Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Events play an important role in many computer systems, from small reactive embedded applications to large distributed systems. Many applications react to events generated by a graphical user interface or by external sensors that monitor the system environment, and other systems use events for communication and synchronisation between independent subsystems. In some applications, however, individual event occurrences are not the main point of concern. Instead, the system should respond to certain event patterns, such as "the start button being pushed, followed by a temperature alarm within two seconds". One way to specify such event patterns is by means of an event algebra with operators for combining the simple events of a system into specifications of complex patterns. This thesis presents an event algebra with two important characteristics. First, it complies with a number of algebraic laws, which shows that the algebra operators behave as expected. Second, any pattern represented by an expression in this algebra can be efficiently detected with bounded resources in terms of memory and time, which is particularly important when event pattern detection is used in embedded systems, where resource efficiency and predictability are crucial. In addition to the formal algebra semantics and an efficient detection algorithm, the thesis describes how event pattern detection can be used in real-time systems without support from the underlying operating system, and presents schedulability theory for such systems. It also describes how the event algebra can be combined with a component model for embedded system, to support high level design of systems that react to event patterns.

This thesis explores two distinctive ways in which sport is deployed as a development strategy in South Africa, and specifically considers how sport may play a role in the configuration of the nation’s cities. First, a case study of the sporting mega-event, the 2010 FIFA World Cup, is presented. It is posited that this tournament was a speculative world-making strategy aimed at elevating host cities and the nation to world-class status. Second, a discourse analysis of South African policy documents regarding the reintroduction of physical education is performed. It is argued that despite the fundamental neoliberal elements of physical education, there is a possibility that if the government maximizes certain opportunities, it could be a way of forging ordinary cities that are based upon equitable access to sport for South African children. These assessments suggest that sport can play a role in both the spatial and symbolic development of cities.

Darbo objektas – dviračių sporto renginių saugumas. Darbo tikslas – nustatyti dviračių sporto renginių organizavimo ir saugumo užtikrinimo specifiką Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Apibrėžti sporto renginių sampratą ir organizavimo planavimo ypatumus, 2. Apibūdinti dviračių sporto renginių specifiką saugumo užtikrinimo požiūriu, 3. Nustatyti dviračių sporto renginių saugumo užtikrinimo lygmenį organizatorių ir dalyvių požiūriu. Rezultatai: • Atlikus mokslinės literatūros apžvalgą bei analizę atskleista sporto renginių samprata, jų klasifikacija pagal Daniel S. Mason, D. Getz, McDonell. • Išanalizuota dviračių sporto renginių organizavimo specifika. • Atlikti kiekybinis tyrimas (dvi anketinės apklausos) siekiant išsiaiškinti . Atlikom kokybinį interviu su LDSF generaliniu sekretorium Valentinu Rutkausku. Išvados: Nors jokia organizacija nekaupia duomenų apie traumas, sužeidimus patirtus dviračių lenktynių metu, atliktas tyrimas parodė, jog apie dviračių sporto renginių saugumo problemas žino tiek organizatoriai, tiek dalyviai. UCI paruoštas reglamentas – naudingas dokumentas, kuriuo remiantis organizuojami renginiai gali vykti taip, kaip turėtų būti vykdomos dviračių sporto lenktynės. Pasiūlymai: Dviračių sporto renginių metu svarbu dalyviams priminti, jog važiuoja ne vieni ir atsako vieni už kitus, nes kaip parodė tyrimas: viena griūtis dėl inventoriaus, asmeninės ar kitos priežasties „pasiima“ dar 2,89 dviratininko. Reiktų pabrėžti, jog tarp inventoriaus, asmeninės ir kt... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Object – ensure safety in a cycling events. Aim – identify issues of safety specifically in a cycling events through organizing it. Objectives of the study: 1. Sports events itself, peculiarity of organising and planning it 2. Describe specifically cycling events from point of organizator; 3. Identify safety issues in a cycling events from point of competitors and organizators and competitors. Results: • The literature review and analysis revealed the meaning of sports event, composition and clasification of it according to Daniel S. Mason, D. Getz, McDonell. • Analysed and found specific requirements, issues, when organise, plan and proceed cycling events. • Completed 2 surveys and 1 interview as a research to find main issues when faceing safety in a cycling events. Conclusion: Sadly none of organization, neither UCI, neither any federation or any other is not collecting and investigating data, incidents about crashes, unless there was a criminal action or injuries in a races. Research showed that sportsmans and organizators knows the safety issues, but not doing any major changes about it. At least we have some rules created by UCI. Offers: remind to all competitors, that there are many more racers around them and that they are responsible for them too. As research showed us, one crash due to issues with inventory, personal or any other reason „takes“ 2,89 other racers into crash with it. I want to highlight that more than half crashes are due to personal reasons and... [to full text]

