A Retrospective Lateral Cephalometric Growth Study of Sagittal Airway Changes

Purpose: This study retrospectively examined the average sagittal dimensions in the pharyngeal airway from skeletal and dental Class I males and females from 7 to 16 years of age utilizing longitudinal data from the American Association of Orthodontists Foundation Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection. The study evaluated whether average sagittal airway dimensions differed between males and females at each age, and whether the sagittal airway dimension changed with increasing age. Materials and Methods: Sagittal airway dimension based on identifiable anatomical landmarks were digitally traced and measured from the longitudinal lateral cephalograms of 30 females and 32 males from the AAOF Growth Legacy Collection from ages 7 to 16. The distance from the anterior to posterior 2-D limit of the airway along a line perpendicular to Frankfort Horizontal and passing through the anterior nasal spine (ANS) (Measurement 1A-1B), through A-point (Measurement 2A-2B), through upper incisor tip (Measurement 3A-3B), through B-point (Measurement 4A-4B), and throughPogonion (Pog) (Measurement 5A-5B) was measured. Results: ANCOVA showed that males had a statistically significant greater 3A-3B length than females at age 13 (P = 0.02), 15 (P = 0.01), and 16 (P = 0.04). In males, there was a statistically significant increase in 2A-2B length (P = 0.04) and 5A-5B length (P = 0.03) between ages 7 and 16. No other comparisons were statistically significant. Conclusions: No statistically significant difference was found in sagittal airway dimension between males and females. No statistically significant difference was found in change in sagittal airway dimension with increasing age. We were unable to establish normative values

One Video Stream to Serve Diverse Receivers

The fundamental problem of wireless video multicast is to scalably serve multiple receivers which may have very different channel characteristics. Ideally, one would like to broadcast a single stream that allows each receiver to benefit from all correctly received bits to improve its video quality. We introduce Digital Rain, a new approach to wireless video multicast that adapts to channel characteristics without any need for receiver feedback or variable codec rates. Users that capture more packets or have fewer bit errors naturally see higher video quality. Digital Rain departs from current approaches in two ways: 1) It allows a receiver to exploit video packets that may contain bit errors; 2) It builds on the theory of compressed sensing to develop robust video encoding and decoding algorithms that degrade smoothly with bit errors and packet loss. Implementation results from an indoor wireless testbed show that Digital Rain significantly improves the received video quality and the number of supported receivers

Beyond the Bits: Cooperative Packet Recovery Using Physical Layer Information

PhD thesisWireless networks can suffer from high packet loss rates. This paper shows that the loss rate can be significantly reduced by exposing information readily available at the physical layer. We make the physical layer convey an estimate of its confidence that a particular bit is ``0'' or ``1'' to the higher layers. When used with cooperative design, this information dramatically improves the throughput of the wireless network. Access points that hear the same transmission combine their information to correct bits in a packet with minimal overhead. Similarly, a receiver may combine multiple erroneous transmissions to recover a correct packet. We analytically prove that our approach minimizes the errors in packet recovery. We also experimentally demonstrate its benefits using a testbed of GNU software radios. The results show that our approach can reduce loss rate by up to 10x in comparison with the current approach, and significantly outperforms prior cooperation proposals

Simple LCD Transmitter Camera Receiver Data Link

We demonstrate a freespace optical system using a consumer camera and projector in indoor environments using available devices for visual computing. Through design, prototype and experimentation with this commodity hardware, we analyze a practical optical solution as well as the drawbacks for current wireless challenges unmet by classic RF wireless communication. We summarize and introduce some new applications enabled by such similar setups

The Role of Occupational Therapy in Promoting Lifestyle Balance for Sex Trafficking Survivors

As of 2016, there is an estimated 35.8 million people who are victims of human trafficking (Gorman & Hatkevich, 2016). There are overwhelming and lasting effects that human trafficking survivors and their families face such as mental, physical, social, and economic challenges (Rajaram & Tidball, 2018). The purpose of this project is to utilize an occupational therapy lens to evaluate the needs of human trafficking survivors to promote community reintegration, while considering their roles, routines, and significant occupations and how these may have been disrupted by their lived experience as survivors. Observations of the established programming and the participants over 4 months, informal interviews with staff and participants, education through weekly life skills classes, concept mapping, and discussions on occupations were made as part of the needs assessment. Participants reported struggling in eight out of nine areas of occupation outlined in the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process, 4th edition (American Occupational Therapy Association, 2020). Several themes were found in the needs assessment: a need for support in self-care, areas of desired skill development, improved social participation, and other areas of occupation. However, the main theme found in the needs assessment is that participants had difficulty balancing all the important activities in their lives, which has impacted their ability to reintegrate into the community. An eight-week “Lifestyle Balance” program was designed with a four-week focus on foundational skills that promote lifestyle balance followed by four weeks of sessions on specific occupations in which participants mainly engage. This project allows for another step for occupational therapy as a field to expand into an emerging area of practice. Currently, there is limited support for occupational therapists (OTs) working with human trafficking survivors even though they are particularly skilled to address the barriers that this population faces. As demonstrated by this project, OTs can provide meaningful and effective services for sex trafficking survivors. Further research and program development should be conducted to continue to provide evidence-based practice for OTs working with this population and establish it as a consistent area of practice. As of 2016, there is an estimated 35.8 million people who are victims of human trafficking (Gorman & Hatkevich, 2016). There are overwhelming and lasting effects that human trafficking survivors and their families face such as mental, physical, social, and economic challenges (Rajaram & Tidball, 2018). The purpose of this project is to utilize an occupational therapy lens to evaluate the needs of human trafficking survivors to promote community reintegration, while considering their roles, routines, and significant occupations and how these may have been disrupted by their lived experience as survivors. Observations of the established programming and the participants over 4 months, informal interviews with staff and participants, education through weekly life skills classes, concept mapping, and discussions on occupations were made as part of the needs assessment. Participants reported struggling in eight out of nine areas of occupation outlined in the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process, 4th edition (American Occupational Therapy Association, 2020). Several themes were found in the needs assessment: a need for support in self-care, areas of desired skill development, improved social participation, and other areas of occupation. However, the main theme found in the needs assessment is that participants had difficulty balancing all the important activities in their lives, which has impacted their ability to reintegrate into the community. An eight-week “Lifestyle Balance” program was designed with a four-week focus on foundational skills that promote lifestyle balance followed by four weeks of sessions on specific occupations in which participants mainly engage. This project allows for another step for occupational therapy as a field to expand into an emerging area of practice. Currently, there is limited support for occupational therapists (OTs) working with human trafficking survivors even though they are particularly skilled to address the barriers that this population faces. As demonstrated by this project, OTs can provide meaningful and effective services for sex trafficking survivors. Further research and program development should be conducted to continue to provide evidence-based practice for OTs working with this population and establish it as a consistent area of practice.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonessummer2021/1018/thumbnail.jp

Co-channel DBPSK source separation

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-53).This thesis presents a Differential Binary Phase Shift Key (DBPSK) source separation system implemented with the GNU Software Defined Radio (SDR) platform and interfaced with the existing MIT community Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system. Source separation, well studied in the theoretical signal processing setting, presents an opportunity to achieve higher throughput in a practical SDR deployment. While much research has centered around the design of complex multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) and code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, single antenna source separation presents a simple alternative that is suitable in settings such as RFID where sources are naturally synchronized. Motivated by the analysis of physical channel properties with GNU SDR, this thesis documents the complete design process from the physical layer to the application layer and presents a realization of a co-channel DBPSK source separating technique. The result is an intelligent RFID source-separating reader that is capable of decoding multiple "dumb" cards.by Grace R. Woo.S.M

VRCodes : embedding unobtrusive data for new devices in visible light

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-101).This thesis envisions a public space populated with active visible surfaces which appear different to a camera than to the human eye. Thus, they can act as general digital interfaces that transmit machine-compatible data as well as provide relative orientation without being obtrusive. We introduce a personal transceiver peripheral, and demonstrate this visual environment enables human participants to hear sound only from the location they are looking in, authenticate with proximal surfaces, and gather otherwise imperceptible data from an object in sight. We present a design methodology that assumes the availability of many independent and controllable light transmitters where each individual transmitter produces light at different color wavelengths. Today, controllable light transmitters take the form of digital billboards, signage and overhead lighting built for human use; light-capturing receivers take the form of mobile cameras and personal video camcorders. Following the software-defined approach, we leverage screens and cameras as parameterized hardware peripherals thus allowing flexibility and development of the proposed framework on general-purpose computers in a manner that is unobtrusive to humans. We develop VRCodes which display spatio-temporally modulated metamers on active screens thus conveying digital and positional information to a rolling-shutter camera; and physically-modified optical setups which encode data in a point-spread function thus exploiting the camera's wide-aperture. These techniques exploit how the camera sees something different from the human. We quantify the full potential of the system by characterizing basic bounds of a parameterized transceiver hardware along with the medium in which it operates. Evaluating performance highlights the underutilized temporal, spatial and frequency dimensions available to the interaction designer concerned with human perception. Results suggest that the one-way point-to-point transmission is good enough for extending the techniques toward a two-way bidrectional model with realizable hardware devices. The new visual environment contains a second data layer for machines that is synthetic and quantifiable; human interactions serve as the context.by Grace Woo.Ph.D

The Winter We Danced. Voices from the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement

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Decolonization and Canada’s ‘Idle No More’ Movement

