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

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

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

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

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-174).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 205 p. : ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-136).

Current research has described a changed central office perspective that not only includes campus principals as part of the district's leadership team, but also focuses on developing principals' instructional abilities with the purpose of supporting school reform. However, to date, research has not provided examples of a successful relationship between campus principals as a collective group and the district (central office) leadership team attempting to implement district-wide high school reform. This study was conducted in order to examine the perceptions of high school principals (in an urban school district in Texas) toward district-wide initiated high school reform. Methods used for data collection included semi-structured interviews, review of available artifacts, and case profile development. Questions derived from the researcher's review of the literature and ongoing professional interest were the basis for dialogue during the semi-structured interviews. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and unitized. The data were further organized into categories and subcategories. The analysis of principals' perceptions provided insight and helped develop an understanding of obstacles that high school principals perceive in implementing district-led high school reform. This study has concluded that the district goals and mission do not define the daily operations of a campus. Instead, the district goals and mission are often reprioritized because principals are insecure, believe they have a better understanding of the local context than does the central office, and are oftentimes frustrated by the central office's political machinations. Recommendations include suggestions on how to eliminate these obstacles, improve the ability of principals to implement district-led high school reform, and how to suggest actions for the improvement of the high school reform process at the central office level.

The purpose of the study was to provide for the improvement of instruction in the secondary schools of Saudi Arabia. To fulfill this goal, the study was designed to accomplish three tasks: 1) describe the nature, scope and effectiveness of the current system of teacher evaluation; 2) determine the attitude of the Saudi educators toward the existing system; 3) develop a new system and propose it for evaluating secondary school teachers in Saudi Arabia. Literature relating to the model of evaluation, criteria used in evaluating teachers, role of personnel involved in teacher evaluation, and processes and instruments used in evaluating teachers was reviewed.Letters to some of the Saudi educational authorities were sent in order to obtain information about the present system of teacher evaluation, and to acquire any studies that have been conducted in the area of teacher evaluation. A questionnaire was sent to Saudi administrators and teachers now studying at American universities. The purpose of the questionnaire was to obtain information relating to the procedure used in evaluating secondary school teachers in Saudi Arabia, to elicit their judgments of the effectiveness of the present system, and to obtain their recommendations for developing the present system of teacher evaluation.Most of the literature that was received from Saudi Arabia indicated a negative reaction toward the present teacher evaluation system. Also the answers and comments of most of the respondents to the questionnaire statements revealed a general dissatisfaction with the present evaluation system.The proposed design was based upon the review of literature, interviews with American school personnel, suggestions from respondents to the questionnaire, participation in part of the activities of the staff development program at Ball State University, consultation with some experts in the field of teacher evaluation, review of some evaluation instruments used in evaluating teachers at different school systems in Indiana, and the review of most of the material now used for evaluating secondary school teachers in Saudi Arabia.The evaluation model described the expected role of the supervisor, the building principal, the department chairman, the peer teachers, the students, and the teacher being evaluated in teacher evaluation. Also the model defined the criteria which should be used in the teacher evaluation program.The suggested procedure for evaluation was illustrated under the listed activites:1. An introductory conference. The main purpose of this conference, which is managed by the supervisor, is to explain the general outline and the procedure evaluation process.2. Departmental meetings. The chairman of the department is in charge of running these meetings. The common technique of conducting a departmental meeting in general and the technique followed at the first departmental meeting in specific are clarified.3. Field work or the cycle of evaluation. This section is concerned with the procedure to be followed in the teacher evaluation. The procedure of evaluation includes the following activities:a) Setting goals and objectives. The teacher with the help of the department chairman writes the behavioral or instructional objectives of the course in general and of each unit in specific.b) Data collection. The data about the teacher being evaluated is collected from various sources and by different techniques such as classroom observation, teacher self-evaluation and student and peer questionnaires.c) Analysis of data. The department chairman and the teacher analyze the information collected by classroom observation and questionnaires.The purpose of the data analysis was defined. After the data analysis the department chairman writes the evaluation report.The evaluation of the department chairman and the end-of-the year evaluation were included in the model. Recommendations related to the application of the model and to the betterment of the teaching-learning process were formulated.

