Femtosecond laser-induced breakdown of multilayers and gold film

unavailable<br>H. Sun's e-mail address is shy780327@siom.ac.cn.

Long Run Trends in the Price of Energy and Energy Services

4 p.

Divergences in the Long Run Trends in the Price of Energy and of Energy Services

32 p.

The structure and petrology of the Johnny Lyon Hills area, Cochise County, Arizona

The Johnny Lyon Hills area is located in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona. The rocks of the area include a central core of Lower pre-Cambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks surrounded by a complexly faulted and tilted section of Upper pre-Cambrian and Paleozoic strata. Limited exposures of Mesozoic and Tertiary sedimentary and volcanic rocks are present at the north end of the map area. Late Tertiary and Quaternary alluvium almost completely surrounds and overlaps upon the older rocks.

The older pre-Cambrian rocks include a section of more than 9000 feet of generally moderately metamorphosed graywackes, slates and conglomerates of the Pinal schist injected in zones by somewhat younger rnyolite sheets. The original sediments were deposited in a geosyncline whose extent probably included large parts of Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas. During the Mazatzal Revolution the Pinal schist was deformed into northeast-trending, steeply dipping and plunging structures and the entire local section was overturned steeply toward the northwest. The pre-Cambrian Johnny Lyon granodiorite was emplaced as a large epi-tectonic pluton which modified the metamorphic character of part of the Pinal schist. Larsen method determinations indicate an age of about 715 million years for this rock, which is about the minimum age compatible with the geologic relations.

The Laramide orogeny produced numerous major thrust faults in the area involving all rocks older than and including the Lower Cretaceous Bisbee group. Major compression from the southwest and subsequent superimposed thrusting from the southeast and east are indicated. Minimum thrust displacements of more than a mile are clear and the probable displacements are of much greater magnitude. The crystalline core behaved as a single structural unit and probably caused important local divergences from the regional pattern of northeast-trending compressive forces. The massif was rotated as a unit 40 degrees or more about a northwest-trending axis overturning the pre-Cambrian fold axes in the Pinal schist.

Swarms of Late Cretaceous(?) or Early Tertiary(?) lamprophyric dikes cross the Laramide structures and are probably related to the large Texas Canyon stock several miles southeast of the map area. Intermittent high angle faulting, both older and younger than the dikes, has continued since the Laramide orogeny and has been superimposed on the older structures. This steep faulting combined with the fundamental northwesterly Laramide structural grain to produce the northwesterly trends characteristic of the mountain ridges and valleys of the area.

Long Run Demand for Energy Services: the Role of Economic and Technological Development

36 p.

Death or taxes? The political economy of sanitation expenditure in nineteenth-century Britain

This thesis consists of three papers studying the relationship between democratic reform, expenditure on sanitation public goods and mortality in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. During this period decisions over spending on critical public goods such as water supply and sewer systems were made by locally elected town councils, leading to extensive variation in the level of spending across the country. This dissertation uses new historical data to examine the political factors determining that variation, and the consequences for mortality rates.

The first substantive chapter describes the spread of government sanitation expenditure, and analyzes the factors that determined towns' willingness to invest. The results show the importance of towns' financial constraints, both in terms of the available tax base and access to borrowing, in limiting the level of expenditure. This suggests that greater involvement by Westminster could have been very effective in expediting sanitary investment. There is little evidence, however, that democratic reform was an important driver of greater expenditure.

Chapter 3 analyzes the effect of extending voting rights to the poor on government public goods spending. A simple model predicts that the rich and the poor will desire lower levels of public goods expenditure than the middle class, and so extensions of the right to vote to the poor will be associated with lower spending. This prediction is tested using plausibly exogenous variation in the extent of the franchise. The results strongly support the theoretical prediction: expenditure increased following relatively small extensions of the franchise, but fell once more than approximately 50% of the adult male population held the right to vote.

Chapter 4 tests whether the sanitary expenditure was effective in combating the high mortality rates following the Industrial Revolution. The results show that increases in urban expenditure on sanitation-water supply, sewer systems and streets-was extremely effective in reducing mortality from cholera and diarrhea.

Analysis of optical systems with extended depth of field using the Wigner distribution function

We describe the use of a Wigner distribution function approach for exploring the problem of extending the depth of field in a hybrid imaging system. The Wigner distribution function, in connection with the phase-space curve that formulates a joint phase-space description of an optical field, is employed as a tool to display and characterize the evolving behavior of the amplitude point spread function as a wave propagating along the optical axis. It provides a comprehensive exhibition of the characteristics for the hybrid imaging system in extending the depth of field from both wave optics and geometrical optics. We use it to analyze several well-known optical designs in extending the depth of field from a new viewpoint. The relationships between this approach and the earlier ambiguity function approach are also briefly investigated. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.

