Short-term effects of drawing water for connectivity of rivers and lakes on zooplankton community structure

During 28-29, September 2005, water was drawn from Hanjiang River and Houguan Lake to the Yangzi River via Sanjiao Lake and Nantaizi Lake in Wuhan in order to provide favorable conditions for ecosystem restoration. To evaluate the feasibility and validity of drawing water as a means of ecosystem restoration, zooplankton populations were studied 3 times (before, immediately after finishing and a month after drawing water) at seven locations from 27 Sept. 2005 to 2 Nov. 2005. Water quality in the lakes was mostly improved and zooplankton species richness decreased as soon as drawing water had finished but increased a month after drawing water. Zooplankton density and biomass was reduced in the lakes by drawing water but was increased at the entrance to Sanjiao Lake because of landform geometry change. Before drawing water, most species in Sanjiao Lake e.g., Brachionus sp. and Keratella sp. were tolerant of contamination. After drawing water oligotrophic-prone species such as Lecane ludwigii and Gastropus stylifer emerged. We conclude that drawing water could be important for improving water quality and favour ecosystem restoration. Dilution of nutrient concentrations may be an important role in the effect.

Formation of high reflective Ni/Ag/Ti/Au contact on p-GaN

A metallization scheme of Ni/Ag/Ti/Au has been developed for obtaining high reflective contacts on p-type GaN. In order to find optimal conditions to get a high reflectivity, we studied samples with various Ni thicknesses, annealing temperatures and annealing times. By annealing at 500 degrees C for 5 min in an O-2 ambient, a reflectivity as high as 94% was obtained from Ni/Ag/Ti/Au (1/120/120/50 nm). The effects of Ti layers on the suppression of Ag agglomeration were investigated by using Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). From AES depth profiles, it is clear that Ti acts as a diffusion barrier to prevent Au atoms from diffusing into the Ag layer, which is important in the formation of high reflectivity.

Studies on fracture morphology of short carbon fiber reinforced poly(phenylene ether ketone)(SCF/PEK-C) composites

The shear fracture morphology of SCF/PEK-C composite with carbon fibers treated for different times was studied carefully by SEM. The result shows that the adhesion between fiber and matrix was improved and fractured model also changed from interface fracture to brittle fracture with increasing treatment time of carbon fiber. The fracture mechanism was discussed preliminary.

Short-term effects of sheep excrement on carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane fluxes in typical grassland of Inner Mongolia

Excrement patches of grazing animals play an important role in greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes due to the high nitrogen (N) and available carbon (C) deposited in small areas, but little information is available for the effect of excrement in the Inner Mongolian grassland (43 26 degrees N, 116 degrees 40'E). To elucidate the effect of grazing sheep urine, fresh dung and compost on fluxes of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitrous oxide (N2O), a short-term field study (65 days) was carried out in the typical grassland of Inner Mongolia with the optimised closed chamber/GC technique. Compared with the control, cumulative net CH4 consumption decreased 36, 31, and 18% from urine, fresh dung, and compost plots, respectively; net CO2-C output increased by 6.5, 1.5, and 1.2% from urine, fresh dung, and compost treated soil, respectively; about three times as much N2O-N was emitted from urine and the fresh dung treatments during 65 days. Nitrous oxide emission was positively correlated with CO, emission (R = 0.691, P < 0.01) and water-filled pore space (R = 0.698, P < 0.01). The percentages of N2O-N loss of applied-N were 0.44 and 1.05% for urine and fresh dung, respectively. Our results suggest that in autumn in the degraded grassland of Inner Mongolia, the effect of sheep excrement may be ignored when evaluating the total GHG emissions.

Climate and energy scenarios for Ireland to 2050 using the Irish TIMES energy systems model

