identifier: Chambers-Tripunitara, Patricia  (2013) A Self Study of Changing Art Education Pedagogy in Mid-Career: Possibilities, Impediments and Insights.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
When art teachers are asked to adopt a different teaching pedagogy, often little thought is given to the impact that those changes have on the lives of those teachers.  This thesis answers the question: What are the possibilities and impediments of an experienced art teacher choosing to change art education pedagogy in mid-career?  The author, a mid-career art educator investigates the experience of making a fundamental change to her teaching pedagogy. Drawing from the literature of holistic art education, pre-service elementary generalists in art methods courses, self-study methodology and grounded theory methods of analysis, this thesis documents the author’s transition between teaching styles.

Having successfully taught in a teacher-centered/authoritarian style for nearly 15 years, she rewrote her pedagogy based on the literature of holistic art education, emphasizing a more student-centered teaching method.  She then attempted to apply this new pedagogy while teaching an art methods course for pre-service elementary generalist teachers. The structure of this study is based on weekly, audio-recorded self-interviews she conducted after each class. These audio-recordings were used to track her emotional and cognitive responses as she worked toward integrating her new teaching pedagogy into practice.

This study uncovers the feelings of vulnerability, stress and mental and physical fatigue the author experienced as a result from making these changes. Yet opportunities for growth are revealed as well. She gained new insights into the experiences of her students, a better understanding of how to navigate change in the classroom and a renewed sense of purpose to her teaching practice.
	Drawing from these findings, the author presents a model for self-directed, holistic change to art education pedagogy that can help art teachers embrace and navigate change in their own classrooms.

This dissertation concludes with suggestions for future research in the following areas: the lives of mid-to-late career art educators whose voices are absent from the literature of art education; the notion of vulnerability in the lives of pre-service and early-career art teachers; and a longitudinal study on the long-term impact of holistic/student-centered art education pedagogy and elementary generalist teachers.


identifier: Herrmann-Bell, Bevin  (2013) Asserting, Renewing, and Expanding: The Littérisation of Contemporary Haitian Literature.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract:
As a result of the “cultural turn” in translation studies, attention has shifted away from the back and forth study of source and target text and has begun to consider the many complexities that go into shaping a nation’s cultural space, as well as how literature, translations, and other expressions of culture are embedded within their social contexts. In studying the emergence of various types of translations in their respective socio-political contexts, it becomes apparent the production of these literary goods is influenced by both internal and external constraints on the literary system. This can be witnessed in the form of internal class, race, and power struggles, or the intrusion of external elements in the form of colonialism, post- and neo-colonialism, or the unequal distribution of symbolic capital held by monolithic literary and creative markets. However, these literary products can also play an important role in shaping the system itself.
This is especially true of emerging literary markets such as Haiti’s, where translations have often served as significant motivators for the development of an indigenous literary system as writers and translators respond to their postcolonial, socio-cultural, and political realities. Yet, while these creative and political (re)writing processes help to build an initial cultural capital for the emerging literary system, international consecration by way of competitive literary awards and translation into major languages brings otherwise marginalized national literary cultures into the realm of World Literature. In her seminal work, The World Republic of Letters, Pascale Casanova calls this process littérisation.
This thesis aims to trace one of the paths for the littérisation of contemporary Haitian literature. In so doing, I hope to reveal the significant role translation has played in propelling Haitian literature into the international domain. I will begin by describing the first examples of written Kreyòl through the early translations of French source texts. Next, I will discuss the push by writers like Félix Morisseau-Leroy to establish Kreyòl as a vehicle of popular poetics through the use of adversarial translations of Western Classics. In the following section, I will cover the growth and expansion of Kreyòl and popular poetics into new literary genres through the postmodernist rewritings of Frankétienne. Finally, I will explore how Haitian literature has had to translate new linguistic and cultural realities in the diasporic writings of Edwidge Danticat, leading me to conclude with where Haitian literature stands internationally today. The thesis will focus on specific instances where these Haitian writers mediated their particular circumstances through translation, resulting in watershed moments in the evolution of the literary system, and ultimately allowing for Haitian literature to rapidly evolve and expand over the course of the past century.


identifier: Ralevski, Alexandra  (2013) The Interaction of Early Salt Stress-Induced 2 (ESI2) and the Ran G Protein in Arabidopsis.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The Early Salt Stress-Induced 2 protein, ESI2, was identified as an interacting protein with the GTP-binding protein RAN via a His6-tag pull-down assay and by bimolecular fluorescent complementation. Fluorescent protein fusions transiently expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana were observed using confocal fluorescent microscopy.  The proteins fused to independent fluorescent partners localized to separate cellular compartments, with RAN primarily localized to the nucleus and ESI2 localized primarily to the tonoplast and cytoplasm. This interaction suggests a potential mechanism for the role of ESI2 in the sequestration of RAN and possible regulation of cell division in response to stress.  To further explore the role of ESI2, the protein was overexpressed in Arabidopsis however plant phenotypes were not found to differ from wild type plants.


identifier: Petrukhina, Kira  (2013) Effects of institutional distance on internationalization of SMEs.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Despite a big progress and increased attention to internationalization of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) among scholars, the relationship between institutional distance and sources of networking that SMEs utilize abroad remains uninvestigated. This study explored the impact of institutional differences between the host and home countries on the barriers that small enterprises face in the international markets and the composition of their networking ties. Subsequent analysis examined the moderating effects of firm’s maturity and previous experience in internationalization. The research was conducted with a help of World Bank database where the sample consisted of 357 SMEs with established operations in the European region. The results demonstrated positive relationship between the institutional distance and the level of challenges firms experience abroad. It also provides insights about institutional impact on the perceived importance of various sources of networking suggesting that SME owners from institutionally distance countries rely more on the strong inside connections such as friends and family. However with time they see more benefits in the outside, more formal sources of networking. These results highlight the value of the institutional environment in explaining networking activities of SMEs in the process of internationalization and can be applied by other scholars in different industry settings and cross-country comparisons.


identifier: Nakayama, Haruka  (2013) Application of Dynamic Mesh Method in CFD to Engineering Designs of Needle-Free Liquid Jet Injector and Diaphragm-less Shock Tube.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Many engineering devices have dynamic components and hence, their computational models are no longer fixed in space and time. In these cases, dynamic mesh method is often applied to analyze their motion or unsteady fluid dynamics around/inside them. This study deals with the engineering application of CFD particularly using dynamic mesh methods to simulate firstly the compressible transient flow in a needle-less liquid jet injector for biomedical application and secondly, the performance of a diaphragm-less shock tube design for investigation of high-speed compressible gas dynamics. The CFD software OpenFOAM® is used as the main research tool to carry out this study.
For the first application, the dynamic behavior of the liquid jet is approximated using multi-phase compressible immiscible fluids LES solver together with the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method for the interface capturing. The liquid retained in the injector chamber is impacted by the moving grid boundary to mimic the injector piston driven by the driver air pressure; and the high speed liquid jet is emitted to atmosphere region though a nozzle. Numerical results are validated and discussed by comparing with experimental measurements. Performance plots as a function of various injector parameters are constructed and explained.
The second application concerns with the diaphragm-less shock tube design which consists of an outer tube contained with high pressure and an inner one with low pressure.
A particular design of diaphragm-less shock tube utilizes a rapid opening sleeve to mimic the rupture of a diaphragm which is traditionally used to separate the two pressure region. Applying CFD with dynamic mesh to the sleeve motion contributes to the analysis of the process of shock wave generation in this device and the shock tube parameters such as opening time of the sleeve for reliable performance.
It is proven in this work that the numerical CFD models with dynamic mesh can accurately predict the performance of both engineering devices and provide a useful tool
to analyze which parameters most significantly impact the performances.


identifier: Hebert, Max  (2013) The Impact of Audiovisual Speech on Working Memory During Semantic Processing.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The current study investigated the relation between the bottom-up mechanism of audiovisual speech perception and top-down mechanism of semantic integration, with specific attention paid to working memory (WM). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 28 younger adult participants to determine if the neurophysiological reaction to semantic language information (or the absence of it) could be modified by presenting speech in an audiovisual modality or in the auditory modality alone, with the prediction being that audiovisual speech would provide a benefit to processing sentences with an absence of semantic information. The N400 ERP component, a neural indicator of the effortful processing of semantic content, was observed to determine this reaction. Initial analyses did not reveal an interaction between speech modality and degree of semantic content, but a subsequent grouping of participants based upon individual WM capacity yielded significant results. In the auditory modality it was found that while participants with a high WM capacity were able to utilize semantic content to reduce the N400 amplitude, low WM participants had a higher amplitude N400 for both low-constraint for acceptance (LC) and high constraint for acceptance (HC) sentences, indicating significant processing demands. Conversely in the audiovisual modality, low WM participants displayed a reduction in N400 amplitude similar to high WM participants for HC sentences, indicating that the addition of visual speech cues assisted in maintaining the semantic content. The results are discussed with regards to implications for maintaining face-to-face communication, particularly for those individuals with lower WM capacities.


identifier: Ahmad, Shimi Naurin  (2013) Emotions and Topics in Online Word of Mouth: Application of Latent Semantic Analysis.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The Web has changed the way that consumers express their opinions. They can now post reviews of products and express their opinions on almost anything on the websites. Potential customers often search online for product information and they often have access to hundreds of product reviews from other customers. Some of the reviews are found to be more helpful than other reviews as evidenced the potential customer’s helpfulness vote. This online word-of-mouth (WOM) behavior represents new and measurable sources of information.
Recent research has shown that helpfulness votes of customer reviews can have a positive influence on sales. While it is clear that helpfulness vote of a review is important, less is known about why certain pieces of online review are more helpful than others. Despite the fact that, customers encounter a variety of emotions in a purchase situation and those emotions are likely to be documented in the review, few researches have investigated how emotions elicited by the review affect the helpfulness of the review beyond the valence. Do discrete emotions have differential informational value in this case? Based on cognitive appraisal theory, in the first essay of this dissertation, I examine how specific emotions (hope, happiness, anxiety, disgust etc.) embedded in the review affect the helpfulness votes of potential customer. I adopt a quantitative content analysis (Latent Semantic Analysis) approach to measure emotions in these reviews.
In the second essay of the dissertation, I explore how the topics of online reviews differ between positive and negative reviews. Examination of real product reviews shows that there are thematic differences between them. Also, service related complains are found to be more helpful by potential customers. This enables us to better understand the conceptual differences in WOM .
Lastly, in the third essay, I compare two text mining techniques: Latent Semantic Analysis and Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) in extracting common themes in the positive and negative product reviews. Results shows that the choice of text mining approaches should be based on the goal of the marketing researcher. If the goal is to learn about a specific brand, PLSA might reveal more specific information. However, if the goal is to learn about important aspects of a broader product category, LSA works better in terms of interpretability.


identifier: Desrosiers, Graeme  (2013) Sit Down, Stand Up.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Sit Down, Stand Up

abstract: Sit Down, Stand Up is the story of Jamie Milan, a creatively and financially frustrated young man who has moved from Vancouver to Montreal to pursue a romantic relationship with folksinger Amy Webb and, he hopes, a career in stand up comedy. The novella begins with the abrupt end of his relationship and details his attempts to win Amy back. The action takes place in several bars and performance venues around the city, as well as the soap factory where Jamie works for low wages and interacts with a group of immigrant co-workers. It explores Jamie’s attempts to develop a more mature attitude towards women, and people in general, and to overcome his insecurities and find a creative voice. It is also a novella about failures of communication, and about the occasional successes that occur despite the many barriers that exist between the characters.


identifier: Moore, Travis Roger  (2013) Quantifying the extent of change in extreme weather events in response to global warming.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Weather extremes have been documented in the context of a warming climate in association with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. However, there remains much uncertainty as to how these extreme events will respond to future climate warming. In particular, climate modeling studies have predicted changes in the frequency and severity of weather extremes, and the range of changes reported in the literature is very large, and sometimes contradictory, as the nature of many extreme weather phenomena is not fully understood. This uncertainty stems, in part, from the limited ability of coarse resolution climate models to accurately measure and simulate weather events that occur at the microscale level, such as tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. However, some of the range of results reported originates simply from a wide variety of scenarios of future climate change used to drive climate model simulations, which hampers our ability to make generalizations about predicted changes in extreme weather events. The goal of this study is to conduct a meta-analysis of the literature on projected future extreme weather events, so as to identify trends, using global mean temperature change as a common frame of reference. Results indicate that global warming could significantly alter the behavior of multiple extreme weather events, such as mid-latitude drought, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, as well as the selected important meteorological variables that engender them, into the 21st century.


identifier: Gomez-Perez, Alejandra  (2013) Empirical Testing of the Evolutionary Theories of Aging Using Laboratory-Evolved Yeast Mutants with Extended Lifespan.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: We recently conducted a multistep selection of long-lived yeast mutants by a lasting exposure to lithocholic acid, a longevity-extending natural compound. Three selected long-lived mutant strains, called 3, 5 and 12, were able to maintain their extended lifespans following numerous passages in medium lacking lithocholic acid. In studies described in this thesis I demonstrated that the greatly extended longevity of each of the three long-lived yeast mutants evolved under laboratory conditions is a dominant polygenic trait caused by mutations in more than two genes. To empirically validate evolutionary theories of programmed or non-programmed aging and age-related death, I investigated if the dominant mutations that extend longevity of each of the three long-lived yeast mutants evolved under laboratory conditions influence early-life fitness when each of these mutants grows and ages alone, in the absence of a parental wild-type yeast strain that does not carry longevity-extending mutations. My studies revealed that these mutations (1) do not affect such key traits of early-life fitness as the exponential growth rate, efficacy of post-exponential growth and fecundity of yeast cells; and (2) enhance such key traits of early-life fitness as cell susceptibility to chronic exogenous stresses, mitochondria-controlled apoptosis triggered by a brief exposure to exogenous hydrogen peroxide, and lipoptotic form of death triggered by a short-term exposure to exogenous palmitoleic acid. These findings provide irrefutable proof of evolutionary theories of aging based on the concept of programmed aging and age-related death and invalidate evolutionary theories of non-programmed aging and age-related death. I then examined if the dominant mutations that extend longevity of each of the three long-lived yeast mutants evolved under laboratory conditions influence the relative fitness of each of these mutants in a direct competition assay with a parental wild-type strain. This assay mimics under various laboratory conditions the process of natural selection within a mixed population of yeast cells that (1) exhibit different longevity-defining genetic backgrounds; (2) differ in their lifespans if grow as a genetically homogenous cell population; and (3) compete for nutrients and other environmental resources. I found that in a population of mixed cells grown on 1% ethanol the dominant mutations that extend longevity of the three long-lived yeast mutants 3, 5 and 12 reduce the relative fitness of each of them in a direct competition assay with a parental wild-type strain. Based on these findings, I concluded that under laboratory conditions mimicking the process of natural selection within an ecosystem composed of yeast cells having different longevity-defining genetic backgrounds, each of the three long-lived mutants is forced out of the ecosystem by a parental wild-type strain exhibiting shorter lifespan. My findings imply that (1) yeast cells have evolved some mechanisms for limiting their lifespan upon reaching a certain chronological age; and (2) these mechanisms drive the evolution of yeast longevity towards maintaining a finite yeast lifespan within ecosystems. I hypothesize that these mechanisms may consist in the ability of a parental wild-type strain to secrete into an ecosystem certain compounds (small molecules and/or proteins) that slow down growth and/or kill long-lived yeast mutants within this ecosystem.


identifier: Folk, Michelle L.  (2013) Ascetics, Devotees, Disciples and Lords of the Maṭam: Monasteries in Medieval Tamilnadu.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The maṭam is understood in scholarly studies as an institution of asceticism and monasticism in Hinduism. The term maṭam can refer to caravansaries, choultries, rest houses, or monasteries for ascetics. While diverse in their functions and teachings, maṭams have historically shared the common characteristic of the teacher-disciple relationship and lineage. The maṭam emerged in the stone inscriptions from the South Indian region of Tamilnadu in the ninth century of the Common Era as one of the many institutions that received patronage from citizens to support its people and activities. While the inscriptions reveal the activities of maṭams, scholars have instead focused on tracing the lineages of maṭams in the Tamil region without examining the inscriptions for what they say about the people who lived in maṭams or frequented them occasionally.
This thesis examines the stone inscriptions from the ninth through thirteenth centuries for what they can tell us about the people who participated in maṭams and the activities that these institutions undertook. Ascetics, devotees, disciples, and “lords of the maṭam” (maṭamuṭaiya) were among the maṭam community and benefitted from maṭams’ services. These same maṭam people were also one of the many kinds of people who served the temple complex in medieval Tamilnadu. The term maṭam is representative of diverse people and activities, and the inscriptions reveal that the maṭam in the Chola period was as varied in South India as the name suggests.


identifier: Emma, Kreiner  (2013) Saint-Henri and the Urban Uncanny: A Comparative Analysis of Hubert Aquin’s À Saint Henri le cinq septembre (1962), and Shannon Walsh’s Saint-Henri The 26th of August (2011).  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis is a comparative study of two documentary films made in and about the Montreal neighbourhood of Saint-Henri. Hubert Aquin’s À Saint Henri le cinq septembre (1962), and Shannon Walsh’s homage, Saint-Henri The 26th of August (2011) are at the centre of my investigation, which is concerned with the multifaceted ways these films represent, and sometimes, create uncanny effects in Saint-Henri. Its mediated uncanniness is discussed in psychological, technological and architectural terms. I explore the various methods used by the directors in their respective modern and postmodern approaches to represent the physical spaces of Saint-Henri, as well as the people who inhabited this post-industrial (1962), and now quickly gentrifying (2002) neighbourhood. Produced almost fifty years apart, these films exemplify transformations in both documentary film and community studies during this period. An examination of the connections between film, geography, economy, and the social and architectural make-up of neighbourhood, this thesis is a study of a community that, I argue, has been consistently under threat.


