Compelled Disclosure of Scholarly Research: Some Comments on “High Stakes Litigation”

Resisting compelled disclosure in court will continue to be at best a tenuous and uncertain journey for researchers who have been subpoenaed

Dispersants and Risk Communication

Risk communications is a research area of the social sciences which is closely associated with human dimensions and external communications. External communications, traditionally in the purview of public affairs, may have multiple purposes including influencing public beliefs, opinions, and judgments about the incident. There are many approaches toward risk communications. Some of them focus on improving the way external communications about risks are conducted, e.g., developing better messages, and some focus on the content of risk communications, that is, sharing technical information to support the assessment of the potential for risks

Diversification With REITS: A 10 Year Perspective

The application of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) to stock portfolios as a useful diversification tool has grown in popularity for over two decades. In this study, we examine the risk/return tradeoffs over the 10-year period (2010-2019) under multiple diversification strategies. We compare various portfolios including REITs in combination with International Stocks (IS), Emerging Market Stocks (EMS), Small Cap Stocks (SCS), the S&P500 (S&P), the S&P Growth, the S&P Value, the Russell 3000, the Russell 1000 Growth, and the Russel 1000 Value. The results indicate the S&P Growth and the Russell 1000 Growth combined with REITs suggests the best overall risk reduction inferring correlation is domestic focused. Good results are also found for multi-index blends with the Russell 3000 and the S&P 500

Glycerin reformation in high temperature and pressure water

The noncatalytic reformation of glycerin in supercritical water was studied in a Haynes 282 tubular reactor. In order to determine which parameters were the most influential, a 2³ experimental matrix was conducted, with temperatures of 500 and 700⁰C, water/glycerin molar ratios of 3:1 and 13:1, and residence times of 30 and 90 seconds, all at a pressure of 24 MPa. It was found that temperature had the largest effect on the two gasification parameters deemed most important, gasification percentage and hydrogen yield. Based on this, the effect of temperature was further investigated by looking at 5⁰C intervals from 500 to 800⁰C. From this it was determined that a temperature of 700 to 750⁰C was most conducive to glycerin reformation. The results were compared to equilibrium, as calculated by Gibbs free energy minimization. It was found that at temperatures from 750⁰C to 800⁰C; most of the results were at equilibrium. Based on this, kinetic models were developed for experiments not in equilibrium. The first model is a pseudo first order model of the gasification, which compares favorably with other studies. The second kinetic model takes into account the carbon containing gaseous species. Three reactions are used to model the gaseous products: Complete gasification of the glycerin into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, water gas shift of the resulting carbon monoxide, and a reaction in which glycerin and hydrogen combine to produce methane. Other reaction pathways were tested, and they either did not fit the data as well, or were thermodynamically impossible. The reactions are also capable of predicting hydrogen production for most conditions --Abstract, page iii

African American college women in the San Francisco Bay Area : perceptions of Cross\u27s nigrescence model and potential leadership style

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Analysis of amyloid beta (A [beta]) peptides by capillary electrophoresis and laser-induced fluorescence anisotropy detection

The goal of the research presented in this dissertation is to develop laser-induced fluorescence anisotropy (LIFA) detection for detecting and characterizing amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide aggregates separated by capillary electrophoresis (CE). Senile plaques composed primarily of aggregated Aβ (1-40) and Aβ (1-42) peptides have been found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. These peptides are thought to be responsible for the disease pathology. A CE method using UV absorbance detection was developed for the quantification of Aβ (1-40) monomer and testing of Aβ monomer preparations for undesired aggregates (Chapter 2). Analyses of both Aβ (1-40) and Aβ (1-42) monomer and aggregate samples were performed by CE-UV (Chapter 3). The CE-UV experiments demonstrated that the CE method can separate Aβ monomers from aggregated Aβ. A lab-constructed CE-LIFA instrument was built to separate and detect individual Aβ fibrils using Thioflavin T (ThT) in the separation buffer as a fluorescent probe (Chapter 4). Separating and detecting individual Aβ aggregates opens the door to a better understanding of amyloid aggregation, which is normally studied with bulk methods, i.e. all aggregates measured at once. Individual Aβ aggregates detected by the CE-LIFA instrument were shown to exhibit fluorescence anisotropy, but all of the aggregate peaks exhibited similar anisotropy values using ThT as a fluorescent probe. Plots of fluorescence anisotropy vs. time did not produce peaks as expected. A data treatment method to facilitate visualization of peaks in CE-LIFA data was developed (Chapter 5). Thioflavin T spectroscopy in the presence of polystyrene spheres was studied to address potential false positives observed in preliminary experiments from Chapter 4 using ThT as a fluorescence probe for Aβ aggregate detection (Chapter 6). It was found that polystyrene spheres can enhance ThT fluorescence similar to Aβ. A CE-LIFA study of Aβ peptides covalently labeled with a fluorophore was performed to overcome the apparent limitations of ThT. Aggregation of two different preparations of Aβ was studied as a function of time. Different forms of Aβ were separated and detected using CE-LIFA, and peaks resulting from different forms of Aβ exhibited different fluorescence anisotropy values