The objectives of this research were twofold: a) to define the relationship between tooth withdrawal and specific gravity for southern pine lumber and four different plate-to-wood load orientations, and b) to demonstrate how these relationships could be applied to new lumber grades to predict tooth withdrawal performance so that additional testing would not be necessary. The four orientations investigated were: a.) LRAA - plate axis parallel to load and wood grain parallel to load. b.) LREA - plate axis perpendicular to load and wood grain parallel to load. c.) LRAE - plate axis parallel to load and wood grain perpendicular to load. d.) LREE - plate axis perpendicular to load and wood grain perpendicular to load. For the LRAA, LREA, LRAE, LREE orientations, the following sample sizes were respectively: 27, 22, 27, and 29. Results showed specific gravity and embedment gap were excellent predictors of ultimate tooth withdrawal stress for the LRAA orientation. However, neither specific gravity nor percentage of latewood significantly influenced the location of tooth withdrawal. For the LREA orientation, specific gravity alone was a good predictor of ultimate tooth withdrawal stress. Furthermore, the side of the joint test specimen where tooth withdrawal initiated was dependent on the wood piece with the lowest mean specific gravity. For the LRAE orientation, specific gravity was a marginal predictor of ultimate tooth withdrawal stress. For the LREE orientation, specific gravity was a decent predictor of ultimate tooth-withdrawal stress. / Master of Science

The purpose of this research is to evaluate and compare the influence of four types of secondary reinforcement on various component strengths related to composite slabs. These components include the composite slab strength under uniform load, the strength of two types of shear connectors used with composite beams and joists, composite slab strength due to a concentrated load, and the flexural toughness and first-crack strength of fiber-reinforced concrete using ASTM C1018 (1998) standard test. The performance of the specimens reinforced with fibers are compared with that of the specimens reinforced with welded-wire fabric (WWF), with the purpose of determining if fiber-reinforced concrete can be used as an alternative to WWF. / Master of Science

Wood structural elements are more vulnerable to blast loading due to the inherent brittle nature and low density of the material, as demonstrated by recent significant research efforts on the behaviour of timber elements subjected to the effect of blast loading. These studies showed that wood performs poorly under blast loading. A way of improving this performance is to provide additional ductility or energy absorption capabilities to wooden elements. Recently, there was interest in investigating and developing energy-absorbing connections (EAC) to improve timber assemblies’ ductility and energy absorption capabilities. Although some research effort has been made to investigate the use of EACs to enhance the ductility of reinforced concrete or structural steel members, only limited work is available on this topic about timber elements. The current study aims to systematically investigate the use of various shapes of EACs to be used to enhance the post-peak performance of timber assemblies. Preliminary finite element analysis led to selecting nine steel EACs with varying geometries for further experimental investigation. A total of eighteen specimens were tested statically. In comparison, a total of eighteen specimens were tested dynamically in the shock tube facility of the University of Ottawa to simulate the effects of far-field blast explosions. The experimental results showed that decreasing the leg length or increasing the thickness of EACs manufactured with steel angles and reducing the diameter of EACs manufactured with circular HSS caused an increase in yield load and elastic stiffness while reducing the densification displacement. Connections with angles and a centre weld, and connections with 90-degree arcs from circular HSS, were identified as unsuitable for the application of EACs. The experimental program also showed that EACs manufactured from angles offer a well-defined plateau able to absorb a large quantity of energy, making them particularly suitable for blast mitigation. EACs manufactured from multiple circular HSS were shown to achieve multiple load-displacement plateaus and present an interesting option for systems with multiple failure modes occurring at different levels. SDOF analysis and FEA were conducted to predict the experimental behaviour with some success. The importance of the weld type was also highlighted from both the analytical and experimental results. A methodology for developing idealized load-displacement curves from experimental results of EACs was also proposed and evaluated.

The thesis deals with the issue of connectors in contemporary French. The first part offers an outline of different approaches to the term connector/connecteur within Czech and Francophone linguistics. Based on the description and comparison of individual authors' approaches classified by the theoretical aspects applied, this part explains functioning of connectors not only within the logical semantic coherence relations, but also within the hierarchisation of utterance content considering the pragmatic dimension of the text. The second part of the thesis defines the term "connector" with respect to the approaches introduced above. The third part of the work deals with the characteristics and function of concessive connectors. It is based on defining the concessive relations, it describes their different aspects of meaning conditioning the relations classification within logical semantic relations in Czech and French and offers a list of linguistic means to express them and at the same time, it stresses the complex functional character of the connectors.

SOFA 2 is a component system employing hierarchically composed components. It provides ADL-based design, behavior specification using behavior protocols, dynamic reconfiguration of the components, and modeling of the component communication by software connectors. This allows seamless and transparent distribution of component applications. The connectors can be automatically generated, SOFA 2 contains Java connector generator allowing to connect components with Java interfaces. The aim of this thesis is to implement C code generator and integrate it into the current SOFA 2 connector generator framework, so that C connectors can be automatically generated and thus components written in C language can be transparently connected in distributed environment. The proposed C code generator is based on the concept of template transformation, where templates containing mixture of C code and a scripting Domain Specific Language are transformed to a pure C code. Strategic term rewriting method provided by Stratego/XT framework is used for evaluation of the scripts within the templates.

Este trabalho apresenta uma proposta de método de ensaio para determinação da resistência de ligações em peças estruturais de madeira por chapas com dentes estampados e também verifica os modos de ruptura destas ligações. Para esta finalidade foram realizados ensaios com 5 (cinco) espécies de madeira classificadas de acordo com as classes de resistência apresentadas no projeto da nova norma brasileira para estruturas de madeira, a PNBR 7190/1996 - Projeto de Estruturas de Madeira. No trabalho são verificados 3 (três) modos básicos de ruptura das ligações, a saber: tração da chapa, cisalhamento da chapa e arrancamento dos dentes da chapa da peça de madeira. Dentro de cada modo de ruptura verifica-se os efeitos da variação da posição da chapa em relação à direção de aplicação da força. Determina-se também a resistência da ligação de acordo com o proposto pelo projeto da nova norma brasileira para estruturas de madeira (PNBR 7190, 1996). / The aim of this work is to propose a test method to determine the strength and to verify failure modes of timber joints made with metal connectors plate. To this purpose, several tests were made with 5 species of wood, which were classified according to the strength class introduced in the new Brazilian Standard for Timber Structures, NBR 7190/1996 - Timber Structure Project. In this work are verified 3 failure modes: metal connector plates under shear force and pure tension force, and lateral resistance strength of metal connector plate teeth. For each failure mode is verified the effect of the position of the plate under the direction of force. The resistance of joints are determine in agreement to the new Brazilian Standard for Timber Structures.

The intention of this study is to give a qualitative and quantitative description of the usage of connectors, especially mais, parce que and donc, and of some epistemic modifiers in the spoken French of Swedish advanced learners. The study includes eight advanced learners, six highly advanced learners and eight native speakers from the French learner corpus InterFra, all interviewed by the same native speaker. In total, 22 interviews of learners (39,000 words) and eight interviews of native speakers (23,000 words) were examined. One of the goals was to find typical advanced learner features (interlanguage features) in connector and modifier usage, and also to describe individual variation in the group. We highlight the importance of comparative studies and of taking into account recent studies of spoken French to establish advanced interlanguage features, as normative French grammar fails to account for some spoken usage of connectors. The aim in studying interlanguage features that involve connectors and modifiers is twofold: first, we try to understand the function of certain connectors/modifiers at the semantic, discourse organizing, interactional and speech act levels. Second, we look at the syntactic dependence and integration of discourse sequences introduced by parce que and modifiers like je crois (que). The study of mais (chapters 2 and 3) showed that learners used turn-introducing mais more often than native speakers. Mais was also found to be an important reformulation marker in the learner group. In the study of parce que (chapter 4), we found that the macro-syntactic (paratactic) parce que was frequent in both speaker groupes, but that a function like introducing ”specifications” was more frequent in the learner group, while parce que introducing parenthetic remarks (incises) – commonly used by native speakers of French – was found in only a few cases in the learner corpus. We suggest that this latter usage is a property of the highly advanced user. The study of epistemic phrases like je crois/ je pense/ je trouve (que) (chapter 5) revealed a small quantitative difference in syntactic dependence between the two groupes of speakers: the learners more frequently used independent expressions. From a qualitative point of view, the difference was partly due to the high number of isolated phrases (like je crois oui) and post-positioned phrases in the learner material. Both groups of speakers used modifiers as discourse-structuring devices and as fillers, but their use as fillers was more frequent in the learner group. Finally (chapter 6), by carrying out a prosodic analysis (variation in fundamental frequency) coupled with an analysis of the information structure, we segmented the speech into functional discourse units (les paragraphes oraux). This analysis suggested some characteristics of highly advanced learner usage for the position of the connector donc. One such feature was the incorporation of donc in a constituent of the discourse unit, both from a syntactic and prosodic point of view.

