In order to determine the timing of Antarctic ice sheet retreat and advance during the Late Quaternary, various tools are used to measure the age of marginal marine sediments. Carbonate 14C dating is a well-established approach, but requires foraminiferal microfossils, shells or other carbonate materials that are rare in most Antarctic regions, and may also suffer from vital effects, which can result in variability of up to 500 years in living organisms. Bulk acid insoluble organic (AIO) 14C dates are frequently as an alternative, but this approach works best where high productivity and sedimentation rates reign, and not too well in condensed sequences where high proportions of detritus are present. Compound specific dating methods have also been employed, but these may still yield an average age from a mixture of components and require very large sample sizes. Alternate methods of applying a chronology have also been used, such as magnetic intensity dating, or regional correlation with well-dated cores, but these may not always provide accurate and precise dates. Here I present work, some published with co-authors, of progressive improvements of Ramped PyrOx 14C dating, which utilizes the thermochemical degradation of components within a bulk AIO sediment sample. This dissertation focuses on the study, improvement and application of advanced Ramped PyrOx techniques. These improvements include novel techniques, such as compositing and isotope dilution that I use to date sediments where the proportion of contemporaneously deposited carbon is very small relative to other detrital components, and maximize the accuracy of resulting dates while minimizing costs in precision from utilizing ultra-small fractions of the bulk sample. Ramped PyrOx 14C dating techniques allows us to generate chronologies for cores that would otherwise go undated. Furthermore, these techniques can be used to push the limits of radiocarbon dating not only to regions where accurate core chronologies have been difficult to come by, but also further back in time, into marine sediment horizons deposited at or before the last glacial maximum (LGM), where highly detrital material has precluded radiocarbon dating in the past. Wider use of these techniques can enable more coordinated a priori coring efforts to constrain regional glacial responses to rapid warming.

John Brown Gordon was committed to the mission of national reconciliation. He knew that the South would have to embrace the North to repair the devastation of the Civil War. Driven by dedication to public service after the war, he worked through his positions in governmental offices to help the South. As his public life slowed he began work on a lecture aimed at making him a peacemaker, a missionary for reconciliation. His purpose was to provide a broad, nationalistic perspective which created a common vantage point that would allow both Northerners and Southerners to derive pride and honor from their participation in the Civil War. The lecture, "The Last Days of the Confederacy," became very popular in a short period of time, and made Gordon one of the most requested speakers of the Southern Lyceum Program and Slayton Lyceum Program. The purpose of this critical interpretation of Gordon's lecture is to account for the effectiveness of the rhetorical elements and strategies in the work. The analysis will be based on Walter Fisher's narrative paradigm. Narratives dominate the content and structure of speech; narratives provide a way of ordering and presenting a view of the world through descriptions of a situation - -the act of storytellingthe format Gordon chose in creating the lecture. After drawing conclusions from application of the narrative paradigm I will focus on identifying and evaluating Gordon's rhetorical vision, which is based in Ernest Bormann's fantasy-theme theory. Finally, due to the synecdochal nature of the narratives I will use Kenneth Burke's four master tropes literature to fully interpret the various aspects of the narrative, which complements the initial mission of narrative criticism. In "The Last Days of the Confederacy," Gordon masterfully uses anecdotes from his experiences in the Civil War to create narrative sequences, which construct a strategy of transformative discourse. A typical sequence would start with an ingratiary tactic in which Gordon, in his eloquent manner, would describe a Northern character, scene, or theme and juxtapose it to another story from the South. The purpose of this sequence is to generate irony, creating a dialectic between the two stories, which, at the surface, seem to be opposed. His third step, then, was to use that dialectic to point to the commonalities between the North and the South. This he would do by illustrating an American trait, skill, or value. The result would be a major theme demonstrating a national value or belief to add strength to his existing compendium of themes, such as unity, fraternity, and brotherhood - -all tools to salve the process of reconciliation of conflict with face-saving for both. / Graduation date: 1994

