<p>The computer program developed by T.B. Remple for the analysis of PiN photodiodes has been modified to handle Schottky barrier cases. The fundamental physics involved in the original model is summarized and the theories for a metal-semiconductor interface are presented. The boundary values for n, p, and ψ are then defined in such a way that ψ (x) would be in agreement with the thermionic-diffusion theory. An equivalent circuit approach is used to determine the RC response of the photodetector. While the modified version of the computer model provides very detailed analysis of the device, it is also very expensive to run. A simplified model is therefore employed for the design process. The objective is to design an Au-nGe photodiode with a risetime less than 50 psecs. The set of optimum design parameters obtained with the simplified model is then taken as the input to the modified version of Remple's program for further analysis. The theoretical risetime of the optimum design is found to be about 45 psecs.</p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

This dissertation employed a two prong approach, whereby the survey and case study methods were used to investigate security issues regarding wireless networks. The survey portion draws together two previously unrelated research streams. Given the recent increased concern for security in the computing milieu, Innovation Diffusion Theory and security factor constructs were merged and synthesized to form a new instrument. This instrument is useful in an effort to understand what role security concerns play in the adoption and diffusion of technology. In development of the new instrument, 481 usable surveys were collected and analyzed. Factor analysis revealed favorable factor loadings in the data. Further analysis was then conducted utilizing multiple regression analysis. This analysis led to the discovery that the constructs of Susceptibility and Severity of Threat, Improvement Potential, and Visibility are significant predictors in regard to level of concern when using wireless networks. Case studies were conducted with a goal to gain a deep knowledge of IT professionals? concerns, attitudes, and best practices toward wireless security. To this end, seven IT professionals were personally interviewed regarding their perceptions and attitudes toward wireless security. In an effort to compare IT professional and end user opinions, 30 IT professionals also completed a paper based survey regarding their perceptions about security. Findings indicate that security professionals are very optimistic for the future of wireless computing. However, that optimism is tempered by a realization that there are a myriad of potential threats that might exploit weakness in wireless security. To determine differences and similarities between users? perspectives and managers? perspectives regarding wireless network security, the results from the survey and case study were synthesized. Most IT professionals (76.19%) reported that, all factors considered, they prefer to use wired networks as opposed to wireless networks; whereas, substantially fewer (44.86%) of the end user respondents reported that they preferred wired over wireless networks. Overall, results suggest that IT professionals are more concerned about security than are end users. However, a challenge remains to make administrators and users aware of the full effect of security threats present in the wireless computing paradigm.

Purpose: Farm to School (F2S) Programs are increasing in number across the United States, yet research on teachers’ perceptions and practices about F2S is limited. Teachers are a key component of any F2S program, since their acceptance and support influences program implementation and sustainability. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher practices, attitudes, and perceptions about the Decatur F2S Program. Methods: City Schools of Decatur teachers completed a questionnaire designed to obtain information concerning their practices, attitudes, and perceptions regarding the Decatur F2S Program. Participants indicated their level of agreement with 18 statements using a Likert scale rating, answered an open-ended question, and recorded both implemented and desired F2S activities. Cumulative frequencies were determined for all questionnaire items, and themes were extracted for the open-ended question. Results: Seventy percent of K – 12 teachers would like to see F2S activities implemented in their classroom, and 28% of these teachers already implement some F2S activity. The majority of teachers had positive perceptions about the Decatur Farm to School Program’s impact on students, the local economy, and the environment. Teachers perceived that the F2S programs encompassed four themes: 1) supplying schools with locally grown foods; 2) educating children on healthy eating, food, and nutrition; 3) educating children on gardening and growing foods; and 4) building a strong connection between local farms, schools, and communities. Conclusion: There is a high degree of interest and support for the Decatur F2S Program by City Schools of Decatur teachers, which is consistent with efforts to implement F2S Programs across the country. Most teachers were not familiar with the CSD F2S Program but would desire F2S activities in their schools.

