Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.), Xavier University, 2016, Psychology

As the Muslim convert population continues to grow in the U.S., it is important for psychologists to have ways of assessing their spirituality and religiosity. While there are measures of conversion to Islam, none have been empirically validated with a U.S. convert population. The purpose of the current study was to validate an assessment measure (Lakhdar et al., 2007) previously developed with French converts, with a U.S. convert sample. The present study did not find strong evidence for the eight-factor solution that was found in the original study (Lakhdar et al., 2007). However, support for two of the original factors was established (telic and autic sympathy). Additionally, the measure demonstrated good temporal stability and three subscales (telic, conformist, and autic sympathy) were significantly correlated with validated measures of Islamic beliefs and behavioral practices. While some psychometric validity for the measure was established, the scale will likely require further revisions before being considered a valid measure of conversion to Islam for the U.S. convert population.

MS, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

Wildfire and drought are key drivers of shrubland expansion in southwestern US landscapes. Stand-replacing fires in dry conifer forests induce shrub-dominated stages, and changing climatic patterns may cause a long-term shift from coniferous forests to deciduous shrublands. This study assessed recent changes in deciduous fractional shrub cover (DFSC) in the eastern Jemez Mountains from 2019-2023 using topographic and Sentinel-2 satellite data in a random forest model. Sentinel-2 provides multispectral bands at 10 and 20 meters, including three 20 meter red edge bands, which are highly sensitive to variation in vegetation. There is no consensus in the literature on whether upscaling imagery to 20 meters or downscaling to 10 meters is more advantageous. Therefore, an additional goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of spatial scale on DFSC model performance. Two random forest models were built, a 10 and 20 meter model. The 20 meter model outperformed the 10 meter model, achieving an R-squared value of 0.82 and an RMSE of 7.85, compared to the 10 meter model (0.76 and 9.99, respectively). The 20 meter model, built from 2020 satellite imagery, was projected to the other years of the study, by replacing the spectral variables with satellite imagery from the respective year, resulting in yearly predictions of DFSC from 2019-2023. DFSC decreased from 2019-2022, coinciding with severe drought and a 2022 fire, followed by a significant increase in 2023, particularly within the 2022 fire footprint. Overall trends showed a general increase in DFSC despite high interannual variability, with elevation being a key topographic variable influencing these trends. This study revealed yearly vegetation dynamics in a semi-arid system and provided a close look at post-fire regeneration patterns in deciduous resprouting shrubs. Understanding this complex system is crucial for informing management strategies as the landscape continues to shift from conifer forest to shrubland du (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Higher Education Administration

A student's first year of college study is marked by the transition of leaving a familiar routine of academic, social, and family commitments. Upon arrival at college, a student can learn how to negotiate personal responsibility for intellectual and community development during the first year. New college students are primed for such immense intellectual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development, and it may include consideration of religious practice and spiritual values, their meaning and relevance, and determination of religious habits and spiritual identity. This study explored the experiences of spiritual conversion among first-year college students, and how the college environment may contribute to such experiences. Religious and spiritual conversion experiences may reflect a creation, diminishment, strengthening, or transformation of a student's spiritual identity, and this exploratory study sought to include any of these forms of conversion and the factors that challenge and encourage them. By studying the nature of these experiences in the postsecondary environment, educators may learn more about how the experience of college can affect students before, during, and beyond conversion experiences. Students were invited to share their stories to illustrate how their spiritual lives were created, diminished, strengthened, or transformed during their first college year. They shared insights into the related challenges and opportunities encountered through feelings of loneliness, community inclusion and exclusion, academic achievements in the midst of personal turmoil, and environmental influences that may have shaped their journeys. The findings of this inquiry suggested the need for additional opportunities for training for personnel in higher education and student affairs to be more attentive to and better able to support students who are searching spiritually and who may experience a spiritual conversion during the first year of college. The (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Chemical Engineering (Engineering and Technology)

