Computer-aided Design (CAD) and Computer-aided Manufacturing (CAM) play an important role during the design and production phase of a product. CAD allows for generation of two and three-dimensional models of the product with the help of solid modelers and CAM allows for production planning of the product using tools such as a CAM package. Both CAD and CAM tools are highly specialized in nature and at the same time expensive to own. Large industries can afford to own such systems and experts to operate them but small and custom product industries cannot afford these benefits due to high design and manufacturing costs involved and complexity involved in using these systems. This has led to less popularity of CAD and CAM systems in custom product industries. A web based design tool can offer the functionality of a CAD system to custom product industries by allowing them to create and design three-dimensional models over the web. This method helps in simplifying the complexity involved in solid modeling by automating the commonly performed design operations using design algorithms. At the same time a web based manufacturing tool can allow for automatic generation of tool-paths for machining using a CNC machine. Although a web based design tool offers the required benefits to custom product industries, offering just the functionality of a CAD system may not be useful to the users of the web-based system who are usually carvers and artisans with minimal or no knowledge of CAD. An alternative method and its implementation are presented in this thesis. The method allows for creating user-defined parametric features using simple tools that can be offered in a web based application. The system takes advantage of the built-in API tools in a solid modeler and advanced web-based technologies to integrate them into a simple and easy to use web based design system. Identification of key elements in designing user-defined features and a framework for implementing them are discussed. Also different types of user-defined features that can be offered in a web application with examples of their implementation in a real world application for designing custom wooden signs are presented.

This thesis examines the occurrence of hydrologic variability in subarctic ponds within the Churchill region of the Hudson Bay Lowland (HBL) and investigates the utility of using remote sensing studies to characterize changes in pond surface area. The thesis also characterizes hydro-climatic change over the past ~60 years, and compares this to pond sustainability within the region of Churchill. A multiple-methods approach incorporating field research, simple water balance modeling and remote sensing is used to address these objectives. Research findings demonstrate the occurrence of natural fluctuations in pond surface area and water levels in the Canadian subarctic. These fluctuations in pond water levels (and thus surface area) are caused by differences in antecedent hydrologic conditions, which are easily detected using remotely sensed imagery and may produce unrepresentative estimates of pond surface area change. Resulting from a 4.5 - 11.8 cm variation in water depth, pond surface areas were significantly altered by antecedent precipitation (average: 3,711 m²), intra-seasonal variability (average: 2,049 m²) and inter-annual climatic variations (average: 1,977 m²). These noteworthy pond boundary and water level differences reinforce the importance of accounting for hydrologic variability when delineating representative pond coverage and sustainability. Contemporary pond sustainability findings reveal significant regional climatic change, changing pond hydrologic conditions and overall pond physical stability between 1947 and 2008. Specifically, the Churchill region has become warmer and wetter. Occurring at a rate of 1.37 mm/yr over the study period, changing atmospheric conditions caused a decrease in open water pond hydrologic deficits. During the hydrologic recharge period, modeled pond water levels exhibited an increasing trend (August +0.72 mm/yr, September 0.51 mm/yr), which suggests ponds are filling closer to their maximum storage capacity prior to freeze-up. A remote sensing analysis of pond boundary modifications in mid-summer revealed no change in contemporary physical pond sustainability. Detected surface area changes from imagery were mainly attributed to naturally induced hydrologic variability. Overall, this thesis suggests a new methodological approach for conducting remote sensing pond sustainability research within the arctic/subarctic environment. As well, this study determined pond sustainability within the Churchill region over the last ~60 years.

