The purpose of this study was to compare power output and ventilatory measurements between the steep ramp test (SR) and both the 30-second Wingate anaerobic (WAT) and standard cardiopulmonary exercise tests (CPET) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). 11 patients (7 males and 4 females) underwent spirometry, a CPET, WAT and SR test. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare the differences between the peak work rate of the CPET (CPET_peak), SR (SR_peak), and the average power of the WAT (W_avg). The W_avg was higher than the SR_peak, which was higher than the CPET (231.2 ± 113.4, 156.8 ± 67.9, 65.9 ± 35.9, p>0.05 respectively). There were no differences found between the tests at end-exercise for inspiratory reserve volume (IRV), ventilation (V_E), and end-expiratory lung volume (EELV). Tidal volume (V_T) was also compared between the tests as a percentage of the inspiratory capacity (IC) remaining at end-exercise and no differences were found. The similarity between the ventilatory measures indicates a similar level of constraint, despite the large difference in work rates achieved, in all 3 tests. This shows that a standard CPET underestimates leg power in COPD patients, and the WAT and SR may be better indicators of leg muscle power and anaerobic type exercise.

The purpose of this study was to compare power output and ventilatory measurements between the steep ramp test (SR) and both the 30-second Wingate anaerobic (WAT) and standard cardiopulmonary exercise tests (CPET) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). 11 patients (7 males and 4 females) underwent spirometry, a CPET, WAT and SR test. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare the differences between the peak work rate of the CPET (CPET_peak), SR (SR_peak), and the average power of the WAT (W_avg). The W_avg was higher than the SR_peak, which was higher than the CPET (231.2 ± 113.4, 156.8 ± 67.9, 65.9 ± 35.9, p>0.05 respectively). There were no differences found between the tests at end-exercise for inspiratory reserve volume (IRV), ventilation (V_E), and end-expiratory lung volume (EELV). Tidal volume (V_T) was also compared between the tests as a percentage of the inspiratory capacity (IC) remaining at end-exercise and no differences were found. The similarity between the ventilatory measures indicates a similar level of constraint, despite the large difference in work rates achieved, in all 3 tests. This shows that a standard CPET underestimates leg power in COPD patients, and the WAT and SR may be better indicators of leg muscle power and anaerobic type exercise.

No description available.

In the study of the violin, teacher and student are involved in an on-going process of identifying, analyzing and overcoming technical and musical obstacles on the way to complete mastery of the instrument. Etudes often bridge the gap between exercises and "real music," and, as such, are extremely valuable as a step to mastering various playing skills in a musical setting. Nevertheless, without an encyclopedic memory, a teacher may find it difficult to locate appropriate etudes for an individual student with a specific technical problem.The charts from this study are designed to be used as an aid in locating and assigning etudes to students based upon their grade level and the technical difficulty they are having. The etudes selected were determined by their availability in three or more published editions to be those most commonly used.First, each etude was assigned a grade level. Next, each etude was catalogued by performance difficulty. Each performance category was carefully defined and limited. Finally, the writer determined whether the performance problem being studied was a "primary" difficulty of that etude, or whether the problem existed as a "secondary" component.After determining the technical difficulty to be studied, a violinist may consult the list of etudes addressing that particular difficulty. The list of etudes is organized from the simplest to the most difficult, and for each etude it is noted whether the problem is of primary (P) or secondary (S) importance. Finally, each etude is cross-referenced with other technical problems, and a teacher or student may make the decision whether to study the problem in isolation or in conjunction with other technical difficulties. / School of Music

No description available.

Multijunction solar cells made from a combination of CQDs of differing sizes and thus bandgaps are a promising means by which to increase the energy harvested from the Sun’s broad spectrum. In this dissertation, we first report the systematic engineering of 1.6 eV PbS CQD solar cells, optimal as the front cell responsible for visible wavelength harvesting in tandem photovoltaics. We rationally optimize each of the device’s collecting electrodes—the heterointerface with electron accepting TiO2 and the deep-work-function hole-collecting MoO3 for ohmic contact—for maximum efficiency. Room-temperature processing enables flexible substrates, and permits tandem solar cells that integrate a small-bandgap back cell atop a low thermal-budget larger-bandgap front cell. We report an electrode strategy that enables a depleted heterojunction CQD PV device to be fabricated entirely at room temperature. We develop a two-layer donor-supply electrode (DSE) in which a highly doped, shallow work function layer supplies a high density of free electrons to an ultrathin TiO2 layer via charge-transfer doping. Using the DSE we build all-room-temperature-processed small-bandgap (1 eV) colloidal quantum dot solar cells suitable for use as the back junction in tandem solar cells. We further report in this work the first efficient CQD tandem solar cells. We use a graded recombination layer (GRL) to provide a progression of work functions from the hole-accepting electrode in the bottom cell to the electron-accepting electrode in the top cell. The recombination layers must allow the hole current from one cell to recombine, with high efficiency and low voltage loss, with the electron current from the next cell. We conclude our dissertation by presenting the generalized conditions for design of efficient graded recombination layer solar devices. We demonstrate a family of new GRL designs experimentally and highlight the benefits of the progression of dopings and work functions in the interlayers.

In this paper, we study the nonlocal linear bending behavior of functionally graded beams subjected to distributed loads. A finite element formulation for an improved first-order shear deformation theory for beams with five independent variables is proposed. The formulation takes into consideration 3D constitutive equations. Eringen's nonlocal differential model is used to rewrite the nonlocal stress resultants in terms of displacements. The finite element formulation is derived by means of the principle of virtual work. High-order nodal-spectral interpolation functions were utilized to approximate the field variables, which minimizes the locking problem. Numerical results and comparisons of the present formulation with those found in the literature for typical benchmark problems involving nonlocal beams are found to be satisfactory and show the validity of the developed finite element model.

No description available.

This project resulted in the creation of a prototype for a new book series entitled Instructional Readers that will be linguistically engineered to assist English-language learners in acquiring academic and content-based vocabulary in the sciences. The development of the prototype represented a process of trial and error, with decisions firmly grounded in extensive research concerning linguistic features that assist vocabulary growth while reading. The end result, the prototype entitled Cellular Transport, reflects the author's best attempt to combine these features. The project write-up details the steps used in writing the prototype to aid in the creation of similar instructional readers in the future.

A current controversy in the science of visual consciousness is whether conscious awareness of a stimulus emerges gradually or appears directly in an all-or-none fashion. Windey et al. (2013) observed that evidence supporting the gradual explanation often used low-level stimuli (simple shapes, colours), while evidence for a dichotomous divide of awareness used high-level stimuli (letters, numbers). Windey later constructed the level of processing (LoP) hypothesis, which states that different stimulus levels impact the transition to awareness, i.e. whether it occurs gradually or in an all-or-none fashion. Koivisto et al. (2017) further showed, using high-level stimulus, that different conceptualizations of awareness (detection and identification) impact different electrophysiological correlates of awareness. Specifically, the visual awareness negativity (VAN) only occurred for awareness based on detection, while the late positivity (LP) occurred for both detection and identification. The purpose of this thesis is to further investigate the VAN and LP for detection and identification, but with a low-level stimulus. Following the level of processing hypothesis, I expect that the mean amplitudes will be more negative in the VAN time range and more positive in the LP time range for identification trials compared to detection trials. Similarly, I expect VAN and LP to occur for both detection and identification. Unfortunately, the current results did not find any significant differences due to the low sample size. However, the results for the identification threshold hint towards a VAN but no LP.