The thesis project wants to research the concept of Mongrel Geometries, the development of a spatial system that considering the processes of Form Finding as a design tool and their tight relationship with the model of efficiency and structural optimization, start questioning their problem/solving based procedure with the purpose of understanding which are the potentials of these methods to introduce within the built environment new atmospheric and programmatic qualities. / The intervention consists in the re-design of the Train Station and of the incorporated Bus Terminal, resolving the general connective tissue, and stimulating the public activity towards the sea side. The Terminal wants to be intended not only as a place of departure but also as an attractive place itself.

This degree project is about designing sustainable, comfortable and aesthetically pleasingunderwear. The market does not currently offer many options for those who want to feelattractive and comfortable at the same time. Users have a hard time finding the perfect fit,since sizing systems are problematic. In addition, most panties are made of non sustainabletextiles, which does not live up to users wishes. In this essay we investigate which factorsinfluence panty fit, as well as an exploration of materials to find a suitable proposal forunderwear. The process is based upon a user-focused approach. We worked closely togetherwith a focus group and arranged a large quantitative study of users needs and preferences. This resulted in the thong Venusa, in sizes XS-XL, made out of ribbed Tencel™ fabric. Thethong has a differently designed crotch to better fit women’s genitals. The seams aresewn on the outside of the fabric, to avoid chafing against skin and placed for the bestcomfort possible. While developing the concept and making decisions we have relied onour requirement specification as well as the goal to create sustainable, comfortable andaesthetically pleasing underwear.

Unreinforced masonry (URM) walls are often used as load-bearing or infill walls in buildings in many countries. Such walls are also commonly found in existing and heritage buildings in Canada. URM walls are strong structural elements when subjected to axial loading, but are very vulnerable under out-of-plane loads. This type of loading may come from different sources , including seismic or blast events. When subjected to blast, wall elements experience large pressures on one of their faces due to the high pressure produced in the air when an explosion takes place. This wave of compressed air travels in a very short time and hits the wall causing immense stresses, which result in large shear and bending demands that may lead to wall failure, and the projection of debris at high velocities that can injure building occupants. This failure process is highly brittle due to the very low out-of-plane strength that characterize such walls. In the past years, many investigations have been carried out to enhance the structural behaviour of unreinforced masonry walls under out-of-plane loading. Different strengthening methods have been studied, which include the use of polyurea coatings, the application of advanced fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites or the use of concrete overlays in combination with high performance reinforcement. Fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM) is a new composite material that overcomes some of the drawbacks of FRP. This composite material consists of applying coatings which consist of one or more layers of cement-based mortar reinforced with a corresponding open mesh of dry fibers (fabric). This material has been studied as a strengthening technique to improve in-plane and out-of-plane capacity of existing URM walls as well as other structural elements, mostly under seismic actions. This thesis presents an experimental and analytical study which investigates the effectiveness of using FRCM composites to improve the out-of-plane resistance of URM walls when subjected to blast loading. As part of the experimental program, three large-scale URM masonry walls were constructed and strengthened with 1,2 and 3 layers of FRCM using unidirectional carbon fabrics. In all cases the specimens were built as load-bearing concrete masonry (CMU) walls. To increase shear resistance, two of the walls were also grouted with a flowable self-compacting concrete (SCC) mortar. Blast tests were conducted using the University of Ottawa Shock Tube and the results are compared with control walls tested in previous research at the University of Ottawa. The experimental results show that the FRCM retrofit significantly improved the blast performance of the URM load-bearing walls, allowing for increased blast capacity and improved control of displacements. The performance of the retrofit was found to be dependent on the number of retrofit layers. As part of the analytical research, Single Degree of Freedom (SDOF) analysis was carried out to predict the blast behaviour of the strengthened walls. This was done by computing wall flexural strength using plane sectional analysis and developing idealized resistance curves for use in the SDOF analysis. In general, the analysis procedure is found to produce reasonably accurate results for both the resistance functions and wall mid-height displacements under blast loading.

The study aimed to explore the determinant factors that influence consumers’ sustainable consumption, or more specifically consumers living in Scandinavia. The study seeked to understand what influences Scandinavian people to purchase a sustainable product based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) including the attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. To conduct a better approach, a case company was involved in the working process, with the help of which, the focus became more specific into fabric and clean care appliances such as dish machines, washing machines and dryers. To provide an exhaustive answer to the research questions, three hypotheses were conducted which were built based on the TPB model.  The study used a quantitative approach where an online survey was made. The survey was shared with people living in the Scandinavian countries Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, where 291 answers were collected. To analyze all the answers, SPSS statistics was used where each country was individually analyzed.  The results showed that an individual’s attitude and perceived behavioral control have a significant influence on the behavioural intention to perform sustainable consumption in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark while the subjective norm does not affect the sustainable consumption in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Finland was the only country that had an accepted hypothesis on the subjective norm which means that finish people get influenced by the subjective norms.

Peer-to-Peer energy trading enables the prosumers and consumers to trade their energy in a simple services.By this the energy users have possibility to have a surplusshare of energy without any interruptions[1].But for the higher deployment of thep2p energy services, the allocation of the resources for the energy trading transactions are also challenging to model in these days. Blockchain technology, which isof a distributed ledger system and also provides a secure way of sharing the information between the peers of the network, is suitable for the proposed p2p energytrading model which can be useful for the higher scale deployments. This thesis provides an initial implementation of the p2p energy trading modelusing the blockchain and also measures the performance of the implemented modelwith the computational.A literature review is conducted for obtaining the previousstudies related to p2p energy trading using blockchain with the performance evaluation.Then the technologies related to the thesis are described and from the literaturestudies the required models are described and considered for proposing the systemmodel for the thesis. The implemented system model is also analyzed with different computational efforts for the service management functions. For generating the transactions, a Fabricclient SDK is created, which ensures that each transaction communicates with theblockchain’s smart contract for the secured transaction. Finally, after measuring thecomputational efforts, I want to observe the performance outcome for the measuredcomputational parameters so that the system’s behavior can be analyzed when thetransactions are happening between the peers by using the specific blockchain technology.

Blockchain has become the most revolutionary technology in the 21st century. In recent years, one of the concerns of world energy isn't just sustainability yet, in addition, being secure and reliable also. Since information and energy security are the main concern for the present and future services, this thesis is focused on the challenge of how to trade energy securely on the background of using distributed marketplaces that can be applied. The core technology used in this thesis is distributed ledger, specifically blockchain. Since this technology has recently gained much attention because of its functionalities such as transparency, immutability, irreversibility, security, etc, we tried to convey a solution for the implementation of a secure peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading network over a suitable blockchain platform. Furthermore, blockchain enables traceability of the origin of data which is called data provenience. In this work, we applied a secure blockchain technology in peer-to-peer energy sharing or trading system where the prosumer and consumer can trade their energies through a secure channel or network. Furthermore, the service management functionalities such as security, reliability, flexibility, and scalability are achieved through the implementation. \\ This thesis is focused on the current proposals for p2p energy trading using blockchain and how to select a suitable blockchain technique to implement such a p2p energy trading network. In addition, we provide an implementation of such a secure network under blockchain and proper management functions. The choices of the system models, blockchain technology, and the consensus algorithm are based on literature review, and it carried to an experimental implementation where the feasibility of that system model has been validated through the output results.

Maintenance and rehabilitation of existing masonry and reinforced concrete structures are of great importance in the field of civil engineering. Due to deterioration and severe environment, numerous structures fail to meet functional or safety requirements, and as a result, they should be strengthened. Several methods have been utilized to repair the structures, including steel plate bonding, cable post-tensioning, and section enlargement. However, these methods bring disadvantages, such as significant added dead load and high labour cost. Therefore, externally bonding with composite materials has attracted considerable attention recently. Externally bonded fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets have been widely used to strengthen reinforced concrete and masonry structures. FRP has been a common method to provide a higher service life for structures for several decades. However, strengthening structural members with FRP introduces certain drawbacks, such as their poor performance in fire scenarios caused by the rapid softening of the polymer-based resin. An alternative strengthening system known as a fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM) has been developed to address this issue by replacing resin-based material with an inorganic cementitious-based matrix. Nonetheless, the performance of FRCM at high temperatures has not been investigated sufficiently so far. Hence, this research focused on the mechanical behaviour of FRCM at high temperatures. This experimental research investigates the tensile performance of carbon FRCM at high temperatures. First, the temperature distribution within the specimens during heating was studied using nine specimens with one, two, or three layers to reveal the required time for the inner fabric to reach a steady temperature. Then, the tension and stiffness degradation of FRCM coupons were studied at different temperatures. A total of 84 FRCM coupons were fabricated and tested in tension; 60 of the tests were conducted at steady-state conditions in which temperature was held constant and load increased, and 24 specimens were carried out in transient-state tests, in which load was constant, and temperature grew. In order to provide a more comprehensive knowledge concerning the FRCM composite, some key variables were included in this research. These parameters are the number of layers (1, 2, 3) leading to different thicknesses (20, 30, 40 mm), the orientation of the fabric layer (unidirectional and bidirectional), target temperature (ambient, 100, 200, 300, 400°C), and heating condition (steady-state, transient state). These tests aimed to reveal the primary mechanical characteristics such as ultimate strength and cracked elastic modulus at different temperatures and compare them with control specimens tested at room temperature. With the increase in the number of fabric grids from one to two and three, the stress at failure decreased by about 11 and 18%, respectively. With regards to cracked elastic modulus two and three-layered specimens showed 18 and 20% reduction in value. It is also noteworthy to mention that overall load capacity of specimens rose with the increase in number of layers; however, due to the more significant increase in area, the stress was reduced. The same decreases in the cracked elastic modulus and ultimate strength were observed as the target temperature increased. Increasing the temperature to 400°C led to a decrease in ultimate strength and cracked elastic modulus of approximately 60 to 70%. Furthermore, the bidirectional specimens showed a better behaviour than unidirectional specimens in terms of ultimate strength; however, their cracked elastic moduli were almost the same. With regards to the transient-state tests, as the material became thicker, the failure temperature increased considerably. For instance, a 20-mm specimen failed at 467°C with a 20% sustained load, while a 30-mm specimen failed at 558°C. Another vital parameter studied in transient-state tests was the decrease in temperature with the increase in sustained load. An example of this is the 20-mm specimens which failed at 352 and 258°C, while they were preloaded to 40 and 60% of their capacities. The conclusions of this study suggest that FRCM materials do retain a non-negligible strength capacity at high temperatures. However, further investigations to reveal FRCM bond behaviour and retrofitted structural members at high temperatures are still required to provide comprehensive knowledge.