identifier: Berthiaume, Jean-Michel  (2012) Concaténation en continu : manifestations de la métafiction en bande dessinée.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Concaténation en continu : manifestations de la métafiction en bande dessinée
Jean-Michel Berthiaume
Au cours des dernières années, le Québec s’est inscrit dans une mouvance internationale qui valorise et encourage la recherche savante en bande dessinée par un nombre croissant de colloques, de mémoires et de thèses portant sur le neuvième art. Ce mémoire s’inscrit dans cette réflexion par l’analyse croisée de deux œuvres, deux univers et deux sensibilités distinctes qui se rejoignent néanmoins dans le geste de l’autoréflexivité métanarrative. Le mémoire répertorie les stratégies et les instances de métafiction en bande dessinée, soit Animal Man de Grant Morrison qui s’inscrit dans le canon du comicbook superhéroïque et les recueils de Jean-Paul Eid de la série Bungalopolis, qui sont issus de la bande dessinée en strips.
Le mémoire puise à la fois dans la théorie de la bande dessinée, la théorie littéraire et l’analyse du théâtre. Certains aspects de la mise en scène, de la disposition des éléments visuels, de leurs jeux narratifs ainsi que du bris, somme toute brechtien, du quatrième mur sont autant d’éléments explorés afin de dresser des parallèles entre le fonctionnement de la bande dessinée et celui de la mise en scène théâtrale.
La métafiction en bande dessinée contemporaine, à partir des exemples de Morrison et d’Eid, est conçue sous deux formes : soit la métafiction de type centripète, qui tire tout vers son milieu, mettant en évidence les procédés de la création (métalepse et intrusion auctoriale), soit la métafiction de type centrifuge, qui repousse les éléments du centre, imposant des procédés métanarratifs tels la mise en abyme, le bris du quatrième mur et la présence autofictionelle.
Après un survol historique de la métafiction en bande dessinée, le présent mémoire propose, d’une part, l’analyse narrative de corpus superhéroïques et des strips absurdistes, puis s’interroge, d’autre part, sur la place qu’occupe l’expérimentation métafictionnelle dans la bande dessinée contemporaine.


identifier: liu, ken  (2013) Empirical test of structural model under time-varying volatility.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In trying to explain the “Credit Spread Puzzle”, we empirically examine two competing structural models: the Leland (1994b) constant volatility model and the Perrakis and Zhong (2013) Constant Elasticity of Variance (CEV) model. We use the Leland model as our benchmark and hypothesize that the CEV model under state-dependent volatility will outperform it. For our estimation, we incorporate firm level time series data from different markets. Our sample covers the period from 2001 to 2011.   We apply the General Method of Moment (GMM) for our estimation of the parameters of the diffusion process for the Leland and CEV models respectively. In our results, we document on average a significantly negative beta, the elasticity parameter in the Perrakis and Zhong CEV model. More importantly, we find that the CEV model can fit the historical data much better than the constant volatility Leland (1994b) model across all maturities, suggesting that the state-dependent volatility can explain the “Credit Spread Puzzle” to some extent.


identifier: Robichaud, Geneviève  (2013) Dialogues Between Elle, l'Auteure and l'Autre Followed by Dialogues entre Elle, l'Auteure et l'Autre.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

format: text audio audio

abstract: The three dialogues explore the possibilities of convergence in a bilingual work, namely in dialectical concepts such as “author” and “other”, “original” and “translation” – notions that the characters are also bound to question. Written in both English and Chiac, an Acadian French spoken in the south-east region of New-Brunswick that fuses Old French and contemporary English, the dialogues can be read as a continuation of the writing process where the bilingual text uses two language systems to complete its meaning, or as two separate linguistic versions that can be read as two autonomous and original creations. As the author-translator, I have allowed slippages to occur in-between the translations, which have the effect of creating a literal as well as a literary reference to the asymmetrical contact zone between English and French. As linguist Marie-Ève Perrot explains, “perceived by its speakers as a variety of the French language and a constituent of a French identity, Chiac offers a dual position in so far as it allows resistance to English (the dominant language) as well as to standard French (the dominant variety)” (My translation, 150). The Acadian author writing in Chiac is faced with two crucial challenges: the first is the problem of legitimizing the marginalized dialect as a language worthy of “literariness”; the second is the issue of reception; given Chiac’s limited use outside of Moncton it faces the problem of audience, which is why I’ve included a recording of two of the dialogues.


identifier: Biparva, Mahdi  (2013) Novel Multistage Probabilistic Kernel Modeling in Handwriting Recognition.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The design of handwriting recognition systems has been widely investigated in pattern recognition and machine learning literature. It was first attempted to enhance the system's performance by improving the recognition rate to reach $100\%$ which has not achieved yet. Despite the low misclassification error rate, there are still some misclassified test samples. This imposes a very high cost on the whole recognition system. The cost has to be reduced as much as possible which consequently leads to the consideration of reject option to prevent the recognition system from classifying test samples with high prediction uncertainty.

The main contribution of this thesis is to propose a novel multistage recognition system that is capable of producing true prediction probability outputs and then reject test samples accordingly. An argument is supported that principally formulated probabilistic classifiers are the best reliable candidates to be utilized in the consideration of reject option. The implementation of reject option based on either non-probabilistic classifier's output score or conversion to probability measures is prone to mistake when compared to an accurate prediction probability output.

The Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is utilized as the automatic feature extractor that can properly harness the spatial correlation of the input raw handwritten images and extract a feature vector with strong discriminative properties. The SVM is used as a powerful classifier to accurately deal with the issue of big data sets. The authentic intuition of extracting the most informative training samples by using the distinguished support vector set from the SVM is also proposed.

The Gaussian process classifier (GPC) in the Bayesian nonparametric modeling framework is introduced as the core element of the whole recognition system that can reliably provide an accurate estimate of the posterior probability of the class membership. Experiments under various inference methods, likelihood functions, covariance functions, and learning approaches are conducted in the hope of finding the best model configuration and parameterization. The models are evaluated on two popular handwritten numeral data sets known as MNIST and CENPARMI. The best GPC model in this multistage framework on MNIST can reach $100\%$ reliability rate with the lowest rejection rate of $1.48\%$, the best result achieved in the field.

Another inherently probabilistic classifier, known as relevance vector machine (RVM), is also investigated. The RVM is formulated through the sparse Bayesian linear modeling to classification problems and it produces reliable prediction probability outputs. However, In comparison of the GPC with RVM, this argument is experimentally supported that the sparsity is not capable of improving the rejection performance on the data sets.


identifier: Baghaki, Ali  (2013) Single-Microphone Speech Dereverberation based on Multiple-Step Linear Predictive Inverse Filtering and Spectral Subtraction.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Single-channel speech dereverberation is a challenging problem of deconvolution of reverberation, produced by the room impulse response, from the speech signal, when only one observation of the reverberant signal (one microphone) is available. Although reverberation in mild levels is helpful in perceiving the speech (or any audio) signal, the adverse effect of reverberation, particularly at high levels, could both deteriorate the performance of automatic recognition systems and make it less intelligible by humans. Single-microphone speech dereverberation is more challenging than multi-microphone speech dereverberation, since it does not allow for spatial processing of different observations of the signal.
A review of the recent single-channel dereverberation techniques reveals that, those based on LP-residual enhancement are the most promising ones. On the other hand, spectral subtraction has also been effectively used for dereverberation particularly when long reflections are involved. By using LP-residuals and spectral subtraction as two promising tools for dereverberation, a new dereverberation technique is proposed. The first stage of the proposed technique consists of pre-whitening followed by a delayed long-term LP filtering whose kurtosis or skewness of LP-residuals is maximized to control the weight updates of the inverse filter. The second stage consists of nonlinear spectral subtraction. The proposed two-stage dereverberation scheme leads to two separate algorithms depending on whether kurtosis or skewness maximization is used to establish a feedback function for the weight updates of the adaptive inverse filter.
It is shown that the proposed algorithms have several advantages over the existing major single-microphone methods, including a reduction in both early and late reverberations, speech enhancement even in the case of very high reverberation time, robustness to additive background noise, and introducing only a few minor artifacts. Equalized room impulse responses by the proposed algorithms have less reverberation times. This means the inverse-filtering by the proposed algorithms is more successful in dereverberating the speech signal. For short, medium and high reverberation times, the signal-to-reverberation ratio of the proposed technique is significantly higher than that of the existing major algorithms. The waveforms and spectrograms of the inverse-filtered and fully-processed signals indicate the superiority of the proposed algorithms. Assessment of the overall quality of the processed speech signals by automatic speech recognition and perceptual evaluation of speech quality test also confirms that in most cases the proposed technique yields higher scores and in the cases that it does not do so, the difference is not as significant as the other aspects of the performance evaluation. Finally, the robustness of the proposed algorithms against the background noise is investigated and compared to that of the benchmark algorithms, which shows that the proposed algorithms are capable of maintaining a rather stable performance for contaminated speech signals with SNR levels as low as 0 dB.


identifier: Korrai, PraveenKumar  (2013) PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT SCHEMES FOR TRANSMISSION OF WATERMARKED MEDICAL IMAGES OVER FADING CHANNELS.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT
Performance Analysis of Different Schemes for Transmission of Watermarked Medical images over Fading Channels
Praveen Kumar Korrai