The highland Tigray region of Northern Ethiopia has historically suffered significantly from drought shock events. These events, coupled with a high poverty rate- have left a severe impact on the agricultural output and community survival of the region. Several development interventions have been implemented in Ethiopia to address the effects of drought and poverty, the largest being the recent Food for Work Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP). The purpose of this study was to assess the food security and drought survival needs of Ethiopian communities, more specifically, communities in the Northern Tigray Region. The main research questions were: (a) what are major themes from the permanent literature on the PSNP's management policies' impact at the beneficiary level; and (b) what are common needs of drought prone villages in the Tigray Region of Northern Ethiopia? Research Question (a) was approached through content analysis of six purposely chosen peer reviewed journal articles related to the implementation of the first five years of the PSNP. Data was analyzed through the constant comparative method and two major themes emerged: Targeting Policy, and Transfer Policy. To address Research Question (b), the researcher traveled to four drought prone villages in the Tigray Region and facilitated a combination of Participatory Rural Appraisal and Rapid Rural Appraisal techniques to assess community-level needs. Interviews with Non-Governmental Agency employees, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development employees, and University faculty provided institutional perspective to the research question. Data was analyzed using the constant comparative method and inductively formed into 11 themes, housed in three sectors: Economic Diversification, Environmental Management, and Social Coping Mechanisms. The results of this study concurred with food security literature; namely that mechanisms for selecting intervention beneficiaries (i.e., targeting policy) and the process for distributing benefits (i.e., transfer policy) are practical concerns at the village level in Ethiopia. Analysis of participatory data formed a framework of community drought survival needs in the context of the Tigray Region. Asset building, water management, and human capacity are example needs which emerged from this study and should be addressed for the long term improvement of Ethiopia's resilience to drought shock events.

A high-resolution multi-proxy reconstruction of the Arabian Sea Summer Monsoon (ASSM) intensity over the past 90,000 years has been determined using two marine sediment cores: one from the Somali margin and one from the Indian margin. This reconstruction indicates that changes in monsoon- induced upwelling, primary productivity and denitrification have varied in synchrony with Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles. Increased monsoon intensity correlates with warm climate events (interstadials) and decreased monsoon intensity, which coincides with stadials and Heinrich Events, is confirmed by elevated dust concentrations in the marine cores. A comparison of the Somali and Indian margin cores with previously reported studies from the Northern and Western Basin allows the identification of discrete sediment signals from the Indus River, the Arabian Peninsula and from local riverine runoff. Sedimentary deposition on the Indian margin during interglacials is dominated by local terrestrial runoff, whereas during glacial periods increased dust input from the Arabian Peninsula is evident. Both signals are related to changes in the intensity of the ASSM. Monsoon intensity has decreased during the Holocene as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) has moved to a more southerly position. The ASSM-ITCZ relationship (increased ASSM intensity and a northern ITCZ, decreased ASSM intensity and a southern ITCZ) has remained consistent over the last glacial cycle suggesting that global millennial scale climatic variability is in part driven by modulations in tropical hydrological cycle. This ASSM reconstruction provides evidence that rearrangements in the tropical convection system affected atmospheric dust concentrations as well as the concentration and location of atmospheric water vapour. In addition to modulating terrestrial and marine emissions of greenhouse gases, variation in the tropical hydrological cycle provides a mechanism of amplifying and perpetuating millennial-scale climatic changes.

