Early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) is currently the most studied and most practiced intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder. There has been increasing evidence supporting the use of EIBI, but there have been limited evaluations of the effectiveness of EIBI intensity. The current study addressed this gap using data obtained from St.Amant Autism Program and comparing children receiving an average of 22 and 30 hours per week for a period of one year. Significant main effects of time were found for standardized measures of cognitive functioning, adaptive functioning, and autism severity. Future research should aim to address this research question with a larger sample size and a low-intensity control group. / May 2016

Adolescents with Autism and their families experience a significant increase in the number and nature of challenges faced when leaving the structure of the formal education system. Increased support and planning is required in order to prepare for and better manage this period, as a successful transition is associated with family well-being. An ecosystemic approach was used in order to better understand the experiences of the individual, the family, the school and the community during this period. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of parent and professional perspectives on various elements of the transition process, including planning and support, predicted outcomes and the feelings experienced, in order to develop awareness, improved planning and consequently; outcomes. A sample of 14 participants (7 parents and 7 professionals) was engaged in semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that both parents and professionals feel an overwhelming sense of fear and uncertainty with regards to the future of the adolescent with Autism; however a sense of optimism and hope also exists, as participants reported effective interventions were beginning to occur. The knowledge and understanding of the needs of these individuals is continuously growing within the parents and professionals who are directly involved in the lives of adolescents with Autism; however increased awareness is required within the community and government sectors in order to gain increased access to resources and services. With the appropriate support, individuals with Autism can experience increased quality of life within residential, employment, social and community settings. The results of the current study are discussed with reference to previous research studies, and recommendations for further research are provided.

by Siu-kai Tse. / Bibliography: leaves 100-103 / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1984

Lam Lung Yeung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Bibliography: leaves 73-76.

by Tsan-Fai Ho. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-68). / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Review on spread spectrum communications --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- The spread spectrum techniques --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- Direct Sequence (DS) Systems --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- Frequency Hopping (FH) Systems --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2.3 --- Time Hopping (TH) Systems --- p.4 / Chapter 1.2.4 --- Hybrid Systems --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Existing Applications of the spread spectrum systems --- p.5 / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization of the thesis --- p.6 / Chapter 2 --- The Concept of Duality --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- Multi-Carrier Systems - An Overview --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Bandwidth Efficiency --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Spectral Efficiency --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Effects of fading --- p.11 / Chapter 2.3 --- Applications of OFDM in multiple access --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- ST-CDMA --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- MC-DS-CDMA --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- OFDM-CDMA --- p.15 / Chapter 2.4 --- Duality - Time-Frequency Interrelation --- p.16 / Chapter 3 --- Performance of Multi-Carrier CDMA System --- p.17 / Chapter 3.1 --- System Model --- p.17 / Chapter 3.2 --- Performance Analysis --- p.20 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Gaussian Channel --- p.20 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Fading Channel --- p.24 / Chapter 3.3 --- Performance with Pulse Shape --- p.33 / Chapter 3.4 --- Appendix --- p.34 / Chapter 4 --- Signal Design Criteria for MC-CDMA System --- p.36 / Chapter 4.1 --- Existence of Signal Distortion --- p.37 / Chapter 4.2 --- Measures of the Signal Envelope Fluctuation --- p.38 / Chapter 4.3 --- Complementary Sequences --- p.41 / Chapter 4.4 --- Crest Factors --- p.42 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Time-limited Pulse --- p.43 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Ideally Band-Limited Pulses --- p.43 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Shaped Pulses --- p.45 / Chapter 4.5 --- Spectrally Efficient Complementary (SEC) Sequences --- p.48 / Chapter 4.6 --- Construction of Spectrally Efficient Complementary(SEC) Sequences --- p.50 / Chapter 4.7 --- Generalized Multiphase Spectrally Efficient Complementary Sequences --- p.55 / Chapter 5 --- Summary and Future Extensions --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1 --- Summary of the Results --- p.58 / Chapter 5.2 --- Topics for Future Research --- p.59 / Appendix / Chapter A --- Exhaustive search of MPSEC sequences --- p.61 / Chapter B --- Papers derived from this thesis --- p.63 / Bibliography --- p.64

