identifier: Ashton, Claire  (2008) Loathed and falling limbs :.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Loathed and falling limbs :

abstract: This thesis explores unique problems of embodiment with particular emphasis on the desire for radical transformations of the self by disembodiment. Based on 10 interviews with informants, major focus is paid to 4 who identify as having Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID: the compelling sense that one is "trapped" in their fully able embodiment as is meant to be disabled) and an interview with a leading plastic surgeon, the coordinator of psychology at a correctional institute and a professional body modifier. This permits a triangulation of different practical and ideological perspectives, often mutually conflicting. These matters can be theororized through the work of Kristeva, Baudrillard and Butler. The body is a metaphor for society and these theorists of abjection and the relations between self and society offer some insights into these embodiment troubles (e.g. the desire for amputation or paralysis).  The number of people suffering from somatoform disorders like Body Dysmorphic Disorder, BIID and Gender Identity Disorder seems to be increasing, along with the dramatic number of people accessing cosmetic surgery. These phenomena may reflect the embodiment deficit, to use Niemeyer's (2007) term: reflecting the desire for extreme physical engagements, to belong to or create a new identity, to experience a new reality, or as the transference of psycho-sexual trauma onto the limb(s) in question. The diagnosis of BIID is highly controversial: a neurological problem, perhaps, or psychological due to developmental issues, or social, facilitated by the internet. This thesis attempts to clarify this identity as meaningful to observers as it is to respondents.


identifier: Keller, Wendy  (2008) Change initiative or learning initiative? : a case study of a pilot project of hybrid online courses.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract: It is believed that online distance education is the fastest growing segment of adult education today. The number of students registering in at least one online course has increased at a higher percentage than the growth in total student enrollment each year. Even institutions that have built their credentials on the traditional face-to-face lecture method are offering courses online. However, one has to be cautious not to view the "information edu-highway" as a universal strategy to address all the challenges faced by post-secondary institutions. On the other hand, the suspicion that online distance education is merely a vehicle to financial gains is also limiting. Administrators need to understand the implications of incorporating online models for their faculty, students and existing infrastructure in order to determine if this strategy can help to achieve their educational and financial goals.  This qualitative research effort provides insights to the experiences of participants in a pilot project for hybrid online courses in an attempt to answer the question "What factors need to be considered by administrators and their faculty when trying to determine if and to what extent online distance education 'fits' their institution?"  The observations support the existing literature on important considerations for the successful implementation of e-learning initiatives. However the more significant finding involves the navigation and management of a change process by the members of the institution themselves and their organization. This Case Study is a snapshot of that challenge


identifier: Ishwar, Sujata  (2008) Discrete Tchebichef transform and its application to image / video compression.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The discrete Tchebichef transform (DTT) is a novel polynomial-based orthogonal transform. It exhibits interesting properties, such as high energy compaction, optimal decorrelation and direct orthogonality, and hence is expected to produce good transform coding results. Advances in the areas of image and video coding have generated a growing interest in discrete transforms. The demand for high quality with a limited use of computational resources and improved cost benefits has lead to experimentation with novel transform coding methods. One such experiment is undertaken in this thesis with the DTT.  We propose the integer Tchebichef transform (ITT) for 4x4 and 8x8 DTTs. Using the proposed ITT, we also design fast multiplier-free algorithms for 4-point and 8-point DTTs that are superior to the existing algorithms.  We perform image compression using 4 {604} 4 and 8 {604} 8 DTT. In order to analyze the performance of DTT, we compare the image compression results of DTT, discrete cosine transform (DCT) and integer cosine transform (ICT). Image quality measures that span both the subjective and objective evaluation techniques are computed for the compressed images and the results analyzed taking into account the statistical properties of the images for a better understanding of the behavioral trends. Substantial improvement is observed in the quality of DTT-compressed images.  The appealing characteristics of DTT motivate us to take a step further to evaluate the computational benefits of ITT over ICT, which is currently being used in the H.264/AVC standard. The merits of DTT as demonstrated in this thesis are its simplicity, good image compression potential and computational efficiency, further enhanced by its low precision requirements


identifier: Lipscombe, Carla L  (2008) Evidence for enhanced learning of a socially transmitted food preference in rats interacting in large groups.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Socially Transmitted Food Preferences (STFP) are typically assessed in laboratory rats by allowing a single Observer to interact with a Demonstrator fed a distinctly flavored food. Social learning is gauged by the Observer rat's subsequent preference for the Demonstrator's diet to equally palatable alternatives. This thesis tested the hypothesis that modifying the design of conventional protocols to better match the conditions that would underlie STFP in a rat's natural habitat will enhance laboratory-assessed social learning. In Experiment 1, the ability for multiple Observers interacting simultaneously with a single Demonstrator to acquire a food preference was assessed. Rats were reared for 10 weeks in enriched housing conditions and tested under conventional (CL) or group-learning (GL) approaches. The results revealed a greater tendency for GL rats to consume their respective Demonstrators' diets than CL rats. Observers tested under CL failed to display a food preference. In Experiment 1B, the influence of impoverished rearing conditions on STFP was assessed. Rats were reared under standardized housing conditions and tested using CL. Impoverished rats acquired a more robust preference when rearing conditions and learning conditions were more similar. In Experiment 2, the role of the hippocampus in the acquisition and retention of STFP under GL was assessed at 10 min following the learning phase. Rats receiving hippocampal lesions performed similarly to sham lesion rats and consumed more of the diet eaten by their respective Demonstrators. In sum, these results provide support for enhanced learning of food preferences under semi-naturalistic conditions.


identifier: Ninad, Nayeem Ahmed  (2008) Operation of a single-phase grid connected inverter with large DC bus voltage ripple for distributed generation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Distributed generation (DG) looks promising for meeting the increasing energy demand with reduced environmental impact. Traditionally, the electric power plants are located far from load centers. DG units based on Photovoltaic (PV), wind, fuel cell etc. can be installed at the distribution level close to the loads, thus reducing investments in the utility's infrastructure. Distributed energy resources, DG plus storage, are connected to the grid by means of power electronic converters. Normally, a single-phase voltage source inverter (VSI) is used as a power interface for low power (< 10 kVA) consumer owned DG units. Its main function is to transfer active power to the grid, but it can also provide reactive power compensation adding value to the DG unit. The reliability of single-phase VSI is relatively low due to the large electrolytic capacitors required at the dc bus for attenuating the 2 nd order voltage ripple. This Thesis discusses a control scheme suitable for the VSI operating with large dc bus ripple, when a small and high reliability thin film capacitor can be used. It is based on a dc bus voltage ripple estimator and a voltage control loop with higher bandwidth. Different types of current controllers were tested for the inner loop but did not affect much the system's performance. An experimental set-up was implemented to show that a variable power factor inverter with a small dc capacitor can perform better than a conventional inverter regarding the transient response and the low frequency harmonic distortion in the ac side current.


identifier: Rahimi, Siavash  (2008) Algorithms for data-gathering in wireless sensor networks.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Wireless sensor networks consist of a large number of small battery powered sensor nodes with limited energy resources which are responsible for sensing, processing, and transmitting the monitored data. Once deployed, the sensor nodes are normally inaccessible to the user, and thus replacement of the battery is generally not feasible. A major concern in designing and operating dense Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is the energy-efficiency. Hierarchical clustering and cross-layer optimization are widely accepted as effective techniques to ameliorate this concern. We propose two different novel energy efficient algorithms to gather data from sensor nodes. Energy-Efficient Media Access Control (EE-MAC) protocol is the first algorithm, which has excellent scalability and performs well for both small and large sensor networks. We will also provide a theoretical analysis of the protocol and give guidelines on how to find the optimal protocol parameters such as the number of clusters. In addition, we develop and analyze a novel and scalable Spiraled Algorithm for Data-gathering (SAD) that periodically selects cluster heads according to their geographic locations and residual energy by sorting nodes on virtual spirals. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that SAD can achieve as much as a factor of three prolonging network lifetime compared with other conventional protocols like LEACH especially when the network is large. Moreover, SAD is also able to distribute energy dissipation evenly throughout the sensors such that 80% of the nodes run out of batteries in the last 20% of the network lifetime.


