INTRODUCTION: Orthodontic treatment can include physical and/or psychosocial elements in addition to straightening teeth. OBJECTIVE: Of importance to this study was to explore the correlation between malocclusion and psychosocial well-being from the perspective of younger patients, their caregivers, through the inclusion of normative criteria. MATERIALS & METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was employed. Data was collected at a single point in time from a sample of prospective patients. Eighty-six patients and their caregivers met the inclusion criteria and were asked to complete the questionnaires. The mean age of patients included in the study was 13.57 +/- 1.57 years (55 females and 31 males). Data was collected through clinical exams. Patients were assessed using the dental and aesthetic component grades of the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN). RESULTS: Caregivers’ satisfaction with the patient’s body image correlated with the patients’ satisfaction with their body image (p<0.05). Caregivers' satisfaction with tooth appearance correlated with the IOTN aesthetic component grade (p<0.05). As the satisfaction score increases (reflecting overall dissatisfaction with body image), the more likely that the patient actually needs treatment. There is no significant correlation between patients’ satisfaction with their teeth and IOTN dental and aesthetic component grades (p>0.05). Caregivers' motivation, in comparison to the patients’ motivations to seek orthodontic treatment was significant (p<0.05). No significant gender differences were found with regards to being bullied about dental appearance (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: Malocclusion does impact perceptions of psychosocial well-being. / May 2016

Thesis advisor: Pradip Bakshi / This thesis is a theoretical study of the electron transport and response properties of epitaxially grown, low-dimensional semiconductor quantum well heterostructures, under steady-state, current driven (nonequilibrium) conditions. These structures operate in the Terahertz (THz) frequency and submillimeter wavelength range, and are the leading candidates for compact, coherent sources of THz radiation. This work is divided into two parts: Part I consists of an analytical study of the individual quantum well units, and the tunneling transmission characteristics, for which reasonably accurate algebraic expressions are obtained. An underlying philosophy of this work is the desire to describe each of the key components involved, independently, through these simple analytical expressions. In Part II the numerical study of the transport and radiation response of the quantum well structures specially designed to generate THz radiation based on the plasma instability concept is presented. Several models are proposed which describe the overall electron transport and which determine the underlying nonequilibrium steady state. In particular, the key features of the experimental current-voltage (IV) curves for such structures are explained, and the corresponding response properties are determined. The modeling and simulation of these potential optoelectronic devices is a crucial tool for elucidating the precise mechanisms and interplay of the many microscopic processes which give rise to the observed behavior. Key features of the radiation response arise from the intersubband plasma instability which occurs due to the resonant interaction of an emission and an absorption mode, and these features are compared with the experimental observations. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Physics.

Thesis advisor: Penny Hauser-Cram / This dissertation involved secondary analysis of data from the Early Intervention Collaborative Study (EICS), a longitudinal study of children with developmental disabilities (DD) and their families (Hauser-Cram, Warfield, Shonkoff, & Krauss, 2001). The sample for this dissertation was comprised of 133 adolescents with DD and their parents. When the target adolescent was ages 15 and 18, mothers and fathers completed measures assessing their own functioning and that of their child, as well as aspects of the home and family environment. Regression analyses were utilized to examine factors that relate to and predict functioning and well-being of adolescents with DD and that of their parents. The following research questions were addressed: (1) What parental and child factors are related to the well-being of parents of adolescents with DD? (2) How is partner satisfaction related to the parent-child relationship and family cohesion for parents of adolescents with DD? (3) How are work characteristics related to parental satisfaction with the parent-child relationship and with parental well-being? (4) What factors predict and relate to adolescent autonomy in teens with DD? Results indicated that parenting efficacy predicted parental well-being and various types of parenting stress above and beyond adolescent behavior problems. Counter to hypotheses, parent social support and adolescent autonomy did not relate to parental well-being. Additionally, the total number of adolescent behavior problems was related to greater well-being among mothers but not fathers, though externalizing behavior problems in particular related to greater total parenting stress for fathers only. Dyadic adjustment was only related to greater satisfaction with family cohesion for fathers, as was difficulty of care. For both mothers and fathers, work flexibility and job satisfaction contributed to greater parental well-being above and beyond satisfaction with the parent-child relationship. Finally, social acceptance predicted later adolescent autonomy, and adolescent self-efficacy related to autonomy above and beyond previous social acceptance. Collectively, the findings demonstrated the influence of adolescent functioning in relation to parents’ well-being, the importance of parenting efficacy for parents and peer support and self-efficacy for adolescents with disabilities, and the potential benefits of employment for this parenting group. Implications and areas for future study are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

