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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Patrick A. Knight / The current study uses structural equation modeling to simultaneously test the relationships between cultural knowledge, rapport building, and counterpart receptiveness in a cross-cultural setting using military-advisors. Five-hundred-eighty-three Army soldiers and Marines deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan as advisors to host-national soldiers were asked to complete a questionnaire about their job-tasks. Results indicate that advisors who use cultural knowledge are more effective building relationships, and as a result have counterparts who are more receptive to their advice. Limitations and implications of the model are discussed, as well as potential directions for future research.

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Synchronization of the iNET communication link is essential for implementing the TDMA channel access control functions within the transceiver MAC transport layer, and providing coherent signal demodulation timing at the transceiver PHY layer. In the following implementation, the 1588 timing reference source is the GPS receiver. Because it is being used in the Ground Station Segment and Test Article Segment, it becomes feasible to utilize the 1588 timing reference for cross-layer (MAC+PHY) iNET transceiver synchronization. In this paper, we propose an unified iNET transceiver synchronization architecture to improve iNET transceiver performance. The results of the synchronization performance analysis are given.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Increasingly, many software developers are facing the challenge of adapting software applications developed on one platform to work on multiple platforms. While software standards have helped this effort, they do not go far enough, and many platforms only partially support these standards leaving many needed functions in platform specific libraries. This is particularly evident in the areas of graphics and user interfaces, threading and synchronization, and in network and file access. Fortunately, Java offers a common interface where native libraries diverge. This paper outlines a phased strategy for migrating platform specific applications to be platform independent while reusing the robust, existing algorithms.

A benchmark experiment was designed and conducted that irradiated two small volume mercury targets at the Weapon Neutron Research facility at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center with 800 MeV protons. Following irradiation the production cross sections of 53 medium and longer-lived spallation residuals using gamma spectroscopy at various decay times up to a year were determined. The measured cross sections were then compared with predicted cross sections from the MCNPX code. After acquisition of the gamma spectroscopy data the targets were drained and disassembled to study the distribution and the deposition of the spallation residuals.

Automated classification of texts into genres can benefit NLP applications, in that the structure, location and even interpretation of information within a text are dictated by its genre. Cross-lingual methods promise such benefits to languages which lack genre-annotated training data. While there has been work on genre classification for over two decades, none has considered cross-lingual methods before the start of this project. My research aims to fill this gap. It follows previous approaches to monolingual genre classification that exploit simple, low-level text features, many of which can be extracted in different languages and have similar functions. This contrasts with work on cross-lingual topic or sentiment classification of texts that typically use word frequencies as features. These have been shown to have limited use when it comes to genres. Many such methods also assume cross-lingual resources, such as machine translation, which limits the range of their application. A selection of these approaches are used as baselines in my experiments. I report the results of two semi-supervised methods for exploiting genre-labelled source language texts and unlabelled target language texts. The first is a relatively simple algorithm that bridges the language gap by exploiting cross-lingual features and then iteratively re-trains a classification model on previously predicted target texts. My results show that this approach works well where only few cross-lingual resources are available and texts are to be classified into broad genre categories. It is also shown that further improvements can be achieved through multi-lingual training or cross-lingual feature selection if genre-annotated texts are available in several source languages. The second is a variant of the label propagation algorithm. This graph-based classifier learns genre-specific feature set weights from both source and target language texts and uses them to adjust the propagation channels for each text. This allows further feature sets to be added as additional resources, such as Part of Speech taggers, become available. While the method performs well even with basic text features, it is shown to benefit from additional feature sets. Results also indicate that it handles fine-grained genre classes better than the iterative re-labelling method.

Classical novae are explained as thermonuclear explosions on the surface of white dwarf stars accreting hydrogen-rich material from less evolved companions in binary star systems. These events occur frequently within our galaxy and have been proposed as significant contributors to the galactic abundance of 13C, 15N, 17/18O and 18/19F. The short-lived isotope 18F (t1/2 = 110 min) is of particular importance since it may provide a signature of novae events through the detection of 511 keVγ-ray emission following the β+ decay of a 18F nucleus. During classical novae the 17O(p,γ)18F reaction governs the production of 18F and affects the synthesis of the rare isotopes mentioned above. Prior to the present study, the 17O(p,γ)18F reaction rate was poorly determined owing to a lack of low-energy experimental data. The present work reports on the first accurate measurements of the resonant and non-resonant contributions to the 17O(p,γ)18F reaction cross section in the energy region relevant for classical novae. Measurements were performed at the Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA) accelerator facility of the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. Here the γ-ray background is suppressed by up to 3 orders of magnitude, thus providing a unique environment for low-energy measurements of reaction cross sections. Prompt γ rays associated with the formation and decay of states in 18F were analysed to determine the resonant and non-resonant contributions to the reaction cross section. The total non-resonant S-factor was determined at energies between Ecm ≈ 200 - 370 keV and the strength of a key resonance at Ecm = 183 keV was obtained with the best precision to date. The uncertainty in the reaction rate is now sufficiently low to place firmer constraints on nucleosynthesis predictions from accurate models of novae.

