Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Public Understanding Of Climate Change : A Case Study Of Taiwanese Youth, Shih-Yun Kuo

Dissertations

Global climate change is likely to be the most challenging environmental dilemma of the 21st century because its impacts on ecosystems and human society are transnational in scale and long term in scope. Due to its high scientific complexity and uncertainty and high political and economic sensitivity, mitigating the problem will require interdisciplinary cooperation and collective and sustained efforts on the part of all nations. Sufficient domestic support from both government and the lay public will not only be significant to the success of an international climate regime, but also crucial to the effectiveness of potential domestic climate policies.

Such …

Institutional Controls And Brownfield Redevelopment, Ronnachai Tiyarattanachai

Dissertations

Institutional controls (ICs) are used to reduce risks to human health and environment from exposure to contaminants at Brownfield sites. Regulators approve use of ICs in Brownfield redevelopment with the expectation that ICs will remain effective over the long-term under proper oversight mechanisms. However, a recent review of compliance statuses of Brownfield sites with ICs implemented in Massachusetts and New Jersey indicated a significant percentage of the sites are out of compliance status.

Implementation of ICs depends on compliance efforts by humans. Thus, consistency of implementation over the long-term is questionable because there are several potential problems due to human …

Investigating Fabrication Methods For Micro Single-Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, Man Yang

Dissertations

A Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is a green energy technology that offers a cleaner and efficient alternative to fossil fuels. The efficiency and utility of SOFCs can be enhanced by fabricating miniaturized component structures within the fuel cell footprint. This research focuses on the microfabrication of parallel-connected inter-digitized design of micro single chamber SOFC (μ-SC-SOFCs). In this dissertation, candidate micro/nano fabrication techniques to precisely fabricate micro patterns on planar substrates have been studied. These include EBL, soft lithography, photolithography, and direct-writing. After analyzing preliminary results, two combinational approaches were further investigated. The first method involves the combination of the …