This thesis examines School Generated Funding (SGF) within the Toronto District School (TDSB) to see if SGF is reinforcing a two-tier education system. Five sources of data were analyzed: The SGF Record of the TDSB from 2008-2009, The Preliminary School Budget from 2010-2011, EQAO test results from 2008 to 2009, The Learning Opportunity Index (LOI) from 2009, and three socio-economic status factors (income, education and occupation) using the Toronto Wards Profiles. Using the SGF record, twenty green schools (schools that raised the most SGF, amounting to $4,043,837) were compared, using the five sources of data against twenty red schools (schools that raised the least amount of SGF, amounting to $109,885). Two recommendations have been suggested: SGF be capped at a median amount throughout the TDSB and extra funding be put into a funding account for the TDSB to disperse to schools that need it.

In their paper [2] Cuntz, Deninger, and Laca introduced a C*-algebra \mathfrak{T}[R] associated to a number ring R and showed that it was functorial for injective ring homomorphisms and had an interesting KMS-state structure, which they computed directly. Although isomorphic to the Toeplitz algebra of the ax+b-semigroup R⋊R^× of R, their C*-algebra \mathfrak{T}[R] was defined in terms of relations on a generating set of isometries and projections. They showed that a homomorphism φ:\mathfrak{T}[R]→ A is injective if and only if φ is injective on a certain commutative *-subalgebra of \mathfrak{T}[R]. In this thesis we give a direct proof of this result, and go on to show that there is a countable collection of projections which detects injectivity, which allows us to simplify their characterization of faithful representations of \mathfrak{T}[R]. / Graduate / 0405 / jaspar.wiart@gmail.com

Three studies in the machine assisted proof of recursion implementation are described. The verification system used is Edinburgh LCF (Logic for Computable Functions). Proofs are generated, in LCF, in a goal-oriented fashion by the application of strategies reflecting informal proof plans. LCF is introduced in Chapter 1. We present three case studies in which proof strategies are developed and (except in the third) tested in LCF. Chapter 2 contains an account of the machine generated proofs of three program transformations (from recursive to iterative function schemata). Two of the examples are taken from Manna and Waldinger. In each case, the recursion is implemented by the introduction of a new data type, e.g., a stack or counter. Some progress is made towards the development of a general strategy for producing the equivalence proofs of recursive and iterative function schemata by machine. Chapter 3 is concerned with the machine generated proof of the correctness of a compiling algorithm. The formulation, borrowed from Russell, includes a simple imperative language with a while and conditional construct, and a low level language of labelled statements, including jumps. We have, in LCF, formalised his denotational descriptions of the two languages and performed a proof of the preservation of the semantics under compilation. In Chapter 4, we express and informally prove the correctness of a compiling algorithm for a language containing declarations and calls of recursive procedures. We present a low level language whose semantics model a standard activation stack implementation. Certain theoretical difficulties (connected with recursively defined relations) are discussed, and a proposed proof in LCF is outlined. The emphasis in this work is less on proving original theorems, or even automatically finding proofs of known theorems, than on (i) exhibiting and analysing the underlying structure of proofs, and of machine proof attempts, and (ii) investigating the nature of the interaction (between a user and a computer system) required to generate proofs mechanically; that is, the transition from informal proof plans to behaviours which cause formal proofs to be performed.

Colloidal particles are small particles ranging in size from nanometres to micrometres suspended in a fluid. Amongst many scientific and biological applications, they have been used to model crystallisation, vitrification, and particle interactions along with the use of colloidal model systems for the study of the fundamental nature of the fluid-crystal and fluid-glass phase transitions. It has been shown that colloidal particles can be trapped and manipulated using strongly-focused light beams known as optical tweezers, and this has paved the way for research into the area of micromanipulation using optical trapping. Holographic elements can replace multiple lenses in creating large numbers of optical tweezers and this is known as holographic optical trapping (HOT). A computer generated hologram can be designed to create large structured light fields, consisting of multiple foci, to enable trapping of multiple particles in arbitrary configurations. The overall aim of this project was to design, develop and test the suitability of a simple, inexpensive optical trapping arrangement suitable for multiple optical trapping. To achieve this, a theoretically-exact expression for the wavefront of a single point source was implemented in the coding scheme, allowing for the fast creation of multiple point sources suitable for holographic optical trapping experiments. Compensation for the spherical aberration present in the focusing optics was implemented into the coding scheme. Kodalith photographic film was chosen as the holographic recording medium for its high contrast and availability. The film has proven to be a successful medium, when used to record photographically-reduced images of high-quality printouts of the computed diffraction pattern, as it was able to successfully reproduce complex light fields. It is believed that this will be the first time that this film has been implemented for optical trapping purposes. The main limitations concerning the performance of the holograms recorded on Kodalith were the phase nonuniformities caused by unevenness in the film thickness which resulted in a failure to separately resolve light traps separated by less than about 5 (Mu)m. Index matching of the film between sheets of flat glass helped to compensate for these limitations. Holographic optical trapping was successfully observed using a variety of different initial beam powers, holographic aperture settings and light field configurations. Trapping experiments on of two types of particles (PMMA and polystyrene) were successfully conducted, with as little as ~ 150 (Mu)W per trap being required for multiple polystyrene trapping. However, particles were weakly trapped and were easily dislodged at these powers, and a higher power per trap of around 1 mW is preferred. The use of a relatively low numerical aperture (NA) 50 mm SLR lens for focusing the holographic optical traps was successful, proving that optical trapping can be conducted without the use of high NA microscope-objective lenses commonly used in other set ups. Holographic trapping of colloidal particles was successfully conducted at RMIT University for the first time proving the validity of the coding scheme, the recording method and the trapping arrangement.

