In this thesis, two FPGA testbeds to demonstrate low-latency deterministic Guaranteed- Rate (GR) connections in packet switched networks such as the Internet of Things are developed. Each FPGA testbed consists of multiple simple Input Queued (IQ) switches or routers, interconnected in a given topology to form a forwarding-plane. Each switch has an associated switch controller with several programmable Lookup- Tables (LUTs). A Software Defined Networking (SDN) control plane can configure the switch controllers to establish the GR connections in the forwarding-plane of IP routers or layer- 2 packet switches. According to a recent paper in the IEEE Transactions on Networking; (1) The use of very low jitter GR connections can reduce queuing delays to negligible values, so that the end-to-end delays can be reduced to the buffer latency. (2) The routers, switches and links can operate at 100% loads, while simultaneously guaranteeing very low end- to-end latencies. The goal of the thesis is to evaluate these properties in real hardware clocked at MegaHertz clock rates. In the first testbed, a network of 8 simple IQ switches organized in a linear array is synthesized on an Altera Cyclone IV FPGA. 128 GR traffic flows were routed through the testbed to effectively saturate the switches and links. In the second testbed, a USA backbone topology with 26 simple IQ switches and 88 links is synthesized on the FPGA. Over 300 GR traffic flows were routed through the USA network to achieve utilizations exceeding 90%. In both testbeds, packets move through the forwarding plane at a clock rate of 65 MHz, transferring millions of packets per second, and statistics are recorded. Both testbeds con rm that traffic flows achieve deterministic GR service with minimum buffering, where end-to-end delays are effectively reduced to the fiber latency. These hardware testbeds demonstrate the technical feasibility of achieving deterministic GR services in a packet-switched network such as Internet of Things using simple FPGA switch controllers working with an SDN control plane. The technology also applies to networks of simple optical packet switches with minimal buffering. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

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For all but thirteen years of the decades from 1952 to 2017, British Columbia was electorally dominated by the Social Credit Party and its ideological successor, the BC Liberal Party. These organizations represented the interests of business in opposition to the social democratic NDP, which has drawn a core support base from organized labour and the public sector middle class. This thesis frames the Social Credit-BC Liberal political formation as a ruling class bloc that maintained hegemony by switching between distinct rhetorical modes as the political situation required or allowed, with economic austerity, framed as objective necessity, on one hand, and populism, employing overt moralism and down-to-earth posturing, on the other. I posit that both modes operated to mask the class conflict at the heart of the neoliberal project of free markets, public sector reduction, and social atomization that has attained the status of political and economic “common sense” since its policies began to be widely adopted around the world in the late 1970s. After providing a background for the rise of Social Credit in British Columbia under W.A.C. Bennett (premier from 1952-1972), this thesis tracks the continuities and changes of the province’s hegemonic bloc, using welfare policies and poverty discourses as a focus. I consider the party’s transition from a populist one that appealed to the province’s evangelical Christian population to a modernized, neoliberal party under Bill Bennett’s leadership (1975-1986). Exploring the rationales surrounding the cuts to welfare funding enacted under the Social Credit governments of Bill Bennett and Bill Vander Zalm and the BC Liberal government of Gordon Campbell (2001-2011), I analyze how neoliberal and populist styles were employed, what the relationship between the two was, and the extent to which moralism was part of both styles/discourses regarding poverty. I also look at the extent to which the collective solidarity of anti-poverty activists and progressive religious groups was able to push back against neoliberal and populist policies, resisting the individualism that neoliberalism attempts to enforce. In these ways, this thesis seeks to contribute to making neoliberalism a topic of critical political analysis and deliberation at a time when its policies are often framed as non-ideological. / Graduate

