There is a trend to move the frequency band for wireless transmission to ever higher frequencies in the radio frequency (RF) spectrum to fulfil the exponentially increasing demand in wireless communication capacity. Research work has gone into improving the spectral efficiency of wireless communication system to use the scarce and expensive resources in the most efficient way. However, to make wireless communication future-proof, it is essential to explore ways to transmit wirelessly outside the traditional RF spectrum. The visible light (VL) spectrum bandwidth is 1000 times wider than the entire 300 GHz RF spectrum and is, therefore, a viable alternative. Visible light communication (VLC) enables existing lighting infrastructures to provide not only illumination but also wireless communication. In conjunction with the concept of cell densification, a networked VLC system, light fidelity attocell (LAC) network, has been proposed to offer wide coverage and high speed wireless data transmission. In this study, many issues related to the downlink system in LAC networks have been investigated. When analysing the downlink performance of LAC networks, a large number of random channel samples are required for the empirical calculation of some system metrics, such as the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). However, using state-of-the-art approaches to calculate the non-line-of-sight (NLoS) channel component leads to significant computational complexity and prolonged computation time. An analytical method has been presented in this thesis to efficiently calculate the NLoS channel impulse response (CIR) in VLC systems. The results show that the proposed method offers significant reduction in computation time compared to the state-of-the-art approaches. A comprehensive performance evaluation of the downlink system of LAC networks is carried out in this thesis. Based on the research results in the literature in the field of optical wireless communication (OWC), a system level framework for the downlink system in LAC networks is developed. By using this framework, the downlink performance subject to a large number of parameters is evaluated. Additionally, the effect of varying network size, cell deployment and key system parameters are investigated. The calculation of downlink SINR statistics, cell data rate and outage probability are considered and analysed. The results show that the downlink performance of LAC networks is promising in terms of achievable data rate per unit area compared to other state-of-the-art RF small-cell networks. It is found that co-channel interference (CCI) is a major source of signal impairment in the downlink of LAC network. In order to mitigate the influence of CCI on signal distortion in LAC networks, widely used interference mitigation techniques for RF cellular systems are borrowed and extensively investigated. In this study, fractional frequency reuse (FFR) is adapted to the downlink of LAC networks. The SINR statistics and the spectral efficiency in LAC downlink system with FFR schemes are evaluated. Results show that the FFR technique can greatly improve the performance of cell edge users and as well the overall spectral efficiency. Further performance improvements can be achieved by incorporating angular diversity transmitters (ADTs) with FFR and coordinated multi-point joint transmission (JT) techniques.

This thesis examines creative trajectories of urban life that irrupted as a result of a series of devastating earthquakes in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010-11. In particular, it focuses on third sector organisations (TSOs) that emerged during the recovery period, and examines how these organisations sought to inscribe themselves within the re-emerging city. In doing so, I argue that the rupture afforded by the earthquakes opened up the possibility for the dominant practices of a complex political conservatism to be challenged through the emergence of new and previously restrained claims to the city that have manifested through these TSOs. These organisations have made use of the temporary recovery-spaces of the city, and appear to be working to embed their underlying values and politics in its renewal. Pertinently, this thesis comprehensively explores the ways these emergent organisations were impelled and sustained by improvisations that attempted to invoke and continue a fidelity to the earthquake event. The dominant narrative in the city has since critiqued these emergent organisations as being subsumed by a broader state project that is working to restore a neoliberal and conservative style of politics. Drawing largely upon in-depth participatory research within emergent TSOs, this thesis seeks to evaluate the notion that the creative forces of these organisations have become stripped of radical potential through a gradual incorporation into a more resilient version of the previous political orthodoxy. In doing so, it contributes to literatures on the political possibilities of the third sector by paying attention to the organisational practices that foster alternative logics of performative expression, political engagement and cultural imagination alongside formations of the seemingly neoliberal. By drawing attention towards the tentative probing of sociocultural and material fissures, practices of organisational experimentation and the ethical agency of staff, I argue that the sector might be viewed as fostering spaces through which alternative ethical and political sensibilities are being actively contested on a range of scales. Subsequently, this thesis explores how the foundations and relations that previously made the city legible have been shaken. Accordingly, the research offers a re-reading of the earthquakes that makes an argument for something more complex than an automatic return to the status-quo. It recognises the earthquakes as a series of violent geophysical events that prompted the irruption of some potentially disruptive imaginations, but explores perceptions that the disaster couldn’t impel others. Underpinning discussion on how these imaginations are grasped and sustained is an examination of how possibilities were afforded or curbed by interpretations of what the earthquakes represented (or enabled) in ongoing storylines of the city. Consequently, this thesis explores what it actually meant in practice for these organisations to be faithful to the event.