Thesis (M.S.)--Kent State University, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 2, 2007). Advisor: David B. Robins. Keywords: information retrieval, search engine, social bookmarking, tagging, folksonomy, Internet, World Wide Web. Includes survey instrument. Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-141).

Εκατομμύρια ανθρώπων επιλέγουν καθημερινά να χρησιμοποιήσουν τον Παγκόσμιο Ιστό για ένα ευρύ σύνολο δραστηριοτήτων. Ο αριθμός των χρηστών του διαδικτύου αυξάνεται συνεχώς, όπως επίσης και το σύνολο των διαφορετικών δραστηριοτήτων που μπορούν να εκτελεστούν μέσω ιστοσελίδων και υπηρεσιών του διαδικτύου. Οι χρήστες του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού καθημερινά συμμετέχουν σε διάφορες ψηφιακές δραστηριότητες, οριοθετώντας με αυτόν τον τρόπο τη ψηφιακή τους «ζωή». Κάθε χρήστης μπορεί να στείλει μήνυμα με το ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο, να επικοινωνήσει και να δημιουργήσει σχέσεις με άλλους χρήστες του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού, να επισκεφτεί ιστότοπους για να ικανοποιήσει τις ενημερωτικές του ανάγκες ή να διατηρεί ένα προσωπικό προφίλ σε έναν ή περισσότερους ιστότοπους κοινωνικής δικτύωσης. Παράλληλα, όλο και περισσότεροι χρήστες του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού χρησιμοποιούν τα ηλεκτρονικά καταστήματα για τις αγορές τους, επιτυγχάνοντας την απευθείας σύνδεση της έρευνας αγοράς με την αγορά προϊόντων ή υπηρεσιών, ενώ ο σχολιασμός και οι απόψεις άλλων χρηστών για προϊόντα και υπηρεσίες αποτελεί άλλο ένα αναμφισβήτητο πλεονέκτημα των ηλεκτρονικών καταστημάτων. Αποτέλεσμα της αυξανόμενης δραστηριοποίησης των χρηστών είναι η συνεχής αύξηση του όγκου των κειμενικών δεδομένων που έχουν παραχθεί από χρήστες (user generated text content - UGTC) στις ιστοσελίδες του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού. Οι δικτυακές κοινότητες αυξάνονται συνεχώς σε μέγεθος και αριθμό, ενώ ταυτόχρονα οι ιστότοποι και οι υπηρεσίες του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού προσφέρουν όλο και περισσότερες δυνατότητες στους χρήστες τους για να δημιουργήσουν, να συντηρήσουν και να δημοσιοποιήσουν περιεχόμενο κειμένου που έχει παραχθεί από τους ίδιους. Αποτέλεσμα της αλληλεπίδρασης των χρηστών αλλά και χρηστών και ιστοσελίδων, είναι ότι ένα αρκετά μεγάλο μέρος της διαδικτυακής πληροφορίας με το οποίο έρχεται σε επαφή ο μέσος χρήστης καθημερινά, έχει παραχθεί από άλλους χρήστες και όχι από τους δημιουργούς του ιστοτόπου. Η μελέτη των χαρακτηριστικών του περιεχομένου που έχει παραχθεί από χρήστες είναι κομβικό σημείο σε μια σειρά ερευνητικών πεδίων. Χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα αποτελούν οι μελέτες στα πλαίσια του πεδίου της εξόρυξης άποψης (opinion mining), οι οποίες βασίζονται στο περιεχόμενο των χρηστών για να αλιεύσουν τις απόψεις για ένα θέμα ή ένα προϊόν. Μελέτες, όπως οι παραπάνω, είναι ιδιαίτερα χρήσιμες στην ανάπτυξη σύγχρονων εμπορικών εφαρμογών, που θα προσφέρουν στον καταναλωτή δυνατότητα πληρέστερης ενημέρωσης για τις συναλλαγές που πρόκειται να πραγματοποιήσει. Άλλες περιπτώσεις αφορούν στην ανάλυση των γλωσσολογικών χαρακτηριστικών των κειμενικών δεδομένων που έχουν συνταχθεί από χρήστες. Επίσης, η μελέτη των χαρακτηριστικών του περιεχομένου που έχει παραχθεί από χρήστες του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού είναι ιδιαίτερα σημαντική στη μελέτη του social web, καθώς είναι δυνατόν να προκύψουν χρήσιμα συμπεράσματα τόσο για την εξέλιξή του στο χώρο και στο χρόνο, όσο και για την περαιτέρω εξέλιξη του, προσφέροντας στους χρήστες νέες δυνατότητες μέσα από σύγχρονες εφαρμογές που θα αναπτυχθούν. Σε κάθε περίπτωση, το περιεχόμενο των ιστοσελίδων του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού μπορεί θεωρητικά να κατηγοριοποιηθεί σε δυο κατηγορίες: στα δεδομένα των δημιουργών των ιστοσελίδων και στα δεδομένα που προέκυψαν από τους χρήστες των ιστοσελίδων κατά την αλληλεπίδρασή τους με αυτές. Στόχος της παρούσας μελέτης είναι να μελετήσει το κατά πόσο είναι εφικτή και με ποιόν τρόπο η αυτόματη αναγνώριση ύπαρξης ή μη περιεχομένου κειμένου του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού που έχει παραχθεί από χρήστες. Στα πλαίσια της παρούσας μεταπτυχιακής εργασίας θα εντοπιστούν χαρακτηριστικά, τα οποία θα επιτρέψουν τον αυτόματο εντοπισμό των κειμενικών δεδομένων χρηστών σε μια ιστοσελίδα. Γενικά σε μια ιστοσελίδα υπάρχουν τρεις πηγές πληροφοριών, οι οποίες μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν κατά τη διαδικασία προσδιορσμού του user generated content (UGC): το περιεχόμενο της ιστοσελίδας, το περιβάλλον εμφάνισής της (συνδεσιμότητα με άλλες σελίδες και anchor text) και η δομή της, η οποία περιγράφεται από τα html tags (πχ ο τίτλος της σελίδας, οι λέξεις που παρουσιάζονται με bold κλπ). Η προτεινόμενη μεθοδολογία συνίσταται στην εφαρμογή τεχνικών ανάλυσης της ιστοσελίδας που σκοπό έχουν τον καθορισμό ενός συνόλου χαρακτηριστικών γνωρισμάτων της (features). Το σύνολο των γνωρισμάτων αυτών αποτελείται από τρία επιμέρους είδη χαρακτηριστικών γνωρισμάτων, τα γλωσσολογικά χαρακτηριστικά γνωρίσματα (textual features), τα χαρακτηριστικά γνωρίσματα δομής της ιστοσελίδας (Html tags), και τα χαρακτηριστικά γνωρίσματα απεικόνισης ή εμφάνισης της ιστοσελίδας (Visual and Visually Central Features). Από τα καθορισμένα χαρακτηριστικά θα επιλεγούν πειραματικά εκείνα, τα οποία θα συμμετάσχουν αποδοτικότερα στον αλγόριθμο προσδιορισμού για την ύπαρξη user generated text content σε μια ιστοσελίδα. Η αξιολόγηση των αποτελεσμάτων της προτεινόμενης μεθόδου θα πραγματοποιηθεί βάσει ενός συνόλου δεδομένων ελέγχου. Τα δεδομένα ελέγχου αποτελούνται από μια συλλογή ιστοσελίδων, για τις οποίες έχει γίνει έλεγχος για το αν περιέχουν user generated text content. Η διαδικασία αξιολόγησης συνίσταται στην σύγκριση των αποτελεσμάτων του αλγορίθμου που προτείνουμε με τα αποτελέσματα που έχουν παραχθεί από την επεξεργασία του συνόλου δεδομένων ελέγχου. Τα συμπεράσματα που θα προκύψουν μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν για την περεταίρω βελτίωση του αλγορίθμου προσδιορισμού ύπαρξης user generated text content, καθώς και για την αξιοποίηση τους σε τεχνικές ανάλυσης και επεξεργασίας του user generated text content από ιστοσελίδες του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού. / Millions of people every day use the Web for a wide range of activities. The number of Internet users is continuously growing, as well as all the different activities that can be performed through websites and Internet services. Web users daily participate in various digital activities, delimiting in this way their digital "life." Each user can send an e-mail, communicate and establish relationships with other web users, visit websites in order to satisfy his information needs, or keep a personal profile in one or more social networking sites. At the same time, more and more web users use online shopping for their purchases, achieving direct connection of the market research by buying products or services, while the commentations and the views of other users for goods and services is another undoubted advantage of online shops. The users’ increasing activity has as result the continuous raising of the volume data, generated by users (user generated content - UGTC) in Web pages. On-line communities are growing in size and number, while simultaneously websites and web services offer users more and more options, in order to create, preserve and publish text produced by them. Result of the interaction between users and the website users and websites, is that a large part of the online information, in which the user come daily in contact, is produced by others and not by the creators of the website. The study of the characteristics of the content obtained by users is a key point in a series of searching fields. Typical examples are the studies within the field of mining opinion (opinion mining), which are based on the content of users to catch their opinions on a topic or product. Studies such as the above, are particularly useful in the development of modern commercial applications that can offer the consumer better information for his transactions. Other cases concern the analysis of the linguistic characteristics of textual data compiled by users. Also, the study of the content characteristics