Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a combat sport where pugilists combine various martial art forms to compete in sanctioned bouts of hand-to-hand cage fighting. Through immersive ethnographic research at an MMA gym, this thesis presents a carnal sociology that investigates rigorous human sparring as a method of human liberation. Carnal sociology is a method of embodied inquiry where the sociologist uses their own body to investigate social phenomena of interest. Chapter 1 reveals connections between modern sparring encounters and early religious violence as described in Émile Durkheim’s sociology. I argue that human sparring is a form of violent and primitively religious prayer that allows the sparrer to extract originary feelings of human agency that are stored in the social energies of sparring intensity. Chapter 2 explores current debates regarding gender in modern mixed-sex martial arts gyms, arguing for a more patient approach to conceptualizing gender in sparring. Despite scholars depicting the history of sparring as being saturated with violent expressions of masculinity, modern sparring practices appear to present a novel space for men and women to enter into freer associations with gender on their own terms. In Chapter 3, I expand on Dale Spencer’s (2009) concept of body callusing, where instead, I argue that sparrers are primarily drawn to sparring to engage in existential callusing where the sparrer is driven towards a mastery of the non-body to overcome death anxiety. Drawing on participant diary entries, field notes, and immersive ethnography, this thesis argues that human sparring is best understood as a mechanism of human liberation that is undertaken by sparrers through a unique transcendental phenomenology. Sparring violence allows practitioners to overcome certain limitations embedded in everyday human thought by becoming intoxicated by especially altered states of consciousness as a means of accessing primary qualities of the human condition. / Graduate / 2022-04-14

This work investigates flow measurement capabilities within meso- and micro-scaled medically relevant devices using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Medical devices can be particularly challenging to validate due to small length scales and complex geometries, which can reduce measurement accuracy by introducing noise and reducing available signal. Although the sources of such problems are often device specific, the effective outcome is a reduction in the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of PIV images and correlations. This effort utilizes advanced PIV processing and post-processing techniques to establish protocols for achieving high accuracy PIV measurements in challenging flow environments. This investigation takes place within three wide-ranging medically related devices. First, channel flow in a microfluidic device is investigated to evaluate improvements in measurement accuracy gained using phase correlations in comparison to confocal microscopy. This work found substantial improvements in error with respect to the ensemble field for phase correlations while only moderate improvements were observed for confocal imaging with standard processing techniques. Secondly, an evaluation of stenting procedures was executed resulting in the first published PIV and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) joint study on bifurcating stents. This work analyzes steady flow in three bifurcation angles and four different single- and double-stenting procedures, which are clinically used in coronary bifurcations. Finally, a medical device analog was evaluated to develop a comprehensive CFD validation dataset, including a full uncertainty analysis for velocity and wall shear stress as well as estimates for pressure fields and relevant flow statistics including Reynolds stresses and dissipation. / Ph. D.

This research study seeks to identify and prioritize the causes of order fulfillment delays in a small wooden furniture manufacturing company. The authors propose a 5-phase Lean Optimization model to address and reduce this problem. Post-implementation results yielded a 54.87% reduction in material search and transportation times, a 32.86% reduction in travel times between stations, and a 19.81% increase in line efficiency. In addition, order fulfillment percentages increased from 12.5% to 60%.

Micro finance organizations play an important role since they facilitate integration of all social classes to sustained economic growth. Against this background, exponential growth of data, resulting from transactions and operations carried out with these companies on a daily basis, becomes imminent. Appropriate management of this data is therefore necessary because, otherwise, it will result in a competitive disadvantage due to the lack of valuable and quality information for decision-making and process improvement. Data Governance provides a different approach to data management, as seen from the perspective of business assets. In this regard, it is necessary that the organization have the ability to assess the extent to which that management is correct or is generating expected results. This paper proposes a data governance maturity model for micro finance organizations, which frames a series of formal requirements and criteria providing an objective diagnosis. This model was implemented based on the information of a Peruvian micro finance organization. Four domains, out of the seven listed in the model, were evaluated. Finally, after validation of the proposed model, it was evidenced that it serves as a means for identifying the gap between data management and objectives set.

