Non-finite constructions in Old English : with special reference to syntactic borrowing from Latin

My dissertation is a corpus-based study of non-finite constructions in Old English (OE). It revisits the question of Latin influence on the OE syntax, offering a new evaluation of syntactic interference between Latin and OE, and, more generally, of the contact situation in the OE period, drawing on methods used in studying grammaticalization and language contact. I address three non-finite constructions: absolute participial construction, accusative-and-infinitive construction, and nominative-and-infinitive construction, exemplified respectively in present-day English as - She looked like a pixie sometimes, her eyes darting here and there, forever watchful (BNC CCM 98); - My first acquaintance with her was when I heard her sing (BNC CFY 2215); - Charles the Bald was said to resemble his grandfather physically (BNC HPT 175). This study compares data from translated texts against the background of original OE writings, establishing dependencies and differences between the two. Although the contrastive analysis of source and target texts is one of the major methods employed in the study, translation and translation strategies as such are only my secondary foci. The emphasis is rather on what source/target comparison can tell us about the OE non-finite syntax and the typological differences between Latin and OE in this domain, and on whether contact-induced change can originate in translation. In terms of theoretical framework, I have adopted functional-typological approach, which rests on the principles of iconicity and event integration, and to the best of my knowledge, has not been applied systematically to OE non-finite constructions. Therefore one more aim of the dissertation is to test this framework and to see how OE fits into the cross-linguistic picture of non-finites. My research corpus consists of two samples: 1) written OE closely dependent on the Latin originals, based on editions of two gloss texts, five translations, and Latin originals of these texts, representing four text types: hymns, religious regulations, homily/life narrative, and biblical narrative (180,622 words); and 2) written OE as far independent from Latin as possible, based on a selection from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE) and representing five text types: laws, charters, correspondence, chronicle narrative, and homily/life narrative (274,757 words).

A Bayesian decision approach for sample size determination in phase II trials

Stallard (1998, Biometrics 54, 279-294) recently used Bayesian decision theory for sample-size determination in phase II trials. His design maximizes the expected financial gains in the development of a new treatment. However, it results in a very high probability (0.65) of recommending an ineffective treatment for phase III testing. On the other hand, the expected gain using his design is more than 10 times that of a design that tightly controls the false positive error (Thall and Simon, 1994, Biometrics 50, 337-349). Stallard's design maximizes the expected gain per phase II trial, but it does not maximize the rate of gain or total gain for a fixed length of time because the rate of gain depends on the proportion: of treatments forwarding to the phase III study. We suggest maximizing the rate of gain, and the resulting optimal one-stage design becomes twice as efficient as Stallard's one-stage design. Furthermore, the new design has a probability of only 0.12 of passing an ineffective treatment to phase III study.

Variable Size Population NSGA-II: VPNSGA-II

Multi-objective optimization is an active field of research with broad applicability in aeronautics. This report details a variant of the original NSGA-II software aimed to improve the performances of such a widely used Genetic Algorithm in finding the optimal Pareto-front of a Multi-Objective optimization problem for the use of UAV and aircraft design and optimsaiton. Original NSGA-II works on a population of predetermined constant size and its computational cost to evaluate one generation is O(mn^2 ), being m the number of objective functions and n the population size. The basic idea encouraging this work is that of reduce the computational cost of the NSGA-II algorithm by making it work on a population of variable size, in order to obtain better convergence towards the Pareto-front in less time. In this work some test functions will be tested with both original NSGA-II and VPNSGA-II algorithms; each test will be timed in order to get a measure of the computational cost of each trial and the results will be compared.

Size-dependent melting of nanoparticles: Hundred years of thermodynamic model

Thermodynamic model first published in 1909, is being used extensively to understand the size-dependent melting of nanoparticles. Pawlow deduced an expression for the size-dependent melting temperature of small particles based on the thermodynamic model which was then modified and applied to different nanostructures such as nanowires, prism-shaped nanoparticles, etc. The model has also been modified to understand the melting of supported nanoparticles and superheating of embedded nanoparticles. In this article, we have reviewed the melting behaviour of nanostructures reported in the literature since 1909.

