This diploma project solves questions of blending processes and mixers of partikular materials. In the first and the second part is solved theoreticel analysis of blending processes. Contain of the third and the fourth part is designing and calculating of the mixer´s parameters.

This thesis documents the evaluation of several transparency techniques in aspects of quality and performance. Depth sorted alpha blending and the order-independent transparency techniques additive blending, multiplicative blending, unsorted alpha blending and depth peeling are examined. The theoretical concepts of these techniques are explained.

[pt] Este trabalho apresenta os primeiros passos em direção a uma abordagem arquetípica para análise e percepção de enredos. A ideia principal é usar o conceito de arquétipos como uma lente para observar essas histórias e avaliar tropos. Arquétipos são tipos de personagens recorrentes e relações seguidas em narrativas. Usamos a definição de arquétipos de Vogler que atribui funções dramáticas e psicológicas a cada arquétipo para apontar seus papéis e objetivos na história. Primeiramente, fazemos uma análise completa do que são os arquétipos e como cada um é definido. O segundo passo é a criação de um instrumento argumentativo que denominamos Lente, para analisar narrativas sob a ótica dos arquétipos e, com base nos resultados, criar um modelo. O terceiro passo é aplicar esse novo modelo a trabalhos existentes de narratologia computacional e geração de enredo. Essa estratégia permite a análise crítica do uso de arquétipos para auxiliar na definição e percepção de uma trama. Decidimos usar a geração de enredo baseada em blending, porque esse tipo de geração de narrativa lida com uma situação complexa de geração de enredo. Neste trabalho, propomos incorporar vetores de peso arquetípicos nos operadores de planejamento automatizado que representam a história. Esses vetores são então ponderados usando a função dramática de cada arquétipo para ter um vetor arquetípico final representando o personagem. A criação da Lente busca padronizar a percepção e análise de narrativas. É fundamental que a metodologia de análise seja instrumentada, para usarmos seus resultados como reguladores dos pesos arquetípicos. Empregar a Lente do arquétipo em obras pode nos fornecer uma nova visão sobre a geração do enredo e a construção da narrativa. O resultado final de nossa pesquisa, aplicado no contexto de narrative blending, gera uma categorização dos arquétipos que cada personagem interpreta ao longo da narrativa. Esse resultado é apresentado de forma geral e episódica, para cada variante gerada. Essa categorização serve de base para analisarmos a qualidade da narrativa observando a relação de intenção e resultado. / [en] This work presents the first steps towards an archetypal-oriented approach to plot analysis and perception. The main idea is to use the concept of archetypes as a lens to look at these stories and evaluate tropes. Archetypes are recurring character types and relationships observable in narratives. We use Vogler s definition of archetypes which assigns dramatic and psychological functions to each archetype to pinpoint their roles and goals in the story. First, we do a thorough analysis of what archetypes are and how each is defined. The second step is the creation of an argumentative instrument that we call Lens, to analyze narratives from the perspective of archetypes and, based on the results, create a model. The third step is to apply this new model to existing works on computational narratology and plot generation. This strategy allows a critical analysis of the use of archetypes to help define and perceive a plot. We decided to use blending-based plot generation because this type of storytelling deals with a complex plot generation situation. In this work, we propose to incorporate archetypal weight vectors into the automated planning operators that represent the story. These vectors are then weighted using the dramatic role of each archetype to have a final archetypal vector representing the character. The creation of the Lens seeks to standardize the perception and analysis of narratives. It is fundamental that the analysis methodology be instrumented, so that we can use its results as regulators of archetypal weights. Employing the Archetype Lens in works can provide us with new insight into plot generation and narrative construction. The final result of our research, applied in the context of narrative blending, generates a categorization of the archetypes that each character interprets throughout the narrative. This result is presented in a general and episodic way, for each generated variant. This categorization serves as the basis for analyzing the quality of the narrative, observing the relationship between intention and result.