優質化治理的追求不僅講求政府間的互動學習，亦講求學習標的的擴散。近年來政府引進公民參與理念，打破閉門造車的政策制定模式，隨著時間的發展，諸多機關開始辦理公民會議，本研究應用擴散理論分析公民會議在行政體系內部擴散的成因，並討論公民會議在台灣擴散的發展及限制。本研究針對十餘場公民會議，利用次級資料分析及深度訪談，從動機、資源、環境、效益四項因素分析過去各機關單位辦理公民會議的經驗，並探究自公民會議引進至今所遭遇之阻礙。研究結果顯示政府機關透過多種管道與社會團體、學界進行互動，取得公民會議的相關資訊，同時機關首長基於個人理念、內部業務需求、外在環境壓力等考量指示辦理公民會議，這些面向的交互作用促成台灣公民會議於行政體系內部的擴散。然而在公民會議發展歷程中，因公民會議執行過程的瑕疵、後續產出可觀察性低、政黨理念未能貫徹、體制及配套措施不足、人事更替頻繁、公民會議的工具性消失等因素阻礙公民會議的發展。本研究發現公民會議在行政體系內部的擴散乃是政策企業家的努力，其夾帶豐富的資訊資源與機關單位互動，或直接或間接地成就公民會議的發展。然而基礎體制建設的缺乏對公民會議的發展形成限制，因此未來應致力於審議民主體制建設以及強化人力資源發展。由於本研究為初探性嘗試，建議未來隨著實務發展強化擴散模型建構，並深化我國政策學習及擴散的學術累積。 / Good governance emphasizes not only the interactions between governments, but diffusion of objects among governments. Recently, the government has imported the concept of citizen participation and breaks the traditional way of policy making. As time goes by, the development of citizen participation has been more mature. Many agencies have started holding consensus conferences. The thesis applies diffusion theory to analyze the reasons why consensus conferences diffused within the government and discusses its development and restriction. The study focuses on more than ten consensus conferences and uses secondary data and in-depth interview to collect research data. The author analyzes the experience of individual agency according to their motivation, resource, environment, and benefit; and the author also examines the obstacles in the development of the consensus conferences. The findings reveal that the government interacts with social groups and academic community to get information about consensus conferences. At the same time, the chiefs of the executive branches give an instruction about holding the activities based on their preferences, internal requirements, and the pressure of external environment. The interaction of these aspects makes a contribution to the diffusion of the consensus conferences within the government. However, the flaws of implementation processes, lower observability, lack of relative measures and infrastructure, frequent personnel rotation, and the disappearance of the instrumentality constrain the expanding of the ideas and operations. This research also finds that the diffusion of ideas and operations is accomplished due to the efforts invested by policy entrepreneurs; they use abundant resources and information to interact with agencies directly or indirectly promoting the development of consensus conferences. However, incomplete infrastructure constrains the expansion of consensus conferences. Therefore, this study proposes that the government should enhance infrastructure and human resource development regarding deliberative democracy. As an exploratory study, this thesis suggests the public administration field should strengthen the diffusion model and accumulate studies of policy learning and diffusion in the future.

