Life cycle of Deccan trap magma chambers: A crystal scale elemental and strontium isotopic investigation

The Deccan Trap basalts are the remnants of a massive series of lava flows that erupted at the K/T boundary and covered 1-2 million km2 of west-central India. This eruptive event is of global interest because of its possible link to the major mass extinction event, and there is much debate about the duration of this massive volcanic event. In contrast to isotopic or paleomagnetic dating methods, I explore an alternative approach to determine the lifecycle of the magma chambers that supplied the lavas, and extend the concept to obtain a tighter constraint on Deccan’s duration. My method relies on extracting time information from elemental and isotopic diffusion across zone boundaries in individual crystals. I determined elemental and Sr-isotopic variations across abnormally large (2-5 cm) plagioclase crystals from the Thalghat and Kashele “Giant Plagioclase Basalts” from the lowermost Jawhar and Igatpuri Formations respectively in the thickest Western Ghats section near Mumbai. I also obtained bulk rock major, trace and rare earth element chemistry of each lava flow from the two formations. Thalghat flows contain only 12% zoned crystals, with 87 Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.7096 in the core and 0.7106 in the rim, separated by a sharp boundary. In contrast, all Kashele crystals have a wider range of 87Sr/86Sr values, with multiple zones. Geochemical modeling of the data suggests that the two types of crystals grew in distinct magmatic environments. Modeling intracrystalline diffusive equilibration between the core and rim of Thalghat crystals led me to obtain a crystal growth rate of 2.03x10-10 cm/s and a residence time of 780 years for the crystals in the magma chamber(s). Employing some assumptions based on field and geochronologic evidence, I extrapolated this residence time to the entire Western Ghats and obtained an estimate of 25,000–35,000 years for the duration of Western Ghats volcanism. This gave an eruptive rate of 30–40 km3/yr, which is much higher than any presently erupting volcano. This result will remain speculative until a similarly detailed analytical-modeling study is performed for the rest of the Western Ghats formations.

Women at work: Camilla Chambers; artist at work in studio

Inscription: Verso: Women at work: miscellaneous occupations.

Procedural Justice in International Criminal Courts: Assessing Civil Parties’ Perceptions of Justice at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Procedural justice advocates argue that fair procedures in decision making processes can increase participant satisfaction with legal institutions. Little critical work has been done however to explore the power of such claims in the context of mass violence and international criminal justice. This article critically examines some of the key claims of procedural justice by exploring the perceptions of justice held by victims participating as Civil Parties in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The ECCC has created one of the most inclusive and extensive victim participation regimes within international criminal law. It therefore provides a unique case study to examine some of claims of ‘victim-centred’ transitional justice through a procedural justice lens. It finds that while procedural justice influenced civil parties’ overall perceptions of the Court, outcomes remained of primary importance. It concludes by analysing the possible reasons for this prioritisation.

An Incomplete Narrative: Prosecuting Sexual Violence Crimes at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

This article explores the feminist critique that progress in the classification of sexual violence crimes within international criminal law has not been matched by sufficient legal enforcement. It takes the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as a case study, exploring the various myths, investigative failures and procedural developments that have hindered the ECCC’s effective investigation of sexual violence. The article argues that while there is a need to adopt a nuanced perspective of the many gender inequalities facing women, it remains crucial that sexual violence is adequately investigated and prosecuted, due to the normative value of such prosecutions. It concludes with some suggestions as to how the ECCC can improve accountability for such crimes, but also highlights lessons that future courts can learn from the ECCC’s failures.

Sustainability of protein production by bioreactor processes using wind and solar power as energy sources

Food production account for significant share of global environmental impacts. Impacts are global warming, fresh water use, land use and some non-renewable substance consumption like phosphorous fertilizers. Because of non-sustainable food production, the world is heading to different crises. Both food- and freshwater crises and also land area and phosphorous fertilizer shortages are one of many challenges to overcome in near future. The major protein sources production amounts, their impacts on environment and uses are show in this thesis. In this thesis, a more sustainable than conventional way of biomass production for food use is introduced. These alternative production methods are photobioreactor process and syngas-based bioreactor process. The processes’ energy consumption and major inputs are viewed. Their environmental impacts are estimated. These estimations are the compared to conventional protein production’s impacts. The outcome of the research is that, the alternative methods can be more sustainable solutions for food production than conventional production. However, more research is needed to verify the exact impacts. Photobioreactor is more sustainable process than syngas-based bioreactor process, but it is more location depended and uses more land area than syngas-based process. In addition, the technology behind syngas-based application is still developing and it can be more efficient in the future.

Asymptotic stability of a coupled Advection-Diffusion-Reaction system arising in bioreactor processes.

In this work, we perform an asymptotic analysis of a coupled system of two Advection-Diffusion-Reaction equations with Danckwerts boundary conditions, which models the interaction between a microbial population (e.g., bacterias), called biomass, and a diluted organic contaminant (e.g., nitrates), called substrate, in a continuous flow bioreactor. This system exhibits, under suitable conditions, two stable equilibrium states: one steady state in which the biomass becomes extinct and no reaction is produced, called washout, and another steady state, which corresponds to the partial elimination of the substrate. We use the method of linearization to give sufficient conditions for the asymptotic stability of the two stable equilibrium configurations. Finally, we compare our asymptotic analysis with the usual asymptotic analysis associated to the continuous bioreactor when it is modeled with ordinary differential equations.

