The First Step in Solar Hydrogen Production: Development of a Solar Thermal Reactor for the Reduction of Metal Oxide Particles

A solar thermal reactor has been designed to experimentally investigate promising paths for reducing metal oxide particles to reduced oxidation states (e.g. Fe2O3 to Fe3O4) utilizing concentrated solar energy. This reactor is windowless and is able to handle internal cavity temperatures in excess of 1700 K. It also has a quasi-continuous feed system that allows the particle residence times to be varied for particles between 0.044 mm and 1 mm in diameter. Furthermore, this reactor utilizes an instrumentation system for the measurement of temperature, particle residence time, particle mass flow rate, and solar flux. In an industrial setting, a large-scale metal oxide reactor would serve as the first step in a metal oxide solar thermal electro-chemical cycle. After the particles are reduced at elevated temperatures using concentrated solar energy, they are used in an electrolysis process to facilitate the production of hydrogen from water. In this process, the reduced metal oxide particles are reoxidized at the anode and hydrogen is liberated at the cathode. The presence of the metal oxide enables hydrogen to be produced with an ideal cell potential of 0.21 V, a potential substantially below the ideal value of 1.2 V for traditional water electrolysis

Beta Breuil

In a little yard cottage at the Vitagraph Studios in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, Mrs. Beta Breuil ran the company’s scenario department from 1910 until 1913. As the company’s first scenario editor and perhaps the first woman to assume this position in the United States, Breuil’s career was brief, but significant. Her name is attached to more than fifty produced scenarios, and she mentored several women scenario writers at the company. However, researching Breuil’s career presents problems, as she operated with at least five names: her maiden name, names from three marriages, and a nom de plume—Mrs. Beta Breuil—her professional identity

Bessie Barriscale

On May 1, 1917, actress Bessie Barriscale invited members of the press corps and trade papers to the Paralta Plays company offices in New York. Agnes Smith, there on behalf of the Morning Telegraph, reported on the event a few days later, confessing to her readers that she had not initially known why the press had been summoned. However, the journalist quickly realized why when she arrived and saw a new sign on the door: “The Bessie Barriscale Feature Company.” Inside the Paralta offices she found Barriscale with her husband, actor Howard Hickman, director Oscar Apfel, and producer Robert Brunton. Announcing the formation of her own company whose pictures would be distributed by Paralta, Barriscale stressed the point that “good stories [would be] her first consideration” (n.p.). The Bessie Barriscale Feature Company was to start work in a new state-of-the-art studio in Hollywood, where, according to the Moving Picture World, they hoped to produce six to eight features per year with their first project to be the still extant title Rose O’Paradise (1918) (1100)

The First Step in Solar Hydrogen Production: Development of a Solar Thermal Reactor for the Reduction of Metal Oxide Particles

A solar thermal reactor has been designed to experimentally investigate promising paths for reducing metal oxide particles to reduced oxidation states (e.g. Fe2O3 to Fe3O4) utilizing concentrated solar energy. This reactor is windowless and is able to handle internal cavity temperatures in excess of 1700 K. It also has a quasi-continuous feed system that allows the particle residence times to be varied for particles between 0.044 mm and 1 mm in diameter. Furthermore, this reactor utilizes an instrumentation system for the measurement of temperature, particle residence time, particle mass flow rate, and solar flux. In an industrial setting, a large-scale metal oxide reactor would serve as the first step in a metal oxide solar thermal electro-chemical cycle. After the particles are reduced at elevated temperatures using concentrated solar energy, they are used in an electrolysis process to facilitate the production of hydrogen from water. In this process, the reduced metal oxide particles are reoxidized at the anode and hydrogen is liberated at the cathode. The presence of the metal oxide enables hydrogen to be produced with an ideal cell potential of 0.21 V, a potential substantially below the ideal value of 1.2 V for traditional water electrolysis

