No description available.

Visualization tools are frequently used to help people understand everyday data in their lives. One such example is visualization in behaviour feedback tools. Behaviour feedback tools are used to try to help people improve their health or personal well-being or to carry out sound environmental sustainability practices. However, understanding and reasoning about personal data (e.g., pedometer counts, blood pressure readings or home electricity consumption) or gaining a deeper understanding of one's current practices and learning how to make a change can be challenging when using data alone. My literature review of this field showed that two of the main challenges in actual practice are providing a context in which to reason about the data and reducing the cost of maintenance to fit those tools into everyday life routines. Thus, I propose to integrate time-varying feedback data within a personal digital calendar. This combination of calendar and feedback data can provide contextual information to interpret data and make the data accessible in an attentionally ambient way that is suitable for maintaining awareness. I propose that the familiarity and common practice of using digital calendars can minimize the cost of learning and maintenance for people and easily fit into one's daily life routines. The viability of this approach was confirmed in my quantitative lab experiments. The results showed that visualization of feedback data integrated on a digital calendar is comprehensible, and it does not interfere with regular calendar use with proper visual encodings. After confirming the viability of my proposal, I implemented the on-calendar visualization as a web application that was synchronized with Google Calendar API and a real-time feedback data stream. To further investigate this approach in a real life situation, I deployed the application in the field for longitudinal field studies: two case studies as pilot deployment and an eight-week field study. Results showed that people liked the idea of integrating feedback data into their personal digital calendars. It required a low cost in learning and maintenance. The calendar events provided rich context for people to visualize and reason about their feedback data. The design enabled people to quickly identify and explain repeated patterns and anomalies. Meanwhile, I found that people's existing information use habits (in this case, how they use digital calendars) can highly influence the effectiveness of the feedback design. Moreover, I derived a feedback model that identifies basic components in feedback design and illustrates the role of feedback tools. With that I articulated possible design barriers that could prevent ongoing use of feedback tools. Reflecting on the effects of the on-calendar design approach, I discussed design implications inspired by this work. This work introduces a reflective approach in feedback design that can easily fit into people's existing information ecosystem (specifically, a personal digital calendar in this work). The main contributions of this thesis are: the first systematic literature review of personal visualization design used in everyday life; the design and implementation of an on-calendar design that integrates feedback data on people's personal digital calendars to provide context for reasoning and support easy access for ongoing use; the extended definition of ambience from spatial location to attentional demand; a viability study to confirm the on-calendar design approach; longitudinal studies to investigate the effects of the on-calendar design approach and the feedback model of design mechanism to inspect ongoing factors in feedback designs. / Graduate / 0984, 0384 / dhuangca@gmail.com

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

CPAP is the most common treatment for moderate to severe sleep apnea in adults. Despite its efficacy, patients’ safety, comfort and compliance are issues to be considered and improved in CPAP design. The issues include condensation, carbon dioxide in inhaled air, humidity and temperature of inhaled air. When a CPAP user breaths deeply, there will be some air not fully expelled and may be driven back into the heated air delivery tube (HADT). An interest has existed in what impacts this so called reverse flow may bring about to the CPAP use. The main objectives of this research are to quantify the reverse flow and its influence on carbon dioxide re-breathing, delivered humidity to the patient and condensation in the HADT. Within this thesis, two computer models of the CPAP system have been constructed on Simulink™ in the Matlab™ environment. One is about the CPAP fluid dynamic performance and carbon dioxide re-breathing and the other is on thermodynamic performance. The models can predict the dynamic behaviour of the CPAP machine. They are able to mimic the breath induced airflow fluctuation, and flow direction changes over wide real working ranges of ambient conditions, settings and coefficients. These models can be used for future analysis, development, improvement and design of the machine. The fluid dynamic and thermodynamic models were experimentally validated and they have proved to be valuable tool in the work. The main conclusions drawn from this study are: • Reverse flow increases when breaths load increases and pressure setting decreases. • Reverse flow does not definitely add exhaled air to the next inhalation unless the reverse flow is relatively too much. • Mask capacity does not influence the reverse flow. • The exhaled air re-breathed is mainly due to that stays in the mask, therefore larger mask capacity increases the exhaled air re-breath and the percentage of exhaled air in next inhalation drops when the breath load increases. • Deep breathing does not significantly change the total evaporation in chamber. • When deep breathing induced reverse flow occurs, condensation occurs or worsens in the HADT near the mask. This happens only when the humidity of the airflow from the CPAP is much lower than that of the exhaled air and the tube wall temperature is low enough for condensation to occur. • The deep breathing and reverse flow do not significantly influence the average inhaled air temperature. • The overall specific humidity in inhaled air is lower under deep breathing. • Mask capacity does not influence the thermal conditions in the HADT and the inhaled air specific humidity. Also the mask capacity does not significantly influences the inhaled air temperature.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

