We prove that if $1 > \alpha > 1/2$, then there exists a probability measure $\mu$ such that the Hausdorff dimension of its support is $\alpha$ and $\mu*\mu$ is a Lipschitz function of class $\alpha-1/2$.

Urban sprawl with the advent of automobile commuting has led to the loss of a “sense of place” and the decline of informal public gathering in the urban core of Windsor, Nova Scotia. Building an integrated sense of community is the thesis objective. An interactive relationship between the town’s history and landmarks, and elements such as edges, paths, and districts, is established in the physical form of a new downtown civic square located at the intersection of the traditional main street (Gerrish) and Grey Street. The civic square enables new, year-round civic activities including a library, market, art gallery, and skating rink, enhanced by informal gathering spaces. The square revives Windsor’s “sense of place,” providing an anchor of public space and activity for citizens a ten-minute walk from surrounding residential neighbourhoods, and offers the opportunity for informal meetings and the element of surprise within the journeys of daily life.

Empowered by linear precoding and decoding, a spatially multiplexed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system becomes a convenient framework to offer high data rate, diversity and interference management. While most of the current precoding/decoding designs have assumed perfect channel state information (CSI) at the receiver, and sometimes even at the transmitter, in this thesis we design the precoder and decoder with imperfect CSI at both the transmit and the receive sides, and investigate the joint impact of channel estimation errors and channel correlation on system structure and performance. The mean-square error (MSE) related performance metrics are used as the design criteria. We begin with the minimum total MSE precoding/decoding design for a single-user MIMO system assuming imperfect CSI at both ends. Here the CSI includes the channel estimate and channel correlation information. The structures of the optimum precoder and decoder are determined. Compared to the perfect CSI case, linear filters are added to the transceiver structure to improve system robustness against imperfect CSI. The effects of channel estimation error and channel correlation are quantified by simulations. With imperfect CSI at both ends, the exact capacity expression for a single-user MIMO channel is difficult to obtain. Instead, a tight capacity lower-bound is used for system design. The optimum structure of the transmit covariance matrix for the lower-bound has not been found in the existing literature. By transforming the transmitter design into a joint precoding/decoding design problem, we derive the expression of the optimum transmit covariance matrix. The close relationship between the maximum mutual information design and the minimum total MSE design is also discovered assuming imperfect CSI. For robust multiuser MIMO communications, minimum average sum MSE transceiver (precoder-decoder pairs) design problems are formulated for both the uplink and the downlink, assuming imperfect channel estimation and channel correlation at the base station (BS). We propose improved iterative algorithms based on the associated Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. Under the assumption of imperfect CSI, an uplink--downlink duality in average sum MSE is proved. As an alternative for the uplink optimization, a sequential semidefinite programming (SDP) method is proposed. Simulation results are provided to corroborate the analysis. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2008-07-25 10:53:45.175

This cross cultural study compares the fairness perceptions of New Zealand and Malaysian individual taxpayers of their respective income tax systems, and investigates the consequences of those perceptions, together with other important variables, on their compliance behaviour. A theoretical framework was developed based on Equity Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The study’s hypotheses were tested using the responses to questionnaire surveys (which included two scenarios) and in-depth telephone interviews, which were conducted sequentially in both countries. Partial Least Squares and thematic analysis were used to analyse the surveys and interviews data, respectively. The results suggest that Malaysian taxpayers have significantly better perceptions of fairness of their income tax systems than their New Zealand counterparts, yet New Zealand taxpayers are more compliant. The most consistently important factor in explaining taxpayers’ compliance behaviour across the two countries is their attitude towards compliance, followed by subjective norms. Fairness perceptions, which are highly influenced by their tax knowledge and perceived complexity of the tax system, are also influential, particularly in the understating other incomes scenario. This cross-cultural study demonstrates that regardless of the differences between the two countries under study (in relation to economies, cultures and ethnicities), taxpayers generally respond in quite similar ways when it comes to meeting their tax obligations.

Throughout the country, new development continues at a rapid pace, sprawling away from city centers leaving behind gaping holes in the community structure. This new development contains a disappointing sameness creating places devoid of unique identity or character. As a result of this movement outward, inner city neighborhoods are left struggling to survive. These older neighborhoods lose residents and businesses, and suffer both socially and economically as residents flee to the suburbs. Such flight leaves pockets of decaying, deserted areas within the urban core.In order to decrease the incidence of this characterless new development from occurring, older neighborhoods need to be revitalized to provide interesting, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that are desirable places to live. Most of these older neighborhoods contain desirable characteristics that distinguish them from other places such as distinctive architecture and a unique identity. They were built to a human scale that is far superior to the automotive scale of suburbia. These neighborhoods can be revitalized to emphasize their inherent community character, making them more memorable and lasting. Through such revitalization efforts, these neighborhoods would provide a higher quality of life.This creative project identifies neighborhood design principles necessary to restore deteriorating areas of urban neighborhoods and demonstrates that these renewed neighborhoods can, over time, redevelop a unique sense of place. Application of these restorative principles will be illustrated in a revitalization of an urban pocket of the Fountain Square neighborhood in Indianapolis, Indiana. / Department of Landscape Architecture

Modernization and its conveniences have obscured our relationship with the natural environment. We no longer have to personally interact with nature when consuming its resources. Consequently, we lack direct feedback from our exploits, and have lost any moral sensibility towards the finite resources of our planet. This unwanted consequence of modernity has perhaps most explicitly manifested itself on the urban riverbanks of the developed world. Such riparian landscapes, once animated with human activity, have become desolate environments, often programmed solely to serve utilitarian functions. At best, some have been revitalized to accommodate recreational amenities, but the direct interaction that was once necessary to utilize the river for its resources has been replaced by invisible machinery, turning the river’s role in sustaining the city into an abstract concept. The condition found on the banks of the Danube River in Budapest is the epitome of this unfortunate phenomenon. While inhabitants draw water from the faucet, buy fish in the supermarket, and expel waste into an enigmatic drain, the riverbank is far out of sight, deserted, and the river’s role in satisfying their needs is never considered. Instead, the Danube is revered only for the pomp and grandeur it bestows upon the extravagant portrait of the boastful city. In response to this skewed perception, this thesis presents a proposal on the site of Széchenyi Square, located at the base of the Chain Bridge in the heart of Budapest. Historically significant as the main port and gateway to the merchant town of Pest, the Square has since abandoned its role as mediator between city and river, and has instead become a mediator of automotive traffic. The proposal presented in this thesis revives its role as a gateway, but not in the traditional sense. It conceives a riparian portal that allows the passer-by to experience an alternate reality – a place where nature and city are superimposed, and the modern individual is granted direct interaction with his natural resources.

Thesis (M.A. in history)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 26, 2009). "Department of History." Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-81).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Robert E. Lyons, Dept. of Plant & Soil Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

The dissertation studies the fictional journey of Zhang Xianliang from the viewpoint of political unconscious. Zhang has been under different kinds of labour reform and re-education in mainland China for twenty-two years. The experience is too painful to recall, yet too feared to be forgotten. The repressed trauma of Zhang is therefore displaced and disguised in the fictional language of reform, remembrance, love, sex and death. Each language fulfils one layer of Zhang's hidden wishes. Yet the desiring chain moves on with new forms of substitutions until death. The study investigates his unconscious psyche from the Historical subtexts of conflicting impulses between body and mind, self and Other, individual and socialist Ideological State Apparatuses, and the residual, dominant and emerging modes of production.

Orientador: Jarbas Jose Rodrigues Rohwedder / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Quimica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T02:35:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Killner_MarioHenriqueMontazzolli_M.pdf: 2163718 bytes, checksum: 57b0452d9c198120c39d7c2faffd08e3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: O presente trabalho descreve o desenvolvimento de um sistema voltametrico microfluidico, de um potenciostato de baixo custo e de um programa computacional para controle do potenciostato e aquisição de dados. O sistema voltamétrico microfluídico foi confeccionado empregando dois fotopolímeros, sendo um sólido e outro líquido. Foi também avaliado o uso de uma resina acrílica. Técnica de litografia utilizando radiação UVA foi empregada para a confecção dos protótipos. O fotopolímero líquido, a base de uretano-acrilato, apresentou as melhores características como flexibilidade, fácil manuseio e boa selagem dos canais analíticos. Estes canais foram confeccionados com largura de 600 mm e profundidade de 100 mm. O eletrodo de trabalho foi construido empregando um fio de platina de 75 mm de diâmetro e 1,5 mm de comprimento. Uma agulha de aço inox de 13 mm de comprimento e 0,45 mm de diametro foi empregada como eletrodo auxiliar e um fio de prata de 600 mm de diâmetro e 2,0 mm de comprimento recoberto com cloreto de prata foi utilizado na construção do eletrodo de referência. Os resultados de voltametria cíclica para soluções de diferentes concentrações de FeK4(CN)6 obtidos utilizando o sistema desenvolvido foram semelhantes aqueles obtidos empregando um potenciostato comercial. A determinação de Pb(II) em uma amostra certificada (452,2 mg L) apresentou um erro relativo de -3,9% e desvio relativo de 2,0% (n=3) empregando voltametria de redissolução anódica com varredura de onda quadrada / Abstract: The present work describes the development of a microfluidic voltammetric system, a low cost potentiostat, and a software used for data acquisition and control of the potentiostat. The microfluidic voltammetric system was formed using two photopolymers, one solid and one liquid. In addition, the use of an acrylic resin was evaluated. The photolitography using UVA radiation was used for the fabrication of prototypes. The liquid polymer of urethane-acrylate showed better characteristics such as flexibility, easy manipulation and good sealing of the analytical channels. The analytical channels were 600 mm width and 100 mm depth. The work electrode was made of a platinum wire of 75 mm of diameter and 1,5 mm of length. A stainless steel needle 13 mm long and with 0,45 mm of diameter was employed as auxiliary electrode and a silver wire of 600 mm of diameter and 2,0 mm long covered with AgCl was employed as reference electrode. The results obtained using Cyclic Voltammetry for solutions of different concentrations of FeK4(CN)6 and the developed system were similar to those obtained using a commercial potentiostat. The determination of Pb(II) in a certificated sample of water (452,2 mg L) showed a relative error of ¿3,9% and a relative standard deviation of 2,0% (n=3) employing anodic stripping voltammetry and square wave potential scan / Mestrado / Quimica Analitica / Mestre em Química