Ecologia de Tropidurus torquatus (Wied, 1820) (Squamata, Tropiduridae) no Costão de Itacoatiara, Parque Estadual da Serra da Tiririca, municípios de Niterói e Maricá, RJ

O lagarto Tropidurus torquatus (Wied, 1820) possui ampla distribuição geográfica e é encontrado em abundância nas áreas onde ocorre, sendo considerada uma espécie apropriada para estudos ecológicos. No presente estudo nós analisamos o período de atividade, o uso do microhabitat, a intensidade de forrageamento, a dieta e a ecologia térmica de uma população de T. torquatus do Costão de Itacoatiara, no Parque Estadual da Serra da Tiririca, situado nos municípios de Niterói e Maricá, RJ. Os dados foram coletados em dois períodos: entre julho de 2004 e janeiro de 2008 para estudo do período de atividade, uso do microhabitat e intensidade de forrageamento, e entre julho e agosto de 2010 para estudo da ecologia térmica e dieta. Todos os indivíduos coletados eram adultos, com comprimento rostro-cloacal médio de 66,2 12,0mm para machos (n = 11) e 64,1 8,0mm para fêmeas (n = 03). O período de atividade de T. torquatus no Costão de Itacoatiara durou de 12 a 14 horas. Teve um padrão unimodal na estação seca, com pico de atividade entre 09:00h e 13:00h, durante as horas mais quentes do dia. Na estação chuvosa o padrão de atividade foi bimodal, com um pico entre 8:00h e 9:00h e outro entre 16:00h e 17:00h, ambos associados aos horários de temperaturas ambientais mais amenas. O período de atividade não diferiu entre as estações, o que pode ser explicado pelo extenso pico de atividade dos lagartos na estação seca. Os microhabitats mais utilizados foram o substrato rochoso do Costão e a bromélia, refletindo a disponibilidade destes na área. A intensidade de forrageamento não diferiu sazonalmente e o tempo médio que os lagartos ficaram parados foi maior do que o tempo médio em deslocamento. A dieta foi onívora e esteve composta por artrópodes, principalmente insetos, e material vegetal, principalmente frutos. Os principais insetos consumidos foram Formicidae, Coleoptera e Hymenoptera não-Formicidae como pequenas vespas e abelhas. Os frutos, as sementes e as flores consumidos pertenciam às cactáceas Rhipsalis cereoides e Coleocephalocereus fluminensis, para as quais T. torquatus pode ser um potencial agente dispersor de sementes na área. Lagartos maiores consumiram itens maiores, mas em menor número, indicando um balanço energético positivo. O consumo de material vegetal variou de acordo com o tamanho dos lagartos, aumentando sua proporção nos indivíduos mais velhos. A temperatura média em atividade de T. torquatus foi de 34,3 2,5C, estando na faixa de temperatura corpórea média encontrada para outras populações e para outros Tropidurus. O substrato foi a fonte de calor ambiental com maior importância relativa para a termorregulação dos lagartos durante a estação seca, explicando cerca de 48% da variação na temperatura corpórea da população. Os lagartos termorregularam de forma passiva, principalmente em relação à temperatura do substrato.

Livros, folhetos, jornais, calendários e folhinhas, tudo à venda na botica de Padre Tezinho: práticas sociais e práticas de leitura nos anúncios dos jornais do século XIX (1820-1831)

Este é o resultado de um trabalho desenvolvido que compõe a tese de doutorado cujo tema está focado nas práticas de leitura presentes na sociedade maranhense no século XIX, com recorte entre os anos de 1821 a 1831, data da circulação do primeiro jornal e da instalação da primeira tipografia no Maranhão, estendendo-se por todo o Primeiro Reinado quando a província começou a vivenciar os debates políticos e as transformações sociais, culturais e econômicas que lhe proporcionaram a construção de uma nova identidade. Trata- se de uma investigação histórica, tendo como fonte principal de pesquisa os jornais que circularam no Maranhão nesse período, e como sustentabilidade os reclames neles publicados que forneceram pistas necessárias para o entendimento das questões suscitadas sobre a cultura escrita, principalmente a presença de protocolos de leitura que, de forma geral, circundam ou estão vinculados às práticas de leitura e à cultura e de modo singular às pessoas, a fim de identificar as relações estabelecidas na tríade livro-leitor-leitura e, consequentemente, os desdobramentos sociais e pessoais, a partir do que era lido, produzido, veiculado ou comercializado entre os habitantes da província. Assim, houve também uma investigação de práticas sociais, incluindo ações, sujeitos e relações sociais, instrumentos, objetos, valores, tempo e lugar, não haurindo absolutamente o passado, mas garimpando referenciais que auxiliaram a entender o presente. O texto refaz um pouco a trajetória da imprensa no Maranhão, instituída com a finalidade de publicar o primeiro jornal maranhense O Conciliador do Maranhão, cujo caminho também é reconstituído assim como o dos demais jornais que circularam no período pesquisado, mostrando que eles serviram, não só para aclarar ideias, mas também para fazer brotar ideais liberalizantes. O capítulo-chave decorre das informações extraídas sobre os impressos produzidos pela imprensa local, os que estavam sendo comercializados pelo mercado maranhense, os que se encontravam no prelo local ou externo, os que se constituíam em leituras dos intelectuais e jornalistas, considerados principais construtores das práticas de leitura dos maranhenses oitocentistas. Um panorama das instituições mediadoras do livro e da leitura fecha o circuito percorrido, mostrando que as artes como a música, a pintura e o teatro serviram para delinear uma sociedade com peculiar formação crítica e que, as sociedades literárias, os gabinetes de leitura, as bibliotecas e as escolas públicas ou particulares, foram, de fato, verdadeiros baluartes da boa educação e da liberdade dos povos.

