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Title: A thesis on a comparison of methods for determining the moment of inertia of irregular bodies
Creator: Simmons, George E.
Date: 1894
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: The feasibility of using a sprinkling system as an auxiliary to a heating system
Creator: Auten, Claude I.
Date: 1913
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Comparison of alcoholic and acetic fermentation
Creator: Baker, T. F.
Date: 1913
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: A study of the original acid reaction of milk to phenolphthalein
Creator: Kurtz, M. B.
Date: 1914
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Studies on the pathogenesis of the avian tubercle bacteria
Creator: Mosher, Lawrence A.
Date: 1915
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Tests for incipient putrefaction of meat
Creator: Weaver, Ralph H.
Date: 1926
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Some biochemical studies on seed viability
Creator: Miller, Erston V. (Erston Vinton), 1898-1985
Date: 1926
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Teaching applied electricity
Creator: Willoughby, George Alonzo, 1894-
Date: 1926
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Silica gel
Creator: Smits, Benjamin Levi
Date: 1926
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Porous titanium dioxide nanomaterials for photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications
Creator: Li, Yan (Graduate of Michigan State University)
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "The huge demand for fossil fuels and the risks of the environmental crisis have spurred an interest in renewable energies. Using the clean and abundant solar energy, semiconductor photocatalysis and photovoltaics have evoked tremendous interest. Titanium dioxide (titania, TiO2) has been the focus of the research trend because of its excellent crystallinity, photoreactivity, chemical and thermal stability, and low cost. The research objective presented in this dissertation is to fabricate...
Show more"The huge demand for fossil fuels and the risks of the environmental crisis have spurred an interest in renewable energies. Using the clean and abundant solar energy, semiconductor photocatalysis and photovoltaics have evoked tremendous interest. Titanium dioxide (titania, TiO2) has been the focus of the research trend because of its excellent crystallinity, photoreactivity, chemical and thermal stability, and low cost. The research objective presented in this dissertation is to fabricate titania nanomaterials with tunable porosities, large surface area, unique morphologies, and enhanced capacities of adsorption, electron transport, diffusion, and then apply them in photocatalysis and photovoltaics. A modified non-hydrolytic sol-gel system with calcium carbonate templating was developed to create macro/micro/nano porous anatase titanium dioxide. The hydrolysis rate was lowered by chelating ligands of valeric acid for slow and sufficient precursor coating. CaCO3 was completely removed via acidification, resulting in titania powders with a surface area ranging from 197 to 239 m2/g. The templated TiO2 with a surface area of 239 m2/g and pore diameters of 6-109 nm showed a promising 27% photocatalytic improvement compared to commercial particles, and a 180% increase compared to template-free TiO2. This increase is attributed to the increased catalyst loading capacity and active photocatalytic sites. From hard templates to soft biodegradable natural templates, the rate-controlled sol-gel method was combined with homogenized micro/nano-fibrillated cellulose (MFCs) with an average diameter below 50 nm. Cellulose was removed completely by thermal treatment, and an in-situ coating technique created thin titania films on substrates with a porous structure. The degradation efficiency of the photocatalytic films was related to film thickness and to the Ti(IV)-to-cellulose ratio. Photocatalyst on film eliminated the post separation treatment related to powder catalyst and simplified the purification process. The sol-gel/MFCs precursor was also coated in-situ as the photoanode for dye-sensitized solar cells. It was found that the thickness of the anode film was a dominant factor to the overall performance and efficiency. The 6-layer cell showed a 400303% increase in solar-to-electricity efficiency (1.75%) compared to commercial paste at the same thickness under a simulated solar light irradiation of 100 mW cm-2 (AM 1.5). From non-hydrolytic to hydrolytic, a modified liquid phase deposition (LPD) approach was combined with MFCs. An optimized solvent composition of isopropanol/water ratio of 4 to 1 was found to yield coatings with uniform spherical TiO2 possessing a chain-like morphology oriented along the axis of the decomposed cellulose fibers. The average rate constant and degradation percentage were 0.72±0.09 min-1, 95% for TiF4-cellulose-4IPA1Water films, which increased by 1.88 times over the film prepared without cellulose templates due to the beneficial surface area, pore size, and the unique morphology. The three-dimensional web structure with pseudo one-dimensional sphere-chain could retard the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs and improve the charge transport."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: Examining organizational supports within domestic violence programs that support or hinder responses to reproductive coercion
Creator: McGirr, Sara
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Reproductive coercion (RC) is a newly identified but commonly experienced form of domestic violence (DV) with serious potential consequences for women's health and well-being. Despite the high prevalence of RC against DV survivors, initial reports suggest that few DV advocates regularly engage in RC-related practices with their clients. In order to better understand the factors that may be impeding advocates' RC-responsiveness, the study examined data collected via a brief online survey of...