A revelation: Addressing feminist agency in Norwegian film history

© 2022 Intellect Ltd. Dette er den aksepterte versjonen av en artikkel publisert i Journal of Scandinavian Cinema. Den blir tilgjengelig fra og med 01.07.2023 etter en embargoperiode på 12 måneder. Du finner den publiserte artikkelen her: https://doi.org/10.1386/jsca_00068_1 / This is the postprint version of the article published in Journal of Scandinavian Cinem. It will be available 01.07.2023 after an embargo period of 12 months. You can find the published article here: https://doi.org/10.1386/jsca_00068_1This article examines how gender balance in the Norwegian film sector has been narrativized, and as such is a historiographical challenge to a tendency to delineate the presence of women film directors at key dates as markers of equality. To suggest alternative trajectories, this article adopts a methodology of constellation, putting into dialogue the little-known women’s film and television network Women’s Film Forum (1982–89) and Women in Film and Television Norway (2005–present) as well as the production practices of director-writers Vibeke Løkkeberg, whose career began in the 1970s, and Itonje Søimer Guttormsen, whose first feature film premiered in 2021. Through these constellations, we explore ways to acknowledge the strategies and agencies of individual filmmakers and grassroots organizations that have addressed gender inequalities in the film and TV sectors for more than four decades and to re-frame the present moment beyond official film policies.acceptedVersio

Designing a Calorimeter to Calibrate an Optical Radiative Flux Measurement System to Find the Power Entering a Solar Reactor

A solar furnace has been constructed at Valparaiso University to test the performance of various solar chemical reactors. A primary performance index of a solar chemical reactor is the efficiency, or the fraction of the energy that enters the reactor that is utilized in the chemical reaction. To calculate this efficiency, we must first know how much solar power is entering the reactor. An optical radiative flux measurement system has been developed that gives the solar flux distribution over the aperture of the reactor, but must be calibrated to provide the actual power level. Therefore, a calorimeter was designed and built to perform this calibration. The calorimeter is designed so that the solar power entering the aperture is transferred to water flowing through the tubes that make up the cavity. Then, by measuring the flow rate of the water and the temperature of the water at the inlet and outlet, the energy entering the calorimeter can be calculated using the first law of thermodynamics. The uncertainty in the calculated power level has also been established through a thermal loss and measurement uncertainty analysis

Spring 2010 Follow-up Survey of Freshmen Who Entered Western in Fall of 2008: Descriptive Statistics