Growing renewable energy technologies is not only essential to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change, but also critical to boost global energy security and support a sustainable basis for economic development. Prioritizing new technologies that promote the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy technologies is critical to address future global energy demands and prevent global warming. Lignin is a major renewable and non-fossil source of aromatic compounds that can be used to generate sustainable fuels, fine chemicals, additives, and resins. The application of lignin, however, as a source of aromatic compounds has been largely undeveloped due to the lack of an efficient depolymerization process. Among various methods that have been developed so far for lignin depolymerization, electrochemical conversion is a promising approach for industrial application because it occurs at room temperature and ambient pressure. Nickel-based and lead dioxide-based materials are among the most common electrocatalysts for lignin oxidation, as both are inexpensive and stable in highly alkaline electrolytes, and possess high catalytic activities for lignin oxidation. In this Ph.D. project, several nickel-based alloys were developed through co-electrodeposition of nickel and cobalt; and nickel and tin, to enhance the properties of the nickel catalysts for lignin depolymerization. Incorporation of cobalt to nickel reduces the onset potential for lignin oxidation due to the enhanced properties resulting from doping cobalt to nickel. Electrochemical oxidation of lignin on nickel-cobalt alloys with a higher cobalt content leads to lower energy requirements for lignin depolymerization and higher rates of formation of the functionalized aromatic compounds. Nickel-tin alloys provide higher surface areas and better stabilities for long term lignin oxidation. Lignin depolymerization is the dominant reaction at the low cell voltages when the oxygen evolution faradaic effici (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2010, Computer Science and Engineering PhD

A Grid community is composed of diverse stake holders, such as data resource providers, computing resource providers, service providers, and the users of the resources and services. In traditional security systems for Grids, most of the authentication and authorization mechanisms are based on the user's identity or the user's classification information. If the authorization mechanism is based on the user's identity, fine-grained access control policies can be implemented but the scalability of the security system would be limited. If the authorization mechanism is based on the user's classification, the scalability can be improved but the fine-grained access control policies may not be supported. We developed an enhanced version of the Community Authorization Service (CAS) which supports centralized, fine-grained access control by managing the memberships, service types, resource objects and security policies of a Virtual Organization (VO). The current CAS provides fundamental solutions regarding user privacy, authentication and authorization, but it has some limitations due to its centralized management of the security policies of a VO, in terms of scalability, flexibility and interoperability. We enhanced the CAS to support diverse security requirements within a dynamic Grid environment by enabling the CAS server to publish a proxy certificate embedding additional attributes of users. It allows the service providers to support customized services by analyzing the attributes of users and security policies. Previous researches on privacy-preserving in a Grid have focused on protecting the data stored in a data server and on securing the communication to protect exchanged data. The issue of preserving the privacy of users has not been a major issue in the security domain. However, as on-line transactions prevail and diverse user attributes are required for authorization decision, the privacy-preserving becomes an important issue. Attribute-Based Access Control (A (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Sciences (Engineering), Case Western Reserve University, 2012, EECS - Electrical Engineering

This thesis describes the design and implementation of a modular grid-tie inverter architecture comprised of any number of DC-DC converters and a single DC-AC converter. The DC-DC converters perform maximum power point tracking autonomously on an input photovoltaic source. At the same time, the converters output as current sources allowing the paralleling of multiple devices. The DC-AC converter functions to regulate DC-Bus voltage, charge and discharge the attached battery and will buy and sell power to the grid. With the ability to operate in all four quadrants, the DC- AC converter can help improve the power factor of the grid even while consuming real power.

Master of Science (M.S.), University of Dayton, 2024, Aerospace Engineering

Modern aircraft are overburdened by electrical systems, which are continually increasing their power demands. To generate power on aircraft flying in high speed regimes where high temperatures are imposed by viscous heating, solid state devices can be employed. The high temperature gradient across the thermal protection system of the aircraft creates an ideal environment for thermoelectric generator (TEG) application. The North American X-15 was chosen for its high speed fight profiles and wealth of information available. The fight profiles and geometry will be used to gather data in a more applied sense. One-dimensional codes have been written to model the system's performance over the course of a specified fight profile. Utilizing generic relations, the flow temperature was determined through radiative equilibrium methods, which was then fed to the remaining system. The performance of the system was evaluated over the X-15 high speed mission fight profile. The thicknesses of each component of the system were varied until an optimal range was found. The optimal values found were used as the basis for the remaining computational modeling and physical testing. A high-fidelity modeling effort has been completed to model both the high temperature flow and the transient thermoelectric generator operation. The high temperature flow model is solved in parallel with a conduction heat transfer model of the vehicle skin. This allows the flow and solid bodies to react to one another throughout the transient operation. The models are loosely coupled to a high-fidelity model of a thermoelectric generator. The specific TEG model has been constructed to represent a physical module that was obtained for the physical test articles. Accompanying the computational modeling, two physical test articles have been developed and studied. The first consists of a single TEG stack consisting of a skin material, the TEG, and a heat sink. The second test article includes multiple TEGs within s (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of City and Regional Planning, The Ohio State University, 2024, City and Regional Planning