Empathy is vital for relationships in the social world. Although definitions vary, theory and research has delineated empathy into cognitive and affective components. Recent ideas propose there are further aspects that are important to empathy, such as the ability versus the drive to empathise within both the cognitive and affective components. Various self-report indexes have been developed to measure empathy, yet current measures do not reflect all theories about empathy. The aim of this thesis was to develop and validate a new empathy questionnaire that included further components more consistent with recent ideas and theories about empathy. This thesis further aimed to use this questionnaire to investigate the components of empathy in autism, which is characterised in part by empathy deficits. The first study investigated the structure of empathy in the commonly-used Empathy Quotient (EQ) short-form to examine which empathy components it indexes. Results showed cognitive, affective and social skill components were extracted from the EQ-short, but also revealed ability and drive aspects captured within affective empathy but not within cognitive empathy components. This suggested items of the EQ-short incorporates some, but not all, components proposed to be important to empathy. Consequently, a new self-report empathy questionnaire called the Empathy Components Questionnaire (ECQ) was developed in order to fully capture all components of empathy. A five-factor solution was developed and confirmed for the ECQ across multiple independent samples in studies two through five, revealing five components of cognitive ability, cognitive drive, affective ability, affective drive, and affective reactivity. A final study revealed individuals with autism had lower self-reported cognitive empathy, affective drive and affective reactivity compared to controls, but comparable scores between groups for affective ability. This thesis produced a new measure of empathy more in-line with recent theories, which provided understanding about empathy and how it differs in autism.

Child-computer interaction researchers are increasingly recognising the benefits of directly involving children in the design of new technology. This has resulted in the development of several design methods for involving children in the technology design process, using approaches such as Participatory Design (PD). More recently there has been a greater focus on involving children with diverse needs, as technology can often be particularly beneficial within the education of these children. One such group is children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and in recent years there has been a sharp rise in the amount of technology being developed specifically for this population. However, the needs and preferences of this user group can differ from the general child population due to the specific characteristics of ASD, with these differences making it more challenging for adult designers to develop appropriate technologies. This thesis therefore seeks to establish the potential of using PD to involve children with ASD within the technology design process through the development of a new PD method, which aims to support the typical difficulties of children with ASD at the same time as utilising their characteristic strengths. A qualitative approach has been followed in order to understand firstly the ability of children with ASD to undertake typical design tasks; secondly the degree children with ASD are able to participate in the design process; and thirdly the ability of children with ASD to collaborate within a design team. The results reveal that children with ASD can undertake typical design tasks, but some children may require additional support to generate and communicate their design ideas. It is shown that a flexible approach should be taken with regard to the involvement of children with ASD within the technology design process, and the importance of the adaptability of the adult’s role in supporting the children’s participation and collaboration is additionally highlighted. This research has led to the development of a new PD method, IDEAS, which is tailored to the specific needs of children with ASD through the incorporation of flexible structured and supportive features.

The morphology, composition, and distribution of elements within nanocrystals are critical parameters which dictate the material's properties and performance in a diverse array of emerging applications. The (scanning) transmission electron microscope ((S)TEM) represents a powerful tool for probing the structure and chemistry of materials on the nanoscale. Understanding of the mechanisms by which nanocrystals grow, transform, and degrade is vital if we are to develop rational synthesis routes and hence control the properties of the resulting materials. Electron microscopy represents a key tool in developing such an understanding. In situ techniques, where the material of interest is subjected to stimuli such as heat or a chemically reactive environment in the microscope, allow direct observation of dynamic transformations. Ex situ approaches, where multiple samples are prepared in the lab with the reaction parameters systematically altered, can also give important mechanistic insights. This thesis explores the use of both in situ and ex situ (S)TEM to gain insights into the growth and transformation of nanocrystals. Ex situ TEM is used to assess the structure of PbS nanocrystals in a polymer matrix, revealing new methods of morphological control through reaction temperature, precursor structures (appendix 4), and the processing of the polymer matrix (appendix 5). In situ techniques are used to observe the solution phase growth and shelling of nanocrystals (appendix 1) as well as the transformations of nanocrystals during heating in vacuum (appendices 2 and 3). The subjects of my in situ investigations are systems with heterogeneous distributions of elements. Historically, in situ electron microscope has been largely limited to imaging. However, to understand many dynamic transformations knowledge of changing elemental distributions is vital. For this reason, I have focused on the use of energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy to reveal changes in composition and elemental distributions during in situ experiments (appendices 1-3). This type of in situ elemental mapping is especially challenging for liquid-cell experiments, and my results represent the first report of EDX spectrum imaging for nanomaterials in liquid (appendix 1).

