This thesis presents a study and implementation of several measurement procedures used to efficiently generate non-linear measurement-based behavioral models primary for microwave amplifiers. Behavioral models are a solution for representing devices that can present linear and/or non-linear behavior when little or no information about the internal structure is known. Measurement-based behavioral models are an advantage since they can be extracted from a direct measurement of the device. This work addresses some of the challenges of these types of measurements. A set of software modules has been produced that combine several modern techniques to efficiently generate practical models using equipment commonly available in a typical microwave lab. Advanced models using new and more complex equipment are also discussed. Modeling of the non-linear operation of power amplifiers is a common subject of study since it provides a path to improved system simulations. However, the measurement process used for non-linear behavioral modeling of PAs requires either non-linear measurement instrumentation, not yet widely available, or numerous measurements that makes the process tedious and susceptible to errors. Power dependent S-Parameters obtained with a conventional Vector Network Analyzers (VNA) can be used to extract AM-to-AM and AM-to-PM behavior of a device and to generate, simple but useful, behavioral models. A careful analysis of the characteristics of common RF measurement instrumentation combined with knowledge of common non-linear phenomena provides with the conditions under which useful models can be generated. The results of this work are presented as several programs implemented in National Instruments LabVIEW that will sequence through the different measurements required for the generation of measurement-based behavioral models. The implemented models are known as P2D and S2D models available with Agilent Advanced Design System (ADS.) The code will communicate with the measurement instrumentation and decide on the most efficient way to extract the data. Once the data is extracted, the code will put into the appropriate syntaxes required by the model for direct and convenient setup of the generated models in ADS.

<p>This thesis describes the VHDL behavioral model design of a DSP On Chip Emulation Unit. The prototype of this design is the OnCE port of the Motorola DSP56002. </p><p>Capabilities of this On Chip Emulation Unit are accessible through four pins, which allows the user to step through a program, to set the breakpoint that stop program execution at a specific address, and to examine the contents of registers, memory, and pipeline information. The detailed design that includes input/output signals and sub blocks is presented in this thesis. </p><p>The user will interact with the DSP through a GUI on the host computer via the RS232 port. An interface between the RS232 and On Chip Emulation Unit is therefore designed as well. </p><p>The functionality is designed to be same as described by Motorola and it is verified by a test bench. The writing of the test bench, test sequence and results is presented also.</p>

<p>This thesis is a part of an effort to make a scalable behavioral model of the Central Processing Unit and instruction set compatible with the DSP56000 Processor. The goal of this design is to reduce the critical path, silicon area, as well as power consumption of the instruction decoder.</p><p>The instruction decoder consists of three different types of operations instruction fetching, decoding and execution. By using these three steps an efficient model has to be designed to get the shortest critical path, less silicon area, and low power consumption.</p>

This thesis describes the VHDL behavioral model design of a DSP On Chip Emulation Unit. The prototype of this design is the OnCE port of the Motorola DSP56002. Capabilities of this On Chip Emulation Unit are accessible through four pins, which allows the user to step through a program, to set the breakpoint that stop program execution at a specific address, and to examine the contents of registers, memory, and pipeline information. The detailed design that includes input/output signals and sub blocks is presented in this thesis. The user will interact with the DSP through a GUI on the host computer via the RS232 port. An interface between the RS232 and On Chip Emulation Unit is therefore designed as well. The functionality is designed to be same as described by Motorola and it is verified by a test bench. The writing of the test bench, test sequence and results is presented also.

This thesis is a part of an effort to make a scalable behavioral model of the Central Processing Unit and instruction set compatible with the DSP56000 Processor. The goal of this design is to reduce the critical path, silicon area, as well as power consumption of the instruction decoder. The instruction decoder consists of three different types of operations instruction fetching, decoding and execution. By using these three steps an efficient model has to be designed to get the shortest critical path, less silicon area, and low power consumption.

