This research investigates adoption and integration of a range of building environmental systems in healthcare facilities in India. Based on detailed case studies of eight selected healthcare facilities developed at different times in India, this research traces the evolution of hospital designs in a specific geographic context through the lens of adoption of building environmental systems over the internal shell and external skins of healthcare buildings in India. By documenting and analyzing changes in building designs over time, the research develops a comparative understanding of trends of adoption of environmental technologies and their impacts on building form and performance.

Traditionally, we've focussed on the question of how to make a system easy to code the first time, or perhaps on how to ease the system's continued evolution. But if we look at life cycle costs, then we must conclude that the important question is how to make a system easy to operate. To do this we need to make it easy for the operators to see what's going on and to then manipulate the system so that it does what it is supposed to. This is a radically different criterion for success. What makes a computer system visible and controllable? This is a difficult question, but it's clear that today's modern operating systems with nearly 50 million source lines of code are neither. Strikingly, the MIT Lisp Machine and its commercial successors provided almost the same functionality as today's mainstream sytsems, but with only 1 Million lines of code. This paper is a retrospective examination of the features of the Lisp Machine hardware and software system. Our key claim is that by building the Object Abstraction into the lowest tiers of the system, great synergy and clarity were obtained. It is our hope that this is a lesson that can impact tomorrow's designs. We also speculate on how the spirit of the Lisp Machine could be extended to include a comprehensive access control model and how new layers of abstraction could further enrich this model.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 12, 2010). Advisor: Laura G. Leff. Keywords: Bacteria; modeled reduced gravity; response; gene expression; physiology. Includes bibliographical references (p. 200-204).

This thesis explores the relationship between inpatient mental health environments and children and adolescents. Research was conducted by way of observation, questionnaires, interviews, and reading floor plans, partnering with two hospitals in Ontario that offered inpatient child and adolescent mental health services. The primary goal of this study was to develop considerations and recommendations that inform design decisions. I set out to gather the opinions and insights of children and adolescents who were inpatients in these facilities. The staff were also interviewed to capture their views on the role that the physical environment can play in supporting and enabling them to do their best work. The research provided a portal into a complex and sensitive area of study, and offered insights into the experiences and preferences of the children and adolescents. Their perspectives and stories contributed significantly to the knowledge gained in this exploration.

A study of radiation damage in copper indium diselenide (CIS) is presented. The build up of extended defects and the conditions for amorphisation have been explored. In particular, dislocation loops have been characterised and the intluence of composition and temperature on amorphisation has been investigated. CIS is a candidate for high-efficiency radiation-hard solar cells for use in extraterrestrial environments.

No description available.

This thesis explores the relationship between inpatient mental health environments and children and adolescents. Research was conducted by way of observation, questionnaires, interviews, and reading floor plans, partnering with two hospitals in Ontario that offered inpatient child and adolescent mental health services. The primary goal of this study was to develop considerations and recommendations that inform design decisions. I set out to gather the opinions and insights of children and adolescents who were inpatients in these facilities. The staff were also interviewed to capture their views on the role that the physical environment can play in supporting and enabling them to do their best work. The research provided a portal into a complex and sensitive area of study, and offered insights into the experiences and preferences of the children and adolescents. Their perspectives and stories contributed significantly to the knowledge gained in this exploration.

In this thesis visual search experiments are devised to explore the feasibility of an eye gaze driven search mechanism. The thesis first explores gaze behaviour on images possessing different levels of saliency. Eye behaviour was predominantly attracted by salient locations, but appears to also require frequent reference to non-salient background regions which indicated that information from scan paths might prove useful for image search. The thesis then specifically investigates the benefits of eye tracking as an image retrieval interface in terms of speed relative to selection by mouse, and in terms of the efficiency of eye tracking mechanisms in the task of retrieving target images. Results are analysed using ANOVA and significant findings are discussed. Results show that eye selection was faster than a computer mouse and experience gained during visual tasks carried out using a mouse would benefit users if they were subsequently transferred to an eye tracking system. Results on the image retrieval experiments show that users are able to navigate to a target image within a database confirming the feasibility of an eye gaze driven search mechanism. Additional histogram analysis of the fixations, saccades and pupil diameters in the human eye movement data revealed a new method of extracting intentions from gaze behaviour for image search, of which the user was not aware and promises even quicker search performances. The research has two implications for Content Based Image Retrieval: (i) improvements in query formulation for visual search and (ii) new methods for visual search using attentional weighting. Futhermore it was demonstrated that users are able to find target images at sufficient speeds indicating that pre-attentive activity is playing a role in visual search. A current review of eye tracking technology, current applications, visual perception research, and models of visual attention is discussed. A review of the potential of the technology for commercial exploitation is also presented.

No description available.

The vegetation history of the North Tyne basin, northern England, is presented for an extended Holocene period, dating back to ca. 8000 cal. BC. This study focuses upon vegetation histories from two types of site, which record changes at differing spatial scales. The regional vegetation of the area is recorded within three radiocarbon-dated pollen diagrams from upland sites at Drowning Flow, Bloody Moss and Sells Bum. These sites provide a different perspective of regional vegetation history in comparison to existing published accounts from the region. This work also fills a spatial gap in current knowledge, by providing records from the area between Hadrian's Wall in the south and the Cheviots to the north for which only one previous site exists (Steng Moss: Davies and Turner, 1979). These regional records are complemented by the reconstruction of local, valley floor vegetation derived from organic-rich palaeochannel fills at Brownchesters Farm, Redesdale and Snabdaugh Farm, North Tynedale. These sites demonstrate how patterns of vegetation at local scales can provide valuable additional insights into former landscapes, valley floor land-use and human activity. Perceived problems of the usage of alluvial sediments for palynological investigation are discussed, while methodologies to overcome these difficulties are developed and the potential benefits of these contexts for vegetation reconstruction outlined. The unusually long and readily dateable alluvial record has also facilitated a new perspective on the timing and controls of Holocene fluvial activity in the North Tyne basin. The close integration of archaeological evidence with the results from this study has contributed to a number of debates concerning former human activity in the area. Palynological results suggest that the impact of Mesolithic and Neolithic societies upon the landscape has been underestimated; that postulated alterations in upland / lowland settlement patterns during the Bronze Age are a consequence of a fragmentary archaeological record rather than a response to changing environmental conditions; that Iron Age (and earlier) agricultural activity has been underestimated and that forest clearance was a gradual phenomenon with its origins in the Late Mesolithic and not primarily a result of activity associated with invading Roman forces.