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MAX phase composites Ti3SiC2–TiCx and Ti3SiC2–(TiCx + TiC) were synthesized and consolidated via a powder metallurgy spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. The bulk compositions and micros...

In this article we wish to explore the political possibilities of video games. Numerous scholars now take seriously the place of popular culture in the remaking of our geographies, but video games still lag behind. For us, this tendency reflects a general response to them as imaginary spaces that are separate from everyday life and ‘real’ politics. It is this disconnect between abstraction and lived experience that we complicate by defining play as an event of what Brian Massumi calls lived abstraction. We wish to short-circuit the barriers that prevent the aesthetic resonating with the political and argue that through their enactment, video games can animate fantastical futures that require the player to make, and reflect upon, profound ethical decisions that can be antagonistic to prevailing political imaginations. We refer to this as social irrealism to demonstrate that reality can be understood through the impossible and the imagined.

Two techniques that explore how minimising the effects of dynamical interactions can lead to an improved understanding of underlying structural information in real and reciprocal space are reviewed and extended. In this special issue dedicated to David Cockayne, the techniques of dislocation tomography and precession electron diffraction described in this paper echo very strongly David's interests in weak-beam imaging of dislocations and structure determination using kinematic diffraction. The weak-beam dark-field (WBDF) technique has been extended to three dimensions to visualise networks of dislocations in a number of materials systems. Some of the issues that arise from using this technique are explored. It is shown how the overall reconstruction can be improved through careful image processing. Using STEM medium-angle annular dark field (MAADF) imaging many of the artefacts seen in the WBDF technique are minimised, with a significant increase in the ease of acquisition and processing the data. Recent ...

When Henry Lyons was appointed as the first lecturer in Geography at the University of Glasgow in 1909, he had just returned from several years as the Director General of the Survey of Egypt. One hundred years later witnessed the publication of a book drawing together a collaborative project in Egypt involving members of the Department. This paper reflects upon this interest in Egypt by geographers at the University of Glasgow, and, in so doing, critically examines the changing nature of scientific knowledge and practice over the intervening century.

There has recently been much said about the end of public space. In contemporary cities, the public sphere is increasingly been seen as comprised of dead public spaces, privatised shopping malls and gated communities, eroding the essence of city life. However, in this paper it is argued that this particular vision of contemporary public space is skewed by the concentration of research in city centres, and in particular in the recapitalised, flagship spaces associated with urban restructuring. The paper questions the extent that the inclusivity and accessibility of local public spaces is under threat and whether democratic practices unfold to threaten such local public spaces, drawing on the recent experience of two inner-city neighbourhoods in Glasgow.

We have developed a new method of tomographically reconstructing extended three-dimensional dislocation networks using weak-beam dark-field (WBDF) imaging in a TEM. A series of WBDF images is recorded every few degrees over a large tilt range, while ensuring that the dark-field reflection used for imaging maintains a constant deviation parameter. With suitable filtering of the WBDF images prior to tomographic reconstruction, the three-dimensional distribution of dislocations is reproduced with high fidelity and high spatial resolution. The success of this approach is demonstrated for heteroepitaxial Mg-doped GaN films. The fidelity of the tomographic reconstruction varies with the dislocation line-vector and elastic anisotropy of the material.

As a result of the failure of formal top-down development, there has recently been increased interest in the possibilities of drawing upon the indigenous knowledges of those in the communities involved, in an attempt to produce more effective development strategies. The concept of indigenous knowledge calls for the inclusion of local voices and priorities, and promises empowerment through ownership of the process. However, there has been little critical examination of the ways in which indigenous knowledges have been included in the development process. Drawing upon postcolonial theory, this article suggests that indigenous knowledges are often drawn into development by both theorists and development institutions in a very limited way, failing to engage with other ways of perceiving development, and thus missing the possibility of devising more challenging alternatives.