Cette thèse traite des problèmes d’estimation et de contrôle de cohérence par l’utilisation des techniques ensemblistes. L’objectif est la mise en place d’une démarche méthodologique pour la surveillance et la détection d’anomalies au sein des systèmes où le déterminisme des indicateurs relatifs à l’état de santé du système est une condition sine qua non. Une fois placé dans un contexte ensembliste, l’évolution de chaque variable du système est représentée par une enveloppe traduisant les incertitudes internes et externes ; cette enveloppe représente le seuil au delà duquel le comportement observé représente un écart anormal par rapport à son comportement nominal, et pouvant conduire à une incapacité pour accomplir les objectifs de sa mission. Les techniques développées sont appliquées à un procédé hydraulique de laboratoire . / This work deals with the development of set-membership methods for set esti- mation and consistency checks for nonlinear continuous-time systems. The main objective is to setup a methodology for fault detection and isolation for the systems where the deter- minism of faults indicators on the health system is a necessary condition. Once placed in a set-membership framework, the evolution of each variable is represented by an envelope re?ecting the internal and external uncertainties. This envelope corresponds to the threshold beyond which the observed behavior is an abnormal discrepancy over its nominal behav- ior, thus preventing the accomplishment the mission objectives. The proposed methods are applied on a hydraulic laboratory process.

abstract: ABSTRACT This mixed methods study examined how a high-poverty urban school district implemented four initiatives to support special education teachers and increase student achievement. The initiatives that were implemented consisted of direct instruction teaching methods, the use of a district-approved curriculum, monitoring program fidelity with walkthroughs, and increased professional development opportunities. Quantitatively, the study compared walkthrough data and student achievement scores. The walkthrough data was collected from 52 special education teachers employed at the 19 schools making up the district while teaching reading and math. Student achievement scores were collected from the students taught by the 52 special education teachers. The walkthrough data compared the percentage of students making academic growth on district assessments with the percentage of teachers implementing the district initiatives with a high level of fidelity. Data was collected and analyzed between the first and third quarters of the 2013–2014 school year. Qualitatively, six special education teachers were interviewed to examine their thoughts on the change process and to determine their needs to be successful as they continued to implement the district initiatives. The results of the quantitative data indicated that students demonstrated growth as walkthrough scores increased in 16 out of 19 schools, specifically in the area of math. Fidelity to the initiatives increased throughout the year as teachers began to use and implement the initiatives. The results of the qualitative data indicated that special education teachers positively responded to the support they received through the Special Services ii Department and the district’s initiatives. Using grounded theory, it was determined that teachers need opportunities for collaboration, feedback, and time to practice in order to be successful. Lastly, the epilogue discusses the next steps that are being taken by the district to support all students with their learning needs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Appendix G--Contains Qualitative and Quantitative Data Used in the Study / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Administration and Supervision 2015

Nous nous intéressons dans cette thèse à la problématique de la décision collective. L’objectif est de déterminer une solution de compromis pour des problèmes soumis à de multiples points de vue. Les problèmes considérés sont de nature combinatoire. Plus précisément, il s’agit de la classe des systèmes d’ensembles qui ont une structure de matroïde. La théorie des matroïdes est centrale en optimisation combinatoire, elle a permis d’unifier des structures apparemment séparées comme les arbres et les couplages dans les graphes et elle a engendré des algorithmes efficaces pour résoudre des problèmes d’optimisation non triviaux en temps polynomial. Nous nous intéressons à fournir des algorithmes d’approximation polynomiaux centralisés et décentralisés avec garantie de performance pour déterminer une solution de compromis qui est une base du matroïde. La solution de compromis doit également être équitable pour tous les membres de la collectivité. Nous portons un intérêt particulier au problème de partage équitable de biens indivisibles qui est une thématique importante en choix social computationnel et dont le problème se modélise par les matroïdes. / In this thesis, we are interested in collective decision-making. The objective is to find a tradeoff solution for problems that are evaluated by multiple points of view. We consider problems having a matroid structure. Matroid theory is significant in combinatorial optimization, it helped to unify apparently separated structures like forests and matchings in graphs and it includes efficient algorithms for solving non-trivial optimization problems in polynomial time. We are interested to provide polynomial time centralized and decentralized approximation algorithms for finding a tradeoff solution which is a base of the matroid. The tradeoff solution must also be fair for all the members of the community. We are particularly interested in the issue of the fair division of indivisible goods which is central in computational social choice and that can be modeled by matroids.