A study of impulsively started flow over cylindrical objects is made using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique for Reynolds numbers of Re = 200, 500 and 1000 in an X-Y towing tank. The cylindrical objects studied were a circular cylinder of diameter, D = 25.4 mm, and square and diamond cylinders each with side length, D = 25.4 mm. The aspect ratio, AR (= L/D) of the cylinders was 28 and therefore they were considered infinite. The development of the recirculation zone up to a dimensionless time of t* = 4 following the start of the motion was examined. The impulsive start was approximated using a dimensionless acceleration parameter, a*, and in this research, the experiments were conducted for five acceleration parameters, a* = 0.5, 1, 3, 5 and 10. The study showed that conditions similar to impulsively started motion were attained once a* ¡Ý 3.<p> A recirculation zone was formed immediately after the start of motion as a result of flow separation at the surface of the cylinder. It contained a pair of primary eddies, which in the initial stages (like in this case) were symmetrical and rotating in opposite directions. The recirculation zone was quantified by looking at the length of the zone, LR, the vortex development, both in terms of the streamwise location and the cross-stream spacing of the vortex centers, a and b, respectively, as well as the circulation (strength) of the primary vortices, ¦£.<p> For all types of cylinders examined, the length of the recirculation zone, the streamwise location of the primary eddies and the circulation of the primary eddies increase as time advances from the start of the impulsive motion. They also increase with an increase in the acceleration parameter, a*, until a* = 3, beyond which there is no more change, since the conditions similar to impulsively started conditions have been achieved. The cross-stream spacing of the primary vortices is relatively independent of Re, a* and t* but was different for different cylinders.<p> Irrespective of the type of cylinder, the growth of the recirculation zone at Re = 500 and 1000 is smaller than at Re = 200. The recirculation zone of a diamond cylinder is much larger than for both square and circular cylinders. The square and diamond cylinders have sharp edges which act as fixed separation points. Therefore, the cross-stream spacing of the primary vortex centers are independent of Re, unlike the circular cylinder which shows some slight variation with changes in Reynolds number.<p> The growth of the recirculation is more dependent on the distance moved following the start of the impulsive motion; that is why for all types of cylinders, the LR/D, a/D and ¦£/UD profiles collapse onto common curves when plotted against the distance moved from the start of the motion.

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在大學入學考的英文科目中，英文作文的考題以敘述文與論說文兩種類型最為常見。特別注意的是，於每年二月份所舉行的大學學測的英文考科中，2004年至2014年間，敘述文的出現次數高達八次。因此，如何教導學生進行英文的敘述文寫作是每位高中英文老師所要面對的課題。此外，記敘文與敘述文均為描寫形式的文章，學生容易對這兩種文體產生混淆，可能影響學生的敘述文體的英文寫作而造成負面的影響。 為了幫助學生能夠了解敘述文體的特性，本研究經由以英文母語者的文章整理出七項關於敘述文的特性。此外，本研究也利用敘述文的七項特性來檢驗五篇高中英文教科書的文章與五十篇學生的英文文章，除了審視這五十五篇文章是否達到七項特性之外，也利用學生敘述文的分數發現會影響分數的語言特徵。最後，藉由研究中的發現給予英文教科書編寫與英文敘述文教學及學習上的建議。 / The most common styles of English writing in the college entrance exam are narratives and expository. Furthermore, narrative writing occurs more frequently than expository in the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) held in early February every year. During the years 2004 to 2014, writing a narrative with sequential pictures was used eight times to evaluate Taiwanese senior high school students' English writing abilities. Therefore, the teaching and learning of English narratives is of a great importance for teachers and students in Taiwanese senior high schools. In order to help the teaching and learning of narrative writing, this study aims to find out the linguistic features of the narratives based on the analysis of English narratives written by native speakers. Then, according to the seven linguistic features of the narrative found in this study, fifty-five narratives from Taiwanese English textbooks and senior high school students were investigated to know whether the seven linguistic features were presented. Furthermore, to determine the significant grades-related linguistic features of students' narratives, the grades of students' narratives and the linguistic features are examined in this study. Lastly, by using the findings of the study, some pedagogical implications are offered for English textbooks, the teaching and learning of the narrative style.

