The subsidence characteristics of the Collie Basin sediments have been investigated to provide site specific design criteria for the Wongawilli method of coal extraction. As historical coal extraction (bord and pillar) methods did not generally give rise to large scale subsidence, there were very few details on mining subsidence in the Collie Basin available to base any design methodology on. Consequently, the investigation was conducted on a Green fields basis. Firstly, the mechanisms involved in the development of mining subsidence needed to be investigated and identified. It was then necessary to determine the effects that mining subsidence would have on mine and ground mass (specifically aquitards) structures and surface features. Once these two areas of work were completed, design criteria were formulated to manage the effects of mining subsidence by controlling the critical mechanisms of subsidence development.The results from this study have greatly enhanced the level of understanding of the subsidence mechanisms involved, and allowed for the development of predictive models which can be used for the design of coal extraction by the panel/pillar mining method in the Collie Basin. Mine planning engineers can now use this design information to derive the most cost effective methods for the extraction of coal within the Collie Basin.

Spatial heterogeneity of the environment, as measured by floral diversity, composition and structure, is known to influence the distribution and diversity of invertebrates. Heterogeneity brought about by anthropogenic disturbance may be a threat to invertebrate diversity. This thesis investigates the impacts of vegetation heterogeneity at a range of scales on the diversity of invertebrate populations in modified high-altitude indigenous grasslands on the Rock and Pillar Range, Central Otago. Invertebrates were sampled in and on the edges of snow tussock fragments to assess whether species richness increased systematically with fragment area. Invertebrate composition was poorly related to fragment area, plant composition and environmental variables. Taxon richness, abundance and/or diversity for three invertebrate groups increased as fragment area decreased, perhaps reflecting an influx of species from the surrounding matrix. For snow tussock leaf invertebrates in autumn, richness and abundance were at least two times lower in tussocks exposed to the wind than those in the centre of fragments, suggesting selection of habitat may be based on microclimatic characteristics. Invertebrates were sampled from the bases of tussocks after they were clipped to simulate three levels of vertebrate grazing. Invertebrate community composition differed between sites and sampling dates but was unaffected by clipping treatment. At the higher altitude site invertebrate abundance was 1.45 times greater and Shannon-Wiener diversity (H�) 1.22 times lower than at the lower altitude site. The latter sampling date had higher abundance (2.12 times) and taxon richness (1.14 times) than the earlier date. Pitfall-trapped invertebrates in cushionfield, herbfield and snow tussock differed in community composition and often by taxon richness, abundance and diversity. Across habitats, plant composition, plant diversity and some environmental variables were correlated with invertebrate variables, but could not be separated from vegetation type. The invertebrates collected in the course of the study are listed. Four Phyla, eight Classes, 24 orders and over 300 taxa were recorded. Almost all taxa are endemic and many have limited distributions and/or are undescribed. A species list is provided with collection altitude, method and habitat type. Invertebrate assemblages from sites differing in altitude, vegetation type and level of habitat modification on the Rock and Pillar Range are compared. Sites differed in species composition and rank orders of abundance and richness. At lower elevations, invertebrate richness was at least 25% less, and standardised trap abundance at least 44% less, than that at the highest elevation. Richness and abundance of exotic invertebrates decreased with increasing altitude. This thesis highlights several points concerning the study of grassland invertebrates and heterogeneity on the Rock and Pillar Range. First, there are differences in invertebrate assemblages at a range of scales. Conserving invertebrate diversity will therefore require altitudinal sequences and different habitat types, including disturbed areas. At high elevations, tussock habitat may be disproportionately important due to its relative rarity. Second, the effects of disturbance on invertebrates were only visible at large spatial scales. Third, there is a paucity of research on New Zealand invertebrates, especially in regard to terrestrial disturbance, which has resulted in a shortfall of biological, distributional, taxonomic and ecological knowledge.

