Calorimetric study and thermal analysis of crystalline nicotinic acid

As one primary component of Vitamin B-3, nicotinic acid [pyridine 3-carboxylic acid] was synthesized, and calorimetric study and thermal analysis for this compound were performed. The low-temperature heat capacity of nicotinic acid was measured with a precise automated adiabatic calorimeter over the temperature rang from 79 to 368 K. No thermal anomaly or phase transition was observed in this temperature range. A solid-to-solid transition at T-trs = 451.4 K, a solid-to-liquid transition at T-fus = 509.1 K and a thermal decomposition at T-d = 538.8 K were found through the DSC and TG-DTG techniques. The molar enthalpies of these transitions were determined to be Delta(trs)H(m =) 0.81 kJ mol(-1), Delta(fus)H(m) 27.57 kJ mol(-1) and Delta(d)H(m) = 62.38 kJ mol(-1), respectively, by the integrals of the peak areas of the DSC curves.

Calorimetric study and thermal analysis of berberine sulphate

The heat capacities of berberine sulphate [(C20H18NO4)(2)SO4.3H(2)O] were measured from 80 to 390 K by means of an automated adiabatic calorimeter. Smoothed heat capacities,{H-T-H-298.15} and {S-T-S-298.15} were calculated. The loss of crystalline water started at about 339.3+/-0.2 K, and its peak temperature was 365.8+/-0.6 K. The peak temperature of decomposition for berberine sulphate was at about 391.4+/-0.4 K by DSC curve. TG-DTG analysis of this material was carried out in temperature range from 310 to 970 K. TG and DSC curves show that there is no melting in the whole heating process.

[Ru(bpy)2dppz]2+ electrochemiluminescence switch and its applications for DNA interaction study and label-free ATP aptasensor

[Ru(bpy)2dppz]2+ electrochemiluminescence (ECL) was studied, and it was used to investigate DNA interaction and develop a label-free ATP aptasensor for the first time. ECL of [Ru(bpy)2dppz]2+ is negligible in aqueous solution, and increases approximately 1000 times when [Ru(bpy)2dppz]2+ intercalates into the nucleic acid structure. The ECL switch behavior of [Ru(bpy)2dppz]2+ is ascribed to the intercalation that shields the phenazine nitrogens from the solvent and results in a luminescent excited state. The ECL switch by DNA was applied to investigate the interaction of [Ru(bpy)2dppz]2+ with herring sperm DNA. The calculated equilibrium constant (K) is 1.35 x 10(6) M(-1), and the calculated binding-site size (s) is 0.88 base pair, which is consistent with the reported values.

Planning and Teaching Compliant Motion Strategies

This thesis presents a new high level robot programming system. The programming system can be used to construct strategies consisting of compliant motions, in which a moving robot slides along obstacles in its environment. The programming system is referred to as high level because the user is spared of many robot-level details, such as the specification of conditional tests, motion termination conditions, and compliance parameters. Instead, the user specifies task-level information, including a geometric model of the robot and its environment. The user may also have to specify some suggested motions. There are two main system components. The first component is an interactive teaching system which accepts motion commands from a user and attempts to build a compliant motion strategy using the specified motions as building blocks. The second component is an autonomous compliant motion planner, which is intended to spare the user from dealing with "simple" problems. The planner simplifies the representation of the environment by decomposing the configuration space of the robot into a finite state space, whose states are vertices, edges, faces, and combinations thereof. States are inked to each other by arcs, which represent reliable compliant motions. Using best first search, states are expanded until a strategy is found from the start state to a global state. This component represents one of the first implemented compliant motion planners. The programming system has been implemented on a Symbolics 3600 computer, and tested on several examples. One of the resulting compliant motion strategies was successfully executed on an IBM 7565 robot manipulator.

A Moslem seeker after God: showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century, by Samuel M. Zwemer ...

http://www.archive.org/details/amoslemseeker00zwemuoft

The corporate social responsibility movement and law's empire: Is there a conflict?