開放政府資料能帶來龐大的經濟效益以及達到透明治理的理念，已成為電子治理最重要的議題之一，各國政府如美國、英國、加拿大無不積極推動開放政府資料政策。我國行政院亦將政府資料開放列為第四階段電子化政府計畫的項目之一，中央機關與地方政府將分別建立開放資料平台，並要求將機關所擁有之資料逐步開放予社會大眾使用。在此背景下，財政部財政資訊中心預建置財政資訊共享服務平台，來達到資料開放政策的目標。本研究目的在於該平台的推動在實務上面臨了哪些困難，後續還有哪些地方需要克服，這樣的經驗能帶給其他行政機關哪些啟示。 本研究首先整理國內外開放政府資料的文獻，其次介紹創新擴散理論，作為財政資訊中心推動財政資訊共享服務平台的階段基礎，並以訪談法蒐集相關資料。本研究最後以議題設定與配對階段、再定義/再建構階段、闡述階段及例行化階段為主軸，分別探討各階段的推動工作與困境。 本研究發現，推動財政資訊共享服務平台的主要工作與困境包括溝通策略、法律規範、分工方式、業務單位的抗拒與資料的價值。財資中心在政策規劃面、組織管理面以及法律規範面仍有改進空間，包括改變同仁的觀念態度、提出明確的評估報告、團隊成員的代表性、訂定行政規則以及與相關單位共商修法議題。未來有意推動相關政策的機關，除了前述財資中心應該改進之處，尚須注意組織文化以及公民參與的部分，讓政策推動的阻力降至最低。 / Open government data (OGD) can brings great economic benefit and promotes more openness in government, it has become one of the most important issues in e-Government around the world. An open data policy was enacted by the Executive Yuan at the end of 2013, both central and local governments should gradually release their possessed data to the public. In the context of open data policy, Fiscal Information Agency, MOF tries to establish an open data platform of Ministry of Finance. However, the open data policy in Taiwan is still in a stage of sprouting, it is an innovation policy and brand new notion to many governments, the objective of this research is to analyze what obstacles does Fiscal Information Agency, MOF meet when promoting the open data platform of Ministry of Finance, and how could this experience be learned. First of all, the research introduces the literatures about open data. Secondly, quoting the Innovation Diffusion Theory as the conceptual framework and conducting interviews. The analysis about the works and obstacles is individually based on the phase of agenda setting, matching, redefining/restructuring, clarifying and routinizing. The results show the main work and obstacles including the strategy of communication, legal norms, division of labor, resistance of agency and the value of data. There are still areas of improvement for Fiscal Information Agency, MOF, such as changing the concept of colleagues, providing a tangible report about open data and the representativeness of group. The lessons from this study are expected to provide insights to the Taiwan government when it tries to engage the open data policy.

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has constantly promoted sustainable tourism development as well as played an important role since 1980; in addition, numerous standards were regulated accordingly. Under the impacts of both environment protection, energy saving and carbon reduction, the marketing strategy of numerous operators have been changes consequently. The ecological or environment lodging facilities gradually adopted by the people in this trade; nevertheless, there are still not appropriate criteria of green B&B for domestic lodge industry to carry out related strategies. One of the major aims of this study is to establish the criteria of green B&B and index of feasible implementation, and constitute index levels with fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), as the major basis of conducting survey of adoption willingness of lodge operator in implementing environment protection strategy. Next, this study intends to explore the current status of environment strategy implemented by B&B manager as well as the factors influence the adoption willingness. Third, find out any other factors and significance that could affect the adoption willingness of B&B manager to carry out strategy. Fourth, this study intends to locate the factors and significance of influencing consumer in accepting environment protection strategy (lodging willingness). There are three research targets employed by the design method of this study, namely, representative experts and scholars in the related domain, for presenting construct index and significance degree; research model establishment of B&B manager, the green B&B index are used for interview and questionnaire survey methods, so as to confirm the aim of this study; and finally the research model establishment of lodge consumer, through hierarchical regression analysis and relevant statistic analysis, to explain significant meaning and reason of variables. The research result proves that green B&B index can be simplifies into eight main dimensions and concrete strategies (management and marketing, social participation and communication, energy management, water resources management, green purchase, solid waste treatment, green restaurant and lodge activities, natural and cultural resources), for reference by verification unit. Secondly, in the research model of B&B manager, environment knowledge behavior would influence the self-efficacy, and further affect the adoption willingness. For operator, the higher the compatibility of environment strategy is, the higher of adoption willingness will be. Finally, in the research model of consumer, the higher the frequency that consumer engaged in the environment related activity, the higher the willingness of selecting green B&B will be; while environment knowledge behavior would affect the perceived caracteristics of innovation, lodge preference, and attitude of engaging in environment activity of consumer. This study defines the implication of promoting green B&B development strategy is ¡§to educate B&B managers attach more importance on environment ethics, and encourage consumer to change the attitude of recreation activity.¡¨ Furthermore, with the conception of simplified green lodge index, to direct towards tourism map planning of ecology village, apart from the unique features of ¡§green B&B¡¨ image, to minimize the impact of recreation environment. By employing innovation diffusion theory (IDT) model in the behavior prediction of environment behavior and tourism behavior strategy, the result of this study could be served as a useful reference for following researches.

