Software Defined Radio (SDR) is a relatively new approach to develop wireless communication systems. SDR presents a framework for developing flexible, reconfigurable devices intended to alleviate some of the issues arising from the evolution of wireless technology. The Software Communications Architecture (SCA), developed by the Joint Tactical Radio System program of the US Department of Defense, is an open architecture for implementing SDR, relying on commercial technology, standard interfaces, and well-known design patterns. Although the SCA is intended to provide easier, faster development of flexible applications that are upgradeable and maintainable, the acceptance of the architecture has been limited in part by traditional radio engineers' lack of understanding modern software engineering techniques. Because of the steep learning curve, some developers face frustration and serious delays when first introduced to the SCA. This work presents a comprehensive tutorial which introduces radio engineers to the SCA and the techniques used in it. Another concern for accepting the SCA are the performance, size, cost, and power consuption difficulties faced in early implementations of the architecture. Traditionally, SCA implementations have been developed for platforms based on General Purpose Processors. This approach, while believed to be the easiest to implement, does not make the best out of available processor technology. In order to provide a more efficient implementation of radios based on the SCA, we present the design and development of an SCA Core Framework version 2.2 for a homogeneous TI C64 DSP platform. This framework is implemented by leveraging the existing implementation of the Open-Source SCA Implementation::Embedded (OSSIE) by porting it to the C64 platform. Two sample waveforms are developed and deployed to demonstrate the functionality of the framework. Preliminary performance and memory footprint profiling results are provided. / Master of Science

The Center for High Performance Learning Environments (CHPLE) at Virginia Tech aims to provide guidance on various issues associated with high performance learning environments, using information gained through the various studies undertaken at the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. One such study is presented in this thesis. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), an environmental rating system for buildings, introduced in 1998, is still in the process of development. The USGBC conducted research and introduced various LEED manuals for different building types. For each building type, in order to achieve environmental credits under LEED, evidence must be provided in terms of various documents. The process of collecting and submitting these documents is perceived to be difficult and this study tries to find the barriers to the documentation process as required during LEED certification. Currently, while documenting the credits under LEED, the design team must assume many important responsibilities. Hence this research sought participation from this group of professionals, who are proactive in promoting LEED and also have experience in school design. To understand the design professionals perception about LEED, a semi-structured interview method was adopted to obtain data for this study. Out of a total of 175 invitations, 15 agreed to participate. A questionnaire was developed and the participants were asked to respond. All interviews were recorded, providing the main source of data. IRB approval was obtained prior to the interviews and all the prescribed ethical concerns were addressed during the interviews. The responses to the questionnaire, were categorized as, 1.Barriers for documentation and2.Recommendations from participants for improving the LEED documentation process. The identified barriers were sequenced to understand the interrelationships between different barriers. The recommendations are interpretations and derivations of the participant recommendations. These recommendations could be adopted by the USGBC to improve the process of documentation in LEED. This study may also initiate other studies to help further understand the opinions of school authorities and other project members with respect to LEED documentation. / Master of Science

Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are networks in which the participating nodes can move freely without having to worry about maintaining a direct connection to any particular fixed access point. In a MANET, nodes collaborate with each other to form the network and as long as a node is in contact with any other member of the network, it—at least in theory—is part of the network and can communicate with all other nodes. An important function of network management is to observe current network conditions: at the node level, this may mean keeping track of arriving and departing traffic load; at the network level, the system must monitor active routes and changes in network topology. In this research, we present the design and implementation of a distributed network monitoring system for MANETs. Our system is completely distributed, generates no additional traffic on the network and produces a dynamic picture of the network level and node level information on a graphical user interface. In our proposed scheme, multiple monitoring nodes collaborate to achieve a reasonably accurate snapshot of the network conditions. These monitoring nodes passively sniff network traffics and gather information from the network to construct partial network views. They then transmit their findings to a management unit where these local views are put together to produce a comprehensive picture of the network. The communication between all management nodes (a monitoring unit and a management node) takes place in an out-of-band communication link. Therefore, our monitoring solution does not depend on the MANET to perform, hence is robust to network partitioning, link breaks, node's death and node misbehavior in the monitored MANET. Our solution provides a snapshot of the network topology that includes information about node-level behavior ratings and traffic activity. The information provided by our monitoring system can be used for network management as well as for security assessment, including anomaly detection. Information regarding individual nodes' behavior can be used for detecting selfishness in the network. Also, an approximation of arriving and departing traffic levels at each node is important in the context of quality of service, load balancing and congestion control. Furthermore, the network topology picture can provide valuable information to network management in detecting preferred routes, discovering network partitioning and in fault detection. We developed a proof-of-concept implementation of our system, which works with the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol. Through experimental studies with up to 10-node MANETs, we were able to determine the feasibility and workability of our system. The scheme proved to be robust with respect to mobility, rapid changes in the network topology and node connectivity. Throughout our experiments we observed that our system replicated changes in the network on the GUI with less than two seconds delay. Also, when deployed in a high-traffic environment, with multiple TCP and UDP flows throughout the network, the system was able to report traffic load on each node accurately and consistently. On average, CPU consumption on monitoring nodes was about 3.5% and the GUI never took up more than 4% of the processing power (general-purpose laptop computers were used throughout the experiments). Also, the overall storage capacity needed for archiving the information files was estimated as 1 Mbytes for monitoring a 10-node MANETs for 30 minutes. Unobtrusive and distributed nature of our proposed approach helps the system to adapt to the constantly changing nature of MANETs and be able to provide valuable network management, security assessment and traffic analysis services, while requiring only modest processing and storage resources. The system is capable of quickly responding to changes in the network and is non-intrusive, generating no additional traffic on the MANET it monitors. / Master of Science

This dissertation investigates how social justice is considered as local governments in the United States develop and implement climate adaptation plans and is composed of an introduction (Chapter 1), three stand-alone manuscripts (Chapters 2-4), and a conclusion (Chapter 5). The introduction gives a brief overview of climate adaptation planning, the intersection of social justice and climate adaptation, and existing research about how social justice is considered as communities prepare for climate change. To conceptualize social justice throughout this dissertation, we adopt the three-dimensional theory that includes recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice. Both Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 focus on adaptation planning through a review of 101 climate adaptation, climate action, and climate resilience plans published between 2010-2021 by US municipalities. In Chapter 2, we used data from this review to understand generally how recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice were considered within these documents. In Chapter 3, we used the same data and demographic data for each community to understand trends over time and other patterns in how each type of justice was considered through a series of regressions. Chapter 4 serves as a follow-up to the adaptation plan review to understand how local governments are considering justice as they move forward and implement adaptation initiatives. We interviewed the plan leads from 25 communities that published a recent climate plan that we reviewed and asked them how their local government has considered social justice as they've implemented adaptation projects, what factors have enabled these considerations, and what challenges they've encountered. The results of these studies show that social justice is increasingly addressed in more recent climate plans, but recognitional and distributional justice are often considered more than procedural justice. Most communities we spoke with are still in the early phases of implementing these plans, and largely centered on how these municipalities have engaged marginalized individuals, with most aspiring towards empowerment but informing or consulting with residents. Our findings revealed that many opportunities remain to advance justice further, especially in how municipalities can meaningfully engage and empower marginalized residents in adaptation initiatives. The conclusion summarizes how social justice is considered in adaptation planning and implementation, as well as what gaps remain. Within this section, I reflect on my experiences as a Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech and my future goals within academia. / Doctor of Philosophy / As local governments prepare for climate change, they are grappling with how to ensure everyone is equipped to adapt, including their most vulnerable residents. Even with increased attention on social justice in climate adaptation efforts, it is unclear how municipalities plan to achieve this. Climate adaptation plans are one resource US municipalities can employ to address justice as they tackle climate change. While research has increasingly focused on climate adaptation planning, there's been little follow-up to suggest communities are moving from planning to implementation. The research included in this dissertation investigates how social justice is considered in climate adaptation, climate action, and climate resilience plans published between 2010-2021 by US municipalities and how justice is addressed when these plans are being implemented. The study considers social justice through the three-dimensional theory of recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice. The results show that social justice is increasingly addressed in more recent climate plans, but recognitional and distributional justice are often considered more than procedural justice. Most municipalities were still in the early phases of implementing these plans, so our discussions with government employees largely centered on how they have engaged marginalized individuals in initiating programs, with most aspiring towards empowerment but informing or consulting with residents. Many opportunities remain to advance justice further, especially in how municipalities can meaningfully engage and empower marginalized residents in adaptation initiatives.

