In a distributed system many underlying nodes or processes work in tandem to come up with a solution to a given problem. In this report, we are concerned with distributed systems where each node is given the same problem, and the system uses the solutions provided by the nodes to formulate the answer. In our case, the problem is a simple question with two possible answers, and only one answer is correct. The system is asked the question at the beginning of a round. Once the system answers the question, the round is over, and the system is given the correct answer, then another round is started. To answer the question, the system uses the answers from each node, and based on the weight of the individual nodes, it decides on its answer. In this report, we experiment with multiple ways to update the weights of the underlying nodes, and aim to study the impact of certain limitations and parameters imposed on the system; such as the maximum accuracy of the underlying nodes and the number of underlying nodes. / text

The following is a report concerning quantitative research carried out in the pursuit of a Master's degree. This research details an examination of the hypothesis that the political ideology of militant extremists and the selection of Majority or Minority target influences sentencing severity. The research uses information collected on 510 indictees in "The American Terrorism Study, 1980-2002", which was funded by the United States Department of Justice. Using an OLS regression (Independent Variables: Type of Militant Group, Majority Target, Crime Severity Index, Gender, and Education; Dependent Variables: Outcome of Indictment, Sentence, Time Sentenced, Fine Sentenced, Restitution Sentenced, and Combined Fine/Restitution Amount) it was discovered that there is no tendency for militant extremists targeting Majority facilities or personnel to receive more severe sentences. Additionally, there is an interaction between Leftist group identification and Education level with the amount of the Fines levied. Further research in this area would be advanced by having access to detailed breakdowns into the socio-economic backgrounds of the individuals involved. / Master of Science

Orientador: Alexandre César Rodrigues da Silva / Resumo: Com a evolução da tecnologia, os CIs (Circuitos Integrados) com tecnologia CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semicondutor) têm se tornado cada vez menores e mais eficientes, entretanto, esta tecnologia está atingindo os limites físicos. Para minimizar ainda mais os circuitos digitais, novas tecnologias foram desenvolvidas como, por exemplo, a tecnologia QCA (Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata) que em conjunto com a lógica majoritária tem despertado o interesse da comunidade acadêmica no que se refere ao desenvolvimento de ferramentas de síntese e de otimização. Neste trabalho implementou-se o programa denominado MK4 que tem como proposta realizar a minimização de funções majoritárias com até quatro variáveis, utilizando as ideias contidas no mapa de Karnaugh. Os resultados obtidos pelo MK4 foram comparados com os do programa exact_mig. De 65.536 funções comparadas, 92,60% das funções geradas pelo programa MK4 tiveram custos iguais ou inferiores em relação as funções geradas pelo exact_mig. / Abstract: With the evolution of technology, the ICs (Integrated Circuits) with CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) technology has become smaller and more efficient. However, this technology is reaching its physical limits. To further minimize digital circuits, new technologies are presented such as, QCA (\textit{Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata}) technology that together with majority logic has aroused the interest of the academic community in the development of synthesis and optimization tools. In this work the program denominated MK4 was implemented, with the purpose of minimizing majority functions with up to four variables, using the Karnaugh map. The results obtained by MK4 were compared with those of the exact_mig program. From 65,536 functions compared, 92.60% of the functions generated by the MK4 had equal or lower costs in relation to the functions generated by the exact_mig. / Mestre

Black Majority Churches (BMC) play a central role in the lives of Black people, informing culture and community. Within the BMC the issues of sexuality and in particular homosexuality are rarely spoken of. However, doctrines in regards to homosexuality have been conveyed in a seemingly homophobic manner, hence individuals experiencing same-sex attraction (SSA) in BMCs have remained silent and unsupported. This phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of five Black Men struggling with SSA and adhering to the teachings of the BMC. The study posed the question, ‘How do Black men struggling with SSA and the teachings of BMCs perceive and describe their lived experiences?’ Data for the study was collected primarily through individual interviews conducted with each participant. The transcripts were analysed using Colazzi’s method for analysing data and two major themes emerged: unfairness and needing support. Discussions of the participants lives indicated that they felt compelled to keep their SSA hidden to avoid stigmatisation, discrimination, isolation and rejection. Moreover, they were also discomforted by the ongoing conflict between their homoerotic feelings and their religious beliefs. Additional data resulting from the questionnaires completed by seventeen Black ministers and leaders of BMCS, provided understanding of the context in which the participants were struggling. The findings suggest that there is a lack of a pastoral care approach for persons experiencing SSA in BMCS and recommends that such an approach is developed. Importantly, this study gives voice to Black men with SSA hurting and hiding in BMCs and has the potential to contribute to the resources required by anyone wanting to find out more about this experience and initiate further research.