The health industry has acquired a reputation as lagging in the use of information technology (IT). Therefore, this study has been undertaken to assess state health's use of IT and then to assess the causal factors of the differing usage rate, if any. The state health industry was compared to the banking industry as a benchmark, on the basis that the banking industry is widely perceived as a leading IT user. A literature review summarised and critiqued current literature and informed the subsequent research. The research comprised two related studies. The first study was a qualitative study of the beliefs of senior state health executives. The second study was based upon a survey of state health and banking managers. The research confirmed that in these two 'knowledge' industries, state health is slower to adopt IT with an apparent lower maturity level. This finding was observed across a range of best-practice management, procedural and cultural topics as well as the level of resources applied to IT. Innovation-diffusion-theory helped understand why IT implementation has progressed at a slower rate in state health than other industry sectors. The complexity of state health organisations and their fragmented internal structure constrain their ability to adopt traditional, hierarchical, organisation-wide IT. This is further impacted upon by the relative immaturity of clinical health IT, which is complicated, incomplete and unable to show quantifiable benefits. In addition, elements of the findings suggest that health IT departments are poorly aligned to the needs of clinicians and managers. Both organisational and technological factors lead to the slow adoption of health IT, although measures suggest that the key factors relate to the unique organisational nature of state health. The recommendations for health and IT policy arising from this research are: * The effectiveness of state health IT departments needs comparing to those in other sectors and improvement interventions implemented; * The strongest way for state health IT to proceed is to focus on management and social issues in preference to the ever-seductive technology. Research and development funds should be allocated, as a priority, to benefits-analysis methods, improved understanding of the true nature of health organisations (formal and informal) and a rich understanding of clinical behaviours and work. Deeper knowledge in all of these areas will permit the development of more relevant IT leading to greater value, more focussed implementation and new areas for business development in the IT industry.

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Assessing the effect of foam layers on transport phenomena is of significant interest in many industries, so a method for predicting foam layer properties has been developed. A model of the propagation of radiation from an amplitude-modulated laser beam through a non-absorbing foam layer has been developed using diffusion theory. Measurements predicted by diffusion theory were compared to results generated using Monte Carlo methods for a variety of foam layer properties in both the time-domain and the frequency-domain. The properties that were varied include the layer thickness, the scattering coefficient, and the asymmetry parameter. Layer thicknesses between 8.5 mm and 18 cm were considered. Values of the scattering coefficient ranged from about 600 m-1 to 14000 m-1, while the asymmetry parameter varied between 0 and 1. A conjugate-gradient algorithm was used to minimize the difference between simulated Monte Carlo measurements and diffusion theory predicted measurements. A large set of simulated measurements, calculated at various source-detector separations and three discrete frequencies were used to predict the layer properties. Ten blind cases were considered and property predictions were made for each. The predicted properties were within approximately 10% of the actual values, and on average the errors were approximately 4%. Predictions of the reduced scattering coefficient were all within approximately 5% with the majority being within 3%. Predictions of L were all within approximately 10% with the majority being within 7%. Attempts to separate g from the reduced scattering coefficient were unsuccessful, and it was determined that implementation of different source models might make such attempts possible. It was shown that with a large number of measurements, properties could be accurately predicted. A method for reducing the number of measurements needed for accurate property estimation was developed. Starting with a single measurement location, property predictions were made. An approach for updating the optimal detector location, based on the current estimate of the properties, was developed and applied to three cases. Property predictions for the three cases were made to within 10% of the actual values. A maximum of three measurement locations were necessary to obtain such predictions, a significant reduction as compared to the previously illustrated method.