Characterizing Dynamic Optimization Benchmarks for the Comparison of Multi-Modal Tracking Algorithms

Population-based metaheuristics, such as particle swarm optimization (PSO), have been employed to solve many real-world optimization problems. Although it is of- ten sufficient to find a single solution to these problems, there does exist those cases where identifying multiple, diverse solutions can be beneficial or even required. Some of these problems are further complicated by a change in their objective function over time. This type of optimization is referred to as dynamic, multi-modal optimization. Algorithms which exploit multiple optima in a search space are identified as niching algorithms. Although numerous dynamic, niching algorithms have been developed, their performance is often measured solely on their ability to find a single, global optimum. Furthermore, the comparisons often use synthetic benchmarks whose landscape characteristics are generally limited and unknown. This thesis provides a landscape analysis of the dynamic benchmark functions commonly developed for multi-modal optimization. The benchmark analysis results reveal that the mechanisms responsible for dynamism in the current dynamic bench- marks do not significantly affect landscape features, thus suggesting a lack of representation for problems whose landscape features vary over time. This analysis is used in a comparison of current niching algorithms to identify the effects that specific landscape features have on niching performance. Two performance metrics are proposed to measure both the scalability and accuracy of the niching algorithms. The algorithm comparison results demonstrate the algorithms best suited for a variety of dynamic environments. This comparison also examines each of the algorithms in terms of their niching behaviours and analyzing the range and trade-off between scalability and accuracy when tuning the algorithms respective parameters. These results contribute to the understanding of current niching techniques as well as the problem features that ultimately dictate their success.

Evaluation of a treatment program for individuals with an intellectual disability who have high risk behaviours

In the past two decades numerous programs have emerged to treat individuals with developmental disabilities who have sexual offending behaviours. There has, however been very few studies that systematically examine the effectiveness of long term treatment with this population. The present research examines the therapeutic outcomes of a multi-modal behaviour approach with six individuals with intellectual disabilities previously charged with sexual assault. The participants also exhibited severe behavioural challenges that included verbal aggression, physical aggression, destruction and self-injury. These six participants (5 males, 1 female) were admitted to a Long Term Residential Treatment Program (LTRTP), due to the severity of their behaviours and due to their lack of treatment success in other programs. Individualized treatment plans focused on the reduction of maladaptive behaviours and the enhancing of skills such as positive coping strategies, socio-sexual knowledge, life skills, recreation and leisure skills. The treatment program also included psychiatric, psychological, medical, behavioural and educational interventions. The participants remained in the Long Term Residential Treatment Program (LTRTP) program from 181 to 932 days (average of 1.5 years). Pre and post treatment evaluations were conducted using the following tools: frequency of target behaviours, Psychopathology Inventory for Mentally Retarded Adults (PIMRA), Emotional Problems Scale (EPS), Socio-Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Assessment Tool (SSKAAT-R) and Quality of Life Questionnaire (QOL-Q). Recidivism rates and the need for re-hospitalization were also noted for each participant. By offering high levels of individualized interventions, all six participants showed a 37 % rate of reduction in maladaptive behaviours with zero to low rates of inappropriate sexualbehaviour, there were no psychiatric hospitalizations, and there was no recidivism for 5 of 6 participants. In addition, medication was reduced. Mental health scores on the PIMRA were reduced across all participants by 25 % and scores on the Quality of Life Questionnaire increased for all participants by an average of 72 %. These findings add to and build upon the existing literature on long term treatment benefits for individuals with a intellectual disability who sexually offend. By utilizing an individualized and multimodal treatment approach to reduce severe behavioural challenges, not only can the maladaptive behaviours be reduced, but adaptive behaviours can be increased, mental health concerns can be managed, and overall quality of life can be improved.

Using fuction-based CBT with parent involvement to treat OCD in two school-age children with high-functioning autism

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) involves excessive worry coupled with engaging in rituals that are believed to help alleviate the worry. Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PODs) are characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication, and the presence of repetitive and/or restrictive behaviours (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Research suggests that as many as 81% of children with a POD also meet criteria for a diagnosis ofOCD. Currently, only a handful of studies have investigated the use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in treating OCD in children with autism (Reaven & Hepburn, 2003 ; Sze & Wood, 2007; Lehmkuhl, Storch, Bodtish & Geflken, 2008). In these case studies. the use of a multi-modal CBT treatment package was successful in alleviating OCD behaviours. The current study used function-based CBT with parent involvement and behavioural supplements to treat 2 children with POD and OCD. Using a multiple baseline design across behaviours and participants, parents reported that their child 's anxiety was alleviated and these gains were maintained at 6-month follow-up. According to results of the Children 's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Goodman, Price, Rasmussen, Riddle, & Rapoport, 1986) from preto post-test, OCD behaviours of the children decreased II"om the severe to the mild range. In addition, the parents rated the family's level of interference related to their child 's OCD as substantially lower. Last, the CBT treatment received high ratings of consumer satisfaction.

Six-month outcomes of a multi-campus smoking cessation contest

Background: Up to 40% of North American post-secondary students smoke at least occasionally, and most want to quit. Given students' preferences for free, easy-to-access, self-directed, convenient cessation methods, a motivational, incentive-based cessation contest may be an effective way to assist students to quit. The current study describes 3- and 6-month outcomes experienced by post-secondary student smokers who entered the 'Let's Make A Deal!' contest. Methodology: Contestants from five university campuses who chose to quit completely ('Quit For Good') or reduce their tobacco consumption by 50% ('Keep The Count') were invited to participate in a study of the contest. Three and six months after registration, participants were contacted by phone to assess their smoking and quitting behaviours. Qualitative and quantitative measures were collected, including weekly tobacco consumption, efficacy to resist temptations to smoke, use of quitting aids, and strategies to cope with withdrawal. Quitting was assessed using 7-day point prevalence and continuous abstinence. Results: Seventy-four (64.9%) of the 114 participants recruited for the study completed the follow-ups. Over 31 % of participants who entered Quit For Good and 23.5% of participants who entered Keep The Count were identified as quitters at the 6-month follow-up. Among the quitters, 45.5% experienced sustained abstinence from smoking for the 6-month duration of the study. Keep The Count contestants reduced their tobacco consumption by 57.2% at 3-month follow-up and sustained some of this reduction through to the 6-month follow-up. Qualitative data provides insights into how quitters coped with withdrawal and what hampered continuing smokers' efforts to quit. Significance: A motivational, incentive-based contest for post-secondary students can facilitate both smoking cessation and harm reduction. The contest environment, incentives, resources, and "buddies" provide positive structural and social supports to help smokers overcome potential barriers to quitting, successfully stop smoking, and manage potential triggers to relapse. The contest cessation rates are higher than the typical 5-7% associated with unassisted quitting.

On the anharmonic, multi-phonon, Debye-Waller contributions to the phonon-limited resistivity of metals : applications to Na and K

The anharmonic, multi-phonon (MP), and Oebye-Waller factor (OW) contributions to the phonon limited resistivity (;0) of metals derived by Shukla and Muller (1979) by the doubletime temperature dependent Green function method have been numerically evaluated for Na and K in the high temperature limit. The anharmonic contributions arise from the cubic and quartic shift of phonons (CS, QS), and phonon width (W) and the interference term (1). The QS, MP and OW contributions to I' are also derived by the matrix element method and the results are in agreement with those of Shukla and Muller (1979). In the high temperature limit, the contributions to;O from each of the above mentioned terms are of the type BT2 For numerical calculations suitable expressions are derived for the anharmonic contributions to ~ in terms of the third and fourth rank tensors obtained by the Ewald procedure. The numerical calculation of the contributions to;O from the OW, MP term and the QS have been done exactly and from the CS, Wand I terms only approximately in the partial and total Einstein approximations (PEA, TEA), using a first principle approach (Shukla and Taylor (1976)). The results obtained indicate that there is a strong pairwise cancellation between the: OW and MP terms, the QS and CS and the Wand I terms. The sum total of these contributions to;O for Na and K amounts to 4 to 11% and 2 to 7%, respectively, in the PEA while in the TEA they amount to 3 to 7% and 1 to 4%, respectively, in the temperature range.

