This project analyzes the ways that Louis May Alcott portrays authors in several texts, including Hospital Sketches (1863), "Enigmas" (1864), "Psyche's Art" (1868), Little Women (1868), A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), and Diana and Persis (1878). An examination of prevailing contemporary theories of authorship reveals that Alcott's interest in authorship (as shown through her experiences as a writer and the author figures she depicts within her writing) cannot be adequately analyzed under any of the existing theoretical frameworks because the theories neglect to consider markers of racial, sexual, cultural, and class-based difference. Being a female author in nineteenth-century America was, for Alcott, a preoccupation. Thus much of her writing features representations of authors. For Alcott, as well as many of her female contemporaries, the question "What does it mean to be an author?" cannot be considered without also asking, "What does it mean to be a woman?" and "How can an author be represented in a text?" Alcott's treatment of these questions in her writing was her attempt to create a dialogue between herself, other writers, and her reading public. By studying Alcott's author figures, I advance a model of authorship that highlights issues of gender and multiplicity; in this way my work has applications to other authors who have been excluded by normative definitions of authorship. The concept of "mutable authorship," a model that more accurately incorporates Alcott's treatment of authorship, is the product of several different literary, historical, and feminist theoretical lenses. This dissertation works through the different structuring figures that Alcott uses to represent the author, beginning with the semi-autobiographical first-person narrator and moving to the more metaphorical figures of the artist and the performer. The discussion culminates with the exploration of adaptation and collaboration in the three Hollywood feature films of Alcott's best-known work, Little Women, and several recent texts that respond directly to Alcott's work.

<p>Archetypes are used to standardize a way of creating, presenting and distributing health care data. In this master thesis project the open specifications of openEHR was followed. The objective of this master thesis project has been to develop a Java based API for creating and editing openEHR archetypes. The API is a programming toolbox that can be used when developing archetype editors. Another purpose has been to implement validation functionality for archetypes. An important aspect is that the functionality of the API is well documented, this is important to ease the understanding of the system for future developers. The result was a Java based API that is a platform for future archetype editors. The API-kernel has optional immutability so developed archetypes can be locked for modification by making them immutable. The API is compatible with the openEHR specifications 1.0.1, it can load and save archetypes in ADL (Archetype Definition Language) format. There is also a validation feature that verifies that the archetype follows the right structure with respect to predefined reference models. This master thesis report also presents a basic GUI proposal.</p>

String-to-String Correction is the process of transforming some mutable string M into an exact copy of some other string (the target string T), using a shortest sequence of well-defined edit operations. The formal STRING-TO-STRING CORRECTION problem asks for the optimal solution using just two operations: symbol deletion, and swap of adjacent symbols. String correction problems using only swaps and deletions are computationally interesting; in his paper On the Complexity of the Extended String-to-String Correction Problem (1975), Robert Wagner proved that the String-to-String Correction problem under swap and deletion operations only is NP-complete for unbounded alphabets. In this thesis, we present the first careful examination of the binary-alphabet case, which we call Binary String-to-String Correction (BSSC). We present several special cases of BSSC for which an optimal solution can be found in polynomial time; in particular, the case where T and M have an equal number of occurrences of a given symbol has a polynomial-time solution. As well, we demonstrate and prove several properties of BSSC, some of which do not necessarily hold in the case of String-to-String Correction. For instance: that the order of operations is irrelevant; that symbols in the mutable string, if swapped, will only ever swap in one direction; that the length of the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) of the two strings is monotone nondecreasing during the execution of an optimal solution; and that there exists no correlation between the effect of a swap or delete operation on LCS, and the optimality of that operation. About a dozen other results that are applicable to Binary String-to-String Correction will also be presented. / Graduate / 0984 / 0715 / tspreen@gmail.com

Archetypes are used to standardize a way of creating, presenting and distributing health care data. In this master thesis project the open specifications of openEHR was followed. The objective of this master thesis project has been to develop a Java based API for creating and editing openEHR archetypes. The API is a programming toolbox that can be used when developing archetype editors. Another purpose has been to implement validation functionality for archetypes. An important aspect is that the functionality of the API is well documented, this is important to ease the understanding of the system for future developers. The result was a Java based API that is a platform for future archetype editors. The API-kernel has optional immutability so developed archetypes can be locked for modification by making them immutable. The API is compatible with the openEHR specifications 1.0.1, it can load and save archetypes in ADL (Archetype Definition Language) format. There is also a validation feature that verifies that the archetype follows the right structure with respect to predefined reference models. This master thesis report also presents a basic GUI proposal.

