This thesis examines and compares the effectiveness of direct and indirect types of contact in leading to short- or longer-term prejudice-reducing outcomes in Cyprus. Chapter 1 provides a background to the relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and Chapter 2 provides a theoretical introduction to the intergroup contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) and to extended friendships (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997), vicarious contact (Mazziotta, Mummendey, & Wright, 2011), and imagined contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) which have been suggested to be alternatives and a stepping stone to direct contact when the latter is absent. Chapter 3 consists of three experiments assessing the relative effects of direct and vicarious contact (Experiments 1 and 2) and imagined contact (Experiment 3). The results show that direct, and to a weaker extent, vicarious contact lead to more positive outgroup attitudes, but that a week after contact this effect is lost. All types of contact yield less anxiety, an effect that endures in time, and direct and imagined contact yield more positive action tendencies, an effect that remains significant in time only for direct contact. Chapter 4 consists of two experiments further exploring the capacity of imagined contact to yield positive intergroup outcomes. Experiment 4 tests whether the induction of interpersonal and intergroup similarities and/or differences into a positive imagined contact scenario affects participants evaluation of the outgroup. The results show, in line with the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (Brewer, 1971), that ‘balanced similarity’ which incorporates both similarities and differences yields more positive outgroup attitudes than the conditions focusing only on similarities or only on differences. Experiment 5 compares ‘balanced similarity’ with positive imagined contact and finds that only the former affects variables related to preparing individuals for future contact. Chapter 5 consists of a three-wave longitudinal study examining the temporal effects of direct and extended friendships on outgroup attitudes and their mediation. Both types of friendships yield a significant indirect effect on attitudes which is stronger for direct friendships and is mediated by intergroup anxiety for both types of friendships and also by ingroup norms for direct friendships. Chapter 6 presents and discusses the key findings, outlines the limitations of these studies, and suggests avenues for future research.

The purpose of this essay is to explore the importance of muscles about human motion from anatomy. Then, we will be able to establish the mechanism by muscular characteristic. Muscles include agonist muscle and antagonist muscle. The skeletons can only be moved by the contraction of muscles. That unidirectional force characteristic is just like the resistant tensile force of rope. The rope can be just tensioned, it can¡¦t be pressured. The purpose of this essay tries to use unique method to apply the rope to the mechanism. The way is to use the input rod to contact the rope from lateral; then, the move of the input rod will force on the rope, resulting in the deformation and tension of rope. Therefore, the rope of two extremities of output rod will be moved. This above particular method is called direct contact of rope. In order to generate the generalized mechanical device of the rope mechanism, The essay defines the generalized rule of the direct contact of rope; thus, the rope mechanism can use create design of mechanism devices to proceed mechanism synthesis.

Direct contact condensation of steam injected into water is a special mode of condensation where condensation occurs on the interface between steam and water. This type of condensation forms an essential part of various industrial applications and correct prediction and modelling of the condensation behaviour is crucial to obtain an optimised design of such devices. While present prediction models for direct contact condensation are valid for a limited range of flow conditions only, the work presented in this thesis provides improved models for direct contact condensation. The models are developed in the form of diagrams and include: a condensation regime diagram, for predicting the condensation behaviour, a steam plume length diagram, for predicting the penetration distance of steam into water, and a heat transfer coefficient diagram. These models are derived using a wide range of data and therefore provide more accurate predictions compared with alternative models available in literature. In contrast to present models, the derived models presented in this work are constructed using an additional physical parameter to describe the process. The diagrams are validated against independent experiments and demonstrate close agreement. Furthermore, the predictions from the condensation regime diagram and steam plume length diagram are self-consistent. The models developed in this study are capable of predicting condensation behaviour for a wide range of initial conditions and can be used in conjunction with computational fluid dynamics techniques for direct contact condensation.

Lack of clean fresh water is one of the most pervasive problems afflicting people throughout the world. Efficient desalination of sea and brackish water and safe reuse of wastewater become an insistent need. However, such techniques are energy intensive, and thus, a good control design is needed to increase the process efficiency and maintain water production costs at an acceptable level. This thesis proposes solutions to the above challenges and in particular will be focused on two membranebased water systems: Membrane Distillation (MD) and Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) for wastewater treatment plant (WWPT). The first part of this thesis, Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD) will study as an example an MD process. MD is an emerging sustainable desalination technique which can be powered by renewable energy. Its main drawback is the low water production rate. However, it can be improved by utilizing advanced control strategies. DCMD is modeled by a set of Differential Algebraic Equations (DAEs). In order to improve its water production, an optimization-based control scheme termed Model Predictive Control (MPC) provides a natural framework to optimally operate DCMD processes due to its unique control advantages. Among these advantages are the flexibility provided in formulating the objective function, the capability to directly handle process constraints, and the ability to work with various classes of nonlinear systems. Motivated by the above considerations, two MPC schemes that can maximize the water production rate of DCMD systems have been developed. The first MPC scheme is formulated to track an optimal set-point while taking input and stability constraints into account. The second MPC scheme, Economic MPC (EMPC), is formulated to maximize the distilled water flux while meeting input, stability and other process operational constraints. The total water production under both control designs is compared to illustrate the effectiveness of the two proposed control paradigms. Simulation results show that the DCMD process produces more distilled water when it is operated by EMPC than when it is operated by MPC. The above control techniques assume the full access to the system states. However, this is not the case for the DCMD plant. To effectively control the closed-loop system, an observer design that can estimate the values of the unmeasurable states is required. Motivated by that, a nonlinear observer design for DCMD is proposed. In addition, the effect of the estimation gain matrix on the differentiation index of the DAE system is investigated. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed observer design. The observer-based MPC and EMPC are also studied in this work. Mathematical modeling of a wastewater treatment system is critical because it enhances the process understanding and can be used for process design and process optimization. Motivated by the above considerations, modeling and optimal control strategies have been developed and applied to the MBR-based wastewater treatment process. The model is an extension of the well-known Benchmark simulation models for wastewater treatment. In addition, model predictive control has been applied to maintain the dissolved oxygen concentration level at the desired value. In addition, a conventional PID controller has also been developed. The simulation results show that the both of controllers can be used for dissolved oxygen concentration control. However, MPC has better performance compared to PID scenario.

Water is becoming scarcer and several authors have highlighted the upcoming problem of higher water salinity and the difficulty of treating and discharging water. Moreover, current discoveries of problems with chemicals that have been used for pretreating or post-treating water alerted scientists to research better solutions to treat water. Membrane distillation (MD) is a promising technology that might replace current processes as it has lower pretreatment requirements combined with a tremendous ability to treat a wide range of feed sources while producing very high product quality. If it enters the market, it will have a big influence on all products, from food industry to spaceflight. However, there are several problems which make MD a hot topic for research. One of them is the question about the real cost of MD in terms of heating feed and cooling distillate over time with respect to product quantity and quality. In this work, extensive heating and cooling analyses are covered to answer this question in order to enhance the MD process. Results show energy cost to produce water and the main source of energy loss for direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD), and several suggestions are made in order to better understand and hence enhance the process.

Steam distillation is the traditional method used for the extraction of peppermint oil. This process is able to remove approximately 20% of the oils from the leaves of the plant. It is a very costly and un-sustainable process due to the release of carbon emissions. Solvent free microwave extraction promises yields of up to 65% of the "available" oils from the peppermint at 3% less cost (Velasco 2007). It can also reduce carbon emissions because it will be using electricity as a power source instead of fossil fuels, however not all electric companies use renewable energies. In 2009 a SFME pilot plant was assembled in North Carolina to test the efficiency of the microwave process on a larger than lab scale. Results from the experiments showed that the tube and shell condenser was unable to effectively condense the mint oil. The problem was determined to be the addition of air to the mixture due to the open ends of the microwave. However it was discovered that the spray scrubber after the condenser was able to collect a visible amount of oil. This inspired the design of a direct contact condenser (Pommerenck 2012). The direct contact condenser they designed, built, and tested showed vast improvements in steam capturing efficiency when compared to a tube and shell condenser. However due to the materials used for its construction it could not sustain operating temperatures seen in the microwave pilot plant. Using their design a new direct contact condenser was built using materials that would be able to withstand heavy temperatures. The condenser was constructed out of aluminum and contained stainless steel spray nozzles, both for their non-corrosive properties. Tests were conducted using 8 and 16 nozzles and tested over a range of 20-100% steam by mass. Additional tests were completed using the full 24 nozzles but due to the location of some of the nozzles coolant was lost as an aerosol with no way to quantify the loss. Comparing the data to research completed by Pommerenck et al. on efficiency of a tube and shell condenser used for the mint distillation process found that with increasing amounts of air there is a greater loss of heat transfer. This is believed to be the effects of a boundary layer of the noncondensable fluid, air, which forms along the tube and resists condensation from forming (Seunguim 2006). Pommerenck's tube and shell condenser used a coolant flow rate of 24 L/min while the flow rates tested in this research were 18 L/min and 36 L/min. The direct contact condenser showed a considerable increase in performance even with the smaller flow rate compared to the tube and shell unit, indicating removal of the boundary layer. The efficiency tends to follow the maximum theoretical efficiency while the tube and shell condenser lowers in efficiency. The overall goal of this project is to determine the feasibility of the use of a direct contact condenser for implementation in the solvent free microwave extraction of peppermint oil when air is present. / Graduation date: 2012

Poly(vinylidene) fluoride (PVDF) nano-composite membranes were prepared. The dope solution contained varied concentrations of superhydrophobic SiO2 nano-particles. The fabricated flat sheet membranes were characterized extensively by SEM, FTIR, water contact angle, LEPw, surface roughness, pore size diameter and pore size distribution. The effect of the nano-particles on the membrane performance was then analysed. The nano-composite membranes showed increased surface pore diameter, elevated water contact angle measurements with lower LEPw when compared to the neat membrane. The 7 wt. % nano-composite membrane showed the greatest flux in a VMD process with 2.9 kg/m2.h flux achieved accounting to a 4 fold increase when compared to the neat membrane. Desalination test were carried out using a 35 g/L synthetic salt water and rejection >99.98% was obtained. The best performing nano-composite dope solution (7 wt. %) was then further treated for performance enhancement by increasing the water content to increase pore size and pore size distribution followed by coating with nano-fibres. The uncoated and coated flat sheets, were characterized by SEM, surface roughness, LEPw and CAw. Flux analysis showed that the increase in water content had little effects on the VMD flux. It also suggests that; the nano-fibre layer posed very little resistance to mass transfer. A comparison of VMD and DCMD was also done experimentally.

Membrane Distillation (MD) is an emerging sustainable desalination technique. While MD has many advantages and can be powered by solar thermal energy, its main drawback is the low water production rate. However, the MD process has not been fully optimized in terms of its manipulated and controlled variables. This is largely due to the lack of adequate dynamic models to study and simulate the process. In addition, MD is prone to membrane fouling, which is a fault that degrades the performance of the MD process. This work has three contributions to address these challenges. First, we derive a mathematical model of Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD), which is the building block for the next parts. Then, the proposed model is extended to account for membrane fouling and an observer-based fouling detection method is developed. Finally, various control strategies are implemented to optimize the performance of the DCMD solar-powered process. In part one, a reduced-order dynamic model of DCMD is developed based on lumped capacitance method and electrical analogy to thermal systems. The result is an electrical equivalent thermal network to the DCMD process, which is modeled by a system of nonlinear differential algebraic equations (DAEs). This model predicts the water-vapor flux and the temperature distribution along the module length. Experimental data is collected to validate the steady-state and dynamic responses of the proposed model, with great agreement demonstrated in both. The second part proposes an extension of the model to account for membrane fouling. An adaptive observer for DAE systems is developed and convergence proof is presented. A method for membrane fouling detection is then proposed based on adaptive observers. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the membrane fouling detection method. Finally, an optimization problem is formulated to maximize the process efficiency of a solar-powered DCMD. The adapted method is known as Extremum Seeking (ES). A Newton-based ES is designed and the proposed model is used to accurately forecast the distilled water flux. Although good results are obtained with this method, a practical modification to the ES scheme is proposed to enhance the practical stability.

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Desalination is one of the proposed methods to meet the ever increasing water demands. It can be subdivided into two broad categories, thermal based desalination and electricity based desalination. Multi-effect Distillation (MED), Multi-Stage Flashing (MSF), Membrane Distillation (MD) fall under former and Reverse Osmosis (RO), Electro-Dialysis (ED) fall under later. MD offers an attractive solution for seawater as well as brackish water distillation. It shows highly pure yields, theoretically 100% pure. The overall construction of a MD unit is way simpler than any other desalination systems. MD is a thermally driven diffusion process where desalination takes places in the form of water vapor transport across the membrane. It has low second law efficiency due to parasitic heat losses. The objective of the first part of the investigation is to thoroughly analyze a Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD) system from the view point of yield and exergy. The insights from exergy analysis are used in a design study, which is used for performance optimization. The first part concludes with a design procedure and design windows for large scale DCMD construction. In the second part of the investigation, focus is moved to waveguide solar energy collector. The idea behind an ideal waveguide is to reduce the complexity of modeling solar energy collection. The mathematical model provided in this analysis can be extended to a family of non-imaging optics in solar energy and serves as a benchmarking analysis tool. A waveguide is suitable for low temperature operations due to limitations on maximum continuous temperature of operation. Thus, it becomes an ideal solution for DCMD applications. A levelized cost analysis is presented for a waveguide powered DCMD plant of a 30,000 capacity. A combination of waveguide and DCMD shows levelized cost of water at $1.80/m³, which is found to be lower than previously reported solar desalination water costs. / Master of Science