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Thesis advisor: Sara Cordes / Thesis advisor: Sophie Savelkouls / Prior research indicates that Spontaneous Focusing On Number (SFON) measured in the preschool years is predictive of mathematical achievement as late as age 12 (Hannula & Lehtinen, 2005; Hannula-Sormunen, Lepola, & Lehtinen, 2010). Therefore, there is great need to examine how young children’s attention to number is affected by various contexts. This study investigated how heterogeneity vs. homogeneity of the arrays, and verbal labels for the quantities presented affected young children’s attention to number, compared to their attention to cumulative surface area. We found that participants preference for and attention to number was correlated with their number knowledge, but only when the items they were presented with were homogeneous, not heterogeneous. This suggests that homogeneous arrays are important for children’s attention to number and individuation and could be used as a tool to help children better hone in on mathematical concepts. / Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Psychology.

This thesis discusses the struggle for independence in Rhodesia, from the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 to internationally recognised independence in 1980. Whilst there are many existing accounts and discussions of the Rhodesia crisis, there is very little work that considers the role of advocacy organisations and the pressure they exerted on successive Governments and the broader left in Britain, and little consideration of the African nationalist movement outside of Rhodesia or the nationalist bases in neighbouring countries. The thesis builds on existing literature by considering how interest in the Rhodesia issue amongst advocacy organisations and the labour movement in Britain fluctuated over this 15 year period, according to key events in the timeline of the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. It examines the methods used by advocacy organisations in campaigning on the Rhodesia issue, arguing that they were constrained by pragmatism and adherence to familiar methods of campaigning, as well as a lack of will to break with these methods, one of which was to involve the labour movement and utilise their established networks to publicise the cause. This tactic was met with limited success because, for the majority of the period under consideration, the British labour movement was broadly disengaged with the Rhodesia issue, with other primarily domestic concerns taking precedence, although certain individuals gave ardent support to the cause. The rhetoric of the more middle class led advocacy organisations generally failed to find traction with much of the labour movement. Meanwhile, the African nationalist movement focused its attentions on the British Labour Party in the belief that they were the real power brokers, and maintained a polite relationship with its representatives, whilst espousing a strong anti-British rhetoric back in Rhodesia.

By the mid-1970s, Tanzania had the biggest co-operative movement in Africa and the oldest in East Africa. Despite such achievement, for decades, the literature on Tanzania’s small-scale coffee and cotton cultivation and marketing co-operatives has suffered from a dearth of substantive historical accounts. The available literature is fragmented along various academic disciplines, mostly political science and sociology. In addition, there is no single substantive secondary historical study specifically dedicated to the co-operative movement since the inception in 1932. The neglect is more critical given the current renaissance in Africa and increasing international interest in the co-operative movement at either national or local levels. This thesis seeks to fill this gap by utilising primary sources from the Co-operative College archive in Manchester and Tanzania National Archive (TNA) to examine and evaluate the coffee and cotton marketing co-operatives during the 1932 to 1982 period. The study further explores the interlocking forces and policies that led to its growth and development. The development is also examined against the changing political and ideological influences during the interwar, and post-war to independence periods. This thesis is structured under three cases, two of which are coffee marketing co-operatives, the Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union (KNCU) and Bukoba Co-operative Union (BCU) in Kagera; and the cotton apex marketing co-operative in the WCGA, the Victoria Federation of Co-operative Unions (VFCUS) which was formed in 1955. Study findings show that the time gap in the formation of the mentioned co-operatives were due to the colonial authority neglecting its own co-operative development policy. The evidence shows that, the KNCU which was formed in 1933 and BCU in 1950 were both established at the behest of the British colonial government in a move to control the coffee industry. Importantly, the study examines the power relations involved and the government interventions in the process and the extent to which the co-operatives were promoted and controlled by the government through the co-operative and agricultural marketing policies and legislations. This was particularly provided under Section 36 of the 1932 co-operative legislation and was further reinforced by three policies, the 1934 Chagga Rule, the 1937 Native (control and marketing) Ordinance and the Defence Ordinance, Orders of 1939 and 1940; and the African Agricultural Products (Control and Marketing) Ordinance, 1949. The post-colonial authority perpetuated the colonial policies in promoting co-operatives and the control of agricultural export revenues provided under the 1962 by the National Agricultural Products Board (Control and Marketing) Act by intensifying the intervention, effectively strangling and restructuring them to provide for effective control. Again, there was an increased politisation of the movement’s function as they became an integral part of the propagation of the socialist/ujamaa ideology and the national development plan as the 1976 villagisation policy. This study is of the view that the colonial and post-colonial authorities intervened in the formation of co-operatives given the fact that they were economically strategically vital. During the phases covered in this thesis, the established legislations reinforced the government’s control over the co-operative movement and the producers; and granted themselves a monopoly over the handling and export of small-scale produced coffee and cotton through the control of marketing boards by appointing co-operatives as crop handling agents. Thus, the co-operative movement never attained autonomous status as it became part of the government machinery in extracting resources and exploiting small-scale growers.

