Prediction of Organic Droplet Behavior on a Solid Surface as Influenced by Aqueous Surfactant Solutions

This dissertation presents a model capable of predicting equilibrium oil droplet contact angles on a solid surface immersed in surfactant solution, a thorough discussion of the effects of surfactant concentration and salt addition on contact angles, and an experimental investigation into the impact of voltage application to the solid surface on oil droplet shape in an aqueous/organic/solid system. The work contained in this dissertation resulted in five journal articles and numerous presentations. The model applies current theories of surfactant self-assembly, the quasi-chemical approximation for solid surface adsorption, and various aqueous/organic/solid system properties to determine organic droplet contact angles. The computational methodology employed by the model requires the description of the aqueous/organic/solid system by selected component balances and through numerical techniques determines the equilibrium component distribution and the organic droplet contact angle for the specific system. Results from the model are compared to experimental contact angle data for various surfactants, surfactant concentrations, salt concentrations, and surface materials. The investigation into the effects of low magnitude applied voltage on droplet phenomena and oil removal determined that significant changes in droplet shape and removal efficiency can occur for voltages between ±3.0 volts. These changes in droplet shape where then compared to observed improvements in ultrasonic oil removal from metal surfaces in aqueous solutions. Employing the theoretical understanding of aqueous/organic/solid systems a discussion of controlling phenomena and mechanisms was presented. I have shown that (1) organic droplet contact angles on solid surfaces in aqueous/organic/solid systems are significantly affected by aqueous/ solid interfacial surfactant aggregation, (2) this impact is due to changes in the structure of the surfactant aggregate itself, (3) these changes are heavily impacted by surfactant concentration and the addition of low concentration salt to the aqueous surfactant solution, (4) the type of salt added to the solution is of greater relevance than indicated in the existing literature, and (5) that the application of low voltage applied potentials can significantly effect droplet shape and oil removal efficiency in an aqueous/oil/solid system

Michel Aflaq : founder of the Arab Ba\u27th Party

This thesis examines the life and influence of Michel Aflaq, the founder of the Arab Ba\u27th Party. Aflaq\u27s Ba\u27thists seized power in Syria and Iraq after military coups in 1963. Much like Lenin, Aflaq, secretary general of the Ba\u27thist Party since its inception, has emphasized the necessity of maintaining an elite vanguard of party leadership rather than a mass movement to insure the purity of Ba\u27thist ideology. This political ideology has, as its focus, the three goals of the party slogan: Unity, Liberty and Socialism. In evaluating the impact of Aflaq and his party, this study examines the philosopher\u27s letters, political speeches, party statements and newspaper articles. Research reveals a political figure embroiled in Arab nationalist pursuits, seeking a difficult Arab unity while striving to prevent intra-party strife. At present, the Ba\u27thists remain divided although Aflaq\u27s ideological legacy continues to transform the Ba\u27thist government, transcending the political boundaries of several Arab states

Mortons omløbende Brak-Harve og Ukruds Udredder.

Mortons omløbende Brak-Harve og Ukruds Udredder

Women of the River: Grassroots Organizing and Natural Disaster

This study, a sub-study of a larger project, the Missouri Mobile Home Estates Project, examines the grassroots efforts of three women in an impoverished Midwestern river community to improve the lives of the children living there. The women’s efforts included infrastructure improvements, a summer meal program for the children, a food bank, and a thrift shop. This community was devastated by floods in 1973, 1986, and 1993; at these times, crisis intervention services were provided to the residents. Yet, it appears little assistance was offered to the community between these floods, despite the community’s well-publicized crime and poverty. Using a social action framework and interpretive phenomenological analysis, the participants in this study were interviewed to examine the following questions: (1) Are the characteristics of grassroots community organizing evident in the grassroots efforts of the women of the river?; (2) How did residing in Missouri Mobile affect the women long term?; (3) How did residing in Missouri Mobile affect their two children?; and (4) What common themes emerged from the women’s and children’s interviews

Challenges in Developing a Real-time Bee-counting Radar

MDPI Sensors journal paper published on 01/06/2023: "Detailed within is an attempt to implement a real-time radar signal classification system to monitor and count bee activity at the hive entry. There is interest in keeping records of the productivity of honeybees. Activity at the entrance can be a good measure of overall health and capacity, and a radar-based approach could be cheap, low power, and versatile, beyond other techniques. Fully automated systems would enable simultaneous, large-scale capturing of bee activity patterns from multiple hives, providing vital data for ecological research and business practice improvement. Data from a Doppler radar were gathered from managed beehives on a farm. Recordings were split into 0.4 s windows, and Log Area Ratios (LARs) were computed from the data. Support vector machine models were trained to recognize flight behavior from the LARs, using visual confirmation recorded by a camera. Spectrogram deep learning was also investigated using the same data. Once complete, this process would allow for removing the camera and accurately counting the events by radar-based machine learning alone. Challenging signals from more complex bee flights hindered progress. System accuracy of 70% was achieved, but clutter impacted the overall results requiring intelligent filtering to remove environmental effects from the data."Open Access. Funded by the Knowledge Econ- omy Skills Scholarships (KESS 2, Ref: BUK2E001) Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO): c81133

Addictive Technology and Its Implications for Antitrust Enforcement

The advent of mobile devices and digital media platforms in the past decade represents the biggest shock to cognition in human history. Robust medical evidence is emerging that digital media platforms are addictive and, when used in excess, harmful to users’ mental health. Other types of addictive products, like tobacco and prescription drugs, are heavily regulated to protect consumers. Currently, there is no regulatory structure protecting digital media users from these harms. Antitrust enforcement and regulation that lowers entry barriers could help consumers of social media by increasing competition. Economic theory tells us that more choice in digital media will increase the likelihood that some firms will vie to offer higher-quality and safer platforms. For this reason, evaluating harm to innovation (especially safety innovation) and product variety may be particularly important in social media merger and conduct cases. Another critical element to antitrust enforcement in this space is a correct accounting of social media’s addictive qualities. Standard antitrust analysis seeks to prohibit conduct that harms consumer welfare. Economists have taught the antitrust bar that the output of a product or service is a reliable proxy for consumer welfare. However, output and welfare do not have this relationship when a product is addictive. Indeed, in social media markets, increased output is often harmful. We argue that antitrust analysis must reject the output proxy and return to a focus on consumer welfare itself in cases involving addictive social media platforms. In particular, courts should reject defenses that rely only on gross output measures without evidence that any alleged increases in output actually benefit consumers

Vitamin D supplementation does not improve human skeletal muscle contractile properties in insufficient young males

Vitamin D may be a regulator of skeletal muscle function, although human trials investigating this hypothesis are limited to predominantly elderly populations. We aimed to assess the effect of oral vitamin D3 in healthy young males upon skeletal muscle function