Chu Lut-Hey. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-140). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.II / Acknowledgement --- p.V / List of Tables --- p.IX / List of Figures --- p.X / List of Abbreviations --- p.XIII / Chapter 1 --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Objectives.l --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- What is diabetes mellitus?. --- p.1 / Chapter 1.3 --- "Review of ""Technique for blood glucose measurement""" --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Conventional blood glucose meter --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Semi-invasive blood glucose meter --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- Surfacelasmon resonance (SPR) method --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.4 --- Non-invasive blood glucose meters --- p.7 / Chapter 1.4 --- Research directions --- p.8 / Chapter 1.5 --- Data analysis methods --- p.9 / Chapter 1.6 --- Organization of the thesis --- p.10 / Chapter 2 --- Spectral Data Analysis Methods / Chapter 2.1 --- What is spectral data? --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Nature of spectral data --- p.12 / Chapter 2.3 --- How to interpret the spectral data? --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Linear regression --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Multiple linear regression (MLR) --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3.2.1 --- Data reduction --- p.19 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Bilinear modeling (BLM) --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3.3.1 --- artial least square regression (PLSR) --- p.23 / Chapter 2.3.3.2 --- Model reliability --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3.3.3 --- LS segmentation analysis --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4 --- Session discussion and conclusion --- p.27 / Chapter 3 --- Surfacelasmon Resonance (SPR) Experiments and Analysis / Chapter 3.1 --- Intrcduction --- p.29 / Chapter 3.2 --- Theory --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Maxwell's equations --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- olarization of EM wave --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Boundary condition --- p.33 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Total internal reflection --- p.37 / Chapter 3.2.5 --- hase shift of total internal reflection wave --- p.38 / Chapter 3.2.6 --- Kretschmannrism configuration --- p.38 / Chapter 3.2.7 --- Conditions affecting SPR --- p.41 / Chapter 3.3 --- Different SPR configuration systems --- p.44 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- rinciple of angular-based interrogation SPR setup --- p.44 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- rinciple of intensity-based interrogation SPR setup --- p.45 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- rinciple of wavelength-based interrogation SPR setup --- p.45 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- hase-based interrogation SPR setup --- p.47 / Chapter 3.3.4.1 --- Michelson Interferometer --- p.48 / Chapter 3.3.4.2 --- Thehase-based setup --- p.49 / Chapter 3.3.5 --- Comparison and discussion of different configurations --- p.51 / Chapter 3.4 --- SPR experiment adopts wavelengths-based interrogation setup --- p.54 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- The experiment setup --- p.54 / Chapter 3.4.1.1 --- Samplereparation --- p.58 / Chapter 3.4.1.2 --- Experiment Result using 928 nm and 1120 nm initial resonant wavelength --- p.58 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Experimental data analysis --- p.60 / Chapter 3.4.2.1 --- Conventional SPR data analysis --- p.61 / Chapter 3.4.2.1.1 --- Data analysis using minimum hunting witholynomial fit --- p.62 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- LS regression analysis for SPR data --- p.67 / Chapter 3.5 --- Session discussion and conclusion --- p.71 / Chapter 4 --- Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Experiment and Analysis / Chapter 4.1 --- Overview of near-infrared spectroscopy --- p.74 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Electromagnetic spectrum --- p.75 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Molecules vibration --- p.76 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Law of absorption: Lambert-Beer Law --- p.77 / Chapter 4.2 --- Near Infrared Spectrometer --- p.79 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Dispersive NIR spectrometer --- p.79 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Fourier-Transformed NIR spectrometer --- p.83 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Comparison between dispersive NIR and FT-NIR spectrometers --- p.85 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Self-established monochromator based spectrometer --- p.87 / Chapter 4.2.4.1 --- Choose of detector andhotonic signal conversion unit --- p.90 / Chapter 4.3 --- Experimental result of NIR-spectrum by self-established spectrometer --- p.95 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- New approach for improving RMSEP without normalization of water spectrum as background information --- p.105 / Chapter 4.4 --- Experimental results of NIR-spectrum by commercial spectrometers --- p.109 / Chapter 4.5 --- Instrumentation limitation of NIR spectrometer --- p.117 / Chapter 4.6 --- Session Discussion and conclusion --- p.119 / Chapter 5 --- Conclusions and Suggestions for the Future Work / Chapter 5.1 --- Research aim and contributions --- p.126 / Chapter 5.2 --- Discussion on experiments --- p.128 / Chapter 5.3 --- Future work --- p.131 / Chapter 5.4 --- Conclusion --- p.134 / Reference: --- p.136 / Appendixes: --- p.141 / Appendix A Different approaches for non-invasive glucose measurement --- p.142 / Appendix B Calibration model of the SPR experimental result with 1120 nm as initial resonance wavelength --- p.145 / Appendix C Matlabrogram written for data analysis and simulation --- p.146 / Appendix D Detail specification of the monochromator using in our laboratory --- p.150 / Appendix E Monochromator Controlrogram --- p.156 / Appendix F The throughput example copied from the handbook of ORIEL Instruments --- p.165 / Appendix G RMSEPlot of the data obtained by self-established spectrometer with and without datare-treatments --- p.166 / "Appendix H RMSEPlot of the raw data obtained from the three different commercial machines (Vector-22N/C, NIRSystem 6500 and NIRSystem XDS) with and without datare-treatment" --- p.176