What gets plans off the shelf? : a multi-site case study of the factors influencing municipal recreation plan implementation

Municipalities that engage in recreation planning have the potential to use their resources more effectively. However, successful planning means getting the plan off the shelf and implemented. This study investigated the factors that influenced municipal recreation plan implementation in three municipalities. Interviews were conducted with eleven key informants (recreation directors, planning consultants, a city councillor, and members of plan steering committees). The findings of this study suggested that because the implementation of recreation plans occurs in a highly political environment, recreation professionals will need effective strategies to get their plans implemented and that implementation can be facilitated by developing or expanding strategies that: (l) build the power of the recreation department within the municipal government structure; (2) build support for recreation within the local community; and (3) build the political and organizational capacity in the recreation department.

A Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm with Side Effect Machines for Motif Discovery

Understanding the machinery of gene regulation to control gene expression has been one of the main focuses of bioinformaticians for years. We use a multi-objective genetic algorithm to evolve a specialized version of side effect machines for degenerate motif discovery. We compare some suggested objectives for the motifs they find, test different multi-objective scoring schemes and probabilistic models for the background sequence models and report our results on a synthetic dataset and some biological benchmarking suites. We conclude with a comparison of our algorithm with some widely used motif discovery algorithms in the literature and suggest future directions for research in this area.

Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms for the Single Allocation Hub Location Problem

Hub Location Problems play vital economic roles in transportation and telecommunication networks where goods or people must be efficiently transferred from an origin to a destination point whilst direct origin-destination links are impractical. This work investigates the single allocation hub location problem, and proposes a genetic algorithm (GA) approach for it. The effectiveness of using a single-objective criterion measure for the problem is first explored. Next, a multi-objective GA employing various fitness evaluation strategies such as Pareto ranking, sum of ranks, and weighted sum strategies is presented. The effectiveness of the multi-objective GA is shown by comparison with an Integer Programming strategy, the only other multi-objective approach found in the literature for this problem. Lastly, two new crossover operators are proposed and an empirical study is done using small to large problem instances of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and Australian Post (AP) data sets.

SYNTHESIS OF CYCLIC AZOBENZENE ANALOGUES FOR INCORPORATION INTO OLIGONUCLEOTIDES, PEPTIDES AND POLYMERS

(A) In recent years, considerable amount of effort has contributed towards enhancing our understanding of the new photoswitch, cyclic azobenzene, particularly from the theoretical point of view. However, the challenging part with this system was poor efficiency of its synthesis from 2,2’- dinitrodibenzyl and lack of effective methods for further modification which would be useful to incorporate this system into biomolecules as a photoswitch. We report the synthesis of cyclic azobenzene and analogues from 2,2’-dinitrodibenzyl, which would allow for further incorporation of this cyclic azobenzene into biomolecules. Reaction of 2,2’-dinitrodibenzyl with zinc metal powder in the presence of triethylammonium formate buffer (pH-9.5) gave a cyclic azoxybenzene, 11,12-dihydrodibenzo[c,g][1,2]diazocine-5-oxide. The latter compound was converted into cyclic azobenzene analogues (bromo-, chloro-, cyano-, and carboxyl) through subsequent transformations. The carboxylic acid analogue was reacted with D-threoninol to give the corresponding amide, which readily undergoes photo-isomerization upon illumination with light. Upon illumination with light at 400 nm, approximately 70% of cis- isomer of amide was isomerized to trans- isomer. It was observed that cis- to trans- isomerization reached the maximum steady state of light transmission after approximately 40 min, whereas the trans- to cis- isomerization approximately acquired in 2 h to regain full recovery of light transmission. Cyclic azobenzene phosphoramidite was synthesized from DMT-protected D-threoninol linked cyclic azobenzene. (B) In recent years, there has been considerable interest invested towards the synthesis of azobenzene analogues for incorporation into proteins. Among the many azobenzene analogues, the synthesis of bi-functional cyclic azobenzene analogues for the incorporation into proteins is relatively new. In this thesis, we report the synthesis of a cyclic azobenzene biscarboxylic acid from 4-(bromomethyl)benzonitrile. (C) Azobenzene has been widely used in the field of polymer science to study the surface morphology and surface properties of polymers. In this thesis, we report the incorporation of cyclic azobenzene into a commercial polymer 2- (hydroxyethyl)methacrylate. Samples collected after 24 h from the reaction solution showed approximately 9% of incorporation of cyclic azobenzene into polymer compared to samples collected after 10 h, which showed approximately 6% incorporation.