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has emerged as a cost-effective alternative to Light Rail Systems (LRT), yet its impact on urban land use remains understudied compared to rail-based transit systems. This study examines land use changes within a 0.5-mile buffer along the Red Line BRT corridor that passes through Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, and Eagan, Minnesota. Using before-after analysis ranging from 2010 to 2020, this study assesses and statistically describes the conversion of areas covered by other land uses to commercially and residentially oriented land uses post-BRT implementation in 2013. Results indicate a higher ratio of conversion within the buffer zone, suggesting some influence of the BRT corridor on land use dynamics, particularly in transitioning undeveloped land to single-family detached and retail/commercial uses.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, Physics

In this thesis, we examine a few facets of the interplay between symmetry and topology in condensed matter and high energy physics. A particular focus is on anomalies, which are violations of classical symmetries at the quantum level. While an anomaly associated with a background field can lead to novel physical phenomena, a gauge anomaly present in a gauge theory would render the theory inconsistent. We will see the implications of both cases in the context of topological semimetals and dark matter models. We begin with the study of a nonlinear Hall effect in Weyl semimetals, which is a consequence of the chiral anomaly in the presence of external electromagnetic fields. This chiral anomaly induced nonlinear Hall (CNH) effect also relies on the nontrivial band topology of Weyl semimetals. Based on the semiclassical Boltzmann approach and a low-energy Weyl Hamiltonian, we show that a nonvanishing CNH effect requires an asymmetric Fermi surface about the Γ point. One way to achieve this is to introduce tilting to the Weyl cones and we analyze the cases of type-I and type-II Weyl semimetals in detail. If a pair of Weyl cones are tilted in opposite directions, additional symmetries such as time-reversal may be broken to create a relative energy shift between the two Weyl points, such that an asymmetric Fermi surface is generated. Then we discuss the spin-charge conversion process in class-I topological Dirac semimetals, which possess a pair of Dirac points on a rotation axis. When an external magnetic field is absent, a pure spin current will be generated in response to an applied electric field due to the intrinsic spin Hall effect. We argue that the anisotropic electric tunability is intimately tied to the topological nature of the Dirac semimetal. Upon the application of a magnetic field, the Dirac semimetal can be driven into a Weyl semimetal phase and thus, charge Hall current will be induced by the anomalous Hall effect. Additionally, unconventional spin Ha (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation seeks to unearth the inherent complexity of relations among evangelical missionaries, their filial churches, Catholics, and secular actors in the context of Protestantism's precipitous rise in Brazil between the 1910s and 1960s. It argues that American Protestant missionaries proved to be crucial agents of cultural change who successfully imparted to their Brazilian believers facets of their anti-Communist, paternalistic, and intermittently apolitical ideologies over the course of several systems of government, including two dictatorships. Crucially, this dissertation situates missionaries as intersectional, transnational, and non-state actors within the larger framework of U.S.-Brazilian religiopolitics, cultural transfusion, and the construction of gender, economic, and racial norms. Although far from passive recipients of American evangelical ideas, Brazil's newly-converted Protestants embraced U.S. missionaries' thought to a considerable extent, thereby cementing the incisive cultural change that American missionaries had sought to foster in Brazil. In doing so, Brazilian church workers and leaders refashioned U.S. norms of evangelicalism while also increasingly advocating for the nationalization (indigenization) of evangelical denominations. Basing itself on four case studies of U.S.-founded or influenced evangelical churches, this dissertation unravels the many contradictions and complications inherent to U.S. missionary work in Brazil. These factors include Brazilian evangelicals' wavering between apoliticism and political activism, a vying for influence with the Catholic Church, the legacy of Jim Crow and its consequences to mission work in Brazil, as well as a series of intra-church disputes that ultimately resulted in the nationalization (indigenization) of each church. At the core of the evangelical experience between the 1910s and 1960s stood an identitarian quest to gain legitimacy among Brazil's secular and religious authoritie (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2023, Electro-Optics