Searching the Web involves more than sifting through a huge graph of pages and hyperlinks. Specific collaboration networks have emerged that serve domain-specific queries better by exploiting the principles and patterns that apply there. We continue this trend by suggesting heuristics and algorithms to mine the evolution of collaboration networks, to discover interesting roles played by entities. The first section of the dissertation introduces the concept of nurturers using the computer science research community as a case study, while the second section formulates three roles - scouts, promoters and connectors, played by ratings in collaborative filtering systems. Nurturers: Nurturing, a pervasive mammalian trait, naturally extends to most association networks that involve humans. The increased availability of digital and online data about associations lets researchers experiment with algorithms to gain insight into such phenomena. Consider some examples of nurturing: • Slashdot endorsement. Slashdot was not the first site to link to Firefox, but the publicity Firefox received from this association surely helped it become popular quickly. The phenomenon of many small websites crashing due to publicity received through Slashdot has become well known as the Slashdot Effect. • A VC (Venture Capitalist) seed-funding a new startup. This event has a high nurturing value if the startup’s valuation increases rapidly after the funding. • A blogger writing about a topic. Kim Cameron has nurtured the “Laws of Identity” topic if it later becomes the buzz in blog circles. A nurturer need not always be the innovator or originator. The evangelist who adopts a prodigal idea and launches it on its way to success can also be a nurturer. • A professor guiding his student through the art of scientific research and bootstrapping him into a vibrant research community. New nodes not only emerge around these nurturers, but also become important in the network. Knowing nurturers is useful especially in vertical search, where algorithms exploit the structure of specialized collaboration networks to make search more relevant: knowing early adopters of good web pages can make web-search fresher; a list of VCs ranked by their nurturing value is useful to people with new startup ideas; the list of top nurturers in computer science is a valuable resource for a student seeking to do research. This dissertation presents a framework for discovering nurturers by mining the evolution of an association network, and discusses heuristics and customizations that can be applied through a case study: finding the Best Nurturers in Computer Science Research. Roles of Ratings in Collaborative Filtering: Recommender systems aggregate individual user ratings into predictions of products or services that might interest visitors. The quality of this aggregation process crucially affects user experience and hence the effectiveness of recommenders in e-commerce. The dissertation presents a novel study that disaggregates global recommender performance metrics into contributions made by each individual rating, allowing us to characterize the many roles played by ratings in nearest neighbor collaborative filtering. In particular, we formulate three roles - scouts, promoters, and connectors that capture how users receive recommendations, how items get recommended, and how ratings of these two types are themselves connected (respectively). These roles find direct uses in improving recommendations for users, in better targeting of items, and most impor -tantly, in helping monitor the health of the system as a whole. For instance, they can be used to track the evolution of neighborhoods, to identify rating subspaces that do not contribute (or contribute negatively) to system performance, to enumerate users who are in danger of leaving, and to assess the susceptibility of the System to attacks such as shilling. The three rating roles presented here provide broad primitives to manage a recommender system and its community.

