Flow of metal into the flash gap in the last stages of a plane-strain closed-die forging operation

In closed-die forging the flash geometry should be such as to ensure that the cavity is completely filled just as the two dies come into contact at the parting plane. If metal is caused to extrude through the flash gap as the dies approach the point of contact — a practice generally resorted to as a means of ensuring complete filling — dies are unnecessarily stressed in a high-stress regime (as the flash is quite thin and possibly cooled by then), which reduces the die life and unnecessarily increases the energy requirement of the operation. It is therefore necessary to carefully determine the dimensions of the flash land and flash thickness — the two parameters, apart from friction at the land, which control the lateral flow. The dimensions should be such that the flow into the longitudinal cavity is controlled throughout the operation, ensuring complete filling just as the dies touch at the parting plane. The design of the flash must be related to the shape and size of the forging cavity as the control of flow has to be exercised throughout the operation: it is possible to do this if the mechanics of how the lateral extrusion into the flash takes place is understood for specific cavity shapes and sizes. The work reported here is part of an ongoing programme investigating flow in closed-die forging. A simple closed shape (no longitudinal flow) which may correspond to the last stages of a real forging operation is analysed using the stress equilibrium approach. Metal from the cavity (flange) flows into the flash by shearing in the cavity in one of the three modes considered here: for a given cavity the mode with the least energy requirement is assumed to be the most realistic. On this basis a map has been developed which, given the depth and width of the cavity as well as the flash thickness, will tell the designer of the most likely mode (of the three modes considered) in which metal in the cavity will shear and then flow into the flash gap. The results of limited set of experiments, reported herein, validate this method of selecting the optimum model of flow into the flash gap.

A laser flash photolysis study of pivalothiophenone triplets: steric and electronic effects in thione photoreaction kinetics

Upon laser pulse excitation (Aex = 532 nm) into the lowest-lying '(n,a*) band system, pivalothiophenones in benzene solutions give rise to short-lived triplets (Ama: = 325-335 nm, em: = (1 1-15) X lo3 M-' cm-I) with quantitative intersystem crossing efficiencies. The triplet yields decrease slightly (by 10-30%) upon changing A, to 308 nm (Le., upon excitation into S2). Kinetic data are presented for intrinsic triplet lifetimes, self-quenching, and quenching by oxygen, di-tert-butylnitroxy radical, and various reagents capable of interacting with the triplets via energy, electron, or hydrogen-atom transfer and by biradical formation (possibly leading to cycloaddition). The mechanisms of the quenching processes are discussed. Relative to rigid aromatic thiones, namely, xanthione and thiocoumarin, the interaction of pivalothiophenone triplets with most of the quenchers are kinetically inefficient. This is interpreted primarily as a manifestation of the steric crowding at positions a to the thiocarbonyl group.

The Art of Sympathy : Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion in Fiction

"The Art of Sympathy: Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion" in Fiction is an interdisciplinary study that looks closely at the ways that stories evoke sympathy, and the significance of this emotion for the development of moral attitudes and awareness. By linking readers' emotional responses to fiction with the potential impact of such responses on "the moral imagination," the study builds on empirical research conducted by literary scholars and psychologists into the emotional effects of reading fiction, as well as social psychological research into the connections between empathy/sympathy and moral development. I first investigate the dynamics of readers beliefs regarding characters in fictional narratives, and the nature of the emotions that they may experience as a result of those beliefs. The analysis demonstrates that there are important similarities between real emotions and emotions generated by fiction. Recognizing these similarities, I claim, can help us to conceptualize the nature of sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Building on these assertions, I then draw on research from social psychology and philosophy to develop a comprehensive definition of sympathy and to clarify the ways in which sympathy operates, both in people s daily lives and in readers sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Having established this definition and delineated its practical implications, I then examine how particular stories, through a variety of narrative techniques, persuade readers to feel sympathy for characters who are unsympathetic in certain ways. In order to verify my claims about the impact of these stories on readers emotions, I also review the results of tests that I conducted with nearly 200 adolescent readers. Through these tests, which were constructed and scored according to methods prevalent in social psychological research, it was determined that a majority of readers felt sympathy for the protagonists in two of the stories included in the study. These results were combined with data from an additional test, a standard measure of empathy and sympathy in the field of social psychology. The cross-tabulation of these results suggests that there was not a strong connection between readers responses and their general tendencies to feel sympathy for others. This finding would appear to support my hypotheses regarding the sympathetic persuasiveness of the stories in question. In light of these results, finally, I consider the potential contribution that fiction can make to adolescent emotional and moral development and the implications of that potential for future language arts curricula in the schools. In particular, I suggest the pedagogical importance of providing adolescents with opportunities to engage with the lives of fictional characters, and especially to experience feelings of sympathy for individuals towards whom they ordinarily might feel aversion.

Other Side of This Life : Death, Value, and Social Being in Thomas Pynchon's Fiction

This dissertation analyzes the interrelationship between death, the conditions of (wo)man s social being, and the notion of value as it emerges in the fiction of the American novelist Thomas Pynchon (1937 ). Pynchon s present work includes six novels V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity s Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006) and several short stories. Death constitues a central thematic in Pynchon s work, and it emerges through recurrent questions of mortality, suicide, mass destruction, sacrifice, afterlife, entropy, the relationship between the animate and the inanimate, and the limits of representation. In Pynchon, death is never a mere biological given (or event); it is always determined within a certain historical, cultural, and ideological context. Throughout his work, Pynchon questions the strict ontological separation of life and death by showing the relationship between this separation and social power. Conceptual divisions also reflect the relationship between society and its others, and death becomes that through which lines of social demarcation are articulated. Determined as a conceptual and social "other side", death in Pynchon forms a challenge to modern culture, and makes an unexpected return: the dead return to haunt the living, the inanimate and the animate fuse, and technoscientific attempts at overcoming and controlling death result in its re-emergence in mass destruction and ecological damage. The questioning of the ontological line also affects the structuration of Pynchon's prose, where the recurrent narrated and narrative desire to reach the limits of representation is openly associated with death. Textualized, death appears in Pynchon's writing as a sudden rupture within the textual functioning, when the "other side", that is, the bare materiality of the signifier is foregrounded. In this study, Pynchon s cultural criticism and his poetics come together, and I analyze the subversive role of death in his fiction through Jean Baudrillard s genealogy of the modern notion of death from L échange symbolique et la mort (1976). Baudrillard sees an intrinsic bond between the social repression of death in modernity and the emergence of modern political economy, and in his analysis economy and language appear as parallel systems for generating value (exchange value/ sign-value). For Baudrillard, the modern notion of death as negativity in relation to the positivity of life, and the fact that death cannot be given a proper meaning, betray an antagonistic relation between death and the notion of value. As a mode of negativity (that is, non-value), death becomes a moment of rupture in relation to value-based thinking in short, rationalism. Through this rupture emerges a form of thinking Baudrillard labels the symbolic, characterized by ambivalence and the subversion of conceptual opposites.

Migration of feral pigs (Sus scrofa) in rainforests of north Queensland: fact or fiction?

The Wet Tropics bioregion of north Queensland has been identified as an area of global significance. The world-heritage-listed rainforests have been invaded by feral pigs (Sus scrofa) that are perceived to cause substantial environmental damage. A community perception exists of an annual altitudinal migration of the feral-pig population. The present study describes the movements of 29 feral pigs in relation to altitudinal migration (highland, transitional and lowland areas). Feral pigs were sedentary and stayed within their home range throughout a 4-year study period. No altitudinal migration was detected; pigs moved no more than a mean distance of 1.0 km from the centre of their calculated home ranges. There was no significant difference between the mean (+/- 95% confidence interval) aggregate home ranges for males (8.7 +/- 4.3 km², n = 15) and females (7.2 +/- 1.8 km², n = 14). No difference in home range was detected among the three altitudinal areas: 7.2 +/- 2.4 km² for highland, 6.2 +/- 3.9 km² for transitional and 9.9 +/- 5.3 km² for lowland areas. The aggregate mean home range for all pigs in the present study was 8.0 +/- 2.4 km². The study also assessed the influence seasons had on the home range of eight feral pigs on the rainforest boundary; home ranges did not significantly vary in size between the tropical wet and dry seasons, although the mean home range in the dry season (7.7 +/- 6.9 km²) was more than twice the home range in the wet season (2.9 +/- 0.8 km²). Heavier pigs tended to have larger home ranges. The results of the present study suggest that feral pigs are sedentary throughout the year so broad-scale control techniques need to be applied over sufficient areas to encompass individual home ranges. Control strategies need a coordinated approach if a long-term reduction in the pig population is to be achieved.

Laser flash photolysis study of triplets of cyclobutanethiones

Five cyclobutanethiones with different chromophores at the 3-position were examined for triplet state behaviour in benzene using laser excitation into their low lying nπ*1 band systems. A weak transient absorption attributable to the triplet state is observed in all these cases. Results concerning triplet lifetimes, intersystem crossing yields (S1 → T1), self-quenching kinetics and kinetics of energy transfer to all-trans-1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene and oxygen and quenching by di-t-butyl nitroxide (DTBN) are presented. Intersystem crossing yields estimated with reference to p,p′-dimethoxythiobenzophenone are roughly unity in all five cases. Self-quenching rates are found to be less than diffusion limited and this is attributed to steric crowding at the α positions (dimethyl group). The rates of oxygen and DTBN quenching compare well with those reported for several other thiones in the literature. No transients other than the triplet were detected in the above cyclobutane-thiones.

Triplet-state Photophysics and Transient Photochemistry of Cyclic Enethiones A Laser Flash Photolysis Study

The triplets of four cyclic enethiones, including thiocoumarin, have been investigated by nanosecond laser flash photolysis. Data are presented for transient spectra and kinetics associated with triplets, quantum yields of intersystem crossing and singlet oxygen photosensitization. The quenching of the thiocoumarin triplet (A:, = 485 nm, E:,, = 8.8 x lo3 dm3 mol-' cm-'in benzene) by several olefins, amines and hydrogen donors occurs with rate constants of 107-5 x lo9 dm3 mol-' s-'; the lower limits of quantum yields ( c#+~) for the related photoreactions, estimated from ground-state depletion, are generally small (0.0-0.1 1 in benzene, except for good hydrogen donors, namely, p-methoxythiophenol and tri-n-butylstannane) . The radical anion of thiocoumarin (A,,, = 405-435 nm) is formed in two stages upon triplet quenching by triethylamine in acetonitrile; the fast component is the result of direct electron transfer to the triplet and the slower component is assigned to secondary photoreduction of the thione ground state by the a-aminoalkyl radical derived from the triethylamine radical-cation.