The paper examines the approach taken by Russian government to control money laundering by creating the preventive framework which has undergone significant changes over the past six years. With respect to the prevention of money laundering, the discussion involves a review of international standards and norms which constitute the global AML regime. Recognizing the need for adding the domestic dimension to the studies of international regimes with the help of two-level game theory, the paper further analyzes the preventive pillar of the domestic AML regime in Russia in comparison with the global standards. It concludes that the federal law, which is the cornerstone of the domestic AML regime, as well as institutional framework created in Russia, both formally comply with the international norms. The analyses of the practical implementation of the AML legislation in the financial institutions focus on legislative base for the regulated, behavioral patterns of the banks in the AML prevention, and the conflicts and debates, lately emerged within the domestic AML regime. This paper aims to show how new regulations have influenced both domestic AML regime and its main actors. The paper concludes that the existent domestic regime lacks interaction and communication between its actors which leads to the breach of the main principle and goal of a regime – cooperation. The paper argues that the representatives of banking community in Russia could play the role of epistemic community proposed by the cognitive theory of international regimes. Given the functions of epistemic community it could foster better understanding of the context and purposes of the AML regime, thus, decreasing uncertainty and facilitating cooperation between the parties. The paper will conclude with the recommendations on the future research about how risk-based approach to banking regulation of the AML prevention rather than traditional rule-based compliance method can be effective.

Avatrel 8000P's excellent photo-definition properties and mechanical strength make it an ideal polymer collar material. Avatrel 8000P is a high contrast, I-line sensitive mixture that can be developed in traditional aqueous-base developers. The great photolithographical performance of this photopolymer can be partly contributed to the minimal amount of light absorbed by the base norbornene polymer. The processing conditions noted in this work are an optimized version, which have been shown to give superior photolithographical performance. The simple baking procedures make Avatrel 8000P easier to process than SU-8. The ability to develop Avatrel 8000P in aqueous base can reduce chemical waste. As shown by SEM images, high fidelity structures with aspect ratios of 7:1 can be fabricated in thick films with vertical sidewalls. Bonding between two copper surfaces over various gap sizes was achieved by electroless deposition without the addition of surfactants or inhibitors in the bath. The effect of anneal temperature on the electroless bond formed was analyzed. The electroless bond strength increased with anneal temperature. However, the bond strength estimation for samples annealed at 80°C to 120°C is a minimum value due to the failure location of most of the pillars and the resulting area used in the calculation of bond strength. Grain growth from copper recrystallization and removal of small defects improve the bond strength. Large voids at the interface of the two pillars were related to rough starting surfaces for the electroplated pillars.

<p>The paper examines the approach taken by Russian government to control money laundering by creating the preventive framework which has undergone significant changes over the past six years. With respect to the prevention of money laundering, the discussion involves a review of international standards and norms which constitute the global AML regime. Recognizing the need for adding the domestic dimension to the studies of international regimes with the help of two-level game theory, the paper further analyzes the preventive pillar of the domestic AML regime in Russia in comparison with the global standards. It concludes that the federal law, which is the cornerstone of the domestic AML regime, as well as institutional framework created in Russia, both formally comply with the international norms.</p><p>The analyses of the practical implementation of the AML legislation in the financial institutions focus on legislative base for the regulated, behavioral patterns of the banks in the AML prevention, and the conflicts and debates, lately emerged within the domestic AML regime. This paper aims to show how new regulations have influenced both domestic AML regime and its main actors. The paper concludes that the existent domestic regime lacks interaction and communication between its actors which leads to the breach of the main principle and goal of a regime – cooperation.</p><p>The paper argues that the representatives of banking community in Russia could play the role of epistemic community proposed by the cognitive theory of international regimes. Given the functions of epistemic community it could foster better understanding of the context and purposes of the AML regime, thus, decreasing uncertainty and facilitating cooperation between the parties. The paper will conclude with the recommendations on the future research about how risk-based approach to banking regulation of the AML prevention rather than traditional rule-based compliance method can be effective.</p>

