Societies in the developed world are becoming increasingly diverse as they experience growth in the number and size of minority groups, including visible minorities, immigrants, and, in some countries, Indigenous peoples. Societys institutions, including the health care system and its professional groups, are increasingly challenged to enhance their understanding of and respect for such societal diversity in providing services, and to work to reflect this diversity in the makeup of their membership. While many of the health care professions, including nursing, have acknowledged the importance of inclusion of individuals from diverse groups, their successes in meeting targeted increases have been limited. The purpose of this research was to elicit stories of nursing leadership that successfully promoted diversity and enhanced inclusiveness within the profession. The research problem was stated as follows: What were the experiences and stories of nurse leaders who successfully provided leadership to increase diversity and inclusion within the profession? The study used modified narrative inquiry research methods. The research was built on a conceptual framework consisting of three major concepts: diversity, critical leadership, and professional closure. The study focused on the stories of five Canadian nurse leaders who described and explained through their stories their leadership characteristics and challenges. Their stories of promoting diversity and inclusion were explored from a critical perspective, using literature found primarily in the fields of nursing and education to guide the exploration.<p> These leaders stories revealed their understanding that the nursing profession currently expected its members to represent the norm-- white middle class females. The stories showed that the participating nurse leaders generally had views of diversity that were broader than culture, ethnicity and race, the views that were most commonly addressed in the mainstream nursing literature. Their broad views of diversity included difference based on gender, sexual orientation, and ability. These views often arose from personal experiences of difference related to ethnicity, language, country of origin, gender, presence of an accent, or family circumstances. The leaders interviewed indicated that they saw a lack of tolerance for difference within the profession, but not simply in relation to cultural or physical difference. They described a lack of acceptance within the profession of different ways of thinking and beingreferred to in the study as diversity of thought. They reported that the profession expected and reinforced conformist thinking and tended to support the status quo.<p> The study findings contributed to an expanded understanding of the conceptual approach of critical leadership as a process to support diversity and promote inclusion in the profession. A conceptual framework for critical leadership, based on the work of Foster (1986; 1989) and Ryan (2006a; 2006b) was enhanced and expanded as a result of the study findings. Critical leadership involved critique, transformation, education, ethics, and inclusion. The study findings supported the view that the profession of nursing, perhaps inadvertently, limited access to the profession by marginalized groups. This process was called professional closure, and occurred as a result of increasing entrance requirements, inconsistent language requirements, and segmenting minority groups in lower paid practical nurse and front line positions, with little opportunity for advancement.<p> These findings about diversity and leadership, and about leadership for diversity, challenged the nursing profession to look beyond its day-to-day busyness, and to move beyond its current locked-down, controlled, risk-averse practices. The study findings challenged the profession to embrace the possibilities of increasing its diversity and inclusiveness, with the ultimate goal of building a better, stronger, more just profession and a better, stronger, more just society.<p> The study has significant implications for theory, practice, research and policy in the profession. From a theoretical perspective, the study pointed to the need for the nursing profession to contemplate its social obligations with respect to promoting social justice in society. The study findings suggest that the profession might engage in national level policy discussions committed to increasing the diversity of the profession in order to reflect the community it serves. This study suggests the need for additional qualitative and quantitative studies on critical leadership to further develop the conceptualizations that evolved in this study. Policy discussions are implicated to address approaches to difference, inclusion, culture, cultural competence, cultural safety, affirmative action and inclusive policy in nursing, nursing education and health care institutions.

