This thesis essentially presents the experimental investigation of the fundamental phenomena of electric fuse element disintegration and its causation and influence on the subsequent fragmentation of the fuse elements when subjected to excessive fault currents. The basis of the study involved experimental observation of disintegration of fuse elements and the analysis of the dynamic responses of current-carrying conductors, which precipitate disintegration. The experimental techniques employed utilised commercially available video cameras to capture images of element disruptions during disintegration of fuse elements subjected to low short-circuit and high overload currents. Specialist experimental image capturing techniques and hardware implementations were developed to enable investigation of element disintegration caused by high short-circuit fault currents. Disintegration phenomena of fuse elements for all fault cases were compared within different time domains, which included specialist techniques to investigate disintegration of elements in sand and against glass substrates. Disintegration phenomena of elements in unconfined media such as air and water also constituted the studies. The studies diverged, finally, into experimental observations of the temporal development of arc initiation and extinction phenomena of fault current limiting of HBC fuses using spectroscopic analysis of the arc light radiation. The range of studies covered have led to new understandings of fundamental current limiting behaviour of HBC and open type fuses which contribute, in a small way, to the knowledge base of the subject and hopefully will be an aid to improved designs and development of new types of electric fuse.

Female golden Syrian hamsters are seasonally breeding animals, capable of maintaining continuous estrous cycles when the daylength is 12.5 hrs. or longer. In shorter photoperiod (SP) the ovaries of anovulatory animals are characterized by few small growing follicles, an absence of corpora lutea and extensive hypertrophied interstitium. Steroid-histochemical studies revealed that enzymes related to steroidogenesis show intense activity in the interstitial tissue of SP-exposed animals. The major objectives of these studies were to examine SP-induced hormonal and ovarian changes which occur prior to onset of the acyclic condition in inbred LSH/SsLak hamsters. Other experiments explored hormonal changes in the absence of ovarian hormones and the interaction of SP and steroids. Initial results revealed that the LSH/SsLak hamster ceased estrous cyclicity between 14 and 31 days of SP exposure, a response far more uniform than generally seen in outbred hamsters. Experiments carried out in SP-exposed cyclic animals indicated that the secondary FSH surge and follicular recruitment were not affected by SP treatment, follicular recruitment were not affected by SP treatment, and that no major changes in gonadotropin levels and ovarian steroids were present on individual days of the estrous cycle. Once the animals were anestrous, daily gonadotropin surges were present and pituitary gonadotropin contents increases. Serum PRL levels showed a slight, yet significant, decrease in SP cycling animals followed by a further reduction in pituitary and serum levels after animals ceased cycling. Medial basal hypothalamic LHRH contents did change in SP, yet there was a significant increase in the preoptic area, and LHRH became significantly elevated in both areas after the animals became anestrous. Ovarian histology revealed fewer corpora lutea and a slight shift from healthy to atretic antral follicles. Experiments carried out in ovariectomized SP-treated animals showed that serum gonadotropin levels were significantly reduced, and that estrogen treatment was either equally or less effective in reducing levels in SP animals. In contrast, PRL levels did not change and responded in a dose dependent way to estrogen treatment. Although the studies yielded no definite proof, the result suggest that SP impairs the maintenance of follicular growth leading eventually to the acyclic state.

The rigorous descriptions of linear and nonlinear guided wave theory are given together with a geometrical description that helps in the understanding of the physical phenomena taking place. The nonlinear waveguide discussed in this dissertation is composed of a linear thin film and substrate with a cladding material whose refractive index varies with the intensity of the light. Experimentally, this was accomplished, by placing an oriented liquid crystal (highly nonlinear but extremely slow) on top of a thin film glass waveguide. When the liquid crystal used was K15, light-induced mode cutoff was observed. The TE(,0) mode became leaky as the guided wave power was increased. This was a consequence of the light-induced increase in refractive index due to thermal effects. This behaviour was studied as a function of temperature. Light by light modulation was also accomplished with this setup. The theory of the linear and nonlinear prism coupler and the first experimental investigations on the nonlinear prism coupler are given. The nonlinear prism coupler used was obtained by depositing a small amount of MBBA liquid crystal in the gap beween the input coupling prism and the thin film. The basic properties of the nonlinear prism coupler were demonstrated experimentally and the results obtained were verified to have their origin in the temperature component of the nonlinear index of refraction. Good qualitative agreement between the theory developed and experiments were obtained. Bistability and switching in a thin film waveguide with a K18 liquid crystal cladding has been demonstrated for the first time. These experiments made use of the interesting phenomena associated with the nematic to isotropic phase transition. Such behaviour was satisfactorily explained by the intense light scattering associated with the critical opalescence that accompanies such a phase transition in a liquid crystal. Both the TE(,0) and the TM(,0) modes were found to exhibit such behaviour.

The design, construction and details of operation of an instrument for measuring Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Functions (BSDF) {i.e., Bidirectional Reflection Distribution Functions (BRDF) and Bidirectional Transmission Distribution Functions (BTDF)} at four wavelengths from the visible to the far infrared (FIR) are presented. Hardware, software, theory, calibration, accuracy and performance are all addressed. The four major interacting subsystems--optical, electronic, mechanical and computer--are discussed in various degrees of detail. A BASIC language control program for running the system via the Z-80 microprocessor is included in the appendix. The origin of BRDF is traced, and a brief theoretical summary examines it from both a physical optics and a radiometric point of view. Modeling is performed to determine the effect of large radiometer collecting apertures on accuracy. Dynamic range and resolution are determined from experimental and theoretical considerations. Finally, new measurements of Martin Black at 118.8 (mu)m are presented along with measurements at 0.6328, 3.39 and 10.6 (mu)m. The FIR BRDF measurements covered 6 orders of magnitude and values as low as 6 x 10('-4) sr('-1) have been recorded.

The scattered radiation fields in spherical planetary atmospheres have been considered by a new method which is called the Quasi-Spherical method. This method is applicable to planets with radii which are much larger than the height of their atmosheres. The scattering of 0.5 (mu)m radiation in a conservative and vertically inhomogeneous atmosphere has been discussed. Results comparing the emerging radiation from plane-parallel and spherical models for the earth's atmosphere have been presented for four different aerosol distributions in addition to the normal molecular composition. These results indicate measurable differences on the order of 10 to 300% as the angle of observation and/or the angle of incident sun falls within 10(DEGREES) from the horizon. Also, the obtained results in the spherical atmosphere show that additional layers of aerosols in either the stratosphere or the troposphere can be detected by satellite or aircraft radiometric measurements, while the plane-parallel atmosphere does not permit such a detection. The accuracy of the obtained results by the present method can be increased by increasing the number of spherical shells in the spherical atmosphere. The emerging radiation in homogeneous and inhomogeneous Rayleigh atmospheres as computed by the Quasi-Spherical and the Monte Carlo methods compare quite well. By applying the divergence theorem it was shown by the present method that the total flux in the spherical atmosphere is conserved within 1.351%.

A system consisting of a sphere sitting on a clean mirror was modeled as a two particle system: the real sphere and its image sphere, treating the mirror as a conducting plane. When the system was irradiated with a plane-polarized collimated laser beam with varying angles of incidence, the scattering from each particle was assumed to follow Mie's solution for light scattering by a sphere. Phase difference between the scattering by the real sphere and the one by its image sphere was assessed by the geometry of the model. The far field solutions from each of the spheres were added to yield a phase dependent intensity function. Another model assumed no phase correlation between the two and the intensities from each spheres were added. Also discussed is the Double Interaction Mode, which takes the mirror-sphere separation into consideration. These theoretical results were converted to Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions (BRDF). The theoretical as well as the empirical surface scattering from a good quality optical surface was introduced. The BRDF values thus calculated were added to the background scattering by the mirror since no interaction was assumed between the spheres and the rough metallic surface of the mirror. The test sample was prepared with polystyrene spheres with the nominal diameter of 0.984 μm on a high quality aluminum mirror. The BRDF data from this sample with 6328Å and 4416Å were compared with the one obtained with the model described above. The comparison strongly indicated that there existed no phase correlation between the scatterings by the two spheres. Determination of the sphere size and practical applicability for estimating the sphere number density on the surface are also discussed.

We analyze a dissipative map of the plane. The map was initially defined by Ikeda as a model for bistable behavior in an optical ring cavity. Our analysis is based upon an examination of attracting sets and basins of attraction. The primary tools utilized in the analysis are stable and unstable manifolds of fixed and periodic saddle points. These manifolds determine boundaries of basins of attraction, and the extent and evolution of attracting sets. We perform extensive numerical iterations of the map with a central focus on sudden changes in the topological nature of attractors and basins. Our analysis concentrates on the destruction of the lower branch attractor as a prominent example of attractor/basin interaction. This involves an examination of a possible link between two fixed points L and M, namely the heteroclinic connection Wᵘ(L) ∩ Wˢ(M) ≠ 0. We use two different methods to approach this question. Although the Ikeda map is used as the working model throughout, both of the techniques apply to a more general class of dissipative maps satisfying certain hypotheses. The first of these techniques analyzes Wˢ(M) when Wᵘ(M) ∩ Wˢ(M) ≠ 0, with the result that Wˢ(M) is found to invade some minimum limiting region for Wᵘ(M) ∩ Wˢ(M) ≠ 0 arbitrarily close to tangency. The second approach is more topological in nature. We define a mesh of subregions to bridge the spatial gap between the points L and M, and concentrate on the occurrence of Wᵘ(L) ∩ Wˢ(M) ≠ 0 (destruction of the attractor). The first main result is a necessary condition for the heteroclinic connection in terms of the behavior of the map on these subregions. The second result is a sequence of sufficient conditions for this link. There remains a gap between these two conditions, and in the final sections we present numerical investigations indicating that the concept of intersection links between subregions is useful to resolve cases near the boundary of the destruction region.

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