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Earthworks are the embankments and cuttings that allow a railway to maintain a certain line, level and grade through the landscape. Earth embankments consist of an engineered bank of earth that carries the railway above the natural ground. A cutting is used to carry the railway through ground with a natural level above the line of the railway. Modern (post 1960s) earthworks are carefully engineered to perform well. However, many railways run on earthworks that were constructed over 100 years ago without the use of mechanised plant. The quality of construction of older earthworks was often poor compared with present-day engineering practice. Ageing of the earthwork structures, and the greater demands of heavier and faster trains and climatic change, means that earthworks suffer ultimate and serviceability failures that can present operational difficulties. Older earthworks that fail or do not perform well require maintenance and repair, and sometimes complete replacement. This chapter explores the main engineering considerations for modern earthworks, and the challenges associated with older earthworks including their modes of failure and upgrade and repair.

This performance piece works against a conception of oil as a dead resource to be managed and ultimately used up. Writing historical references into a play/performance puts oil into motion, reminding us of the dynamic struggle to “discover” it in the nineteenth century. This play shows that oil was not so easily digested into modern, industrial life. New rules, norms, and practices came into being that helped early oil users cope with such a messy and explosive substance. Perhaps this oil story will contribute to our collective re-thinking about the many ways we perform oil everyday.

This contribution is an investigation into the palpable connection of extreme metal music and concepts of death, dying and mortality. Like other dark subcultures, metal has an intense infatuation with the macabre; many of its subcultures seek to uncover meaning through musical exploration into varying dark themes that emerge when thinking about death and what lies beyond the bounds of existence. From the abrasive and animalistic blood lust of death metal to the melancholic textures of black metal and the sonic void evoked in doom metal, extreme metal is a catalyst through which fans of the macabre can explore many perceptions and conceptions of corporeal fragility; the consuming pain of life, of death, and of knowing; and the existential notion of the ungraspable abyss. This chapter explores these varying conceptualisations of death in extreme metal culture, their sonic representations and their cathartic consolation: delving into the psychoanalytic reasoning and embodied sound of death.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.