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Outlier detection remains a heated area due to its essential role in a wide range of applications, including intrusion detection, fraud detection in finance, medical diagnosis, etc. Local Outlier Factor (LOF) has been one of the most influential outlier detection techniques over the past decades. LOF has distinctive advantages on skewed datasets with regions of various densities. However, the traditional centralized LOF faces new challenges in the era of big data and no longer satisfies the rigid time constraints required by many modern applications, due to its expensive computation overhead. A few researchers have explored the distributed solution of LOF, but existant methods are limited by their grid-based data partitioning strategy, which falls short when applied to high-dimensional data. In this thesis, we study efficient distributed solutions for LOF. A baseline MapReduce solution for LOF implemented with Apache Spark, named MR-LOF, is introduced. We demonstrate its disadvantages in communication cost and execution time through complexity analysis and experimental evaluation. Then an approximate LOF method is proposed, which relies on locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) for partitioning data and enables fully distributed local computation. We name it MR-LOF-LSH. To further improve the approximate LOF, we introduce a process called cross-partition updating. With cross-partition updating, the actual global k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) of the outlier candidates are found, and the related information of the neighbors is used to update the outlier scores of the candidates. The experimental results show that MR-LOF achieves a speedup of up to 29 times over the centralized LOF. MR-LOF-LSH further reduces the execution time by a factor of up to 9.9 compared to MR-LOF. The results also highlight that MR-LOF-LSH scales well as the cluster size increases. Moreover, with a sufficient candidate size, MR-LOF-LSH is able to detect in most scenarios over 90% of the top outliers with the highest LOF scores computed by the centralized LOF algorithm.

Notion vaste, vague, ambigüe, le surnaturel est un thème très présent dans les écrits de Daniel Defoe. Il est mis en question, voire évacué par la raison au siècle des Lumières. Defoe quant à lui, adopte une argumentation empirique pour défendre l’existence du surnaturel contre l’athéisme. A travers les sens, les composantes de son monde surnaturel comme peste, tempête, fantôme, Dieu et diable se manifestent. Cette écriture sensible le rend crédible. Le surnaturel apparaît aussi à travers les personnages. Leur relationnel est parfois caractérisé par la diabolisation de l’autre. Durant leur parcours, les héros vivent un déchirement entre le bien et le mal, entre Dieu et diable. Defoe souligne à travers son exploration de leur psychologie un surnaturel trompeur produit de la mélancolie, de la folie. Mais le surnaturel est aussi un ingrédient littéraire attrayant qui répond à une réalité du marché du livre. Defoe utilise l’autobiographie s’alliant l’éditeur et le lecteur pour tisser le vraisemblable et conférer crédibilité au surnaturel. Le romancier fait du temps et de l’espace un vecteur d’évaluation face au surnaturel mais ils ancrent aussi le monde invisible dans le réel. L’usage des sens permet de créer une esthétique du surnaturel qui révèle des émotions proches de « l’âme sensible ». De plus, la diversité des styles d’écriture complique la tâche de l’identification générique quant au surnaturel. Celui-ci se positionne ainsi entre l’apologétique qui le présente sous des aspects vraisemblables et le romanesque qui l’introduit dans une esthétique de l’étrange. Cette ambivalence fait de Defoe un précurseur, dont la postérité met en relief le modernisme. / A vast, vague and an ambiguous notion, the supernatural is an omnipresent theme in the writings of Daniel Defoe. The supernatural is questioned and even erased by reason in the age of the Enlightenment. Defoe adopts an empirical argumentation to defend the existence of the supernatural against atheism. He reveals the elements of his supernatural world such as the plague, storm, ghost, God and devil through the senses. Defoe’s writing style based on senses makes the supernatural credible. The supernatural is also made manifest through characters. Their relationship is sometimes characterized by the demonization of one another. Besides, during their life, characters balance between good and evil, between God and devil. Through the exploration of their psychology, Defoe shows an imaginary supernatural, a product of melancholy and madness. The supernatural is also an attractive literary ingredient which answers to a book trade reality. Defoe uses the form of autobiography making the editor and the reader his allies to build up the plausibility of his work and make the supernatural credible. Time and space are employed by the novelist as means, of self-evaluation for his characters vis-à-vis of the supernatural; at the same time, they anchor the invisible in reality. The use of senses helps to create an aesthetic style of the supernatural which reveals emotions close to “Sensitive Soul”. Furthermore, the diverse styles make it difficult to define the literary genre of the supernatural. It is half-way between the apologetic which presents it as plausible and the fictional which introduces it in an aesthetic style of the strange. This ambivalence makes Defoe a pioneer of the novel whose posterity highlights his modernism.