Roof falls and accumulation of dangerous gasses are the most common hazards in any underground coal mine. Different mechanisms can jeopardize the stability of the roof in underground excavations and successful roof control can only be obtained if the failure mechanism is identified and understood properly. The presence of discontinuities, the inherent variability of the rock mass and discontinuity properties, and the uncertainties associated with directions and magnitudes of the in-situ stress makes the rock engineering problems challenging. The numerical modeling can assist the ground control engineers in designing and evaluating the stability of the underground excavations. If extensive geological and geotechnical data are available, then detailed predictions of deformation, stress and stability can be accomplished by performing numerical modeling. If not, still the numerical modeling can be used to perform parametric studies to gain insight into the possible ranges of responses of a system due to likely ranges of various parameters. The parametric studies can help to identify the key parameters and their impact on stability of underground excavations. The priorities of the material testing and site investigation can be set based on the selected key parameters from parametric studies. An underground coal mine in western Pennsylvania is selected as a case study mine to investigate the underlying causes of roof falls at this mine. The immediate roof at the case study mine consists of laminated silty shale, shale, or sandstone that changes from area to area, and the floor is shale or soft fireclay. This study was mainly focused in the stability analysis of the roofs with the laminated silty shale rock type, where the majority of roof falls had taken place in the roof with this type of roof material. Extensive laboratory tests were performed on the core samples obtained from the case study mine to estimate the intact rock and discontinuity properties of the materials that occur in large extent at the selected interest area of the case study mine. In this research, the three-dimensional distinct element method was used to investigate the stability of the roof in an underground room-and-pillar coal mine. The implemented technique was able to accurately capture the failure of the major discontinuities and rock masses which consist of intact rock and minor discontinuities. In order to accurately replicate the post failure behavior of the rock layers in the immediate roof area, the strain-softening material constitutive law was applied to this region. Extensive numerical parametric studies were conducted to investigate the effect of different parameters such as the variation of immediate roof rock mass strength properties, variation of discontinuity mechanical properties, orientations and magnitudes of the horizontal in-situ stresses, and the size of pillars and excavations on stability of the excavations. The distribution of post failure cohesion along with other measures such as accumulated plastic shear strain, distribution of Z-displacements at the roofline, failure state (joint slip and tensile failure) and displacement (normal and shear displacements) of discontinuities were used to accurately assess the roof stability in this case study. The research conducted in this dissertation showed that the bedding planes play an important role on the behavior of roof in underground excavations. Therefore, an appropriate numerical modeling technique which incorporates the effect of discontinuities should be employed to simulate the realistic behavior of the discontinuous rock masses such as the layered materials in roof strata of the underground coal mines. The three-dimensional distinct element method used in this research showed the clear superiority of this technique over the continuum based methods.

Tyrimo objektas – Lietuvos II pakopos pensijų fondų veikla. Darbo tikslas - išanalizuoti II pakopos Lietuvos pensijų fondų veiklą 2006 - 2010 m. bei įvertinti galimo sukaupti turto dydį pensijų fonduose. Darbo pagrindiniai uždaviniai: išnagrinėti pensijų sistemą, gyvavusią šalyje iki ir po 2004 m. pensijų sistemos reformos; išanalizuoti ir susisteminti pensijų fondų pasirinkimo kriterijus, akcentuojant pelningumo, rizikos rodiklius bei fondų mokesčius; pateikti trumpą II pakopos pensijų fondų apžvalgą Lietuvoje; atlikti kiekvienos strategijos pensijų fondų dalyvių ir sukauptų aktyvų dinamikos analizę; išanalizuoti pensijų fondų portfelių struktūrą ir jų diversifikaciją; išnagrinėti pensijų fondų taikomus mokesčius, uždirbtas investicinės grąžas bei įvertinti riziką; įvertinti galimo sukaupti turto dydį pensijų fonduose. Tyrimo metodai – mokslinės literatūros, straipsnių, teisės aktų reglamentuojančių II pakopos pensijų fondų veiklą, pensijų fondų ataskaitų analizė, loginė analizė ir sintezė, lyginamoji analizė. Statistinių duomenų lyginamoji analizė ir sintezė, struktūrinė analizė, detalizavimas, grafinio vaizdavimo metodas. Atlikus tyrimą nustatyta, kad sukaupto turto dydis II pakopos pensijų fonde labiausiai priklauso nuo gaunamo darbo užmokesčio, pradedančio kaupti amžiaus ir fondo pelningumo. Mažiausiai priklauso nuo fondo taikomų mokesčių. Sukaupiama suma nėra didelė dėl mažų įmokų į fondus, tačiau kaupti verta, nes mirties atveju sukauptas turtas yra paveldimas. / Subject of the research: activities of Lithuania’s pillar II pension funds. Aim of the paper: to analyse activities of Lithuania’s pillar II pension funds in 2006 - 2010 and to assess size of possibly accumulated assets in the pension funds. Main tasks of the paper: to analyse pension system, existing in Lithuania before and after pension reform 2004; to analyse and systematize pension fund selection criteria, stressing profitability, risk indices and fund fees; to present a brief review of Lithuania’s pillar II pension funds; to perform dynamic analysis of every strategy pension fund members and accumulated assets; to analyse pension fund portfolio structure and its diversity; to analyse the fees applied by pension funds, earned investment returns and to assess risk; to assess size of possibly accumulated assets in the pension funds. Research methods: analysis of scientific literature, articles, legal acts regulating activities of Lithuania’s pillar II pension funds, pension fund reports, logic analysis and synthesis, comparative analysis. Comparative analysis and synthesis of statistic data, structural analysis, detailing, graphical depicting. After having performed the study, it is established that size of the assets accumulated in the pillar II pension funds mostly depends on the salaries, age of the person who starts to accumulate and profitability of the fund. It is least dependent on the fees applied by fund. Accumulated amount is not large due to low instalments... [to full text]

