VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Terrains: for orchestra

Explanatory notes. Terrains is a work in three movements for orchestra. In creating Terrains, my compositional intentions were threefold: (i) to develop a rigorous methodology for the generation of pitch material, which would allow for a logical connection between vertical and horizontal presentations, as well as surface and deep structure pitch connections, where all pitch material emanates from one central organizing source; (ii) to apply aspects of the method for the notation of multiple tempi (MTN) which I developed in my paper, Multiple Tempi Notation: A Survey and Method; and (iii) to explore aspects of the musical techniques which I have derived from my studies of Hindustani and Carnatic musical principles, specifically (1) the Tal which is a pattern of metres which repeats throughout a composition; and (2) the Carnatic Melakarthas, which are a systematically organized system of seventy-two diatonic modes. Pitch organization. The two core elements behind the pitch organization in Terrains are the numerical matrix and the Melakartha applied as a diatonic pitch field. The numerical matrix is constructed in the same manner as the conventional dodecaphonic matrix, except that numerals substitute for pitch names. To generate a numerical matrix, one need only determine the total pitch set within a given field, number it in ascending order from the lowest to highest note and express the pitch series in the corresponding numerical series. This prime series is arranged from left to right while the inverted series beginning with the prime form's initial number is arranged from top to bottom. This matrix therefore provides the prime, retrograde, inversion and retrograde inversion of a numerical sequence.

Keywords: Orchestral music
Mathematics textbook use by secondary school teachers: a case study

This research examined the ways two secondary school teachers used Mathematics 9 (Ontario Edition) (Addison-Wesley, 1999) for planning and classroom purposes. The aims were to determine how these teachers used the textbook in classrooms, relative to other materials, at different stages of curriculum implementation and in regard to its embedded features. An instrumental case study approach was employed. Collected were teacher selection, classroom observation, document and semi-structured interview data. Each classroom was observed over a three-month period for approximately 12 hours and each teacher was interviewed for approximately seven hours. Both teachers were in their second year of using Mathematics 9 when teaching the Principles of Mathematics, Grade 9, Academic Course mandated by the Government of Ontario through The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 and 10: Mathematics, 1999. Curriculum implementation was also in its second year. Observations revealed that both teachers employed the same teaching approaches and used the textbook similarly in each situation. The textbook to some degree affected the extent to which each strategy was employed. Both teachers continually modified how they used Mathematics 9 as curriculum implementation progressed, that is, they used it differently before, during and after the initial year of implementation—the teachers indicated that, during the first year of implementation, department heads and the textbook greatly influenced their planning. A combination of factors caused the teachers to adapt a modified version of the textbook's chapter and section structure for personal planning purposes. Although the teachers had greater freedom when planning individual lessons, they continued to use the textbook, albeit differently depending on the type of lesson planned.

Keywords: Mathematics teachers, Ontario
Mathematics, Study and teaching (Secondary)
Mathematics, Ontario
Education, Research
Education, Secondary, Curricula
Education, Secondary, Ontario
Factors affecting adverse fetal, neonatal, and maternal outcomes in the Term Breech Trial

Breech presentation occurs in 3–4% of pregnancies at term and is associated with increased risk of mortality and morbidity compared to nonbreech presentation. This project was undertaken to determine factors associated with difficult delivery, labor-associated problems, adverse perinatal outcome, and adverse maternal outcome, for women with a singleton fetus in a complete or frank breech presentation at term who had no contraindication to vaginal delivery using data collected in the Term Breech Trial. Multiple logistic regression models were used and a 2-sided p value of 0.05 indicated significance. The study findings suggest that planned cesarean section reduced the risk of adverse perinatal outcome by avoiding both labor and delivery. Difficult vaginal breech delivery is not predictable, if patients are carefully selected. For babies, the best method of delivery is prelabor cesarean section and the worst method of delivery is vaginal breech birth. If vaginal breech birth is planned, it is better to avoid labor augmentation, longer duration of active phase of 2nd stage of labor, and it is best to have an experienced clinician at the delivery. For mothers, the best method of delivery is vaginal birth and the worst method delivery is cesarean section during active labor.
Secure distributed backup: Erasure codes and anonymous message delivery