Life Cycle of Deccan Trap Magma Chambers: A Crystal Scale Elemental and Strontium Isotopic Investigation

The Deccan Trap basalts are the remnants of a massive series of lava flows that erupted at the K/T boundary and covered 1-2 million km2 of west-central India. This eruptive event is of global interest because of its possible link to the major mass extinction event, and there is much debate about the duration of this massive volcanic event. In contrast to isotopic or paleomagnetic dating methods, I explore an alternative approach to determine the lifecycle of the magma chambers that supplied the lavas, and extend the concept to obtain a tighter constraint on Deccan’s duration. My method relies on extracting time information from elemental and isotopic diffusion across zone boundary in an individual crystal. I determined elemental and Sr-isotopic variations across abnormally large (2-5 cm) plagioclase crystals from the Thalghat and Kashele “Giant Plagioclase Basalts” from the lowermost Jawhar and Igatpuri Formations respectively in the thickest Western Ghats section near Mumbai. I also obtained bulk rock major, trace and rare earth element chemistry of each lava flow from the two formations. Thalghat flows contain only 12% zoned crystals, with 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.7096 in the core and 0.7106 in the rim, separated by a sharp boundary. In contrast, all Kashele crystals have a wider range of 87Sr/86Sr values, with multiple zones. Geochemical modeling of the data suggests that the two types of crystals grew in distinct magmatic environments. Modeling intracrystalline diffusive equilibration between the core and rim of Thalghat crystals led me to obtain a crystal growth rate of 2.03x10-10 cm/s and a residence time of 780 years for the crystals in the magma chamber(s). Employing some assumptions based on field and geochronologic evidence, I extrapolated this residence time to the entire Western Ghats and obtained an estimate of 25,000 – 35,000 years for the duration of Western Ghats volcanism. This gave an eruptive rate of 30 – 40 km3/yr, which is much higher than any presently erupting volcano. This result will remain speculative until a similarly detailed analytical-modeling study is performed for the rest of the Western Ghats formations.

Effect of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on rice blast in open-top chambers in Brazil.

2008

Construction and test of a cosmic ray telescope based on CMS Drift Tube chambers and data acquisition prototypes of the Phase-2 upgrade

In this thesis work, a cosmic-ray telescope was set up in the INFN laboratories in Bologna using smaller size replicas of CMS Drift Tubes chambers, called MiniDTs, to test and develop new electronics for the CMS Phase-2 upgrade. The MiniDTs were assembled in INFN National Laboratory in Legnaro, Italy. Scintillator tiles complete the telescope, providing a signal independent of the MiniDTs for offline analysis. The telescope readout is a test system for the CMS Phase-2 upgrade data acquisition design. The readout is based on the early prototype of a radiation-hard FPGA-based board developed for the High Luminosity LHC CMS upgrade, called On Board electronics for Drift Tubes. Once the set-up was operational, we developed an online monitor to display in real-time the most important observables to check the quality of the data acquisition. We performed an offline analysis of the collected data using a custom version of CMS software tools, which allowed us to estimate the time pedestal and drift velocity in each chamber, evaluate the efficiency of the different DT cells, and measure the space and time resolution of the telescope system.

Growth Factor Stimulation Improves The Structure And Properties Of Scaffold-free Engineered Auricular Cartilage Constructs.

The reconstruction of the external ear to correct congenital deformities or repair following trauma remains a significant challenge in reconstructive surgery. Previously, we have developed a novel approach to create scaffold-free, tissue engineering elastic cartilage constructs directly from a small population of donor cells. Although the developed constructs appeared to adopt the structural appearance of native auricular cartilage, the constructs displayed limited expression and poor localization of elastin. In the present study, the effect of growth factor supplementation (insulin, IGF-1, or TGF-β1) was investigated to stimulate elastogenesis as well as to improve overall tissue formation. Using rabbit auricular chondrocytes, bioreactor-cultivated constructs supplemented with either insulin or IGF-1 displayed increased deposition of cartilaginous ECM, improved mechanical properties, and thicknesses comparable to native auricular cartilage after 4 weeks of growth. Similarly, growth factor supplementation resulted in increased expression and improved localization of elastin, primarily restricted within the cartilaginous region of the tissue construct. Additional studies were conducted to determine whether scaffold-free engineered auricular cartilage constructs could be developed in the 3D shape of the external ear. Isolated auricular chondrocytes were grown in rapid-prototyped tissue culture molds with additional insulin or IGF-1 supplementation during bioreactor cultivation. Using this approach, the developed tissue constructs were flexible and had a 3D shape in very good agreement to the culture mold (average error <400 µm). While scaffold-free, engineered auricular cartilage constructs can be created with both the appropriate tissue structure and 3D shape of the external ear, future studies will be aimed assessing potential changes in construct shape and properties after subcutaneous implantation.