La zeitgesit contemporaine sur la reconnaissance des visages suggère que le processus de reconnaissance reposerait essentiellement sur le traitement des distances entre les attributs internes du visage. Il est toutefois surprenant de noter que cette hypothèse n’a jamais été évaluée directement dans la littérature. Pour ce faire, 515 photographies de visages ont été annotées afin d’évaluer l’information véhiculée par de telles distances. Les résultats obtenus suggèrent que les études précédentes ayant utilisé des modifications de ces distances ont présenté 4 fois plus d’informations que les distances inter-attributs du monde réel. De plus, il semblerait que les observateurs humains utilisent difficilement les distances inter-attributs issues de visages réels pour reconnaître leurs semblables à plusieurs distances de visionnement (pourcentage correct maximal de 65%). Qui plus est, la performance des observateurs est presque parfaitement restaurée lorsque l’information des distances inter-attributs n’est pas utilisable mais que les observateurs peuvent utiliser les autres sources d’information de visages réels. Nous concluons que des indices faciaux autre que les distances inter-attributs tel que la forme des attributs et les propriétés de la peau véhiculent l’information utilisée par le système visuel pour opérer la reconnaissance des visages. / According to an influential view, based on studies of development and of the face inversion effect, human face recognition relies mainly on the treatment of the distances among internal facial features. However, there is surprisingly little evidence supporting this claim. Here, we first use a sample of 515 face photographs to estimate the face recognition information available in interattribute distances. We demonstrate that previous studies of interattribute distances generated faces that exaggerated 4 times this information compared to real-world faces. When interattribute distances are sampled from a real-world distribution, we show that human observers recognize faces poorly across a broad range of viewing distances (with a maximum accuracy of 65%). In contrast, recognition performance is restored when observers only use facial cues of real-world faces other than interattribute distances. We conclude that facial cues other than interattribute distances such as attribute shapes and skin properties are the dominant information of face recognition mechanisms.

<p>To improve the adsorption capacity of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibres, hydrophilic amidoxime fibres were prepared by subsequent conversion of the cyano groups to an amidoxime group by reacting with hydroxylamine at 80&deg / C at an optimum amidoximation time of 2 hrs. The amidoxime fibre was hydrolyzed/alkali treated in a solution of sodium hydroxide to enhance or improve the adsorption properties. This was followed by characterization of the amidoxime and hydrolyzed fibres using Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) / Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and exchange capacity (cationic and anionic). SEM showed that the hydrolysis process made the surface of Amidoxime fibre rougher than that of Polyacrylonitrile fibre. FTIR revealed that the hydrolyzed Amidoxime fibres contained conjugated imine (-C=N-) sequences. Functionalization enhanced the sorption of amidoxime fibres by an increase of 20 % in the cationic exchange capacity. This was achieved by the part conversion of the cyano groups into the carboxylic acid groups. The fibres showed faster kinetics largely due the available exchange sites on the surface of the fibres hence the equilibration was achieved much quicker.</p>

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Recently, multi-priced timed automata have received much attention for real-time systems. These automata extend priced timed automata by featuring several price parameters. This permits to compute objectives like the optimal ratio between rewards and costs. Arising from the model of timed automata, the multi-weighted setting has also attracted much notice for classical nondeterministic automata. The present thesis develops multi-weighted MSO-logics on finite, infinite and timed words which are expressively equivalent to multi-weighted automata, and studies decision problems for them. In addition, a Nivat-like theorem for weighted timed automata is proved; this theorem establishes a connection between quantitative and qualitative behaviors of timed automata. Moreover, a logical characterization of timed pushdown automata is given.

This thesis investigates automata-theoretic techniques for the verification of physically distributed machines communicating via unbounded reliable channels. Each of these machines may run several recursive programs (multi-threading). A recursive program may also use several unbounded stack and queue data-structures for its local-computation needs. Such real-world systems are so powerful that all verification problems become undecidable. We introduce and study a new parameter called split-width for the under-approximate analysis of such systems. Split-width is the minimum number of splits required in the behaviour graphs to obtain disjoint parts which can be reasoned about independently. Thus it provides a divide-and-conquer approach for their analysis. With the parameter split-width, we obtain optimal decision procedures for various verification problems on these systems like reachability, inclusion, etc. and also for satisfiability and model checking against various logical formalisms such as monadic second-order logic, propositional dynamic logic and temporal logics. It is shown that behaviours of a system have bounded split-width if and only if they have bounded clique-width. Thus, by Courcelle's results on uniformly bounded-degree graphs, split-width is not only sufficient but also necessary to get decidability for MSO satisfiability checking. We then study the feasibility of distributed controllers for our generic distributed systems. We propose several controllers, some finite state and some deterministic, which ensure that the behaviours of the system have bounded split-width. Such a distributedly controlled system yields decidability for the various verification problems by inheriting the optimal decision procedures for split-width. These also extend or complement many known decidable subclasses of systems studied previously.

This dissertation contains three essays in international macroeconomics and financial time series forecasting. In the first essay, I show, numerically, that a two-country New-Keynesian Sticky Prices model, driven by monetary and productivity shocks, is capable of explaining the highly positive correlation across the industrialized countries' inflation even though their cross-country correlation in money growth rate is negligible. The structure of this model generates cross-country correlations of inflation, output and consumption that appear to closely correspond to the data. Additionally, this model can explain the internal correlation between inflation and output observed in the data. The second essay presents two important results. First, gains from monetary policy cooperation are different from zero when the elasticity of substitution between domestic and imported goods consumption is different from one. Second, when monetary policy is endogenous in a two-country model, the only Nash equilibria supported by this model are those that are symmetrical. That is, all exporting firms in both countries choose to price in their own currency, or all exporting firms in both countries choose to price in the importer's currency. The last essay provides both conditional and unconditional predictive ability evaluations of the aluminum futures contracts prices, by using five different econometric models, in forecasting the aluminum spot price monthly return 3, 15, and 27-months ahead for the sample period 1989.01-2010.10. From these evaluations, the best model in forecasting the aluminum spot price monthly return 3 and 15 months ahead is followed by a (VAR) model whose variables are aluminum futures contracts price, aluminum spot price and risk free interest rate, whereas for the aluminum spot price monthly return 27 months ahead is a single equation model in which the aluminum spot price today is explained by the aluminum futures price 27 months earlier. Finally, it shows that iterated multiperiod-ahead time series forecasts have a better conditional out-of-sample forecasting performance of the aluminum spot price monthly return when an estimated (VAR) model is used as a forecasting tool.

This study of Canadian adventure romance for adolescents seeks to demonstrate the cultural significance of the genre through close readings of James Houston's Frozen Fire and The White Archer, Monica Hughes's Hunter in the Dark and Ring-Rise, Ring-Set, as well as Markoosie's Harpoon of the Hunter. By means of a semiotic-structuralist approach I examine the texts as a signifying system conveying discourses that constitute a code of connection to the social context of contemporary young-adult readers.Structured on the formula: separation-initiation-return and informed by the symbolism of death-rebirth, the stories hold out the promise of a life-enhancing return. Roland Barthes's definition of myth as a mode of signification underpins my discussion of how the narrative conventions become vehicles of existential truths by replicating and intensifying adventurous experiences. With the quest for identity and the polarization between two worlds as structural determinants, the selected books juxtapose the values of Western civilization with those expressed through the Canadian North and its indigenous population. As a defining category of Canadian identity, the northern wilderness provides the space and the challenges for the protagonists' initiatory experiences. My application of the dichotomy self-other to the selected books provides a number of polarized positions such as civilization-wilderness, white-native, male-female, and conscious-unconscious, polarities through which the different discursive levels of the texts are generated. Arguably, the formulaic character of the journeys into the unknown allows the stories to signify on various levels, thus inviting both psychological and ideological readings of the texts.It is primarily through a recycling of narrative conventions that Houston and Hughes invest their work with significance. By focusing on the structural and thematic similarities of adventure romance, my examination attempts to elucidate the parallels to mythic adventure and archaic rites of initiation with the aim of validating the role of the genre as symbolic representations of the process of maturation and vicarious rites of passage. The conclusions I draw have a bearing on much of Houston's and Hughes's fiction, on the genre of romance as a whole, and to some extent on the adjacent genres of fantasy and science fiction. / <p>Behandlar James Houston, Monica Hughes och Markoosie.</p> / digitalisering@umu

[Truncated abstract] The study reported in this thesis extends the scaled boundary finite-element method to firstorder and second-order wave diffraction problems. The scaled boundary finite-element method is a newly developed semi-analytical technique to solve systems of partial differential equations. It works by employing a special local coordinate system, called scaled boundary coordinate system, to define the computational field, and then weakening the partial differential equation in the circumferential direction with the standard finite elements whilst keeping the equation strong in the radial direction, finally analytically solving the resulting system of equations, termed the scaled boundary finite-element equation. This unique feature of the scaled boundary finite-element method enables it to combine many of advantages of the finite-element method and the boundaryelement method with the features of its own. ... In this thesis, both first-order and second-order solutions of wave diffraction problems are presented in the context of scaled boundary finite-element analysis. In the first-order wave diffraction analysis, the boundary-value problems governed by the Laplace equation or by the Helmholtz equation are considered. The solution methods for bounded domains and unbounded domains are described in detail. The solution process is implemented and validated by practical numerical examples. The numerical examples examined include well benchmarked problems such as wave reflection and transmission by a single horizontal structure and by two structures with a small gap, wave radiation induced by oscillating bodies in heave, sway and roll motions, wave diffraction by vertical structures with circular, elliptical, rectangular cross sections and harbour oscillation problems. The numerical results are compared with the available analytical solutions, numerical solutions with other conventional numerical methods and experimental results to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the scaled boundary finite-element method. The computed results show that the scaled boundary finite-element method is able to accurately model the singularity of velocity field near sharp corners and to satisfy the radiation condition with ease. It is worth nothing that the scaled boundary finite-element method is completely free of irregular frequency problem that the Green's function methods often suffer from. For the second-order wave diffraction problem, this thesis develops solution schemes for both monochromatic wave and bichromatic wave cases, based on the analytical expression of first-order solution in the radial direction. It is found that the scaled boundary finiteelement method can produce accurate results of second-order wave loads, due to its high accuracy in calculating the first-order velocity field.

This master thesis’ purpose is to examine how high school students comprehends of news. This will be done by conducting group interviews. By using theories regarding “first and second order concepts”, that originates from history teaching didactics, but using them in a social science context to separate substantive concepts from compound concepts. Furthermore, the study provides insight on how twelve high school students comprehension of three specific news items. Finally, the thesis examines what makes the students’ motivated to follow the news. The results show that the level of comprehension varies depending on which of the three news items the students discuss during the interviews. This might depend on the level of relevance the news has towards the students’ own interests, background or where the news originates from. In summary, this thesis gives a snapshot image of students comprehension and reactions to the news items and what motivates them to stay updated with the news. This result can be useful for any teacher using news as an instrument for achieving the knowledge requirements in the syllabus for social sciences in Swedish high-schools. / Denna studie ska undersöka hur gymnasielever förstår nyheter. Undersökningen kommer utföras genom fokusgruppsintervjuer. Vidare används teorier rörande första och andra gradens kunskaper ”first and second order concepts” hämtade från historiedidaktiken men applicerade i en samhällskunskapskontext, undersöka vilka kunskapsuttryck som eleverna visar i genom sina uttalanden. Vidare har även elevernas motivation till att följa nyheter undersökts. Resultatet visar att elevernas förståelse skilt sig beroende på vilka nyheter som har diskuterats. Med detta har även tecknen på första ordningens såväl andra ordningens kunskaper varierat. Detta kan bero på nyheternas relevans och närhet till eleverna. Avslutningsvis ger denna studie en ögonblicks bild av hur elever förstår sig på och talar om nyheter. Detta kan vara användbart för samhällskunskapslärare som i sin lärargärning vill använda nyheter som ett instrument för att uppnå målen i samhällskunskap.

Corporate governance has received considerable attention over the past few decades especially after several corporate scandals and global financial crises surfaced. It is a tool that ensures the wealth maximization interest of shareholders (Grove & Clouse, 2015; Gupta, 2015). Several studies on corporate governance have been made around the world, mostly in the context of developed nations. These have made significant contributions to the corporate governance literature and practice. However, there is scant research that addresses corporate governance issues in the context of emerging economies. In terms of applicability, it is important to view corporate governance not as a whole but in the context of specific fashion due to the economic, political, social and cultural differences among countries. In spite of the numerous studies in the subject and their contributions, a significant gap exists in our understanding of the relationship between corporate governance structure, process and board performances. Most of the prior studies focused on board structure giving much less emphasis to the board process- the missing link. By way of addressing the gap and providing a broader understanding of the relationship among the corporate governance variables, this study, among others, explored how board structure and board process influence the board performance in an emerging market economy context. Board performance has hardly been explored in this setting and this study tries to contribute to the existing literature by examining the antecedents of the boards‟ performance. The antecedents are positioned in the second order constructs that include the board structure and the board process. The antecedents with the board structure go beyond the usual variables of size, CEO duality and the outside/inside directors‟ ratio. A mixed method approach was used in the collection and analysis of the data. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from private and public banks‟ governing bodies and various groups of stakeholders. The quantitative data were mainly analyzed statistically using the Partial Least Square method of the Structural Equation Modeling. The qualitative data obtained from the survey and the interviews were thematically analyzed to identify important concerns. The findings from the quantitative data analysis showed that board structure has positive and significant influence on board process, board service and control v task performance. The findings also indicated a positive and significant relationship between board process and both board service and control task performance. Furthermore, the study revealed that board process mediates the relationships between board structure and both board service and control roles; it was also found that ownership type affects board performance but has no influence on company performance. The stakeholders‟ perceptions of various aspects of corporate governance practices, as beginners, were found out to be not bad. However, Ethiopia, like many emerging market economies, does not yet have a fully developed legal and regulatory system. Additionally, the enforcement capacities of the regulatory organ are at a nascent stage, and a private sector that is able to support effective corporate governance has yet to emerge. The nature of the Ethiopian banking corporate governance system can be characterized by a one tier system with a non-executive board of directors and ownership concentration. The boards of directors are also mainly control oriented rather than strategic or service oriented leaders. / Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) / D.B.L.