Digital Commons Network^™

Information Literacy Beyond The Library: Organizations To Watch, Sharon A. Weiner

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The need for an information-literate society is increasingly apparent to educators, employers, policy makers, and other leaders. Colleges and undergraduate libraries are well positioned to collaborate with a variety of constituencies on addressing this need. Academic librarians can benefit from an awareness of reports, conferences, and newsletters of organizations outside of libraries that recognize the importance of effectively finding, using, and communicating information. This column describes four organizations. By examining the Websites and subscribing to the online updates for each, librarians can have current information about topics that relate to information literacy and incorporate it into their libraries’ information literacy …

Solid State Microchp Based On Thermophotovoltaic And Thermoelectric Conversion, William M. Worek, Christopher Brown, Rebecca Trojanowski, Thomas Butcher, Edward Horne

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

MicroCHP involves the coproduction of both heat and electric power in (typically) residential heating systems. A range of different energy conversion technologies are currently receiving attention for this application including Stirling engines, internal combustion engines, fuel cells, and Rankine cycles with steam or organic compounds as working fluids. In this work the use of ThermoPhotoVoltaic (TPV) and ThermoElectric (TE) conversion devices either alone or in combination for power production in an oil-fired heating system have been explored. The focus of this work to date has been on sufficient electric power output to achieve self-powering of the appliance with the consideration …

Characteristics Of R718 Thermocompression Refrigerating / Heat Pump Systems With Two-Phase Ejectors, Vasko Nikola Sarevski, Milan Nikola Sarevski

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

The paper describes the investigations of the R718 thermocompression refrigerating cycle with two-phase ejector as a compression device. The complex thermal and flow phenomena connected with compression and condensation inside the two-phase ejector flow field are investigated and performance characteristics are estimated. The thermodynamic processes are shown in pressure – enthalpy and temperature – entropy diagrams. Based on the described thermodynamic model, a computational procedure was generated to evaluate the performance characteristics of this R718 refrigerating system. The implementation of the proposed R718 twophase ejector refrigerating / heat pump systems for utilization of low temperature heat and waste heat is …

Cooling Performance Improvement Of The Heat Driven Type Metal Hydride Refrigerator-Heat Transfer Enhancement Influence Of Metal Hydride Sheet Loading Into A Metal Hydride Particle Bed, Sangchul Bae, Masafumi Katsuta, Ikuto Homma, Eiji Morita

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

In the refrigeration and air conditioning fields, the demands of energy conservation and renewable energy have been increased recently. In this study, we aim at the development of the heat driven type metal hydride (abbr., MH) that can be driven by the low temperature exhaust or solar heat under 100ᵒC. In order to use this system commercially, heat transfer enhancement of MH particle bed, activation characteric improvement and production cost reduction of MH must be achieved. In this study, we use the two heat transfer enhancement methods for improving the low effective thermal conductivity of MH particle bed. One is …

Compact High Efficiency Adsorption Heat Pump, Ward E. Tegrotenhuis, Paul H. Humble, Josh B. Sweeney

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

An innovative adsorption cycle heat pump technology is presented that is compact and capable of achieving high energy efficiency for integrated space heating, air conditioning, and water heating. High energy efficiency is accomplished by effectively recuperating heat within the system to minimize energy consumption. This substantially reduces the thermodynamic losses that occur when the sorbent beds are thermally cycled without effective heat recuperation. Furthermore, equipment cost is reduced by thermally cycling the sorbent beds very rapidly using embedded microchannel heat exchangers, which reduces size and cost of the beds. Performance of the cycle is assessed for ammonia refrigerant and carbon …

Resolving Structure And Mechanical Properties At The Nanoscale Of Viruses With Frequency Modulation Atomic Force Microscopy, David Martinez-Martin, Carolina Carrasco, Mercedes Hernando-Pérez, P. J. De Pablo, Júlio Gómez-Herrero, Rebeca Pérez, Mauricio Garcia Mateu, José López Carrascosa, Daniel Roy Kiracofe, John C. Melcher, Arvind Raman