Show moreReproductive coercion (RC) is a newly identified but commonly experienced form of domestic violence (DV) with serious potential consequences for women's health and well-being. Despite the high prevalence of RC against DV survivors, initial reports suggest that few DV advocates regularly engage in RC-related practices with their clients. In order to better understand the factors that may be impeding advocates' RC-responsiveness, the study examined data collected via a brief online survey of more than 300 domestic violence advocates across the U.S. and its territories. Results identified critical barriers and facilitators to RC-responsive practice in DV organizations on the intrapersonal and organizational ecological levels. While intrapersonal factors (levels of comfort discussing sexuality and comfort discussing reproductive health) influenced advocates' frequency of universal and targeted RC practice, the level of RC-responsive supports provided by advocates' organizations was much more impactful. In addition to supporting the assertion that intervention on multiple ecological levels has the greatest potential for successful change in professionals' behavior, the study's results also provide initial insight into a minimum level of organizational supports that may be necessary to promote more frequent RC-responsive practice in DV organizations. This guidance may prove useful for agencies aiming to improve their RC-responsiveness; by focusing on those factors, DV programs and their staff will ultimately be better prepared and better able to support survivors of RC in regaining their reproductive control.
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Title: Robust global motion compensation and its applications
Creator: Safdarnejad, Seyed Morteza
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This thesis presents algorithms for robust global motion compensation (GMC). GMC algorithms are used to remove camera motion and transform the video such that in the resultant video, the background appears static and the only motion rises from foreground objects. Many computer vision algorithms are tailored for static camera, and using GMC, it is possible to apply these algorithms on videos from moving cameras. For instance, motion-based video analysis is strongly affected by camera motion....
Show moreThis thesis presents algorithms for robust global motion compensation (GMC). GMC algorithms are used to remove camera motion and transform the video such that in the resultant video, the background appears static and the only motion rises from foreground objects. Many computer vision algorithms are tailored for static camera, and using GMC, it is possible to apply these algorithms on videos from moving cameras. For instance, motion-based video analysis is strongly affected by camera motion. If camera motion is not compensated, it interferes with the motion of interest, such as motion of human, and renders the analysis problem to be more challenging.Generally, in sequential schemes, GMC estimates the homography transformation between two consecutive frames by matching keypoints on the frames, and maps the second frame to a global coordinate. Then, by accumulating these transformations, a composite transformation is calculated which maps each frame to the global coordinate. However, existing GMC algorithms are sensitive to existence of foreground motion and fail easily in the case of considerable foreground motion or ambiguous and low texture background.To address the challenges in GMC, first, we propose a Robust Global Motion Compensation (RGMC) algorithm which explicitly suppresses the foreground effect and utilizes a comprehensive probabilistic verification model to find the best mappings between consecutive frames. Despite the robustness offered by RGMC, we further identified the problem of temporal drift of the estimation, due to accumulation of errors in estimation of mappings between consecutive coordinates. Furthermore, to address the issues of sequential GMC, we propose a Temporally Robust Global Motion Compensation (TRGMC) algorithm which by joint alignment of input frames, estimates accurate and temporally consistent transformations to the global coordinates. Joint alignment not only leads to the temporal consistency of GMC, but also improves GMC stability by using redundancy of the information.Many applications can benefit from a reliable and accurate GMC algorithm. We first briefly look into these applications. Then, among the many applications, we further investigate the problem of sequence alignment, and propose an alignment algorithm for non-overlapping sequences, enabled by performance of TRGMC. Given the transformation to a global coordinate, offered by TRGMC, and capability of background reconstruction using TRGMC result, we are able to align sequences even if the spatial overlap between the sequences is minimal or nonexistent. To this end, we first spatially align the sequences such that extrapolated backgrounds are aligned well and trajectory of moving objects are spatially smooth in the global coordinate. Next, we temporally align the sequences based on the smoothness of spatio-temporal trajectory of moving objects across field of view of different cameras.