Due to growing concerns regarding the anthropogenic interference with the climate system, countries across the world are being challenged to develop effective strategies to mitigate climate change by reducing or preventing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The European Union (EU) is committed to contribute to this challenge by setting a number of climate and energy targets for the years 2020, 2030 and 2050 and then agreeing effort sharing amongst Member States. This thesis focus on one Member State, Ireland, which faces specific challenges and is not on track to meet the targets agreed to date. Before this work commenced, there were no projections of energy demand or supply for Ireland beyond 2020. This thesis uses techno-economic energy modelling instruments to address this knowledge gap. It builds and compares robust, comprehensive policy scenarios, providing a means of assessing the implications of different future energy and emissions pathways for the Irish economy, Ireland’s energy mix and the environment. A central focus of this thesis is to explore the dynamics of the energy system moving towards a low carbon economy. This thesis develops an energy systems model (the Irish TIMES model) to assess the implications of a range of energy and climate policy targets and target years. The thesis also compares the results generated from the least cost scenarios with official projections and target pathways and provides useful metrics and indications to identify key drivers and to support both policy makers and stakeholder in identifying cost optimal strategies. The thesis also extends the functionality of energy system modelling by developing and applying new methodologies to provide additional insights with a focus on particular issues that emerge from the scenario analysis carried out. Firstly, the thesis develops a methodology for soft-linking an energy systems model (Irish TIMES) with a power systems model (PLEXOS) to improve the interpretation of the electricity sector results in the energy system model. The soft-linking enables higher temporal resolution and improved characterisation of power plants and power system operation Secondly, the thesis develops a methodology for the integration of agriculture and energy systems modelling to enable coherent economy wide climate mitigation scenario analysis. This provides a very useful starting point for considering the trade-offs between the energy system and agriculture in the context of a low carbon economy and for enabling analysis of land-use competition. Three specific time scale perspectives are examined in this thesis (2020, 2030, 2050), aligning with key policy target time horizons. The results indicate that Ireland’s short term mandatory emissions reduction target will not be achieved without a significant reassessment of renewable energy policy and that the current dominant policy focus on wind-generated electricity is misplaced. In the medium to long term, the results suggest that energy efficiency is the first cost effective measure to deliver emissions reduction; biomass and biofuels are likely to be the most significant fuel source for Ireland in the context of a low carbon future prompting the need for a detailed assessment of possible implications for sustainability and competition with the agri-food sectors; significant changes are required in infrastructure to deliver deep emissions reductions (to enable the electrification of heat and transport, to accommodate carbon capture and storage facilities (CCS) and for biofuels); competition between energy and agriculture for land-use will become a key issue. The purpose of this thesis is to increase the evidence-based underpinning energy and climate policy decisions in Ireland. The methodology is replicable in other Member States.

VISION OF EQUINOX FOR ORCHESTRA

The artistic play of light seen on a pyramid in some Mayan ruins located in Cancun, Mexico provided the inspiration for Vision of Equinox. On both the spring and autumn equinox days, the sunlight projected on the pyramid forms a shape which looks like a serpent moving on the stairway of the pyramid. Vision of Equinox was composed with an image of light as the model for the artistic transfiguration of sound. The light image of sound changes its shape in each stage of the piece, using the orchestra in different ways - sometimes like a chamber ensemble, sometimes like one big instrument. The image of light casting on a pyramid is expressed by descending melodic lines that can be heard several times in the piece. At the final climax of the work, a complete and embodied artistic figure is formed and stated, expressing the appearance of the Mayan god Quetzalcoatl, the serpent, in my own imagination. The light and shadow which comprise this pyramid art are treated as two contrasting elements in my composition and become the two main motives in this piece. To express these two contrasting elements, I picked the numbers "5" and "2," and used them as "key numbers" in this piece. As a result, the intervals of a fifth and a second (sometimes inverted as a seventh) are the two main intervals used in the structure. The interval of a fifth was taken into account for the construction of the pyramid, which has five points of contact. The interval of a second was selected as a contrasting sonority to the fifth. Further, the numbers "5" and "2" are used as the number of notes which form the main motives in this piece; quintuplets are used throughout this piece, and the short motive made by two sixteenth notes is used as one of the main motives in this piece. Moreover, the shape of the pyramid provided a concept of symmetry, which is expressed by the setting of a central point of the music (pitch center) as well as the use of retrograde and inversion in this piece.

Heuristics for short route job shop scheduling problems

We consider two “minimum”NP-hard job shop scheduling problems to minimize the makespan. In one of the problems every job has to be processed on at most two out of three available machines. In the other problem there are two machines, and a job may visit one of the machines twice. For each problem, we define a class of heuristic schedules in which certain subsets of operations are kept as blocks on the corresponding machines. We show that for each problem the value of the makespan of the best schedule in that class cannot be less than 3/2 times the optimal value, and present algorithms that guarantee a worst-case ratio of 3/2.

