Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. S.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005. / Dr. Steven Liang, Committee Member ; Dr. Thomas R. Kurfess, Committee Chair ; Dr. Shreyes Melkote, Committee Member.

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, May 4, 2001." Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-184).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Synchronization is a problem of fundamental importance for a wide range of practical communication systems including reading media, multi-user optical channels, synchronous digital communication systems, packet-switched communication networks, distributed computing systems, etc. In this thesis I study various aspects of communication over channels with symbol synchronization errors. Symbol synchronization errors are harder to model than erasures or substitution errors caused by additive noise because they introduce uncertainties in timing. Consequently, the capacity of channels subjected to synchronization errors is a very challenging problem, even when considering the simplest channels for which only deletion errors occur. I improve on the best existing lower and upper bounds for the capacity of the deletion channel using convex and stochastic optimization techniques. I also show that simply finding closed-form expressions for the number of subsequences when deleting symbols from a string is computationally prohibitive. Constructing efficient synchronization error-correcting codes is also a challenging task. The main result of the thesis is the design of a new family of codes able to correct several types of synchronization errors. The codes use trellis and modified versions of the Viterbi decoding algorithm, and therefore have very low encoding and decoding complexities. They also have high data rates and work for reasonably noisy channels, which makes them one of the first synchronization-correcting codes that have any chance of being used in practical systems. In the last part of the thesis, I show that a synchronization approach can solve the opportunistic spectrum access problem in cognitive radio, where cognitive users want to communicate in presence of legacy users to whom the bandwidth has been licensed. I also consider the amount of communication required to solve a large class of distributed problems where synchronization errors can occur. More precisely, I study how allowing the parties to solve the problems incorrectly with small probability can reduce the total amount of communication or the number of messages that need to be exchanged. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Nurse burnout and the commission of errors are two seemingly unrelated phenomena in the health care arena. Burnout was first described by Herbert J. Freudenberger in 1974 and has since been studied in many industries, including nursing. The issue of errors in health care has been a growing concern since the Institute of Medicine published the report, To Err is Human in 1999. Little research has been done to link burnout and the commission of errors. A literature review was performed to investigate these two issues. Peer-reviewed research articles were analyzed for contributing factors and effects on patient outcomes. The findings of the literature suggest that burnout and the commission of errors have many similar contributing factors, particularly in regards to work environment conditions. The conclusion from this literature review is that more research should be done to correlate burnout and error commission and that efforts should be made to improve the work environment of nurses.

No description available.

Cigarette taxation is a topic which economists have focused on for years. The purpose of the cigarette tax is to force individuals who engage in risky activities to pay for the negative externalities caused by said activities. In the case of cigarette smoking, the notion has been that society as a whole subsidizes the smoking related external expenses through programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and group life and health insurance. At the center of this debate is "Cigarette Taxation and the Social Consequences of Smoking" by W. Kip Viscusi. Viscusi's paper written in 1995 for the NBER publication Tax Policy and the Economy contains estimates of both the net external costs and benefits of smoking. This paper evaluates the confidence level of Viscusi's external cost and savings estimates and assesses the impact of error terms on his conclusions. By allowing the potential for error to factor into the cost estimates of external costs per pack, Viscusi's point estimate becomes questionable. / Master of Arts

This report discusses three topics relating to errors of numerical methods and to improvements of numerical approximations. The introduction connects these topics to the secondary mathematics curriculum. The three chapters which follow develop the three selected topics: improving approximations of irrational numbers, error analysis of numerical integration methods, and discretization versus rounding error in Euler’s Method for solving ordinary differential equations. The conclusion describes specific national secondary mathematical standards and classroom activities relevant to numerical approximations and error analysis. / text