Hawk solutions to the TTC 2018 Social Media Case

The TTC 2018 Social Media Case required answering queries about social networks, where people write posts, comment on them, and friend or unfriend each other. NoSQL databases have been popular in the analysis of large social networks, and the Hawk heterogeneous model indexer can turn the models in the case to Neo4j NoSQL databases. This paper presents three solutions that were developed on top of each other, reducing on each step the amount of work required to update the results of the query

The Intrinsic Value of Co-Designing Skateparks

The exclusion of skateboarders from skatepark planning, the rejection of skaters from public space and the lack of inclusive co-design methods leads to poorly designed and neglected skateparks. It is hypothesized that local skateboarders are the experts in creating sustainable skatepark design yet they are usually the last group to be consulted on these developments. Indeed, unlike every major city in Canada, Toronto does not even have a permanent indoor skatepark facility in the downtown core. After months of civil activism which prompted a city-wide Skatepark Study Report, The City of Toronto made a financial commitment in 2016 to address the need for an indoor skatepark. This emancipatory research study was created in response to that and uses co-design methods to explore the value of a DIY skatepark. Researchers engaged local skateboarders in conversations and activities around all aspects of skatepark creation. The study aims to show that skaters are the best experts to consult regarding the design, development and ongoing maintenance of skateparks. This co-design framework encourages inclusive, sustainable design principles that incorporate creative and artistic skateable obstacles into skatepark design

Celebrating Economies of Change: Brave Visions for Inclusive Futures

This issue has been inspired by a path-breaking conference held by the Canadian Society for Ecologi-cal Economics (CANSEE), which took place this past May 2019 in Waterloo, Ontario. Entitled Engaging Economies of Change, the conference aimed to ex-pand existing research networks in the economy-environment nexus by building connections beyond the academy in order to meaningfully engage with the practicalities of building and implementing change. This issue captures the rich content shared during the event, as well as descriptions of the pro-cesses and efforts made to create a welcoming and respectful space where academics and community activists could build alliances and discuss common challenges. The conference organizers – all graduate students and activists themselves -- called this ‘building a brave space’.This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

City of Hitchcock Comprehensive Plan 2020-2040

Hitchcock is a small town located in Galveston County (Figure 1.1), nestled up on the Texas Gulf Coast. It lies about 40 miles south-east of Houston. The boundaries of the city encloses an area of land of 60.46 sq. miles, an area of water of 31.64 sq. miles at an elevation just 16 feet above sea level. Hitchcock has more undeveloped land (~90% of total area) than the county combined. Its strategic location gives it a driving force of opportunities in the Houston-Galveston Region.The guiding principles for this planning process were Hitchcock’s vision statement and its corresponding goals, which were crafted by the task force. The goals focus on factors of growth and development including public participation, development considerations, transportation, community facilities, economic development, parks, and housing and social vulnerabilityTexas Target Communitie

