Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Seismicity Processes In The Charlevoix Seismic Zone, Eastern Canada, Azadeh Fereidoni

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Charlevoix Seismic Zone (CSZ) is the most seismically active region in eastern Canada, based on the historical and current rate of activity. Several papers contend that the current seismicity in the CSZ represents long-lived aftershock sequences of the 1663 M~7 earthquake, in which the aftershock activity has persisted for hundreds of years. The aim of this thesis is to explore the influence of the 1663 earthquake on the current seismicity in the CSZ. The first part of the thesis has focused on developing a comprehensive earthquake database required for analysis of seismicity. The second part of the thesis has …

A Surface Chemistry Study Of The Effects Of Zinc Sulphate On Sphalerite During Flotation Separation At The Laronde Mine, Dennis M. Laliberty

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The LaRonde mine is a gold-rich VMS deposit in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt of Canada. Like many polymetallic ore deposits, loss of sphalerite occurs during the Cu circuit of flotation separation at the mill. Zinc sulphate was tested as a sphalerite depressant. XRD, TOF-SIMS and XPS were used to examine the mineralogy and surface chemistry of ore samples collected at select stages of the milling process in the mill and in the laboratory. Data analyses showed that ZnSO4 likely promotes sulphoxyl and hydroxide adsorption to the sphalerite surface inhibiting Cu activation. Addition of ZnSO4 in the LaRonde mill has reduced …

Energy Based Multi-Model Fitting And Matching Problems, Hossam N. Isack

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Feature matching and model fitting are fundamental problems in multi-view geometry. They are chicken-&-egg problems: if models are known it is easier to find matches and vice versa. Standard multi-view geometry techniques sequentially solve feature matching and model fitting as two independent problems after making fairly restrictive assumptions. For example, matching methods rely on strong discriminative power of feature descriptors, which fail for stereo images with repetitive textures or wide baseline. Also, model fitting methods assume given feature matches, which are not known a priori. Moreover, when data supports multiple models the fitting problem becomes challenging even with known matches …

Gravity Wave Spectra Morphology In The Arctic And Non-Arctic Lower Atmosphere, Melanie C. Wright

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The spectral analysis of data from three VHF radars (one high-Arctic and two mid-latitudes) show support for the universal spectrum theory for gravity waves in the lower atmosphere (altitudes of 2.0-11.0 km), provided that the impact of the off-vertical beam and noise are taken into consideration. This analysis also reveals that local gravity wave generation is of secondary importance, but still significant for determining the spectra.

A total of eight spectral methods were considered and scrutinized for the purposes of determining gravity wave spectra from VHF radar data. A definition for the “best” method was given and examined. The method …

Peatland-Stream Hydrological And Biogeochemical Connectivity In The James Bay Lowland, Ontario, Meghan Kline

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Hudson-James Bay Lowlands are the second largest peatland dominated area on the planet, and are expected to be particularly vulnerable to future climate change. Changes in climate will affect peatland hydrology and biogeochemistry, impacting the aquatic ecosystems this region supports, however there is limited information about the hydrology and biogeochemistry of this landscape under current conditions. This thesis focuses on assessing the nature of hydrological and biogeochemical connectivity between a fen and 2^nd order channel in the Central James Bay Lowland, Ontario. Specifically the study focuses on the role of preferential hydrological flowpaths in the riparian area, such …

Effect Of Gamma Radiation On The Interfacial Reactions And Transfer Processes Of Phosphonium-Based Ionic Liquids With Carbon Steel, Ryan P. Morco

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis presents work on the effects of ionizing radiation on phosphonium-based ionic liquids (ILs). Ionic liquids are known for their tunable properties which make them attractive options for applications for the separation and sequestration of metal ions from spent nuclear fuels, and candidate lubricants for systems under severe conditions. The high radiation environment found in spent fuel processing may decompose the solvents (ILs) used in the process and affect their separation efficiency. The radiolytic decomposition products can also alter the physical and chemical properties of an IL in ways which can affect the potential corrosion of metal alloys in …

