Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum & Instruction Programs / Kay Ann Taylor / African American males have the second highest dropout rate in this Midwest state‘s largest public school district. Often, African American male students take an abundance of elective classes but do not complete core classes that guarantee a diploma. This study documented and analyzed the experiences of African American male students who completed or attempted to complete their high school diplomas in an alternative setting. The study is significant because it reveals the importance of how time is structured in an alternative educational setting; it discloses the pervasiveness of racism in public education, and it exposes the widespread stereotyping of African American males by teachers and other authority figures. African American male students who have attended both traditional and alternative public schools have been overlooked in previous research. Self-ethnography comprised the methodology. The intersectionality of gender, race, grades, racism, athletic involvement, law, and relationships formed a crucial paradigm of this investigation. Research findings include: (a) the major difference between traditional public and alternative schools is how time is structured, (b) African American males believe that they often are stereotyped, (c) high school athletes receive special privileges that they see later as obstacles, (d) African American males sometimes deliberately assume a pleasing demeanor toward teachers, (e) African American male students respond positively to teachers who conduct themselves with clear purpose, (f) African American males returning to school for high school credit recovery demonstrate tenacity and resist stereotypes. The cornerstone tenets of CRT—racism is the norm, interest convergence, and the need for social justice for oppressed groups—were evident in the findings of the frequency of stereotyping and treatment of African American male high school athletes. In the interest of social justice for African American male students, it is recommended that teachers are provided with the following information: (a) how to avoid consciously stereotyping; (b) that African American males make conscious efforts to be approachable; (c) how to make necessary changes involving their authority. Recommended future research for African American males includes: (a) how the construction of time in traditional public schools affects their credit acquisition; (b) communication between the counseling and athletic departments; (c) the impact of athletic involvement on academics.

Disasters occur all over the world, and affect a rising number of people. The health effects of natural disasters depend on several factors present before, during, and after a disaster event. However, there is only limited knowledge of survivors experiences, needs, and health after natural disasters. Disaster radio means a temporary radio station that broadcasts information, music, and support to the affected population. Disaster radio has the potential to function even in a severely affected area, but its effects need to be further evaluated from a health perspective. The context of this thesis was the Haiyan supertyphoon that hit parts of the Philippines in November 2013. The overall aim was to describe survivors’ and health professionals’ experiences during and in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, the health effects from such a disaster, and how disaster radio as a disaster response intervention can be used and evaluated from a health perspective. The thesis includes four studies using qualitative research methods, including content analysis and a phenomenological hermeneutic method, and quantitative methods with statistical analysis. The results show that the Haiyan typhoon affected physical, psychological, and social dimensions of health. Disaster radio was used to broadcast health-related information and psychosocial support, and made a positive contribution to recovery from the perspective of the survivors. Being a health professional deployed during the disaster was an experience of being both a helper and a victim. The use of a self-selected internetbased sample recruited via Facebook for a web-based survey mitigated several practical challenges related to disaster research, but also raised questions about the generalizability of the results. Based on the findings, the importance of an integrated physical, psychological, and social health response to natural disasters is emphazized. Also, the health care system should prepare to use disaster radio as disaster response. In addition, the results suggest that disaster training for health professionals should include personal preparation and coping strategies. Internet-based methods in disaster research need to be further evaluated.

The aim is to monitor the situation in the credit market, focusing mainly on non-banking sector and make comparison with the banking sector. The paper will also address the problem of indebtedness. It will also address the possibility of recovery, under Czech law.