With increasing data sets for processing, there is a requirement to build faster and smaller arithmetic circuits. One of the ways to improve the performance of higher order arithmetic units is to reduce the carry propagation levels. Multi-valued logic enables this by reducing the number of digits required to represent a range of numbers. Area reduction is also obtained through fewer operations and signals required to realise a function. Though theoretically multi-valued logic has these advantages, implementation of the multi-valued logic using CMOS has not been efficient. The main reason is because multi-valued logic is emulated in CMOS using binary switches. Two main approaches are followed in CMOS in implementing multi-valued logic using CMOS. Voltage mode logic, where the logic states are encoded using the node voltages suffer from low noise margins and limitation of radix due to the power supply. Current mode logic, where the branch currents are used to represent the logic levels suffer from high power consumption due to static current flow and requirement of restoration devices. The mindset of the post-CMOS approaches explored so far for multi-valued logic circuit design has been to replace the CMOS switches with their novel nano switches. Hence they too suffer from the same issues as CMOS implementation. Our value proposition is through the use of a truly multi-state device based on electron spin. Spin waves, which are a collection of electron spins of an atom enables multi-valued logic by allowing encoding information in the amplitude and phase of the wave.Another advantage of the spin wave fabric is that the computation is through wave propagation and interference which does not involve any movement of charge. This enables building low energy,smaller and faster multi-valued circuits. In this thesis, implementation of the basic building blocks of multi-valued logic using these novel spin wave based devices is shown. Building of arithmetic circuits like adders using these building blocks have also been demonstrated. To quantify the benefits of spin wave based multi-valued circuits, they are benchmarked with CMOS. For 32-bits, our projected comparisons show a 5X increased performance, 125X area improvement and 1717X power reduction for hexa-decimal spin wave based adders compared to binary CMOS. Similarly there is a 4X increase in performance of hexa-decimal SPWF multiplier compared to CMOS for 16 bits. Finally, we have implemented the I/O circuits for smooth interface between binary CMOS and multi-valued SPWF logic.

Residential segregation is an issue where multiple variables such as race, class, and income converge. Identifying the remaining variables contributing to the continuation of residential segregation is what remains in order to understand the issue completely. A possible variable that has yet to be considered is the effect that the name of a road has on the surrounding area. The objective of this research is to identify the relationship between Division Streets and residential segregation. Although this relationship may not be causal, the existence of any tie between labels as apparent as 'division' on a road where residential segregation is prominent has many implications. Although it has proven difficult to explain the origin and intent of the name of a road, this research looks to more deeply investigate the situation. Residential segregation is a multifaceted topic and the effect of road labels on society's perception of an area is an untapped resource in defining the situation of residential segregation. Working within the framework that was set up by Massey in the early 1990s this research strives to create a complete picture of residential segregation. Data were collected online from the map application on the website Google. With this technology the largest 100 cities in the United States were searched and as not every city had a Division Street the pool of potential cities to be analyzed diminished. Forty of the 100 largest cities had Division Streets in their city limits. Utilizing the program SimplyMap it was determined that of these 40 Division Streets, only eleven roads served as boundaries for block groups as collected by the United States Census Bureau. These eleven roads were analyzed to determine if there were differences in levels of racial residential segregation on either side. Findings will reveal the relationship between the names of roads and areas of residential segregation.; This research does not offer any suggestions on how to eliminate or remedy residential segregation; rather it identifies areas of concern. Ultimately, this data will contribute another layer of understanding about residential segregation.

