This thesis aims to explore the nature of predictions through examining the ways in which they are employed to the frameworks of assumptions that generate and in turn provide a context for interpretation. These frameworks, be they scientific or even religious/spiritual in nature utilise predictions (e.g. demonstrable hypotheses or prophecies) as a means of ascertaining knowledge and understanding about the world. There exists a problem, however, if the status of knowledge derived from the less logical or intuitively based predictive processes is viewed within many mainstream scientific frameworks as being either without validity or wholly impossible. The reason as to why predictions are formed is generally due to a lack of information about the state of a system under observation. The use of predictions within our lives then is often so prevalent that we can take for granted the extent to which we base our behaviour upon possibilities and not actualities through the anticipation of what might be. The primary reason for this is due to the passage of time, in that we would not be able to perceive the future (or the past) without the construct of time. This enables us to then establish models or frameworks of events to project into the future. The other inherent phenomenon then associated with predictions is the formation of expectations that are generated from these models, frameworks or even assumptions. These expectations can be formulated and described in a variety of ways, from the very well defined mathematical descriptions that constitute statistical information about the likelihood of a correct prediction, to the comparatively vague impressions of feelings about the future that are characterized as intuitions or gut feelings.

If the present world scenario in telecommunication systems is considered thousands of systems are getting moved into the cloud because of its wide features. This thesis explains the efficient ways to upgrade Docker containers in a way to support backward compatibility. It mainly concerns about the high-availability of systems in the cloud environment during upgrades. Smaller changes can be implemented automatically to some extent. The minor changes can be handled by Apache Avro where schema is defined in it. But at some point Avro also cannot handle the situation which becomes much more complex. In a real world example, we need to perform major changes on the top of an application. Here we are testing different upgrade strategies and comparing the code complexity, total time to upgrade, network usage of single upgrades strategy versus multiple upgrade strategy with and without Use of Avro. When code complexity is compared the case without Avro performs well in single upgrade strategy with less time to upgrade all six instances but the network usage is more compared to multiple upgrades. So single upgrade strategy is better to maintain high availability in Cloud by performing the upgrades in an efficient manner.

Thesis advisor: Chia-Kuang Tsung / Incorporating shape and size controlled metal nanoparticles (NPs) into metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) shows great potential in heterogeneous catalysis. The combination of ordered nanoporous structure of MOFs and the well-defined surfaces of metal NPs provides a new tool to modulate the catalysis on the metal surface. Due to the large pore size, framework flexibility and selective interaction with gas molecules, MOFs have been widely used for gas storage with high selectivity. Among which have been developed to date, Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks-8 (ZIF-8) and UiO-66 show advantageous properties. The solvent resistivity and high thermal stability makes them stand out to be good candidates as shell materials in core shell catalysts. In our work, we developed an efficient way to create a yolk-shell structure of Pd nanoparticles in ZIF-8 and, at the same time, a method to incorporate the shape/size controlled Pt nanoparticles into well-defined octahedral UiO-66 nanocrystals with the control of concentration and dispersion. The formation mechanisms of both yolk-shell and core-shell structures were also studied in the work. / Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

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Made available in DSpace on 2019-03-30T00:14:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2017-12-22 / Lately Blockchain technology has been gaining market visibility. The popularization of this concept can be attributed to the exponential success of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, launched in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto. The disruptive vision of this technology and the diverse possibilities of application in different businesses have been generating a series of changes and investments in the market, especially the financial sector. The emergence of several Fintechs (Startups in the financial sector) focused on software using Blockchain demonstrates the investments made to advance this technology. In this work, a bibliographical research was carried out in order to understand the state of the art of Blockchain and an experience of use was developed, where an application was developed using this technology, being source of information for the detailed definition of a software development process, based on Lean Startup, to support startups working with projects involving Blockchain. Keywords: Software Development, Process, Blockchain, Startup. / Ultimamente a tecnologia de Cadeia de blocos (Blockchain) vem ganhando visibilidade no mercado. A popularização deste conceito pode ser atribuída ao sucesso exponencial da criptomoeda Bitcoin, lançada em 2008 por Satoshi Nakamoto. A visão disruptiva dessa tecnologia e as diversas possibilidades de aplicação em negócios distintos vêm gerando uma série de mudanças e investimentos no mercado, destacando-se principalmente o setor financeiro. O surgimento de diversas Fintechs (Startups do setor financeiro) voltadas a softwares que utilizam Blockchain demonstra os investimentos ocorridos para o avanço dessa tecnologia. Neste trabalho, foi realizada uma pesquisa bibliográfica a fim de compreender o estado da arte de Blockchain e foi também executada uma experiência de uso, onde foi desenvolvido um aplicativo utilizando esta tecnologia, sendo fonte de informações para a definição detalhada de um processo de desenvolvimento de software, baseado em Lean Startup, para apoiar startups a trabalharem com projetos que envolvam Blockchain. Palavras-chave: Desenvolvimento de Software, Processo, Blockchain, Startups.