We address the problem of backing up one's important data files in an efficient, secure and robust manner by suggesting that copies of such files be sent to untrusted remote peers over the Internet. To provide incentive for such peers to store copies of your files, you would be required to devote some of your surplus disk space to storing copies of their files. In this manner, your data would be distributed widely about the planet and would thus be immune to loss due to all but the most global of disasters. We address a few of the major challenges that must be overcome to make such a network a reality. First, we note that since remote peers are inherently unreliable, your data files must have some form a redundancy introduced to ensure complete recovery when needed; however, since wholesale replication of the files is neither space nor bandwidth efficient, we suggest the use of an erasure correcting code. We evaluate the use of a few existing codes for this task (Chapters 2 and 3) and propose a new class of codes, called windowed erasure codes, which aim to minimize time complexity while maintaining the greatest probability of successful recovery (Chapter 4). To help ensure the security of one's data and to avoid the problem of an adversary engaging in a selective denial of service attack against a single participant, we propose the use of an anonymous message delivery technique for distributing file data (Chapter 6). The protocol we propose aims to be efficient in its use of network bandwidth while remaining secure in the face of clients who choose to collude against the others. Also, as a II necessary primitive, we develop a multiparty protocol for generating secret permutations (Chapter 5). Finally, a practical backup application will require a method of encoding a hierarchy of files and the changes to those files over time into a sequence of fixed length blocks to be used with the above protocols. For this, we propose an algorithm based on a rolling checksum which is capable of identifying and removing redundant blocks of data located anywhere within a directory hierarchy (Chapter 7).
Mind the gap: Issues related to accessibility of Canadian universities

This paper assesses whether accessibility to Canadian universities for students with less privileged backgrounds has increased over the last decade compared with those with more privileged backgrounds. Data from the National Graduate Survey for 1986, 1990, and 1995 graduates is analysed by parents' education level. The analysis looks at the backgrounds of university graduates compared to the number of Canadian children who would be eligible to attend university. The findings show that those from lower education backgrounds are underrepresented in our Canadian universities.

Keywords: Educational equalization, Canada
Universities and colleges, Canada
Climatic and behavioural influences on postcranial robusticity among holocene foragers

Postcranial morphology is commonly used as the basis for interpreting human behavioral and environmental adaptations in the past. Recent evidence suggests that diaphyseal morphology may be subject to climatic influences; further, there may be a selective gradient in which distal elements are subject to tighter climatic and biomechanical constraints than proximal elements are. Hence, the influence of climate and behaviour may differ throughout the skeleton. This dissertation compares the postcranial robusticity of four groups of foragers, to elucidate behavioral and climatic (quantified using effective temperature) influences on diaphyseal morphology. Foraging groups include early historic Andaman Islanders (n = 32), Later Stone Age southern Africans (n = 83), archaic foragers from southern Ontario (n = 15) and late prehistoric Tierra del Fuegians (n = 34). Diaphyseal cross-sectional geometry is quantified for the clavicles, humeri and ulnae bilaterally, and femora and tibiae unilaterally. Body size standardized geometric properties are compared using analysis of covariance and canonical variates analysis. Climatic influences on skeletal robusticity are strong at some skeletal sites, especially the subtrochanteric femur location. The midshaft femoral shape and robusticity of the femur are strongly correlated with terrestrial mobility, among male and female sub-samples. In the upper body, diaphyseal strengths are strongly correlated with marine mobility. There is no correspondence between upper body bilateral asymmetry and material technology, but males have higher levels of asymmetry than females in all groups. Overall, diaphyseal robusticity corresponds with patterns of terrestrial and marine mobility. The positive relationship between robusticity and habitual behaviour is strongest in the distal limb elements. Thus, there is less disparity between observed morphological variability and functional adaptation in the distal elements. This dissertation demonstrates that it is possible to partition climatic and behavioural influences on the skeleton. It is therefore possible to interpret habitual activity of foragers from diaphyseal robusticity.

Keywords: Hunting and gathering societies
Physical anthropology
Human skeleton
Morphology (Animals)
Anthropometry
A quantitative analysis framework to evaluate the performance and costs of computer architectural alternatives

Computer architects are currently confronted with the task of evaluating the quality of architectural designs not just in terms of the single familiar criterion of performance but also in terms of design criteria such as die area, power consumption and energy consumption. In this dissertation, I propose and evaluate a quantitative analysis framework, implemented in the Solomon software tool, that can precisely characterize how the best architecture design in a study changes across the full spectrum of architectural contexts which describe the importance of each criterion to the analysis. Just as computer architects currently use average performance to compare architectures when multiple benchmarks are important, the analysis framework I propose uses an architectural cost index value to compare architectures by aggregating multiple criteria in accordance with their importance to the architectural context. The architectural cost index for each architecture is then graphed across all architectural contexts to portray how the best architecture changes in different contexts. To compute an architecture's cost index, I propose a new aggregation function called the trade-off sum that represents an architectural context as a linear trade-off such as: an N% area increase is expected to improve performance by at least 0.5N%. To evaluate the analysis framework, I conduct a major architectural study to determine how effectively 21 vector architectures use additional area to improve media program performance. To compute the area for these architectures, I develop a functional area modeling methodology that is accurate to within 14% of the measured area of circuits in commercial microprocessors for eight major processor components and within 5% for five of these eight components. Architects can use the Functional Area Modeling Tool for Architects (FAMTA) to automatically compute the area of processor components from high level descriptions, much like a compiler allows developers to write software in a high-level language rather than machine language. Using the new analysis framework, I demonstrate that current media hardware designs are best in contexts where an N% area increase is expected to improve performance by 0.98N%–1.39N%. When the improvement can be less than 0.98N% (performance is more important), then vector media architectures, which incorporate vector processing technology, use area more effectively to improve performance than current designs.
The sediment accumulation record at glacier-fed Kinaskan Lake: Implications for changes in Holocene hydrology and climate in the Upper Iskut River watershed, British Columbia

Acoustic sub-bottom profiles, sim;5 m vibra-cores and lake hydrology are used to reconstruct the sediment accumulation history in Kinaskan Lake of the Upper Iskut River watershed in northwestern British Columbia. The lake is dominated by turbidity currents in proximal regions, producing well-laminated sediments that accumulate at sim;4.4 mm/year. Overflows and interflows distribute silt and clay sediments to distal lake areas and accumulation decreases to sim;2 mm/year, forming well-defined couplets that are interpreted as varves. Sediment accumulation chronologies cover approximately the last 2000 years (Neoglacial interval) and demonstrate distinct patterns of above-average (or increasing) sediment accumulation thought to be associated with wetter and/or warmer conditions. This high resolution accumulation chronology is compared with lower resolution and longer duration environment histories from nearby lakes.
The integration of technology into a Landscape Architecture graduate program: a case study

Integrating technology successfully into a program of Landscape Architecture is a complex process that touches university administration, the faculty group, and the existing program culture. This case study of a Canadian Landscape Architecture program reviewed pertinent documents, used an on-line faculty survey, and faculty interviews to gain an understanding of the various issues that were instrumental to the success of the integration process. The study looked at the faculty group, including their research history to see how faculty without training in technology learned to integrate it into the program of study. Given the variety of software programs used in the program the study looked at how they are taught and if this integration has changed teaching methodologies. The study also looked at online courses, international, and inter-disciplinary opportunities based on technology. Although the literature identified these as opportunities to enrich design-based programs they are not currently used in the program under study. The design process and studio culture are foundational aspects in learning in Landscape Architecture, and this study looks at the effect that technology has had on these key areas. The design process was divided in components and each component was evaluated to determine if the effect of technology was positive, neutral or negative. The results showed that the research, analysis and data intensive aspects have benefited from technology however, the creative aspects such as ideation and thinking aspects show mixed results. The changes that technology has brought to the studio environment are varied. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
The fervid covenant: Mysticism and the poetics of Hart Crane's "White Buildings."

This study analyzes Hart Crane's White Buildings as a collection whose dominant motif is mystical quest for divine union. Criticism has acknowledged religious undertones in White Buildings, but the aim of this thesis is to trace specifically the mystical contours of the collection as it moves from imagistic impressions of the nature of perception in early poems such as "Legend" to a visionary narrative of the poet's desire for divine communion in poems such as "Lachrymae Christi" and "Voyages."The intent of this thesis is not to argue for an explicit or schematic reading of White Buildings as Christian in intent or effect. Instead, it suggests that the metaphors of the dark night and its stress on inner vision and radical transformation of the perceived world are fundamental to a full appreciation of Crane's poetics in White Buildings. This interpretation should yield a more holistic reading of the entire collection and help illuminate how Crane's work in White Buildings achieves a unique status: highly self-conscious religious poetry in a modernist literary context. Hopefully this will bring to the fore of Crane criticism his most moving theme: the poet as a mediator between the dimensional and the spiritual world. The patterns of Christian mysticism as articulated by the Spanish mystical writers St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila provide the framework for my reading of the poems in White Buildings. Crane's poetic journey in White Buildings has strong and surprising affinities with the Spanish mystical concept of the dark night and its three stages: the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. This pattern underlies the metaphoric and thematic structure of White Buildings. The chapters of my study analyze these metaphoric, symbolic, and syntactical patterns in important poems, while the final chapter charts their culmination in "Voyages," which is the climax of Crane's mystical vision.
Bridging the ocean: thematic aspects of Italian literature of migration to Canada