Canada’s ‘Idle No More’ movement ignited over concern about Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s abuse of majority status to enact laws that undermine democratic rights and environmental protection. With a philosophy that corresponds to international human rights principles, the movement galvanized public opinion and forged stronger alliances with the settler population. Ironically, Indigenous peoples are currently better situated than Canadians to challenge the lack of public consultation and violation of democratic principles that have come to light. The Supreme Court of Canada has recently confirmed that there is a duty to consult aboriginal peoples on issues that affect their rights, and several court actions have now been mounted on this basis. The goal of correcting endemic injustices and reinvigorating democracy will require a full re-evaluation of Canada’s colonial past and of the institutional format used to dispossess Indigenous peoples. Idle No More’s iconic flash-mob round dances suggest there is a new generation ready to take on this challenge.Keywords: British colonialism, monarchy, democracy, Indigenous, law, rights, sovereigntyCitation: Arctic Review on Law and Politics, vol. 4, 2/2013 pp. 181–206. ISSN 1891-625

La danse des fantômes à la cour Suprême du Canada: les droits autochtones pendant le premier quart de siècle de l'article 35 de la loi constitutionnelle, 1982

Titre de la page de titre additionnel: Ghost dancing at the Supreme Court of Canada : indigenous rights during the First quarter century of s.35.of Canada's Constitution Act, 1982.Certains supposent que la Loi constitutionnelle de 1982, donc la section 35(1) reconnait les droits existants des peuples autochtones, a complété la décolonisation du Canada. Par contre, malgré le passage d'un quart de siècle, plusieurs Autochtones estiment que la Cour suprême continue à nier l'existence de leurs droits. Cette étude examine cette problématique en formulant des définitions juridiques du « colonialisme » et du « post colonialisme ». Vu le remplacement de l'idéal de «la loi» comme «commande », promu par le juriste anglais John Austin au dernier siècle, par l'idéal du consensus populaire et démocratique, nous avons vécu une changement important dans le droit euro-canadien. Mais, selon la théorie des paradigmes de Thomas Kuhn, la continuation des anciennes habitudes est une partie normale du processus de changement, qui n'est jamais complète sans l'émergence de nouveaux modèles et procédures. Pour déterminer la situation de la Cour suprême du Canada par rapport au processus de décolonisation, la Partie I de cette étude examine le fonctionnement paradigmatique autant que le phénomène colonial, la décolonisation en droit international et le postcolonialisme pour identifier les indicateurs du paradigme colonial autant que le paradigme postcolonial. La Partie II adapte ce cadre analytique aux raisonnements de la Cour suprême du Canada concernant les droits autochtones protégés par l’article 35 (1) de la Loi constitutionnelle de 1982. Cette double analyse coloniale/postcoloniale démontre la persistance des anciennes habitudes malgré la reconnaissance des idéaux postcoloniaux par la Cour. Les juges sont conscients des limites institutionnelles qui restreignent leur capacité de protéger les droits autochtones, mais plusieurs concepts qui structurent leur raisonnement perpétuent la dynamique coloniale. Une réflexion approfondie des juges, des praticiens et des peuples autochtones sur les problèmes qui découlent des changements paradigmatiques doit faciliter la tolérance mutuelle qui est un préalable aux ententes qui sont nécessaires selon les idéaux égalitaires qui sont partages par tous.Many people believe that Canada became fully decolonized in 1982 with the "patriation" instituted by the Constitution Act, 1982, whose s.35 (1) explicitly recognized and affirmed "existing Aboriginal and treaty rights". Yet, a quarter century later, Indigenous critics continue to complain that their rights are being denied by the Supreme Court of Canada. This study has approached such questions by drawing on international law to establish legal definitions for "colonialism" and "postcolonialism". In this optic, it becomes clear that there has been a significant change in Euro-Canadian norms during the past century. Colonial concepts, like the English jurist John Austin's definition of "law" as "command" have been superseded by the ideal of informed, popular consent, yet modes of conduct that are consistent with the colonial paradigm persist. According to Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions this is predictable because changes from one paradigm to another are normally characterized by intensified assertions of the impugned orthodoxy and no change is complete until new models and procedures have emerged to replace established habits. In order to determine where the Supreme Court of Canada actually stands in relation to the decolonization process, Part I of this study examines the nature of paradigmatic function, including the metaphoric construction of language. It then reviews the colonial phenomenon, the emergence of decolonization in international law and postcolonialism to define the colonial and postcolonial paradigms in terms of specific indicia that can be used to classify institutional performance. Part II adapts this analytical framework to the specific circumstances of judicial decision making and applies it to the reasoning of over 60 Supreme Court of Canada cases concerned with section 35 (1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. This dual colonial/postcolonial analysis makes it possible to identify some of the ways in which colonial metaphors and modes of thought have persisted during the past quarter century despite the Court's firm commitment to postcolonial ideals. Though the judges themselves are aware of some of the institutional limitations that constrict their ability to validate Indigenous rights, many of the concepts that structure their reasoning induce them to perpetuate the colonial paradigm. Further reflection on the structure of our rational processes and on the problems predictably associated with paradigm change might make it easier for judges, practitioners and Indigenous peoples to develop the agreements that are necessary to implement the egalitarian ideals ascribed to by all