Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Ladislav Kohout, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Computer Science. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Mar. 9, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 17, [19] p. : col. ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 17).

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1974. / Typewritten.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1972. / Typewritten.

In 2000, two international organizations—the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Organization for Economic Development (OECD)—attempted to attack the problems of money laundering and tax evasion through coercive soft law. Both organizations attempted to induce state compliance with international standards by placing noncompliant states on publicly available blacklists. The FATF blacklist, Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories, documented states that failed to implement international anti-money laundering standards and the OECD blacklist, Uncooperative Tax Havens, documented states that failed to implement international tax information-sharing agreements. This report examines the Cayman Islands’ quick compliance with these two international efforts. The report hypothesizes that the Cayman Islands’ complied quickly with both the FATF and OECD initiatives because the Cayman Islands’ had a strong financial institutional capacity and a high level of reputational risk from not complying. The report develops a methodology for testing this theory against other jurisdictions placed on both of the original FATF and OECD blacklists. The testing reveals that while financial institutional capacity and reputational risk may have contributed to the Cayman Islands’ and other states’ compliance with the FATF and OECD initiatives, these factors were not determinative. The report concludes that better metrics for state institutional capacity and reputational risk are needed to accurately measure states’ compliance with the FATF and OECD regimes. / text

We investigated the depletion interactions of colloids and hindrance behavior of hard and soft colloidal particles near neighboring walls. We first used numerical modeling to compute depletion interaction strengths for simple geometries which eventually guided our experiments to make interactions highly selective. The model helped us in identifying the important parameters to finetune these interactions and shed light on geometric design rules to optimize desirable shape-selective interactions on a variety of complex geometries. We further reported experimental studies that highlight the differences in the dynamics of hard and soft colloids under confinement using video microscopy and particle tracking. It was found that both soft sphere systems that we investigated (swollen polymer particles, core/shell microgels) behave differently from hard sphere systems under all degrees of confinement that were measured. Our findings suggest that soft sphere systems have lesser hindrance compared to hard sphere counterparts and the hindrance varies as a function of softness. In order to understand the soft sphere confinement dynamics more clearly, implications for future research are discussed.

We present a platform that allows homogeneous and heterogeneous 3-D soft materials to be continuously defined in a single step. Biopolymer solutions are introduced to a microfluidic device and radially distributed to feed to a common outlet at the device center. This forms concentric sheaths of complex fluids and upon crosslinking, a hydrogel tube at the exit. This approach allows for the controlled and continuous extrusion of tubes with tailored diameters of 500 μm to 1500 μm, wall thicknesses of 20 μm to 120 μm, and compositions, as well as predictable mechanical and chemical properties. Using the same platform, single and multi-walled hydrogel tubes with defined heterogeneities and patterns of discrete spots of secondary biopolymer materials can be continuously extruded. A tube-hosting device is presented which can independently perfuse and superfuse isolated tube segments, allowing precise microenvironmental control without cannulation for up to an hour.

We present a platform that allows homogeneous and heterogeneous 3-D soft materials to be continuously defined in a single step. Biopolymer solutions are introduced to a microfluidic device and radially distributed to feed to a common outlet at the device center. This forms concentric sheaths of complex fluids and upon crosslinking, a hydrogel tube at the exit. This approach allows for the controlled and continuous extrusion of tubes with tailored diameters of 500 μm to 1500 μm, wall thicknesses of 20 μm to 120 μm, and compositions, as well as predictable mechanical and chemical properties. Using the same platform, single and multi-walled hydrogel tubes with defined heterogeneities and patterns of discrete spots of secondary biopolymer materials can be continuously extruded. A tube-hosting device is presented which can independently perfuse and superfuse isolated tube segments, allowing precise microenvironmental control without cannulation for up to an hour.

Introduction: Soft Tissue Injuries (STIs) of the shoulder are common presentations to the Emergency Department but very little is known about the natural history, long-term disability or prognostic factors associated with these injuries. The goals of this pilot study are to describe the three-month outcome of these injuries, to begin to identify prognostic factors associated with poor outcome and to determine the feasibility of a future study aimed at predicting poor outcome. Methods: A cohort of 117 working-age adults presenting to the Emergency Department with acute STIs of the shoulder were prospectively recruited. Patients were interviewed by phone at one week, one month and three months. During the calls, patients completed the Disabilities of the Arm and Shoulder (DASH) questionnaire and provided information about treatments and follow-up that had occurred. Results: Of the 117 subjects, 72.3% had pain and disability above the population norm at one month and that number only decreased to 38.7% at three months. A substantial effect was also seen on Work and Leisure activities. The following prognostic factors were identified as having some association with poor three-month outcome: age, mechanism of injury, ability to rotate arm and abduct arm in ED, pain at one week, whether the injury was work-related, visit with family physician in first week and DASH score (disability) at one week. Conclusions: At the present time, the emergency physician must treat patients with STIs of the shoulder without any substantial knowledge of the morbidity that these injuries cause, which patients are at high risk of poor outcome or what would constitute optimum management. This study has determined that poor outcome is common and it has begun to identify factors that can help predict which patients will have a more complicated course. As it is now felt that the transition from acute to chronic pain begins well before three months, it will be important for future studies to develop a method of early identification of patients at high risk of poor outcome and to determine effective management in an attempt to prevent that transition. / Thesis (Master, Community Health & Epidemiology) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-31 12:12:22.113

The grid connected PV plants comprising of the PV cells and the power electronic inverters are a widely used technology in distributed power generation systems based on renewable energy sources. Microinverters form an extensive part of the ongoing research in this field. This thesis focuses on the inverter section of the microinverter. The cost and efficiency of the grid connected inverter is a chief contributing factor in the overall system price. The MOSFETs used in the DC/AC inverter are usually hard switched causing a lot of EMI noise and losses in the inverter. This is true for both, single and three phase inverters. A low switching frequency is desirable to increase the efficiency, which in turn imposes a large compromise in designing the output filter. In this thesis, switching losses have been minimized by incorporating zero voltage switching at switch turn on and variable dead-time control at switch turn off. The soft switching technique is based on control algorithms and involves no use of any auxiliary circuit. Also, the size of the output filter is reduced without increasing the switching frequency, by employing multiple paralleled inverters. The interleaving technique that is usually used in dc/dc converters is extended for dc/ac inverters and is well employed to maintain the quality of the current fed into the utility grid. In this way, at low switching frequency, high efficiency and reduced cost and sizes are achieved. The study is validated through simulation and lab experiments. The novel control circuit was first implemented using analog circuitry. After assessing the performance of the analog version of the proposed controller, it was then digitally implemented through the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technique. / Thesis (Master, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-30 15:06:26.071