We study the microlensing of non-radially pulsating (NRP) stars. Pulsations are formulated for stellar radius and temperature using spherical harmonic functions with different values of l, m. The characteristics of the microlensing light curves from NRP stars are investigated in relation to different pulsation modes. For the microlensing of NRP stars, the light curve is not a simple multiplication of the magnification curve and the intrinsic luminosity curve of the source star, unless the effect of finite source size can be ignored. Three main conclusions can be drawn from the simulated light curves. First, for modes with m a 0 and when the viewing inclination is more nearly pole-on, the stellar luminosity towards the observer changes little with pulsation phase. In this case, high-magnification microlensing events are chromatic and can reveal the variability of these source stars. Secondly, some combinations of pulsation modes produce nearly degenerate luminosity curves (e.g. (l, m) = (3, 0), (5, 0)). The resulting microlensing light curves are also degenerate, unless the lens crosses the projected source. Finally, for modes involving m = 1, the stellar brightness centre does not coincide with the coordinate centre, and the projected source brightness centre moves in the sky with pulsation phase. As a result of this time-dependent displacement in the brightness centroid, the time of the magnification peak coincides with the closest approach of the lens to the brightness centre as opposed to the source coordinate centre. Binary microlensing of NRP stars and in caustic-crossing features are chromatic.

The role played by Micro and Small Enterprises in many economies globally is huge and important. It is even more significant for economies in Africa such as South Africa where there are high levels of poverty and unemployment. In South Africa, Micro and Small Enterprises can contribute towards addressing the challenge of poverty and unemployment, given their proven history of job creation. However, their contribution is constrained by the lack of access to credit for growth, which is a result of a deficit of credit information among other contributing factors. This inhibits their growth. In South Africa, developmental credit was introduced through the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 to improve access to credit for low-income earners, including Micro and Small Enterprises. This type of credit is different from other types of credit because it bypasses the challenge of credit information, allowing the credit application of Micro and Small Enterprises to be assessed without the use of credit information (credit history). However, since the introduction of the Act, there has been little uptake and granting of developmental credit. This dissertation aimed to determine the reasons for this. This dissertation uses a qualitative research approach. Interviews were conducted with Micro and Small Enterprises and questionnaires administered with developmental Credit Providers, and the National Credit Regulator. Therefore, qualitative information from the above credit market stakeholders was analysed to get to the findings. The findings of this research are three-fold. In respect of credit providers, findings show that, despite the legislative provisions, there is still the use of credit information by large financial institutions, which adversely affects access to developmental credit. Findings for Micro and Small Enterprises reveal that there is a lack of knowledge of this type of credit. This is affected by the fact that Micro and Small Enterprises perceive credit as being difficult to access because of the use of credit information, which they lack, and therefore do not explore various types of credit available and suitable for their businesses. Furthermore, there are only a few credit providers, which provide developmental credit in the country; this affects their footprint in the country and different provinces. Lastly, the findings on legislation are that the requirements to register as a developmental credit provider limit the number of credit providers, which can register to provide developmental credit.

The emerging concept of vehicle cloudification is a promising solution to deal with ever-growing computational and communication demands of connected vehicles. A key idea is to have connected vehicles in the vicinity form a cluster which is called vehicular micro cloud. Vehicles in this micro cloud collaborate with other cluster members over vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) networks for collective data processing, shared data storage, collaborative sensing and communication services. A typical use case of vehicular micro cloud is creation of a regional distributed data storage service, where member vehicles of the cloud collaboratively keep data contents in their on-board data storage devices. This allows vehicles in and around the vehicular micro cloud to request the contents from the micro cloud member(s) over vehicle-to-vehicle networks, or even update the data on the spot. In this thesis, we will discuss the need for vehicular micro clouds, followed by the architecture, formation of the micro clouds, and feasibility of micro clouds. Furthermore, we will cover aspects of efficient data transmission between vehicles, how to increase the scalability and to make it time efficient and cost efficient on practical road conditions for moving vehicles by encouraging coordination between neighboring micro cloud to help transfer data .

