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The significance of the removal of the “White Mask” in Ayitian Vodou is to provide an Afrocentric analysis regarding the detriment of Catholicism/Protestantism has inflicted on African agency in Ayiti. The Practice of Ayitian Vodou derives from a variety of West African Spiritual Belief Systems like the Yoruba, Kongo, and Dahomean. During the imperialist era in Ayiti, Ayitians utilized biblical figures to hide their African gods in order to partake in Ayitian Vodou overtly. Due to classism, colorism, racism, and white domination, the camouflage aspect of Ayitian Vodou became a permanent component within Ayitian Vodou. This study proposes that scholars should rely on the method of Masking rather than the popular notion of Double Consciousness in examining African phenomena. W.E.B. Dubois coined Double Consciousness, which does not accurately explain or articulate how African people endured the institution of mental and physical enslavement. Double Consciousness derives from a Eurocentric ideology that operates from depriving African people of their history, culture, perspective, and personal development. / African American Studies

This essay explores drag as an artform, guided by the lens of queer theory, offering insights into the nuanced expressions of drag. Exploring three theatrical productions across genres like modern dance, opera and musical theatre, the study focuses on character portrayal and design, seeking to understand the essence of drag and why certain cross- dressings are more closely associated with drag than others. By combining performance analyses with existing research on drag, this paper reveals the complex and dynamic nature of drag culture. With a particular emphasis on the exploration and subversion of gender norms, the study sheds light on how drag is portrayed and understood within the Swedish theatrical context through Matilda the Musical, Askungen and Everlasting Event. Through this investigation, the essay offers valuable insights into the evolving role of drag as a form of artistic expression and social commentary.

Le traitement de première ligne de l’apnée obstructive du sommeil est l’appareil à pression positive, soit le CPAP, qui est le plus souvent utilisé avec un masque nasal. Certains patients, incapables de tolérer le masque nasal, doivent se tourner vers le masque facial, qui peut parfois requérir une pression supérieure à celle utilisée avec le masque nasal pour éliminer tous les événements respiratoires. Nous supposons que l’ajustement serré du masque facial, dans le but de réduire les fuites, entraîne une pression de recul sur la mandibule; ceci diminuerait le calibre des voies aériennes supérieures, nécessitant donc une pression effective thérapeutique supérieure pour rétablir un passage de l’air. Nos objectifs étaient : 1) de démontrer s’il y avait une différence de pression effective entre le masque nasal et le masque facial, 2) de quantifier la fuite entre les deux masques, 3) d’évaluer l’effet d’une orthèse de rétention mandibulaire neutre (OMN), qui empêche le recul mandibulaire, sur la pression effective des deux masques et 4) d’évaluer s’il existait un lien entre la céphalométrie et les réponses variables des individus. Méthodologie : Lors de cette étude expérimentale croisée, huit sujets (2 femmes, 6 hommes) avec une moyenne d’âge de 56,3ans [33ans-65ans] ont reçu un examen orthodontique complet incluant une radiographie céphalométrique latérale. Ils ont ensuite passé deux nuits de polysomnographie au laboratoire du sommeil en protocole « split-night » où les deux masques ont été portés, seuls, la première nuit, et avec l’OMN, la deuxième nuit. Résultats : Nous avons trouvé que la pression effective thérapeutique était supérieure avec le masque facial comparativement au masque nasal de manière statistiquement significative. Nous avons observé une fuite supérieure avec le masque nasal, ce qui permet de dire que la fuite n’explique probablement pas cette différence de pression entre les deux masques. L’OMN n’a pas donné d’effet statistiquement significatif lorsque combinée au masque nasal, mais il aurait probablement été possible de trouver un effet positif avec le masque facial si le Bi-PAP avait été inclus dans le protocole de recherche. Conclusion : Nos résultats ne permettent pas de confirmer le rôle du recul mandibulaire, causé par la force exercée avec le masque facial, dans l’obtention de pressions supérieures avec ce masque, mais nous ne pouvons toutefois pas éliminer l’hypothèse. Les résultats suggèrent également que ce phénomène est peut-être plus fréquent qu’on ne le croit et qu’il pourrait y avoir un lien avec certains facteurs anatomiques individuels. / The first line of treatment for obstructive sleep apnea is continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP used via a nasal mask. Some patients, unable to tolerate the nasal mask, have to turn to the facial mask, which sometimes requires a superior level of pressure to eliminate all the respiratory events. We believe that the force applied on the chin from a tight adjustment of the facial mask may retrude the mandible and diminish the upper airway caliber. Our objectives for this study were to: 1) demonstrate that a difference of effective therapeutic pressure between the nasal and facial masks does exist, 2) quantify the leaks associated with each mask, 3) evaluate the effect of a neutral mandibular appliance (NMA), that prevents the retrusion of the mandible, on the effective pressure of both masks and 4) evaluate if a link between the cephalometric values and varied individual responses to both masks exists. Methods: Eight subjects (2 females, 6 males) mean age 56.3 years (33-65y) participated in the cross-over design pilot study. All subjects underwent a complete orthodontic examination including lateral cephalometric radiograph before spending two nights in a sleep laboratory for a polysomnography in split-night protocol, where both mask were worn alone on the first night and with the NMA on the second night. Results: We found that the therapeutic effective pressure was higher with the facial mask compared to the nasal mask, and this difference was statistically significant. The leak was more elevated with the nasal mask, thus eliminating this factor as a probable cause of the higher pressure with the facial mask. The NMA did not have any statistically significant effect on both masks; however a possible positive effect might be seen if the Bi-level PAP was included in the protocol. Conclusion: Our results cannot confirm the role of the retrusion of the mandible, caused by the force applied by the facial mask, in the necessity of a superior level of pressure with that mask, but we cannot eliminate that possibility either. Our results suggest that this phenomenon is more frequent that we may think and that a link with some anatomical factors may exist.

