The crucial role of representation in mathematical and statistical modeling and problem solving as evident in learners' arrangement and representation of statistical data were investigated with focus points data arrangement, data representation and statistical thinking levels. The representation tasks required learners to arrange and represent data through modeling, focusing on spontaneous representations. Successful transnumeration determine the ultimate success of a representation and the ability to organise data is regarded as critical. Arrangement types increased in sophistication with increased grade level and the hierarchical nature of arrangement types became apparent when regarded in the context of an adapted SOLO Taxonomy framework. A higher level arrangement strategy pointed to a higher SOLO level of statistical thinking. Learners in the two tasks produced a rich variety of representations which included idiosyncratic, unsophisticated responses as well as standard statistical representations. The context of the two tasks, the quantitative versus qualitative nature of the data in the tasks, and the statistical tools or representational skills learners have at their disposal, played an important role in their representations. Well-planned data handling activities develop representational and higher order thinking skills. The variety of responses and different response levels elicited in the two tasks indicate that the nature of the tasks rather than the size of the data set play a conclusive role in data tasks. Multiple representations by an individual were an indication of successful modeling, are effective in problem solving and are associated with good performance. The SOLO model which incorporates a structural approach as well as a multimodal component proved valuable in the analysis of responses. Using this model with accompanying acknowledgement of different problem solving paths and the contribution of ikonic support in the concrete symbolic mode, promote the in-depth analysis of responses. This study contributes to the research in the field of data representation and statistical thinking. The analysis and results led to an integrated picture of Grade 4-7 learners' representation of statistical data and of the statistical thinking levels evident in their representations. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Didactics)

This thesis surveys all the found British settings of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (1896) but concentrates on the period after 1940, which, the author believes, has not previously received critical attention. A new study is timely especially because of a renewed interest among composers in the poet's highly influential lyric collection. The author found about 110 British composers with about 340 settings of individual poems not listed in previous Shropshire Lad catalogues. This number adds more than fifty per cent to the known repertoire. The search was not restricted to art song; it found, in addition, multi-voice settings, settings in popular styles and non-vocal music. Largely because of the work of broadly trained musicians, there is now a much wider range of medium, style and compositional technique applied to A Shropshire Lad. There are also new ways in which words and music relate. Different catalogues in the thesis list settings according to period, genre, poem and composer. The author hopes to broaden the British canon of Shropshire Lad music, which, despite recent commissions and competitions, is still mostly limited to the major composers of the English musical renaissance (the early decades of the twentieth century). Accordingly, the catalogues let performers know how to obtain the settings. In preliminary chapters, the thesis attempts a literary examination of A Shropshire Lad and reviews the already-researched pre-Second World War settings. It then divides the post-1940 period into two parts–a Decline (to c.1980) and a Renewal (since c.1980)–and surveys them. The compositions of this period are placed in three tonal-stylistic streams of development: a mainstream tonal with ultraconservative and atonal tributaries. Then follow detailed literary-musical analyses of post-1940 songs, song cycles, collaborative sets, and multi-voice settings. A final summary draws together the conclusions of the individual chapters, summarizes and evaluates the achievement of the post-1940 composers, and suggests how further research might be carried out. / Art History, Visucal Arts & Music / D. Litt. et Phil. (Musicology)

In our society with its aging population, the design and implementation of a highperformance distributed multi-sensor and information system for autonomous physical services become more and more important. In line with this, this thesis proposes an Intelligent Multi-Sensor System, IMSS, that surveys a human activities space to detect and identify a target for a specific service. The subject of this thesis covers three main aspects related to the set-up of an IMSS: an improved depth measurement and reconstruction method and its related uncertainty, a surveillance and tracking algorithm and finally a way to validate and evaluate the proposed methods and algorithms. The thesis discusses how a model of the depth spatial quantisation uncertainty can be implemented to optimize the configuration of a sensor system to capture information of the target objects and their environment with required specifications. The thesis introduces the dithering algorithm which significantly reduces the depth reconstruction uncertainty. Furthermore, the dithering algorithm is implemented on a sensor-shifted stereo camera, thus simplifying depth reconstruction without compromising the common stereo field of view. To track multiple targets continuously, the Gaussian Mixture Probability Hypothesis Density, GM-PHD, algorithm is implemented with the help of vision and Radio Frequency Identification, RFID, technologies. The performance of the tracking algorithm in a vision system is evaluated by a circular motion test signal. The thesis introduces constraints to the target space, the stereo pair characteristics and the depth reconstruction accuracy to optimize the vision system and to control the performance of surveillance and 3D reconstruction through integer linear programming. The human being within the activity space is modelled as a tetrahedron, and a field of view in spherical coordinates are used in the control algorithms. In order to integrate human behaviour and perception into a technical system, the proposed adaptive measurement method makes use of the Fuzzily Defined Variable, FDV. The FDV approach enables an estimation of the quality index based on qualitative and quantitative factors for image quality evaluation using a neural network. The thesis consists of two parts, where Part I gives an overview of the applied theory and research methods used, and Part II comprises the eight papers included in the thesis.

