Information Literacy Instruction for Upper-Year Undergraduate Students: A Stratified Course-Integrated Approach

Undergraduate students face many potential barriers to learning about the process of conducting research. Information literacy instruction provided through faculty-librarian collaboration in an effort to expand the abilities of the “novice researcher” can ease the experience of undergraduate students. In addition, information literacy instruction may invoke increased student participation in the scholarly discourse of their chosen discipline. The implementation of a stratified course-integrated approach may be particularly valuable to upper-level undergraduates in preparation for completing a thesis or other culminating project in their final year of study. This claim is examined within the context of an instruction session observed as a component of a third-year undergraduate Materials Science and Engineering course

Closing the Research/Practice Gap: The Journey from Student to Practitioner

WOS: 000419539900046Rainfall is one of the most important triggering factors of landslides. Researchers carry out various scientific studies on identification of the rainfall amount that trigger landslides. The Eastern Black Sea region is a landslide-prone area in Turkey. The population of the region is affected by the landslides because of high rainfall and the steep topography of the region. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between rainfall and landslide for the Trabzon province the most vulnerable city to landslides in the region. For this purpose, rainfall and rainfall-induced landslides data are used. The relation between rainfall and landslide events is analyzed considering meteorological records of rain gauge stations

Effect of Backbone Chemistry on the Structure of Polyurea Films Deposited by Molecular Layer Deposition

An experimental investigation into the growth of polyurea films by molecular layer deposition was performed by examining trends in the growth rate, crystallinity, and orientation of chains as a function of backbone flexibility. Growth curves obtained for films containing backbones of aliphatic and phenyl groups indicate that an increase in backbone flexibility leads to a reduction in growth rate from 4 to 1 Å/cycle. Crystallinity measurements collected using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy suggest that some chains form paracrystalline, out-of-plane stacks of polymer segments with packing distances ranging from 4.4 to 3.7 Å depending on the monomer size. Diffraction intensity is largely a function of the homogeneity of the backbone. Near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure measurements for thin and thick samples show an average chain orientation of ∼25° relative to the substrate across all samples, suggesting that changes in growth rate are not caused by differences in chain angle but instead may be caused by differences in the frequency of chain terminations. These results suggest a model of molecular layer deposition-based chain growth in which films consist of a mixture of upward growing chains and horizontally aligned layers of paracrystalline polymer segments

Dynamical Orientation of Large Molecules on Oxide Surfaces and its Implications for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

A dual experimental-computational approach utilizing near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy and density functional theory-molecular dynamics (DFT-MD) is presented for determining the orientation of a large adsorbate on an oxide substrate. A system of interest in the field of dye-sensitized solar cells is studied: an organic cyanoacrylic acid-based donor-π-acceptor dye (WN1) bound to anatase TiO₂. Assessment of nitrogen K-edge NEXAFS spectra is supported by calculations of the electronic structure that indicate energetically discrete transitions associated with the two π systems of the C–N triple bond in the cyanoacrylic acid portion of the dye. Angle-resolved NEXAFS spectra are fitted to determine the orientation of these two orbital systems, and the results indicate an upright orientation of the adsorbed dye, 63° from the TiO₂ surface plane. These experimental results are then compared to computational studies of the WN1 dye on an anatase (101) TiO₂ slab. The ground state structure obtained from standard DFT optimization is less upright (45° from the surface) than the NEXAFS results. However, DFT-MD simulations, which provide a more realistic depiction of the dye at room temperature, exhibit excellent agreementwithin 2° on averagewith the angles determined via NEXAFS, demonstrating the importance of accounting for the dynamic nature of adsorbate–substrate interactions and DFT-MD’s powerful predictive abilities

Quantifying Geometric Strain at the PbS QD-TiO₂ Anode Interface and Its Effect on Electronic Structures

Quantum dots (QDs) show promise as the absorber in nanostructured thin film solar cells, but achieving high device efficiencies requires surface treatments to minimize interfacial recombination. In this work, lead sulfide (PbS) QDs are grown on a mesoporous TiO₂ film with a crystalline TiO₂ surface, versus one coated with an amorphous TiO₂ layer by atomic layer deposition (ALD). These mesoporous TiO₂ films sensitized with PbS QDs are characterized by X-ray and electron diffraction, as well as X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) in order to link XAS features with structural distortions in the PbS QDs. The XAS features are further analyzed with quantum simulations to probe the geometric and electronic structure of the PbS QD-TiO₂ interface. We show that the anatase TiO₂ surface structure induces PbS bond angle distortions, which increases the energy gap of the PbS QDs at the interface