信道質量和服務質量（QoS）是無線體域網的兩個重要挑戰。本文旨在研究信道特性和在保證高吞吐率和低數據弛豫時間前提下探索低功耗WBAN系統策略。本論文的貢獻在於三個方面。首先研究人體信道（HBC）特性。作為IEEE標準802.15.6定義的三種PHY層之一，HBC已經作為體表傳感器通信媒介被廣泛研究。但是，HBC的詳細機理至今仍然不夠明朗，特別是對於那些采用了體內傳感器的應用更少人涉足。因此，我們為此專門預設四種應用場景，並在場景中測量實際信道特性。依據測量結果，我們觀測到數個影響信道質量的因素。其次，我們提出了一種專門針對WBAN的信道建模方法。該方法依賴於對人體組織的直接測量結果，並且此建模方法在建模過程中兼顧體表通信和體內通信。該建模方法包括兩個階段，第一階段是構建人體各部分的子模型，在第二階段調用先前構建之子模型並依賴信號衰減特性來構造上層模型。最終得到的模型包含兩個自變量：頻率和信道長度，從而可應用此模型同時預測不同頻率和不同長度條件下的信道特性。在設計的實驗中，結果表明該模型具有良好的精度，在10 kHz到60 MHz的頻率範圍內，最差的誤差為2.5 dB。除此之外，我們還在一個演示系統中對信道進行了測試，尤其是誤碼率（BER）和信號衰減情形。該測試結果也顯示出該模型所具有的良好預測性。第三，我們提出了一種關註QoS的WBAN系統優化方法。在IEEE標準中定義了數種不同存取模式（Access mode）和存取方式（Access method）。為了提高功率效率，我們著重研究了數據壓縮對系統總功率的影響，另外還對系統吞吐率建立了分析模型。仿真結果顯示，在一定條件下，數據壓縮對功耗降低具有良好功效，另外采用較高數據傳輸速率會對功耗存在改進作用。當數據壓縮模塊的壓縮率超過2倍，而功耗低於收發器的40%時，插入數據壓縮模塊可以確保整個系統消耗更低能源。 / Channel loss and maintaining the Quality of Service (QoS) are two of the major challenges in realizing an effective Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). This thesis studies the body channel characteristics and proposes a methodology to improve energy efficiency for an entire WBAN system to achieve high throughput and low data latency. Three main contributions are made in this thesis. Firstly, we focus on human body channel (HBC). HBC, as a possible PHY layer for IEEE standards 802.15.6, has been found useful in networking on-body sensors. However, the HBC channel dynamics is not well understood and this is particularly the case when transceivers implanted inside a human body are involved. To this end, channel measurements were performed on real subjects under four different scenarios so that factors affecting channel quality could be identified. Secondly, a channel modelling methodology is proposed for body area network that takes into account the body structure and the dielectric properties of human tissues; this represents the first modelling effort to cover both in-body and on-body communications in vivo. The proposed modelling method composes of two phases: sub-model construction and top-level model construction. The constructed model is a function of two variables, frequency and channel length, enabling channel impedance prediction with respect to either frequency or channel length. Meanwhile, experimental results show that good model accuracy, a maximum error of 2.5 dB, can be achieved in frequencies range from 10 kHz to 60 MHz. In this endeavor, a modified HBC development system was used to measure bit error rate (BER) and signal attenuation during transmission. The measurements show a good match against simulation results and the channel model. Thirdly, a power optimization technique is proposed for the WBAN. The latest IEEE standard 802.15.6 defines several access modes and access methods together with new power management schemes and frame structures. To improve the power efficiency of a body area network, the merit of having data compression was investigated. For this purpose, an analytical model was developed to evaluate the power efficiency of a BAN system. Simulation results show that good power efficiency can be achieved by employing data compression. It is evident that higher data rate can also help improve energy efficiency. When the compression factor is larger than 2, better energy efficiency can be guaranteed by introducing a data processing unit in a sensor node as long as its power consumption is limited to 40% of that of the transceiver unit. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Ai, Yanqing. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-135). / Abstracts also in Chinese.