檔案控制層次分為管理、全宗、系列、案卷、件等五個層次，是由美國國家檔案暨文件署之學者Oliver Wendell Holmes在1964年提出「檔案編排-五種不同的控制層次」一文的說法。 從2001年起，國內各典藏歷史檔案機構已就其重要的歷史檔案，引進採用最新發展之「檔案描述編碼格式」(Encoded Archival Description，簡稱EAD)及「國際檔案描述標準」(General International Standard Archival Description，簡稱ISAD(G))等標準，進行數位典藏計畫，使檔案控制層次在歷史檔案編排之應用，成為數位典藏計畫執行期間及本研究階段之重要研究課題。 本研究採用「個案研究法」與「深度訪談法」進行研究，對5所典藏歷史檔案機構進行個案研究，包括：國立故宮博物院、國史館、國史館台灣文獻館、中央研究院歷史語言研究所及近代史研究所，以了解檔案控制層次之應用成果；另深度訪談法則是對機構內檔案編排人員進行訪談，以搜集參與數位典藏計畫前後，檔案控制層次在歷史檔案編排之應用情形資訊，及檔案描述有關之控制層次內容。 根據本研究，有下列結論：一、各機構均會參酌最新理論與應用先例進行檔案編排；二、對於檔案控制層次除運用在實體歷史檔案編排外，並也已逐漸延伸到數位檔案影像編排上；三、後設資料需求規格書中之控制層次名稱更為明確；四、控制層次邏輯可以作為製成檢索工具基礎及應用在數位檔案之檔名命名上；五、層次關係以樹狀結構呈現；六、多數機構著重在較低層次的描述；七、彙整出各機構檔案編排之層次圖表。 最後對前述研究結論提出建議：一、未將檔案控制層次運用在歷史檔案編排者，應加以調整；二、控制層次之名稱與內涵應一致；三、運用檔案控制層次方法後，應加以彙集出版或作為網路上瀏覽檔案的輔助索引；四、建立描述計畫時，應著重在較高層次的描述；五、各機構應加強訂定檔案描述規則與多層次描述規範。 / The levels of control in archival arrangement can be classified by depositories, fonds, series, files and items ,etc. This concept had been proposed by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1964, in his article: “Archival Arrangement -- Five Different Operations at Five Different Levels”. Since 2001, many public archive institutions which are major holders of historical materials in Taiwan, early or late participated in the “National Digital Archives Program” (NDAP). They have adopted “Encoded Archival Description” (EAD) and “General International Standard Archival Description” ( ISAD(G)) as the standards of archive digitization. Therefore, the levels of control applied in the arrangement of historical archives have become the main topics of NDAP and relative studies. This study has adopted the “case study method” and the “in-depth interview method.” We make case studies of five major historical archive institutions in Taiwan -- the National Palace Museum, the Historica Academia, the Taiwan Historica, the Institute of History and Philology and the Institute of Modern History, especially regarding the levels of control applied in the arrangement of historical archives before and after these institutions participated in NDAP. On the other hand, we interviewed the archivists of the above institutions, in order to understand their work of archival description based on the levels of control. We reached the following conclusions: 1. The above-mentioned institutions adopt the newly theory and practice in archival arrangement every now and again. 2. The levels of control not only have been applied in the arrangement of physical archives, but extended to digital archives. 3. The levels of control have become more definite in the specification of metadata requirement. 4. The logic of the levels of control can be utilized as the basis of finding aids and : the naming rule of digital files. 5. The hierarchical model of the levels of control has been presented in a kind of tree structure. 6. Most institutions focus their efforts on lower level descriptions. 7. For further research, we establish a summary table of the levels of control adopted by the above-mentioned institutions. Finally, we do have some suggestions: 1. For every historical archive holder, it is a wise choice to adopt the levels of control to arrange the historical materials 2. The naming on the levels of control and its contents must be consistent. 3. The levels of control applied in the arrangement of historical materials should be available on-site to user as auxiliary index. 4. We’d better concentrate more efforts on higher level description while planning for archival description. 5. Each public archive institution should make every effort to enhance the establishment of Chinese archival description rules and multiple description specifications.