The use of practically non-repeating spreading codes to generate sequence-based spread spectrum waveforms is a strong method to improve transmission security, by limiting an observers opportunity to cross-correlate snapshots of the signal into a coherent gain. Such time-varying codes, particularly when used to define multi-bit resolution arbitrary-phase waveforms, also present significant challenges to the intended receiver, which must synchronize correlator processing to match the code every time it changes. High-order phase shift keying (PSK) spread modulations do, however, provide an overall whiter spectral response than legacy direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) signals. Further, the unique ability to color the output signal spectrum offers new advantages to optimize transmission in a non-white frequency channel and to mitigate observed interference. In high data rate applications, the opportunity to inject a time-aligned co-channel underlay-based watermark for authentication at the receiver is an effective method to enhance physical layer (PHY) security for virtually any primary network waveform. This thesis presents a series of options to enhance the implementation of arbitrary-phase chaotic sequence-based spread spectrum waveforms, including techniques to significantly reduce fallthrough correlator hardware resources in low-power sensing devices for only minor performance loss, capabilities for programming chosen frequency domain spectra into the resulting spread spectrum signal, and design considerations for underlay watermark-based PHY-layer firewalls. A number of hardware validated prototypes were built on an Intel Arria 10 SoC FPGA to provide measurable results, achieving substantial computational resource gains and implementation flexibility. / Master of Science / This thesis presents a series of options for enhancing the implementation of arbitrary-phase spread spectrum waveforms, a highly-secure class of wireless technologies, in order to reduce design complexity with minimal loss, provide methods for real-time performance adaptations, and extend the traditional application space for increased security of communications in other networks. A number of enhanced hardware prototypes were implemented to provide measurable results, achieving substantial computational resource gains and design flexibility. Given the computational resources and power constraints of devices in the Internet of Things (IoT), the signal detection loss of 2.10 dB for reducing the hardware logic utilization of the brute force fallthrough correlator by more than 76% (and eliminating the need to dedicate computationally-expensive embedded multipliers) is a very reasonable trade. While the waveform is fundamentally designed for increased security, adapting to widespread and/or commercial use may allow some sacrifice of the signal’s ability to avoid interception/detection to improve performance in undesirable operating conditions. In a similar, yet reversed, case, injecting a watermarking signature at the physical layer (PHY) of less-secure wireless technologies for receiver-side authentication also proves to be beneficial.

Health-system guidance (HSG) is expected to assist with making decisions about addressing problems or achieving goals in health systems. However, the implementation of HSG is challenging due to the complexity of health-system policymaking. Existing guideline implementation tools focus on clinical practice guidelines and might not be suitable for HSG. This dissertation aims to bridge this gap by developing a theoretical framework and a tool designed to support HSG implementation at both national and subnational levels. It achieves these objectives through three original scientific contributions. The first study uses a critical interpretive synthesis of the existing literature to develop a theoretical framework. This framework identifies facilitators of, barriers to, and strategies for supporting HSG implementation across six different levels: the political system, health system, community, organization, providers, and the public/patients. The second study employs a modified Delphi method to identify the components of an HSG implementation tool based on this framework. The third study adopts a formative evaluation study design to explore – through interviews with guideline implementers – whether, how, and why the HSG implementers will use the tool and how it can be refined, leading to the further development of the tool. These studies collectively offer theoretical, methodological and substantive insights into understanding the facilitators, barriers, and strategies crucial for the effective implementation of HSG. The developed HSG implementation framework and accompanying tool can be useful for supporting the implementation of HSG covering varied topics and in different contexts, including low-, middle- and high-income countries. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Health-system guidance (HSG) is advice created to help governments make better decisions on how to improve health systems. The implementation of HSG is complicated due to the complex ways in which government policy about health systems is made. Most existing implementation tools are designed for implementing clinical practice guidelines, not HSG. This dissertation addresses this gap by focusing on HSG implementation, bringing together insights from a series of three studies. The first study develops a framework about the facilitators of, barriers to, and strategies for HSG implementation at different levels (e.g., patients, organizations and communities). The second study gathers expert opinions about how the framework can be used to develop the components of a tool. The third study examines whether, how, and why this tool will be used with people who implement HSG, which supports the further refinement of the tool.

