Theses

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The theses in UWSpace are publicly accessible unless restricted due to publication or patent pending.

This collection includes a subset of theses submitted by graduates of the University of Waterloo as a partial requirement of a degree program at the Master's or PhD level. It includes all electronically submitted theses. (Electronic submission was optional from 1996 through 2006. Electronic submission became the default submission format in October 2006.)

This collection also includes a subset of UW theses that were scanned through the Theses Canada program. (The subset includes UW PhD theses from 1998 - 2002.)

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 16178

Comprehensive Settlement Planning in the MacKenzie River Delta, N.W.T.: A Proposed Planning Theory and Methodology (Northwest Territories)
(University of Waterloo, 1967) Aasen, Clarence T.
The arctic and subarctic regions of Canada are increasingly developing as integral, participating parts of the total Canadian and world scene. Basic to this development in the North are the human, natural physical, and designed or man- made environments. This study is concerned with one aspect of the designed environment: human settlements. On the basis of an evaluation of the existing settlement planning situation, an attempt is made to develop a skeletal, yet consistent, theory and methodology for settlement planning in the Mackenzie River Delta, Northwest Territories. The approach is from a comprehensive point of view, and includes social, economic and physical criteria directly in the planning process. A combined systems-factor analysis technique is experimentally developed as an aid to creativity in the planning process. Preliminary results indicate both an immediate practical use and a good potential for the further development of the approach as a panning tool.
Gaits and Their Development in the Infraorder Pecora
(University of Waterloo, 1967-02) Dagg, Anne Innis
The gaits of twenty-eight species of the Infraorder Pecora are analyzed from motion picture sequences comprising over 45,000 frames. For each gait the percentage time spent on the various supporting legs during each stride and the order in which the combinations of supporting legs were used are tabulated. When possible the times for the strides are calculated. The walk patterns of each of the four families studied are shown to be statistically distinctive. Within each family, those members that live where the vegetation is so dense that they must rely on hearing to warn them of danger use a more stable walk than those species that inhabit open grasslands. A stable walk is that in which diagonal legs are used in preference to lateral legs and three or four supporting legs are used rather than two. With a more stable walk, a species is able to pause quickly and to flee instantly if danger threatens. The data for these species suggest that the antelopes, giraffids and pronghorns evolved in an open environment while the cervids, including the caribou, evolved in a woodland habitat. The variability in the walking strides of members of these species is assessed for the first time. The walk pattern varies with the nature of the terrain and with the speed at which the walk is executed. It also depends upon the age of an individual of a species and on the weight of its antlers or horns. A trotting gait is shown to be the predominant one of the constantly moving caribou. This species has evolved anatomically in ways that ensure an effective trot. The preferred fast gait of several other species is found to be a trot rather than a gallop, owing to their large size, their wooded environment, the swampy nature of the ground underfoot or their heavy antlers or horns. The type of gallop of the Pecoran species is shown to be closely related to their environment and to their anatomy. Light Pecoran species use both flexed and extended suspensions in their fast gallops. The white-tail and the mule deer alone use the extended suspension primarily, since it is in this phase of their gallop that they leap over the bushes and logs that occur throughout their brush environment. Heavy Pecoran species do not use extended suspensions, nor generally do those animals with backs sloping downward posteriorly to relatively short hind legs. A symmetrical bound is shown to be used by both cervids and antelopes either to navigate steep and rough slopes or to increase the field of vision. The times taken for walking, trotting and galloping strides are shown to be longer in larger animals. The reason for this is discussed in terms of the leg considered as a pendulum.
The electrostatic potential in a finite ionic crystal
(University of Waterloo, 1972-11-01) Redlack, Austin
This thesis is written in two parts. In Part One, we develop a new method for evaluating three dimensional lattice summations and apply it to the evaluation of the electrostatic potential of a finite ionic crystal. We then compare our expression with those obtained using infinite crystals. Some of the effects which are not obtainable using an infinite crystal are: i. the electrostatic potential depends on the shape of the sample when a dipole or quadrupole moment is present, and 2. the electrostatic potential at the surface of a crystal changes rapidly near the surface. In Part Two, we use the method developed in Part One to evaluate the electrostatic potential in a deformed crystal and use the resulting expression to define the macroscopic electric field and the electric displacement field. For the case of uniform fields, the expressions for these fields reduce to those in common use.
