On-line analytical processing (OLAP) provides multidimensional data analysis to support decision making. OLAP queries require extensive computation based on aggregation along many dimensions and hierarchies. The time required to process these queries has traditionally prevented the interactive analysis of large databases and in order to accelerate query-response time, precomputed results are often stored as materialised views for later retrieval. This adds a prohibitive storage overhead when applied to the whole set of aggregates, known as the data cube. Storage space and computation time can be significantly reduced by partial computation. The challenge in implementing the data cube has been to select the minimum number of views for materialisation, while retaining fast query response time. This thesis makes significant contributions to this area by introducing the Low Redundancy (L-R) approach which provides the means for the selection, computation and storage of nonredu ndant aggregates. Firstly, through the introduction of a novel technique, redundant aggregates are identified thus allowing only distinct aggregates to be computed and stored. Secondly, further redundancy is identified and eliminated using a second novel technique which stores these distinct aggregates in a compact differential form. Novel algorithms were introduced to implement these techniques and provide a solution which is both scalable and low in complexity. Both techniques have been evaluated using real and synthetic datasets with experimental results, and have achieved significant savings in computation time and storage space compared to the conventional approach. Savings have been shown to increase as dimensionality increases. Existing techniques for implementing the data cube differ from the L-R approach but they can be integrated with it to achieve faster query-response time. Finally, the implications of this work reach beyond the area of OLAP to the fields of decision support systems, user interfaces and data mining.

Many natural language processing applications, such as information extraction, question answering, topic detection and tracking, would benefit significantly from the ability to accurately position reported events in time, either relatively with respect to other events or absolutely with respect to calendrical time. However, relatively little work has been done to date on the automatic extraction of temporal information from text. Before we can progress to automatically position reported events in time, we must gain an understanding of the mechanisms used to do this in language. This understanding can be promoted through the development of all annotation scheme, which allows us to identify the textual expressions conveying events, times and temporal relations in a corpus of 'real' text. This thesis describes a fine-grained annotation scheme with which we can capture all events, times and temporal relations reported ill a text. To aid the application of the scheme to text, a graphical annotation tool has been developed. This tool not only allows easy markup of sophisticated temporal annotations, it also contains an interactive, inference-based component supporting the gathering of temporal relations. The annotation scheme and the tool have been evaluated through the construction of a trial corpus during a pilot study. In this study, a group of annotators was supplied with a description of the annotation scheme and asked to apply it to a trial corpus. The pilot study showed that the annotation scheme was difficult to apply, but is feasible with improvements to the definition of the annotation scheme and the tool. Analysis of the resulting trial corpus also provides preliminary results on the relative extent to which different linguistic mechanisms, explicit and implicit, are used to convey temporal relational information in text.

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Today, wireless communications are an essential part of our everyday life. Both the number of users and their demands for wireless data have increasedtremendously during the last decade. Multiantenna communicationsis a promising solution to meet this ever-growing traffic demands. However, impairments that exist in most practical communication networks may substantially limit the performance of a multiantenna system. The characterizationof such a performance loss and how to minimize that are still largelyopen problems. The present thesis addresses this important research gap. Inparticular, we focus on three major impairments of a multiantenna cellularnetwork: impairment in the channel state information (CSI), interference andimpairment in the transceiver hardware components.To fully realize the benefits of multiantenna communications, the users need to acquire a certain level of information about their propagation environment; that is, their corresponding CSI. In practice, the CSI is not known bythe users and should be acquired by allocating part of the network resourcesfor pilot transmission. This problem is mainly important in the systems with a large number of antennas, as in general the required network resources for CSI acquisition scales with the number of transmitting antennas. Theproblem of CSI acquisition in a single-cell multiuser multiple-input multipleoutput(MIMO) system is addressed in this thesis. A linear spatial precodingand combining scheme for pilot transmission is proposed. This scheme requiresless number of network resources for channel estimation compared tothe conventional schemes. The gains of the proposed scheme are characterized by finding an upper-bound and a lower-bound on the channel estimation error.Moreover, as an ultimate performance metric, an achievable sum-rate ofthe network is formulated and analyzed numerically.Due to the broadcast nature of the wireless channels, the performanceof the users in a network is intertwined; the desired signal of one user mayinterfere other users. Hence, the interference is another major impairment inwireless communication systems. In this thesis, the practical challenges of aninterference management technique, namely MIMO interference alignment isinvestigated by implementation on a multiuser MIMO testbed. Then, in thecontext of interference alignment, the problem of optimal power allocation forpilot and data transmission is studied and verified by the measurements.The impairment in the hardware components of the transceivers, that is, any deviation of the components from their ideal behavior, degrades the performance of a communication system. In particular, the impact of nonlineartransmitter power amplifiers (PA)s is investigated in this thesis. First, consideringa memoryless third-order polynomial model for the PAs, a model forthe transmitted nonlinear distortion signal from a multiantenna transmitter isproposed and validated by measurements. This model implies that the spatialdirection of the transmitted distortion is dependent on the spatial directionof the desired signal. Then, this model is extended for a general arbitrary order polynomial model. Exploiting the developed distortion model, the energyefficiency of a multiantenna system operating at millimeter wave frequenciesis studied. / <p>QC 20170523</p>