Radiation Induced Corrosion Of Stellite-6, Mehran Behazin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis presents a study on the aqueous corrosion of a cobalt-based alloy, Stellite-6. Since aqueous corrosion kinetics are strongly influenced by water chemistry conditions (pH, temperature, and redox agents), a systematic study of Stellite-6 corrosion was carried out. The aim was to develop an ability to predict corrosion behaviour and particularly metal dissolution rates for cobalt alloys under a range of conditions. The work focused on a study of the influence of ionizing radiation on corrosion. This is of particular interest in the nuclear industry where radiation fields are present. Ionizing radiation creates oxidizing radiolysis products and alters the …

Glacial Stratigraphy Of The Ridge River Area, Northern Ontario: Refining Wisconsinan Glacial History And Evidence For Laurentide Ice Streaming, Maurice Nguyen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Detailed field studies of Quaternary sediments were undertaken during the summer of 2012 in the remote Ridge River area of the Hudson Bay Lowland. Grain size, carbonate, stone lithologic analyses and stratigraphic relations of 31 sites were compiled and revealed two main till units likely deposited by the advance and retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Based grain size, carbonate, and lithologic data the tills cannot be distinguished and the abundance of distantly transported stones suggests rapid flux of glacial debris from Quebec over the Hudson Platform to the study area. Evidence from stone fabrics, striae, and glaciotectonic structures in …

Determining The Association Between The Structure Of Stream Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities And Agricultural Best Management Practices, Roger Holmes

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Farmers have been encouraged to adopt more sustainable farming practices (BMPs) that mitigate adverse agricultural effects on the natural environment. However, the ability of BMPs to protect or restore riverine systems continues to be questioned due to limited evidence directly linking BMP use with improved ecological conditions. The exclusion of hydrological pathways in previous field studies may explain why a direct link has not yet been established. The goal of this study was to assess the association between benthic macroinvertebrate community structure and the number and location of agricultural BMPs. Macroinvertebrates and water chemistry were sampled in 30 headwater catchments …

Magnitude Estimation For Earthquake And Tsunami Early Warning Systems, Attieh Eshaghi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this study, different magnitude estimation methods were investigated for application to earthquake early warning (EEW) and tsunami early warning systems. This integrated study is divided into two main parts. First, I used strong motion accelerograms recorded by borehole and surface stations from the Kiban Kyoshin network (KiK-net) for Japanese earthquakes with moment magnitude (M) ≥ 5.0 in order to develop ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs). I developed new GMPEs for peak ground acceleration (PGA) and peak ground velocity (PGV) using two different catalogs. The first catalog included earthquakes with 5.0 ≤ M ≤ 8.1 from 1998-2010. In …

Development Of An Emergent Narrative Generation Architecture For Videogames, Nicholas A. Schudlo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Emergent narratives can enhance a video gaming experience. However, the use of this storytelling form in videogames is in its infancy. Many existing emergent narrative generation systems are limited in authorial creative control, story world flexibility, user freedom and/or general storyline maintenance. In this thesis, we designed a robust architecture for generating emergent narratives to use in videogames, and tested the architecture in a prototype game simulation. The architecture continuously presents pre-written plot fragments with fulfilled preconditions, providing authorial control over the story’s components and general direction. The user navigates the plotlines and shapes the story through their unrestrained decisions. …

A Software Design Pattern Based Approach To Auto Dynamic Difficulty In Video Games, Muhammad Iftekher Chowdhury

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

From the point of view of skill levels, reflex speeds, hand-eye coordination, tolerance for frustration, and motivations, video game players may vary drastically. Auto dynamic difficulty (ADD) in video games refers to the technique of automatically adjusting different aspects of a video game in real time, based on the player’s ability and emergence factors in order to provide the optimal experience to users from such a large demography and increase replay value. In this thesis, we describe a collection of software design patterns for enabling auto dynamic difficulty in video games. We also discuss the benefits of a design pattern …