Anisotropic gaussian beams

Anisotropic gaussian beams are obtained as exact solutions to the parabolic wave equation. These beams have a quadratic phase front whose principal radii of curvature are non-degenerate everywhere. It is shown that, for the lowest order beams, there exists a plane normal to the beam axis where the intensity distribution is rotationally symmetric about the beam axis. A possible application of these beams as normal modes of laser cavities with astigmatic mirrors is noted.

Is one-parameter scaling theory of localisation consistent? Comment on Schuh's comment

It is maintained that the one-parameter scaling theory is inconsistent with the physics of Anderson localisation.

Unusual stress and grain size dependence for creep in nanocrystalline materials

Analyses of diffusion and dislocation creep in nanocrystals needs to take into account the generally utilized low temperatures, high stresses and very fine grain sizes. In nanocrystals, diffusion creep may be associated with a nonlinear stress dependence and dislocation creep may involve a grain size dependence.

Overfitting Bayesian mixture models with an unknown number of components

This paper proposes solutions to three issues pertaining to the estimation of finite mixture models with an unknown number of components: the non-identifiability induced by overfitting the number of components, the mixing limitations of standard Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling techniques, and the related label switching problem. An overfitting approach is used to estimate the number of components in a finite mixture model via a Zmix algorithm. Zmix provides a bridge between multidimensional samplers and test based estimation methods, whereby priors are chosen to encourage extra groups to have weights approaching zero. MCMC sampling is made possible by the implementation of prior parallel tempering, an extension of parallel tempering. Zmix can accurately estimate the number of components, posterior parameter estimates and allocation probabilities given a sufficiently large sample size. The results will reflect uncertainty in the final model and will report the range of possible candidate models and their respective estimated probabilities from a single run. Label switching is resolved with a computationally light-weight method, Zswitch, developed for overfitted mixtures by exploiting the intuitiveness of allocation-based relabelling algorithms and the precision of label-invariant loss functions. Four simulation studies are included to illustrate Zmix and Zswitch, as well as three case studies from the literature. All methods are available as part of the R package Zmix, which can currently be applied to univariate Gaussian mixture models.

Effects of particle size distribution in the response of model granular materials in multi-ring shear

Rail track undergoes complex loading patterns under moving traffic conditions compared to roads due to its continued and discontinued multi-layered structure, including rail, sleepers, ballast layer, sub-ballast layer, and subgrade. Particle size distributions (PSDs) of ballast, subballast, and subgrade layers can be critical in cyclic plastic deformation of rail track under moving traffic on frequent track degradation of rail tracks, especially at bridge transition zones. Conventional test approaches: static shear and cyclic single-point load tests are however unable to replicate actual loading patterns of moving train. Multi-ring shear apparatus; a new type of torsional simple shear apparatus, which can reproduce moving traffic conditions, was used in this study to investigate influence of particle size distribution of rail track layers on cyclic plastic deformation. Three particle size distributions, using glass beads were examined under different loading patterns: cyclic sin-gle-point load, and cyclic moving wheel load to evaluate cyclic plastic deformation of rail track under different loading methods. The results of these tests suggest that particle size distributions of rail track structural layers have significant impacts on cyclic plastic deformation under moving train load. Further, the limitations in con-ventional test methods used in laboratories to estimate the plastic deformation of rail track materials lead to underestimate the plastic deformation of rail tracks.

Selecting for increased barley grain size

In this study, 120–144 commercial varieties and breeding lines were assessed for grain size attributes including plump grain (>2.8 mm) and retention (>2.5 mm+>2.8 mm). Grain samples were produced from replicated trials at 25 sites across four years. Climatic conditions varied between years as well as between sites. Several of the trial sites were irrigated while the remaining were produced under dryland conditions. A number of the dryland sites suffered severe drought stress. The grain size data was analysed for genetic (G), environmental (E) and genotype by environment (G×E) interactions. All analyses included maturity as a covariate. The genetic effect on grain size was greater than environmental or maturity effects despite some sites suffering terminal moisture stress. The model was used to calculate heritability values for each site used in the study. These values ranged from 89 to 98% for plump grain and 88 to 96% for retention. The results demonstrated that removing the sources of non-heritable variation, such as maturity and field effects, can improve genetic estimates of the retention and plump grain fractions. By partitioning all variance components, and thereby having more robust estimates of genetic differences, plant breeders can have greater confidence in selecting barley genotypes which maintain large, stable grain size across a range of environments.

