Digital Commons Network^™

A Parametric Reactive Distillation Study: Economic Feasibility And Design Heuristics, Craig Alan Hoyme

Doctoral Dissertations

The integration of reaction and distillation into a single column is called reactive distillation or catalytic distillation. Reactive distillation provides many benefits such as reduced capital and operating costs, circumventing non-reactive azeotropes, and overcoming equilibrium limited reactions. Industry has been successful in applying reactive distillation; however the integration of reaction and distillation is not applicable for all reaction/separation systems and it is not always clear when reactive distillation is a feasible design alternative.

Heuristics or rules-of-thumb are an integral part of process systems engineering and are used to provide initial guidance and insight for the analysis of process feasibility and …

Changes In The Perception Of Stop Consonants Through Enhanced Cue Training As Reflected By Categorical Boundaries And Late Auditory Evoked Potentials, Clifford Anthony Franklin

Doctoral Dissertations

Hearing-impaired listeners have difficulty in discriminating between voiced stop consonants. An important acoustic cue in this discrimination is the transition from the frequency of the consonant to the frequency of the vowel. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of auditory training on the perception of the formant transition cue in the discrimination of the place of articulation of voiced stop consonants in synthetic CV stimuli of hearing-impaired listeners. Changes in perception were represented by behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Generalization effects after training and correlations between behavioral and electrophysiological measures were also measured.

Eight male and …

Feminine Modesty As A Thematic And Structural Principle In Mariana De Carvajal Y Saavedra’S Navidades De Madrid Y Noches Entretenidas, Shane Elizabeth Vande Brake

Doctoral Dissertations

This study analyzes Mariana de Carvajal y Saavedra's Navidades de Madrid y noches entretenidas as a work that explores issues relating to certain social attitudes of central importance to Spanish women in the seventeenth-century and that advances a specific perspective and point of view in relation to those attitudes. The book is seen as addressing the problem of the nature of feminine modesty and of its character as a virtue. The theme of modesty is analyzed in all the novellas that comprise the Navidades. My first chapter focuses on what is known of Carvajal, aspects of historical background, and …

Reflexión Sobre La Realidad Mexicana: Una Mirada Crítica De La Historia A Través De La Dramaturgia Posmoderna De Juan Tovar.” (Reflexion On Mexican Reality: A Critical View Of History Through Postmodern Drama Plays By Juan Tovar), Perla Xochitl Zamitiz Pineda

Doctoral Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation is the analysis of the Mexican History as a literary tool in the production of drama plays by Mexican playwright Juan Tovar, as well as the study of the technique known as Intertextuality. Both, History and intertextuality, are elements that have been identified by critics as a characteristic of literary Postmodernism. This work reveals that History is a part of Latin American literary production and as such, is what makes it different from the European-American Postmodernism and, still, it is a literature that belongs to this contemporary movement.

In order to show that History is …

Thermal Aging Effects On The Microstructure, Oxidation Behavior, And Mechanical Properties Of As-Cast Ni3Al Alloys, Dongyun Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

The thermal aging effects on the microstructure, oxidation behavior at 900⁰ and 1100⁰C, and mechanical properties of IC221M (Ni₃Al based intermetallic alloy, ASTM A1002-99) were investigated. The microstructure consists of dendritic arms of the [gamma] (nickel solid solution) phase containing cube-shape [gamma]ʹ (Ni₃Al) precipitates. The interdendritic regions are mostly [gamma]ʹ (Ni₃Al) with up to 8 vol.% [gamma] + Ni₅Zr eutectic constituents. Thermal aging effects on the microstructures and how microsegregation affects the oxidation behavior were examined. Four primary changes in the microstructures were observed: (1) there is considerable homogenization of the cast microstructures with aging, (2) the volume fraction of …

The Development Of Optical Nanosensor Technology For Single Cell Analysis, Paul Misiko Kasili

Doctoral Dissertations

Advances in modern biosciences and optical biosensor technology have provided exciting new insights and capabilities. The integration of these fields has witnessed revolutionary advances, which include the development of optical nanosensors. Optical nanosensors are devices based on a direct spatial coupling between biologically active molecules and a signal transducer element interfaced to electronic equipment for signal amplification, acquisition and recording. Optical nanosensors consist of biorecognition molecules covalently immobilized onto the nanotips nanoscale optical fiber that serves as the transducing element. By combining the specificity of biorecognition molecules and the excellent sensitivity of laser-based optical detection, optical nanosensors are capable of …

The Perspectives Of Teachers On The Reciprocal Relationship Of Tutoring And Teaching, Debra Jean Coffey

