Context. Re-admission is the return hospitalization within 30 days from the date of original admission or discharge from hospital. Thecosts of the unplanned re-admissions were estimated to $25 billion per year alone in the U.S. Re-admission rate also has a huge impact onquality of care provided to the patients, cost of health care, and utilization of hospital resources and the image of the care provider. Studies indicate huge potential of savings that can be achieved with incremental performance improvements in detecting cases of preventable re-admissions. Objectives. In this study we find the different features that helpin predicting readmissions, compare different machine learning techniques and build a model to predict readmissions using one technique.We also propose a framework for implementation of this model in the real world situations. Methods. To reach the objective, the data of the patients over a period of time were studied to determine the factors that help in identifying re-admissions. Experiments are performed for identifying the features that are more relevant to predict re-admissions and for investigating the most suitable machine learning techniques for this purpose.This model was tested to predict re-admission cases for Acute Myocardial Infarction and Pneumonia. Results. The features that help in predicting re-admissions are determined,and a model was developed using these features and the selected machine learning algorithm. The model showed good results in predicting re-admissions. The model predicted risk of Acute Myocardial Infarction(c-statistic=0.811), and Pneumonia(c=0.76). Conclusions. We conclude that our model showed good results in predicting re-admissions. The developed model is discriminative for specific diseases like Acute Myocardial Infarction and Pneumonia. Itis also generalized as it incorporates the features that can be easily available from all of the patient population over the globe.

The aim of this thesis is to centre three people’s stories, their experiences and un-­ derstandings of the Swedish planning framework for mining establishments. The sto-­ ries centred are from Sami people whom in different ways analyses, questions, chal-­ lenges and changes the diverse expressions of colonialism, racism and capitalism within this framework. Through centring indigenous and decolonial planning this the-­ sis tries to expose colonial planning practices and how indigenous knowledges, worldviews and perspectives are made marginalised. But at the same time it reformu-­ lates, reconstruct and reimagines planning where non-­hierarchical and relational thinking is centred. This thesis is made through guidance of (mainly) indigenous and decolonial theories, methodologies and methods.

This project is based on the realisation that there are gross misconceptions surrounding significant sites in Pretoria, stemming from the lack of cultural integration amongst differing communities. The proposed design of the Capital Exchange aims to initiate social redress amongst a divided people, through the design of an urban-friendly and contemporary Platform and Place for Cross-Cultural Exchange, developed along the idea of the recently inaugurated Reconciliation Road. The visualisation of the place as a Cross-Cultural Mediator draws on the day-to-day activities of the city dwellers, to generate an ensemble of actions that foster social cohesion. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

Denna studie handlar om hur platser beskrivs genom den berättande retoriken och den visuella kulturen. Detta gör jag genom att titta på specifika diskurser om platsers identitet och lägga dem intill andra diskurser med gemensamma nämnare och därigenom få fatt på det för givet tagna. Jag har utgått från tre olika platser som både liknar och skiljer sig från varandra beroende på i vilken diskurs de befinner sig. Dessa platser är Malexander i Östergötland, Olaigatan i Örebro och tre olika platser i Toscana. Studiens syfte är att bidra till ökad kunskap om hur den visuella kulturens olika bilder och retorik formar platsers identitet och därigenom även människors identitet. Den syftar till att ge förståelse om platsidentiteters tillblivelse specifikt. Studien syftar därmed till att beskriva eventuella mönster och variationer i uppbyggnaden och underhållet av en plats, liksom framtidsbilden av den. Studien utgår från visuell och performativ etnografi som sammanförs i en rad olika metoder som intervjuer, både semistrukturerade och personliga, undersökande gestaltningsmetoder och deltagande observationer med fotografering. Undersökningen antar ett sociokulturella och ett poststrukturaliskt perspektiv. Diskursteori används både som metod och teori. Frågeställningarna är:Hur bidrar den visuella kulturen till formandet av platsers identitet?Hur bidrar landsbygdsdiskursen, statusdiskursen och uppdelningsdiskursen till formandet av platsers identitet? / Images of Places- Visual Culture's Importance of a Place's Identity I have examined three different sites that strongly differ from each other. These sites are Malexander, a small village in the south of Östergötland, and the parlor of Örebro, Olaigatan. I personally have a strong connection to these two sites. The third site is Tuscany in Italy. I have visited this place only in my imagination and through other people's photos. During ten days in april 2017, I traveled to Tuscany for the first time in my life to see how my estimated picture of the site was compared to reality. As a whole, my work is about how these sites are described by the visual culture of rhetoric and discourse, and how others regard the sites. In today's society, many different ranking lists flourish, which means that winners and losers are appointed. How does this affect the people who happen to live in the "scrapheap'’ in comparison to ''the expanding fields’’? And how can knowledge of this lead to a more contemporary and urgent schooling? Urban and rural space, for instance what identities that exist within and between them? Or how people relate to them?

