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The Economic Feasibility Of Producing Sweet Sorghum As An Ethanol Feedstock In Mississippi, Joseph Andrew Linton Dec 2010

The Economic Feasibility Of Producing Sweet Sorghum As An Ethanol Feedstock In Mississippi, Joseph Andrew Linton

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the feasibility of producing sweet sorghum as an ethanol feedstock in Mississippi. An enterprise budgeting system is used along with estimates of transportation costs to estimate farmers’ breakeven costs for producing and delivering sweet sorghum biomass. This breakeven cost for the farmer, along with breakeven costs for the producer based on wholesale ethanol price, production costs, and transportation and marketing costs for the refined ethanol, is used to estimate the amounts that farmers and ethanol producers would be willing to accept (WTA) and willing to pay (WTP), respectively, for sweet sorghum biomass. These WTA and WTP estimates …


Utilization Of Simulation To Teach Pelvic Examination Skills To Medical Students: Implications For Medical Education, Brenda Seago Nov 2010

Utilization Of Simulation To Teach Pelvic Examination Skills To Medical Students: Implications For Medical Education, Brenda Seago

Theses and Dissertations

Medical education is changing. Physicians have less time for teaching clinical skills and for direct observation of medical students, due to sicker patients in the hospital, shorter hospital stays, competing demands of research and patient care, and implementation of the eighty hour work week for residents. The consumer movement increased awareness of medical errors, patient safety and quality of healthcare. Teaching the pelvic examination is ethically complex. Questions have arisen about medical students learning to conduct the pelvic examination on actual patients. This study utilizes the pelvic examination simulator and genital teaching associates (GTAs) to teach pelvic exam skills to …


A Simulation-Based Approach To Educational Psychology, Julie Ann Burningham Jul 2010

A Simulation-Based Approach To Educational Psychology, Julie Ann Burningham

Theses and Dissertations

This paper summarizes a design project entitled "Choose Your Own Teaching Adventure" completed for the Instructional Psychology and Technology Department at Brigham Young University. The purpose of the design project was to prototype a learning tool that instructs beginning pre-service teachers in the classroom application of the principles of behaviorism. Originally, the project was designed to be a static learning object that would be combined with other similar learning modules for additional topics of an Educational Psychology course. At the conclusion of the first prototyping round, however, the project was generalized to become a testing ground for a simulation builder …


A New Eulerian-Based Double Continuity Model For Predicting The Evolution Of Pair Correlation Statistics Under Large Plastic Deformations, Sadegh Ahmadi Jul 2010

A New Eulerian-Based Double Continuity Model For Predicting The Evolution Of Pair Correlation Statistics Under Large Plastic Deformations, Sadegh Ahmadi

Theses and Dissertations

A new model using a double-continuity relation for predicting the evolution of pair-correlation functions (PCFs) is presented. The proposed model was developed using statistical continuum theory and is employed to predict the viscoplastic behavior of polycrystalline materials. This model was built based upon the continuity relations and a double divergence law that guarantees the conservation of both orientation and mass; and also satisfies the field equations (equilibrium, constitutive, and compatibility) at every point of the polycrystalline material throughout the deformation process. In the presented model, motion of particles in the real space and rotation of crystallographic orientations in the Euler …


The Structure And Stability Of Alpha-Helical, Orthogonal-Bundle Proteins On Surfaces, Shuai Wei Jun 2010

The Structure And Stability Of Alpha-Helical, Orthogonal-Bundle Proteins On Surfaces, Shuai Wei

Theses and Dissertations

The interaction of proteins with surfaces is a major problem involved in protein microarrays. Understanding protein/surface interactions is key to improving the performance of protein microarrays, but current understanding of the behavior of proteins on surfaces is lacking. Prevailing theories on the subject, which suggest that proteins should be stabilized when tethered to surfaces, do not explain the experimentally observed fact that proteins are often denatured on surfaces. In an attempt to develop some predictive capabilities with respect to protein/surface interactions, it was asked in previous works if the stabilization/destabilization of proteins on surfaces could be correlated to secondary structure …


The Design And Validation Of A Novel Computational Simulation Of The Leg For The Investigation Of Injury, Disease, And Surgical Treatment, Joseph Iaquinto May 2010

The Design And Validation Of A Novel Computational Simulation Of The Leg For The Investigation Of Injury, Disease, And Surgical Treatment, Joseph Iaquinto

Theses and Dissertations

Computational modeling of joints and their function, a developing field, is becoming a significant health and wellness tool of our modern age. Due to familiarity of prior research focused on the lower extremity, a foot and ankle 3D computational model was created to explore the potential for these computational methods. The method of isolating CT scanned tissue and rendering a patient specific anatomy in the digital domain was accomplished by the use of MIMICS™ , SolidWorks™, and COSMOSMotion™ – all available in the commercial domain. The kinematics of the joints are driven solely by anatomically modeled soft tissue applied to …


Simulating The Fticr-Ms Signal Of A Decaying Beryllium-7 Ion Plasma In A 2d Electrostatic Pic Code, Michael Takeshi Nakata Jan 2010

Simulating The Fticr-Ms Signal Of A Decaying Beryllium-7 Ion Plasma In A 2d Electrostatic Pic Code, Michael Takeshi Nakata

Theses and Dissertations

Beryllium-7 (Be-7) only decays by electron capture into lithium-7 (Li-7) with a half life of 53 days. We study the effect of ionization on this decay rate. We do so by trapping a Be-7 ion plasma in a cylindrical Malmberg-Penning trap and measuring Be-7 and Li-7 concentrations as functions of time by using Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS). We have simulated these signals in a 2-dimensional electrostatic particle-in-cell (PIC) code. The two spectrum peaks merge at high ion densities whereas at low ion densities they can be resolved. The merged peak shifts linearly according to the relative …