There is always a need for more effective ways to store energy in order to reduce the human impact on the environment. One step on the way can be the use of flywheels as kinetic energy storage devices. Low frictional losses are essential for a flywheel to be effective. To minimize these losses active magnetic bearings (AMB) can be used to keep the shaft centered instead of the more conventional ball-bearings. AMBs use actuators and a fast control system that needs correct and noise-free measurement data of the shaft position and the current in the actuators to work properly. This thesis explains the process of constructing power electronics and a current measurement system for active magnetic bearings (AMB). The focus of the thesis is on how to minimize noise in the circuits, including practical considerations on circuit design and theoretical explanations of the origin of noise in electric circuits. In addition there are discussions on factors to consider when designing a PCB and the importance of choosing the right component for the right application. Finished PCB-designs for both power electronics and current measurement along with specifications of the circuits and calibration data is presented. The finished circuits works well and have low noise levels and high reliability.

This thesis is an examination of depression in D.H. Lawrences Last Poems in the light of Julia Kristevas theory of depressive discourse. Kristeva theorizes in Black Sun that depressed persons have difficulty communicating through ordinary symbolic means or language. In order to communicate, they must find new linguistic means to overcome sadness. Kristeva calls depressive discourse this attempt to overcome sadness through poetic language. Writing and art, and specifically poetry, can be depressive discourse, thereby allowing a certain level of recovery to occur. Once an individual can write about his or her sadness, the sufferer may experience a reprieve from depression, if only temporarily. D.H. Lawrences Last Poems, written in the last six months of his life and published posthumously, shows the crisis of depression in a dying man. The citation in the title is from Aldous Huxleys 1932 introduction to a volume of Lawrences letters, describing Lawrences change in mood in the last few months of his life (Huxley 30). Lawrences particular use of rhythm, tone and imagery can be identified as an attempt to overcome this crisis through writing. The poems exhibit specific formal features such as irregular metre, sonorous sound and hypnotically repeated words and phrases, as well as images of darkness, falling, dying, oblivion, and heaven and hell, that, coupled with the knowledge of his personal state, can be interpreted as features of depressive discourse. Using particular examples of depressive discourse within D.H. Lawrences Last Poems, this thesis will show that Lawrence was attempting to overcome his depression through poetry.

This thesis is an examination of depression in D.H. Lawrences Last Poems in the light of Julia Kristevas theory of depressive discourse. Kristeva theorizes in Black Sun that depressed persons have difficulty communicating through ordinary symbolic means or language. In order to communicate, they must find new linguistic means to overcome sadness. Kristeva calls depressive discourse this attempt to overcome sadness through poetic language. Writing and art, and specifically poetry, can be depressive discourse, thereby allowing a certain level of recovery to occur. Once an individual can write about his or her sadness, the sufferer may experience a reprieve from depression, if only temporarily. D.H. Lawrences Last Poems, written in the last six months of his life and published posthumously, shows the crisis of depression in a dying man. The citation in the title is from Aldous Huxleys 1932 introduction to a volume of Lawrences letters, describing Lawrences change in mood in the last few months of his life (Huxley 30). Lawrences particular use of rhythm, tone and imagery can be identified as an attempt to overcome this crisis through writing. The poems exhibit specific formal features such as irregular metre, sonorous sound and hypnotically repeated words and phrases, as well as images of darkness, falling, dying, oblivion, and heaven and hell, that, coupled with the knowledge of his personal state, can be interpreted as features of depressive discourse. Using particular examples of depressive discourse within D.H. Lawrences Last Poems, this thesis will show that Lawrence was attempting to overcome his depression through poetry.

In this paper, we propose the correlated concurrent search approach to simultaneously and efficiently locate the mobile stations in the communications networks. Previous work either focuses on locating a single mobile user or assumes that the locations of mobile users are statistically independent. We first propose a mobility model in which the movements of mobile stations are statistically correlated. Next, we propose a new approach to discover the correlations among the mobile stations without calculating their joint location probability distribution function. Our simulation results show that as long as the correlation coefficient is larger than to a specific value, the location correlation could be used to reduce the average paging delay and increase the maximum stable throughput.

This report discusses the history, use, and future of elliptic curves. Uses of elliptic curves in various number theory settings are presented. Fermat’s Last Proof is shown to be proven with elliptic curves. Finally, the future of elliptic curves with respect to cryptography and primality is shown. / text

This research is an integrated geological and geomorphological study into the Denton Hills area. The study area is part of the foothills to the Transantarctic Mountains, which divides East and West Antarctica, allowing an opportunity to investigate glacial events from both sides. As the study area is ice-free, it has allows good examination of the bedrock geology and has preserved geomorphological features allowing them to be examined and sampled. Comprehensive geological map and geomorphological maps have been produced, extending the knowledge into the spatial distribution of units and features. Both the geological and geomorphological maps reveal a complex history of evolution. The original geological units have been subjected to deformation and intrusion of large plutons. The geomorphological mapping shows ice has flowed in alternate direction through the valleys, and the valleys have had long periods where they have been occupied by large proglacial lakes. As the Antarctic ice sheets expanded they flowed into the valleys either from the west, the Royal Society Range draining the East Antarctic Ice Sheet or from the east, McMurdo Sound. Ice would flow from McMurdo Sound when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet expanded causing the grounding line of the ice sheet to move north through the Ross Sea. Surface exposure dating completed during the study has correlated the timing of glacial events to global cycles. The dating confirmed the presence of the large proglacial lake during the Last Glacial Maximum in the Miers Valley, which drained about 14 ka. The Garwood Glacier has also been directly linked to the Last Glacial Maximum with a moraine forming about 22 ka. The dating has also shown that during the Last Glacial Maximum there was little fluctuation in the size of glaciers draining the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, with features being date to the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum.

Sprickor i betongkonstruktioner kan ha en förödande effekt på konstruktioners säkerhet och stabilitet, men kan även göra att det blir en oangenäm syn att kolla på. Dessa sprickor orsakas utav dragspänningar i betongen som kan uppkomma som konsekvenser från olika typer av laster. Denna rapport fokuserar på spänningar orsakade utav en koncentrerad belastning på betongväggar. Syftet är att se hur spjälksprickor uppkommer och vilka åtgärder man kan göra mot detta med hjälp av armeringsbyglar eller armeringsstegar i betongväggar. Detta gör att målet blir att skapa en smidig beräkningsgång för att undersöka hur mycket armering som krävs och även se hur armeringsstegar kan användas för detta ändamål. För att ställa upp beräkningar så har fackverksanalogin använts och kraftspridningen har grund i kraftlinjemetoden för att denna metod ger en bra spegling av hur krafterna kommer att spridas i konstruktionens diskontinuitetszoner. Resultatet är en beräkningsgång av kontroller om det finns risk för att spjälkning och prägling förekommer och framtagandet av den erforderliga spjälkarmeringarea som behövs vid en koncentrerad last och hur denna ska placeras när risken finns. Armeringsstegar i skalväggar är inte att rekommendera för att de har en liten diameter och utbredningshöjden gör att det krävs många stegar för att klara av krafterna.

Compared to the highly developed logistics industry in USA, the Chinese logistics industry is still underdeveloped because of poor infrastructure and ineffective management capability. In terms of these realities, the most important bottleneck of the Chinese logistics industry is the last mile delivery problem, which holds the highest cost in the whole logistics process. To find ways to solve the problems with last mile delivery has become significant and urgent for Chinese logistics service providers. The purpose of the study is to deepen and enrich the knowledge on last mile logistics in China. This is carried out with the help of the case companies SF Express and Property Management Company together with an investigation of last mile delivery alternatives in China. Related to the research question, a case study was carried out focusing on one business process. The data collection methods used include: interview, telephone or email contact, and survey. Intelligent locker and the pick-up delivery solution could solve last mile logistics problems by different ways, especially with specific limitations in Chinese market. These delivery alternatives are highly possible to be adopted and generalized by different logistics service providers in China if not concerned about the cost or density of orders. The current business mode of supermarket in China cannot fulfill the demand from an overwhelming number of customers. Costs for both pick-up stations are acceptable, and the cost is a positive factor for pick-up station mode. The higher density of orders, the higher possibility of different time-window may require, and high competitive advantage of intelligent locker can be achieved. The high density of orders for intelligent locker is a positive factor. The cost for intelligent locker is a very negative factor, which seriously limits the popularization of this delivery alternative. Keywords: Last mile logistics, Intelligent locker, Pick-up station, Delivery alternatives