Trends in pairs figure skating have shown that increasingly difficult jumps have become an essential aspect of high-level performance, especially in the latter part of a competitive program. We compared a repeated jump power index in a 60 s repeated jump test to determine the relationship of repeated jump test to competitive rank and to measure 2D hip, knee, and ankle angles and angular velocities at 0, 20, 40, and 60 s. Eighteen National Team Pairs Figure Skaters performed a 60 s repeated jump test on a large switch-mat with timing of flight and ground durations and digital video recording. Each 60-s period was divided into 6, 10-s intervals, with power indexes (W/kg) calculated for each 10-s interval. Power index by 10-s interval repeated measures ANOVAs (RMANOVA) showed that males exceeded females at all intervals, and the highest power index interval was during 10 to 20 s for both sexes. RMANOVAs of angles and angular velocities showed main effects for time only. Power index and jumping techniques among figure skaters showed rapid and steady declines over the test duration. Power index can predict approximately 50% of competitive rank variance, and sex differences in jumping technique were rare.

The Venus Series is an attempt to recreate the power, mystery and primal beauty of the pre-historic Venus Figurines. I created my own Venus Figurines out of handmade paper incorporating history, contemporary culture and autobiography. I then photographed these sculptures with the wet-plate collodion process in order to re-create the beauty and drama of the original Venus Figurines.

The purpose of this study was to see if the Koppitz objective scoring method for interpreting children's human figure drawings could be used as a valid assessment instrument with elementary school children. Human figure drawings were obtained from two matched groups of elementary school students, a normal and an emotionally disturbed group. The results of the comparison of human figure drawings of the two groups did not support Koppitz's findings. The Koppitz objective scoring method was found to be invalid as an assessment instrument with elementary school children and of doubtful use in diagnosing emotionally disturbed children. Possible explanations for the differences in results and areas for further research were discussed.

Research has documented the impact of peer influences on adolescents for health risk behaviors such as smoking and drinking alcohol. However, few studies have done an in-depth investigation of peer-related risk and protective factors affecting body dissatisfaction and disordered eating among adolescent girls. The study sample consisted of 344 adolescent girls from high schools in Pasco County, Florida. Participants completed questionnaires assessing the impact of peers on their weight and appearance attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Participants also identified their close friends (using a coding system) and rated their own figures. Trained research assistants provided objective figure ratings for the participants. The participants completed measures assessing body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, bulimic symptoms and self-esteem (criterion variables). Results of the analyses indicated that participants were not significantly similar to their nominated friends in the criterion variables. Correlations between peer variables and criterion variables were significant supporting peer-related risk factors. Findings of correlation and regression analyses were inconsistent for the predicted protective factor of friend anti-dieting advice. A significant amount of variance in the criterion variables of body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, bulimic symptoms and self-esteem was predicted by the peer influence variables. Results supported the hypothesis that comparison would serve as a mediator between peer influence and the criterion variables. Internalization and peer suppression of feelings functioned as mediators in the relationship between peer influence and self-esteem, bulimic symptoms and body dissatisfaction. Implications for future research and application of findings in intervention programs are discussed.

Many studies have found that fixating or directing spatial attention to different regions can bias the perception of the Necker cube, but whether this effect of spatial attention is due to attended areas perceived as being closer have yet to be examined. This issue was directly investigated in this study. The stimulus used was the diamond stimulus, containing four occluders and four moving lines that can be perceived as coherent or separate motions. The results of Experiment 1 show that coherent motion was perceived more often under the attending-to-occluders condition than under the attending-to-moving-lines condition, indicating that spatial attention can bias multistable perception. The results of Experiment 2 show that the mean probability of reporting lines behind occluders in small binocular disparities was significantly higher under the attending-to-occluders condition than under the attending-to-lines condition, indicating that spatial attention can make attended areas look slightly closer. The results of Experiments 3 and 4 show that the effect of spatial attention on biasing multistable perception was weakened when there were binocular or monocular depth cues to define the depth relationship between the occluders and the lines. These results are all consistent with the notion that spatial attention can bias multistable perception through affecting depth perception, making attended areas look closer.

Gênes, Valparaiso et Liverpool sont trois villes-ports dont les acteurs publics ont choisi comme stratégie de sortie de crise le réinvestissement des espaces historiques centraux, urbains et portuaires, par une politique de patrimonialisation et d'interventions urbaines. A partir d'une approche comparative sont étudiées les régulations urbaines en jeu dans ces transformations, du point de vue des configurations particulières d'acteurs et des modalités de légitimation qui les accompagnent, dont témoignent les modalités d'exercice des événements urbains. Ce réinvestissement urbanistique et patrimonial, par des interventions publiques et privés, modifie également les usages et pratiques, produisant dans les trois cas un phénomène de gentrification, entendu comme phénomène résidentiel mais aussi commercial et touristique. Toutefois ces transformations ne sont pas consensuelles et se traduisent par des conflits sur les principes même de l'aménagement et les usagers des espaces, et en creux redessinent une spatialité de la ville, via la conception du patrimoine mise en avant. En effet, les régulations urbaines mobilisent des modes de légitimation qui reposent sur des conceptions du patrimoine et des espaces urbains, étudiées comme figures de ville, reconstructions visant à donner une caractérisation des imaginaires impliqués dans les transformations urbaines. À une autre échelle s'opère une légitimation par le recours à des modèles internationaux d'aménagement, permettant de définir les multiples échelles de référence des régulations urbaines et des imaginaires mobilisés dans les transformations des espaces historiques centraux.

Partant du constat d'un relatif échec de l'utilisation de l'informatique dans l'enseignement, nous avons cherché les moyens de poser et résoudre les problèmes de l'insertion de l'ordinateur dans l'enseignement mathématique dans le cas de la géométrie. L'importance de l'utilisation du dessin pour la mise en évidence de propriétés et la résolution de problèmes constitue l'une des spécificités de la géométrie. L'acquisition de connaissances géométriques s'appuie donc sur la signification que l'élève construit du dessin. En vue de décrire les étapes de cette construction, nous proposons les notions de forme et de configuration. C'est par la réalisation d'un micromonde à manipulation directe que nous avons choisi de faire intervenir l'ordinateur dans l'enseignement de la géométrie. Le cahier des charges ainsi élaboré a permis de déboucher sur la réalisation du logiciel Cabri-géomètre dont nous décrivons les principales caractéristiques. Une expérimentation nous a permis d'éprouver les choix initiaux et des modalités d'utilisation du logiciel. Les résultats obtenus mettent en évidence l'intérêt d'une approche des dessins par la manipulation directe des objets géométriques qui les composent. Par l'engagement de l'élève qu'elle permet, la manipulation directe permet de passer d'une évaluation de l'enseignant à une validation par l'élève de ses propres productions. Deux modifications du fonctionnement du système didactique entraînées par l'utilisation du logiciel sont analysées : - la négociation par l'enseignant d'un nouveau contrat didactique, - la mises en place des situations favorisant le transfert des connaissances acquises en environnement informatique vers d'autres environnements.

Silicon CMOS Technology is now the preferred process for low power wireless communication devices, although currently much noisier and slower than comparable processes such as SiGe Bipolar and GaAs technologies. However, due to ever-reducing gate sizes and correspondingly higher speeds, higher Ft CMOS processes are increasingly competitive, especially in low power wireless systems such as Bluetooth, Wireless USB, Wimax, Zigbee and W-CDMA transceivers. With the current 32 nm gate sized devices, speeds of 100 GHz and beyond are well within the horizon for CMOS technology, but at a reduced operational voltage, even with thicker gate oxides as compensation. This thesis investigates newer techniques, both from a systems point of view and at a circuit level, to implement an efficient transceiver design that will produce a more sensitive receiver, overcoming the noise disadvantage of using CMOS Silicon. As a starting point, the overall components and available SoC were investigated, together with their architecture. Two novel techniques were developed during this investigation. The first was a high compression point LNA design giving a lower overall systems noise figure for the receiver. The second was an innovative means of matching circuits with low Q components, which enabled the use of smaller inductors and reduced the attenuation loss of the components, the resulting smaller circuit die size leading to smaller and lower cost commercial radio equipment. Both these techniques have had patents filed by the University. Finally, the overall design was laid out for fabrication, taking into account package constraints and bond-wire effects and other parasitic EMC effects.

