We plan to prepare conjugated polymers containing £k-excessive thiophene and £k-deficient oxadiazole group in the main chain, and introduction of phenyl or alkoxy groups on the side chain. The NMR, IR, TGA, DSC, GPC, stability, and other optical properties will be examined.

Objectives of this research were to characterize residual feed intake (RFI) in growing and finishing steers and examine phenotypic correlations between performance, feed efficiency, carcass, digestib ility, and physiological indicator traits. The research included two growing studies and one finishing study. Braunvieh-sired crossbred steers (n = 169) and Santa Gertrudis steers (n = 120) were individually fed a roughage-based diet for 77 d during the growing phase. Santa Gertrudis steers (n = 120) were individually fed a grain-based diet for 80 d during the finishing phase. Individual body weight (BW) and feed intake data were recorded. Residual feed intake was calculated as the difference between actual dry matter intake (DMI) and DMI predicted from linear regression of DMI on mid-test metabolic BW. During the growing phase, initial ultrasound measures of 12th rib fat thickness (FT) and final ultrasound measures of Longissimus muscle area (LMA), FT, and intramuscular fat (IMF) were obtained. During the finishing phase, initial and final LMA, FT, and IMF ultrasound measurements were obtained. Finishing steers were slaughtered at 1.0 cm of FT and carcass cooler traits measured. Blood samples were collected at the start and end of each feeding period and analyzed for physiological indicators. Temperament traits were also measured at the start and end of each feeding period. Growing and finishing steers with low RFI consumed 19-22% less feed than growing and finishing steers with high RFI, but did not differ in average daily gain (ADG). Consequently, steers with low RFI were also more efficient as measured by feed conversion ratio and partial efficiency of growth. Steers with low RFI had less FT compared to steers with high RFI. Initial serum IGF-I was correlated with RFI in growing steers indicating that IGF-I could be a potential indicator trait for RFI in growing cattle. Additionally, RFI was correlated with digestibility to indicate more efficient cattle had higher dry matter digestibility. Results indicate that RFI has potential to allow producers to select more efficient animals without increasing growth rate. Moreover, serum IGF-I may facilitate early detection and more accurate selection of animals that are superior for growing RFI.

The purpose of this study was to identify school districts in the state of Texas that would be considered efficient based on the modified quadriform model, and to identify alterable school characteristics most associated with those efficient schools. The researcher used data from the 2003-2004 Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System in this analysis. Texas school districts that had low expenditures with high student output were classified as efficient. There were two stages to the modified quadriform analysis. In stage one the relationship between input and output was evaluated by two separate linear regressions. The input regression modeled total per pupil expenditure for the district regressed against unalterable school characteristics such as total district enrollment, percentage of economically disadvantaged students, percentage of special education students, percentage of minority students, and local tax base value per pupil. In the output regression six different measures of student outcomes were regressed against the same unalterable characteristics. The measures of student achievement used were the percentage of all students passing the math and reading Texas Assessments of Knowledge and Skills, graduation completion rate, percentage of students taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the ACT Test, and the mean scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and/or ACT Test. Once the efficient school districts were identified using the positive and negative residuals from the regressions, a discriminant analysis was conducted to determine what alterable characteristics had the most significant relationship with the different student outcome measures. Just over 32% of Texas School Districts would be considered efficient in this model, and the number of students per teacher has a significant relationship with the output measures of mean SAT and ACT scores, district completion rate, and Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills scores in both math and reading. The data also showed that the percentage of expenditures at central administration was least associated with mean Scholastic Aptitude Test and ACT scores along with district completion rate. This study was intended to be a descriptive “bird’s eye” view of efficiency in the Texas system, the researcher believes that this initial study will be a catalyst for more focused research using this production function method of measuring efficiency, and that one day it may lead to an operational definition of efficiency in the Texas system.

This thesis discusses the crystal quality and transition of electrons and holes pairs by temperature- and power- dependent Photoluminescence (PL). With the PL spectra, we apply four kinds of Internal Quantum Efficiency (IQE) formulas for c- and m- plane III-nitride and discuss the differences of the four formulas. An analysis of IQE is performed and it is found for m-plane III-nitride being larger than c-plane III-nitride. This result confirms that characteristic m-plane structure can increase its radiative recombination.