Orientador: Alexandre César Rodrigues da Silva / Resumo: Devido ao grande avanço da tecnologia e à miniaturização de circuitos, o estudo de sistemas lógicos que podem ser aplicados à nanotecnologia vem sendo realizado de forma abrangente. Para criação de circuitos nanoeletrônicos destacam-se a lógica reversível e a lógica majoritária. Neste trabalho é proposto o algoritmo MPC, utilizado para síntese de lógica majoritária. O algoritmo recebe uma tabela verdade como entrada e retorna uma função majoritária que cobre o mesmo conjunto de mintermos. A criação de uma função de saída válida é realizada a partir da combinação entre funções primitivas previamente otimizadas. Como critério de custo busca-se a geração de funções que tenham a menor quantidade de níveis, seguida da menor quantidade de operadores, inversores e literais. Nesse trabalho também é realizada a comparação do MPC com o algoritmo exact_mig, considerado o melhor algoritmo para síntese de funções majoritárias atualmente. O exact_mig codifica a síntese exata de funções utilizando a quantidade de níveis e operadores como critério de custo. O MPC utiliza dois critérios de custo adicionais, o número de inversores e o número de literais, com o objetivo de otimizar ainda mais os resultados gerados pelo exact_mig. Dessa forma, o MPC busca a síntese de funções que possuam a mesma quantidade de níveis e de operadores, mas com uma quantidade menor de inversores e literais. Testes mostraram que ambos os algoritmos retornam soluções ótimas para todas as funções com 3 variáveis de ent... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Due to technology advancements and circuits miniaturization, the study of logic systems that can be applied to nanotechnology has been progressing steadily. Among the creation of nanoeletronic circuits the reversible and majority logic stands out. This paper proposes the MPC (Majority Primitives Combination) algorithm, used for majority logic synthesis. The algorithm receives a truth table as input and returns a majority function that covers the same set of minterms. The formulation of a valid output function is made with the combination of previously optimized functions. As cost criteria the algorithm searches for a function with the minimum number of levels, followed by the minimum number of gates, inverters, and literals. In this paper it's also presented a comparison between the MPC and the exact_mig, currently considered the best algorithm for majority synthesis. The exact_mig encode the exact synthesis of majority functions using the number of levels and gates as cost criteria. The MPC considers two additional cost criteria, the number of inverters and the number of literals, with the goal to further improve exact_mig results. Therefore, the MPC aims to synthesize functions with the same amount of levels and gates, but with less inverters and literals. Tests have shown that both algorithms return optimal solutions for all functions with 3 input variables. For functions with 4 inputs, the MPC is able to further improve 66% of all functions and achieves equal results for ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

O presente trabalho visa estabelecer quais são as condições responsáveis por permitir à oposição o poder de influenciar o processo decisório em Legislativos. Para tanto, a pesquisa se divide em duas frentes, a primeira teórica e a segunda empírica. Em campo teórico o trabalho chama a atenção para a inviolabilidade do princípio majoritário no que diz respeito à produção legislativa e às suas regras regimentais e, por fim, demonstra como a sua desconsideração pode levar a equívocos no tocante à expectativa sobre o comportamento dos diversos atores envolvidos. Em solo empírico, demonstrarse- á que a incorporação deste princípio é essencial para compreendermos de que maneira a oposição pode intervir no processo decisório, assim como quando e porquê acontecerão mudanças regimentais que aumentem ou restrinjam os direitos da minoria. / The present thesis aims to establish the conditions that give oppositions the power to influence the decision-making process in Legislatives. Our research will be presented in two views, the first theoretical and the second, empirical. On the theoretical view, the study draws attention to inviolability of the majority principle in conducing the legislative process and its regimental rules and ultimately, how disregarding it can lead to mistakes in expectations of involved actors\' behavior. On the empirical view it will be shown that embedding that principle is essential to understand in which way the opposition can intervene in the decision-making process, as well as how and why regimental changes will happen either to restrict or to widen the minority rights.

In 2005, Alon, et al. proved that tournaments arising from majority voting scenarios have minimum dominating sets that are bounded by a constant that depends only on the notion of what is meant by a majority. Moreover, they proved that when a majority means that Candidate A beats Candidate B when Candidate A is ranked above Candidate B by at least two out of three voters, the tournament used to model this voting scenario has a minimum dominating set of size at most three. This result gives 2-majority tournaments some significance among all tournaments and motivates us to investigate when a given tournament can be considered a 2-majority tournament. In this thesis, we prove, among other things, that the presence of an upset path in a tournament allows us to conclude the tournament is realizable as a 2-majority tournament.

abstract: Borda's social choice method and Condorcet's social choice method are shown to satisfy different monotonicities and it is shown that it is impossible for any social choice method to satisfy them both. Results of a Monte Carlo simulation are presented which estimate the probability of each of the following social choice methods being manipulable: plurality (first past the post), Borda count, instant runoff, Kemeny-Young, Schulze, and majority Borda. The Kemeny-Young and Schulze methods exhibit the strongest resistance to random manipulability. Two variations of the majority judgment method, with different tie-breaking rules, are compared for continuity. A new variation is proposed which minimizes discontinuity. A framework for social choice methods based on grades is presented. It is based on the Balinski-Laraki framework, but doesn't require aggregation functions to be strictly monotone. By relaxing this restriction, strategy-proof aggregation functions can better handle a polarized electorate, can give a societal grade closer to the input grades, and can partially avoid certain voting paradoxes. A new cardinal voting method, called the linear median is presented, and is shown to have several very valuable properties. Range voting, the majority judgment, and the linear median are also simulated to compare their manipulability against that of the ordinal methods. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Mathematics 2010