Bakgrund: Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) är ett vårdprogram skapat för att förbättra återhämtning och minska kroppens stresspåslag efter kirurgi. Det första ERAS- programmet utvecklades år 2012 för kolorektalkirurgi.  Kolorektalcancer drabbar ca 6 400 personer/år i Sverige, och ca 2 600 personer dör årligen. Detta gör det till en av de vanligaste cancerformerna, och den behandlas med kirurgi. Fler och fler sjukhus vårdar patienter, med denna typ av cancer, enligt vårdprogrammet ERAS. Det har visat sig att det har gett patienter en kortare vårdtid, färre komplikationer och i och med detta blir kostnaderna inte lika höga. Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva patienters upplevelse av att vårdas enligt ERAS vid kolorektalkirurgi. Metod: En litteraturöversikt baserat på 10 empiriska studier. Databaserna PubMed och CINAHL användes vid datainsamlingen. Virginia Hendersons omvårdnadsteori utgjorde litteraturöversiktens teoretiska referensram. Resultat: Fem teman identifierades som beskrev patienternas upplevelse av ERAS vid kolorektalkirurgi. Dessa teman var: information, vårdpersonalens bemötande, delaktighet i sin egen vård, nutrition och vårdmiljö. Resultatet visar att mer information behövs och att både informationen och vården måste vara individanpassad. Slutsats: Patienterna upplever inte att ERAS individanpassar informationen vilket gör den svårförstådd och ger en känsla av att inte ha kontroll. Programmet skulle behöva göra individanpassningar för att passa alla typer av patienter och för att kunna ge patienterna möjlighet till att vara delaktiga i sin vård. Genom att vårdpersonal får en ökad förståelse för patienternas upplevelser kan vårdprogrammet förbättras.

Thesis advisor: Stephanie Greene / A Constitutional analysis of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with respect to educational subsidies to religiously-affiliated universities; including a proposed framework for the adjudication of issues involving religion and the government. / Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Carroll School of Management Honors Program. / Discipline: Business Law.

A thesis Submitted to the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Johannesburg, 2016 / Wettability of a porous reservoir rock is an important factor that affects oil recovery during waterflooding. It is recognized as being important for multiphase properties. Understanding the variation of these properties in the field, due to wettability trends and different pore structures, is very critical for designing efficient and reliable processes and projects for enhanced hydrocarbon recovery. After primary drainage the reservoir wettability changes: if it was oil-wet initially, it gradually changes to water-wet during waterflooding. This change in reservoir wettability towards water-wet will reduce the residual oil saturation and improve the oil displacement efficiency. However, knowledge of the constitutive relationship between the pore scale descriptors of transport in the porous system is required to adequately describe wettability trend and its impact on oil recovery, particularly during waterflooding. In this work, the petrophysical properties that define fluid flow in the Agbada, Nigeria sandstone reservoir were determined using conventional experimental and x-ray CT scanning methods. Experimentally measured average porosity is 0.28, average permeability is 1699 mD, while the initial and irreducible water saturation is 0.22. Permeability in the x, y and z directions, ranging from 50 to 200 mD, were calculated from the pore network extracted from the Agbada sandstone rock. Results obtained from the Amott-Harvey wettability measurement method indicate that the reservoir is strongly water-wet, with Amott-Harvey index of about 0.9. The cross-over between the water and oil relative permeabilities occurred at saturations of the samples above 0.5, giving an indication of strong water-wetness. The work summarizes the mechanism of wettability alteration and characterizes the performance of the reservoir during waterflooding from injecting water, and relates the residual oil saturation, relative permeability and volumes of water injected to wettability and its effects on oil recovery. Waterflood oil recovery is computed using the Buckley-Leverett method based on the reservoir rock and fluid properties. Computed waterflood oil recovery using this method was about 60% of the oil initially in place. Plots of spontaneous imbibition rate show that the injection rate for optimal oil recovery is 40 bbls of injected water per day. At this rate, both the mobility and shock front mobility ratios are less than 1, leading to a stable flood front and absence of viscous fingering. Waterflooding is by far the most widely applied method of improved oil recovery over the years with good results in conventional and unconventional (tight oil) reservoirs It is relatively simple and cost effective: abundance and availability of water. Waterflood oil recovery factor is affected by internal and external factors. The placement of the injection and production wells, for example, impacts on the effectiveness of the waterflooding process. I considered the placement of the wells in a five-spot pattern as elements of an unbounded double periodic array of wells and assumed the reservoir to be homogeneous, infinite and isotropic, with constant porosity and permeability. Both fluids are treated as having slight but constant compressibility and their flow governed by Darcy’s law. The average pressure in the reservoir satisfies quasi-static flow or diffusion equation. I then assumed piston-like displacement of oil by injected water that takes account of viscosity diffence between both fluids and proposed a model based on the theory of elliptic functions, in particular Weierstrass p-functions functions. Oil-water contact movement, dimensionless time for water breakthrough at the production well, areal sweep and average reservoir pressures were modeled. The model was tested using Wolfram Mathematica 10 software and the results are promising. The thesis has therefore established that the Agbada sandstone reservoir is strongly water-wet and that waterflooding is a viable option for enhanced oil recovery from the reservoir. / MT2016

Student Number : 0004041J - MSc dissertation - School of Electrical and Information Engineering - Faculty of Engineering / Slip energy recovery (SER) drives are used extensively in industry as they offer cost effective speed control of large wound rotor induction motors. The biggest disadvantage associated with the use of SER drives is the vulnerability of the rotor circuit converters to power system disturbances such as voltage dips. The failure of converters as a result of voltage dips is a problem associated with the use of these particular drives. The aim of this research is to better understand the stresses on rotor circuit converters as a result of voltage dips at the terminals of the motor. The rotor transients developed by a wound rotor induction motor are investigated for a range of three phase and single phase voltage dips. Simulations conducted in the Alternative Transients Program (ATP) supplement measurements conducted on a simplified SER circuit. The results confirm that voltage dips cause significant stresses on the converters in the rotor circuit. Good correlation was obtained between simulated and measured results. This work allows for a better understanding of the response of wound rotor induction motors to voltage dips and identifies the threat that voltage dips impose on the SER rotor circuit converters.

A desnutrição protéico-energética (DPE) afeta mais de 1 bilhão de pessoas no mundo, principalmente crianças, idosos e pacientes hospitalizados. Ela provoca alterações metabólicas e hormonais, além de afetar o tecido hemopoético. O comprometimento da hemopoese provoca anemia e leucopenia, modificando a resposta imune inata e adquirida do organismo. Dessa forma, é comum a associação entre desnutrição e infecção, levando ao comprometimento do tratamento e aumento da morbidade e mortalidade de indivíduos hospitalizados. Após a recuperação nutricional, é relatada a reversão das alterações bioquímicas e hormonais, bem como das alterações na hemopoese e na resposta imune. Porém, muitos resultados são controversos, existindo dúvidas quanto à reversibilidade das alterações. Assim, nos propusemos a avaliar os efeitos da recuperação nutricional nos parâmetros bioquímicos, hormonais, hematológicos e imunológicos em modelo murino de desnutrição. Os animais desnutridos apresentaram perda de peso significativa, redução de proteínas totais, albumina, glicose, insulina e IGF-1, bem como aumento de glutamina plasmática, glutamina sintetase muscular e corticosterona. Houve redução dos parâmetros hepáticos e musculares, bem como alteração na sensibilidade à insulina, evidenciada pelos testes de OGTT e ITT. Todas as alterações descritas caracterizam o quadro de desnutrição. Após a recuperação nutricional, alguns parâmetros foram normalizados, mas as concentrações de glicose, insulina e IGF-1 permaneceram reduzidas. Da mesma forma, as alterações na concentração de DNA hepático e na sensibilidade à insulina permaneceram nos animais renutridos. A pancitopenia periférica e hipocelularidade da medula óssea e do baço observadas nos animais desnutridos foram revertidas após a renutrição. A avaliação de macrófagos peritoniais mostrou reversão parcial do comprometimento da capacidade e adesão e espraiamento, bem como da atividade fungicida nos animais renutridos. A produção de peróxido de hidrogênio continuou baixa após a recuperação nutricional, enquanto a produção de óxido nítrico voltou a aumentar. O comprometimento da produção de citocinas pró-inflamatórias