In this thesis, design aspects of fully integrated multibandmultistandard front-end receivers are investigated based onthree fundamental aspects: noise, linearity and operatingfrequency. System level studies were carried out to investigatethe effects of different modulation techniques, duplexing andmultiple access methods on the noise, linearity and selectivityperformance of the circuit. Based on these studies and thelow-cost consideration, zero-IF, low-IF and wideband-IFreceiver architectures are promising architectures. These havea common circuit topology in a direct connection between theLNA and the mixer, which has been explored in this work toimprove the overall RF-to-IF linearity. One front-end circuitapproach is used to achieve a low-cost solution, leading to anew multiband multistandard front-end receiver architecture.This architecture needs a circuit whose performance isadaptable due to different requirements specified in differentstandards, works across several RF-bands and uses a minimumamount ofexternal components. Five new circuit topologies suitable for a front-endreceiver consisting of an LNA and mixer (low-noise converter orLNC) were developed. A dual-loop wide-band feedback techniquewas applied in all circuits investigated in this thesis. Threeof the circuits were implemented in 0.18 mm RF-CMOS and 25 GHzbipolar technologies. Measurement results of the circuitsconfirmed the correctness of the design approach. The circuits were measured in several RF-bands, i.e. in the900 MHz, 1.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands, with S11 ranging from–9.2 dB to–17 dB. The circuits have a typicalperformance of 18-20 dB RF-to-IF gain, 3.5-4 dB DSB NF and upto +4.5 dBm IIP3. In addition, the circuit performance can beadjusted by varying the circuit’s first-stage biascurrent. The circuits may work at frequencies higher than 3GHz, as only 1.5 dB of attenuation is found at 3 GHz and nopeaking is noticed. In the CMOS circuit, the extrapolated gainat 5 GHz is about 15 dB which is consistent with the simulationresult. The die-area of each of the circuits is less than 1mm2.

The main purpose of this dissertation was to analyse and compare the attitudes of young people who lived in two different local contexts towards foreigners and immigrants. In the main study 36 teenagers, 17 from Bruksort and 19 from Industriort, were interviewed. Both local societies are rather small and dominated by one major industry, and a large number of the inhabitants are workers. Prospects for the future differed – in Bruksort people did not believe they had a future in the community because of the lack of jobs, while the people in Industriort felt a certain optimism in this respect, as the major industry was doing well. While Industriort had a long tradition and experience of immigration, Bruksort did not. Refugee camps were established in both societies in the early 1990s. The interviews brought up questions of attitude towards foreigners and immigrants. The analysis is also in part based on two pilot studies and an analysis of articles and letters to the editor in the local press, Industriort News and Bruksort Times during 1991-99. Two different discourses were analysed in the main study: the discourse of refugees, immigration, racism and anti-racism in the local press, and discourse of the young people´s discussions of those subjects. These two ways of talking were compared in order to discover possible patterns and changes in underlying thought figures in each town. The importance of the locality was demonstrated in the study. Young people are affected by political decisions, by demands made by adults and by the media. However young people are also being brought up in an active way by their own local society. The inhabitants of Bruksort were suspicious of strangers and of “the other”. However, in Industriort this sort of suspicion was only temporarily acted out towards the refugees in the camp and quickly dissipated because the refugees were integrated into the society. Also, a number of the young inhabitants in Industriort had an immigrant background themselves. The gender difference is notable; girls and boys narrated divergent versions of the events that had taken place involving the inhabitants and the refugees. The girls had a more emphatic way of reasoning about refugees and of the situation immigrants´ of than the boys. Boys on the other hand had been in conflict with the people from the refugee-camp and present juridical and economic arguments about Swedish immigration policies. It is concluded that creating meeting places where people from different ethnic backgrounds can get together and learn to know each other is of crucial importance. Also, the fact that young people seemed to be unaware of the anti-racist projects arranged by the school in Bruksort and the youth centre in Industriort a few years prior to the interviews, and that most of the teenagers interviewed felt that school had done too little, if anything, regarding the discussion of such matters as refugees, immigration and racism, emphasises the importance of more deliberate and longterm strategies as opposed to short term projects.