Knowledge Management (KM) to date has been poorly recognized, explained, and applied in China, and lack of empirical evidence has become a major barrier to the development of KM research in the Chinese academic community. The purpose of this study…

This dissertation formulates and analyzes three original models dealing with aspects of optimal property rights protection, in varying contexts. Chaper 1 is a survey of the literature on the importance of property and property rights in economic thought beginning from…

The current study seeks to explore the washback effects of the CET (College English Test) on teacher beliefs, interpretations and practices, and in particular seeks to discover the way the 'teacher factor' is manifested in the washback phenomenon. It also…

The roots of the human desire for agelessness and the want to surpass the limitations of the human condition go deep into the reaches of history. The religious disposition for immortality is ancient. However, the concept of transcending human nature…

This study evaluated the outcome and process of a peer education program for sex workers, with social support proposed as an organizing framework. Program outcomes were assessed through a pre-post design without comparison group. Sex workers naïve to peer education…

Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes are one of the most powerful classes of error-control codes known to date. These codes have been considered for many recent digital communication applications. In this dissertation, we propose stochastic decoding of state-of-the-art LDPC codes and…

This dissertation describes my work as an educational consultant working with four school principals during a two and a half year period. My original intention was to develop a protocol to help principals in their work. As the study progressed,…

Previous work has shown that expected value of reward associated with a reach modulates neurons in the medial intraparietal cortex (MIP) and that this reward signal can be decoded. In this study, we investigated the reliability of reward coding in…

This thesis examines whether transitioning from current co-management approaches to an adaptive co-management approach would resolve some of the problems experienced in current treaty negotiations contexts between Canadian First Nations and the state government. It first identifies how adaptive co-management…

Efficient and accurate numerical simulation methods for the damage tolerance analysis and fatigue life prediction of fibre reinforced polymers are in high demand in industry. Problems arise in the development of such a simulation method due to the limitations from…