Search

The variability of energy supplied from renewable resources is commonly identified as one of the major challenges of integrating renewable energy with existing power systems. With a 40% renewable energy target by 2020, this is a particularly challenging proposition in Northern Ireland, where an ageing and diminishing conventional fossil fuel mix is required to respond to this variability. This research project asked key questions of the suitability of the existing generation in Northern Ireland and identified strategies to minimise the impact of variability and facilitate high levels of renewable integration. Two particular areas of concern were addressed: the level of wind curtailment required to balance electricity supply and demand, and identifying whether the extremes of wind generation variability are technically manageable. This thesis shows the cost and level of wind curtailment are a growing problem in Northern Ireland. By 2020, curtailment of 7-7.S% of annual wind generation is expected under existing security constraints. Analysis of 32 years of wind generation variability has identified that large swings in wind generation are rare, and that 99% of the time they are less than ±S% of installed capacity. However, low frequency, high impact swings in wind generation were found to occur at Smin, I hr and 4hr timescales, to which the system has insufficient flexibility to respond. Twenty-eight unit combinations were ranked by modelling the projected level of wind curtailment and the associated emissions in 2020. This identified scenarios that can reduce wind curtailment and increase resilience to variability, as well as reducing associated CO, emissions and costs. Immediate modifications that could be made to reduce Kilroot power plant's minimum generation level were also assessed. Through modelling different unit combinations against simulated wind generation, certain scenarios where wind curtailment was reduced were found to diminish the system's capability to respond to wind ramping events. In Northern Ir'eland, where conventional units are required to run to maintain system security, appropriate market incentives are needed to encourage operational improvements. This research supports the plans to construct a new tieline to the Republic of Ireland, which should aid in minimising wind curtailment and improving ramping capabilities. Extending the analysis to test the inclusion of battery storage identified that a 100MW unit would significantly improve ramping capabilities, particularly for two unit combinations with lower plant flexibility. This thesis has demonstrated strategies that can be deployed to make variability more manageable. The renewable resource variability in Northern Ireland is as challenging as is technOlogically likely on any fossil fuel based electricity system. This should be a message of considerable encouragement to other fossil fuel based electricity markets, which may have longer to arrive at similar decarbonisation levels, larger pools of conventional generation to call upon, and potentially more technologically diverse and spatially aggregated renewable resources.

The thermodynamic properties of binary alloys formed by iron, cobalt and nickel with platinum were investigated in the liquid state by means of the Knudsen vapour pressure technique and in the solid state by an e.m.f. method using solid oxide electrolytes. Oxygen concentration cells were also applied to the study of iron-gold, cobalt-gold and iron-palladium alloys below 1000°C. Furthermore, the activity behaviour of solid palladium-platinum alloys at 1550°C was established by the Knudsen method. All these systems are discussed in terms of the nearly filled and full d shells of the transition and noble metals, respectively. Charge transfer and repulsive interactions are considered and related to the position of the component elements in the Periodic Table.

While perhaps more honest conversations about identity are occurring today than ever before, the violence infused into identity by millennia of conflict has barely been reduced, if affected at all. Indeed, identifying with a particular political party, religion, sexuality, etc. is often considered a declaration of war on those of differing beliefs and/or existence. The abuse and toxic perceptions created by such conflicts have only fed our culture's escapist tendencies. Now, many individuals role play characters' adventures and/or binge watch the lives of others more than they live their own, and the face—both figurative and literal—that individuals show on social media is often partly, if not wholly, a persona. Seeking to escape reality, we have become a people skilled at substituting for every part of it, including ourselves. The Morpheum Principle is a dystopian novel that aims to explore such issues by examining the nature of perception and how escapism/self-substitution can lead to self-erasure. Set in the city-state of Morpheum—a society that has banned the public expression of personal identities and mandated that its citizenry wear masks at all times—the narrative follows the lives of the twin sisters Dalia Lorenson and Anastasia Peddlebrook. Born to an abusive mother and a negligent father, Dalia seeks to dissociate herself from their parents' and culture's view of her blindness while Anastasia strives to break free from being their mother's personal slave and another mindless citizen. Both take refuge in the personas allowed during Morpheum's masquerades, and both must decide how much of themselves they are willing to sacrifice to escape the labels and lives that hold them.

β-adrenergic agonists (β-AA), commonly fed to cattle during the last 20-40 days of the finishing period, improve muscle growth by decreasing adipose deposition and increasing muscle accretion. In most cases, final live weights, hot carcass weight and average daily gain have all been shown to increase when β-AA are feed while fed intake, back fat, and marbling all decrease. Two β-AA, Ractopamine HCl (β1-AA) and Zilpaterol HCl (β2-AA) are currently approved for use in beef cattle in the United States. Converse to the beneficial effects of β-AA, heat stress in livestock decreases production efficiency and growth. There have also been reports that β-AA supplementation during times of stress, including heat stress, can cause mobility issues and even death. Little research has been done investigation the interaction between these two factors. The purpose of these studies was to investigate β-AA, heat stress and the interaction between them with respect to transcript expression in different skeletal muscles of cattle and lambs. RNA was isolated from the biceps femoris and longissimus dorsi of cattle supplemented with Ziplaterol and the semitendinosus of lambs supplemented with either Ractopamine or Zilpaterol subjected to either an ambient or heat stressed environment. Two to five million reads per sample was obtained using 3’ QuantSeq and were aligned to either the UMD3.1 bovine transcriptome or the Oar_v4.0 ovine transcriptome. Reads aligned at a rate of 50-60% and represented 10,000 to 13,000 transcripts. No interaction was found between β-AA and heat stress. Between the cattle and sheep studies, β-AA altered cyclic AMP signaling by decreasing proteolysis. Novel mechanisms were also identified relating to exercise and the callipyge phenotype. Heat stress increase the oxidative stress response along with increasing other stress related responses. Based on these results, β-AA do not induce an increased stress risk in livestock species. Advisor: Jessica L. Petersen

