Microstructures and strengthening mechanisms of Cu/Ni/W nanolayered composites

Cu/Ni/W nanolayered composites with individual layer thickness ranging from 5nm to 300nm were prepared by a magnetron sputtering system. Microstructures and strength of the nanolayered composites were investigated by using the nanoindentation method combined with theoretical analysis. Microstructure characterization revealed that the Cu/Ni/W composite consists of a typical Cu/Ni coherent interface and Cu/W and Ni/W incoherent interfaces. Cu/Ni/W composites have an ultrahigh strength and a large strengthening ability compared with bi-constituent Cu–X(X¼Ni, W, Au, Ag, Cr, Nb, etc.) nanolayered composites. Summarizing the present results and those reported in the literature, we systematically analyze the origin of the ultrahigh strength and its length scale dependence by taking into account the constituent layer properties, layer scales and heterogeneous layer/layer interface characteristics, including lattice and modulus mismatch as well as interface structure.

25 million years to break a continent : early to middle Miocene rifting and syn-extensional magmatism in the southern Gulf of California

Cenozoic extension in western Mexico has been divided into two episodes separated by the change from convergence to oblique divergence at the plate boundary. The Gulf Extensional Province is thought to have started once subduction ended at ~12.5 Ma whereas early extension is classified as Basin and Range. Mid-Miocene volcanism of the Comondú group has been considered as a subduction-related arc, whereas post ~12.5 Ma volcanism would be extension-related. Our new integration of the continental onshore and offshore geology of the south-east Gulf region, backed by tens of Ar-Ar and U-Pb ages and geochemical studies, document an early-mid Miocene rifting and extension-related bimodal to andesitic magmatism prior to subduction termination. Between ~21 and 11 Ma a system of NNW-SSE high-angle extensional faults rifted the western side of the Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO) ignimbrite plateau. In Nayarit, rhyolitic domes and some basalts were emplaced along this extensional belt at 18-17 Ma. These rocks show strong antecrystic inheritance but an absence of Mesozoic and older xenocrysts, suggesting a genesis in the mid-upper crust triggered by extension-induced basaltic influx. In Sinaloa, large grabens were floored by huge dome complexes at ~21-17 Ma and filled by continental sediments with interlayered basalts dated at 15 Ma. Mid-Miocene volcanism, including the largely volcaniclastic Comondú strata in Baja California, was thus emplaced in rift basins and appears associated to decompression melting rather than subduction. Along the coast, flat-lying basaltic lava flows dated at 11-10 Ma are exposed just above the present sea level. Here crustal thickness is 25-20 Km, almost half that in the core of the SMO, implying significant lithosphere stretching before ~11 Ma. This mafic pulse, with relatively high Ti but still clear Nb-Ta negative spikes, may be related to the detachment of the lower part of the subducted slab, allowing asthenosphere to flow into parts of the mantle previously fluxed by subduction fluids. Very uniform OIB-like lavas appear in late Pliocene and Pleistocene, only 18 m.y. after the onset of rifting and ~9 m.y. after the end of subduction. Our study shows that rifting began much earlier than Late Miocene and progressively overwhelmed subduction in generating magmatism.

Supermassive

“Supermassive” is a synchronised four-channel video installation with sound. Each video channel shows a different camera view of an animated three-dimensional scene, which visually references galactic or astral imagery. This scene is comprised of forty-four separate clusters of slowly orbiting white text. Each cluster refers to a different topic that has been sourced online. The topics are diverse with recurring subjects relating to spirituality, science, popular culture, food and experiences of contemporary urban life. The slow movements of the text and camera views are reinforced through a rhythmic, contemplative soundtrack. As an immersive installation, “Supermassive” operates somewhere between a meditational mind map and a representation of a contemporary data stream. “Supermassive” contributes to studies in the field of contemporary art. It is particularly concerned with the ways that graphic representations of language can operate in the exploration of contemporary lived experiences, whether actual or virtual. Artists such as Ed Ruscha and Christopher Wool have long explored the emotive and psychological potentials of graphic text. Other artists such as Doug Aitken and Pipilotti Rist have engaged with the physical and spatial potentials of audio-visual installations to create emotive and symbolic experiences for their audiences. Using a practice-led research methodology, “Supermassive” extends these creative inquiries. By creating a reflective atmosphere in which divergent textual subjects are pictured together, the work explores not only how we navigate information, but also how such navigations inform understandings of our physical and psychological realities. “Supermassive” has been exhibited internationally at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California in 2013 and nationally with GBK as part of Art Month Sydney, also in 2013. It has been critically reviewed in The Los Angeles Times.

