Science and Technology Studies

In this dissertation, I deconstruct the commonly held assumption that the intrauterine device (IUD) is an unsafe and/or obsolete contraceptive method that has been used mostly to impose population control on women in developing countries. Simultaneously, I explore the changing meaning of the device over the last 40 years in varying socio-historical contexts. Capitalizing on the analytical tradition of science and technology studies that regards technology as socially constructed, I analyze the I...

Philosophy

Nietzsches view of Socrates has been studied at length by a number of scholars, and yet the accounts resulting from these studies, even when descriptively correct, have not given a full explanation of the relationship between the two philosophers. More specifically, they fail to clarify the proper connection between Nietzsche and Socrates in terms of fundamental aspects of Nietzsches thought, especially in terms of his view of reason. The most influential interpretation of Nietzsches relationshi...

English

Conversations among scholars in the study of Chaucer have been essential in constructing the foundations on which we now stand. However, in light of recent pressures in the very competitive and practical aspects of academic life, the scholarly conversation is often lost amidst the desire to find any obscure point on which to publish simply for the reason that no one has yet said anything about it. There is certainly a usefulness to exploring all facets of Chaucers work, but there is also a need ...

Mechanical Engineering

Recent experimental results have shown that the vibration induced by the tire air cavity resonance is transmitted into the vehicle cabin and may be responsible for significant interior noise. The tire acoustic cavity is excited by the road surface through the contact patch on the rotating tire. The effect of the cavity resonance is that results in significant forces developed at the vehicles spindle, which in turn drives the vehicles interior acoustic field. This tire-cavity interaction phenomen...

Engineering Science and Mechanics

The primary direction of this thesis was towards exploring qualitative and quantitative characteristics necessary for refining and understanding the flat wood double cantilever beam (DCB) as a valid means for testing Mode I fracture energy in wood adhesive bonds. Southern yellow pine (SYP) adherends were used with epoxy and phenol formaldehyde (PF) impregnated films, providing two systems with different characteristics for investigation.An adhesive penetration analysis was performed for both the...

Political Science

Recent data show that immigrant women in the U.S. are generally in poorer health than U.S.-born women and immigrant men , and many immigrant women encounter some difficulties in obtaining health care assistance, such as health insurance. Yet American researchers are only beginning to make a contribution to this area of scholarship. This thesis examines in detail the health status of immigrant women, the means by which immigrant women obtain health insurance, and several factors that are likely t...

Computer Science

The rise of ubiquitous computing devices has provided the catalyst for the next generation World Wide Web, one that shifts the focus from the desktop computer to mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs, in an ever increasing range of modalities. Web interaction management in this setting must contend witha plethora of interaction interfaces and a diverse range of content types in addition to helping realize the full potential of multimodality (i.e., supporting flexible and personalized inter...

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Collision avoidance is treated as a game of two players with opposing desiderata. In the application to automated car-like vehicles, we will use a differential game in order to model and assess a worst-case analysis. The end result will be an almost analytic representation of a boundary between a safe set and a unsafe set. We will generalize the research in [27] to non-identical players and begin the setup of the boundary construction. Then we will consider the advantages and disadvantages of ma...

Psychology

The present study used a laboratory setting to explore the criterion-related validity of non-cognitive measures as related to personnel selection. The focal study investigated psychological processes resulting from situational causes of motivation to distort item responses. In particular, I investigated whether differences in the motivation to distort item responses interacted with self-consistency in the prediction of performance on a clerical task. Findings suggested that despite range restric...

Mechanical Engineering

The task of thermal management in electrical systems has never been simple and has only become more difficult in recent years as the power electronics industry pushes towards devices with higher power densities. At the Center for Power Electronic Systems (CPES), a new approach to power electronic design is being implemented with the Integrated Power Electronic Module (IPEM). It is believed that an IPEM-based design approach will significantly enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. electronics i...

Political Science

Martinsville, Virginia lost its textile industry to Mexico. High Point, North Carolina lost its furniture business to Asia. Pittsburgh lost Steel, Detroit lost auto-making, Mississippi lost cotton, and West Virginia lost coal. These once booming mono-industrial communities, competitive in a global economy, are all clawing their way out of a deep, dark unemployment whole. Each has a chapter in the story of urban decay and renewal with different endings. But the actions of their elected officials,...

Chemistry

As part of the continuing work of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG), plant extracts were received from Madagascar. The extracts were screened for cytotoxicity using the A2780 human ovarian cancer cell line bioassay. The crude extract of Casearia nigrescens was fractionated and yielded five known compounds and one new compound that were cytotoxic. Mass spectrometry and 1D and 2D NMR techniques were used to determine the structure of the isolated compounds.The dichloromethane...