The purposes of this study are to investigate the sources, distributions, fluxes and phosphorus burial efficiency (PBE) of particulate phosphorus in the Gaoping (GP) coastal sea. The GP River carried about 3.14 ¡Ñ 104 ton yr-1 (1.03 ¡Ñ 109 mol yr-1) particulate P into the GP coastal sea. The total P flux was primarily determined by the river runoff during the May-yu (monsoon) and typhoon seasons. The river P was approximately consisted of 90.8% particulate inorganic-P (PIP), 7.4% particulate organic-P (POP), 1.5% dissolved inorganic-P (DIP) and 0.3% dissolved organic-P (DOP). The particulate-P existed mainly in 10-63 £gm particles. In the GP costal sea, particulate P in surface sediments was found to be 80-90% as PIP and 10-20% as POP. The highest distribution of PIP was located on the flanks of GP Canyon at the upper slope (200-600 m) region. This distribution may be caused by plumes of river sediments or turbidity currents overflowing the canyon. The sedimentation rates of sediments ranged from 0.032 to 1.62 g cm-2 yr-1 in the GP coastal sea and the highest rates were also located on both sides of the GP Canyon. The burial fluxes of total phosphorus (TP) ranged from 0.02 to 0.84 g cm-2 yr-1, consisted approximately by 88% PIP and 12% POP. The burial fluxes of this study area were generally similar to those in other continental margins (Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, Mississippi Delta). The total depositions of sediment and TP were approximately 6.6 ¡Ñ 106 ton yr-1 and 4227 ton yr-1, respectively, in the study area. The burial TP was equivalent to 0.06% of deposited sediments. The buried TP can be proportionate approximately into 15% in the continental shelf (< 200 m), 69% in the continental slope (200-1000 m), and 16% in the slope basin (> 1000 m). The continental shelf (<200 m) region was apparently influenced by wave and tidal processes and prevented from sediment accumulation. The burial efficiency of TP (PBE) in the GP costal sea is estimated accordingly to PBE (%) = 100 ¡Ñ PBF / (PBF+JP), where PBF is the burial flux of TP and JP is the diffusion flux of TP from porewater. The PBE decreases with the depth of sampling location and the maximum PBE locates on the station of southern canyon (779-1), the station of northern canyon (791-L18) and the station within the canyon (732-38). The PBE(s) are similar to those found in the Nazar&#x00E9; Canyon, showing a high PBE in coastal and/or canyon regions. The budget model shows that the major sources of particulate-P are derived from the GP River and the net ecosystem production (NEP) from the euphotic zone of study area. The annual river load and NEP input to the study area are 1.03 ¡Ñ 109 mol P yr-1 and 1.5 ¡Ñ 108 mol P yr-1, respectively. However, annual TP accumulation in the GP costal sea is just 1.48 ¡Ñ 108 mol P yr-1, corresponding to 12.5% of river load and NEP input. In addition, about 80% of GP River loads do not deposit into GP sediments and may be exported out of the study area.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-30). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

The thesis is about investigating the inlet and outlet pipes effect on the compressors measured performance. From measurements made in a gas stand, a thermodynamic model is to be created and the compressor efficiency further investigated. The temperatures and pressures entering and leaving the compressor does not have to be the same as the temperatures measured in the gasstand, because of the thermodynamics of the pipes that connects the measurement equipment and the compressor. During a gasstand test the turbocharger is connected in a test bench, it is connected with pipes on both the compressor and turbine side, to simulate the hot exhaust gases from the car engine and the pressure increase over the compressor. The air entering and leaving the turbocharger through the different pipes is controlled and all the entering and leaving temperatures and pressures are measured. Gasstand data from different tests are available during the thesis, one specific turbocharger is used as references during the modeling. Models of the inlet and outlet pipes are created and connected to a compressor model. The model is controlled to give the same mass flow as the measured data, to ensure that the work cycle is followed. The effects of the non ideal inlet and outlet pipes on measured compressor efficiency is studied with help of this model and the main impacts on the measured compressor efficiency are discovered. The result shows that the measured values used to calculate the compressor efficiency could change, depending on the measurement positions on the inlet and outlet pipes.

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Growing pressures on today's testing resources are driving the need for a change in the way telemetry is currently being done. As systems advance and become more complex, testing these systems becomes more difficult due to budget, schedule and test resource constraints. These pressures create the need to support more concurrent testing with ever increasing numbers of participants and bandwidth requirements, all while available resources are diminishing. In order to continue to provide support to the war fighter through timely and efficient testing of new systems, the test infrastructure needs to be updated to become more agile and efficient. We will examine the application of innovative new technologies and concepts to increase the capabilities of the testing infrastructure in the presence of shrinking resources. By leveraging advances in wireless technologies, telemetry networks and other technologies, we will present alternatives to the current telemetry paradigm.

We analyze the patient flow of three community health clinics from the Seton group in Austin, Texas, using simulation tools. Our goal is to help the clinics find solutions to cope with increasing patient demand. Several scenarios for increasing efficiency are explored using an ARENA-based patient flow model. Multiple bottlenecks are identified and solutions are found to help the clinics minimize overall patient cycle time and to distribute the workload more evenly across the staff. This study demonstrates that healthcare service facilities may benefit from quantitative analysis, especially simulation tools, to improve their efficiency. / text