Project Omnivore: A Variable Compression Ratio ATAC 2-Stroke Engine for Ultra-Wide-Range HCCI Operation on a Variety of Fuels

The paper describes the principal features of Omnivore, a spark-ignition-based research engine designed to investigate the possibility of true wide-range HCCI operation on a variety of fossil and renewable liquid fuels. The engine project is part-funded jointly by the United Kingdom's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department of the Environment of Northern Ireland (DoENI). The engineering team includes Lotus Engineering, Jaguar Cars, Orbital Corporation and Queen's University Belfast.

Primitive living chitons: Morphological cladistic analysis as a model for character evaluation

Chitons are often referred to as “living fossils” in part because they are proposed as one of the earliest-diverging groups of living molluscs, but also because the gross morphology of the polyplacophoran shell has been conserved for hundreds of millions of years. As such, the analysis of evolution and radiation within polyplacophorans is of considerable interest not only for resolving the shape of pan-molluscan phylogeny but also as model organisms for the study of character evolution. This study presents a new, rigorous cladistic analysis of the morphological characters used in taxonomic descriptions for chitons in the living suborder Lepidopleurina Thiele, 1910 (the earliest-derived living group of chitons). Shell-based characters alone entirely fail to recover any recognized subdivisions within the group, which may raise serious questions about the application of fossil data (from isolated shell valves). New analysis including characters from girdle armature and gill arrangements recovers some genera within the group but also points to the lack of monophyly within the main genus Leptochiton Gray, 1847. Additional characters from molecular data and soft anatomy, used in combination, are clearly needed to resolve questions of chiton relationships. However, the data sets currently available already provide interesting insights into the analytical power of traditional morphology as well as some knowledge about the early evolution and radiation of this group.

Behavioural, physiological and morphological adaptations of the shanny (Blennius pholis) to the intertidal habitat

Immersed shannies (Blennius pholis) showed peak locomotory activity coincident with daylight high tides. Emersion caused cessation of breathing and bradycardia though Q02 was little affected. Q02 fell, however, when the abdomen was enclosed in an impermeable sheath to block cutaneous respiration. Gulping of air into the extensively vascular oesophagus probably also acts as a means of aerial respiration. Reimmersion of fish caused a transient bradycardia followed by a tachycardia and a fall in Q02 followed subsequently by a rise. The results are discussed in relation to the behavioural, circulatory, respiratory and morphological adaptations of the shanny to the intertidal habitat.

An Analysis of the Effect of Electric Vehicle Charging on the Operation of the Single Electricity Market

To meet European Union renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets the Irish government set a target in 2008 that 10% of all vehicles in the transport fleet be powered by electricity by 2020. Similar electric vehicle targets have been introduced in other countries. However, reducing energy consumption and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions in transport is a considerable challenge due to heavy reliance on fossil fuels. In fact, transport in the Republic of Ireland in 2009 accounted for 29% of non-emissions trading scheme greenhouse gas emissions, 32% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, 21% of total greenhouse gas emissions and approximately 50% of energy-related non-emission trading scheme greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper the effect of electric vehicle charging on the operation of the single wholesale electricity market for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is analysed. The energy consumed, greenhouse gas emissions generated and changes to the wholesale price of electricity under peak and off-peak charging scenarios are quantified and discussed. Results from the study show that off-peak charging is more beneficial than peak charging.

Saturated operation of a transient collisional x-ray laser

Saturation of a low pump energy x-ray laser utilizing a transient inversion mechanism on the 3p-3s transition at 32.63 nm in Ne-like Ti has been demonstrated. A close to saturation amplification was simultaneously achieved for the 3d-3p, J=1-->1 transition at 30.15 nm. Small signal effective transient gain coefficients of g similar to 46 and similar to 35 cm(-1) and gain-length products of 16.7 and 16.9 for these lines were obtained. Experiments demonstrate that it is possible to achieve saturated laser action in a transient regime with Ne-like Ti for a pump energy as low as similar to 5 J.