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Structural Biology (SB) techniques are particularly successful in solving virus structures. Taking advantage of the symmetries, a heavy averaging on the data of a large number of specimens, results in an accurate determination of the structure of the sample. However, these techniques do not provide true single molecule information of viruses in physiological conditions. To answer many fundamental questions about the quickly expanding physical virology it is important to develop techniques with the capability to reach nanometer scale resolution on both structure and physical properties of individual molecules in physiological conditions. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) fulfills these requirements providing images …

Open-Cell Metal Foams For Use In Dehumidifying Heat Exchangers, Xiaohong Han, Nawaz Kashif, Jessica Bock, Anthony M. Jacobi

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

Metal foams with an open-cell structure have physical and mechanical properties suggesting they might have advantages over conventional fin materials for use in air-cooling heat exchangers. For example, metal foams are low weight, have high to very high specific surface area (up to over 10000 m2/m3), have high gas permeability, and have relatively high thermal conductivity (for open-cell bodies). Due to these properties, open-cell metal foams have been studied for many heat transfer applications, especially as a material for constructing efficient compact heat exchangers. In this work, dynamic dips tests are undertaken to explore the water-drainage behavior of the metal …

Exergy Analysis Of An Absorption Refrigeration System Using An Iconic Liquid As A Working Fluid In The Chemical Compressor, Yoon Jo Kim, Sarah Kim, Yogendra K. Joshi, Andrei G. Fedorov, Paul A. Kohl

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

The first and second law of thermodynamics are applied to an ionic-liquid (IL) based absorption refrigeration system for high power electronics cooling. The IL is a salt in a liquid state usually with an organic cation and inorganic anion. It provides an alternative to the normally toxic working fluids used in the chemical compression loop, such as ammonia in conventional absorption systems. The use of ILs also eliminates crystallization and metal-compatibility problems of the water/LiBr system. In this study, mixtures of refrigerants and imidazolium-based ILs are theoretically explored as the working fluid pairs in a miniature absorption refrigeration system, so …

Preliminary Study Of A Novel Compact R718 Water Chiller With Integration Of A Single Stage Centrifugal Compressor And Two-Phase Ejectors, Milan Nikola Sarevski, Vasko Nikola Sarevski

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

A novel compact R718 water chiller with integration of a centrifugal compressor stage and two phase ejectors as a second stage compression device is proposed. The paper describes the investigations of this R718 refrigerating cycle. The limitations of the R718 centrifugal compressor stage pressure ratio are discussed, and possibilities for introduction of two-phase ejectors in the R718 refrigerating systems with direct evaporation and condensation are analyzed. The complex thermal and flow phenomena connected with additional compression, desuperheating and condensation inside the two-phase ejector flow field are investigated and performance characteristics are estimated. The thermodynamic processes are shown in pressure – …

Development Of Suction Pipe Design Criterion To Secure Oil Return To Compressor, Tiandong Guo, Jin Yong Jang, Sangchul Do, Ji Hwan Jeong, Bongjun Choi

International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference

In the present work, phenomena associated with counter current flow limitation (CCFL) were experimentally investigated using small diameter tubes in order to suggest criterion for which the oil return is secured. The test section is made of Pyrex glass tube to allow visual observation. The inner diameter of the test tube is 7mm and the height is 1m. The inclination of test tubes varied from vertical to crank type with various horizontal lengths. Waterair flow and lubricant oil-air flow were examined through a series of experiment at various liquid flow rates. In this experimental study, flow reversal and flooding phenomena …

Perceptions Of Life And Death Through The Metaphor Of Paint: Construction And Deconstruction Of Form, Nannette Cherry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper will explore classical and contemporary methods of painting applied to the portrait. It will emphasize the metaphor of paint as flesh and the connotations of the breakdown of the painted form that stands in for flesh as it relates to our preoccupations with our own mortality. Borrowing from influences like Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, and Francis Bacon, the artwork explores the creation of a form that is physical and confrontational, and is intended to provoke a psychological response in the viewer. This series of figuration bases its processes on traditional methods, while borrowing from modern art devices to …

