No description available.

This essay analyses Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman and Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski through a phenomenological lens. Through the theoretical framework, mainly consisting of Sara Ahmed’s The Cultural Politics of Emotion and Queer Phenomenology, I discuss how feelings such as desire and shame work through the subject and influence its relationship with their surroundings. The analysis concludes that the emotion of shame is an isolating feeling, causing the subject to shield themselves from their surroundings. At the same time shame is forgotten in its own temporality, whereas the emotion itself is mistaken as permanent by the subject in the feeling state. On the other hand, the forbidden desire feels temporary and like something that could be expelled from the body. Furthermore, I discuss how desire affects the relationship between subject and object, especially through the ways that desire complicates the hierarchal division between the two. I further posit how desire affects boundaries between bodies and how the forbidden desire creates the will to penetrate boundaries while at the same time maintaining them. Through the combination of shame and desire the subject is limited in their worldview, where the desire can feel impossible to navigate through the “life-lines” that Ahmed theorizes because of the shame that follows. The essay concludes that the relationship between shame and desire affects the relationship between subject and object mainly through the internalization of societal norms.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>This thesis is concerned with two separate subjects; (i) Defect localization using tree mining and tree matching, and (ii) Quality-of-service-aware service selection; it is divided into these parts accordingly.</p> / <p>This thesis is concerned with two separate subjects; (i) Defect localization using tree mining and tree matching, and (ii) Quality-of-service-aware service selection; it is divided into these parts accordingly.</p> <p>In the first part of this thesis we present a novel technique for defect localization which is able to localize call-graph-affecting defects using tree mining and tree matching techniques. In this approach, given a set of successful executions and a failing execution and by following a series of analyses we generate an extended report of suspicious method calls. The proposed defect localization technique is implemented as a prototype and evaluated using four subject programs of various sizes, developed in Java or C. Our experiments show comparable results to similar defect localization tools, but unlike most of its counterparts, we do not require the availability of multiple failing executions to localize the defects. We believe that this is a major advantage, since it is often the case that we have only a single failing execution to work with. Potential risks of the proposed technique are also investigated.</p> <p>In the second part of this thesis we present an alternative strategy for service selection in service oriented architecture, which provides better quality services for less cost. The proposed Request Replication technique replicates a client’s request over a number of cheap, low quality services to gain the required quality of service. Following this approach, we also present a number of recommendations about how service providers should advertise non-functional properties of their services.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

I conducted demographic and behavioral studies of Western Sandpipers (Calidris mauri) breeding on the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta, Alaska (1998-2005). In chapter one, I estimated apparent annual survival (product of true survival and site fidelity) while correcting for the probability of encounter for 237 males and 296 females. Overall return rates (individual returned to the site in a subsequent season) were lower for females (40%) than males (65%), as was apparent annual survival (&#177; SE, females = 0.65 &#177; 0.05, males = 0.78 &#177; 0.03), and encounter rate (females = 0.51 &#177; 0.07, males = 0.74 &#177; 0.04). In chapter two, I examined the effects of mate and site fidelity on nesting success (N = 430 nests). Annual divorce rate ranged between 37-83%, with 17-63% of pairs reuniting annually. Reuniting pairs initiated clutches earlier than newly formed pairs, and clutches that were initiated early in the season had higher nest success rates compared to late-season nests. When I controlled for clutch-initiation date, nests tended by individuals with prior breeding-site experience had higher daily survival rates compared to birds breeding at the site for the first time. The effect of site experience was greater for males than females. In chapter 3, I reported that Western Sandpipers exhibited aggregated breeding behavior on a 36 ha plot. Breeding aggregations occurred when dominant and/or older individuals excluded younger, subordinate individuals from preferred habitat. The pattern of habitat occupancy conformed to an ideal despotic distribution with aggregated nesting birds in less preferred habitat experiencing lower reproductive success. In chapter 4, I described and demonstrated the form and function of parent-chick communication in the Western Sandpiper. Through experimental playback of adult vocalizations to chicks in the field, I demonstrated: (1) chicks respond to the alarm call by vocalizing relatively less often and moving away from the signal source, (2) chicks respond to the gather call by vocalizing relatively more often and moving toward the signal source, (3) and chicks respond to the freeze call by vocalizing relatively less often and crouching motionless on the substrate for extended periods of time. I also describe two distinct chick vocalizations (chick-contact and chick-alarm calls). / Ph. D.