The thesis analyzes how minimum wage influences unemployment in the Czech Republic. Firstly, the economic theory is researched and the conclusion is that the Czech labour market is very similar to a monopsony market due to the low mobility of the workforce and the low rate of immigration. Another result is that the level of wages in developed economies does not depend on the productivity of the workforce anymore, so minimum wage laws have psychological impacts rather than economical. The following part of this thesis is dedicated to the comparison of labour market indicators between european countries. The last chapter investigates the main hypothesis with a dataset from the Czech Republic between 1993-2014 using the econometric model. A 1% increase of real minimum wage resulted in a 0.01% increase in the general unemployment rate and a 0.1% increase of unemployment among the young population. But if the minimum wage will be raised during the times of real GDP growth, influence on unemployment will be eliminated.

El presente trabajo tiene por finalidad identificar las causas que ralentizan las adjudicaciones de los proyectos del Sistema Garantizado de Transmisión del Plan de Transmisión cuya entrega en concesión al sector privado le es encargada a la Agencia de Promoción de la Inversión Privada (PROINVERSIÓN) por parte del Ministerio de Energía y Minas (MINEM). De la revisión de la normativa para el desarrollo de las Asociaciones Público Privadas (APP) que rige el actuar de PROINVERSIÓN, aunada a la investigación realizada respecto de los procesos de promoción de la inversión privada de los proyectos tramitados en el periodo comprendido de 2007 a 2020, se observa que, a medida que la mencionada regulación ha venido siendo modificada, se han incrementado los requerimientos y procedimientos de cada una de las fases de desarrollo de las APP aplicables a los proyectos. Resulta relevante que la normativa de APP tenga en consideración la regulación sectorial en materia de electricidad, a fin de evitar la duplicidad de esfuerzos y su tramitología asociada, lo cual redunda en el mayor tiempo que insumen los procesos de promoción de la inversión privada. Habiendo identificado las causas que generaron dicha situación, se presenta una propuesta modificatoria de la normativa de las APP, la cual coadyuvará a que los procesos de promoción de la inversión privada de los proyectos del Sistema Garantizado de Transmisión del Plan de Transmisión resulten ágiles para su oportuna implementación, cumpliendo con los objetivos de mantener o mejorar la calidad, fiabilidad y seguridad del sistema de transmisión. / The purpose of this work is to identify the causes that slow down the allocations of the projects of the Guaranteed Transmission System of the Transmission Plan, whose delivery in concession to the private sector is entrusted to the Agency for the Promotion of Private Investment – PROINVERSION- by the Ministry of Energy and Mines. According to the review of the regulations for the development of Private-Public Partnerships (PPP), which runs the actions of PROINVERSION, along with the research carried out regarding the processes of promotion of private investment of the projects processed from 2007 to 2020, it is observed that as the aforementioned regulations have been modified, the requirements and procedures of each of the development phases of the PPP applicable to the projects have increased. It is relevant that the PPP regulations take into account the sectorial policies in the matter of electricity, in order to avoid duplication of efforts and its associated paperwork, which result in increasing greatly the time the private investment promotion processes take. Having identified the causes that generated this situation, a proposal to modify the PPP regulations is presented, which will help the processes of promoting private investment in the projects of the Guaranteed Transmission System of the Transmission Plan to be more flexible for their timely implementation, meeting the objectives of maintaining or improving the quality, reliability and safety of the transmission system. / Trabajo de investigación

