The estimation of software project attributes, such as size, is important for software project resource planning and process control. However, research regarding software attribute modeling, such as size, effort, and cost, are high-level and static in nature. This research defines a new operation-level software project attribute that describes the operational characteristic of a software project. The result is a measurement based on the s-curve parameter that can be used as a control variable for software project management. This result is derived from modeling the count of artifact instances created by the software engineering process, which are stored by software tools. Because of the orthogonal origin of this attribute in regard to traditional static estimators, this s-curve based software attribute can function as an additional indicator of software project activities and also as a quantitative metric for assessing development team capability.

This thesis documents the fieldwork component of the archaeological survey, testing, and data recovery efforts associated with 41BX1753, a historic-age site located in downtown San Antonio, Texas. This paper details the project’s activities and results and provides feature and artifact descriptions. Furthermore, this work provides a contextual analysis of 41BX1753 based on the artifacts recovered and the archival record. In the report, I explore the social, political and economic relationships in San Antonio’s past through the study of the material and archival records associated with a single property and its residents. Examined within a greater historical context, these records are indicative of choices made by some of San Antonio’s most influential residents indicating a sense of identity and status, as well as strategies of adaptation and accommodation to ensure stability in the face of constant change. / text

This thesis focuses on the development of a "Keeping House" near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Although there is an extensive artifact collection in Saskatchewan, many First Nations' artifacts are spread out throughout the province, Canada, and in other countries. These artifacts are living items, with a story, history and ceremony attached to them and they are in need of repatriation through a process which ensures their safety and preservation. This project will offer environments for the safe-keeping of Saskatchewan First Nations' artifacts, as well as areas for teaching and ceremonies. It will also build on the existing historical strengths of the land on which it sits.

This thesis explores an architectural response for an urban site that incorporates the dismantled façade stones (spolia) of the site’s previous building into two dialectical devices: a ramp and a camera obscura. Each device allows the stones to act as both artifact (individual object with an embedded history) and frame (structure that invites a reading of its context). Spatial and temporal concepts from film provide theoretical guidance for the dialectical structure of the architectural design approach. A constant navigation between pairs of opposing forces (capturing/projecting, introvert/extrovert, operator/device, artifact/frame, object/subject) results in a pair of architectures, one a cinema + digital archive and the other a film school, between which a public space is activated as an outdoor amphitheatre. The two buildings simultaneously act as object (artifact) and subject (frame) in an attempt to locate and express a redefined historical continuity for the site.

Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the dominant tool used for mapping human brain function because it is non-invasive, does not use ionizing radiation, and offers relatively high spatial and temporal resolution compared to other neuroimaging techniques. Unfortunately, conventional fMRI techniques cannot map brain function in the inferior temporal cortex (ITC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). These brain regions experience severe magnetic field distortions due to magnetic susceptibility mismatch with the neighboring air-filled ear-canals (ITC) or sinus cavities (OFC), causing loss of the fMRI signal. Functional imaging capability is important for gaining a better understanding of these brain regions and the diseases that commonly affect them (Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy (ITC), Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia (OFC)). Balanced steady state free precession (balanced SSFP) is a relatively new fMRI technique that can measure function in all brain regions. Rather than diffuse signal loss, balanced SSFP images exhibit signal loss in spatially periodic, narrow bands. Banding artifacts cannot be eliminated in a single scan, but the phase of the banding artifacts can be controlled by the experimenter, permitting the combination of two antiphase balanced SSFP images to produce a single image free of banding artifacts. Unfortunately, image-corrupting transient signal oscillations limit the rate at which the banding artifact phase can be modified, such that the banding-artifact-free image acquisition rate is prohibitively slow for most clinical and neuroscience applications. This work describes the development of a modified balanced SSFP fMRI technique, alternating SSFP, which permits rapid, banding-artifact-free balanced SSFP fMRI. Theoretical modeling was used to find a rapid transition between antiphase balanced SSFP images with minimal transient signal oscillations. Monte Carlo simulations were used to optimize alternating SSFP acquisition parameters for BOLD sensitivity, with comparison to established balanced SSFP acquisitions. Rat fMRI was used to confirm these predictions. Finally, the ability of alternating SSFP to provide rapid, banding-artifact-free balanced SSFP fMRI in humans at 4 T was demonstrated.

The aim of this thesis is to study preschool-teachers’ experiences from using the computer tablet as a tool for learning and teaching, in order to gain knowledge of how the integrational process of information and communications technology (ICT) in preschool has progressed since its instatement. The background that caused interest to make this study was the rapid progression of the use of ICT-tools in childrens’ everyday lives and the troubles that have surrounded the process of integrating these tools into preschool-practices. The theoretical basis for the analysis of the research lies within the socio-cultural perspective. The methods used to gather empirical data were discussions held in focus-groups consisting of teachers from three different preschools in Sweden where the theme of the discussions were computer tablets. In accordance with a socio-cultural approach to verbal communication as data the discussions were seen as socially situated practices. The results of this study were that tablets were only in part integrated with school-activities as they were well used for by the pedagogues for purposes such as organizing, documentation and communication but not as well used among the children due to different circumstances. Another finding of the study was that teachers find that they often lack the ICT-competences required to develop good learning situations and conditions for their students with the computer tablets. Based on the teachers’ testimonies not only is there a need for in-service training for teachers but perhaps also necessary to provide teachers with further direction for work with computer tablets, how they should be used and the extent of their role within preschool settings.

