<p>Joint attention is critical for social learning activities such as parent-child shared book reading. However, there is a potential disassociation of attention when the adult reads texts while the child looks at pictures. I hypothesize that the lack of joint attention limits children's opportunity to learn print-related skills. The current study tests the hypothesis with interventions that enhance real-time joint attention. Eye movements of parents and children were simultaneously tracked when they read books together on computer screens. I also provided real-time feedback to the parent regarding where the child was looking, and vice versa. Changes of dyads' reading behaviors before and after the joint attention intervention were measured from both eye movements and video records. Baseline data showed little joint attention in parent-child shared book reading. The real-time attention feedback significantly increased the joint attention and children's print-related learning. These findings supported my hypothesis that engaging in effective joint attention is critical for children to acquire knowledge and skills during shared reading and other collaborative learning activities.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis hypothesizes that providing task specific information to individual team members will improve coordination and decision-making, and therefore team performance, at time critical tasks. Major themes addressed in this research include teams and team processes, mental models, team mental models, work domain analysis, and hierarchical task analysis. Furthermore, the theory behind the development of complementary models is introduced. A unique method to identify the information sources and requirements in a complex team environment is first discussed in general and then specifically applied in two domains. The findings are presented of two experiments examining the effects of imposing different information distribution strategies that range from no complementariness to full complementariness of information. Team communication, team and individual task performance, workload, and timeliness and effectiveness of team decision making were assessed in nominal and off-nominal conditions. The first experiment used an automobile simulator and examined team navigation while driving. A second experiment was designed to incorporate additional measures to more specifically investigate individual performance, team workload, and clarity of information requirements using a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter simulator. The procedures used for both experiments provided for dynamic yet controlled environments through which critical factors that influence team process and performance could be evaluated accurately. Results of these experiments provide empirical evidence that providing task relevant information to individual team members in a time critical environment, while limiting their access to non-relevant information, improves individual and team performance. Furthermore, there is evidence of increased individual performance that indicates this method of distributing information among team members may provide individual crewmembers with a more accurate task relevant mental model of their own environment. This research provides new insight into how the distribution of information among team members effects the development of mental models, information requirements, team and individual performance, and communications, and highlights several directions for future research. The information distribution design principles presented in this thesis address the heterogeneity of teams; teams cannot be thought of as groups of identical individuals. The results concerning the communication, workload, performance and team of mental models were consistent across the domains in this research.

Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) processors can issue multiple instructions from distinct processes or threads in the same cycle. This technique effectively increases the overall throughput by keeping the pipeline resources more occupied at the potential expense of reducing single thread performance due to resource sharing. In the software domain, an increasing number of Dynamically Linked Libraries (DLL) are used by applications and operating systems, providing better flexibility and modularity, and enabling code sharing. It is observed that a significant amount of execution time in software today is spent in executing standard DLL instructions, that are shared among multiple threads or processes. However, for an SMT processor with a virtually-indexed based cache implementation, existing instruction fetching mechanisms can induce unnecessary false cache misses caused by the DLL-based instructions, which were intended to be shared. This problem is more conspicuous when multiple independent threads are executing concurrently in an SMT processor. This work investigates an often-neglected form of contention between running threads in the I-TLB and I-cache caused by DLLs. To address these shortcomings, we propose a system level technique involving a light-weight modification in the microarchitecture and the OS. By exploiting the nature of the DLLs in our new architecture, we are able to reinstate physical sharing of the DLLs in an SMT machine. Using Microsoft Windows based applications, our simulation results show that the optimized instruction fetching mechanism can reduce the number of DLL misses up to 5.5 times and improve the instruction cache hit rates by up to 62%, resulting in upto 30% DLL IPC improvements and upto 15% overall IPC improvements.

In this thesis, we propose a high density non-classical unipolar CMOS width two embedded oxide (2EO) NMOS load. The words ¡§unipolar CMOS¡¨ refer to the fact that the conventional NMOS driver and the proposed 2EO NMOS load are presented in which the electron is the only carrier used. Among them, the 2EO scheme is used to isolate the inversion current. And the dominant current in the 2EO NMOS load is the punch through current which is not a destructive current mechanism. Our proposed CMOS, due to the same carrier used, does not have to compensate the layout width in load design. In addition, the shared terminal of output contacts and the elimination of N-well technique are also presented in our proposed CMOS. Therefore, the layout area can be reduced 72%, in comparison with conventional CMOS. Furthermore, the packing density can be increased and the fabrication cost can be reduced, respectively. We also find out that the delay time can be improved 39% to increase the operating frequency, as compared with the convention CMOS.

In this thesis, we present a high-speed non-classical unipolar CMOS with a thick sidewall-spacer gate-oxide NMOS load. This unipolar CMOS is composed of a NMOS driver and a thick sidewall-spacer gate-oxide NMOS which replaces a PMOS as load. We focus on the investigation of punch-through current in unipolar CMOS trends. In addition, we also design a conventional CMOS for comparison. According to the simulations, the logical characteristics of our proposed CMOS are valid, in which the average propagation delay time is improved 20 % compared with the conventional CMOS. This is due to the presence of a thick sidewall-spacer gate-oxide NMOS load. For the viewpoint of device fabrication, the N well process can also be eliminated. This means that the proposed NMOS load not only improves the CMOS speed, but also reduces the fabrication cost. Thus, because of the shared-terminal output, the layout area can be significantly decreased 41 %, in comparison with the conventional CMOS.

