Design and Fabrication of an Ultra-Low Capacitive Pressure Transducer

The goal of the Capacitive Pressure Sensor project is to redesign the Alpha Instruments 168 series capacitive pressure sensor sold by Dwyer Instruments. The primary objectives of the new design will be to eliminate the use of welding in the assembly of the sensor components and to eliminate stray capacitance in the system measurements through the use of dielectric boundaries. Additionally, the sensor housing will be a stamped design in order to avoid expensive machining steps. The electrical components of the system will be tailored to accept a capacitive signal and transfer it to a voltage reading. This voltage will be used to obtain a proportional loop current that can then be calibrated as a pressure differential and displayed onto a digital read-out device. The project is set to be completed by the end of spring semester 2013

Enhancing the undergraduate educational experience : development of a micro-gas turbine laboratory

A Capstone C30 MicroTurbine has been installed, instrumented, and utilized in a junior-level laboratory course at Valparaiso University. The C30 MicroTurbine experiment enables Valparaiso University to educate students interested in power generation and turbine technology. The first goal of this experiment is for students to explore a gas turbine generator and witness the discrepancies between idealized models and real thermodynamic systems. Secondly, students measure and analyze data to determine where losses occur in a real gas turbine. The third educational goal is for students to recognize the true costs associated with natural gas use, i.e. the hidden costs of transporting the gas to the consumer. Overall, the gas turbine experiment has garnered positive feedback from students. The twenty-six students who performed the lab in Spring 2014 rated the quality and usefulness of the gas turbine experiment as 4.28 and 4.19, respectively, on a 1-5 Likert scale, where 1 is low and 5 is high

Exploration des pratiques de litteratie en milieu ´ familial et portrait demolinguistique d’ ´ el´ eves ` immigrants allophones nouvellement arrives en ´ situation de grand retard scolaire au Quebec

Abstract As in most metropolises throughout the world, the influx of migrants has completely altered the look of schools in Quebec’s larger cities. Among the immigrant children recently registered in Quebec schools, a number had not previously received or completed regular schooling. The case of pupils in a delayed schooling situation is still a misunderstood reality: we know little about them, especially their literacy development. However, in Quebec, successful reading acquisition in French as a second language is a sine qua non condition to school achievement and, therefore, represents a major challenge for these learners. It thus seems important to gather data on delayed schooling learners so as to enhance our knowledge of them and of their parents, and better understand home literacy practices and other demolinguistic variables related to success in reading acquisition. The objectives of this exploratory study are to trace a demolinguistic portrait of the parents and the children in such a situation; to present a synthesis of the declared literacy practices of these immigrant pupils; and to complete the portrait by exposing, in an exploratory fashion, the expectations and the perceptions of these parents towards schooling. The study was based on a questionnaire which was completed by 10 parents of pupils in a delayed school situation, and by 72 parents of regular allophone pupils recently registered in the primary or secondary level

Poly(vinylferrocene)-Reduced Graphene Oxide as a High Power/High Capacity Cathodic Battery Material

The preparation and performance of a new cathodic battery material consisting of a composite of poly(vinylferrocene) (PVFc) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) is described. It shows the highest charge/discharge efficiency (at a rate of 100 A g(-1)) ever reported for ferrocene-polymer materials. The composite allows for specific capacities up to 0.21 mAh cm(-2) (770 mC cm(-2), 29 mu m film thickness) at a specific capacity density of 114 mAh g(-1) and less than 5% performance decay over 300 cycles. The composite material is binder free and the charge storing PVFc accounts for 88% of the total weight of the cathodic material. The superb performance is based on (i) perfect self-assembling of oxidized PVFc on graphene oxide (GO) leading to PVFc@GO, (ii) its stepwise (n steps) transfer onto a current collector (CC) (PVFc@GO)(n) @CC (n = drop casting steps), and (iii) the efficient electrochemical transformation of GO into rGO in the composite using viologen as homogeneous electrocatalyst. The self-assembling step is analyzed by zeta potential and atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies, demonstrating heavy ferrocene loading on GO and a mesoporous composite structure, respectively. Complete GO/rGO transition and quantitative ClO4- on breathing of the composite are found by electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance and by electrochemical AFM