The car has increasingly become more and more intelligent throughout the years. Today's radar and vision based safety systems can warn a driver and brake the vehicle automatically if obstacles are detected. Research projects such as the Google Car have even succeeded in creating fully autonomous cars. The demands to obtain the highest rating in safety tests such as Euro NCAP are also steadily increasing, and as a result, the development of these systems have become more attractive for car manufacturers. In the near future, a car must have a system for detecting, and performing automatic braking for pedestrians to receive the highest safety rating of five stars. The prospect is that the volume of active safety system will increase drastically when the car manufacturers start installing them in not only luxury cars, but also in the regularly priced ones. The use of automatic braking comes with a high demand on the performance of active safety systems, false positives must be avoided at all costs. Dollar et al. [2014] introduced Aggregated Channel Features (ACF) which is based on a 10-channel LUV+HOG feature map. The method uses decision trees learned from boosting and has been shown to outperform previous algorithms in object detection tasks. The rediscovery of neural networks, and especially Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) has increased the performance in almost every field of machine learning, including pedestrian detection. Recently Yang et al.[2015] combined the two approaches by using the the feature maps from a CNN as input to a decision tree based boosting framework. This resulted in state of the art performance on the challenging Caltech pedestrian data set. This thesis presents an approach to improve the performance of a cascade of boosted classifiers by investigating the impact of using color information for pedestrian detection. The color self similarity feature introduced by Walk et al.[2010] was used to create a version better adapted for boosting. This feature is then used in combination with a gradient based feature at the last step of a cascade. The presented feature increases the performance compared to currently used classifiers at Autoliv, on data recorded by Autoliv and on the benchmark Caltech pedestrian data set. / Bilen har genom åren kommit att bli mer och mer intelligent. Dagens radar- och kamerabaserade säkerhetssystem kan varna och bromsa bilen automatiskt om hider detekteras. Forskningsprojekt såsom Google Car har t.o.m lyckats köra bilar helt autonomt. Kraven för att uppnå den högsta säkerhetsklassningen i t.ex. Euro NCAP blir allt strängare i takt med att dessa system utvecklas och som följd har dessa system blivit attraktivare för biltillverkare. Inom en snart framtid kommer det att krävas att en bil har ett system för att upptäcka och att bromsa automatiskt för fotgängare för att uppnå den högsta klassen, fem stjärnor. Förutsikterna är att produktionsvolymer för aktiva säkerhetsytem kommer att öka drastiskt när biltillverkarna börjar utrusta vanliga bilar och inte enbart lyxmodeller med dessa system. Användningen av aktiv bromsning ställer höga krav på prestanda, felakting aktivering av system måste i högsta grad undvikas. Dollar et al. [2014] presenterade Aggregated Channel Features (ACF) som baseras på en tiokanalig LUV+HOG särdragskarta. Metoden använder beslutsträd på pixelnivå som tas fram genom boosting och överträffade tidigare algoritmer för objektigenkänning. Återupptäkten av neurala nätverker och i synnerlighet Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) har medfört en ökning i prestanda inom nästan alla fält av maskininlärning, inklusive fotgängardetektion. Nyligen kombinerades dessa två metoder av Yang et al.[2015] genom att särdragskartan från ett CNN användes som insignal till ett beslutsträdsbaserat boostingramverk. Detta ledde till det hittills bästa resultatet på det utmanande Caltech pedestrian dataset. I det här examensarbetet presenteras en metod som kan öka prestandan för en kaskad av boostingklassificerare ämnad för fotgängardetektion. Det färgbaserad särdraget color self similarity, Walk et al.[2010], används för att skapa en version som är bättre lämpad för boosting. Det presenterade särdraget ökade prestandan jämfört med befintliga klassificerare som används av Autoliv på både data inspelat av Autoliv och på Caltech pedestrian dataset.

With rising levels of immigration comes a need to know what fosters positive adaptation for the youth growing up in a new culture of settlement.The issue is increasingly studied; however, little of the research conducted has combined a developmental with a contextual approach. The aim of this dissertation was to explore the adaptation of immigrant youth on the basis of developmental theories and models which put emphasis on setting or contextual conditions. This entailed viewing immigrant youths as developing organisms that actively interact with their environments. Further, immigrant youths were seen as embedded in multiple settings, at different levels and with different contextual features. Two of the overall research questions addressed how contextual features of the settings in which the youth are embedded were related to adaptation. Results from all three studies combined to show that the contextual feature of a setting is not of prime or sole importance for the adaptation of immigrant youth, and that the contextual feature of SES diversity is of greater importance than theethnic compositions of settings. The next two overall research questions addressed how the linkage between settings was related to adaptation. The results indicated that adaptation is not always setting specific and that what is happening in one setting can be related to adaptation in anothersetting. Further, it was found that the cultural distance between settings is related to adaption, but that contextual factors affect this relationship. Overall, the results of the dissertation suggests that the adaptation of immigrant youth is a complex matter that is explained better by interaction and indirect effects than by main and direct effects. This highlights the importance of taking all settings in which the immigrant youths are embedded into account and to account for how the settings interact to understand the factors that foster and hinder positive adaptation of immigrant youth. / <p>The article "Homophily in friendship networks of immigrant and nonimmigrantyouth: Does context matter?" in the list of studies is published electronically as "Peer selection and influence of delinquent behavior of immigrant and nonimmigrant youths: does context matter?"</p>

