336 research outputs found
Low-head hydropower as a reserve power source for wind power
No full textWind power generation faces intermittency challenges, typically requiring reserve power generation sources burning fossil fuels to maintain reliability of the electricity grid in the event of a decrease in wind. This study proposes an alternative hypothesis: that hydropower turbines installed at low-head dams can provide similar reserve power generation to support wind, thereby avoiding the externalities associated with fossil-fuel plants and conventional hydropower. Low-head dams, common across the United States, are used for flood control, securing municipal water supplies, and providing ample water depth for recreation. As a case study, hydropower potential at 13 such dams along a 150-kilometer reach of the Fox River (Northeastern Illinois, USA) was estimated using a HEC-RAS model calibrated with U.S. Geological Survey data. The output of the model was then analyzed to determine the capacity of the system and gauge its reliability both as a standalone generator and as a component in a coupled wind-hydropower system. Findings revealed that economic, environmental, and regulatory factors all affected the implementation of this low-head hydropower system. The system was found to perform reliably over a five-year time period in spite of significant long-term fluctuations in streamflow, thereby enabling it to offset the short-term variability of wind power. However, combining the low-head hydropower system with wind power limits the reliable output of the entire system to the lowest amount of power generated by the low-head hydropower system, regardless of how much wind power is deployed. The low-head hydropower system's relatively small capacity and inauspicious cost-benefit ratio suggest that this low-head hydropower system would be best suited for local applications rather than grid-scale operations, especially if environmental and regulatory considerations are included.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2021-05-01The student, Trevor Auth, accepted the attached license on 2019-04-19 at 17:04.The student, Trevor Auth, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2019-04-19 at 17:11.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2019-04-22 at 16:27.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13795 on 2019-08-22 at 15:07:35Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T20:36:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2019-04-22Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 112185
Lift date: 2021-08-23T20:36:18Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 112185 on 2021-08-24T09:15:24Z
The invisible artist: Arrangers in popular music (1950-2000): Their contribution and techniques
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University.This thesis is based on the research conducted by the author for the series,
Richard Niles' History of Pop Arranging, seven thirty-minute documentary
programmes for BBC Radio 2, researched, written and presented by the author and
broadcast in 2003. It also draws on interviews conducted by the author (and other
research) between 2002 and 2007 both for the radio series and for this thesis and on
the author's experience as a professional arranger in popular music working with
many of the genre's significant recording artists including Paul McCartney, Ray
Charles, Cher, Tina Turner, Westlife, Tears For Fears, Dusty Springfield, James
Brown, Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue and producers including Trevor Hom, Steve
Lipson, Steve Mac and Steve Anderson.
It will be argued that the role of the arranger in popular music has often been
undervalued and that during a critical period of popular music history (1950-2000)
arrangers played a significant part in the evolution of musical content. This thesis is,
to the best of the author's knowledge, the first time (apart from the above mentioned
documentary) the subject has ever been examined. The arranger is "invisible" because musical arrangers are often un-credited on
record liner notes or in books or articles concerning popular music. A considerable
amount of research has been necessary to determine who wrote many of the
arrangements considered herein. Motown's Berry Gordy purposely kept the names of
musicians and arrangers off the records because he feared others might 'poach' the
trademark 'Motown Sound'. Other record labels considered the job of the arranger to
be reminiscent of an earlier era, diluting the Rock 'n' Roll image of emotion and
spontanaeity they wished to promote. Some producers and recording artists disliked
sharing credit for their work. Motown arranger David Van dePitte told the author that
arranging was "thankless and anonymous - a very service-oriented profession where
others often take credit for what you've done." Arranging has therefore remained an
intrinsically unseen art created by 'invisible' artists. By analyzing many recordings,
revealing the techniques and concepts they have used in their work to create popular
records, arrangers and their art will be made more 'visible'
Low-head hydropower as a reserve power source for wind power
No full textWind power generation faces intermittency challenges, typically requiring reserve power generation sources burning fossil fuels to maintain reliability of the electricity grid in the event of a decrease in wind. This study proposes an alternative hypothesis: that hydropower turbines installed at low-head dams can provide similar reserve power generation to support wind, thereby avoiding the externalities associated with fossil-fuel plants and conventional hydropower. Low-head dams, common across the United States, are used for flood control, securing municipal water supplies, and providing ample water depth for recreation. As a case study, hydropower potential at 13 such dams along a 150-kilometer reach of the Fox River (Northeastern Illinois, USA) was estimated using a HEC-RAS model calibrated with U.S. Geological Survey data. The output of the model was then analyzed to determine the capacity of the