Tranquility falls

“Tranquility Falls” depicts a computer-generated waterfall set to sentimental stock music. As the water gushes, text borrowed from a popular talk show host’s self-help advice fade in and out graphically down the screen. As the animated phrases increase in tempo, the sounds of the waterfall begin to overwhelm the tender music. By creating overtly fabricated sensations of inspiration and awe, the work questions how and where we experience contemplation, wonderment and guidance in a contemporary context. “Tranquility Falls” contributes to studies in the field of contemporary art. It is particularly concerned with representations of spirituality and nature. These have been important themes in art practice for some time. For example, artists such as Olafur Eliasson and James Turrell have created artificial insertions in nature in order to question contemporary experiences of the natural environment. Other artists such as Nam Jun Paik have more directly addressed the changing relationship between spirituality and popular culture. Using a practice-led research methodology, “Tranquility Falls” extends these creative inquiries. By presenting an overtly synthetic but strangely evocative pun on a ‘fountain of knowledge’, it questions whether we are informed less by traditional engagements with organised religions and natural wonder, and instead, increasingly reliant on the mechanisms of popular culture for moments of insight and reflection. “Tranquility Falls” has been exhibited internationally at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California in 2013 and nationally with GBK as part of Art Month Sydney, also in 2013. It has been critically reviewed in The Los Angeles Times.

Changing relationships : Re-activating student and staff engagement in the design studio learning environment

QUT Teaching and Learning Support Services 'Revisiting University Teaching’program for mid-career academics. 'Innovations in Teaching at QUT' presentations. Presentations were part of a 2 day program that provides opportunities for experienced academic staff with responsibilities for teaching to review their current teaching practices and explore innovations in teaching that will assist them to enhance student learning and develop their own scholarship of teaching. The presenter responded to the following: 1.What is the innovation you have incorporated into your teaching? - give a brief overview/ description/ demonstration of the innovation 2.What challenges/issues prompted you to make changes in your approach? Were they discipline specific? Operational? Opportunistic? 3.What factors did you need to consider in implementing these changes? Which factors enabled success or hindered? 4.What has this innovation achieved so far? How have learners responded? How have the broader teaching team and academic staff from other units in your course responded? 5.How could this innovation be used by other academics in their teaching? What do you see as the possibilities for further expansion of this innovation? (NB. This question could be answered as part of a final sharing of group discussion). Presenter: Shannon Satherley

The artful life story : the oral history interview as fiction

This practice-led PhD project consists of two parts. The first is an exegesis documenting how a fiction writer can enter a dialogue with the oral history project in Australia. I identify two philosophical mandates of the oral history project in Australia that have shaped my creative practice: an emphasis on the analysis of the interviewee’s subjective experience as a means of understanding the past, and the desire to engage a wide audience in order to promote empathy towards the subject. The discussion around fiction in the oral history project is in its infancy. In order to deepen the debate, I draw on the more mature discussion in ethnographic fiction. I rely on literary theorists Steven Greenblatt, Dorrit Cohn and Gerard Genette to develop a clear understanding of the distinct narrative qualities of fiction, in order to explore how fiction can re-present and explore an interviewee’s subjective experience, and engage a wide readership. I document my own methodology for producing a work of fiction that is enriched by oral history methodology and theory, and responds to the mandates of the project. I demonstrate the means by which fiction and the oral history project can enter a dialogue in the truest sense of the word: a two-way conversation that enriches and augments practice in both fields. The second part of the PhD is a novel, set in Brisbane and based on oral history interviews and archival material I gathered over the course of the project. The novel centres on Brisbane artist Evelyn, who has been given an impossible task: a derelict old house is about to be demolished, and she must capture its history in a sculpture that will be built on the site. Evelyn struggles to come up with ideas and create the sculpture, realising that she has no way to discover who inhabited the house. What follows is a series of stories, each set in a different era in Brisbane’s history, which take the reader backwards through the house’s history. Hidden Objects is a novel about the impossibility of grasping the past and the powerful pull of storytelling. The novel is an experiment in a hybrid form and is accompanied by an appendix that identifies the historically accurate sources informing the fiction. The decisions about the aesthetics of the novel were a direct result of my engagement with the mandates of the oral history project in Australia. The novel was shortlisted in the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards, unpublished manuscript category.