Chip scale refrigeration system is critical for the development of electronics with the rapid increase of power consumption and substantial reduction of device size, resulting in an emergent demand on novel cooling technologies with a high efficiency for the thermal management. In this thesis, active refrigeration devices based on Stirling cycle and an electrocaloric material, are designed and investigated to achieve a high cooling performance. Firstly, a new Stirling micro-refrigeration system composed of arrays of silicon MEMS cooling elements is designed and evaluated. The cooling elements are fabricated in a stacked array on a silicon wafer. A regenerator is placed between the compression (hot side) and expansion (cold side) diaphragms, which are driven electrostatically. Under operating conditions, the hot and cold diaphragms oscillate sinusoidally and out of phase such that heat is extracted to the expansion space and released from the compression space. A first-order of thermodynamic analysis is performed to study the effect of geometric parameters. Losses due to regenerator non-idealities and chamber heat transfer limitation are estimated. A multiphysics computational approach for analyzing the system performance that considers compressible flow and heat transfer with a large deformable mesh is demonstrated. The optimal regenerator porosity for the best system COP (coefficient of performance) is identified. To overcome the computational complexity brought about by the fine pillar structure in the regenerator, a porous medium model is used to allow for modeling of a full element. The analysis indicates the work recovery of the system and the diaphragm actuation are main challenges for this cooler design.The pressure drop and friction factor of gas flow across circular silicon micro pillar arrays fabricated by deep reactive ion etch (DRIE) process are investigated. A new correlation that considers the coupled effect of pillar spacing and aspect ratio, is proposed to predict the friction factor in a Reynolds v number range of 1-100. Silicon pillars with large artificial roughness amplitudes is also fabricated, and the effect of the roughness is studied in the laminar flow region. The significant reduction of pressure drop and friction factor indicates that a large artificial roughness could be built for pillar arrays in the regenerator to enhance the micro-cooler efficiency. The second option is to develop a fluid-based refrigeration system using an electrocaloric material poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE-CFE)] terpolymer. Each cooling element includes two diaphragm actuators fabricated in the plane of a silicon wafer, which drive a heat transfer fluid back and forth across terpolymer layers that are placed between them. Finite element simulations with an assumption of sinusoidal diaphrahm motions are conducted to explore the system performance detailedly, including the effects of the applied electric field, geometric dimensions, operating frequency and externally-applied temperature span. Multiphysics modeling coupled with solid-fluid interaction, heat transfer, electrostatics, porous medium and moving mesh technique is successfully performed to verify the thermal modeling feasibility. The electrocaloric effect in thin films of P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) terpolymer is directly measured by infrared imaging at ambient conditions. At an electric field of 90 V/μm, an adiabatic temperature change of 5.2 °C is obtained and the material performance is stable over a long testing period. These results suggest that application of this terpolymer is promising for micro-scale refrigeration.

Spatial heterogeneity of the environment, as measured by floral diversity, composition and structure, is known to influence the distribution and diversity of invertebrates. Heterogeneity brought about by anthropogenic disturbance may be a threat to invertebrate diversity. This thesis investigates the impacts of vegetation heterogeneity at a range of scales on the diversity of invertebrate populations in modified high-altitude indigenous grasslands on the Rock and Pillar Range, Central Otago. Invertebrates were sampled in and on the edges of snow tussock fragments to assess whether species richness increased systematically with fragment area. Invertebrate composition was poorly related to fragment area, plant composition and environmental variables. Taxon richness, abundance and/or diversity for three invertebrate groups increased as fragment area decreased, perhaps reflecting an influx of species from the surrounding matrix. For snow tussock leaf invertebrates in autumn, richness and abundance were at least two times lower in tussocks exposed to the wind than those in the centre of fragments, suggesting selection of habitat may be based on microclimatic characteristics. Invertebrates were sampled from the bases of tussocks after they were clipped to simulate three levels of vertebrate grazing. Invertebrate community composition differed between sites and sampling dates but was unaffected by clipping treatment. At the higher altitude site invertebrate abundance was 1.45 times greater and Shannon-Wiener diversity (H�) 1.22 times lower than at the lower altitude site. The latter sampling date had higher abundance (2.12 times) and taxon richness (1.14 times) than the earlier date. Pitfall-trapped invertebrates in cushionfield, herbfield and snow tussock differed in community composition and often by taxon richness, abundance and diversity. Across habitats, plant composition, plant diversity and some environmental variables were correlated with invertebrate variables, but could not be separated from vegetation type. The invertebrates collected in the course of the study are listed. Four Phyla, eight Classes, 24 orders and over 300 taxa were recorded. Almost all taxa are endemic and many have limited distributions and/or are undescribed. A species list is provided with collection altitude, method and habitat type. Invertebrate assemblages from sites differing in altitude, vegetation type and level of habitat modification on the Rock and Pillar Range are compared. Sites differed in species composition and rank orders of abundance and richness. At lower elevations, invertebrate richness was at least 25% less, and standardised trap abundance at least 44% less, than that at the highest elevation. Richness and abundance of exotic invertebrates decreased with increasing altitude. This thesis highlights several points concerning the study of grassland invertebrates and heterogeneity on the Rock and Pillar Range. First, there are differences in invertebrate assemblages at a range of scales. Conserving invertebrate diversity will therefore require altitudinal sequences and different habitat types, including disturbed areas. At high elevations, tussock habitat may be disproportionately important due to its relative rarity. Second, the effects of disturbance on invertebrates were only visible at large spatial scales. Third, there is a paucity of research on New Zealand invertebrates, especially in regard to terrestrial disturbance, which has resulted in a shortfall of biological, distributional, taxonomic and ecological knowledge.

abstract: Increasing demand for high strength powder metallurgy (PM) steels has resulted in the development of dual phase PM steels. In this work, the effects of thermal aging on the microstructure and mechanical behavior of dual phase precipitation hardened powder metallurgy (PM) stainless steels of varying ferrite-martensite content were examined. Quantitative analyses of the inherent porosity and phase fractions were conducted on the steels and no significant differences were noted with respect to aging temperature. Tensile strength, yield strength, and elongation to fracture all increased with increasing aging temperature reaching maxima at 538oC in most cases. Increased strength and decreased ductility were observed in steels of higher martensite content. Nanoindentation of the individual microconstituents was employed to obtain a fundamental understanding of the strengthening contributions. Both the ferrite and martensite hardness values increased with aging temperature and exhibited similar maxima to the bulk tensile properties. Due to the complex non-uniform stresses and strains associated with conventional nanoindentation, micropillar compression has become an attractive method to probe local mechanical behavior while limiting strain gradients and contributions from surrounding features. In this study, micropillars of ferrite and martensite were fabricated by focused ion beam (FIB) milling of dual phase precipitation hardened powder metallurgy (PM) stainless steels. Compression testing was conducted using a nanoindenter equipped with a flat punch indenter. The stress-strain curves of the individual microconstituents were calculated from the load-displacement curves less the extraneous displacements of the system. Using a rule of mixtures approach in conjunction with porosity corrections, the mechanical properties of ferrite and martensite were combined for comparison to tensile tests of the bulk material, and reasonable agreement was found for the ultimate tensile strength. Micropillar compression experiments of both as sintered and thermally aged material allowed for investigation of the effect of thermal aging. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Materials Science and Engineering 2011