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This dissertation is composed of three parts of major contributions: In Chapter II, we developed a new conceptual model and derived a new semi-analytical model for flow to a horizontal well beneath a water reservoir. Instead of treating the leakage from aquitard as a source term inside the aquifer which is called Hantush’s assumption (1964), we linked flows in aquitard and aquifer by the idea of continuity of flux and drawdown. The result in this chapter is compared with that of Zhan and Park in 2003 which Hantush’s assumption is adopted at various hydraulic and well configurations. It shows that Hantush’s assumption becomes inaccurate in regions where vertical velocity components are significant. In Chapter III, we deal with the interaction of an aquifer with two parallel surface water bodies such as two streams or canals. In this chapter, new closed-form analytical and semi-analytical solutions are acquired for the pumping induced dynamic interaction between two streams and ground water for two different cases. In the first case, the sediment layers separating the streams from the aquifer ground water do not exist. In the second case, the two low permeable layers are considered. The effect of aquitard and water right competition is addressed in this chapter. This model can be used for interpreting and deriving hydrologic parameters of aquitard and aquifer when pumping occurs between two channels. It can also be used to predict stream depletion which is essential for water management and ecology conservation. In Chapter IV, we investigated the three dimensional upconing due to a finite-length of horizontal well and its critical conditions. The results are compared with those of vertical wells. The critical condition which includes the critical rise and the critical time at a certain pumping rate depends on the well length, the initial interface location, the well location, and the pumping rate. Our results show that horizontal well might be a better tool for coastal groundwater resources development. In real field applications, installing long wells as shallow as possible is always desirable for sustaining long periods of pumping with significant rates.

Operators, especially those managing production from deepwater reservoirs, are striving to produce hydrocarbons at higher and higher rates without exposing the wells to completion failure risk. To avoid screen failures, recent studies have favored gravel pack (GP) and high rate water pack (HRWP) completions over high-permeability fracturing (HPF), known in the vernacular as a frac&pack (FP) for very high rate wells. While a properly designed GP completion may prevent sand production, it does not stop formation fines migration, and, over time, fines accumulation in the GP will lead to increasing completion skin. Although, and not always, the skin can be removed by acidizing, it is not practical to perform repeated acid treatments on deepwater wells, particularly those with subsea wellheads, and the alternative has been to subject the completion to increasingly high drawdown, accepting a high skin effect. A far better solution is to use a HPF completion. Of course the execution of a successful HPF is not a trivial exercise, and frequently, there is a steep learning curve for such a practice. This work explains the importance to HPF completions of the well trajectory through the interval to be hydraulically fractured, for production, not execution, reasons. A new model quantifies the effect of the well inclination on the connectivity between the fracture and the well via perforations. Guidelines based on the maximum target production rate, including forecasts of multiphase flow, are provided to size the HPF completion to avoid common completion failures that may result from high fluid rate and/or fines movement. Skin model will be developed for both vertical and deviated wells. Once the HPF is properly designed and executed, the operators should end up with a long term low skin good completion quality well. The well will be safely produced at the maximum flow rates, with no need for well surveillance and monitoring.

I describe mid/far-infrared photodetectors based on frequency upconversion in a near-resonant cascade of interband and intersubband transitions in high optical non-linearity asymmetric quantum well structures. Such structures can yield high detectivity and responsivity in the mid/far-infrared range. Resonant uponversion detectors can be designed for both collinear and perpendicular pump and signal beams. They can be integrated with semiconductor pump lasers to yield compact devices. Single photon counting is also achieved by these detectors. I present specific device designs based on GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/AlInAs heterostructures and calculations of their expected figures of merit. This includes a study of the intersubband nonlinear absorption of asymmetric double quantum wells designed for mid/far-IR range. The dependance of second order nonlinear susceptibility on various parameters of the structure is studied. In particular, different values for barrier and well widths are considered. The nonlinear absorption can be obtained by using perturbative calculation of the linear susceptibility up to second order with density matrix approach. The intersubband linear and nonlinear asymmetric double quantum well can be tuned using two design parameters. One is the width of the barrier between the wells that controls the coupling and the second is the width of the narrow well that controls the asymmetry of the structure. As the barrier width narrows the energy gap at the anticrossing increases. The asymmetry of the two well potentials is essential for sum frequency and difference frequency generation since in a symmetric well hZ31i = 0 due to the same parity of the ground and second excited states so that Â(2) = 0. In our detection scheme using frequency up-conversion we demonstrate that these devices can achieve high detectivity, very low noise and high value for Â(2) hence good efficiency. This can be an important advantage for low signal detection and single photon counting.

Liquid loading is a serious problem in gas wells. Many proven artificial lift methods have been used to alleviate this problem. However, a complete workflow to determine the most suitable artificial lift method for given well conditions does not exist. In 2008, Han Young Park presented his thesis of decision matrix tool using a decision tree technique for data mining that determined the best artificial lift method for liquid loading in gas wells from seven artificial lift methods: plunger lift, gas lift, ESP, PCP, rod pump, jet pump, and piston pump. He determined the technical feasibility and the cost evaluation of these seven techniques. His workflow consisted of three rounds. The first round was the preliminary screening round. By using all input well conditions, the impractical techniques were screened out. In the second round, all the techniques from round one were graded and ranked. In the third round, the economic evaluation was performed by using cost for each artificial lift method and assuming the constant additional gas production per day to determine net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR). In this thesis, we propose an extended workflow from the Han-Young’s thesis for the decision matrix tool. We added integrated production simulations (reservoir to wellhead) step with commercial software in between the second and third round. We performed simulations of the various artificial lift methods to see the additional gains from each technique. We used the additional gas production resulted from simulation to calculate economic yardsticks (the third round), NPV and IRR. Moreover, we made the decision matrix more complete by adding three more liquid unloading techniques to the decision matrix: velocity string, foam injection, and heated tubing. We have also updated all screening conditions, the technical scores, and the costs for the decision matrix from the previous study using literature reviews, information from the project’s sponsor, information from service company and our own judgment. The aim of the decision matrix is to allow operators to screen quickly and efficiently for the most suitable artificial lift method to solve the liquid loading problem under given well conditions.

Hydraulic fracturing is a well-established technology of generating highly conductive flow path inside the rock by injecting massive amount of fracturing fluid and proppant with sufficient pressure to break the formation apart. But as the concern for environment and health effects of hydraulic fracturing becomes intense, many efforts are made to replace the conventional fracturing fluid with more environment-friendly materials. The degradable biopolymer is one of the novel materials that is injected in the form of solid pellets containing proppant, degrades in the presence of water to form a viscous gel fluid, leaving no gel residue or harmful material. This work develops a methodology and computer program to determine the best candidate wells for the field test of degradable biopolymer as fracturing fluid. The unique properties of degradable biopolymer is captured in the selection of decision criteria such as bottomhole temperature and treatment volume as well as traditional hydraulic fracturing candidate well selection criteria such as formation permeability, productivity index.

There are two sections in this thesis, the first section we measured the photoluminescence (PL) spectra¡Bphotocurrent spectra and electro absorption spectra of InGaAsN single quantum well structures grown by MBE. From temperature-dependent PL spectra of InGaAsN, we observed a localized level at low temperature, and the carrier localization effect increases when the mole fraction of nitrogen increases (2.1%~3.25%). This peculiarity influences the PL peak position and the PL linewidth, and it can be improved by adequate annealing. We also obtained the activation energies about 52~59meV by Arrhenius plot and thermal quenching model. For the photocurrent spectra we observe the sub-band transition and quantum confined stark effect. From the electro-absorption spectra, we obtain the maximum absorption changes (