PURPORSE¡GThis purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of diabetes shared care model (DSCM)and the factors associated with extent of glycemic control. METHOD¡GWe analyzed 212 patients who completed the five shared care visits and 739 patients who completed the second follow-up visit. Patients are recruited from a department of Endocrinology of medical center located in southern part of Taiwan. Data used in this study were collected from the patients¡¦ medical records. To evaluate effectiveness of diabetes shared care model¡]dietary compliance, exercise behavior compliance, clinical indicators¡^and to examine the factors associated with the hemoglobulin A1c is the purpose of the study. RESULT¡G In 212 patients completing the 5 visits, the compliance of carbohydrate consumption was significantly improved, however, there was no significant improvement in those of calories and fat consumption. Further analysis in 739 patients who completed the second follow-up visit, we found that the compliance of calories and fat consumption was significantly improved. The compliance of carbohydrate was improved, but not reaching significant difference. Although the compliance of 212 patients¡¦ exercise behavior was not significantly improved, the compliance of 739 patients¡¦ exercise behavior was significantly improved. The improvement of clinical indicators following participating the DCSM are as followed¡G 1.The hemoglobulin A1c¡]before¡G8.1% vs after¡G7.9%¡AP=0.04¡^¡Bfasting plasma glucose¡]before¡G164.1mg/dL vs after¡G136.8 mg/dL¡AP<0.01¡^¡Btotal cholesterol ¡]before¡G200.9mg/dL vs after¡G187.3 mg/dL¡AP<0.01¡^¡Blow density lipoprotein¡]LDL¡^¡]before¡G121.0mg/dL vs posttest¡G113.1 mg/dL¡AP<0.01¡^¡Bhigh density lipoprotein¡]HDL¡^¡]before¡G42.6mg/dL vs posttest¡G46.2 mg/dL¡AP<0.01¡^of 212 patients were significantly improved. On the other hand, the triglyceride¡]pretest¡G159.9mg/dL vs after¡G152.2 mg/dL¡AP=0.71¡^¡Bsystolic blood pressure¡]before¡G132.5mmHg vs after¡G137.3 mmHg¡AP=0.34¡^and diastolic blood pressure¡]before¡G79.5 mmHg vs after¡G78.4 mmHg¡AP=0.09¡^of 212 patients were not significantly improved. 2.In 739 patients who only completing the second follow-up visit, the hemoglobulin A1c¡Bfasting plasma glucose¡Bdiastolic blood pressure were significantly improved but the systolic blood pressure was remain unchanged. Finally, multivariate regression modeling was used to investigate the factors associated with extent of glycemic control improvement (first visit HbA1c-annual visit HbA1c) in 212 patients competing the annual visit. After adjusting for age and sex, patients¡¦ sex, level of first visit hemoglobulin A1c and level of first visit triglyceride was associated with the extent of glycemic control.

As middle management is pillar of enterprise, so to develop middle management¡¦s professional competence is the key factor for enterprise¡¦s growth and competitiveness. To strengthen middle manager¡¦s management skills that can improve business performance and could be the key process for nurture of future successor. In an organization, middle management plays the key role to integrate and adjust organizational competence, therefore the ability to build network relationship among members and cooperate with other people to enhance social capital, develop human capital and cumulate personal physical capital is the most important objectives. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation of social capital, job performance and career success. In this study, social capital is defined as independent variables, job performance and career success are defined as dependent variable. Furthermore, using the organization climate and shared normative frameworks as the interfered variable to investigat the effect of interference to social capital, job performance and career success. This study adopted questionnaire survey and target on middle management in various industry. The data were analyzed by reliability analysis, factor analysis, one-way ANOVA and hierarchical regression analysis to discuss the relationships between social capital, job performance and career success and the moderating effect of interference for organization climate, shared normative frameworks. The findings of the study are as follows. (1) Micro level and meso level of social capital correlates positively with career success. (2) Micro level and meso level of social capital correlates positively with job performance. (3) Organization climate and shared normative frameworks causes partially intervention on relation of micro level and meso level of social capital and career success. (4) Organiztion climate and shared normative frameworks causes intervention on relation of micro level social capital and job performance is partial significant. (5) Organiztion climate and shared normative frameworks causes intervention on relation of meso level social capital and job performance is not significant. According to the results, we offer the following suggestions: (1) For enterprise: To enhance information and resource flow, promote high quality leadership and communication, reinforce recruiting, talent selection strategy and organization climate; (2) For employee: To reinforce social capital to improve job performance, cultivate learning, responsible attitude.

