Most Popular Books by Lin Wang

The use of aplanatic solid immersion lenses (ASILs) made of high refractive index optical glasses provides a route to wide-field high-resolution optical microscopy. Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) can double the spatial bandwidth of a microscope to achieve high-resolution imaging. This research aims to investigate the combination of the ASILs and SIM in fluorescence microscopy, which we call structured illumination solid immersion fluorescence microscopy (SISIM), to pursue a microscopic system with very large numerical aperture and high lateral resolution. The first stage of the research shows the development of solid immersion fluorescence microscopy (SIF) employing an ASIL allows us to obtain a fluorescence microscope with effective numerical aperture of 1.85. The aberration issues, especially chromatic aberration, that need to be circumvented are analysed by both optical simulation and experimental verification. The near-field imaging property is also discussed and demonstrated. Then the SIM using a diffraction grating to generate structured illumination pattern via two-beam interference is developed. Finally, the SISIM system is constructed by combining the structured illumination with the SIF, and an effective numerical aperture of 3 has been obtained. Future developments of the SISIM system to make it achieve higher resolution and suit routine use are proposed. SISIM is a promising high-resolution microscopic technique with extensive potential applications in cell biology.

The authors of this report build on past studies by using survey data from a nationally representative sample to examine how middle and high school English language arts (ELA) and mathematics teachers use and perceive their instructional materials in terms of engagement, challenge, and usability. In addition, the authors use interview data to understand teachers'' perceptions about what makes instructional materials engaging, appropriately challenging, and usable. Engagement is the extent to which the instructional materials pique and sustain student interest and attention; appropriately challenging is the extent to which the materials address the academic and learning needs of students; and usable is the extent to which the materials feature components that teachers desire and that are easy to enact or adapt to meet the needs of their students. Gaining insight into teachers'' perceptions of their materials is important because this insight can affect the work of curriculum developers; it can influence state, school district, and other decisionmakers in their materials-adoption processes. Furthermore, teachers'' modifications of materials can affect students'' opportunities to achieve academic standards. This insight has become even more important during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic because of instruction moving online and teachers having to adapt their instruction and materials accordingly.

"Product line extension is pervasive in categories of horizontally differentiated products. Despite the popularity of this marketing strategy, its effects on performance metrics relevant to brand managers remain largely under-studied. Extending a brand''s product line can cause product proliferation (i.e., the marketing of seemingly identical products by a brand), which has been identified to incur several costs. This thesis explores the effects of product line length on the following metrics: product sales, product exit, new product trial, and brand preference. It also considers the structure of a product line in order to assess the impacts of product proliferation. Methodologically, the author develops a dynamic path analysis model, a threshold regression model, and a multiple discrete-continuous model. The empirical results from the U.S. potato chip market suggest that a brand''s product line length has positive effects on its product sales and the likelihood of consumers'' trial of its new products (i.e., products within the first year after launch). However, it also has a positive effect on the hazard of product exit for its new products and negative effects on consumers'' preferences for both the brand and its competitors. The author further characterizes the structure of a product line by distinct SKUs (i.e., SKUs with unique configurations) and duplicate SKUs (i.e., SKUs similar to distinct SKUs previously introduced). The results indicate that the number of a brand''s duplicate SKUs, which can measure the degree of product proliferation, has no effect on its product sales. Even though it has a positive effect on the likelihood of new product trial, it has a positive effect on the product exit hazard for the brand''s mature products (i.e., products surviving more than one year) and a negative effect on consumers'' preference for the brand. In contrast, although the number of a brand''s distinct SKUs has a negative effect on the likelihood of new product trial, it has negative effects on the product exit hazard for the brand''s mature products and consumers'' preference for its competitors." --