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Chestnut is a relatively new nut crop to New Zealand and they do grow well in New Zealand conditions. Research to date in New Zealand indicated that New Zealand chestnuts present some unique features compared to chestnuts world wide. The two main unique problems with New Zealand chestnuts are the susceptibility to fungal disease Phomopsis (accounting for 40% loss of nuts at the wholesale markets) and the difficulty in the removal of the inner skin called the pellicle. No systematic drying trials had been performed on New Zealand chestnuts and therefore this research investigated the drying characteristics of New Zealand chestnuts to establish optimum drying conditions. The study also investigated the influence of the shell and pellicle on the drying process and the efficacy of shell and pellicle removal of New Zealand chestnuts under a range of moisture contents since the moisture content is a key factor which determines this efficiency. The drying trials were carried out at a temperature of 30 C because preliminary studies indicated that higher temperatures resulted in extensive surface deterioration. Experimental drying curves are considered the only adequate preliminary step for determination of drying characteristics of a food material and the curves clearly indicated that there are two distinct falling rate periods. It was concluded that the first falling rate period corresponded to the period during which the surface of the nut reaches equilibrium moisture content and the second falling rate period occurred as the moisture movement from interior of the nut to the surface was the rate limiting factor. Hence a diffusion based model was used to estimate the apparent moisture diffusivity in chestnuts. The average apparent moisture diffusivity in chestnuts obtained at 30 C was 6.21x 10-11m2s-1. The study revealed that the pellicle is the most significant barrier to mass transfer; considerably more so than the shell. The shelling and peeling efficiency of New Zealand chestnuts were carried out at various moisture contents using a custom-made mechanical shelling machine. The mechanical shell removal of New Zealand chestnuts was accomplished with an efficiency of 94% at the desired storage moisture content of 40%. However mechanical pellicle removal of New Zealand chestnuts proved practically impossible although American varieties (Carolina and Revival) exhibited 100% peeling efficiency.

Chapter I of this study is an attempt to articulate and understand the factors that have contributed to Carl Sandburg's declining trajectory, which has led to a reputation that has diminished significantly in the twentieth century. I note that from the outset of his long career of publication - running from 1904 to 1963 - Sandburg was a literary outsider despite (and sometimes because of) his great public popularity though he enjoyed a national reputation from the early 1920s onward. Chapter II clarifies how Carl Sandburg, in various ways, was attempting to re-invent or re-construct American literature. Indeed, beginning in 1922, a very complex creative imagination - one not seen before - began to manifest itself in Sandburg's works. As a result, readers begin to see how Sandburg's view of the role of the writer was shifting - from one of a radical political poet into one of a writer who experimented with several genres. Chapter III examines the two separately published biographies of Abraham Lincoln - Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926) and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939) - and reveals how Sandburg incorporates a new perspective that was radically different from the Lincoln biographies that preceded it. Chapter IV turns to Sandburg's celebration of the theme of "the People." The chapter explores four works - The American Songbag (1927), Good Morning, America (1928), The People, Yes (1936), and Remembrance Rock (1948). These works, like all of his previous works, are an effort to make life possible to the common man. Finally, Chapter V reminds readers of Sandburg's stature as witness to the labor problem - perhaps the most significant problem of the twentieth century. I argue that the only way to recover Sandburg correctly is to assess the political ideology present in each of his published works.

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Arundhati Roy¡¦s debut novel The God of Small Things, set in a small village called Ayemenem in the southwestern India state of Kerala, where Roy was raised, tells a story of the Ipe family. Nestled insides the centre of the family chronicle spanning from the country¡¦s colonial period to its independent present is a heartbreaking tragedy resulted from a profane romance involving a transgression of the Love Laws that takes the reader¡¦s breath away. Love Laws, an oxymoronic term Roy creates for her novel, points toward the cultural basis upon which Indian society addresses its traditional and strict control of caste segregation and sexual discrimination. In the cross-border tension caused by the conflict between human desire and Indian socio-political constructs that suppress individual liberty Roy does not only depict the social reality in India but also proposes a scathing critique of the multilayer social restraints on Indians¡¦ bodies and minds. Individual bodies attached to the culture, first of all, are the vehicles of various cultural signs that allotted according to the caste difference and gender asymmetry; at the same time, bodies are the specific location where the infliction of society¡¦s power to discipline and to punish takes place. Body contact that pursues forbidden love as relief from the social oppressions leads to the ultimate penalty, death, which can destroy the body and also scar the witness¡¦s mind. Focusing on two innocent children¡¦s difficulty in piecing the memory fragments together to come up with a belated response to the tragedy and their melancholy fixation about the lost beloved, Roy tries to reveal the lingering effect of trauma and the symbolic death happening to the victims who can¡¦t work through the trauma but trapped by it instead. Roy deliberately provides the novel a traumatic structure consisted of aesthetic poetics, sensual narratives, ungrammatical phrases, repeated images, fragmental passages, etc., to convey a literary experience of trauma to the reader as if they are dealing with trauma when reading the novel. Through discussing the Love Laws from a historical perspective, Roy purposes to suggest that the major trauma in The God of Small Things doesn¡¦t belong to a particular age or place. All Indians in the past, the present and the coming future share the same trauma because the Love Laws have already been a significant part of Indian culture and the practice of Love Laws will continue to traumatize Indian people from generation to generation. Besides tackling the Love Laws as the cause of Indians¡¦ national trauma by presenting the oppression of laws, the novel also offers a remarkable point of view to discuss the cruel nature of love when love is employed as a conditional reward for the obedient in the rhetoric to command, to regulate, to threaten, to bargain, and to inspire loyalty. People¡¦s unceasing desire to win and to give love, against our common belief in love¡¦s sublime value, may bring about hurt, pain, fear, jealousy, mistrust, quarrels, etc., all of which can make a deep cut in any human relation or even cause more serious destruction what is generally considered as the consequence of the exercise of the power of law in its tug of war with love.

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LCD products is becoming skillful and popular in recent years, and its components are also developing vigorously. Many manufactures are attracted to join backlight module business due to its lowest doorsill and highest cost proportion. However, the relative researches corresponding to backlight module focus on the uniformity, light guide plate and diffusion sheet, or the gain of brightness. There is not much study in highest brightness backlight module fixing and structure coaptation. This study will focus on the analysis of light guide plate fixing and structure coaptation. With thermal shock the variations of relative parameters of light guide plate and other components in different condition were observed. Then, the design parameters of components can be modified. The structure difference between backlight module and high brightness backlight module was discussed, and suggestions according to this experiment were proposed.

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