Far infrared reflectance and optical properties of organic superconductor (TMTSF)2ClO4 /

Polarized reflectance measurements of the quasi I-D charge-transfer salt (TMTSFh CI04 were carried out using a Martin-Puplett-type polarizing interferometer and a 3He refrigerator cryostat, at several temperatures between 0.45 K and 26 K, in the far infrared, in the 10 to 70 cm- 1 frequency range. Bis-tetramethyl-tetraselena-fulvalene perchlorate crystals, grown electrochemically and supplied by K. Behnia, of dimensions 2 to 4 by 0.4 by 0.2 mm, were assembled on a flat surface to form a mosaic of 1.5 by 3 mm. The needle shaped crystals were positioned parallel to each other along their long axis, which is the stacking direction of the planar TMTSF cations, exposing the ab plane face (parallel to which the sheets of CI04 anions are positioned). Reflectance measurements were performed with radiation polarized along the stacking direction in the sample. Measurements were carried out following either a fast (15-20 K per minute) or slow (0.1 K per minute) cooling of the sample. Slow cooling permits the anions to order near 24 K, and the sample is expected to be superconducting below 1.2 K, while fast cooling yields an insulating state at low temperatures. Upon the slow cooling the reflectance shows dependence with temperature and exhibits the 28 cm- 1 feature reported previously [1]. Thermoreflectance for both the 'slow' and 'fast' cooling of the sample calculated relative to the 26 K reflectance data indicates that the reflectance is temperature dependent, for the slow cooling case only. A low frequency edge in the absolute reflectance is assigned an electronic origin given its strong temperature dependence in the relaxed state. We attribute the peak in the absolute reflectance near 30 cm-1 to a phonon coupled to the electronic background. Both the low frequency edge and the 30 cm-1 feature are noted te shift towards higher frequcncy, upon cntering the superconducting state, by an amount of the order of the expected superconducting energy gap. Kramers-Kronig analysis was carried out to determine the optical conductivity for the slowly cooled sample from the measured reflectance. In order to do so the low frequency data was extrapolated to zero frequency using a Hagen-Ru bens behaviour, and the high frequency data was extended with the data of Cao et al. [2], and Kikuchi et al. [3]. The real part of the optical conductivity exhibits an asymmetric peak at 35 cm-1, and its background at lower frequencies seems to be losing spectral weight with lowering of the temperature, leading us to presume that a narrow peak is forming at even lower frequencies.

Marginal/minority popular music : the concept of the "third space" and the case for "hybridities" of cultures/identities /

