Seaborne trade and the commercialisation of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Gaelic Ulster

This study considers the frequently stated claim that the economy of Gaelic- speaking lordships in Ulster during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was predominately pastoral anduncommercialised, by drawing on a variety of sources not usually combined. It proposes that the increased European demand for fish and the growth of the fish industry across northern Europe played a crucial role in stimulating trade between the coastal areas of Ulster on the one hand, and Britain and continental Europe on the other. This led to the establishment of permanent markets and towns, which joined at least two new inland towns in the southern parts of the province, bringing about a commercial presence in most of the Ulster lordships before 1600. Gaelic Lords consolidated this development by building castles and friaries at these fixed trading places.

Extension of electrochemically active sites in SOFCs and SOECs

Solid oxide fuel (SOFCs) and electrolyzer (SOECs) cells have been promoted as promising technologies for the stabilization of fuel supply and usage in future green energy systems. SOFCs are devices that produce electricity by the oxidation of hydrogen or hydrocarbon fuels with high efficiency. Conversely, SOECs can offer the reverse reaction, where synthetic fuels can be generated by the input of renewable electricity. Due to this similar but inverse nature of SOFCs and SOECs, these devices have traditionally been constructed from comparable materials. Nonetheless, several limitations have hindered the entry of SOFCs and SOECs into the marketplace. One of the most debilitating is associated with chemical interreactions between cell components that can lead to poor longevities at high working temperatures and/or depleted electrochemcial performance. Normally such interreactions are countered by the introduction of thin, purely ionic conducting, buffer layers between the electrode and electrolyte interface. The objective of this thesis is to assess if possible improvements in electrode kinetics can also be obtained by modifying the transport properties of these buffer layers by the introduction of multivalent cations. The introduction of minor electronic conductivity in the surface of the electrolyte material has previously been shown to radically enhance the electrochemically active area for oxygen exchange, reducing polarization resistance losses. Hence, the current thesis aims to extend this knowledge to tailor a bi-functional buffer layer that can prevent chemical interreaction while also enhancing electrode kinetics.The thesis selects a typical scenario of an yttria stabilized zirconia electrolyte combined with a lanthanide containing oxygen electrode. Gadolinium, terbium and praseodymium doped cerium oxide materials have been investigated as potential buffer layers. The mixed ionic electronic conducting (MIEC) properties of the doped-cerium materials have been analyzed and collated. A detailed analysis is further presented of the impact of the buffer layers on the kinetics of the oxygen electrode in SOFC and SOEC devices. Special focus is made to assess for potential links between the transport properties of the buffer layer and subsequent electrode performance. The work also evaluates the electrochemical performance of different K2NiF4 structure cathodes deposited onto a peak performing Pr doped-cerium buffer layer, the influence of buffer layer thickness and the Pr content of the ceria buffer layer. It is shown that dramatic increases in electrode performance can be obtained by the introduction of MIEC buffer layers, where the best performances are shown to be offered by buffer layers of highest ambipolar conductivity. These buffer layers are also shown to continue to offer the bifunctional role to protect from unwanted chemical interactions at the electrode/electrolyte interface.

A Concert of 17th and 18th Century Music, November 16, 1953

Concert Program for A Concert of 17th and 18th Century Music, November 16, 1953

Reality Effects: The Historical Novel and the Crisis of Fictionality in the First Decade of the Twenty-first Century

This chapter looks at the assumptions made about the 'fictionality' of prose fiction implicit in the contemporary historical novel. In particular it argues that the recent historical novel has developed a set of 'reality effects' which appear to look back to modernist writing, but in fact work to secure a disguised referentiality in the face of a loss of faith in the fictional.

A comparison of the active surveillance of scrapie in the European Union

The abattoir and the fallen stock surveys constitute the active surveillance component aimed at improving the detection of scrapie across the European Union. Previous studies have suggested the occurrence of significant differences in the operation of the surveys across the EU. In the present study we assessed the standardisation of the surveys throughout time across the EU and identified clusters of countries with similar underlying characteristics allowing comparisons between them. In the absence of sufficient covariate information to explain the observed variability across countries, we modelled the unobserved heterogeneity by means of non-parametric distributions on the risk ratios of the fallen stock over the abattoir survey. More specifically, we used the profile likelihood method on 2003, 2004 and 2005 active surveillance data for 18 European countries on classical scrapie, and on 2004 and 2005 data for atypical scrapie separately. We extended our analyses to include the limited covariate information available, more specifically, the proportion of the adult sheep population sampled by the fallen stock survey every year. Our results show that the between-country heterogeneity dropped in 2004 and 2005 relative to that of 2003 for classical scrapie. As a consequence, the number of clusters in the last two years was also reduced indicating the gradual standardisation of the surveillance efforts across the EU. The crude analyses of the atypical data grouped all the countries in one cluster and showed non-significant gain in the detection of this type of scrapie by any of the two sources. The proportion of the population sampled by the fallen stock appeared significantly associated with our risk ratio for both types of scrapie, although in opposite directions: negative for classical and positive for atypical. The initial justification for the fallen stock, targeting a high-risk population to increase the likelihood of case finding, appears compromised for both types of scrapie in some countries.

The effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy for HIV on the anti-HCV specific humoral immune response

The effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on HCV replication is controversial, with some studies reporting no effect and others increases, reductions and even clearances of HCV RNA after treatment. In this study, the effect of HAART was investigated on the titre of anti-HCV specific antibodies and on the relationship between these antibodies and HCV RNA level in a cohort of 24 patients with inherited bleeding disorders. A significant inverse correlation between antibodies to both total HCV proteins and HCV RNA (R = -0.42, P = 0.05) and between antibodies to HCV envelope glycoproteins and HCV RNA (R = -0.54, P = 0.01) was observed pre-HAART. The relationship disappeared or was obscured after therapy (R = 0.24, P = 0.30 and R = 0.16, P = 0.50, respectively). Thus, we show that HAART affects the HCV specific humoral immune responses without affecting the HCV RNA level. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.