This work aims to investigate acquisition of connectors and the conceptual acquisition of these categories in the writing of foreign language undergraduate students. The students of a Language Undergraduate Course with habilitation in Portuguese and Spanish and their respective literatures from a private college in the central region of Rio Grande do Sul were submitted to a framework approach based on Holistic Theory Activity during the year of 2009 in which Process-Writing by White and Arndt (1991) was used. The activities with these students were organized in four sequential modules. In each module, a different textual genre was produced and then rewritten four times. For data analysis, Corpus Linguistics was used through computer tools in order to survey lexical-grammatical patterns in the corpus. In this study, the softwares used were WordSmith Tools, by Scott (1998), and the Semantic Mapper, by Richter (2009). The theoretical foundation was based on the following aspects: social interactionist theory by Vygotsky with emphasis on key concepts as mediation, internalization and Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD); Activity Theory; Holistic Theory Activity; Framework according to Holistic Theory Activity; Language acquisition and connectors acquisition. The results show that a consistent and strongly theoretically based framework approach as the Holistic Theory Activity allows the students to advance in the acquisition of connector as the involvement with the proposed methodology also advances. Therefore, it is believed that when the students experience a framework methodology in the undergraduate course they can gain useful experiences and concepts for their professional practice, since this knowledge will allow the future teachers to interfere in the ZPD of their students when necessary. / Este trabalho tem o objetivo de investigar a aquisição de conectores e a aquisição conceitual dessas categorias na escrita de acadêmicos de língua estrangeira. Para tanto, os licenciandos de um Curso de Letras, habilitação Português-Espanhol e respectivas literaturas, de uma instituição de ensino superior particular da região central do Rio Grande do Sul foram submetidos a uma metodologia de enquadramento baseada na Teoria Holística da Atividade durante o ano de 2009, na qual foi feito uso do Process Writing, de acordo com os moldes de White e Arndt (1991). As atividades com esses alunos foram organizadas em quatro módulos sequenciais. Em cada módulo, era produzido um gênero textual diferente que era reescrito quatro vezes. Para a análise dos dados, contou-se com o auxílio da Linguística de Corpus através de ferramentas computacionais usadas a fim de fazer o levantamento de padrões léxicogramaticais presentes no corpus em estudo. Nesse estudo, optou-se pela utilização dos programas WordSmith Tools, de Scott (1998), e do Mapeador Semântico, de Richter (2009). A fundamentação teórica foi centrada nos seguintes aspectos: sóciointeracionismo de Vygotsky, destacando conceitos-chave como mediação, internalização e zona de desenvolvimento proximal (ZDP); Teoria da Atividade; Teoria Holística da Atividade; Enquadramento conforme a Teoria Holística da Atividade; Aquisição da linguagem e aquisição de conectores. Os resultados mostram que uma metodologia de enquadramento consistente e bem embasada teoricamente, como a Teoria Holística da Atividade, permite aos acadêmicos avançar na aquisição dos conectores à medida que progride também o envolvimento com a metodologia proposta. Portanto, acredita-se, que a vivência prática de uma metodologia de enquadramento pelo acadêmico, futuro professor, ainda na academia, possibilita a ele adquirir experiências e conceitos úteis para o seu exercício profissional, pois, esse conhecimento permitirá ao futuro professor interferir na ZDP do seu aluno quando necessário.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007-07-26Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:08:04Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 martins_o_me_ilha.pdf: 1853643 bytes, checksum: e5ed74dccf9c216b529f9bef47b8a14d (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / No Brasil, é comum o uso de estruturas treliçadas de madeira na construção de coberturas nas edificações e, que, na maioria das vezes, são feitas de forma artesanal ou empírica. Para que haja uma otimização na produção dessas estruturas, através da industrialização, é conveniente o conhecimento e o domínio dos sistemas construtivos disponíveis. A utilização dos conectores metálicos, de chapa com dentes estampados (CDE) nas ligações dos elementos estruturais das treliças, é considerada, pela literatura, uma boa opção de sistema construtivo em escala industrial. Neste trabalho foram determinadas a resistência e a rigidez das ligações por conector CDE, em peças estruturais de madeira, para as classes de resistência: C20; C30 e C40, através dos modos básicos de ruptura das peças ligadas, que são: arrancamento dos dentes na peça de madeira; cisalhamento e tração da chapa. Também foi verificada a influência da variação na umidade das peças de madeira, ao serem prensadas pelo conector CDE, na resistência e rigidez da ligação, visando com isso, contribuir com a Revisão da Norma Brasileira (NBR-7190/97). / The usage of wood trusses is common in the construction of roofs in Brazil, the most of the times are built in way craft or empiric. Obtaining an optimization in the production of these structures, through the industrialization, it is convenient the knowledge and the domain of the available constructive systems. The usage of the metallic connectors, as the metal connectors plates (MCP) in the connections of the structural elements of the truss is considered, for the literature, a nice option of constructive system in industrial scale. In this work, the resistance and the rigidity of the connections for connector MCP, in structural pieces of wood, for the resistance classes C20; C30 and C40, were certained through the basic manners of rupture of the linked pieces are: pull-out of the teeth in the wood piece; cut and traction of the connector. The influence of the variation in the humidity of the wood pieces as they are pressed by the connector MCP, in the resistance and the rigidity of the connections was verified as well, seeking with that, to contribute with Brazilian Code (NBR-7190/97) Revision.