Proxy-Based Mobile Computing Infrastructure, Azade Khalaj

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In recent years, there has been a huge growth in mobile applications. More mobile users are able to access Internet services via their mobile devices e.g., smartphones ans tablets. Some of these applications are highly interactive and resource intensive. Mobile applications, with limited storage capacity, slow processors and limited battery life, could be connected to the remote servers in clouds for leveraging resources. For example, weather applications use a remote service that collects weather data and make this data available through a well-defined API. This represents a static partitioning of functionality between mobile devices and a remote server that is …

Extending And Merging The Purple Crow Lidar Temperature Rayleigh And Vibrational Raman Climatologies, Ali Jalali

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Rayleigh and Raman scatter measurements from The University ofWestern Ontario Purple Crow Lidar (PCL) have been used to develop temperature climatologies for the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere using data from 1994 to 2013 (Rayleigh system) and from 1999 to 2013 (vibrational Raman system). Temperature retrievals from Rayleigh-scattering lidar measurements have been performed using the methods by Hauchecorne and Chanin (1980; henceforth HC) and Khanna et al. (2012). Argall and Sica (2007) used the HC method to compute a climatology of the PCL measurements from 1994 to 2004 for 35 to 110 km, while Iserhienrhien et al. (2013) applied the same …

Investigation Of The Crystallization Of Dnl-6 And Ft-Raman Spectroscopic Investigation Of Guest Molecules In Mofs, Maxwell Goldman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Microporous solids are a widely used material in adsorption, storage and catalysis. In this thesis, the crystallization of the silcoaluminaphosphate DNL-6 was characterized using powder X-ray diffraction and solid state nuclear magnetic resonance. Two crystallization routes of the SAPO DNL-6 were studied, which are the hydrothermal method and the dry-gel conversion method. Both methods followed the same crystallization pathway and showed a layered intermediate that is then transformed into DNL-6. The reaction requires two templating agents to create the RHO topology and silicon substitutes into the framework by replacing single phosphorous atoms.

This thesis contains the conformational analysis of halocarbons …

Advances In Dynamic Virtualized Cloud Management, Michael Tighe

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Cloud computing continues to gain in popularity, with more and more applications being deployed into public and private clouds. Deploying an application in the cloud allows application owners to provision computing resources on-demand, and scale quickly to meet demand. An Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud provides low-level resources, in the form of virtual machines (VMs), to clients on a pay-per-use basis. The cloud provider (owner) can reduce costs by lowering power consumption. As a typical server can consume 50% or more of its peak power consumption when idle, this can be accomplished by consolidating client VMs onto as few …

Intents-Based Service Discovery And Integration, Cheng Zheng

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

With the proliferation of Web services, when developing a new application, it makes sense to seek and leverage existing Web services rather than implementing the corresponding components from scratch. Therefore, significant research efforts have been devoted to the techniques for service discovery and integration. However, most of the existing techniques are based on the ternary participant classification of the Web service architecture which only takes into consideration the involvement of service providers, service brokers, and application developers. The activities of application end users are usually ignored.

This thesis presents an Intents-based service discovery and integration approach at the conceptual level …

The Development Of Metal-Organic Compounds For Use As Molecular Imaging Agents, Emily J. Simpson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Molecular imaging probes allow for the non-invasive diagnosis of many diseases through the use of a targeting entity for site specific delivery, as well as a signal for external visualization of probe accumulation in the body. This thesis will focus on the development of new approaches to synthesize targeting peptides and chelators for radionuclide incorporation towards the design of novel molecular imaging probes.

Histidine is a tridentate chelator that can be attached in a pendant fashion to a biomolecule in order to coordinate technetium-99m. Once coordinated, it forms a neutral complex that is capable of forming diastereomers with inverted stereochemistry …

Defect-Related Magnetic And Electronic Properties Of Graphene, Arash Akbari-Sharbaf

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A fundamental study of the electronic and magnetic properties of graphene modified by defects is presented. This work includes both theoretical and experimental investigations of graphene, graphene-metal composites and related structures, together with edge effects. The theoretical model employed for the description of p-electrons in graphene is based on the tight-binding Hamiltonian. On the experimental side we place special emphasis on the electron spin resonance technique (ESR).

After describing the theoretical and experimental methods, we first investigate the origin of paramagnetism in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) using a combination of ESR and other characterisation techniques, corroborated by a theoretical model. …

The Late Quaternary Paleolimnology Of Lake Ontario, Ryan Hladyniuk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We examined the oxygen isotopic composition of biogenic carbonates, carbon and nitrogen abundances and isotopic compositions of bulk organic matter (OM), and the abundances and carbon isotopic compositions of individual n-alkanes (C₁₇ to C₃₅) for samples from three, 18 m long sediment cores from Lake Ontario in order to: (i) assess how changing environmental parameters affected the hydrologic history of Lake Ontario, and (ii) evaluate changes in organic productivity and sources since the last deglaciation. Knowledge of the hydrologic and ecological behaviour of the Lake Ontario basin during past climate change provides insight into its future …

Optimal Contract Design For Co-Development Of Companion Diagnostics, Rodney T. Tembo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As the number of new drugs requiring companion diagnostics rises, more and more partnerships are formed between drug and diagnostics manufacturers to develop the necessary companion diagnostic. An increasingly significant issue is that of the optimal revenue/profit sharing or compensation schemes for such partnerships. We investigate the structure of an optimal compensation scheme under a scenario where a large pharmaceutical firm that is developing a drug intends to partner with a smaller diagnostics firm to develop a companion diagnostic test for the drug. We describe an optimal contract as one that maximizes the pharmaceutical firm's expected profits while offering enough …

Advances In Image Acquisition And Filtering For Mri Neuroimaging At 7 Tesla, Andrew T. Curtis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Performing magnetic resonance imaging at high magnetic field strength promises many improvements over low fields that are of direct benefit in functional neuroimaging. This includes the possibility of improved signal-to-noise levels, and increased BOLD functional contrast and spatial specificity. However, human MRI at 7T and above suffers from unique engineering challenges that limit the achievable gains. In this thesis, three technological developments are introduced, all of which address separate issues associated with functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging at very high magnetic field strengths.

First, the image homogeneity problem is addressed by investigating methods of RF shimming — modifying the excitation portion …

Peat As An Archive Of Remote Mercury Deposition In The Hudson Bay Lowlands, Ontario, Canada, William James Goacher

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Peat from the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL) in Northern Ontario, Canada was used to reconstruct historical accumulation of mercury (Hg) over more than 7000 years before present. Nine cores, many with previously published paleoclimate studies, were analyzed for Hg and accumulation rates were calculated. Anthropogenic Hg enrichment factors were calculated based on accumulation rates. A more exclusive calculation of the anthropogenic enrichment factor corroborates modelling efforts that have suggested re-cycling legacy Hg is a much greater contributor to present day deposition than previously thought, but not prior to ~500 cal yrs BP. An older pre-industrial record provides a better background …

Gamma-Radiolysis Kinetics Of Liquid, Vapour And Supercritical Water, Nastaran Yousefi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Inadequate understanding of radiation-induced water chemistry under supercritical conditions has been identified as one of the important obstacles in the development of a supercritical water-cooled reactor. Radiolysis of supercritical water generates a variety of redox reactive species, but their persistence in supercritical water is not well understood. This thesis describes the work performed towards addressing this deficiency: (1) the development of a reliable experimental method to determine the concentrations of water radiolysis products, primarily H₂, O₂ and H₂O₂, formed under g-irradiation of sub- and supercritical water (SCW), (2) the expansion of the application …

Perfect And Nearly Perfect Sampling Of Work-Conserving Queues, Yaofei Xiong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We present sampling-based methods to treat work-conserving queueing systems. A variety of models are studied. Besides the First Come First Served (FCFS) queues, many efforts are putted on the accumulating priority queue (APQ), where a customer accumulates priority linearly while waiting. APQs have Poisson arrivals, multi-class customers with corresponding service durations, and single or multiple servers.