Contributions to the study of general relativistic shear-free perfect fluids: an approach involving Cartan's equivalence method, differential forms and symbolic computation
(University of Waterloo, 1993) Lang, Jérôme Michel
It has been conjectured that general relativistic shear-free perfect ﬂuids with a barotropic equation of state, and such that the energy density, µ, and the pressure, p, satisfy µ + p ̸= 0, cannot simultaneously be rotating and expanding (or contracting). A survey of the known results about this conjecture is included herein. We show that the conjecture holds true under either of the following supplementary conditions: 1) the Weyl tensor is purely magnetic with respect to the ﬂow velocity vector or 2) dp/dµ = −1/3. Any hypersurface-homogeneous shear-free perfect ﬂuid which is not space-time homogeneous and whose acceleration vector is not parallel to the vorticity vector belongs to one of three invariantly deﬁned classes, labelled A, B and C. It is found that the Petrov types which are allowed in each class are as follows: for class A, type I only; for class B, types I, II and III; and for class C, types I, D, II and N. Two-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian space-times are classiﬁed in a manner similar to that of the Karlhede classiﬁcation of four-dimensional general-relativistic space-times. In an appendix, the forms diﬀerential forms package for the Maple program is described.
City Core Neighbourhoods Designed for Sustainability
(University of Waterloo, 1993) Walker, Judith
Humankind's ability to ensure sustainability of the biosphere depends upon the integrated and concerted efforts of all peoples in all places. This study examines the critical need to focus on the achievement of sustainability in urban centres, specifically in North America, and evaluates the potential for city core neighbourhoods to contribute to the accomplishment of this goal. Four criteria are presented as necessary for the realization of urban sustainability, two of which, livability and equity of access, (identified as the 'social' criteria) become the focus of this inquiry. Community involvement at the neighbourhood level is also identified as necessary to the process by which sustainability will be achieved. The synergy of livability and equity to create a 'sense of community' and attendant community involvement is explored. The St. Lawrence neighbourhood in Toronto serves as a case study to inform future efforts to ensure livability, equity, and the resulting community involvement necessary to achieve urban sustainability, and points to subtle but important lessons regarding the dynamism of various conditions within a neighbourhood that can contribute to this potential.
Logic in Pictures: An Examination of Diagrammatic Representations, Graph Theory and Logic
(University of Waterloo, 1994) Hawley, Derik
This thesis explores the various forms of reasoning that are associated with diagrams. It does this by a logical analysis of diagrammatic symbols. The thesis is divided into three sections dealing with different aspects of diagrammatic logic. They are (1) The relevance of diagrammatic symbols and their role in logic, (2) Methods of formalizing diagrammatic symbols, such as subway maps and Peirce's Existential Graphs through the means of Graph theory, (3) The conception of inference in diagrammatic logic systems.
Occurrent Contractarianism: A Preference-Based Ethical Theory
(University of Waterloo, 1995) Murray, Malcolm
There is a problem within contractarian ethics that I wish to resolve. It concerns individualpreferences. Contractarianism holds that morality, properly conceived, can satisfy individualpreferences and interests better than amorality or immorality. W hat is unclear, however, iswhether these preferences are those individuals actually hold or those that they should hold. The goal of my thesis is to investigate this question. I introduce a version of contractarian ethicsthat relies on ind ividual preferences in a manner more stringent than has been in the literatureto date.
An Inquiry into Mental Variation
(University of Waterloo, 1995) Kujundzic, Nebojsa
Although there are both common and specialised senses of the term variation, (the OED lists dozens) there seems to be no well defined use of this term in philosophy. The main task of my thesis is to demonstrate that variation can be defined as a cognitive technique. I suggest that variation has been frequently used by philosophers, although not always in an overt manner. Moreover, I attempt to show that it is reasonable to talk about the relative importance of variation by examining the role of variation in Locke's Essay, Husserl's and Reinach's phenomenology, cognitive science, and thought experiments.
Effcient Simulation of Message-Passing in Distributed-Memory Architectures
(University of Waterloo, 1996) Demaine, Erik
In this thesis we propose a distributed-memory parallel-computer simulation system called PUPPET (Performance Under a Pseudo-Parallel EnvironmenT). It allows the evaluation of parallel programs run in a pseudo-parallel system, where a single processor is used to multitask the program's processes, as if they were run on the simulated system. This allows development of applications and teaching of parallel programming without the use of valuable supercomputing resources. We use a standard message-passing language, MPI, so that when desired (e. g. , development is complete) the program can be run on a truly parallel system without any changes. There are several features in PUPPET that do not exist in any other simulation system. Support for all deterministic MPI features is available, including collective and non-blocking communication. Multitasking (more processes than processors) can be simulated, allowing the evaluation of load-balancing schemes. PUPPET is very loosely coupled with the program, so that a program can be run once and then evaluated on many simulated systems with multiple process-to-processor mappings. Finally, we propose a new model of direct networks that ignores network traffic, greatly improving simulation speed and often not signficantly affecting accuracy.
Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, the School, and the Family in Post-World War II
(University of Waterloo, 1996) Gleason, Mona Lee
'Psychology and the Construction of the 'Normal' Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-1960,' investigates the manner in which psychological discourse constructed notions of the normal postwar family in Canada. Despite their pronouncements to the contrary, I argue that the psychologists' discussions of what constituted the normal family were shaped by and reflected their social values, and not so-called objective, scientific concerns. In psychological discourse, normal families were those that conformed to the idealized expectations constructed by the psychologists themselves. These expectations reflected the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon middle-class point of view that dominated postwar Canadian society. Through its specialized discourse, psychology compared, differentiated, hierarchized, homogenized and excluded families and individuals. Together these techniques constituted its 'normalizing power. ' The study seeks to understand the role of professional social sciences in shaping the private experience of ordinary Canadians and the political uses to which the concepts of social scientific rhetoric are put. It suggests that social scientists endowed with the power to influence social convention determined acceptable ideas about the family and family life. This raises important questions about the political motivation of this expert intervention into the private lives of Canadians.
The Tracing of a Contaminant (Tritium) from Candu Sources: Lake Ontario
(University of Waterloo, 1997) King, Karen June
In any research program we begin with a hypothesis and when our expected results do not concur with the observed results we must try and understand the dynamics behind the changed process. In this study we were trying to understand the flux between regional groundwater systems, surface waters and sedimentation processes in order to predict the fate of contaminants entering one of the larger bodies of water in the world- Lake Ontario. This lake has increased levels of tritium due to anthropogenic inputs. Our first approach to the problem was to look at tritium fluxes within the system . Hydrological balances were constructed and a series of sediment cores were taken longitudinally and laterally across the lake. The second approach was to quantify the sediment accumulation rate (SAR) within the depositional basins and zones of erosion in order to improve the linkage between erosion control (sedimentation) and the water quality program. In the last chapter the movement of tritium, by molecular diffusion, through the clayey-silts of Lake Ontario is quantified in terms of an effective diffusion coefficient. In these sediments effective diffusion equals molecular diffusion. In a laboratory experiment four cores of lake sediment were spiked with tritium . The resulting concentration gradient changes in the sediment porewaters after six weeks could be modeled by an analytical one- dimensional diffusive transport equation. Results calculated the average lab diffusion coefficient to be 2. 7 x 10 - 5cm 2. sec -1 which is twice that determined by Wang et al, 1952 but still reasonable. Short cores (50 cm) from lake Ontario had observed tritium concentrations with depth that reflected a variable diffusive profile. The increases and decreases in tritium with depth could be correlated between cores. Monthly tritium emission data was obtained and correlations between peaks in the tritium profile and emissions were observed. Monthly variations in release emissions corresponded to approximately a one centimeter slice of core. An average calculated diffusion coefficient of theses cores was 1. 0 x 10 -5 cm 2. sec -1 which compares to Wang's coefficient of 1. 39 x 10 -5 cm 2. sec -1. This implies that tritium is moving through the sediment column at a rate equal to diffusion. The results were obtained for smoothed values. It was not possible to model the perturbations of the data with a one dimensional model. The dynamics of the system imply that tritium could be used as a biomonitor for reactor emissions, mixing time and current direction scenarios and that a better understanding of this process could be gained by future coring studies and a new hypothesis.
An Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Video
(University of Waterloo, 1997) Baker, Charles
This M. F. A. thesis exhibition consists of painting, sculpture, and video completed over the last five months. In support of the exhibition, an artist's statement outlines my exploration of the interaction between artist and audience, stylization and mass production of image.
Simulated Overloading using Generic Functions in Scheme
(University of Waterloo, 1997) Cox, Anthony
This thesis investigates extending the dynamically-typed, functional programming language Scheme, with simulated overloading in order to permit the binding of multiple, distributed defnitions to function names. Overloading facilitates the use of an incremental style of programming in which functions can be defined with a base behaviour and then extended with additional behaviour as it becomes necessary to support new data types. A technique is demonstrated that allows existing functions to be extended, without modifcation, therefore improving code reuse. Using the primitives provided by Scheme, it is possible to write functions that perform like the generic routines (functions) of the programming language EL1. These functions use the type of their arguments to determine, at run-time, the computation to perform. It is shown that by gathering the definitions for an overloaded function and building a generic routine, the language appears to provide overloading. A language extension that adds the syntax necessary to instruct the system to gather the distributed set of definitions for an overloaded function and incrementally build an equivalently applicable generic function is described. A simple type inference algorithm, necessary to support the construction of generic functions, is presented and detailed. Type inference is required to determine the domain of an overloaded function in order to generate the code needed to perform run-time overload resolution. Some limitations and possible extensions of the algorithm are discussed.
Planned Parenthood Waterloo Region: Adapting Feminist Organization Theory to Daily Practice
(University of Waterloo, 1998) Aubry, Christine G.
As a volunteer with Planned Parenthood Waterloo Region (PPWR), I observed an organization that was providing services in a feminist context. PPWR is a feminist organization: a goal of the agency is to reduce gender power differences. Further, PPWR's participants work within an atmosphere of consensus and support. Because PPWR adheres to central feminist values and principles, some feminist organization theorists would argue that PPWR could, and should, follow the model of feminist consensual organizing. However, PPWR is also a service organization (like many bureaucratic organizations). The goals of the organization make structure and hierarchy necessary for goal achievement. In this thesis, I examine how PPWR reconciles the need for structure and hierarchy with feminist values and principles. The goal of this research is to examine what is unique about PPWR's organizational structure. This was an exploratory case study. My position as an insider with the organization allowed for qualitative data collection through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Using organizational models found in traditional and feminist organization theory, I examine the organizational characteristics of PPWR. I explore the reasons why PPWR is hierarchically structured despite adherence to feminist principles. I also look at some of the dilemmas of consensual organizing practice which are particularly relevant to service organizations. Although PPWR is becoming increasingly structured, I argue that the organization is not likely to experience goal displacement. I examine internal and external characteristics of the organization which reinforce participants' commitment to organizational goals. The controversial nature of PPWR's services and the organization's social movement orientation counter-balance the problems which some feminists have attributed to the traditional bureaucracy.
Grid Filters for Local Nonlinear Image Restoration
(University of Waterloo, 1998) Veldhuizen, Todd
A new approach to local nonlinear image restoration is described, based on approximating functions using a regular grid of points in a many-dimensional space. Symmetry reductions and compression of the sparse grid make it feasible to work with twelve-dimensional grids as large as 22¹². Unlike polynomials and neural networks whose filtering complexity per pixel is linear in the number of filter co-efficients, grid filters have O(1) complexity per pixel. Grid filters require only a single presentation of the training samples, are numerically stable, leave unusual image features unchanged, and are a superset of order statistic filters. Results are presented for additive noise, blurring, and superresolution.
Classification of Nilpotent Lie Algebras of Dimension 7 (over Algebraically Closed Field and R)
(University of Waterloo, 1998) Gong, Ming-Peng
This thesis is concerned with the classification of 7-dimensional nilpotent Lie algebras. Skjelbred and Sund have published in 1977 their method of constructing all nilpotent Lie algebras of dimension n given those algebras of dimension < n, and their automorphism groups. By using this method, we construct all nonisomorphic 7-dimensional nilpotent Lie algebras in the following two cases: (1) over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic except 2; (2) over the real field R. We have compared our lists with three of the most recent lists (those of Seeley, Ancochea-Goze, and Romdhani). While our list in case (1) over C differs greatly from that of Ancochea-Goze, which contains too many errors to be usable, it agrees with that of Seeley apart from a few corrections that should be made in his list, Our list in case (2) over R contains all the algebras on Romdhani's list, which omits many algebras.
Coherent Beta Risk Measures for Capital Requirements
(University of Waterloo, 1999) Wirch, Julia Lynn
This thesis compares insurance premium principles with current financial risk paradigms and uses distorted probabilities, a recent development in premium principle literature, to synthesize the current models for financial risk measures in banking and insurance. This work attempts to broaden the definition of value-at-risk beyond the percentile measures. Examples are used to show how the percentile measure fails to give consistent results, and how it can be manipulated. A new class of consistent risk measures is investigated.
