Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering (MSMSE), Wright State University, 2023, Materials Science and Engineering

Electronics in different applications, such as in medical imaging devices, radar systems, communication transmitters, and optical drives, often require various power and signal lines to be integrated at board level. In such cases, different lines may cross over one another in three-dimensional space for efficient electronic integration. Crossovers are usually achieved by adding additional layers to a PCB. However, these additional layers increase the cost, weight, and complexity of the component. By creating a process and structure to offer board-level heterogenous integration, these factors may be reduced. RF-DC crossovers were designed and additively manufactured using an aerosol jet printer. Benzocyclobutene (BCB), a thermally curable dielectric material, and Norland Electronic Adhesive 121 (NEA), a UV curable dielectric ink, were printed as crossover materials on boards containing an RF transmission line. Electroninks 615 (EI-615), a conductive silver ink, was printed on the crossover's surface to complete the DC circuit trace. Two different toolpath designs were explored to serve for the digital printing of the crossover structure. A network analyzer was used to measure the scattering parameters (S12 and S21) across the RF transmission line in X-band (8-12 GHz). A thermal camera was used to capture the heat spread across the crossover region. The printed ramp design resulted in a more gradual slope as expected, requiring a single print of the conductive trace while the steep pad design required tilting of the crossover and multiple printing sessions. The NEA 121 and BCB showed no significant changes in the S21 parameter as DC power increased; however, slight coupling occurred in both. The largest S21 difference recorded at 10 GHz was 0.339 dB. The BCB crossovers exhibited higher power handling than the NEA 121 crossovers, reaching up to 6.93 W. The maximum breakdown temperature occurred at 273.0°C in the NEA 121 and at 248.6°C in the BCB crossovers.

Committee: Ahsan Mian Ph.D. (Advisor); Daniel Young Ph.D. (Committee Member); Emily Heckman Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Electrical Engineering; Engineering; Materials Science

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2017, Theatre Arts-Arts Administration

The National Endowment for the Arts has long been a source of debate, sparking controversy over federally funding the arts. This report investigates justifications for both sides of this dispute, including local insight into the impact of federally funded art, utilizing reports, statistics, official documents, and personal interviews. The findings of this report will be a comprehensive tool in advocating for federally funded art now and in the future.

Committee: Elisa Gargarella (Advisor); Arnold Tunstall (Committee Member); David J. Castellano (Committee Member) Subjects: Arts Management; Theater

BA, Oberlin College, 2016, History

In the 1980s the use of vulgar lyrics in music became connected with social issues surrounding youth and the perceived breakdown of the American family. While the historiography of the debate over music content and regulation, from 1985-1992, is frequently displayed as a partisan issue I argue that loose alliances formed across the political and cultural spectrum in calls for tighter regulation. Despite being a national debate, successful application of pressure for tighter regulation only came about through local efforts which had far reaching consequences for the RIAA's national retail structure. This paper explores the way censorship efforts took place during the American Culture Wars and the murkiness of defining censorship in the Record Industry Association of Americans decentralized economic structure.

Committee: Clayton Koppes (Advisor) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Electrical Engineering

Due to high demand for wide bandwidth applications, UWB antennas have received significant attention in many commercial and military application areas. They can provide very wide bandwidth information with a single antenna configuration. However, designing UWB antennas have very strict requirement such as broadband matching, broad beamwidth, and good efficiency throughout the operational frequency band which is generally difficult to obtain. In this work, the finite different time domain (FDTD) method was selected for the design and optimization of UWB antennas in many different application areas. They include ground penetrating radar (GPR), anechoic chamber feed antenna, near field probe antenna and tapered chamber feed. All these antennas require UWB operation, dual linear polarization, and broad beamwidth. For each application area, they have their own detail operation requirements. With the help of the FDTD code and through understanding, the antennas are deeply studied and analyzed for the final design. This process saves time and cost compared to the repeated prototyping. For the verification of the numerical result, prototype antennas are built, measured and compared to its numerical model result. The measurement and the simulations agree due to the realistic modeling of the geometry.

Committee: Robert Lee (Advisor) Subjects:

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2008, College of Arts and Sciences - Economics

For 28 years the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded grants to for literary translation. The NEA's publicity materials and official guidelines for applicants to this translation program advance several claims about its aims and its administration. In this paper I use descriptive statistics and regression analysis to test hypotheses suggested by four of these claims. I find: strong evidence for rejecting the claim that NEA translation grants help cultivate young translators; convincing evidence that the NEA's translation program has not consistently used the merit of proposals to make discriminations in the denomination of its awards; insufficient evidence to accept the claim that the translation program emphasizes underrepresented languages; and finally, convincing evidence that particular geopolitical shocks have impacted the regional focus of the grants awarded.

Committee: Dennis Sullivan Dr. (Committee Chair); James Brock Dr. (Committee Member); Michael Curme Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative Literature; Economics; Fine Arts; Language; Literature

Doctor of Education, Ashland University, 2009, College of Education

Although some school improvement literature has suggested that schools will improve when unions are removed from the school system, unions have rarely been isolated in the research. This study involved a mixed method case study approach to explore whether support of the local teacher union affected perceptions of school climate, as measured by the Organizational Health Inventory. The study found that teachers who supported the union had more positive perceptions on several of the organizational climate dimensions than teachers who were not supportive of the union.

Committee: Carla Edlefson PhD (Committee Chair); Judy Alston PhD (Committee Member); Howard Walters EdD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Evaluation; Labor Relations