<p>The visible light photon counter (VLPC) is a high quantum efficiency (QE), Si-based, single-photon detector with high gain, low-noise multiplication, low timing jitter, and photon number resolution. While the VLPC has high QE in the visible wavelengths, the QE in the ultraviolet and infrared is low due to minimal absorption within the active layers of the device. In the ultraviolet, the absorption coefficient of Si is high and most of the incident photons are absorbed within the top contact of the device, whereas, in the infrared, Si is practically transparent. A number of applications in quantum information science would benefit from use of the VLPC if the QE was improved in the ultraviolet (e.g., state detection of trapped ions) and the infrared (e.g., long-distance quantum cryptography). This thesis describes the development of the ultraviolet photon counter (UVPC) and the infrared photon counter (IRPC), which are modified versions of the VLPC with increased QE in the ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, respectively. The UVPC has a transparent metal Schottky contact to reduce absorption within the top contact of the VLPC, resulting in an increase in the QE in the ultraviolet by several orders of magnitude. The IRPC is a proposed device that has an InGaAs absorption layer that is wafer-fusion bonded to the VLPC. The band alignment of the resulting InGaAs/Si heterojunction is measured and shows a large discontinuity in the valence band that impedes carrier transport at the interface. A ultra-high vacuum wafer-bonding system was developed to understand the impact of the surface chemistry of the bonded wafers on the band alignment of the InGaAs/Si heterojunction of the IRPC.</p> / Dissertation

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Education in 2006, there were about 1,000 students educated in more than 10 institutes of the arts administration field in Taiwan. Most of these institutes are in graduated level. However, in a survey of 517 full-time arts administrators of performing arts groups published by Council of Culture Affairs in 2007 showed there were only about 15% of them with master degrees. Besides personal interests of these administrators, this research want to clarify the situation: if these arts administrators have any other special personalities or abilities; therefore, if there are some differences between arts administrators¡¦ competencies of performing arts groups¡¦ requirements and the academic training of the arts administration and management. The researcher has approached this problem in three directions: the curriculum designs of the related master programs, the ideal competencies from literature review, and the interview with four personnel managers of performing arts cultivation teams. The analysis and comparison are done by this triangulation. The study finds that there are 32 competencies suggested by the past studies, and 30 important competencies are mentioned by the performing arts groups. On the other hand, the schools¡¦ courses can only cultivate 12 competencies, required by the performing arts groups. The result shows that the related master programs are more concentrated on visible competencies than hidden ones. They all can be improved to meet the working field required. Key words: performing arts group, arts administrator, curriculum design, hidden competency, visible competency

TiO2 in anatase form is the most widely studied material for photocatalytic reactions. Utilization of oxide support materials such as silica with suitable transparency within band gap range of TiO2 is promising technique to obtain efficient photocatalysts for many applications. In the present study, simultaneous co-hydrolyzation of tetraethyl orthosilacate (TEOS) and titanium tetrabutaoxide (TBOT) precursors were carried out in the presence of hydrochloric acid. The effects of washing with low vapor pressure solvent(n-octane), drying conditions, hydrothermal ageing and TiO2/SiO2 ratio on the catalyst structure and photocatalytic activity were studied. The samples were characterized by XRD, BET, DRIFTS techniques and the activity was measured for liquid phase room temperature oxy/demineralization of phenol under artificial solar irradiation. The reaction intermediates were followed by UV/vis spectrophotometer and HPLC. It was found that the hydrothermal treatment contributes better degree of crystalinity, higher surface area and thus photocatalytic activity compared to the samples which were synthesized with conventional drying at 100oC overnight. The formation of Ti-O-Si interface indicating the degree of dispersion was evidenced by DRIFTS technique for all hydrothermally tretated samples. The highest surface area and photocatlytic activity was observed with hydrothermally treated catalyst with TiO2/SiO2:0.34 composition.

High quality nanophotonic structures fabricated on silicon nitride substrates and operating in the visible range of the spectrum are investigated. As most biological sensing applications, such as Raman and fluorescence sensing, require visible light pumping and analysis, extending the nanophotonics concepts to the visible range is essential. Traditionally, CMOS compatible processes are used to make compact silicon nanophotonics structures. While the high index contrast of silicon on insulator (SOI) wafers offer a high integration capability, the high absorption loss of silicon renders it unusable in the visible range. In this research high quality factor microdisk and photonic crystal resonators and high resolution arrayed waveguide grating and superprism spectrometers are fabricated and characterized in the visible range and integrated with fluidic structures and their application in biosensing and athermal operations is investigated.

