as they enter the wheel/rail contact. The fragments indent the surfaces and rapidly roughen the contact faces. The surface indentation is relatively minor, but the presence of particles increases the level of traction (over the wet case) and promotes further surface plastic flow. This can reduce the residual fatigue life of the contact. Further, high concentrations of sand were shown to promote a low cycle fatigue process that caused very high wear by the spallation of material. The twin disc simulations have shown that, under conditions similar to that of wheel/rail operation, surface damage is not a primary cause of fatigue failure. However, wear is greatly accelerated by the presence of solid contaminants and some evidence of a low cycle fatigue process was observed for sanded contacts

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationFingernail imaging is a method of sensing finger force using the color patterns on the nail and surrounding skin. These patterns form as the underlying tissue is compressed and blood pools in the surrounding vessels. Photos of the finger and surrounding skin may be correlated to the magnitude and direction of force on the fingerpad. An automated calibration routine is developed to improve the data-collection process. This includes a novel hybrid force/position controller that manages the interaction between the fingerpad and a flat surface, implemented on a Magnetic Levitation Haptic Device. The kinematic and dynamics parameters of the system are characterized in order to appropriately design a nonlinear compensator. The controller settles within 0.13 s with less than 30% overshoot. A new registration A new registration technique, based on Active Appearance Models, is presented. Since this method accounts for the variation inherent in the finger, it reduces registration and force prediction errors while removing the need to tune registration parameters or reject unregistered images. Modifications to the standard model are also investigated. The number of landmark points is reduced to 25 points with no loss of accuracy, while the use of the green channel is found to have no significant effect on either registration or force prediction accuracy. Several force prediction models are characterized, and the EigenNail Magnitude Model, a Principal Component Regression model on the gray-level intensity, is shown to fit the data most accurately. The mean force prediction error using this prediction and modeling method is 0.55 N. White LEDs and green LEDs are shown to have no statistically significant effect on registration or force prediction. Finally, two different calibration grid designs are compared and found to have no significant effect. Together, these improvements prepare the way for fingernail imaging to be used in less controlled situations. With a wider range of calibration data and a more robust registration method, a larger range of force data may be predicted. Potential applications for this technology include human-computer interaction and measuring finger interaction forces during grasping experiments

Geological remote sensing signatures of terrestrial impact craters

Geological remote sensing techniques can be used to investigate structural, depositional, and shock metamorphic effects associated with hypervelocity impact structures, some of which may be linked to global Earth system catastrophies. Although detailed laboratory and field investigations are necessary to establish conclusive evidence of an impact origin for suspected crater landforms, the synoptic perspective provided by various remote sensing systems can often serve as a pathfinder to key deposits which can then be targetted for intensive field study. In addition, remote sensing imagery can be used as a tool in the search for impact and other catastrophic explosion landforms on the basis of localized disruption and anomaly patterns. In order to reconstruct original dimensions of large, complex impact features in isolated, inaccessible regions, remote sensing imagery can be used to make preliminary estimates in the absence of field geophysical surveys. The experienced gained from two decades of planetary remote sensing of impact craters on the terrestrial planets, as well as the techniques developed for recognizing stages of degradation and initial crater morphology, can now be applied to the problem of discovering and studying eroded impact landforms on Earth. Preliminary results of remote sensing analyses of a set of terrestrial impact features in various states of degradation, geologic settings, and for a broad range of diameters and hence energies of formation are summarized. The intention is to develop a database of remote sensing signatures for catastrophic impact landforms which can then be used in EOS-era global surveys as the basis for locating the possibly hundreds of missing impact structures. In addition, refinement of initial dimensions of extremely recent structures such as Zhamanshin and Bosumtwi is an important objective in order to permit re-evaluation of global Earth system responses associated with these types of events

Methods for estimating complier average causal effects for cost-effectiveness analysis.

In randomized controlled trials with treatment non-compliance, instrumental variable approaches are used to estimate complier average causal effects. We extend these approaches to cost-effectiveness analyses, where methods need to recognize the correlation between cost and health outcomes. We propose a Bayesian full likelihood approach, which jointly models the effects of random assignment on treatment received and the outcomes, and a three-stage least squares method, which acknowledges the correlation between the end points and the endogeneity of the treatment received. This investigation is motivated by the REFLUX study, which exemplifies the setting where compliance differs between the randomized controlled trial and routine practice. A simulation is used to compare the methods' performance. We find that failure to model the correlation between the outcomes and treatment received correctly can result in poor confidence interval coverage and biased estimates. By contrast, Bayesian full likelihood and three-stage least squares methods provide unbiased estimates with good coverage

Periodic cometary showers: Real or imaginary?

Since the initial reports in 1980, a considerable body of chemical and physical evidence has been accumulated to indicate that a major impact event occurred on earth 65 million years ago. The effects of this event were global in extent and have been suggested as the cause of the sudden demise or mass extinction of a large percentage of life, including the dinosaurs, at the end of the geologic time period known as the Cretaceous. Recent statistical analyses of extinctions in the marine faunal record for the last 250 million years have suggested that mass extinctions may occur with a periodicity of every 26 to 30 million years. Following these results, other workers have attempted to demonstrate that these extinction events, like that at the end of the Cretaceous, are temporally correlated with large impact events. A recent scenario suggests that they are the result of periodic showers of comets produced by either the passage of the solar system through the galactic plane or by perturbations of the cometary cloud in the outer solar system by a, as yet unseen, solar companion. This hypothesized solar companion has been given the name Nemesis

Position clamping of optically trapped microscopic non-spherical probes

We investigate the degree of control that can be exercised over an optically trapped microscopic non-spherical force probe. By position clamping translational and rotational modes in different ways, we are able to dramatically improve the position resolution of our probe with no reduction in sensitivity. We also demonstrate control over rotational-translational coupling, and exhibit a mechanism whereby the average centre of rotation of the probe can be displaced away from its centre

Constraining the Temperature of Impact Melt from the Mistastin Lake Impact Structure Using Zircon Crystal Structures

Impact melt is a product of hyper-velocity impact events formed by the instantaneous melting of near-surface target rocks. Constraining the temperature of impact melt is vital to understanding its prograde heating and cooling history, which can have implications for inferring the environment of early Earth ~4.0 billion years ago when microbial life potentially arose. To date, only one datum on the initial impact melt temperature has been derived by Timms et al. These authors studied zirconia microstructures and crystallographic orientations that revealed the former presence of cubic zirconia, found in a black impact glass at the Mistastin Lake impact structure, Canada. The presence of cubic zirconia indicates a minimum temperature for the impact melt of >2370C from the dissociation temperature of zircon to cubic zirconia and liquid SiO2. With only one temperature datum, it is still difficult to constrain the entire temperature range experienced during the impact melting process; from its instantaneous formation to thermal equilibrium with the cold clasts collected along the crater floor and walls. In addition, obtaining a temperature value from only one type of impactite limits the inferred temperature range, because each impactite experiences a different cooling history. In this study, we present a preliminary investigation of 61 zircon crystals, 14 of which are similar to those studied by Timms et al., from the Mistastin Lake impact structure. To acquire a more accurate temperature profile representative of impact melt, zircon crystals were collected from different types of impactites containing impact melt, including additional samples of the black impact glass studied by Timms et al