In this thesis, we investigate different types of robust schemes for transmission of medical images with concealed patient information as a watermark. In these schemes, spatial domain digital watermarking technique is adapted to embed the patient information as a watermark into the lower order bits of the medical images to reduce the storage and transmission overheads. The watermark, which comprises text data, is encrypted to prevent unauthorized access of data. To enhance the robustness of the embedded information, the encrypted watermark is coded by concatenation of Reed Solomon (RS) and low density parity check (LDPC) codes. A robust scheme for transmission of watermarked images over impulsive noisy wireless channels is first proposed and its performance analyzed. In this scheme, the bursty wireless channel is simulated by adding impulse noise to the watermark embedded image. Furthermore, turbo channel coding is used to correct the transmission errors over impulsive noisy wireless channels.
However, single input single output (SISO) channel capacity is not enough to provide modern wireless services such as data and multimedia messaging services. Further, it is not reliable due to multipath fading. To overcome these problems, a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission scheme in which multiple antennas are used at both the transmitter and the receiver has emerged as one of the most significant technical breakthroughs in modern wireless communications. MIMO can improve the channel capacity and provide diversity gain. Hence, a scheme with a MIMO channel is proposed for the transmission of watermarked medical images over Rayleigh flat fading channels and its performance analyzed using MIMO maximum likelihood detector at the receiver.
We present another scheme, namely, MIMO space frequency block coded OFDM (MIMO SFBC OFDM) in this thesis for transmission of watermarked medical images over Rayleigh fading channels to mitigate the detrimental effects due to frequency selective fading. The performance of this  MIMO SFBC OFDM scheme is analyzed and compared with that of SISO-OFDM using minimum mean square error   V-BLAST- based detection at the receiver.
The efficacy of the different proposed schemes is illustrated through implementation results on watermarked medical images.


identifier: Parker, Robert  (2013) "Où est la Masse de Manoeuvre?": Maurice Gamelin and the Lessons of Blitzkrieg in Poland.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Abstract
“Où est la Masse de Manoeuvre?”: Maurice Gamelin and the Lessons of Blitzkrieg in Poland
Robert Parker
The spectacular defeat of the French army in May-June 1940 has invited a long tradition of criticism aimed at France’s Commander-in-Chief, Maurice Gamelin.  In particular, Gamelin’s strategy has been criticised for failing to provide a strong strategic reserve behind the French continuous front.  This thesis will endeavor to explain why the armies of France were left with no strategic reserve to counter the German breakthrough along the Meuse river on May 12th, 1940.   How could the French high command fail to provide the country with such a fundamental safeguard?
It will be argued that Gamelin’s strategy was deeply affected by the Polish campaign of September 1939.  This brief struggle had convinced him that the traditional use of strategic reserves had proven ineffective in a modern war.  This conviction, coupled with erroneous intelligence grossly exaggerating the extent of the German military buildup, caused Gamelin to gamble recklessly with the deployment of his armies.  His choice was to fortify France’s continuous front with the bulk of the country’s reserve forces in an attempt to receive the invader with the maximum concentration at the point of contact.  This would leave the country defenceless in the event of a breakthrough anywhere along its extended front. Gamelin’s gamble was thus an “all or nothing” proposition.  When the German army indeed broke through the center of his line, France’s generalissimo had no answer and in admitting the failure of his risky deployment, fell into an abject defeatism which paralysed attempts to stem the tide of German armor.


identifier: Laval, Miki  (2013) Everything's Just Wonderful.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Everything's Just Wonderful

abstract:
ABSTRACT
Everything’s Just Wonderful
Miki Laval

	My thesis is a collection of short stories that serves to highlight the psychological space revealed, altered, or bent in a moment of crisis. Influences include George Saunders, Etgar Keret, and Russell Banks and these authors’ ability to present and reveal contemporary personality through voice. The narrators in the collection vary in age from early twenties to late middle age and often have a false sense of the certainty of things. Once psychological conflict is placed in their path their self-talk reveals multilayered and conflicting rationales employed during a crisis. At times, a comic protagonist has a less dramatic but more ironic/traumatic encounter that still manages to disturb and unsettle them. Shorter pieces in the collection look at the commodification of beauty, as well narration itself as a product or service.


identifier: Zhou, Hongyan  (2013) Design and FPGA Implementation of OFDM System with Channel Estimation and Synchronization.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In wireless and mobile communications, multipath fading severely degrades the quality of information exchange. The orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology is able to provide a high transmission data rate with enhanced communication performance at a relatively small bandwidth cost, together with proper estimation and compensation of channel effects. Therefore, it has been widely applied in many wireless and mobile networks, especially for the state-of-the-art communication standards. The unique structure of OFDM signals and the application of discrete Fourier transform (DFT) algorithm have significantly simplified the digital implementation of OFDM system. Among different kinds of implementations, field programmable gate array (FPGA) is a very cost-effective and highly flexible solution, which provides superior system performance and enables easy system upgrade.
In this thesis, a baseband OFDM system with channel estimation and timing synchronization is designed and implemented using the FPGA technology. The system is prototyped based on the IEEE 802.11a standard and the signals is transmitted and received using a bandwidth of 20 MHz. With the help of the quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation, the system can achieve a throughput of 24 Mbps. Moreover, the least squares (LS) algorithm is implemented and the estimation of a frequency-selective fading channel is demonstrated. For the coarse estimation of timing, a modified maximum-normalized correlation (MNC) scheme is investigated and implemented. Starting from theoretical study, this thesis in detail describes the system design and verification on the basis of both MATLAB simulation and hardware implementation. Bit error rate (BER) verses bit energy to noise spectral density (Eb/N0) is presented in the case of different channels. In the meanwhile, comparison is made between the simulation and implementation results, which verifies system performance from the system level to the register transfer level (RTL).
First of all, the entire system is modeled in MATLAB and a floating-point model is established. Then, the fixed-point model is created with the help of Xilinx’s System Generator for DSP (XSG) and Simulink. Subsequently, the system is synthesized and implemented within Xilinx’s Integrated Software Environment (ISE) tools and targeted to Xilinx Virtex-5 board. What is more, a hardware co-simulation is devised to reduce the processing time while calculating the BER for the fixed-point model.
The present thesis is an initial work on the implementation part of an collaborative research and development (CRD) project of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) sponsored by the WiTel Technologies, Ontario. It is the first and foremost step for further investigation of designing innovative channel estimation techniques towards applications in the fourth generation (4G) mobile communication systems.


identifier: Gibbons, James  (2013) How the news expresses exclusion: A linguistic analysis of two Montreal newspapers and their coverage of the Occupy movement.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT
How the news expresses exclusion: A linguistic analysis of two Montreal newspapers and their coverage of the Occupy movement
James Gibbons
This study examines exclusion as an expressive act occurring in language. Using a sample of news coverage taken from The Gazette and La Presse, this thesis examines grammatical and lexical elements that express exclusion. The purpose is to examine the characteristics of language that posit a “they” identification, as opposed to an “us” identification. Elements that express a “not like us” differentiation will be considered along with supplementary context, such as social theories of exclusion. The methodology adopted for this study is based on critical linguistic studies and functional grammar; this method considers language to express ideology, whether deliberate or inadvertent. The methodology examines power structures in the sentence such as “transitivity,” which is the analysis of who does what to whom, and lexical (word and terminological) choices that, in certain instances, express negative associative values (connotations). These transitive and lexical considerations, taken cumulatively across a text, provide a conception of the principal idea used to organize the text, or what some of the prevailing ideas happen to be. The sample used consists of news coverage of the Occupy movement, as featured during the time frame spanning the 15th of October to the 25th of November 2011.


identifier: Vickers, Simon  (2013) Making Co-opville: Layers of Activism in Point St-Charles (1983-1992).  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Abstract

Making Co-opville:
Layers of Activism in Point St-Charles (1983-1992)

Simon Vickers

	To date, most writing on co-operative housing has begun from the assumption that co-operatives are objectively good.  These celebratory narratives have emphasized the affordability and sense of community that they associate with co-op housing.  What is missing from these narratives, however, is the acknowledgement that through their process of selecting neighbours housing co-ops are, by necessity, exclusive.

	This thesis will take a more critical approach to co-operative housing by stepping outside of individual co-ops, and looking at the way they were perceived through the frame of a neighbourhood.  In 1983, local activists in the Montreal neighbourhood of Point St-Charles launched PROJET St-Charles.  Promoted as an alternative to the revitalization strategies of a city government that actively promoted gentrification, PROJET supporters sought to build 500 hundred non-market co-ops over the next three years.