Short-term responses of the cold water coral Lophelia pertusa to predicted rises in atmospheric CO2

Cold-water corals are associated with high local biodiversity, but despite their importance as ecosystem engineers, little is known about how these organisms will respond to projected ocean acidification. Since preindustrial times, average ocean pH has decreased from 8.2 to ~8.1, and predicted CO2 emissions will decrease by up to another 0.3 pH units by the end of the century. This decrease in pH may have a wide range of impacts upon marine life, and in particular upon calcifiers such as cold-water corals. Lophelia pertusa is the most widespread cold-water coral (CWC) species, frequently found in the North Atlantic. Here, we present the first short-term (21 days) data on the effects of increased CO2 (750 ppm) upon the metabolism of freshly collected L. pertusa from Mingulay Reef Complex, Scotland, for comparison with net calcification. Over 21 days, corals exposed to increased CO2 conditions had significantly lower respiration rates (11.4±1.39 SE, µmol O2 g−1 tissue dry weight h−1) than corals in control conditions (28.6±7.30 SE µmol O2 g−1 tissue dry weight h−1). There was no corresponding change in calcification rates between treatments, measured using the alkalinity anomaly technique and 14C uptake. The decrease in respiration rate and maintenance of calcification rate indicates an energetic imbalance, likely facilitated by utilisation of lipid reserves. These data from freshly collected L. pertusa from the Mingulay Reef Complex will help define the impact of ocean acidification upon the growth, physiology and structural integrity of this key reef framework forming species.

The Role of Tool/Sheet Contact in Plug-Assisted Thermoforming.

Plug-assisted thermoforming produces a wide range of polymer products through a combination of deformation by air pressure and contact with tool surfaces. In this paper the role of tool/sheet contact in determining the process output is investigated. A combination of thermoforming, friction and heat transfer tests were carried out on common tool and sheet materials. The results show that the typical friction coefficients for the material combinations are within the range 0.1 to 0.3, but the values rise sharply on approaching thermoforming temperatures. Thermal imaging tests demonstrate that all of the plug materials significantly cool the heated sheet on contact, even over very short periods of time. The temperature of the plug is very important. At low plug temperatures heat transfer effects predominate, whereas at high plug temperatures friction effects predominate. A plug temperature of approximately 100oC balances these effects and creates the most effective material distribution.

Effect of temporal separation on synchronization in rhythmic performance

A variety of short time delays inserted between pairs of subjects were found to affect their ability to synchronize a musical task. The subjects performed a clapping rhythm together from separate sound-isolated rooms via headphones and without visual contact. One-way time delays between pairs were manipulated electronically in the range of 3 to 78 ms. We are interested in quantifying the envelope of time delay within which two individuals produce synchronous per- formances. The results indicate that there are distinct regimes of mutually coupled behavior, and that `natural time delay'o¨delay within the narrow range associated with travel times across spatial arrangements of groups and ensembleso¨supports the most stable performance. Conditions outside of this envelope, with time delays both below and above it, create characteristic interaction dynamics in the mutually coupled actions of the duo. Trials at extremely short delays (corresponding to unnaturally close proximity) had a tendency to accelerate from anticipation. Synchronization lagged at longer delays (larger than usual physical distances) and produced an increasingly severe deceleration and then deterioration of performed rhythms. The study has implications for music collaboration over the Internet and suggests that stable rhythmic performance can be achieved by `wired ensembles' across distances of thousands of kilometers.

Contact, trust and social capital in Northern Ireland: a qualitative study of three mixed communities

In a recent paper, Robert Putnam (2007) challenges the contact hypothesis by arguing that ethnic diversity causes people to ‘hunker down’ and essentially withdraw themselves from society. Drawing on
qualitative data collected from three mixed communities in Northern Ireland, this paper explores the extent and quality of contact experienced by Protestants and Catholics in their everyday lives. Themes emerging from our data are generally consistent with the contact hypothesis. There is also some support for Putnam’s theory that mixed environments can induce ‘hunkering down’ and that inter-group trust may be compromised. However, our data challenge Putnam’s argument that these responses are a consequence of ‘anomie’ or ‘social malaise’. Rather, we find that withdrawal from social activity in the neighbourhoods we observed was a calculated response at times of threat, often aimed at protecting existent positive inter-ethnic relations.

Extreme ultraviolet line emission at 24.7 nm from Li-like nitrogen plasma produced by a short KrF excimer laser pulse

Recently using KrF high power laser (248 nm; 350 fs; 5.0x10(16) W/cm(2)) in the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory an experimental search for recombination extreme ultraviolet (XUV) laser action in Li-like nitrogen ions was performed. To understand the experimental results of line emission at 24.7 nm in the 3d(5/2)-2p(3/2) transition of the Li-like nitrogen ion a simulation was undertaken using a one-dimensional Lagrangian hydrodynamic code. From the simulation results, we confirmed that there was nonlinear dependence of spectral line emission on the gas density which was well matched to the experimental results. Only a six times increase of the 24.7 nm emission intensity was obtained when the plasma length was increased 1000 times from 1 mu m as an optically thin case to 1 mm. Also, the spatial profile of the electron density and temperature was obtained and the electron temperature was about 40-50 eV which was too high for the optical field ionization x-ray lasing. We could not find evidence of x-ray laser gain. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Concussion and Brain Injury in Contact Sport: Legal Implications

