Current research in embankment dam engineering at imperial college London

This paper gives a short introduction to two research streams in embankment dam engineering underway at Imperial College London. The first is the modelling of embankment dam behaviour during earthquakes and the second is an investigation into the susceptibility of granular filters to internal erosion. The research motivation, methods and expected outcomes of each stream are discussed.

Report on the British Society of Rheology mid-winter meeting on The Rheology of Foams and Emulsions, Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London 10th - 11th December 2007

S.J. Cox, S. Neethling and H. Wilson (2008) British Society of Rheology mid-winter meeting on The Rheology of Foams and Emulsions. Applied Rheology 18:93-95

Femina (Trinity College, Cambridge MS B.14.40) : edited with an Introduction and Notes

Rothwell, W., Femina (Trinity College, Cambridge MS B.14.40); edited with an Introduction and Notes (The Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub, 2005) RAE2008

O perfil de personalidade dos estudantes de engenharia informática

Dissertação apresentada à Universidade Fernando Pessoa, como parte dos requisitos necessários para a obtenção do grau Mestre em Psicologia, ramo de Psicologia do Trabalho e das Organizações

A proposal for the better supplying of churches in our foreign plantations, and for converting the savage Americans to Christianity, by a college to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda.

http://www.archive.org/details/proposalforbette00berkrich

A Two-step Statistical Approach for Inferring Network Traffic Demands (Revises Technical Report BUCS-2003-003)

Accurate knowledge of traffic demands in a communication network enables or enhances a variety of traffic engineering and network management tasks of paramount importance for operational networks. Directly measuring a complete set of these demands is prohibitively expensive because of the huge amounts of data that must be collected and the performance impact that such measurements would impose on the regular behavior of the network. As a consequence, we must rely on statistical techniques to produce estimates of actual traffic demands from partial information. The performance of such techniques is however limited due to their reliance on limited information and the high amount of computations they incur, which limits their convergence behavior. In this paper we study a two-step approach for inferring network traffic demands. First we elaborate and evaluate a modeling approach for generating good starting points to be fed to iterative statistical inference techniques. We call these starting points informed priors since they are obtained using actual network information such as packet traces and SNMP link counts. Second we provide a very fast variant of the EM algorithm which extends its computation range, increasing its accuracy and decreasing its dependence on the quality of the starting point. Finally, we evaluate and compare alternative mechanisms for generating starting points and the convergence characteristics of our EM algorithm against a recently proposed Weighted Least Squares approach.

Program Representation Size in an Intermediate Language with Intersection and Union Types

The CIL compiler for core Standard ML compiles whole programs using a novel typed intermediate language (TIL) with intersection and union types and flow labels on both terms and types. The CIL term representation duplicates portions of the program where intersection types are introduced and union types are eliminated. This duplication makes it easier to represent type information and to introduce customized data representations. However, duplication incurs compile-time space costs that are potentially much greater than are incurred in TILs employing type-level abstraction or quantification. In this paper, we present empirical data on the compile-time space costs of using CIL as an intermediate language. The data shows that these costs can be made tractable by using sufficiently fine-grained flow analyses together with standard hash-consing techniques. The data also suggests that non-duplicating formulations of intersection (and union) types would not achieve significantly better space complexity.

Lightweight Formal Verification in Classroom Instruction of Reasoning about Functional Code

In college courses dealing with material that requires mathematical rigor, the adoption of a machine-readable representation for formal arguments can be advantageous. Students can focus on a specific collection of constructs that are represented consistently. Examples and counterexamples can be evaluated. Assignments can be assembled and checked with the help of an automated formal reasoning system. However, usability and accessibility do not have a high priority and are not addressed sufficiently well in the design of many existing machine-readable representations and corresponding formal reasoning systems. In earlier work [Lap09], we attempt to address this broad problem by proposing several specific design criteria organized around the notion of a natural context: the sphere of awareness a working human user maintains of the relevant constructs, arguments, experiences, and background materials necessary to accomplish the task at hand. We report on our attempt to evaluate our proposed design criteria by deploying within the classroom a lightweight formal verification system designed according to these criteria. The lightweight formal verification system was used within the instruction of a common application of formal reasoning: proving by induction formal propositions about functional code. We present all of the formal reasoning examples and assignments considered during this deployment, most of which are drawn directly from an introductory text on functional programming. We demonstrate how the design of the system improves the effectiveness and understandability of the examples, and how it aids in the instruction of basic formal reasoning techniques. We make brief remarks about the practical and administrative implications of the system’s design from the perspectives of the student, the instructor, and the grader.

Dr. Richard Caulfield: antiquarian, scholar and academic librarian

The history of higher learning in Cork can be traced from its late eighteenth-century origins to its present standing within the extended confines of the Neo-Gothic architecture of University College, Cork. This institution, founded in 1845 was the successor and ultimate achievement of its forerunner, the Royal Cork Institution. The opening in 1849 of the college, then known as Queen's College, Cork, brought about a change in the role of the Royal Cork Institution as a centre of education. Its ambition of being the 'Munster College' was subsumed by the Queen's College even though it continued to function as a centre of learning up to the 1805. At this time its co-habitant, the School of Design, received a new wing under the benevolent patronage of William Crawford, and the Royal Cork Institution ceased to exist as the centre for cultural, technical and scientific learning it had set out to be. The building it occupied is today known as the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery.

Uncertainty in wind energy forecasting

Wind energy is the energy source that contributes most to the renewable energy mix of European countries. While there are good wind resources throughout Europe, the intermittency of the wind represents a major problem for the deployment of wind energy into the electricity networks. To ensure grid security a Transmission System Operator needs today for each kilowatt of wind energy either an equal amount of spinning reserve or a forecasting system that can predict the amount of energy that will be produced from wind over a period of 1 to 48 hours. In the range from 5m/s to 15m/s a wind turbine’s production increases with a power of three. For this reason, a Transmission System Operator requires an accuracy for wind speed forecasts of 1m/s in this wind speed range. Forecasting wind energy with a numerical weather prediction model in this context builds the background of this work. The author’s goal was to present a pragmatic solution to this specific problem in the ”real world”. This work therefore has to be seen in a technical context and hence does not provide nor intends to provide a general overview of the benefits and drawbacks of wind energy as a renewable energy source. In the first part of this work the accuracy requirements of the energy sector for wind speed predictions from numerical weather prediction models are described and analysed. A unique set of numerical experiments has been carried out in collaboration with the Danish Meteorological Institute to investigate the forecast quality of an operational numerical weather prediction model for this purpose. The results of this investigation revealed that the accuracy requirements for wind speed and wind power forecasts from today’s numerical weather prediction models can only be met at certain times. This means that the uncertainty of the forecast quality becomes a parameter that is as important as the wind speed and wind power itself. To quantify the uncertainty of a forecast valid for tomorrow requires an ensemble of forecasts. In the second part of this work such an ensemble of forecasts was designed and verified for its ability to quantify the forecast error. This was accomplished by correlating the measured error and the forecasted uncertainty on area integrated wind speed and wind power in Denmark and Ireland. A correlation of 93% was achieved in these areas. This method cannot solve the accuracy requirements of the energy sector. By knowing the uncertainty of the forecasts, the focus can however be put on the accuracy requirements at times when it is possible to accurately predict the weather. Thus, this result presents a major step forward in making wind energy a compatible energy source in the future.

The Queen's College, Cork: its origins and early history, 1803-1858

This work examines the origins and early history of the Queen's College, Cork. Designedly there is as much stress on the origins as on the early history, for it is the contention of the work that the College was something more than a legislative mushroom. It was very much in the tradition of the civic universities which added an exciting new dimension to academic life in these islands in the nineteenth century. The first chapter surveys university practice and thinking at the opening of the century, relying exclusively on published sources. The second chapter is devoted specifically to the state of learning in Cork during the period, and makes extensive use of hitherto unpublished manuscript material in relation to the Royal Cork Institution. The third chapter deals with the highly significant evidence on education embodied in the Report of the Select Committee on Irish Education of 1838. This material has not previously been published. In chapter four an extended study is made of relevant letters in the manuscript correspondence of Sir Robert Peel - even the most recent authoritative biography has ignored this material. The remaining three chapters are devoted more specifically to the College, both in the formulation or policy and in its practical working. In chapter six there is an extended survey of early College life based exclusively on hitherto unpublished manuscript material in the College Archives. All of these sources, together with incidental published material, are set out at the end of each chapter.

