VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Program transformations for cache locality enhancement on shared-memory multiprocessors

This dissertation proposes and evaluates compiler techniques that enhance cache locality and consequently improve the performance of parallel applications on shared-memory multiprocessors. These techniques target applications with loop-level parallelism that can be detected and exploited automatically by a compiler. Novel program transformations are combined with appropriate loop scheduling in order to exploit data reuse while maintaining parallelism and avoiding cache conflicts. First, this dissertation proposes the shift-and-peel transformation for enabling loop fusion and exploiting reuse across parallel loops. The shift-and-peel transformation overcomes dependence limitations that have previously prevented loops from being fused legally, or prevented legally-fused loops from being parallelized. Therefore, this transformation exploits all reuse across loops without loss of parallelism. Second, this dissertation describes and evaluates adaptations of static loop scheduling strategies to exploit wavefront parallelism while ensuring locality in tiled loops. Wavefront parallelism results when tiling is enabled by combining the shift-and-peel transformation with loop skewing. Proper scheduling exploits both intratile and intertile data reuse when independent tiles are executed in parallel on a large number of processors. Third, this dissertation proposes cache partitioning for preventing cache conflicts between data from different arrays, especially when exploiting reuse across loops. Specifically, cache partitioning prevents frequently-recurring conflicts in loops with compatible data access patterns. Cache partitioning transforms the data layout such that there are no conflicts for reused data from different arrays during loop execution. An analytical model is also presented to assess the potential benefit of locality enhancement. This model estimates the expected reduction in execution time by parameterizing the reduction in the number of memory accesses with locality enhancement and the contribution of memory accesses towards execution time. Experimental results show that the proposed techniques improve parallel performance by 20%-60% for representative applications on contemporary multiprocessors. The results also show that significant improvements are obtained in conjunction with other performance-enhancing techniques such as prefetching. The importance of the techniques described in this dissertation will continue to increase as processor performance continues to increase more rapidly than memory performance.
Mammographic densities and risk of breast cancer

There is considerable and mounting evidence that one of the strongest risk factors for breast cancer can be assessed from the mammographic appearance of the breast. For example, classification into categories of the proportion of the projected area of mammographically dense tissue, based on visual assessment by radiologist, can provide risk prediction on the order of a factor of 6.0 between the most extensive and least extensive density patterns. Subjective classification, however, requires specialized observer training and suffers from considerable inter- and intra-observer variability. Further, the categorical scales make it difficult to distinguish small differences in mammographic appearance. It has been the goal of this work to address these limitations through the development of parameters that characterize mammographic density. Particular consideration has been given to the development of a continuous scale of classification, to the reliability of the measurement, and to the strength of the risk prediction. Features investigated include an interactive grey-level thresholding procedure (PD) and automated measures based on characterization of the histogram of pixel grey-levels (regional skewness) and image texture (fractal dimension). These parameters were found to be robust to modest changes in mammographic technique. It was also found that a representative measure could be obtained from consideration of a single image per subject. In a nested case-control study design using subjects selected from the Canadian National Breast Screening Study, these features have been related directly to risk of developing breast cancer. A relative risk of 4.0 has been estimated for PD and 2.54 and 3.35, respectively, for the fractal dimension and regional skewness measures. These predictions are stronger than many other known risk factors for breast cancer and are reliably determined on a continuous scale; however, they are not as strong as that from subjective classification. With the goal of strengthening the risk prediction, a transformation that compensates for the reduction in thickness at the edge of the compressed breast was developed. In the transformed image, variations in brightness are more representative of variations in composition. Risk prediction for the features of mammographic density measured from transformed images is under further evaluation using the nested case-control database and the analysis techniques described in this work. In addition to the analysis of mammographic density, the thickness transformation technique may also have a role in the display of digital mammographic images. Finding the factors associated with mammographic density, and how that density changes, may contribute to a greater understanding of breast cancer. These are considerations of the larger program in breast cancer research at the University of Toronto, of which this work is a part.
Elegance and expression, sweat and strength, body training, physical culture and female embodiment in women's education at the Margaret Eaton Schools, 1901-1941