system and gauge its reliability both as a standalone generator and as a component in a coupled wind-hydropower system. Findings revealed that economic, environmental, and regulatory factors all affected the implementation of this low-head hydropower system. The system was found to perform reliably over a five-year time period in spite of significant long-term fluctuations in streamflow, thereby enabling it to offset the short-term variability of wind power. However, combining the low-head hydropower system with wind power limits the reliable output of the entire system to the lowest amount of power generated by the low-head hydropower system, regardless of how much wind power is deployed. The low-head hydropower system's relatively small capacity and inauspicious cost-benefit ratio suggest that this low-head hydropower system would be best suited for local applications rather than grid-scale operations, especially if environmental and regulatory considerations are included.U of I OnlyAuthor requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste
The Short Stories of William Trevor
No full textBetter known as a novelist, William Trevor has — over the last twenty years and with five volumes to his credit — slowly but surely won a place in the forefront of short-story writers in English. As a thousand touches will show, these stories a fully -documented picture of social and cultural life in post-war England and Ireland. Of the sixty stories published to date, many take place in London ; some in the English country-side ; some in Ireland. Mainly restricted to the middle classes and with an emphasis on the old, the lonely, the eccentric and the unhappy, they cover a wide canvas of age and occupation ; and despite a predilection for gloomy, even tragic, situations, Trevor has provided us with many comic incidents and comic portraits in a language that is often deliciously funny . Yet compassion is never far away : rarely sentimental over his characters, the author makes us suffer with them. While the situations may sometimes recall those of Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, V.S. Pritchett, Trevor's treatment of his material is very much his own, just as the style — occasionally reminiscent of James Joyce and Flann O'Brien — bears the author's original imprint. A masterly use of ironic detachment and playful understatement confer distinction on stories which are both deft and dense, moving and droll.Bien qu'il soit plus connu pour ses romans, William Trevor a publié cinq volumes de nouvelles en vingt ans et se place maintenant parmi les premiers en langue anglaise dans ce genre. Ses soixante histoires sont situées en majorité à Londres, mais aussi dans la campagne anglaise, ou en Irlande. Elles nous fournissent un tableau très solidement documenté de la vie sociale et culturelle de la Grande-Bretagne et de l'Irlande depuis la guerre. Les personnages appartiennent presqu'exclusivement à la classe moyenne, et William Trevor manifeste un intérêt tout particulier pour les excentriques, les malheureux, les isolés, d'âges et de métiers divers. Il montre aussi une prédilection certaine pour les situations malheureuses et même tragiques, ceci ne l'empêchant pas de décrire avec verve de nombreux incidents comiques et de brosser maint portrait absolument réjouissant ; pourtant chez lui la compassion n'est jamais absente, et sans verser dans le sentimentalisme, il a le don de nous faire partager intensément les épreuves de ses héros. Sa manière de traiter des situations qui ne sont pas sans rappeler celles que décrivaient Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene ou V.S. Pritchett est absolument personnelle, de même que son style, s'il évoque parfois James Joyce et Flann O'Brien, n'appartient finalement qu'à lui seul. La façon magistrale avec laquelle il utilise l'« understatement», le ton plein de désinvolture et d'ironie qui le caractérise confèrent une grande originalité à des nouvelles à la fois vives et denses, émouvantes et comiques.Mortimer Mark. The Short Stories of William Trevor. In: Études irlandaises, n°9, 1984. pp. 161-173
Choosing an appropriate model chemistry in a big data context: Application to dative bonding
No full textExplaining Myanmar's Regime Transition: The Periphery is Central
No full textIn 2010, Myanmar (Burma) held its first elections after 22 years of direct military rule. Few compelling explanations for this regime transition have emerged. This article critiques popular accounts and potential explanations generated by theories of authoritarian ‘regime breakdown’ and ‘regime maintenance’. It returns instead to the classical literature on military intervention and withdrawal. Military regimes, when not terminated by internal factionalism or external unrest, typically liberalise once they feel they have sufficiently addressed the crises that prompted their seizure of power. This was the case in Myanmar. The military intervened for fear that political unrest and ethnic-minority separatist insurgencies would destroy Myanmar’s always-fragile territorial integrity and sovereignty. Far from suddenly liberalising in 2010, the regime sought to create a ‘disciplined democracy’ to safeguard its preferred social and political order twice before, but was thwarted by societal opposition. Its success in 2010 stemmed from a strategy of coercive state-building and economic incorporation via ‘ceasefire capitalism’, which weakened and co-opted much of the opposition. Having altered the balance of forces in its favour, the regime felt sufficiently confident to impose its preferred settlement. However, the transition neither reflected total ‘victory’ for the military nor secured a genuine or lasting peace
The effect of oxidation on the stability of G-quadruplex DNA : implications for oncogene expression
No full textG-quadruplexes (G4-DNA) are a class of secondary structures formed from Guanine rich sequences. In recent years these structures have been implicated in both telomere maintenance and oncogene expression, and have been shown to be abundant in upstream promoter regions and at telomeric ends.