The Chinese community is the fastest growing non-European ethnic group in the UK, with 11.2% annual growth between 2001 and 2007. According to the National Statistics office (2005), there are over a quarter of a million Chinese in Britain. Compared to other ethnic minority groups, the Chinese group is socio-economically widespread, characterized by high academic achievements and high household income. It is estimated that there are about 30,000 Chinese immigrant children studying in British schools, 75% of who were born in the UK. These children face a complex process of establishing their social identity, maintaining their own cultural roots whilst adapting to the British cultural contexts. The predominant psychological interpretation of social identity formation is founded on Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1978). Social identity creates and defines an individual’s place in society. One of the key features in social identity theory is ingroup favouritism and out-group derogation (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The function and motivation for in-group and out-group attitude construction is to promoting a positive self-concept and related self-esteem. Theoretical approaches to understanding social identity that take a developmental perspective are Cognitive Development Theory (CDT) (Aboud, 1988, 2008) and Social Identity Developmental Theory (SIDT) (Nesdale, 2004, 2008). These theories attempt to explain the age related development in children’s inter- and intra-group attitudes. There are different types of social identities, and ethnic identity as well as national identity are the central focus of the current research. Some researchers have pointed out that ethnic identity is relevant to self-esteem and it is particularly important to children from ethnic minority backgrounds (Phinney, 1992). However, the research on social identity is predominantly conducted in Western contexts and there is lack of evidence supporting the generalization of developmental models of social identity in children to all ethnic groups and particularly those growing up in different cultures and national contexts. The research reported in this thesis is a cross cultural and developmental study which compares social identity in relation to self-esteem among British born Chinese (BBC), white British, Hong Kong Chinese and Mainland Chinese children. The overarching aim is to explore the influence of social context and ethnic culture on social identity development and self-esteem. Three research studies were conducted in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Scotland with 464 children across three age groups, age 8, 11 and 14 years (148 children from Mainland China, 155 Hong Kong Chinese children, 70 British born Chinese children, and 91 Scottish children). In addition, 46 parents of BBC children were surveyed to investigate their cultural orientation. The first study was designed to explore cultural similarities and differences in social identity and its relation to self-esteem across four groups of children in three age groups. Social identity (self-description questionnaire) and self-esteem (Harter’s Self-esteem questionnaire) were measured with all four groups of children. The result revealed significant differences of social identity across the groups. Four cultural groups of children think individual self was the most common form of identity. All the Chinese groups emphasized show more collective self than white Scottish children whereas the white Scottish sample of children placed more focused on individual identity. All four groups of children had high self-esteem, and no correlation was evident between social identity and self-esteem. Furthermore, analysis found no significant developmental change in social identity or self-esteem with age. The second study focused on BBC and white Scottish children: these share national context, but differ in ethnic identity. The study was designed to explore children’s national self-categorisation, the degree of national/ethnic identification (Chinese, Scottish, or both), and their perception of the positive and negative traits of Chinese and Scottish people across the age (using a Trait Attribution Task). BBC children’s sense of national identity varied in different national contexts, whereas white Scottish children were more fixed in their sense of national identity. Furthermore, BBC children attributed more positive traits to Chinese than to Scottish people, and white Scottish children attributed more positive traits to Scottish than to Chinese. BBC and white Scottish children evaluated both Chinese and Scottish groups positively, but they both attributed more positive traits to in-groups than out-groups. Some age-related differences were identified for degree of national identification. The third study introduced a novel social identity vignettes task to examine BBC and white Scottish children’s perceptions of ethnic identity of a Chinese character within two contrasting socio-cultural contexts (Scottish versus Chinese). This study addresses the question of whether children’s social identifications are adaptive and sensitive to social context, and how this contextual sensitivity might change with age. It also explored the link between parents’ attitudes towards their children’s cultural orientation and children’s national/ethnic identity in identity vignettes. The study revealed that both BBC and Scottish children judged the vignette characters as having a stronger Chinese identity or Scottish identity according to whether they were described in a Chinese or Scottish vignette. This cultural sensitivity increased with age. Both groups had a positive evaluation of the vignette characters’ self-esteem in both Chinese and Scottish cultural situations. Parental cultural orientation attitudes (using General Ethnicity Questionnaire) towards their children were also examined and differences of language proficiency among BBC children were identified. There is no connection between children’s strength of Chinese and Scottish identification and parents’ strength of cultural orientation towards Chinese or Scottish. Together, the findings presented in this thesis extend our understanding of social identity development, ethnic and national attitudes and the developmental intergroup attitudes among children from different national and ethnic groups. Furthermore, findings indicate that social identity is a complex and dynamic process in children’s development that cannot be understood without considering national and specific socio-cultural contexts as frames of reference. The findings of this research have important implications for child-related policy and practice and for future research on social identity development.

Cross-border tourism development have become increasingly popular the last decades and especially within the European Union through Interreg-programmes. The contemporary research have mainly focused on the advantages and challenges associated with such collaborations with a perspective on visitors and private entrepreneurs in border regions. There are however an unfortunate lack of research on the role of local governments such as municipalities in cross-border tourism collaborations. Therefore the aim of this study is to analyse the interest and attitudes among public actors towards cross-border tourism development, and to identify challenges facing these on an interregional level in cross-border tourism collaborations. The case study have been the Öresund Region between Sweden and Denmark where recently a large scale cross-border platform was implemented party focusing on tourism development in the region. A qualitative approach has been utilized with semi-structured interviews focusing on advantages and challenges associated with cross-border tourism development among public actors in the region. The analysis have shown that there is a great interest among the informants for large scale tourism cooperation in order to reach distant markets and to become a stronger competitor on the global market. Identified challenges mainly concern uneven political power structures which may lead to barriers for further cooperation’s.

published_or_final_version / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy