The energy consumption of residential buildings in Canada accounts for 17% of national energy use (Trudeau, 2005). Production homes represent a considerable portion of new housing. In an effort to reduce the national energy demand, the energy consumption of these homes must be addressed. Techniques, methods and materials to achieve reductions in residential energy use are readily available. The goal of this thesis is to show that it is possible to build a low-energy home for less total carrying cost than a home built to the 2006 Ontario Building Code. To show how this is possible, a range of cost-effective and practical-to-implement upgrades are identified, and quantitative projections of cost-savings and benefits gained by the homeowner are generated. The interest in, and demand for, greener less energy consumptive homes is increasing. As oil prices rise, climate changes, landfills become overburdened and water restrictions become more frequent, the public pushes harder for change. The residential housing sector has seen increased demand for energy efficient homes that incorporate green features, high efficiency appliances and mechanical systems. Increased environmental concern has put ‘Green’ in demand. This thesis reviews a variety of North American green rating systems and contrasts their energy performance requirements with those of the Ontario Building Code. The Ontario Building Code was considered the baseline. Although the R2000 program was originally developed nearly 30 years ago it has managed to maintain a standard of performance that has always exceeded the OBC. It has a wider range of requirements than either the building code or ENERGY STAR, but falls short of the LEED for homes program in terms of breadth of environmental concerns. The literature review shows that homes that use 75% less heating energy than a standard house could be built in the 1980s for a mere 5% construction cost premium. When care is taken to produce quality designs and specifications, and to ensure that details are properly finished, these types of homes can be built almost anywhere. Some of the most successful technology and strategies of the 80’s have found their way into mainstream Canadian houses. As a result, the average new Canadian home consumes less energy than its predecessors. The Ontario building code has some of the most stringent thermal insulation and energy performance requirements of all provincial codes in Canada. However, significantly more can be done to economically reduce house energy consumption. A parametric analysis of a representative urban house was performed. This analysis suggests that there is significant room for improvement in the minimum Ontario Building Code requirements, especially with regard to the insulation and air tightness specifications. In 2006 the OBC requirements for above grade wall insulation were increased from R17 to R19 whereas this investigation found that R34 could be justified financially. The fenestration requirements in the 2006 OBC require windows to attain at least R2.8, while this investigation shows that a further 25% increase to R3.5 will soon be financially sensible.

Given positive integers c1,c2,...,ck with gcd(c1,c2,...,ck) = 1, the Frobenius problem (FP) is to compute the largest integer g(c1,c2,...,ck) that cannot be written as a non-negative integer linear combination of c1,c2,...,ck. The Frobenius problem in a free monoid (FPFM) is a non-commutative generalization of the Frobenius problem. Given words x1,x2,...,xk such that there are only finitely many words that cannot be written as concatenations of words in {x1,x2,...,xk}, the FPFM is to find the longest such words. Unlike the FP, where the upper bound g(c1,c2,...,ck)≤max 1≤i≤k ci2 is quadratic, the upper bound on the length of the longest words in the FPFM can be exponential in certain measures and some of the exponential upper bounds are tight. For the 2FPFM, where the given words over Σ are of only two distinct lengths m and n with 1<m<n, the length of the longest omitted words is ≤g(m, m|Σ|n-m + n - m). In Chapter 1, I give the definition of the FP in integers and summarize some of the interesting properties of the FP. In Chapter 2, I give the definition of the FPFM and discuss some general properties of the FPFM. Then I mainly focus on the 2FPFM. I discuss the 2FPFM from different points of view and present two equivalent problems, one of which is about combinatorics on words and the other is about the word graph. In Chapter 3, I discuss some variations on the FPFM and related problems, including input in other forms, bases with constant size, the case of infinite words, the case of concatenation with overlap, and the generalization of the local postage-stamp problem in a free monoid. In Chapter 4, I present the construction of some essential examples to complement the theory of the 2FPFM discussed in Chapter 2. The theory and examples of the 2FPFM are the main contribution of the thesis. In Chapter 5, I discuss the algorithms for and computational complexity of the FPFM and related problems. In the last chapter, I summarize the main results and list some open problems. Part of my work in the thesis has appeared in the papers.