Problem behavior has been increasing in classrooms and has significantly contributed to teacher burnout. Students in special education settings have been found to demonstrate problem behaviors more than their general education peers. Schools have a responsibility to implement evidence-based behavioral support to assist students with their behavioral needs, decrease problem behavior, and increase desired behavior in the classroom. There is a relationship between the level of implementation fidelity and the effectiveness of an intervention. If there are not high levels of fidelity, the results are not expected to mimic what has been found in the research. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify, analyze, and synthesize the current evidence surrounding implementation fidelity interventions for behavioral supports. A systematic method was used to identify relevant studies and 11 studies met the inclusion criteria. Each study was then coded to identify the quality of the evidence and the findings. The data was then reviewed and synthesized according to the research questions. The results indicate that direct implementor training paired with performance feedback is the most researched intervention and has been shown to be effective. Additional research is needed to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of other implementation fidelity interventions.

Yes / Heart failure is a major global health challenge incurring a high rate of mortality, morbidity and hospitalisation. Effective medicines management at the time of hospital discharge into the community could reduce poor outcomes for people with heart failure. Within the Improving the Safety and Continuity Of Medicines management at Transitions of care (ISCOMAT) programme, the Medicines at Transitions Intervention (MaTI) was co-designed to improve such transitions, with a cluster randomised controlled trial to test effectiveness. The MaTI includes a patient toolkit and transfer of discharge medicines information to community pharmacy. This paper aims to determine the degree to which the intervention was delivered and identify barriers and facilitators experienced by staff for the successful implementation of the intervention. Methods: The study was conducted in six purposively selected intervention sites. A mixed-methods design was employed using hospital staff interviews, structured and unstructured ward observations, and routine trial data about adherence to the MaTI. A parallel mixed analysis was applied. Qualitative data were analysed thematically using the Framework method. Data were synthesised, triangulated and mapped to the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Results: With limited routines of communication between ward staff and community pharmacy, hospital staff found implementing community pharmacy-related steps of the intervention challenging. Staff time was depleted by attempts to bridge system barriers, sometimes leading to steps not being delivered. Whilst the introduction of the patient toolkit was often completed and valued as important patient education and a helpful way to explain medicines, the medicines discharge log within it was not, as this was seen as a duplication of existing systems. Within the CFIR the most applicable constructs were identified as ‘intervention complexity’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’ based on how well hospitals were networked with community pharmacies, and the availability of hospital resources to facilitate this. Conclusion: The MaTI was generally successfully implemented, particularly the introduction of the toolkit. However, implementation involving community pharmacy was more challenging and more effective communication systems are needed to support wider implementation.

Yes / Based on Herbert Simon's conceptualization of bounded rationality, this study develops and tests an integrative model of the strategic decision-making process (SDMP) and outcomes in public organizations. The model integrates different SDMP dimensions—procedural rationality, intuition, participation, and constructive politics—and examines their impacts on the successful implementation of strategic decisions. Additionally, it analyzes the influence of implementation on the overall outcomes of strategic decisions. The model was tested with multi-source data on 170 strategic decisions collected from senior executives working in 38 public organizations in Qatar—a context in which studies on decision-making are rare. With the exception of intuition, this study shows a positive impact of all SDMP dimensions on the successful implementation and outcomes of strategic decisions. Successful implementation fully mediates the relationships between procedural rationality, participation, and constructive politics and the outcomes of strategic decision.

No / It is now well accepted that there are significant challenges to realizing the wide-spread and self-sustaining implementation of sustainable urban water management. It is argued that these challenges are entrenched within the broader socio-political framework, yet often unsuccessfully addressed within the more narrow scope of improving technical knowledge and design capacity. This hypothesis is investigated through a comparative analysis of three independent research projects investigating different dimensions of the water cycle including stormwater management in Australia, and sanitary waste management and implementation of innovative technologies in the UK. The analysis reveals significant and common socio-political impediments to improved practice. It was evident that the administrative regime, including implementing professionals and institutions, appears to be largely driven by an implicit expectation that there is a technical solution to solve water management issues. This is in contrast to addressing the issues through broader strategies such as political leadership, institutional reform and social change. It is recognised that this technocratic culture is inadvertently underpinned by the need to demonstrate implementation success within short-term political cycles that conflict with both urban renewal and ecological cycles. Addressing this dilemma demands dedicated socio-technical research programs to enable the much needed shift towards a more sustainable regime.