Network analysis is used in a number of different fields to study systems ranging from molecular interactions to social interactions between humans. With the increase of available data, it is not surprising that network analysis methods are now used to analyze human behavior and interactions in sports. Handball is a popular sport in Europe, and while it has been studied, it has not been studied with network methods. In this work, passing data was collected from two international competitions to study the passing behavior of the Norwegian women’s handball team. The data were divided into multiple scenarios to try to explore how the team’s and individual players' playing styles depended on whether the team was leading, trailing, or scoring goals. Star players were also compared with their replacements to see if there was any statistical evidence available as to why the star players may be unique. We found differences between the star players and their replacements, some differences between the team’s passing behavior when leading and trailing and when scoring goals, and that the team appears to have a specific prescribed playing style for each position.

Les études criminologiques qui ont trait à l’articulation entre sexualité(s) et détention sont rares. Celles qui portent sur les expériences de détenus homosexuels sont pratiquement inexistantes. Cette recherche exploratoire, basée sur la réalisation d’entretiens semi-directifs auprès d’ex-détenus homosexuels incarcérés dans des pénitenciers et prisons situées au Québec, vise à combler une partie de cet espace. En analysant les récits de leur passage en institution carcérale, nous interrogeons leurs conceptions des notions d’identités et d’orientations sexuelles. Il en ressort notamment que l’homosexualité prend une place variable dans la définition qu’ils donnent d’eux-mêmes. L’impact de l’environnement dans l’actualisation et la mise au jour de certaines facettes identitaires est également pris en compte, de même que leur perception de la tolérance et de l’acceptabilité de l’homosexualité en contexte carcéral. Pour eux, bien que l’homophobie soit rare, elle ne peut être conceptualisée séparément des notions de « masculinité » et de « visibilité ».

As transistor feature sizes continue to shrink, it will become feasible, and for a number of reasons more efficient, to include multiple processors on a single chip. The SCMP system being developed at Virginia Tech includes up to 64 processors on a chip, connected in a 2-D mesh. On-chip memory is included with each processor, and the architecture includes support for communication and the execution of parallel threads. As with any new computer architecture, benchmark kernels and applications are needed to guide the design and development, as well as to quantify the system performance. This thesis presents several benchmarks that have been developed for or ported to SCMP. Discussion of the benchmark algorithms and their implementations is included, as well as an analysis of the system performance. The thesis also includes discussion of the programming environment available for developing parallel applications for SCMP. / Master of Science

Arguably, from the programmer's perspective, the programming model is the most important characteristic of any computer system. Perhaps this explains why, after many decades of research, architects and programmers alike continue to debate the appropriate programming model for parallel computers. Though thousands of programming models have been developed, standards such as PVM and MPI have made send-and-receive based message-passing the most popular programming model for distributed memory architectures. This thesis explores modifying the Single-Chip Message-Passing (SCMP) architecture to more efficiently support send-and-receive based message-passing. The proposed system is compared, for performance and programmability, to the active messaging programming model currently used by SCMP. SCMP offers a unique platform for send-and-receive based message-passing. The SCMP design incorporates multiple multi-threaded processors, memory, and a network onto a single chip. This integration reduces the penalties of thread switching, memory access, and inter-process communication typically seen on more traditional distributed memory parallel machines. The mechanisms proposed in this thesis to support send-and-receive based message-passing on SCMP attempt to preserve and exploit these features as much as possible. / Master of Science

African American Literature in the 20th century engaged many social and racial issues that mainstream white America marginalized during the pre-civil rights era through the use of rhetoric, setting, plot, narrative, and characterization. The use of passing fostered an outlet for many light-skinned men and women for inclusion. This trope also allowed for a closer investigation of the racial division in the United States during the 20th century. These issues included questions of the color line, or more specifically, how light-skinned men and women passed as white to obtain elevated economic and social status. Secondary issues in these earlier passing novels included gender and sexuality, raising questions as to whether these too existed as fixed identities in society. As such, the phenomenon of passing illustrates not just issues associated with the color line, but also social, economic, and gender structure within society. Human beings exist in a matrix, and as such, passing is not plausible if viewed solely as a process occurring within only one of these social constructs, but, rather, insists upon a viewpoint of an intersectional construct of social fluidity itself. This paper will re-theorize passing from a description solely concerning racial movements into a theory that explores passing as an intersectional understanding of gender, sexuality, race, and class. This paper will focus on contemporary cultural products (e.g., novels) of passing that challenge the traditional notion of passing and focus on an intersectional linkage between race, gender, sexuality, and class. / Ph. D. / The concept of passing (the notion of appearing as something, or someone, you are not) has been explored thoroughly in novels, memoirs, biographies, and films. Passing novels tend to look closely at the effects of passing on the passer and the motivation for passing. The motivation for passing differs but does include a desire to cross the color line. However, here, the traditional concept of passing was expanded and an intersectional passing model was constructed, which closely analyzed the stages a person must overcome in order to successfully pass. This model was then applied to a selection of six literary texts. These texts were divided into three separate chapters: gender, sexuality and class. The intersectional passing model illuminated several elements of the passing experience; however, certain stages did present unforeseen issues in the model. These stages were most applicable in Western constructions of gender, sexuality, and class. The stages of the model were intended to give a practical guide to mapping the experience of passing, not only in literary texts, but also for those who are interested in the concept of passing. The intersectional passing model can likewise be used as a teaching tool to illustrate the hurdles one must overcome to pass.

Acts of “passing” inform the plots of Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light and Nella Larsen’s Passing. Examples of contemporary South African fiction and Harlem Renaissance fiction respectively, these texts explore racial passing and its correlative, social passing. Social passing includes enactment of social relationships, responds to class anxieties, and requires repression of emotions as participating characters attempt to fix their performed roles into permanent identities. At issue are the texts’ multiple enactments of passing with special interest paid to these acts’ constitutive theatricality. Characters perform within narrative settings, locations subsequently deconstructed exposing both implicit and explicit theatrical functions. Threshold spaces of doors and windows form frames within settings, focusing the audience’s gaze and simultaneously creating and dismantling private and public places to reconstitute them as theater. This study culminates in reflections on the tension between the relative freedom and containment of characters that pass.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-143). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-143). Also available on the Internet.

As time progresses, computer architects continue to create faster and more complex microprocessors using techniques such as out-of-order execution, branch prediction, dynamic scheduling, and predication. While these techniques enable greater performance, they also increase the complexity and silicon area of the design. This creates larger development and testing times. The shrinking feature sizes associated with newer technology increase wire resistance and signal propagation delays, further complicating large designs. One potential solution is the Single-Chip Message-Passing (SCMP) Parallel Computer, developed at Virginia Tech. SCMP makes use of an architecture where a number of simple processors are tiled across a single chip and connected by a fast interconnection network. The system is designed to take advantage of thread-level parallelism and to keep wire traces short in preparation for even smaller integrated circuit feature sizes. This thesis presents the implementation of the MPI (Message-Passing Interface) communications library on top of SCMP's hardware communication support. Emphasis is placed on the specific needs of this system with regards to MPI. For example, MPI is designed to operate between heterogeneous systems; however, in the SCMP environment such support is unnecessary and wastes resources. The SCMP network is also designed such that messages can be sent with very low latency, but with cooperative multitasking it is difficult to assure a timely response to messages. Finally, the low-level network primitives have no support for send operations that occur before the receiver is prepared and that functionality is necessary for MPI support. / Master of Science

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