CPAP is the most common treatment for moderate to severe sleep apnea in adults. Despite its efficacy, patients’ safety, comfort and compliance are issues to be considered and improved in CPAP design. The issues include condensation, carbon dioxide in inhaled air, humidity and temperature of inhaled air. When a CPAP user breaths deeply, there will be some air not fully expelled and may be driven back into the heated air delivery tube (HADT). An interest has existed in what impacts this so called reverse flow may bring about to the CPAP use. The main objectives of this research are to quantify the reverse flow and its influence on carbon dioxide re-breathing, delivered humidity to the patient and condensation in the HADT. Within this thesis, two computer models of the CPAP system have been constructed on Simulink™ in the Matlab™ environment. One is about the CPAP fluid dynamic performance and carbon dioxide re-breathing and the other is on thermodynamic performance. The models can predict the dynamic behaviour of the CPAP machine. They are able to mimic the breath induced airflow fluctuation, and flow direction changes over wide real working ranges of ambient conditions, settings and coefficients. These models can be used for future analysis, development, improvement and design of the machine. The fluid dynamic and thermodynamic models were experimentally validated and they have proved to be valuable tool in the work. The main conclusions drawn from this study are: • Reverse flow increases when breaths load increases and pressure setting decreases. • Reverse flow does not definitely add exhaled air to the next inhalation unless the reverse flow is relatively too much. • Mask capacity does not influence the reverse flow. • The exhaled air re-breathed is mainly due to that stays in the mask, therefore larger mask capacity increases the exhaled air re-breath and the percentage of exhaled air in next inhalation drops when the breath load increases. • Deep breathing does not significantly change the total evaporation in chamber. • When deep breathing induced reverse flow occurs, condensation occurs or worsens in the HADT near the mask. This happens only when the humidity of the airflow from the CPAP is much lower than that of the exhaled air and the tube wall temperature is low enough for condensation to occur. • The deep breathing and reverse flow do not significantly influence the average inhaled air temperature. • The overall specific humidity in inhaled air is lower under deep breathing. • Mask capacity does not influence the thermal conditions in the HADT and the inhaled air specific humidity. Also the mask capacity does not significantly influences the inhaled air temperature.

Ce travail étudie la préférence pour le pouvoir, de sa définition à sa rencontre en laboratoire ou sur le terrain, de manière expérimentale. Nous construisons cette thèse autour de trois questions : qu'est-ce que le pouvoir et la préférence pour le pouvoir ? Comment l'identifier, en la distinguant des autres types de préférences sociales ? Quels sont les éléments, conditions d'expériences ou situation des sujets, qui l'affectent ? Nous définissons le pouvoir comme une capacité à caractère dispositionnel, qui peut être mise en application, ou non. Ceci nous permet de définir ensuite la notion de préférence pour le pouvoir qui n'est autre qu'une version formalisée de celle de volonté de puissance que l'on rencontre depuis l'antiquité. Nous définissons alors quatre types de préférence : préférence pure ou instrumentale pour le pouvoir potentiel ou effectif. Dans la deuxième partie nous construisons un modèle de pouvoir que nous testons en laboratoire. Nous identifions cette préférence pour le pouvoir sous ses quatre aspects, ce qui est le résultat central de ce travail. Nous cherchons ensuite à comprendre ce qui impacte cette préférence, pour observer que seul le genre a un effet important. Nous mesurons enfin cette préférence, pour découvrir qu'il peut exister une relation importante de corrélation entre préférence pure pour le pouvoir potentiel et pour le pouvoir effectif. La troisième partie a pour but d'étudier ces comportements de préférence pour le pouvoir chez des décideurs dans le cadre du monde synthétique d'Eve Online qui, nous l'observons, constitue à ce titre un bon substitut au laboratoire. De manière contre intuitive, nos observations montrent que les décideurs du monde virtuel ne manifestent pas plus de préférence pour le pouvoir que les autres sujets. / The goal of this thesis is to study preference for power from its definition to laboratory and field experiments. We construct this thesis around three questions: What are power and preference for power ? How to identify this preference and how to distinguish it from other social preferences ? What are the elements, experimental conditions and settings that have an impact on it ? We define power as a dispositional capacity. Hence, preference for power is a formalized version of the power motive and we distinguish four types: pure or instrumental preference for potential or effective power. In the second part of this thesis, we design a model of power and we test it in the laboratory. We identify the four types of preference for power which is the central result of this work. Then, we show that treatment effects are almost nonexistent whereas we find a strong gender effect. We finally measure this preference and find a strong correlation between pure preference for potential power and for effective power. The aim of the third part is to study this behavior in a decision maker population of the Eve Online synthetic world. We first show that field experiments in Eve Online are a good proxy for the lab. We then observe that decision makers don't manifest a stronger preference for power that other subjects.