The ultimate goal of this research was to provide a tool to adequately examine the relationship that parenting style has with Hispanic youths' academic and behavioral outcomes. A review of the literature reveals that the field is lacking an appropriate, culturally sensitive, paper-and-pencil measure of parenting of Hispanic adolescents with adolescents reporting on their parents' behavior. Current measures were not developed with Hispanic families in mind, but rather were evaluated for use with Hispanic populations after the development phase. Therefore, the current study sought to fill this gap in the research on parenting by constructing a measure of parenting that was not only culturally sensitive in its use, but also culturally sensitive in its development. This study consisted of three phases, each using a Hispanic-only sample. First, 4 group interviews informed the item content and development of this new scale. Four focus groups consisted of 4-7 parents each, and 6 focus groups consisted of 6-8 middle school adolescents each. The information collected in the focus groups was used to develop 60 items intended to measure parenting behaviors in Hispanic families. In the second phase, 314 Hispanic students completed the new 60-item scale. Reliability estimates, item analyses and factor analyses were conducted to reduce the items to a total of 32 items and to determine emerging factors. In the final phase, 131 Hispanic students completed the revised 32-item scale and 105 of these students were retained for the analyses. Regression equations were used to predict academic and behavioral outcomes, and the new reduced-item parenting scale was compared to an established parenting scale originally developed for majority non-Hispanic American culture. Analyses also explored the new measure's relationship with acculturation, ethnic identity, SES, and generational status. The new 32-item measure provided unique information above and beyond the established parenting measure when predicting Global Self-Worth, suggesting that the new measure may better capture the relationship between parenting and student outcomes. On the other hand, future studies need to address methodological limitations of this study by using a larger sample size and increasing sample heterogeneity while maintaining consistency in demographic variables across within-study samples.

Cette thèse a pour objectif d’interroger l’expérience d’Alain Robbe-Grillet. Il s’agit de mettre en relief le monde imaginaire du Nouveau Romancier, principalement les différents rapports qui se tissent entre la littérature et la perception. La façon dont ce que ressent l’écrivain intègre l’imaginaire littéraire est au centre de cette recherche. Les rapports de l’écrivain au monde, sollicitent différents registres sensitifs. Ses personnages manifestent sans cesse des perceptions visuelles, auditives, gustatives, olfactives et tactiles, qui alimentent leur imaginaire et mettent au devant de la scène ce qu’ils éprouvent. Mais chaque réalité, aussi familière soit-elle, est vécue et ressentie de manière étrange. L’étrangeté est au coeur des réalités, des motifs spatiaux, temporels et plus largement culturels, à la fois identifiables et méconnaissables. Dominée par de multiples métamorphoses perceptives, l’écriture n’échappe pas à l’ambigüité qui finit par devenir la norme. À vrai dire, telle est la condition de l’être. Le romancier exploite aussi la création littéraire pour dire la singularité du personnage. Les animaux sont objets d’expériences vécues et traduisent la subversion de l’être sous des formes diverses. De ce fait, le personnage est confiné dans l’isolement, où il vit sa liberté et considère comme vérité ce qu’il ressent. Ses vêtements, son corps, son nom… fragilisent l’identité et érotisent une écriture sous l’emprise de la subjectivité. / This thesis questions Alain Robbe-Grillet’s concept of experience. The idea is to underline the imaginary world of the Nouveau Romancier, mainly the different relationships that are developing between literature and perception. The way sensation embeds literary imagination is central to this research. The writer’s perceptions of the world calls for several sensory dimensions. Robbe-Grillet’s characters are always experiencing visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory and tactile perceptions, which feed their imagination and emphasis what they feel. But each reality, as familiar as it can be, is lived and felt in a strange way. Strangeness is at the centre of realities, spatial and temporal motives and more widely cultural motives, which are identifying and unrecognizing at the same time. As it is overcome by several perceptual metamorphoses, writing itself cannot escape its ambiguity, which’s becoming its norm. So is the condition of the being. The writer also exploits literary creation to depict the singularity of characters. Animals are objects of lived experiences and represent the subversion of the being through different shapes. Consequently, the character is confined to isolation, where he experiences his freedom and considers what he feels as the truth. His clothes, his body, his name weaken his identity and eroticise the writing due under influence of subjectivity.