In 2000, midwifery was regulated in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Since the inception of the midwifery program, little formal research has analyzed the utilization of regulated midwifery services. Currently, many women are denied access to midwifery care due to the shortage of midwives in Manitoba. The specific objectives of this mixed-methods case study were to describe the utilization of midwifery health care services in Manitoba from 2001/02 to 2009/10 and to explore factors influencing the implementation and utilization of regulated midwifery services in Manitoba. The study was guided by the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use (Andersen, 1995). Data collection and analysis were an iterative process between documents, interviews, and administrative data. The quantitative analysis used the population-based administrative data housed at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy to study the utilization of midwifery care. There was modest growth in the overall rate of midwifery-attended births, as well as in the number of midwives over the 10-year time period. Twenty-four key informants were purposefully selected to participate in semi-structured interviews for the qualitative component. Interviews were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using content analysis. Three main topic areas were identified: barriers, facilitators, and future strategies/recommendations. Themes arising under barriers included conflict and power; lack of an educational program; perceptions of the profession, and a precarious profession. Issues of gender underpinned some of these barriers. Constituent influence was a prominent facilitator of the profession. Future strategies for sustaining the midwifery profession focused on ensuring avenues for registration and education, improving management strategies and accountability frameworks, enhancing the work environment, and evaluating the model of practice and employment. Results of the document analysis supported the themes arising from the interviews. In spite of scientific evidence that supports the midwifery model of care, there remains an inherent struggle to justify the profession and ensure its widespread implementation in Manitoba. The findings have implications for maternal child health professionals working on collaborative efforts to facilitate access to midwifery services for women. This study adds to the growing body of literature related to midwifery in Canada.

Fear conditioning and extinction are central in the cognitive behavioral model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which underlies exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Youth with OCD may have impairments in conditioning and extinction that carries treatment implications. The present study examined these processes using a differential conditioning paradigm. Forty-one youth (19 OCD, 22 community controls) and their parents completed a battery of clinical interviews, rating scales, and a differential conditioning task. Skin conductance response (SCR) served as the primary dependent measure across all three phases of the conditioning procedure (habituation, acquisition, and extinction). During habituation, no meaningful differences were observed between groups. During acquisition, differential fear conditioning was identified across groups evidenced by larger SCRs to the CS+ compared to CS-, with no significant group differences. During extinction, a three-way interaction and follow-up tests revealed youth with OCD failed to exhibit differential fear conditioning during early fear extinction; whereas community controls consistently exhibited differential fear conditioning throughout extinction. Across participants, the number and frequency of OCD symptoms was positively associated with fear acquisition and negatively associated with fear extinction to the conditioned stimulus. OCD symptom severity was negatively associated with differential SCR in early extinction. Youth with OCD exhibit a different pattern of fear extinction relative to community controls that may be accounted for by impaired inhibitory learning in early fear extinction. Findings suggest the potential benefit of augmentative retraining interventions prior to CBT. Therapeutic approaches to utilize inhibitory-learning principles and/or engage developmentally appropriate brain regions during exposures may serve to maximize CBT outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to determine social factors that influence help seeking behaviors by mothers who are concurrently involved in two social service systems: Child Protective Services (CPS) and family violence advocacy programs. Through the application of the behavioral model (of service use) for vulnerable populations, this study seeks to determine predisposing, enabling and need characteristics that impact help seeking behaviors at a family violence agency after participation in an ADVANCE (Acknowledging Domestic Violence and Navigating Child Protection Effectively) course, a group intervention class developed specifically for women involved with CPS. The research design is a mixed-method approach with an ADVANCE course evaluation embedded within the overall analysis of help seeking behaviors. The analytic strategies include pre-test/post-test means comparisons through paired t-tests, qualitative thematic analysis through arts-based methodology, and ordinary least squares and logistic regression analysis. This study considers six outcome variables related to protective help seeking behaviors: seeking services, seeking protective actions related to children, seeking a safety plan, seeking a protective order, seeking safe housing, and seeking financial independence. Several social factors identified influenced help seeking behaviors amongst child welfare involved women experiencing violence, namely, number of children, age of children, level of interest in services, previous participation in services, level of social support, perceived victim status, perceived need for a safety plan, and perceived need for change in family. This study should serve to enhance intervention practices utilized by both family violence advocates and child welfare professionals.

Children have not historically been the subject of research focusing on internalizing disorders (i.e., childhood depression), even though childhood depression continues to be viewed as one of the most prevalent affective problem within this population. Over the past two decades, a small portion of that literature describes prevention efforts in public schools. There has been a growing body of literature centered on childhood depression. However, there are only three studies that report on longitudinal findings that have taken a primary prevention approach. The present study was a follow-up investigation to delineate the effects of a school-based primary prevention program. The original study utilized a social/ interpersonal and cognitive-behavioral model incorporated into the health education curriculum of the school. The results of the study suggest that the students continued to report normal to low levels of depressive symptoms at one-year follow-up . The results also suggest that students maintained the social skills gained during the intervention at the one-year followup. In addition, reports of depressive symptomatology slightly declined from posttest to one-year follow-up.

No description available.