Some Problems in One-Operator Scheduling
(University of Waterloo, 1999) Baki, Mohammed Fazle
A flexible workforce or a versatile machine is employed to perform various types of operations. Often these resources are associated with setups. Whenever a worker or machine switches from processing one type of operation to another a setup time may be required although several operations of a same type can be processed in succession after a single setup. The presence of setups gives rise to the problem of choosing batch sizes that are neither too large nor too small. In the last one and a half decade, many researchers have addressed the problem of scheduling with batching. A majority of articles assumes that there is only one type of scarce resource, which is typically machine. Often there can be two scarce resources such as a worker and a machine or a machine and a tool. We propose a resource constrained scheduling model with a single operator and two or more machines. Whenever the operator changes machine, a setup time is required that may be sequence dependent or sequence independent. We consider the two cases of an open shop and a flow shop. In the open shop case, the order in which a job visits the machines is unrestricted. In the flow shop case, every job must visit the machines in the same order. We consider various scheduling objectives. For variable number of machines, many cases are intractable. We discuss some dominance properties that narrow down the search for an optimal schedule. We present a dynamic programming approach which solves a large number of cases. The running time of the dynamic program is polynomial for a fixed number of machines. For the case of two machines, we show that the dominance properties have a nice interpretation. We develop some algorithms and justify their use by establishing running times, comparing the running times with those of the existing algorithms, and testing the performance of the algorithms.
Color Image Edge Detection and Segmentation: A Comparison of the Vector Angle and the Euclidean Distance Color Similarity Measures
(University of Waterloo, 1999) Wesolkowski, Slawomir Bogumil
This work is based on Shafer's Dichromatic Reflection Model as applied to color image formation. The color spaces RGB, XYZ, CIELAB, CIELUV, rgb, l1l2l3, and the new h1h2h3 color space are discussed from this perspective. Two color similarity measures are studied: the Euclidean distance and the vector angle. The work in this thesis is motivated from a practical point of view by several shortcomings of current methods. The first problem is the inability of all known methods to properly segment objects from the background without interference from object shadows and highlights. The second shortcoming is the non-examination of the vector angle as a distance measure that is capable of directly evaluating hue similarity without considering intensity especially in RGB. Finally, there is inadequate research on the combination of hue- and intensity-based similarity measures to improve color similarity calculations given the advantages of each color distance measure. These distance measures were used for two image understanding tasks: edge detection, and one strategy for color image segmentation, namely color clustering. Edge detection algorithms using Euclidean distance and vector angle similarity measures as well as their combinations were examined. The list of algorithms is comprised of the modified Roberts operator, the Sobel operator, the Canny operator, the vector gradient operator, and the 3x3 difference vector operator. Pratt's Figure of Merit is used for a quantitative comparison of edge detection results. Color clustering was examined using the k-means (based on the Euclidean distance) and Mixture of Principal Components (based on the vector angle) algorithms. A new quantitative image segmentation evaluation procedure is introduced to assess the performance of both algorithms. Quantitative and qualitative results on many color images (artificial, staged scenes and natural scene images) indicate good edge detection performance using a vector version of the Sobel operator on the h1h2h3 color space. The results using combined hue- and intensity-based difference measures show a slight improvement qualitatively and over using each measure independently in RGB. Quantitative and qualitative results for image segmentation on the same set of images suggest that the best image segmentation results are obtained using the Mixture of Principal Components algorithm on the RGB, XYZ and rgb color spaces. Finally, poor color clustering results in the h1h2h3 color space suggest that some assumptions in deriving a simplified version of the Dichromatic Reflectance Model might have been violated.
Differential Equations and Depth First Search for Enumeration of Maps in Surfaces
(University of Waterloo, 1999) Brown, Daniel
A map is an embedding of the vertices and edges of a graph into a compact 2-manifold such that the remainder of the surface has components homeomorphic to open disks. With the goal of proving the Four Colour Theorem, Tutte began the field of map enumeration in the 1960's. His methods included developing the edge deletion decomposition, developing and solving a recurrence and functional equation based on this decomposition, and developing the medial bijection between two equinumerous infinite families of maps. Beginning in the 1980's Jackson, Goulden and Visentin applied algebraic methods in enumeration of non-planar and non-orientable maps, to obtain results of interest for mathematical physics and algebraic geometry, and the Quadrangulation Conjecture and the Map-Jack Conjecture. A special case of the former is solved by Tutte's medial bijection. The latter uses Jack symmetric functions which are a topic of active research. In the 1960's Walsh and Lehman introduced a method of encoding orientable maps. We develop a similar method, based on depth first search and extended to non-orientable maps. With this, we develop a bijection that extends Tutte's medial bijection and partially solves the Quadrangulation Conjecture. Walsh extended Tutte's recurrence for planar maps to a recurrence for all orientable maps. We further extend the recurrence to include non-orientable maps, and express it as a partial differential equation satisfied by the generating series. By appropriately interpolating the differential equation and applying the depth first search method, we construct a parameter that empirically fulfils the conditions of the Map-Jack Conjecture, and we prove some of its predicted properties. Arques and Beraud recently obtained a continued fraction form of a specialisation of the generating series for maps. We apply the depth search method with an ordinary differential equation, to construct a bijection whose existence is implied by the continued fraction.

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