Abstract: The poultry abattoir industry continues to grow and contribute significantly to the gross domestic product in many countries. The industry expects working shifts of eight to eleven hours, during which workers are exposed to occupational hazards which include physical hazards ranging from noise, vibration, exposure to cold and ergonomic stress from manual, repetitive tasks that require force. A PubMed, Medline and Science Direct online database search, using specific keywords was conducted and the results confirmed that physical and ergonomic hazards impact on abattoir processing workers health, with harm not only to workers’ health but also as an economic burden due to the loss of their livelihoods and the need for treatment and compensation in the industry. This review endeavours to highlight the contribution poultry processing plays in the development of physical agents and ergonomic stress related occupational diseases in poultry abattoir processing workers. The impact includes noise-induced hearing loss, increased blood pressure, menstrual and work related upper limb disorders. These are summarised as a quick reference guide for poultry abattoir owners, abattoir workers, poultry associations, occupational hygienists and medical practitioners to assist in the safer management of occupational health in poultry abattoirs.

QC 351 A7 no. 50 / The results of the first complete tests of the Optical Sciences Center digital image processing facility are reported. The instrumentation for digitizing film transparencies is operating well enough to provide suitable in- puts to the computer program IMPR(C, which processes (restores) the degraded image. Some manual correction of the digital data is required (mainly for missing digits) before IMPROC can be used. Although IMPROC will be expanded and modified during future research efforts, the debugging of its present form is essentially completed. First attempts at restoration of a defocused image show contrast enhancement and edge sharpening. Current techniques for displaying the processed images, however, are slow and have a limited gray scale. The best technique to date, which uses the computer's plotter to produce nine distinguishable gray levels, requires 1 hour to produce a 100 x100 matrix of points. A CRT film display device, driven by a digital computer, is being developed to solve this problem. Current and future research efforts are described.

QC 351 A7 no. 82 / The object of this study was to determine the utility of polarization -discrimination techniques for active optical processing. A baseline of static performance must be established before these techniques can be applied to real -time processing. The theoretical foundation for an alternative to the Vander Lugt technique of re- cording complex spatial filters had been laid by Marathay in 1969. On the basis of his theory, a photosensitive Vectograph TM technique was investigated, in which the image is produced as a polarization pattern rather than as the silver grain image of conventional photography. (1) Photographic characteristics of sensitized Vectographs were determined. The resolution ( >700 1p /mm) and the gray scale achieved indicate that the Vectograph material can also be used for recording Vander Lugt filters. (2) Theoretical analysis showed that the technique can be used to image and process objects in the same system without removal of the filter. It can also be used to generate halfwave plates for the pupil functions described by Toraldo di Francia for superresolution. (3) The Vectograph can perform addition and subtraction of functions recorded on it; it also is suitable for recording real -bipolar filter functions. (4) Variable- contrast images can be recorded. A variable-contrast Vectograph tar- get (VCVT), developed for optical testing, can not only vary the contrast of the recorded image but also reverse its contrast. In a similar fashion, a spatially variable birefringent filter (SVBF) was developed that permits spatial control of the wave- length of the transmitted light. Static and dynamic electro-optical properties of liquid crystal mixtures of cholesteryl-chloride, cholesteryl-nonanoate, and cholesteryl-oleyl-carbonate were studied to determine their feasibility as the modulator in a proposed photoconductor-liquid crystal sandwich, which would be used as a reversible recording medium. (1) Previous research had indicated that cholesteric liquid crystals are circularly dichroic in a narrow wavelength band. The present work showed that light transmitted within this band is actually elliptically polarized. The degree of ellipticity depends on the relationship between the probing wavelength and the wavelength at which the sample becomes circularly dichroic. Outside this narrow wavelength band, the crystals exhibited pure optical activity. (2) The dynamic electro-optical properties of the cholesteric trimixture were measured. An alternating electric field applied parallel to the helical axis of the liquid crystals resulted in a hysteresis in the electro-optical rotatory power of the crystals. The magnitude of the hysteresis would limit cycling of these liquid crystals to a maximum frequency of ^0.10 Hz. (3) A bias voltage applied to the crystals in an attempt to improve the frequency response resulted in a field- induced memory. When the bias voltage was maintained, the optical rotatory power failed to stabilize. Prolonged exposure to the bias voltage severely diminished the electro-optical rotatory power of the crystals.