generated by users of the World Wide Web is particularly important in the study of the social web, as well as it can yield useful results for both the evolution in space and time, and further development providing users with new capabilities through new applications, which are developed. In any case, the Web content could theoretically be categorized in two categories: data of Web pages creators and the data generated by web users when interacting with them. The aim of this study is to examine whether it is feasible and with which way the automatic recognition of the text content on the Web produced by users. In this thesis, it will be identified characteristics that allow the automatic detection of textual data of users to a website and its separation from the content that has been produced by the creators of the website. During the planning and design of the proposed method it will initially be studied the inherent characteristics of different types of websites, which are indicative of the presence of these text content users. It will also be studied the usefulness of linguistic and visual features for recognition textual data users at the site, in order to separate it from the official content, that is from content creators. Generally in a website there are three sources of information that can be used during the process of identifying user generated content (UGC): website content, setting of development (connectivity with other pages and anchor text) and its structure, which is described by the html tags (eg page title, words presented in bold, etc). The proposed methodology is recommended in applying technical analysis website aimed at defining a part of attributes (features). All these attributes consist of three kinds of features, textual features, features of the site structure (Html tags), and imaging features or appearance of the website (Visual and Visually Central Features). From the defined features it will experimentally be selected those, which will efficiently participate in the identification algorithm for the existence user generated text content on a website. The evaluation results of the proposed method will be held considering specific audit data. The audit data consist of a collection of web pages, which have already been checked whether they contain user generated text content. The process evaluation reccommends comparing the results of the proposed algorithm with the results obtained from processing all audit data. The conclusions can be used to further improvement of the identification algorithm existence of user generated text content, as well as to exploit them in technical analysis and processing of user generated text content from Web pages.

This thesis proposes a critical study of the techniques and motives behind modern commodity feminist advertising, focusing on the appropriation of the “young girl” as a symbol of the feminist cause. This evolving trend in advertising, building upon new movements of empowerment and the recent proliferation of the online feminist space, is shifting the logics of consumption by marketing feminist ideology and activism through consumer purchasing power. By prompting consumers to believe that their purchases can make a significant change, companies are developing brand loyalty in their key marketing demographics by using the image and rhetoric of the “young girl” to tap into a term I call “anti-nostalgia,” a nostalgia whereby women leverage the inherent sentimentality of childhood with a constructive understanding and rejection of the destructively sexist climate they experienced to combat these sociocultural conditions for future generations. Joining theoretical research on branding, user-generated content, and the neoliberal ideology of the consumer-citizen, I argue that these advertising campaigns, coupled with online spaces for public interaction and participation, effectively create channels for their target consumers to contribute to this commodified form of activism. In reality, however, these “feminist” purchases are simply forms of consumer self-therapy in a modern political climate of systemic gender discrimination.