Darbo tikslas. Išanalizuoti slaugytojų ir pacientų bendravimo ypatumus Utenos apskrities ligoninėje. Tyrimo metodika. Atlikta VšĮ „Utenos apskrities ligoninė“ slaugytojų ir pacientų anoniminė anketinė apklausa. Slaugytojams išdalinta 150 anketų, grąžino 120 respondentų (atsako dažnis 80,0 proc.). Pacientams buvo išdalinta 170 anketų, atsako dažnis 70,6 proc. Gauti duomenys analizuoti SPSS 13.0 programiniu paketu. Ryšiai tarp požymių vertinti Chi kvadrato (c2) bei z kriterijais. Rezultatų skirtumas laikytinas statistiškai reikšmingu, kai p<0,05. Rezultatai. Daugiau kaip pusė Utenos apskrities ligoninės slaugytojų nurodė, kad lengviausia bendrauti su 31-50 m. amžiaus grupės pacientais. Slaugytojų apklausa parodė, jog moterys yra emocingesnės pacientės nei vyrai (atitinkamai 83,9 ir 16,1 proc.). Didžiausią poveikį pacientams bendravimo metu daro malonūs žodžiai (70 proc.), mažiausią – griežtos komandos. Pacientams ir slaugytojams svarbūs tokie verbalinio ir neverbalinio bendravimo veiksniai kaip balso tonas, veido išraiška, prisilietimas. Neurologijos bei traumatologijos skyriaus pacientai slaugytojo prisilietimą laiko svarbesniu nei kitų skyrių pacientai. Dėmesingumą, išklausymą ir supratimą respondentai išskiria kaip svarbiausias bendravimo sudėtines dalis. Tam, kad būtų užtikrintas efektyvus bendravimas su pacientu slaugytojas turi ne tik gerai išmanyti savo darbą, bet gebėti atlikti ir kitus vaidmenis, tokius kaip mokytojo, vadovo, psichologo, kolegos. Apie slaugytojų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The purpose of work. To analyse the singularities of the nurses and patients in Utena Regional Hospital. The research methods. The anonymous research of the nurses and patients has been performed in the Public Sector „Utena Regional Hospital“. 150 questionnaires were issued to the nurses, returned – 120 repondents (response rate 80,0%). 170 questionnaires were issued to the patients,(return 70,6%). The received results were analysed using SPSS 13.0 programming package.The intercourse between singularities was accessed by Chi square (c2), also by z criteria. The difference between the received results is statistically important , as p<0,05. Results. More than half of the nurses of Utena Regional Hospital emphasized, that it was best to communicate with the patients of an age between 31-50 years old. The nurses‘ survey showed , that women patients are more emotional than men ( accordingly 83,9 and 16,1%). Pleasant , comforting words play the most effective role in the communication with the patients (70%), the least effective are strict commands. Such verbal and non verbal means of communication as tone of voice, facial expression, professional, comforting touches are very important for both the patients and nurses. The patients of the neurology and traumatology departments consider the comforting, professional touches statistically more importnant than patients of other departments. The respondents distinguish consideration, ability to listen and hear them as the most... [to full text]

Darbe yra apžvelgiama bendruomenės ir savanorystės samprata, savanorystės raiška bendruomenėje, savanorystės formos. Taip pat yra kalbama apie savanorių motyvacijos įtaką ir reikšmę bendruomenių projektinėje dalyje, kaip turi būti organizuojamas savanoriškas darbas, kokie organizavimo etapai pasireiškia. Šio darbo tikslui pasiekti ir pasirinktajai problemai tirti buvo atliktas kokybinis tyrimas. Tyrimas buvo vykdytas Vilniaus mieste. Apklausiami Vilniaus mieste veikiančių socialinių institucijų specialistai ir religinių bendruomenių lyderiai, organizuojantys savanorišką darbą bei turintys ne mažiau trijų metų darbo su savanoriais, projektų rašymo ir bendruomenės organizavimo patirtį. / The work is carried out the survey of conceptions of community and voluntary service, expression of the voluntary service in the community and the forms of voluntary service. Also in the work is reviewed volunteers motivation‘s influence and significance in the community project activities and how the voluntary service should be organised, what organization stages are displayed. The method of qualitative research was used in this work in order to reach the aim of this work and research the chosen problem. Research was done in Vilnius city. In the survey participated specialists from Vilnius social institutions and leaders of religious communities, who organise voluntary work and have not less then 3 years of experience in work with volunteers, project writing and community organization.

The relationship between word form and word meaning has been debated since early Greek philosophy. Conventionally, the relationship is held to be arbitrary: that there is no natural connection between a word and what it represents (de Saussure 1959). In contrast, examples of sound symbolism undermine this linguistic tenet by demonstrating non-arbitrary word meanings conveyed in details of the acoustic signal of the words themselves. The Affect Induction model of animal communication offers a natural explanation for some forms of sound symbolism in language. According to the Affect Induction model, the physical properties of signals influence receiver affect and behavior in specific ways through relatively direct effects on core sensory, psychological and affective processes. To investigate the possible implications of this model for sound symbolism in human language, a set of studies was conducted on the classic “bouba-kiki” phenomenon. An analysis was subsequently undertaken to extend the results of experiments to several corpuses of real words classically associated with divergent affective themes. Results suggest that the Affect Induction model might account for some forms of sound symbolism, as instantiated in real word usage. / viii, 89 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm