Ordered mesoporous titanium oxide for thin film microbatteries with enhanced lithium storage

A 3D mesoporous TiO2 material with well-developed mesostructure is prepared in the form of a binder-free thin (100 nm) film and studied as potential candidate for the negative electrode in lithium microbatteries. By appropriate thermal treatments, the selected crystal structure (anatase, rutile, or amorphous), and micro-/mesostructure of the materials was obtained. The effects of voltage window and prelithiation treatment improved first cycle reversibility up to 86% and capacity retention of 90% over 100 cycles. After a prolonged intercalation of lithium ions in ordered mesoporous TiO2 appeared small particles assigned to Li2Ti2O4 with cubic structure as observed from ex-situ TEM micrographs. This study highlights the flexibility of the potential window to which the electrode can operate. Maximum capacity values over 100 cycles of 470 μA h cm−2 μm−1 and 177 μA h cm−2 μm−1 are obtained for voltage ranges of 0.1–2.6 V and 1.0–2.6 V, respectively. The observed values are between 6 and 2 times higher than those obtained for films with 600 nm (80 μA h cm−2 μm−1) and 900 nm (92 μA h cm−2 μm−1) lengths. This indicates that 100 nm thin TiO2 films with high accessibility show finite-length type diffusion which is interesting for this particular application.

"To Hold the World in Contempt": The British Empire, War, and the Irish and Indian Nationalist Press, 1899-1914

The era between the close of the nineteenth century and the onset of the First World War witnessed a marked increase in radical agitation among Indian and Irish nationalists. The most outspoken political leaders of the day founded a series of widely circulated newspapers in India and Ireland, placing these editors in the enviable position of both reporting and creating the news. Nationalist journalists were in the vanguard of those pressing vocally for an independent India and Ireland, and together constituted an increasingly problematic contingent for the British Empire. The advanced-nationalist press in Ireland and the nationalist press in India took the lead in facilitating the exchange of provocative ideas—raising awareness of perceived imperial injustices, offering strategic advice, and cementing international solidarity. Irish and Indian press coverage of Britain’s imperial wars constituted one of the premier weapons in the nationalists’ arsenal, permitting them to build support for their ideology and forward their agenda in a manner both rapid and definitive. Directing their readers’ attention to conflicts overseas proved instructive in how the Empire dealt with those who resisted its policies, and also showcased how it conducted its affairs with its allies. As such, critical press coverage of the Boxer Rebellion, Boer War, Russo-Japanese War, and World War I bred disaffection for the Empire, while attempts by the Empire to suppress the critiques further alienated the public. This dissertation offers the first comparative analysis of the major nationalist press organs in India and Ireland, using the prism of war to illustrate the increasingly persuasive role of the press in promoting resistance to the Empire. It focuses on how the leading Indian and Irish editors not only fostered a nationalist agenda within their own countries, but also worked in concert to construct a global anti-imperialist platform. By highlighting the anti-imperial rhetoric of the nationalist press in India and Ireland and illuminating their strategies for attaining self-government, this study deepens understanding of the seeds of nationalism, making a contribution to comparative imperial scholarship, and demonstrating the power of the media to alter imperial dynamics and effect political change.

The McSweeney's Group: Modernist Roots and Contemporary Permutations in Little Magazines

The purpose of this project centered on the influential literary magazine Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Using Bruno Latour’s network theory as well as the methods put forth by Robert Scholes and Clifford Wulfman to study modernist little magazines, I analyzed the influence McSweeney’s has on contemporary little magazines. I traced the connections between McSweeney’s and other paradigmatic examples of little magazines—The Believer and n+1—to show how the McSweeney’s aesthetic and business practice creates a model for more recent publications. My thesis argued that The Believer continues McSweeney’s aesthetic mission. In contrast, n+1 positioned itself against the McSweeney’s aesthetic, which indirectly created a space within the little magazines for writers, philosophers, and artists to debate the prevailing aesthetic theories of the contemporary period. The creation of this space connects these contemporary magazines back to modernist little magazines, thereby validating my decision to use the methods of Scholes and Wulfman.

