No abstract

No abstract

Narrative inquiry is a rapidly developing social sciences and humanities research methodology. In this paper we provide a brief history of this development, indicate some of the distinguishing features of different lines of narrative inquiry, and describe a practical line of work which explicitly addresses school-based research.The purpose of this paper is to describe a version of narrative inquiry designed for the study of practical school-based settings. The reason for this undertaking is that while narrative inquiry first appeared in the practical school-based literature of education it has spread widely under the influence of postmodern thought. In part this evolution is due to the word 'narrative' which provides a bridge to literary theory, the home of much postmodern thought. Partly, too, this evolution reflects post-modern trends in qualitative methodology more generally. This evolution has enriched the range of meanings of narrative inquiry and has expanded its interconnections with other forms of qualitative inquiry. Boundaries and definitions tend to be unclear and almost anything that may be said about narrative inquiry, in general, may be said about one or more related forms of inquiry. Our purpose amidst this diversity is to claim a place for a version of narrative inquiry that is driven by another force, the exigencies of practice. We think of narrative inquiry as beginning in practice and as being aimed at practical ends of value to the practical settings studied.Requests for further information should be directed to: Shijing Xu, Faculty of Education, University of Windsor, Room #3345,

The presence of thin aqueous films and their stability have a profound effect on the interactions between oil/brine/rock interfaces. In a previous report, we proposed that hydration forces, originating from the overlap of hydrated layers of different surfaces in the presence of sodium chloride, played an important role at short range. In the present work, divalent ions were introduced to the liquid films and, the mechanisms in improving oil recovery from low-salinity brine and the low-salinity effect at the molecular level were revealed. Through a direct force-measuring technique of chemical force microscopy (CFM), the functionalized atomic force microscopy (AFM) tips felt a solid surface to mimic the oil/rock interactions in brine. It was found that not only did the van der Waals and electrostatic forces have a great effect on this process due to the interactions between the charged interfaces of oil/water and water/solid, but also some important additional interactions appeared at short range under a variety of salinity concentrations or compositions. Taking into account the important role of structural forces under a small distance, the force profiles were fitted well with the theory of extended Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (denoted by EDLVO) through a double-exponential or Gaussian model. Interestingly, low adhesion appeared in the presence of sodium sulfate, because hydration forces contributed to the resultant force depending on the intrinsic properties of the solvent or solute molecules, while in the presence of calcium chloride, high adhesion emerged due to the dispersion interaction between water and hydrocarbon molecules, as well as the reorientation or restructuring of water molecules with tiny breakage of hydrogen bonds. Therefore, on the basis of the EDLVO theory, additional forces were suggested to play an important part in short range, proposing a better understanding of the effect of divalent ions on the thin liquid films in the process of increasing oil recovery.