The mutagenic properties of oxidative stress on DNA have been widely studied, as has the association with carcinogenesis. The oxidation of deoxyguanosine to 8-oxo-2’deoxyguanosine (8-oxo-dG) is the most common result when DNA is under oxidative stress and as such, the G-rich sequences that form G-quadruplexes can be viewed as potential “hot-spots” for DNA oxidation. We propose that oxidation may destabilise the G-quadruplex structure, leading to its unfolding into the duplex structure, affecting gene expression. This would imply a possible mechanism by which oxidation may impact on oncogene expression.
This project used both in silico and in vitro methods to observe the effect of oxidation on the G-quadruplex structure and the consequences in oncogene expression, using two biologically relevant G-quadruplex structures, those found in the promoter regions of the proto-oncogenes c-Myc and c-Kit as proof of concept.
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed (isothermic, isobaric 500ns unrestrained simulation in explicit solvent and counterions) on the c-Kit and c-Myc G-quadruplex structures with and without 8-oxo-dG incorporated into the central tetrad. FRET experiments were performed on these same structures, observing the conformation of sequences known to form G-quadruplexes under near physiological conditions and subjected to oxidative stress, through Fenton chemistry. Gene expression data analyses were also performed to evaluate the prevalence of different G-quadruplex forming motifs (GQMs) in genes affected by oxidation.Although no relevant information was gained from the FRET experiments, the MD results constitute the longest simulations of this type performed on the c-Myc and c-Kit G-quadruplex structures published to date and predict the high stability of these structures under normal physiological conditions. They also clearly demonstrate a destabilising effect of oxidation on G-quadruplex structures, with the extent of the effect dependent on the structure oxidised.
Furthermore, gene expression data analysis showed that genes whose expression is significantly altered when subjected to oxidative stress are statisticallymore likely to contain a GQM than the remainder of the genome, through the use of significance testing.
These findings demonstrate a differential effect of oxidation on G-quadruplexes, likely dependent on other known characteristics affecting G4 stability such as loop length and sequence. Results also point towards this mechanism affecting gene expression. This is suggestive of a novel route for oxidation mediated carcinogenesis, through upregulation of oncogene expression or possibly downregulation of tumour suppression genes
Ixodes eudyptidis Maskell 1885
No full text79. Ixodes eudyptidis Maskell, 1885. An Australasian species, all of whose stages are known only to parasitize Sphenisciformes: Spheniscidae. M: Dumbleton (1961) F: Maskell (1885) N: Neumann (1899) L: Roberts (1969); see note below Redescriptions M: Heath and Palma (2017) F: Dumbleton (1953), Roberts (1960), Heath and Palma (2017) N: Nuttall and Warburton (1911), under the name Ixodes neumanni, a synonym of Ixodes eudyptidis, Roberts (1960), Heath and Palma (2017) L: Heath and Palma (2017); see note below Note: Roberts (1960) and Sénevet and Ripert (1967a) redescribed the larva of Ixodes eudyptidis using morphological characters given in Dumbleton (1953), but the latter author in fact described the larva of Ixodes laridis, as explained in Heath and Palma (2017). Cooley and Kohls (1945) erroneously treat Ixodes eudyptidis as a synonym of Ixodes uriae. See also Ixodes percavatus for its confusion with Ixodes eudyptidis.Published as part of Guglielmone, Alberto A., Petney, Trevor N. & Robbins, Richard G., 2020, Ixodidae (Acari: Ixodoidea): descriptions and redescriptions of all known species from 1758 to December 31, 2019, pp. 1-322 in Zootaxa 4871 (1) on page 28, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4871.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/442334
Ixodes cornuatus Roberts 1960
No full text56. Ixodes cornuatus Roberts, 1960. An Australasian species, all of whose parasitic stages have been found on Carnivora: Canidae, and Rodentia: Muridae; adults alone have been collected from Carnivora: Felidae, Diprotodontia: Phascolarctidae and Vombatidae, and Casuariiformes: Casuariidae; immature stages have been recovered from Diprotodontia: Macropodidae, Phalangeridae and Potoroidae, and Passeriformes: Acanthizidae, Cracticidae and Pachycephalidae, and unknown stages have been found on Perissodactyla: Equidae (Guglielmone & Robbins 2018, Barker & Barker 2020). Ixodes cornuatus is a sporadic parasite of humans. M: Roberts (1960) F: Roberts (1960) N: undescribed L: Kemp (1980) Redescriptions M: Roberts (1970), Jackson et al. (2002), Barker and Walker (2014), Barker et al. (2014) F: Roberts (1970), Jackson et al. (2002), Barker and Walker (2014), Barker et al. (2014), Kwak (2017) L: Jackson et al. (2002) Note: Camicas et al. (1998) and Kolonin (2009) state that the larva of Ixodes cornuatus is undescribed; the latter author also doubts the validity of Ixodes cornuatus, perhaps following Roberts (1970), who stated that Ixodes cornuatus may be a subspecies of Ixodes holocyclus.Published as part of Guglielmone, Alberto A., Petney, Trevor N. & Robbins, Richard G., 2020, Ixodidae (Acari: Ixodoidea): descriptions and redescriptions of all known species from 1758 to December 31, 2019, pp. 1-322 in Zootaxa 4871 (1) on page 22, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4871.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/442334
The effect of Classroom P.T.A. on student achievement in a selected elementary school, 1989
No full textPurpose of the Study: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Classroom P.T.A. on student achievement in a low socio-economic elementary school. The time frame involved the 1985-86/1987-88 school year before and after the establishment of Classroom P.T.A. Methodology: This was a case study using a comparative analysis of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills for grades 1-5 for the 1985-86/1987-88 school year. The achievement scores before and after the establishment of Classroom P.T.A. were analyzed using the "t" test. Also, the responses from the teacher perception questionnaire were tabulated using percentages to determine the level of parental expectations since the establishment of Classroom P.T.A. Conclusions: It appears that: 1. When teachers organize Classroom P.T.A.s and promote teacher-student-parent conferences, low SES parents feel a sense of success in schooling for their children. 2. When teachers construct a profile analysis for each student in order to adjust or create a new curriculum to meet the needs of the individual learner, then, students' test scores are likely to improve. Findings: 1. The mean reading score for Ragsdale School in 1985-86 was 41.754 and in 1987-88, 49.3216. The calculated "t" value was 2.99 with 170 degrees of freedom. This was significant at the .003 level. Hence, there is a significant increase in students' reading scores for 1987-88. This shows that Classroom P.T.A. had a significant impact on the reading score, and the null hypothesis is rejected. 2. The mean mathematics score for Ragsdale School in 1985-86 was 49.1579 and in 1987-88, it was 65.8598. The calculated "t" value was 5.40 with 170 degrees of freedom. This was significant at the 0.000 level. Hence, there is a significant increase in student mathematics scores for the school year 1987-88. This shows that Classroom P.T.A. had a significant impact on mathematics scores, and the null hypothesis is rejected. 3. The improvement of test scores does not arise from any change in the SES for 1985-86/1987-88. Recommendations: 1. That further study be made using Classroom P.T.A. chosen for this study, but using a larger sample. 2. That in-service workshops be provided for teachers to sharpen their interpersonal skills to work more effectively with parents
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