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Syfte: Syftet med föreliggande in-vitro-studie är att utvärdera brotthållfastheten av singelkronor utformade som en central överkäksincisiv framställda av monolitisk högtranslucent Y-TZP, buckalt porslinsskiktad underkonstruktion av translucent Y-TZP eller monolitisk litiumdisilikatbaserad glaskeram. Material och metod: Sexton monolitiska kronor av högtranslucent Y-TZP framställdes med CAD/CAM-teknik, Coprasmile®(HTW) och Prettau® Anterior®(HTZ). Sexton kronor av translucent Y-TZP med buckal porslinspåbränning framställdes med CAD/CAM-teknik och manuell porslinsuppläggning, Copran HT®(LTW) och Prettau® Zircon(LTZ). Åtta monolitiska kronor av litiumdislikatbaserad glaskeram framställdes med pressteknik, IPS e.max® Press(LD). Samtliga kronor genomgick termocykling före cementering till stansar. Därefter genomgick kronorna cyklisk mekanisk förbelastning innan de frakturerades i en universal testmaskin. Resultat: Kronorna av translucent Y-TZP med buckal porslinyta visade högst brotthållfasthetsvärde. Gruppen LTW visade signifikant högre brotthållfasthetsvärde jämfört med de andra grupperna: HTW, HTZ, LTZ och LD. Slutsats: Fortsatt utveckling av testmetod för kronor utformade som incisiver är nödvändigt för att öka förståelsen kopplat till material, utformning av ersättning och testmetod med klinisk relevans. Det finns behov av vidare studier för högtranslucent Y-TZP samt semimonolitiska kronor av translucent Y-TZP. Beroende på materialval och kronutformning visades skillnader, men med studiens begränsningar kan ingen generell slutsats dras gällande brotthållfastheten. / Purpose: The purpose of this in-vitro-study is to evaluate the fracture resistance between high translucent monolithic Y-TZP, translucent Y-TZP with buccal porcelain veneering and monolithic lithium disilicate based glass-ceramic, designed as a single central maxilla crown. Material and method: Sixteen monolithic high translucent Y-TZP crowns were fabricated using CAD/CAM technique, Coprasmile®(HTW) and Prettau® Anterior®(HTZ). Sixteen crowns of translucent Y-TZP and buccal porcelain veneering were fabricated using CAD/CAM technique and manually layered porcelain, Copran HT®(LTW) and Prettau® zircon(LTZ). Eight monolithic crowns of lithium disilicate based glass-ceramic were fabricated using pressing techniques, IPS e.max® Press(LD). All crowns underwent thermo cycling prior to cementation to dies. Subsequently all crowns were subjected to a cyclic mechanical preload before being exposed to load-to-fracture in a universal testing machine. Result: Translucent Y-TZP with buccal veneering showed the highest rupture strength amongst the groups. The group LTW showed significantly higher fracture strength compared to the other groups: HTW, HTZ, LTZ and LD. Conclusion: Further development of testing methods for anterior crowns are necessary to increase the understanding connected to materials, crown designs and test methods for clinical relevance. There is a need in further studies for high-translucent Y-TZP and semi monolithic crowns made of translucent Y-TZP. There showed differences depending on the choice of material and crown form, but within the limitation of this study, no general conclusion can be drawn regarding the fracture strength.

