In order to tend to the world’s dwindling freshwater supplies, sustainable alternative methods need to be integrated in order to keep up with the world’s increasing demand. Reclaimed water (RW) is one of the sustainable methods adopted by some Floridian cities such as Tampa, Tallahassee, and St. Pete that provide an alternative water source for non-potable uses. However, despite this alleviating effect RW has on freshwater supplies, it is crucial to recognize the potential harm it poses on neighboring waterbodies due to the residual contaminants it still contains, including Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorous (P). As such, studying residents’ knowledge and behavior about RW provides an insight into certain behavioral trends that potentially explain elevated levels of N and P in certain waterbodies. This study surveyed households living in the vicinity of Joe’s Creek Watershed and are using RW in irrigation provided by Pinellas County Utilities Department (PC) and the City of St. Pete Water Resources Department (SP). After looking at these residents’ yard practices, no harmful behavioral trend was observed to explicate the health of neighboring waterbodies. RW users are aware of the irrigation regulations set for them. However, weakness in information communication between city and County officials and RW users on fertilizer use and regulations was recorded. It is recommended that the city of St. Pete revisits their loose regulations on RW and the irrigation schedule set for their customers. More outreach material on fertilizer application and regulations need to be made available and accessible to the public.

There are two principal models that purport to interpret the evidence for the origins of the Neolithic period in Thailand. Both stress the importance of rice cultivation and the domestication of a range of animals. One incorporates archaeological and linguistic evidence in identifying the origins as the result of the diffusion of farming communities into Southeast Asia and India from a source in the Yangtze River valley. The alternative stresses a local evolutionary pathway whereby indigenous hunter-gatherers began to cultivate rice within Thailand. This dissertation is centred on the results of the excavation of Ban Non Wat, in the Upper Mun Valley of Northeast Thailand. This has provided one of the largest, best dated and provenanced samples of occupation and mortuary remains of a Neolithic community so far available in Southeast Asia. Its principal objective is to define the motifs incised, impressed and painted onto the surface of ceramic mortuary vessels, in order to permit a comparison with other assemblages first in Thailand, then in Southeast Asia north into China. It is held that if there are close parallels over a wide geographic area, in these motifs, then it would support a model of diffusion. If there are not, then the alternative of local origins would need to be examined closely. It is argued that the similarity in motifs, particularly a stylised human figure, between Thai and Vietnamese sites lends support to a common origin for these groups. The motifs are not so obvious when examining the southern Chinese data, although the mode of decoration by painting, incising and impressing recur there. This, in conjunction with mortuary rituals, weaving technology, the domestic dog, and the linguistic evidence, sustains a model for demic diffusion. However, the presence of ceramic vessels also decorated with impressed/incised techniques in maritime hunter-gatherer contexts stresses that the actual Neolithic settlement may have been more complex.

This thesis investigates the ability of transparent surface coatings to reduce xenon diffusion into plastic scintillators. The motivation for the work is improved radioxenon monitoring equipment, used with in the framework of the verification regime of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. A large part of the equipment used in this context incorporates plastic scintillators which are in direct contact with the radioactive gas to be detected. One problem with such setup is that radioxenon diffuses into the plastic scintillator material during the measurement, resulting in an unwanted memory effect consisting of residual activity left in the detector. In this work coatings of Al2O3 and SiO2, with thicknesses between 20 and 400 nm have been deposited onto flat plastic scintillator samples, and tested with respect to their Xe diffusion barrier capabilities. All tested coatings were found to reduce the memory effect, and 425 nm of Al2O3 showed the most promise. This coating was deposited onto a complete detector. Compared to uncoated detectors, the coated one presented a memory effect reduction of a factor of 1000. Simulations and measurements of the expected light collection efficiency of a coated detector were also performed, since it is important that this property is not degraded by the coating. It was shown that a smooth coating, with a similar refractive index as the one of the plastic, should not significantly affect the light collection and resolution. The resolution of the complete coated detector was also measured, showing a resolution comparable to uncoated detectors. The work conducted in this thesis proved that this coating approach is a viable solution to the memory effect problem, given that the results are reproducible, and that the quality of the coating is maintained over time.

The main concept of Body-Coupled Communication (BCC) is to transmit the electrical information through the human body as a communication medium by means of capacitive coupling. Nowadays the current research of wireless body area network are expanding more with the new ideas and topologies for better result in respect to the low power and area, security, reliability and sensitivity since it is first introduced by the Zimmerman in 1995. In contrast with the other existing wireless communication technology such as WiFi, Bluetooth and Zigbee, the BCC is going to increase the number of applications as well as solves the problem with the cell based communication system depending upon the frequency allocation. In addition, this promising technology has been standardized by a task group named IEEE 802.15.6 addressing a reliable and feasible system for low power in-body and on-body nodes that serves a variety of medical and non medical applications. The entire BAN project is divided into three major parts consisting of application layer, digital baseband and analog front end (AFE) transceiver. In the thesis work a strong driver circuit for BCC is implemented as an analog front end transmitter (Tx). The primary purpose of the study is to transmit a strong signal as the signal is attenuated by the body around 60 dB. The Driver circuit is cascaded of two single-stage inverter and an identical inverter with drain resistor. The entire driver circuit is designed with ST65 nm CMOS technology with 1.2 V supply operated at 10 MHz frequency, has a driving capability of 6 mA which is the basic requirement. The performance of the transmitter is compared with the other architecture by integrating different analysis such as corner analysis, noise analysis and eye diagram. The cycle to cycle jitter is 0.87% which is well below to the maximum point and the power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) is 65 dB indicates the good emission of supply noise. In addition, the transmitter does not require a filter to emit the noise because the body acts like a low pass filter. In conclusion the findings of the thesis work is quite healthy compared to the previous work. Finally, there is some point to improve for the driver circuit in respect to the power consumption, propagation delay and leakage power in the future.

