Exposure to loud sounds can cause damage to the inner ear, leading to degradation of the neural response to speech and to formant frequencies in particular. This may result in decreased intelligibility of speech. An amplification scheme for hearing aids, called Contrast Enhanced Frequency Shaping (CEFS), may improve speech perception for ears with sound-induced hearing damage. CEFS takes into account across-frequency distortions introduced by the impaired ear and requires accurate and robust formant frequency estimates to allow dynamic, speech-spectrum-dependent amplification of speech in hearing aids. Several algorithms have been developed for extracting the formant information from speech signals, however most of these algorithms are either not robust in real-life noise environments or are not suitable for real-time implementation. The algorithm proposed in this thesis achieves formant extraction from continuous speech by using a time-varying adaptive filterbank to track and estimate individual formant frequencies. The formant tracker incorporates an adaptive voicing detector and a gender detector for robust formant extraction from continuous speech, for both male and female speakers in the presence of background noise. Thorough testing of the algorithm using various speech sentences has shown promising results over a wide range of SNRs for various types of background noises, such as AWGN, single and multiple competing background speakers and various other environmental sounds. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

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Yes / Purpose – This paper establishes a comprehensive basis for understanding the roles and competences of midlevel management and their influence on the effectiveness of continuous improvement (CI) capability within an organisation. Design/methodology/approach – This research builds upon the hypothesis that methods alone do not lead to successful CI capability development. It focuses on the role of mid-level management in driving a CI environment that underpins the effectiveness of CI capability. A reference model for the CI environment is synthesised based on critical literature review, integrating CI culture, CI enablers and CI leadership elements.A comprehensive framework is introduced to define CI leadership roles and competence indicators. A quantitative benchmarking study involving structured interviews with 15 UK organisations was undertaken to collect evidence for a causal relationship between CI leadership competences and CI capability. Findings – Analysis of the benchmarking data provides clear evidence of the causal relationship between the CI leadership competences of mid-level management and CI capability of the organisation. Given that the empirical study was structured on the basis of the CI leadership roles and competences framework introduced in this paper, this also provides validation for the proposed framework and the CI environment model. Practical implications – The evidence-based knowledge of the positive relationship between the midmanagement CI leadership competences and the effectiveness of the CI capability informs strategic organisational development interventions towards enhancing CI capability and effectiveness, ultimately underpinning productivity enhancement and sustainability. The framework for mid-level management CI leadership roles, responsibilities and competences introduced in this paper and grounded in underpinning work undertaken within a large automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), can be adapted by any organisation. The CI environment reference model should provide a comprehensive support for strategists to communicate the framework for CI capability improvement within an organisation, to enhance acceptability and adherence to improvement actions. Originality/value – This research proves for the first time the significance of the causal relationship between the CI leadership competences and the effectiveness of the CI capability within an organisation, thus filling an important gap between established previous work, focussing on the role of mid-level management on one side and practitioner and team level roles, methodologies and tools. The proposed CI environment model is a theoretical contribution with reference value for both practice and further studies. The comprehensive framework for mid-level management CI leadership roles, responsibilities and competences introduced in this paper provides sound foundation to deliver CI leadership in the workplace. / Jaguar Land Rover Ltd

One of one-time authentication’s most prominent vulnerabilities is the possibility of lunchtime attacks. In such scenarios, an adversary could exploit an unattended device with an active session and no measures are taken to prevent them from committing malicious acts. To address this issue, continuous authentication is utilized by continuously verifying whether an individual is a device’s rightful owner through various modalities, with data sourced from sensors. In the current body of research within this rising domain, various single-modal and multi-modal continuous authentication systems exist, that focus on employing unique combinations of modalities and improving existing supervised learning models used to solve this classification problem. However, no solutions allow prospective continuous authentication users to obtain the most suitable combination of modalities given their unique circumstances. Therefore, in this thesis, we design a user-centric continuous authentication modality evaluation and selection scheme. The scheme employs a multi-criteria decision analysis model, which involves compiling a list of continuous authentication systems, modalities, and associated sensors. As part of this scheme, we design security, privacy, and usability frameworks to conduct systematic analyses of the list of sensors and modalities gathered, while considering the system’s performance. The proposed scheme can be utilized to generate a ranked list of combinations of modalities appropriate for the user.

