Lupus anticoagulants (LA) have been identified as antiphospholipid antibodies which can alter certain membrane-related endothelial activities, resulting in increased thrombogenesis. The effects of LA-containing patient plasmas on selected thrombosis-related endothelial functions were examined; 68% of 25 patient plasmas exhibited significant antiphospholipid antibody (APA) IgG and/or IgM directed against one of the four phospholipids tested in vitro; 44% exhibited anti-endothelial antibody. Eighty percent of plasmas with anti-endothelial IgM exhibited APA reactive with phosphatidyl inositol; antiphospholipid IgG did not correlate well with antiendothelium IgG. Patient plasmas that significantly stimulated EC PGI2 secretion uniformly exhibited anti-phosphatidyl serine IgM.Multiple mechanisms of induction of LA, and strong association of anti-PS and anti-EC antibody with thrombosis and related disorders were observed.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306

The present study investigated the effect of an educational message on the knowledge and choice of infant feeding practices of expectant mothers. A convenience sample totaling 4.2 women attending prenatal classes from one community hospital completed the pre-test questionnaire designed for the study. A content validity jury was employed to increase the reliability and validity of the instrument. The educational message followed the pre-test and included a videocassette, educational handout, and a question and answer period. A total of 36 women returned to complete the post-test questionnaire. The results revealed a significant difference in knowledge level scores beyond the 0.001 level of mothers receiving the educational message. Also, the data revealed a significant difference beyond the 0.001 level in pre-test/posttest scores of bottle- and breast-feeding mothers. There was no significant improvement in mothers choosing to breast-feed following the educational message. The conclusions drawn from the study are that an educational message improves infant feeding knowledge level and may better prepare mothers for their infant feeding choice. The educational message does not influence the mothers' planned infant feeding method.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306

towards silos and smokestacks takes its name from the Silos and Smokestacks Heritage Area. In 1996, the northeast third of Iowa became a federally designated heritage area to pass on the story of American agriculture to younger generations. I spent much of my childhood growing up in Iowa. On my many trips through the state, two contrary aspects in the surrounding landscape caught my fascination. First, there are the vast cornfields that expand outwards for miles fading off beyond the horizon. Second, this countryside is home to countless grain silos and billowing smokestacks of small Midwestern cities. These monoliths can be seen miles away like small islands within Iowa’s rolling agricultural oceans. As I drew closer to these structures, they would slowly grow into colossal pillars giving a vertical, albeit fleeting, dimension to the scenery before disappearing once again into the distance. This piece is an attempt to juxtapose this sense of vastness and the monoliths that interrupt the sprawling “amber waves of grain” through the use of spatial aspects and ever expanding register.

CO2 has been widely used as a displacement fluid in both immiscible and miscible displacement processes to obtain tertiary recovery from the field. There are several problems associated with the application of CO2 flooding, especially when there is a significant presence of heterogeneous elements, such as fractures, channels and high permeability streaks within the reservoir. With flooding, CO2 will finger through the target zone while leaving most of the residual/trapped oil untouched. As a result, early gas breakthrough has been a very common problem in CO2-related projects, reducing the overall sweep efficiency of CO2 flooding. This research aims at improving the CO2 flood efficiency using cross-linked gel conformance control and CO2 viscosifier technique. A series of coreflood experiment studies have been performed to investigate the possibility of applying CO2 mobility control techniques. Corresponding simulation works have also been carried out to predict the benefits of applying CO2 mobility control techniques in the field. In the laboratory study, the CO2 coreflood system was integrated with the CT (Computed Tomography)-scanner and obtained real-time coreflood images of the CO2 saturation distributions in the core. This system was applied to the research of both cross-linked polymer gel treatment and CO2 viscosifier study and produced images with sharp phase contrasts. For the gel conformance study, promising results were obtained by applying cross-linked gel to eliminate permeability contrast and diverting CO2 into low permeability regions to obtain incremental oil recovery; also studied were the gel strength in terms of leak-off extent with the aid of CT (Computed Tomography) images. For the CO2 viscosifier research, we tested several potential viscosifier chemicals and found out PVAc (Polyvinylacetate)/toluene combination to be the most promising. The follow-up study clearly demonstrates the superiority of viscosified CO2 over neat CO2 in terms of sweep efficiency. This research serves as a preliminary study in understanding advanced CO2 mobility control techniques and will provide insights to future studies on this topic.

Univ., Diss.--Paderborn, 2007.

Univ., Diss (Nicht für den Austausch)--Bielefeld, 2006.

Univ., Diss.--Bochum, 2007.

Univ., Diss.--Göttingen, 2005.

Universiẗat, Diss.--Bremen, 2007.

Univ., Diss.--Zürich, 2006.