decorrente da desnutrição não foi completamente revertido, visto que, em camundongos Swiss Webster, somente a produção de TNF-α retornou ao normal, enquanto em camundongos C56BL/6J a produção de nenhuma citocina foi restabelecida. A avaliação da via de sinalização do fator de transcrição NFkB mostrou alteração na expressão de MyD88, TRAF-6, IkKβ e IkBα em animais desnutridos. Após a recuperação nutricional, algumas dessas proteínas não retornaram ao normal. Os animais desnutridos também apresentaram comprometimento da ativação de NFkB, que não foi normalizada após a recuperação nutricional. Sendo assim, é possível afirmar que o retorno a uma dieta normoprotéica não é suficiente para reverter todas as alterações causadas pela desnutrição. / Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) affects more than 1 billion people worldwide, mainly children, elderly and hospitalized patients. It causes metabolic and hormonal changes, besides affecting hematopoietic tissue. Impaired hematopoiesis causes anemia and leukopenia, modifying innate and acquired immune response of the organism. Thus, it is common the association between malnutrition and infection, leading to impaired treatment and increasing morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. After nutritional recovery, it is reported reversal of biochemical and hormonal changes, as well as, reversal of changes in hematopoiesis and immune response. However, many results are controversial, and there are doubts about the reversibility of the changes. Thus, we proposed to evaluate the effects of nutritional recovery biochemical, hormonal, haematological and immunological parameters in a murine model of malnutrition. The malnourished animals showed significant weight loss, reduction in total protein, albumin, glucose, insulin and IGF-1, as well as increased plasma glutamine, corticosterone and muscle glutamine synthetase. There was a reduction in muscle and liver parameters as well as change in insulin sensitivity, evidenced by the tests of OGTT and ITT. All modifications described characterize the malnutrition. After nutritional recovery, there was normalization of some parameters, but the concentrations of glucose, insulin and IGF-1 remained low. Likewise, changes in hepatic DNA concentration and insulin sensitivity remained in renourished animals. Peripheral pancytopenia and hypocellularity in bone marrow and spleen observed in malnourished animals were reversed after refeeding. The evaluation of peritoneal macrophages showed partial reversal of impairment of adhesion and spreading ability, as well as fungicidal activity in animals renourished. The hydrogen peroxide production remained low after nutritional recovery, while nitric oxide production increased again. Impaired production of proinflammatory cytokines due to malnutrition was not completely reversed, whereas in Swiss Webster mice, only the production of TNF-α returned to normal, whereas in C56BL/6J mice no cytokine production was restored. The assessment of the signalling pathway of transcription factor NFkB showed alterations in the expression of MyD88, TRAF-6 IkKβ and IkBα in malnourished animals. After nutritional recovery, some of these proteins didn\'t return to normal. Malnourished animals also showed impaired activation of NFkB, which wasn\'t normalized after nutritional recovery. Therefore, it is possible to say that the return to a normal diet is not enough to reverse all the changes caused by malnutrition.