The topic of this thesis is marginaVminority popular music and the question of identity; the term "marginaVminority" specifically refers to members of racial and cultural minorities who are socially and politically marginalized. The thesis argument is that popular music produced by members of cultural and racial minorities establishes cultural identity and resists racist discourse. Three marginaVminority popular music artists and their songs have been chosen for analysis in support of the argument: Gil Scott-Heron's "Gun," Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" and Robbie Robertson's "Sacrifice." The thesis will draw from two fields of study; popular music and postcolonialism. Within the area of popular music, Theodor Adorno's "Standardization" theory is the focus. Within the area of postcolonialism, this thesis concentrates on two specific topics; 1) Stuart Hall's and Homi Bhabha's overlapping perspectives that identity is a process of cultural signification, and 2) Homi Bhabha's concept of the "Third Space." For Bhabha (1995a), the Third Space defines cultures in the moment of their use, at the moment of their exchange. The idea of identities arising out of cultural struggle suggests that identity is a process as opposed to a fixed center, an enclosed totality. Cultures arise from historical memory and memory has no center. Historical memory is de-centered and thus cultures are also de-centered, they are not enclosed totalities. This is what Bhabha means by "hybridity" of culture - that cultures are not unitary totalities, they are ways of knowing and speaking about a reality that is in constant flux. In this regard, the language of "Otherness" depends on suppressing or marginalizing the productive capacity of culture in the act of enunciation. The Third Space represents a strategy of enunciation that disrupts, interrupts and dislocates the dominant discursive construction of US and THEM, (a construction explained by Hall's concept of binary oppositions, detailed in Chapter 2). Bhabha uses the term "enunciation" as a linguistic metaphor for how cultural differences are articulated through discourse and thus how differences are discursively produced. Like Hall, Bhabha views culture as a process of understanding and of signification because Bhabha sees traditional cultures' struggle against colonizing cultures as transforming them. Adorno's theory of Standardization will be understood as a theoretical position of Western authority. The thesis will argue that Adorno's theory rests on the assumption that there is an "essence" to music, an essence that Adorno rationalizes as structure/form. The thesis will demonstrate that constructing music as possessing an essence is connected to ideology and power and in this regard, Adorno's Standardization theory is a discourse of White Western power. It will be argued that "essentialism" is at the root of Western "rationalization" of music, and that the definition of what constitutes music is an extension of Western racist "discourses" of the Other. The methodological framework of the thesis entails a) applying semiotics to each of the three songs examined and b) also applying Bhabha's model of the Third Space to each of the songs. In this thesis, semiotics specifically refers to Stuart Hall's retheorized semiotics, which recognizes the dual function of semiotics in the analysis of marginal racial/cultural identities, i.e., simultaneously represent embedded racial/cultural stereotypes, and the marginal raciaVcultural first person voice that disavows and thus reinscribes stereotyped identities. (Here, and throughout this thesis, "first person voice" is used not to denote the voice of the songwriter, but rather the collective voice of a marginal racial/cultural group). This dual function fits with Hall's and Bhabha's idea that cultural identity emerges out of cultural antagonism, cultural struggle. Bhabha's Third Space is also applied to each of the songs to show that cultural "struggle" between colonizers and colonized produces cultural hybridities, musically expressed as fusions of styles/sounds. The purpose of combining semiotics and postcolonialism in the three songs to be analyzed is to show that marginal popular music, produced by members of cultural and racial minorities, establishes cultural identity and resists racist discourse by overwriting identities of racial/cultural stereotypes with identities shaped by the first person voice enunciated in the Third Space, to produce identities of cultural hybridities. Semiotic codes of embedded "Black" and "Indian" stereotypes in each song's musical and lyrical text will be read and shown to be overwritten by the semiotic codes of the first person voice, which are decoded with the aid of postcolonial concepts such as "ambivalence," "hybridity" and "enunciation."

Explicit versus implicit spelling strategy instruction and its effects on grade one children's invented spellings

The intent of this study was to investigate .the effectiveness of teaching thirty-five Grade One children a variety of effective spelling strategies in comparison to tradit~onal spelling instruction. Strategy instruction included training in phonology, imagery and analogy. In addition, the type of instruction pro~ided (implicit versus explicit) was also examined. Children were seen in small groups of four or five, for four, twenty-five minute sessions. All children were tested prior and immediately following the training sessions, as well as at 14-day follow-ups. Pretest and posttest measures included a dictated spelling test (based on words used in training), a developmental spelling test and a sample of each child's writing. In addition, children completed a metacognitive spelling test as a measure of their strategy awareness. Performance scores on the pretest and posttest measures were compared to determine if any differences existed between the three spelling instruction groups using the Dunn-Bonferroni and Dunnett procedures. Findings revealed that explicit strategy instruction was the most effective spelling program for improving Grade One children's invented spellings. Children who received this instruction were able to spell targeted words more accurately, even after a 14-day follow-up, and were able to recall more effective spelling strategies than children who received either implicit strategy instruction or traditional strategy instruction.

The design of a reflectance spectrometer and its calibration using SrTiO3 /

A new Ultra-High Vacuum (UHV) reflectance spectrometer was successfully designed, making use of a Janis Industries ST-400 sample cryostat, IR Labs bolometer, and Briiker IFS 66 v/S spectrometer. Two of the noteworthy features include an in situ gold evaporator and internal reference path, both of which allow for the experiment to progress with a completely undisturbed sample position. As tested, the system was designed to operate between 4.2 K and 325 K over a frequency range of 60 - 670 cm~^. This frequency range can easily be extended through the addition of appUcable detectors. Tests were performed on SrTiOa, a highly ionic incipient ferroelectric insulator with a well known reflectance. The presence and temperatmre dependence of the lowest frequency "soft" mode were measured, as was the presence of the other two infrared modes. During the structural phase transition from cubic to tetragonal perovskite, the splitting of the second phonon mode was also observed. All of the collected data indicate good agreement with previous measurements, with a minor discrepency between the actual and recorded sample temperatures.

