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<p>The RISS (Relational Inquiry and Storage System) data base management system was first implemented at Forest Hospital in Des Plaines, Illinois. It was originally written in BASIC-PLUS to run under the RSTS/E operating system on a DEC PDP-II minicomputer. The RISS system used the relational data base structure because of its basic simplicity and because of the ease with which new relations may be added to the data base without disturbing existing applications.</p> <p>The aim of this project was to convert the existing RISS software from BASIC-PLUS to CBASIC-2 to run on the Dynabyte microcomputer under the CP/M operating system, for use in the McMaster University Faculty of Business. A simple application program was also developed to demonstrate the converted RISS system.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

<p>This report is concerned with an investigation into a software system designed to allow effect utilization of FORTRAN application programs from a library. The components of this system consist of an interpreter program to manipulate character strings and provide overall control, an evaluator program to carry out operations on numeric data and to provide for the calling of library programs, and an associative memory to store and retrieve facts about the environment or field of study in which the system is being used. Details involving how to use each component and how each component works are discussed. Possible improvements to the system and the relationship of the system to the field of control structures are also considered. The implementation of the system is discussed and this leads to an examination of the algorithms used in the operation of the system. Control is easily maintained so systems constructed from the components may be modified or extended by any user. Thus, these components form a basis for a class of extendable systems.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

<p> We present a symbolic analysis of a class of while loop programs which can automatically derive a closed-form symbolic expression for the input-output relation embodied in that program.</p> <p> We show that this is especially well-suited to analyzing programs from scientific computation, in particular programs which compute special functions (like Bessel functions) from its Taylor series expansion. Other than making heavy use of algebraic manipulations, as available in any computer algebra system, we also require the use of recurrence relations. It is from these recurrence relations that we derive most of our information.</p> <p> It is important to note that we can often get interesting information about a program (like termination) without requiring closed-form solutions to the recurrences.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

<P> Trapped ions are one of the best candidate systems to realize quantum computation. In our laboratory, we are trying to implement quantum computing and information processing: two hyperfine ground-states of magnesium-25 ions will serve as the two-level system to store quantum information. The ions are confined in a linear radio-frequency trap under ultra-high vacuum conditions and will be cooled down to their motional ground-states. By illuminating the ions with frequency-stabilized lasers we will be able to initialize, manipulate, and read out their internal electronic quantum states in a well-controlled way and with high fidelity. In addition, the ions can be made to interact with each other by coupling their internal electronic states to a collective vibrational mode of motion along the trap axis. In this thesis, the focus will be on the process of building a trapped-magnesium-ion quantum information processor. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced (ACSR) conductors have been applied in electric power transmission and distribution for over 80 years. Research about ACSR includes its possible properties in electrical, mechanical, and thermal areas. We postulate that these properties predict certain behaviours in power transmission and distribution lines. Four models have been established by various authors for determining conductor behaviour. They are the electromagnetic, mechanical, radial conduction, and steady-state thermal models. These models were developed independently,. Although they can be used in their fields individually, there are no experimental studies verifying a combined model. Also, using them separately does not yield the required information for determining conductor performance. The unified model connects these models probabilistically by considering power system loads and meteorological factors. Based on the unified model and its modules, it is possible to use mathematical tools to optimize the ACSR design and analyze conductor characteristics when conductor parameters are changed,. Evolutionary Computation is an optimization process simulating natural evolution on the computer. Instances based on evolutionary principles are Evolutionary Algorithms that historically include Genetic Algorithms, Evolution Strategies, and Evolutionary Programming. Genetic Algorithms are used in the optimization of multi-dimensional problems in this work. Evolutionary Algorithms are empirically robust in finding near-optimal solutions to complex problems through parallel searches of solution space. Evolution Computations imitates natural evolution and genetic variation, and lays the mathematical foundation for problems in which many inputs are variable. Especially, Genetic Algorithms are extensively applied in engineering to solve problems without satisfying gradient descent, deterministic hill climbing, or purely random search. This project introduces the Evolutionary Algorithms and applies the Genetic Algorithms to the unified models. The problem solved by applying Genetic Algorithms to optimize the unified model is to select optimum multi-dimensional input parameters for the model. This provides an effective way to find conductor size for optimizing conductor design. The results give the variation of electrical, thermal, and mechanical characteristics according to conductor loss changes and predict the variation ranges of electric and magnetic fields of three-layer conductors within ASTM standards. The procedure to apply Genetic Algorithms to optimize ACSR design is unique to the problem. Objective functions are found according to the characteristics of each model. The results are put into the unified model. Comparing results gives rules to change geometrical parameters of ACSR to reach minimal Joule loss. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

The problem of this research was to determine whether using hand-held calculators was more effective for the acquisition and retention of concepts and skills on decimal algorithms and metric units than the use of pencil and paper computation only. The sample consisted of six intact sixth grade classes (175 students). Two classes hand-held calculators (the experimental group) and one class using pencil and paper only (the control group) were located in each of two schools in separate school districts. The classes were assigned randomly as either experimental or control. Each treatment period was 30-50 minutes daily for the duration of the twenty-five day study. Both groups studied the same content based on designated learning objectives. Test scores of the Criterion Referenced Test in Metrics Measurement by Heber and a decimal test, developed by the researcher, were used as dependent variables. Both tests were used as pretests, posttests, and retention tests. The multivariate analysis of covariance technique was used to test the hypotheses. / Ed. D.

