The central problem of the thesis is to investigate the international legal validity of the Canadian claim to the Arctic Archipelago. In order to consider the bearing on the problem of the "sector principl" the area investigated comprised the islands, waters and permanent ice lying between the the 60th and 141st meridians of west longitude extended to the North Pole, which meridians are northerly projections of Canada's easternmost and westernmost boundaries.<p> After a brief review of the facts and law surrounding the transfer of British Arctic possessions to Canada in 1870 and 1800, the international law applicable to archipelagic formations and to the acquisition of title to terrae nullius was examined. There followed, in the perspective of international law and the historical precedents, an examination of the Canadian claims to (a) the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, and (b) the adjacent waters, especially the aftermath of the two voyages of the Manhattan and the Canadian legislation of June, 1970, extending territorial waters to a breadth of twelve miles and creating a large anti-pollution zone.<p> It was concluded that Canada's claim to the islands was very strong, either under the "prescription" or the "consolidation" doctrines, especially in the absence of serious adverse claims, and in the light of a vigorous Canadian manifestation of animus occupandi for several decades, at least.<p> Although the validity of the recent Canadian Maritime claims had been questioned by the United States, it was suggested either on the basis of the "consolidation" doctrine or in view of the evolving, norms of the international law of the sea that here also Canada could make out a strong case in support of the legislation of June, 1970.

A planar single facility location problem, also known as the Fermat&ndash / Weber problem, is to

The purpose of this research was to determine the potential capacity for improved participation through community-based approaches to small hydroelectric development in the Indian Himalayas. The objectives of the research were: (1) to establish the current roles of the civic, public and private sectors in small hydro development; (2) to examine the potential for learning through participation during the development of small hydro projects; (3) to determine the potential for using community-based environmental assessment in future projects; (4) to investigate the benefits of community-driven small hydro development, and (5) to determine the implications of the findings for environmental policy and decision-making. Data were gathered using Participatory Rural Appraisal methods including semi-structured interviews, transect walks, and landscape analysis. There were five case study projects (Niti, Bampa, Jumma, Malari and Bamini/Badrinath), each in the Indo-Tibetan border region of the Indian Himalayas. The plants are all run of river, and range in capacity from 25 kW to 1.2 MW. Four of the villages had no electricity prior to the development of the small-hydro plants, while one had a prior connection to the state electrical grid (Bamini/Badrinath). The villages are inhabited by Bhotia tribespeople, and are occupied only during the summer growing season. The residents travel to lower altitude villages for the winter months. The most successful project examined, in the village of Malari, was one where community development and energy needs were considered simultaneously, and where the local community was highly involved in planning, construction and operation. The less successful projects were those where community involvement and development, sound planning, and detailed geographic information about the site were lacking in their development and operation; such as was observed in the village of Jumma, where the plant never began operations because it was damaged by an avalanche prior to its inauguration. PLEASE NOTE: As of January 2007 the State of Uttaranchal was renamed Uttarakhand. The change is not reflected in this thesis. / May 2007

Using derivative based numerical optimization routines to solve optimization problems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs) with uncertain coefficients is computationally expensive due to the large number of PDE solves required at each iteration. In this thesis, I present an adaptive stochastic collocation framework for the discretization and numerical solution of these PDE constrained optimization problems. This adaptive approach is based on dimension adaptive sparse grid interpolation and employs trust regions to manage the adapted stochastic collocation models. Furthermore, I prove the convergence of sparse grid collocation methods applied to these optimization problems as well as the global convergence of the retrospective trust region algorithm under weakened assumptions on gradient inexactness. In fact, if one can bound the error between actual and modeled gradients using reliable and efficient a posteriori error estimators, then the global convergence of the proposed algorithm follows. Moreover, I describe a high performance implementation of my adaptive collocation and trust region framework using the C++ programming language with the Message Passing interface (MPI). Many PDE solves are required to accurately quantify the uncertainty in such optimization problems, therefore it is essential to appropriately choose inexpensive approximate models and large-scale nonlinear programming techniques throughout the optimization routine. Numerical results for the adaptive solution of these optimization problems are presented.

Corrosion of reinforcing steel is a major problem facing infrastructures owners with billions of dollars spent in repairing our aging infrastructure. One of the first steps in the repair process is to quantify the strength degradation in a reinforced concrete element caused by the corrosion of reinforcing steel. An understanding of the forces involved in the load carrying mechanisms is imperative; the transfer of shear forces in reinforced concrete beams is one of these load carrying mechanisms. The shear transfer mechanism is different near the end of beams, adjacent to point loads, and near changes in cross section. These regions are known as disturbed regions. Structural engineers have a good understanding of the shear transfer mechanism in disturbed regions. However, the effects of corroded shear reinforcement in these regions have not been widely investigated. The current study is comprised of an experimental program and analytical strut and tie modeling aimed at quantifying the strength reduction that occurs in disturbed regions of reinforced concrete beams with corroded shear reinforcement. The feasibility of strengthening a beam with dry lay-up carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) to repair the damage caused by corrosion of the shear reinforcement was also investigated. In the experimental study, a total of 16 reinforced concrete beams were cast. The specimens were 350 mm deep, 125 mm wide and 1850 mm long. Three shear-span to depth ratios (1.0, 1.5, 2.0) were selected. Each specimen was reinforced in flexure with two 25M bars and the shear reinforcement was 10M spaced at 150 mm on centre. The specimens were corroded for 21 days, 60 days, and 120 days corresponding to low, medium, and high corrosion levels. In addition, three specimens were constructed without shear reinforcement in the shear-span in order to compare the results from the corroded specimens. One specimen was also corroded to a high level and repaired with dry lay-up CFRP. The specimens were corroded using an accelerated corrosion technique. There was evidence of cracking of the cover concrete in all specimens, and in the more severely corroded specimens delamination of the cover concrete was recorded. The stiffness of the corroded specimens was less than their corresponding control specimen, and a strength reduction was evident in most specimens. The maximum recorded strength reduction was 52% compared to the companion uncorroded specimen. It was revealed that a more critical case occurs when the corroded shear reinforcement was shifted during placement or was inclined closer to the direction of the compressive force flow. Also, it was observed that the corroded shear reinforcement still provides limited ductility in comparison to the un-corroded reinforcement. A strut and tie model was developed based on the experiments to explain the behaviour of disturbed regions with corroded shear reinforcement. The model consisted of direct and indirect struts. The effects of corrosion were expressed in terms of a reduction in the stirrup cross-section, a reduction of compressive strength due to corrosion cracking, and a reduction in the concrete cross section width. It was hypothesized that the corrosion crack width influences the concrete compressive strength in the strut; consequently, a mathematical model was developed that related the reduction in concrete compressive strength with corrosion crack width. Also, a relationship between reinforcing steel mass loss and corrosion crack width was utilized from the published literature. An effective cross section width was obtained by reducing the width by the damaged concrete cover. The results from these models were input into a strut and tie model as a reduction in concrete compressive strength. The output from the strut and tie model was the ultimate shear strength of the specimen. The developed models were compared with a model from the literature and compared with the experimental results. The major contribution of this research is to allow designers to analyze disturbed regions with corroded shear reinforcement and determine the strength degradation; subsequently, one can determine what strengthening procedure would be most appropriate.

Modern medicine has become reliant on medical imaging. Multiple modalities, e. g. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), etc. , are used to provide as much information about the patient as possible. The problem of geometrically aligning the resulting images is called image registration. Mutual information, an information theoretic similarity measure, allows for automated intermodal image registration algorithms. <br /><br /> In applications such as cancer therapy, diagnosticians are more concerned with the alignment of images over a region of interest such as a cancerous lesion, than over an entire image set. Attempts to register only the regions of interest, defined manually by diagnosticians, fail due to inaccurate mutual information estimation over the region of overlap of these small regions. <br /><br /> This thesis examines the region of union as an alternative to the region of overlap. We demonstrate that the region of union improves the accuracy and reliability of mutual information estimation over small regions. <br /><br /> We also present two new mutual information based similarity measures which allow for localized image registration by combining local and global image information. The new similarity measures are based on convex combinations of the information contained in the regions of interest and the information contained in the global images. <br /><br /> Preliminary results indicate that the proposed similarity measures are capable of localizing image registration. Experiments using medical images from computer tomography and positron emission tomography demonstrate the initial success of these measures. <br /><br /> Finally, in other applications, auto-detection of regions of interest may prove useful and would allow for fully automated localized image registration. We examine methods to automatically detect potential regions of interest based on local activity level and present some encouraging results.