Characterization of nonlinear optical properties of materials is important for high power, high energy laser material interactions. This work investigates the interaction of laser light with select semiconductor materials of interest. Fundamental parameters, functionality and limits are explored over a wide range of incident wavelengths and pulse durations. Both second and third order properties are considered, as well as laser damage. State-of-the-art materials with high second order nonlinear optical coefficients such as GaAs and CdSiP2 have been studied. Key applications of these materials are in generation of coherent mid-wave infrared radiation. Nonlinear frequency conversion in both have been attempted. Third order susceptibilities dictate the nonlinear absorption and refraction of a material. Here the nonlinear optical coefficients of two photon absorption, β, free carrier absorption, σ_a, and free carrier refraction, σ_r are established in gallium nitride (GaN) for the visible wavelength of 532 nm using picosecond and nanosecond pulse duration light. Free carrier recombination lifetime is also determined to ensure that the decay in the concentration of free carriers is not a factor for this material at nanosecond time scales.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2023, Chemical Engineering

Sustainable development becomes an important topic due to the escalating energy shortage and environmental change. Governments around the world have taken various steps and implemented several initiatives in addressing pressing environmental issues. Green technology and innovations have been largely promoted not only in cutting-edge research but also in industry and manufacturing sectors. Among those sustainable practices, methane conversion, hydrogen storage, and fuel cell play crucial roles that promote energy efficiency and contribute to a circular economy. The dissertation aims to understand the chemical aspects in these three fields for sustainable development. For example, (1) methane, as a potent greenhouse gas, significantly contributes to global warming. By converting methane into value-added chemicals under mild conditions, sustainable development benefits can be achieved. (2) Hydrogen as green energy is an important research topic but has great challenges in its storage with hydrogen's low density. Efficient hydrogen storage technologies are required to enable the efficient utilization of hydrogen. (3) Fuel cells offer a clean and efficient alternative to traditional energy conversion technologies, which convert the chemical energy of a fuel directly into electricity through an electrochemical reaction. A new concept of a regenerative fuel cell is being discussed that has the ability to convert electricity back to chemical energy. These sustainable practices: methane conversion, hydrogen storage, and regenerative fuel cell, drive technological innovation and opportunities in catalyst materials, new energy, and electrochemistry.

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2023, Computer Science (Engineering and Technology)

The continued growth of deep learning applications has resulted from the increasing availability of annotated data as well as the advancement of hardware. However, deploying deep learning models on this new hardware results in high energy and computational requirements. A recent development in the field of deep learning has introduced spiking neurons that are used in spiking neural networks (SNNs). These biologically inspired neurons operate on sparse spike trains in order to train and test deep learning models while theoretically consuming less energy when compared to an equivalent ANN model. Different ANN to SNN conversion techniques have been proposed because SNNs can not optimize networks using methods such as backpropagation. In this thesis, we present an intermediate hybrid training step implemented under NengoDL before the ANN is fully converted to an SNN. In this hybrid phase, the forward pass of the network uses spiking activations while the backwards pass switches back to non-spiking activations that are differentiable and are able to be used in backpropagation. Using the spiking activations fine-tunes the connection weights during the hybrid training phase and increases the accuracy of the converted SNN model when compared to a converted SNN without the hybrid training phase. With the new hybrid training scheme, we designed networks and experiments on two applications, object localization and image segmentation. The models were evaluated based on a set of proposed performance metrics. Additionally, the estimated energy consumption for the ANNs and the converted SNNs were compared to provide more information on the energy consumption between ANNs and SNNs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first implementation of the proposed hybrid training approach that has been tested on these spiking models.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2022, Electro-Optics

Hyperentanglement of photonic light modes, or entanglement occurring in systems with one or more degrees of freedom, offers a valuable resource in quantum communication and information processing. Communication systems, for example, use hyperentanglement to increase channel capacity. Hyperentanglement, however, has not been the only valuable quantum resource. Maximally path-entangled states, or N00N states, have led the development of quantum information protocols. To advance quantum technology, it is necessary to establish reliable protocols that can generate both hyperentangled and N00N states. In this dissertation, we propose two methods for the generation of hyperentangled N00N states in the spatial degrees of freedom of light. The first approach centers on (but is not limited to) the radial degree of freedom of Laguerre-Gauss modes. In this study, the pump beam is shaped by superpositions of Laguerre-Gauss radial modes to generate hyperentangled radial N00N states via spontaneous parametric down-conversion. This method illustrates how the spatial spectrum of the down-converted state can be modulated by engineering the input pump. The resultant state, however, is noisy in nature and the cross-correlated terms limit the generation of clean, useful entangled states. The second method is a novel protocol based on the interference of two optical nonlinearities and the control of the detection basis in the orbital angular momentum degree of freedom. This configuration can produce both maximally-entangled and hyper-entangled states in at least four dimensions. The resultant state in the four-dimensional case can be characterized as a generalization of the N00N state. As long as experimental imperfections are excluded, the production of this state is “perfect” i.e., noiseless. Using the presented setup, a vast parameter space of arbitrarily large dimensionality can be searched for other states of interest using control over the detection and pumpi (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Chemical Engineering