identifier: Selders, M. Scott  (2008) Patterns of violence : narratives of occupied East Timor from invasion to independence, 1975-1999.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In October 2005, the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) released Chega!, its massive report detailing the human rights violations committed on all sides during the 1975 to 1999 Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Chega! offers the most comprehensive description of this history of East Timor during this period.  This thesis examines the CAVR's treatment of three major events of the occupation period. These events are the Indonesian invasion and conquest of East Timor (1975-1979), the Santa Cruz massacre (November 12, 1991), and the Popular Consultation (1999). For each of these events, the thesis analyzes four major narrative strands: the East Timorese narrative, the Indonesian narrative, the journalists' narrative, and the truth commission's narrative. The focus is on evaluating the current CAVR treatments of these events in light of previous work, as expressed in the other narratives.  The East Timorese truth commission sought to find patterns to the violence of the occupation. In the case of the invasion, it offered an extensive discussion of human rights violations committed by the East Timorese resistance, showing how the population suffered from both Indonesian war crimes and suicidal resistance policies. The Commission's treatment of the Santa Cruz massacre focused on what the killings showed about the makeup of the second generation of the resistance, which was devoted to a diplomatic, rather than military, resolution to the East Timorese conflict. Finally, when discussing the Popular Consultation, the CAVR sought to reveal the planning behind the mass destruction of 1999 and to show that the militia violence was not anarchic, but rather conformed to quantifiable aims and strategies


identifier: Shamy, Khoder  (2008) Analysis and enhancement of wireless LANs in noisy channels.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Without a doubt, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) technology has been encountering an explosive growth lately. IEEE 802.11 is the standard associated with this promising technology, which enures shared access to the wireless medium through the distributed coordination function (DCF). Recently, the IEEE 802.11e task group has made extensions to WLANs medium access control (MAC) in order to support quality of service (QoS) traffic.  An inherited problem for WLANs, is the volatility of the propagation medium, which is a challenging issue that affects the system performance significantly. Consequently, enhancing the operation of the DCF in noisy environments is of great interest, and has attracted the attention of many researchers.  Our first major contribution in the presented thesis, is an analytical and simulation analysis for the binary exponential backoff (BEB) scheme of the DCF, in the presence of channel noise. We show that following the BEB procedure when a host encounters erroneous transmission is needed only if the channel was highly loaded. However, incrementing the contention window (CW) upon each packet failure, whether caused by instantaneous transmission (i.e. collision) or channel noise, will result in the waste of air time if the channel was lightly loaded. Accordingly, we present a hybrid access method that adapts the CW according to the channel load along with the frame error rate (FER).  Other means to overcome the channel noise is the adjustment of the transmission rate. Many rate adaptation (RA) algorithms were introduced in the past few years, including the Automatic Rate Fallback (ARF) which is currently implemented in the wireless cards. Yet, many drawbacks are associated with these RA algorithms; specifically, in regard to the techniques and events that should trigger the rate change. Moreover, the IEEE 802.11e QoS flows requirements were not considered with the latter schemes. Accordingly, our next major contribution in this work is the presentation of a novel rate adaptation scheme. The simplicity of the introduced rate adaptation scheme is that it relies on the MAC layer parameters rather than those of the PHY layer when adjusting the rate. Furthermore, our algorithm supports the IEEE 802.11e MAC extensions where QoS traffic requirements were integrated in the procedure of adjusting the bit rate. Hence, strict real-time flow parameters such as delay and maximum drop rate are respected. Finally, we enhance the dynamic assignment of transmission opportunities (TXOPs) in order to offer fair air-time for nodes facing high packet loss rate


identifier: Sidhom, Iyadh  (2008) A Distributed SIP P2P telephony system.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: A Distributed SIP P2P telephony system

abstract: Since the telephone was invented, it has revolutionalized the telecommunications and enabled people to talk to each other over long distances. Through the years, the telephone has been greatly improved and many new models have been developed to serve the different needs of the diversified set of users.  Peer-to-peer systems inherently have high scalability, robustness and fault tolerance because there is no centralized server and the network self-organizes itself. These features can be used in order to construct peer-to-peer internet telephony systems where there is no central server and with a lower cost than the current internet telephony systems.  In this thesis, we propose a fully distributed peer-to-peer architecture, called SIP2P, for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Peers connect directly to other peers, constructing an overlay network of peers which communicate to each other in order to provide the same services as the central server in the conventional SIP. The nodes that define the overlay not only act as an ordinary SIP user agent but they can also perform all together the role of the SIP proxy, SIP register and the SIP location service. The behavior of the conventional SIP servers is distributed over all the nodes participating in the overlay.  An implementation of the SIP2P system concludes the thesis in order to validate and evaluate its distributed design


identifier: Strasfeld, Gabrielle  (2008) Moral politicians and benevolent reformers : American women as individual political thinkers from 1830-1865.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The writing of five American women who were published authors between 1830 and 1865 is used in a comparative approach to demonstrate that they were representative of a generation of women who became active in politics on a wide scale during the antebellum period. While most women in the nineteenth century did not actively seek self-representation in electoral politics, and while few would have defined their activities in reform and benevolent societies as "political," many women, in increasing numbers participated in activities and associations with the express purpose of influencing and affecting public policy and engaging in social reform. Women often joined associations or signed petitions as part of a larger group. Individual authors, such as Sarah Grimké, Angelina Grimké, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa McCord, and Augusta Jane Evans, also made their political positions known, and actively campaigned for the abolition of slavery, for the continuation of slavery, and for secession through the medium of their writing. The goal of this study is to present the five women as individual political thinkers who can also be viewed as part of a growing trend in the nineteenth century that saw women become increasingly engaged in American political life.


identifier: Valdes, Arturo  (2008) Dynamic neural network-based pulsed plasma thruster (PPT) fault detection and isolation for the attitude control subsystem of formation flying satellites.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The main objective of this thesis is to develop a dynamic neural network-based fault detection and isolation (FDI) scheme for the Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPTs) that are used in the Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) of satellites that are tasked to perform a formation flying mission. In order to accomplish these objectives three fault detection and isolation (FDI) approaches based on dynamic neural networks (DNN) are developed: (i) a "Low Level" FDI scheme, (ii) a "High Level" FDI scheme, and (iii) an "Integrated" FDI scheme. Based on data that is collected from the electrical circuit of the PPTs, our proposed "Low Level" FDI scheme can detect and isolate faults in the PPT actuators. Using a Confusion Matrix evaluation system we demonstrate that can achieve a high level of accuracy but the precision level is below expectations and the misclassification rate is expressed as False Healthy and False Faulty parameters is significant. Our proposed "High Level" FDI scheme utilizes data collected from the relative attitudes of the formation flying satellites. According to the simulation results, our proposed FDI scheme can detect the pair of thrusters which is faulty. It represents a promising detection capability, however its isolation capabilities are not adequate. Finally, our proposed "Integrated" FDI scheme takes advantage of the strengths of each of the previous schemes and at same time reduces their individual weaknesses. To demonstrate its capabilities, various fault scenarios were simulated. The results demonstrate a high level of accuracy (99.79%) and precision (99.94%) with a misclassification rate that is quite negligible. Furthermore, our proposed "Integrated" FDI scheme provides additional and interesting information related to the effects of faults in the thrust production levels that would not be available from simply the low and high levels separately.


identifier: Wesley, Bathsheba Susannah  (2008) Finding the sublime : assessing Elizabeth Simcoe's Fires as an art practice.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis traces Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe's (1766-1850) changing relationship to landscape during her stay in Canada (1791-1796), as she transformed from a genteel watercolour painter of tamed British landscapes to practicing less conventional means of creativity, which resulted most spectacularly in her developing an aesthetic fondness for setting forest fires. This thesis proposes that above and beyond Simcoe's painting, her art practice can also encompass this alternative means of aesthetic expression in relation to landscape.  Simcoe's practice, as such, conceptually parallels ideas running through late eighteenth-century European culture, specifically philosophy and art practice, concerned with the state of picturesque and sublime landscapes. Mirroring this discourse, Simcoe's performative behaviour and creative practice illustrate a subtle but marked shift from a removed picturesque appreciation of landscape, to an active creation of a sublime experience within the landscape, as she grapples with the colonial space in which she temporarily resides. When this transition in Simcoe's performativity and practice is analysed through contemporary theory on postcolonial landscape, female subjectivity and performativity, and the feminist sublime, an intriguing narrative begins to emerge of a woman facing, and then working within and for, the breakdown of conventional cultural systems through visual metaphor.


identifier: Farquhar, Jamie C  (2008) From the work-place to the golf-course? The adaptive value of life regret on activity and emotional well-being in recent retirees.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This study was designed to investigate the impact of life regret on activity engagement and emotional well-being in the early stages of retirement. We asked a total of 463 recent retirees to report their most severe life regret and their perception of opportunity and motivation to undo the negative consequences of the regret. We also asked the participants to report their current level of activity engagement and emotional well-being at both post-retirement (Mean years since retirement = 1.39, SD = .86) and one-year follow-up. In addition, the participants also retrospectively reported their pre-retirement level of activity engagement. We expected that regret may play an adaptive role in the activities and emotional well-being of recent retirees. In particular, we reasoned that regret could be adaptive if the individual is motivated to undo the regret and opportunities are favorable. We found that engagement in optional activities (e.g., volunteering, socializing, traveling) was higher at post-retirement and follow-up than at pre-retirement, whereas there were no differences found when examining engagement in obligatory maintenance activities (e.g., household chores, finances). In support of our hypothesis, we found that regret was predictive of both high levels of optional activities and high levels of positive affect post-retirement when retirees are engaged to undo the negative consequences of the regret and opportunities are favorable. Furthermore, the study's results suggest that engagement in optional activities partially mediated the relationship between regret and positive affect. These findings imply that regret can play an adaptive role in later life such as influencing engagement in activities of personal interest and investment. The implications for pathways to active and happier lives in old age are discussed.


