The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.

The Australian prime lamb industry is seeking to improve lean meat yield (LMY) as a means to increasing efficiency and profitability across the whole value chain. The LMY of prime lambs is affected by genetics and on-farm nutrition from birth to slaughter and is the total muscle weight relative to the total carcass weight. Under the production conditions of south eastern Australia, many ewe flocks experience a moderate reduction in nutrition in mid to late pregnancy due to a decrease in pasture availability and quality. Correcting nutritional deficits throughout gestation requires the feeding of supplements. This enables the pregnant ewe to meet condition score (CS) targets at lambing. However, limited resources on farm often mean it is difficult to effectively manage nutritional supplementation of the pregnant ewe flock. The impact of reduced ewe nutrition in mid to late pregnancy on the body composition of finishing lambs and subsequent carcass composition remains unknown. This study investigated the effect of moderately reducing ewe nutrition in mid to late gestation on the body composition of finishing lambs and carcass composition at slaughter on a commercial scale. Multiple born lambs to CS2.5 target ewes were lighter at birth and weaning, had lower feedlot entry and exit weights with lower pre-slaughter and carcass weights compared with CS3.0 and CS3.5 target ewes. These lambs also had significantly lower eye muscle and fat depth when measured by ultrasound prior to slaughter and carcass subcutaneous fat depth measured 110 mm from the spine along the 12th rib (GR 12th) and at the C-site (C-fat). Although carcasses were ~5% lighter, results showed that male progeny born to ewes with reduced nutrition from day 50 gestation to a target CS2.5 at lambing had a higher percentage of lean tissue mass as measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry and a lower percentage of fat during finishing and at slaughter, with the multiple born progeny from CS3.0 and CS3.5 target ewes being similar. These data suggest lambs produced from multiple bearing ewes that have had a moderate reduction in nutrition during pregnancy are less mature. This effect was also independent of lamb finishing system. The 5% reduction in carcass weight observed in this study would have commercially relevant consequences for prime lamb producers, despite a small gain in LMY.

There are a variety of causes of acute heart failure in children including myocarditis, genetic/metabolic conditions, and congenital heart defects. In cases with a structurally normal heart and a negative personal and family history, myocarditis is often presumed to be the cause, but we hypothesise that genetic disorders contribute to a significant portion of these cases. We reviewed our cases of children who presented with acute heart failure and underwent genetic testing from 2008 to 2017. Eighty-seven percent of these individuals were found to have either a genetic syndrome or pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant in a cardiac-related gene. None of these individuals had a personal or family history of cardiomyopathy that was suggestive of a genetic aetiology prior to presentation. All of these individuals either passed away or were listed for cardiac transplantation indicating genetic testing may provide important information regarding prognosis in addition to providing information critical to assessment of family members.

Growth mixture modeling with a sample of 749 Mexican heritage families identified parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their mothers’ heritage cultural values and parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their fathers’ heritage cultural values from Grades 5 to 10. Parallel trajectory profiles were then used to test cultural gap-distress theory that predicts increased parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology over time when adolescents become less aligned with Mexican heritage values compared to their parents. Six similar parallel profiles were identified for the mother–youth and father–youth dyads, but only one of the six was consistent with the hypothesized problem gap pattern in which adolescents’ values were declining over time to become more discrepant from their parents. When compared to families in the other trajectory groups as a whole, mothers in the mother–adolescent problem gap trajectory group reported higher levels of mother–adolescent conflict in the 10th grade that accounted for subsequent increases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms assessed in 12th grade. Although the findings provided some support for cultural gap-distress predictions, they were not replicated with adolescent report of conflict nor with the father–adolescent trajectory group analyses. Exploratory pairwise comparisons between all six mother–adolescent trajectory groups revealed additional differences that qualified and extended these findings.