At the heart of corporate governance and social responsibility discourse is recognition of the fact that the modern corporation is primarily governed by the profit maximisation imperative coupled with moral and ethical concerns that such a limited imperative drives the actions of large and wealthy corporations which have the ability to act in influential and significant ways, shaping how our social world is experienced. The actions of the corporation and its management will have a wide sphere of impact over all of its stakeholders whether these are employees, shareholders, consumers or the community in which the corporation is located. As globalisation has become central to the way we think it is also clear that ‘community’ has an ever expanding meaning which may include workers and communities living very far away from Corporate HQ. In recent years academic commentators have become increasingly concerned about the emphasis on what can be called short-term profit maximisation and the perception that this extremist interpretation of the profit imperative results in morally and ethically unacceptable outcomes.1 Hence demands for more corporate social responsibility. Following Cadbury’s2 classification of corporate social responsibility into three distinct areas, this paper will argue that once the legally regulated tier is left aside corporate responsibility can become so nebulous as to be relatively meaningless. The argument is not that corporations should not be required to act in socially responsible ways but that unless supported by regulation, which either demands high standards, or at the very least incentivises the attainment of such standards such initiatives are doomed to failure. The paper will illustrate by reference to various chosen cases that law’s discourse has already signposted ways to consider and resolve corporate governance problems in the broader social responsibility context.3 It will also illustrate how corporate responsibility can and must be supported by legal measures. Secondly, this paper will consider the potential conflict between an emphasis on corporate social responsibility and the regulatory approach.4 Finally, this paper will place the current interest in corporate social responsibility within the broader debate on the relationship between law and non-legally enforceable norms and will present some reflections on the norm debate arising from this consideration of the CSR movement.

Drama Grammatik: Dramapädagogische Ansätze für den Grammatikunterricht Deutsch als Fremdsprache

This dissertation introduces and evaluates dramagrammar, a new concept for the teaching and learning of foreign language grammar. Grammar, traditionally taught in a predominantly cognitive, abstract mode, often fails to capture the minds of foreign language learners, who are then unable to integrate this grammatical knowledge into their use of the foreign language in a meaningful way. The consequences of this approach are manifested at university level in German departments in England and Ireland, where the outcomes are unconvincing at best, abysmal at worst. Language teaching research suggests that interaction plays an important role in foreign language acquisition. Recent studies also stress the significance of grammatical knowledge in the learning process. Dramagrammar combines both interactive negotiation of meaning and explicit grammar instruction in a holistic approach, taking up the concept of drama in foreign language education and applying it to the teaching and learning of grammar. Techniques from dramatic art forms allow grammar to be experienced not only cognitively but also in social, emotional, and bodily-kinaesthetic ways. Dramagrammar lessons confront the learner with fictitious situations in which grammar is experienced 'hands-on'. Learners have to use grammatical structures in a variety of contexts, reflect upon their use, and then enlarge and enrich the dramatic situations with their newly acquired or more finely nuanced knowledge. The initial hypothesis of this dissertation is that the drammagrammar approach is beneficial to the acquisition of foreign language grammar. This hypothesis is corroborated by research findings from language teaching pedagogy and drama in education. It is further confirmed by empirical data gained from specifically designed dramagrammar modules that have been put into practice in German departments at the University of Leicester (England), the University Colleges Cork and Dublin (Ireland), the University of Bologna (Italy), as well as the Goethe-Institute Bratislava (Slovenia). The data suggests that drammagrammar has positive effects on both understanding of and attitudes towards grammar.