Esta dissertação é o compartilhar dos caminhos criados e trilhados por mim durante o processo de feitura do experimento cênico Entre o brilho do relâmpago e o canto do trovão, na linguagem da meia máscara expressiva. Ao longo de todo o percurso, inspirada pelo pensamento sistêmico, pela pedagogia de Jacques Lecoq e pela ideia de currículo em espiral de Jerome Bruner, desenvolvo a ideia de \"Cena-Mundo\" e amadureço a proposta de \"processo de criação em espiral\". / This master\'s thesis shares the paths that I\'ve created and walked through during the development process of the scenic experiment Between the lightning\'s glaring and the thunder\'s song through the usage of the expressive half mask. Throughout the journey, which was inspired by the systemic thinking, the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq and the idea of spiral curriculum of Jerome Bruner, I\'ve developed the idea of \"scene-world\" and I\'ve grown in maturity over the proposal of \"spiral creation process\".

Le traitement de première ligne de l’apnée obstructive du sommeil est l’appareil à pression positive, soit le CPAP, qui est le plus souvent utilisé avec un masque nasal. Certains patients, incapables de tolérer le masque nasal, doivent se tourner vers le masque facial, qui peut parfois requérir une pression supérieure à celle utilisée avec le masque nasal pour éliminer tous les événements respiratoires. Nous supposons que l’ajustement serré du masque facial, dans le but de réduire les fuites, entraîne une pression de recul sur la mandibule; ceci diminuerait le calibre des voies aériennes supérieures, nécessitant donc une pression effective thérapeutique supérieure pour rétablir un passage de l’air. Nos objectifs étaient : 1) de démontrer s’il y avait une différence de pression effective entre le masque nasal et le masque facial, 2) de quantifier la fuite entre les deux masques, 3) d’évaluer l’effet d’une orthèse de rétention mandibulaire neutre (OMN), qui empêche le recul mandibulaire, sur la pression effective des deux masques et 4) d’évaluer s’il existait un lien entre la céphalométrie et les réponses variables des individus. Méthodologie : Lors de cette étude expérimentale croisée, huit sujets (2 femmes, 6 hommes) avec une moyenne d’âge de 56,3ans [33ans-65ans] ont reçu un examen orthodontique complet incluant une radiographie céphalométrique latérale. Ils ont ensuite passé deux nuits de polysomnographie au laboratoire du sommeil en protocole « split-night » où les deux masques ont été portés, seuls, la première nuit, et avec l’OMN, la deuxième nuit. Résultats : Nous avons trouvé que la pression effective thérapeutique était supérieure avec le masque facial comparativement au masque nasal de manière statistiquement significative. Nous avons observé une fuite supérieure avec le masque nasal, ce qui permet de dire que la fuite n’explique probablement pas cette différence de pression entre les deux masques. L’OMN n’a pas donné d’effet statistiquement significatif lorsque combinée au masque nasal, mais il aurait probablement été possible de trouver un effet positif avec le masque facial si le Bi-PAP avait été inclus dans le protocole de recherche. Conclusion : Nos résultats ne permettent pas de confirmer le rôle du recul mandibulaire, causé par la force exercée avec le masque facial, dans l’obtention de pressions supérieures avec ce masque, mais nous ne pouvons toutefois pas éliminer l’hypothèse. Les résultats suggèrent également que ce phénomène est peut-être plus fréquent qu’on ne le croit et qu’il pourrait y avoir un lien avec certains facteurs anatomiques individuels. / The first line of treatment for obstructive sleep apnea is continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP used via a nasal mask. Some patients, unable to tolerate the nasal mask, have to turn to the facial mask, which sometimes requires a superior level of pressure to eliminate all the respiratory events. We believe that the force applied on the chin from a tight adjustment of the facial mask may retrude the mandible and diminish the upper airway caliber. Our objectives for this study were to: 1) demonstrate that a difference of effective therapeutic pressure between the nasal and facial masks does exist, 2) quantify the leaks associated with each mask, 3) evaluate the effect of a neutral mandibular appliance (NMA), that prevents the retrusion of the mandible, on the effective pressure of both masks and 4) evaluate if a link between the cephalometric values and varied individual responses to both masks exists. Methods: Eight subjects (2 females, 6 males) mean age 56.3 years (33-65y) participated in the cross-over design pilot study. All subjects underwent a complete orthodontic examination including lateral cephalometric radiograph before spending two nights in a sleep laboratory for a polysomnography in split-night protocol, where both mask were worn alone on the first night and with the NMA on the second night. Results: We found that the therapeutic effective pressure was higher with the facial mask compared to the nasal mask, and this difference was statistically significant. The leak was more elevated with the nasal mask, thus eliminating this factor as a probable cause of the higher pressure with the facial mask. The NMA did not have any statistically significant effect on both masks; however a possible positive effect might be seen if the Bi-level PAP was included in the protocol. Conclusion: Our results cannot confirm the role of the retrusion of the mandible, caused by the force applied by the facial mask, in the necessity of a superior level of pressure with that mask, but we cannot eliminate that possibility either. Our results suggest that this phenomenon is more frequent that we may think and that a link with some anatomical factors may exist.

The Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping (SLAM) problem is an open fundamental problem in autonomous mobile robotics. One of the latest most researched techniques used to enhance the SLAM methods is instance segmentation. In this thesis, we implement an instance segmentation system using Swin Transformer combined with two of the state of the art methods of instance segmentation namely Cascade Mask RCNN and Mask RCNN. Instance segmentation is a technique that simultaneously solves the problem of object detection and semantic segmentation. We show that depth information enhances the average precision (AP) by approximately 7%. We also show that the Swin Transformer backbone model can work well with depth images. Our results also show that Cascade Mask RCNN outperforms Mask RCNN. However, the results are to be considered due to the small size of the NYU-depth v2 dataset. Most of the instance segmentation researches use the COCO dataset which has a hundred times more images than the NYU-depth v2 dataset but it does not have the depth information of the image.

Quality inspection is an essential part of almost any industrial production line. However, designing customized solutions for defect detection for every product can be costlyfor the production line. This is especially the case for short-series production, where theproduction time is limited. That is because collecting and manually annotating the training data takes time. Therefore, a possible method for defect detection using only synthetictraining data focused on geometrical defects is proposed in this thesis work. The methodis partially inspired by previous related work. The proposed method makes use of aninstance segmentation model and pose-estimator. However, this thesis work focuses onthe instance segmentation part while using a pre-trained pose-estimator for demonstrationpurposes. The synthetic data was automatically generated using different data augmentation techniques from a 3D model of a given object. Moreover, Mask R-CNN was primarilyused as the instance segmentation model and was compared with a rival model, HTC. Thetrials show promising results in developing a trainable general-purpose defect detectionpipeline using only synthetic data

The male house sparrows has two assumed visible sexual traits which are 1) the colouration (or brightness) of the beak and 2) the size of the black badge on the bird’s throat and chest. Earlier research has shown that the testosterone concentration play an important part in determine the beak colour, with a higher testosterone concentration giving the bird a darker beak and as such making the male more attractive to females.     Even though stress has been counted for as a changing factor of phenotypes and behaviour it is not certain how vast effect stress has on different animals. This study is focusing on how and if the individuals fundamental stress level (fundamental corticosterone concentration) is affecting the morphological appearance, in this case the visible sexual traits (beak colour and badge size) and mask (an indicator of age), within the house sparrows in the Lundy Island population. In this study there was no relationship between beak colour and corticosterone concentrations, stating that beak brightness is not determined by fundamental stress. Likewise there was no relationship between the corticosterone concentrations and the size of the badge. Mask measurements in relationship to corticosterone showed no significant effect. These results indicate that there is no relationship between the corticosterone concentration in the blood and the mask size or the beak colour and badge size as visible sexual traits. / Många forskare är ense om att gråsparvshannen använder sig av två synliga karaktärsdrag för att attrahera honor. Den första är mörkhetsgraden på näbben och den andra är storleken på hannens svarta bröstlapp, placerad på hals och bröst. Tidigare forskning har visat att näbbfärgen påverkas kraftigt av hannens testosteron nivå och att en högre testosteron nivå leder till en mörkare näbb, vilket är mer attraktivt för honorna.    Även om stress har visat sig påverka både fenotyp och beteende hos många olika djurgrupper är det fortfarande oklart hur stor effekt stress har på olika djur. Denna studie fokuserar på hur och om den individuella fundamentala stressnivån (den fundamentala kortikosteron nivån) påverkar de synliga attraherande karaktärsdragen (näbbfärg och bröstlappsstorlek) hos gråsparvshannarna. I denna rapport analyseras även hannarnas masker, vilka fungerar som åldersindikatorer, i relation till de individuella kortikosteron koncentrationerna. Inget samband kunde hittas mellan näbbfärg och kortikosteron nivå hos de analyserade individerna. Likaså kunde inget samband hittas mellan kortikosteron nivån och storleken på hannens bröstlapp. Inte heller maskstorleken visade samband med kortokosteron nivån. Resultatet indikerar således att stress inte påverkar hannens sexuellt attraktiva karaktärsdrag eller mask.