The years between 1818 and 1856 encompass the life of the Church Building Commission, one agency of a determined assertion by the Anglican Church. Under the Commissioners' aegis 82 of the 612 new places of worship were planted in Lancashire. The intention is to analyse the rationale and impact of a remarkable church building project and its role in the Anglican initiative in the county. The thesis is the first detailed local study of the churches' distinctive role, beyond the assessment of their artistic worth. M.H. Port in Six Hundred New Churches (2006) produced the definitive work on the architecture and central administration of "Waterloo Churches". He had less to say on their social and religious importance. In order to explore the rationale, impact and role of the churches, I adopted a case study approach selecting three churches in south central Lancashire, one from each deanery of Manchester Diocese which was created out of Chester Diocese in 1847. These were St George's Chorley (consecrated in 1825), its namesake in Tyldesley (1825) and St Stephen's Tockholes (1833). The sample provided variety in socio-economic and religious contexts but also some similarity, in that all three were townships on a Lancashire denominational frontier. The thesis describes the immense diversity and complexity in causation and motivation behind these churches, but highlighting the presence at local level of a strong belief in reclaiming Protestant Dissenters for the national church. It concludes, in contrast with most previous judgements, that the Commissioners' churches in these townships achieved significant success, albeit in contrasting manner and pace and for different reasons. Their distinctively Gothic architecture was striking and more appropriate to worship than critics have allowed. The financial challenges were not as debilitating as routinely supposed. The changing parochial boundaries around Commissioners' churches were rational and encouraged community building rather than the destruction of identities. The intense commitment of clergy associated with the new churches helped to effect a type of Anglican counter-reformation in Lancashire.

The object of this dissertation is to record and analyze the foreign policy of the Sultanate of Oman from the early twentieth century until 2004. It challenges the central assumption of the contemporary scholarship on the subject that Muscat's modern foreign policy begins in 1970. It is often presumed that the pre-1970 era does not merit a thorough investigation to understand Muscat's modus operandi today. This study argues that for a comprehensive understanding of Muscat's foreign policy since 1970, the frontier of the historical analysis of Oman's regional and international involvement should be pushed back to the 1930's, when the young Sultan Said assumed power over the country divided by the "Treaty" or the "Agreement" of Sib. Indeed, the thrust of this research lies at once in repudiating the conventional wisdom regarding both the persona of Sultan Said and the customary political/historical narrative of Said's reign. The critical analysis of this period is utilized to rebut the pervasive and largely inaccurate historical narrative of the events prior to 1970, to recount an original interpretation of the period, and to use the narrative as a preamble for subsequent foreign policy directions and initiatives. Furthermore, this dissertation covers the gaps in the literature resulting from the absence of any materials that either record or analyze Muscat's foreign policy from 1996 until 2004. In addition, his study provides new information and a fresh analysis of the international relations of the region, including great power rivalry, especially the competition between the United States and Great Britain, and the attitudes of major regional actors, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The use of a thorough historical inquiry is vital to support the central claim of this dissertation; therefore, a large section of this dissertation is based almost exclusively on archival materials collected from the British Public Records Office, the University of Oxford and the Library of Congress. This project represents the most comprehensive use of archival materials on the subject matter to date.

This thesis explains the emergence of volunteer tourism. By utilizing both a personal experience of volunteer tourism and comparing it to similar experiences described in online Blogs, several preliminary conclusions were made. For comparisons, the motivations, living conditions, and relationships formed for all volunteer tourists were similar. The major findings indicate that further research on the written blogs of volunteer tourists will enable research to understand the lasting impacts of volunteer tourism on both the host and the volunteers.

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