Corrosion of reinforcing steel is a major problem facing infrastructures owners with billions of dollars spent in repairing our aging infrastructure. One of the first steps in the repair process is to quantify the strength degradation in a reinforced concrete element caused by the corrosion of reinforcing steel. An understanding of the forces involved in the load carrying mechanisms is imperative; the transfer of shear forces in reinforced concrete beams is one of these load carrying mechanisms. The shear transfer mechanism is different near the end of beams, adjacent to point loads, and near changes in cross section. These regions are known as disturbed regions. Structural engineers have a good understanding of the shear transfer mechanism in disturbed regions. However, the effects of corroded shear reinforcement in these regions have not been widely investigated. The current study is comprised of an experimental program and analytical strut and tie modeling aimed at quantifying the strength reduction that occurs in disturbed regions of reinforced concrete beams with corroded shear reinforcement. The feasibility of strengthening a beam with dry lay-up carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) to repair the damage caused by corrosion of the shear reinforcement was also investigated. In the experimental study, a total of 16 reinforced concrete beams were cast. The specimens were 350 mm deep, 125 mm wide and 1850 mm long. Three shear-span to depth ratios (1.0, 1.5, 2.0) were selected. Each specimen was reinforced in flexure with two 25M bars and the shear reinforcement was 10M spaced at 150 mm on centre. The specimens were corroded for 21 days, 60 days, and 120 days corresponding to low, medium, and high corrosion levels. In addition, three specimens were constructed without shear reinforcement in the shear-span in order to compare the results from the corroded specimens. One specimen was also corroded to a high level and repaired with dry lay-up CFRP. The specimens were corroded using an accelerated corrosion technique. There was evidence of cracking of the cover concrete in all specimens, and in the more severely corroded specimens delamination of the cover concrete was recorded. The stiffness of the corroded specimens was less than their corresponding control specimen, and a strength reduction was evident in most specimens. The maximum recorded strength reduction was 52% compared to the companion uncorroded specimen. It was revealed that a more critical case occurs when the corroded shear reinforcement was shifted during placement or was inclined closer to the direction of the compressive force flow. Also, it was observed that the corroded shear reinforcement still provides limited ductility in comparison to the un-corroded reinforcement. A strut and tie model was developed based on the experiments to explain the behaviour of disturbed regions with corroded shear reinforcement. The model consisted of direct and indirect struts. The effects of corrosion were expressed in terms of a reduction in the stirrup cross-section, a reduction of compressive strength due to corrosion cracking, and a reduction in the concrete cross section width. It was hypothesized that the corrosion crack width influences the concrete compressive strength in the strut; consequently, a mathematical model was developed that related the reduction in concrete compressive strength with corrosion crack width. Also, a relationship between reinforcing steel mass loss and corrosion crack width was utilized from the published literature. An effective cross section width was obtained by reducing the width by the damaged concrete cover. The results from these models were input into a strut and tie model as a reduction in concrete compressive strength. The output from the strut and tie model was the ultimate shear strength of the specimen. The developed models were compared with a model from the literature and compared with the experimental results. The major contribution of this research is to allow designers to analyze disturbed regions with corroded shear reinforcement and determine the strength degradation; subsequently, one can determine what strengthening procedure would be most appropriate.