Economics

This dissertation develops an economic theory of leadership based on assignment of information.Common theories assume that organizations exist to reduce transaction costs by replacingimperfect markets with incomplete long term contracts that give managers the power to commandsubordinates. This view reverses all of these premises: I study an organization in whichit is costless to transmit and process information, contracts exist in the backgound if at all,and agents are not bound to the organizat...

Electrical & Computer Engineering , Switched Capacitor Filter , CDMA Wireless Receiver , Channel Selection , Low-Voltage and Low-Power Design , Fully Differential , Noise and Sensitivity Analysis

CDMA channel selection requires sharp as well as wide-band Filtering. SAW Filters which have been used for this purpose are only available in IF range. In direct conversion receivers this has to be done at low frequencies. Switched Capacitor technique has been employed to design a low power, highly selective low-pass channel select Filter for CDMA wireless receivers. The topology which has been chosen ensures the low sensitivity of the Filter response. The circuit has been designed in a mixed-mo...

Health Sciences , pulse contour analysis , cardiac output , Doppler , carbon dioxide rebreathing , exercise , head-up tilt

The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy of two existing pulse contour analysis (PCA) models for estimating cardiac stroke volume from the arterial pressure waveform during kicking ergometer exercise and head-up tilt manoeuvres. Secondly, one of the existing models was modified in an attempt to enhance its performance. In part I, seven healthy young adults repeated two submaximal exercise sessions on a kicking ergometer, each with three different sets of steady-state cardiac output ...

Computer Science , Web Crawling , Distributed System , Text Categorization

A <i>web crawler</i> is a program that "walks" the Web to gather web resources. In order to scale to the ever-increasing Web, multiple crawling agents may be deployed in a distributed fashion to retrieve web data co-operatively. A common approach is to divide the Web into many partitions with an agent assigned to crawl within each one. If an agent obtains a web resource that is not from its partition, the resource will be transferred to the rightful owner. T...

Fine & Performing Arts , artist , audience , stylization , mass , production , of , image

This M. F. A. thesis exhibition consists of painting, sculpture, and video completed over the last five months. In support of the exhibition, an artist s statement outlines my exploration of the interaction between artist and audience, stylization and mass production of image.

Computer Science , probabilistic modeling , protein secondary structure prediction , expert resolution

A phenomenon as complex as protein folding requires a complex model to approximate it. This thesis presents a bottom-up approach for building complex probabilistic models of protein secondary structure by incorporating the multiple information sources which we call experts. Expert opinions are represented by probability distributions over the set of possible structures. Bayesian treatment of a group of experts results in a consensus opinion that combines the experts probability distributions usi...

Biology , ethanol , BTEX , subsurface microorganisms , groundwater , biodegradation , microbial activity

Ethanol is used as fuel in neat form in some countries (Brazil and India) or blended with gasoline (Europe, Canada and the United States). The benefits of ethanol use include octane enhancement, a cleaner environment and a secure renewable energy supply. BTEX compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m-xylene, p-xylene and o-xylene) are aromatic hydrocarbons present in gasoline. The fate of these compounds in the environment is of great health concern due to their carcinogenic (benzene) and tox...

Chemistry , vibrational relaxation , molecular scattering , H2-Ar , H2-Ne , H2-He

Close coupling scattering calculations have been conducted for the para spin modification of H<sub>2</sub>-{He, Ne and Ar}. The XC(fit) potential energy surfaces for H<sub>2</sub>-Ne and H<sub>2</sub>-Ar have been used for calculations for these two systems, while a newly fitted version of the Schaefer and Kohler potential energy surface was used for the H<sub>2</sub>-He system. The fi...

Computer Science , computational geometry , discrete geometry , algorithms , linkages

The results of this thesis concern folding of one-dimensional objects in two dimensions: planar linkages. More precisely, a planar linkage consists of a collection of rigid bars (line segments) connected at their endpoints. Foldings of such a linkage must preserve the connections at endpoints, preserve the bar lengths, and (in our context) prevent bars from crossing. The main result of this thesis is that a planar linkage forming a collection of polygonal arcs and cycles can be folded so that al...