This thesis presents a pedagogical framework for understanding dynamic Parametricism within the new media culture. As indicated by the title, 'Appliance Architecture in the Invisible College: a Pedagogical Text', this paper will serve two purposes. First, appliance architecture will construct the theoretical framework that will provide the context for the four case studies presented within this thesis: an interview with Rob Ley, designer of the Reef Project; the design and development of the Eclipsis Screen for the Solar Decathlon house, Lumenhaus; the development of an architectural robotics design laboratory, Prototyping in Architectural Robotics for Technology-enriched Education (PARTeE); and workshop > no.1, a physical computing workshop held at the College of Architecture + Urban Studies (CAUS). Second, the invisible college will serve as a pedagogical framework for teaching dynamic Parametricism within appliance architecture. The invisible college will explore the emergent design typologies developed through the PARTeE laboratory's first year and will culminate in the application of the teaching methodologies used for the physical computing workshop. The following serves to establish the architectural discourse within which 'Appliance Architecture in the Invisible College' is embedded. In the broadest sense, this discourse is that of kinetic architecture. The word 'kinetic' is used to denote motion, or the act or process of changing position of over time, where time is the unit of measurement or relativity. The 'appliance' is defined as any consumer object or assembly with embedded intelligence; it does not shy away from the modern connotation of objects such as a coffee maker, refrigerator or iPod. The appliance as an assembly, therefore, presents a part-to-whole relationship that is understood through GWF Hegel's organic unity, which states: 'everything that exists stands in correlation, and this correlation is the veritable nature of every existence. The existent thing in this way has no being in its own, but only in something else, just as the whole would not be what it is but for the existence of its parts, so the parts would not be what they are but for the existence of the whole' (Leddy, 1991). It is this part-to-whole relationship which provides an understanding of the emergent typologies which structure the foundation for learning within the invisible college. / Master of Architecture

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.) PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This thesis considers the efficient Hessian computation in inverse problems with specific application to the elastography inverse problem. Inverse problems use measurements of observable parameters to infer information about model parameters, and tend to be ill-posed. They are typically formulated and solved as regularized constrained optimization problems, whose solutions best fit the measured data. Approaching the same inverse problem from a probabilistic Bayesian perspective produces the same optimal point called the maximum a posterior (MAP) estimate of the parameter distribution, but also produces a posterior probability distribution of the parameter estimate, from which a measure of the solution's uncertainty may be obtained. This probability distribution is a very high dimensional function with which it can be difficult to work. For example, in a modest application with N = 104 optimization variables, representing this function with just three values in each direction requires 3^10000 U+2248 10^5000 variables, which far exceeds the number of atoms in the universe. The uncertainty of the MAP estimate describes the shape of the probability distribution and to leading order may be parameterized by the covariance. Directly calculating the Hessian and hence the covariance, requires O(N) solutions of the constraint equations. Given the size of the problems of interest (N = O(10^4 - 10^6)), this is impractical. Instead, an accurate approximation of the Hessian can be assembled using a Krylov basis. The ill-posed nature of inverse problems suggests that its Hessian has low rank and therefore can be approximated with relatively few Krylov vectors. This thesis proposes a method to calculate this Krylov basis in the process of determining the MAP estimate of the parameter distribution. Using the Krylov space based conjugate gradient (CG) method, the MAP estimate is computed. Minor modifications to the algorithm permit storage of the Krylov approximation of the Hessian. As the accuracy of the Hessian approximation is directly related to the Krylov basis, long term orthogonality amongst the basis vectors is maintained via full reorthogonalization. Upon reaching the MAP estimate, the method produces a low rank approximation of the Hessian that can be used to compute the covariance. / 2999-01-01

The computation of curvature quantities over discrete geometry is often required when processing geometry composed of meshes. Curvature information is often important for the purpose of shape analysis, feature recognition and geometry segmentation. In this paper we present a method for accurate estimation of curvature on discrete geometry especially those composed of meshes. We utilise a method based on fitting a continuous surface arising from the solution of the Biharmonic equation subject to suitable boundary conditions over a 1-ring neighbourhood of the mesh geometry model. This enables us to accurately determine the curvature distribution of the local area. We show how the curvature can be computed efficiently by means of utilising an analytic solution representation of the chosen Biharmonic equation. In order to demonstrate the method we present a series of examples whereby we show how the curvature can be efficiently computed over complex geometry which are represented discretely by means of mesh models.