The politics and poetics of coexistence : experiments at the intersection of art and environmental engineering

This research project explores how interdisciplinary art practices can provide ways for questioning and envisaging alternative modes of coexistence between humans and the non-humans who together, make up the environment. As a practiceled project, it combines a body of creative work (50%) and this exegesis (50%). My interdisciplinary artistic practice appropriates methods and processes from science and engineering and merges them into artistic contexts for critical and poetic ends. By blending pseudo-scientific experimentation with creative strategies like visual fiction, humour, absurd public performance and scripted audience participation, my work engages with a range of debates around ecology. This exegesis details the interplay between critical theory relating to these debates, the work of other creative practitioners and my own evolving artistic practice. Through utilising methods and processes drawn from my prior career in water engineering, I present an interdisciplinary synthesis that seeks to promote improved understandings of the causes and consequences of our ecological actions and inactions.

Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene rifting and synextensional magmatism in the southwestern Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico : the beginning of the Gulf of California rift

Although Basin and Range–style extension affected large areas of western Mexico after the Late Eocene, most consider that extension in the Gulf of California region began as subduction waned and ended ca. 14–12.5 Ma. A general consensus also exists in considering Early and Middle Miocene volcanism of the Sierra Madre Occidental and Comondú Group as subduction related, whereas volcanism after ca. 12.5 Ma is extension related. Here we present a new regional geologic study of the eastern Gulf of California margin in the states of Nayarit and Sinaloa, Mexico, backed by 43 new Ar-Ar and U-Pb mineral ages, and geochemical data that document an earlier widespread phase of extension. This extension across the southern and central Gulf Extensional Province began between Late Oligocene and Early Miocene time, but was focused in the region of the future Gulf of California in the Middle Miocene. Late Oligocene to Early Miocene rocks across northern Nayarit and southern Sinaloa were affected by major approximately north-south– to north-northwest– striking normal faults prior to ca. 21 Ma. Between ca. 21 and 11 Ma, a system of north-northwest–south-southeast high angle extensional faults continued extending the southwestern side of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Rhyolitic domes, shallow intrusive bodies, and lesser basalts were emplaced along this extensional belt at 20–17 Ma. Rhyolitic rocks, in particular the domes and lavas, often show strong antecrystic inheritance but only a few Mesozoic or older xenocrysts, suggesting silicic magma generation in the mid-upper crust triggered by an extension induced basaltic infl ux. In northern Sinaloa, large grabens were occupied by huge volcanic dome complexes ca. 21–17 Ma and filled by continental sediments with interlayered basalts dated as 15–14 Ma, a stratigraphy and timing very similar to those found in central Sonora (northeastern Gulf of California margin). Early to Middle Miocene volcanism occurred thus in rift basins, and was likely associated with decompression melting of upper mantle (inducing crustal partial melting) rather than with fluxing by fluids from the young and slow subducting microplates. Along the eastern side of the Gulf of California coast, from Farallón de San Ignacio island offshore Los Mochis, Sinaloa, to San Blas, Nayarit, a strike distance of >700 km, flat lying basaltic lavas dated as ca. 11.5–10 Ma are exposed just above the present sea level. Here crustal thickness is almost half that in the unextended core of the adjacent Sierra Madre Occidental, implying signifi cant lithosphere stretching before ca. 11 Ma. This mafic pulse, with subdued Nb-Ta negative spikes, may be related to the detachment of the lower part of the subducted slab, allowing an upward asthenospheric flow into an upper mantle previously modified by fluid fluxes related to past subduction. Widespread eruption of very uniform oceanic island basalt–like lavas occurred by the late Pliocene and Pleistocene, only 20 m.y. after the onset of rifting and ~9 m.y. after the end of subduction, implying that preexisting subduction-modified mantle had now become isolated from melt source regions. Our study shows that rifting across the southern-central Gulf Extensional Province began much earlier than the Late Miocene and provided a fundamental control on the style and composition of volcanism from at least 30 Ma. We envision a sustained period of lithospheric stretching and magmatism during which the pace and breadth of extension changed ca. 20–18 Ma to be narrower, and again after ca. 12.5 Ma, when the kinematics of rifting became more oblique.

