The impact of co-teaching in the inclusion setting is essential to improving the academic achievement of students with disabilities. With the emergence of federal and state mandates, standards-based accountability is compelling schools to place students with disabilities in the inclusion setting to receive the same content as their nondisabled peers. This research study aimed to identify the factors impacting the effectiveness of co-teaching in the inclusion setting within K-12 schools. The research questions for this study included: What factors do co-teaching teams identify as essential for effective co-teaching? What factors do co-teachers perceive as obstacles or problems that hinder effective co-teaching? and What administrative support is needed to carry out co-teaching responsibilities effectively? The design methodology for this study was qualitative and consisted of three co-teaching teams in Virginia. Semi-structured interviews with co-teachers from model demonstration sites were used to collect data. Data analysis occurred through hand-coding of the transcribed interview questions. Model co-teaching teams identified twelve factors that impact effective co-teaching, including positive relationships, consistent behavioral expectations, defined roles and responsibilities, pairing, professional development, parity, co-teaching models, administrators' expectations, co-teaching best practices, consistent co-planning time, professional expertise, and building co-teaching capacity. The research should provide practitioners with strategies and approaches for effective co-teaching in the inclusion setting with K-12 schools. / Doctor of Education / The impact of co-teaching in the inclusion setting is essential to improving the academic achievement of students with disabilities. This study represents the researcher's effort to understand the factors that are essential for effective co-teaching in the inclusion setting with K12 schools. This research is a qualitative study, and the researcher completed interviews with three model co-teaching teams from the Virginia Department of Education Excellence in Co-teaching Initiative. Model co-teaching teams identified twelve factors that impact effective co-teaching, including positive relationships, consistent behavioral expectations, defined roles and responsibilities, pairing, professional development, parity, co-teaching models, administrators' expectations, co-teaching best practices, consistent co-planning time, professional expertise, and building co-teaching capacity. The research should provide practitioners with strategies and approaches for effective co-teaching in the inclusion setting with K-12 schools.

Single atom catalysis is a relatively new form of heterogeneous catalysis. While single atom catalysts probably are already used in a lot of catalysis, their identification and characterization has only recently become common place. As we now have the ability to synthesis relatively pure systems consisting of single atoms and then to characterize them, there are many interesting questions that we can answer about them. In this work we will use a combination of several different types of characterizations such as kinetic measurements, diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy, extended x-ray absorption fine structure, and many more to better understand how single atoms react and how we can attempt to make such systems more active. The work here is primarily based around Ir single atoms and/or small clusters on three different supports MgAl2O4, TiO2, and CeO2. In each of these cases we attempt to understand how the Ir and the support catalytically oxidize CO into CO2 through a kinetic, and if possible, mechanistic study. Through these mechanistic studies we attempt to isolate the most important parameters of the catalyst so that we can create a more active catalyst. There are, of course, many different ways that we can use this information. The most obvious is by changing the catalyst support, but as the breadth of the research presented here will show, we can also optimize catalytic activity through using mixtures of single atoms with larger species as well as by changing the nuclearity of the said species, i.e., we can increase activity by controlling the size of the catalysts. However, in order to be able to control the activity in this way, we must 1) know how the size affects the activity and 2) know how the reaction conditions affect the size, i.e., we must establish the catalyst size is stable during reaction. Each of these topics are discussed to some extent here. Additionally, we also discuss how different sites of single atoms on the same support might differ and we show that we can create such different sites. On the whole, we have studied single atom and small cluster catalysis in many different directions based on systems of Ir for CO oxidation. This work is also performed with the intent to compare these Ir systems to similar systems of Rh, Pt, Pd, etc. However here we will only discuss the Ir pieces. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this work we study various properties of Ir single atom and subnanometer cluster catalysts for CO oxidation in hopes that we might be able to design a better catalyst with this information. A catalyst is a substance that facilitates a chemical reaction but is not consumed. For this work we will be considering the reaction of carbon monoxide (CO), which is a common pollutant and highly toxic gas, with O2 to create CO2, a much less dangerous pollutant. Our catalyst thus makes this reaction happen much faster and thus allows us to remove CO from exhaust streams, such as car exhaust, better. A single atom catalyst is a catalyst that is primarily a single atom on a metal oxide support. A subnanometer cluster catalyst is thus a catalyst that is smaller than one nanometer (0.00000004 inches). These are typically 10-20 atoms grouped together. This size is interesting as it is bigger than a single atom, but it is still much smaller than a classical catalyst nanoparticle and is thus controlled or dominated by different properties. In this work we will look at how different characteristics of the singe atom and cluster catalysts affect how good of a catalyst it is. The first is how the amount of single atoms and nanoparticles affect the overall activity of the catalyst. This study will tell us what the best mixture of single atoms is. The second study is how small clusters of Ir/MgAl2O4 react differently than single atoms and large nanoparticles. This tells us what the best size for Ir/MgAl2O4 catalysts are. The third study tells us how Ir/TiO2 single atom catalysts react which is useful when compared to Ir/MgAl2O4 and Ir/CeO2 (Chapter 7). The combination of single atom studies then allows us to make predictions on which supports (apart from Ir/MgAl2O4, Ir/TiO2, and Ir/CeO2) will be the best for CO oxidation. The fourth study compares different single atoms (all of Ir/TiO2) and shows how they behave differently, this is another possibility to increase the effectiveness of the catalyst. The fifth study discusses how different conditions affect the size of the Ir/TiO2 catalysts. Specifically, whether they exist as single atoms, subnanometer clusters, or larger clusters. All of these different studies represent another way that we can potentially increase catalytic activity and hopefully will allow our group, or another group to create even more active catalysts.