This thesis presents an edition of Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God, a late Middle English devotional prose text for which no critical edition is currently available. I have transcribed and collated the text from all sixteen extant manuscripts and the 1506 printed edition. An investigation of the errors and variants according to the classical method of textual criticism has yielded little in the way of conclusive results, and it has therefore not proved possible to construct a stemma of manuscripts from the corpus of evidence as it now exists. My edition therefore uses one manuscript (Maidstone MS Museum 6) as a base; I emend the text of Maidstone where necessary, and cite variants from all the other witnesses to show all differences of substance. A full critical apparatus is provided, comprising: the text with variants, textual notes and glossary. The introduction includes a full description of all the manuscripts and the two early printed editions, an outline of the methods of textual criticism applied and their results, and an explanation of the choice of base manuscript; information about the language of the Maidstone manuscript and the date of the text are also provided, as is an outline of my editorial principles. The thesis also contains two appendices. The first of these deals briefly with the twenty-two instances where individual chapters of Contemplations appear in other manuscript compilations; the second discusses the English and Latin prayers which follow the full text in some manuscripts.

This paper examines the development of income in the tourist generating coun-tries, the relative prices controlled for the exchange rate, and the distance in kilo-meters between the capital in the origin countries and Athens as determinants of international tourism demand for Greece. By the deployment of an OLS log-linear regression model coupled with annual cross-section data for the period between 1998 and 2007, the desired effects could be captured. The results from this study indicates that after 2004, both the importance of income in the tourist generating countries and distance between the countries of origin and Athens have expe-rienced a quantum drop in importance as determinants of international tourism demand for Greece. Furthermore, the elasticities of these factors remained at the new level throughout the remaining period studied. This suggests that the respec-tive elasticities have reached a new plateau after 2004 where the impact on inter-national tourism demand is less sensitive to changes in these specific factors. Final-ly, the investments made in infrastructure supporting the Olympic Games have the possibility to benefit the T&T sector in Greece for an extended period of time going forward.

The Reformulated theory of learned helplessness emphasizes maladaptive explanatory style and its influence on depression, achievement, health, and coping. Individuals who habitually explain unpleasant/uncontrollable events by internal, stable and global causes (and good events by external, unstable, specific causes) are said to have a maladaptive explanatory style. Researchers speculate that negative life events (such as parental divorce or death) contribute to the development of this style. Researchers have sought to explain adjustment-related difficulties by focusing on traumatic life events, such as divorce or death of a parent and their adverse effects on childhood development.Literature concerning the correlates of father absence, divorce, parental death, attachment and stressful life events shows that closeness to parents can mediate the impact of these events on adjustment and development. The mediating effects of closeness to parent may explain why not all children who experience these events actually develop maladaptive explanatory styles.This investigation examined the relations between Negative Life Events, Closeness to Parent and Explanatory Style. By looking at these relations, we can determine which variable is more influential in developing the maladaptive style. It was expected that Closeness to Parent would be a better predictor of explanatory style than Negative Life Events.Participants were 86 college students who completed a questionnaire that assessed explanatory style, closeness to parent, negative life events, and level of depression. Multiple regression was used to determine the significant predictors of explanatory style and depression. Results showed that none of the variables were significant predictors of explanatory style. Recent life events, closeness to mother and explanatory style were significant predictors of depression. Discriminant analysis was used to determine whether participants whose parents were divorced could be differentiated from those whose parent's marriage was intact using explanatory style, closeness to parent and depression as predictors. Results showed no significant differences between these groups. Sample group means for depression and life events were higher than those from normative studies for the Beck Depression Inventory and the Life Experience Survey.As the literature showed, closeness to parent and negative life events should account for some of the variance in the maladaptive style. The absence of these relations may be attributed to theoretical and methodological issues concerning closeness to parent and explanatory style.However, since this sample had high levels of depression and life stress, theoretically these relations should have been found. This points to the importance of the problems discussed.Prospective longitudinal studies, although costly and time consuming may be useful in determining the antecedents of a maladaptive explanatory style. / Department of Psychological Science

Purpose: Patients’ perspectives of informed consent for chiropractic care have not been investigated. This study explored how patients of chiropractors perceived the exchange of risk information during informed consent. Methods: Interviews were conducted with 26 participants, recruited from chiropractic clinics. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a constant comparative method of analysis. Findings: Participants experienced informed consent as an on-going process where risk perceptions were shaped throughout four distinct stages. In the first stage information acquired prior to arriving at the clinic for treatment shaped perceptions of risk. In the second stage participants assessed the perceived competence of the practitioners. Participants then signed the consent form and discussed the risks with t heir practitioner. Finally, they communicated with their practitioners during treatment to ensure their pain threshold was not crossed. Conclusion: These findings suggest that patients perceive informed consent as a social process involving on-going communication with their practitioners.