Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-112). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on July 31, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第21533号 / 理博第4440号 / 新制||理||1638(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科数学・数理解析専攻 / (主査)教授 並河 良典, 教授 森脇 淳, 教授 吉川 謙一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

The undergraduate major change or declaration process can be cumbersome for students who find themselves in unknown territories when making decisions or seeking help during this transition. One of the most challenging groups of students to assist through this transition are those who are denied access to their intended program of study. These students are often pursuing selective degree programs with limited enrollment and competitive admission requirements. Research on students pursuing selective degree programs is largely outdated, with most studies being older than ten years. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how undergraduate students experience leaving selective health profession interest areas in dental hygiene, nursing, and radiologic sciences at a public research university located in Tennessee. This qualitative study included the experiences of 12 third and fourth-year college students at one institution who applied for a selective degree program, were not accepted, and remained enrolled at the institution. It included semi-structured, open-ended individual interviews to investigate these undergraduate students’ experiences when undergoing an undergraduate major change away from a selective degree program. The results aligned with the theoretical framework of Schlossberg’s transition theory (Schlossberg, 1981; Schlossberg, 1991; Schlossberg et al., 1995). The students leaving selective health profession interest areas in dental hygiene, nursing, and radiologic sciences placed importance on college and career choice, experienced change of major difficulties, used campus and other support resources, and developed new strategies for success throughout the change of major process. Recommendations for further study include expanding the sample size and adding other selective degree programs to gain a more holistic picture, developing studies at multiple institutions that follow students throughout the entirety of their undergraduate careers, and investigating students’ coping strategies to identify ways to foster resiliency.

This study determined how quality grade and degree of doneness influence the development of beef flavor compounds among whole muscle and ground patties. Proximate composition, pH, cooking duration, neutral and polar lipid fatty acids, free and total amino acids, total reducing sugars, and volatile compounds were evaluated in beef strip steaks and ground patties of Longissimus lumborum from three USDA quality grades (Prime, Low Choice, and Standard; n=8 per quality grade) and six degrees of doneness (4, 25, 55, 60, 71, and 77°C). In the split-plot experiment, quality grade was the whole-plot, product-type was a sub-plot, and degree of doneness was the sub-sub-plot. The 3-way interaction of quality grade, degree of doneness, and product type impacted moisture (P = 0.004) and protein content (P = 0.006); pH (P < 0.001); neutral and polar lipid fatty acids (P ≤ 0.048); free and total amino acids (P ≤ 0.044); total reducing sugars (P < 0.001); and volatile compounds (P ≤ 0.029). The 2-way interaction of quality grade and degree of doneness impacted free amino acids (P ≤ 0.036); PUFA within the neutral lipid fraction (P ≤ 0.033); fatty acids within the polar lipid fraction (P ≤ 0.043); volatile compounds (P ≤ 0.038); and the total fat percentage (P = 0.046). The 2-way interaction of quality grade and product type impacted fatty acids within the neutral lipid fraction (P ≤ 0.042); fatty acids within the polar lipid fraction (P ≤ 0.015); and volatile compounds (P ≤ 0.047). The 2-way interaction of product type and degree of doneness affected fatty acids within the neutral lipid fraction (P ≤ 0.046); fatty acids within the polar lipid fraction (P ≤ 0.035); free amino acids (P ≤ 0.005) and total amino acids (P ≤ 0.004); volatile compounds (P ≤ 0.029); and cooking duration (P < 0.001). Overall the results of this study indicated that quality grade, grinding, and cooking have interacting effects on flavor related compounds. Thus, each factor must be considered during any model development which aims to predict beef flavor.