In Part One, three experiments investigated the effects of the surface structure of semantic illusion sentences upon semantic illusion rate (Chapters 3 to 6), but only a comparison of question and statements revealed any significant effects, with questions leading to more semantic illusion responses. To explore the implications of this lack of effect, a rating scale study was designed to provide an overview of how semantic illusion sentences compare to sentences used in ordinary discourse: semantic illusion type sentences were found to differ significantly from other sentences along a number of salient dimensions. In Part Two, three further experiments related semantic illusions to problem solving and examined the processing requirements of semantic illusions. Findings indicated that semantic illusions are subject to a kind of ‘functional fixedness’, which prevents thorough processing (Chapters 9 and 10). This may in part be explained by the load that semantic illusion sentences place on working memory, as was indicated by the results of two further experiments, which investigated the role that the different components of working memory play in semantic illusion processing (Chapter 11).

RNA maturation involves several steps prior to export of the mRNA out of the nucleus and translation in the cytoplasm. PremRNA 3’end processing is one of such steps, and comprises the endonucleolytic cleavage and polyadenylation of the 3’end of the premRNA. These two steps involve more than 14 processing factors that coordinate multiple proteinprotein and proteinRNA interactions necessary to coordinate efficient cleavage and polyadenylation. To date, many of these interactions have been investigated biochemically and require additional structural characterization both to confirm and highlight key residues involved in substrate contacts. Further structural characterization will also open investigation into the mechanism of 3’end processing by providing structural insight into the coordination of multiple binding components. The cleavage factor Im, CF Im, is a component of the 3’end processing machinery and plays an important role early, during endonucleolytic cleavage, and additionally to increase polyadenylation efficiency and regulate poly(A) site recognition. CF Im is composed of a small 25 kDa subunit, CF Im25, and a large, either 58 kDa, 68 kDa, or 72 kDa subunit. The 25 kDa subunit of CF Im interacts with both the RNA and other processing factors such as the poly(A) polymerase, Clp1, and the larger subunit of CF Im. It is our goal to crystallize CF Im25 alone and in complex with one of its interacting partners to better understand CF Im25 contributions to premRNA 3’end processing. The structural investigation of CF Im25 and its binding partners has accomplished four major objectives: 1) Characterized the crystal structure of CF Im25 alone and bound to diadenosine tetraphosphate, 2) Provided insight into the oligomeric state of the CF Im complex, 3) Determined the binding properties of the Nudix domain of CF Im25 and its function in 3’end processing, 4) Further characterize the interactions between CF Im25 and PAP, CF Im68, and Clp1. These results demonstrate CF Im25 is a dimer both in solution and in the crystal suggesting that it is likely to be a dimer in the CF Im complex. The nucleotide binging capability of CF Im25 has no apparent role in 3’end processing in vitro but may provide a function outside of 3’end processing or may directly be involved in RNA recognition. The additional investigation of complex interactions with the 25 kDa subunit of CF Im25 suggests that although these factors interact during the 3’end processing event additional mechanisms may play a role in stabilizing those interactions.

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