Though only my name appears on the cover of this dissertation, a great many people have contributed to its production. I owe my gratitude to all those people who have made this dissertation possible and because of whom my graduate experience has been one that i will cherish forever. I have been amazingly fortunate to have an advisor who gave me the freedom to explore on my own, and at the same time the guidance to recover when my steps faltered. His patience and support helped me overcome many crisis situations and finish this dissertation. I hope that one day i would become as good an advisor to my students as don has been to me. I am deeply grateful to him for the long discussions that helped me sort out the technical details of my work.

I am also thankful to him for encouraging the use of correct grammar and consistent notation in my writings and for carefully reading and commenting on countless revisions of this manuscript. Jim hendler's insightful comments and constructive criticisms at different stages of my research were thought provoking and they helped me focus my ideas. I am grateful to him for holding me to a high research standard and enforcing strict validations for each research result, and thus teaching me how to do research. He sets high standards for his students and and he encourages and guides them to meet those standards.

He introduced me to mathematical logic and his teachings inspired me to work on chapter 5 of this dissertation. I am also thankful to him for reading my reports, commenting on my views and helping me understand and enrich my ideas. I am also indebted to the members of the active logic, metacognitive computation and mind research group with whom i have interacted during the course of my graduate studies. Khemdut purang, carl andersen, waiyian chong and yoshi okamoto for the many valuable discussions that helped me understand my research area better.

Khemdut purang for implementing the reasoner that much of my research is based on. I appreciate the efforts of the many undergraduate students who implemented different test domains task oriented systems for testing the agent that resulted from this research my sincere thanks to paolo del mundo, randolph baden, shivangi bhatt, amarpreet singh, dominique fotso, arash khosh, muhammad ali, luis marti, messay bekele and alexey vedernikov for their contributions to the various domains. Subrahmanian for numerous discussions and lectures on related topics that helped me improve my knowledge in the area. I am also thankful to the system staff who maintained all the machines in my lab so efficiently that i never had to worry about viruses, losing files, creating backups or installing software. Kudos to brad plecs, geoffrey ransom and the rest of the team! i am also grateful to the following former or current staff at university of maryland, for their various forms of support during my graduate study nancy lindley, felicia chelliah, fatima bangura, edna walker, jodie gray, sue blandford, adelaide findlay, brenda chick and heather murray. Their support and care helped me overcome setbacks and stay focused on my graduate study.

I am also grateful to the indian families that helped me adjust to a new country. Most importantly, none of this would have been possible without the love and patience of my family. My immediate family to whom this dissertation is dedicated to, has been a constant source of love, concern, support and strength all these years. Finally, i appreciate the financial support from afosr and onr that funded parts of the research discussed in this dissertation. Ying wu for the continuous support of my ph.d study and research, for his patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. James crenshaw, for their encouragement, insightful comments, and hard questions.

Essay on My Garden for Class 7

Qiong liu, for offering me the summer internship opportunities in their groups and leading me working on diverse exciting projects. I thank my fellow labmates in northwestern vision group: gang hua, ting yu, zhimin fan, shengyang dai, junsong yuan, jiang xu, jialue fan, and neelabh gupta, for the stimulating discussions, for the sleepless nights we were working together before deadlines, and for all the fun we have had in the last four years. Also i thank my friends in tsinghua university: chen fan, wensheng wang, bo qin, xiwei wang, yonggang zhao, hua chen, junlin li, and rui zhou.

Last but not the least, i would like to thank my family: my parents siyu yang and xiaolan ding, for giving birth to me at the first place and supporting me spiritually throughout my life. One thing that causes unnecessary stress for many doctoral candidates is writing their dissertation acknowledgements the other stress is finding out how much a doctoral robe costs for graduation. The challenge is creating a balance between thanking everyone who made a meaningful contribution to your dissertation and the political aspects of who should be included. In my case i used a dedication page to acknowledge someone who inspired me beginning when i was five years old, to pursue a doctorate. This allowed me to provide a special honor while including a wider range of individuals in my dissertation acknowledgement. I believe it is especially poignant when you present a printed copy of your dissertation to the person in the dedication section. Rather than list them i've provided a list of dissertation acknowledgements examples for you to look at.

What you write is pretty much up to you but make sure to give yourself time to look it over several times. Once it's printed or posted to your university repository it's difficult to change. Finally, if you want to see what a dissertation looks like after it's been written up and published as an article, take a look at my recent article based on my dissertation free for download. First and foremost i offer my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, dr mike thomas, who has supported me thoughout my thesis with his patience and knowledge whilst allowing me the room to work in my own way. I attribute the level of my masters degree to his encouragement and effort and without him this thesis, too, would not have been completed or written. In the various laboratories and workshops i have been aided for many years in running the equipment by keith williams, a fine technician who kept me in sample holders and liquid helium against all odds.

Good Essay Writing Spm

The smooth running of the m 246 ssbauer laboratory is much more a testament to his efforts than my own. Simon case and gaby milford helped tutor me in the more esoteric methods necessary to run m 246 ssbauer spectrometers and how to analyse the data from them. Dr jon goff gave useful guidance in the use of the squid magnetometer along with pascale deen, and her ingenious sample holder construction. As well as keeping me stocked with general supplies, peter davenport has also inadvertently, and without fail, provided something much greater in all the years i've known him: a friendly smile and a hello every time we met. Drs ward and wells have provided me with all of the laves phase mbe samples covered in this thesis as well as many others, with consistent quality.

Professor bowden has offered much advice and insight throughout my work on laves phase systems. In my daily work i have been blessed with a friendly and cheerful group of fellow students. Pascale deen, as well as squid information, has provided good arguments about physics theory and helped me regain some sort of fitness: healthy body, healthy mind. Adina toader often made sure none of us starved and simon lee made sure none of us went thirsty or sober.