Global efforts makes buildings successively more energy efficient. This results in that the percentage of the total energy in the building that is lost to the sewage system, in the form of hot water, is increasing. The characteristics of the wastewater originating from the urban water cycle makes it an attractive heat source which is relatively unexploited. Wastewater heat recovery (WWHR) systems is a group of systems designed to reduce a buildings use of external energy sources by recovering the heat out of the wastewater before it is let out into the sewage.         The focus of this report is a parametric study performed on a WWHR system that utilises thermal storage tanks for accumulation of wastewater and a heat pump equipped with heat exchangers for the heat recovery. The studied variables are the amount of energy that the system is able to recover out of the wastewater and the seasonal average COP of the heat pump. The change of these two variables were analysed both as an affect of parameters dependent of system design and on consumption patterns of the residents of the building. The results showed that by properly designing the system the recovery degree can be increased by 31.5 percentage points reaching values above 90 % and the seasonal average COP can be increased by 13.5 % reaching values of 5.13. However, these two variables stands in contrast to each other were maximising one will reduce the other and it is proposed that it is important to take both into account when evaluating a WWHR system. It is also shown that the consumption related parameters have a relatively big effect on the system. The change in recovery degree as a result of these non-controllable parameter is 14 percentage points and the seasonal average COP changes with 4.2 %.         The system performance as a result of changing the U-value of the heat exchanger connecting the system to the domestic hot water circuit was also analysed. This showed an exponential relation between the U-value and delivered energy from the heat pump. The results showed that an increase of the U-value from 50 W/K to 6000 W/K increased the yearly energy supplied with 37.6 % but an increase from 1000 W/K to 6000 W/K increased the yearly supplied energy with less than 1 %. This result highlights the importance of properly dimensioning the heat exchanger.

Acidentes ambientais vêm ocorrendo ao longo de décadas, assim, além de atitudes para evitar esses danos, são necessárias ações para remediação. Materiais tecnológicos e de baixo custo em impacto ambiental podem ser uma alternativa para o tratamento de corpos hídricos degradados, além de um caminho ambientalmente sustentável para remediação de córregos e rios urbanos. Neste contexto, buscou-se avaliar na pesquisa, materiais biossorventes para serem utilizados em acidentes de derramamento de derivados do petróleo em meio aquático. Como matéria-prima, utilizaram-se as fibras das cascas de banana, coco e laranja. Como contaminantes foram utilizados a gasolina e o óleo diesel. Os biossorventes foram produzidos por processos de secagem, ativação química, moagem, classificação granulométrica, caracterização e ensaios de sorção. Para a caracterização foram empregadas as técnicas: picnometria, termogravimetria, análise elementar, microscopia eletrônica de varredura, teor de umidade, retenção de água pela biomassa seca, hidrofobicidade, flutuabilidade, teor de cinzas, fluorescência de raios X e classificação granulométrica. Para o tratamento dos dados, desenvolveu-se um planejamento estatístico de identificação das variáveis significativas no processo de sorção, construíram-se curvas de equilíbrio e de cinética de sorção e que foram modeladas por meio das isotermas de Freundlich e Langmuir. Para estudo da influência da granulometria na sorção, os ensaios foram realizados com os grãos primeiramente de maneira generalizada e posteriormente separados por granulometrias distintas. Os resultados se mostraram promissores, sendo o coco o biossorvente mais eficiente, ele sorveu uma média de 3,94 g/g de óleo diesel e 2,80 g/g de gasolina. / Environmental accidents have been occurring for decades, then, in addition to attitudes to avoid such damages, remediation actions are required. Technological materials of low cost and environmental impact may be an alternative for the treatment of degraded water bodies, besides an environmentally sustainable way for remediation of streams and urban rivers. In this context, it was sought to evaluate, in the research, biosorbent materials to be used in accidents of spill of oil derivatives in aquatic environment. The fibers of the banana, coconut and orange crusts were used as raw material. Petrol and diesel were used as contaminants. The biosorbents were produced by processes such as, drying, chemical activation, milling, sorting, characterization and sorption tests. For the characterization, the techniques used were: picnometry, thermogravimetry, elemental analysis, electron microscopy, moisture content, water retention by dry biomass, hydrophobicity, buoyancy, ash content, X - ray fluorescence and granulometric classification. For the treatment of the data, a statistical design was developed to identify the significant variables in the sorption process, equilibrium and sorption kinetics curves were constructed and modeled, using the Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms. To study the influence of granulometry on sorption, the tests were performed with the grains first generalized and later separated by different granulometries. The results were promising, with coconut being the most efficient biosorbent, it had an average of 3,94 g/g of diesel oil and 2,80 g/g of gasoline.