identifier: Mahn, Stephen  (2008) The popularity and rejection of the Story of the Watchers (1 Enoch 6-11).  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The Story of the Watchers has been transmitted from antiquity until today among the writings of different religious groups. In this thesis I will investigate the theological, historical and social implications of the transmission of this story during the Second Temple Period. This encompasses investigating the different influences on the population of ancient Judea during these times, and the internal theological developments of the Jewish community. I will focus on the relationship between theological developments and communal identity that influenced the choices of texts that were copied, modified and incorporated into communal literature. Ultimately, I will investigate why the Story of the Watchers was widely circulated and known, yet not included in the Hebrew Bible.


identifier: Reader, Simon  (2008) In the wrong : bad poems and errant teaching in Anne Carson's Men in the Off Hours.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis considers the aesthetic and pedagogical potential of error as it emerges in the poetry and criticism of Anne Carson. At stake is error's status as a viable alternative to irony, which I argue is an ethically problematic stance employed both in literary practice and the classroom. Carson's obsession with mistakes makes available a mode of engagement with texts and students that refuses the cool distance of ironic detachment. Irony is a dialectical strategy that allows speakers not to commit to critical stances or emotional positions. It puts readers and students on their guard. Invoking error, on the other hand, allows us to discuss a wider range of cognitive, ethical, and emotional events in which we commit or invest in ways generally considered wrong. This thesis has two chapters. The first argues that Carson's poetry engages such phenomena as impersonation, mistranslation, and catachresis in order to stage a poetics of error. The second moves from rhetorical to relational concerns, foregrounding Carson's status as a professor of the humanities in order to draw out the pedagogical consequences spurred by her poetics.


identifier: Davis, Geraldine  (2008) On Ewen's Moons.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: On Ewen's Moons

abstract: Paterson Ewen's gouged plywood moonscapes are not landscapes in the tradition of the genre as it has been understood. A discussion of the landscape traditions and their implications provides a framework for the notion that his large-scale, rigorously executed works create the viewer's physical experience of the Moon in space. This experience is imaginative but palpable. "On Ewen's Moons" explores the viewer's interaction with Ewen's works in the context of Merleau-Ponty's thoughts on perception along with contemporary notions of visual memory. A detailed analysis of six major works from the artist's Moon series forms the centerpiece to this discussion. Set against the historical events of the Apollo lunar landing, Ewen's visceral Moon images are examined in the context of our contemporary awareness of outer space.


identifier: Chan, Zoë  (2008) Wild boys : primitivism and male youth in Larry Clark's photography and films.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis examines representations of young males in the photographs and films of the American artist and film-maker, Larry Clark (b. 1943). Known for his graphic and eroticising depictions of mostly delinquent young males often participating in acts of drug use, sex, or violence, Clark's vision of male youth shares many parallels with primitivism. The author argues that primitivism can be articulated not only in Western perspectives of the ethnic "other," but also in its representations of youth in contemporary art, cinema, and visual culture. The thesis identifies some of the major semantic and ideological tropes to which primitivism subscribes, with an emphasis on its nineteenth-and twentieth-century articulations, particularly within the fields of ethnography and Modernist avant-garde art. Through the examination of his representations of subculture, gender, and sexuality in such seminal works as Tulsa (c. 1971) and Kids (1995), we discover how Clark equates male youth with expressions of authenticity and anti-establishment transgression. Moreover, Clark's focus on marginal and delinquent youth groups helps him strategically situate himself as an artist outsider, a coveted position in western art history. Finally, the thesis explores how Clark's style and subject matter has been appropriated and absorbed into the fields of art, film, fashion, and advertising. It concludes that Clark's oeuvre has ultimately contributed to the construction and consolidation of a primitivising iconography and aesthetics of marginal and/or debauched male youth.


identifier: Robert, Kimberlie M  (2008) Women's botanical illustration in Canada : its gendered, colonial and garden histories (1830-1930).  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis studies botanical illustration by Canadian women between 1830 and 1930 from three aspects: the gendered history of botany from its beginnings as a general practice that later turned into a systematized science, botany's colonial agency in Canada, and the influence that garden design had on botanical illustration. A botanical illustration is, on the surface, an intense scientific flower study complete with anatomical details intent on documenting the plant's stages of growth. It is a portrait that was thought to be an appropriate teaching tool. Executed with proper artistic and observational aptitude, the botanical illustration is a striking piece of artwork. However, the nature of art is often too fluid and subjective for the fixity of science. My intention is to discuss nineteenth-century botanical illustration by Canadian women in terms of it being a cultural product that both fed female amateur floriculture and horticulture in England and Canada and that offered possibilities to cultivate professional identity more usually reserved for men. Women's authority to present the new masculine science of botany was at issue as women were caught in a complex social and scientific network that, on the one hand, encouraged them to teach botany and to produce botanical art while, on the other, restricted them from participating in higher scientific circles necessary for their advancement. As a result, their botanical production was a multivalent reflection of botanical education, of personal relationships with nature, and of colonial circumstances and expectations.


identifier: Buis, Alena M  (2008) Ut pictura poesis : Edward Black Greenshields' Collection of Hague School paintings.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: According to Edward Black Greenshields (1850-1917), the Hague School of artists were "all men of striking originality, [who] broke away from past traditions of art in their country, and, going directly to nature, strove, by careful study, to give a truthful view, each as he saw it..." 1 Financed by the industrial development of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, he and the rest of Montreal's "merchant princes," formed a new class of art collectors rapidly purchasing European paintings. Greenshields, a noted industrialist and amateur scholar orchestrated the largest and most concentrated private amassing of "modern" Dutch works. Although he was one of the most important collectors of his time, little has been written about his activity in the Montreal art milieu.  This paper investigates the nature of Greenshields' engagement with the Hague School and how as a collector and promoter of the group's work, he influenced the group's reception in Canada. At the height of his collecting Greenshields published two texts, A Subjective View of Landscape Painting (1904) and Landscape Painting and Modern Dutch Artists (1906). Combining art history and art criticism these works are now considered among the first of their kind produced in Canada. In this thesis I argue that Greenshields' collection and theoretical views on art as expressed in his writing evolved simultaneously and as his taste for works by the Hague School was formed his collection assumed a rhetorical function. By examining the mechanics of Greenshields' collection I provide a critical inquiry into connoisseurship during the formative stages of collecting in Canada.  1 E.B. Greenshields, The Subjective View of Landscape Painting: With Special Reference to J.H. Weissenbruch and Illustrations from His Works in Canada. (Montreal: Desbarats, 1903) 9.


identifier: Sijan, Marko  (2008) Mongrel.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Mongrel

abstract: Set in Windsor, Ontario, Mongrel contains five chapters, each of which is narrated by a different adolescent character. Mixing tragedy, black comedy and pathos, their five interwoven stories span twelve manic hours on June tenth, 1999, when the United States ended its seventy-eight day bombing of Serbia. The bombing of a small, weak nation by the world's uncontested superpower mirrors the mutually exploitive relationships that develop among the characters and contextualizes a central thematic concern of the novel: that exploitation is one of the most basic features of human intercourse. The five narratives are inextricably linked, in that each one overlaps and influences the outcome of the other, and they all draw together to one end.


identifier: Mellema, Tatiana  (2008) Big dirty secrets : the works of Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The artworks by Los Angeles based contemporary artists Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley can be considered a post-pop that turns pop art's appropriation of high and low cultural materials into a fixation on the psychosocial effects of culture on the individual. Creating a frenzied web of associations that develop pop, performance, and postminimal art strategies, the artists elicit audiences in a critical inquiry into our structures of meaning. Appropriating film, television and urban life with performance and installation art practices McCarthy and Kelly reveal the social construction behind cultural values, our notions of gender, and architectural spaces. This thesis sets out to address McCarthy and Kelley's work through three categories: post-pop, performance and architectural space, arguing that McCarthy and Kelley implode high and low cultural materials in order to reveal the repressive social conditioning of American culture at large. Works that will be considered in particular include: McCarthy and Kelley's collaborative project Sod and Sodie Sock Comp O.S.O. (1998), McCarthy's work Caribbean Pirates (2001-2005), and Kelley's Half a Man (1987-1991) series and piece Educational Complex (1995)


identifier: Deblois, Paula  (2008) Mary Fanton Roberts : an analysis of her art criticism in The Craftsman and The Touchstone.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis will examine the art writings between 1906-1921 of critic and editor Mary Fanton Roberts (1864-1956), who also wrote under the pseudonym of Giles Edgerton. The first two decades of the 20 th century was a time when the question of American identity in art was being debated and new artistic theories were emerging. The purpose of the study will be to analyse her articles on the visual arts, focusing specifically on her changing views about American nationalism in two art journals that she edited: Craftsman (1905-1916), and Touchstone (1917-1921). While Mary Fanton Roberts is well-known for her writing on the decorative arts and interior decoration, an examination of these concerns is beyond the boundaries of this thesis. Rather, this study will attempt to analyse the definitions and meaning of art Fanton developed as an editor and critic for these two publications. More specifically, I will analyse how her ideas about national identity in art evolved throughout the two journals, and how new opinions developed as the decades progressed. Furthermore, her arguments will be discussed in relation to the theoretical position adopted by Robert Henri as he was a highly influential figure in her personal and professional life.


