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  • Visualizing a hypertext narrative.

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Fraser, Jennifer
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Architecture (M.Arch.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Architecture
    Date Created:
    2000

  • The architecture of war : a conflict generated architecture

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Al-Rawi, Reem
    Abstract:
    In cities of conflicts, the damage of war has become the visual common denominator that defines the region of destruction and vulnerability. According to Jonathan Budd, “the term 'Warchitecture' describes the condition of war waged specifically as the destruction of architecture."3 But the visual impact of such destruction is only the first stage in a long series of negative impacts which have social, cultural and humanitarian consequences. When the visual contact, or rather 'touch' with such conditions is made through the remains of destroyed architectural structures, it becomes understandable that it is architecture itself which is then responsible for the renewed existence, or the lack of, necessary elements that each society needs to restore and regenerate itself.
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Architecture (M.Arch.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Architecture
    Date Created:
    2010

  • Modifactured : hacking the tools of architectural design

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Alford, Janak Babaji
    Abstract:
    This thesis considers the numerous, complex, and sometimes redundant tools of architectural design and attempts to unify them with a hacker approach. A hacker mentality allows one to consider the problems of design from the tools outward. Focusing on the ‘how’ instead of the ‘what’ to design, a hacker reconsiders the existing methods and concepts and recombines them to find new potential. Three hacker projects of architecture are considered: Katalogos, a tool to map and archive Internet media and references, nTerface, a hybrid drawing interface, and the Modifacture Machine, a fabricating instrument. Each ‘toolhack’ flows directly into the next, resulting in a critical practice that incorporates the best of human- and computer-assisted design in a singular process. Hacking the tools of design and manufacturing then becomes a way to reevaluate the looming challenges of energy generation and transportation. The hacker becomes a key individual in a de-globalized world.
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Architecture (M.Arch.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Architecture
    Date Created:
    2011

  • Architecture doubt uncertainty.

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    West, Mark
    Abstract:
    The drawings and accompanying text of this thesis describe a fictional culture (the Cypherians) possessed of an amorphous and indeterminant nature. Through this pretence the inevitable conditions of doubt and uncertainty confront the equally inevitable imperatives of determination and explanation. The charge of the enigmatic is thereby embraced, serving as the foundation for this work which is both descriptive of a condition of being and making, and speculative about its implications for an architecture which shares this same embrace.
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Architecture (M.Arch.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Architecture
    Date Created:
    1997

  • Canadian jobs amid a pandemic: examining the relationship between professional industry and salary to regional key performance indicators

    Resource Type:
    Report
    Creator:
    Patsula, Michael, Tran, Christopher, Wang, Christopher, Khalil, Hoda, Dick, Kevin, Melone, Benjamin, Wainer, Gabriel, and Anilkumar, Rahul
    Abstract:
    The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to massive rates of unemployment and greater uncertainty in the job market. There is a growing need for data-driven tools and analyses to better inform the public on trends within the job market. In particular, obtaining a “snapshot” of available employment opportunities mid-pandemic promises insights to inform policy and support retraining programs. In this work, we combine data scraped from the Canadian Job Bank and Numbeo globally crowd-sourced repository to explore the relationship between job postings during a global pandemic and Key Performance Indicators (e.g. quality of life index, cost of living) for major cities across Canada. This analysis aims to help Canadians make informed career decisions, collect a “snapshot” of the Canadian employment opportunities amid a pandemic, and inform job seekers in identifying the correct fit between the desired lifestyle of a city and their career. We collected a new high-quality dataset of job postings from jobbank.gc.ca obtained with the use of ethical web scraping and performed exploratory data analysis on this dataset to identify job opportunity trends. When optimizing for average salary of job openings with quality of life, affordability, cost of living, and traffic indices, it was found that Edmonton, AB consistently scores higher than the mean, and is therefore an attractive place to move. Furthermore, we identified optimal provinces to relocate to with respect to individual skill levels. It was determined that Ajax, Marathon, and Chapleau, ON are each attractive cities for IT professionals, construction workers, and healthcare workers respectively when maximizing average salary. Finally, we publicly release our scraped dataset as a mid-pandemic snapshot of Canadian employment opportunities and present a public web application that provides an interactive visual interface that summarizes our findings for the general public and the broader research community.
    Date Created:
    2022-06-08

  • Organized labour and the Laurier administration: the fortunes of a pressure group.

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Atkinson, William David
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Arts (M.A.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    History
    Date Created:
    1958

  • An examination of the role of the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada as a regulatory tribunal.

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Wright, Arthur Robert
    Abstract:
    In order to fully comprehend the working of an administrative board or tribunal it is first necessary to establish the principles which form the basis of their operations. The concept of justice and equanimity between parties has come down to us in the form or theory of "a rule of law”. In attempting to examine the role of the Board of Transport Commissioners in so far as it affects railways in Canada the concepts of natural justice and impartiality form the test pattern in the light of which the history, development, and operation of transportation is examined and the procedure, practice and problems of the Board are discussed. An examination of the historical development, character, functions and practices of the Board, bearing in mind the evolution of the transport industry and the requirements of a "rule of law” even in administrative or quasi-judicial bodies, leads to the conclusion that it cannot be described accurately by either "administrative" or "judicial" designations. It is, nevertheless, possible to devise a "rule of law" in the administrative sense. It is the central thesis of this paper that the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada is a judicial body possessing those aspects of administrative tribunals which are conducive to flexibility and informality in the discharge of its supervisory and regulatory functions.
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Arts (M.A.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Public Administration
    Date Created:
    1962

  • The architect as creator of environments: Victor Gruen, visionary pioneer of urban revitalizations.

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Azrieli, David J.
    Abstract:
    This thesis will examine the social considerations which underlie Victor Gruen’s approach to urban planning and design. Known as the creator of the modern enclosed shopping mall, Gruen’s efforts were also concentrated in the revitalization and redevelopment of a number of cities and towns. Gruen’s work is of particular interest because of its social component: his consideration for the human condition and his desire to improve man’s quality of life through the design of multi-functional architecture. The requirements of the eventual "user" were, therefore, of the utmost importance and Gruen’s feasibility studies employed multi-disciplinary teams in attempting to fulfil "user" needs. Gruen’s ideal urban core positioned the commercial center as the core’s focal point, serving as a catalyst for economic and recreational activity. His vision was modern equivalent of the European market square, drawing great numbers of people for the dual purpose of commercial and social exchanges.
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Architecture (M.Arch.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Architecture
    Date Created:
    1997

  • Aptamer Technology for Diabetes and Co-Morbidities

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Ferguson, Madison Quinn
    Abstract:
    Given that the number of people who are diagnosed with diabetes continues to rise at an alarming rate, there is a pressing need for therapeutic interventions that are either more efficient or potentially curative. Furthermore, comorbidities such as kidney failure, thrombosis, thyroid dysfunction, Alzheimer's disease, and an increased risk of severe illness from common viral and bacterial infections are more likely to occur in people who have type 2 diabetes. The advancement of nanotechnology may lead to the diagnostics and therapies that could improve the survival and quality of life of patients with diabetes. Aptamers are oligonucleotides that have the ability to bind to a particular target with a high degree of specificity as well as affinity. Systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) is an in vitro evolution method that is responsible for the generation of aptamers. It has been shown that aptamers may function as medicines, diagnostics, theragnostics, targeted delivery vehicles, responsive materials and more. This work examines the application of aptamers to diabetes and related comorbidities. The selection and preliminary characterization of aptamers able to interact with Islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP), a potential causative factor in the development of type II diabetes, are described. An aptamer-based diagnostic for the acute kidney failure biomarker neutrophil gelatinase lipocalin protein is also developed. An aptamer-modified janus nanoparticle system is investigated as a potential theragnostic for thrombosis that could combine photothermal therapy and magnetic resonance imaging. Finally, aptamers for the spike protein component 2 of SARS-CoV2 and a database for aptamer selection experiments are briefly described.
    Thesis Degree:
    Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Chemistry
    Date Created:
    2022

  • Using Bipartite Matching and Detection Transformers for Document Layout Analysis Transfer Learning

    Resource Type:
    Thesis
    Creator:
    Wilson, Joshua Randy
    Abstract:
    Business documents represent useful information which could benefit from automatic interpretation. The task of document layout analysis seeks to identify and localize semantic structures in documents. Contemporary techniques approach this as a strictly visual task. However, recent progress in Natural Language Processing (NLP) has enabled the incorporation of language information. Multimodal techniques have been proposed for the task of document layout analysis. These models make use of region based object detection techniques which require defining surrogate tasks such as region proposals and non-max suppression. This thesis presents LayoutLMDet, a multimodal layout analysis model. LayoutLMDet approaches object detection as a direct set prediction task as described in "End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers". Using bipartite matching, LayoutLMDet removes the need for surrogate tasks, simplifying implementation. Leveraging a pretrained transformer encoder, LayoutLMDet is able to achieve a mean average precision of 49.5 on the DocLayNet test dataset. A qualitative comparison of LayoutLMDets performance on the DocBank dataset highlights the impact of data selection.
    Thesis Degree:
    Master of Applied Science (M.App.Sc.)
    Thesis Degree Discipline:
    Engineering, Electrical and Computer
    Date Created:
    2023