From the Cajal alumni Achucarro and Rio-Hortega to the rediscovery of never-resting microglia

Under the guidance of Ramon y Cajal, a plethora of students flourished and began to apply his silver impregnation methods to study brain cells other than neurons: the neuroglia. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Nicolas Achucarro was one of the first researchers to visualize the brain cells with phagocytic capacity that we know today as microglia. Later, his pupil Pio del Rio-Hortega developed modifications of Achucarro's methods and was able to specifically observe the fine morphological intricacies of microglia. These findings contradicted Cajal's own views on cells that he thought belonged to the same class as oligodendroglia (the so called "third element" of the nervous system), leading to a long-standing discussion. It was only in 1924 that Rio-Hortega's observations prevailed worldwide, thus recognizing microglia as a unique cell type. This late landing in the Neuroscience arena still has repercussions in the twenty first century, as microglia remain one of the least understood cell populations of the healthy brain. For decades, microglia in normal, physiological conditions in the adult brain were considered to be merely "resting," and their contribution as "activated" cells to the neuroinflammatory response in pathological conditions mostly detrimental. It was not until microglia were imaged in real time in the intact brain using two-photon in vivo imaging that the extreme motility of their fine processes was revealed. These findings led to a conceptual revolution in the field: "resting" microglia are constantly surveying the brain parenchyma in normal physiological conditions. Today, following Cajal's school of thought, structural and functional investigations of microglial morphology, dynamics, and relationships with neurons and other glial cells are experiencing a renaissance and we stand at the brink of discovering new roles for these unique immune cells in the healthy brain, an essential step to understand their causal relationship to diseases.

Microfabrication of electrode patterns for high-frequency ultrasound transducer arrays.

High-frequency ultrasound is needed for medical imaging with high spatial resolution. A key issue in the development of ultrasound imaging arrays to operate at high frequencies (≥30 MHz) is the need for photolithographic patterning of array electrodes. To achieve this directly on 1-3 piezocomposite, the material requires not only planar, parallel, and smooth surfaces, but also an epoxy composite filler that is resistant to chemicals, heat, and vacuum. This paper reports, first, on the surface finishing of 1-3 piezocomposite materials by lapping and polishing. Excellent surface flatness has been obtained, with an average surface roughness of materials as low as 3 nm and step heights between ceramic/polymer of ∼80 nm. Subsequently, high-frequency array elements were patterned directly on top of these surfaces using a photolithography process. A 30-MHz linear array electrode pattern with 50-μm element pitch has been patterned on the lapped and polished surface of a high-frequency 1-3 piezocomposite. Excellent electrode edge definition and electrical contact to the composite were obtained. The composite has been lapped to a final thickness of ∼55 μm. Good adhesion of electrodes on the piezocomposite has been achieved and electrical impedance measurements have demonstrated their basic functionality. The array was then packaged, and acoustic pulse-echo measurements were performed. These results demonstrate that direct patterning of electrodes by photolithography on 1-3 piezocomposite is feasible for fabrication of high-frequency ultrasound arrays. Furthermore, this method is more conducive to mass production than other reported array fabrication techniques.

Ageing, Adaption and Accessibility: Time for the Inclusive Revolution!