Placing Birds On A Dynamic Evolutionary Map: Using Digital Tools To Update The Evolutionary Metaphor Of The "Tree Of Life", Sonia Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes and presents a new type of interactive visualization for communicating about evolutionary biology, the dynamic evolutionary map. This web-based tool utilizes a novel map-based metaphor to visualize evolution, rather than the traditional "tree of life." The dissertation begins with an analysis of the conceptual affordances of the traditional tree of life as the dominant metaphor for evolution. Next, theories from digital media, visualization, and cognitive science research are synthesized to support the assertion that digital media tools can extend the types of visual metaphors we use in science communication in order to overcome conceptual limitations of traditional …

Bankruptcy And Politics: A Framework For Bankruptcy Policymaking In The United States Congress And Courts, Kevin Mandell Ball

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was enacted amid much controversy and was considered by many observers to mark a major change in the direction of U.S. bankruptcy policy. The dissertation uses the law's passage as a vehicle to develop an explicit model of the integrated role of Congress, issue networks, and the courts in making policy. Following Baumgartner and Jones (1993), Sabatier (1988), and others, the dissertation tracks bankruptcy policymaking and implementation over a seventy-five year period to demonstrate that policy is made in three distinct venues: Congress; a policy community made up of lawyers, …

The Effects Of Two Group Counseling Interventions On Arab-American High School Students' Perceptions Of Their Primary Relationships (Parent, Teacher, Peer), Nuzmeya Bader Elder

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study specifically investigated the effects of two group counseling interventions on Arab-American high school students' perceptions of the strength of their primary relationships (parent, teachers, and peers). It was designed to help high school students increase their acceptance of the culture of their host society and develop a sense of comfort so they can retain some of their own culture and Arab identity without feeling they will totally lose them. One approach was Choice group theory grounded in the reality of making choices concerning thoughts and behaviors. Choice Theory is described as the idea that people have mental images …

A Higher Education Case: Millennial Experience Toward Learning Through A Virtual World Designed As An Authentic Learning Environment, Marija Franetovic

Wayne State University Dissertations

Current educational initiatives encourage the use of authentic learning environments to realistically prepare students for jobs in a constantly changing world. Many students of the Millennial generation may be social media savvy. However, what can be said about learning conditions and student readiness for active, reflective and collaborative learning and media literacy within their discipline? Virtual worlds such as Second Life (SL) represent future hybridized work environments which can support authentic learning. With their immersive and interaction affordances, virtual worlds may be designed to incorporate real-world team projects for both online and blended courses.

This qualitative single embedded case study …

Remote Software Upload Techniques In Future Vehicles And Their Performance Analysis, Irina Hossain

Wayne State University Dissertations

Updating software in vehicle Electronic Control Units (ECUs) will become a mandatory requirement for a variety of reasons, for examples, to update/fix functionality of an existing system, add new functionality, remove software bugs and to cope up with ITS infrastructure. Software modules of advanced vehicles can be updated using Remote Software Upload (RSU) technique. The RSU employs infrastructure-based wireless communication technique where the software supplier sends the software to the targeted vehicle via a roadside Base Station (BS). However, security is critically important in RSU to avoid any disasters due to malfunctions of the vehicle or to protect the proprietary …

Becoming A Functioning Member Of The Collegiate Culture: How Cellphone Communication Affects First-Year College Students' Self And Identity In College Transition., Arata Miyazaki

Wayne State University Dissertations

This longitudinal ethnographically-oriented study explores the meanings of cellphones and cellphone communication of first-year college students during their college transition and how such newly populated human communicative conducts affect their sense of self and identity during this life period. The findings from this study suggest that participants' perceptions about appropriate cellphone communication are closely tied with a growing sense of emerging adulthood that college students develop in conjunction with their college transition. Cellphone communication creates social situations where participants engage in identity exploration and strategic impression management by switching their social roles in order to properly present their self as …

Immigrant Integration Into Host Societies: The Case Of Yemeni Immigrant Communities In Metro Detroit, Samra Abdulla Nasser