The volume proportions of the mineral phases in two strongly deformed olivine-orthopyroxene rocks have been quantified by whole-pattern stripping of fixed geometry X-ray powder diffraction data. The results were compared with the phase proportions as determined by Rietveld refinement of time-of-flight neutron powder diffraction data, and were shown to be in excellent agreement. The X-ray technique not only provides a very rapid and cost-effective method of determining phase proportions, but it also circumvents several of the problems associated with obtaining this information by image analysis. Moreover, the technique is particularly advantageous in strongly textured rocks or in rocks that contain significant residual strains. As such it offers a powerful technique for analysing the mineralogical composition of fine-grained and/or deformed experimental run products, which makes it of considerable potential for monitoring in situ the progress of mineral reactions during laboratory experiments.

Conventional experiments designed to investigate the mechanical properties of polycrystalline geological materials are generally restricted to measurements of whole-rock properties. However, when comparing the measurements with theoretical models, it is frequently essential to understand how the deformation is accommodated at the grain-scale. This is particularly true for polymineralic rocks because in this case most theories express the whole-rock properties as some function of the properties of their constituent minerals, and hence the contribution which each phase makes to those properties must be measured if the theories are to be fully assessed. The penetrating nature of neutrons offers a method of addressing this problem. By performing deformation experiments in the neutron beam-line and collecting neutron diffraction patterns at different applied loads, the lattice parameters of all the mineral phases present may be determined as a function of load. The elastic strain experienced by each phase is then easily determined. Moreover, the strain in different lattice directions is also obtained. From this information a wide range of problems relevant for the characterization of the elastic and plastic deformation behaviour of polymineralic geological materials can be explored. An experimental technique for carrying out such experiments is described, and its validity is demonstrated by showing that the results obtained from deforming an elastically isotropic olivine + magnesiowüstite sample agree, to within very tight bounds, with the behaviour predicted by theory for elastically isotropic composites.

The ice-sheet margin at Russell Glacier, West Greenland, advanced ∼7 m a−1 between 1968 and 1999. As the ice advanced over moraine ridges, small changes in position caused major changes in the routing of proglacial water and sediment. These included changes in the distribution of ice-marginal lakes, in the periodic drainage of ice-dammed lakes, in the routing and sediment content of meltwater draining into the proglacial zone, and in the release of sediment from the moraines by erosion and mass movements. Proglacial hydrology and sediment flux appear to be controlled not simply by glacier mass balance, but by evolving ice-marginal geomorphology, which must be accounted for in palaeoenvironmental interpretation of proglacial sediments.

Sediment production at a terrestrial section of the ice-sheet margin in West Greenland is dominated by debris released through the basal ice layer. The debris flux through the basal ice at the margin is estimated to be 12–45 m3 m−1 a−1. This is three orders of magnitude higher than that previously reported for East Antarctica, an order of magnitude higher than sites reported from in Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, but an order of magnitude lower than values previously reported from tidewater glaciers in Alaska and other high-rate environments such as surging glaciers. At our site, only negligible amounts of debris are released through englacial, supraglacial or subglacial sediment transfer. Glaciofluvial sediment production is highly localized, and long sections of the ice-sheet margin receive no sediment from glaciofluvial sources. These findings differ from those of studies at more temperate glacial settings where glaciofluvial routes are dominant and basal ice contributes only a minor percentage of the debris released at the margin. These data on debris flux through the terrestrial margin of an outlet glacier contribute to our limited knowledge of debris production from the Greenland ice sheet.