Hydrological models have been developed to estimate snow accumulation, snowmelt and snowmelt runoff on the Canadian Prairies; however, their proper scale of application is unknown in the Prairie environment. The first objective of this thesis is to examine the proper scale for pre-melt snow accumulation as snow water equivalent (SWE) and snowmelt in a Prairie first order basin. Spatially distributed and spatially aggregated approaches were used to calculate SWE and snowmelt at St. Denis National Wildlife Area (SDNWA). Both approaches used models with similar physics, but differed in the model scale at which calculations were carried out. The simulated pre-melt SWE, cumulative seasonal SWE, and daily snowmelt from the two modelling approaches were compared to field observations of pre-melt SWE, cumulative seasonal SWE, and daily snowmelt; comparisons of areal cumulative seasonal SWE, areal snowmelt, snowmelt duration, and snow-covered area were also conducted between two modelling approaches. Results from these comparisons showed that both approaches had reasonable and similar accuracy in estimation of SWE and snowmelt. The spatially aggregated approach was more computationally efficient and was selected as a modelling scale for small-sized prairie basins. <p>Another objective of this thesis is to derive a snow hydrology model for the Canadian Prairies. Physically-based hydrological models were assembled in the Cold Regions Hydrological Model Platform (CRHM) using the aggregated approach. Tests of pre-melt SWE and surface snowmelt runoff were conducted at two basins in Saskatchewan Creighton Tributary of Bad Lake and Wetland 109, St. Denis. Results showed that the snow hydrology model had a reasonable capability to simulate SWE and snowmelt runoff to the stream and wetland. <p>Droughts are natural hazards that develop frequently on the Canadian Prairies. Analyzing the impact of drought on hydrological processes and water supply is another objective of this thesis. Synthetic drought scenarios were proposed for the Creighton Tributary of Bad Lake and the corresponding impacts on the snowmelt runoff-related processes were examined. Results indicated that wind redistribution of snow was very sensitive to drought conditions, sublimation of blowing snow and snow-covered period were sensitive to drought, but winter evaporation and infiltration did not show strong trend. The results also showed that drought conditions had magnified effects on the snowmelt runoff and could cause cessation of streamflow. Also, the impacts of the recent 1999-2005 drought on the snowmelt hydrology were investigated at St. Denis. Results illustrated that three-years (1999-2002) of severe winter drought were followed by a normal year (2002-03) and then a two-year (2003-05) recovery period, and then returning to normal (2005-06). Results showed that both snowfall and rainfall during hydrological winter were consistently low for severe drought and surface snowmelt runoff was very much lower during severe drought, about 45-65 mm less compared to that in the normal periods.

The central problem of the thesis is to investigate the international legal validity of the Canadian claim to the Arctic Archipelago. In order to consider the bearing on the problem of the "sector principl" the area investigated comprised the islands, waters and permanent ice lying between the the 60th and 141st meridians of west longitude extended to the North Pole, which meridians are northerly projections of Canada's easternmost and westernmost boundaries.<p> After a brief review of the facts and law surrounding the transfer of British Arctic possessions to Canada in 1870 and 1800, the international law applicable to archipelagic formations and to the acquisition of title to terrae nullius was examined. There followed, in the perspective of international law and the historical precedents, an examination of the Canadian claims to (a) the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, and (b) the adjacent waters, especially the aftermath of the two voyages of the Manhattan and the Canadian legislation of June, 1970, extending territorial waters to a breadth of twelve miles and creating a large anti-pollution zone.<p> It was concluded that Canada's claim to the islands was very strong, either under the "prescription" or the "consolidation" doctrines, especially in the absence of serious adverse claims, and in the light of a vigorous Canadian manifestation of animus occupandi for several decades, at least.<p> Although the validity of the recent Canadian Maritime claims had been questioned by the United States, it was suggested either on the basis of the "consolidation" doctrine or in view of the evolving, norms of the international law of the sea that here also Canada could make out a strong case in support of the legislation of June, 1970.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of mathematics teacher and classroom characteristics on students&rsquo / mathematics achievement across Turkey,European Union countries and the other candidate countries by analysing the data collected from student and teacher background questionnaire and mathematics achievement test in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS-R). Mathematics teacher characteristics were divided into three groups as teacher&rsquo / s background variables, teacher&rsquo / s instructional practices and class characteristics. Except Cyprus, in all the other countries, there was sufficient amount of between-class variance to build explanatory models. After home educational resources (HER) of students was taken as a control variable, explanatory models were built by using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The amount of variance explained by the full model ranged from 26 % in Romania to 74 % in Netherlands. There were substantial differences among the countries, especially in the teacher&rsquo / s instructional practices. It was found that mean of HER had high effect on student mathematics achievement in all the countries except Romania. It is recommended that the factors that were found to have significant effects on student learning should be explored in experimental settings.