Anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation) process is a one-step conversion of ammonia into nitrogen gas with nitrite as an electron acceptor. It has been developed as a sustainable technology for ammonia removal from wastewater in the last decade. For wastewater treatment, anammox biomass was widely developed as microbial aggregate where the conditions for enrichment of anammox community must be delicately controlled and growth of other bacteria especially NOB should be suppressed to enhance nitrogen removal efficiency. Little is known about the distribution of microbial aggregates in anammox process. Thus the objective of our study was to assess whether segregation of biomass occurs in granular anammox system. In this study, a laboratory-scale sequential batch reactor (SBR) was successfully operated for a period of 80 days with granular anammox biomass. Temporal and spatial distribution of microbial aggregates was studied by particle characterization system and the distribution of functional microbial communities was studied with qPCR and 16s rRNA amplicon pyrosequencing. Our study revealed the spatial and temporal distribution of biomass aggregates based on their sizes and density. Granules (>200 μm) preferentially accumulated in the bottom of the reactor while floccules (30-200 μm) were relatively rich at the top layer. The average density of aggregate was higher at the bottom than the density of those at the top layer. Degranulation caused by lack of hydrodynamic shear force in the top layer was considered responsible for this phenomenon. NOB was relatively rich in the top layer while percentage of anammox population was higher at the bottom, and anammox bacteria population gradually increased over a period of time. NOB growth was supposed to be associated with the increase of floccules based on the concurrent occurrence. Thus, segregation of biomass can be utilized to develop an effective strategy to enrich anammox and wash out NOB by shortening the settling time and withdrawing floccular biomass from the top of the reactor.

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Because games set in persistent virtual game worlds (VGWs) have massive numbers of players, these games need methods of characterisation for playable characters (PCs) that differ from the methods used in traditional narrative media. VGWs have a number of particularly interesting qualities. Firstly, VGWs are places where players interact with and create elements carrying narrative potential. Secondly, players add goals, motives and driving forces to the narrative potential of a VGW, which sometimes originates from the ordinary world. Thirdly, the protagonists of the world are real people, and when acting in the world their characterisation is not carried out by an author, but expressed by players characterising their PCs. How they can express themselves in ways that characterise them depend on what they can do, and how they can do it, and this characterising action potential (CAP) is defined by the game design of particular VGWs. In this thesis, two main questions are explored. Firstly, how can CAP be designed to support players in expressing consistent  characters in VGWs? Secondly, how can VGWs support role-play in their rule-systems? By using iterative design, I explore the design space of CAP by building a semiautonomous agent structure, the Mind Module (MM) and apply it in five experimental prototypes where the design of CAP and other game features is derived from the MM. The term semiautonomy is used because the agent structure is designed to be used by a PC, and is thus partly controlled by the system and partly by the player. The MM models a PC's personality as a collection of traits, maintains dynamic emotional state as a function of interactions with objects in the environment, and summarises a PC's current emotional state in terms of `mood'.   The MM consists of a spreading-activation network of affect nodes that are interconnected by weighted relationships.  There are four types of affect node: personality trait nodes, emotion nodes, mood nodes, and sentiment nodes. The values of the nodes defining the personality traits of characters govern an individual PC's state of mind through these weighted relationships, resulting in values characterising for a PC's personality. The sentiment nodes constitute emotionally valenced connections between entities. For example, a PC can `feel' anger toward another PC. This thesis also describes a guided paper-prototype play-test of  the VGW prototype World of Minds, in which the game mechanics build upon the MM's model of personality and emotion. In a case study of AI-based game design, lessons learned from the test are presented. The participants in the test were able to form and communicate mental models of the MM and game mechanics, validating the design and giving valuable feedback for further development. Despite the constrained scenarios presented to test players, they discovered interesting, alternative strategies, indicating that for game design the `mental physics' of the MM may open up new  possibilities.The results of the play-test influenced the further development of the MM as it was used in the digital VGW prototype the Pataphysic Institute. In the Pataphysic Institute the CAP of PCs is largely governed by their mood. Depending on which mood  PCs are in they can cast different `spells', which affect values such as mental energy, resistance and emotion in their targets. The mood also governs which `affective actions' they can perform toward other PCs and what affective actions they are receptive to. By performing affective actions on each other PCs can affect each others' emotions, which - if they are strong - may result in sentiments toward each other. PCs' personalities govern the individual fluctuations of mood and emotions, and define which types of spell PCs can cast. Formalised social relationships such as friendships affect CAP, giving players more energy, resistance, and other benefits. PCs' states of mind are reflected in the VGW in the form of physical manifestations that emerge if an emotion is very strong. These manifestations are entities which cast different spells on PCs in close proximity, depending on the emotions that the manifestations represent. PCs can also partake in authoring manifestations that become part of the world and the game-play in it. In the Pataphysic Institute potential story structures are governed by the relations the sentiment nodes constitute between entities.Because games set in persistent virtual game worlds (VGWs) have massive numbers of players, these games need methods of characterisation for playable characters (PCs) that differ from the methods used in traditional narrative media. VGWs have a number of particularly interesting qualities. Firstly, VGWs are places where players interact with and create elements carrying narrative potential. Secondly, players add goals, motives and driving forces to the narrative potential of a VGW, which sometimes originates from the ordinary world. Thirdly, the protagonists of the world are real people, and when acting in the world their characterisation is not carried out by an author, but expressed by players characterising their PCs. How they can express themselves in ways that characterise them depend on what they can do, and how they can do it, and this characterising action potential (CAP) is defined by the game design of particular VGWs. In this thesis, two main questions are explored. Firstly, how can CAP be designed to support players in expressing consistent  characters in VGWs? Secondly, how can VGWs support role-play in their rule-systems? By using iterative design, I explore the design space of CAP by building a semiautonomous agent structure, the Mind Module (MM) and apply it in five experimental prototypes where the design of CAP and other game features is derived from the MM. The term \textit{semiautonomy} is used because the agent structure is designed to be used by a PC, and is thus partly controlled by the system and partly by the player. The MM models a PC's personality as a collection of traits, maintains dynamic emotional state as a function of interactions with objects in the environment, and summarises a PC's current emotional state in terms of `mood'.   The MM consists of a spreading-activation network of affect nodes that are interconnected by weighted relationships.  There are four types of affect node: personality trait nodes, emotion nodes, mood nodes, and sentiment nodes. The values of the nodes defining the personality traits of characters govern an individual PC's state of mind through these weighted relationships, resulting in values characterising for a PC's personality. The sentiment nodes constitute emotionally valenced connections between entities. For example, a PC can `feel' anger toward another PC. This thesis also describes a guided paper-prototype play-test of  the VGW prototype World of Minds, in which the game mechanics build upon the MM's model of personality and emotion. In a case study of AI-based game design, lessons learned from the test are presented. The participants in the test were able to form and communicate mental models of the MM and game mechanics, validating the design and giving valuable feedback for further development. Despite the constrained scenarios presented to test players, they discovered interesting, alternative strategies, indicating that for game design the `mental physics' of the MM may open up new  possibilities.The results of the play-test influenced the further development of the MM as it was used in the digital VGW prototype the Pataphysic Institute. In the Pataphysic Institute the CAP of PCs is largely governed by their mood. Depending on which mood  PCs are in they can cast different `spells', which affect values such as mental energy, resistance and emotion in their targets. The mood also governs which `affective actions' they can perform toward other PCs and what affective actions they are receptive to. By performing affective actions on each other PCs can affect each others' emotions, which - if they are strong - may result in sentiments toward each other. PCs' personalities govern the individual fluctuations of mood and emotions, and define which types of spell PCs can cast. Formalised social relationships such as friendships affect CAP, giving players more energy, resistance, and other benefits. PCs' states of mind are reflected in the VGW in the form of physical manifestations that emerge if an emotion is very strong. These manifestations are entities which cast different spells on PCs in close proximity, depending on the emotions that the manifestations represent. PCs can also partake in authoring manifestations that become part of the world and the game-play in it. In the Pataphysic Institute potential story structures are governed by the relations the sentiment nodes constitute between entities.