I present numerical simulations of intensity and degree of polarization of light reflected by Earth-like exoplanets. The results are presented as a function of wavelength, and for a few different phase angles and a few different points on the planet. At this stage the aim is to show the working code and test a few different set ups of the star-planet system in order to find preferable configurations for observations. Not surprisingly, phase angle 90◦ shows the largest degree of polarization. For beneficial wavelength regions, visual light shows a larger overall degree of polarization, while NIR shows very clear absorption patterns in the degree of polarization, making detection of the atmospheric composition possible.

Denna studie vill undersöka om koloniala strukturer genomsyrar den senaste i raden av Star Trek-serierna, Enterprise. Med utgångspunkt i äldre forskning om just koloniala strukturer i Star Trek kommer en jämförelse göras om Enterprise först och främst har dessa strukturer och om så är fallet, göra en jämförelse med de andra serierna. Det postkoloniala forskningsfältet tillsammans med ett strukturalistiskt och post-strukturalistiskt tillvägagångssätt som innefattar semiotik och diskursanalys används för att kunna peka på hur de koloniala strukturerna genomsyrar serien. Analysen, som bland annat innefattar besättningens inbördes hierarki, hur andra främmande raser ser ut och vilka egenskaper de har och hur mötet går till med andra kulturer, visar att de koloniala strukturerna fortfarande genomsyrar Star Trek. Enterprise skiljer sig dock från de äldre serierna på ett sådant sätt att det koloniala tar mindre plats, bland annat seriens handling och även hur alla besättningsmedlemmar är med och skapar seriens handling.

This paper deals with decision problems related to the star problem in trace monoids, which means to determine whether the iteration of a recognizable trace language is recognizable. Due to a theorem by Richomme from 1994[30,31], we know that the Star Problem is decidable in trace monoids which do not contain a C4-submonoid. The C4 is (isomorphic to) the Caresian Product of two free monoids over doubleton alphabets. It is not known, whether the Star Problem is decidable in C4 or in trace monoids containing a C4. In this paper, we show undecidability of some related problems: Assume a trace monoid which contains a C4. Then, it is undecidable whether for two given recognizable languages K and L, we have K ⊆ L*, although we can decide K* ⊆ L. Further, we can not decide recognizability of K ∩ L* as well as universality and recognizability of K U L*.

This paper deals with a connection between two decision problems for recognizable trace languages: the star problem and the finite power property problem. Due to a theorem by Richomme from 1994 [26, 28], we know that both problems are decidable in trace monoids which do not contain a C4 submonoid. It is not known, whether the star problem or the finite power property are decidable in the C4 or in trace monoids containing a C4. In this paper, we show a new connection between these problems. Assume a trace monoid IM (Σ, I) which is isomorphic to the Cartesian Product of two disjoint trace monoids IM (Σ1, I1) and IM (Σ2, I2). Assume further a recognizable language L in IM (Σ, I) such that every trace in L contains at least one letter in Σ1 and at least in one letter in Σ2. Then, the main theorem of this paper asserts that L* is recognizable iff L has the finite power property.

High accessibility to internet technology and popularization of focus media has given rise to various emerging subcultures among the younger generation who constantly seek novelty and unique lifestyles. The Otaku subculture is one such adolescent subculture, a culture of avid ACG (animation, comic, games) collectors, while pop music fans belong to another youth subculture deeply involved in gathering and tracking the lives and performances of pop music stars. As the adolescent is becoming the most purchasing power consumer group of fashion product, this research aims at comparing the traits of the above two adolescent subcultures and their influences on buying behavior tendencies toward subculture-specific merchandises. This research is also attempting to develop an analytical model through comparison of two studies. The research framework is constructed based on the assumption that the traits of adolescent subcultures influence the subculture-specific consumptions and is examined on two studies of Otaku and pop music fans subcultures respectively. The same investigation methods are applied in two studies. First, the review of prior studies and findings of focus group interview with sample of five representative adolescents were integrated into a tentative model. Then, the questionnaire was developed based on the tentative model and the focus group interview findings, and sample of survey in two studies are 105 and 101 respectively. Survey data were examined by factor analysis and structural equation modeling for the verification of the tentative model, and finally a revised model is developed based on comparison of two studies results. Results show that the personality, values and lifestyle of subculture¡¦s main traits dimensions influence their buying behavior, although the Otaku and pop music fans take part in different activities and embrace different personality traits and values. The results also verify a feasible generalized analytical model for measuring the influences of the traits of specific adolescent subcultures on their buying behavior. This research offers some implications for consumer behavior and marketing communication including (1) comprehensive customer investigation is needed to understand what adolescents think and want; (2) providing attractive content and (3) adopting modern media to attract and access adolescent subculture group; (4) marketing communication appeals should match adolescents self-images to get their identification; and (5) providing total subculture solution in integrated marketing programs.