Perfect sampling is an approach to draw a sample directly from the steady-state distribution of a Markov chain without explicitly solving for it. Statistical inference can be conducted without initialization bias. If an error can be tolerated within some limit, i.e. the total variation …

The Doubly Adaptive Lasso Methods For Time Series Analysis, Zi Zhen Liu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, we propose a systematic approach called the doubly adaptive LASSO tailored to time series analysis, which includes four specific methods for four time series models, respectively:

The PAC-weighted adaptive LASSO for univariate autoregressive (AR) models. Although the LASSO methodology has been applied to AR models, the existing methods in the literature ignore the temporal dependence information embedded in AR time series data. Consequently, the methods may not reflect the characteristics of underlying AR processes, especially, the lag order of AR models. The PAC-weighted adaptive LASSO incorporates the partial autocorrelation (PAC) into the adaptive LASSO weights. The PAC-weighted …

Synthesis Of Carbohydrate Functionalized Dendrons For Use As Multivalent Scaffold And In Self-Assembled Structures, Namrata Jain

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Carbohydrates are implicated in a large number of biological processes ranging from cell-cell interactions to bacterial and viral infection. Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that are generally specific for certain sugars. However, typical carbohydrate–lectin interactions tend to have very low monomeric binding affinities. In many cases, the binding of saccharide ligands by protein receptors can be improved significantly through the attachment of multiple saccharide residues to a common support. Dendronized polymers constitute a class of macromolecules whose nanoscale size, rigidity, and functionality can be controlled with precision by tuning their molecular architecture. It is hypothesized that due to their large size …

Optimization Of P-Type Czts Nanocrystal Thin Film Layers For Applications In Low Cost Photovoltaic Devices, Kyle S.B. Jeffs

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis Cu2ZnSnS4 nanocrystal synthesis was optimized by way of photoelectrochemical measurements through tuning the stoichiometry. Formation of a Cu2ZnSnS4 light-absorbing layer was studied using multiple depositions methods. These included dropcasting, electrophoretic deposition, and use of 3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxysilane as a chemical linker. Dropcasting samples were compared according to the solvents used to suspend the nanocrystals. Photoelectrochemical measurements were used to compare dropcasting with electrophoretic deposition and use of 3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxysilane as a chemical linker. Dropcasting was shown to be the least effective method of depositing the light-absorbing layer. Samples prepared by electrophoretic deposition were optimized according to a number …

Bifurcation Of Limit Cycles In Smooth And Non-Smooth Dynamical Systems With Normal Form Computation, Yun Tian

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis contains two parts. In the first part, we investigate bifurcation of limit cycles around a singular point in planar cubic systems and quadratic switching systems. For planar cubic systems, we study cubic perturbations of a quadratic Hamiltonian system and obtain 10 small-amplitude limit cycles bifurcating from an elementary center, for which up to 5th-order Melnikov functions are used. Moreover, we prove the existence of 12 small-amplitude limit cycles around a singular point in a cubic system by computing focus values. For quadratic switching system, we develop a recursive algorithm for computing Lyapunov constants. With this efficient algorithm, we …

Application Of Risk Metrics For Role Mining, Sharmin Ahmed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Incorporating risk consideration in access control systems has recently become a popular research topic. Related to this is risk awareness which is needed to enable access control in an agile and dynamic way. While risk awareness is probably known for an established access control system, being aware of risk even before the access control system is defined can mean identification of users and permissions that are most likely to lead to dangerous or error-prone situations from an administration point of view. Having this information available during the role engineering phase allows data analysts and role engineers to highlight potentially risky …