This thesis examines the history of the Margaret Eaton School, a private institution of higher learning which was designed to train young upper and middle class women in the field of dramatic arts and physical education in Ontario between 1901 and 1941. The three organizational phases of the school, the School of Expression (1901-1906), the Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression (1906-1925) and the Margaret Eaton School (1925-1941) is examined through the directorship of the school's three principals: Emma Scott Raff Nasmith, Mary Hamilton and Florence Somers. This investigation examines the changing image of the Margaret Eaton girl, as training in elegance and expression for the theatre shifted to training in athletic skill and pedagogic knowledge for the field of physical education. From Emma Scott Raff Nasmith's Delsartean techniques of body movement, to the camping experiences of Mary Hamilton's Algonquin wilderness, to Florence Somer's maternal vision of women's athleticism; each phase added yet another dimension to the evolving portrait of the Margaret Eaton girl. Elegance and expression and sweat and strength were aspects of this body experience. Each director forwarded her own vision of women's education which carried both elements of consistency and facets of difference from her predecessor This thesis examines the uneven contours of this community experience, and analyzes how faculty and students both extended the borders of possibilities for women and, also, conformed to prescriptive patterns of gender appropriate behaviour. An examination of the school's archival documents is augmented by interviews with faculty and students of the school, and provides the basis for this investigation of over forty years of body training in women's higher education. Through this body experience, students were both transformed and empowered, restricted and stereotyped. The thesis concludes with the closure of the school in 1941, and its absorption into the nation's first co-educational degree program--the School of Physical and Health education at the University of Toronto--in 1942. A glimpse into the benefits and costs of this next stage in the "evolution" of women in higher education is offered, as lost autonomy and a dramatically altered vision of what it meant to be "physically educated" were exchanged for the hope of academic legitimacy.
Advance Care Planning, Preparing to Die

Background. Medical decision-making at the end of life can be morally difficult. In modern society, death is often preceded by the use of life-sustaining treatments. However, when these decisions need to be made patients are frequently incapable of making them. Therefore, people increasingly want to make these decisions ahead of time. This is called Advance Care Planning (ACP). Traditional assumptions about ACP include: (1) the purpose of ACP is preparing for incapacity; (2) ACP is based on the ethical principle of autonomy and the exercise of control; (3) The focus of ACP is completing written advance directive (AD) forms; and (4) ACP occurs within the context of the physician/patient relationship. These traditional assumptions about ACP have never been empirically validated. The purpose of this study was to examine the traditional assumptions about ACP by exploring ACP in practice. Methods. Two qualitative studies were conducted sequentially, the second building on the findings of the first. Interviews were conducted with 48 dialysis patients in Study 1 and with 140 people living with HIV in Study 2. The semi-structured interviews were tape recorded, transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory methods. Results. The participants' purpose in ACP was preparing for death and dying. Their underlying goals were the exercise of control and relieving burdens on loved ones. ACP was viewed as a social process and completing a written AD form was often felt to be unnecessary. Participants did not involve their physicians, but rather close loved ones. Conclusions. The traditional assumptions about ACP are inaccurate. The purpose of ACP is not preparing for incapacity but preparing for death. ACP is not based solely on autonomy and the exercise of control but also on personal relationships and relieving burdens on others. The focus of ACP is not completing written AD forms but the social process. ACP does not occur within the context of the physician/patient relationship but within relationships with close loved ones. These findings are explored in relation to philosophical theories and psychosocial theories of death and dying. The implications of the findings with respect to policy, research and practice are described.
Mating and population genetic analyses of the basidiomycete fungus, Agaricus bisporus

In this research, I examined the mating system and population genetics of the commercial mushroom, A. bisporus. In the mating studies, abundant variation in the genetic outcome of pairings involving both homokaryons and heterokaryons was observed. Higher levels of heterozygosity were correlated with higher mating success rates in pairings involving a set of probably related homokaryons. Evidence for somatic recombination was found in pairings involving homokaryons with homokaryons, homokaryons with heterokaryons, and heterokaryons with heterokaryons. The underlying processes included nuclear-mitochondrial reassortment, nuclear replacement, crossing-over and/or chromosomal exchange. In the genetic analysis of global A. bisporus populations, I found high levels of genetic diversity in most geographical populations. I also found that regional populations are significantly differentiated in both the nuclear and the mitochondrial genomes. These differentiated and presumably ancient regional populations contain escapes from mushroom cultivation. In the predominantly outcrossing population of desert California, I found higher levels of random association among alleles of different loci in the mitochondrial genome than in the pseudohomothallic populations of Coastal California, Alberta and France.
Aspects of Islamic social intellectual history in Hausaland, 'Uthman Ibn Fudi, 1774-1804 C.E

The Sokoto Jihad of 1804 C.E. in Hausaland produced a powerful Islamic state. Its leaders and thinkers were Islamic scholars who communicated with each other in classical Arabic and produced an unprecedented number of writings never before witnessed in Hausaland. Many of these works are still in existence today. In an atmosphere of struggle and strife a type of intellectual renaissance occurred where scholarship was being widely disseminated and even women scholars were given authority and recognition. Despite these achievements very little attention has been paid to the intellectual history and social impact of the Sokoto Jihad and the resulting Caliphate. This thesis is intended to bring out aspects of the social, intellectual history of Hausaland in the eighteenth century and discuss the ideas produced by Shaykh 'Uthman ibn Fudi (the Shehu), leader of the Sokoto Jihad, to meet the challenges. An attempt has been made to look at some of the Shehu's major writings during the period of his intellectual life before the jihad, 1774-1804 C.E. Part one, the Background, looks at the role of Islamic scholars in the development of Islam in Hausaland. It, then, delves into aspects of the social, political atmosphere, by looking at the local religious and political systems, some prominent customs, and the position of women in society. Finally, the Timbuktu system of Islamic scholarship, and the actual scholars who impacted on the Shehu are examined. Part two, the Analysis, is an in-depth look at the Shehu's comment on social and religious customs in such areas as: personal hygiene, childbirth, circumcision, sexuality, marital relations, the affairs of the mosque, medicine, and the supernatural. An attempt is made to re-analyze the Shehu's confrontation with extremist scholars, and to look at the advice he gave his students on innovations, self criticism, and Tasawwuf (Islamic mysticism). Finally, the Shehu's concept of the role and position of women in society and the dynamics of struggle in the development of an Islamic society are explored.
Writing Fiction as a Form of Inquiry, a Defense and Exploration of Fiction Writing as a Transformative Discipline

Writing Fiction as a Form of Inquiry: A Defense and Exploration of Fiction Writing as a Transformative Discipline addresses the tensions and possibilities of fiction writing within an academic context. My goal is to fuse the discipline of fiction writing and the theories of critical theory and holistic education. To establish this fusion, I present an inquiry in three parts: a theoretical introduction, a novel as inquiry, and a classroom text. The main propositions expressed are as follows: (a) Fiction is a form of inquiry; (b) Issues of knowledge, power, subtle oppression, subtle liberation can be explored in reference to fiction writing, through fiction writing, and in the fiction-writing class; and (c) Qualities of the fiction writing process and experience have transformative possibilities for the self and community. I begin with a theoretical introduction in which I explore personal tensions and possibilities in accepting fiction as a form of inquiry. I focus my inquiry on the possibility that my tensions were based on the internalization of a reason-based, scientific paradigm that led to the unconscious assumption that reason and science equate knowledge, and fiction is something else. I use critical theory to explore the reason-based paradigm, then move toward a holistic perspective to present the potential of fiction as a transformative discipline. In the second part, I present a novel that explores the issues of the study itself. These include, the writing process, the contemplative qualities of this experience, and the subtle transformative possibilities, especially in addressing systemic structures or paradigms in society such as patriarchy, reason, or corporatism. In part three, I apply a critical framework with a holistic approach to the fiction-writing class, presenting the transformative potential of contemplation and critical thinking in such a class. I offer a perspective of fiction writing as a means to engage students in a way that develops their ability as writers while encouraging collective reflection and possibly transformation.
Building an L2 lexicon, the acquisition of verb classes relevant to causativization in English by speakers of Hindi-Urdu and Vietnamese

This study examines the L2 acquisition of constraints on English causativization in order to gain insight into the organization of the L2 lexicon, the route of L2 lexical acquisition, and the possible interaction between the L1 and L2 lexicons. Lexical organization is investigated via an analysis of the syntactic production and judgments of learners on the premise that verbs displaying similar grammatical behaviour generally do so because they share meaning components. It was hypothesized that (i) the ability to generalize beyond the input would improve with lexical proficiency, and (ii) the learner's L1 would influence the acquisition of verbs in those L2 semantic classes where there were translation equivalents of existent L2 items in the L1. In order to investigate lexical transfer, the performance of Hindi-Urdu speakers at three levels of lexical proficiency was compared with that of Vietnamese speakers at corresponding proficiency levels since there are marked differences between these languages in terms of causativization. The hypotheses were tested through four tests in English: a picture-based production task, a picture-based multiple-choice task, a grammaticality judgment test involving high-frequency verbs, and a grammaticality judgment test involving low-frequency, previously unknown verbs. Results indicated that on the second judgment task, the advanced learners in each language group had significantly higher overall scores than the elementary learners, suggesting that advanced learners make better connections than elementary learners between newly encountered L2 verbs and previously known verbs that are semantically related to them. Significant increases between the elementary and advanced levels were also witnessed on the picture-based tests; since these two tests centred on known verbs, these increases were seen as indications of growing accuracy across semantic classes with increasing proficiency. The validation of many of the transfer-related sub-hypotheses suggests that there is at least some sharing of semantic information between the L1 and L2 verb lexicons. Specifically, the findings highlight the existence of varying degrees of "transferability" across verb sub-classes and suggest that transfer plays a role in the ease or difficulty involved in shedding overgeneralized features of the L2.
Topologically adaptable deformable models for medical image analysis

