The office of a state lieutenant governor often fails to evoke images of power, influence, or prestige. However, in Texas the office is regarded by many as the most powerful political office in the state. The Texas lieutenant governor derives his power from several sources, including the Texas Constitution, Senate rules, statutes, and the personality of the officeholder. This work explores the role of the Texas lieutenant governor in the pre-modern period with an examination of the office’s legalistic and pre-statehood roots. Aspects explored include the backgrounds of the men who became lieutenant governor, the power the officeholders exerted during their time in office, and whether or not the office became a platform for future political success. The men who served as lieutenant governor during the first century of statehood for Texas did not have the power enjoyed by their more recent contemporaries. However, some of them laid a foundation for the future by exploiting political opportunities and amending legislative practices. As Texas grew into a modern and urban state, the power and influence of the office of lieutenant governor also grew.

COPD is the third leading cause of death in the United States and is the sixth leading cause of death for low-to middle income countries (Downs & Appel, 2006; GOLD, 2011). COPD is a largely preventable disease due to the lifestyle factors that heavily contribute to disease onset and severity. Although traditionally COPD research has focused on health outcomes related to risk factors, compliance, comorbid psychological and physical conditions, and treatment interventions, a growing body of research suggests religious and spiritual factors may play an equally important role in health outcomes for several medical conditions, including pulmonary disease. However, studies of this kind have not specifically examined COPD nor have they examined the role of religious and spiritual beliefs in COPD management among ethnic minority patients. As such, the current study aimed to examine whether spiritual ethnic minority patients with COPD hold religious fatalistic attitudes and less active religious problem solving . A sample of 35 ethnic minority patients from the Louis. B. Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center (LSCVAMC) Outpatient Pulmonary Clinic in Cleveland, OH. were recruited to participate in the study. Due to the acknowledgeable limitations of the present study, results are preliminary but convey associations between religious health …

Modern wireless communication systems use spectrally efficient modulation schemes to reach high data rate transmission. These schemes are generally involved with signals with high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). Moreover, the development of next generation wireless communication systems requires the power amplifiers to operate over a wide frequency band or multiple frequency bands to support different applications. These wide-band and multi-band solutions will lead to reductions in both the size and cost of the whole system. This dissertation presents several advanced power amplifier solutions to provide wide-band and multi-band operations with efficiency improvement at power back-offs.

In retrospect we can see that from the last century, wireless electronic technology has been in a rapid state of development. With the popularity of wireless communication, the power amplifier demand is rising. In general, magnitude, maximum noise figure, minimum noise figure, efficiency, and output power are important indicators of the amplifier. The IC industry is exploring how to reduce the additional cost and improve the high-frequency performance. Therefore, designing a strong adaptability and high cost performance of the PA has become a priority. As these technologies advance, the power amplifiers need to have better integration, lower cost, and lower power dissipation. Also, some special requirements are being asked in some areas, such as multi-mode and multi-band. In general, people have to use several power amplifiers parallel to frame a multifunction chip. Each of them working at different frequencies of interest has to have separate matching network, design, and area; also, the diversity amplifier prices will increase with the number of amplifiers, and its cost is also changed. In this thesis, because Class E power amplifier has lower power dissipation, 100% ideal efficiency, simple circuit structure, and strong applicability, the Class E is used as power amplifier in main stage. …

Piezoelectricity crystal is used in different area in industry, such as downhole oil, gas industry, and ballistics. The piezoelectricity crystals are able to create electric fields due to mechanical deformation called the direct piezoelectric effect, or create mechanical deformation due to the effect of electric field called the indirect piezoelectric effect. In this thesis, piezoelectricity effect is the core part. There are 4 parts in the frequency output pressure transducer: two crystal oscillators, phase-locked loop (PLL), mixer, frequency counter. Crystal oscillator is used to activate the piezoelectricity crystal which is made from quartz. The resonance frequency of the piezoelectricity crystal will be increased with the higher pressure applied. The signal of the resonance frequency will be transmitted to the PLL. The function of the PLL is detect the frequency change in the input signal and makes the output of the PLL has the same frequency and same phase with the input signal. The output of the PLL will be transmitted to a Mixer. The mixer has two inputs and one output. One input signal is from the pressure crystal oscillator and another one is from the reference crystal oscillator. The frequency difference of the two signal will transmitted to the …