Chemical looping uses a metal oxide oxygen carrier to provide the necessary oxygen for the partial or complete combustion of fuel. Chemical looping systems can be configured to produce sequestration ready CO2, high purity syngas, high purity hydrogen, or any combination of the three. The uniqueness of the moving bed reducer reactor pioneered at The Ohio State University (OSU) is the basis of the systems presented here. The work presented in this dissertation aims to determine process improvements and applications for which chemical looping provides an efficient alternative to traditional processing methods for the reduction in emissions and potential cost savings. The use of biomass fuel in a moving bed reducer chemical looping system was investigated on a bench scale reactor system, known as Biomass-to-Syngas (BTS). Tars, which are known to cause operational issues, were measured at the outlet of the system. A reduction in these tars from traditional gasification of the order of 1g/m3 to a concentration of 0.3g/m3 was observed, due to the unique catalytic cracking ability of the Iron-Titanium Composite Metal Oxide (ITCMO) used in this study.1,2 This reduction in present tars shows just one area where the use of a chemical looping system increases the quality of syngas produced from biomass fuels. Additional improvements to the BTS process were investigated, to reduce the amount of steam input and determine reactor length characteristics. Experimental trials found that the reducer reactor length was a critical factor, as a continued increase in reactor length results in a decrease in syngas purity. This decrease is attributed to water-gas-shift (WGS) occurring in the lower portion of the reducer, increasing the amount of CO2 undesirably. The amount of steam injected to the system, typically done to tune the H2:CO ratio and to increase gasification kinetics, was studied to determine process efficiency. It was found that for a hardwood biomass, only 5% steam (fed b (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Chemical Engineering

Chemical looping partial oxidation is a process technology with the potential to enable clean, sustainable, and cost-effective valorization of hydrocarbon feedstocks to an array of chemical products. In the process scheme, the partial oxidation reaction is partitioned into separate reduction and oxidation reactions facilitated by an oxygen carrying chemical intermediate, referred to here as an oxygen carrier. By utilizing lattice oxygen donation from a metal oxide oxygen carrier in lieu of molecular oxygen, the hydrocarbon fuel can be efficiently converted to high purity syngas. The benefits and impacts of improving the efficiency of syngas generation are propagated through to downstream fuel and chemical synthesis processes. In this study, the chemical looping partial oxidation process for the thermochemical conversion of methane to syngas is investigated at the sub-pilot scale. Performance of the process and identification of viable operating conditions based on thermodynamic criteria is explored through process simulation. The design, construction, commissioning, and operation of a 15 kWth sub-pilot is detailed. In the unit, methane conversion of 99.64% and syngas purity of 97.13% are obtained with a product H2/CO ratio of 1.96. Co-reforming of methane with steam and CO2 is demonstrated, where net CO2 utilization is exhibited and flexible product H2/CO ratio of between 1.19 to 2.50 with high syngas purity is achieved. Finally, considerations for the design of the reactors during scale-up is discussed. The partial oxidation of biomass feedstocks towards the production of liquid fuels is investigated. Gasification of woody biomass and corncob biomass is studied at the sub-pilot scale where 89% carbon conversion and H2/CO ratio between 0.87 to 1.88 is demonstrated. Steam is shown to assist in the conversion of char in the moving bed reducer and suggestions toward commercial design are given. Adiabatic process simulation of the integration of the biomass to syngas pr (open full item for complete abstract)

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Engineering and Applied Science: Electrical Engineering

At the heart of the chip design industry are synchronous combinational circuits that perform all sorts of mathematical and Boolean operations in high level systems. For proprietary IC designs, the lack of security for those designs proposes potential leaks of sensitive information particularly via side channel attacks (SCA). Asynchronously designed circuits inherently have better security features but compromise significant area to implement compared to their synchronous counterparts. We propose a new way of designing circuits, with NCL-based logic gate designs that are able to process synchronous and asynchronous signals simultaneously. By converting specific critical paths of a synchronous netlist using these originally designed hybrid gates we call DATAPATH gates, less area is consumed (only a 7.7\% area increase from fully combinational version in this case) while the security benefits from asynchronous logic is added to the system. These critical paths then are able to function asynchronously while still maintaining the original functionality and timing information.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Arts and Sciences: Chemistry

