2016 MU theses - Freely available online

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    The depiction of smell in fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting as cultural sense memory and odor-cued prayer context
    (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016) Meade, Pachomius (Matthew J.); Stanton, Anne Rudloff, 1960-
    In the region now known as Belgium, fifteenth-century painters began to exploit the new medium of oil paint to achieve greater realism. This was to remove the barrier between painting and viewer. Odors such as flowers, incense, and perfumed oil depicted in these paintings played their own role in bringing these images to life. Just as smells can transport a person in memory to past events, so implied smells in paintings of this period recreated major life events and ideal spaces for religious devotion. In this thesis, I argue that smell was a deliberate part of the painting compositions and played a dynamic role in the prayer life of people in the late Middle Ages. At this time to see was to smell and to smell was to pray. Contemporary psychological studies of smell's ability to stimulate memory and behavior, close examination of the recurring smells in these paintings, and connection of odor found in both religious literature of the time and the art are discussed. The work of such artists as Rogier van der Weyden and Hans Memling are investigated to draw insights about associated meanings from the period. The findings of this work could influence art history, religious studies, historical and contemporary liturgical studies, material culture, and even social and behavioral sciences.
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    Friends from isolation
    (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016) Maier, Joshua Ryan; Pintz, Joseph
    Friends from Isolation is part science fiction tale, part exploration of form and surface through ceramic sculpture. The energy of each and the unity of the whole through strong individuality implies life and the wild possibility of the human imagination. This work's spirit is deeply rooted in my imagination as a storyteller and craftsman; unleased to the world to tease the senses, to inspire and fuel the imagination of others. Each Friend is alive in insectoid form; their dense and vibrant color palette, gestural and identifiable textures; and the puzzle of their meticulous and carefully crafted construction stir impulses of attraction and repulsion, wonder and whimsy, curiosity and adventure in the viewer. A variety of other materials such as paper, lace, fur, wire, steel, and polymer clays are present and easily identifiable; playing a role as a man-made grounding point in the puzzle of this visual adventure. The variety of materials present, the use of vibrant color and rich texture, the execution form and bold gesture masterfully balances unity and variety. Each Friend has taken shape in my hands as a kind of character study; their form and surface completed in ways that instill each creature with a beautifully strange and mysterious individual identity. They are the companions of an interstellar traveler, the destroyer of Earth; hammered with regret and remorse, doomed to a self-imposed isolation; a seeker of redemption by the only means he can -- the inspiration of new creation.
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    Numerical method for shock driven multiphase flow with evaporating particles
    (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016) Dahal, Jeevan; McFarland, Jacob A.
    This work is done in part as a requirement towards the fulfillment of the master's degree. Four different chapters were explored in this work. Chapter 1 gives the overview of the various works that have been done in the field and the applications of this work. Chapter 2 discusses the details of the numerical methods developed for predicting the interaction of active, phase changing particles in a shock driven ow. The Particle-in-Cell (PIC) technique was used to couple particles in a Lagrangian coordinate system with a fluid in an Eulerian coordinate system. This method was implemented in the open source hydrodynamics software FLASH, developed at the University of Chicago. A simple validation of these methods is accomplished by com- paring particle properties at advance time qualitatively with the analytical solution and quantitatively with the experiments. Chapter 3 explores the parametric study of the multiphase hydrodynamics. Here, we are particularly interested in the effects of paricle size distribution and the particle radius during evolution of multiphase hydrodynamic instability. It is found that the distribution of particles sizes causes less vorticity deposition than a case which considers only single size of same median diameter. The large particles are found to have lower enstrophy production at early times and higher enstrophy dissipation at late times due to the advection of the particle vorticity source term through the carrier gas resulting in less net overall vorticity depositon. Furthermore, the particle evaporation is found to increase the vorticity deposition causing the interface to evolve faster. Chapter 4 expands upon the study done in the previous chapter to the third dimension. Further validation of the code is done to make sure that the results obtained in the third dimension are correct. Shock interaction of the particle sphere containing randomly selected particle radii, which follow a lognormal distribution of median 1 μm at, random locations within the sphere is studied. This simulation is run with about 1 million particles at 1:1 parcel to particle size, and resolution of 128 nodes in the circle. The qualitative study shows the initial particle lag making the interface width large at early time. After some time, the hydrodynamic growth is found to overcome the differences in the particle velocity relaxation time decreasing the interface width. A highly asymmetric gas field is seen with alternating patches of positive and negative vorticity in the vorticity field. Further analysis of the 3D data will be done in the future to characterise the particle turbulence characteristics in the shock driven condition. These turbulence data would be interpreted to get new insights on the behaviour of the cosmological dust during the shock interactions.