This work places itself within the field of textile design and atmospheric design. The primary motive is to integrate and broaden the two fields by developing design proposals in textile design. The aim is to explore how to change the atmosphere of a space through the use of fabric manipulations, surface patterns, colours, light and shadow. The design method consisted of material explorations, light and shadow experiments, design of surface patterns, heat transfer print and pleating techniques. Colours were tested in combination with lights. The result is a collection of three textile dividers of space that by the impact of light change the current atmosphere in public spaces, and by doing so, the perception and mood are changed. The value of this work is to show design potentials for new expressional possibilities, a new approach to merge the fields of textile design and atmospheric design.

Public land management agencies, conservation organizations, and landowners are interested in expanding the diversity of plant species used in rangeland restoration seedings. While the restoration of native grasses and shrubs in the Great Basin has become increasingly successful, restoration of native forbs continues to be problematic. In the Great Basin, soil water availability and soil fungal pathogens are thought to limit to restoration success. During the course of two years, we conducted two field experiments at three sites in the Great Basin that spanned a latitudinal gradient encompassing different precipitation and temperature patterns. In the first experiment, we evaluated two treatments for enhancing native forb restoration – snow fences and N-sulate fabric. In addition, we tested whether multiple fungicide and hydrophobic seed coatings could reduce seed and seedling mortality from soil fungal pathogens. To quantify the effectiveness of treatments, we tracked the fate of sown seeds over four life stages: germination, seedling emergence, establishment, and second-year survival. We found that snow fences and N-sulate fabric had varying degrees of success for increasing seedling emergence or establishment but ultimately did not increase second-year survival. Seed coatings increased seedling emergence but did not increase establishment or second-year survival. In the second experiment, we replicated the first experiment and also measured soil water availability to better understand how snow fences and N-sulate fabric alter soil water availability, and if differences in soil water availability can explain restoration outcomes. While we found that our treatments can increase soil water availability, increased soil water did not consistently result in better restoration outcomes. Snow fences did not benefit any life stage at any site while N-sulate fabric had positive and negative effects on forb restoration depending on the site. Seed coatings increased seedling emergence and establishment at all sites, warranting further research with other forb species. Results from both experiments provide insights for developing new treatments and techniques that can improve native forb restoration in the Great Basin and similar semiarid systems.

Len len is about the process. Originating in environmental issues and reflecting the processuality of the creation of a work of art. Processes from production to product, from tradition to the present, from memory to experience, from fast to slow, from imperfection to perfection, from the impersonal to the personal, from beginning to end. I deal with work with textiles as a classic medium, while I devote myself to the cultivation of flax as the original, in our country, raw material for the production of textiles. From the beginning, I watch carefully as it grows, I take care of it and I patiently expect the time of collection and subsequent processing. This phase is very important for me, as it brings with it various procedures, applied in old proven technologies, in interaction with people from whom I learn the craft and who shape the whole process, but especially from behind, observe how I am doing, what I managed. It is a personal and at the same time technical record of a two-year effort.