Polymers are intrinsically poor thermal conductors, which are ideal for thermoelectrics, but low electrical conductivity and thermopower have excluded them as feasible candidates as thermoelectric materials in the past. However, recent progress in polymer technology, particularly nanomaterial-polymer composites, can bring them into degenerate semiconductor or metallic regimes by incorporating a small amount of conductive filler. I demonstrate that such polymer nanocomposites can be viable for light-weight and economical thermoelectrics by using a segregated network approach for the nanocomposite synthesis. The thermoelectric properties were further improved by a change of stabilizer and drying conditions. The thermoelectric properties of the segregated network nanocomposites were measured for carbon nanotubes and the thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, was calculated at room temperature. The influence on thermoelectric properties from filler concentration, stabilizer materials and drying condition are also discussed.

This qualitative study explored the experiences of African American students who attended Black segregated schools in a Houston community during the years 1935-1965. The purpose of this study was to give voice to the participants who were educated in a Black segregated school before integration. This research sought to understand students' experiences with segregated schooling through recollections from former students who were products of the school system in the community of Acres Homes in Houston. Furthermore, this research sought to give voice to these students in an effort to understand the role that these schools played in students' lives and the African American community as a whole. A purposive sample of five African American former students was interviewed. The data was analyzed using methods of narrative analysis. Findings generated using thematic analysis revealed three major themes present within and across the larger narratives that represented the experiences of segregated schooling: happiness, heritage, and hardship. Each major theme that emerged encompassed pertinent sub-themes. Twelve sub-themes in total emerged from the combined narratives. Within the Happiness theme emerged 1) enjoyable atmosphere, 2) personal success, 3) closeness, and 4) activities. Within the Heritage theme emerged 5) strong foundation, 6) good teachers, 7) respect for authority, and 8) self-reliance and ownership. Within the Hardship theme emerged 9) rural to urban living, 10) lack of resources, 11) segregation as a way of life, and 12) unfairness/colorism. In contrast to much of the extant literature, these participants' segregated schooling experiences proved to be fulfilling and served as basis for future advancements.

In the context of the guarantee liability valuation, the sophisticated fund-of-funds structure, of some Canadian segregated fund products, often requires us to model multiple market indices simultaneously in order to benchmark the return of the underlying fund. In this thesis, we apply multivariate GARCH models with Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise to project the future investment scenarios of the fund. We further conduct a simulation study to investigate the difference, among the proposed multivariate models, in the valuation of the Guaranteed Minimum Maturity Benefit (GMMB) option. Based on the pre-data analysis, the proposed multivariate GARCH models are data driven. The goodness-of-fit for the models is evaluated through formal statistical tests from univariate and multivariate perspectives. The estimation and associated practical issues are discussed in details. The impact from the innovation distributions is addressed. More importantly, we demonstrate an actuarial approach to manage the guarantee liability for complex segregated fund products.

In the context of the guarantee liability valuation, the sophisticated fund-of-funds structure, of some Canadian segregated fund products, often requires us to model multiple market indices simultaneously in order to benchmark the return of the underlying fund. In this thesis, we apply multivariate GARCH models with Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise to project the future investment scenarios of the fund. We further conduct a simulation study to investigate the difference, among the proposed multivariate models, in the valuation of the Guaranteed Minimum Maturity Benefit (GMMB) option. Based on the pre-data analysis, the proposed multivariate GARCH models are data driven. The goodness-of-fit for the models is evaluated through formal statistical tests from univariate and multivariate perspectives. The estimation and associated practical issues are discussed in details. The impact from the innovation distributions is addressed. More importantly, we demonstrate an actuarial approach to manage the guarantee liability for complex segregated fund products.

Health monitoring is an important field as small failures can build up and cause a catastrophic failure. Monitoring the health of a structure can be done by measuring the motion of the structure through the use of strain sensors. The limitations of current strain sensing technology; cost, size, form could be improved. This research intends to improve current strain sensing technology by creating a conductive polymer composite that can be used monitor health in structures. Conductive polymer composites are a viable candidate due to the low costs of manufacturing, tailorable mechanical and electrical properties, and uniform microstructure. This work will focus on determining if a all-polymer composite can be used as a strain sensor, and investigating the effects of filler, doping and latex effect the electrical and strain sensing properties. Strain sensors were prepared from polyaniline (PANI)-latex composites, the morphology, mechanical, electrical and strain sensing properties were evaluated. These strain sensors were capable of repeatable measuring strain to 1% and able to measure strain until the substrates failure at 5% strain, with a sensitivity (measured by gauge factor) of between 6-8 (metal foil strain sensors have a gauge factor of 2). The best performing strain sensor consisted of 4 wt.% polyaniline. This composition had the best combination of gauge factor, linearity, and signal stability. Further experiments were conducting to see if improvements could be made by changing the polymer used for the matrix material, the molecular weight and the level of doping of the polyaniline. Results indicate through differences in strain sensing response; lower hysteresis and unrecoverable conductivity, that polyaniline latex composites can be adjusted to further improve their performance. The polyaniline-latex composites were able to repeatable measure strain to 1%, as well as strain until failure and with gauge factor between 6-8, and a 70% increase in signal at failure. These properties make these composites viable candidates to monitor health in structures, buildings, bridges, and damns.

We present a fabrication process to create bifunctional microparticles displaying two different proteins have been spatially segregated onto hemispheres. Silica and polystyrene microparticles with 2.0 m, 4.08 m, and 4.74 m diameters are processed with metal deposition to form two chemically distinct and segregated hemispheres. The surface of each hemisphere is then separately derivatized with proteins using different chemical conjugation strategies. These bifunctional Janus particles possess biologically relevant, native conformation proteins attached to a biologically-unreactive and safe substrate. They also display high densities of two types of spatially segregated proteins which may enable a range of capabilities that monofunctional particles cannot, such as improved targeting of drug carriers and bioimaging agents.

A set of experiments was designed and performed to gain a fundamental understanding of various aspects of the segregated network concept. The electrical and mechanical properties of composites made from commercial latex and carbon black are compared with another composite made from a polymer solution. The percolation threshold of the emulsion-based composite is nearly one order of magnitude lower than that of the solution-based composite. The segregated network composite also shows significant improvement in both electrical and mechanical properties with low carbon black loading, while the solution-based composite achieves its maximum enhancement at higher carbon black loading (~25wt%). The effect of the particle size ratio between the polymer particle and the filler was also studied. In order to create a composite with an extremely large particle size ratio (> 80,000), layer-by-layer assembly was used to coat large polyethylene particles with the carbon black. Hyper-branched polyethylenimine was covalently grafted to the surface of polyethylene to promote the film growth. The resulting composite has a percolation threshold below 0.1 wt%, which is the lowest percolation threshold ever reported for a carbon-filled composite. Theoretical predictions suggest that the actual percolation threshold may be lower than 0.002 wt%. Finally, the effect of the emulsion polymer modulus on the segregated network was studied. Monodispersed emulsions with the different glass transition temperature were used as the matrix. The composites made using the emulsion with higher modulus show lower percolation threshold and higher conductivity. Higher modulus causes tighter packing of carbon black between the polymer particles. When the drying temperature was increased to 80°C, the percolation thresholds became closer between some systems because their moduli were very close. This work suggests modulus is a variable that can be used to tailor percolation threshold and electrical conductivity, along with polymer particle size.