Statistical copolymers of acrylonitrile (AN) and methyl acrylate (MA) were successfully prepared and characterized using reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) copolymerization. A typical copolymer was charged with 15 wt. % MA content. This thesis describes a systematic variation of the RAFT copolymerization variables to optimize this system. In particular, the effects of chain transfer agent, initiator, temperature, and solvent on the copolymer properties were studied. / Master of Science

Child internalizing and externalizing problems co-vary during development and lead to maladjustment outcomes, such as substance abuse, academic failure, antisocial behaviors and psychopathology. The proposed study aims to examine the co-development process of internalizing and externalizing problems during middle childhood and the potential moderators of this reciprocal relationship. Children and their families recruited in the Study of Early Childhood Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) constitute the sample of the current study. Participants in the study were recruited from nine states in the United States and followed from birth to adolescence. Though a few studies have examined the developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing problems over time, the findings are not consistent in terms of the directions of the relationship and very few have examined individual difference in the co-development process. To address this gap in knowledge, two moderating effects are examined, with one moderator being time-invariant, i.e., children's gender, and the other moderator being time-variant, i.e. parent-child conflicts. Longitudinal growth modeling and longitudinal difference score modeling are used to examine the dynamic relationship and the moderating effects. Comparisons of the two approaches are made with respect to the specific hypotheses of change tested by each model, model convergence, parameter and fit estimates, and the interpretation of the results. / Ph. D.

As a result of recent federal legislative changes affecting educational policies, co-teaching, which requires general and special educators to work together to provide instruction to students in inclusion classrooms, has been on the rise and is considered by some educators as a method for meeting mandates required by law. While co-teaching is an idea that should work in practice, teachers who implement co-teaching find themselves facing complex issues regarding their roles and responsibilities within the context of program logistics. This qualitative study was designed to help co-teaching partners and others to understand how co-teaching partnerships are formed, develop, and work in classrooms. This understanding may be helpful to others as they seek to overcome barriers and form relationships that facilitate successful co-teaching partnerships. Elementary co-teachers in a rural school district were interviewed face-to-face, and a document analysis was conducted to examine how co-teachers experience co-teaching partnerships. Six general education co-teachers and six special education co-teachers were randomly selected for interviews, and they were asked to bring any literature that they had received on co-teaching to the interviews. Results indicate that co-teachers thought compatibility was important when working as co-teachers. They expressed the need for a mutual planning time during the school day, and both general and special education co-teachers were concerned about the amount of uninterrupted time special education teachers could spend in inclusion classrooms. When co-teachers thought they had a compatible partnership, they were willing to make alternative planning arrangements, and they were accepting of the time special education co-teachers could spend in the classroom. / Ed. D.

As the IT industry marks a paradigm shift from the traditional system design model to System-On-Chip (SOC) design, the design of custom hardware, embedded processors and associated software have become very tightly coupled. Any change in the implementation of one of the components affects the design of other components and, in turn, the performance of the system. This has led to an integrated design approach known as hardware/software co-design and co-verification. The conventional techniques for co-design favor partitioning the system into hardware and software components at an early stage of the design and then iteratively refining it until a good solution is found. This method is expensive and time consuming. A more modern approach is to model the whole system and rigorously test and refine it before the partitioning is done. The key to this method is the ability to model and simulate the entire system. The advent of new System Level Modeling Languages (SLML), like SystemC, has made this possible. This research proposes a strategy to automate the process of partitioning a system model after it has been simulated and verified. The partitioning idea is based on systems modeled using Process Model Graphs (PmG). It is possible to extract a PmG directly from a SLML like SystemC. The PmG is then annotated with additional attributes like IO delay and rate of activation. A complexity heuristic is generated from this information, which is then used by a greedy algorithm to partition the graph into different architectures. Further, a command line tool has been developed that can process textually represented PmGs and partition them based on this approach. / Master of Science

In the US, the 14.0-14.5 GHz band is allocated on a primary basis to the Radio-Navigation and the FSS with a secondary allocation to the LMSS. The Radio-Navigation service is the use of RADAR for navigation. An example of Radio-Navigation is the ground proximity radar used for airplane collision avoidance. FSS stands for the Fixed Satellite Service. In general, an FSS is a satellite network consisting of a geo-stationary satellite and non-movable earth stations on the ground. An example of an FSS is the earth terminals used at gas stations to verify credit cards and centrally track inventory. The 14.0-14.5 GHz band is also allocated on a secondary basis to the LMSS or Land Mobile Satellite Service. This is a satellite network with a satellite and a movable terrestrial non-aeronautical earth station. An example of an LMSS is a system called Omnitracs, which provides a satellite-based data connection for the trucking industry. AMSS stands for the Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Service. An AMSS is an LMSS dedicated only to airplanes. The CPM or Conference Preparatory Meeting after WRC or World Radio Conference-2000 decided there was an urgent need for technical and regulatory studies covering sharing between the FSS and the AMSS. The requirement for a report on the studies was added to the WRC-2003 agenda. The WRC also stipulated that the studies must demonstrate that sharing between the FSS and the AMSS is feasible enough to allocate AMSS a secondary status in the band. The studies need to be completed before WRC-2003. AMSS contends that sharing is feasible if their service can meet the same PFD limits of the LMSS. Presently, the FCC has licensed the AMSS on an experimental non-interference basis. The FSS contends that characteristics are needed of the AMSS system and a detailed sharing study be completed to verify sharing is feasible. The FSS believes that sharing may not be feasible if the same transponder is used for AMSS and FSS. The FSS perceives that the AMSS is asking for a super secondary status. Super secondary status implies that the AMSS would only be required to adhere to PFD limits on individual aircraft and not for multiple aircraft in view of a victim FSS receiver. Future studies will clarify this issue. The issues associated with the sharing analysis are; the modeling of the orbital separation of the satellites, the atmospheric interference into the communication link and the availability of the communication link between the FSS and the AMSS. The issues associated with modeling of the simulation are the static, verses dynamic modeling environments and developing a dynamic software tool to track airplane movement. This thesis plans to propose a new sharing methodology between the FSS and the AMSS that could be contributed to the WRC-2003 agenda. Three systems examples were provided at ITU meetings inresponse to the WRC-2003 agenda item. The three systems will abide by the ITU-R S.728 EIRP limits. The three systems indicate that static analysis shows that sharing is feasible involving only one aircraft as the interfere. This is not a reasonable solution for a real time environment because there is only one aircraft used. It is necessary for the link to support multiple aircraft. The factors that indicate sharing is feasible are: non-harmful interference to the victim and reasonable enough link margin in the interfere system to make it viable. A viable system in the case of aircraft would include high-speed internet and video. The AMSS interfere system cannot propose a power limit that will not allow it to close it's own link. In order to mitigate the interference, systems can agree to certain interference mitigation techniques. The different techniques are: transmitting power control, geostationary arc avoidance angle and orbital arc separation. Power control as described above is the centralized control of the interfering antenna into the victim. This is done by simulating the interference environment and pre-scheduling the decreases of the transmitting power. This is a feasible solution except that it decreases the availability and thru-put of the interfere system. This approach can make the system have unrealistic link margins and spotty availability due to the pre-scheduled power control. Another technique is the geostationary arc avoidance angle. This technique is not applicable since both the AMSS and FSS use geostationary orbits. The third technique is geostationary separation. This technique requires co-channel systems to maintain a certain orbital spacing between them. FSS systems in certain bands have a minimum of 3 degrees of orbital spacing between co-channel systems. Since the AMSS has 01/25/03 a mobile terrestrial system (aircraft) as part of the link, it requires a higher orbital separation between it and the FSS system. The results of dynamic analysis indicate that this technique is feasible at 10 degree orbital spacing. The Monte Carlo analysis completed for this thesis simulated the results of four scenarios: co-located, 3 degree, and 5 and 10-degree orbital separation. It can be determined from the results that the interference decreases as the orbital separation increases. These simulations were done based on a 10 aircraft interfere scenario. / Master of Science

Yes / Adopting a Service-Dominant Logic lens, recent research within industrial marketing contexts increasingly recognizes the role of operant resources in value co-creation. Incumbent within operant resources is actor competence. Despite this, an investigation into the role of actor competence in value co-creating processes is scant and the competence literature, in general, has tended to concentrate on specialized knowledge and skills based interpretations that potentially restrict our understanding of the construct. To address this gap, this research adopts a phenomenological approach to explore perceived behavioral attributes of competent actors. Findings confirm two broad behaviorally based conceptualizations of competence: 1) extra-role behavior demonstrated through organizational citizenship behavior, and 2) in-role behavior demonstrated through understanding of work, and engagement behavior. To this end, the contribution of this research is twofold. First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers empirical insights into a relational based framework of competency within industrial marketing contexts. Second, and from a pragmatic perspective, this framework may aid managers in developing a broader understanding of actor competence and how such competencies may be enhanced within the workplace to optimize value co-creation.

Yes / The creation of ternary multi-component crystals through the introduction of 18-crown-6 to direct the hydrogen-bonding motifs of the other molecular components was investigated for 3,5-dinitrobenzoic acid (3,5-dnba) with 4-aminobenzoic acid (4-aba). The creation of a binary complex between 18-crown-6 and 4-aba (C12H24O6·2C7H7NO2)2 and a ternary salt between 3,5-dnba, 18-crown-6 and 4-aba (C12H24O6·C7H8NO2+·C7H3N2O6−·C7H4N2O6) were confirmed by single-crystal structure determination. In both structures, the amino molecules bind to the crown ether through N—H...O hydrogen bonds, leaving available only a single O atom site on the crown with restricted geometry to potentially accept a hydrogen bond from 3,5-dnba. While 3,5-dnba and 4-aba form a binary co-crystal containing neutral molecules, the shape-selective nature of 18-crown-6 preferentially binds protonated amino molecules, thereby leading to the formation of the ternary salt, despite the predicted low concentration of the protonated species in the crystallizing solution. Thus, through the choice of crown ether it may be possible to control both location and nature of the available bonding sites for the designed creation of ternary crystals.

Yes / For the development of applications and novel uses for peptide nanostructures, robust routes for their surface functionalization, that ideally do not interfere with their self‐assembly properties, are required. Many existing methods rely on covalent functionalization, where building blocks are appended with functional groups, either pre‐ or post‐assembly. A facile supramolecular approach is demonstrated for the formation of functionalized nanofibers by combining the advantages of biocatalytic self‐assembly and surfactant/gelator co‐assembly. This is achieved by enzymatically triggered reconfiguration of free flowing micellar aggregates of pre‐gelators and functional surfactants to form nanofibers that incorporate and display the surfactants’ functionality at the surface. Furthermore, by varying enzyme concentration, the gel stiffness and supramolecular organization of building blocks can be varied. / FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission. Grant Number: 289723; EPSRC; HFSP; ERC; Leverhulme Trust