The Spring 2010 Follow-Up Survey of Freshmen Who Entered Western in Fall 2008 (2nd Year Survey) holds particular importance to Western in that it focuses on student experiences in first year programs and GUR courses. Together with the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and the Committee for Undergraduate Education, the Office of Survey Research (OSR) created this survey in an attempt to shed light on the efficacy of and satisfaction with programs designed to foster student success early in their Western careers. The 2nd Year Survey consists of a mixture of open ended, multiple choice, and numerical response questions. This survey targeted native freshmen (including running start students) who entered Western in the Fall of 2008. These students were completing their second complete year on campus at the time of the survey (Spring 2010). As part of OSR’s efforts to paint a longitudinal portrait of Western’s students, these students also were surveyed immediately prior to beginning their Western careers (Fall 2008 Baseline of Incoming Freshmen.) In an attempt to measure the success of pre-calling, OSR initiated the 2nd Year Survey by first calling potential respondents and informing them that they were to receive an e-mail survey shortly. These pre-calls were made on May 3, 2010 and the e-mail with embedded link to the survey was sent on May 5th. Electronic reminders were sent to non-respondents three days later and phone call reminders were placed on May 12th. For nonrespondents who provided the university with an external e-mail address, additional invitations and reminders were sent on May 13th and 17th. This was followed by a final phone call reminder during the following week. Of the 2,148 valid 2nd year students, OSR received survey responses from 1,355, a response rate of 63.1%. In addition to the contributions of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Research and the Committee for Undergraduate Education, a number of other campus offices contributed questions to the 2nd Year Survey. Among these contributors are the Math Center, University Residences, and the Office of Sustainable Transportation. Because of the large number of questions these offices included, OSR assigned a number of questions to be randomly skipped by students. In effect, this random skipping shortened the time it took for any individual student to complete the survey while still allowing for a large number of questions to receive a quantity of responses necessary for statistical analysis. For each question, this report notes when randomization occurs. OSR did encounter a flaw in its programming of this randomization routine. On May 11th, after 569 completed surveys and 65 partially completed surveys had been received, OSR realized that the randomized questions were not being asked. This problem was corrected and the remaining 721 responses successfully received the appropriate randomized questions. As with any survey, readers should be concerned about sample selection bias; that is bias which occurs because survey respondents are not a random selection from a population of survey recipients. While sample selection bias for the 2nd Year Survey is mitigated through proper survey techniques and a high response rate, its presence should be considered when evaluating data. Section A of this document reports basic demographic and academic statistics for all students who responded to the survey and compares them to non-respondents. As is consistent with OSR’s experience surveying Western students, women were more likely to respond to the 2nd Year Survey than men (63% of respondents were women whereas 59.2% of the population are women.) Likewise, respondents hold slightly better Western grade point averages; the average respondent earned a cumulative GPA of 3.04 compared to a population average of 2.97. Respondents are also more likely to live on campus (32.1% of respondents versus 29.5% of the population) and attempted more credits during spring quarter than non-respondents (average of 14.7 credits for respondents and 14.5 for the population.) Despite these differences, respondents and non-respondents were very similar in terms of race, running start status, residency in Washington, and first generation status. The remainder of this report is composed of twelve additional sections each focusing on an aspect of student experience. Rather than describing each of these sections, here we focus on two: Section L (DepartmentLevel Data) and Section M (Items Requested by Departments, Offices, and Programs). Some of the questions on this survey are better analyzed at the departmental level. For instance, questions about the quality of advising within a major or the likelihood of staying in a major are most helpful to specific departments. However, because some of these questions were randomly excluded from surveys and because many 2nd year students have yet to declare a major, only a small number of departments received enough responses to warrant documentation here. For departments which did receive a large number of responses, we included department-level breakdowns of questions dealing specifically with departmental issues in Section L. OSR will happily share data with departments who are not listed in this section. Section M contains summary data for questions submitted by other offices and departments. These include questions from the Math Center, the Western Reads Program, University Residences, and the Office of Sustainable Transportation. It is OSR’s intent to expand this section of the survey in the future as other departments add their own questions. While we leave it to the reader to decide what is informative or striking in this report, we undertake to highlight some findings which the wider campus may find interesting. Ninety-one percent of students claimed to be “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their Western experience but only 66% of students claimed that they were “very unlikely” to leave Western prior to graduation. For the sixty-one students who thought it probable that they would transfer from Western prior to graduating, the most common reasons given were that another school has a better program in their field, that they wanted to go somewhere new and different, or that Western doesn’t offer a major that is of interest. In order to gauge the difficulty of registering for courses, students were asked how many classes which they wanted to take in the spring quarter were full. The average number of full courses were 1.66, about half of which were GUR courses and about 90% were required for their major or pre-major. Students were also asked about courses that were too large. The three courses most frequently cited by 2nd year students as being too large were PSY 101, ESCI 101, and BIOL 101. Sadly, only 8% of students strongly agreed with the statement “Taking GUR courses gives me useful skills” and only 7% of students are “very satisfied” with GUR course availability. For students who have already declared a major, 63% claimed they were very unlikely to change their major prior to graduation. For undeclared students, 57% were certain as to what their major would be and 34% had some idea. Sixty percent of non-declared majors had contacted someone within a major department about their interest. The most common reason for not having declared a major was a need to take more courses to qualify for their major. Over the entire academic year, 35% of students claim they did not write a single paper longer than 5 pages and 56% claimed to write between one and four such papers. Given that 34% of students claimed that learning writing skills is very important to them, this lack of writing experience may explain why only 15% of students are “very satisfied” with the writing skills they have developed. Two features of the 2nd Year Survey are worth mentioning. First, this is part of a longitudinal cohort which began with an OSR baseline survey prior to the beginning of the freshmen year. OSR is happy to package this data and share it with interested researchers. Researchers may view the contents of the baseline survey given to these students at: http://www.wwu.edu/socad/osr/wels Secondly, each respondent in the 2nd Year Survey is tracked with a unique tracking number which OSR can match with university records. This ability profoundly opens the door for research in issues which impact students and the university. OSR will happily provide such data to researchers, departments, and offices upon request

Western Educational Longitudinal Study (WELS) Baseline Survey of Freshmen Entering Western in the Fall, 2010: Descriptive Statistics