The challenge of this project is to turn a large residual empty space into a public place, a truly relational space. The site was decided upon first, and within its vastness the spirit of the surroundings arose which in turn gave birth to the development programme. At the stage where a site was chosen, no particular functional theme other than that of “adaptive reuse” existed. Located in the industrial sector of Pretoria West, the site was chosen for its ability to stun the visitor to silence with its scale and grandeur. Currently housing the Pretoria West Power Station, the visitor is confronted by structures which appear to be beyond the realm of human interaction. The dissertation explored the transformation of “urban void” to a public place where events can be held. This proposed events centre thrusts the landscape into the intervention, blurring the thresholds between inside and outside. The building itself has little regard for the boundaries imposed on it by the site. Purposely ignoring these limitations, the building extends its boundaries over the lake, creating space above untouched territory. The design aims to fragment the intervention into smaller experiences, which allows the visitor to engage more intimately with the intervention. This project addressed the issues of visual contact. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Architecture / unrestricted

Extending the sSkin(s) is concerned with the adaptive re-use of the Capitol Theatre in the Pretoria into an existing building which has been abused and neglected, not only gives the building a new lease on life, but brings about the rejuvenation of the surrounding areas too. The design attempts to blur the boundaries between interior and exterior, and to extend the fantastic nature of the interior out onto the street. In this way, the original function of the building as a theatre becomes more accessible to the general public. The theatre as a whole becomes a mysterious fantasy realm drawing in passers-by, and thereby functioning as a platform for performance. When people enter the space, they become performers in their own right - their performance is mapped out by how they interact with the spaces and each other. The existing character has been reinterpreted allowing the Capitol to regain its former elegance and sense of mystery. The Capitol is brought into the here and now; the same but changed; a new energy for an existing building… Copyright / Dissertation (MInt(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

Semiconductor supply chain is increasingly getting exposed to Reverse Engineering (RE) of Intellectual Property (IP). Camouflaging of gates in integrated circuits are typically employed to hide the gate functionality to prevent reverse engineering. The functionalities of these gates cannot be found by De-layering as they don’t leave any layout clues. Adversaries perform reverse engineering by replacing the camouflaged gate with the known gate and by developing custom software to determine test patterns. These test patterns are used to analyze the outputs and to conclude the functionality of the camouflaged gate. In this thesis, we show that reverse engineering of camouflaged design can be performed by exploiting the test features of commercial/publicly available Automatic Test Pattern Generation (ATPG) tools. We also propose controllability/observability and Hamming Distance sensitivity based metric to select target gates for camouflaging. Simulations on ISCAS85 benchmarks shows that the proposed techniques can increase the reverse engineering effort significantly by camouflaging small fraction of gates.