Closed-loop system identification and fault detection and isolation are the two fundamental building blocks of process monitoring. Efficient and accurate process monitoring increases plant availability and utilisation. This dissertation investigates a subspace system identification and fault detection methodology for the Benfield process, used by Sasol, Synfuels in Secunda, South Africa, to remove CO2 from CO2-rich tail gas. Subspace identification methods originated between system theory, geometry and numerical linear algebra which makes it a computationally efficient tool to estimate system parameters. Subspace identification methods are classified as Black-Box identification techniques, where it does not rely on a-priori process information and estimates the process model structure and order automatically. Typical subspace identification algorithms use non-parsimonious model formulation, with extra terms in the model that appear to be non-causal (stochastic noise components). These extra terms are included to conveniently perform subspace projection, but are the cause for inflated variance in the estimates, and partially responsible for the loss of closed-loop identifiably. The subspace identification methodology proposed in this dissertation incorporates two successive LQ decompositions to remove stochastic components and obtain state-space models of the plant respectively. The stability of the identified plant is further guaranteed by using the shift invariant property of the extended observability matrix by appending the shifted extended observability matrix by a block of zeros. It is shown that the spectral radius of the identified system matrices all lies within a unit boundary, when the system matrices are derived from the newly appended extended observability matrix. The proposed subspace identification methodology is validated and verified by re-identifying the Benfield process operating in closed-loop, with an RMPCT controller, using measured closed-loop process data. Models that have been identified from data measured from the Benfield process operating in closed-loop with an RMPCT controller produced validation data fits of 65% and higher. From residual analysis results, it was concluded that the proposed subspace identification method produce models that are accurate in predicting future outputs and represent a wide variety of process inputs. A parametric fault detection methodology is proposed that monitors the estimated system parameters as identified from the subspace identification methodology. The fault detection methodology is based on the monitoring of parameter discrepancies, where sporadic parameter deviations will be detected as faults. Extended Kalman filter theory is implemented to estimate system parameters, instead of system states, as new process data becomes readily available. The extended Kalman filter needs accurate initial parameter estimates and is thus periodically updated by the subspace identification methodology, as a new set of more accurate parameters have been identified. The proposed fault detection methodology is validated and verified by monitoring process behaviour of the Benfield process. Faults that were monitored for, and detected include foaming, flooding and sensor faults. Initial process parameters as identified from the subspace method can be tracked efficiently by using an extended Kalman filter. This enables the fault detection methodology to identify process parameter deviations, with a process parameter deviation sensitivity of 2% or higher. This means that a 2% parameter deviation will be detected which greatly enhances the fault detection efficiency and sensitivity. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

<p dir="ltr">The Farm Service Agency's Guaranteed Loan Program supports eligible lender's ability to provide credit to farms who would otherwise not qualify for loans by guaranteeing up to 95% of principal and interest if the farmer defaults. The first chapter examines the degree to which bank characteristics influence FSA guaranteed loan rates paid by farmers. We leverage the unique characteristics of a panel of FSA guaranteed loans that include both borrower and lender information. Relative to pooled OLS, our preferred fixed-effects regression specification suggests that both time-varying and invariant lender effects are a significant determinant of FSA guaranteed loan rates. Further, when controlling for lender-effects, the significance of borrower characteristics largely diminish. These findings are consistent with prior studies of broader lending market interaction. This is the first study to examine FSA guaranteed loans which accounts for bank-level variation in lending terms. The findings may be of interest to policymakers, program administrators, lenders, and farmers.</p><p dir="ltr">Bankers’ expectations have been shown to provide reasonable forecasts of land value. In the second chapter, we test the informativeness of bankers’ expectations in predicting FSA guaranteed loan application volumes. Once again, we leverage proprietary administrative data from the FSA and, this time, pair it with survey data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to evaluate bankers’ forecasts. Results show that bankers’ forecasts are outperformed by naïve models, and including bankers’ expectations does not improve predictive models. Once again, these results will be of interest to FSA program administrators, lenders, and potential borrowers.</p><p dir="ltr">The study of risk is an important thread of farm management research as agriculture is an industry with many sources of risk. In the third chapter, we link broad measures of policy risk in the form of Equity Market Volatility trackers to farmer’s perceptions of risk and uncertainty. We consider disagreement in ex ante sentiment questions to measure farmer risk. Through a series of pairwise VARs, we show which sources of risk matriculate as concerns for farmers measured by uncertainty in the Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer. Increases in tax policy, trade policy and infectious disease uncertainty are found to Granger-cause movement in farmer sentiment uncertainty.</p>