<p>Education has become increasingly important in today’s society. In the three essays of this dissertation, I analyze the impacts of government education policies on elementary and high school students in Ontario.</p> <p>The first two essays measure the costs and benefits of programs that allow students to choose from a wider range of high schools. Theoretically, increased choice could benefit students since schools might compete for students by improving their productivity. The third essay of this dissertation, coauthored with Jean Eid and Christine Neill, examines the impacts on students of a switch from half-day to full-day kindergarten.</p> <p>In the first essay (Chapter 2), I document that students living in areas with more choice are more likely to apply to university. These outcomes seem to be due to competition between Public and Catholic school boards. I find that students attending public schools are more likely to apply to university when they are surrounded by more Catholic schools (and vice versa).</p> <p>In Chapter 3, I examine a potentially negative outcome of increased choice. I find that it is the brightest students (as measured by their standardized test scores) who are the most likely to take up the choice and opt in to a different school. These bright students move to what are perceived to be the better schools, leaving behind weaker students at poorer schools. If peer effects are important, this has the potential to be harmful for weaker students.</p> <p>In Chapter 4, my coauthors and I measure the impact of full-day kindergarten on standardized test scores once the students are in grades 3 and 6. We find that this universal program had no effect on the overall likelihood that a student passes these standard tests; however, we do observe some small improvements for students living in low-income and low-education neighbourhoods.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>Norman Mailer announced in Advertisements For Myself (1959) that he wished to revolutionize the consciousness of our time. With this as his goal he developed an aesthetics which views both life and art as a process of growth toward a full humanity and away from post-World War II American (and universal) tendencies to stifle human r,rowth through a technological totalitarianism.</p> <p>Mailer envisions the creation of life as a function of a divine power and the destruction of life as that of a satanic power who war with each other for possession of the universe. We do not know for whom we do battle, but our intuitions of good and evil are to be trusted.</p> <p>Growth for Mailer takes the form of a line of movement made by confronting and defeating opponents of a full humanity; he terms such engagements whose outcome is unknown and therefore dangerous to the self "existential". His life and his art make up a dramatic and progressive dialectic. There are three books which I believe contain Mailer's most effective expressions of his aesthetics and which have the greatest potential for revolutionizing the consciousness of our time. Each is the culmination of a phase in Mailer's growth which contains in itself the unified strands of that growth.</p> <p>The first phase includes the early success of The Naked and the Dead, the subsequent popular and critical failures of Barbary Shore and The Deer Park, the slou~hln[. off of old models, political and artistic, the creation of a radical creed in "The \'lhi te Negro" and a radical form in Advertisements For Myself. The latter is the culmination of this phase and is analyzed in detail. By the time of Advertisements Mailer has made himself the chief metaphor for his concept of erowth, thus synthesizing theme and method. The second phase enlarges the meaning of Mailer's existentialism, most particularly by his venturing deeply into the current political and social realm, and culminates in a new synthesis of growth in fictional theme and form in An American Dream (1965). The novel's protagonist, Stephen Rojack, defeated by a powerful satanic agent and by his own weakness, proves unequal to the task Mailer sets for the American hero: to unite the real- and the dream-life of the nation in himself and to lead a united nation to human wholeness which embraces all contradictions.</p> <p>The central occupation of the third phase of Mailer's work, therefore, is to develop himself--in the absence of other suitable candidates--into a representative American hero. His experimentation with various media for communication--drama, film, television, and others--ls a search for effective vehicles for his vision and is preparation for his assumption of the heroic role. Mailer's involvement with the central issues confronting the United States is rendered in a considerable experiment in novelistic form, Why Are We in Vietnam? The culmination of his efforts in this phase is the culmination of his work to date as well: The Armies of the Night (1968). Relating the experiences of a character called "Mailer", Mailer as narrator and novelist-historian not only creates himself as a representative comic American hero but invents a form which carries a total vision of the events of the 1967 March on the Pentagon, uniting traditional methods and aims of history, the novel, and journalism. With this boolc Mailer assumes the role of interpretor for our time, immersin~ himself in important contemnorary events in order to present us with his views of their meaning and significance.</p> <p>Mailer's three books following The Armies of the Night are discussed in a final chapter as similar to but lesser efforts than Armies.</p> <p>In this thesis Mailer's work is placed in two specific contexts which provide a basis for suggesting his significance: that of American literature, with emphasis upon his contribution to the literature of the American Dream and upon his indebtedness to Hemingway in particular and twentieth-century novelists in f,eneral; and that of contemporary thought which also seeks to influence the direction of future human life.</p> <p>Because his aesthetics of growth sees human progress as its art, Mailer's nonlitrerary roles are considered a vital part of his total work and consequently the critical standards applied in this thesis are Mailer's own: how well does each work register growth on Mailer's part and how potentially effective is the work in revolutionizing the consciousness of our time?</p> <p>Mailer scholarship is still in infancy. The contribution of this thesis to that scholarship lies in its approacth to Mailer's work as a progressive whole and its delineation of that progress; its critical approach whlch confronts Mailer on his own terms; its extensive treatment of works other than novels; the broad contexts which suggest the significance of Mailer's work; and the comprehensive bibliography, the most complete yet assembled on Mailer.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Being and inviting full selves into academia is about marginalized and minoritized academics, teachers, and students investing in marginalized academics, teachers, and students. This autoethnographic and qualitative interview-based research starts to re-/co-author a new kind of academia; an academia based on care and consent which uplifts instead of tears down, and which centers crip, feminist, and queer justice. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this work, I discuss the possibilities that are opened by bringing your whole self into the institution of academia as a student, teacher, and/or researcher. A Pedagogy of the Full Self is about creating a new scholastic arena where those who face oppression are welcomed wholeheartedly as though they always belonged. I discuss how identities of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and dis/ability can impact student learning, faculty teaching, and researchers developing new information and I emphasize the role of clear communication in the process of developing new ways to learn, create, and share knowledge.