Traditional relational database model does not have enough capability to cope with a great deal of data in finite time. To address these requirements, data warehouses and online analytical processing (OLAP) have emerged. Data warehouses improve the productivity of corporate decision makers through consolidation, conversion, transformation, and integration of operational data, and supports online analytical processing (OLAP). The data warehouse design is a complex and knowledge intensive process. It needs to consider not only the structure of the underlying operational databases (source-driven), but also the information requirements of decision makers (user-driven). Past research focused predominately on supporting the source-driven data warehouse design process, but paid less attention to supporting the user-driven data warehouse design process. Thus, the goal of this research is to propose a user-driven data warehouse design support system based on the knowledge discovery approach. Specifically, a Data Warehouse Design Support System was proposed and the generalization hierarchy and generalized star schemas were used as the data warehouse design knowledge. The technique for learning these design knowledge and reasoning upon them were developed. An empirical evaluation study was conducted to validate the effectiveness on the proposed techniques in supporting data warehouse design process. The result of empirical evaluation showed that this technique was useful to support data warehouse design especially on reducing the missing design and enhancing the potentially useful design.

The STAR collaboration recorded s =200 GeV per nucleon d+Au and p+p collision events during the year 2003 RHIC run. In the p+p and the d+Au data samples, it is possible to reconstruct jets and make comparisons between them. This dissertation describes the reconstructed jet sample from the p+p events, the measurements of the jet jT distribution which quantifies the shape of the jet perpendicular to the jet direction, the jet fragmentation function (z), which quantifies the fraction of jet momentum carried by the jet particles, and the width of the parton momentum broadening distribution (kT). This dissertation also describes the comparison of these results to the reconstructed jet sample from d+Au events. Measurements of jet jT and jet fragmentation from p+p, d+Au, and PYTHIA are compared. The z and jT distributions from p+p and also d+Au are found to be consistent with PYTHIA event simulation version 6.205. RMS(jT) equals 612±12±30 MeV/c for p+p, and RMS(jT) equals 630±13±30 MeV/c for d+Au. The p+p kT Gaussian sigma (width) equals 2.08±0.12±0.13 GeV/c. This width is consistent with PYTHIA, kT literature surveys, and other RHIC measurements. A limit on nuclear kT broadening in the Au nucleus is also obtained, showing that nuclear kT is consistent with zero to within 0.5 GeV/c. The present status of the RdAu measurement from jets is also described. The nuclear kT broadening, in particular, is a measurement which has been done at this energy for the first time at RHIC. These measurements, while interesting by themselves, also will contribute ultimately to the understanding of Au+Au collisions at RHIC, and the properties of the high-density matter which results from them.

People are becoming more aware of the relationships between the built environment and their physical and psychological well-being. This has encouraged numerous studies in the field of environment and behavior, and effects of architecture, urban design and architectural form on human response. In the realm of architectural form, some professionals, from "signature" architects to environmental and organic designers, are strong advocates of free-flowing curvilinear forms. They assume that the use of curvilinear forms is sympathetic to the body, mind and spirit, although there is little empirical research to confirm this claim. There is also little research on the topic of signature / star architects and their design methods. The purpose of this multi-method study was to investigate the emotional effects of curvilinear forms in interior architectural settings. The research involved qualitative and quantitative methodologies. In the qualitative phase, twelve signature architects, known for their use of curvilinear forms, were interviewed to examine the reasons and processes by which they applied curvature in their work. They were also asked to talk about their design process. In the quantitative phase, two modified interior residential views were ranked on their emotional load by 230 non-architect and 75 architect students in card-sorting tasks. In each view, architectural forms gradually changed from fully rectilinear to fully curvilinear. The data from both phases of the research was analyzed. The dissertation concludes by discussing (a) factors that separate signature architects from others (b) how signature architects design (c) how and why designers utilize curvature in the built environment, and (d) different emotional responses of designers and non-designers in response to curvature in architectural settings. In general, quantitative data indicates that non-architects show significant positive response to curvilinear architectural forms. Nonarchitects found curvilinear forms to be pleasant, elevating and reducing stress. The strongest relationship was recorded between curvature and feminine qualities of architectural space, which was shared by both architects and non-architects.