The increasingly important role of medical imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of disease has opened an array of challenging problems centered on the computation of accurate geometric models of anatomic structures from medical images. A promising approach to tackle such problems is the use of deformable models. These powerful models have proven to be effective in segmenting, visualizing, matching, and tracking anatomic structures by exploiting (bottom-up) constraints derived from the image data together with (top-down) a priori knowledge about the location, size, and shape of these structures. Furthermore, deformable models support highly intuitive interaction mechanisms that allow medical scientists and practitioners to bring their expertise to bear on the image interpretation task. This thesis proposes, develops, and applies a new class of discrete deformable models for the segmentation and analysis of medical images. This new class of deformable models is embedded and defined in terms of an Affine Cell Decomposition (ACD) framework--a theoretically sound framework that significantly extends the abilities of traditional deformable models, enabling topological flexibility among other features. ACD-based deformable models can be used to extract, reconstruct and analyze even the most complex biological structures from medical images. The ACD framework combined with a novel and original reparameterization algorithm creates a simple but elegant and powerful mechanism for multiresolution deformable curve, surface, and solid models to "flow" or "grow" into objects with complex geometries and topologies, and adapt their shape to conform to the object boundaries. Multiple instances of the models can be dynamically created or destroyed and can seamlessly split or merge to adapt to object topology. ACD-based models maintain the traditional parametric physics-based formulation of deformable models, allowing them to incorporate a priori anatomic knowledge in the form of energy and force-based constraints, and provide intuitive interactive capabilities. Furthermore, by defining the models in terms of the ACD framework, "hard" geometric, topological, and global shape constraints can be efficiently realized. These combined properties lead to a robust, elegant, and highly automated method of linking sparse or noisy local image features into a complete, consistent, and analytical object model.
Relationships of moral judgement, emotional empathy and impulsivity to criminal behaviour in young and adult offenders

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relation of psychological variables of moral judgement, emotional empathy and impulsivity to criminal behaviour in young and adult offenders. Four groups of male subjects participated in this research: young offenders (n = 29), adult offenders (n = 27), young community (n = 26) and adult community (n = 24). The design involved comparisons of offenders and nonoffenders as well as subgroups of offenders based on age (young/adult), violence (non-violent/moderately violent/highly violent) and re-offending (first/repeat). It was hypothesized that: (1) offenders would differ from non-offenders by scoring lower on measures of moral judgment and empathy, while scoring higher on impulsivity measures; (2) adult offenders would score higher on measures of moral judgement than young offenders, but there would be no differences on empathy; (3) violent offenders would differ from non-violent offenders by scoring lower on empathy and moral judgement and higher on impulsivity; and finally, (4) repeat offenders would differ from first offenders by scoring lower on moral judgement and higher on impulsivity, with no differences on empathy. Moral judgement was assessed by the Defining Issue Test that utilizes Kohlberg's moral dilemmas. Self-report measures were administered to assess emotional empathy and impulsivity: the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy, the Impulse Expression scale of the Basic Personality Inventory and the IMP-30. The research data were analysed using multivariate and subsequently univariate statistics. Results indicate that: (1) as predicted, offenders were lower on moral judgement and higher on impulsivity than non-offenders. Contrary to the prediction, responses on the emotional empathy scale did not differentiate between the groups. In the offender group: (2) young offenders were lower on principled morality and higher on impulsivity than adult offenders; (3) there was a significant interaction effect between age and level of violence implying important differences between violent young and adult offenders; (4) contrary to the expectation, there was no difference between first and repeat offenders. The findings are discussed in relation to a model of human aggression that proposes a distinction between predatory and impulsive violence.