QOE-AWARE CONTENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS FOR ADAPTIVE BITRATE VIDEO STREAMING

A prodigious increase in video streaming content along with a simultaneous rise in end system capabilities has led to the proliferation of adaptive bit rate video streaming users in the Internet. Today, video streaming services range from Video-on-Demand services like traditional IP TV to more recent technologies such as immersive 3D experiences for live sports events. In order to meet the demands of these services, the multimedia and networking research community continues to strive toward efficiently delivering high quality content across the Internet while also trying to minimize content storage and delivery costs. The introduction of flexible and adaptable technologies such as compute and storage clouds, Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networking continue to fuel content provider revenue. Today, content providers such as Google and Facebook build their own Software-Defined WANs to efficiently serve millions of users worldwide, while NetFlix partners with ISPs such as ATT (using OpenConnect) and cloud providers such as Amazon EC2 to serve their content and manage the delivery of several petabytes of high-quality video content for millions of subscribers at a global scale, respectively. In recent years, the unprecedented growth of video traffic in the Internet has seen several innovative systems such as Software Defined Networks and Information Centric Networks as well as inventive protocols such as QUIC, in an effort to keep up with the effects of this remarkable growth. While most existing systems continue to sub-optimally satisfy user requirements, future video streaming systems will require optimal management of storage and bandwidth resources that are several orders of magnitude larger than what is implemented today. Moreover, Quality-of-Experience metrics are becoming increasingly fine-grained in order to accurately quantify diverse content and consumer needs. In this dissertation, we design and investigate innovative adaptive bit rate video streaming systems and analyze the implications of recent technologies on traditional streaming approaches using real-world experimentation methods. We provide useful insights for current and future content distribution network administrators to tackle Quality-of-Experience dilemmas and serve high quality video content to several users at a global scale. In order to show how Quality-of-Experience can benefit from core network architectural modifications, we design and evaluate prototypes for video streaming in Information Centric Networks and Software-Defined Networks. We also present a real-world, in-depth analysis of adaptive bitrate video streaming over protocols such as QUIC and MPQUIC to show how end-to-end protocol innovation can contribute to substantial Quality-of-Experience benefits for adaptive bit rate video streaming systems. We investigate a cross-layer approach based on QUIC and observe that application layer-based information can be successfully used to determine transport layer parameters for ABR streaming applications

Designing for adaptability in architecture

The research is framed on the premise that designing buildings that can adapt by accommodating change easier and more cost-effectively provides an effective means to a desired end a more sustainable built environment. In this context, adaptability can be viewed as a means to decrease the amount of new construction (reduce), (re)activate underused or vacant building stock (reuse) and enhance disassembly/ deconstruction of components (reuse, recycle) - prolonging the useful life of buildings (reduce, reuse, recycle). The aim of the research is to gain a holistic overview of the concept of adaptability in the construction industry and provide an improved framework to design for, deploy and implement adaptability. An over-arching research question was posited to guide the inquiry: how can architects understand, communicate, design for and test the concept of adaptability in the context of the design process? The research followed Dubois and Gadde s (2002) systematic combining as an over-arching approach that continuously moves between the empirical world and theoretical models allowing the co-evolution of data collection and theory from the beginning as part of a non-linear process with the objective of matching theory with reality. An initial framework was abducted from a preliminary collection of data from which a set of mixed research methods was deployed to explore adaptability (interviews, building case studies, dependency structural matrices, practitioner surveys and workshop). Emergent from the data is an expanded and revised theory on designing for adaptability consisting of concepts, models and propositions. The models illustrate many of the casual links between the physical design structure of the building (e.g. plan depth, storey height) and the soft contingencies of a messy design/construction/occupation process (e.g. procurement route, funding methods, stakeholder mindsets). In an effort to enhance building adaptability, the abducted propositions suggest a shift in the way the industry values buildings and conducts aspects of the design process and how designer s approach designing for adaptability

Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197

“Making it” in America: Understanding the American Dream in Trump’s America

Making it in America: Understanding the American Dream in Trump\u27s America is a comprehensive study of the American Dream\u27s complexities in West Texas. Spanning from the 2016 presidential election to the present, the thesis explores how individuals from diverse backgrounds pursue the American Dream in a region dominated by the oil industry and unique cultural dynamics. Using ethnographic interviews, primary sources, oral histories, and visual analysis, the research unveils the experiences of Ana Maria Jimenez, Stephanie Carrasco, Maricela Fuentez, David Whaley, and Emmanuel Rojas, representing a cross-section of West Texas. They offer valuable insights into the region\u27s challenges and opportunities. Chapter 1 explores the formation of Hispanic conservative political identities, revealing the intersection of upward mobility and political affiliations. Chapter 2 delves into the untold stories of women in the West Texas oil industry, with a focus on Maricela Fuentez and her struggle against traditional gender roles. Chapter 3 investigates the ambivalent approach to education, featuring narratives from David Whaley, a Black educator, and Emmanuel Rojas, a young adult transitioning from university to the oil industry. This thesis deepens our understanding of the American Dream in Trump\u27s America and underscores West Texas as a microcosm of America\u27s diverse communities. It tells a story of hope, struggle, and triumph, offering a fresh perspective on what making it in America truly means

Global Art Market in the Aftermath of COVID-19

Although the global art market has often been resilient to international economic and political events, it has recently faced some of its biggest challenges under the influence of COVID-19. Among others, the pandemic and the accompanying restrictive administrative measures taken by world governments have significantly influenced such key economic indicators as gallery employment, art sales, and the organization of international art fairs. The Special Issue "Global Art Market in the Aftermath of COVID-19" studies various economic, social, and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global art market’s current state and future evolution

Between Texts and Cities

TEXTS+CITIES explores the relation between texts and urban spaces in contemporary culture and society. Cities have often been compared to palimpsests, their streets, buildings, and subways pleated, crumpled, written and rewritten over and over again: as material texts, poïesis. What is at stake in this conflation of city and text? How do urban spaces relate to artistic, political, or economic texts and ideologies? What transformations occur between the designing of urban spaces, and the building and eventual inhabiting of those spaces? TEXTS+CITIES aims to bring together scholars and practitioners within an interdisciplinary range of social sciences, humanities, art, design, and media to reflect on ways of producing, reproducing, and experiencing the urban.Peer reviewe

Doing homework: negotiations of the domestic in twentieth-century novels of teaching

In this project, I analyze seven twentieth-century novels of teaching in order to investigate how notions of “home” and “school” are constructed, connected, and perpetuated in popular teaching narratives. Images of teachers in much of this century’s fiction often rest on views of the school as home that are derived from stereotypes of gender, race, and nationality—stereotypes that can be both inaccurate and repressive. For this reason, I examine these texts in light of how they negotiate school space with domestic space (“domestic” both as personal or familial, and as public or national). I contend that many of these narratives offer little more than simplistic, nostalgic views of what “home/school” space can be, and even fewer question the very equation of “school as home.” In those narratives that do probe the school/home connection, the teacher-protagonists often fail to emerge as the sentimental heroes that the teachers of the more conventional novels prove to be. Nevertheless, I argue that the most promising depictions of teachers and their work are those that acknowledge and engage the rich complexities of “home” and its (sometimes problematic) relation to the classroom, for the very tensions and conflicts that problematize the school’s classification as a domestic “safe haven” are the very tools that can facilitate growth, learning, and self-discovery. The approach for my analysis draws from feminist and cultural studies, as well as educational history. The works I discuss include the following: The Blackboard Jungle; Good Morning, Miss Dove; To Sir, With Love; Spinster; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Up the Down Staircase; and Election

Museological discourse and the question of memory

O Turismo tornou-se um dos mais importantes mecanismos de construção e reprodução e significados e atitudes sobre o passado. Os museus, em particular, tornaram-se ferramentas importantes na formatação da memória coletiva e de narrativas históricas dentro das práticas de produção/consumo culturais na sociedade contemporânea. Por um lado, os museus podem ser, e frequentemente são, instituições de educação pública que ajudam a fazer sentido do mundo. Por outro lado, por necessidade ligadas às suas práticas discursivas e escolhas expositivas, as exposições museológicas, bem como todos os outros produtos turísticos, têm sempre predisposições ideológicas. O que acontece, então, quando o passado em exposição carrega características dissonantes ou está relacionado com eventos traumáticos? Esta dissertação pretende analisar os aparatos ideológicos e discursivos presentes em dois museus memoriais que tratam esse tipo de passado: o Museu do Aljube – Resistência e Liberdade, em Lisboa, e a Casa do Terror em Budapeste. Aplicando a Análise Multimodal Crítica do Discurso às exposições permanentes e adotando uma abordagem textual, a dissertação pretende identificar práticas discursivas específicas, como papéis de agentes, omissões e evasões, entre outros, bem como as estratégias expositivas que os criam e/ou reproduzem. Com esta análise, a dissertação propõe-se contribuir para a discussão mais alargada sobre como os produtos turísticos se relacionam com as práticas estabelecidas de memória social, particularmente nas sociedades Portuguesa e Húngar