Satellite laser ranging provides an opportunity to track spacecraft trajectory fluctuationsas well as contributes to study of Earth’s tectonic motions and parameters ofMoon motions. Routine operations of laser ranging are carried out during night-timewhen noise probability is low. Classical approach for distance estimation includesdistance prediction thus reflected signal is expected to arrive during known time intervalcalled gate, however this is not possible when targeted object trajectory is notknown. In these cases gateless registration mode can be applied, but this mode greatlyreduces signal-to-noise ratio. In this thesis filter for noise event reduction during gatelessor full event registration was successfully developed. The filter is applied duringthe post-processing stage to improve signal-to-noise ratio of gathered data from laserranging. Not only the application of filter resulted in reduction of noise events, butalso it provides an insight whether there is an actual useful signal being emitted fromspacecraft. Investigation of event loss during full registration showed loss probabilityof 7.6% for calculated noise rate of 19 events per 0.01 millisecond. The developedfilter in combination with gateless registration mode opens the door for precipitationaltitude determination.

This research effort aims to develop a series of full-sized humanoid robots, and to research a simple but reliable bipedal walking method. Since the debut of Wabot from Waseda University in 1973, several full-sized humanoid robots have been developed around the world that can walk, and run. Although various humanoid robots have successfully demonstrated their capabilities, bipedal walking methods are still one of the main technical challenges that robotics researchers are attempting to solve. It is still challenging because most bipedal walking methods, including ZMP (Zero Moment Point) require not only fast sensor feedback, but also fast and precise control of actuators. For this reason, only a small number of research groups have the ability to create full-sized humanoid robots that can walk and run. However, if we consider this problem from a different standpoint, the development of a full-sized humanoid robot can be simplified as long as the bipedal walking method is easily formulated. Therefore, this research focuses on developing a simple but reliable bipedal walking method. It then presents the designs of two versions of a new class of super lightweight (less than 13 kg), full-sized (taller than 1.4 m) humanoid robots called CHARLI-L (Cognitive Humanoid Autonomous Robot with Learning Intelligence – Lightweight) and CHARLI-2. These robots have unique designs compared to other full- sized humanoid robots. CHARLI-L utilizes spring assisted parallel four-bar linkages with synchronized actuation to achieve the goals of lightweight and low cost. Based on the experience and lesions learned from CHARLI-L, CHARLI-2 uses gear train reduction mechanisms, instead of parallel four-bar linkages, to increase actuation torque at the joints while further reducing weight. Both robots successfully demonstrated untethered bipedal locomotion using an intuitive walking method with sinusoidal foot movement. This walking method is based on the ZMP method. Motion capture tests using six high speed infrared cameras validate the proposed bipedal walking method. Additionally, the total power and energy consumptions during walking are calculated from measured actuator currents. / Ph. D.

To analyze the system development, manufacturing practices and system evaluation procedures of representative PPES manufacturers, two companies (i.e., one "small", referred to here as "simple manufacturer (SM)", and one "large", referred here as "complex manufacturer (CM)" — in terms of workforce, market presence, and capital) that develop first responder PPES, which voluntarily agreed to participate in the research were chosen. The complex PPES is an Air-Pak, a self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) used by first responders for artificial breathing in life-threatening scenarios and the simple PPES is the Fire-Eye device, a thermal sensor that attaches to the visor of the firefighter in order to convey the visual warning of the ambient thermal environment. In order to differentiate the two distinct methodological approaches, the dissertation has been split into two different parts. The first methodology is a "case study" type of empirical investigation which follows a triangulation approach utilizing surveys, structured interviews, process and system observations, and examination of archival records. The second type of methodology is an experimental empirical research one, which involves laboratory-scale and full-scale real-life fire scenarios to conduct product evaluation. The research goals of the case study research were to identify the problems faced by the manufacturers of PPES and to formulate guidelines with regards to manufacturing, compliance, design and development processes, etc., for the PPES manufacturers. The investigation sought answer to the following key questions: a) How do PPES manufacturers currently approach the systems design and development process and what best practices in manufacturing and quality control have they adopted? b) What human factors and ergonomic measures are adopted by these companies while designing their products and what human testing is conducted by companies? c)What safety measures are considered by the safety designer while designing the product? The recommendations also include modifications to the product design process taking into account the market trends in the product design processes, involvement of ergonomics and safety aspects. The research goals for the experimental part of this dissertation were to identify appropriate evaluation methods and conduct the PPES evaluation in simulated fire environments. The Fire-Eye device primarily functions in hot environments and warns the firefighters of the ambient temperature. Therefore, the laboratory-scale evaluation was conducted using test methods such as the Static Oven, Fire Equipment Evaluator, and Radiant Panel, methods which represent controlled environment test conditions. The Fire-Eye device was also evaluated in realistic fire environment created in an ISO burn room by conducting several tests using different types of fuels such as Heptane, Natural Gas, and Living-room set-up (i.e., furniture as fuel). The Fire-Eye device was tested for repeatability and reproducibility of its performance in both of the experimental settings. Statistical data analysis was conducted to determine any differences in performance of the Fire-Eye device among each laboratory-scale methods as well as to compare the performance of the device between laboratory-scale and full-scale fire environments in identical heat locations. The results suggest that a dual approach (laboratory-scale and full-scale fire environment) for evaluating the performance of PPES is more effective than is testing the device in either one of the methods. / Ph. D.