identifier: Vergara-Vargas, Erandy  (2008) InSite-Specific : three art projects on the Tijuana-SanDiego border zone.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Drawing from border theory and postcolonial studies, this thesis investigates the way narratives of borders and nation have been explored and contested in three art projects commissioned for inSite, a binational art festival focused on the Tijuana-San Diego border zone. The first case study focuses on Valeska Soares' Picturing Paradise (2001) to investigate the border as an ideological and physical construct that divides Mexico and the United States. The second examines Judi Werthein's Brinco (2005) to explore illegal border crossings and the action of "jumping" into the United States. The third case study looks at Gustavo Artigas' The Rules of the Game (2000) to propose a metaphor of the border dynamics of friction and coexistence.  This thesis exposes one of the most important characteristics of the border between Mexico and the United States, that being how the paradigm of the nation-state is structured to reinforce frontiers and dominant narratives of difference in order to legitimate and perpetuate social and economical divisions. This thesis challenges the nation-state paradigm and explores the connections between borders and illegal immigration in contemporary art.


identifier: Venkatesh, Vivek  (2008) Quantitative explorations of graduate learners' monitoring proficiencies and task understandings in the context of ill-structured writing assignments : from learner to work task as unit of analysis.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Research has debated the degree of domain generality of monitoring skills through the theoretical lens of self-regulated learning, largely in the context of studies involving college/undergraduate-level objective, multiple-choice tests. The present quantitative study sheds some much-needed light on the nature of monitoring skills in 39 adult learners tackling ill-structured writing tasks for a graduate-level e-learning theory course in the domain of educational technology. Performance prediction and confidence in predictions were collected through a theoretically-grounded self-assessment tool termed TAPE (Task Analyzer and Performance Evaluator). Monitoring proficiencies were calculated using the instructor's assessment of performance and the TAPE-related measures.  Using "learner" as unit of analysis, repeated measures procedures reveal improvements in the instructor's assessment of performance but not in any monitoring proficiencies. While the task-generality of the monitoring skills of discrimination and bias is confirmed through correlational analyses, facets of their specificities stand out due to the absence of intra-monitoring measure correlations. Subsequently, using the 247 instances of the writing task as unit of analysis, parametric multiple regression procedures demonstrate that 39% of variance in individual essay performance is predicted by combined variances in absolute prediction accuracy, discrimination, performance prediction and self-assessment scores. In addition, non-parametric ordinal and multinomial regression procedures reveal that individual essay performance can be predicted from the monitoring measures of bias, prediction confidence and absolute prediction accuracy, as well as from the self-assessment scores.  The dual levels of analyses allow not only the quantitative description of learners' content-specific calibration of performance on a writing task, but also contextualized, essay-specific insight into how individual performance on an instance of the writing task is influenced by measures of monitoring and task understanding. Results are interpreted in light of the novel procedures undertaken in calculating monitoring measures like bias using the theoretical notion of performance prediction capability. Findings are also discussed with respect to the "work task as unit of analysis" approach which enables not only the generalization to the tasks completed for the specific course described in this study, but also the interchangeability of the tasks when treating variables such as time, class session, individual student and gender as fixed effects in the various regression approaches adopted for analyses


identifier: Curow, Ashley Dallas  (2008) Live from "Africa" : representations and reflections in volunteer weblogs.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis investigates the role of Canadian weblogs or blogs (personal, chronological records of thoughts published on a web page) and the blogosphere (the online community of blogs) in discourse concerning Western representations of "Africa." It examines potential relationships between concepts of international integration that animate much of the discussion of the World Wide Web, and the concept of foreign aid at the level of the individual volunteer. This thesis also seeks to contextualize the writing within wider narratives of travel and tourism, and questions whether or not foreign aid discourse within the blogosphere can be used as a site for investigating the intersection between issues of social justice and new media technologies for expanding notions of volunteerism, international inter-responsibility and global citizenship.


identifier: Knegt, Peter  (2008) Forging a gay mainstream : negotiating gay cinema in the American hedgemony.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The line between "studio" and "independent" film has recently blurred considerably with respect to the American film industry. This trend has manifested literally in "Indiewood," a term coined to describe the growth of studio-owned "specialty divisions" that distribute technically independent films. This thesis seeks to explore the implications of "Indiewood" on the economics of gay film, asking how changes in the infrastructure of the American film industry have altered the manner in which gay film is produced and distributed, and what themes are being privileged in this new alignment. Situated within Gramscian framework of "hegemony," this analysis will examine what I term "Gay Indiewood," in relation to neoliberalism, the dominant power of American society. While "Indiewood" can clearly be seen as representing neoliberalism in its definitive transferring of independent film into the corporate world, this thesis will explore its relationship to what Lisa Duggan terms "the new homonormativity," a form of neoliberalism within gay politics. By linking the concepts of "Gay Indiewood," "the new homonormativity" and "neoliberalism," this thesis urges a closer look at the mainstreaming of homosexuality in the American hegemonic arrangement.


identifier: Quance, Amanda  (2008) Revisiting an international development project in ECEC.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The Innovative Child Care Practices for Children at Risk was an international development project that took place in the suburbs of José C Paz and Moreno, in the periphery of Buenos Aires, Argentina during the economic crisis of 2001. The project attempted to use Alan Pence's Generative Curriculum Approach in training educators in community child care centres. The project concluded in 2004 and no further assessment was done. This case study is a revisiting of the project, several years after its conclusion, through the documents created, the curriculum texts composed, and interviews with the participants in the project. Through analysis of these, lessons are drawn about the training of adult educators across differences of culture, language and class.


identifier: Lam, Amy  (2008) Neanderthals, a study.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Neanderthals, a study

abstract: Neanderthals, A Study is an attempt at writing the ultimate natural history text: a speculative study of a species that is supposed to be extinct, the genre is imagined as one that creates as it describes.  Before Linnaeus, father of the modern systems of classification that structure how we know the natural world today, creatures lacked place and name. The discipline of natural history, then, provokes the question of whether or not identity exists pre-language; without "elephant" to gather and frame all elephants, what is an elephant? In a zoo, how does one elephant manage to represent all elephants? Conceptually liminal, neither true animals nor true humans, Neanderthals bear the burden of contemporary anxiety about the future of our species. In the same way that "primitive peoples" are portrayed as living in antediluvian or utopian worlds, the narrator Amy Lam's representation of the Neanderthals enacts a particular longing for an elemental, non-technological, nearly supernatural, state of being. The impossibility of this, however, is echoed by the impossible scope of the project itself. The shadow premise--that an impersonator has already written the same book, but in a very different way--emphasizes the desire embodied in fiction: to create something entirely new, even as all the words (and names) are inescapably old. A work-in-progress, Neanderthals, A Study aims to be a hypothesis of the point at which alien but twin selves meet.


identifier: Sojoudi, Somayeh  (2007) Robust stabilization of interconnected systems by means of structurally constrained controllers.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This dissertation deals with performance analysis and robust stabilizability verification of large-scale interconnected systems with respect to the class of linear time-invariant (LTI) decentralized controllers. These problems are formulated and tackled in four phases. First, an interconnected system with some unstable decentralized fixed modes (DFM) is considered. It is well-known that there is no stabilizing LTI decentralized controller for such a system; hence, a method is proposed to change the structure of the controller from decentralized to a proper overlapping form, with respect to which the system is stabilizable. This change in the control configuration is carried out by introducing some interactions among the isolated controllers, which leads to the elimination of the undesirable DFMs. The approach utilized in this thesis is based on the graph theory and, in fact, transforms the knowledge of the system into a number of bipartite graphs. A simple combinatorial algorithm is subsequently proposed to address the problem under consideration.  The second problem investigated here is the characterization of all classes of LTI structurally constrained controllers with respect to which a given interconnected system has no fixed modes. Similar to the ideas and notions proposed to handle the preceding problem, an efficient method is presented to tackle the problem in this case. Since establishing a transmission link between a pair of local controllers would certainly incur cost, an implementation expenditure is attributed to each possible link. The proposed approach can also be used to attain the implementation cost associated with any suitable class of controllers obtained. As a by-product of this result, all classes of LTI stabilizing structurally constrained controllers with the minimum implementation cost can be characterized accordingly.  A LTI structurally constrained control system is considered next, which is subject to parametric uncertainties. Moreover, a region of uncertainty in the form of a semi-algebraic set is envisioned to parametrize the range of variations for uncertain parameters. It is asserted that if the system is stabilizable via a given constrained controller at the nominal point, then it is almost always stabilizable at any operating point in the region of uncertainty. In other words, the points for which the system has some persistent fixed modes lie on an algebraic variety. A method is subsequently proposed to derive this variety.  In the end, it is assumed that a stabilizing decentralized controller is designed for a pseudo-hierarchical large-scale system based on its hierarchical approximation. A LQ cost function is defined to evaluate the effectiveness of this indirect controller design for the system. It is shown that a reasonably tight upper bound on this performance index can be straightforwardly obtained by solving a constrained optimization problem with only three variables.


identifier: Kanso, Ali  (2008) Automatic generation of AMF compliant configurations.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Nowadays, the demand for robust, reliable, and dependable telecommunication systems is higher than ever. End users expect services to be delivered with minimal to no interruption especially in cases where the effect of service outage can have catastrophic consequences such as loss of human lives and monetary losses. Examples of such applications include air traffic control and navigation systems, or systems that perform money transfer transactions such as VISA.  Systems are considered highly available if they are up and running 99.999% of the time. One solution to sustain such availability is for such systems to be deployed on specific middleware that allow the redundancy of the system components to ensure the availability of services they provide. However, most existing platforms are proprietary and platform dependent.  The goal of the Service Availability Forum (SAF) is to develop open specifications that aim to standardize the interface between the applications and the middleware from one side and the middleware and the underlying hardware from the other side. SAF specifications have also been developed to allow highly available applications to be built using commercial off-the-shelf components. A key component of SAF is the Availability Management Framework (AMF), which is the middleware part responsible for managing the redundant resources of applications and therefore enables high availability.  AMF, however, requires a certain organization and groupings of those components known as an AMF configuration. Creating AMF configurations manually tends to be very difficult, error prone and sometimes impossible when the number of components forming the application and the cluster hosting the application is considerably high, which is the case for most real-world telecommunication systems.  In this thesis, we devise a solution for automatically generating AMF compliant configurations for applications. The proposed solution encompasses two techniques that vary depending on the way AMF entities are handled. We have implemented both approaches and applied one of them to a case study to demonstrate the applicability of our solution


identifier: Gaber, Irina  (2008) Differential gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana in response to methyljasmonate and 12-Hydroxyjasmonate treatments.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Jasmonic acid (JA) and its derivatives occur naturally in Arabidopsis thaliana ( A. thaliana ), and regulate the expression of a number of genes such as the ones involved in flowering, defence response and senescence. Additionally, precursors and downstream components of the JA pathway have been shown to elicit some of the responses previously attributed to JA. Of interest to our lab was to investigate the effect of a compound downstream of JA, 12-hydroxyhjasmonate (12-OHJA), on gene expression as well as the phenotypic effect of accumulating higher internal levels of the compound. This was based on previous data showing that, while most genes are co-regulated by JA and 12-OHJA, Thi2.1 , one of the marker genes of JA induction, is not upregulated upon 12-OHJA treatment. Furthermore, exogenous application of this compound shares only some of the phenotypes of JA. In order to gain further insight into the molecular function of the two compounds, we investigated the effects of 4h treatments with each compound on gene expression using the Affymetrix® A. thaliana full genome array. The data demonstrates that there are subsets of genes that are specifically induced or repressed by each of the two compounds, pointing to the possibility of two differentially regulated pathways.  12-OHJA was recently shown to be sulfonated in vitro by one of the eighteen A. thaliana sulfotransferases, AtST2a (Gidda et al, 2003). To gain further insight of the function of AtST2a and its homologous gene AtST2b (whose substrate is yet to be identified), knockout plants in each of the genes were isolated and subjected to phenotypic analyses. The results demonstrate that the AtST2b -KO mutant flowers earlier and has more leaves than wildtype or AtST2a -KO under short days. Combined with metabolite analysis of mutants, the data suggests that another compound, maybe an isomer of 12-OHJA, is responsible for the control of flowering time in short days.


identifier: Xia, Peng  (2008) Reduced intracellular SAM can increase the expression of met gene under the SAM-MetJ mechanism in Escherichia coli.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: S-adenosylmethionine(SAM) is synthesized from methionine by SAM synthetase. In E. coli this enzyme is encoded by metK . Since metK is an essential gene and SAM cannot cross bacterial cell membranes, it is difficult to study the role of SAM directly in vivo. We introduced the SAM transporter gene from Rickettsia (kindly provided by Dr. D. O. Wood) to study the effect of exogenous supply of SAM on expression of genes of methionine biosynthesis in E. coli strains carrying a deletion of metK . Such strains could not make their own SAM but could transport SAM provided in the medium. The effect of growth with SAM, and SAM starvation on expression of the genes encoding most of enzymes in methionine biosynthesis, metA, metB, metC, metE, metF, metK, metR, was studied by means of reporter gene constructs using their promoters fused to lacZ . The Beta-Galactosidase coded by lacZ will reflect the met genes' expression in the SAM including medium or non-SAM medium. By using the above system, the effect of SAM on regulating met genes was studied. The result showed that in rich medium depleting the SAM supply of the E metK strain dramatically induced metB and metR (both 19.2 fold). The other genes were little affected. During growth in minimal medium with methionine and glucose, depleting the SAM pool had a much greater effect, inducing all the genes tested 10 fold to 100 fold. Moreover, there is no significant increase for all met genes in metJ deletion strain. These results support the in vitro model of MetJ-SAM repressor complex binding met gene promoters to block their transcription. Furthermore, result of studying a metJ deficient mutant MNR6 implies that the truncated MetJ in MNR6 retains a considerable function. All these studies give one step further to understand the mechanism of regulating met gene expression by MetJ-SAM complex in vivo.


identifier: Cheung, Pui Shan Monica  (2008) Mirror symmetry breaking and chiral amplification of ethylenediammonium sulfate crystals.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Chiral symmetry breaking is a process that generates one enantiomer largely over the other when a racemic mixture is expected. In nature, one handedness is preferred over the other and it has been shown that chiral molecules, including amino acids, can preferentially adsorb on chiral mineral surfaces such as quartz and calcite. This project investigates the mirror symmetry breaking process of ethylenediammonium sulfate (EDS), an achiral salt that crystallizes into chiral crystals. Here, we investigate the directed mirror symmetry breaking and chiral amplification of EDS in the presence of chiral amino acids using an abrasion/grinding process. The direction of chiral symmetry breaking is strongly dependent on the amino acid and its chirality: (i) for thirteen chiral amino acids, the addition of the D-isomer directed the chiral symmetry breaking process towards homochiral dextrorotatory EDS crystals; whereas the addition of the L-isomer directed the chiral symmetry breaking process towards homochiral levorotatory EDS crystals, (ii) asparagine, tryptophan and tyrosine showed the reverse trend, and (iii) no effect was observed when adding arginine, lysine or methionine to the EDS mixture. In the future, the effect of chiral additives on the surface microtopography of EDS crystals will be investigated using atomic force microscopy and surface etching. The selective adsorption of chiral additives on EDS crystals will also be studied using molecular modeling and isothermal titration calorimetry.


identifier: Lavasani, Ahmad  (2008) On general multi-quadratic function field extensions in the GHS attack.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: To date, elliptic curves offer the most efficient cryptographic solution. Particularly efficient among elliptic curves, are those defined over binary composite finite fields, such as GF ((2 r ) n ). These curves were no longer considered secure when, in 1998, Gerhard Frey innovated a concept which paved the road for the GHS attack. The idea behind the GHS attack is to map the Discrete Logarithm Problem (DLP) over such a curve to an equivalent DLP over the jacobian of another curve, defined over the smaller field GF (2 r ).  In this thesis, we study the theoretical structure of the GHS attack for elliptic curves defined over fields of arbitrary characteristics. We study the GHS attack using general quadratic extensions for elliptic curves defined over composite fields of even characteristic and we estimate the genus of resulting function field. We also implement the GHS attack and present some computational results.  Keywords . GHS Attack, Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Function Fields


identifier: Rodríguez, Alexandra Lemus  (2008) Spectral estimates for Schrödinger operators.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In quantum mechanics, one of the most studied problems is that of solving the Schrödinger equation to find its discrete spectrum. This problem cannot always be solved in an exact form, and so comes the need of approximations. This thesis is based on the theory of the Schrödinger operators and Sturm-Liouville problems. We use the Rayleigh-Ritz variational method (mix-max theory) to find eigenvalues for these operators.  The variational analysis we present in this thesis relies on the sine-basis, which we obtain from the solutions of the particle-in-a-box problem. Using this basis we approximate the eigenvalues of a variety of potentials using computational implementations. The potentials studied here include problems such as the harmonic oscillator in d dimensions, the quartic anharmonic oscillator, the hydrogen atom, a confined hydrogenic system, and a highly singular potential. When possible the results are compared either with those obtained in exact form or results from the literature


identifier: Hodaei Esfahani, Keywan  (2008) A collaborative framework for knowledge acquisition and management for bioinformatics applications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: We study Software Engineering Organizations (SEOs) in the area of Bioinformatics in the context of Knowledge Intensive Firms. From this perspective, we characterize the challenges SEOs may face in this area and show that the situation can be much improved by following proper knowledge management practices. In response to these challenges and considering the various software development activities in this area, we propose a Collaborative Knowledge Management Framework (CKMF). The framework has four components: data model, knowledge management database, constraints, and management committee. Data model has three layers and is the central knowledge repository and acts as knowledge transfer media. Knowledge management database stores and manages information about concepts and relationships captured in the data model layers. It can also support version management. Constraints encode the semantic integrity of the application domain. Managing committee is an elected body or committee in charge of defining and enforcing constraints and version management.  Deploying the proposed framework, we can better identify, preserve, and institutionalize the knowledge possessed by the software developers. This will reduce the impact of attrition on SEOs, will ease steep learning curves for the Software Engineers new to the field or organization, will provide a history of knowledge evolution in the organization that can be used for postmortem analysis, and will greatly facilitate the flow of knowledge among the experts within and across organizational boundaries.  We develop a prototype knowledge management of the proposed framework, and demonstrate a mapping between major needs and the framework elements. We also compare our approach with existing Bioinformatics Software Engineering tools and facilities. Our attempt in this work has been to offer a means for knowledge management in SEOs that captures individual creativity and team work, and acknowledges the importance and values of collective achievements at the same time.


identifier: Babaee Owlam, Babak  (2008) A numerical simulation of flow over a NACA0025 airfoil using Large Eddy Simulation turbulence models.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The ability of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) to predict critical flow characteristics has always been questionable. Flow separation over lifting surfaces such as airfoils are one of the critical features which can significantly deteriorate their aerodynamic performances. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the accuracy of two CFD methods in predicting the flow separation over a NACA0025 airfoil at low Reynolds numbers. The first code is an in-house code which is based on a 3D compressible Navier-Stokes solver with preconditioning and self-adaptive upwinding methods. The second code is the commercial FLUENT software. In order to accurately simulate the laminar boundary layer separation, the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) method is used for turbulence modeling of both codes. Results comparison shows that Fluent is not able to capture this feature. In addition the results are also compared with another similar numerical simulation and validated with available experimental data.


identifier: Rawat, Vaibhav  (2007) Active independent front steering for yaw-rate control and tire work-load equalization in road vehicles.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Several control strategies can be implemented in road vehicles to avoid roll over, improve ride quality or customize handling performance. Handling performance is one of the crucial areas of research from the safety point of view. Most of the control strategies depend on manipulating the motion of the tires, which are the prime source of the forces acting on the vehicle. Some of the common control strategies for handling explored in recent years include: active control of tractive and/or braking torque; and a wide variations in active steering control. For vehicle stability and handling improvement, Active Front and Rear Steering (AFS, ARS) prove to be excellent control techniques, as active torque control fails to generate required forces and moments in certain situations. In recent years, major research effort has been directed towards active steering control, where the steer angle of the wheels is actively controlled to improve handling performance at high speeds. Such controls, however, have limitations as they do not attempt to utilize tires' force generating potential. The present study proposes a new Active Independent Front Steering (AIFS) technique with independent control for each front wheel. A non-linear 4-wheel vehicle model incorporating tire 'Magic formula' and load shifts in longitudinal and lateral direction is studied. This model agrees well with a simpler bicycle model and CarSim simulation. The 4-wheel vehicle model with proposed AIFS is simulated for step and sinusoidal lane-change inputs. A simple PI control algorithm that differentiates between under and oversteer handling characteristics is developed and utilized for the simulations. The results show that by controlling one wheel only, AIFS can provide the ideal yaw-rate and trajectory responses at any speed, and the performances are as good as those obtained by AFS and significantly better than conventional uncontrolled system. Furthermore, AIFS is shown to equalize the tire workload at the left and right front tires improving the vehicle's ability to generate maximum possible lateral force. Only exception to this is when the vehicle is strongly oversteer. It is also shown that this limitation can be overcome by introducing an AIFS where both wheels are actively controlled. A physical design using tandem planetary gear trains is proposed for the AIFS that can provide the required control and is fail safe. The present is a first investigation of AIFS control that has significant potential for the integrated control of road vehicles and is identified in proposed future studies.


identifier: Nguyen, Que Thu Dung  (2008) Design and implementation of a distributed middleware for parallel execution of legacy enterprise applications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: A typical enterprise uses a local area network of computers to perform its business. During the off-working hours, the computational capacities of these networked computers are underused or unused. In order to utilize this computational capacity an application has to be recoded to exploit concurrency inherent in a computation which is clearly not possible for legacy applications without any source code. This thesis presents the design an implementation of a distributed middleware which can automatically execute a legacy application on multiple networked computers by parallelizing it. This middleware runs multiple copies of the binary executable code in parallel on different hosts in the network. It wraps up the binary executable code of the legacy application in order to capture the kernel level data access system calls and perform them distributively over multiple computers in a safe and conflict free manner. The middleware also incorporates a dynamic scheduling technique to execute the target application in minimum time by scavenging the available CPU cycles of the hosts in the network. This dynamic scheduling also supports the CPU availability of the hosts to change over time and properly reschedule the replicas performing the computation to minimize the execution time. A prototype implementation of this middleware has been developed as a proof of concept of the design. This implementation has been evaluated with a few typical case studies and the test results confirm that the middleware works as expected.


identifier: Wang, Ran  (2008) Multiple 3D scan data registration.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Multiple 3D scan data registration

abstract: A 3D geometric model representing the surface of a 3D object is most often used for synthesizing highly realistic 3D images. The advent of 3D scanners has made the acquisition of 3D surface geometry of existing objects relatively simple. In most 3D scanners, it is difficult, to acquire the complete surface geometry in one operation. For example, with a single fixed scan head, the object has to be rotated many times to present different views of the object's surface to the scan-head, so that the entire surface geometry is covered. Then, all the scan data sets from different views have to be combined from their own independent coordinate systems into a single consistent geometric coordinate space. This operation is called scan data registration. Most existing techniques mainly focus on registering two point data sets at a time. For scan data in multiple views, say n views, one has to resort to pair-wise registration, requiring n -1 registration operations. In this research, we study the problem of multiple scan data registration. In particular, we are interested in efficiency, robustness and accuracy of registration techniques. Our main contribution is a new registration technique that can simultaneously register any number of scan data sets as long as there is some overlap amongst them, thus requiring considerably less than n -1 registration operations. To demonstrate the performance of our approach, we have developed a registration system and we have experimented with a number of scan data sets and shown the improvements resulting from the use of our approach.


identifier: Wu, Jiewen  (2008) Plan-based axiom absorption for tableau-based description logics reasoning.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Description logic knowledge bases traditionally contain a set of axioms (Tbox) describing background knowledge. DL reasoners generally handle axioms by using the lazy unfolding technique, which reduces the nondeterminism introduced by axioms. Axiom absorption is an optimization technique that rewrites axioms into the unfoldable part of the Tbox suitable for lazy unfolding.  Absorptions are generally employed in DL reasoners in a mostly uniform way regardless of the characteristics of an input knowledge base. Though there exist a number of absorptions, their overall effectiveness remains to be improved, especially when a large quantity of complex axioms are present in the knowledge bases, which is well beyond the capability of any single absorption technique.  To ameliorate absorption techniques, this thesis presents a framework applying AI planning to axiom absorption. In this framework, a state space planner is used to encode state-of-the-art absorption techniques. Some designed heuristics concerning the characteristics of an input KB are utilized for the cost estimation during planning. The planner first applies appropriate absorptions to axioms, then it produces a solution with a minimized cost. Such a solution automatically organizes absorptions in a certain sequence to maximize the number of axioms for absorptions. Compared to a predetermined or fixed order of applying absorption techniques, the proposed framework benefits from the advantages to consider more absorption alternatives, which tends to be more flexible and effective.


identifier: Zhang, Yongning  (2008) On improving the performance of multihop wireless networks : concepts and methodologies.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Recently, wireless ad hoc networks have witnessed a remarkable interest. In such networks, the medium spatial reuse has a tremendous impact on the network performance, since it determines the number of concurrent transmissions and hence the network capacity. Although increasing spatial reuse can enhance the overall network performance, it raises the total interference level on the spectrum, therefore increasing the chance of collisions and adversely impacting the throughput. In this thesis, we optimize the network capacity of IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks through balancing the tradeoff between the level of spatial reuse and collisions in the network.  We propose a dynamic spatiotemporal algorithm using the joint control of carrier sensing threshold and contention window size (both are tunable parameters) in order to enhance the spatial reuse and optimize the overall network throughput. In order to efficiently decide which protocol parameter(s) to tune, we deem it necessary to first faithfully distinguish among the causes of frame loss. We propose an effective loss differentiation mechanism to separate packet losses due to collisions from those due to interference(s) and establish accordingly appropriate reactive methods. Simulation results have demonstrated the significant throughput gains that can be achieved by the proposed scheme.  We also present decentralized, localized heuristics in order to balance the tradeoff between exposed terminals and hidden terminals, through searching for the optimal transmission power and rate assignment (two other tunable parameters). Our simulation results indicate a remarkable performance for our proposed heuristics.


identifier: Sayles, Jesse  (2008) Tapaiitam : human modifications of the coast as adaptations to environmental change, Wemindji, eastern James Bay.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Concerns about environmental changes have prompted scholars to search for adaptation lessons and insights from local ecosystem-based management approaches. Unfortunately, Eurocentric misconceptions of wilderness persist as powerful obstacles to understanding and appreciating aboriginal land and resource management. This thesis provides a comprehensive case analysis of the James Bay Wemindji Crees' responses and adaptations to coastal change. Specifically, it examines how Crees modify the coast for subsistence resource harvesting, how these modifications and associated harvesting strategies are intended to function, and their significance for local and mainstream society. I investigate past (as far back as four-hundred years) and present land management practices, as well as future initiatives, through ethnographic methods, field surveys, and remote image measurements. Crees' local knowledge is shown to inform camp location decision-making and the maintenance and/or creation of hunting areas. A dynamic interplay of various bio-physical, socio-cultural, and technological factors is reflected through persistence and change in camp locations. A humanized landscape is further evidenced by the dikes, tillage areas, burnings, fish weirs, and forest-corridors that Cree construct to increase resource predictability. I show that Cree adaptations to environmental change are informed by a commitment to maintaining tradition while also embracing contemporary opportunities. Cree resource management also seeks to harmonize investments in place by opposing or delaying environmental change, while remaining flexible and open to experimentation in accordance with change. The resulting relationships between Crees and their environment have immediate implications for Wemindji Cree efforts to establish a local-management based protected area. These relationships are also instructional for mainstream society as it grapples to find appropriate responses and adaptations to environmental change.


identifier: Islam, Salekul  (2008) Participant access control in IP multicasting.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: IP multicast is best-known for its bandwidth conservation and lower resource utilization. The classical multicast model makes it impossible to restrict access to authorized End Users (EU) or paying receivers and to forward data originated by an authorized sender(s) only. Without an effective participant (i.e., receivers and sender(s)) access control, an adversary may exploit the existing IP multicast model, where a host can join or send any multicast group without prior authentication and authorization. The Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) protocols are being used successfully, in unicast communication, to control access to network resources. AAA protocols can be used for multicast applications in a similar way. In this thesis, a novel architecture is presented for the use of AAA protocols to manage IP multicast group access control, which enforces authentication, authorization and accounting of group participants. The AAA framework has been deployed by implementing the Network Access Server (NAS) functionalities inside the Access Router (AR). The proposed architecture relates access control with e-commerce communications and policy enforcement.  The Internet Group Management Protocol with Access Control (IGMP-AC), an extended version of the IGMPv3, has been developed for receiver access control. The IGMP-AC, which encapsulates Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) packets, has been modeled in PROMELA, and has also been verified using SPIN. Finally, the security properties of an EAP method, EAP Internet Key Exchange, have been validated using AVISPA. Protocol for Carrying Authentication for Network Access, a link-layer agnostic protocol that encapsulates EAP packets, has been deployed to authenticate a sender that establishes an IPsec Security Association between the sender and the AR to cryptographically authenticate each packet. Next, a policy framework has been designed for specifying and enforcing the access control policy for multicast group participants.  The access control architecture has been extended to support inter-domain multicast groups by deploying Diameter agents that discover network entities located in remote domains and securely transport inter-domain AAA information. Furthermore, the inter-domain data distribution tree has been protected from several attacks generated by a compromised network entity (e.g., router, host) by deploying a Multicast Security Association. Finally, the scope of receiver access control architecture and IGMP-AC has been broadened by demonstrating the usability of IGMP-AC in wireless networks for mobile receiver (or EU) access control. In addition, using the EAP Re-authentication Protocol (ERP), a secured and fast handoff procedure of mobile EUs in wireless networks has been developed


identifier: Chen, Chang  (2008) Dynamic modeling and control of hybrid ground source heat pump systems.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems are one of the fastest growing applications of renewable energy in the world with annual increases of 10% over the past decade. GSHPs are potentially more efficient than conventional air-to-air heat pumps as they use the relatively constant temperature of the geothermal energy to provide heating or cooling to conditioned rooms at desired temperature and relative humidity. More importantly, GSHP systems can in fact achieve significant energy savings year round, compared to conventional HVAC systems.  A hybrid ground source heat pump (HGSHP) system is designed in this study to heat and cool an office building all the year round. Dynamic models of each component of the heat pump system are developed for simulations of heat transfer between each component of the HGSHP system and for control strategy design and analysis. A detailed multiple-load aggregation algorithm (MLAA) is adapted from the literature to precisely account for and calculate the transient heat conduction in vertical ground heat exchangers with different yearly, monthly, and daily pulses of heat. Feedback PI controllers for heat pump units and On/Off controllers for boiler and cooling tower are designed and utilized to match anticipated building loads and to analyze transient response characteristics of such outputs as water flow rate and air flow rate of heat pumps, return water temperature and supply air temperature of heat pumps, water temperatures of ground loops and heat exchangers, water temperature of boiler or cooling tower, and fuel flow rate of boiler. Control strategies for the HGSHP system in both heating and cooling modes of operation are also introduced to study the system responses. With the usage of On/Off controllers and well-tuned PI controllers, as well as optimal control strategies for heating and cooling operations, the HGSHP system is expected to give better operating performance and efficiency. As a result, noticeable energy savings can be achieved in both heating and cooling modes of operation


identifier: Coffey, Brian  (2008) A development and testing framework for simulation-based supervisory control with application to optimal zone temperature ramping demand response using a modified genetic algorithm.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: There is a growing demand for integrated control strategies for building systems with numerous responsive elements, such as solar shading devices, thermal storage and hybrid ventilation systems. Simulation-based supervisory control is a promising way of approaching this challenge. The essential idea is to use detailed building simulation real-time within a supervisory control system to test possible set-point configurations at each controller time-step before choosing the best configuration to use in the building. This dissertation presents a flexible software framework for simulation-based supervisory control, along with a modified genetic algorithm developed for use within it, and applies it to a case study of demand response by zone temperature ramping in an office space. Rule-based and simulation-based control variants are studied by using a two-model configuration (one acting as the 'real' building, the other being used within the simulation-based control framework). For the case study, simulation-based control was found to perform only slightly better than a logarithmic rule-based approach under ideal conditions, and worse under conditions of model or prediction inaccuracies. The results are of use in guiding further research, and the case study itself has been a good test of the software framework, which can be further developed and should be useful in future simulation-based control research.


identifier: Bauer, Isabelle  (2008) Management of life regrets in young adulthood and old age : the roles of social comparisons and disengagement through disclosure.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.


identifier: Beaman, Amanda  (2008) The role of emotional awareness, and positive and negative social support in predicting well-being in recent retirees.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Social support has been shown to enhance adjustment to retirement. Continuity theorists propose that retirees rely on internal dispositions and skills as a "continuity strategy" to maintain consistency in support and well-being despite disruptions to social networks, yet such skills have not been examined to date. Also, despite research indicating a disproportionate impact of negative support on well-being, retirement studies have relied heavily on measures of positive support. The present research employed structural equation modeling to assess "emotional awareness" as a putative socio-emotional skill underlying positive and negative support and well-being longitudinally, in recent retirees. The mediating role of perceived satisfaction with support was also examined. Two studies were employed to test three main hypotheses: (1) emotional awareness is a socio-emotional skill employed by retirees to maintain consistency in the frequency of positive and negative interactions; (2) negative interactions will have a stronger impact on well-being in retirement than positive interactions (i.e., a "negativity effect"), and (3) the impact of positive and negative interactions will be partially mediated by perceived satisfaction with support. In study 1, cross-sectional results indicated that emotional awareness facilitated positive, but did not mitigate negative interactions. Negative interactions had more potent effects on well-being than both positive interactions and perceived satisfaction with support, suggesting a strong "negativity effect". Also perceived satisfaction partially mediated the impact of positive and negative interactions on well-being. Study 2 assessed the aforementioned relationships longitudinally. Emotional awareness facilitated positive interactions in early retirement, leading to improved satisfaction with support and well-being longitudinally. Negative interactions exerted more potent effects on well-being than positive support, suggesting a strong "negativity effect" in retirement longitudinally. Perceived satisfaction with support did not mediate the relationships between positive and negative support and well-being longitudinally. Implications for research and intervention are discussed.


identifier: Demke-Pettigrew, Tamara  (2008) Infants' understanding of the epistemic nature of eye gaze during the second year of life.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The current thesis explored infants' implicit understanding of mental states during the second year of life. The first paper focused on infants' appreciation of the relationship between visual perception and knowledge. Based on an interactive search task, 24-month-olds demonstrated an understanding that people's eyes need to be unobstructed in order for them to be connected to the external world. Using a preferential looking paradigm, 18-month-olds predicted different behavior as a function of a person's visual experience. The second paper employed the preferential looking paradigm to investigate 18-month-olds' attributions of knowledge or ignorance when looking behavior was displayed by a person or a humanoid robot. Infants predicted different behavior as a function of the person's visual experience, while they did not demonstrate this expectation in the robot condition. The third paper explored infants' understanding of the epistemic nature of eye gaze within the context of a word learning task (Baldwin, 1993). In three experiments 18-month-olds were exposed to either a human or robot speaker who uttered novel labels for unfamiliar objects under two different eye gaze conditions. While infants followed the eye gaze of the non-human speaker, they did not use the robot speaker's eye gaze cues to determine the correct referent of novel words, even when contingent interaction was added. When the speaker was human, infants used the speaker's eye gaze to determine the correct referent.  Together, the findings from the studies presented in this dissertation suggest that by 18 months, infants possess an implicit appreciation of the relationship between visual perception and knowledge. The results also provide evidence for the notion that by 18 months, the scope of infants' concept of mentalistic agent has narrowed relative to that demonstrated by younger infants


identifier: Lawford, Heather  (2008) The role of attachment and caregiving in the emergence of generativity from early to middle adolescence.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Generativity, defined as care and concern for future generations as a legacy of the self, has typically only been studied in midlife samples (Erikson, 1959/1969). This research includes two studies that examine the presence of generative concern in early to middle adolescence.  The first study examined the reliability and validity of the Loyola Generativity Scale (LGS; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992) as a measure of generative concern, changes in generative concern over time in adolescents (N=138) from age 14 to 16 years old, and associations of adolescent generative concern with adjustment, attachment style, parenting style, and maternal generative concern. As in studies of non-parent midlife adults, adolescents' generative concern was associated with depressive symptoms and self-esteem, and girls reported higher generative concern than boys. Adolescents' generative concern was also associated with adolescent reports of warm parenting and with maternal generative concern. Although generative concern did not increase over time, higher levels were associated with lower anxious attachment. In addition, inverse associations between attachment anxiety and generative concern were stronger for individuals who reported low avoidant attachment than when avoidance was high. Also, changes in generative concern over time were associated somewhat differently with attachment avoidance for boys than for girls.  The second study examined the longitudinal associations between generative concern and caregiving behaviours towards peers in the same early to middle adolescent sample. Results indicated that early caregiving behaviours predicted generative concern one year later, while early generative concern did not predict later caregiving behaviours. Thus evidence suggests that caregiving behaviour with friends promotes the development of generative concern.  In conclusion, both studies highlight the importance of studying generative concern in adolescence, and suggest that positive relationships with parents and positive behaviour with peers contribute to early generative concern. That is, both a non-anxious attachment style, as well as the caregiving behaviours appear to promote early generative concern. It is hoped that this research will contribute to promoting and maintaining generativity from adolescence into adulthood


identifier: Donovan, Joan  (2008) A history of stigma : towards a sociology of mental illness and American psychiatry.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Using genealogical discourse analysis, this project examines how American psychiatrists utilized the concept of stigma in The American Journal of Psychiatry as it relates to illness and treatment from 1846-2007. Once historicized, stigma takes the form of four themes, i.e. the stigma of psychiatric practice, euphemistic stigma, the stigma of treatment, and the stigma of mental ilhness. These themes each result in numerous strategies to diminish their effects in the population and the individual patient through national campaigns to combat stigma.  This thesis also identifies the role of an emerging medicalization of mental illness' stigma and how this medicalization has specific implications for psychiatric treatment and social inclusion. The alignment of stigma alongside particular diagnostic categories has far reaching consequences as it attempts to circumvent the critical discourse which began with the anti-psychiatry movement in the 1960s. In this way, this thesis reveals American psychiatry's effort to de-stigmatize itself through campaigns to reduce the stigma of mental illness.


identifier: Liu, Shi Yuan  (2008) Chinese independent immigrants in Montreal : staying or leaving?  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Canadian immigration policy is regarded as an integral part of government planning and is influenced by the high demand for immigration and Canadian values as articulated in the legislation itself. This thesis examines the Canadian immigration laws with particular emphasis on the selection criteria for independent immigrants. It then analyses the integration barriers and assimilation experiences of Chinese immigrants who came to Montréal in the Skilled Worker Class after July 2002. It identifies reasons why many Chinese immigrants leave Montréal within 5 years from their arrival and provides recommendations for policy makers of how to reach the immigration objectives while minimizing the opportunity loss caused by underutilization of immigrants' skills.


identifier: Alam, Shaikh Noora  (2007) Modeling of photocurrent transient response in a-Si:H pixel sensor for diagnostic implications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Amorphous silicon based sensor technology transcends the limits of conventional imaging and is the foundation for innovative solutions in radiology. Biometric detections, clean power generations, preventive security, bulk production monitoring, NDT (nondestructive testing) and PACS (picture archival and communication system) facilitated remote analysis etc, all benefits can be provided by AMFP (active matrix flat panel) hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) imaging sensors. Creative designs and innovative digital approach of a-Si:H sensors could ensure defined promise for exciting new generation of cost-effective, reliable, and real-time x-ray imaging pixel sensor. This research pursued to model such a visionary device to comply these challenges and to meet efficient, compact and flexible x-ray image detector into integral readout arena. In this thesis, primarily present a numerical model of transient photoresponse for a-Si:H pixel photodiode in active matrix 2-D environments. In numerical model, we considered all possible charge transport properties such as carriers drifting, trappings/de-trappings and recombination. The architecture configured as p-i-n structured a-Si:H photodiode and addressed by thin film pass transistor and integrated with charge storage capacitor. This work also includes quantitative study, test, and characterize the combined effects of the photodiode with varying geometry, and operating conditions by a customized simulator. The simulator code has written based on numerical model equations. Therefore, the simulator itself a model device and is operable in soft-hand environment to realize true device before fabrication. Our soft-hand experimental set up is based on indirect conversion principle and overall architecture is AMFP detection system.


identifier: Bennell, Sean  (2008) Going local for a change : towards a community food security approach to farm-to-university development at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In rural and urban communities across North America, signs that our modern food system is failing our farmers, our environment, our health and our poor are growing painfully apparent. Now that we find ourselves at the brink, an appetite for change has started to develop. Farm-to-university programs are among a new crop of food system alternatives designed to change food and agriculture from the ground-up. Regarded as the planned efforts to connect universities with local farms, farm-to-university is intended to benefit farmers with fair and stable markets while making local sustainable food more accessible to members of university communities.  As an initial assessment of the possibilities for farm-to-university at Concordia University, this community food planning study was an attempt to identify stakeholder interests as well as potential barriers and opportunities to development. Using a community food security framework focused on partnership, program and policy development, this thesis sought to connect with relevant and diverse stakeholders from both inside and outside the University. Based on stakeholder interviews, student surveys and an analysis of produce purchasing data, this study found that Concordia University needs new purchasing and supply structures that can effectively link food services and farmers in order to become a reliable market for local sustainable food. Perhaps more importantly, it found that Concordia University needs to see itself as part of the solution and ultimately redefine its current relationship with food to become a force for change. Based on these findings, the study identifies several topics for future research.


identifier: Sedore, Kimberley Ann Clark  (2008) Trick or re-treat : towards a new treasure-seeking ethic in Canada's north.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This project explores the notion that the summer camping community in Dawson City, Yukon, epitomizes the possibility that the retreat and the quest, often considered distinct forms of travel and discovery, are closely related in the contemporary Canadian context.  The journey North to Dawson City--a town and region famous for the Klondike Gold Rush and treasure-seeking--is akin to a rite of passage and to the questing patterns that are evident in many myths of heroism. Every hero reckons with a threat and saves the day. While boreal "wilderness" has traditionally been depicted as potentially dangerous and challenging terrain, the location of the threat has shifted significantly over the past three or four decades in North America. Pollution and the rat race are the new raging river and pack of wolves. Framed in this way, the hero's quest for adventure and treasure shares a seat with the weakling's retreat.  I believe that what has been referred to as "the Myth of the North" is intact to this day. The symbolic structure of the North is communicated by oral tradition and in text through story, song, slang, and fashion. A limen is a margin and a threshold and discussions of the Canadian North are at home in the field of religious studies when we conceptualize the North as liminal space and place. The North is physically liminal as the end of the road, politically liminal as a colonial state and conceptually liminal as a frontier.  The following writing has been largely inspired by the conversations and scenery that I experienced upon my three-time journey to Dawson City. The ideas presented in this paper have developed from a combination of text-based and primary research, largely informed by the theories of anthropologist Victor Turner and by my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances in Dawson.


identifier: Sobahni-Tehrani, Ehsan  (2008) Fault detection, isolation, and identification for nonlinear systems using a hybrid approach.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis presents a novel integrated hybrid approach for fault diagnosis (FD) of nonlinear systems; taking advantage of both system's mathematical model and the adaptive nonlinear approximation capability of computational intelligence techniques. Unlike most FD techniques, the proposed solution simultaneously accomplishes fault detection, isolation, and identification (FDII) within a unified diagnostic module. At the core of this solution are a bank of adaptive neural parameter estimators (NPE) and a set of single-parameterized fault models. The NPEs continuously estimate unknown fault parameters (FP) that are indicators of faults in the system. In view of the availability of full-state measurements, two NPE structures, namely series-parallel and parallel, are developed with their exclusive set of desirable attributes. The parallel scheme is extremely robust to measurement noise and possesses a simpler, yet more solid, fault isolation logic. On the contrary, the series-parallel scheme displays short FD delays and is robust to closed-loop system transients due to changes in control commands. Simple neural network architecture and update laws make both schemes suitable for real-time implementations. A fault tolerant observer (FTO) is then designed to extend the FDII schemes to systems with partial-state measurement. The proposed FTO is a neural state estimator that can estimate unmeasured states even in presence of faults. The estimated and the measured states then comprise the inputs to the FDII schemes. Simulation results for FDII of reaction wheels of a 3-axis stabilized satellite in presence of disturbances and noise demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed FDII solution under both full and partial-state measurements.