There is a problem with fidelity of implementation (FOI) of the Response to Intervention (RTI) framework in an elementary school in the southeastern United States. Both teachers and administrators have observed inconsistent implementation of RTI and teachers' reported lack of motivation to implement RTI as designed. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gather teacher and administrator perceptions of the FOI of RTI model using interviews, surveys, and review of archived documents. The implementation of science framework formed the conceptual foundation of this qualitative project study. The research question focused on the FOI of the RTI model as it related to effective interventions, implementation methods, enabling contexts, and intended outcomes. The purposeful sample included 9 participants using the selection criteria for educators who were employed as Kindergarten to 3rd grade elementary teachers or as administrative/support staff and actively participated in the process and procedures of the implementation of the RTI model at the target site. Data were coded and analyzed using inductive analyses. Findings included common themes related to the need for professional development (PD) on interventions, progress monitoring, expectations, differentiation, and the value of RTI. Based on the findings, a project was constructed to include collaborative learning within ongoing PD sessions and development of professional learning communities (PLCs) to refine implementation of RTI. The findings from this study may lead to positive social change by allowing educators to implement RTI with a greater fidelity to accommodate the needs of diverse learners.

Technology Portfolios are essential to the evolution of large complex systems. In an effort to harness the power of new technologies, technology portfolios are used to predict the value of integrating them into the project. This optimization of the technology portfolio creates large complex design spaces; however, many processes operate on the assumption that their technology elements have no dependency on each other, because dependencies are not well defined. This independence assumption simplifies the process, but suggests that these environments are missing out on decision power and fidelity. Therefore, this thesis proposed a way to explain the variations in Portfolio recommendations as a function of adding dependencies. Dependencies were defined in accordance with their development effort figures of merit and possible relationships. The thesis then went on to design a method to integrate two dependency classes into the technology portfolio framework to showcase the effect of incorporating dependencies. Results indicated that Constraint Dependencies reduced the portfolio or stayed the same, while Value Dependencies changed the portfolio optimization completely; making the user compare two different optimization results. Both indicated that they provided higher fidelity with the inclusion of the information added. Furthermore, the upcoming NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Campaign was studied as a case study. This campaign is the plan to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 announced by President Obama in April 2010. The campaign involves multiple missions, capabilities, and technologies that must be demonstrated to enable deep-space human exploration. Therefore, this thesis capitalized on that intention to show how adopting technology in earlier missions can act as a feed-forward method to demonstrate technology for future missions. The thesis showed the baseline technology portfolio, integrated dependencies into the process, compared its findings to the baseline case, and ultimately showed how adding higher fidelity into the process changes the user's decisions. Findings concerning the Near-Earth Asteroid Campaign, the use of dependencies to add fidelity and implications for future work are discussed.

The bus industry is plagued by high accident costs and risks of passenger injuries. A bus simulator may offer a method of reducing accident rates by delivering targeted training to bus drivers who are most at risk. The first part of this thesis describes the design of the UK's first bus simulator, the fidelity of which was based on a thorough analysis of bus crashes. The second part describes the first studies in a multi-staged method to evaluate the training effectiveness of the simulator: face validity, effects of bus driver experience and stress on simulated performance and simulator sickness. This approach ensured that the ABS has a reasonable level of fidelity, is capable of eliciting behaviourally valid responses from bus drivers and is the first step is achieving training transfer effectiveness. The final study investigated the occurrence of self-bias in bus drivers. The conclusions drove the design of simulated scenarios to be used for bus driver training. Keywords: Bus, Simulator, Fidelity, Validity, Accidents, Driving, Stress, Training

This thesis concerns the development, evaluation, comparison and testing of a UH-1H helicopter simulation model with various fidelity levels. In particular, the well known minimum complexity simulation model is updated with various higher fidelity simulation components, such as the Peters-He inflow model, horizontal tail contribution, improved tail rotor model, control mapping, ground eect, fuselage interactions, ground reactions etc. Results are compared with available flight test data. The dynamic model is integrated into the open source simulation environment called Flight Gear. Finally, the model is cross-checked through evaluations using test pilots.

This study evaluated self-monitoring and feedback procedures with preschool teachers and reactivity that occurred in a preschool classroom due to a supervisors' presence. Preschool teachers' positive interactions following the implementation of a self-monitoring and feedback procedure only slightly increased without the presence of a supervisor. Reactivity was identified with the presence of the supervisor as accurate reporting increased most in the supervisor's presence. Following the identification of reactivity, positive interactions remained at high levels during the reactivity control and maintenance conditions.

As evidence-based programs are implemented in real world settings, there is a strong need to effectively and efficiently monitor fidelity, or adherence to a program, in order to maintain the expected effects demonstrated in research settings. The purpose of this study was to compare two methods of assessing fidelity to an evidence-based, parent-training model (SafeCare®) as implemented by community service providers. Specifically, analyses compared fidelity assessed via video versus audio recordings. SafeCare modules often require mobility and high interaction, thus, video recordings may provide a more accurate view of home visitor and family interactions for scoring fidelity. However, videos are more expensive and cumbersome in comparison to audio recordings. Trained coders were randomly assigned to score a video or audio recording of the same session for 25 SafeCare sessions and the codes were compared for agreement. Two types of SafeCare sessions were assessed: assessment and training. Average agreement was somewhat higher for assessment sessions than for training sessions. Average agreement, across all sessions, was higher among items pertaining to SafeCare content than items pertaining to the therapeutic process. Several specific items were identified that are difficult to code via audio recordings. However, more research is needed to determine agreement levels across all SafeCare modules and session types in order to provide insight on the implications for SafeCare's future use of audio and video methods of measuring fidelity.

Geometric and holonomic quantum gates perform transformations that only dependon the geometry of a loop covered by the parameters controlling the gate. Thesegates require adiabatic time evolution, which is achieved in the limit when the looptakes infinite time to complete. However, it is of interest to also know thetransformation properties of the gates for finite run times. It has been shown [Phys.Rev. A 73, 022327 (2006)] that some holonomic gates for a trapped ion system showrevival structures, i.e., for some finite run time the gate performs the sametransformation as it does in the adiabatic limit. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if similar revival structures are shown alsofor geometric and holonomic quantum gates for spin systems. To study geometricquantum gates an NMR setup for spin-1/2 particles is used, while an NQR setup forspin-3/2 particles is used to study holonomic quantum gates. Furthermore, for thegeometric quantum gates the impact of some open system effects are examined byusing the quantum jump approach. The non-adiabatic time evolution operators of thesystems are calculated and compared to the corresponding adiabatic time evolutionoperators by computing their operator fidelity. The operator fidelity ranges between0 and 1, where 1 means that the gates are identical up to an unimportant phasefactor. All gates show an oscillating dependency on the run time, and some Abeliangates even show true revivals, i.e., the operator fidelity reaches 1.

In the operation of CMGs there exists a concept called “back drive,” which represents a case where the coupling effects of the angular velocity of the body and the angular momentum of the CMG overwhelm the input torque and result in a lack of control. This effect is known but not well documented or studied in the literature. Starting from first principles, this thesis derives the full nonlinear dynamical equations for CMGs. These equations contain significantly more terms than are found in the literature. As a means to understand the implications of these terms, a reduced order model is derived. The full and reduced models are then validated by means of extensive simulations. Finally, experimental verification of the models confirms the finding that the reduced order model provides a reasonably high fidelity for dynamics.