Daytime pattern of post-exercise protein intake affects whole-body protein turnover in resistance-trained males

Background The pattern of protein intake following exercise may impact whole-body protein turnover and net protein retention. We determined the effects of different protein feeding strategies on protein metabolism in resistance-trained young men. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to ingest either 80g of whey protein as 8x10g every 1.5h (PULSE; n=8), 4x20g every 3h (intermediate, INT; n=7), or 2x40g every 6h (BOLUS; n=8) after an acute bout of bilateral knee extension exercise (4x10 repetitions at 80% maximal strength). Whole-body protein turnover (Q), synthesis (S), breakdown (B), and net balance (NB) were measured throughout 12h of recovery by a bolus ingestion of [ 15N]glycine with urinary [15N]ammonia enrichment as the collected end-product. Results PULSE Q rates were greater than BOLUS (?19%, P<0.05) with a trend towards being greater than INT (?9%, P=0.08). Rates of S were 32% and 19% greater and rates of B were 51% and 57% greater for PULSE as compared to INT and BOLUS, respectively (P<0.05), with no difference between INT and BOLUS. There were no statistical differences in NB between groups (P=0.23); however, magnitude-based inferential statistics revealed likely small (mean effect90%CI; 0.590.87) and moderate (0.800.91) increases in NB for PULSE and INT compared to BOLUS and possible small increase (0.421.00) for INT vs. PULSE. Conclusion We conclude that the pattern of ingested protein, and not only the total daily amount, can impact whole-body protein metabolism. Individuals aiming to maximize NB would likely benefit from repeated ingestion of moderate amounts of protein (?20g) at regular intervals (?3h) throughout the day.

Can I touch this?

Building knowledge economies seems synonymous with re-imaging urban fabrics. Cities producing vibrant public realms are believed to have better success in distinguishing themselves within a highly competitive market. Many governments are heavily investing in cultural enhancements burgeoning distinctive cosmopolitan centers of which public art is emerging as a significant stakeholder. Brisbane’s goal to grow a knowledge-based economy similarly addresses public art. To stimulate engagement with public art Brisbane City Council has delivered an online public art catalogue and assembled three public art trails, with a fourth newly augmented. While many pieces along these trails are obviously public others question the term ‘public’ through an obscured milieu where a ‘look but don’t touch’ policy is subtly implied. This study investigates the interactional relationship between publics and public art, and in doing so, explores the concept of accessibility. This paper recommends that installations of sculpture within an emerging city should be considered in terms of economic output measured through the degree in which the public engages.

The Tarim picrite-basalt-rhyolite suite, a Permian flood basalt from Northwest China with contrasting rhyolites produced by fractional crystallization and anatexis

We report major and trace element composition, Sr–Nd isotopic and seismological data for a picrite–basalt–rhyolite suite from the northern Tarim uplift (NTU), northwest China. The samples were recovered from 13 boreholes at depths between 5,166 and 6,333 m. The picritic samples have high MgO (14.5–16.8 wt%, volatiles included) enriched in incompatible element and have high 87Sr/86Sr and low 143Nd/144Nd isotopic ratios (εNd (t) = −5.3; Sri = 0.707), resembling the Karoo high-Ti picrites. All the basaltic samples are enriched in TiO2 (2.1–3.2 wt%, volatiles free), have high FeOt abundances (11.27–15.75 wt%, volatiles free), are enriched in incompatible elements and have high Sr and low Nd isotopic ratios (Sri = 0.7049–0.7065; εNd (t) = −4.1 to −0.4). High Nb/La ratios (0.91–1.34) of basalts attest that they are mantle-derived magma with negligible crustal contamination. The rhyolite samples can be subdivided into two coeval groups with overlapping U–Pb zircon ages between 291 ± 4 and 272 ± 2 Ma. Group 1 rhyolites are enriched in Nb and Ta, have similar Nb/La, Nb/U, and Sr–Nd isotopic compositions to the associated basalts, implying that they are formed by fractional crystallization of the basalts. Group 2 rhyolites are depleted in Nb and Ta, have low Nb/La ratios, and have very high Sr and low Nd isotopic ratios, implying that crustal materials have been extensively, if not exclusively, involved in their source. The picrite–basalt–rhyolite suite from the NTU, together with Permian volcanic rocks from elsewhere Tarim basin, constitute a Large Igneous Province (LIP) that is characterized by large areal extent, rapid eruption, OIB-type chemical composition, and eruption of high temperature picritic magma. The Early Permian magmatism, which covered an area >300,000 km2, is therefore named the Tarim Flood Basalt.