The present thesis aimed to examine if children with ASD process emotions comparably to TD children or if they show emotion processing difficulties, with particular focus on the recognition- and imitation of facial emotional expressions and on processing human faces. Furthermore, the thesis sought to contrast the performance of children (both with- and without ASD) with that of neurotypical adult participants to establish the typical level of emotion processing and to investigate if emotion processing capabilities improve with age from childhood to adulthood. Experiment 1 tested the recognition of the six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise, and also neutrality) under timed conditions, when restricted stimulus presentation length- (1200ms, 200ms, no limit) and increased pressure to respond were introduced (1200ms limit, no limit), as well. In addition, the experiment compared participants’ performance from human facial expressions and from the expressions of animated characters. The Animated Characters Stimulus Set has been developed and validated before the main experiment. The overall performance of children with ASD was comparable to that of TD children, whose superiority only emerged with the introduction of additional task demands through limiting the length of stimuli presentation or applying a temporal restriction on the response window. Using animated characters to present emotions, instead of human actors, however, improved emotion recognition and alleviated the difficulty of additional task demands, especially for children with ASD, when facial expressions were only briefly presented. Experiment 2 tested the effects of face inversion and in-plane rotations (from 0° to 330°, in 30° increments) on the recognition of the six basic emotions (and neutrality). Children with ASD and TD children recognised emotions with comparable accuracy, while neurotypical adults have outperformed the two child groups. Overall, emotion recognition decreased gradually as rotations approached full inversion; although, this pattern was most prominent in typical adults, whereas the emotion recognition of TD children and especially children with ASD varied considerably across rotations. In contrast to adults and TD children, inversion effects were only found in children with ASD when they observed negative- or more complex emotions, thereby showing evidence both for the availability of configural face processing and for the use of feature-based strategies. Experiment 3 tested imitative behaviour by comparing performance on emotional facial expressions (reflecting anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise, and also neutrality), and non-emotional facial gestures and bilateral bodily actions/movements, presented in short video clips. The style of the imitation was also examined (subtle- vs strong stimulus intensity). A video stimulus set was developed and validated for the purpose of the experiment with a series of pilot studies. Results showed that the imitations of children with ASD were less intense than those of TD children and typical adults only when the participants were copying emotional facial expressions but not when they reproduced non-emotional facial and bodily actions. Moreover, children with ASD were less able to copy the style of the presented actions (only for the imitation of emotional facial expressions) than the two neurotypical groups. Overall, the present thesis demonstrated that the emotion processing of children with ASD was consistently comparable to TD children’s, when their performance was contrasted in experimental, facial emotion recognition and face processing tasks, and in a behavioural study, which assessed their imitations of emotional facial expressions. On the other hand, it was also shown that the emotion processing of children with ASD involved atypical features both when they were recognising- and reproducing emotions. Compared to TD children, they showed increased sensitivity to the negative effects of additional task difficulties and their advantage in utilising featural face processing strategies seemed to be greater, as well, while they were less able to imitate the exact style of the presented emotional facial expressions. These findings support a number of theoretical approaches; however, the notion of an early deficit in social motivation seems to be both appealing and promising in studying and developing socio-emotional functioning in ASD as its perspective could be beneficial to reflect on and possibly affect multiple underlying features.