This dissertation is devoted to investigating the time dependent neutron transport equations with reflecting boundary conditions. Two typical geometries --- slab geometry and spherical geometry --- are considered in the setting of <I>L^p</I> including <I>L^1</I>. Some aspects of the spectral properties of the transport operator <I>A</I> and the strongly continuous semigroup <I>T(t)</I> generated by <I>A</I> are studied. It is shown under fairly general assumptions that the accumulation points of { m Pas}(A):=sigma (A) cap { lambda :{ m Re}lambda > -lambda^{ast} }, if they exist, could only appear on the line { m Re}lambda =-lambda^{ast}, where lambda^{ast} is the essential infimum of the total collision frequency. The spectrum of <I>T(t)</I> outside the disk {lambda : |lambda| leq exp (-lambda^{ast} t)} consists of isolated eigenvalues of <I>T(t)</I> with finite algebraic multiplicity, and the accumulation points of sigma (T(t)) igcap{ lambda : |lambda| > exp (-lambda^{ast} t)}, if they exist, could only appear on the circle {lambda :|lambda| =exp (-lambda^{ast} t)}. Consequently, the asymptotic behavior of the time dependent solution is obtained. / Ph. D.

The concerns society has expressed regarding the education of children have prompted educators to relentlessly search for instructional methodologies and organizational designs to maximize student achievement. One instructional organizational design that has surfaced is looping. Looping is the process wherein the teacher remains with the same group of children for a period of two or more years. Looping has been tried at all grade levels with a single teacher or with a team of teachers and with the same students over a period of years. The purpose of this study is to investigate the implementation of looping in four schools and to provide a descriptive account. A case study approach was used. Teachers and principals at four elementary schools using looping were interviewed regarding their experience. Data were analyzed using a qualitative approach for emerging themes. These findings indicated that schools implement the looping concept to build relationships, for instructional advantages, extended time and to lessen anxieties. Also, schools implemented the looping concept by doing an indepth study of the concept and by allowing teachers and parents to participate voluntarily. Finally, specific outcomes as a result of the implementation of looping were as follows: parents were knowledgeable about school functions and the overall program of studies; students had a safe haven; and teachers felt that looping gave them more time with their students. / Ed. D.

This research presents results of innovation management practices and sustainability of continuous improvement. Innovation is recognized as a growth tool for economies in general however not all economy sectors have innovation as a strategy. This research served as a case study to analyze how innovation is managed within innovative firms to help less innovative sectors, such as the wood products industry, to become profitable. Among the observed innovation management practices, this study was able to identify the use of continuous improvement to support incremental innovation. Although, continuous improvement is well known and accepted, there are still challenges to reach a sustainable state of continuous improvement. This research also addresses the difficulty in sustaining continuous improvement through a longitudinal case study. A literature review was conducted to identify factors influencing the sustainability of the continuous improvement. These factors were gathered within a research framework which functioned as the main source to establish the questionnaire used as the research tool. Utilizing this tool, the study evaluated the hypotheses relating to the effects of time, location and company type on the behavior of the enabling and inhibiting factors, and the relationships among them. Results demonstrated that time has no effect on factors affecting the sustainability of the continuous improvement, although changes affect how the factors are perceived as success factors in sustaining continuous improvement. The study also concluded that type of company and location impact how the inhibiting and enabling factors are perceived as supporters of the sustainability of the continuous improvement. Finally, the study revealed that these factors are correlated among them, thus sustainability is the result of a dynamic multifactor process rather that an unique factor. In addition to this new framework, the study also developed a self-assessment tool to be used for continuous improvement practitioners. With this tool, the new developed framework can be continuously monitored and proper and informed action can be taken by managers to address any observed gap in sustaining continuous improvement. Finally, the study also brings an example of interdisciplinary research which gathers quantitative methods from the statistics field, and qualitative methods from the business and social science fields. / Ph. D.

Continuous integration (CI) is a widely used practice in modern software engineering. Unfortunately, it is also an expensive practice — Google and Mozilla estimate their CI systems in millions of dollars. In this dissertation, I propose a collection of novel build selection approaches that are able to save the cost of CI. I also propose the first exhaustive comparison of techniques to improve CI including build and test granularity approaches. I firstly design a build selection approach (SMARTBUILDSKIP) for CI cost reduction in a balanceable way. The evaluation of SMARTBUILDSKIP shows that it can save a median of 30% of builds by only incurring a median delay of 1 build in a median of 15% of failing builds under its most conservative configuration. To minimize the delayed failure observation, I then propose the second build selection approach (PRECISEBUILDSKIP) that can save cost without delaying failure observation. We find that PRECISEBUILDSKIP can save a median of 5.5% of builds while capturing the majority of failing builds (100% in median) from the evaluation. After that, I evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of 10 techniques that can improve CI including SMARTBUILDSKIP. The findings of the comparison motivate my next work to design a hybrid technique (HYBRIDBUILDSKIP) that combines these techniques to produce more cost-saving while keeping a low proportion of failing builds that are delayed in observation. Finally, I design an experiment to understand how different weights of test duration among the whole build duration can influence the cost-saving of build and test selection techniques. / Doctor of Philosophy / Modern software developing teams commonly use the continuous integration as the practice of automating and testing the integration of code changes from multiple contributors into a single software project. The best practice of continuous integration requires this process happens as frequently as possible because the bugs can be found earlier and easier before the change sets grow too large. However, continuous integration process can be time-consuming and in most cases the code change is bug-free. This means that developers may have to wait for a long time only to get a result with no actionable feedback. Thus, in this dissertation, I present multiple selection approaches to selectively execute the continuous integration process based on the prediction of the outcome - if the outcome is predicted to be passing with no actionable feedback, the approach will decide to skip the current execution. The evaluation result shows that my approaches can save the cost of continuous integration while keeping the value of it (finding bugs earlier).

There has been confusion in choosing a proper survival model between two popular survival models of discrete and continuous survival analysis. This study aimed to provide empirical outcomes of two survival models in educational contexts and suggest a guideline for researchers who should adopt a suitable survival model. For the model specification, the study paid attention to three factors of time metrics, censoring proportions, and sample sizes. To arrive at comprehensive understanding of the three factors, the study investigated the separate and combined effect of these factors. Furthermore, to understand the interaction mechanism of those factors, this study examined the role of the factors to determine hazard rates which have been known to cause the discrepancies between discrete and continuous survival models. To provide empirical evidence from different combinations of the factors in the use of survival analysis, this study built a series of discrete and continuous survival models using secondary data and simulated data. In the first study, using empirical data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), this study compared analyses results from the two models having different sizes of time metrics. In the second study, by having various specifications with combination of two other factors of censoring proportions and sample sizes, this study simulated datasets to build two models and compared the analysis results. The major finding of the study is that discrete models are recommended in the conditions of large units of time metrics, low censoring proportion, or small sample sizes. Particularly, discrete model produced better outcomes for conditions with low censoring proportion (20%) and small number (i.e., four) of large time metrics (i.e., year) regardless of sample sizes. Close examination of those conditions of time metrics, censoring proportion, and sample sizes showed that the conditions resulted into high hazards (i.e., 0.20). In conclusion, to determine a proper model, it is recommended to examine hazards of each of the time units with the specific factors of time metrics, censoring proportion and sample sizes. / Ph. D.

The use of best management practices or BMPs to treat urban stormwater runoff has been pervasive for many years. Extensive research has been conducted to evaluate the performance of individual BMPs at specific locations; however, little research has been published that seeks to evaluate the impacts of small, distributed BMPs throughout a watershed at the regional level. To address this, a model is developed using EPA SWMM 5.0 for the Duck Pond watershed, which is located in Blacksburg, Virginia and encompasses much of the Virginia Polytechnic and State Institute's campus and much of the town of Blacksburg as well. A variety of BMPs are designed and placed within the model. Several variations of the model are created in order to test different aspects of BMP design and to test the BMP modeling abilities of EPA SWMM 5.0. Simulations are performed using one-hour design storms and yearlong hourly rainfall traces. From these simulations, small water quality benefits are observed at the system level. This is seen as encouraging, given that a relatively small amount of the total drainage area is controlled by BMPs and that the BMPs are not sited in optimal locations. As expected, increasing the number of BMPs in the watershed generally increases the level of treatment. The use of the half-inch rule in determining the required water quality volume is examined and found to provide reasonable results. The design storm approach to designing detention structures is also examined for a two-pond system located within the model. The pond performances are examined under continuous simulation and found to be generally adequate for the simulated rainfall conditions, although they do under-perform somewhat in comparison to the original design criteria. The usefulness of EPA SWMM 5.0 as a BMP modeling tool is called into question. Many useful features are identified, but so are many limitations. Key abilities such as infiltration from nodes or treatment in conduit flow are found to be lacking. Pollutant mass continuity issues are also encountered, making specific removal rates difficult to define. / Master of Science