Historically 3D game environments have almost always been immutable. Mutable environments are a technical challenge that will affect performance. For games of the future to continue approaching realism, mutable environments are an essential step. Popularized by the game title Minecraft (2009), the use of voxel engines in games has become increasingly common. However, by the nature of the discrete position of voxels, the method is limited in representing arbitrary polyhedral shapes like angled slopes. It also prohibits smooth mutations including proper movement and rotation of objects within the voxelization. This is generally mitigable with more voxels. However, this paper proposes a more precise solution to the problem. A tetrahedral mesh engine (tetra engine). By altering tetrahedral topology, vertex positions, and material of individual tetrahedrons, tetras are intended to solve the issue of arbitrary polyhedral shapes for voxels. Additionally, the tetrahedral mesh shows other promises such as providing a robust collision detection method and as an acceleration structure for e.g. raycasting. The research question can be summarized as investigating the feasibility of a tetra engine as a mutable game environment. 3 sub-research questions are given: The first regarding performance, the second regarding robustness, and the third different types mutations. The research questions are addressed along with a proof of concept (POC). The POC intends to investigate a proposal for the most efficient robust solution possible for the most basic mutation type known as edits. Because of time constraints, it does not cover all parts of the research questions but works as a bottom-up approach to understand what is required to realize a full-fledged tetra engine. Thus, a large part of the research question is answered theoretically both hypothetically with grounds from the POC and through previous work. The result shows a much more critical robustness consideration than expected and suggests relying on slower but more robust algorithms that are known to work. In conclusion, nothing suggests that a scalable future-proof tetra engine is impossible, but the algorithms required are much less efficient than those for voxels and robustness is an issue to overcome. However, numerous hypothetical advantages particularly regarding deformation and fluid simulation are still recognized and it is not obvious that future mutable environments would not benefit from a tetra engine rather than voxels. / Historiskt sätt har 3D-datorspelmiljöer nästan uteslutande varit oföränderliga. Det finns goda anledningar till detta. Föränderliga miljöer är en teknisk utmaning som påverkar speleffektiviteten. Om man däremot vill fortsätta utveckla mer realistiska datorspel är föränderliga spelmiljöer ett naturligt steg. Spelet Minecraft (2009) populariserade användandet av voxlar i datorspel vars material kan ändras för att förändra miljön. Sedan dess har voxlar i datorspel blivit mer och mer populära. Dock, på grund av voxlars diskreta positioner har de begränsningar i dess förmåga att representera godtyckliga polyedriska former så som arbiträrt vinklade plan. Detta omöjliggör även mjuka rörelser inklusive rörelse och rotering inom voxeliseringen. Det här problemet kan generellt dämpas med hjälp av mindre och fler voxlar. Men, för att lösa problemet ordentligt föreslår den här rapporten en annan lösning, nämligen en tetrahedrisk-mesh-motor (tetramotor). Genom att ändra tetraedrisk topologi, hörn positioner, samt material av individuella tetraedrar ska tetrorna kunna forma arbiträra polyedriska former och lösa problemet med voxlar. Utöver detta visar en tetraedrisk mesh andra intressanta möjligheter likt en metod för robust kollisions hantering och som en accelereringsstruktur för till exempel ray-casting. Forskningsfrågan kan sammanfattas som att utforska tillämpbarheten av en tetramotor för föränderliga datorspelsmiljöer. Tre underfrågor ges: Den första handlar om beräkningseffektivitet, den andra angående robusthet och den tredje oliky typer av mutationer. Forskningsfrågorna angrips med hjälp av en proof of concept lösning (POC). POC:en är menad att utforska ett förslag på en effektiv och robust metod för direkta förändringar. På grund av tidsbegränsningar så täcker inte POC:en alla delar av frågeställningarna men är menad som en botten upp lösning för att inse och förstå kraven för en komplett tetramotor. På grund av detta är en stor del av forskningsfrågorna svarade teoretiskt, både hypotetiskt baserat på insikterna från POC:en och med grund från tidigare forskning. Resultatet visar en mycket mer kritisk hänsyn till robusthet än förväntat och föreslår att man använder sig av långsammare men fungerande existerande lösningar. Slutsatsen är att inget tyder på att en skalbar framtidssäker tetramotor är en omöjlighet, men att algoritmerna är mycket långsammare än de som krävs för voxlar. Däremot finns potentieally fördelar med en tetra motor, främst med hänsyn till deformering och flödessimulering. Det är därför inte självklart att framtida muterbara spelmijöer inte skulle ha fördelar av en tetramotor istället för voxlar.