Novel Validation Techniques for Autonomous Vehicles

The automotive industry is facing challenges in producing electrical, connected, and autonomous vehicles. Even if these challenges are, from a technical point of view, independent from each other, the market and regulatory bodies require them to be developed and integrated simultaneously. The development of autonomous vehicles implies the development of highly dependable systems. This is a multidisciplinary activity involving knowledge from robotics, computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering, psychology, social studies, and ethics. Nowadays, many Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), like Emergency Braking System, Lane Keep Assistant, and Park Assist, are available. Newer luxury cars can drive by themselves on highways or park automatically, but the end goal is to develop completely autonomous driving vehicles, able to go by themselves, without needing human interventions in any situation. The more vehicles become autonomous, the greater the difficulty in keeping them reliable. It enhances the challenges in terms of development processes since their misbehaviors can lead to catastrophic consequences and, differently from the past, there is no more a human driver to mitigate the effects of erroneous behaviors. Primary threats to dependability come from three sources: misuse from the drivers, design systematic errors, and random hardware failures. These safety threats are addressed under various aspects, considering the particular type of item to be designed. In particular, for the sake of this work, we analyze those related to Functional Safety (FuSa), viewed as the ability of a system to react on time and in the proper way to the external environment. From the technological point of view, these behaviors are implemented by electrical and electronic items. Various standards to achieve FuSa have been released over the years. The first, released in 1998, was the IEC 61508. Its last version is the one released in 2010. This standard defines mainly: • a Functional Safety Management System (FSMS); • methods to determine a Safety Integrated Level (SIL); • methods to determine the probability of failures. To adapt the IEC61508 to the automotive industry’s peculiarity, a newer standard, the ISO26262, was released in 2011 then updated in 2018. This standard provides guidelines about FSMS, called in this case Safety Lifecycle, describing how to develop software and hardware components suitable for functional safety. It also provides a different way to compute the SIL, called in this case Automotive SIL (ASIL), allowing us to consider the average driver’s abilities to control the vehicle in case of failures. Moreover, it describes a way to determine the probability of random hardware failures through Failure Mode, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA). This dissertation contains contributions to three topics: • random hardware failures mitigation; • improvementoftheISO26262HazardAnalysisandRiskAssessment(HARA); • real-time verification of the embedded software. As the main contribution of this dissertation, I address the safety threats due to random hardware failures (RHFs). For this purpose, I propose a novel simulation-based approach to aid the Failure Mode, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) required by the ISO26262 standard. Thanks to a SPICE-level model of the item, and the adoption of fault injection techniques, it is possible to simulate its behaviors obtaining useful information to classify the various failure modes. The proposed approach evolved from a mere simulation of the item, allowing only an item-level failure mode classification up to a vehicle-level analysis. The propagation of the failure modes’ effects on the whole vehicle enables us to assess the impacts on the vehicle’s drivability, improving the quality of the classifications. It can be advantageous where it is difficult to predict how the item-level misbehaviors propagate to the vehicle level, as in the case of a virtual differential gear or the mobility system of a robot. It has been chosen since it can be considered similar to the novel light vehicles, such as electric scooters, that are becoming more and more popular. Moreover, my research group has complete access to its design since it is realized by our university’s DIANA students’ team. When a SPICE-level simulation is too long to be performed, or it is not possible to develop a complete model of the item due to intellectual property protection rules, it is possible to aid this process through behavioral models of the item. A simulation of this kind has been performed on a mobile robotic system. Behavioral models of the electronic components were used, alongside mechanical simulations, to assess the software failure mitigation capabilities. Another contribution has been obtained by modifying the main one. The idea was to make it possible to aid also the Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA). This assessment is performed during the concept phase, so before starting to design the item implementation. Its goal is to determine the hazards involved in the item functionality and their associated levels of risk. The end goal of this phase is a list of safety goals. For each one of these safety goals, an ASIL has to be determined. Since HARA relies only on designers expertise and knowledge, it lacks in objectivity and repeatability. Thanks to the simulation results, it is possible to predict the effects of the failures on the vehicle’s drivability, allowing us to improve the severity and controllability assessment, thus improving the objectivity. Moreover, since simulation conditions can be stored, it is possible, at any time, to recheck the results and to add new scenarios, improving the repeatability. The third group of contributions is about the real-time verification of embedded software. Through Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL), a software integration verification has been performed to test a fundamental automotive component, mixed-criticality applications, and multi-agent robots. The first of these contributions is about real-time tests on Body Control Modules (BCM). These modules manage various electronic accessories in the vehicle’s body, like power windows and mirrors, air conditioning, immobilizer, central locking. The main characteristics of BCMs are the communications with other embedded computers via the car’s vehicle bus (Controller Area Network) and to have a high number (hundreds) of low-speed I/Os. As the second contribution, I propose a methodology to assess the error recovery system’s effects on mixed-criticality applications regarding deadline misses. The system runs two tasks: a critical airplane longitudinal control and a non-critical image compression algorithm. I start by presenting the approach on a benchmark application containing an instrumented bug into the lower criticality task; then, we improved it by injecting random errors inside the lower criticality task’s memory space through a debugger. In the latter case, thanks to the HIL, it is possible to pause the time domain simulation when the debugger operates and resume it once the injection is complete. In this way, it is possible to interact with the target without interfering with the simulation results, combining a full control of the target with an accurate time-domain assessment. The last contribution of this third group is about a methodology to verify, on multi-agent robots, the synchronization between two agents in charge to move the end effector of a delta robot: the correct position and speed of the end effector at any time is strongly affected by a loss of synchronization. The last two contributions may seem unrelated to the automotive industry, but interest in these applications is gaining. Mixed-criticality systems allow reducing the number of ECUs inside cars (for cost reduction), while the multi-agent approach is helpful to improve the cooperation of the connected cars with respect to other vehicles and the infrastructure. The fourth contribution, contained in the appendix, is about a machine learning application to improve the social acceptance of autonomous vehicles. The idea is to improve the comfort of the passengers by recognizing their emotions. I started with the idea to modify the vehicle’s driving style based on a real-time emotions recognition system but, due to the difficulties of performing such operations in an experimental setup, I move to analyze them offline. The emotions are determined on volunteers’ facial expressions recorded while viewing 3D representa- tions showing different calibrations. Thanks to the passengers’ emotional responses, it is possible to choose the better calibration from the comfort point of view