An investigation of post-primary students' images of mathematics

This research study investigates the image of mathematics held by 5th-year post-primary students in Ireland. For this study, “image of mathematics” is conceptualized as a mental representation or view of mathematics, presumably constructed as a result of past experiences, mediated through school, parents, peers or society. It is also understood to include attitudes, beliefs, emotions, self-concept and motivation in relation to mathematics. This study explores the image of mathematics held by a sample of 356 5th-year students studying ordinary level mathematics. Students were aged between 15 and 18 years. In addition, this study examines the factors influencing students‟ images of mathematics and the possible reasons for students choosing not to study higher level mathematics for the Leaving Certificate. The design for this study is chiefly explorative. A questionnaire survey was created containing both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the research interest. The quantitative aspect incorporated eight pre-established scales to examine students‟ attitudes, beliefs, emotions, self-concept and motivation regarding mathematics. The qualitative element explored students‟ past experiences of mathematics, their causal attributions for success or failure in mathematics and their influences in mathematics. The quantitative and qualitative data was analysed for all students and also for students grouped by gender, prior achievement, type of post-primary school attending, co-educational status of the post-primary school and the attendance of a Project Maths pilot school. Students‟ images of mathematics were seen to be strongly indicated by their attitudes (enjoyment and value), beliefs, motivation, self-concept and anxiety, with each of these elements strongly correlated with each other, particularly self-concept and anxiety. Students‟ current images of mathematics were found to be influenced by their past experiences of mathematics, by their mathematics teachers, parents and peers, and by their prior mathematical achievement. Gender differences occur for students in their images of mathematics, with males having more positive images of mathematics than females and this is most noticeable with regards to anxiety about mathematics. Mathematics anxiety was identified as a possible reason for the low number of students continuing with higher level mathematics for the Leaving Certificate. Some students also expressed low mathematical self-concept with regards to higher level mathematics specifically. Students with low prior achievement in mathematics tended to believe that mathematics requires a natural ability which they do not possess. Rote-learning was found to be common among many students in the sample. The most positive image of mathematics held by students was the “problem-solving image”, with resulting implications for the new Project Maths syllabus in post-primary education. Findings from this research study provide important insights into the image of mathematics held by the sample of Irish post-primary students and make an innovative contribution to mathematics education research. In particular, findings contribute to the current national interest in Ireland in post-primary mathematics education, highlighting issues regarding the low uptake of higher level mathematics for the Leaving Certificate and also making a preliminary comparison between students who took part in the piloting of Project Maths and students who were more recently introduced to the new syllabus. This research study also holds implications for mathematics teachers, parents and the mathematics education community in Ireland, with some suggestions made on improving students‟ images of mathematics.

Student voice in Irish post-primary schools: a drama of voices

This research is an exploration of the expression of student voice in Irish post-primary schools and how its affordance could impact on students’ and teachers’ experiences in the classroom, and at whole-school level through a student council. Student voice refers to the inclusion of students in decisions that shape their experiences in classrooms and schools, and is fundamental to a rights-based perspective that facilitates students to have a voice and a say in their education. Student voice is essential to the development of democratic principles, active citizenship, and learning and pedagogy. This qualitative research, based in three post-primary case-study schools, concerns teachers in eighteen classrooms engaging in dialogic consultation with their students over one school year. Teachers considered the students’ commentary and then adjusted their practice. The operation of student councils was also examined through the voices of council members, liaison teachers and school principals. Theorised within socio-cultural (social constructivist), social constructionist and poststructural frames, the complexity of student voice emerges from its conceptualisation and enactment. Affording students a voice in their classroom presented positive findings in the context of relationships, pedagogical change and students’ engagement, participation and achievement. The power and authority of the teacher and discordant student voices, particularly relating to examinations, presented challenges affecting teachers’ practice and students’ expectations. The functional redundancy of the student council as a construct for student voice at whole-school level, and its partial redundancy as a construct to reflect prefigurative democracy and active citizenship also emerge from the research. Current policy initiatives in Irish education situate student voice in pedagogy and as dialogic consultation at classroom and whole-school level. This work endorses the necessity for and benefit of such a positioning with the author further arguing that it should not become the instrumental student voice of data source, accountability and performativity.