	Over the next decade, debates over how to fund, build and fill these co-ops revealed much about the multiple undercurrents of culture and activism in Point St-Charles.  Although these “layers” of social relations could normally co-exist, the process of choosing members for co-operative housing required that the Comité become selective.  Through their governance of a plan to build and fill co-ops for and by the neighbourhood, the Comité St-Charles literally chose who would represent Point St-Charles in the coming years.


identifier: Coutlée, Nicolas  (2013) Traduire Kerouac au Québec.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Traduire Kerouac au Québec

abstract:
Jack Kerouac, figure emblématique de la contre-culture américaine, a exercé une influence importante sur la littérature québécoise de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle au point où certains le considèrent aujourd’hui écrivain canadien-français à part entière. Or après un détour par la France, son œuvre nous est parvenue au Québec dans une variété de français essentiellement européenne. Pour rendre le caractère parlé du texte et ses sociolectes, les traducteurs français, Jacques Houbart et Josée Kamoun, ont eu recours à l’argot parisien, ont assujetti le rythme débridé de son écriture au carcan rigide de la syntaxe française et ont scindé ses longues phrases afin de les conformer aux normes littéraires françaises et à la vision européenne de l’Amérique.

En nous inspirant de la poétique du traduire d’Henri Meschonnic et des textes français produits par Kerouac lui-même, nous tentons dans le présent mémoire de réaliser une retraduction commentée à mi-chemin entre approches sourcière et cibliste. C’est en usant des ressources de la langue vernaculaire québécoise que nous cherchons à recréer la rythmique du roman culte de 1957.


identifier: Boroomand, Farzam  (2013) Limited Lookahead Policies for Robust Supervisory Control of Discrete Event Systems.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In this thesis, Limited Lookahead Policies (LLP) have been developed for Robust Nonblocking Supervisory Control Problem (RNSCP) of discrete event systems. In the robust control problem considered here, the plant model is assumed to belong to a given finite set of DES models.

The introduced supervisor computes the control action in online fashion and it is named Robust Limited Lookahead (RLL) supervisor. In comparison with offline supervisory control, RLL supervisor can reduce the complexity associated with the computation of control law as it looks at the behavior of system at the current state and of a limited depth in future.

Since a conservative policy is adopted here, the behavior of the system under supervision of the RLL supervisor is generally more restrictive than the optimal offline supervisor. A sufficient condition is presented under which a limited lookahead window can guarantee the optimality (maximal permissiveness) of the RLL supervisor.

In some problems, the required window length for maximally permissive RLL supervisor may become unbounded. To overcome this limitation RNSCP with State information (RNSCP-S) is studied and solved resulting in a state-based RLL (RLL-S) supervisor.

The results of this thesis can be regarded as an extension of previous work in the literature on limited lookahead policies for (non-robust) supervisory control to the case of
nonblocking robust supervisory control.

The robust limited lookahead design procedures are implemented in MATLAB environment and applied to two examples involving spacecraft propulsion systems.


identifier: Gao, Weiyu  (2013) Systemic Risk in the Banking Industry of the United States.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Abstract
Systemic Risk in the Banking Industry of the United States
Weiyu Gao
In this thesis, I estimate the systemic risk in the U.S. banking industry and the effects of a financial regulation and an event on the financial health and stability of U. S. banks. The financial regulation and event are respectively Basel I and the U.S. sub-prime mortgage financial crisis which are captured by two dummy variables. I estimate systemic risk using the definition which considers a systemic crisis as an event causing a simultaneous default of a significant number of financial institutions. Thus, the systemic risk here is the simultaneous probability of default of a certain number of financial institutions. Next, I form two systemic risk indices, including the default probability based on bank assets and the default probability based on the number of banks. I investigate the sources of systemic risk and address the factors which are significantly related to the stability of the banking system. In order to conduct this investigation, I establish two categories of variables related to systemic factors and bank specific factors. The systemic factors include the median correlation of assets, volatility of assets and capitalization while the bank specific factors consist of time trend, bank size and the ratio of book value of equity to total assets. The regression analyses are applied between the systemic risk indices and the systemic/ bank specific factors. The results suggest that Basel I does not effectively improve the stability of the banking system and that the financial crisis contributes to systemic risk. The volatility of assets and capitalization are significantly related to the systemic risk indices. Although the systemic factors perform better than the bank specific factors in explaining the systemic risk indices, bank size is also a significant explanatory factor.


identifier: Rahimian, Ashkan  (2013) Assembly to Open Source Code Matching for Reverse Engineering and Malware Analysis.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The process of software reverse engineering and malware analysis often comprise a combination of static and dynamic analyses. The successful outcome of each step is tightly coupled with the functionalities of the tools and skills of the reverse engineer. Even though automated tools are available for dynamic analysis, the static analysis process is a fastidious and time-consuming task as it requires manual work and strong expertise in assembly coding. In order to enhance and accelerate the reverse engineering process, we introduce a new dimension known as clone-based analysis. Recently, binary clone matching has been studied with a focus on detecting assembly (binary) clones. An alternative approach in clone analysis, which is studied in the present research, is concerned with assembly to source code matching. There are two major advantages in considering this extra dimension. The first advantage is to avoid dealing with low-level assembly code in situations where the corresponding high-level code is available. The other advantage is to prevent reverse engineering parts of the software that have been analyzed before. The clone-based analysis can be helpful in significantly reducing the required time and improving the accuracy of static analysis.
In this research, we elaborate a framework for assembly to open-source code matching. Two types of analyses are provided by the framework, namely online and offline. The online analysis process triggers queries to online source code repositories based on extracted features from the functions at the assembly level. The result is the matched set of references to the open-source project files with similar features. Moreover, the offline analysis assigns functionality tags and provides in-depth information regarding the potential functionality of a portion of the assembly file. It reports on function stack frames, prototypes, arguments, variables, return values and low-level system calls. Besides, the offline analysis is based on a built-in dictionary of common user-level and kernel-level API functions that are used by malware to interact with the operating system. These functions are called for performing tasks such as file I/O, network communications, registry modification, and service manipulation. The offline analysis process has been expanded through an incremental learning mechanism which results in an improved detection of crypto-related functions in the disassembly. The other developed extension is a customized local code repository which performs automated source code parsing, feature extraction, and dataset generation for code matching. We apply the framework in several reverse engineering and malware analysis scenarios. Also, we show that the underlying tools and techniques are effective in providing additional insights into the functionality, inner workings, and components of the target binaries.


identifier: Eghtesadi, Arash  (2013) Secure Virtual Machine Migration in Cloud Data Centers.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
While elasticity represents a valuable asset in cloud computing environments, it may bring critical security issues. In the cloud, virtual machines (VMs) are dynamically and frequently migrated across data centers from one host to another. This frequent modification in the topology requires
constant reconfiguration of security mechanisms particularly as we consider, in terms of firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention as well as IPsec policies. However, managing manually complex security rules is time-consuming and error-prone. Furthermore, scale and complexity of data centers are continually increasing, which makes it difficult to rely on the cloud provider administrators to update and validate the security mechanisms.
In this thesis, we propose a security verification framework with a particular interest in the abovementioned security mechanisms to address the issue of security policy preservation in a highly dynamic context of cloud computing. This framework enables us to verify that the global security policy after the migration is consistently preserved with respect to the initial one. Thus, we propose a systematic procedure to verify security compliance of firewall policies, intrusion detection/prevention, and IPsec configurations after VM migration. First, we develop a process algebra called cloud calculus, which allows specifying network topology and security configurations. It
also enables specifying the virtual machines migration along with their security policies.
Then, the distributed firewall configurations in the involved data centers are defined according to the network topology expressed using cloud calculus. We show how our verification problem can be reduced to a constraint satisfaction problem that once solved allows reasoning about firewall traffic filtering preservation. Similarly, we present our approach to the verification of intrusion
detection monitoring preservation as well as IPsec traffic protection preservation using constraint satisfaction problem. We derive a set of constraints that compare security configurations before and after migration.
The obtained constraints are formulated as constraint satisfaction problems and then submitted to a SAT solver, namely Sugar, in order to verify security preservation properties and to pinpoint the configuration errors, if any, before the actual migration of the security context and the
virtual machine. In addition, we present case studies for the given security mechanisms in order to show the applicability and usefulness of our framework, and demonstrate the scalability of our approach.


identifier: Nguyen, Sinh  (2013) Compressive Sensing for Multi-channel and Large-scale MIMO Networks.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Compressive sensing (CS) is a revolutionary theory that has important applications in many engineering areas. Using CS, sparse or compressible signals can be recovered from incoherent measurements with far fewer samples than the conventional Nyquist rate. In wireless communication problems where the sparsity structure of the signals and the
channels can be explored and utilized, CS helps to significantly reduce the number of transmissions required to have an efficient and reliable data communication. The objective of this thesis is to study new methods of CS, both from theoretical and application perspectives, in various complex, multi-channel and large-scale wireless networks. Specifically, we explore new sparse signal and channel structures, and develop low-complexity CS-based algorithms to transmit and recover data over these networks more efficiently.

Starting from the theory of sparse vector approximation based on CS, a compressive multiple-channel estimation (CMCE) method is developed to estimate multiple sparse channels simultaneously. CMCE provides a reduction in the required overhead for the estimation of multiple channels, and can be applied to estimate the composite channels of
two-way relay channels (TWRCs) with sparse intersymbol interference (ISI). To improve end-to-end error performance of the networks, various iterative estimation and decoding
schemes based on CS for ISI-TWRC are proposed, for both modes of cooperative relaying: Amplify-and-Forward (AF) and Decode-and-Forward (DF). Theoretical results including
the Restricted Isometry Property (RIP) and low-coherent condition of the discrete pilot signaling matrix, the performance guarantees, and the convergence of the schemes are presented in this thesis. Numerical results suggest that the error performances of the system is significantly improved by the proposed CS-based methods, thanks to the awareness of the sparsity feature of the channels.