The Fall, 2010 Baseline Survey of Freshmen Entering Western continues the Office of Survey Research’s (OSR) efforts to collect information on all students prior to the start of their academic careers at Western Washington University. This survey represents the initial contact in a longitudinal process that makes possible additional inquiries of students at the end of their sophomore year, when they graduate from the university, and one to two years after graduation. The Freshmen Survey is designed with three purposes in mind: (1) to provide baseline observations of students prior to their Western experience which can be used to forecast and enhance student success; (2) to provide data that can assist university assessment and accreditation services; and (3) to assess student needs based upon their self-reported characteristics, perceptions and concerns. To accomplish these purposes, the Freshmen Survey integrates questions into five major sections: Pre-collegiate engagement and experiences; the college application process; familiarity and comfort with Western; academic skills, goals, and expectations; and expenses and employment. The questions on the Freshmen Survey were a mixture of open-ended, numerical, and multiple choice responses. This report lists all questions and reports basic descriptive statistics from questions which lend themselves to numerical analysis. Responses to the open ended questions are available upon request. OSR used a mixture of online and telephone survey methodologies to obtain responses. Incoming freshmen who attended Western’s Summerstart program were provided an opportunity to complete this survey as part of their Summerstart experience. Students not attending Summerstart and those who chose not to complete the survey while at Summerstart were invited to complete the survey online. E-mails were initially sent to the student’s external e-mail address. After the initial e-mail, OSR sent e-mail reminders to non-responders twice. The survey was then left open online until the weekend before Fall quarter courses began on campus. Of the 2,920 Fall 2010 freshmen, 2,427 responded to the survey (a response rate of 83.1%). As with any survey, readers should be concerned with sample selection bias; that is bias which arises because survey respondents are not a random selection of the population of survey recipients. While sample selection bias for Western’s exit survey is mitigated through proper survey techniques and a high response rate, its presence should be considered when evaluating data. Section A of this document compares respondents to all incoming freshmen. Relative to all freshmen, respondents were more likely to be female (61.4% of respondents versus 59% of all freshmen), averaged a slightly higher admission index (57.2 versus 56.7), and were more likely to be first generation college students (32% of respondents versus 30.2% of all freshmen). On the other hand, respondents were nearly identical to non-respondents in measures of age, SAT, and high school percentile. OSR is excited to share its individual survey results with campus researchers so they may answer their own questions. To familiarize readers with the content of the survey, here we make a few observations regarding the survey results. Out of a list of 16 possibilities, the three most important reasons why students claimed to come to Western were the recreational opportunities in the area, Western’s good academic reputation, and Western’s size. Almost two-thirds of students first learned about Western through a relative or friend and almost nine out of ten learned of Western prior to their senior year in high school. Including Western, the median student applied to three colleges and was accepted to two of them. Besides Western, the three schools most commonly applied to were the University of Washington, Washington State, and Central Washington although other common schools include the University of Oregon, University of Portland, Gonzaga, and Seattle University. Among the schools to which they applied, 69% of incoming freshmen claimed that Western was their first choice; the next closest was the University of Washington (14%). Nearly one-third of students claim to be certain about their major and another half of students have some idea of what they will study. About three-fourths of students expect to graduate in four years or less; no students expect to take longer than five years to graduate. Twelve percent of students claimed some positive likelihood that they would transfer from Western prior to graduation and an additional 26% were unsure if they would transfer or not. Among those likely to transfer, the most common reasons given were that Western did not offer a degree program that interested the student, a perceived lack of prestige, and friends/family attend a different school. For students who attended Summerstart, 77% were either “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with their class schedule. For those expressing some level of dissatisfaction, the most common reason given was that needed classes were full. All of OSR’s survey data is linked by a unique student identification number allowing for merging of the survey data with Western’s data warehouse or with data collected by future surveys. Using this identifier, OSR can provide open ended responses or specific data to departments who want to investigate further

2010 Exit Survey of Graduate Students Completing Degrees Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, and Summer 2010: Descriptive Statistics

