Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 302-314).

High-Power Microwaves (HPM) can be used to intentionally disturb or destroy electronic equipment at a distance by inducing high voltages and currents.This thesis presents results from simulations and experiments with a narrow band HPM source, the vircator. The high voltages needed to generate HPM puts the vircator under great stress, especially the electrode materials. Several electrode materials have been tested for endurance and their influence on the characteristics of the microwave pulse. With the proper materials the shot-to-shot variations are small and the geometry can be optimized in terms of e.g. output power or frequency content. Experiments with a resonant cavity added to the vircator geometry showed that with proper tuning of the cavity, the frequency content of the microwave radiation is very narrow banded and in this case the highest fields are generated. The vircator can be built in different geometries. Four different vircator types are investigated and the coaxial vircator is found to have advantages as a high radiated power and the possibility to vary the polarization during operation.Since HPM pulses are very short and have high field strengths, special field probes are needed. An HPM pulse may shift in frequency during the pulse and therefore it is very important to be able to compensate for the frequency dependence of the entire measurement system. The development and use of a far-field measurement system is described. / <p>QC 20121122</p>

The purpose of the study was to determine if there is a lack of congruity between selected public secondary school was carried out using selected questions developed by Dr. Donn L. Dieter and a sample of administrators and teachers in fifty-six Ohio public secondary schools classified into three different sizes of schools.ConclusionsThe following conclusions were drawn from the study:1. There were significant differences between large groups of teachers and administrators regarding the importance of twenty factors of effective teaching.2. There were significant differences between employees (teachers and administrators) of different class schools regarding the importance of two factors of effective teaching.3. There were differences between teachers of different class schools, administrators of different class schools and teachers and administrators of similar and different class schools regarding the importance of seventeen factors of effective teaching.4. There were differences between teachers and administrators in this study and respondents in the study by Donn L. Dieter regarding the importance of three factors of effective teaching.5. Class A administrators showed the most agreement with Class A teachers of all administrator teacher pairs regarding the importance of the sixty-seven factors of effective teaching presented in the questionnaire.6. When significant differences occurred between administrators and teachers, administrators always rated the item in question as more important to effective teaching than did teachers.7. The twenty significant differences between teachers and administrators constituted thirty percent of the entire questionnaire.8. There were items of significant difference between teachers and administrators for which previous research showed little evidence of the importance or lack of importance of the item to effective teaching.

Data transfer rates on printed circuit boards are quickly approaching speeds that challenge the limits of todays technology. Inter-chip communication has increased dramatically. Currently data rates have reached 3.125 Gb/s on standard circuit board, but chip-to-chip digital communication has currently reached a plateau and several problems need to be addressed to significantly increase data transfer rates. Inductive and capacitive components of far end crosstalk (FEXT) conveniently cancel each other as they propagate on an interconnect transmission line, however the inductive and capacitive components of near end crosstalk(NEXT) add together and interfere with signals on adjacent receivers.<p>This paper proposes a novel solution for canceling crosstalk by adding extra circuitry to the receiver within the integrated circuit. This digital circuit delivers one of three appropriate levels of crosstalk compensation to the incoming signal. Since the circuit is digital, simple blocks can be used to implement it on a complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit and consume very little extra silicon.<p>This paper presents the compensation circuit and reports the results of the simulations, which demonstrate improved performance over the standard system. The compensation circuit is specifically aimed at adjacent input and output lines on a microchip. Simulations of a typical circuit board configuration operation have shown crosstalk that is only 15 dB lower than a received attenuated signal. The crosstalk cancellation circuit has been shown to improve this by as much as 10 dB.

Data transfer rates on printed circuit boards are quickly approaching speeds that challenge the limits of todays technology. Inter-chip communication has increased dramatically. Currently data rates have reached 3.125 Gb/s on standard circuit board, but chip-to-chip digital communication has currently reached a plateau and several problems need to be addressed to significantly increase data transfer rates. Inductive and capacitive components of far end crosstalk (FEXT) conveniently cancel each other as they propagate on an interconnect transmission line, however the inductive and capacitive components of near end crosstalk(NEXT) add together and interfere with signals on adjacent receivers.<p>This paper proposes a novel solution for canceling crosstalk by adding extra circuitry to the receiver within the integrated circuit. This digital circuit delivers one of three appropriate levels of crosstalk compensation to the incoming signal. Since the circuit is digital, simple blocks can be used to implement it on a complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit and consume very little extra silicon.<p>This paper presents the compensation circuit and reports the results of the simulations, which demonstrate improved performance over the standard system. The compensation circuit is specifically aimed at adjacent input and output lines on a microchip. Simulations of a typical circuit board configuration operation have shown crosstalk that is only 15 dB lower than a received attenuated signal. The crosstalk cancellation circuit has been shown to improve this by as much as 10 dB.

Employers have criticized the secondary education program stating graduates are not meeting expected entry-level job competencies and attitudes. Recent surveys of employers indicated wide dissatisfaction with the educational quality of high school graduates and confirmed much of the general criticism which has been made of American education.The purpose of this study was to obtain data to answer the following research questions:1. What are the entry-level job competencies and attitudes needed by high school graduates?2. What effect does the number of employees have the entry-level job competencies and attitudes required?3. What effect does the type of business have on the entry-level job competencies and attitudes required?Data were collected from 679 employers by the use of a mailed questionnaire.Major Findings In response to all three research questions, employers indicated an entry-level employee did not need understand basic economic/free enterprise concepts to be successful in an entry-level position. According to the responses to Research Questions No. 1 and 3, employers rejected the need for an entry-level employee to have the ability to speak critically and constructively in the exchange of ideas and to know the terminology of the business/industry. Employers rejected other questionnaire items but at a lower frequency rate than noted above.Conclusions1. A list of competencies and attitudes was established as being needed by an entry-level employee.2. The number of employees and type of business/industry did have an effect on the competencies and attitudes needed by an entry-level employee.