Lipase-Mediated Enzymatic Catalysis For The Synthesis of New Chiral Polymers

Immobilized lipase B from Candida antarctica (N435) was investigated as a potential biocatalyst to generate silicone-based chiral polymers from monomers derived from the enzymatic dihydroxylation of bromobenzene. Several conditions and parameters have been investigated for this purpose and lipase transesterification preference to each of the free secondary alcohols in the chiral monomers was documented. The N435 was challenged with a series of substrates where the free alcohol moieties were systematically protected in order to study the substrate preference(s) for the transesterification reactions.

Group-invariant solutions of semilinear Schrodinger equations in multi-dimensions

Symmetry group methods are applied to obtain all explicit group-invariant radial solutions to a class of semilinear Schr¨odinger equations in dimensions n = 1. Both focusing and defocusing cases of a power nonlinearity are considered, including the special case of the pseudo-conformal power p = 4/n relevant for critical dynamics. The methods involve, first, reduction of the Schr¨odinger equations to group-invariant semilinear complex 2nd order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with respect to an optimal set of one-dimensional point symmetry groups, and second, use of inherited symmetries, hidden symmetries, and conditional symmetries to solve each ODE by quadratures. Through Noether’s theorem, all conservation laws arising from these point symmetry groups are listed. Some group-invariant solutions are found to exist for values of n other than just positive integers, and in such cases an alternative two-dimensional form of the Schr¨odinger equations involving an extra modulation term with a parameter m = 2−n = 0 is discussed.

New conserved vorticity integrals for moving surfaces in multi-dimensional fluid flow

For inviscid fluid flow in any n-dimensional Riemannian manifold, new conserved vorticity integrals generalizing helicity, enstrophy, and entropy circulation are derived for lower-dimensional surfaces that move along fluid streamlines. Conditions are determined for which the integrals yield constants of motion for the fluid. In the case when an inviscid fluid is isentropic, these new constants of motion generalize Kelvin’s circulation theorem from closed loops to closed surfaces of any dimension.

Photograph - Women, multi-generational

A photograph of five women of different ages. They are outdoors with trees surrounding them.

Community Detection in Multi-Layer Networks

In the scope of the current thesis we review and analyse networks that are formed by nodes with several attributes. We suppose that different layers of communities are embedded in such networks, besides each of the layers is connected with nodes' attributes. For example, examine one of a variety of online social networks: an user participates in a plurality of different groups/communities – schoolfellows, colleagues, clients, etc. We introduce a detection algorithm for the above-mentioned communities. Normally the result of the detection is the community supplemented just by the most dominant attribute, disregarding others. We propose an algorithm that bypasses dominant communities and detects communities which are formed by other nodes' attributes. We also review formation models of the attributed networks and present a Human Communication Network (HCN) model. We introduce a High School Texting Network (HSTN) and examine our methods for that network.