The aim of this study is to identify and explicate Nietzsche’s standard of value, that is, the basis upon which he approves of some human phenomena (e.g., moralities, philosophies, artistic and political movements, etc.) and disapproves of others. I argue that this standard is best captured by the concept of “degrees of strength.” Part I undertakes a detailed examination of Nietzsche’s philosophical methodology, which must be understood in order to understand his conception of degrees of strength. I argue that the central tenet of his methodology is his commitment to “historical philosophy,” that is, to the view that absolutely opposite phenomena like soul and body, good and evil, and so on, do not exist as opposites, and that their opposition is only relative. I here engage with what is perhaps the most prominent reading of Nietzsche’s methodology in the Anglophone world today, namely that it is a form of “naturalism,” understood as a commitment to some kind of continuity with the empirical sciences. I show that this reading relies on a definition of “nature” that Nietzsche never gives, and commits him to an ontology that he explicitly rejects, without doing anything to clarify his methodology that is not done by the concept of historical philosophy. Part II examines Nietzsche’s attempt to formulate a “proper physio-psychology” based on historical philosophy, which requires him to conceive of human beings as communities of willing subjects that he calls “drives.” I argue that Nietzsche adopts the notion of the human being as a multiplicity from physiology, and attempts to combine it with the notion of the willing subject that arises from introspective psychology. He believes that the human belief in causality is a result of the psychological experience of willing, and that physiology cannot explain the causal relations among events in the body without appealing to a concept of will. I then show how he extends this insight beyond the body to the world as a whole, arguing that we cannot comprehend causality at all except by means of the concept of “will to power.” This, I claim, is Nietzsche’s main reason for asserting that the world is “will to power and nothing else.” Part III introduces Nietzsche’s concept of the “problem of value,” the solution of which amounts to what he calls “the determination of the order of rank among values,” that is, of which human values contribute most to the enhancement of the power of humanity, and which frustrate such enhancement. I argue that the standard by which Nietzsche determines this is a symptomatology based on the concept of degrees of strength: those “ways of thinking and valuing” that are symptomatic of higher degrees of physio-psychological strength are more valuable for the enhancement of the overall power of humanity, while those that are symptomatic of weakness are less valuable, or even disvaluable, for that end. While the main focus of Part III is to explicate the concepts of physio-psychological strength and weakness, I conclude with an examination of what Nietzsche calls the “great economy of the whole,” according to which even weakness often has value for enhancing the power of humanity, so long as it is kept in its proper place and not valued more highly than strength. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

With the rapid development of wireless communication technology, the demands for higher communication rates are increasing. Higher communication rate corresponds to higher DoF. Interference alignment, which is an emerging interference management technique, is able to substantially increase the DoF of wireless communication systems. This thesis mainly studies the delay-based interference alignment technique. The key problem lies in the design of the transmission scheme and the appropriate allocation of the propagation delay, so as to achieve the desired DoF of different wireless networks. In addition, through delay-based interference alignment, the achievability of extreme points of the DoF region of different wireless networks can be proved.

No description available.

Many microwave (RF) circuit designs require passive distributed sub-components with prescribed scattering parameters. These sub-components have typically been realised by cascading building-block configurations (eg. transmission lines of specific lengths, bends in transmission lines, coupled lines, and so on) of standard shape, and then adjusting the dimensions of selected prescribed features of these building-blocks. The problem with this approach is that the resulting sub-component may take up more "real-estate" on the overall circuit board than can be tolerated, may require tolerances that are too tight and hence be more costly than product developers can allow, can lead to less-than-best performance because we select the building-blocks (that we think are needed) ahead of time, and so on. The research in this thesis contributes to the shape synthesis approach of physical microstrip circuit design. The shape synthesis process is usually contrasted to traditional design by recognizing that it does not merely adjust the dimensions of a set of prescribed geometrical features on pre-selected shapes, but allows the electromagnetic physics to tell us what the sub-component layout needs to be (and it can be unconventional) in order to obtain the required performance. Existing shape synthesis techniques are based on the discrete- or continuous-pixelation method. Each of these approaches, however, have disadvantages (eg. too many degrees of freedom required to achieve the geometrical resolution necessary; the need for arbitrary decisions to fix material properties) that have prevented shape synthesis from being accepted for widespread use in design practice. In this thesis we develop, implement and apply a completely new shape synthesis approach, called the subtractive approach, that overcomes many of the above-mentioned disadvantages of pixelation-based methods It reduces the number of variables (degrees of freedom) needed in spite of the fact that the "design space" is significantly broadened by this approach. The latter is confirmed by the fact that it produces physical circuit geometries that we would not have come up with using traditional design methods. Examples are provided of the application of the new subtractive shape synthesis method. This new method involves continuous variables directly related to the physical circuit geometry, and thus could be used with surrogate modelling, unlike some existing shape synthesis procedures.

No description available.