Understandings of the Founding Era have been under continuous debate since the American Revolution itself. Whether one examines the Articles of Confederation or the Continental Congresses, the successes, failures, and significance of each have been argued over since the beginning. By looking at American understandings of crucial ideas about government and society during the American Revolution, including the foundation of American rights, we can better come to terms with an understanding of American identity. These understandings evolved during the American Revolution, and their evolution can be examined through the resolutions, debates, correspondence, and diaries of members of Congress from the the First Continental Congress in 1774 to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776. The Declaration represented the synthesis of natural law thought with British constitutionalism that was forged out of the necessity of compromise during the lead up to war in 1774, the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, and the subsequent escalation into war shortly thereafter, exhibiting the importance of wartime exigencies in the evolution of American thought.

The prevalence of neurodegenerative disease is projected to increase in proportion to the doubling of older Americans over the coming decades. While age is the principle epidemiologic factor, it is likely that the development of these complex neuropathological entities is multifactorial and reflects the accumulation of chemical, physical and/or biological insults to the CNS. The Superfund chemical, 1,3-Dinitrobenzene (DNB), is an industrial intermediate in the production of dyes, plastics, and explosives. DNB selectively targets astrocytes in brainstem nuclei innervated by the 8th cranial nerve. The toxicity of DNB has been previously linked to dysfunction in astrocyte mitochondria. This study focuses on the susceptibility of key mitochondrial proteins to selective and specific oxidation following exposure to DNB in vitro and in vivo. Using an immortalized cortical astrocyte culture, passage number provided a useful surrogate for age in vitro. In a co-culture system containing immortalized astrocytes and primary neurons, low passage immortalized astrocytes are able to protect neurons in DNB exposure (whereas high passage immortalized astrocytes are not); additionally, low passage immortalized astrocytes are better able to survive DNB exposure in co-culture than high passage immortalized astrocytes. Additionally, in vivo data shows that proteins in older mitochondria are more susceptible to oxidation by DNB than the ones from young organelles, and mitochondria-related proteins are more highly expressed in young control animals than in older animals (both control and DNB-exposed). This data suggests that aging increases mitochondrial susceptibility to DNB-induced neurotoxicity. Using a high throughput proteomic approach with subsequent pathway analysis, it was determined that cation transmembrane transporter, nucleoside-triphosphatase, pyrophosphatase, and hydrolase activity pathways are selectively vulnerable to oxidation in older mitochondria. These results provide compelling evidence that environmental chemicals such as DNB may aid in the acceleration of injury to specific brain regions by inducing oxidation of sensitive mitochondrial proteins.

The stereotypical video gamer has traditionally been seen as a young, white, male; even though female gamers have also always been part of video game cultures. Recent changes in the landscape of video games, especially game marketers’ increasing interest in expanding the market, have made the subject of women in gaming more noticeable than ever. This dissertation asked how gender, especially females as a troubling demographic marking difference, shaped video game cultures in the recent past. This dissertation focused primarily on cultures found on the Internet as they related to video game consoles as they took shape during the beginning of the seventh generation of consoles, between 2005 and 2009. Using discourse analysis, this dissertation analyzed the ways gendered speech was used by cultural members to define not only the limits and values of a generalizable video game culture, but also to define the idealized gamer. This dissertation found that video game cultures exhibited the same biases against women that many other cyber/digital cultures employed, as evidenced by feminist scholars of technology. Specifically, female gamers were often perceived as less authoritative of technology than male gamers. This was especially true when the concept “hardcore” was employed to describe the ideals of gaming culture. It was harder for female gamers to claim the identity of hardcore gamer because this ideal referenced masculine attributes that women were perceived as lacking. Rather, female gamers were lumped into the category of the “casual” consumer ofvideo games, not valued in the community and sometimes also seen as problematic. Biases against perceived feminine gaming styles were also discovered in formal structures of video game cultures, as evidenced by analyses of video game reviews. This data suggests that female gamers had a harder time fitting into video game cultures than male gamers because of gendered biases within the cultures. This dissertation advocated for the dismantling of hidden male privileges underpinning these biases so that a more equitable gaming culture could be achieved.

This thesis examines the use of design in the construction of Poland's national identity at the international exhibitions in the Cold War period. It is the first comprehensive study of Polish design discourse in any language that rests at the crossroads of design studies and cultural history. Based on original archival material, both written and visual, and oral interviews this thesis tracks the process of construction of Imagined Poland alongside the development of the design discipline during the three post-war decades. It charts the trajectory of these two narratives and examines their critical reception. In doing so this research casts new light on the relationship between design and political history in the Cold War Europe. However, it is not a thesis about designed objects or spaces per se, but rather about their discursive qualities and the way that they were put in work to narrate the nation. Versatile and embedded in the cultural, economic and social contexts, design understand here in its broadest sense proved to be well suited to this role: it allowed political authorities, trade representatives and creative intelligentsia to address timely issues on their agendas. This thesis closely examines eight exhibitions organised in the Soviet Union, Italy, Belgium and Poland. The narratives of these events, as the thesis argues, reflected the state's changing self-understanding towards international public opinion. It indicates that although Polish exhibitions were occasionally adjusted to the particular location, their themes were largely shaped in response to the political developments at home and in the Eastern Europe. By using exhibitions as a framework, this thesis offers a new perspective to study Polish international modernism and suggests a limited impact of ideology on the development of professional networks. Subsequently it provides a nuanced reading of Poland's relationship with the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc and the rest of Europe beyond reductive paradigm of totalitarianism.