When the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was passed 47 years ago, the United States was in the midst of the civil rights movement and fair housing was identified as a pillar of equality. While, progress has been made, there is much work that needs to be done in order to achieve integration. As a country, the United States is a highly segregated country. It is important to understand the factors that contribute to this and it is important to understand the relationships that exists between them in order to attempt to solve the problem. While the legal barriers to integration have been lifted choices continue to be limited to families of color that lack the resources to live in desirable neighborhoods. The ultimate goal of this study is to examine the relationship between the impact of individual indicators and housing patterns in the greater Tucson/Pima county region. An affordability index, the DEYA index, was created to determine where affordability is at its highest. The index includes different weights for foreclosure, Pima County spending on affordable housing, the existence of Pima County general obligations bond affordable housing projects, land value and inclusion in the community land trust. Once this was determined a regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between affordability and individual factors that may be affecting integration. The indicators used were broken down into 3 categories: the categories were education, housing and neighborhoods and employment and economic health.

The European Union has been working to promote equality between women and men for a long time. Despite this, Sweden still have a gender segregated labor market where men generally has the leading positions. According to European law the member states shall promote gender equality and to take all appropriate measures. Statutory gender quotas for company boards is one such measure that some of the European member states have implemented in national law. The Swedish law has no provisions governing gender quotas and therefore the purpose of this study is to explain how gender quotas for company boards relate to current law, both of European law and national legislation. After examining the legal situation I am also referring to examine however an extent eventual legislation is possible, with the principle of non-discrimination in consideration. The main goal of Swedish gender equality policy is that women and men should have the same power to shape society and their own lives. There should be just as much power and similar power resources between women and men. The government argued that a change must be made regarding the structural power relations between men and women, where women as a group are still subordinate to men. It is found that women more generally occupies subordinate positions in society. This is something that has its origin from the past. The question is whether the statutory quotas are the correct action to take to fulfill this target objective.

Ethnic discrimination in employment decisions has received increasing attention and is one of several explanatory models for why Sweden has an ethnically segregated labor market. The purpose of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of how recruiters reflect on the ethnically segregated labor market and anonymous job applications. The purpose is answered with the questions of how recruiters relate to the ethnically segregated labor market, which individual and structural explanations they raise and how recruiters view anonymous job applications. Previous research shows that ethnic discrimination is a reflection of the segregated labor market and that anonymous job applications has positive effects in terms of interview requests for immigrants. This study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with recruitment and staffing companies. Three companies whose method is anonymous and two companies with non- anonymous methods. The results show that recruiters describe the ethnically segregated labor market as a result of both structural and individual explanations. Recruiters discuss the anonymous job applications in terms of having generally more advantages than disadvantages, where the main advantage is the anonymisation of candidates in order to reduce the risk for sources of error in the recruitment process. / Etnisk diskriminering vid anställningsbeslut är ett uppmärksammat ämne och är en av flera förklaringsmodeller till varför Sverige har en etnisk segregerad arbetsmarknad. Syftet med denna studie är att bidra till en ökad förståelse för hur rekryterare reflekterar kring den etniskt segregerade arbetsmarknaden och anonyma ansökningsprocesser. Syftet besvaras med hjälp av frågeställningarna hur rekryterare förhåller sig till den etniskt segregerade arbetsmarknaden, vilka individuella och strukturella förklaringar de beskriver samt hur rekryterare ser på anonyma ansökningsprocesser. Tidigare forskning påvisar att etnisk diskriminering är en återspegling av den segregerade arbetsmarknaden och att anonyma ansökningsprocesser har positiva effekter vad gäller intervjuförfrågningar för immigranter. Studie baseras på kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med rekryterings- och bemanningsföretag. Intervjuerna genomförs på tre företag vars ansökningsprocess är anonym och två företag som inte använder en anonym ansökningsprocess. Resultatet visar att rekryterare beskriver den etnisk segregerade arbetsmarknaden till följd av både strukturella och individuella förklaringar. Rekryterare uppvisar övergripande fler fördelar än nackdelar med anonyma ansökningsprocesser. Den främsta fördelen är att anonymisering av kandidater minskar risken för felkällor i rekryteringsprocessen.