The contents of this dissertation are primarily focused on the evaluation of molecular electrocatalysts and their intrinsic properties during electroreduction reactions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction, hydrodehalogenation, and hydrogen evolution. The control of the second coordination sphere in a coordination complex plays an important role in improving catalytic efficiency. Herein, we report a zinc porphyrin complex ZnPor8T with multiple flexible triazole units comprising the second coordination sphere, as an electrocatalyst for the highly selective electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) to carbon monoxide (CO). This electrocatalyst converted CO2 to CO with a Faradaic efficiency of 99% and a current density of –6.2 mA/cm2 at –2.4 V vs Fc/Fc+ in N,N-dimethylformamide using water as the proton source. Structure-function relationship studies were carried out on ZnPor8T analogs containing different numbers of triazole units and distinct triazole geometries; these unveiled that the triazole units function cooperatively to stabilize the CO2-catalyst adduct in order to facilitate intramolecular proton transfer. This demonstrates that incorporating triazole units that function in a cooperative manner is a versatile strategy to enhance the activity of electrocatalytic CO2 conversion. The effects of primary and second coordination spheres on molecular electrocatalysis have been extensively studied, yet investigations of third functional spheres are rarely reported. Here we report an electrocatalyst (ZnPEG8T) with a hydrophilic channel as a third functional sphere that facilitates relay proton shuttling to the primary and second coordination spheres for enhanced catalytic CO2 reduction. Using foot-of-the-wave analysis, the ZnPEG8T catalyst displayed CO2-to-CO activity (TOFmax) thirty times greater than that of the benchmark catalyst without a third functional sphere. A kinetic isotopic effect (KIE) study, in conjunction with volta (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Chemical Engineering (Engineering and Technology)

Aqueous brines are often produced during hydrocarbon recovery from geological reservoirs as an unwanted by-product. Degree of salinity is always an issue in produced water. In the USA, salt concentration in waters produced from conventional oil and gas wells falls in the range of 1 g/l (~ 0.1 wt.%) to 400 g/l (~ 28 wt.%). Besides salts, CO2 and H2S are ubiquitous in the production stream. Dissolution of these gases in produced waters results in evolution of corrosive species, such as CO2(aq), H2S(aq), H2CO3(aq), H+(aq), HCO-3(aq), and HS-(aq) that cause severe corrosion problems for carbon steel; primary material used in the construction of oil and gas pipelines. Combination of aqueous salts with dissolved CO2(aq) and H2S(aq) and their related species, has always been a great concern for pipeline operators in terms of corrosion problems. A large body of research exists on CO2 and H2S corrosion of oil and gas facilities, mostly at low salt concentrations; up to 3 wt.%. However, only a limited number of studies has investigated CO2 corrosion at high salt concentrations and to the best of this author's knowledge, this number is zero for H2S corrosion. In the present study, the effect of salt (NaCl) concentration on aqueous uniform strong acid, CO2, and H2S corrosion of carbon steel is investigated. The key parameters in the corrosion process that are influenced by salt concentration are identified: transport phenomena (solution density, solution viscosity and diffusion coefficients of dissolved species), solution chemistry, and electrochemistry of the underlying reactions. Models have been reproduced and developed to account for the effect of salinity (up to ~ 5 m NaCl) on transport phenomena and solution chemistry. The Smolyakov and the square root (Kohlrausch law) equations were chosen for correcting the diffusion coefficients for the effect of temperature, and salt concentration, respectively, using new coefficients obtained in this study. The mixed solvent electro (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, Clinical Research

Background: Functional movement disorders (FMD) are a common disabling neurological condition associated with high healthcare cost and poor outcome. Interdisciplinary treatment programs can be scarce and costly. Mirror therapy is an affordable therapeutic modality in neuro-rehabilitation; however, its effect in FMD is unknown. Objective: To determine whether the use of mirror therapy can reduce involuntary movements in patients with FMD. Methods: Eligible subjects underwent five hand exercises with and without a mirror box. Objective ratings were scored by two movement disorder neurologists. A self-perception questionnaire on severity was performed after mirror vs no-mirror exercises. Results: Fourteen subjects were recruited for the study. Three (21.4%) perceived improvement, ten perceived no change, and one perceived worse symptoms following the mirror box intervention. No significant differences were found between mirror vs no-mirror state on objective ratings. Conclusion: Single brief mirror box intervention did not result in significant difference in abnormal movements in FMD.