Thesis (B.A.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2009. / Also available online. Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-38).

This dissertation is a social and cultural history of chemical industrialists and their role in the development of both science and capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It focuses on the case of Germany, where many chemists became some the most powerful industrial leaders during this period. Since the late nineteenth century, chemistry in Germany constituted a cosmos radiating from the large industrial sites, of which the academic discipline was just the tip of the iceberg. The chemical Industry supported a formidable scientific research system, and industrial chemists rose to the highest social circles, from which they exerted unique forms of activism. In particular, science philanthropy provided chemical industrialists with a point of entry to elite German society. Their status as scientists, combined with their manufacturing social backgrounds, led to an inclination towards supporting scientific research through direct participation and political lobbying, with less emphasis on the financial donations common in American philanthropy. Crucially, this support extended beyond chemistry, to other applied sciences and even apparently non-industrial pursuits such as astronomy. In these other fields, they sought to replicate the industrial support system that existed in chemistry, while opening the opportunity to participate directly in their amateur scientific interests. I contend that these non-financial forms of support for science played an important role during the radical changes in twentieth-century Germany, including war, hyperinflation, extreme economic cycles, and the increasing political polarization of the Weimar era. / History of Science

Deep foundations, such as piles and suction caissons, are used throughout an offshore oil and gas production facility in deepwater. Ideally, the values of geotechnical properties for foundation design are determined by results from geotechnical investigation programs performed at the site of the foundation. However, the locations for facilities are not known exactly when soil borings are drilled and the footprint of a facility in deepwater can be very large with numerous foundation elements spread out over miles. Therefore, it is not generally feasible to perform a site-specific investigation for every foundation element. The objective of this research is to assess, analyze and model spatial variability in geotechnical properties for offshore foundations. A total of 97 geotechnical investigations from 14 offshore project sites covering the past twenty years of deepwater development in the Gulf of Mexico are compiled into a database. The geologic setting is primarily a normally to slightly overconsolidated marine clay, and the property of interest for the design of deep foundations is the undrained shear strength. The magnitude and characteristics of variability in design undrained shear strengths are analyzed quantitatively and graphically. Geostatistical models that describe spatial variability in the design shear strength properties to the distance away from the available information are developed and calibrated with available information from the database. Finally, a methodology is presented for incorporating the models into a reliability-based design framework to account for spatial variability in foundation capacity. Design examples are presented to demonstrate the use of the reliability methodology. Based on the design undrained shear strength profiles for the past 20 years in this Gulf of Mexico deepwater area, the design undrained shear strength varies spatially but does not depend on the time or method for site investigations. There are nonlinear spatial relationships in the point shear strength laterally and vertically due to stratigraphy such that depth-averaged shear strengths are correlated over further distances than point shear strengths. The depositional forces are an important factor causing spatial variations in the undrained shear strength, with greater variation and less spatial correlation in the more recent hemipelagic deposits (about upper 60 feet) than the deeper turbidite deposits and along the shelf versus off the shelf. The increased conservatism required in deep foundation design due to spatial variability when site specific strength data are not available is generally small with less than a five percent increase required in design capacity in this geologic setting. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

Husgrunder stödjer hela hus och ska vara stadiga nog för att ta upp husets vikt och bära byggnaden i många år utan att drabbas av problem orsakade av bland annat fukt och tjäle. Det finns tre grundkonstruktionstyper som tas upp i detta arbete. Dessa är: platta på mark, krypgrund och plintgrund. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka konstruktion och funktion för de tre grundkonstruktionerna. Arbetet redovisar också vilka grunder som är förekommande vid nybyggnation av småhus i Örebro län, samt hur olika aktörer inom byggbranschen motiverar sina val med avseende på risken för fuktrelaterade problem. Inom detta examensarbete redovisas resultat från intervjuer med ett antal olika byggnadsaktörer som bygger med olika typer av grundkonstruktioner. Information har samlats in genom intervjuer med sakkunniga samt egen teorifördjupning i litteratur för grundkonstruktioner. Utifrån syftet med arbetet har teorin och resultaten från intervjuerna sammanställts. Platta på mark med underliggande isolering är den grundkonstruktion som framförallt väljs vid val av grundkonstruktion för nybyggnationer av småhus i Örebro län. Aktörerna upplever att denna konstruktion har många fördelar i jämförelse med de andra konstruktionerna: krypgrund och plintgrund. / Foundations support entire houses and are required to be adequately well-built to carry a building’s mass for many years without facing problems due to environmental impacts such as moisture and frost. This work covers three basic types of foundations; concrete slab, crawl space and block foundation. The aim of this work is to investigate the construction methods of the foundations mentioned above, which are used within the construction of single-family homes in the city of Örebro, Sweden. Additionally, the basis of selection of these foundations by various construction companies in respect to risk of moisture-related problems is examined. Information about the foundations is collected from scholarly literature as well as qualitative interviews with seven construction companies’ experts. Ultimately, this study found that concrete slab with underlying insulation is more commonly used within the construction of single-family homes in Örebro than the other alternatives. Operators find that this foundation has many advantages in comparison with the other foundation techniques.

This thesis deals with the question of what resources are necessary and sufficient for quantum computational speedup. In particular, we study what resources are required to promote fault tolerant stabilizer computation to universal quantum computation. In this context we discover a remarkable connection between the possibility of quantum computational speedup and negativity in the discrete Wigner function, which is a particular distinguished quasi-probability representation for quantum theory. This connection allows us to establish a number of important results related to magic state computation, an important model for fault tolerant quantum computation using stabilizer operations supplemented by the ability to prepare noisy non-stabilizer ancilla states. In particular, we resolve in the negative the open problem of whether every non-stabilizer resource suffices to promote computation with stabilizer operations to universal quantum computation. Moreover, by casting magic state computation as resource theory we are able to quantify how useful ancilla resource states are for quantum computation, which allows us to give bounds on the required resources. In this context we discover that the sum of the negative entries of the discrete Wigner representation of a state is a measure of its usefulness for quantum computation. This gives a precise, quantitative meaning to the negativity of a quasi-probability representation, thereby resolving the 80 year debate as to whether this quantity is a meaningful indicator of quantum behaviour. We believe that the techniques we develop here will be widely applicable in quantum theory, particularly in the context of resource theories.

E. A. Burtt's The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1924) has been described by H. Floris Cohen, writing on the historiography of the Scientific Revolution in 1994, as the "individual thought of an individual thinker...beyond philosophical or historical currents or fashion." The book is something of a puzzle within the context of American twentieth-century intellectual history and more specifically, of the philosophy and history of science of North America and Europe. / Burtt's inter-disciplinary study---as it would be called today---has proved to be both pioneering and prophetic in its rejection of both scientism and positivism. The thesis examines the author's novel interpretation of Isaac Newton's achievement, as well as that of Newton's predecessors in the Scientific Revolution. Burtt's singular view of the rise of modern science from religious underpinnings was, for the most part, either misunderstood or ignored at the time. In fact, the whole idea of a Scientific Revolution was only introduced into the curriculum at leading American universities following the Second World War, in response to Herbert Butterfield and Alexandre Koyre, both of whom owe unacknowledged debts to Burtt. / The Metaphysical Foundations was conceived in the progressive era of the 1920s, the latter part of the "Golden Age" in American philosophy. The thesis examines the role of innovating intellects such as John Dewey, James Harvey Robinson, and Morris R. Cohen in shaping Burtt's view, described against the background of his studies at Columbia university. Under the sway of pragmatic naturalism, Burtt's interpretation of Newton was part of a grand scheme to develop a new philosophy of mind which he intended would overcome the problems of Cartesian dualism. / The dissertation concludes with an extended analysis of Burtt's public, academic, and personal life based upon archives, correspondence and interviews with those who remember him. It considers his politics of conscience during the Cold War and concludes that integrity combined with the relentless search for philosophic understanding drove his more exotic philosophical quests and steered his personal life, including its tragic dimension, toward simple virtues.

No description available.

The lack of knowledge about the behaviour of footings for jack-up rigs under storm loads poses a design problem which can be tackled by model testing. The areas of prime concern are the ultimate loads on footings under combined loading, which affects the safety of the rig, and the rotational stiffness, which affects the interaction between the foundation and the structure. A programme of loading tests was performed on model footings on clay, and was divided into two stages: monotonic loading and cyclic loading. The clay samples were obtained by consolidating Speswhite kaolin slurry in cylindrical tanks 450mm in diameter. The strength and compressibility characteristics of the samples were verified by means of standard laboratory tests. The model footings were 50mm and 100mm in diameter and several shapes were tested: circular flat plate, cones of various angles and model spud-cans. Loads and displacements were monitored using appropriate instrumentation and a data logger. A series of central vertical loading tests provided data for comparison with existing bearing capacity theories. Combined loading tests were performed applying a displacement controlled horizontal load at a fixed height above the footing which was also subjected to a fixed vertical load. The main series of tests involved a parametric study of the relevant variables. Special tests allowed the assessment of the effect of embedment of the footing and the interaction of a flexible leg with the foundation. Cyclic loading tests were carried out using a load controlled system which applied a sinusoidal load simulating wave action. Effects of currents were investigated by introducing an offset to the loading cycle. The influence of amplitude and period of loading as well as the influence of vertical load were also investigated. Special tests were carried out to cover some peculiarities of real loading conditions. Fitting of a three-parameter hyperbola to the test results provided a systematic and accurate method of analysis of monotonic loading tests, leading to valuable information involving stiffness and ultimate loads. Analysis of cyclic loading tests yielded useful qualitative information regarding the progress of settlement and the variation of rotational stiffness and damping ratio with the number of cycles.