The aim of this study is to draw attention to the fact that daily practices which tend to be overlooked due to their taken for grantedness actually signify power coming into existence here and now as well as that everyday problems bring along accordingly ordinary coping ways. In this respect, resistance in everyday life means a refusal that does not identify itself as political and organized, and who intends to make do with the rule by finding immediate and effective solutions to negative effects power generates rather than overtly challenging it. In order to render visible this type of resistance, to understand how it is experienced and perceived, the implementation of smoking ban in enclosed areas was covered in entertainment venues. Participant observations and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in Nevizade Street that is located in Beyoglu district of Istanbul and consists of meyhanes as well as beerhouses. Although customers resist based on pleasure principle, managers in order not to go bankrupt and employees not to fall out of work, it is concluded that what is thwarted here is not public health that the related law aims to protect but rather the troubles that the implementation of the law brings about.

Large and small crabgrass are problem turfgrass weeds. Due to increasing cosmetic pesticide bans, assessment of crabgrass recruitment timing and cultural management response is important. This project determined that natural populations emerged later than cool season turfgrass typically establishes. While turf vigour may affect the survival of crabgrass through competition, it does not directly impact crabgrass recruitment. Considering fertilization, chamber experiments confirmed that KNO3 increased fresh seed germination. This effect did not occur with aged seed suggesting that KNO3 affects seed dormancy and not germination per se. Experiments with a model turfgrass system showed similar results where fresh seed recruitment increased with increasing fertilizer rate. Fertilization had no significant effect on recruitment in field trials. Although fresh seed was spread in the fall, recruitment did not occur until spring when seed is considered non-dormant. This suggests that typical home owner fertilization will not have a direct impact on crabgrass recruitment.

This thesis paper explores how various actors gathered around bottled water when a ban was put into place in Concord, Massachusetts. The objective has been to answer the following questions: How does an apolitical commodity become a political one? Specifically, how does bottled water move from being an apolitical commodity to become a highly political one? What does this mean for environmental politics? I situate my theoretical approach within Martha Kaplan’s research with fountains and coolers. I use Bruno Latour to show in which ways this ban became a matter of concern, as well as how the ban and the plastic bottle are actors. I conducted fieldwork in Concord and I interviewed participants. My findings reveal that the ban brought meanings to the surface and challenged them or supported them in various ways. The discussions turned from the impact of bottled water on our environment to the political impact of bottled water companies and large corporations on local Concord issues.

Long-term evolution (LTE) standard has been successfully stabilized, and launched in several areas. However, the required channel capacity is expected to increase significantly as the explosively increasing number of smart-phone users implies. Hence, this is already the time for leading researchers to concentrate on a new multiple access scheme in wireless communications to satisfy the channel capacity that those smart users will want in the not-too-distant future. The diversity and multiplexing in a new domain - polarization domain - can be a strong candidate for the solution to that problem in future wireless communication systems. This research contributes largely to the comprehensive understanding of polarized wireless channels and a new multiple access scheme in the polarization domain - polarization division multiple access (PDMA). The thesis consists of three streams: 1) a novel geometrical theory and models for fixed-to-mobile (F2M) and mobile-to-mobile (M2M) polarized wireless channels; 2) a new wireless body area network (BAN) polarized channel modeling; and 3) a novel PDMA scheme. The proposed geometrical theory and models reveal the origin and mechanism of channel depolarization with excellent agreement with empirical data in terms of cross-polarization discrimination (XPD), which is the principal measure of channel depolarization. Further, a novel PDMA scheme utilizing polarization-filtering detection and collaborative transmitter-receiver-polarization (Tx-Rx-polarization) adjustment, is designed considering cellular orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel PDMA scheme has large potential to be utilized with the conventional time, frequency, and code division multiple access (TDMA, FDMA, and CDMA); and spatial multiplexing for next-generation wireless communication systems.

Politicians and social marketers considering whether, and how, to implement a national smoking ban in their countries require sound evidence regarding what the causes of support are amongst key stakeholders, how this support will develop over the short to medium term in which they seek to be re-elected, and how support relates to critical outcomes like enforcement. In response to this need, I use structural equation models to develop a model of the antecedents of support, based on theories of self interest and common sense justice, amongst hospitality industry managers. I show that support is determined more by fairness related constructs than self interest constructs, that support for national smoking bans increases consistently over time, and that the initial level of support, and the rate at which support increases, is positively related to subsequent enforcement behaviour by bar managers, in the year after implementation of such a ban, in New Zealand. I use growth mixture modeling to identify two subgroups of bar managers whose support changes at different rates. First, a class of bar managers with a high proportion of smokers who reported fewer instances of respiratory related health problems, showed low initial support, and whose support for the legislation slowly decreased. And second, a class of bar managers comprised of fewer smokers, but reporting more instances of respiratory related health problems. This class began with a high degree support, and steadily increased in support for the national smoking ban. I discuss the implications of these findings for social marketers, health educationalists, and politicians interested in introducing a similar ban in other countries.

Thesis (M.A. (Political & International Studies)) - Rhodes University, 2009. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in International Relations.