Ce travail présente, tout d'abord, l'étude des propriétés électriques (conductivité, permittivité) d'une matrice thermoplastique contenant du noir de carbone. Nous mettons en évidence les facteurs influençant ces propriétés en continu, basses fréquences et en micro-ondes à l'aide des techniques de spectroscopie diélectrique dynamique. L'influence de déformations mécaniques uniaxiales sur la permittivité en micro-ondes a été étudiée. Ensuite, les effets de la nature de la matrice et de l'arrangement spatial des nanotubes de carbone multiparois NTC sur les propriétés électriques des composites époxyde/NTC et latex /NTC ont été abordés. Les théories de la percolation et du milieu effectif sont utilisées pour décrire les mécanismes de transport électronique dans ces composites.

In 2003, China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second largest oil consumer (behind the United States), and the third largest oil importer (behind the United States and Japan). China’s huge demand for oil and its dependence on oil imports have forced the Chinese government continuously to adopt the energy expansion strategy in order to secure the country’s oil supply. The energy supply and reserves in Southeast Asian region are not the critical core area to supply China’s energy demand, but it is located in the periphery of China where it controls the transportation link of the Strait of Malacca, directly to hold a strategic point of the sea lane of communication for transporting oil to China. Under this scenario, China is proactively to carry out its energy diplomacy with ASEAN’s nations and to ensure completely an overall strategic arrangement in Southeast Asia so as to assure China’s oil security. In this thesis, it is mainly to probe into the following questions: the inquiring into China’s oil security strategy? Why China and how to readjust its relations with the nations in Southeast Asia? What is the driving factor? After China has become the oil importer, China has to face what kinds of challenges in oil transportation security? What is its intention of resolution projection? In terms of geographic shares, about 60% of the China’s oil import comes from the Middle East, passing through the highly insecure the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia that has taken the advantages to influence China’s oil sea transportation routes. Those issues will lay stress on the key points of breaking through the “Malacca Dilemma,” meet the China’s oil demand, sustain economic development, even consolidate the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and conform to the national interests. / In 2003, China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second largest oil consumer (behind the United States), and the third largest oil importer (behind the United States and Japan). China’s huge demand for oil and its dependence on oil imports have forced the Chinese government continuously to adopt the energy expansion strategy in order to secure the country’s oil supply. The energy supply and reserves in Southeast Asian region are not the critical core area to supply China’s energy demand, but it is located in the periphery of China where it controls the transportation link of the Strait of Malacca, directly to hold a strategic point of the sea lane of communication for transporting oil to China. Under this scenario, China is proactively to carry out its energy diplomacy with ASEAN’s nations and to ensure completely an overall strategic arrangement in Southeast Asia so as to assure China’s oil security. In this thesis, it is mainly to probe into the following questions: the inquiring into China’s oil security strategy? Why China and how to readjust its relations with the nations in Southeast Asia? What is the driving factor? After China has become the oil importer, China has to face what kinds of challenges in oil transportation security? What is its intention of resolution projection? In terms of geographic shares, about 60% of the China’s oil import comes from the Middle East, passing through the highly insecure the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia that has taken the advantages to influence China’s oil sea transportation routes. Those issues will lay stress on the key points of breaking through the “Malacca Dilemma,” meet the China’s oil demand, sustain economic development, even consolidate the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and conform to the national interests.

This doctoral submission represents over ten years of focused research that has resulted in a unique collection of academic and professional articles. The epithet "unique" is adopted to reflect that over those years this area of study has been relatively untouched by other academic researchers. This submission presents a total of eight academic and seven professional journal publications that chronicle the major output of numerous research projects undertaken between 1992 and 2002. The publications adhere to a central aim - to investigate the practical use and complex interactions between stakeholders of the individual insolvency rescue vehicle the Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA). The research projects employed a variety of relevant methodologies to populate an emerging conceptual model of the prime factors affecting the incidence, usage and outcomes of IVA cases. The first five articles report and develop the data collected during the various projects. The articles build on each other, analysing results and comparing these with previous studies to underline reliability in the data. The final three articles draw threads from the research data and develop the conceptual model further. As a research progression this submission contains all of the necessary ingredients of a doctoral thesis. It focuses on a discrete body of knowledge, builds on a conceptual model, gathers valuable data and tests it, draws strong conclusions and, finally, establishes and contributes new theory in this area of study.