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming increasingly central to many people’s lives, making it possible to be connected in any place at any time, be unceasingly and instantly informed, and benefit from greater economic and educational opportunities. With all the benefits afforded by these new-found capabilities, however, come potential drawbacks. A plethora of new PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones, Bluetooth, the internet, Wi-Fi (the list goes on) expect us to know or be able to guess, what, where and when to connect, click, double-click, tap, flick, scroll, in order to realise these benefits, and to have the physical and cognitive capability to do all these things. One of the groups most affected by this increase in high-demand technology is older people. They do not understand and use technology in the same way that younger generations do, because they grew up in the simpler electro-mechanical era and embedded that particular model of the world in their minds. Any consequential difficulty in familiarising themselves with modern ICT and effectively applying it to their needs can also be exacerbated by age-related changes in vision, motor control and cognitive functioning. Such challenges lead to digital exclusion. Much has been written about this topic over the years, usually by academics from the area of inclusive product design. The issue is complex and it is fair to say that no one researcher has the whole picture. It is difficult to understand and adequately address the issue of digital exclusion among the older generation without looking across disciplines and at industry’s and government’s understanding, motivation and efforts toward resolving this important problem. To do otherwise is to risk misunderstanding the true impact that ICT has and could have on people’s lives across all generations. In this European year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations and as the British government is moving forward with its Digital by Default initiative as part of a wider objective to make ICT accessible to as many people as possible by 2015, the Engineering Design Centre (EDC) at the University of Cambridge collaborated with BT to produce a book of thought pieces to address, and where appropriate redress, these important and long-standing issues. “Ageing, Adaption and Accessibility: Time for the Inclusive Revolution!” brings together opinions and insights from twenty one prominent thought leaders from government, industry and academia regarding the problems, opportunities and strategies for combating digital exclusion among senior citizens. The contributing experts were selected as individuals, rather than representatives of organisations, to provide the broadest possible range of perspectives. They are renowned in their respective fields and their opinions are formed not only from their own work, but also from the contributions of others in their area. Their views were elicited through conversations conducted by the editors of this book who then drafted the thought pieces to be edited and approved by the experts. We hope that this unique collection of thought pieces will give you a broader perspective on ageing, people’s adaption to the ever changing world of technology and insights into better ways of designing digital devices and services for the older population.

Fabrication, densification, and replica molding of 3D carbon nanotube microstructures

The introduction of new materials and processes to microfabrication has, in large part, enabled many important advances in microsystems, labon- a-chip devices, and their applications. In particular, capabilities for cost-effective fabrication of polymer microstructures were transformed by the advent of soft lithography and other micromolding techniques 1,2, and this led a revolution in applications of microfabrication to biomedical engineering and biology. Nevertheless, it remains challenging to fabricate microstructures with well-defined nanoscale surface textures, and to fabricate arbitrary 3D shapes at the micro-scale. Robustness of master molds and maintenance of shape integrity is especially important to achieve high fidelity replication of complex structures and preserving their nanoscale surface texture. The combination of hierarchical textures, and heterogeneous shapes, is a profound challenge to existing microfabrication methods that largely rely upon top-down etching using fixed mask templates. On the other hand, the bottom-up synthesis of nanostructures such as nanotubes and nanowires can offer new capabilities to microfabrication, in particular by taking advantage of the collective self-organization of nanostructures, and local control of their growth behavior with respect to microfabricated patterns. Our goal is to introduce vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which we refer to as CNT "forests", as a new microfabrication material. We present details of a suite of related methods recently developed by our group: fabrication of CNT forest microstructures by thermal CVD from lithographically patterned catalyst thin films; self-directed elastocapillary densification of CNT microstructures; and replica molding of polymer microstructures using CNT composite master molds. In particular, our work shows that self-directed capillary densification ("capillary forming"), which is performed by condensation of a solvent onto the substrate with CNT microstructures, significantly increases the packing density of CNTs. This process enables directed transformation of vertical CNT microstructures into straight, inclined, and twisted shapes, which have robust mechanical properties exceeding those of typical microfabrication polymers. This in turn enables formation of nanocomposite CNT master molds by capillary-driven infiltration of polymers. The replica structures exhibit the anisotropic nanoscale texture of the aligned CNTs, and can have walls with sub-micron thickness and aspect ratios exceeding 50:1. Integration of CNT microstructures in fabrication offers further opportunity to exploit the electrical and thermal properties of CNTs, and diverse capabilities for chemical and biochemical functionalization 3. © 2012 Journal of Visualized Experiments.

Detailed measurements of spike formation in an axial compressor

This paper presents new experimental measurements of spike-type stall inception. The measurements were carried out in the single stage Deverson compressor at the Whittle Laboratory. The primary objective was to characterize the flow field in the tip clearance gap during stall inception using sufficient instrumentation to give high spatial and temporal resolution. Measurements were recorded using arrays of unsteady pressure transducers over the rotor tips and hot-wires in the tip gap. Pre-stall ensemble averaged velocity and pressure maps were obtained as well as pressure contours of the stall event. In order to study the transient inception process in greater detail, vector maps were built up from hundreds of stalling events using a triggering system based on the stalling event itself. The results show an embryonic disturbance starting within the blade passage and leading to the formation of a clear spike. The origins of the spike and its relation to the tip leakage vortex are discussed. It has also been shown that before stall the flow in the blade passage which is most likely to stall is generally more unsteady, from revolution to revolution, than the other passages in the annulus. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.