Two types of mineral fillers, talc and mica, were compounded into polypropylene (PP) via a twin-screw extruder. The morphologies and mechanical properties of the resultant composites were investigated. The dispersion of minerals in PP was observed using Focused Ion Beam (FIB) techniques. The particle size distribution (PSD) and aspect ratio (AR) of particles in the polymer phase were obtained from FIB image analysis. It was found that FIB imaging displays directly the micron to mesoscale level dispersion of particles in polymeric composites. The technique has significant potential for characterizing such materials, having some advantages over ‘traditional’ scanning and transmission electron microscopy in terms of generating representative data in a realistic timescale. The PSD and AR distribution and degree of dispersion in the composites give insights into the modification of mechanical properties of the composites studied.

Several K-Fe sulphide minerals have been described from natrocarbonatite lavas erupted from the Tanzanian volcano Oldoinyo Lengai but uncertainty remains about their exact identity. They do not appear to be any of the established K-Fe sulphides according to Dawson et al. (1995) and Mitchell (1997). Here, we describe yet another variant which is a Mn- and F-bearing variety of rasvumite. It appears to have formed by reaction of Fe alabandite grains with natrocarbonatite magma and occurs as minute rims on the alabandite. Its formula is: (K0.94Na0.06)(Fe1.91Mn0.13Ca0.01Sr0.01)(S2.06F0.24Cl0.04).

Whole-rock, minor element, rare earth, and electron microprobe data are presented for basaltic lavas from the western Kangerdlugssuaq area of East Greenland. Samples were obtained from Professor W. A. Deer's 1936 collection at Triangular Nunataks and Gardiner Plateau, and additional material obtained by sampling moraines on the surface of Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier. Both undersaturated and tholeiitic lavas are present at the Triangular Nunatak locality but the glacier suite is dominantly tholeiitic. The tholeiitic suite is less evolved than tholeiites from the Scoresby Sund area. Undersaturated lavas show enrichment in light rare earth elements and tholeiitic lavas show fiat chondrite-normalized patterns. Tholeiites from the Gardiner Plateau show no Eu anomaly but others show a slight negative Eu anomaly. Chemical data and considerations of regional geology are consistent with Cox's (1980) model of flood basalt vulcanism.

Natrocarbonatite magma, erupted as lava flows in the Tanzanian volcano Oldoinyo Lengai in June and November of 1988, has evolved chemically since its formation. The June and November flows of 1988 display increasing Cl, F, Ba, K, Mg and Mn, concomitantly with Na, Ca and P depletion. Furthermore, the June magma, at the time of eruption, had higher Cl, F, Ba and K contents and lower Ca than the November magma and evolved to higher levels of Cl, F, Ba and K content and lower Ca, Na and P. The mineralogy of the lavas reflects these trends. Crystallization of fluorite and halite–sylvite solid solution, usually as a symplectic intergrowth, occurs when Cl and F concentrations reach the critical value necessary to stabilize both minerals and explains why neither occurs as a phenocryst phase. Natrocarbonatite magma has undergone considerable and rapid magmatic evolution, probably in small and separate magma chambers. Two minerals, nyerereite and gregoryite, have dominated the crystallization history of natrocarbonatite magma, and many lavas are phenocryst-rich. However, because most of the lavas are composed principally of these two minerals, crystal accumulation has not greatly changed their composition and, consequently, we suggest that the bulk composition of the lavas closely approximates that of the parental magma.

Black, opaque grains of a spinel whose composition is (Mg2TiO4) 85.8, (MgFe2O4) 0.4 (FeFe2O4) 13.8 (mole %) coexist with a MgAl2O4 spinel and geikielite in a periclase-forsterite marble that has been thermally metamorphosed against an alkalic ultramafic intrusion of Caledonian age in the Kangerdlugssuaq region of East Greenland. The spinel appears to be the closest recorded approach to the end-member Mg2TiO4 among natural rocks, and to be part of a solid-solution series extending across the join Mg2TiO4-MgFe2O4-FeFe2O4, the existence of which has not previously been reported. The composition of the series appears to be controlled by the fO2 that prevails during metamorphism.

A forwards induction policy is a type of greedy algorithm for Markov decision processes. It is straightforward to implement and is optimal for a large class of models, especially in stochastic resource allocation. In this paper we consider a model for the optimal allocation of resources in pre-clinical pharmaceutical research. We show that although they are not always strictly optimal, forwards induction policies perform well.

Phlogopitization of pyroxenite is common in contact zones between clinopyroxenites and carbonatite dikes of the Cargill ultramafic rock—carbonatite complex near Kapuskasing, Ontario. The most typical development is a mica zone 1–10 cm wide but phlogopite is also developed in a more pervasive manner throughout the groundmass of several types of ultramafic rock. Fenitization is most commonly thought of as a process whereby aegirine and riebeckitic amphiboles are formed in the host rock while feldspar is recrystallized and silica progressively removed. Phlogopitization of pyroxenite can properly be referred to, however, as a type of fenitization. It is clearly related to the intrusion of carbonatite into pyroxenite and is further testimony to the fact that many carbonatite magmas are initially alkalic but lose alkalies to the surrounding rocks and crystallize as calcitic and dolomitic carbonatite with alkali contents restricted to the amounts that could be fixed as micas, pyroxenes or amphiboles. This in turn is controlled by the silica and alumina activity of the carbonatite magma. Abundant evidence for considerable amounts of fluorine in carbonatite magmas suggests that alkalies may be transported into the country rocks as fluorides. It is further suggested that late-stage feldspathization in carbonatite complexes is explained by the abstraction of potassic halide solutions from the crystallizing carbonatite magma. The conclusion seems inescapable that alkali carbonatite magmas, far from being the curiosity thought by many petrologists, are in fact very common during the evolutionary history of carbonatites. The common calcitic and dolomitic carbonatites have not generally crystallized from a magma of the same composition but are the residue remaining after the abstraction of an alkali-rich aqueous fluid. Consequently, there is a need to redesign the experimental phase equilibrium approach to problems of carbonatite genesis in order to take account of the presence of alkalies in most carbonatite magmas.

Pharmaceutical companies have to face huge risks and enormous costs of production before they can produce a drug. Efficient allocation of resources is essential to help in maximizing profits. Yu and Gittins (2007) described a model and associated software for determining efficient allocations for a preclinical research project. This is the starting point for this paper. We provide explicit optimal policies for the selection of successive candidate drugs for two restricted versions of the Yu and Gittins (2007) model. To some extent these policies are likely to be applicable to the unrestricted model.

Current European Union legislation prohibits the washing of Class A eggs. This is in stark contrast to countries such as the United States of America and, more recently Japan, which have embraced egg-washing technology. The emergence in the UK of egg associated Salmonella enteritidis as a significant cause of food poisoning has, combined with the increase in non-cage egg production systems, increased interest in technologies that might improve the microbial quality of the egg. This paper reviews the history of egg washing in the European Union and more specifically its restricted use in the UK and contrasts this with its uptake in the United States among other countries. Similarly the technological advances in egg washing are reviewed, in the context of the underpinning science.

Under certain conditions it is shown that for jobs with increasing completion rates the expected flow time is minimised by a non-pre-emptive service discipline.

The D.A.I. theorem of Gittins and Jones has proved a powerful tool in solving sequential statistical problems. A generalisation of this theorem is presented. This generalisation enables us to solve certain stochastic scheduling problems where the items or jobs to be scheduled have random times to completion, the random times having distributions dependent upon parameters to which prior distributions are allocated. Such problems are of interest in many areas where scheduling is important.

The problem of scheduling items for service with random service times is formulated as an optimal control problem. Pontryagin's maximum principle is used to determine the optimal schedule in certain cases.

A stochastic theory is given for speculative industrial chemical research. It is shown how the theory may be used to suggest a suitable balance between long-term and short-term projects.

The distribution function for the negative binomial distribution is known to be an incomplete beta function. Here, some of the properties of the family of distribution functions for multivariate negative binomial distributions are explored. These properties are then used in deriving the expected cost per unit time for a multi-line joint-reordering system with Poisson demands. Policies are considered for which the quantity of any particular line in stock is the same at the beginning of every cycle. A method which gives good approximations to the optimal values of these quantities is described.

In a series of papers Whittle has proposed locating the optimal boundary between the continuation region and the stopping region, in the no-overshoot approximation, for a class of sequential analysis problems by using the criterion that the gradient of the objective function must be continuous at the boundary. It is shown here that the result originally proposed by Whittle is not true in the generality which he supposed, and an indication is given of some of the circumstances in which it does hold.

Suppose that a number of jobs are to be carried out by a single processing unit orserver. The server can process any number of jobs at the same time but the time taken to finish all the jobs is the same no matter what scheduling policy is used, provided the server is never left idle. It is, however, possible to minimise the total delays to individual jobs by adopting a suitable policy. Optimal policies are derived here for the situation when the processing times are random variables. If the completion rates (analogous to hazard rates) for every job are increasing it is optimal to process the jobs in sequence. If they are decreasing the optimal policy involves simultaneous processing. These results are applied to a more general resource allocation problem arising in industrial chemical research.

A generalization is given of the notion of stochastic monotonicity. This is used in setting up, and showing how to obtain approximate solutions for, an integral equation formulation of GI/G/l queues, when access to the waiting-line is subject to periodic interruptions.

The problem of allocating scientific effort between a number of competing projects is considered. A stochastic mathematical model is set up, and for the case of just two competing projects a number of results are proved which enable the best policy to be determined. An indication is given of the ways in which these results might be extended so as to deal with more general situations.