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Title: New routes to the African diaspora(s : locating 'Naija' identities in transnational cultural productions
Creator: Nwabara, Olaocha Nwadiuto
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Nigerian American Yvonne Orji–star of HBO Series Insecure–shared her self-defined expressions of her Nigerian Diaspora aka 'Naija' identity at a Breakfast Club online interview. She demonstrated her negotiation of her Nigerian and Black American identity, and in doing so reveals the multiplicity of her Black identity. The Nigerian Diaspora is increasingly producing normalized tropes in global Black popular culture, such as formulations of the Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, and...
Show moreNigerian American Yvonne Orji–star of HBO Series Insecure–shared her self-defined expressions of her Nigerian Diaspora aka 'Naija' identity at a Breakfast Club online interview. She demonstrated her negotiation of her Nigerian and Black American identity, and in doing so reveals the multiplicity of her Black identity. The Nigerian Diaspora is increasingly producing normalized tropes in global Black popular culture, such as formulations of the Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, and transnational music in the Afrobeat and Naija Mix genres. Cultural productions that come from these and other Nigerian cultural industries are being created and represented by members of the Nigerian "cultural" Diaspora all over the world. These cultural representations are mapped onto cultural artifacts (e.g. film, music, literature, television, food, clothing) are reflected back into diasporic communities when accepted by its members as having meaning and telling stories of their everyday experiences. Works like these are constitutive of a growing cohort and body of cultural productions emerging from the African Diaspora in the post-colonial era. Examples examined in the current dissertation study include the now famous Nigerian Diaspora representations conveyed in cultural productions such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, rapper Wale's "My Sweetie" and "The God Smile," Yewande Omotoso's Bom Boy, Akin Omotoso's Man on Ground, and Adze Ugah's Jacob's Cross to name a few. This dissertation is situated within the growing scholarly discourse about new African Diasporas through the prism of cultural diasporas. To guide the study theoretically, I draw from African Diaspora theorists such as Kim Butler, Isidore Okpewho, Paul Zeleza, Juan Flores, and Ruth Simms Hamilton as well as from Cultural Studies theorists Stuart Hall and Pierre Bourdieu to examine select Nigerian artists, their productions, and subsequent representations in the Nigerian Diaspora as cultural diasporas. I present these cultural productions of Nigerian diasporas as a way of examining the transformative and transnational identities (i.e. racial, ethnic, cultural) and community formations that are forged in the dialectical relationship between African homelands (Nigeria) and African Diaspora hostlands (the US and South Africa). In this dissertation, I argue that the social construction of the core identity formation of Nigerian Diasporas (Naija) has a purposeful and useful function for Nigeria in the world through its migrants Diaspora hostlands. The study shows the Nigerian Diaspora identity in this regard acknowledges and unifies Nigerians wherever they may be in the world and allows them to asserts an emotional attraction and belonging to the Nigerian homeland. The social construction of 'Naija' is used in this study as prism for interrogating issues facing Nigerian people in their respective diasporas, while also revealing the distinctive cultural life-styles that Nigerian Black immigrants bring and contribute to their hostlands. The research design focuses in on those primary components of the cultural diasporas–the experiences of the cultural producers (interviews and public talks) and the analysis of their cultural productions (literature, film, television, YouTube, music)–in order to extrapolate cultural representations of the Nigerian Diaspora communities in the United States and South Africa. The study aims to use this data to significantly contribute perspectives of how Nigerian Diasporic cultural identities and experiences are self-represented and exerted in global Diasporic communities, specifically in the racially and ethnic diverse nations of the United States and South Africa. Further, the dissertation examines how representations of self and community becomes decolonial tools for defining and asserting complex Black Diasporic identities and cultural formations.
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Title: Guilt, empathy, and compliance in a naturalistic moral scenario : predicting prosocial and externalizing behavior in 3-7-year-old children
Creator: Listro, Caitlin J.
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Current science offers only limited answers concerning the development of empathy disturbances. Indeed, few studies have attempted to empirically identify the developmental trajectory of empathy to define either normal or aberrant developmental patterns. The present study aimed to use an observational approach to assess empathy, guilt, and obedience in children, and to validate this approach by exploring how these observational measures of child moral behavior associated with characteristics...
Show moreCurrent science offers only limited answers concerning the development of empathy disturbances. Indeed, few studies have attempted to empirically identify the developmental trajectory of empathy to define either normal or aberrant developmental patterns. The present study aimed to use an observational approach to assess empathy, guilt, and obedience in children, and to validate this approach by exploring how these observational measures of child moral behavior associated with characteristics theoretically linked to moral development and antisocial behavior. We utilized a videotaped Picture Tearing task in which the child is presented with a moral dilemma. Trained coders rated the tasks for several child behaviors (e.g. guilt, gaze avoidance, defiance) using a coding scheme adapted from the Lab-TAB (Goldsmith et al., 1993). Variations in moral behavior were investigated using person-centered (cluster analysis) and variable-centered (factor analysis) methods, then associations between resulting behaviors and other relevant child characteristics (temperament, externalizing behaviors) were examined concurrently and over time. In general, results indicated that empathic verbalizations and defiance were consistently associated with externalizing pathology. This association was observed concurrently; empathy did not predict externalizing over time. Overall, these results suggest that compliant without complaint is the most adaptive response at this age. Furthermore, the Picture Tearing task does provide useful data about empathic behavior and its associations in young children. Recommendations are made for adaptations to the task and coding scheme to improve the measurement of moral behavior in future research.
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Title: Measurement of isobaric analogue resonances of 20742077Ar with the active-target time projection chamber
Creator: Bradt, Joshua William
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: While the nuclear shell model accurately describes the structure of nuclei near stability, the structure of unstable, neutron-rich nuclei is still an area of active research. One region of interest is the set of nuclei near N=28. The shell model suggests that these nuclei should be approximately spherical due to the shell gap predicted by their magic number of neutrons; however, experiments have shown that the nuclei in this region rapidly become deformed as protons are removed from the...
Show moreWhile the nuclear shell model accurately describes the structure of nuclei near stability, the structure of unstable, neutron-rich nuclei is still an area of active research. One region of interest is the set of nuclei near N=28. The shell model suggests that these nuclei should be approximately spherical due to the shell gap predicted by their magic number of neutrons; however, experiments have shown that the nuclei in this region rapidly become deformed as protons are removed from the spherical 48Ca. This makes 46Ar a particularly interesting system as it lies in a transition region between 48Ca and lighter isotones that are known to be deformed.An experiment was performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) to measure resonant proton scattering on 46Ar. The resonances observed in this reaction correspond to unbound levels in the 47K intermediate state nucleus which are isobaric analogues of states in the 47Ar nucleus. By measuring the spectroscopic factors of these states in 47Ar, we gain information about the single-particle structure of this system, which is directly related to the size of the N=28 shell gap. Four resonances were observed: one corresponding to the ground state in 47Ar, one corresponding its first excited 1/2- state, and two corresponding to 1/2+ states in either 47Ar or the intermediate state nucleus. However, only a limited amount of information about these states could be recovered due to the low experimental statistics and limited angular resolution caused by pileup rejection and the inability to accurately reconstruct the beam particle track.In addition to the nuclear physics motivations, this experiment served as the radioactive beam commissioning for the Active-Target Time Projection Chamber (AT-TPC). The AT-TPC is a new gas-filled charged particle detector built at the NSCL to measure low-energy radioactive beams from the ReA3 facility. Since the gas inside the detector serves as both the tracking medium and the scattering target, reactions are measured over a continuous range of energies with near-4π solid angle coverage. This experiment demonstrated that tracks recorded by the AT-TPC can be reconstructed to a good resolution, and it established the feasibility of performing similar experiments with this detector in the future.
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Title: Essays in economic development
Creator: Ivanyna, Maksym
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The dissertation consists of three essays: "Benefits of diversification in agriculture: Evidence from Malawi", "Corruption and economic growth revisited" and "How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization". All three essays focus on issues, which are particularly important for developing countries: food security, corruption, decentralization.In the first essay I use data from a farmers' survey in Malawi to compare two agricultural...