A concussed participant leaving the field of play is one of the most worrying sights in sport. It is also one that might have serious legal implications for sports governing bodies. Over the past number of years, a major class action suit has rumbled through the US courts as taken against that country's biggest professional sport, the National Football League. The NFL is at present attempting to settle the lawsuit from more than 4,500 retired players who claim that the NFL knew for decades about the chronic health risks associated with cumulative concussions in American football but failed to warn players or take preventative steps. Testimony from retired NFL players has revealed stories of chronic headaches, Alzheimer-like forgetfulness, altered personalities and sometimes a downward spiral into depression, violence and suicide. Medical research is suggesting that professional American football players are three times more likely to die as a result of certain neurodegenerative diseases than the general population. This paper notes that the concerns about concussion are not confined to the NFL and extend to contact sport more widely and notably rugby union. This paper also assesses the reaction of leading sports governing bodies globally to the recorded medical risks and accompanying legal vulnerabilities.

Short films about flying

Online artwork which streams web-cam images live from the Internet and re-mixes them into disjointed narrative sequences, thereby producing cinema as a 'found object' made entirely of live material streamed from the internet. ‘Short Films about Flying’ is an online film which explores how a cinematic work can be generated using live material from the internet. The work is driven by software that takes surveillance video from a live camera feed at Logan Airport, Boston, and combines this with randomly grabbed audio from the web and texts taken from websites, chat rooms, message boards etc. This results in an endless open edition of unique cinematic works in real-time. By combining the language of cinema with global real-time data technologies, this work is one of the first new media artworks to re-imagine the internet in a different sensory form as a cinematic space. ‘Short Films about Flying’ was developed over the course of a year in collaboration with Jon Thomson (Slade) to explore how the concept of the found object can be re-conceptualised as the found data stream. It has informed other research by Craighead and Thomson, such as the web project http://www.templatecinema.com, and began an examination into relationships between montage and live virtual data –an early example of which would be ‘Flat Earth’, an animated work developed for Channel 4 in 2007, with the production company Animate. This piece has been cited in discussions on new media art, as a significant example of artworks using a database as their determining structure. It was acquired for the Arts Council Collection and has continuously toured significant international venues over the last 4 years. Citations include:’ Time and Technology’ by Charlie Gere (2006); 'The Wrong Categories' by Kris Cohen (2006); 'Networked Art - Practices and Positions' edited by Tom Corby (Routledge 2005) and Grayson Perry in The Times (9.8.06).

Short sea como alternativa ao transporte terrestre

O Short Sea Shipping (SSS) é um conceito de transporte marítimo de difícil definição. No entanto, considera-se neste trabalho, que corresponde ao movimento de carga e passageiros por mar entre portos situados geográficamente na Europa ou entre outros portos que não estejam situados na Europa, mas que partilham costa com mares que banham a Europa. Esta definição é sem dúvida aquela que melhor se adequa à inclusão do Short SSS como elo de uma cadeia multimodal de transporte de mercadorias no espaço Europeu, e como alternativa ao transporte de mercadorias apenas por estrada. Este trabalho aborda alguns conceitos importantes subjacentes ao transporte marítimo de forma a permitir uma contextualização que possibilite uma melhor compreensão da abordagem feita ao SSS. A sua promoção e implementação, como alternativa viável para o transporte de mercadorias dentro do espaço Europeu, são objetivos da política de transportes da União Europeia (UE). Este trabalho reflete sobre algumas das políticas estratégicas de promoção da UE para impulsionar o SSS como alternativa ao transporte rodoviário. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar se o SSS é uma alternativa ao transporte terrestre, no contexto de uma distribuição no Reino Unido de produtos de uma Industria localizada nos arredores da cidade do Porto. Neste trabalho analisou-se as vantagens e desvantagens do SSS, foi efetuada uma descrição do Porto de Leixões como porto escolhido para as expedições, assim como uma análise descritiva dos serviços de Short Sea disponiveis neste porto para as zonas de distribuição desta empresa. Foram descritos os fatores chave da mudança de transporte terrestre para SSS, efectuada uma caracterização da distribuição desta empresa e da solução que esta adotou para distribuir os seus produtos no Reino Unido. A anállise económica da operação, dos tempos de trânsito são dois temas fundamentais para a viabilidade da solução como alternativa ao transporte terrestre.