Development and characterization of concentric capillary nebulizer used in inductively coupled plasma analysis /

A simple, low-cost concentric capillary nebulizer (CCN) was developed and evaluated for ICP spectrometry. The CCN could be operated at sample uptake rates of 0.050-1.00 ml min'^ and under oscillating and non-oscillating conditions. Aerosol characteristics for the CCN were studied using a laser Fraunhofter diffraction analyzer. Solvent transport efficiencies and transport rates, detection limits, and short- and long-term stabilities were evaluated for the CCN with a modified cyclonic spray chamber at different sample uptake rates. The Mg II (280.2nm)/l\/lg 1(285.2nm) ratio was used for matrix effect studies. Results were compared to those with conventional nebulizers, a cross-flow nebulizer with a Scott-type spray chamber, a GemCone nebulizer with a cyclonic spray chamber, and a Meinhard TR-30-K3 concentric nebulizer with a cyclonic spray chamber. Transport efficiencies of up to 57% were obtained for the CCN. For the elements tested, short- and long-term precisions and detection limits obtained with the CCN at 0.050-0.500 ml min'^ are similar to, or better than, those obtained on the same instrument using the conventional nebulizers (at 1.0 ml min'^). The depressive and enhancement effects of easily ionizable element Na, sulfuric acid, and dodecylamine surfactant on analyte signals with the CCN are similar to, or better than, those obtained with the conventional nebulizers. However, capillary clog was observed when the sample solution with high dissolved solids was nebulized for more than 40 min. The effects of data acquisition and data processing on detection limits were studied using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry. The study examined the effects of different detection limit approaches, the effects of data integration modes, the effects of regression modes, the effects of the standard concentration range and the number of standards, the effects of sample uptake rate, and the effect of Integration time. All the experiments followed the same protocols. Three detection limit approaches were examined, lUPAC method, the residual standard deviation (RSD), and the signal-to-background ratio and relative standard deviation of the background (SBR-RSDB). The study demonstrated that the different approaches, the integration modes, the regression methods, and the sample uptake rates can have an effect on detection limits. The study also showed that the different approaches give different detection limits and some methods (for example, RSD) are susceptible to the quality of calibration curves. Multicomponents spectral fitting (MSF) gave the best results among these three integration modes, peak height, peak area, and MSF. Weighted least squares method showed the ability to obtain better quality calibration curves. Although an effect of the number of standards on detection limits was not observed, multiple standards are recommended because they provide more reliable calibration curves. An increase of sample uptake rate and integration time could improve detection limits. However, an improvement with increased integration time on detection limits was not observed because the auto integration mode was used.

VOCATIONAL INTERESTS: CONSTRUCT VALIDITY AND MEASUREMENT

This dissertation addressed several questions relevant to vocational interests and personality characteristics, examining (a) the roles of personality, vocational interests, and sexual fantasies in defining a general factor of Masculinity/Femininity (M/F) (Study 1), (b) the validity of a new measure of vocational interests (Study 2), and (c) the individual difference characteristics that discriminate between students in various academic majors, and that predict academic outcomes (Study 3). In Study 1, vocational interests, personality, and sexual fantasies were examined to find whether these variables would yield a general Masculinity/Femininity (M/F) factor, and whether that factor would still emerge when controlling for participant sex. The results of Study 1 revealed that a general factor of M/F did emerge. When sex was removed, the loadings of vocational interests decreased from high to very low, suggesting that the link of vocational interests with other indicators of M/F is mainly due to sex differences in these variables. The purpose of Study 2 was to validate the Oregon Vocational Interest Scales (ORVIS), a new public domain vocational interests questionnaire designed to measure eight vocational interest scales. ORVIS scores obtained in a college and community sample were compared with those of two personality measures and two cognitive ability tests. Results from this study showed that the ORVIS scales were reliable and showed good construct validity. The purpose of Study 3, using the ORVIS along with the HEXACO-PI and tests of cognitive ability, was to examine the individual difference characteristics of students in different academic majors, and to use the congruence between a student's academic major and vocational interests as a predictor of academic outcomes, such as GPA, academic major change, and satisfaction with major. The results of Study 3 revealed that students in different academic majors show theoretically meaningful differences in personality, abilities, and interests. Conscientiousness and math ability were found to be the best predictors of academic outcomes. However, congruence between major and interests did not add significant predictive validity to any of these outcomes beyond personality and ability. Together, these three studies show the role of vocational interests in defming MlF and in predicting various academic outcomes.

HG 246.30-246.45 Thin Section

Generally coarse grained, with a few different fine grained domains. Clasts range from small to large, ranging from sub-angular to sub-rounded in shape. Domain boundaries are clear, and the sample also contains rotation structures and lineations.