This thesis describes methods for using spectral interferometry for the complete space-time characterisation of few-cycle near-infrared femtosecond pulses and extreme ultraviolet (XUV) attosecond pulses produced via high harmonic generation (HHG). Few-cycle pulses tend to exhibit one or more of the following: (1) an octave-spanning bandwidth, (2) a highly modulated spectrum and (3) space-time coupling. These characteristics, coupled with the desire to measure them in a single-shot (to characterise shot-to-shot fluctuations) and in real-time (for online optimisation and control) causes problems for conventional characterisation techniques. The first half of this thesis describes a method, based on a spatially encoded arrangement for spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SEA-SPIDER). SEA-SPIDER is demonstrated for sub-10fs pulses with a central wavelength near 800nm, a bandwidth over 350nm, and a pulse energy of several nano-Joules. In addition, the pulses exhibit a modulated spectrum and space-time coupling. The spatially-dependent temporal intensity of the pulse is reconstructed and compared to other techniques: interferometric frequency-resolved optical gating (IFROG) and spectral phase interferometry for direct electric field reconstruction (SPIDER). SEA-SPIDER will prove useful in both femtoscience, which requires accurate knowledge of the space-time character of few-cycle pulses, and in HHG, which requires the precise knowledge of the driving pulse for seeding into simulations and controlling the generation process itself. Pulses arising from HHG are known to exhibit significant space-time coupling. The second half of this thesis describes how spectral interferometry may be performed to obtain the complete space-time nature of these fields via the use of lateral shearing interferometry. Finally, it is shown, via numerical simulations, how to extend the SPIDER technique for temporal characterisation of XUV pulses from HHG by driving the process with two spectrally-sheared driving pulses. Different experimental configurations and their applicability to different laser systems are discussed. This method recovers the space-time nature of the harmonics in a single shot, thus reducing the stability constraint currently required for photoelectron based techniques and may serve as a complimentary method for studying interactions of XUV attosecond pulses with matter.

This study examined the perceptions of school superintendents of districts and building principals of schools within selected shared service arrangements in the state of Texas who receive services from the cooperative, and selected directors of rural shared service arrangements pertaining to the responsibilities and roles of shared service arrangements when site-based decision-making (SBDM) was used as the guiding philosophy.

This investigation sought to compare the transcription techniques of two pianist-composers, Godowsky and Liszt, using three Schubert lieder as examples. The lieder were "Das Wandern" from Die Schöne Müllerin, "Gute Nacht" from Winterreise, and "Liebesbotschaft" from Schwanengesang. They were compared using four criteria: tonality, counterpoint, timbral effects, and harmony. Liszt, following a practice common in the nineteenth century, was primarily concerned with bringing new music into the home of the domestic pianist. The piano transcription was the most widely used and successful medium for accomplishing this. Liszt also frequently transcribed pieces of a particular composer in order to promulgate them by featuring them in his recitals. The Schubert lieder fall into this category. Liszt did not drastically alter the original in these compositions. Indeed, in the cases of "Liebesbotschaft" and "Das Wandern," very little alteration beyond the incorporation of the melody into the piano accompaniment, occurs.Godowsky, in contrast, viewed the transcription as a vehicle for composing a new piece. He intended to improve upon the original by adding his own inspiration to it. Godowsky was particularly ingenious in adding counterpoint, often chromatic, to the original. Examples of Godowsky's use of counterpoint can be found in "Das Wandern" and "Gute Nacht." While Liszt strove to remain faithful to Schubert's intentions, Godowsky exercised his ingenuity at will, being only loosely concerned with the texture and atmosphere of the lieder. "Gute Nacht" and "Liebesbotschaft" are two examples that show how far afield Godowsky could stray from the original by the addition of chromatic voicing and counterpoint. Godowsky*s compositions can be viewed as perhaps the final statement on the possibilities of piano writing in the traditional sense. As such these works deserve to be investigated and performed.