Re-powering solar PV plants is an upcoming discussion on the global stage. Although the respective component warranties indicate the time to change the system machinery, the methodology and justification for carrying this out are two aspects that need further study. The rooftop solar PV system on top of Dalarna University was re-positioned in 2014. Prior to installing the system in its new position, the system arrays were reconfigured and new inverters were installed. This thesis aimed to compare and analyze two sections of the solar power plant to understand which amongst them performs better. Graphs depicting energy, current, voltage and other parameters were formulated to ascertain the efficacy of the array configurations for this Nordic latitude. Thereafter, PVsyst and SAM were used to compare the simulated results with the actual output from the system. It was found that the measured energy output from one section of the solar power plant was higher than that of the other during 2014. On an annual basis, this difference was 21.5 kWh or 2%. On closer inspection, this contrast was attributed to a difference in yield early in the morning. Further, PVsyst simulated the annual energy with a deviation of less than 1% than what was measured, whereas SAM measured a deviation in energy measurement of 2.5% higher than the actual measured energy. These values were obtained using the detailed design options for both softwares. A point to keep in mind is that prior experience of working with both these softwares is recommended prior to carrying out the simulations on these softwares. An underlying point to note in this study is its limitations. This study is valid in the northern latitudes, such as the Nordic climates, since other regions would not have such low (sub-zero) temperatures to account for while sizing the inverter. In regions of high irradiance, a system re-powered in a way such as the system in this case would have higher clipping losses. Relevant previous studies and related topics have been visited, summarized and cited.

Person re-identification (Re-ID) has become an intense research area in recent years. The main goal of this topic is to recognize and match individuals over time at the same or different locations. This task is challenging due to the variation of illumination, viewpoints, pedestrians’ appearance and partial occlusion. Previous works mainly focus on finding robust features and metric learning. Many metric learning methods convert the Re-ID problem to a matrix decomposition problem by Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA). Mahalanobis distance metric learning is a popular method to measure similarity; however, since directly extracted descriptors usually have high dimensionality, it’s intractable to learn a high-dimensional semi-positive definite (SPD) matrix. Dimensionality reduction is used to project high-dimensional descriptors to a lower-dimensional space while preserving those discriminative information. In this paper, the kernel Fisher discriminant analysis (KLFDA) [38] is used to reduce dimensionality given that kernelization method can greatly improve Re-ID performance for nonlinearity. Inspired by [47], an SPD matrix is then learned on lower-dimensional descriptors based on the limitation that the maximum intraclass distance is at least one unit smaller than the minimum interclass distance. This method is proved to have excellent performance compared with other advanced metric learning.

La richesse de l’anthologie Sette libri di Satire (1560) tient au défi que l’éditeur vénitien Francesco Sansovino relève avec succès à un moment où la Contre-Réforme bat son plein : élaborer une codification en langue vulgaire du genre satirique en rupture avec le genre tel que les auteurs sélectionnés - ou exclus - l’ont pratiqué ou sont censés l’illustrer. L’éditeur oppose le pouvoir de la règle au pouvoir de l’écriture au point de laisser apparaître une triple phase de l’évolution du genre : l’inventio reviendrait à Horace, l’écriture à l’Arioste et la réécriture à Sansovino. L’ensemble de la recherche partagée entre théorie et pratique, vise à interroger cette bipolarité comme une forme de coincidentia oppositorum dans la dialectique que la règle et l’écriture mettent en jeu, autrement dit dans la capacité qu’elles manifestent à « se récuser » et « se fondre l’une l’autre », sur le versant latin et vulgaire. Dans cette optique, loin d’être un exemple de « muséification » des auteurs et des textes, l’anthologie se présente comme la création d’un ‘Hermès bifront’ qui met à son tour le lecteur au défi d’en appréhender les subtilités. / The anthology Sette libri di Satire (1560) is so rich due to the challenge that the Venetian publisher Francesco Sansovino successfully took up at a time when the Counter-Reformation was in full swing. It consisted in elaborating in common language the codification of the literary genre of satire as it broke away from that genre as the authors selected for, or excluded from, the anthology, practised satire or were supposed to exemplify it. To the sway of the rule the anthologist opposes the power of writing, revealing three distinct phases in the development of the genre: the inventio as ascribed to Horace, writing, to Ariosto and re-writing to Sansovino.The research in its entirety, divided as it is between theory and practice, aims to question such bi-polarity as a form of coincidentia oppositorum in the dialectics brought into play by rule and writing, in other words in their ability to reject each other or blend in with each other, within Latin and common language. From this perspective, far from being an example of the transformation of authors and texts into museum pieces, the anthology is presented as the creation of a ‘bi-frontal Hermes’, in turn challenging the reader to grasp its subtleties.