This study explored the quality of life (QOL) of advanced cancer patients before and after receiving hospital-based palliative shared care; also compared their quality of life with those of terminal ill patients in palliative care units. Sixty-eight cancer patients in a southern Taiwan hospital were selected, purposive sampling, as our study samples. Among these 68 patients in our study were under three care models; 20 patients were under general care, 17 patients were under hospital-based palliative shared care, and 31 patients were under palliative care. One week after their admission into care units, we evaluated their QOL using MQOL ¡VTaiwan version. The QOL data of these three groups of advanced cancer patients ,then grouped and compared as in general care unit, hospital-based palliative shared care unit, and palliative care unit. All data collected were analyzed using SPSS for Word 10.0 statistic software. Furthermore, we have in-depth interviewed with four chiefs of general care units, five patient caretakers, and one professional of hospital-based palliative share care. Contents of the in-depth interviews focused on in what aspects hospital-based palliative shared care provided help to terminally ill patients in terms of quality of life or life difficulty. Contents of the discussion were then analyzed and interpreted. Results of our analysis, measured by MQOL ¡V Taiwan version, showed there is no significant difference in QOL of advanced cancer patients between hospital-based palliative shared care and general care. But results of our in-depth interview with caretakers and caregives showed interesting aspects: 1. Physical symptoms of advanced cancer patients was brought under control. 2. Psychological symptoms of advanced cancer patients or their family was taken care of. 3. Advanced cancer patients or their family are all benefited from continued advice and instructions. 4. Provide cancer patients and their family with guidance and instructions as to preparing for death. 5. Support the emotional needs of family of advanced cancer patients. 6. Hospital-based palliative shared care offered palliative consultation, supporting patient caretakers and providing improvement QOL for cancer patients. 7. Mindset change to doctors: inform cancer patients or their family of developing cancer symptom so that early intervention can be ensued. 8. Caretakers of general care unit and hospital-based palliative shared care unit formed a joint team, enabling cancer patients and their family feel secured in treatment. In conclusion, hospital-based palliative shared care benefits patients and their family. Comparing with hospital-based palliative shared care, palliative care showed significant improvement in physical symptom domain, psychological domain, and the mean of four domains. In all palliative interventions, palliative care has better effect in improving QOL of cancer patients than hospital-based palliative shared care. By this study, we examined and evaluated the effectiveness of ¡§Hospital-based Palliative Shared Care Program¡¨ promoted by Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health, R.O.C. With the in-depth information revealed, we can improve this promotion program and ensure that patient¡¦s needs have been taken care of. We would also recommend any promotion program must focus on patients, and a model of combined effort of palliative shared care should be on top of all.

"Substitutes for leadership" is a new emerging leadership model of organizations within turbulent environments. Employee might minimize the "need for leadership" by "shared values", "self-managed work teams" and "cynicism". These substitutes would have further direct impacts on job outcomes as well. This study suggests that the higher the extent of shared values, self-managed work teams or cynicism, the lower the extent of the need for leadership. Also except cynicism, the higher the extent of shared values or self-managed work teams, the higher the extent of job outcomes. Data used were collected in two Kaohsiung companies, including an insurance agent and a semiconductor company. After statistic analyzes the results are stated as bellow: ¢¹. Differences of all variables due to characteristics of individuals. 1. The insurance agent: Employee are graduated from senior high schools have the higher extents of job outcomes than those are graduated from colleges. Sales have the higher extent of shared values, self-managed work teams and job outcomes, and the lower extent of cynicism than clerks. 2. The semiconductor company: No characteristics of individuals make a difference of variables. ¢º. Relationships between substitutes and the need for leadership. 1. The insurance agent: The higher the extent of shared values the higher the extent of the need for leadership. The higher the extent of self-managed work teams the higher the extent of the need for leadership. The higher the extent of cynicism the higher the extent of the need for leadership. 2. The semiconductor company: The same as the above. ¢». Relationships between substitutes and job outcomes. 1. The insurance agent: The higher the extent of shared values, the higher the extent of job outcomes; the higher the extent of self-managed work teams, the higher the extent of job outcomes; the lower the extent of cynicism, the higher the extent of job outcomes. 2. The semiconductor company: The same as the above. The empirical results show that although the substitutes regression model can offer explanation of job outcomes, the higher extents of shared values and self-managed work teams do not lead to the lower extent of the need for leadership. The reason that hypotheses are not approved seems to be the sampling. The insurance agent is an organization of the tight leader-follower relationship; the subordinators of the newly established semiconductor company of course strongly depend on the experienced leaders. Or shared values and self-managed work teams would not be the substitutes for leadership in deed. Or leadership could not be replaced at all!

Due to the limitation of single machine¡¦s computing power, and the aspect of cost, distributed design is getting more and more popular nowadays. The Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) system is one of the most hot topics in this area. Most people are dedicated on designing a library or even a new language, in order to gain higher performance on DSM systems. As a consequence, the programmers are required to learn a new library or language. Even more, they have to handle synchronizations for the distributed environment. In this paper, we propose a design that is compatible with POSIX-Thread Environment. The distributed nature of the system described herein is totally transparent to the programmers.