<p> The Serial Output Controller is one of the component boards of a Marine Navigation System. Litton Systems (Canada) Limited required the development of a test package for this board to be implemented on the DIGIPACT test station. This report introduc.es the subject of electronic component board testing with an overview of the test equipment and underlying philosophies used by Litton Systems for fault detection and fault diagnosis. The four stages of the test package development process, test plan definition, programming, validation and evaluation are described. The architecture of the DIGIPACT test system is presented as background information. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)

This thesis examines the effects of prosody on serial recall. Serial recall is an experimental task commonly used to evaluate the capacity of short-term memory. The Working Memory model by Baddeley and Hitch is a theoretical framework that describes the inner operation of short-term memory. Its hierarchies are supported by empirical evidence, but details of the core mechanisms remain unclear. In an attempt to refine the framework, this thesis investigated prosody as a factor in serial recall accuracy. Two behavioural experiments were conducted on native speakers of Canadian English. In the first experiment, the explicit awareness of word stress was examined. Results showed a main effect of word stress type, where iambic words received higher stress identification scores compared to trochaic words. In the second experiment, an immediate serial recall task was used to examine serial recall of word lists. The lists consisted of disyllabic words from Canadian English sources. The lists had mixed or uniform stress patterns. A main effect of list stress patterns was found, where mixed lists elicited better recall of the order of list items compared to uniform lists. Overall, the present thesis offers a new interpretation on how word stress is represented in the short-term memory. It adds support to the proposed interaction between short-term and long-term memory. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Many daily experiences require us to remember a list of items, such as drafting a grocery list and reciting phone numbers. How well we can remember a list can be influenced by various characteristics of the list. This thesis looks at a seldom studied characteristic: prosody. Prosody in the English language can be realized via word stress, which is the amount of emphasis we place on certain parts of a word. This thesis explores the impact of word stress on our ability to remember a list of common English words. It reports data from an online survey and a laboratory experiment. Results show that mixed word stress patterns in a list lead to better memory for said list. Overall, this thesis offers new suggestions on the role of prosody in memory. As well, it offers a novel set of data that supports current theories in memory.

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This dissertation is comprised of three separate entrepreneurship papers. Paper 1, "Entrepreneurial Heuristics...", found that being mentored, rather than either having extensive higher education or more work experience, was primarily responsible for entrepreneurs acquiring the simplified decision rules (heuristics) that can be useful to them in their business pursuits. The study also found that entrepreneurs do not seem to switch their decision making processes from a "rational man" (thorough) mode to a more abbreviated, heuristic mode as some current thinking suggests. Also in Paper 1 this researcher presented and utilized a 27 item heuristics scale which was used to identify "use of heuristics" by the entrepreneurs studied. Paper 2, "Female Serial Entrepreneurs...", examined the characteristics of female serial entrepreneurs (SE's) as a group of growing size and importance. Three areas- business size, hours worked in the business, and amount and type of capital raised- were explored through contrasting female SE's with female non-SE's and male SE's. The primary findings were as follows: the businesses of female SE's are larger than those of female non-SE's, and female SE's in the professional, technical and scientific services industry borrow more debt than female SE's in this industry, but they do not work longer hours than female non-SE's. It was also found that female SE businesses, in the industries examined in the study, have come to rival male SE businesses in size, as measured in revenues. Paper 3, "The Serial Entrepreneur Dilemma...", explained a conundrum: why serial entrepreneurs do not seem to outperform novice entrepreneurs. A literature review is given consisting of the scholarly thinking about the causes of the conundrum, and then three hypotheses are tested to explore the dilemma. It was found that looking at serial entrepreneurs and novices over time, rather than cross-sectionally, helps to explain the conundrum: the SE's are willing to take losses early on (thus not performing higher than the novices) in expectation of future profits. It was also found that in slow-moving industries, serial entrepreneurs performed much better than novice entrepreneurs in revenues, whereas in fast-moving industries the difference between the two groups in performance was negligible. / Business Administration

A memória para a ordem dos eventos em uma sequência está relacionada com muitos domínios cognitivos, como direcionar o comportamento a um objetivo, reconhecer uma ação e prever eventos do ambiente. A codificação da ordem serial tem sido, portanto, um tema polêmico a ser explicado pelos modelos de memória de trabalho visuoespacial. Neste estudo investigamos a codificação incidental da ordem serial de eventos em tarefas de reconhecimento de sequências, nas quais a dimensão relevante para a resposta poderia ser a aparência visual, a localização espacial ou a conjunção visuoespacial dos eventos. A tarefa exigia que os participantes (n=60) detectassem uma mudança em um dos estímulos da sequência e ignorassem mudanças na dimensão irrelevante: a ordem na qual os eventos eram apresentados. De maneira geral, o desempenho foi mais prejudicado nas sequências em que a ordem dos itens mudava. A comparação das três condições de memória (aparência visual, localização espacial e conjunção visuoespacial) revelou que houve melhor desempenho na tarefa espacial. Nesta condição, ocorreu uma interação entre os fatores mudança na dimensão relevante (localização espacial) e mudança na dimensão irrelevante (ordem serial). Estes resultados revelam que a ordem foi codificada de forma incidental com as informações relevantes para a tarefa. A diferença do efeito da mudança da dimensão irrelevante para os três tipos de sequências sugere que a ordem foi codificada em um estágio inicial do processamento de informações e, por isto, incluída na comparação de características, gerando diferentes padrões de respostas conforme a modalidade do estímulo. A interação entre localização e ordem serial indica que a informação espacial foi registrada de maneira integrada à ordem dos eventos na sequência, em uma representação espaço-temporal unitária. Supõe-se que um mecanismo de manutenção da informação espacial tenha operado recitando os eventos na ordem em que foram apresentados na sequência. Considera-se, também, a possibilidade de a apresentação sequencial dos estímulos ter gerado uma representação visuoespacial baseada em uma organização temporal das informações. Neste caso, é provável que um mecanismo de integração de informações tenha operado para realizar a interface entre uma estrutura temporal previamente armazenada na memória de longo prazo e o conteúdo da memória de trabalho. Estes achados sugerem a existência de um sistema responsável pela conjunção de informações de diferentes dimensões e integração de conteúdos da memória de trabalho e memória de longo prazo. As evidências obtidas neste estudo têm implicações em diferentes áreas do conhecimento. Na perspectiva da psicologia cognitiva experimental são discutidos os modelos atuais de memória de trabalho. No âmbito da psicologia cognitiva aplicada são fornecidos subsídios teóricos para o desenvolvimento de ferramentas diagnósticas para caracterização de déficits de aprendizagem e lesões neurológicas relacionados com o processamento de sequências de informações visuoespaciais. Além disso, é possível estabelecer uma relação entre os processos de memória e os mecanismos de organização do comportamento em contextos clínicos. / The memory for the events order in a sequence is related to many cognitive domains, such as managing behavior to a goal, to recognize an action and anticipate events in the real world. The encoding of serial order has been a controversial topic to be explained by the models of visuospatial working memory. We investigated the incidental encoding of events serial order in recognition tasks sequences, in which a relevant dimension to the response could be the visual appearance, the spatial location or visuospatial conjunction of events. The task required that participants (n = 60) to detect a change in a sequence of stimuli and ignore changes in irrelevant dimension: the order in which events were presented. In general, performance was more impaired in the sequences where the order of items changed. The comparison of the three memory conditions (visual appearance, spatial location and visuospatial conjunction) revealed that there was better performance in spatial task. In this condition, there was an interaction between change in the relevant dimension (spatial location) and change in the irrelevant dimension (serial order). These results show that the order was codified indirectly with relevant information to the task. The difference in the effect of changing the dimension irrelevant to the three types of sequences suggests that the order was codified in an early stage of information processing and, therefore, included in feature comparison, generating different patterns of responses depending on the modality of the stimulus. The interaction between location and serial order indicates that the spatial information was registered in an integrated manner to the order of events following in a unitary space-time representation. It is assumed that a mechanism for maintenance of spatial information has operated reciting the events in the order they were presented in sequence. It is considered also the possibility that the sequential presentation of stimuli have generated a visuospatial representation based on information temporal organization. In this case, it is likely that a mechanism of information integration has operated to achieve the interface between a temporal structure previously stored in long-term memory and the contents of working memory. These findings suggest the existence of a system responsible for the combination of information from different dimensions and integration of working memory contents and long-term memory. Data obtained in this study have implications in different areas of knowledge. In view of experimental cognitive psychology current models of working memory are discussed. Within the cognitive psychology applied theoretical support are provided for the development of diagnostic tools for characterizing learning deficits and neurological injuries related to the processing of visuospatial information sequences. Furthermore, it is possible to establish a relationship between memory processes and the mechanisms of organization of behavior in clinical settings.