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Due to the increasing prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children, a practical instructional method for teaching individuals to work with these children is becoming more necessary. An effective teaching method is that of the online computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI). The purpose of this study therefore, was to evaluate CAPSI’s effectiveness in teaching the self-regulation program of awareness and resilience in kids (spark*), techniques to be employed with children with ASD. The study consisted of two phases: independent CAPSI study and supervised CAPSI study. Participants were administered a knowledge test prior-to and following intervention. Results showed that there was an insignificant (p = .07) improvement following independent study and a significant improvement (p=.01) while studying under supervision. Together, these findings suggest that CAPSI is an effective method of instruction for teaching spark*, at least while participants study under supervision and if they receive a monetary incentive. / October 2015

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Through the Dust is a novel that takes place in the city of my birth: Istanbul. Using an earthquake as a driving force, the novel explores several themes: the ability to ‘know’ fictional characters and by extension real people, the role memory plays in how we view the world and each other, fate vs. free will, and isolation. Book One entitled ‘The Failure of Ali’ takes place before the earthquake and tells the story of Ali Toz who has hyperthymesia, a condition which prevents him from forgetting and often pulls him into the past. Each chapter alternates between the past and present, allowing us to follow Ali’s youth, his strained relationship with his mother, his time at the ‘school for the gifted’ and his marriage to Mina, while watching his present self wander through Istanbul. It is only when the past catches up with the present that we understand why Ali has come back to Istanbul after 20 years even after vowing never to do so, and why he is so desperate to find five old schoolmates. Book Two entitled ‘The 24th of July’ follows Ali’s five schoolmates through the twenty-four hours before the earthquake happens. Kerim is a surgeon who is having a particularly bad day. Elif is a telemarketer who has been played by her boss and is hated by everyone in her office. Ayse is cheating on her husband in an effort to find the love he promised her she would feel. Omer is going to propose to the love of his life and Didem is stuck in a bar-tending job so she can be with an emotionally destructive man. As the characters go through their day, completely immersed in their own problems, the earthquake strikes the city. Book Three entitled ‘Mary Was Here’ takes place the day after the earthquake and tells the story of Mary, a young woman who has a fatal brain tumor that is making her forget everything. In a parallel voyage to Ali’s, Mary arrives in Istanbul by hitching a ride on an aid bus coming in from Bulgaria. We don’t know why she has come to the city or who she is looking for, but she seems to believe that whoever it is may be able to help her. Early into her arrival, Mary loses her belongings and finds herself alone in the city. One by one, she encounters the five characters from Part Two. It is with Kerim that she creates a real bond and in the midst of all the chaos Mary gets swept along and ends up working as a nurse in a make-shift burn unit by the Golden Horn. The critical element of the thesis, entitled “In The Driver’s Seat: Decoding the Narrative Style of Muriel Spark” focuses on the narrative style of Muriel Spark in the eeriest of her novels. Through an investigation of The Driver’s Seat, I will endeavor to show the narrative and thematic complexity that lies within this seemingly simple and much overlooked novel, and how her techniques influenced my own work.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines work with stratified charge at part load and burn with lean mixtures in order to save fuel, whilst at full load, the fuel and air mix homogeneously for maximum power output. The higher compression ratio and the absence of throttling are two of the most significant benefits of GDI engines. The key issues facing GDI combustion include in-cylinder mixture preparation and post-combustion soot formation. This work was intended to investigate these aspects and was undertaken on a dedicated Jaguar single-cylinder optical GDI engine with a spray-guided combustion system. The spray-guided concept does not rely as much on charge motion or piston design, and can avoid wall-wetting effects so as to reduce engine emissions. Relevant engine control hardware and data acquisition equipment were commissioned. Data/image processing software was also developed to suit the measurements. A data-processing case study with data from a small two-stroke glow ignition engine has been conducted to develop a method to combine the burn rate and heat release analyses in the study of engines with premixed charge but compression ignition. Difficulties such as unknown ignition timing and polytropic index have been addressed. Results for all operating conditions have shown good correlations between the two methods. The technique of quantitative planar laser-induced fluorescence is useful for measuring 2-D fuel distribution in GDI engines. The relevant physics and literature were reviewed in depth. A multi-component fuel was designed to give reasonable co-evaporation characteristics with tracers matching different fuel fractions. The absorption and fluorescence features of each fuel component and tracer were characterised. Optimisation of hardware and signal-to-noise ratio was performed. A recirculating loop was set up for the calibration of the technique. The technique of colour-ratio pyrometry (CRP) for estimating the temperature and loading of soot was applied on the GDI engine. Critical features of the candidate CCD colour camera including its spectral response and noise behaviours were fully studied. Validation tests with reference sources together with an error analysis suggested an accuracy of ±50K within the combustion temperature range. Engine combustion images were then taken under various operating conditions. Temperature estimates were shown to be insensitive to the concentration of soot. Simulation with a thermodynamic modelling package, ISIS, was introduced for comparison with the experimental data. With careful tuning, ISIS gave outputs comparable to the CRP and proved to be a cost-effective tool to study GDI engines. High-speed combustion imaging was carried out using a CMOS camera, allowing the study of flame properties as well as crank-angle resolved CRP. By using a lens in the piston crown to give full bore optical access and appropriate image processing, the flame front could be detected reliably throughout the main combustion process.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 246-257).