The aim of this thesis is to present an examination of texts forming the Italian literature of migration to Canada, a corpus of writings which comprehends narrative works by writers of Italian background, and in Italian language, but have never been analyzed as a self-contained body. All the authors came to Canada at least for a period in their lives, and have left a varied written record of their experiences in Canada, for the most part either in an autobiographical work or in texts of a more creative nature. Thanks to these texts we were able to observe in literary form the evolution of the Italian migration process to Canada from the l7th-century up to the present-time. Among the authors dealt with are Bressani, Moroni Parken, Duliani, Randaccio, Ardizzi, Rimanelli and Grohovaz. The investigation highlights those thematic aspects which most distinguish this production, showing both the continuity of inspiration and motifs as well as the diversity of approaches and genres. These narrative works can provide an important contribution to the comprehension of the mental, emotional and more intimate dimensions of the immigrant experience, and hence complement the store of historical and socio-scientific studies now readily at hand. The fundamental motif underlining this literature is the impossibility for the immigrant of disregarding the impact the discovery of the new world and of the other had on one's psyche and the need to span the ocean of his or her inquietude by the act of writing. On the individual level, each of these works contributes to the immigrant writer's creation of a personal bridge which can join and unite the two shores of his or her experience, thus relieving angst and coherently merging old and new worlds, past and present, Italian background and Canadian experience. In the representation of the life of Italians in Canada these texts also acquire an important cultural function at the collective level, because they allow Italian-Canadians of all generations to recognize the continuity between their cultural past and their present life in Canada, as well as further a knowledge of the immigrant experience “from the inside.”
Language learner narratives: bridges to SLA literature and SLA pedagogy

What is second language acquisition (SLA) like from the learner's point of view? In this study, I analysed the experiences of SLA as described by a particular group of learners: 30 individuals who authored language narratives--published accounts of their own experiences of living in a new language (in most cases, English) and a new culture. These accounts, 12 full-length autobiographies and 18 essays, were not limited to language-related events, but it was to these events that I attended in my analysis. After identifying 6 principal themes that recurred across the narratives, I reviewed selected theoretical and research literature on SLA and 5 course textbooks used in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) education programs to determine whether or not the issues/themes named by the learners/narrativists were represented. Finally, I conducted focus group interviews with 6 experienced ESL teachers and asked them to consider pedagogical implications of these 6 themes. I located attention to some of these themes in the selection of SLA literature that I reviewed, but often the nature of that attention was different from the perspectives of the learners. The 5 course textbooks included limited references to the 6 principal issues I had identified. I found that the experienced ESL teachers were reflecting on a number of these issues for the first time. They considered some of the issues to be beyond the mandate of classroom teachers, while other issues had clear pedagogical implications. The teachers agreed that learner perspectives generated from language learner narratives were valuable sources of professional development for both prospective teachers and experienced teachers, and that these perspectives would also be useful as prompts for discussion in ESL classrooms. Three research questions prompted this study. The information gathered from the first question determined the focus for questions 2 and 3. (1) How do the individuals who author these language learner narratives represent their SLA? (2) How do the learners' representations of SLA correspond to SLA literature? (3) How do experienced teachers of English as a second language (ESL) relate to these learners' representations of SLA?

Keywords: Second language acquisition
Language and languages, Study and teaching
English language, Study and teaching
Contrast enhanced high frequency ultrasound imaging of mice

Microbubble ultrasound contrast agents have shown clinical potential for characterising blood flow in the microcirculation using 1 to 10 MHz ultrasound; however, scaling their use for mouse imaging with high frequency ultrasound (10 to 60 MHz) has not been addressed. The goal was to determine the utility of microbubbles for contrast flow studies in the mouse with 30 MHz ultrasound by investigating their acoustic response in vitro and optimal dose in vivo. In vitro results showed that microbubble attenuation and backscatter increased linearly for concentrations between 2.4 x 106 and 2.8 x 107 bubbles per mL. In vivo results showed that the peak enhancement of the agent increased linearly for doses between 10 and 60 muL kg -1, the duration of enhancement varied between 200 to 300 seconds and the integrated enhancement (area under the curve) increased linearly up to 100 muL kg-1. These doses corresponded to the range of concentrations used in vitro. However, optimisation of the reproducibility of this technique still needs to be addressed.