In 2001, the Highways Agency (HA) published a procurement strategy in response to a succession of studies during the 1990s, including Sir Michael Latham's "Constructing the Team" report, Sir John Egan's "Rethinking Construction" report, and the National Audit Office report "Modernising Construction". The strategy covers the full range of the HA's activities, with a focus on its delivery of services to road users as the operator of England's motorway and trunk road network, valued at £60 billion. In this respect, the HA's work is broadly divided into categories based on cost, namely maintenance contracts, regional projects and major projects. Within the regional projects category for works valued between £500k and £5 million, works are packaged together and procured through frameworks, allowing longterm relationships with delivery teams as a means of providing best value. To further promote this, the HA has embarked on a new initiative in Areas 9 and 10 of entering into direct contractual arrangements with specialist trade contractors and suppliers to form the Construction Management Framework (CMF). The contract commenced in July 2002 for a four year term, with an option, year on year, to extend to seven years, and covers the delivery of road renewals, structures renewals and improvement schemes. In addition, lean thinking has been identified as a means of providing improvement, and a lean construction trial has been planned on a road renewals project in Area 9, with the opportunity for developing lean as best practice within the CMF. The research aims to assess the performance of the CMF in highways renewals schemes. There are two objectives of the research: to assess the delivery of best value in highways renewals and improvements schemes using construction management, in particular through the establishment of a framework community; and to demonstrate how lean thinking can be used to provide continuous improvement within the framework community arrangement. The research methods used have included: questionnaires; surveys; longitudinal and crossAbstract iii sectional data comparison; and case studies. The main outputs of the research are: the development of a measurement agenda to address the value definitions defined in the research; the development of a lean procedure to be used in the CMF based on the outcomes of the lean trial; and recommendations for improving the CMF. The research has contributed to knowledge by providing a practical application of a collaborative framework arrangement, and identifying its strengths and weaknesses as a working model in the highways renewals and maintenance sector. It contributes to theory by providing a practical framework for initiatives, including lean thinking; for industry, it identifies implementation of those initiatives, and suggests improvements to overcome barriers to establishing and operating collaborative frameworks.

Shared memory multi-core processor technology has seen a drastic developmentwith faster and increasing number of processors per chip. This newarchitecture challenges computer programmers to write code that scales overthese many cores to exploit full computational power of these machines.Shared-memory parallel programming paradigms such as OpenMP and IntelThreading Building Blocks (TBB) are two recognized models that offerhigher level of abstraction, shields programmers from low level detailsof thread management and scales computation over all available resources.At the same time, need for high performance power-ecient computing iscompelling developers to exploit GPGPU computing due to GPU's massivecomputational power and comparatively faster multi-core growth. Thistrend leads to systems with heterogeneous architectures containing multicoreCPUs and one or more programmable accelerators such as programmableGPUs. There exist dierent programming models to program these architecturesand code written for one architecture is often not portable to anotherarchitecture. OpenCL is a relatively new industry standard framework, de-ned by Khronos group, which addresses the portability issue. It oers aportable interface to exploit the computational power of a heterogeneous setof processors such as CPUs, GPUs, DSP processors and other accelerators. In this work, we evaluate the eectiveness of OpenCL for programmingmulti-core CPUs in a comparative case study with two CPU specic stableframeworks, OpenMP and Intel TBB, for ve benchmark applicationsnamely matrix multiply, LU decomposition, image convolution, Pi value approximationand image histogram generation. The evaluation includes aperformance comparison of the three frameworks and a study of the relativeeects of applying compiler optimizations on performance numbers.OpenCL performance on two vendor-dependent platforms Intel and AMD,is also evaluated. Then the same OpenCL code is ported to a modern GPUand its code correctness and performance portability is investigated. Finally,usability experience of coding using the three multi-core frameworksis presented.