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study is intended to extend our understanding of immigrant political integration by analyzing Yemeni immigrants' attitudes toward integration into North American society, exploring the case of Yemeni-Americans, a group reputedly resistant to integration, in both Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan, and comparatively assessing those data with already published data on Lebanese-Americans, retrieved from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Detroit Arab American Study (DAAS). Relying on an existing theoretical framework on immigrant integration based on sociological and cognitive approaches and my own theoretical model on transnational dimensions related to political, economic, and cultural integration, I will examine a series of …

Motion(Less) Pictures: The Cinema Of Stasis, Justin Remeselnik

Wayne State University Dissertations

Since cinema's inception, there has been much disagreement among film theorists about the role of movement in cinema's ontology. For example, while Rudolf Arnheim has argued that motion is a sine qua non of cinema, Roland Barthes has insisted that motion is not as central to cinema's ontology as duration, an experiential "unfolding." In this dissertation, I argue--following Barthes--that movement is merely a contingent, not a necessary, condition of cinema. I further suggest that the very enterprise of prescribing necessary conditions of cinema is myopic, reductive, and reactionary.

In supporting these claims, I interrogate the cinema of stasis, a modality …

The Mental Model Comparison Of Expert And Novice Performance Improvement Practitioners, Sacip Toker

Wayne State University Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to reveal performance improvement practitioner expert and novice mental models and identify differences and similarities between these models. The secondary purpose was to analyze the potential relationships of the professional profile characteristics of performance improvement practitioners with their mental model of expertise derived from Pathfinder scaling algorithm. The study was stemmed from one of the critical research trends in the field of Human Performance Technology (HPT).

There are two phases of the study. In the first round of the first phase, experts, who were selected based on several criteria, were contacted to identify …

Examining The Factors Of A Technology Professional Development Intervention, Kelly L. Unger

Wayne State University Dissertations

In response to the ever increasing demand to compete in a global economy, the United States needs to prepare its students with the appropriate technical knowledge and communication skills to be competitive in the 21st century (Watson, 2007). Students must begin utilizing current technology tools during their K-12 educational experience and online learning can assist students with developing these skills. Teachers with online technology skills and equipped with effective pedagogical strategies for teaching in an online environment are the keys to achieving this goal. To ensure teachers are keeping pace with changing teaching and learning environments, and effectively utilizing new …

Changing The Way We Build Games: A Design-Based Research Study Examining The Implementation Of Homemade Powerpoint Games In The Classroom, Jason Paul Siko

Wayne State University Dissertations

This design-based research study examined the effects of a game design project on student test performance, with refinements made to the implementation after each of the three iterations of the study. The changes to the implementation over the three iterations were based on the literature for the three justifications for the use of homemade PowerPoint games in the classroom: constructionism, microthemes, and question writing. A review of the literature for the justifications found that the game project, as implemented in previous studies using homemade PowerPoint games, did not align well with the justifications. After three iterations of the study, students …

Epistemic Communities And Regional Governance: Policy Development In Municipal Finance Reform, Shanthi Karuppusamy

Wayne State University Dissertations

In recent times, the US has undergone significant changes in how regional governance is conceptualized and the focus has shifted from government to governance and from governmental consolidation to problem solving (Barnes and Foster, 2011). Policy makers' quest for interjurisdictional responses to the financial crisis and the recession has rekindled interest in the topic of regional governance. However, the economic, social and technical changes of the recent decades, which have now assimilated in US urban regions, fundamentally challenge existing dominant ways of thinking about regional governance and call for more useful analytic frameworks (Bollens, 1997; Barnes and Foster, 2011). This …

Estimating The Efficiency Of Michigan's Rural And Urban Public School Districts, Rita Ann Maranowski

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study examined student achievement in Michigan public school districts to determine if rural school districts are demonstrating greater financial efficiency by producing higher levels of student achievement than school districts in other geographic locations with similar socioeconomics. Three models were developed using multiple regression analysis of student achievement for high school graduation rates and student proficiency rates for eleventh grade students in mathematics and English language arts as reported from the Michigan Merit Examination results. These models compared student achievement by geographic location which included a selection of 10 independent variables and a sample size of 496 Michigan public …

