Historicising African Contributions to the Emancipation Movement: The Haitian Revolution, 1791-1805

The Haitian Revolution was the first incidence of mass emancipation in a colonial society and the only slave revolt that resulted in the formation of a modern state. However, existing canonical works on this revolution have largely concentrated on providing a central symbiotic relationship between the slave revolt and the broader changes in the Atlantic World during the 18th century. It has even been widely assumed that the Haitian Revolution was intellectually inspired by Western cultural values. Indeed, the Yoruba slave, Dutty Boukman, who ignited the revolution has been reduced to a mere footnote in the body of the prevailing Western-biased Haitian hegemonic historiography. This paper argues that the revolution, which was historically rooted in a legendary Yoruba tradition that abhors injustice, corruption and oppression, represents the very best of Yoruba’s cultural attainment in the Diaspora. The study further ‘resurrects’ the monumental contributions of Dutty Bookman to the outbreak of the revolution and underscores the fact that the Yoruba god of Ogun was the most portent rallying force that drove the revolution. Thus, the paper situates the cultural roots of the Haitian Revolution in its proper historical perspective and challenges one of the prevailing stereotypes about the “meagre” contributions of enslaved Africans to the emancipation of African slaves. The study, therefore, represents a major revision of the current historiography on the emancipation movement, and further highlights the methodological challenges of reconstructing the history of the slave trade in the Diaspora

Integrated Filters and Couplers for Next Generation Wireless Tranceivers

The main focus of this thesis is to investigate the critical nonlinear distortion issues affecting RF/Microwave components such as power amplifiers (PA) and develop new and improved solutions that will improve efficiency and linearity of next generation RF/Microwave mobile wireless communication systems. This research involves evaluating the nonlinear distortions in PA for different analog and digital signals which have been a major concern. The second harmonic injection technique is explored and used to effectively suppress nonlinear distortions. This method consists of simultaneously feeding back the second harmonics at the output of the power amplifier (PA) into the input of the PA. Simulated and measured results show improved linearity results. However, for increasing frequency bandwidth, the suppression abilities reduced which is a limitation for 4G LTE and 5G networks that require larger bandwidth (above 5 MHz). This thesis explores creative ways to deal with this major drawback. The injection technique was modified with the aid of a well-designed band-stop filter. The compact narrowband notch filter designed was able to suppress nonlinear distortions very effectively when used before the PA. The notch filter is also integrated in the injection technique for LTE carrier aggregation (CA) with multiple carriers and significant improvement in nonlinear distortion performance was observed. This thesis also considers maximizing efficiency alongside with improved linearity performance. To improve on the efficiency performance of the PA, the balanced PA configuration was investigated. However, another major challenge was that the couplers used in this configuration are very large in size at the desired operating frequency. In this thesis, this problem was solved by designing a compact branch line coupler. The novel coupler was simulated, fabricated and measured with performance comparable to its conventional equivalent and the coupler achieved substantial size reduction over others. The coupler is implemented in the balanced PA configuration giving improved input and output matching abilities. The proposed balanced PA is also implemented in 4G LTE and 5G wireless transmitters. This thesis provides simulation and measured results for all balanced PA cases with substantial efficiency and linearity improvements observed even for higher bandwidths (above 5 MHz). Additionally, the coupler is successfully integrated with rectifiers for improved energy harvesting performance and gave improved RF-dc conversion efficienc

Inkjet-Printed Bandstop Filters for Interference Suppression in Multi-Standard Wireless Systems

This paper presents a highly compact inkjet printed microstrip bandstop filter (BSF) for interference suppression in multi-standard wireless applications. The structure is designed with strict specifications for inkjet printing such as the use of the Kapton substrate and its flexible polyimide film. The design was simulated based on Kapton substrate with a thickness of 50µm and dielectric constant of 3.4. The simulated results show a good narrowband response with good stopband attenuation of about 38 dB. When compared to other published BSFs, the proposed structure occupies the least normalized area and best return loss performance up to 10 GHz. This filter is then used to reject interference in a multi-standard wireless transmitter system with suppression of about 30 dB achieved with a great level of noise and spurious response reduction thereby improving the overall performance of the system. This type of filter will be very useful to eliminate undesired signals in next generation 4G LTE-Advanced and 5G mobile networks as well as being very attractive for modern day multi-standard wireless applications such as machine to machine (M2M) communications and internet of things (IoT)

Evaluation of Waveform Candidates for 5G Wireless Communications

In this paper, we evaluate the waveform candidates for 5G wireless communications such as FBMC and UFMC and 4G’s cyclic prefix CP-OFDM. Measured results for 1.4 MHz and 3 MHz waveforms show a 5 dB reduction in ACPR between FBMC and UFMC. Simulation and measured output power spectra of the power amplifier for 3 MHz and 10 MHz waveforms are match very well

Effects of Implementation Approaches on Outcomes of Quality Improvement Initiatives in Healthcare Settings

There is staggering gap between the number of studies about evidence-based practices (EBP) and the application of such research in clinical settings. Even when research has been implemented, the routine rate of absorption into daily practice remains low once implementation funding and resources are depleted. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report on the quality of healthcare in America and described closing this gap as one of the key fundamental changes necessary for America’s healthcare system (IOM, 2001). This research explores the obstacles that impede dissemination and implementation (D&I) by surveying healthcare organization leadership at various healthcare settings. This research explores approaches commonly used to implement evidence-based interventions (EBI) as well as the effect of training healthcare staff implementation science. Lack of communication and leadership involvement emerge as the major barriers to successful D&I of EBI