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Most mobile phones in Canada contain software that prevents the consumer from using the phone on multiple networks. This is known as a ‘software lock’, and is installed prior to the point of sale by the mobile service providers. As of 2011, all three large Canadian service providers have adopted a similar practice to charge a fee to remove the software lock from phones. This fee applies even after the consumer’s service contract with the provider ends. This thesis examines whether the practice of charging consumer a fee for removing the software lock after the contract expires is anti-competitive in Canada. Through examining economic theory and undergoing legal analysis, this thesis will argue that while the practice is clearly anti-competitive, it does not substantially lessen competition enough to be prevented under competition law. This thesis suggests that this industry practice should be prohibited through the passing of consumer protection legislation.

Most mobile phones in Canada contain software that prevents the consumer from using the phone on multiple networks. This is known as a ‘software lock’, and is installed prior to the point of sale by the mobile service providers. As of 2011, all three large Canadian service providers have adopted a similar practice to charge a fee to remove the software lock from phones. This fee applies even after the consumer’s service contract with the provider ends. This thesis examines whether the practice of charging consumer a fee for removing the software lock after the contract expires is anti-competitive in Canada. Through examining economic theory and undergoing legal analysis, this thesis will argue that while the practice is clearly anti-competitive, it does not substantially lessen competition enough to be prevented under competition law. This thesis suggests that this industry practice should be prohibited through the passing of consumer protection legislation.

Web Services (WS) are one of the most promising approaches for building loosely coupled systems. However, due to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of the WS environment, ensuring good QoS is still non-trivial. While WS tend to scale better than tightly coupled systems, they introduce a larger communication overhead and are more susceptible to server/resource latency. Traditionally this problem has been addressed by relying on negotiated Service Level Agreement to ensure the required QoS, or the development of elaborate compensation handlers to minimize the impact of undesirable latency.<p> This research focuses on the use of cooperation between consumers and providers as an effective means of optimizing resource utilization and consumer experiences. It introduces a novel cooperative approach to implement the cooperation between consumers and providers.

Web Services (WS) are one of the most promising approaches for building loosely coupled systems. However, due to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of the WS environment, ensuring good QoS is still non-trivial. While WS tend to scale better than tightly coupled systems, they introduce a larger communication overhead and are more susceptible to server/resource latency. Traditionally this problem has been addressed by relying on negotiated Service Level Agreement to ensure the required QoS, or the development of elaborate compensation handlers to minimize the impact of undesirable latency.<p> This research focuses on the use of cooperation between consumers and providers as an effective means of optimizing resource utilization and consumer experiences. It introduces a novel cooperative approach to implement the cooperation between consumers and providers.

This thesis is composed of three parts. In the first part, various kinds of theory to account for injection locking and pulling in the available literature are studied and compared. In the second part, this thesis proposes an experimental setup with self-made hybrid VCO and commercially available equipments and components to measure the characteristics of injection locking and pulling. This thesis also performs simulation to verify the measured results. The simulation mainly relies on the circuit envelope technique that has been developed in our laboratory. Comparison between measurement and simulation shows good agreement in the injection-locking characteristic curves and the injection-pulling spectrum characteristics. In the third part, this thesis carries out an RFIC design for a fractional-N frequency synthesizer with special features on quantization-noise cancellation and PLL nonlinearity reduction using TSMC 0.13£gm CMOS process.

The dependence of single-wall carbon nanotubes-based saturable absorber (SWCNTs SA) on concentration and thickness for mode-locked laser pulse formation is comprehensively investigated. The peak absorption wavelength of SWCNTs SA is engineered within the gain band-width of erbium-doped fiber centered near 1550 nm. The optima full-width half-maximum (FWHM) of pulses was obtained as the concentrations of SWCNTs SA was 0.05 wt%. This indicates that the laser pulse become shorter as the concentration of SWCNTs SA increases. The result also showed that the FWHM of pulses from 3.43 to 1.85 ps were found as the thickness of SWCNTs SA increased from 8 to 100 um. This also indicates that the laser pulse become shorter as the thickness of SWCNTs SA increases. However, the pulse width significantly broadened as concentration increased to 0.1 wt% and became stable as thickness of SWCNTs SA increased from 100 to 264 um for passively mode-locked lasers. An in-depth study on the optimum fabrication of concentration and thickness of SWCNTs SA for laser pulse formation may allow developing a cost-effective mode-locked laser with high performance as well as broadly benefit to the utilization of many other low-cost nanodevices.

This master's thesis deals with the problems of tool changing of vertical turning lathe. Specifically about modular system of spindle locking in a ram. The master's thesis is shows types of structural design, choosing the best design with supporting technical - economics evaluation. After this is realized series of calculation controls. These define dimensions of the mechanical parts.