Novel Validation Techniques for Autonomous Vehicles

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Characterization of human gamma delta T cells in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Over the last five decades, allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has evolved rapidly, continuing to offer a cure for several hematological diseases. Nevertheless, associated life-threatening complications remain an obstacle against exploiting its full therapeutic benefit. Among these complications, infection, relapse, and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) represent not only the most common but also the most serious ones. Though commonly regarded as distinct clinical events, their underlying pathophysiology is firmly related from an immunological perspective. T lymphocytes are key players in HSCT complications and their proper reconstitution following allogeneic HSCT is central for beneficial clinical outcome. The last two decades have witnessed a growing interest in a subset of T cells known as gamma delta (γδ) T cells. The immunological capabilities of these unconventional cells have been intensively explored. However, more efforts aimed at unraveling the immunobiological features of different γδ subsets are warranted to effectively exploit their full immunotherapeutic potential. In the present work, I tried to tackle several immune-related aspects that directly influence allogeneic HSCT outcome with a special focus on γδ T cells. In paper I, the main objective was to address the impact of different GVHD prophylaxis regimens on de novo generation of T and B lymphocytes. Using PCR methods, T cell receptor recombination excision circle (TREC), kappa deleting recombination excision circle (KREC), and telomere length (TL) were quantified in the peripheral blood (PB) of transplanted patients at several time intervals. Although there was no significant difference between the two GVHD prophylaxis groups, we identified other transplant related factors that were associated with reduced TREC and/or KREC levels after HSCT. Furthermore, we showed that high levels of these excision circles correlated with favorable outcome post HSCT. In paper II-IV, more attention was paid to explore the role of γδ T cells in donor grafts. Using multicolor flow cytometry together with other molecular and functional assays, we found a significant association between graft frequencies of CD8+γδ T cells and acute GVHD (aGVHD) grade II-III in Paper II. Additionally, we showed that higher frequencies of CD27+ γδ T cells in the stem cell grafts were correlated with both less relapse and CMV incidences. The results from paper II highlighting a potential role of CD8+γδ T cells in donor grafts raised our interest to further investigate this subset to elucidate their immunological characteristics. In paper III we thoroughly analysed γδ T cells in BM grafts using multicolor flow cytometry and TCR repertoire analysis using next generation sequencing (NGS). We showed that grafts from CMV+ donors contained higher proportions of CD8+γδ T that preferentially expressed Vγ9- and differentiated towards terminal effector memory phenotype. Additionally, analysis of TCRγ chain revealed a clonally focused repertoire in CMV+ donor grafts. We also showed that CD8+γδ T cells differentially respond to TCR stimuli suggesting adaptive-like phenotype In paper IV, we sought to address whether allogeneic HSCT outcome is influenced by γδ TCR repertoire composition in donor grafts. Immunosequencing of TCRγ chain by NGS revealed a more public repertoire and increased presence of long sequence clonotypes in graft given to non-relapsed patients. Further analysis of the amino acid sequences identified 12 public and 4 private sequences that were exclusively found in high frequencies in grafts given to nonrelapsed patients. Finally, in paper V we aimed to optimize a protocol for efficient in-vitro expansion of Vγ9Vδ2 T cells from umbilical cord blood (UCB). Phenotypical and functional characterization of expanded cells was comparable to PB and suggests that UCB can be a reliable source for Vγ9Vδ2 T cell expansion

Common Health: The Role of Non-Profit Organizations in Supporting Community Action for Health Equity and Justice

This dissertation explores the ways in which reporting requirements, evaluations, management decisions and other metrics and processes contribute to a growing gap between community development goals of community health centres and their practice. My argument is that there is a gap between the community development mandate of non-profit organizations and their practices, which is increasingly shaped toward direct service-delivery and steered away from the advocacy and community development pillars of their mandates. As a result, the capacity of non-profit organizations to support equitable community participation is curbed. Such a gap is largely facilitated through funding relations that prioritise functional accountability and results-based performance measurement that are consistent with extractivist capitalism. Extractivist goals of neoliberal capitalism imposed on non-profits undermine the goals of equity and social justice in urban community development. The purpose of this research is a careful examination and explication of power relations in everyday work of practitioners in the non-profit sector. I examine non-profit organizations as civil society actors, situated in the broader context of neoliberal capitalism where some actors are subordinate to others, and where subordination results from unequal access to and distribution of resources. I employ institutional ethnography and participatory action research as a methodology. I collected data from two community health centres and one inter-organizational network located in Torontos priority neighbourhoods and interviewed community volunteers, frontline workers, management staff and funders. I also reviewed documents such as reporting requirements and templates, evaluation frameworks and reports. In order to capture the ways in which reporting and functional accountability systems normalize extractivist processes in the non-profit sector, I constructed maps and diagrams to make such processes explicit. My research analyses how the role of non-profit organizations in regard to community action is shaped within capitalist power relations. To counteract and resists extractivist processes, I propose directions for strengthening the role of non-profit organizations as partners in collaborative processes involving co-production with community members

Annual reports of the town and school district of Newfields, New Hampshire for fiscal year ending December 31, 2016.

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire