Syntactic foams are light weight particulate composites that use hollow particles (microballoons) as reinforcement in a polymer resin matrix. High strength microballoons provide closed cell porosity which helps in reducing weight of the material. Due to their wide range of possible applications such as in aerospace and marine structures, it is desirable to modify the physical and mechanical properties of syntactic foams as per the requirements of an application. Various filler materials can be used to modify the foam microstructure to attain these desired properties. Compression tests have revealed that high density syntactic foams demonstrate poor damage tolerance and low fracture strain, when compared with low density syntactic foams, which exhibit higher damage tolerance and fracture strains. The present study deals with increasing the fracture strain and damage tolerance properties of high density syntactic foams. An approach of modifying the matrix resin with the incorporation of filler particles as a third phase is adopted, resulting in hybrid syntactic foam. Two types of high performance hybrid foam composites are developed using waste tire rubber particles and low cost nanoclay particle respectively. Such highly damage tolerant hybrid foams will be useful as sandwich core material in automobile, aerospace, and marine structures. An analytical study is performed in order to observe the behavior of microballoons in syntactic foams upon loading. All hybrid foams are characterized for compressive strength and flexural strength properties. Rubber hybrid foams are further characterized for hygrothermal properties. Mechanical properties of hybrid foams are compared with those of plain syntactic foams. Changes in properties are correlated with the change in structural composition due to incorporation of rubber and nanoclay particles respectively. High magnification Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is used to study microstructure of all the specimens. Change in properties of rubber type hybrid foams due to change in the size of rubber particles is studied. The dispersion and intercalation of nanoclay particles in nanoclay hybrid foams is studied using Transmission Electron Microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Deformation behavior of hybrid foams and pure syntactic foams are compared and correlated to the presence of different types of particles in them.

Rice bran oil was extracted using environmentally-friendly supercritical carbon dioxide at varying conditions. Experimental treatments included pressure (27.6, 41.4 and 55.2 MPa), temperature (40 and 60 oC) and flow rates (25, 45 and 65 g/min) of supercritical carbon dioxide. Extracts collected at different time intervals during 4-hour extraction runs in a 3-L extractor were analyzed for oil yield and antioxidants. Normal-phase HPLC was used for analyzing the extract for important antioxidant compounds of oryzanol, tocopherols, tocotrienols. Silica rich rice hull ash adsorbent was also incorporated in combined extraction-adsorption experiments under similar supercritical fluid conditions. Supercritical extraction yields of rice bran oil and antioxidants were compared with 6 -hour Soxhlet extraction using petroleum ether solvent. Total oil extract yields for SFE (17.26-18.52 %) and experiments conducted with ash (17.35-18.99 %) for the extraction conditions of higher pressure (55.2 MPa) and flow rates (65 g/min) were comparable to the ether extractable oil yield (17.88 %). Extract yield significantly increased (p<0.05) with an increase in pressure and flow rate. However, the temperature effect on extract yield was not significant. Antioxidant extraction significantly increased with increased pressure, but not with increased flow and temperature. These behaviors with pressure, flow and temperature were similar for oryzanol, tocopherols and tocotrienols. Rice hull ash adsorbent did not significantly affect oil yields, but did influence the antioxidants in the extract. A much greater ash adsorption effect for noted for oryzanol, which was different from the effect that was seen for of vitamin E components. A separate batch adsorption study carried out at different temperature (20, 30, 40 oC) for varied time intervals also showed similar adsorption behavior. Freundlich isotherms successfully described adsorption behavior of the antioxidant compounds in the batch study using rice bran oil-hexane miscella. Freundlich fitting parameters (k and 1/n) were used to plot Vanât Hoff- Arrhenius equations and calculate the change in enthalpy value (âH) due to adsorption of antioxidants. Goto et al. (1993) model was applied to extraction yield data and successfully characterized extraction behavior. Values of partition coefficient K and mass transfer coefficient Kp were calculated and reported.

America was not prepared for the War of 1812. The army and navy were so small they could not oppose Britain directly. American strategy in the first year called for the seizure of Canada. Multiple expeditions were complete failures resulting in military defeats and political embarrassment for President Madison. During the second year of the war there were more defeats for American forces, but some victories. These successes came mainly against Indians allied with the British along the frontier. The third and final year of the war started ominously. With Napoleons first abdication the wars in Europe seemed over, allowing England to shift forces to North America. The war reached a low point for the Americans when the British entered Washington, burned the Capitol, the White House, and other public buildings. This force was turned back at Baltimore, but then sailed south to linkup with the largest British strike force of the war, with the mission of seizing New Orleans. Major General Andrew Jacksons task was to save New Orleans from the British. From September through December of 1814 Jackson sparred with the British, and their Spanish allies, in a series of engagements that ranged along the Gulf Coast from Pensacola to islands just east of the city. These engagements narrowed British options and allowed Jackson to prepare for the defense of New Orleans. His leadership was exemplary, as he recruited and mobilized disparate forces, used terrain to great advantage, and effectively directed a series of four engagements with the enemy that culminated in the epic fight along the Rodriguez Canal and decisive victory.

The concept of construction productivity began in the early 20th century with a series of time and motion studies to improve bricklaying operations. A substantial number of subsequent studies focused on repetitive tasks and automation of the manufacturing operations and subsequently benefited manufacturing more than the construction industry. There has been a lack of studies for productivity improvement in the construction industry. Building upon the available body of knowledge as it related to productivity of manufacturing and construction industries, this study focused on developing a project improvement system for effective management of construction projects. Development of the system included a review of literature, where an inventory of productivity related factors was found and interpolated into a primary productivity evaluation checklist. A survey of construction practitioners was conducted to rank and determine the degree of influence of various factors on construction productivity. A field study gathered information for the refinement of the primary productivity evaluation checklist. The review of literature, together with the findings of survey and field study, led to the development of the Project Improvement System (PIS). Finally, the PIS was tested and evaluated in a case study of a construction project to ensure its workability, suitability, and influence. Out of 36 productivity factors gathered from the literature, the survey identified 30 factors as high, 4 factors as moderate, and 2 factors as low with respect to their degree of influence on productivity. This information provided guidance for the field study to refine the primary productivity evaluation checklist. The survey revealed that executives, project managers, and superintendents of general contracting firms have similar perceptions of the degree of influence of productivity factors in construction and view productivity as a concept within their reach and control. Application of the system to a case study resulted in improvement of the rates of productivity of various construction tasks after application of PIS and a projected savings of 4.27% in the labor cost. The findings of this study imply that PIS is an effective tool for project managers to improve productivity and increase the bottom-line of construction projects.

The electrodeposition of nickel-rhenium alloys from Ni(II) and Re(VII) solution was studies in an aqueous acidic solution. Different plating current density and pH have been carried out, and the effect of them on the composition of the deposited Ni-Re alloy was studied. Wavelength-dispersive spectrometer (WDS) was used to measure the composition of Ni-Re alloy. The thermal stability of nickel-rhenium alloy system has been investigated. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) tests have been conducted for the electroplated Ni-Re samples in order to find the possible heating initiated interactions at elevated temperatures. To investigate the thermal stability of Ni-Re alloys, the samples were annealed under nitrogen environment for 90 minutes at 280°C, 350°C, 600°C and 900°C. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to exam the microstructures of Ni-Re alloy samples as-deposited and heat-treated. The results show that the as-deposited Ni-Re material grain size for this plating condition is around 380nm. The results also show that after heating at 600°C for 90 minutes, there was no significant grain growth observed. The microhardness and nanohardness of Ni-Re alloy were also studied with as-deposited and heat-treated samples. Tensile strength was carried out by dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) at room temperature and elevated temperature of 400°C. This research demonstrated a well developed, thermally stable and mechanically sound material system for LIGA/MEMS high temperature robust applications.

The objective of this research was to develop and validate a generalized team task-complexity model and framework by drawing on the literature from various team and task factors grouped into three task-dimensions, which compose task-complexity space and how these affect the task-performance. A number of task typologies have been presented in the teams' literature to better define and understand the critical role of the tasks and the associated team processes. In addition, most of the research work has defined team measures as highly abstract concepts not capable of providing the quantitative comparison of team performances from various domains. This research proposed a model of task-complexity based on different task-characteristics including task-scope, task-coordination and task-uncertainty that provide the capability to quantify different attributes that impact team performance. A multiple linear regression analysis was used to validate the contribution of each task-complexity dimension towards complexity and performance. Analysis of variance was also used to account variance in measurement scales and not to force linear relationship. The results indicate a significant three-way interaction of task-scope, task-coordination and task-uncertainty. Since three-way interaction was significant, all the three task-complexity dimensions were significant and not equally contributing towards team task-performance. Two-way interaction of task-scope and task-coordination was significant when task-uncertainty was negligible. Thus both were not equally contributing towards team task-performance. From effect tests, task-coordination and task-uncertainty were found to be highly significant with relation to task-performance. Though task-scope was not significant, further analysis reveals that it had significant impact on task-performance at its highest level and when task-uncertainty was negligible. Thus explains its inclusion in the three-way interaction. Workload, a subjective team performance measure in team literature, was used for model cross-validation. Results found a significant negative correlation between perceived task-workload and task-performance, thereby validating the model from workload perspective. This study summarizes the different task-characteristics affecting the team task-performance. This study has practical implications in the design and evaluation of collaborative tools and team training. Further research would develop a synthetic collaborative system that would emulate certain complex work environments and enable the collection of team performance data for assessing hypotheses about collaboration.

This thesis is a biographical description of the lives of two men that fought in the Pacific War, 1941-1945. One was a member of the Third Marine Division, the other a member of the Imperial Japanese Army stationed on Lubang Island in the Philippines. They were connected by a very intense, almost Paleolithic conflict across the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. Primary sources were drawn from the two privately published books by both. Clifton Cormier's A Postcard From Joseph (2002) and Onoda's No Surrender, My Thirty Year War (1974). In addition, Clifton Cormier graciously supplied self-written newspaper articles, private telephone conversations, and e-mail messages providing data not found in his book. The treatment of this thesis attempts to describe the experiences of these two gentlemen as seen through their eyes. It describes how the battlefield behavior of the Japanese soldier and the United States Marine were different yet strangely similar when fought on a stage of live combat were the will to survive is paramount to the will to win. Also find brief thematic descriptions of the military cultures that spawned the two along with eye witness descriptions of two of the largest banzai attacks in the Marianas (1944) along with a short treatment of the Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima campaigns. It concludes that the war itself is the real culprit as opposed to the political, racial, and social differences that existed in that era between these two armies and the cultural diversity under extreme stress that goes with it. This thesis explains how both gentlemen had no choice and did what they could to survive within the parameters allowed. Clifton Cormier rationalized that victory achieved revenge and Onoda sought isolation to circumvent the dishonor of defeat both of which brought to each the crowning glory of survival.

The nineteenth-century novelists studied in this dissertation used tragic form to investigate economic and social changes taking place around them. Honoré de Balzacs Le Père Goriot (1834), William Dean Howells The Rise of Silas Lapham (1884-1885), Giovanni Vergas Mastro-don Gesualdo (1888), Benito Pérez Galdóss Miau, (1888), and Thomas Manns Buddenbrooks (1901) reflect the interest of writers in France, the United States, Italy, Spain, and Germany in questions concerning how money in an evolving capitalist society not only had a major role in shaping the behavior and personalities of specific individuals but also affected such institutions as the family. Under these changing social conditions, these writers developed a new tragic model: a middle-class individual destroyed by social and economic change involving the role of money in a capitalist society. In their novels, the businessman or bureaucrat replaced the nobility as a subject for a tragedy, which could consist of an entire novel or a tragic narrative imbedded in a novel. One aspect of the role of money which these novelists chose to investigate was how bankruptcy, either the catastrophe itself or the fear of it, could lead to tragedy. Caught up in the struggle to prosper, the individual man, and in the novels studied here it is always a man, became alienated within his family and society as relations based on the need to make money replaced traditional bonds based on family and social ties. The lives of the main protagonists revealed similar characteristics related to how money affected their function in society and gave the novelists the tools they needed for an investigation of the new capitalism. These novels parallel work being done by the writers contemporaries who were analyzing the same social phenomena and developing ideas which would become modern social science. The tragic figure in these novels could easily be seen as being caught in Max Webers iron cage, the result of allowing capitalisms ethic of money-making to become too important in his life. Georg Simmels writing on the function of money, tragedy, exchange theory, and gratitude are also important in understanding these novels.

This qualitative study examines the field of public relations though the lens of Everett Rogers diffusion of innovation research. The fields of public relations and diffusion of innovations are paired for the first time in a study of the effects of proximity to innovators on public relations practitioners. In-depth interviews and focus groups with practitioners working in both high-tech and low-tech environments are transcribed and coded to compare the effects of technology adoption on roles, status and power in organizations. This study not only contributes to the literature in public relations and diffusion of innovations, but also its findings are useful to PR practitioners seeking career benefits through strategic technology use.

Musculoskeletal disorders account for 32 percent of work related injuries and illnesses. Extensive studies have been conducted to understand and explore the factors that affect the development of musculoskeletal disorders to provide effective control strategies. One of the most important factors that allow effective control strategies is the biomechanical factors. Among the biomechanical risk factors, exposures to repetitive static and vibratory activities are known to result in musculoskeletal disorders. A ligamentomuscular reflex activity exists in humans and animals to stabilize the knee, shoulder, elbow, ankle joints, and spine. This reflex activity decreases over time when static loading is applied, which leads to joint instability and decreased safety of the spine. However, the recovery process of this reflexive muscle activity to its original state is a complicated phenomenon and the research efforts in this area are limited to a few animal based experiments. Although the recovery process is modeled and known for animals, the process for human muscle recovery is still unknown. This study concentrates on the behavior and recovery of the human lumbar muscle when subjected to static loading. Ten males participated in this study where the electrical activity of their erector-spinae muscle for two different lumbar levels was recorded for twenty minutes of loading and three hours of recovery period to observe and model the muscle behavior. The behavior of recovery was modeled using a bi-exponential structure previously developed for animal experiments. However, the analysis of the EMG showed that the sitting task during rest periods created additional static loading on the lower back. The effects of this task were introduced to the model by adding a third exponential component referred to as the daily activity factor. Overall, the results support the previous findings about the behavior of the lower back muscles that were developed by animal experiments. However, the mathematical description of the phenomenon is modified by taking the daily activity factor into account. Understanding the time periods and phases for the recovery is essential, since a better understanding of the phenomenon can lead to optimal design of work/rest periods in occupational as well as sports activities.