Les matériaux luminescents sensibles à la température ou l’exposition auxrayons ultra-violets sont de plus en plus recherchés. Dans ces travaux, deux famillesde composés ont été synthétisés et caractérisés.La première famille est celle des composés ZnAl2O4 dopés aux ionsmanganèse de structure spinelle. Ces composés présentent des propriétés dethermo-chromo-luminescence irréversible avec une variation d’émission du rouge auvert en fonction de l’histoire thermique subie par le matériau. Ici les variations delongueurs d’onde d’émission sont dues au changement de l’environnement des ionsluminescents manganèse en fonction de la température. Il a été démontré que lagamme de température de commutation peut être modulée par une variation de lacomposition de la matrice hôte. La seconde famille est celle des elpasolites decomposition Rb2KInF6 dopé au cérium. Ces composés présentent des propriétés dephoto-chromo-luminescence réversible par oxydo-réduction entre les ions cérium etindium. Sous irradiation UV, il est possible de créer des espèces (In+) quiluminescent dans le rouge. Nous avons montré que le retour aux propriétés initialespeut avoir lieu sous irradiation UV à plus hautes longueurs d’onde ou par chauffage.La spécificité du phénomène associé à cette structure et cette compositionparticulière peut s’expliquer par des considérations structurales, la situation spatialedes ions cérium et indium permettant des échanges électroniques par recouvrementorbitalaire de ces deux ions. / Research for luminescent materials sensitive to temperature or UV exposurevariation are increasing. Here we manage to synthesized and characterized materialswhich show such properties.First, spinel structure materials as ZnAl2O4 doped with manganesecompounds exhibit irreversible thermo-chromo-luminescence properties. Thismaterial shows a variation of emission wavelength from red to green with a variationof the thermal history of the sample. These variations are due to a modification of themanganese environment in the structure with the temperature. It was demonstratedthat the temperature range of the luminescence switch can be tuned by themodification of the matrix composition. Secondly, cerium-doped Rb2KInF6compounds with elpasolite structure exhibit reversible photo-chromo-luminescenceproperties. Under UV irradiation, new luminescent species (In+), created by redoxreaction between Ce3+ and In3+ species, and which emits in the red range, can beproduced. We demonstrate the reversibility of the phenomenon by UV irradiation orafter a thermal treatment. The specificity of these properties with this structure andthis composition can be explained by structural consideration: Ce3+ and In3+positioning in the cell allowing electronic exchanges between these ions thanks toorbital overlap.