Low-rank matrix approximation, an extension of CS-based sparse vector recovery theory, is then studied in this research to address the channel estimation problem of large-scale (or massive) multiuser (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. A low-rank channel matrix estimation method based on nuclear-norm regularization is formulated and solved via a dual quadratic semi-definite programming (SDP) problem. An explicit choice of the regularization parameter and useful upper bounds of the error are presented to show the efficacy of the CS method in this case. After that, both the uplink channel estimation and a downlink data precoding of massive MIMO in the interference-limited multicell scenarios are considered, where a CS-based rank-q channel approximation
and multicell precoding method are proposed. The results in this work suggest that the proposed method can mitigate the effects of the pilot contamination and intercell interference, hence improves the achievable rates of the users in multicell massive MIMO systems. Finally, various low-complexity greedy techniques are then presented to confirm the efficacy and feasibility of the proposed approaches in practical applications.


identifier: Amouzgar, Mahmoud  (2013) A Study of New Low-Cost Fabrication Methods of Micro- and Nano-scale Building Blocks for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Energy is the number one problem facing humanity today. Solar cells can capture and transform clean and abundant solar energy into electricity. However, their efficiency must increase and their material and fabrication costs must decrease in order for them to be considered as a viable alternative to the fossil fuels. This research explores and studies new methods for fabricating silicon micro- and nano-scale structures in an economical way as building blocks for crystalline silicon solar cells to lower their overall manufacturing cost while increasing their overall efficiency.
A novel cost-effective approach was proposed and studied for texturing the crystalline silicon using the gas lift effect (GLE). The new proposed method takes advantage of the generated bubbles to create a gas lift effect that increases the surface wetability and removes undesired gas bubbles during the texturing process.  This technique requires 50% less chemicals and 60% shorter etching time to achieve the same reflectivity.
Modeling and simulation techniques were used to investigate and elucidate the fluid flow patterns inside the silicon texturing system operating under the new GLE approach. The simulation tool validated the correlation of the lower fluid velocity with the reduced surface coverage, uniformity and subsequently less optimal surface reflectivity. Various inlet designs were modeled and evaluated using a simulation tool for optimal performance. The best inlet design was fabricated and tested resulting in the validation of the simulation work and significant improvement in the GLE texturing system performance.
Two solar cell devices, one based on the novel GLE texturing approach, and the other based on the conventional method, were designed, fabricated and characterized. The application of the new GLE texturing approach resulted in considerable improvements in overall power efficiency of silicon solar cells without any additional increase to the production cost.
Micro and nano structures can enhance optical absorption characteristics and help with providing a more direct path for charge transport to the contacts resulting in an increased overall efficiency. An array of silicon micro-rods with nano-tip was fabricated through a novel low cost multistage approach. The transformation of the pyramid-covered silicon surface to the array of free-standing micro-rods with nano-tip as well as their growth mechanism was investigated. At lower than 80% pyramid coverage, the number of nanostructures dropped dramatically and no nano-structures were obtained at low surface coverage values of less than 50%.
Transparent conductive films (TCFs) can be a viable low-cost alternative to the expensive Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) used in solar cells. A novel thermoplastic nanocomposite of copper nanowires and polymethylmethacrylate was developed by solution mixing technique. Thin films of highly conductive nanocomposites were fabricated by solution casting. This investigation demonstrated that the addition of electric conductive nanoscale fibers to a polymer solution at low concentration levels can transform the plastic to highly conductive phase while maintaining an acceptable transparency of about 55%.


identifier: Soltani, Mohammad Mostafa  (2013) Neighborhood Localization Method for Locating Construction Resources Based on RFID and BIM.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Construction sites are changing every day, which brings some difficulties for different contractors to do their tasks properly. One of the key points for all entities who work on the same site is the location of resources including materials, tools, and equipment. Therefore, the lack of an integrated localization system leads to increase the time wasted on searching for resources. In this research, a localization method which does not need infrastructure is proposed to overcome this problem. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as a localization technology is integrated with Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a method of creating, sharing, exchanging and managing the building information throughout the lifecycle among all stakeholders. In the first stage, a requirements’ gathering and conceptual design are performed to add new entities, data types, and properties to the BIM, and relationships between RFID tags and building assets are identified. Secondly, it is proposed to distribute fixed tags with known positions as reference tags for the RFID localization approach. Then, a clustering method chooses the appropriate reference tags to provide them to an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for further computations. Additionally, Virtual Reference Tags (VRTs) are added to the system to increase the resolution of localization while limiting the cost of the system deployment. Finally, different case studies and simulations are implemented and tested to explore the technical feasibility of the proposed approach.


identifier: Cordeiro, Brian  (2013) The Doctrine of Justification: A Biblical and Historical Analysis of the Doctrine and its Ecumenical Reception by Lutherans and Catholics in their Joint Declaration of 1999.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT

The Doctrine of Justification: A Biblical and Historical Analysis of the Doctrine and its Ecumenical Reception by Lutherans and Catholics in their Joint Declaration of 1999

		  Brian Cordeiro

The doctrine of justification is a central Christian doctrine. In the sixteenth century, justification was at the core of major dispute, which eventually resulted in the Reformation movement and the schism within the Catholic Church. Lutherans and Roman Catholics issued mutual condemnations related to the doctrine of justification. These events were driven by theological differences as well as by political and social factors.
	In the twentieth century, Lutherans and Catholics arrived at agreement on the same doctrine of justification, which had divided them for over four hundred years. Their Joint Declaration of 1999 represents a major success within the ecumenical movement, which strives to promote unity among Christians. By it, the mutual condemnations of the sixteenth century were withdrawn by Lutherans and Roman Catholics thereby opening the door for peace between the two churches and in society as a whole. Further, the Joint Declaration gives useful pointers for future ecumenical dialogue which can be used to promote ecumenism in the future. The Joint Declaration thus is a beacon of hope for the entire ecumenical movement.


identifier: Campbell, Lindsey  (2013) All in the Game: Mapping and making sense of the urban through sound, language, and codes on HBO’s The Wire.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The Wire has been praised for its particular realist aesthetic style that is a radical departure from the traditional television police procedural and that takes many of its cues from the film noir. The Wire’s unique use, and functioning, of sound extends beyond the limits of visual representation which privileges audio detail. It relies on listening as its central thematic to propel the story while obscuring the gaze. The series explores the specificities of Baltimore’s West Side vernacular and how its use complicates power, knowledge, and meaning while simultaneously remapping its urban spaces. It expertly demonstrates how complex vernacular, along with foreign languages, codes, dialects and accents, can complicate listening and understanding.
The Wire’s representation of urban spaces and experiences allows for meaningful consideration of Edward Dimendberg’s seminal work on the representation of the city in the film noir, as well as Michel Chion’s work on film sound studies. Employing Dimendberg’s framework, and considering Henri Lefebvre’s concept of modern spatial practices, I analyze representations of The Wire’s urban spaces and experiences, taking into account the crucial role that sound and surveillance play in constituting its urban spaces and lived experiences. Employing Chion’s work, I explore how The Wire’s use of sound demands the active perception of its complex acousmatic imaginary, in order to achieve a rich understanding about different spaces within the same city. The Wire invites active engagement in order to promote complex understanding about modern American urban.


identifier: Mahdavi, Alireza  (2013) Efficiency Measurement of N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirators against Ultrafine Particles under Cyclic and Constant Flows.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Detrimental impacts associated with inhalation of ultrafine particles (UFPs) (diameter of particle, Dp <100 nm), on various respiratory organs, can be controlled by means of N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs), widely used by industrial and healthcare workers. In this regard, investigation of N95 FFRs efficiency, against UFPs, under cyclic flow, in addition with constant flow, is very necessary, since cyclic flow represents actual breathing pattern.

The first objective of the thesis was to report the development of a procedure to investigate the individual impact of breathing frequency and flow rate on the performance of N95 FFRs. Experiments were performed for two peak inhalation flows (PIFs) (135 and 360 L/min) and two breathing frequencies (24 and 42 breaths per minute (BPM)) for a total of four cyclic flows. The results showed that, for the most penetrating particle size (MPPS) range, an increase in both PIF and breathing frequency could potentially enhance the penetration; however the effect of PIF was observed to be much more pronounced than frequency. Therefore, from low to high respiratory efforts, a huge portion of penetration enhancement was due to the PIF variations and only a small portion was contributed by the frequency variations.

With the second objective of the thesis, the penetrations measured with the cyclic flows (with mean inhalation flows (MIFs) ranging from 42 to 360 L/min) were compared with those measured with the constant flows equal to the cyclic flow minute volume, mean inhalation flow (MIF) and peak inhalation flow (PIF). The results indicated that, for the MPPS, constant flows equal to the cyclic flow minute volume and PIF significantly underestimated and overestimated the penetration of cyclic flows, respectively. Constant flows equal to the MIFs of cyclic flows, however, resulted in closer penetrations compared to the cyclic flows. At higher flow rates, of course, the maximum penetrations under constant flow exceeded the maximum penetrations under cyclic flow (MIF).

With the third objective of the thesis, the impact of particle loading on the penetration was tested. Investigations were performed with a cyclic flow (with equivalent MIF of 170 L/min) and two constant flow rates (85 L/min and 170 L/min) for a period of 6-hour loading time. The results indicated that, for small particles (usually less than 100 nm), the particle loading effect lead to decrease in the penetration with the loading time. The MPPS was also found to shift towards larger sizes, as the respirators were loaded with more particles. For the final stage of loading, unlike the initial stage, the penetration of a large range of particles under cyclic flow was significantly higher than the penetrations under constant flow (equal to cyclic flow MIF).


identifier: Morizio, William James  (2013) Departmental Identification Through Perceived Prestige: Peering through different lenses.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This study examined the relationship between identification and perceived prestige at the department level. By shifting the focus of the image from the organization itself to that of the departments within it and focusing on identification with the department, this study distinguished three different perception foci: department colleagues, organization members outside the department, and other peers who were not part of the organization. The study was carried out at Concordia University using professors as the research population. To study the identification process, sustainability research served as a behavioral indicator of identity. Research professors were sampled from six separate departments with varying levels of interest in sustainability research to ensure that each department had a distinct identity. The research professors were asked what they thought others believed was the emphasis of sustainability research in their department. These “others” were placed into the three different groups to calculate the perceived prestige coming from each group. The three perceptions were then tested for correlations with the Departmental Identification. Results supported the hypothesis that a positive correlation existed between each of the prestige perceptions and Departmental Identification. However, the hypothesis that the correlations between perceived prestige and Departmental Identification would become stronger as social proximity increased was not supported.


identifier: Schulz, Juliana  (2013) Generalized Linear Models for a Dependent Aggregate Claims Model.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis develops an alternative approach to modelling the expected loss cost of an insurance portfolio that allows for dependence between the frequency and severity components of the aggregate claims process. The traditionally used independent aggregate claims model is extended to define a dependent model, thus allowing for a correlation between the claim counts and claim amounts. A Generalized Linear Model framework is developed for the aggregate claims model in the dependent setting using a conditional severity model and marginal frequency model. We find that the pure premium in the dependent aggregate claims model is the product of a marginal mean frequency, a modified marginal mean severity and a correction term. This dependent modelling approach is then compared with the independent aggregate claims model GLM structure. It is shown that the expected total loss amount derived in the independent model is in fact a special case of the dependent model.


identifier: SadAbadi, Hamid  (2013) Nano-integrated Polymeric Suspended Microfluidic Platform for Ultra-Sensitive Bio-Molecular Recognition.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The development of biosensors for the detection of biomolecules recognition is an extremely important problem in life science and clinical diagnostics. Many researchers and bio-scientists around the world are looking to present a simple and cost-effective ultra-sensitive platform for the bio-sensing applications in order to detect protein-protein interaction, DNA hybridization, and antigen-antibody interaction.

Microcantilever (MC) transducer is a well-known sensing mechanism for biosensing application. In this method, a surface-stress will be induced through the bimolecular recognition on the cantilever surface, which results in the MC deflection. The magnitude of deflection is related to the number of (or concentration of) biomolecules of interest that were immobilized on the MC's surface during the biosensing protocole. However, one of the main drawbacks of cantilever biosensors is the high amount of analytes (proteins, DNA, polypeptides, etc.) that are required for sensing experiments as the cantilever must be submerged in the analytes. In addition, the cantilever bending read-out system (that can be optical or electrical) has to be designed sensitive enough to make it possible to measure deflection in the range of a few nanometers.

In order to move toward ultra-sensitive biomolecular detection, one way is to increase the read-out resolution which makes the system more complex and expensive. Another solution is to fabricate the MC from materials different from silicon with less stiffness.

In addition, in order to reduce analytes consumption, integration of microfluidic systems with microcantilevers would be beneficial. Through this integration, both the volume of analytes and the time of response are reduced. This thesis reports a promising method towards ultra-sensitive biosensing by integration of microfluidic system into a polymeric microcantilever. The fabricated platform is referred as “Polymeric Suspended Microfluidics". In order to immobilize biomolecule of interest for the biosensing application inside the microfluidic system, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are integrated into the buried microfluidics by two different methods. The thesis also presents a novel 3D micromixer in order to implement in-situ synthesis of AuNPs. The 3D micromixer has been fabricated and tested for characterizing mixing performance.

The results of biosensing shows significant improvement in the sensitivity of the proposed platform compared with the common silicon based MC biosensor. The results show the proposed integrated sensing platform achieved a detection limit of 2ng/ml (100pM) toward the growth hormones biosensing (Ag-Ab interaction detection). The results demonstrate a proof-of-principal for successful polymeric cantilever fabrication towards the next generation of cantilever-based biosensing mechanism which has high potential to enable femtomolar (fM) biomolecular recognition detection.


identifier: Yang, Pu  (2013) Real-time Building Airflow Simulation Aided by GPU and FFD.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Two recent methods for the fast simulation of the building airflow are studied: the fast fluid dynamics (FFD) algorithm and the use of graphic processing unit (GPU) for scientific computing in building engineering. A GOOGLE SketchUp plug-in for the FFD program was also developed as a model-creating tool to enhance the accessibility of the operation and to extend the range of users. The new methods are verified to be much faster than conventional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models and they can achieve real-time simulations. This thesis focuses on the applications of the FFD program to illustrate its functions and abilities. The application fields include but not limited to fast building airflow analysis, architectural design and urban planning associated with airflows. Although the results are not as accurate as the conventional CFD, it is designed for the needs of fast simulations and analysis with less requirement of accuracy. With further improvements in the future, the developed FFD program in this study can become an important tool to bring the engineering analysis of building simulation into the early stage of the architectural designs.


identifier: Haas, Kelsey  (2013) Inherited Images: Reconfiguring Home Movies in Experimental Cinema.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis examines a subset of contemporary experimental filmmakers who incorporate their own home movies into their films and videos.  Close analysis of Helen Hill’s Mouseholes (1999), Richard Fung’s Sea in the Blood (2000), Philip Hoffman’s What these Ashes Wanted (2001), and Jay Rosenblatt’s Phantom Limb (2005) reveals tensions between the private and public functions of home movies as well as key differences between the reconfigurations of home movies and the appropriation of found footage.  When experimental filmmakers use home movies, it is often a means of confronting issues of memory; also, the filmmakers most often strive to preserve the home movies because of their personal connection to them.  The preservation and screenings of Hill’s flood-damaged home movies (a result of Hurricane Katrina) also negotiate this tension between private and public.  In 2007, Hill died during a home invasion in New Orleans.  Paul Gailiunas’s posthumous completion of Hill’s final film, The Florestine Collection (2010), constructs a dual portrait of Hill and a deceased seamstress named Florestine Kinchen.  Each of these five films and videos focus on the death of a loved one, exposing the absence of images of death and family strife in home movies.  The study of experimental filmmakers’ use of home movies provides valuable insight into both experimental cinema and home movies themselves.


identifier: Ansarizadeh, Mohammadali  (2013) Calculation of the Shielding Effectiveness of Carbon-Fiber Composite Structures.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Carbon-fiber composite (CFC) materials are replacing metals in the construction of modern aircraft because of their outstanding strength/weight ratio. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the capabilities and limitations of the commercially available software in calculating the shielding effectiveness (SE) of CFC structures. This work
is started by a literature survey focused on the characterization and modeling of CFC
panels.
The homogenized model of CFC panels is analyzed using the skin-effect approximation in a method of moments (MoM) solution. It is found that the stack-to-sheet
conversion is a limiting factor in the skin effect approximation and not the homogenization scheme.
Experimental results are presented which indicate that performance of monopole antennas up to a frequency of 12.5 GHz is not altered by replacing a metallic ground
plane with a CFC one. Also, a monopole antenna is mounted on hollow CFC and aluminum cubes with the same physical dimensions and the radiated electromagnetic interference (EMI) inside the cube are theoretically compared.
Although wire meshes with unbonded junctions are better shields it is shown that this is less important for meshes is epoxy as compared to free space. For CFC materials reinforced with woven carbon-fiber fabrics the effects of physical contact between orthogonally oriented fiber bundles are examined. It is found that bonding CFC fiber bundles at the junctions actually improves the shielding performance.
The simulation results for the electric and magnetic SE inside a hollow spherical CFC shell are compared with the benchmark analytic solutions. It is shown that the
analytic solutions could not be numerically evaluated unless the wave functions are expressed in terms of the thickness of CFC materials.


identifier: Franco, Giovanna  (2013) The Digital Design and Synthesis of Delay Doppler Maps in GNSS Remote Sensing Receivers.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are satellite based systems primarily capable of determining the location of receivers on the Earth. However, these systems can also receive and process bistatically surface reflected signals, studying the scattering from the signal off the reflection surface. In order to achieve these results, accurate and fast technology are necessary. In this work, a Delay-Doppler mapping module of a GNSS system has been implemented in VHDL and synthesized on FPGA Xilinx-Virtex 6 to map the delay and frequency domains of Earth scattered signals. The designed system presents high timing
performance to provide quick and accurate measurements. In this work, a FFT based GNSS mapping algorithms has been designed to process raw samples GNSS data. The remote sensing module has been implemented, generating all the 32 possible C/A codes and then processing the received signal for each of the 32 C/A codes in a pipelined circuit. Once the GNSS power signals have been detected, a final detector is used to compare all the GNSS power signals found with a magnitude twice the noise and with the highest peak to detect the best candidate signal for the Delay Doppler Map (DDM). Different timing delay ranges and Doppler frequency ranges have been considered to compare the performance of the mapping algorithm. The use of an FPGA based algorithm permits significantly higher performance and greater flexibility than software based solutions and opens up the GNSS remote sensing application for integration into real-time instruments.


identifier: Dadar, Mahsa  (2013) Simulation of Chemical Reactions Using Stochastic Petri Nets.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The recent breakthroughs in biological experiments have enabled the researchers to measure the quantities of different chemicals that build biological units such as cells. This type of information can be used to build models that can explain and predict the behaviour of the system. Such models can later be used to design control mechanisms that can influence the behaviour of the system in a desired way. With the help of medicine and biology researchers, the designed control mechanisms can be translated into drugs that can control or cure major diseases.

Biological systems usually consist of complex networks of biological components that function through various  reactions. In order to affect the behaviour of the system efficiently, the chemicals that have the highest influence on the system behaviour have to be found using a sensitivity analysis. Such chemicals, regarded as inputs, will be the targets for drug design (or other control actions).

Various modeling tools have been empolyed to capture the behaviour of biological systems. Perhaps the most widely used models are the ordinary differential equations (ODEs). In this thesis, an alternative model is propposed for the study of the chemical reactions based on stochastic Petri nets, one type of discrete event systems. It is shown that the proposed method can be used to find the changes of the chemical reactants. The advantage of the proposed method is that it is amenable to implementation on computing systems with parallel processors. This in turn reduces the (time) computational complexity (compared with ODE based simulations). The Petri net based simulations are also used to perform sensitivity analysis. The proposed method is illustrated using the Caspase Apoptosis network.


identifier: Rosenberg, Sabine  (2013) NEGATION TRIGGERS AND THEIR SCOPE.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: NEGATION TRIGGERS AND THEIR SCOPE

abstract: Recent interest in negation has resulted in a variety of different annotation schemes for different application tasks, several vetted in shared task competitions. Current negation detection systems are trained and tested for a specific application task within a particular domain. The availability of a robust, general negation detection module that can be added to any text processing pipeline is still missing. In this work we propose a linguistically motivated trigger and scope approach for negation detection in general. The system, NEGATOR, introduces two baseline modules: the scope module to identify the syntactic scope for different negation triggers and a variety of trigger lists evaluated for that purpose, ranging from minimal to extensive. The scope module consists of a set of specialized transformation rules that determine the scope of a negation trigger using dependency graphs from parser output. NEGATOR is evaluated on different corpora from different genres with different annotation schemes to establish general usefulness and robustness. The NEGATOR system also participated in two shared task competitions which address specific issues related to negation. Both these tasks presented an opportunity to demonstrate that the NEGATOR system can be easily adapted and extended to meet specific task requirements. The parallel, comparative evaluations suggest that NEGATOR is indeed a robust baseline system that is domain and task independent.


identifier: Chaeichian, Sina  (2013) A novel thermoplastic/clay/thermoset hybrid system for toughening of unsaturated polyesters.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Nanoclay and a thermoplastic were incorporated into general purpose unsaturated polyesters in order to provide for toughening. The effect of each additive on physical and mechanical properties of the composite was explored to understand the advantages and drawbacks. Since, the morphology of multiphase systems plays a key role in determining the final properties, the micro- and nano-structures of the various binary and ternary systems, were evaluated by electron, optical, and atomic force microscopy.
Different mixing methods for preparing clay/polyester nanocomposites were used to explore the effect of nanostructure on characteristics such as glass transition temperature, flexural properties, and fracture toughness. The results indicated that the incorporation of nanoclay causes a slight improvement in fracture toughness and that the degree of intercalation/exfoliation did not significantly affect the properties.
Polystyrene and poly(styrene/methyl methacrylate) were synthesized by in situ free radical polymerization in the presence of Cloisite 20A to provide a toughening agent. This approach enabled the pursuit of two aims: (i) improving the degree of dispersion and the distribution of clay silicate layers, and (ii) preparing the thermoplastic additive. A second curing agent, methyl methacrylate, was included to promote the conversion of styrene inside the clay galleries as well as in the thermoplastic-rich phase. The morphological study showed that the thermoplastic additive forms a second phase, dispersed throughout the continuous thermoset-rich phase. In the ternary systems, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed a fine intercalated/exfoliated structure, where the majority of clay silicate layers were located inside the thermoplastic-rich phase. Experimental results indicated that the incorporation of the thermoplastic caused a slight improvement in fracture toughness. In contrast, a combination of the thermoplastic and the nanoclay caused a significant improvement in fracture toughness, without any reduction in glass transition temperature and elastic modulus.
The effect of the characteristics of the two phases and the microstructure on fracture toughness was explored. Results revealed that the microstructure (the size and distribution of thermoplastic-rich particles) had the greatest effect on fracture toughness. An interesting correlation between fracture toughness and the microstructure was found indicating the best particle size and spacing.


identifier: Ahmed, Aqeel  (2013) New Approaches to Determining Shortest Cutters and Work Piece Setups without Over-travel for 5-axis CNC Machining.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Five axis CNC machining centers are widely used in the industries for producing the complex parts. Due to two more axes as compared to the three axes machining, it provides the efficient and flexible way of the machining. Besides this flexibility, accidental collision possibilities between the cutting system and the other moving parts of the machine tools are also increased. These collisions could be avoided by changing the orientations of the tool during the tool path planning or by adjusting the cutter length and the tool holder size after the tool path generation in the part coordinate system. Collision detection and removal by the optimum cutter length depends on the configuration of five axis machine tools. No. of possible candidates for the collision may vary with the configuration of the machine tools. Since the fully utilization of the existing machining facilities in the industry is also in high demand, therefore, after selecting the one of the critical parameter of the cutter length, the maximum utilization of the work space of the 5-axis machine tools is another critical task.
This dissertation comprises of two main works.
	In the first research work, a comprehensive approach for the determination of the optimum cutter length for the specific configuration of five axis machine tool is developed. The complete cutting system (the tool, the tool holder and the spindle), the work in process model and the fixture are the three possible candidates for the collision. The work in process model and the fixture are represented as the point cloud data and the tool holder and the spindle are represented as a regular shape of the truncated cone and the cylinder respectively. Collision checking is conducted in two steps. In the first step the KD-tree data structure is employed on the point cloud data and a method is developed which confines the searching of the point cloud data in the local region and in the second step a new mathematical model for the collision detection between the points in the local region and the cutting system is established. This model also has the capability of removal collision with the optimum cutter length.
	In the second research work, kinematics of the table rotating and spindle tilting 5-axis machine is developed and setup parameters for mounting the part on the table are defined. A precise method for the determination of the setup parameters, which gives the opportunity of fully utilization of the work space of the machine tool, is developed. Many machining simulation software such as vericut can simulate the G-codes for the given setup parameters of the part and can verify the over travel limits of the machine tool as well as accidental collision between the moving parts of the machine. In this research, the developed method for the determination of the setup parameters gives the guarantee of complete machining of the part without over travel limits of the machine translational axes. This research is based on the predetermined machining strategies, which means, tool path is already given in the part coordinate system.


identifier: Shishehgaran, Nasim  (2013) Numerical Simulation of High Pressure Hydrogen Releases into Air through Varying Orifice Geometries.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is employed to investigate the near exit jet behavior of a high-pressure hydrogen release into the quiescent ambient air through different types of orifices. The effect of orifice geometry on the structure, development and dispersion of highly under-expanded hydrogen jet is numerically investigated. Various shapes of orifices are evaluated including holes with constant areas such as elliptical and circular openings, and deforming apertures under different configurations and conditions considering the interactions of enlarging of circular openings and the release time, as well as the deformation of a circular hole to an elliptical hole. A three-dimensional in-house parallel code is exploited to simulate the flow using an unstructured tetrahedral finite volume Euler solver. The transport (advection) equation is applied to track the shape and the location of the hydrogen - air interface. The Abel-Nobel real gas law is used since high-pressure hydrogen flow deviates from the ideal gas assumption. Comparative studies between the dispersion of hydrogen jet issuing from different types of orifices in terms of jet development and pressure expansion are carried out. The numerical simulations indicate that in addition to the hydrogen storage pressure, the shape and the size of the orifice influence the hydrogen jet development which can affect the ignition risks associated with the accidental release of hydrogen.