The genetic effective and adult census size of an Australian population of tiger prawns (Penaeus esculentus)

This study compares estimates of the census size of the spawning population with genetic estimates of effective current and long-term population size for an abundant and commercially important marine invertebrate, the brown tiger prawn (Penaeus esculentus). Our aim was to focus on the relationship between genetic effective and census size that may provide a source of information for viability analyses of naturally occurring populations. Samples were taken in 2001, 2002 and 2003 from a population on the east coast of Australia and temporal allelic variation was measured at eight polymorphic microsatellite loci. Moments-based and maximum-likelihood estimates of current genetic effective population size ranged from 797 to 1304. The mean long-term genetic effective population size was 9968. Although small for a large population, the effective population size estimates were above the threshold where genetic diversity is lost at neutral alleles through drift or inbreeding. Simulation studies correctly predicted that under these experimental conditions the genetic estimates would have non-infinite upper confidence limits and revealed they might be overestimates of the true size. We also show that estimates of mortality and variance in family size may be derived from data on average fecundity, current genetic effective and census spawning population size, assuming effective population size is equivalent to the number of breeders. This work confirms that it is feasible to obtain accurate estimates of current genetic effective population size for abundant Type III species using existing genetic marker technology.

Transmission loss analysis of rectangular expansion chamber with arbitrary location of inlet/outlet by means of Green's functions

Transmission loss of a rectangular expansion chamber, the inlet and outlet of which are situated at arbitrary locations of the chamber, i.e., the side wall or the face of the chamber, are analyzed here based on the Green's function of a rectangular cavity with homogeneous boundary conditions. The rectangular chamber Green's function is expressed in terms of a finite number of rigid rectangular cavity mode shapes. The inlet and outlet ports are modeled as uniform velocity pistons. If the size of the piston is small compared to wavelength, then the plane wave excitation is a valid assumption. The velocity potential inside the chamber is expressed by superimposing the velocity potentials of two different configurations. The first configuration is a piston source at the inlet port and a rigid termination at the outlet, and the second one is a piston at the outlet with a rigid termination at the inlet. Pressure inside the chamber is derived from velocity potentials using linear momentum equation. The average pressure acting on the pistons at the inlet and outlet locations is estimated by integrating the acoustic pressure over the piston area in the two constituent configurations. The transfer matrix is derived from the average pressure values and thence the transmission loss is calculated. The results are verified against those in the literature where use has been made of modal expansions and also numerical models (FEM fluid). The transfer matrix formulation for yielding wall rectangular chambers has been derived incorporating the structural–acoustic coupling. Parametric studies are conducted for different inlet and outlet configurations, and the various phenomena occurring in the TL curves that cannot be explained by the classical plane wave theory, are discussed.

The effect of crack closure on the grain size dependence of fatigue crack growth threshold

Recent studies (I-7) clearly indicate a strong dependence of fatigue threshold parameter, A K on grain size in several alloy systems. Attempts to explain these observations on the basis of crat~tortuosity (1,8), fracture surface roughness (5,9) and crack closure (6) appear to present a fairly clear picture of the mechanisms that cause a reduction in crack growth rates at threshold. In general, it has been shown that coarse grained microstructures exhibit higher fatigue threshold in low carbon steels (1,5) aluminium alloys (7) and titanium alloys (6). In spite of these observations, there exists (10-1#) considerable uncertainity about the manner in which the AK~L depends on prior austenitic grain size in quenched and tempered steels. Studies in quenched and tempered steels demonstrating both an increase (3,12,14) as well as a decrease (11,12) in AKth with an increase in prior austenitic grain size can be sought to illustrate this point. Occasionally , the absence of any sensitivity of AKth to the variations in prior austenitJc grain size has also been reported (11,13). While a few investigators (5-7) comfortably rationalised the grain size effects on AK~L on the basis of crack closure by a comparison in terms of the closure-free component of the thresho~Ifc~, AK -f such an approach has yet to be extended to high strength steels, An attempt has been made in t~et ,pthrg sent study to explai. n the effect of pri, or austeniti.c grain size on &Kth on the basis of crack closure measurements in a high strength steel.