HRM eller Human Resource Management är det moderna begreppet för personalpolitik. Att hantera personal är en svår uppgift, i synnerhet under ekonomiska nedgångsfaser. Studiens primära syfte är att få en djupare förståelse för hur fem svenska byggföretag arbetar med sin HRM. Det sekundära syftet är att utreda vilka personalpolitiska förändringar som dessa byggföretag har genomfört och/eller planerar att genomföra under den pågående nedgångsfasen på bostadsmarknaden. Studien har baserats på semistrukturerade intervjuer med sammanlagt fem HR-chefer på Skanska AB, PEAB Bostad AB, JM AB, JM Entreprenad AB och HSB Bostad AB. Intervjufrågor som ställts har avgränsats till rekrytering och urval, personalutbildning och individuell kompetensutveckling, hanterandet av disciplin och klagomål samt hanterandet av belöningar. Det erhållna resultatet har analyserats med hjälp av en induktiv forskningsmetod. Byggföretagen har flera gemensamma drag. Vid rekrytering och urval väljer samtliga bolag extern rekrytering. Vid personalutbildning så koncentrerar sig samtliga bolag på både interna och externa utbildningar, förutom JM Entreprenad AB som numera enbart fokuserar på interna utbildningar. Att medarbetaren blir sedd samt att den får regelbunden feedback är viktigt enligt HR-cheferna och samtliga bolag, förutom HSB Bostad AB, använder sig av ett individuellt bonussystem. Under den pågående nedgångsfasen så har samtliga byggföretag, förutom Skanska AB, varit tvungna att antingen frysa rekryteringen eller reducera antalet medarbetare; detta i syfte att förbli konkurrenskraftiga. Enligt HR-cheferna så kommer byggföretagen bland annat att lägga mer fokus på att vidareutveckla försäljningskompetensen hos den nuvarande personalen. En av orsakerna till Skanska AB:s framgång kan vara att medarbetarna äger en stor del av Skanska Koncernen; detta motiverar dem att stanna kvar samt att arbeta hårdare.

An efficacious treatment is diminished in value if clients will not seek it out and adhere to it (Kazdin, 1978). Thus, the acceptability of a treatment to consumers is an important indicator of the quality/effectiveness of the treatment (APA, 2002). The purpose of this study was to examine acceptability of treatments for depression to adolescent females and to explore factors that might be associated with acceptability. Sixty-seven high school students (36 Hispanic and 31 non-Hispanic White) were recruited from communities in New Jersey and Florida, and interviewed by telephone. Participants were presented with a vignette describing a depressed adolescent and asked to use the Abbreviated Acceptability Rating Profile to indicate their opinion of four single treatments (cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, family therapy, and pharmacotherapy) for depression and three treatment combinations. Consistent with hypotheses, psychotherapy approaches were generally more acceptable to adolescents than combinations of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Pharmacotherapy used alone was not acceptable, on average. There was preliminary evidence to support the hypotheses that treatment acceptability is related to ethnicity, acculturation, and perceived causes of depression; however, contrary to expectations, treatment acceptability was not associated with symptom severity in this study. Implications for increasing the utilization of mental health services in this population are discussed and directions for future research are offered.

Advancements in web technology such as the integration of operating platforms, the application of mobile applets and connectivity with databases into an encompassing web environment has promoted the development of complex web-based systems for enterprise computing. In this integration the inherent security flaws and associated problems of these technological advancements are also brought together under this web environment. These flaws, when exploited, could lead to system compromises of various kinds including stealing of security sensitive information, system take-over fabrication of fake electronic documents and illegal alteration to web sites contents. Therefore, the successful, prompt and appropriate responses of these complex web-based systems to security threats and breaches, such as in the cases of document tampering and misrepresentation from illegal users, are imperative in promoting the user's willingness and confidence when interacting with these systems. Accordingly, this has become one of the major concerns in development, management and operation of web-based systems. This thesis also studies the authentication of dynamic web contents through the application of a one-time digital signature. To this effect, relevant concepts and possible approaches have been discussed. Authentication and verification of dynamic contents, efficiently in the web environment, is suggested as a separate research area and as a direction for future work. / Master of Science (Honours) Computing