Tietokannan hallintajärjestelmän optimointi flash-muistia varten

Viime aikoina yleistyneet flash-muistiin perustuvat tallennusvälineet ovat monessa suhteessa kiintolevyä parempia. Flash-muistissa on kuitenkin useita erityispiirteitä, jotka vaikeuttavat sen käyttöönottoa tietokantajärjestelmässä. Flash-muistissa kirjoittaminen on hitaampaa kuin lukeminen. Erityisesti hajanaisten sivujen päivittäminen on hidasta. Hajaluku flash-muistista on huomattavasti nopeampaa kuin kiintolevyltä. Näiden erityispiirteiden vuoksi tietokannan hallintajärjestelmä on optimoitava erikseen flash-muistia varten. Tässä optimoinnissa lähes kaikki tietokannan hallintajärjestelmän osa-alueet on toteutettava uudelleen flash-muistin näkökulmasta. Flash-muistin nopean hajaluvun ansiosta relaatioiden tiedot voidaan sijoitella flash-muistiin vapaammin kuin kiintolevylle. Yleisin tietokannoissa käytetty hakemistorakenne B+-puu ei toimi tehokkaasti flash-muistissa hajapäivitysten suuren määrän vuoksi. Flashmuistia varten on kehitetty useita B+-puun muunnelmia, joissa hajapäivitysten määrää on onnistuttu vähentämään. Puskurin hallintaa voidaan optimoida flash-muistia varten vähentämällä hitaiden kirjoitusten määrää nopeiden lukujen määrän kustannuksella sekä muuttamalla hitaita hajakirjoituksia nopeammiksi peräkkäisten sivujen kirjoituksiksi. B.3 (hardware, memory structures) H.2.2 (database management, physical design)

'Wet N2O oxidation' process and interface state density characterization of nanoscale nitrided SiO2 for flash memory application

In this paper we first present the 'wet N2O' furnace oxidation process to grow nitrided tunnel oxides in the thickness range 6 to 8 nm on silicon at a temperature of 800 degrees C. Electrical characteristics of MOS capacitors and MOSFETs fabricated using this oxide as gate oxide have been evaluated and the superior features of this oxide are ascertained The frequency response of the interface states, before and after subjecting the MOSFET gate oxide to constant current stress, is studied using a simple analytical model developed in this work.

Duration of a lightning flash

The mean duration of a lightning flash is observed to exhibit systematic variation with the growth and decay of the activity of a thundercloud and reaches a minimum value when the radio noise level and rate of flashing are at their maximum values.

Pulp and Paper Fiction: On the Discursive Legitimation of Global Industrial Restructuring

Despite the central role of legitimacy in social and organizational life, we know little of the subtle meaning-making processes through which organizational phenomena, such as industrial restructuring, are legitimated in contemporary society. Therefore, this paper examines the discursive legitimation strategies used when making sense of global industrial restructuring in the media. Based on a critical discourse analysis of extensive media coverage of a revolutionary pulp and paper sector merger, we distinguish and analyze five legitimation strategies: (1) normalization, (2) authorization, (3) rationalization, (4) moralization, and (5) narrativization. We argue that while these specific legitimation strategies appear in individual texts, their recurring use in the intertextual totality of the public discussion establishes the core elements of the emerging legitimating discourse.

World parliament – fact or fiction? On the feasibility of world parliamentary models

Cosmopolitan ideals have been on the philosophical agenda for several millennia but the end of the Cold War started a new discussion on state sovereignty, global democracy, the role of international law and global institutions. The Westphalian state system in practice since the 17th century is transforming and the democracy deficit needs new solutions. An impetus has been the fact that in the present world, an international body representing global citizens does not exist. In this Master’s thesis, the possibility of establishing a world parliament is examined. In a case analysis, 17 models on world parliament from two journals, a volume of essays and two other publications are discussed. Based on general observations, the models are divided into four thematic groups. The models are analyzed with an emphasis on feasible and probable elements. Further, a new scenario with a time frame of thirty years is proposed based on the methodology of normative futures studies, taking special interest in causal relationships and actions leading to change. The scenario presents three gradual steps that each need to be realized before a sustainable world parliament is established. The theoretical framework is based on social constructivism, and changes in international and multi-level governance are examined with the concepts of globalization, democracy and sovereignty. A feasible, desirable and credible world parliament is constituted gradually by implying electoral, democratic and legal measures for members initially from exclusively democratic states, parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations and other groups. The parliament should be located outside the United Nations context, since a new body avoids the problem of inefficiency currently prevailing in the UN. The main objectives of the world parliament are to safeguard peace and international law and to offer legal advice in cases when international law has been violated. A feasible world parliament is advisory in the beginning but it is granted legislative powers in the future. The number of members in the world parliament could also be extended following the example of the EU enlargement process.