Montreal’s Lachine Canal, once the cradle of Canadian industry, is now riddled with industrial ruins, testaments to its productive past. Since the canal’s closing in the 1970’s, different attempts were made to reinterpret its role within the city. Contaminated sediments pollute the manufactured waterway, now stagnant and derelict. These toxic remains impact the redevelopments and heritage parks of the canal corridor. In the absence of any holistic future vision, these conditions pose a threat to local inhabitants and industrial artifacts. Meanwhile, Parks Canada’s approved heritage status pertaining to certain parts of the canal, further contributes to the segregation of the corridor into sporadic developments and static voids. Antoine Picon refers to these networks of technological remnants as ‘Anxious Landscapes’ – landscapes of artifacts that exist in the realm between technological obsolescence and ruin in the process of returning to nature. These landscapes are charged with industrial ruins and their residues in decay, perceived as waste, make us feel ill at ease with them. Portions of the canal and its industrial artifacts have been identified as having significant heritage value, but what productive possibilities do these heritage artifacts hold beyond their identified status? What possibilities do these imaginative playgrounds possess to reshape the corridor beyond its static blight? In abandoned industrial icons such as the Canada Malting Plant, resides the potential to address the remediation and reinterpretation of the corridor. The thesis investigates whether interaction with these industrial remnants can permit a tactile connection that allows us to uncover and explore the significance of such landscapes in a larger temporal perspective that considers past, present, and future. It proposes to reveal and express the historical development of the canal, exploring remedial solutions and spaces of community participation, energizing the Lachine Canal and its anxious landscape.

<p>In this thesis, I present three research topics in the areas of scanning and printing.</p><p>The first topic is on detecting and removing specific artifacts in images scanned using</p><p>sheetfed scanners. Sheetfed scanners are widely used for scanning stacks of loose pages at</p><p>high speed. The scanhead in the sheet-fed scanners is stationary and the pages are fed with</p><p>an automatic document feeder. When dust particles get stuck onto the scanner glass, they</p><p>reflect the incident light and cause vertical streaks in the scanned images. These artifacts are</p><p>known as dust streaks. I have developed a method for detecting and healing dust streaks.</p><p>The second topic is on motor control system and test page design for inkjet printers.</p><p>Motor control consists of two main parts which are movement of the printhead in the scan</p><p>direction and the process direction. Scan direction movement needs to have a constant</p><p>smooth velocity in order to avoid banding artifacts. Process direction movement needs to</p><p>advance an exact distance in order to avoid misalignment. The full procedure for implementing</p><p>the motor control on a microcontroller, determining optimal parameters, and designing</p><p>test pages for validating the motor control system is presented.</p><p>The third topic is on printer model based halftoning and print mask design using DBS.</p><p>Inkjet printers can fire nozzles at specific pixel locations. Due to nozzle clogging and nonuniformity</p><p>in the nozzles, inkjet printers usually print in the multipass mode to reduce print</p><p>artifacts. In this mode, the printhead goes over the same line more than once with different</p><p>sets of nozzles of the same ink. Print mask determines which pixels are printed at a certain</p><p>pass and which pixels are not printed. I developed a printer model to predict prints and</p><p>also developed test pages to obtain parameters for the printer model. Then, we looked into</p><p>model based halftoning and print mask design using the direct binary search algorithm. In</p><p>addition, I investigated the advantages and disadvantages of using light magenta as opposed</p><p>to using black ink in 4-color printing.</p>

In Canada, approximately 544,000 upper-limb injuries occurred in a 12-month period between 2009 and 2010, many of which were injuries to the rotator cuff muscles of the shoulder. Because of the complex structure and function of the shoulder, it is often difficult to determine which muscles have been injured. The most widely used technology to study human movement is motion capture, wherein markers are affixed to a subject’s skin and are tracked by cameras as the subject moves. The recorded marker trajectories are then used to estimate the bone locations and joint angles during the tracked motion. This is called an inverse kinematic simulation. The simulation can then be used to estimate variables that are difficult or impossible to measure directly, such as the activation of single muscle heads within a muscle group. However, muscles bulge and skin stretches during movement, so the markers that are affixed to the skin generally move relative to the underlying bones. These errors, known as soft-tissue artifacts, lead to uncertainty in the calculation of bone locations and, consequently, uncertainty in the computed skeletal joint angles. This uncertainty limits the use of inverse kinematic simulations in clinical settings. Given the skin tissue’s elastic behaviour, a spring-based equilibrium model can be used to estimate the behaviour of skin during non-impulsive motion. In the proposed model, markers were placed on the surface of ellipsoids (representing the thorax, abdomen, scapula, and upper arm) and were attached to each other via springs. The system was assumed to remain in static equilibrium during sufficiently slow movements to approximate the stretch of the skin. In this thesis, the development and application of a proof-of-concept model to estimate the pose of the skeleton is described. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using such a model to reduce errors due to soft-tissue motion.

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