Écrire du point de vue de l’Autre. Cette aspiration ne datant pas d’hier, nombreux sont ceux qui ont tenté l’expérience. Écrire en laissant tomber non seulement ses réflexes cognitifs, mais aussi sa propre voix est exactement ça : une expérience. Libératrice, convaincante ou au contraire, étrange. Et qu’arriverait-il si l’on ajoutait une contrainte de brièveté à cette écriture de l’altérité ? La thèse suivante explore cette limitation en plus des composantes intégrantes d’un texte bref fictionnel, écrit à la première personne, mais observant le monde derrière les yeux de l’Autre. En commençant avec des repères conceptuels, nous portons d’abord notre attention sur les représentations individuelles, sociales et les schémas cognitifs. Puis, la brièveté en littérature est examinée depuis ses origines, afin de préciser ce que sont, au juste, les microrécits. Il est mis en évidence que la forme brève, riche et dépouillée à la fois, est un oxymore à elle seule, apportant des possibilités infinies dans le domaine de la microfiction et nous analysons ce qui en fait une alliée de l’écriture de l’altérité amenant le sentiment d’étrangeté chez le lecteur. Terminant la partie des repères conceptuels, l’homodiégèse est étudiée notamment au sujet de la mimèsis et de l’échec du narrateur-je crédible. Ensuite, la partie de création qui accompagne cette thèse consiste en un recueil de microrécits où le lecteur est témoin d’un fragment de la vie des narrateurs. Est-ce que ce miroir sans tain saura refléter l’Autre ? À la partie de création suit une analyse du processus de création, soit un retour sur l’écriture d’une altérité personnelle... d’un point de vue Autre.

The analysis of organic pollutants in water is traditionally done following EPA procedures which commonly use liquid-liquid extraction. One liter of water is extracted three times with 60 mL of an organic solvent. The extract is concentrated and analyzed by gas chromatography. This procedure is time consuming and can cause losses of semi-volatile components, in addition to requiring a relatively large amount of organic solvent (180 mL). By performing the extraction directly in a GC autosampler vial using one milliliter of contaminated water and one milliliter of organic solvent, then injecting a large volume (~150 mL) of the organic layer taken directly from the vial by an autosampler, the same analysis can be done simpler, quicker, and with much less organic solvent (1 mL). / Master of Science

Optimering är oumbärligt för att utnyttja datorns fulla potential. Det finns flera olika infallsvinklar till optimering, däribland så kallade mikrooptimeringar. Mikrooptimeringar är lokala ändringar som inte ändrar på någon algoritm.Denna studie undersöker fyra mikrooptimeringar: loop interchange, loop unrolling, cache loop end value, och iterator-inkrementering, för att se när de bidrar med prestandaförbättring i C++. Detta undersöks genom experiment, där körtiden för testfall med och utan mikrooptimeringar mäts och sedan jämförs. Mätningar görs på två kompilatorer.Resultatet visar flera situationer där mikrooptimeringar bidrar med prestandaförbättringar. Värdet kan däremot variera beroende på kompilator även när samma kod används. En mikrooptimering som bidrar med prestandaförbättring med en kompilatorn kan ge prestandaförsämring med en annan kompilator. Detta visar att kompilatorkännedom, och att mäta, är fortsatt viktigt. / Optimization is essential for utilizing the full potential of the computer. There are several different approaches to optimization, including so-called micro-optimizations. Micro-optimizations are local adjustments that do not change an algorithm.This study investigates four micro-optimizations: loop interchange, loop unrolling, cache loop end value, and iterator incrementation, to see when they provide performance benefit in C++. This is investigated through an experiment, where the running time of test cases with and without micro-optimization is measured and then compared between cases. Measurements are made on two compilers.Results show several circumstances where micro-optimizations provide benefit. However, value can vary greatly depending on the compiler even when using the same code. A micro-optimization providing benefit with one compiler may be detrimental to performance with another compiler. This shows that understanding the compiler, and measuring performance, remains important.