Investigation of micro-devices for neurobiological applications

The aim of this project is to integrate neuronal cell culture with commercial or in-house built micro-electrode arrays and MEMS devices. The resulting device is intended to support neuronal cell culture on its surface, expose specific portions of a neuronal population to different environments using microfluidic gradients and stimulate/record neuronal electrical activity using micro-electrode arrays. Additionally, through integration of chemical surface patterning, such device can be used to build neuronal cell networks of specific size, conformation and composition. The design of this device takes inspiration from the nervous system because its development and regeneration are heavily influenced by surface chemistry and fluidic gradients. Hence, this device is intended to be a step forward in neuroscience research because it utilizes similar concepts to those found in nature. The large part of this research revolved around solving technical issues associated with integration of biology, surface chemistry, electrophysiology and microfluidics. Commercially available microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are mechanically and chemically brittle making them unsuitable for certain surface modification and micro-fluidic integration techniques described in the literature. In order to successfully integrate all the aspects into one device, some techniques were heavily modified to ensure that their effects on MEA were minimal. In terms of experimental work, this thesis consists of 3 parts. The first part dealt with characterization and optimization of surface patterning and micro-fluidic perfusion. Through extensive image analysis, the optimal conditions required for micro-contact printing and micro-fluidic perfusion were determined. The second part used a number of optimized techniques and successfully applied these to culturing patterned neural cells on a range of substrates including: Pyrex, cyclo-olefin and SiN coated Pyrex. The second part also described culturing neurons on MEAs and recording electrophysiological activity. The third part of the thesis described integration of MEAs with patterned neuronal culture and microfluidic devices. Although integration of all methodologies proved difficult, a large amount of data relating to biocompatibility, neuronal patterning, electrophysiology and integration was collected. Original solutions were successfully applied to solve a number of issues relating to consistency of micro printing and microfluidic integration leading to successful integration of techniques and device components.

Transport energy demand: techno-economic modelling and scenarios for Irish climate policy

The case for energy policy modelling is strong in Ireland, where stringent EU climate targets are projected to be overshot by 2015. Policy targets aiming to deliver greenhouse gas and renewable energy targets have been made, but it is unclear what savings are to be achieved and from which sectors. Concurrently, the growth of personal mobility has caused an astonishing increase in CO2 emissions from private cars in Ireland, a 37% rise between 2000 and 2008, and while there have been improvements in the efficiency of car technology, there was no decrease in the energy intensity of the car fleet in the same period. This thesis increases the capacity for evidenced-based policymaking in Ireland by developing techno-economic transport energy models and using them to analyse historical trends and to project possible future scenarios. A central focus of this thesis is to understand the effect of the car fleet‘s evolving technical characteristics on energy demand. A car stock model is developed to analyse this question from three angles: Firstly, analysis of car registration and activity data between 2000 and 2008 examines the trends which brought about the surge in energy demand. Secondly, the car stock is modelled into the future and is used to populate a baseline “no new policy” scenario, looking at the impact of recent (2008-2011) policy and purchasing developments on projected energy demand and emissions. Thirdly, a range of technology efficiency, fuel switching and behavioural scenarios are developed up to 2025 in order to indicate the emissions abatement and renewable energy penetration potential from alternative policy packages. In particular, an ambitious car fleet electrification target for Ireland is examined. The car stock model‘s functionality is extended by linking it with other models: LEAP-Ireland, a bottom-up energy demand model for all energy sectors in the country; Irish TIMES, a linear optimisation energy system model; and COPERT, a pollution model. The methodology is also adapted to analyse trends in freight energy demand in a similar way. Finally, this thesis addresses the gap in the representation of travel behaviour in linear energy systems models. A novel methodology is developed and case studies for Ireland and California are presented using the TIMES model. Transport Energy

College adjustment, depressive symptoms and peer support among undergraduate university students

Background: College adjustment is a developmental milestone that can be stressful and may lead to mental health problems such as depression. Support during this adjustment period is seen as essential, however it is unknown if informal peer support from fellow students has any impact on either college adjustment or depressive symptoms. Aim: To identify levels of social and personal college adjustment, depressive symptoms and peer support among students, and to examine the relationship between the variables. Design: A quantitative correlational design was used Instruments: Data were collected using two subscales of the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire; the Centre for Epidemiology Depressive Symptoms Scale and a subscale of the Peer Support Evaluation Inventory. Sample: The sample consisted of 417, first (n=188), second (n=134) and fourth (n=94) year nursing and midwifery students from one University in Ireland. Findings: The findings indicated that 20% of participants were poorly personally adjusted and 9% poorly socially adjusted. Furthermore, 34% of participants experienced significant depressive symptoms. Most students had good levels of peer support. Statistically significant relationships were found between all key variables, the strongest of which were between personal adjustment and depressive symptoms and social adjustment and depressive symptoms. Differences in adjustment and depressive symptom scores were found based on year of study, with second year students experiencing more depressive symptoms and having poorer personal adjustment scores. Participants who had poor relationships with their father’s experienced greater depressive symptoms and had more difficulties personally and socially adjusting to college. The alcohol consumption of participants had a statistically significant correlation with college adjustment, depressive symptoms and peer support, with higher consumption having a positive impact on the variables.