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    Branding Ireland : an examination of the construction of Ireland’s national brand
    (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016) Arkins, Eimear; Mislán, Cristina
    The Republic of Ireland has advanced the same branding proposition in its tourism campaigns for decades, relying on images that depict idyllic scenery and messaging designed to appeal to those who seek an escape from the complexity of the modern world (Fanning, 2011). Such images have contributed to the formation of Ireland’s national brand. The literature demonstrates that national images are the foundation for national brands and most of these images are saturated in stereotypes, many of which are outdated and distorted. In today’s global economic environment, nations must be very conscious of the image they project to the world, because this has direct implications for a nation’s economic success. The objective of this research is to analyze how images of Ireland as a destination for tourism construct a national brand of Ireland. This study is guided by the following question: how does Tourism Ireland brand Ireland to a U.S. audience? The study found that Tourism Ireland reinforces stereotypical depictions of Ireland in its current campaigns by portraying Ireland as an escape from the modern world and by commodifying the past.
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    Iron oxide-graphene oxide nanocompositions as adsorbents
    (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016) Tantish, Fadi; Fidalgo, Maria
    Iron oxides and carbon containing materials are recognized for their potential in the water treatment field as adsorbent materials for removing many contaminations such as heavy metals and organic matter. One of these iron oxides is hematite, which was examined by many researchers during the last few years, and it showed pleasing adsorption capacity. As a carbon containing material, graphene oxide is a rising star in many fields due to its vast properties and its ability to enhance the properties of other materials that are mixed with it. The aim of this work is to investigate the possibility of increasing the adsorption capacity of hematite further by the addition of graphene oxide to form a new composite material. In short, the raw materials for the new composite were synthesized. Lepidocrocite was synthesized from ferrous chloride then acidic acid was added to it to form ferroxane nanoparticles (precursor of hematite) while graphene oxide was synthesized from graphite by applying modified Hummer's method. The following step was characterizing the raw materials (ferroxane and graphene oxide) to look at their properties (size, surface charge, surface area, and morphology) before composing them. The major factor that controlled the composing process was the electrostatic attraction, in order to get fast aggregation instead of growing aggregation, and the chosen pH for composing the raw material was determined to be around pH 4. Two weight ratios were chosen for the new composite materials aggregates, 5% graphene oxide to 95% iron oxide (5% GO/IO-A) and 10% graphene oxide to 90% iron oxide (10% GO/IO-A). For the purpose of fabricating the new composites onto the ceramic membranes, many ways were tried, but none of them formed a stable surface layer on the ceramic membrane. The composites were sintered at 410 [degrees]C to form 5% GO/IO and 10% GO/IO composites. Then, the same characterization methods applied to the raw materials were applied to measure the properties of the new composites. Arsenic, As (v), was chosen to be the adsorbate material in the adsorption experiments. To conduct the adsorption isotherms experiment, different concentrations of arsenic solutions, between 0.5 ppm to 10 ppm, were prepared from sodium arsenate, and the concentration of the adsorbents, composites, in each sample was 400 ppm. The experimental conditions were pH 4.5 and pH 7 with ionic strength of 1 mM one time, and 100 mM in the second time. As for the adsorption kinetics experiment, a solution of 10 ppm of As (v) with ionic strength of 100 mM at pH 7 was prepared and 500 mg of the adsorbents were added to each 1 L of the solution. The results showed a slight decrease in the surface area of the new composites (65.98, 68.05 m2/g for the 5% GO/IO and 10% GO/IO composites, respectively) than the hematite (73.87 m2/g) while the surface area of the graphene oxide was 151.4 m2/g. In addition, the highest adsorption capacity occurred for the 10% GO/IO composite at pH 7 and ionic strength 100 mM (almost 18 mg As(v)/g adsorbent). The kinetics experiments demonstrated that almost 60% of As(v) was adsorbed by both composites after two hours while the saturation occurred after 17 hours with 7.9 mg/g, 8.8 mg/g and for the 5% GO/IO and 10% GO/IO composites, respectively.
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