Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur digitalisering av musikbranschen hittills har påverkat trummisar och trummor som instrument, samt att sia om hur eventuella framtider skulle kunna se ut. Detta undersöktes med hjälp av fem muntliga intervjuer där informanterna fick samtala om deras erfarenheter av modern teknik kopplad till trummor samt deras tankar om hur digitaliseringen påverkar deras och andras musicerande. Resultatet av undersökningen pekar på att digitaliseringen fört med sig både för-och nackdelar för de som verkar inom musikbranschen. De digitala verktygen har effektiviserat arbetsflödet för många, men verkar inte helt och hållet kunna ersätta den mänskliga trummisen. Åtminstone inte inom en överskådlig framtid. Undersökningen bidrar med kunskap om hur de verksamma inom musikbranschen upplever sin situation och öppnar upp för vidare forskning på flera olika håll. Exempelvis kan andra instrumentgrupper undersökas och maktfördelningen i branschen granskas närmare.

Gripped by the mechanics of “walking into a sea of whiteness,” I frame this master’s thesis through the following research question: What are the live(d) experiences and stories of a teacher candidate of colour in relation to race and racism in Teacher Education? Responding to this question, I engage in a personal narrative inquiry to examine and interrogate my own live(d) experiences and stories as a teacher candidate of colour in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa from 2018 to 2020. I specifically dwell in the (im)possibilities of my travelogue in the two-year program, as I travel to the past to write in the present. A process that unfolds as I arrange that journey in the following: on arrival, on beginning, on collapsing, and on finding community. The writing of which is story(ed) in my live(d) experiences through narratives, as well as journal entries and poems, which are analyzed through a closed reading, complicating and troubling the notion of racism and “white spaces” in Teacher Education.

This study is designed to assess the effectiveness of closed-circuit television (CCTV) as a post-partum teaching tool using an interactive problem-solving approach, compared with conventional group classes, in fostering the acquisition of skills and knowledge around baby care. A second primary objective is to determine the level of satisfaction of respondents with both approaches to post-partum education. An extensive discussion of the theoretical basis for the proposal is presented, drawing upon and synthesising concepts from the literature of Sociology, Education and Health Sciences. The conceptual model (Sword 1990) represents a synthesis of Mezirow’s (1978) theory of the transformation of meaning perspective with D’Zurilla’s (1986) cognitive-appraisal approach to the acquisition of new knowledge. In addition, adult learning principles are applied to the selected teaching strategies to identify optimal conditions of learning (Zemke and Zemke 1988). A two-group cohort design was used for randomisation, and the data collected was subjected to both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Two measures of learning were not significantly different for the videotape and live class groups. Statistically significant differences were identified between the groups in the attitude measures of convenience and ease of understanding. There was also a measurable difference in levels of satisfaction with the different approaches used. However, the results of this study suggest that combining an interactive, problem-solving approach to post-partum education with CCTV, is no more effective than live group classes in achieving knowledge acquisition for new mothers. CCTV can be used to address the basic and repetitive aspects of patient education and it appears to be effective for short-term knowledge gain. Several issues for further study are proposed in relation to the planning and implementation of alternative approaches to conventional post-partum teaching, as well as the design of future televised patient education programmes. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

No / With the rapid growth of the scale, complexity, and heterogeneity of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems, it has become a great challenge to deal with the peer's network-oblivious traffic and self-organization problems. A potential solution is to deploy servers in appropriate locations. However, due to the unique features and requirements of P2P systems, the traditional placement models cannot yield the desirable service performance. To fill this gap, we propose an efficient server placement model for P2P live streaming systems. Compared to the existing solutions, this model takes the Internet Service Provider (ISP) friendly problem into account and can reduce the cross-network traffic among ISPs. Specifically, we introduce the peers' contribution into the proposed model, which makes it more suitable for P2P live streaming systems. Moreover, we deploy servers based on the theoretical solution subject to practical data and apply them to practical live streaming applications. The experimental results show that this new model can reduce the amount of cross-network traffic and improve the system efficiency, has a better adaptability to Internet environment, and is more suitable for P2P systems than the traditional placement models.

It's a dream come true when flesh-and-blood fanboy Alex Kepple moves in with cartoon former child star Roy Thompson. Now, he just has to hide that his family are the ones gentrifying the toon town he now calls home.