Hardfacing alloys are utilised in pump and valve components in pressurised water reactors (PWR's). They are designed to withstand wear and galling effects, which occur as a result of surface-to-surface contact, where surface roughness increases by localised plastic deformation, resulting in fracture and material transfer. Typically, alloys that exhibit suitable hardness and galling resistance are known as the Stellites; a Co-base alloy family. Whilst these Co alloys perform well in a hardfacing capacity, they suffer from neutron activation and subsequently decay, forming 60Co isotopes, which emit hazardous γ-rays, contributing to plant worker exposure. The present study was developed to characterise and assess the metallurgical properties of two candidate Co-free replacement alloys; stainless Fe-based alloys Tristelle 5183 and a derivative alloy, developed and patented by Rolls-Royce, known as RR2450. The alloys are produced as gas-atomised powders before undergoing hot isostatic pressing (HIP) into usable parts in-service. As part of this work, we have identified a novel, high-strength Fe-Cr-Ni silicide phase, which precipitates extensively within the RR2450 alloy after HIP consolidation, resulting in the formation of a triplex (austenite/delta- ferrite/silicide) matrix. The use of automated diffraction tomography (ADT) has allowed the crystallography of this phase to be determined as a trigonal R3 space group setting. A carbon atom, identified at a trigonal bipyramidal site along [111] within the silicide phase unit cell, indicates a carbon solubility of up to 1.2 wt% within this phase. HIP cycles were studied in situ using synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD), which revealed that the silicide phase decomposes within the metastable gas-atomised RR2450 powder by a eutectoid γ → delta + M7C3 transformation. The starting fraction of metastable delta-ferrite within the RR2450 gas-atomised powder is shown to directly influence the rate of transformation from γ to delta-ferrite during the HIP cycle. The wear resistance of the triplex RR2450 alloy at 300 °C is shown to be superior when compared to the austenitic Tristelle 5183. This is attributed to the high strength silicide phase, which is shown to offer a hardness up to 2 to 2.5 times greater than the austenite and delta-ferrite phases. By producing an elastic angular distortion of the unit cell, the silicide phase is able to withstand loading up to 1 GPa without yielding. The Tristelle 5183 alloy, which produces a lower fraction of silicide phase compared to RR2450, is reliant on the formation of stacking faults and a strain induced martensitic transformation to provide a high wear resistance. These transformations are shown to reduce substantially during wear testing at 190 °C, leading to a loss of high temperature wear resistance in the Tristelle 5183 alloy. Future work into developing silicide based Fe hardfacings is suggested, the microstructures of which can be tailored by controlling Si and Ni additions.

In plants, P450 enzymes encoded by P450 genes play a central role in numerous biosynthetic pathways, such as the production of secondary metabolites, stress responses and disease resistance. This thesis reports upon the utilization of molecular biology techniques to study P450 gene(s) in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.).Using several combinations of degenerate primers, a large number of barley P450 gene fragments were cloned and sequenced from two commercial varieties, Chebec and Harrington. Among 247 isolated sequences, twenty six percent were homologous to genes of known function. The abundance of these sequences differed between the two cultivars. Variations in the motif sequences of the cloned genes were also found between these two cultivars. In addition to the cloned fragments, twenty-two putative barley P450 encoding genes were identified from 24,000 cereal sequences in the International Triticeae EST Cooperative (ITEC) database by homology search. Among these Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) sequences, a full-length P450 sequence was selected for further investigation in this study.This novel P450 gene, CYP72A39, was expressed at a very early vegetative stage, but no expression was detected at the reproductive stage. Comparison of expression profiles of this gene and "digital expression" databases confirmed that this gene was homologous to several cereal EST clones with tissue-specific transcripts responding to various environmental stimuli, such as stresses and disease. Among these, many transcripts in barley were obtained from stressed tissues at the vegetative stage, and two transcripts in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) were expressed after being challenged by barley powdery mildew pathogen (Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei L.). This suggested that CYP72A39 may play a defence role in the barley seedling.The secondary structure of CYP72A39 was investigated in a comparative analysis using a computational approach. However, attempts to express CYP72A39 in a heterologous system and functional assays of the native protein in barley did not give decisive results, due to the disordered structure of the native protein and limitations of the current method. Screening the 3' UnTranslated Region (3'UTR) of this gene in 158 genotypes of domesticated, landrace and wild barley revealed two haplotypes, which differed by a 12 base indel positioned between two transversions. The presence of both haplotypes in wild and cultivated barley suggests this polymorphism predates the domestication of barley. This indel was mapped to the long arm of chromosome 6H, less than 10 centi-Morgans (cM) from the gene encoding resistance to powdery mildew in barley (B. graminis). A comparison between haplotype diversity and powdery mildew resistance data for over 102 genotypes showed a weak link between the 'long' haplotype and resistance, while the 'short' haplotype was associated with susceptibility. There was no evidence for a strong correlation between haplotype and quality type (malt or feed); however, more malting varieties had the long haplotype, suggesting a possible association with some attributes in modern malting barley. There was no evidence for association with other characteristics such as geographic origin, growth habit or row number. Phylogenetic relationship of the CYP72A39 to other CYP72 members was also investigated.

<p>Today, manual polishing is the most common method to improve the surface finish of mould and dies for e.g. plastic injection moulding, although it is a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Therefore, automated robots are being developed in order to speed up and secure the final result of this important final process.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to find out some clues about the influence of different parameters for the polishing of a steel grade called Mirrax ESR (Uddeholm Tooling AB) using a Design of Experiment. The report starts with a brief description of mechanical polishing (the techniques and polishing mechanisms) and ends up with the optimization of the polishing procedure with a polishing machine, the Strecon RAP-200 made by Strecon A/S.</p><p>Even if all the runs of the Design of Experiments couldn’t be carried out, the surfaces studied revealed some information about the importance of the previous process (turning marks not removed) and about the link between the aspect of the surfaces and the roughness parameters.</p>

Improving the performance of structural materials definitely leads to their better use for several applications, and consequently to a decrease in the use of natural resources or in the harmful environmental consequences. For example, reducing the weight of cars or planes while improving their structural performances will also bring about a decrease of their fuel consumption and of their level of emitted CO2. The key issue is thus to find and to fabricate better materials for these applications. Our research project deals with the influence of thermal, mechanical and thermomechanical parameters on the thermodynamics, kinetics, crystallography and mechanics of phase transformations occurring in different metallic alloys presenting finely grained multiphase microstructures in order to design new alloys or microstructures exhibiting mechanical properties never reached before. It encompasses the characterisation and the understanding of the relationships between the mechanisms dictating the elastic-plastic properties and the phase transformations and recrystallisation of different engineering metallic materials including steels, iron alloys and titanium alloys in order to improve their structural performances. We focus, on the one hand, on how the microstructure of engineering alloys can be designed and controlled through the combined actions of heat and deformation, and on the other hand, on the discovery and the understanding of how phenomena operating at different scales dictate the macroscopic mechanical behaviour. By controlling the defects structures generated at several levels ranging from 1nm to 100µm in the engineered microstructures, it is possible to attain large improvements of the mechanical properties instead of premature embrittlement.