Show moreThe dissertation consists of three essays: "Benefits of diversification in agriculture: Evidence from Malawi", "Corruption and economic growth revisited" and "How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization". All three essays focus on issues, which are particularly important for developing countries: food security, corruption, decentralization.In the first essay I use data from a farmers' survey in Malawi to compare two agricultural technologies: monoculture maize and crop diversification (maize-legume intercrop). I match farmers locations with data on rainfall and air temperature to test whether more biodiverse agriculture is better at absorbing weather shocks. The data make it possible to compare variation not only over time, but also over different plots within the same time period, which helps reduce omitted variable bias. The instrumental variable method is used to eliminate rainfall measurement error. For a number of specifications, and controlling for fertilizer use, crop diversification is both more productive than monoculture maize and more resistant to weather shocks. Although I am not able to identify the average population effect, I show that the effect I identify is likely to prevail if the Malawian government decides to shift the focus of its agricultural subsidy at the margin from fertilizer to legume seeds and education.The focus of the second essay is on corruption. While literature finds many channels through which corruption can hurt economic growth, the link proved hard to establish in empirical cross-country studies. In this paper I show that part of the explanation of this puzzle is that there is a reverse causality: everything else equal, exogenously-driven economic growth can increase corruption. The reason is that the boost to output increases tax revenue, and hence pool of resources that corrupt public officials can embezzle. I show the workings of this channel in a simple stylized model, which is then accompanied by numerical simulations in a dynamic general equilibium overlapping-generations model, which allows for corruption and tax evasion. I also present empirical evidence, which supports my findings.The third chapter assembles and analyzes a unique data base on local governance that provides a first approximation of the institutional architecture of local governance that has emerged as a result of the silent revolution (decentralization reforms) of the last three decades on moving governments closer to people. An important feature of this data set is that, for comparative purposes, it measures government decision making at the local level i.e. the order of government that is closest to the people and hence providing a better indicator of decentralized decision making as compared to the "sub-national governments" that also include intermediate tiers of provinces and states, used by the existing literature. This unique data set for 182 countries attempts to capture institutional dimensions of political, fiscal and administrative autonomy enjoyed by local governments under diverse multi-order governance regimes using a common framework. These dimensions are aggregated to develop a "decentralization index" and then adjusted for heterogeneity to develop a "government closeness index" that provides an overall ranking of countries on the closeness of their government to the people.
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Title: The role of G-protein coupled receptor kinase 2 in mucosal inflammation
Creator: Steury, Michael
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: G-protein coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) are a family of protein kinases comprised of seven serine/threonine kinases that were initially identified for their ability to phosphorylate G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Furthermore, it has recently become evident that individual GRKs can interact in a kinase dependent or independent manner with non-receptor substrates and influence a variety of physiological functions and pathologies. This study focuses on the family member GRK2. GRK2 is...
Show moreG-protein coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) are a family of protein kinases comprised of seven serine/threonine kinases that were initially identified for their ability to phosphorylate G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Furthermore, it has recently become evident that individual GRKs can interact in a kinase dependent or independent manner with non-receptor substrates and influence a variety of physiological functions and pathologies. This study focuses on the family member GRK2. GRK2 is expressed ubiquitously throughout the body and in addition to phosphorylating and regulating GPCR function, GRK2 is able to phosphorylate and/or interact with a large interactome of cellular proteins in a tissue - and context - specific manner. This combination of canonical and non- canonical roles of GRK2 is now attributed to a multitude of vital physiological functions including: cell migration, proliferation, metabolism, angiogenesis, and insulin resistance. This vast array of influence makes GRK2 a popular target of study for both diagnostic opportunities as well as therapeutic interventions and while GRK2 has been extensivelystudied in cardiac and immune cells its role in the intestine and the intestinal epithelium is not well understood.Inflammatory bowel disease is characterized by damage to the intestinal epithelial barrier resulting in increased permeability and the resultant dissemination of the commensal microbiota. This translocation of the luminal contents into the lamina propria constantly stimulates the immune system leading to its hyper-activation and eventual damage to the intestine. Inflammatory bowel disease is associated with increases in inflammatory cytokine production, namely TNFα and this study was performed to investigate the regulation of GRK2 on TNFα signaling in the intestinal epithelial cells and in a larger context its role in the regulation in onset and pathogenesis of acute colitis. We found that decreasing the levels of GRK2 in human epithelial cells influenced the induction of ROS production by TNFα that influences ERK1/2 signaling and the production of MMP9 to influence wound closure both in culture and in animal models. Furthermore, mice heterozygous for GRK2 were markedly protected from the onset and pathogenesis of acute DSS-induced colitis in the absence of any alterations in immune infiltration. Myeloid specific knockout studies showed this population to be in part responsible for the protection seen in the whole body knockout. Together these studies suggest that GRK2 may serve as a novel therapeutic option for the treatment of colitis.
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Title: Ferroelectret nanogenerator (FENG) for mechanical energy harvesting and self-powered flexible electronics
Creator: Li, Wei (Mechanical engineer)
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Harvesting energy from our natural environment has been the focus of multiple research efforts in the past decades. Progress in this field has far-reaching implications for the growing environment problems resulting from greenhouse gas emission of fossil fuels. Furthermore, advances in portable energy scavenging devices will shed light on the development of self-powered and autonomous electronics; which will impact a broad range of applications in wireless sensors, biomedical implants,...
Show moreHarvesting energy from our natural environment has been the focus of multiple research efforts in the past decades. Progress in this field has far-reaching implications for the growing environment problems resulting from greenhouse gas emission of fossil fuels. Furthermore, advances in portable energy scavenging devices will shed light on the development of self-powered and autonomous electronics; which will impact a broad range of applications in wireless sensors, biomedical implants, infrastructure monitoring, and portable/wearable electronics. This thesis research explores the designs, fabrications, simulations, characterizations and applications of flexible thin film nanogenerator based energy harvesting technologies. Materials and designs for flexible nanogenerator based on nanocrystalline aluminum nitride (AlN) thin film are reported. AlN nanoparticles were grown on aluminum layer by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at room temperature. Piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) indicates that their electromechanical energy conversion metrics are as high as highly c-axis oriented AlN or ZnO thin film. Polyimide thin film encapsulated the entire structure of flexible nanogenerator to further improve mechanical robustness, protecting the device from invasive chemicals and enhance its potential biocompaibility. Besides, this thesis research introduces polypropylene ferroelectret (PPFE) as the active material in an efficient, flexible, and biocompatible ferroelectret nanogenerator (FENG) device. PPFE is a type of charged polymers with empty voids and inorganic particles that create giant dipoles across the material's thickness. The mechanical-electrical energy conversion mechanism in PPFE films is verified by finite element method (FEM). Investigation of the developed device shows that the magnitudes of the generated voltage and current signals are doubled each time the device is folded, and an increase with magnitude or frequency of the mechanical input is observed. The developed FENGs is sufficient to light twenty commercial green and blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and realize a self-powered liquid-crystal display (LCD) that harvests energy from user's touch. A self-powered flexible/foldable keyboard is also demonstrated. Furthermore, this thesis reports the device's intrinsic properties which allow for the bi-directional conversion of energy between electrical and mechanical domains; thus extending its potential use in wearable electronics beyond the power generation realm. This electromechanical coupling, combined with their flexibility and thin film-like form, bestows dual-functional transducing capabilities to the device that are used in this research to demonstrate its use as a thin, wearable, and self-powered loudspeaker or microphone patch. To determine the device's performance and applicability, sound pressure level is characterized in both space and frequency domains for three different configurations. The confirmed device's high performance is further validated through its integration in three proposed systems: a music-playing flag, a sound recording film, and a flexible microphone for security applications.
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Title: Feeling to see : black graduate student women (re)membering black womanhood through study abroad
Creator: Green, Qiana
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This qualitative research study illuminates the lived experiences of Black graduate student women who study abroad. I provide insights on how these students made meaning of themselves through study abroad. I utilized sista circle methodology, a culturally responsive methodology, to examine the study abroad experiences of 23 Black graduate student women. A critical lens was used to analyze and examine how relationships and interactions influenced participants' meaning making of themselves...
Show moreThis qualitative research study illuminates the lived experiences of Black graduate student women who study abroad. I provide insights on how these students made meaning of themselves through study abroad. I utilized sista circle methodology, a culturally responsive methodology, to examine the study abroad experiences of 23 Black graduate student women. A critical lens was used to analyze and examine how relationships and interactions influenced participants' meaning making of themselves through study abroad. Drawing on Black Feminist Epistemology (Collins, 2009), Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (Dillard, 2000), experiential learning, (Michelson, 1998), and participants' narratives, I created a heuristic representation of meaning making through study abroad. I focused my analysis of participants' narratives through three braided areas of inquiry: (a) influences of relationships and interactions with faculty, trip leaders, and peers; (b) interactions with Blackness in study abroad contexts; and (c) healing through relationships and interactions during study abroad. Findings revealed the importance of returning to one's body as a site of knowledge production. Relationships and interactions during study abroad triggered emotional and physical responses experienced in their bodies. As adult learners, "trigger events" are necessary for learning and re-negotiating new identities (Biniecki & Conceição, 2014, p. 39). These events challenged former knowledge and prompted the Black women in this study to expand their knowledge of self. Thus, participants' narratives challenge the Western notion of meaning making that emphasizes cognitive learning. Instead, the Black women in this study utilized their bodies as sites of cultural knowledge production. Triggering events prompted physical and emotional responses during study abroad and influenced participants (re)membering of Black womanhood. These findings contribute to the academic dialogue on Black graduate student women's study abroad experiences (as one aspect of higher education). This study can inform future inquiry into examining intersecting identities in transnational contexts, embodied nature of knowledge, and transformative learning in study abroad. I expand on these notions, and others, as I conclude this dissertation with recommendations for practice, and implications for research and theory.
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Title: Stories of Cuban-Americans living and learning bilingually
Creator: Perez, Natasha
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This study explores the interplay of bilingualism, identity, literacy and culture for Cuban- American students in the Cuban diaspora. I contextualize their experiences within the social, historical, and political background of Cuban immigration, situating their stories within the conflicting narratives of Cuban-American imagination in the U.S., to explore how manifestations of Cubania shape the language and literacy practices of Cuban-American youth across generations and contexts, within...
Show moreThis study explores the interplay of bilingualism, identity, literacy and culture for Cuban- American students in the Cuban diaspora. I contextualize their experiences within the social, historical, and political background of Cuban immigration, situating their stories within the conflicting narratives of Cuban-American imagination in the U.S., to explore how manifestations of Cubania shape the language and literacy practices of Cuban-American youth across generations and contexts, within three U.S. states.Inspired by traditions of phenomenology and narrative inquiry (Clandelin & Connoly, 2000), this study is an intentional narrative "reconstruction of a person's experience in relationship both to the other and to a social milieu" (CC 200-5), drawing from three narratives of experience, including my own. The three narratives are based on the experiences Cuban- American adolescent girls growing up in different contexts, in search of answers to the following questions:a) For each participant in this study, what are the manifestations of Cuban identity, or Cubania? b) What are the factors that sustain different or similar manifestations of Cubania, both within and across generations of immigrants? c) How, if at all, do manifestations of Cubania shape the language and literacy practices of Cuban-American youth?The narratives in this study demonstrate how language, collective memory, and context become semiotic resources that come to bear on the diasporic identities of the participants. Our ideas about Cuban-ness, as well as our experience of Cuban-ness, are somewhat different,because of the ecologies in which we experienced the culture, as well as our unique family history with Cuba. The relationship between each family and their history with Cuba also shapes what Cuba is to these individuals, making it possible to have different imaginaries of Cuba, as they construct their Cuban identities based on the physical, historical, and emotional sediment that they stand on.Translanguaging emerges as a language practice that provides key opportunities to enact Cuban identity, as well as to feel connected to Cuban-ness. During times of developing proficiency, translanguaging becomes a scaffold that facilitates inclusion in conversations in their midst. For two participants, their experiences reading and discussing the bible in two languages through translanguaging serves to build and reinforce their Spanish literacy and fluency, as they use their academic language of English to inform their understanding of the Spanish bible. Thus translanguaging and religious literacies emerge as funds of knowledge and a bridge to biliteracy. However, constraints to translanguaging emerge for one participant, who has little opportunity to navigate spaces of Spanish use on her own, and becomes limited in her ability to hold conversations with Spanish speakers who cannot translanguage.This research on Cuban American students is timely, considering that Hispanics are the majority minority in public schools, and largest minority in at least twenty-two states, including states that previously had little contact with immigration at all (Pew, 2013).Such an in depth look at a small sample of students is helpful in teasing out the nuances that exist in areas that are known to be both foundational and meaningful to student success in school, such as identity and culture. However, these are nuances that are easily rendered invisible with when we engage in the project of categorization that essentializes all students as one thing or another, in this case, Spanish language heritage students as "Hispanic" or "Latino".
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