The road to respect: Americans, automobiles, and the environment

McCarthy, Thomas Martin Yale University 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

During the twentieth century, Americans embraced the automobile as a useful form of personal transportation. As an expensive, publicly used, personal possession, the automobile also proved an ideal means by which Americans gave symbolic expression to ideas about who they were as people. In finding mutually beneficial ground, automobile owners and makers together caused a variety of environmental problems best cataloged with the product lifecycle perspective. Each part of the lifecycle had its own history. Reserve Mining dumped taconite tailings into Lake Superior to produce iron ore for automobiles. Ford generated industrial pollution when it manufactured automobiles at River Rouge. Drivers created smog and traffic congestion in regions such as Southern California. Junkmen and scrap metal dealers struggled to dispose and recycle old automobiles. Most of these problems were recognized (at least in basic form), publicized (chiefly by specialists or concerned local citizens), and addressed (to some degree) well before the coalescence of the modern environmental movement. Ultimately, problems that resulted from consumer use of the automobile—emissions and gasoline dependence—became the subject of greatest public concern and Federal regulation. Americans had difficulty linking the other problems directly to automobile use. Environmental problems arose not just because automakers, sold automobiles to earn a profit but because consumers bought them for their own ends. The harm resulted from the intersection of both producer and consumer motivations. American consumers used automobiles for transportation but also to make important symbolic claims to dignity and respect. Before 1925, ownership alone sufficed. Thereafter, styling became an important means to this end. By mid-century, automakers possessed great power to influence consumer tastes, but in the late 1950s and 1970s many consumers ignored the automakers' preferred offerings for alternative vehicles that better served their needs. The SUV boom at century end, however, revealed that consumer desires could outweigh the need to address even well-publicized environmental problems. Thus, Americans' need for dignity and respect and their preference for using consumer goods such as the automobile to seek it proved to be both an important cause of their environmental problems as well as a barrier to solving them.

The fabrication and characterization of double-gyroid and thin film photovoltaics

McCarthy, Robert F Purdue University 2012 해외박사(DDOD)

Renewable energy can offer cleaner sources of electricity, and photovoltaics have perhaps the greatest potential due to the large quantity of solar power that hits the earth's surface. However, the cost of electricity from photovoltaics is still too high. There are two paths for reducing this cost, the first being cheaper manufacturing. Our research group explores this option by looking at Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ (CZTSSe) thin film devices deposited by nanocrystal inks, which use earth abundant materials, and can be made using cheap deposition processes. The second path is increasing solar cell efficiency. We've explored this route using double-gyroid (DG) nanostructure devices that should be capable of multiple exciton generation (MEG), a kind of photophysics that allows for increased photocurrent and device efficiency. Electrical characterization of our thin film devices shows a back contact barrier of 75 meV exists in our CIGSe device. CZTSSe devices have a defect level at 57 meV above its valence band, most likely due to a copper on zinc antisite. This defect acts as the main acceptor state. The device's series resistance increases drastically with decreasing temperature. Interestingly, this correlates with increasing photoluminescence at an energy of 1.5 eV, correlating with a trap state in the CdS layer of the device. These results suggest that the CdS layer could be the source of increasing series resistance with temperature. With DG research, electrodeposited lead selenide was improved using new applied potential techniques and additives in solution, leading to less roughness and greater surface coverage. Bulk PbSe devices showed very nice diode behavior. CdSe and CdTe films were also electrodeposited, and films were improved by optimizing post-deposition techniques to make bulk CdTe devices with efficiencies over 4%. With DG films, an increased band gap was measured in DG PbS (0.11 eV increase) and CdSe films (0.05-0.14 eV increase), indicating quantum confinement. DG PbSe devices were electrodeposited by a number of techniques, but so far have shown only diode behavior and no photocurrent. Concerned that recombination was limiting our devices, a new, fully analytic model was constructed that allows us to consider the effect of a wide range of parameters on nanostructured devices. A voltage-dependent photocurrent is calculated that accounts for charge transport by both drift and diffusion. The dark current accounts for bulk and interfacial Shockley-Read-Hall recombination. Our model suggests that DG devices will require low interfacial recombination velocities (<10<super>4</super> cm/s). We also performed calculations using the detailed balance limit including a non-radiative recombination term. These calculations show that there is a significant shift in the ideal band gap for photovoltaics utilizing MEG. Even with a microsecond minority carrier lifetime, it shifts to 0.93 eV from 0.70 eV.

Some Results and Applications of Computability Theory

McCarthy, Ethan ProQuest Dissertations & Theses The University of 2018 해외박사(DDOD)

In this work we pursue various directions of research in computability theory, particularly applications to effective symbolic dynamics, algorithmic randomness, and computable analysis. In our first direction, which we present in the second chapter, we study the enumeration degrees of sets enumeration reducible to their complements. We provide several natural characterizations of this class, including as the e-degrees of complements of maximal anti-chains on the graph of integer strings, and as the e-degrees of enumeration pointed binary trees. As an application, we obtain a characterization of the Turing upper cones of closed sets. Finally, we show how these characterizations can be used to obtain a complete characterization of the Turing degree spectra of minimal subshifts. In the third chapter, we study the class of strongly jump traceable sets (SJT). This class has been characterized as the MLR diamond classes of superhigh, superlow, and of omega-c.e. We show that for the cases of superlow and omega-c.e., randomness doesn't play an essential role in the characterization: SJT is exactly the class of reals computable in every superlow DNC, equivalently in every omega-c.e. DNC. In the superhigh case, however, the class of reals computable in every superhigh DNC are the computable reals. In the fourth chapter, we study the class of strong difference randoms (SDR), defined as the class of randoms passing the Solovay condition on all difference tests. Members of SDR satisfy computability properties similar to 2-randoms: array computability, hyperimmunity, bounding 1-generics, etc. We introduce a lowness notion, implicitly present in the work of Nies, which strengthens omega-c.e.-jump domination, and which characterizes the strong difference randoms among the 1-randoms. We also characterize SDR using strict Demuth tests. In the final chapter, we study the derivatives of computable functions. A derivative will densely often take computable values, so we look at what complexities can be achieved almost-everywhere. We uncover an interaction between analytic conditions imposed on a function and the possible complexities of its slopes under several computability-theoretic notions of reduction.

Economic security in international retirement systems

McCarthy, David Glen University of Pennsylvania 2002 해외박사(DDOD)

The four related essays in this dissertation examine the issue of retirement security from the point of view of the individual agent. The first essay examines the economic role played by defined benefit plans using a standard life cycle model. This essay concludes that defined benefit pension plans provide diversification out of financial markets for workers late in their working lives, and relatively cheap access to annuities markets. These benefits are found to be more valuable if private annuity markets are unfair, if wages are relatively stable, if equity markets are highly variable and if individuals are relatively wealthy. For younger workers, defined benefit plans are found to be undesirable from a life-cycle point of view. The second essay uses aggregate mortality data from nine countries to examine adverse selection in annuities markets. The authors derive a model that predicts the extent of adverse selection in a given annuity market. This model leads to a rejection of the hypothesis that adverse selection differs between purchasers of voluntary and purchasers of compulsory annuities. The model is used to examine some Japanese annuitant tables, which are found to be statistically significantly different from international norms. The third essay extends the second by trying to distinguish between the effects of private information related to income and other types of private information in giving rise to adverse selection. The approach adopted here is found not to work in practice because insurance companies are able to select risks when they sell underwrite life insurance products, implying that the observed mortality of life insurance purchasers increases as policy duration increases. The final essay examines the role played by housing in the retirement portfolios of Singaporeans. The paper finds that most Singaporeans can expect to retire with most of their assets in residential housing. The paper changes to either Singapore's national housing policy or Singapore's mandatory defined contribution provident fund have spill-over effects in the other program, owing to connections between the two. The paper concludes with some policy advice and some issues raised by the Singapore experience for countries with mandatory defined contribution pension systems.

An infrared coronagraphic search for substellar companions to young nearby stars

McCarthy, Chris University of California, Los Angeles 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

Exercise counseling in low-income ethnic minority individuals with heart failure: A pilot study

McCarthy, Margaret M New York University 2013 해외박사(DDOD)

Background. Heart failure (HF) affects over five million people in the United States, and the primary symptom is exercise intolerance. Unfortunately, many patients are not directed toward cardiac rehabilitation, nor counseled about exercise. The positive effects of exercise training on functional status and quality of life have been well researched in patients with HF; however, very few ethnic minority individuals of low socio-economic status have been included in these samples. The purpose of this study was to pilot a brief exercise counseling intervention in a low-income ethnic minority HF clinic, and to assess preliminary efficacy in improving functional status, physical activity, mood, quality of life, and vascular measures. Methods. Adults with HF (n=20) were recruited from an urban HF clinic. Upon enrollment, brief exercise counseling was conducted using the principles of motivational interviewing (MI), and subjects were provided with an accelerometer and hand weights. Subjects were followed via phone for 12 weeks to collect weekly step counts, review symptoms and discuss future goals. Results. The mean age of the subjects was 52 +/- 8.2 years and 60% were men. Half were born outside the United States; 65% were Black; and 70% had a high school degree or less. The mean duration of HF was 4.6 +/- 5.4 years and mean ejection fraction was 32.88 +/- 18.8%. A process evaluation indicated the pilot was a feasible, safe intervention. At 12 weeks, improvements were seen in the six minute walk test (p=.0006), walking score of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (p=.04), weekly step-counts (p=.03), Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (p=.006), depression (p=.02), anxiety (p=.03) and self-care maintenance (p=.03). Conclusion. Brief counseling interventions using MI may lead to improvements in health outcomes in low-income ethnic minority populations with HF. Further testing of the intervention in a randomized trial is warranted.

Bond Activation by Geometrically Distorted P(III) Compounds

McCarthy, Sean M The Pennsylvania State University ProQuest Dissert 2017 해외박사(DDOD)

The activations of O-H and N-H bonds via oxidative addition are of significant importance as initiatory steps toward catalytic alcohol and amine functionalization. Such a transformation is classically considered the purview of transition metal based catalysts, which have appropriate orbital symmetry and energies for effecting bond cleavage. However, catalysis using main group compounds has recently become an area of growing interest, due to concerns about the cost and negative environmental impact of precious metal use. In this vein, we have investigated the use of phosphorus-based catalysts as transition metal surrogates for bond activation. By enforcing bond angle strain in phosphorus (III) species, one can manipulate the frontier orbitals associated with the phosphorus center to access previously unknown reactive modes. Using this strategy, we have developed two platforms for the largely unprecedented intermolecular activations of O-H and N-H bonds at phosphorus and investigated their mechanisms in depth. Chapter 2 discusses the scope and thermodynamics of an N-H oxidative addition to a planar, C2v symmetric phosphabicycle to form stable amidohydridophosphorane products. Chapter 3 details a comprehensive study of the mechanism of this reaction, using a combination kinetic and computational studies to reveal a highly unusual entropy controlled electrophilic pathway. In Chapter 4, the design, synthesis, and characterization of a complementary bent Cs symmetric phosphorous triamide is described. Chapter 5 discusses the scope and mechanism of reversible O-H and N-H oxidative additions to this species, along with detailed structural characterizations of the P(V) adducts obtained as products. Finally, Chapter 6 describes initial efforts toward applying this unique reactivity towards synthetically useful methods. Taken together, this research provides significant insight into the relationship between structure and reactivity in trivalent phosphorus compounds and represents an initial step toward the development of phosphorus-based mimics for transition metal catalysts.

Essays on the Microeconomics of Development in Tanzania

McCarthy, Aine Seitz ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Minn 2016 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation contributes to a growing body of research on the microeconomics of development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Fertility, labor market participation and agriculture are key components of the microeconomic development process in Tanzania.

Gabriel Marcel's reflections on ethics and human flourishing

McCarthy, Charles C The Catholic University of America 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

Soon after his famous Gifford Lectures in 1955, a steady stream of articles, books and dissertations appeared on virtually every aspect of Gabriel Marcel's thought. Surprisingly little attention, however, has been paid to his thought on ethics. Yet ethical themes pervade his work, and he is a significant figure in the emergence of the contemporary school of ethics, known as personalist or dialogical ethics. This dissertation is an attempt to fill this lacuna in present-day scholarship. It is composed of five essays that deal with different aspects of Marcel's ethical thought. The first essay explores the central place of the encounter with the other in Marcel's ethical thought. The relation between Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas is considered here in detail. The second essay takes up the link between love and justice in Marcel's thought. Only a justice that is based on authentic love, he argues, can lead to a true peace in which the person is no longer at war with himself and no longer at war with others. The third essay delves into the distinctive notion of virtue that emerges in Marcel's thought, and the fourth investigates the relation between ethics and the spiritual life. For Marcel, all three of the theological virtues---faith, hope and love---act as essential conditions or grounds for ethical action. The fifth essay turns to consider the many insights, peppered throughout his work, into the connection between ethics and human flourishing. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the relation between Marcel's ethical thought and that of a contemporary personalist philosopher, Robert Spaemann.

The revelatory Psalm: A fundamental theology of Augustine's "Enarrationes in psalmos" (Saint Augustine)

McCarthy, Michael Cornelius University of Notre Dame 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

Augustine's <italic>Enarrationes in psalmos</italic> are a collection of notes and sermons on the psalms given over the course of almost thirty years. Although the work spans such a vast period of time, Augustine's governing conception of the psalms is both stable and theologically unique. The psalms, as he repeatedly points out, make up the <italic>uox totius Christi</italic>, the voice of the whole Christ, head and body. While previous studies have considered the nature of Augustine's exegesis and specific doctrines in the <italic>Enarrationes in psalmos</italic>, the present dissertation argues that Augustine's conception of the psalms as <italic> uox totius Christi</italic> itself implies a dynamic theology of revelation. Such a conception of the <italic>uox totius Christi</italic> locates the practice of praying and interpreting the psalms within the present and ongoing activity of God, and therefore it provides an excellent model for understanding the basic structure of God's revelation. A study of Augustine's dynamic conception of the psalms as a moment in the revelation of God yields what many 20<super> th</super> century Catholic theologians would call a “fundamental theology.&rdquo. In order to elucidate this fundamental theology behind his psalm exegesis, the present dissertation sets the <italic>Enarrationes in psalmos</italic> against the background of Augustine's teaching on God's revelation in creation and history, on the person of Christ, and on the church. It asserts that the psalms are unique for Augustine among other books of the Bible, precisely because they provide us with words that we may recognize as describing our own experiences within the body of Christ. By praying them with understanding, we gradually find ourselves transformed into Christ, who is for Augustine the fullness of revelation. Thus, the dissertation retrieves from the <italic>Enarrationes in psalmos </italic> a theology of revelation which grounds Augustine's exegesis of the psalms. Not only does this theology anticipate the thought of many significant late twentieth-century theologians but it redresses a tendency among students theological method.