EVALUATION DES CONDITIONS DE FAISABILITE DE DIODES LASER A SEMICONDUCTEUR GaAlAs EMETTANT DANS LE SPECTRE VISIBLE. ESTIMATION DE LA LONGUEUR D'ONDE D'EMISSION MINIMALE REALISABLE AVEC DE TELS DISPOSITIFS

Visible-blind and solar-blind ultraviolet photodetectors based on GaN/AlGaN were designed, fabricated, and characterized for commercial and military applications. High performance back-illuminated solar-blind MSM achieved external quantum efficiency of ~48%. The dark current of 40x40μm MSM was less than the instrument measurement limitation of 20fA for a bias <100V. No photoconductive gain was observed. With an n-type doped high-Al ratio "window" Al₀.₆Ga₀.₄N layer, back-illuminated solar-blind p-i-n photodiode achieved a quantum efficiency of ~55% at zero-bias. Absorption edge study of both MSM and p-i-n photodetectors, based on device spectral responses, resulted in a performance comparison of MSMs and p-i-ns, as the solar-blind photodetection requires a sharp solar-blind rejection. Photoconductive detectors and avalanche photodetectors, with the internal gain advantage, have been discussed as well. A 30μm diameter GaN avalanche photodiode achieved a gain >23, with a dark current less than 100pA. The breakdown showed a positive temperature coefficient of 0.03 V/K that is characteristic of avalanche breakdown. SiC APDs, as candidates for visible-blind applications, have been designed, fabricated and characterized. An avalanche gain higher than 10⁵, with a dark current less than 1nA, showed the potential of SiC APD replacing PMTs for high sensitivity visible-blind UV detection. A silicon-based optical receiver has been presented in the Appendix. With the photodiode internal avalanche gain ~4, a sensitivity ~-6.9dBm at 10Gbps has been achieved. / text

Studies on a series of polymethine cyanine dyes and analogs (1-24) show that certain near-infrared cyanines are capable of damaging DNA in the absence of light and external reducing agents. Experimental results imply that in this DNA thermal cleavage, the cyanine reduces Cu(II) to Cu(I) which reacts with O2 to generate the reactive oxygen species (ROS) O2∙- and ∙OH. The formation of these ROS is also thought to be responsible for the irreversible bleaching of the dyes in aqueous solutions. A correlation between structural features and DNA thermal cleavage activity as well as dye bleaching is suggested. Long polymethine chains appear to confer instability to cyanines in aqueous solutions and further contribute to undesired thermal DNA cleavage. These drawbacks can be overcome by introducing an electron-withdrawing group to the polymethine bridge of the cyanine dye.

The results of Vancouver’s 2008 municipal election led to critiques that South Asian candidates, and possibly all visible minority candidates, face reduced electability under Vancouver’s at-large electoral system than they would under a different municipal electoral system. This thesis employs numerous quantitative research methods to assess whether visible minority candidates do face reduced electability under the at-large system compared to a ward system proposed for Vancouver in 2004. The extent that Vancouver’s 2008 election results fulfill three U.S. Supreme Court conditions for establishing minority vote dilution is also assessed as part of this thesis research.

The results of Vancouver’s 2008 municipal election led to critiques that South Asian candidates, and possibly all visible minority candidates, face reduced electability under Vancouver’s at-large electoral system than they would under a different municipal electoral system. This thesis employs numerous quantitative research methods to assess whether visible minority candidates do face reduced electability under the at-large system compared to a ward system proposed for Vancouver in 2004. The extent that Vancouver’s 2008 election results fulfill three U.S. Supreme Court conditions for establishing minority vote dilution is also assessed as part of this thesis research.