Phytoremediation is an attractive remediation technology due to its relative low cost and maintenance requirement. Acceptance of phytoremediation requires that the contaminant removal mechanisms are characterized and demonstrated in the field. Quantification of contributions from each mechanism to the overall remediation rate is crucial for optimization of phytoremediation systems, risk management and prediction of the total remediation time. The objective of this research was to characterize and quantify removal mechanisms for naphthalene at a creosote-contaminated site with poplar trees in Oneida, Tennessee. Groundwater monitoring for seven years in the surficial aquifer at this site demonstrated a reduction in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with selective removal of naphthalene and three-ring compounds. Naphthalene mass loss mechanisms investigated at this site are biodegradation in the saturated zone, volatilization and biodegradation in the vadose zone and phytovolatilization. This is probably the most comprehensive field study of PAH phytoremediation mechanisms conducted to date. The significance of this research is to contribute to predictions of remediation time and end result for phytoremediation of PAHs. The understanding of in situ factors controlling each mechanism can facilitate future optimization of phytoremediation systems as well as improve risk assessment and monitoring strategies. Biodegradation rates were determined for different conditions at this site with in situ respiration tests, laboratory soil microcosms and laboratory soil columns. The combined remediation mechanisms of volatilization and biodegradation in the vadose zone were investigated in the field and in laboratory columns. Field measurements show that lower groundwater elevations in the summer and early fall lead to elevated groundwater concentrations of naphthalene and increased volatilization. The increase in the fraction of the porespace occupied by gas (gas saturation) in the unsaturated zone during the summer and fall further enhances the volatilization by increasing effective diffusion rates. Water consumption and interception by the phytoremediation system are believed to enhance mass transfer to the vadose zone. Column experiments and field measurements show that more than 90% of the naphthalene vapors are biodegraded within 5-10 cm above the groundwater table. The data indicate that biodegradation increases the overall volatilization flux out of the source by 10-300 times, when the source is exposed directly to the gas phase. In situ the naphthalene is generally dissolved from the source into the groundwater and then volatilezed from the groundwater to the gas phase. Under these conditions biodegradation in the vadose zone will still indirectly have an enhancing effect on the flux out of the source. This is the result of removal naphthalene from the soil gas by biodegrdation driving removal from the groundwater by volatilization, which in turn drives dissolution form the source into the groundwater. Phytovolatilization was quantified in flux chambers mounted on trees and calculated from transpiration rates. A laboratory uptake study and analysis of tree cores from the site provided supplementary evidence for naphthalene uptake by poplar trees. Phytovolatilization was detected throughout the year and was highest in the summer and fall when the groundwater concentrations were highest and transpiration was active. The role of biodegradation relative to physical removal mechanisms was compared for a year, for winter and summer conditions and with and without the impact of phytoremediation. Biodegradation of naphthalene in the saturated zone dominates by orders of magnitude over the removal by volatilization and phytovolatilization of naphthalene at this site. The removal of the total residual naphthalene mass was estimated to require up to 100 years with phytoremediation, but more than twice as long without phytoremediation. The estimated removal of naphthalene was three times larger in the summer than in the winter due to slower biodegradation in the saturated zone and smaller rates of volatilization to the vadose zone in the winter. The research shows that phytoremediation enhances the overall naphthalene removal, mainly by stimulating faster biodegradation in the rhizosphere and promoting mass transfer of naphthalene to the vadose zone followed by rapid vadose zone biodegradation. In the future, phytoremediation research focusing on the capillary zone is desirable. / Ph. D.