Optimization of Pattern Matching Algorithms for Multi- and Many-Core Platforms

Image and video compression play a major role in the world today, allowing the storage and transmission of large multimedia content volumes. However, the processing of this information requires high computational resources, hence the improvement of the computational performance of these compression algorithms is very important. The Multidimensional Multiscale Parser (MMP) is a pattern-matching-based compression algorithm for multimedia contents, namely images, achieving high compression ratios, maintaining good image quality, Rodrigues et al. [2008]. However, in comparison with other existing algorithms, this algorithm takes some time to execute. Therefore, two parallel implementations for GPUs were proposed by Ribeiro [2016] and Silva [2015] in CUDA and OpenCL-GPU, respectively. In this dissertation, to complement the referred work, we propose two parallel versions that run the MMP algorithm in CPU: one resorting to OpenMP and another that converts the existing OpenCL-GPU into OpenCL-CPU. The proposed solutions are able to improve the computational performance of MMP by 3 and 2:7 , respectively. The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) is the most recent standard for compression of image and video. Its impressive compression performance, makes it a target for many adaptations, particularly for holoscopic image/video processing (or light field). Some of the proposed modifications to encode this new multimedia content are based on geometry-based disparity compensations (SS), developed by Conti et al. [2014], and a Geometric Transformations (GT) module, proposed by Monteiro et al. [2015]. These compression algorithms for holoscopic images based on HEVC present an implementation of specific search for similar micro-images that is more efficient than the one performed by HEVC, but its implementation is considerably slower than HEVC. In order to enable better execution times, we choose to use the OpenCL API as the GPU enabling language in order to increase the module performance. With its most costly setting, we are able to reduce the GT module execution time from 6.9 days to less then 4 hours, effectively attaining a speedup of 45 .

Evaluation of morphological and physical characteristics of hazelnut varieties

In this study 15 hazelnut varieties existing in a collection of Viseu Agricultural Station were evaluated. The nuts were studied in respect of their morphological characteristics, such as fruit and kernel weight, index of compression and of shape and shell thickness. The study was complemented with analysis of physical properties such as colour and texture, and the determination of moisture content and water activity, given the importance that these parameters take in the conservation capacity of the fruits. All experiments followed standard methods, being also used the following equipment: texturometer, colorimeter and hygrometer. The results obtained allowed to know the expectable ranges for each color parameters in the shell, film and kernels: L*, a*, b* chroma and hue, having been found statistically significant differences among the cultivars studied. As regards the textural parameters evaluated by crust crushing and crumb cutting tests (hardness, friability and resilience) there were also significant differences. Evaluation of moisture was of great importance because confirmed that the solar drying, used to extract the excess of moisture from the fruits, was sufficient to reach low values, between 1.66% and 4.52%, being so a guarantee of preservation.

Manipulating the structural and electronic properties of epitaxial NaNbO3 films via strain and stoichiometry

Due to their intriguing dielectric, pyroelectric, elasto-electric, or opto-electric properties, oxide ferroelectrics are vital candidates for the fabrication of most electronics. However, these extraordinary properties exist mainly in the temperature regime around the ferroelectric phase transition, which is usually several hundreds of K away from room temperature. Therefore, the manipulation of oxide ferroelectrics, especially moving the ferroelectric transition towards room temperature, is of great interest for application and also basic research. In this thesis, we demonstrate this using examples of NaNbO3 films. We show that the transition temperature of these films can be modified via plastic strain caused by epitaxial film growth on a structurally mismatched substrate, and this strain can be fixed by controlling the stoichiometry. The structural and electronic properties of Na1+xNbO3+δ thin films are carefully examined by among others XRD (e.g. RSM) and TEM and cryoelectronic measurements. Especially the electronic features are carefully analyzed via specially developed interdigitated electrodes in combination with integrated temperature sensor and heater. The electronic data are interpreted using existing as well as novel theories and models, they are proved to be closely correlated to the structural characteristics. The major results are: -Na1+xNbO3+δ thin films can be grown epitaxially on (110)NdGaO3 with a thickness up to 140 nm (thicker films have not been studied). Plastic relaxation of the compressive strain sets in when the thickness of the film exceeds approximately 10 – 15 nm. Films with excess Na are mainly composed of NaNbO3 with minor contribution of Na3NbO4. The latter phase seems to form nanoprecipitates that are homogeneously distributed in the NaNbO3 film which helps to stabilize the film and reduce the relaxation of the strain. -For the nominally stoichiometric films, the compressive strain leads to a broad and frequency-dispersive phase transition at lower temperature (125 – 147 K). This could be either a new transition or a shift in temperature of a known transition. Considering the broadness and frequency dispersion of the transition, this is actually a transition from the dielectric state at high temperature to a relaxor-type ferroelectric state at low temperature. The latter is based on the formation of polar nano-regions (PNRs). Using the electric field dependence of the freezing temperature, allows a direct estimation of the volume (70 to 270 nm3) and diameter (5.2 to 8 nm, spherical approximation) of the PNRs. The values confirm with literature values which were measured by other technologies. -In case of the off-stoichiometric samples, we observe again the classical ferroelectric behavior. However, the thermally hysteretic phase transition which is observed around 620 – 660 K for unstrained material is shifted to room temperature due to the compressive strain. Beside to the temperature shift, the temperature dependence of the permittivity is nearly identical for strained and unstrained materials. -The last but not least, in all cases, a significant anisotropy in the electronic and structural properties is observed which arises automatically from the anisotropic strain caused by the orthorhombic structure of the substrate. However, this anisotropy cannot be explained by the classical model which tries to fit an orthorhombic film onto an orthorhombic substrate. A novel “square lattice” model in which the films adapt a “square” shaped lattice in the plane of the film during the epitaxial growth at elevated temperature (~1000 K) nicely explains the experimental results. In this thesis we sketch a way to manipulate the ferroelectricity of NaNbO3 films via strain and stoichiometry. The results indicate that compressive strain which is generated by the epitaxial growth of the film on mismatched substrate is able to reduce the ferroelectric transition temperature or induce a phase transition at low temperature. Moreover, by adding Na in the NaNbO3 film a secondary phase Na3NbO4 is formed which seems to stabilize the main phase NaNbO3 and the strain and, thus, is able to engineer the ferroelectric behavior from the expected classical ferroelectric for perfect stoichiometry to relaxor-type ferroelectric for slightly off-stoichiometry, back to classical ferroelectric for larger off-stoichiometry. Both strain and stoichiometry are proven as perfect methods to optimize the ferroelectric properties of oxide films.

South Carolina Motion Picture Incentive Act : Policies and Procedures

The purpose of South Carolina motion picture incentives is to bring economic benefit to the State of South Carolina by using South Carolina as a site for film and television production, promoting the hiring of South Carolina residents as staff, cast, and crew, and promoting the purchase of supplies and services from South Carolina companies.

Lost fishing gear and litter at Gorringe Bank (NE Atlantic)

Studies concerning marine litter have received great attention over the last several years by the scientific community mainly due to their ecological and economic impacts in marine ecosystems, from coastal waters to the deep ocean seafloor. The distribution, type and abundance of marine litter in Ormonde and Gettysburg, the two seamounts of Gorringe Bank, were analyzed from photo and video imagery obtained during ROV-based surveys carried out at 60–3015 m depths during the E/V Nautilus cruise NA017. Located approximately 125 nm southwest of Portugal, Gorringe Bank lays at the crossroad between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and is therefore characterized by an intense maritime traffic and fishing activities. The high frequency of lost or discarded fishing gear, such as cables, longlines and nets, observed on Gorringe Bank suggests an origin mostly fromfishing activities,with a clear turnover in the type of litter (mostly metal, glass and to amuch lesser extent, plastic) with increasing depth. Litter was more abundant at the summit of Gorringe Bank (ca. 4 items·km−1), decreasing to less than 1 item·km−1 at the flanks and to ca. 2 items·km−1 at greater depths. Nevertheless, litter abundance appeared to be lower than in continental margin areas. The results presented herein are a contribution to support further actions for the conservation of vulnerable habitats on Gorringe Bank so that they can continue contributing to fishery productivity in the surrounding region.

Underwater survey of ichthyofauna of eastern Atlantic seamounts: Gettysburg and Ormond (Gorringe Bank)

Gettysburg and Ormond are seamounts belonging to the Gorringe Bank, which is located on the Europen-African plate boundary. Given the importance of these oceanic features for understanding marine biodiversity patterns, two surveys were carried out in 1998 (Gettysburg) and 1999 (Ormond) using diving, photography and video for species identification and abundance evaluation. Of the 9 fish species found at Gettysburg and 11 at Ormond, 6 were common to both sites and these included the dominant species: the oceanic and commercially important, Seriola rivoliana, and the coastal, typically Atlantic-Mediterranean Coris julis and Anthias anthias. The strong representation of coastal, demersal and Atlantic-Mediterranean species in the Gorringe Bank region and the presence of Abudefduf luridus, an endemic Macaronesian species, at Gettysburg suggests that the upper part of these seamounts may have acted and still act as “stepping stones” for the dispersal of coastal species.

Making Money from Monsters

It seems Australia is the place to be at the moment when it comes to making and creating horror films. Mark David Ryan explains how you can get involved in this boom industry. If you’re a writer with a passion for scary movies, a wordsmith who watches the occasional horror flick and writing your own has crossed your mind, or a writer who terrifies readers with an interest in screenwriting, then there has never been a better time to write Aussie horror flicks. This article introduces the horror genre’s core characteristics, issues to consider when crafting a horror flick, and provides tips for getting scripts into the hands of producers.

Show

Script for non-verbal performance. Research Component: Silent Treatment: Creating Non-verbal Performance Works for Children The research field of theatre for young people draws on theories of child development and popular culture. SHOW explored personal and social development, friendship and creative play through the lens of the experience of girls aged 8-12. This project consolidated and refined innovative approaches to creating non-verbal theatre performance, and addressed challenges inherent in the creation of a performance by adults for young audiences. A significant finding of the project was the unanticipated convergence of creative practice and research into child behaviour and development: the congruence of content (Female bullying) and theatrical form (non-verbal performance: “Within the hidden culture of aggression, girls fight with body language and relationships instead of fists and knives. In this world, friendship is a weapon, and the sting of a shout pales in comparison to a day of someone’s silence. There is no gesture more devastating than the back turning away Simmons, Rachel (2002:3) Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture Of Aggression In Girls Schwartz Books The creative development and drafting process focussed on negotiating the conceptual design and practical constraints of incorporating diegetic music and video sources into the narrative. The authorial (and production) challenges of creating a script that could facilitate the re-mount a non-verbal work for a company specialising in text-based theatre . Show was commissioned by the Queensland Theatre Company in 2003, toured into Queensland Schools by the Queensland Arts Council and in 2004 was performed at the Sydney Opera House.

Farmscape online : participatory design of internet meetings with farmers

This paper presents aspects of a longitudinal study in the design and practice of Internet meetings between farmer their advisors and researchers in rural Australia. It reports on the use of Microsoft NetMeeting (NM) by a group of agricultural researchers from Australia's CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) for regular meetings, over nine years, with farmers and the commercial advisers. It describes lessons drawn from this experience about the conditions under which telecollaborative tools, such as NM and video conferencing, are likely to be both useful and used.

Producing new Asian masculinities

An exploration of issues of Asian masculinity in white cultures, integrating film and literary analysis, autobiography and postcolonial theory.

A study of entrepreneurship : Taiwanese digital content companies in China

China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has greatly enhanced global interest in investment in the Chinese media market, where demand for digital content is growing rapidly. The East Asian region is positioned as a growth area in many forms of digital content and digital service industries. China is attempting to catch up and take its place as a production centre to offset challenges from neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, Taiwan is seeking to use China both as an export market and as a production site for its digital content. This research investigates entry strategies of Taiwanese digital content firms into the Chinese market. By examining the strategies of a sample of Taiwan-based companies, this study also explores the evolution of their market strategies. However, the focus is on how distinctive business practices such as guanxi are important to Taiwanese business and to relations with Mainland China. This research examines how entrepreneurs manage the characteristics of digital content products and in turn how digital content entrepreneurs adapt to changing market circumstances. This project selected five Taiwan-based digital content companies that have business operations in China: Wang Film, Artkey, CnYES, Somode and iPartment. The study involved a field trip, undertaken between November 2006 and March 2007 to Shanghai and Taiwan to conduct interviews and to gather documentation and archival reports. Six senior managers and nine experts were interviewed. Data were analysed according to Miller’s firm-level entrepreneurship theory, foreign direct investment theory, Life Cycle Model and guanxi philosophy. Most studies of SMEs have focused on free market (capitalist) environments. In contrast, this thesis examines how Taiwanese digital content firms’ strategies apply in the Chinese market. I identified three main types of business strategy: cost-reduction, innovation and quality-enhancement; and four categories of functional strategies: product, marketing, resource acquisition and organizational restructuring. In this study, I introduce the concept of ‘entrepreneurial guanxi’, special relationships that imply mutual obligation, assurance and understanding to secure and exchange favors in entrepreneurial activities. While guanxi is a feature of many studies of business in Pan-Chinese society, it plays an important mediating role in digital content industries. In this thesis, I integrate the ‘Life Cycle Model’ with the dynamic concept of strategy. I outline the significant differences in the evolution of strategy between two types of digital content companies: off-line firms (Wang Film and Artkey) and web-based firms (CnYES, Somode and iPartment). Off-line digital content firms tended to adopt ‘resource acquisition strategies’ in their initial stages and ‘marketing strategies’ in second and subsequent stages. In contrast, web-based digital content companies mainly adopted product and marketing strategies in the early stages, and would adopt innovative approaches towards product and marketing strategies in the whole process of their business development. Some web-based digital content companies also adopted organizational restructuring strategies in the final stage. Finally, I propose the ‘Taxonomy Matrix of Entrepreneurial Strategies’ to emphasise the two dimensions of this matrix: innovation, and the firm’s resource acquisition for entrepreneurial strategy. This matrix is divided into four cells: Effective, Bounded, Conservative, and Impoverished.