Management , inventions , innovations , IAP , PIES , regression analysis , factor analysis

In over twenty years of operations the Canadian Innovation Centre has evaluated, through its Inventor s Assistance Program (IAP), the commercial potential of over 12,000 early stage inventions. Prior to 1989, the Canadian Innovation Centre (CIC) used a version of the Preliminary Innovation Evaluation System (PIES), developed by Gerald Udell at the Oregon Innovation Center in 1974, to evaluate the commercial potential of early stage inventions. Since 1989, the CIC has used a modified version of P...

Electrical & Computer Engineering , eigenvalues , hyperbolic polynomials , singular values , self-concordant barriers , variational analysis , spectral functions

In this study two nonlinear analysis methods are proposed for investigation of nonlinear effects of high temperature superconductive(HTSC) thin film planar microwave circuits. The MoM-HB combination method is based on the combination formulation of the moment method(MoM) and the harmonic balance(HB) technique. It consists of linear and nonlinear solvers. The power series method treats the voltages at higher order frequencies as the excitations at the corresponding frequencies, and the higher ord...

Electrical & Computer Engineering , Simulation , Virtual Worlds , Load Balancing , Distributed Computing

Over the last several years, there has been tremendous growth in online gaming (i. e. playing games over the internet). The Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) is one type of online game. An MMORPG is played within a virtual world. Users have an in-game representation, called an avatar, that they control. Typically there are over a thousand avatars in the virtual world at one time. Users use client software to connect to an MMORPG server over the internet. If just one server ...

Physics & Astronomy , general relativity , quasilocal energy , Hamiltonian , naked black hole , gravitational tidal heating , pair creation of black holes

I modify the quasilocal energy formalism of Brown and York into a purely Hamiltonian form. As part of the reformulation, I remove their restriction that the time evolution of the boundary of the spacetime be orthogonal to the leaves of the time foliation. Thus the new formulation allows an arbitrary evolution of the boundary which physically corresponds to allowing general motions of the set of observers making up that boundary. I calculate the rate of change of the quasilocal energy in such sit...

Mathematics , cryptanalysis , side channel , timing attack , power analysis , fault analysis

The traditional model of cryptography examines the security of cryptographic primitives as mathematical functions. This approach does not account for the physical side effects of using these primitives in the real world. A more realistic model employs the concept of a <I>side channel</I>. A side channel is a source of information that is inherent to a physical implementation of a primitive. Research done in the last half of the 1990s has shown that the information tra...

Mathematics , crytography , encryption , broadcasting , tracing

When intellectual properties are distributed over a broadcast network, the content is usually encrypted in a way such that only authorized users who have a certain set of keys, can decrypt the content. Some authorized users may be willing to disclose their keys in constructing a pirate decoder which allows illegitimate users to access the content. It is desirable to determine the source of the keys in a pirate decoder, once one is captured. Traitor tracing schemes were introduced to help solve t...

Mathematics , Maximum Cut Problem , VLSI Layout Problem , Semidefinite Programming , Convex Optimization

It is well known that many of the optimization problems which arise in applications are <I>hard</I>, which usually means that they are NP-hard. Hence much research has been devoted to finding <I>good</I> relaxations for these hard problems. Usually a <I>good</I> relaxation is one which can be solved (either exactly or within a prescribed numerical tolerance) in polynomial-time. Nesterov and Nemirovskii showed tha...

History , Postwar , Canada

Psychology and the Construction of the Normal Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-1960, investigates the manner in which psychological discourse constructed notions of the normal postwar family in Canada. Despite their pronouncements to the contrary, I argue that the psychologists discussions of what constituted the normal family were shaped by and reflected their social values, and not so-called objective, scientific concerns. In psychological discourse, normal families were those that conformed to ...

Philosophy , contractarian , ethics

There is a problem within contractarian ethics that I wish to resolve. It concerns individualpreferences. Contractarianism holds that morality, properly conceived, can satisfy individualpreferences and interests better than amorality or immorality. W hat is unclear, however, iswhether these preferences are those individuals actually hold or those that they should hold. The goal of my thesis is to investigate this question. I introduce a version of contractarian ethicsthat relies on ind ividual p...

Mathematics , Nilpotent , Lie , Algebras , Algebraically , Closed

This thesis is concerned with the classification of 7-dimensional nilpotent Lie algebras. Skjelbred and Sund have published in 1977 their method of constructing all nilpotent Lie algebras of dimension <i>n</i> given those algebras of dimension < <i>n</i>, and their automorphism groups. By using this method, we construct all nonisomorphic 7-dimensional nilpotent Lie algebras in the following two cases: (1) over an algebraically closed...