Identifying Sm22 As A Key Player In Arterial Diseases, Jianbin Shen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Background : Expression of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) cytoskeleton markers including SM22 is down-regulated in arterial diseases including atherosclerosis where inflammation and osteochondrogenesis are present. However, the role of this downregulation in arterial pathogenesis is unknown. Hypothesis : Downregulation of SM22 may actively contribute to arterial pathogenesis. Methods : Five Sm22 knockout (Sm22^-/-) mice and their wild type littermates were subjected to carotid artery denudation, an artery injury model. Analyses were conducted on carotid arteries 2 weeks after injury. Primary VSMCs were isolated from mouse aortas and investigated individually at passage 2 to 4. Sm22 knockdown was …

Toward An Applied Communication Relational Inqueery: Autoethnography, Co-Constructed Narrative, And Relational Futures, Derek M. Bolen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Born out of my personal relationships with others and the field of communication, particularly as it overlaps and intersects with the field of personal relationship research, this project begins with an exploration of research practices personal relationship inquiry, offers a queer critique on research and relating, and forwards a queer applied communication approach--relational inqueery. This dissertation was directed by three goals: (a) creating a space and terrain for queer relationships in the study of personal relationships and relational communication, (b) founding and beginning to further a field of relational inqueery, and (c) offering an applied communication approach within queer relational …

Flickering Cities: Multimedia City Fabrics And The Changing Nature Of Citizenship, Andrew Geddes Engel

Wayne State University Dissertations

How do the multiple media in cities today cause us to rethink the constructions and locations of our artifacts and their effects on us? In this dissertation, I argue that city artifacts, and by extension cities themselves, exist as multiple iterations scattered across the whole range of the media spectrum. The new persuasive potential of these iterations in their different media necessitate a turn to “post-urban” city fabrics, and these new fabrics are expansion and re-expression of the urban in unexpected media. Therefore, we must work to acknowledge and take advantage of the ways cities “flicker” as their artifacts are …

Wired & Dangerous: Hacks, Hair Extensions And Other Twists On Traditional Technical Communication, Hilary Anne Sarat-St Peter

Wayne State University Dissertations

Ever since its inception as a "humanistic" research discipline (Miller, 1979; Dombrowski, 1994), technical communication has striven to balance workplace exigencies with attention to the broader rhetorical, social and ethical issues within which technical communication is situated. Recently, this humanistic agenda has expanded from a simple awareness of contextual factors surrounding work (see, for example, Collier and Toomey, 1997) to calls for technical communication research in non-workplace and other non-traditional sites. Frequently these calls for "extra-institutional" research (Kimball, 2007) are driven by the assumption that users' indigenous technical communication is inherently more user-centered - and therefore more democratic - than …

Identification Of Transcriptional Mechanisms Downstream Of Nf1 Gene Defeciency In Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors, Daochun Sun

Wayne State University Dissertations

Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST) is a type of soft tissue sarcoma that occurs in carriers of mutations in the neurofibromatosis type I gene (Nf1) as well as sporadically. Plexiform neurofibromas in NF1 patients have a significant risk of developing into MPNSTs leading to increased morbidity and mortality from this syndrome. Surgery is the primary intervention but it is not always effective due to the tendency of MPNSTs to infiltrate the surrounding tissue or grow in an inoperable location. Neurofibromin, the protein coded by the Nf1 gene, functions as a GTPase activating protein (GAP) whose mutation leads to constitutive …

Identification Of Cellular Functions Of Cardiolipin As Physiological Modifiers Of Barth Syndrome, Amit Shridhar Joshi

Wayne State University Dissertations

Cardiolipin (CL) is an anionic phospholipid synthesized in the mitochondrial inner membrane. Perturbation of CL metabolism leads to Barth syndrome (BTHS), a life threatening genetic disorder. I utilized genetic, biochemical and cell biological approaches in yeast to elucidate the cellular functions of CL. Understanding the functions of CL is expected to shed light on the pathology and possible treatments for BTHS.

BTHS is caused by mutations in TAZ1, which encodes a CL remodeling enzyme called tafazzin. BTHS patients exhibit a wide range of clinical presentations, indicating that physiological modifiers influence the BTHS phenotype. A targeted synthetic lethality screen was performed …