Background: The modern day era of the Internet gave birth to the growing phenomenon of Internet memes (IM), a type of online user generated content (UGC) (Gangadharbatla, 2008). Now marketers have begun researching the relationship between UGC and consumer based brand equity (CBBE) (Christodoulides et.al, 2012; Rachna and Khajuria, 2017). The problem discussion presents the issue of the diminishing control of brand equity due to the rise of UGC and lack of research on how to manage its influence (Morrison et al., 2013). Leading to the purpose of this thesis, which is to determine the impact Internet memes have on consumer based brand equity. Literature: The review presents two leading contributors to the field, Aaker’s (1991) framework on the different dimensions of CBBE and Keller’s (1993) definition of the concept. In addition recent studies on UGC and brand equity provided the basis for hypothesis development. Method: This thesis assumed a deductive research approach, developing the hypothesis from current literature in the field. A quantitative study, that utilized an explanatory research approach, because it best suited the experimental design. As for the data collection method, surveys were considered (Saunders et al., 2016), which the authors designed as a self-completion questionnaire and pre-tested (Bryman and Bell, 2015). Convenience sampling was chosen to select participants (Hernon, 2004). Construct and content validity was used along with homogeneity and stability to control reliability and measure the quality of research instruments (Bryman and Bell, 2015). SPSS version 25 was used to conduct all statistical analyses. Results: Four hypotheses were developed, to measure the effect of the independent variable IM on each of the four CBBE dimensions. To summarize, three of the hypothesis (H1, H3 and H4) were rejected as the difference in the means are not significant enough and can be explained by chance. The effect on brand association (H2) was however found to be significant therefore H2 was accepted.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / The groups we consider in this study belong to the class X0 of all nitely generated groups with nite commutator subgroups. We shall eventually narrow down to the groups of the form T owZn for some n 2 N and some nite abelian group T. For a X0-group H, we study the non-cancellation set, (H), which is de ned to be the set of all isomorphism classes of groups K such that H Z = K Z. For X0-groups H, on (H) there is an abelian group structure [38], de ned in terms of embeddings of K into H, for groups K of which the isomorphism classes belong to (H). If H is a nilpotent X0-group, then the group (H) is the same as the Hilton-Mislin (see [10]) genus group G(H) of H. A number of calculations of such Hilton-Mislin genus groups can be found in the literature, and in particular there is a very nice calculation in article [11] of Hilton and Scevenels. The main aim of this thesis is to compute non-cancellation (or genus) groups of special types of X0-groups such as mentioned above. The groups in question can in fact be considered to be direct products of metacyclic groups, very much as in [11]. We shall make extensive use of the methods developed in [30] and employ computer algebra packages to compute determinants of endomorphisms of nite groups. / South Africa

O sucesso da mineração de opiniões para processar automaticamente grandes quantidades de conteúdo opinativo disponíveis na Internet tem sido demonstrado como uma solução de baixa latência e mais barata para a análise de opinião pública. No presente trabalho foi investigado se é possível prever variações de intenção de voto com base em séries temporais de sentimento extraídas de comentários de notícias, utilizando três eleições brasileiras como estudo de caso. As contribuições deste estudo de caso são: a) a comparação de duas abordagens para a mineração de opiniões em conteúdo gerado por usuários em português do Brasil; b) a proposta de dois tipos de atributos discriminantes para representar o sentimento em relação a candidatos políticos a serem usados para a previsão, c) uma abordagem para prever variações de intenção de voto que é adequada para cenários de dados esparsos. Foram desenvolvidos experimentos para avaliar a influência dos atributos discriminantes propostos em relação a acurácia da previsão, e suas respectivas preparações. Os resultados mostraram uma acurácia de 70% na previsão de variações de intenção de voto positivas e negativas. Estas contribuições são importantes passos em direção a um framework que é capaz de combinar opiniões de diversas fontes para encontrar a representatividade de uma população alvo, de modo que se possa obter previsões mais confiáveis. / The success of opinion mining for automatically processing vast amounts of opinionated content available on the Internet has been demonstrated as a less expensive and lower latency solution for gathering public opinion. In this work, we investigate whether it is possible to predict variations in vote intention based on sentiment time series extracted from news comments, using three Brazilian elections as case study. The contributions of this case study are: a) the comparison of two approaches for opinion mining in user-generated content in Brazilian Portuguese; b) the proposition of two types of features to represent sentiment behavior towards political candidates that can be used for prediction, c) an approach to predict polls vote intention variations that is adequate for scenarios of sparse data. We developed experiments to assess the influence on the forecasting accuracy of the proposed features, and their respective preparation. Our results display an accuracy of 70% in predicting positive and negative variations. These are important contributions towards a more general framework that is able to blend opinions from several different sources to find representativeness of the target population, and make more reliable predictions.