Philosophy , Locke , Husserl , Reinach , phenomenology , cognitive , science

Although there are both common and specialised senses of the term variation, (the OED lists dozens) there seems to be no well defined use of this term in philosophy. The main task of my thesis is to demonstrate that variation can be defined as a cognitive technique. I suggest that variation has been frequently used by philosophers, although not always in an overt manner. Moreover, I attempt to show that it is reasonable to talk about the relative importance of variation by examining the role of ...

Mathematics , numerical , linear , preconditioner , elliptic , PDE , wavelets

This thesis presents a new preconditioner for elliptic PDE problems on unstructured meshes. Using ideas from second generation wavelets, a multi-resolution basis is constructed to effectively compress the inverse of the matrix, resolving the sparsity vs. quality problem of standard approximate inverses. This finally allows the approximate inverse approach to scale well, giving fast convergence for Krylov subspace accelerators on a wide variety of large unstructured problems. Implementation detai...

Electrical & Computer Engineering , mixed signal design flow , behavioral modeling , phase locked loops

Mixed-signal designs are becoming more and more complex every day. In order to adapt to the new market requirements, a formal process for design and verification of mixed signal systems i. e. top-down design and bottom-up verification methodology is required. This methodology has already been established for digital design. The goal of this research is to propose a new design methodology for mixed signal systems. In the first two chapters of this thesis, the need for a mixed signal design flow b...

Mathematics , combinatorial designs , balanced tournament designs , partitioned balanced tournament designs

A balanced tournament design of order <I>n</I>, BTD(<I>n</I>), defined on a 2<I>n</I>-set<I> V</i>, is an arrangement of the all of the (2<I>n</i>2) distinct unordered pairs of elements of <I>V</I> into an <I>n</I> X (2<I>n</i> - 1) array such that (1) every element of &l...

Computer Science , Adaptive application , mobile maps , quality of service

Mobile devices must deal with limited and dynamically varying resources, in particular, the network quality of service (QoS). In addition, wireless devices have other constraints such as limited memory, battery power, and physical dimensions. Applications that execute in such environments need to adapt to the dynamic operating conditions in order to preserve an acceptable level of service as close to 100% of the time as possible. Viewing and downloading digital spatial data on mobile devices has...

Mathematics , graph theory , mathematics , combinatorics , Hamilton paths , generalized Petersen graphs

This thesis puts forward the conjecture that for <i>n</i> > 3<i>k</i> with <i>k</i> > 2, the generalized Petersen graph, <i>GP</i>(<i>n,k</i>) is Hamilton-laceable if <i>n</i> is even and <i>k</i> is odd, and it is Hamilton-connected otherwise. We take the first step in the proof of this c...

Chemistry , Spectroscopy , Potential Energy Functions , Direct Potential Fit , Schrodinger Equation , Born-Oppenheimer Breakdown Correction Functions , Lambda-Doubling

The fully quantum mechanical direct-potential-fit (DPF) method has become increasingly widely used in the reduction of diatomic spectra. The central problem of this method is the representation of the potential energy and Born-Oppenheimer breakdown (BOB) correction functions. There are a number of problems associated with the existing method and potential forms. This thesis delineates these problems and finds solutions to some of them. In particular, it is shown that use of a different expansion...

Computer Science , Computer networks , interval routing schemes , graph theory , multi-dimensional , characterization , bounds

Routing messages between pairs of nodes is one of the most fundamental tasks in any distributed computing system. An Interval Routing Scheme (IRS) is a well-known, space-efficient routing strategy for routing messages in a network. In this scheme, each node of the network is assigned an integer label and each link at each node is labeled with an interval. The interval assigned to a link l at a node v indicates the set of destination addresses of the messages which should be forwarded through l a...

Computer Science , Phylogenetics , Evolution , Quartet Method , Combinatorial Algorithm , Maximum Likelihood

In this thesis we present a novel algorithm, <I>HyperCleaning*</I>, for effectively inferring phylogenetic trees. The method is based on the quartet method paradigm and is guaranteed to recover the best supported edges of the underlying phylogeny based on the witness quartet set. This is performed efficiently using a collapsing mechanism that employs memory/time tradeoff to ensure no loss of information. This enables <I>HyperCleaning*</I> t...

Mathematics , quantum , computation , adiabatic , algorithms

One of the most important quantum algorithms is Grover s search algorithm [G96]. Quantum searching can be used to speed up the search for solutions to NP-complete problems e. g. 3SAT. Even so, the best known quantum algorithms for 3SAT are considered inefficient. Soon after Grover s discovery, Farhi and Gutmann [FG96] devised a "continuous-time analogue" of quantum searching. More recently Farhi <i>et. al. </i> [FGGS00] proposed a continuous-time 3SAT algori...

Biology , sulphate , net export , mass budget , acidification , climate

A series of studies was undertaken at Plastic Lake-1 (PC1) to determine the sources and controls on S cycling in small headwater catchments on the Precambrian Shield in south-central Ontario. Two observations were made about the S cycle in this region: (1) all streams exhibit highly coherent temporal patterns in SO4 concentrations and export, and (2) most catchments exported more SO4 in stream water than is received in bulk deposition during the past 2 decades. Synchronous temporal patterns in a...

Mathematics , graph theory , mathematics , combinatorics , topology

The study of self-duality has attracted some attention over the past decade. A good deal of research in that time has been done on constructing and classifying all self-dual graphs and in particular polyhedra. We will give an overview of the recent research in the first two chapters. In the third chapter, we will show the necessary condition that a self-complementary self-dual graph have <i>n</i> ≡ 0, 1 (mod 8) vertices and we will review White s infinit...

Civil & Environmental Engineering , Hydrological modelling , Energy balance , Land surface schemes , Soil moisture , Frozen hydrology , Soil physics , Remote sensing , Geographic Information SystemsIS

This thesis details the development and calibration of a model created by coupling a land surface simulation model named CLASS with a hydrologic model named WATFLOOD. The resulting model, known as WatCLASS, is able to serve as a lower boundary for an atmospheric model. In addition, WatCLASS can act independently of an atmospheric model to simulate fluxes of energy and moisture from the land surface including streamflow. These flux outputs are generated based on conservation equations for both he...

Sport , Recreation & Leisure , voluntary simplicity , lifestyle , leisure , well-being , value orientation

Leisure typically has been regarded as a positive component in people s lives, and evidence points to its central rather than peripheral role in lifestyle. Further, studies of leisure suggest it is conducive to psychological well-being, to physical health, and to the stability of social groups. The extent to which people are able to reach this potential very much depends on leisure s role in lifestyle, the experience of leisure, and whether conditions in a consumption-oriented society facilitate...

Mechanical Engineering , Particle Image Velocimetry , PIV , wind tunnel

This study investigated the applicability of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) as a velocity measurement technique for use in wind tunnel flows. To carry out the investigation, a small scale wind tunnel was designed and built to be used specifically with PIV. The tunnel employed a novel contraction geometry which was compared to six other contraction designs using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package. The wind tunnel configuration allowed for full optical access in the test secti...

German Studies , heritage languages , immigrants , German , Kitchener , Waterloo , Canada , language shift , identity

This thesis investigates the assimilation and/or integration of German families in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario into Anglo-Canadian culture. By administering questionnaires to and interviewing members in three three-generational families (n=29), different factors involved in an effort to ascertain what factors, if any, determine one s decision to pass on or continue learning German. The thesis proposes that if participants have a positive attitude towards German, i. e. , they see some use or valu...

Computer Science , Hardware Accelerated Rendering and Shading , Image-Based Rendering , Reflection Mapping , Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions , Monte Carlo Integration , Offset Surface Light Fields , Surface Light Fields , Light Fields , Lumigraphs , Texture Map

For producing realistic images, reflection is an important visual effect. Reflections of the environment are important not only for highly reflective objects, such as mirrors, but also for more common objects such as brushed metals and glossy plastics. Generating these reflections accurately at real-time rates for interactive applications, however, is a difficult problem. Previous works in this area have made assumptions that sacrifice accuracy in order to preserve interactivity. I will present ...

Health Sciences , spine stability , lumbar spine , low back , spine compression , motor control

In developing a method of quantifying stability in the lumbar spine Cholewicki and McGill (1996) have also broached the notion of sufficient stability, where too much stiffness (and stability) would hinder motion. Thus people highly skilled at maintaining stability may use different and optimal strategies, where <i>sufficient</i> stability is maintained. The purpose of this work was to explore the contributors to <i>sufficient</i> stability...

Mathematics , graph , graph property , vertex partition , graph colouring , hereditary , induced-hereditary , compositive , complexity , uniquely colourable graphs , uniquely partitionable graphs , unique factorisation

The study and recognition of graph families (or graph properties) is an essential part of combinatorics. Graph colouring is another fundamental concept of graph theory that can be looked at, in large part, as the recognition of a family of graphs that are colourable according to certain rules. In this thesis, we study additive induced-hereditary families, and some generalisations, from a colouring perspective. Our main results are: