The mobile telecommunication industry has experienced a very rapid growth in the recent past. This has resulted in significant technological and architectural evolution in the wireless networks. The expansion and the heterogenity of these networks have made their operational cost more and more important. Typical faults in these networks may be related to equipment breakdown and inappropriate planning and configuration. In this context, automated troubleshooting in wireless networks receives a growing importance, aiming at reducing the operational cost and providing high-quality services for the end-users. Automated troubleshooting can reduce service breakdown time for the clients, resulting in the decrease in client switchover to competing network operators. The Radio Access Network (RAN) of a wireless network constitutes its biggest part. Hence, the automated troubleshooting of RAN of the wireless networks is very important. The troubleshooting comprises the isolation of the faulty cells (fault detection), identifying the causes of the fault (fault diagnosis) and the proposal and deployement of the healing action (solution deployement). First of all, in this thesis, the previous work related to the troubleshooting of the wireless networks has been explored. It turns out that the fault detection and the diagnosis of wireless networks have been well studied in the scientific literature. Surprisingly, no significant references for the research work related to the automated healing of wireless networks have been reported. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to describe my research advances on "Automated healing of LTE wireless networks using statistical learning". We focus on the faults related to Radio Resource Management (RRM) parameters. This thesis explores the use of statistical learning for the automated healing process. In this context, the effectiveness of statistical learning for automated RRM has been investigated. This is achieved by modeling the functional relationships between the RRM parameters and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). A generic automated RRM architecture has been proposed. This generic architecture has been used to study the application of statistical learning approach to auto-tuning and performance monitoring of the wireless networks. The use of statistical learning in the automated healing of wireless networks introduces two important diculties: Firstly, the KPI measurements obtained from the network are noisy, hence this noise can partially mask the actual behaviour of KPIs. Secondly, these automated healing algorithms are iterative. After each iteration the network performance is typically evaluated over the duration of a day with new network parameter settings. Hence, the iterative algorithms should achieve their QoS objective in a minimum number of iterations. Automated healing methodology developped in this thesis, based on statistical modeling, addresses these two issues. The automated healing algorithms developped are computationaly light and converge in a few number of iterations. This enables the implemenation of these algorithms in the Operation and Maintenance Center (OMC) in the off-line mode. The automated healing methodolgy has been applied to 3G Long Term Evolution (LTE) use cases for healing the mobility and intereference mitigation parameter settings. It has been observed that our healing objective is achieved in a few number of iterations. An automated healing process using the sequential optimization of interference mitigation and packet scheduling parameters has also been investigated. The incorporation of the a priori knowledge into the automated healing process, further reduces the number of iterations required for automated healing. Furthermore, the automated healing process becomes more robust, hence, more feasible and practical for the implementation in the wireless networks.

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4th International Conference on Advances in Experimental Structural Engineering, Ispra, Lombardy, Italy, June 29-30, 2011

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The Long Division is a novel that applies some conventions and tropes of the noir fiction genre to tell a story from the points of view of five individuals whose fates are interconnected through the narrative. Jodie Larkin is an Atlanta housecleaner who, fed up with her thankless job, hits the road with stolen cash, desperate to reconnect with the son she gave up for adoption. That son is Calvin Nowak, a teenager eager to escape an adoptive family that he feels can never understand him. He and Jodie embark on a runaway quest to discover the source of his pain. Their journey will take them to small town New York, where Calvin’s biological father, Sam Hartwick, is secretly tracking the shooter in a double murder case that will test his reputation and his faith in redemption. That killer is Wynn Johnston, a college student gifted and tortured, who clings to his bright academic prospects while hunted by vengeful criminals, police, and his own demons. He strikes up a desperate relationship with Erika Hartwick, Sam Harwick’s legitimate daughter, just as Sam’s illegitimate son Calvin and one-time lover Jodie arrive in town and instigate a climactic confrontation between all the perspective characters. The novel explores the value of family and how it can be tested by extreme circumstances, especially in paradoxical or ironic context where family is founded on, or broken apart by, characters flaws that threaten the stability of family itself. Likewise, it explores whether certain family relationships can or should be repaired, and the motives and morality of individuals when they support or subvert family dynamics.

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce a novel method of dry micro-object manipulation and to demonstrate predictable vision-based control. The Lift and slide conveyors presented utilize three main components: pads, lifters and a floating platform. The pads have a small planar displacement in the XY axis and lifters have a small Z axis displacement. Together they can be used to create minute displacements per cycle while carrying a floating platform that can hold the desired objects to be moved. These platforms can be handed off to other pad-lifter groups to create an unlimited planar envelope. Two degree of freedom control was established using LabView with open and closed loop routines. A model is presented that predicts the resonance frequencies with different loading and geometric characteristics to aid in design optimization for various applications. Parameters such as velocity, drift and traction are well characterized for different operating conditions.

Person-centred care is a holistic care approach that aims to build up and support the personhood of residents with dementia, and thereby enhance quality of life. Through a review of the literature on mealtimes in long term care homes, four main aspects of person-centred mealtime care were identified: providing food choices and preferences, supporting residents’ independence, promoting the social side of eating, and showing respect. Using a critical realist lens, this descriptive qualitative study examined current implementation of person-centred mealtime care, the influences on its implementation, and steps to more fully adopt a person-centred approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 52 staff from four diverse long term care homes in southern Ontario. Participants included frontline workers, registered health care professionals, and managers. Interviews were transcribed and analysed for themes. A conceptual framework was developed through analysis of the interview data, identifying five key ways to support staff to provide person-centred care: forming a strong team, working together to provide care, enabling staff to know the residents better, equipping staff with a toolbox of strategies, and creating flexibility to optimize care. Specific strengths and areas for improvement in implementation of person-centred mealtime care were identified and explained using this conceptual framework. Elements of the framework were also applied to explain important considerations for hiring staff, educating and training staff, developing a culture of good teamwork, and involving family members and volunteers in mealtime care. / Canadian Foundation for Dietetic Research; Alzheimer Society of Canada

This thesis is an investigation of the characteristics and behaviour of loads of cattle that are unloaded for feed, water and rest at a rest station in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Truck drivers were surveyed as they arrived at the rest station and the cattle were observed as they were unloaded and reloaded to score animal handling (n=129). Behavioural observations were conducted on an additional 53 loads (87 pens) using counts of the number of animals lying, feeding and drinking. A majority of the loads (60.94%) were feeder calves (300-550kg). On average drivers were in transit for 28.2±5.0 hours before stopping and rested for 11.2±2.8 hours. These values are within the maximum and minimum allowed in the current Canadian regulations. Behaviour was not found to be associated with time in transit, but was instead found to be strongly associated with whether the entire truckload was grouped in a single pen. / Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Deep-corrugated steel culverts (with a corrugation wavelength of 400mm and amplitude of 150mm) can be used as an effective alternative for short-span bridges. Current design methods are typically based on two-dimensional finite element analysis. This thesis reports results from three-dimensional finite element analysis, with explicit modelling of the geometry of the corrugated plates (called corrugated analyses) and employing the orthotropic shell theory (called orthotropic analyses), for a specific box culvert having a 10 m span and 2.4 m rise. The results were compared to previously reported experimental data where a specific large span box culvert was tested under controlled laboratory conditions. The behaviour of the box culvert under small vertical displacement without any soil support was modelled to isolate the structure response. The box culvert was also modelled when subject to fully loaded dump truck, and when loaded using a tandem axle frame to service and ultimate loads. Both corrugated and orthotropic analyses successfully captured the response of the box culvert when backfilled and loaded using dump truck and axle frame loading. It was found that the orthotropic model overestimated the culvert stiffness at the ultimate limit state, but provided effective estimates of response up to the factored design loads. The corrugated model with geometric nonlinearity was required to capture the real behaviour of the corrugated plates up to the ultimate limit state. New insight into the failure mechanisms of the box culvert were provided by the corrugated model analysis. A parametric study was then performed for 86 different long-span box and arch culverts, examining live load spreading in the axial direction, number of loaded lanes, design truck position, culvert geometry, plate thickness, and the existence of pavement. The results were then compared to the moment and thrust equations in the 2006 Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC) to check the performance of the current design equations. CHBDC equations overestimated the earth and live load bending moments, and did not give the correct trend for different spans. CHBDC thrust equations were found to underestimate the earth and live load thrust values for arch culverts. / Thesis (Ph.D, Civil Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2011-04-26 15:33:45.103

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