This study examined the concept of using a reactive blending process to develop new polymeric additive systems. The objective was to investigate the potential of using a reactive processing technique as a means to bond additives to functional polymers, to create “in situ” bonds between functional groups present on the polymers and those present on the additives. The work is reported in two parts; the first part studied the bonding of colorants to functional polyolefins and the second part investigated the bonding of UV stabilisers to functional polyolefins. The research was completed with the long term objective that the approach should offer alternative additives to conventional non-bonded systems for use in polypropylene. An ethylene ionomer was utilised for the bonding of dyes, this was chosen for its optical clarity and chemical functionality. Polyethylene methacrylic acid (EMAA) ionomers and methine dyes were blended in the melt phase using an internal mixer to produce bright intrinsically colored polymers. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) in transmission mode was used to assess the bonding of the dye to the ionomer. Bonding resulted through electrostatic interactions between carboxylate groups on the ionomer and cations on the dye molecules. The reactive blending process also resulted in a change in the chromophoric structure of the dye. The bonded system was compared to a system whereby no bonding between the methine dye and polymer was expected. In the later system the methine dye was blended with polyethylene using an internal mixer. From FTIR results no interaction was observed between the dye and polyethylene in this system. This was supported by microscopic analysis that showed that the dye was present in the polyethylene as a dispersion. The second stage of research focussed on the UV stabilisation of polyolefins. A melt reaction was explored between polypropylene functionalised with maleic anhydride (PP-g-MA) and an alkoxyamine hindered amine light stabiliser (NOR-HALS) with hydroxyl functionality. The technology proposed is based upon the reaction between the carboxylic acid groups of maleated polypropylene and hydroxyl groups of a specific NOR-HALS (Tinuvin 152). The efficiency of the modification was assessed using FTIR to verify the esterification reaction between the NOR-HALS and the maleated polypropylene. This reaction resulted in the grafting of a pendant UV stabiliser to the polypropylene through an ester linkage. A twin-screw extruder (TSE) was used to complete this study. A larger quantity of material could be produced using a TSE compared to the colorant system where an internal mixer was used. Samples of the reactively blended materials were exposed to UV radiation for a maximum time period of three hundred hours to assess the resulting stability of the materials. Diffuse reflectance FTIR (DRIFT) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) provided an effective means to study oxidative degradation. IR spectroscopic measurements were used to determine the effectiveness of HALS in inhibiting the photo-oxidation of maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene. The inhibition was quantified by measuring the formation of carbonyl groups, with and without HALS bonded to the polymer, at fixed exposure times of UV radiation. DRIFT and XPS analysis confirmed that stabilised samples oxidised less, as indicated by the lower carbonyl index values and O1s / C1s ratios. These findings were complemented by results from Charpy impact tests. The mechanical property results indicated that the longevity of the materials with UV stabilisers grafted to them exceeded the PPg- MA system where there was no stabiliser present. Visible spectrophotometry was used to assess the colour of the polymeric samples and change in colour following exposure to UV radiation. Samples with bonded HALS demonstrated greater colour stability than control samples. The microstructure of the polymer surfaces was viewed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The polymeric samples demonstrated resistance to crazing when the NOR-HALS were bonded to the polymer. For both the colorant and UV stabiliser areas of research, thermal properties of the materials were assessed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). It was found that increasing the additive concentration in the polymer resulted in an increase in the temperature of crystallisation (Tc). Melt flow index can indicate if any change in molar mass had occurred during processing. An increase in melt flow index values (MFI) was observed when additive loading increased which suggested that degradation of the polymer had occurred during processing. In summary, reactive processing showed considerable promise as a means to bond additives to a functional polypropylene.

This thesis offers a new approach to mind modelling in modernist narratives. Taking Nietzsche’s work as exemplary of modernist ideas about cognition’s relational basis, I argue that conceptual blending theory, a particularly cogent model of a fundamental cognitive process, has roots in modernism. I read inscriptions of relational cognition in modernist narratives as “conceptual blends” that invite cognitive mobility as a central facet of reader response. These blends, which integrate conceptual domains, invite similarity-seeing and difference-seeing, exposing the reader to new conceptual content and new cognitive styles; she is thus better able to negotiate the reading-related complexities of modernist narrative’s formal innovations and the real-world complexities of modernity’s local and global upheavals. Chapter One considers blending’s interrelated rhetorical motivations and cognitive effects in Chiang Yee’s Silent Traveller narratives: bringing together English and Chinese domains, Chiang’s blends defamiliarize his readers’ culturally entrenched assumptions, invite collaborative reading strategies, and thus equip his readers for relating flexibly to a newly globalized world. Moving away from blends in a text’s narration, Chapter Two focuses on blends as textual structuring principles. I read Virginia Woolf’s The Waves as a thinking mind with fundamentally relational cognitive processes; I consider the mobile cognitive operations we perform reading about a text’s mind thinking and thinking along with it. Chapters Three and Four cross the nebulous text-peritext border to examine blends in modernist prefaces. Chapter Three focuses on blends in Joseph Conrad’s and Henry James’s prefaces, relating them, through the reading strategies they invite, to the narratives they accompany. Chapter Four considers allographic prefaces to Arthur Morrison’s Tales of Mean Streets and two of Chiang’s narratives: blends in these prefaces invite the cognitive mobility necessary for reconceptualizing both allographic preface-text and East-West relations. All four chapters treat the modernist narrative text as a textual system whose blends, often interacting and borderless, signal reciprocal, mutually permeable relations among its textual levels. Dialogic relations also underwrite the interaction between these blends and blends the reader performs when engaging with them. Modernist narratives model (bear inscriptions of) cognition’s relational processes in order to model (shape) the reader’s mind.

This thesis offers a new approach to mind modelling in modernist narratives. Taking Nietzsche’s work as exemplary of modernist ideas about cognition’s relational basis, I argue that conceptual blending theory, a particularly cogent model of a fundamental cognitive process, has roots in modernism. I read inscriptions of relational cognition in modernist narratives as “conceptual blends” that invite cognitive mobility as a central facet of reader response. These blends, which integrate conceptual domains, invite similarity-seeing and difference-seeing, exposing the reader to new conceptual content and new cognitive styles; she is thus better able to negotiate the reading-related complexities of modernist narrative’s formal innovations and the real-world complexities of modernity’s local and global upheavals. Chapter One considers blending’s interrelated rhetorical motivations and cognitive effects in Chiang Yee’s Silent Traveller narratives: bringing together English and Chinese domains, Chiang’s blends defamiliarize his readers’ culturally entrenched assumptions, invite collaborative reading strategies, and thus equip his readers for relating flexibly to a newly globalized world. Moving away from blends in a text’s narration, Chapter Two focuses on blends as textual structuring principles. I read Virginia Woolf’s The Waves as a thinking mind with fundamentally relational cognitive processes; I consider the mobile cognitive operations we perform reading about a text’s mind thinking and thinking along with it. Chapters Three and Four cross the nebulous text-peritext border to examine blends in modernist prefaces. Chapter Three focuses on blends in Joseph Conrad’s and Henry James’s prefaces, relating them, through the reading strategies they invite, to the narratives they accompany. Chapter Four considers allographic prefaces to Arthur Morrison’s Tales of Mean Streets and two of Chiang’s narratives: blends in these prefaces invite the cognitive mobility necessary for reconceptualizing both allographic preface-text and East-West relations. All four chapters treat the modernist narrative text as a textual system whose blends, often interacting and borderless, signal reciprocal, mutually permeable relations among its textual levels. Dialogic relations also underwrite the interaction between these blends and blends the reader performs when engaging with them. Modernist narratives model (bear inscriptions of) cognition’s relational processes in order to model (shape) the reader’s mind.

Natural gas is the primary fuel used in industrial gas turbines for power generation. Hydrocarbon blends of methane, ethane, and propane make up a large portion of natural gas and it has been shown that dimethyl ether can be used as a supplement or in its pure form for gas turbine combustion. Because of this, a fundamental understanding of the physical characteristics such as the laminar flame speed is necessary, especially at elevated pressures to have the most relevance to the gas turbine industry. This thesis discusses the equations governing premixed laminar flames, historical methods used to measure the laminar flame speed, the experimental device used in this study, the procedure for converting the measured data into the flame speed, the results of the measurements, and a discussion of the results. The results presented in this thesis include the flame speeds for binary blends of methane, ethane, propane, and dimethyl ether performed at elevated pressures, up to 10-atm initial pressure, using a spherically expanding flame in a constant-volume vessel. Also included in this thesis is a comparison between the experimental measurements and four chemical kinetic models. The C4 mechanism, developed in part through collaboration between the National University of Ireland Galway and Texas A&M, was improved using the data presented herein, showing good agreement for all cases. The effect of blending ethane, propane, and dimethyl ether with methane in binary form is emphasized in this study, with the resulting Markstein length, Lewis number (Le), and flame stability characterized and discussed. It was noticed in this study, as well as in other studies, that the critical radius of the flame typically decreased as the Le decreased, and that the critical radius of the flame increased as the Le increased. Also, a rigorous uncertainty analysis has been performed, showing a range of 0.3 cm/s to 3.5 cm/s depending on equivalence ratio and initial pressure.

Implicit surface modeling is attracting attention, because a complex object can be constructed easily and intuitively from some simple primitive objects, defined by primitive defining functions, using successive compositions of blending operations. Blending operations play a major role in implicit surfaces, because they can join intersecting primitive objects (operands) smoothly with transitions generated automatically by blending operators. Hence, this dissertation proposes three new methods: (1) the scale method, (2) field functions with adjustable inner and outer radii, and (3) the translation method, for developing blending operations that have blending range controls. That is, the proposed blending operations provide blending range parameters to adjust the size and shape of the transition of the blending surface freely, without deforming the shapes of blended primitives totally. The first and the third methods offer blending range controls by developing new blending operators, whereas the second method does the similar things by developing new primitive defining functions. The scale method is a generalized method. It provides a framework to transform any existing blending operators or arc-shaped curves into the blending operator that has the following properties: (1) Provides blending range and curvature parameters to adjust the size and shape of the transition of the blending surface, without deforming the shapes of blended primitives totally. (2) Behaves like Max/Min(x1,¡K,xk) operators in non-blending regions in the entire domain. As a result, it gives a more intuitive shape control on modeling its subsequent blends. (3) Possesses C1 continuity in the entire domain except the origin. As a result, it can prevent from generating non-smooth surfaces on sequential blends with overlapped blending regions. (4) Works to blend both non-zero and zero implicit surfaces. (5) Can be a new primitive in other blends, especially in Soft blending. (6) Applies for bulge elimination. Field functions with adjustable inner and outer radii provide parameters to adjust the inner and the outer radii of influence, respectively. This dissertation proposes four different transforms to develop this kind of field functions. Thus, using the proposed field functions as the new primitive defining functions of soft object modeling, Soft blending, R-functions, Ricci¡¦s super-ellipsoid blends and Perlin¡¦s set operations: (1) Can retain their low computing complexity. (2) Can perform the blending range controls, by adjusting the inner and the outer radii of influence of the proposed field functions. The translation method is also a generalized method. It offers a framework to transform any existing blending operators or arc-shaped curves into controllable blending operators for blending zero implicit surfaces. A controllable blending operator has the following properties: (1) Offers blending range and curvature parameters to adjust the size and shape of transition of the blending surface, without deforming the shapes of blended primitives completely. (2) Provides parameters mi, i=1,2,¡K,k, to behave like Max/Min(x1/m1,¡K,xk/mk) operators on non-blending regions in the entire domain, and its zero level blending surface remains unchanged, whatever mi, i=1,2,¡K,k, are set. As a result, by adjusting mi, i=1,2,¡K,k, a controllable blending operator has the following abilities to control its primitives¡¦ subsequent blends:

The polymer materials industry is heavily dependent on the use of petroleum based plastics. This poses a problem, as the world is facing ongoing petroleum supply problems. A need exists for a bio-carbon based polymer material that has the performance and cost of currently used petroleum plastics. However, the overall performance of current bio-based plastics indicate that they must be somehow supplemented to achieve the properties of that of petroleum-based polymers. The low impact strength and thermal stability of poly(lactic acid), PLA are targets for improvement. One option is for development is through blending with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The viability and efficacy of using these two polymers as blending partners is investigated. The PLA used in these studies has unique and interesting crystallization properties. These have been examined and detailed in part 1. The second part of study includes neat polymer properties, miscibility analysis, and large scale process results. This results in an optimized blending ratio on which to go forward with development. The mechanical, thermal, and morphological properties are investigated in these studies. Significance of this research and development is widespread, as the material developed has the potential to reduce the use of petroleum-based carbon in plastics. / The financial support from the 2010 Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)/University of Guelph -Bioeconomy for Industrial Uses Research Program, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) AUTO21 NCE project and Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), to carry out this research is gratefully acknowledged.

In the dissertation, the theoretical assumptions proposed by the cognitive model of conceptual blending have been applied to the practical study of irony in Lithuanian and American news website headlines, proving that the theory of blending is able to account for the mechanism of irony processing, and does not conflict with the majority of the other theories of irony processing. The dissertation aims at determining cross-cultural similarities and differences in the structure, processing and functioning of irony in American and Lithuanian news headlines by exploring the integration mechanisms and their constituent parts within the framework of conceptual blending. Based on data collected from Lithuanian and American news websites, the thesis explores empirically the types of integration models, frames, inner and outer vital relations, compressions, means of expression, functions and conventionalization that create irony. In accordance with the main aim the changes in the perception of the phenomenon of irony are identified, the ideas related to the definition of irony are consolidated, a list of possible indicators of irony is composed and the role of context in irony comprehension discussed. The dissertation does not only examine empirically the practical viability of the application of the conceptual blending framework to the analysis of irony, but also, while performing a contrastive analysis, makes an attempt at characterizing common and specific features of Lithuanian and... [to full text] / Disertacijoje teorinės konceptualiojo blendingo prielaidos taikomos praktiniam ironijos tyrimui naujienų antraštėse lietuviškame ir amerikietiškame žiniatinkliuose siekiant įrodyti, kad blendingo teorija yra pajėgi paaiškinti ironijos veikimo mechanizmą neprieštaraujant daugumai kitų ironijos suvokimo teorijų. Remiantis konceptualiojo blendingo teorija disertacijoje keliamas tikslas nustatyti ironijos sukūrimo ir išraiškos struktūros, perteikimo ir funkcionavimo, integracinius mechanizmų bei jų sudedamųjų dalių panašumus ir skirtumus tiriant Amerikos ir Lietuvos žiniatinklių antraštes. Tikslui pasiekti disertacijoje apžvelgiamas ironijos sampratos kitimas, konsoliduojamos ironijos apibrėžimo idėjos, pateikiama ironijos mechanizmo teorijų apžvalga bei kritika, sudaromas galimų ironijos žymiklių sąrašas, bei aptariama konteksto įtaka ironijos suvokimui. Disertacijoje ne tik empiriškai išnagrinėjamas bei pagrindžiamas praktinis konceptualiojo blendingo taikymas ironijai analizuoti, bet taip pat atliekamas lyginamasis tyrimas išskirtiniams Lietuvos ir Amerikos ironiškų naujienų antraščių bruožams nustatyti.