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Beyond Protest: Ethics Of Reconciliation In Post-Apartheid South African White Writing, Sohinee Roy Jan 2011

Beyond Protest: Ethics Of Reconciliation In Post-Apartheid South African White Writing, Sohinee Roy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Beyond Protest: Ethics of Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South African White Writing examines the politics and poetics of reconciliation in South Africa by comparing the defining (or, at least the initiating) document the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (TRC) with the ways in which concepts of "racial harmony" are presented in the post-apartheid novels of white authors like J.M.Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Antje Krog, and Andre Brink. South Africa's complex racial history dating back to the colonial times, the consequent internalization of imposed racial identities within resistance movements, and the institutionalization of racist practices through state policies mean that its effort to …


Exploration Of Injection Strategy And Fuel Property Effects On Advanced Combustion, Ross H. Ryskamp Jan 2011

Exploration Of Injection Strategy And Fuel Property Effects On Advanced Combustion, Ross H. Ryskamp

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Over the past two decades increasingly strict emissions regulations have been implemented for on-road diesel engines. Additionally, reduced fuel consumption has recently become a priority for government regulatory agencies promising more stringent regulations on the horizon. This desire for less polluting, more efficient vehicles has fueled advanced engine research and development. Advanced combustion regimes such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI), and low temperature combustion (LTC) are topics at the forefront of this research. Each of these advanced combustion regimes essentially follow the same principle in which a homogeneous or near-homogeneous air and fuel mixture …


Following Advice Because It's Been Paid For: Age, The Sunk-Cost Fallacy, And Loss Aversion, Leo Schlosnagle Jan 2011

Following Advice Because It's Been Paid For: Age, The Sunk-Cost Fallacy, And Loss Aversion, Leo Schlosnagle

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The sunk-cost fallacy occurs when a person invests more of a resource because they have made an irrecoverable initial investment (i.e., a sunk cost) compared to scenarios in which they did not make an initial investment, or made a smaller initial investment. The normatively correct decision is to invest exactly the same amount regardless of whether or not an initial investment has been made. An aversion to "wasting" or "losing" the initial investment has been cited as a potential reason for why people commit the sunk-cost fallacy (Arkes & Blumer, 1985; Soman, 2004). Additionally, younger adults commit the sunk-cost fallacy …


Sensory Evaluation And Quality Indicators Of Nutritionally Enhanced Egg Product With Omega-3 Rich Oils, Helenia Dawn Sedoski Jan 2011

Sensory Evaluation And Quality Indicators Of Nutritionally Enhanced Egg Product With Omega-3 Rich Oils, Helenia Dawn Sedoski

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in the United States. Omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids (FA) positively affect heart health while high levels of cholesterol are an indication of poor heart health. Nutritionally-enhanced low-cholesterol egg sticks fortified with n-3 FA were developed; quality indicators were measured and sensory evaluations were conducted. Store-bought eggs were separated and egg whites were mixed with oil, spray dried egg whites, annatto (color) and salt. The oil sources included: algae, menhaden, flaxseed, and canola oils. Experimental egg batters and mixed whole egg (control) were cooked in the shape of a cheese stick, vacuum packed, …


Ash Removal From Low Rank Coal, Deepankar Virendra Sharma Jan 2011

Ash Removal From Low Rank Coal, Deepankar Virendra Sharma

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The work presented here is concerned with cleaning of low rank coals such as Texas lignite. As a result, Jewett Texas lignite was cleaned from 28% ash by weight to 8.5%. In the first part of the thesis, it is proved that conventional cleaning techniques used for bituminous and sub-bituminous having pyritic impurities does not work for cleaning lignite coal because of different coal chemistry and the presence of clay impurities. Hence after trying conventional processes, there was a need for a new technique capable of removing clay from low rank coals.;Micronized coal, obtained from DevourX LLC, proved to be …


On The Evolution Of Social Development In The British Sudan A Comparative Study Of The Gezira And Zande Cotton-Growing Schemes, Joseph M. Snyder Jan 2011

On The Evolution Of Social Development In The British Sudan A Comparative Study Of The Gezira And Zande Cotton-Growing Schemes, Joseph M. Snyder