Within Canada, parallel parenting plans have been introduced to manage parental conflict in cases of high conflict divorce (Epstein & Madsen, 2004). Since parallel parenting plans are a relatively novel form of custody order, limited research exists pertaining to their effectiveness and impact on the lives of families. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the experience of parallel parenting. However, since participants were reluctant to discuss this experience directly, the focus of this dissertation shifted to the experience of conflict. Individual interviews with eight participants (five mothers and three fathers) with direct knowledge or experience with parallel parenting plans volunteered to participate in this qualitative study. Interviews followed a reflexive-dyadic interview model and were analyzed using thematic analysis. Thematic analysis identified three common themes across the cases: (a) Attributions of responsibility: Self versus other; participants attributed responsibility for the parenting conflict to their former partners; (b) Who knows best; participants believed that they, and only they, knew what was best for their child; neither their former partners nor the court system were recognized as being able to accurately judge this; and (c) Desire for a resolution; the participants believed that they were more motivated than their former partners to desist from conflict; their willingness to cooperate was associated with a reduction in conflict and improved the parenting relationship and post-divorce adjustment of their child. The themes held dramatically different meaning across cases depending on the context of their relationships. Overall, participants reported a reduction in conflict over time. However, the reported reduction in conflict was found to vary with the participants’ level of satisfaction with the imposed arrangement, the quality of conflict in the parenting relationship, and subsequent willingness to cooperate with their former partners. How these variables relate to the parallel parenting custody arrangement remains unknown. Difficulties with research on parallel parenting custody arrangements and directions for further research are discussed.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship of small learning communities (SLCs) and student performance for ninth grade students at Robert E. Lee High School in North East Independent School District (NEISD). For this study, student performance includes achievement on reading and math Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), attendance rates, and number of dropouts. Research included data for years 2002-2003 through 2005-2006 retrieved from the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS). An extensive review of the literature revealed support for implementation of the SLCs model for high school reform. Recent research indicates that student performance will improve if SLCs are fully implemented and supported using a framework, such as Oxley’s five domains for SLCs. The first two questions of this study addressed reading and math TAKS data by ethnic, economically disadvantaged, and special education subpopulations. The third question in this study addressed attendance rates and dropouts. This study found a significant difference in reading TAKS scores for the ethnic subpopulations with the implementation of SLCs. Economically disadvantaged students’ and special education students’ scores also showed significant gains in reading scale scores over the four years of the study. Data from this study revealed that math TAKS scale scores showed a significant increase in the economically disadvantaged and special education subpopulations after implementation of the SLCs. In addition, significance was found in reducing the achievement gap between special education and regular education students on math TAKS. Attendance rates showed no statistical significance after the implementation of the SLCs. An analysis of dropout rates was not possible due to low dropout numbers. The empirical data would not support meaningful analysis. Further investigation is needed to gain a better understanding of the relationship of SLCs on student performance, especially for African American and Hispanic students in math. Additional factors such as degree of implementation and influence of the administrative leadership needs to be explored.

High-accuracy density measurement data are required to validate equations of state (EOS) for use in custody transfer of natural gas through pipelines. The AGA8-DC92 EOS, which is the current industry standard has already been validated against a databank of natural gas mixtures with compositions containing up to 0.2 mole percent of the heavier C6+ fraction and is expected to predict densities of natural gas mixtures containing higher mole percentages of the C6+ fraction with the same accuracy. With the advances in exploration, drilling and production, natural gas streams containing higher percentages of the C6+ fraction have become available from the deepwater and ultra-deepwater Gulf of Mexico in recent years. High-accuracy, density data for such natural gas mixtures are required to check if the AGA8-DC92 EOS covers the entire range of pressure, temperature and compositions encountered in custody transfer. A state-of-the-art, high pressure, high temperature, compact single-sinker magnetic suspension densitometer has been used to measure densities of two simulated natural gas mixtures named M91C1 and M94C1 after validating its operation by measuring densities of pure argon, nitrogen and methane in the range (270 to 340) K [(26.33 to152.33) oF, (-3.15 to 66.85) oC] and (3.447 to 34.474) MPa [(500 to 5,000) psia]. Measured densities of M91C1, not containing the C6+ fraction show larger than expected relative deviations from the AGA8-DC92 EOS predictions in regions 1 and 2 but agree well with predictions from the recently developed REFPROP EOS, implyingthat the AGA8-DC92 EOS may be unreliable in its present state even for natural gas mixtures not containing the C6+ fraction. Measured densities of M94C1 containing more than 0.2 mole percent of the C6+ fraction deviate from the AGA8-DC92 EOS predictions by more than the expected values in region 1 which is not surprising but the agreement with AGA8-DC92 EOS predictions in region 2 is misleading which becomes evident when the measured densities are compared to the REFPROP EOS predictions. The measured data can be used to recalibrate the parameters of the AGA8-DC92 EOS or to validate an entirely new EOS.