No description available.

Heavy oil production depends on the understanding of mechanical and flow properties of unconsolidated or weakly consolidated sands under different loading paths and boundary conditions. Reconstituted bitumen-free Athabasca oil-sands samples were used to investigate the geomechanics of a steam injection process such as the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). Four stress paths have been studied in this work: triaxial compression, radial extension, pore pressure increase and isotropic compression. Absolute permeability, end-point relative permeability to oil & water (kro and krw), initial water saturation and residual oil saturation were measured while the samples deformed. Triaxial compression is a stress path of increasing mean stress while radial extension and pore pressure increase lead to decreasing mean stress. Pore pressure increase experiments were carried out for three initial states: equal axial and confining stresses, axial stress greater than confining stress and confining stress greater than axial stress. Pore pressure was increased under four boundary conditions: 1) constant axial and confining stress; 2) constant axial stress and zero radial strain; 3) zero axial strain and constant confining stress; and 4) zero axial and radial strain. These experiments were designed to mimic geologic conditions where vertical stress was either S1 or S3, the lateral boundary conditions were either zero strain or constant stress, and the vertical boundary conditions were either zero strain or constant stress. Triaxial compression caused a decrease in permeability as the sample compacted, followed by appreciable permeability enhancement during sample dilation. Radial extension led to sample dilation, shear failure and permeability increase from the beginning. The krw and kro increased by 40% and 15% post-compaction respectively for the samples corresponding to lower depths during triaxial compression. For these samples, residual oil saturation decreased by as much as 40%. For radial extension, the permeability enhancement decreased with depth and ranged from 20% to 50% while the residual oil saturation decreased by up to 55%. For both stress paths, more shear-enhanced permeability was observed for samples tested at lower pressures, implying that permeability enhancement is higher for shallower sands. The pore pressure increase experiments showed an increase of only 0-10% in absolute permeability except when the effective stress became close to zero. This could possibly have occurred due to steady state flow not being reached during absolute permeability measurement. The krw curves generally increased as the pore pressure was increased from 0 psi. The increase ranged from 5% to 44% for the different boundary conditions and differential stresses. The kro curves also showed an increasing trend for most of the cases. The residual oil saturation decreased by 40-60% for samples corresponding to shallow depths while it increased by 0-10% for samples corresponding to greater depths. The reservoirs with high differential stress are more conducive to favorable changes in permeability and residual oil saturation. These results suggested that a decreasing mean stress path is more beneficial for production increase than an increasing mean stress path. The unconsolidated sands are over-consolidated because of previous ice loading which makes the sand matrix stiffer. In this work, it was found that over-consolidation, as expected, decreased the porosity and permeability (40-50%) and increased the Young’s and bulk moduli of the sand. The result is sand which failed at higher than expected stress during triaxial compression. Overall, results show that lab experiments support increased permeability due to steam injection operations in heavy oil, and more importantly, the observed reduction in residual oil saturation implies SAGD induced deformation should improve recovery factors. / text