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

By the early 1950s, two-thirds of the manpower in the British Colonial Service -- some 10,000 out of 15,000 expatriates -- was concentrated in Africa. The total disbursements on research showed the same Africanist bias: fifty-eight percent of the research money spent between 1940 and 1961 went into British African territories. These facts are indicative not only of the obvious -- the massive investment obliged by planned decolonization -- but also of the more opaque and protean: the influence of Lord Hailey's African survey, begun in the late 1930s, which culminated in his Native Administration and Political Development in Tropical …


Franjo Tudjman's And Slobodan Milosevic's Operational Code And Leadership Trait Analysis, Arian Spahiu Jan 2011

Franjo Tudjman's And Slobodan Milosevic's Operational Code And Leadership Trait Analysis, Arian Spahiu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia played a prominent role in the Yugoslav politics and European politics during the 1990s, but the literature on them has advanced confusing interpretations of the two leaders whose political actions affected international politics. This dissertation is the first attempt at developing replicable measures of their psychological characteristics to inform our understanding of the role these two leaders played in Yugoslav and European politics. This dissertation examines the role of Tudjman's and Milosevic's psychological characteristics through at-a-distance analysis of their speeches, for Tudjman to the Croatian Parliament in the 1990s, and for …


Investigation Of Discharge Coefficients For Irregular Orifices, P.J. Spaur Jan 2011

Investigation Of Discharge Coefficients For Irregular Orifices, P.J. Spaur

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Discharge coefficients for irregular orifices have not been extensively studied and there exists a need to investigate these discharge properties and compare them to uniform orifices. The definition of an irregular orifice is an orifice profile that has no uniform shape or dimension such as that found in circular and square geometries. An irregular orifice could be present in a fluid system as a result of a puncture, rupture or fault. This research was conducted alongside a project involving inflatable structures to seal off an underground large scale piping system running below a waterway. An accurate prediction of the resulting …


Comparison Of Parent-Child Interactions In Abusive And Control Families: An Observational Study, Jocelyn F. O. Stokes Jan 2011

Comparison Of Parent-Child Interactions In Abusive And Control Families: An Observational Study, Jocelyn F. O. Stokes

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study sought to identify differences in caregiver-child interactions between caregivers with and without prior reports of child physical abuse. Data for the abuse group were made available for secondary analyses by the National Archive for Child Abuse and Neglect via Cornell University. Data for the comparison group were collected for a previous study at West Virginia University. For both studies, caregiver-child dyads participated in a 5---minute, videotaped observation in a situation in which the parent had to exert moderate control over the child. Data that had been coded using the Dyadic Parent---Child Interaction Coding System (Eyberg, et al., 1994; …


Role Of Nitric Oxide And Reactive Oxygen Species In Apoptotic, Inflammatory And Migratory Signaling Pathways In Cancer, Siera Jo Talbott Jan 2011

Role Of Nitric Oxide And Reactive Oxygen Species In Apoptotic, Inflammatory And Migratory Signaling Pathways In Cancer, Siera Jo Talbott

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Cancer represents over 200 different diseases of different cell and tissue type origins. The heterogeneity of tumors presents challenges in finding effective treatments for the different diseases. Therefore, understanding the molecular events that promote tumorgenesis can assist in the development of better targeted treatments and therapies. Reduction/oxidation (redox) biology has become increasingly important as high levels of nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) are reported in both the development of cancer and in response to treatment. In addition to their known potential biotoxic effects on DNA, proteins and lipids, NO and ROS are recognized as secondary messengers within …


Bashkirs Between Two Worlds, 1552-1824, Mehmet Tepeyurt Jan 2011

Bashkirs Between Two Worlds, 1552-1824, Mehmet Tepeyurt

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation examines the transformation of the Bashkir society from a nomadic and semi-nomadic society to a sedentary society under the Russian empire's control from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. In particular, it analyzes inter-ethnic relations and the consequences of these relations for both Bashkirs and other peoples in Bashkiria.;The historical Bashkir lands formed Russia's southeastern frontier for more than two hundred years and the penetration of non-Bashkir groups into the region was a slow and arduous process. On the one hand, the region was an extremely dangerous place: the nomadic groups were quite hostile to the arrival …


Where Have All The Women Combatants Gone? The Realities Of Soviet Female Veterans In The Immediate Post World War Two Period, Jekaterina Tsizikova Jan 2011

Where Have All The Women Combatants Gone? The Realities Of Soviet Female Veterans In The Immediate Post World War Two Period, Jekaterina Tsizikova