Neste trabalho, é especificado um framework orientado a objetos para auxiliar o desenvolvimento de aplicações e componentes que se comunicam através de troca de eventos. Um serviço de eventos que facilite a criação de produtos de software que utilizam os modelos de distribuição Push e Pull foi criado; a solução permite também a migração de um modelo para o outro de forma direta. Foram criadas duas instâncias do framework para cada um desses modelos, nas quais foram empregadas técnicas de multithreading e pool de threads visando torná-las eficientes. O problema da ordenação natural de eventos é abordado e o framework incorpora uma solução para o mesmo. _________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT: This dissertation specifies an object-oriented framework to support the development of applications and components that communicate through events. An Event Service that eases the creation of software products that use the Push and Pull models of distribution was created; the solution also allows easy migration from one model to the other. Two instances of the framework were created for those models, and multithreading and thread pool techniques were used to make them more efficient. The problem of natural ordering of events is approached and the framework incorporates a solution to it.

This bachelor thesis explores the rapidly evolving landscape of JavaScript rendering frameworks, comparing and evaluating Next.js, SvelteKit, and Astro. The motivation behind this investigation is to help determine the most suitable rendering framework for contemporary web developers. To address this problem, a two-pronged methodology was employed: firstly, a survey was conducted to gather insights into web developers' usage of rendering frameworks and their opinions on different aspects of the frameworks; secondly, a controlled experiment was carried out by building web applications using the three frameworks to gather data on their performance, capabilities, and developer experience. The results of the study indicate that all three evaluated frameworks are strong options, but each offers unique advantages and drawbacks that must be considered when motivating a decision between them.

Luminescent metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are promising new materials with applications as sensors, photocatalysts, and other luminescent devices. Although MOFs retain the chemical and physical properties of their constituents, the properties of the MOF are often altered from those of its building blocks, making rational design and synthesis difficult. Anthracene is a polyaromatic hydrocarbon whose photophysical properties have been found to be easily tuned through structural modifications. The tunability of anthracene makes it an ideal candidate for use in luminescent devices, such as photoprobes and organic light emitting diodes. MOFs designed with π conjugated molecules like anthracene ligands possess similar photophysical properties such as absorption and fluorescence in the UV and visible spectrum. In hopes of better understanding how the photophysical properties of the organic ligand is altered upon incorporation into a MOF, the spectroscopic properties of anthracenedicarboxylic acids were studied before and after integration into zinc based MOFs. Steady state and time resolved measurements were performed on three anthracenedicarboxylic acids: 9,10-anthracenedicarboxylic acid, 2,6-anthracendicarboxylic acid, and 1,4-anthracenedicarboxylic acid. The position of the carboxylic acid groups on anthracene was found to effect the position and structure of the absorption and emission spectra. The difference in the spectra is attributed to the perturbation by the acid groups on certain electronic transitions with dipole moments across two of the three axes of anthracene. The position of the acid groups had different effects on the fluorescence quantum yields and lifetimes of the three anthracenic acids studied. Two of the linkers were synthesized into MOFs through a solvothermal reaction with zinc nitrate, to form PCN-13, from 9,10-anthracenedicarboxylic acid, and [Zn(C₁₆H₈O₄)(H₂O)]_n, from 2,6-anthracenedicarboxylic acid. The luminescent properties of the two MOFs were studied and compared to those of the free based linker. Incorporation of the luminescent anthracenedicarboxylic acids into Zn based MOFs were found to either increase or decrease the luminescent properties of the ligands. / Master of Science