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the perspective of teachers concerning the relationship between tutoring and teaching. This study was conducted with teachers who participated in a university reading practicum, Reading Education 539, to see how their tutorial experience influenced their teaching. Interview protocols and focus group questions were designed to determine whether they were using reading strategies in their classroom that they used in the tutoring context and to discover how their teaching experiences shaped their tutorial experience. Archival data from the tutorial files, including lesson plans and reflective notes compiled by the participants in …

Reframing The Subject: Abjection In Twentieth-Century American Literature, Amy Leigh White

Doctoral Dissertations

In response to major societal change in the early years of the twentieth century, modern psychology suggested new ways of thinking about selfhood. One’s relationship with oneself, one’s subjectivity, came to be viewed as being processed through a matrix of factors that the self is subject to. The notion of the Cartesian “self” was thus seriously questioned. Is there an essential self? To what extent is self conditioned by environment? Can we know ourselves? If not, is the self worth talking about?

Development Of Novel Substrates And Sampling Techniques For The Analysis Of Drugs And Model Environmental Pollutants Via Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (Sers), Marco Antonio De Jesús

Doctoral Dissertations

Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) has shown promise for the analysis of environmental and pharmaceutically relevant compounds due to its tremendous enhancement of Raman signals and the large amount of structural information provided by the technique. Despite these advantages, SERS has not been established as a routine analytical tool due to limitations in the analytical figures of merit such as reproducibility and linear dynamic range. This is due in part to the fact that the continuous irradiation of the laser beam over the SERS substrate can promote the rapid decomposition of sample analytes which significantly broaden and diminish the intensities …

Behind The Blue Line: Investigating Police Officers' Attitudes Toward Women And Rape, Amy D. Page

Doctoral Dissertations

Little is known about the factors police officers use when assessing the merits of a rape case. Police officers, like other members of the criminal justice system, employ discretion in their decision-making processes. They decide which cases merit an investigation and how diligently to pursue investigations. Since police officers are often the victim's first point of contact within the criminal justice system, it is important to assess what factors affect their use of discretion. Police officers are socialized into their gender roles in the same manner that any individual in our patriarchal system is socialized.

Rape is a form of …

Graph Theoretic Properties Of The Zero-Divisor Graph Of A Ring, Neal Oliver Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

Let R be a commutative ring with 1 ≠ 0, and let Z(R) denote the set of zero-divisors of R. One can associate with R a graph Γ(R) whose vertices are the nonzero zero-divisors of R. Two distinct vertices x and y are joined by an edge if and only if xy = 0 in R. Γ® is often called the zero-divisor graph of R. We determine which finite commutative rings yield a planar zero-divisor graph. Next, we investigate the structure of Γ(R) when Γ(R) is an infinite planar graph. Next, it is possible to extend the definition of the …

Effects Of Weaning Transition And Ionophore On Metabolic Profile And Portal And Hepatic Nutrient Flux During Pre- And Post-Weaning Growth In Dairy Calves, James Levi Klotz

Doctoral Dissertations

Dairy calf weaning is associated with increases in ketone levels that exceed measured rates of utilization in adults and present a potential energy loss that may be mitigated by ionophores. Therefore, effects of weaning and ionophore supplementation on nutrient metabolism and growth in dairy calves pre- and post-weaning were examined in two experiments. The first experiment consisted of 24 Jersey bulls calves blocked in groups of two according to birth date and weight and randomly assigned to receive either a commercial pelleted starter (CON), or the same diet containing lasalocid (TRT; 83 mg/kg DM) to examine effects of weaning transition …

Comparison Of Chemical Fractions And Ruminal Degradation Of Dry Matter In Situ Of Tall Fescue, Musa Yavuz

Doctoral Dissertations

A series of laboratory experiments were conducted to test modifications of protocols used for evaluating nutritional value of feedstuffs for ruminants. The in situ ruminal degradation procedure was used to measure rumen disappearance of total feedstuff dry matter (DM) and a variety of feedstuff components as measured by the Cornell Net Carbohydrate Protein System (CNCPS). The in situ ruminal degradation procedure calls for the use of Dacron bags. We tested an alternate bag (F57) with and without post incubation washing with neutral detergent fiber (NDF) solution. Use of F57 bags permits sample analysis without removing feed residue from the bag …

The Athlete Life Quality Scale: Development And Psychometric Analysis, Noah B. Gentner

Doctoral Dissertations

Quality of life (QOL) is a widely researched topic in many fields (Dijkers, 1999). However, there is a dearth of information regarding athletes’ QOL contained within the extant sport psychology literature. Few attempts have been made to identify factors that influence athletes’ quality of life (Chelladurai & Riemer, 1997; Riemer & Chelladurai, 1998). Unfortunately, this research has primarily focused on performance as the predominant factor in athletes’ life quality, thus ignoring other salient aspects of athletes’ experiences. These may include, but are not limited to, physical health (Gould, Jackson, & Finch, 1993), relationships with significant others (Scanlan, Stein, & Ravizza, …