Executive Summary: The 2010 Exit Survey of Graduate Students Completing Degrees continues the Office of Survey Research’s (OSR) survey of Graduate students first initiated in 2009. The current survey was administered at the end of each quarter to graduate students slated to graduate that quarter. This report summarizes responses from students who graduated in Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, and Summer 2010. With the help of the Assistant Dean of the Graduate School, this survey was designed to elicit information on program satisfaction, the frequency and scope of academic interaction on and off campus, barriers to success, and plans for the future. OSR used a mixture of online and telephone survey methodologies and links survey results with Western’s student records thus expanding their usefulness to researchers and university decision makers. Anonymous individual-level survey responses may be shared with interested campus parties. This exit survey was administered to graduate students earning their masters degrees at the conclusion of their final enrolled quarter. Of the 329 recipients of this degree, (Fall 2009-Summer 2010) OSR received valid responses from 231 (a response rate of 70.2%). The survey was launched with an e-mail invitation to potential respondents about four weeks prior to the end of each quarter. Follow up e-mail reminders were sent approximately every four days for the subsequent two weeks. Phone call reminders were then placed to all non-respondents. The survey was then closed immediately after commencement exercises. As with any survey, readers should be concerned with sample selection bias; that is bias which arises because survey respondents are not a random selection of the population of survey recipients. While sample selection bias for Western’s graduate exit survey is mitigated through proper survey techniques and limited by a high response rate, its presence should continually be kept in mind when evaluating results. Section A of this document presents basic descriptive statistics that compares all graduates with those who responded to the survey. At the university level, these comparisons reveal the average respondent is nearly identical to the average graduate. For instance, 40% of respondents are male compared to 42% of all graduates. Nine percent of respondents are minorities as are 9% of all graduates. Similar results occur for average age (31.1 years for respondents, 31.5 years for graduates), the number of credit hours attempted (65.2 for respondents and 65.3 for graduates) and for the average graduate GPA (3.81 for respondents and 3.79 for graduates). Section B of this report presents descriptions of questions geared to understanding students’ background and their general satisfaction with their Western graduate experience. When asked their primary activity immediately prior to enrolling in a Western graduate program, students are almost evenly split between pursuing an undergraduate degree, working in a field related to their graduate program, and working in a field unrelated to their graduate program. Seventy-Two percent of students claimed that, if given the opportunity, they would “probably” or “definitely” select Western again for graduate study. Seventy-eight percent would “probably” or “definitely” recommend Western to someone considering graduate school. These satisfaction levels are almost identical with those reported on the 2009 exit survey (75% in that survey would select Western again and 78% would recommend it to someone). Sections C and D present information regarding a student’s academic program. For instance, 89% of students reported that the level of academic challenge was “very” or “extremely” important to them and 75% of students claimed they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the level of academic challenge they encountered. Ninetysix percent of students claimed the overall quality of their program was “very” or “extremely” important and 81% were satisfied with their program. Five percent of students have written a paper for publication based on their thesis and a further 23% plan to do so. The following section (E) presents information on graduate teaching assistantships and barriers to academic success. The most commonly reported barrier to academic progress was family obligations followed by course scheduling/availability. Almost two-thirds of respondents claimed the availability (or lack thereof) of faculty had no impact on their progress towards their degree. The average graduate accumulates just over $14,000 in debt from their graduate program but this average obscures the nearly one-third of students who leave Western without any additional academic debt from their program. The final section of this report (F) details future plans. One-third of respondents had received an offer of postgraduate employment; 82% of respondents had an immediate post-graduate plan involving employment. Nine percent of respondents intend to continue graduate study and of these, over four-fifths have already been admitted to a program. One benefit of the graduate exit survey is that the data is tracked by a unique student identifier which allows OSR to divide the data by school or program. OSR hopes to share this data with administrators and individuals who hope to improve their programs

Development of a Solar Rotary-Kiln Reactor for the Reduction of Metal Oxide Particles

A solar rotary-kiln reactor has been fabricated for the reduction of metal oxide particles at ~1650 K as part of a solar thermal decoupled water electrolysis process for the production of hydrogen. Particle motion is controlled through the reactor’s angular speed of rotation. At rotational speeds greater than 65 rpm, the internal walls of the reactor are fully covered with particles. Simultaneously, mixing elements generate a particle cloud in the reactor in order to increase the absorption of incident solar radiation. A model of the reactor that solves the energy conservation equation and includes the kinetics of the metal oxide reduction suggests that peak thermal efficiencies of 47 percent are possible for the reduction of hematite to magnetite. In parallel, the solid state kinetics for the reduction of cobalt oxide (a promising alternative to iron oxide) in a low oxygen partial pressure atmosphere has been determined. Reduction follows the shrinking core model and is initially limited by the rate of oxygen diffusion in the gas phase and later limited by the chemical kinetics at the shrinking reactive interface. Regression of the model to isothermal and non-isothermal thermogravimetric analyzer data yielded the temperature-dependent reaction rate parameters