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Relying on numerous testimonies of Soviet women combatants, this thesis demonstrates the wartime and post-war realities of Soviet women soldiers. About a million of women combatants took an active part in the war, yet they remained in the shadow of the Great Victory of 1945. This paper explores the unwillingness of the Soviet state to recognize the contribution of Soviet women combatants in the fighting of the Second World War. Why did the myth of the Great Patriotic War exclude women? Why were some women soldiers more worthy of recognition than others? What, compared to female veterans, was the status …


Emotional Pain And Acute Nociception, Alison M. Vargovich Jan 2011

Emotional Pain And Acute Nociception, Alison M. Vargovich

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study examined differences and similarities in responses to acute nociception in adults with a significant history of emotional pain relative to matched controls with a significant past positive life experience and a sample of chronic pain patients. Using 28 volunteers who responded to advertisements (n = 14, emotional pain group; n = 14, positive life experience group), and 14 chronic pain patients from a prior study, this investigation utilized measures of pain threshold and tolerance during a laboratory finger pressure pain induction experiment. Each participant experienced two levels of pressure pain (i.e., high and low) and two levels of …


An Investigation Of Diesel Pm Particle Morphology Using Tem And Sem, Ganesh Vedula Jan 2011

An Investigation Of Diesel Pm Particle Morphology Using Tem And Sem, Ganesh Vedula

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This research investigates the effect of engine load and combustion mode on the size, shape and microstructure of PM particles of two diesel engines using a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS), and electron microscopes including scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The effect of engine load on the morphology of PM particle was investigated using a 2004 MACK MP7-355E heavy-duty diesel engine. The effect of combustion mode on the morphology of the PM particles was preliminarily examined using 2005 Opel 1.9 L light-duty diesel engine. The SEM images were processed using ImageJ V: 1.44o software to obtain …


Computational Hybrid Systems For Identifying Prognostic Gene Markers Of Lung Cancer, Ying-Wooi Wan Jan 2011

Computational Hybrid Systems For Identifying Prognostic Gene Markers Of Lung Cancer, Ying-Wooi Wan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Lung cancer is the most fatal cancer around the world. Current lung cancer prognosis and treatment is based on tumor stage population statistics and could not reliably assess the risk for developing recurrence in individual patients. Biomarkers enable treatment options to be tailored to individual patients based on their tumor molecular characteristics. To date, there is no clinically applied molecular prognostic model for lung cancer. Statistics and feature selection methods identify gene candidates by ranking the association between gene expression and disease outcome, but do not account for the interactions among genes. Computational network methods could model interactions, but have …


Development Of An Emotional Pain Interview, Ben Weinstein Jan 2011

Development Of An Emotional Pain Interview, Ben Weinstein

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study developed and tested the Emotional Pain Interview (EPI), a semi-structured interview measuring emotional pain, using community dwelling adults with a significant history of emotional pain (n = 16; emotional pain group) relative to matched controls reporting a prior significant positive life experience (n = 16; positive life experience group). The EPI and a matching positive life event interview were used to assess all participants regarding prior emotionally painful and positive life experiences. Participants completed measures of anxiety sensitivity, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Ratings of emotional responding (i.e., Valence, Arousal, and Control/Dominance) were made for prior emotionally painful …


Gender Recognition And Appearance Description In Unconstrained Images Of Human Body, Qin Wu Jan 2011

Gender Recognition And Appearance Description In Unconstrained Images Of Human Body, Qin Wu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Gender recognition has many useful applications, ranging from business intelligence, through to image search and social activity analysis. Traditional research on gender recognition focuses on face images in a constrained environment. In this work, we propose a novel problem of gender recognition in articulated human body images acquired from an unconstrained environment in the real world. Our empirical study answers the question of whether gender recognition can be performed in articulated body images, and discovers important issues such as which body parts are informative, how many body parts are needed to combine together, and what representations are good for articulated …


B-Splines In Emd And Graph Theory In Pattern Recognition, Qin Wu Jan 2011

B-Splines In Emd And Graph Theory In Pattern Recognition, Qin Wu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

With the development of science and technology, a large amount of data is waiting for further scientific exploration. We can always build up some good mathematical models based on the given data to analyze and solve the real life problems. In this work, we propose three types of mathematical models for different applications.;In chapter 1, we use Bspline based EMD to analysis nonlinear and no-stationary signal data. A new idea about the boundary extension is introduced and applied to the Empirical Mode Decomposition(EMD) algorithm. Instead of the traditional mirror extension on the boundary, we propose a ratio extension on the …


Formulating A Conceptual Framework To Understand Native American Perceptions Of Place And Identity: A Temporal Examination Of The Spatio-Social Effects Of Uneven Development Through Accumulation By Dispossession, Denyse Wyskup Jan 2011

Formulating A Conceptual Framework To Understand Native American Perceptions Of Place And Identity: A Temporal Examination Of The Spatio-Social Effects Of Uneven Development Through Accumulation By Dispossession, Denyse Wyskup

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This research dialectically conceptualizes how capitalist uneven development and subsequent occurrences has shaped, and continues to shape, Native American perceptions of place and identity. Specifically, this research focuses on accumulation by dispossession, a key component of uneven development, and the spatio-historic effects this form of dispossession has had on Native American lifeworlds. This research focuses primarily upon federal legislation in the form of treaties, acts, and court rulings as the predominant component sustaining accumulation by dispossession and, in turn, perpetuating uneven development within Native American communities. In order to more holistically conceptualize the impacts of accumulation by dispossession three Native …


De Novo Asymmetric Syntheses Of Bioactive Natural Products And Carbohydrate Motifs, Yalan Xing Jan 2011

De Novo Asymmetric Syntheses Of Bioactive Natural Products And Carbohydrate Motifs, Yalan Xing

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

De novo asymmetric syntheses of daumone I-1 and the fluorescent analog have been described. This route took advantage of the Noyori asymmetric hydrogenation of acetyl furan and alkynyl ketone, the Pd-catalyzed glycosylation and various post-glycosylation transformations to finish the total synthesis of Daumone I-1, which provided materials for mechanism of action studies.;In an effort to mimics natures use of rare sugars in the synthesis of biologically important natural products (e.g., the carbohydrate portion of Daumone I-1), the O'Doherty group has been interested in developing new methods for practical and stereoselective synthesis. As part of these efforts, a concise synthesis of …


Development Of High-Power Iii-Nitride Light-Emitting Diodes For Solid-State Lighting, Yi Yang Jan 2011

Development Of High-Power Iii-Nitride Light-Emitting Diodes For Solid-State Lighting, Yi Yang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

White light sources based on III-Nitride light-emitting diodes (LEDs) hold great promise for developing energy-efficient solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies. However, the optical output power of InGaN-based green and blue LEDs at high driving currents is limited by quantum efficiency (QE) droop and low light outcoupling efficiencies. The former is a phenomenon that LEDs suffer a decline in quantum efficiency as the driving current increases, and prominently occurs in LEDs with high In contents. Poor light outcoupling is a challenge facing LEDs of all colors. Due to a large contrast of refraction index between nitrides and air, the majority of photons …


Electrochemical And Microstructural Analysis Of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes, Mingjia Zhi Jan 2011

Electrochemical And Microstructural Analysis Of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes, Mingjia Zhi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Fuel cells offer several advantages over conventional routines of power generation, such as substantially higher conversion efficiency, modular construction, minimal sitting restriction, and much lower production of pollutants. Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), in principle, can utilize all kinds of combustion fuels including coal derived syngas (CSG). The U.S. Department of Energy is currently working on coupling coal gasification and SOFC to form Integrated Gasification Fuel Cell (IGFC) systems. Such IGFC systems will enable the clean, efficient and cost-effective use of coal---the nation's most abundant fossil fuel.;However several issues need to be considered before SOFC can be really commercialized. The …


Ecological Benefits Of Mitigation On A Large River Mainstem In An Intensively Mined Appalachian Watershed, Eric Mitchell Miller Jan 2011

Ecological Benefits Of Mitigation On A Large River Mainstem In An Intensively Mined Appalachian Watershed, Eric Mitchell Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Large scale surface mining in the central Appalachians causes significant alteration of headwater catchments, and these impacts may be offset through implementation of stream restoration projects. As an example, several habitat enhancement structures (cross-vanes and j-hooks) were constructed along a 13.7 km section of the Little Coal River as mitigation for mining impacts in the region. The objectives of our study were to: 1-quantify changes in channel morphology, habitat quality, sediment composition, bank stability, biological communities and organic matter processing in response to habitat enhancing structures; 2-relate changes in structural and functional attributes of the Little Coal River mainstem to …