The response of Grapholita molesta (Busck) males to three-component sex pheromone blends containing a 100% ratio of the major sex pheromone component, (Z)-8-dodecenyl acetate and a 10% ratio of (Z)-8-dodecenol, but with varying ratios of (E)-8-dodecenyl acetate (0.4, 5.4, 10.4, 30.4, and 100.1% E-blends) was tested with populations in eight stone and pome fruit orchards in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. Traps baited with the 5.4% E-blend caught significantly more males than traps with any other blend with all populations. Significantly more males were caught in traps baited with the 10.4% E-blend than in traps with the remaining blends, except with the 0.4% E-blend in Turkey. Significant differences in male moth catches occurred between the other blends with the 0.4>30.4% E-blend, and the 30.4>100.1% E-blend. Male moth catches with the 100.1% E-blend only differed from the hexane control in Chile. No apparent differences were noted to these blends in populations collected from pome or stone fruits. Flight tunnel assays to synthetic blends with a subset of populations were similar to the field results, but the breadth of the most attractive E-blends was wider. Flight tunnel assays also demonstrated a high level of male–female cross-attraction among field-collected populations. Female gland extracts from field-collected populations did not show any significant variation in their three-component blends. The only exceptions in these assays were that long-term laboratory populations were less responsive and attractive, and produced different blend ratios of the two minor components than recently collected field populations.

We report a preliminary study on the influence of indium doping on ultra-thin film silicon solar cells. The design of the cell reported here is such that it should elucidate the impact of the indium dopant, which is concentrated in the thin film. Indium, a deep level in silicon (0.157 eV above the valence band), acts as a p-type dopant and a sensitizer. Absorption through sub-bandgap transitions is expected based on the previously reported Impurity PhotoVoltaic (IPV) Effect [1]. It is proposed that the implementation of a novel vertical PN junction configuration together with the IPV effect enhances the efficiency of ultra-thin solar cells. The most efficient cell fabricated to date, in our research group, has a conversion efficiency of 4.3 % (active silicon thickness of 2.5 μm), a short-circuit current density of 14.9 mA/cm2 and an open-circuit voltage of 0.51 V under 1 sun illumination. The cell has not been optimized with any type of light trapping technique and 11.24 % of the cell surface is covered by the metal contacts. Numerical simulation indicates that for the geometry used, the maximum efficiency that may be expected is 9.8 % (compared to the 4.3 % measured).

Data from black fly traps in Deep River over the past 5 years indicate that larvicides applied to breeding sites in streams surrounding the town have substantially reduced the numbers of this pest. Very high numbers occurred in 1972, the result of invasion associated with high westerly and northerly winds at a critical period of time or with heavy protective snow cover during the preceding winter. The lowest population levels occurred in 1975, when treatment included a stream near the town which had not been treated previously. The results indicate that with proper stream management it is possible to substantially reduce the nuisance value of black flies in a small northern town.

Shepherdson [14] showed that for a discrete ordered ring I, I is a model of I Open iff I is an integer part of a real closed ordered field. In this paper, we consider integer parts satisfyingPA. We show that if a real closed ordered fieldR has an integer part I that is a nonstandard model of PA (or even IΣ4), thenR must be recursively saturated. In particular, the real closure of I, RC (I), is recursively saturated. We also show that ifR is a countable recursively saturated real closed ordered field, then there is an integer part I such that R = RC(I) and I is a nonstandard model of PA.

In a factory population the occurrence of reactions to tetanus toxoid was recorded after 6740 injections. The incidence of general reactions was 0·3 % and of local reactions 2·6%. The local reaction rate to the first injection of the basic immunization course was 0·9%, to the second injection 2·7%, and to the third injection 7·4%. To booster injections the rate was 1·6%. The local reaction rate was appreciably higher in women than in men – 14·4 % and 5·7 % respectively in the case of the third injection – and the incidence among women increased with age.

Tetanus vaccine containing 10 Lf of toxoid caused fewer reactions than one containing 20 Lf, but a reduction in the content of aluminium adjuvant did not affect the reaction rate.

Almost all reactors were found to have a satisfactory serum antitoxin concentration at the time of the reaction or developed a satisfactory immunity within 1–6 months.

Skin tests were made in 32 hypersensitive patients. Neither the diluent, thiomersal preservative, nor the culture medium appeared to be responsible for hypersensitivity. The degree of hypersensitivity elicited by a special highly purified toxoid was only very slightly less than that elicited by the commercially pure toxoid. It is suggested that reactions are largely due to the toxoid antigen itself rather than to impurities or other components of the vaccine.