The slowdown of Moore's Law opened a new era of computer research and development. Researchers started exploring alternatives to the traditional CPU design. A constant increase in consumer demands led to the development of CMPs, GPUs, and FPGAs. Recent research proposed the development of heterogeneous-ISA systems and implemented the necessary systems software to make such systems functional. Evaluations have shown that heterogeneous-ISA systems can offer better throughput and energy efficiency than homogeneous-ISA systems. Due to their low cost, ARM servers are now being adopted in data centers (e.g., AWS Graviton). While prior work provided the infrastructure necessary to run applications on heterogeneous-ISA systems, their dependency on a specialized kernel and a custom compiler increases deployment and maintenance costs. This thesis presents HetMigrate, a framework to live-migrate Linux processes over heterogeneous-ISA systems. HetMigrate integrates with CRIU, a Linux mechanism for process migration, and runs on stock Linux operating systems which improves its deployability. Furthermore, HetMigrate transforms the process's state externally without instrumenting state transformation code into the process binaries which has security benefits and also improves deployability. Our evaluations on Redis server and NAS Parallel Benchmarks show that HetMigrate takes an average of 720ms to fully migrate a process across ISAs while maintaining its state. Moreover, live-migrating with HetMigrate reduces the attack surface of a process by up to 72.8% compared to prior work. Additionally, HetMigrate is easier to deploy in real-world systems compared to prior work. To prove the deployability we ran HetMigrate on a variety of environments like cloud instances (e.g. Cloud Lab), local setups virtualized with QEMU/KVM, and a server-embedded board pair. Similar to works in the past, we also evaluated the energy and throughput benefits that heterogeneous-ISA systems can offer by connecting a Xeon server to three embedded boards over the network. We observed that selectively offloading compute-intensive workloads to embedded boards can increase energy efficiency by up to 39% and throughput by up to 52% while increasing the cost by just 10%. / Master of Science / In 1965 Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors in a chip will double every two years. Commonly referred to as "Moore's Law" it no longer holds true and its slowdown opened a new era of computer research and development. Researchers started exploring alternatives to traditional computer designs. A constant increase in consumer demands led to the development of portable, faster, and cheaper computers. Some researchers also started exploring the performance and energy benefits of computing systems that had heterogeneous architecture. Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is the interface between software and hardware. Recent research proposed the development of systems that had cores of different ISA and implemented the necessary software to make such systems functional. Evaluations have shown that heterogeneous-ISA systems can offer better throughput and energy efficiency than traditional systems. To decrease their cost-to-performance ratio data centers have started adopting servers belonging to diverse architectures making them heterogeneous in nature. While prior work provided the infrastructure necessary to run applications on heterogeneous systems, it suffered from deployability limitations. This thesis presents HetMigrate, a framework that enables stateful program migration in heterogeneous systems. HetMigrate runs on stock open-source operating systems which makes it easy to deploy. Our evaluations show that while HetMigrate performs two orders of magnitude slower than prior work, it can be deployed with ease.

The post-prognosis lifespan for those suffering with Glioblastoma (GBM) is approximately 13 months with current standard of care. Intratumoral heterogeneity is a common characteristic that hinders GBM treatment in the form of therapy resistant cell subsets and influence on cellular phenotypes. One cell subset in particular, glioma stem cells (GSCs), is frequently left behind in the brain parenchyma once the bulk of the tumor has been resected. Previous research has found that patient-derived GSCs displayed varying invasion responses with and without the presence of interstitial flow. Interestingly, GSCs from a single patient are heterogeneous, displaying differences among sub-colonies derived from the same parental line. To study the motility of cells under flow, PDMS microfluidics are commonly used. Unfortunately, this setup often involves active flow generation using pumps, limiting the number of cell lines that can be imaged at a time. To increase the throughput of GSC sub-colonies imaged simultaneously, we developed a bio-compatible, printable device fabricated to allow for passive, gravity-driven flow through a hydrogel that recapitulates the brain microenvironment, eliminating the need for pumps. Stereo lithography 3D printing was chosen as the manufacturing method for the device, and this facilitated design feature modification when prototyping, increased the potential complexity of future iterations, and avoided some of the hurdles associated with fabricating PDMS microfluidics. This printable imaging device allows for higher throughput live-imaging of cell lines to aid in the understanding of the relationships between intratumoral heterogeneity, invasion dynamics, and interstitial flow. / Master of Science / For those suffering with Glioblastoma, a high-grade brain cancer, the life span post treatment is approximately 13 months. The cells in this and many forms of cancer have physical and biological differences that make successfully eliminating the disease difficult. One of the cell types contributing to this are Glioma Stem Cells (GSCs) that are often left in brain tissue once most of the tumor has been surgically removed. Previous research has found that GSCs from different sources had different responses with and without the simulated or actual presence of flow in brain tissue. This was further complicated when different responses were observed in cells obtained when breaking apart one of the cell lines and propagating these into their own sub-colonies. The current standard for studying the movement of cells under flow is by using compact chips made of a clear silicone rubber. The setup with microfluidics typically requires connection to external tubing and pumps to create flow and this limits the amount of cell types that can be imaged at a time. In order to monitor more cells at a time we created a 3D printable device that uses gravity for flow to go through a gel that mimics brain tissue and these cells of interest. Resin 3D printing was used to make these small devices so that they could be easily re-designed for other experimental purposes in the future. Hopefully this device could be used to more rapidly gain an understanding of cell movement in GBM and other disease models.

Adjacent box beam bridges are economical bridge systems for accelerated bridge construction. The box beams are constructed at precast plants and are traditionally connected by a shear key filled with grout. This system is ideal for short spans with low clearance restrictions. However, due to the grout deteriorating and debonding from the precast concrete in the shear key, reflective cracking propogates through the deck allowing water and chemicals to leak down into the joints. This can lead to the prestressing steel inside the precast member and the transverse tie steel corroding. This necessitates the bridge being rehabilitated or replaced which shortens the life-span of the bridge system and negates the economical value it had to begin with. This research project aimed to design a rehabilitation plan for an adjacent box beam bridge with deteriorated joints using Very High Performance Concrete (VHPC). VHPC was chosen as an economical alternative to the proprietary Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) and extensive material tests were performed. The results of the material testing of VHPC and grout revealed that VHPC had higher compressive and tensile strengths, a higher modulus of elasticity, gained strength faster, bonded better to precast concrete, was more durable over time, and shrank less than conventional grout. The results of this research project were applied to rehabilitate the Buffalo Branch Bridge and further testing will be completed to determine the effectiveness of the rehabilitation. / Master of Science

Loblolly pine is a commonly planted pine species in the Southern US which is intensively managed as well as a major contributor to the timber industry. Various silvicultural treatments are commonly applied to pine plantations including thinning and sometimes pruning. Tree crowns contain the active photosynthesis region and play a vital role in tree growth. Among various tree crown measurements, live crown ratio (LCR) is derived from height to live crown base (HLCB) and total tree height. Accurate measurement of HLCB is basis for live crown ratio prediction. Due to numerous definitions and practical considerations, HLCB and crown structure are difficult and slow to measure accurately. Despite this, LCR is a useful predictor in various growth and yield models. Due to the challenges in measuring tree crowns, accurate live crown ratio prediction models are useful. The LCR model of (Dyer and Burkhart, 1987) was refit with intensively managed plantation (IMP) data. The parameters were significant, and the residual plots showed no concerning patterns but the prediction of height to live crown base for pruned trees was not logical as it sometimes predicted HLCB lower than pruning height. To address this, the base model was modified to accommodate the pruning effect and provide logical predictions. LCR is in range of 0 - 1 and HLCB is greater or equal to pruning height. If trees are not pruned, it reverts to the original model. The models were validated with a dataset of IMP measurements not used in fitting. Validation statistics suggest the model performs nearly as well as the original, unconstrained base model. It is expected that the new model will be useful for forest managers to predict LCR of both pruned and unpruned trees. The second part of the study is to understand the importance of common tree variables in predicting the lumber recovery in planted loblolly pine. A random forest model was used to determine the variable importance of DBH, total tree height and live crown ratio for total board ft., high-grade, and high-grade lumber proportion compared to total board ft. DBH ranked at the first position followed by total tree height and live crown ratio similarly ranked for volume and high-grade lumber volume. For proportions of high-grade lumber, tree height was at top rank followed by LCR, and DBH. However, the effect of these variables for lumber recovery was not explored. It is suggested that future work can explore parametric model forms for accurately predicting lumber recovery using simple, easy to measure tree variables. / Master of Science / Loblolly pine plantations are found in large areas of southern United States. Significant investments are made for maximizing wood production and economic benefits. The growth of trees is largely governed by its crown which is the green foliage found in upper parts of tree. Planted trees are often thinned to provide crown sufficient light for improved growth. Tree crowns are sometimes pruned to reduce knot size and improve lumber quality. If we can understand how these activities affected the crown length of trees, we can manage our plantation accordingly. With this motivation, the live crown ratio which is the ratio of length of live crown and total tree height was modeled. An existing live crown ratio model for planted loblolly pine trees was modified to provide logical predictions for pruned trees and was updated with newer data. Simple tree measurements like tree diameter, height and age were used in the model. Common tree variables were used because LCR is derived from height to live crown base which is difficult to measure in field. The new model will be useful to forest managers for predicting the growth of loblolly pine plantations subjected to pruning. Similarly, an attempt is made to explore the various standing tree characteristics affecting the amount of lumber that can be obtained. This will assist in understanding the lumber grade by using common tree measurements and value of a stand from lumber production side can be known.

Two compositions, live electronic music for instrument and computer, have been analyzed in the essay to reflect one of my aesthetics principles, content-driven composition, and the solutions that the I have applied to solve the problems which have occurred in practice. By content-driven, I mean that compositional process, material, mood, and affect are expressions of content drawn from visual art, literature, nature, religion, traditional aesthetics and other non-musical sources. During the journey of exploration, I was often deeply moved and inspired by a historical moment, a real-world story, a film, a poem, a statement, an image, a piece of music, or a natural law. In content-driven works, these elements play a major role in the creative processes.