The honey bee is one of the most important crop pollinating insects in the world. Researchers have recently identified a disease that has begun to impact the honey bee population. Colony Collapse Disorder results in the death of many bee colonies every year, but the cause for this remains unknown. Investigating the cause, harmonic radars are being considered to track the foraging patterns of honey bees. This research endeavors to find an optimized waveform for use in tracking foraging bees. Harmonic oscillators were developed for a transmit frequency of 1.2 GHz and various waveforms were tested against the oscillators. Ultimately, the waveform was found to be arbitrary. The amount of power that the harmonic oscillator receives is the determining factor. Given this, a general pulsed waveform can be developed that attempts to provide the maximum possible return for a predetermined maximum range of interest.

The Qweak experiment has taken data to make a 2.5 percent measurement of parity violating elastic ep asymmetry in the four momentum transfer region of 0.0250 (GeV/c)2. This asymmetry is proportional to the weak charge of the proton, which is related to the weak mixing angle, sin2(thetaW). The final Qweak measurement will provide the most precise measurement of the weak mixing angle below the Z° pole to test the Standard Model prediction. A description of the experimental apparatus is provided in this dissertation. The experiment was carried out using a longitudinally polarized electron beam of up to 180 microampere on a 34.5 cm long unpolarized liquid hydrogen target. The Qweak target is not only the world’s highest cryogenic target ever built for a parity experiment but also is the least noisy target. This dissertation provides a detailed description of this target and presents a thorough analysis of the target performance. Statistical analysis of Run 1 data, collected between Feb - May 2011, is done to extract a blinded parity violating asymmetry of size--299.7 +/- 13.4 (stat.) +/- 17.2 (syst.) +/- 68 (blinding) parts-per-billion. This resulted in a preliminary proton’s weak charge of value 0.0865 +/- 0.0085, a 9% measurement. Based on this blinded asymmetry, the weak mixing angle was determined to be sin2(thetaW) = 0.23429 +/- 0.00211.