VARIABLE SPEED DRIVE FOR THREE-PHASE INDUCTION MOTOR IN COOLING APPLICATIONS

This project intends to complete the designing and prototyping of an electronic variable speed drive (VSD) for three-phase IM. The VSD is designed for cooling applications where the IM is coupled to a cooling fan. The drive receives temperature feedback from objects to be cooled and output a corresponding frequency of voltage to IM

Negotiating multicultural identities within the classroom.

This thesis explores cultural identity negotiation among American born Chinese (ABC) college students. Specifically analyzing their communication patterns within the classroom, the author illuminates how ABC students negotiate their multicultural identities through emergent dialectical tensions and patterns of praxis

Study of Charging Cycle of Methane on Activated Carbon for Gas Storage Application

The title of this project is Study of Charging Cycle of Methane on Activated Carbon for Gas Storage Application. The objectives of this project are to characterize the adsorbent and study the charging cycle of methane on activated carbon. The problem statement for this project is there are various of nanomaterials can be used for natural gas storage. However, the behavior of these materials during gas charging and gas discharging differs according to the nature of that material. This project is a study of charging cycle of methane on activated carbon at different charge pressure, flow rate and surface characteristics. The scope of study will cover various charging experiments to determine the methane adsorption capacity and the thermal behaviour during charging phase. The material surface morphology, pore size, micropore volume and specific surface area are obtained for material characterization. Two types of commercial activated carbon are used. The methodology of the experiment is divided into two stages. The first stage is to characterize the materials using FESEM/SEM and BET. The second stage is to study the charging cycle of gas employing that materials using SOLTEQ BP 203 Gas Adsorption Column Unit. The experiment is a volumetric method with charge pressure at 20, 40 and 60 bar at different charge flow rate at 1,2 and 3 L/min. The temperature of adsorption starts at 298 K. The results show that the surface characteristics of the carbon adsorbent such as BET surface area, micropore volume and micropore area would influence the adsorption capacity. The overall adsorption capacity of both the activated carbons is compared with adsorption capacity of other carbon from previous researches.AC1 and AC2 are found to have average high for methane adsorption among the materials. The adsorption capacity of AC1 and AC2 is relatively low compared to other carbon adsorbents mainly due to its low surface area. This project has studied the adsorption behavior during charging of gas. The temperature profile and gas saturation period during adsorption strongly depends on the adsorption pressure and the charge flow rate. In conclusion, the materials surface characteristics are characterized to determine its suitability for ANG application and the charging cycle of methane on activated carbon is studied with variation of charge pressure and flow rate

Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs: A Policy Review and Recommendations for States

OBJECTIVE: To review existing PDMP statutes, and to provide recommendations for good legislative drafting that will create effective statutory components that will enhance the function and increase the use of PDMPs. METHODS: This policy review was conducted from July 2014 to December 2014, using articles dated January 01, 2004 to July 01, 2014. All PubMed searches were artificially limited to peer reviewed articles that were available as “free full text.” To ensure a comprehensive review of the policies, statutes from all fifty states were surveyed using the legal database, Westlaw Next. The search used terms associated with PDMPs. Each statute was reviewed by title and content to determine applicability to the study. The list of statutes compiled from Westlaw Next was compared with existing publications that survey PDMP statutes. The recommendations are based on the investigator’s experience and training in law and public health in consultation with a legislative expert, and supported by peer reviewed articles and legislative drafting guides. RESULTS: There are twelve main topical components that are addressed in existing state PDMP statutes. The policy brief’s primary three recommendations are to implement an advisory committee with an outlined membership, impose a duty for the committee to routinely review database information and to report on the findings, mandate practitioners to consult the database prior to administering controlled substances, and enact a PDMP educational component for practitioners. Appendix A of this policy review (attached) provides a full list of the recommendations for effective legislation on all twelve topical components

Detecting and Grouping Identical Objects for Region Proposal and Classification

Often multiple instances of an object occur in the same scene, for example in a warehouse. Unsupervised multi-instance object discovery algorithms are able to detect and identify such objects. We use such an algorithm to provide object proposals to a convolutional neural network (CNN) based classifier. This results in fewer regions to evaluate, compared to traditional region proposal algorithms. Additionally, it enables using the joint probability of multiple instances of an object, resulting in improved classification accuracy. The proposed technique can also split a single class into multiple sub-classes corresponding to the different object types, enabling hierarchical classification.Comment: IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Workshop Deep Learning for Robotic Vision, 21 July, 2017, Honolulu, Hawai

Direct Observation of Long-Term Durability of Superconductivity in YBa2_2Cu3_3O7_7-Ag2_2O Composites

We report direct observation of long-term durability of superconductivity of several YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_7$-Ag$_2$O composites that were first prepared and studied almost 14 years ago [J. J. Lin {\it et al}., Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. {\bf 29}, 497 (1990)]. Remeasurements performed recently on both resistances and magnetizations indicate a sharp critical transition temperature at 91 K. We also find that such long-term environmental stability of high-temperature superconductivity can only be achieved in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_7$ with Ag$_2$O addition, but not with pure Ag addition.Comment: to be published in Jpn. J. Appl. Phy

A Comparative Study of Leaf Litter Decomposition Rates in a Hill Forest and a Forest Plantation in Peninsular Malaysia

A comparison of seraya (Shorea curtisii Dyer ex. King) and pine (pinus caribaea var. Hondurensis) leaf litter was made over a period of16 weeks in a Hill Dzpterocarp Forest (HDF) and in a pine plantation (PP). At both sites, seraya leaves decomposed at a faster rate than pine needles. Weight losses after 16 weeks from seraya leaves varied from 19.5% (PP) to 39.0% (HDF) while pine needles showed weight losses varying from 10.3% (PP) to 13.6% (HDF). Soil microarthopods were suspected to playa more important role in seraya leaf litter decomposition in the HDF than in the PP. The significance ofthese findings onforest management is discussed.

Innovating teacher feedback with writing activities aimed at raising secondary school students’ awareness of collocation errors

The study examined the types of written corrective feedback given by second language writing teachers on Taiwanese secondary school students’ collocation errors. First, the written corrective feedback that teachers provided on learners’ word choice errors was examined to uncover the types of feedback provided. Then, analysis focused on verb–noun collocations to draw attention to how students had been receiving different types of written corrective feedback from teachers on a single collocation error type. Results showed that some sentences tagged as including word choice errors only contained rule-based errors. Furthermore, for verb-noun collocation errors, teachers chose to provide indirect and direct feedback almost equally at the expense of metalinguistic feedback. Based on the results, we suggested options for second language writing teachers when providing feedback on word choice errors