Predicting fault-prone software modules with rank sum classification

The detection and correction of defects remains among the most time consuming and expensive aspects of software development. Extensive automated testing and code inspections may mitigate their effect, but some code fragments are necessarily more likely to be faulty than others, and automated identification of fault prone modules helps to focus testing and inspections, thus limiting wasted effort and potentially improving detection rates. However, software metrics data is often extremely noisy, with enormous imbalances in the size of the positive and negative classes. In this work, we present a new approach to predictive modelling of fault proneness in software modules, introducing a new feature representation to overcome some of these issues. This rank sum representation offers improved or at worst comparable performance to earlier approaches for standard data sets, and readily allows the user to choose an appropriate trade-off between precision and recall to optimise inspection effort to suit different testing environments. The method is evaluated using the NASA Metrics Data Program (MDP) data sets, and performance is compared with existing studies based on the Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Naïve Bayes (NB) Classifiers, and with our own comprehensive evaluation of these methods.

The double risk of primitivism

This essay examines the possibilities for practices that appeal to the primitive in the contemporary cultural context. The idea of the primitive is driven by a desire to challenge the limitations of Western culture, while at the same time attracting the charge of promoting Eurocentrism. This essay investigates this double risk and how artists have sought to evade it, confound it, or accentuate it.

Applying quantile regression for modeling equivalent property damage only crashes to identify accident blackspots

Hot spot identification (HSID) aims to identify potential sites—roadway segments, intersections, crosswalks, interchanges, ramps, etc.—with disproportionately high crash risk relative to similar sites. An inefficient HSID methodology might result in either identifying a safe site as high risk (false positive) or a high risk site as safe (false negative), and consequently lead to the misuse the available public funds, to poor investment decisions, and to inefficient risk management practice. Current HSID methods suffer from issues like underreporting of minor injury and property damage only (PDO) crashes, challenges of accounting for crash severity into the methodology, and selection of a proper safety performance function to model crash data that is often heavily skewed by a preponderance of zeros. Addressing these challenges, this paper proposes a combination of a PDO equivalency calculation and quantile regression technique to identify hot spots in a transportation network. In particular, issues related to underreporting and crash severity are tackled by incorporating equivalent PDO crashes, whilst the concerns related to the non-count nature of equivalent PDO crashes and the skewness of crash data are addressed by the non-parametric quantile regression technique. The proposed method identifies covariate effects on various quantiles of a population, rather than the population mean like most methods in practice, which more closely corresponds with how black spots are identified in practice. The proposed methodology is illustrated using rural road segment data from Korea and compared against the traditional EB method with negative binomial regression. Application of a quantile regression model on equivalent PDO crashes enables identification of a set of high-risk sites that reflect the true safety costs to the society, simultaneously reduces the influence of under-reported PDO and minor injury crashes, and overcomes the limitation of traditional NB model in dealing with preponderance of zeros problem or right skewed dataset.

Not as it seems : using Deleuzian concepts of the imaginary to rethink children’s drawings

Deleuze (1990) states in Negotiations that signs are realized in ideas. Although Deleuze referred to cinema, his thinking about signs and ideas can apply to drawings. Cinema is moving imagery and drawing is static, however both are informed and constructed from realized ideas that continue to shift beyond the artifact. Theories about children’s drawings have historically pertained to establishing schematic universalities rather than acknowledging the agglomerative connections they make to the multiple things occurring around a drawing as it is created. Universal schemas however persist within early childhood art discourses despite the growth of critical theory research into other aspects of childhood. Deleuze’s assertions about the signs and classifications of cinema help to contest notions of schematic development, i.e. children should progress through particular iconic drawing stages at particular ages. Deleuze’s quotes and thoughts on the imaginary and imagination are referenced to interrogate ‘scientific’ knowledges and the gathering of evidential truths about children’s intellectual growth and development. Four examples from a dataset of drawings from a pilot study, undertaken by the author that tested the methodological potential of intergenerational collaborative drawing in early childhood settings, facilitate focused discussion on the above contestations.