The focus of this research is the development of high strength, high conductivity copper films. Pure copper is soft and traditional strengthening mechanisms cause substantial decrease in conductivity. To address the challenge, epitaxial nanotwinned copper films are synthesized on HF etched Si (110) substrates. These films show high hardness (~ 2.8 GPa) due to high density of coherent twin boundaries (CTBs) which effectively block the motion of dislocations similar to grain boundaries (GBs). Resistivity of CTBs is calculated to be an order of magnitude lower than that of GBs. Hence, conductivity of nanotwinned copper is still comparable to that of pure copper. In addition, it is shown that average twin spacing can be controlled by adjusting deposition rate. Analytical studies together with experimental evidence show that nanotwins can improve the strength-to-resistivity ratio significantly in copper. In general, nanocrystalline metals suffer from low ductility. To study plastic deformation via rolling, thick polycrystalline nanotwinned copper foils are sputtered on SiO2 and then peeled off the substrate. Despite the high strength, room temperature rolling experiments show that nanotwinned copper films exhibit stable plastic flow with no shear localization or fracture even at thickness reduction of over 50%. Postdeformation studies of microstructure reveals that the plastic deformation is facilitated by the migration of CTBs normal to the twin boundary plane due to the glide of twinning dislocations in the twin plane. X-ray pole figure measurements show insignificant out of plane rotation as a result of 50% rolling thickness reduction. Thermal stability of nanocrystalline metals is also a concern. Free standing nanotwinned polycrystalline copper films show remarkable thermal stability after annealing at 800 degrees C. The driving force for twin growth is much lower than that for grain coarsening because the energy stored in CTBs is an order of magnitude lower than that of GBs. As a result, the average twin spacing stays below 20 nm after annealing. Such high thermal stability of nanotwins leads to the retention of hardness of 2.2 GPa. Low energy twin boundary may provide a unique way to achieve both high strength and high temperature thermal stability in certain metallic materials.

Gas viscosity is one of the gas properties that is vital to petroleum engineering. Its role in the oil and gas production and transportation is indicated by its contribution in the resistance to the flow of a fluid both in porous media and pipes. Although viscosity of some pure components such as methane, ethane, propane, butane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and binary mixtures of these components at low-intermediate pressure and temperature had been studied intensively and been understood thoroughly, very few investigations were performed on viscosity of naturally occurring gases, especially gas condensates at low-intermediate pressure and temperature, even fewer lab data were published. No gas viscosity data at high pressures and high temperatures (HPHT) is available. Therefore this gap in the oil industry still needs to be filled. Gas viscosity at HPHT becomes crucial to modern oil industry as exploration and production move to deep formation or deep water where HPHT is not uncommon. Therefore, any hydrocarbon encountered there is more gas than oil due to the chemical reaction causing oil to transfer to gas as temperature increases. We need gas viscosity to optimize production rate for production system, estimate reserves, model gas injection, design drilling fluid, and monitor gas movement in well control. Current gas viscosity correlations are derived using measured data at low-moderate pressures and temperatures, and then extrapolated to HPHT. No measured gas viscosities at HPHT are available so far. The validities of these correlations for gas viscosity at HPHT are doubted due to lack of experimental data. In this study, four types of viscometers are evaluated and their advantages and disadvantages are listed. The falling body viscometer is used to measure gas viscosity at a pressure range of 3000 to 25000 psi and a temperature range of 100 to 415 oF. Nitrogen viscosity is measured to take into account of the fact that the concentration of nonhydrocarbons increase drastically in HPHT reservoir. More nitrogen is found as we move to HPHT reservoirs. High concentration nitrogen in natural gas affects not only the heat value of natural gas, but also gas viscosity which is critical to petroleum engineering. Nitrogen is also one of common inject gases in gas injection projects, thus an accurate estimation of its viscosity is vital to analyze reservoir performance. Then methane viscosity is measured to honor that hydrocarbon in HPHT which is almost pure methane. From our experiments, we found that while the Lee-Gonzalez-Eakin correlation estimates gas viscosity at a low-moderate pressure and temperature accurately, it cannot give good match of gas viscosity at HPHT. Apparently, current correlations need to be modified to predict gas viscosity at HPHT. New correlations constructed for HPHT conditions based on our experiment data give more confidence on gas viscosity.