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Hybrid AI-driven Approach to Context-Aware Inter-Slice Load Balancing for Cloud-Native Functions in 5G Networks
Full text linkThis thesis explores transformative technologies in academia and industry, focusing on cloud-native or container-based network functions (CNFs) that improve scalability and lifecycle management compared to virtual network functions (VNFs). CNFs simplify orchestration by leveraging reliable service meshes and eliminating proxies. The thesis emphasizes high-level connectivity and APIs within custom execution environments (EEs), enabling AI-agent interactions for intelligent capabilities. Graph neural networks (GNN) and spatio-temporal multi-head graph attention networks (SP-mGAT) are utilized to generate context-aware embeddings, clustering clients by traffic characteristics into priority labels. These labels feed multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL) models like deep Q-networks (DQN) and proximal policy optimization (PPO) for traffic load balancing across core network slices, enhancing service quality. Kubernetes-integrated deployments use Prometheus for real-time predictive analytics, expanding beyond network-centric metrics to system-centric metrics. The hybrid platform achieves over 50% error reduction compared to earlier AI-assisted systems, demonstrating superior performance for intelligent, real-time decision-making in network environments
Rheological Damper Characterization and Control with Application to a Drop Tower for Replicating the Impact Profiles of High Speed Craft
No full textTo replicate marine impact forces, this thesis proposes using a rheological damper as the drop tower impact surface, leveraging its semi-active behaviour. For such application, several preparatory steps are necessary. Therefore, the scope of this work includes damper characterization, inverse model development, impact dynamics derivation, and control algorithm design. Damper characterization employs parametric and non-parametric modeling, which are applied to both MR and ER dampers, providing insights into their hysteresis and operational behavior. For parametric modeling, a novel hybrid optimization algorithm is introduced, combining PSO and L-BFGS-B gradient-based optimization. This algorithm reduces the computation time while maintaining accuracy. For non-parametric modeling, an LSTM-RNN is developed, incorporating tapped delay lines and predicted force feedback, which capture nonlinear hysteresis with high efficiency. Additionally, a closed-loop pole placement strategy replicates desired impact acceleration profiles. This work demonstrates hybrid optimization and neural network modeling, providing a foundation for rheological damper modeling and impact control
Hyper-Reliable Communications for Industrial Automation: From IIoT Devices to Integrated Networks to Edge Clouds
No full textIndustry 5.0 represents a pivotal shift in industrial systems, advancing automation into a new era of collaboration between humans and robots. In alignment with this industrial revolution, 6G networks are poised to provide Hyper-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications (HRLLC). As part of an Ericsson-Carleton collaboration, this research seeks to explore and enhance End-to-End reliability within the three primary segments of future industrial environments: I/O devices, industrial communication networks, and Edge Computing infrastructures. The overarching challenge addressed is the incongruence between the reliability of individual networking layers and the uncompromisable requirements of industrial automation applications. Through an in-depth examination, this research illuminates strategies to enhance the integration between Time-sensitive Networking (TSN) and Deterministic Networking (DetNet) reliability functions with 5G Systems, harness the potential of massive Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output antenna systems, and fortify the resilience of Edge Computing. These efforts aim to bridge the reliability gaps across segments and engineer reliability mechanisms for the rapidly evolving landscape of industrial automation. The research contributes to the academic and industrial fields by addressing the multifaceted challenge of reliability in industrial communication systems. It demonstrates the 5G-TSN/DetNet robustness in challenging radio environments, utilizing machine learning to optimize network performance and developing methods for advanced 5G New Radio scheduling for HRLLC. Additionally, it explores reliability and energy efficiency optimization in integrated industrial networks, focusing on mMIMO systems. Finally, It addresses the cloudification of TSN reliability functions and failover mechanisms for edge workloads. The outcomes of this research have been disseminated through six first-author publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, with two more manuscripts currently under review
Designing a Cyberbullying Assessment Tool: on the Perspective of Narrative Design for Children
Full text linkThis thesis investigates the complex dynamics of cyberbullying among children ages 8 to 12, emphasizing its psychological and emotional impact and the communication barriers between children and parents. A high-fidelity prototype of a cyberbullying reporting toolkit was developed based on insights from the literature on empathy, narrative storytelling, and user-centered design. The toolkit, designed to enhance parent-child communication, incorporates features like customizable avatars, journaling, and indirect reporting methods to enable emotional expression and trust. Semi-structured interviews with parents were conducted to inform the development of the toolkit. The data collected provided qualitative insights, analyzed through thematic analysis, revealing the toolkit's benefits in promoting emotional regulation, strengthening relationships, and addressing children's reluctance to report cyberbullying. The findings highlight the importance of empathy-driven, developmentally appropriate design in creating effective interventions. The study contributes to narrative design and digital safety by offering practical tools to empower families in tackling cyberbullying
“My life is Happier because I can make them Happier”: Working Conditions and Leadership that Contribute to Culturally and Linguistically Specific Care
Full text linkThis thesis contributes to research questions by exploring the culturally and linguistically specific (CLS) care for older Chinese Canadians in an Ontario long-term care (LTC) home and leadership practices that cultivate and maintain this care. Informed by Feminist Political Economy, this thesis explores the relations and conditions of those who work at one CLS LTC home, paying attention to the intersections of gender, race, class, and immigration, and their experience of everyday work and life. An exploratory case study is employed, in addition to three data collection methods: documentation review and analysis, semi-structured interviews, and a site visit. Findings show CLS care is not only supported through food, activities and programs, and language, but it also needs to attend to clinical assessment and judgment. Promising leadership practices include autonomy and discretion, teamwork, and skills and training are identified, and leadership is cultivated and maintained at every level of the organization
"Take a Trip Around the World with Us!”: Thunder Bay’s Folklore Festival Narrates Whiteness, Culture, and Community
Full text linkThe Folklore Festival is a widely-attended annual multicultural festival that takes place in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Branded as ‘a trip around the world in 48 hours’, the festival is lauded as an event that brings people together for the purpose of anti-racism.This dissertation explores how state-sanctioned multicultural events like the Folklore Festival disrupt, rework, or reinforce racial inequities. I contend that the Folklore Festival is a space of contradiction: it disrupts the demonstrated racial order in Thunder Bay by tolerating cultural displays from those who do not occupy white positionalities, but also reinforces the racial order of Thunder Bay by treating multiculturalism as something to be consumed by or produced for the white gaze. Guided by a decolonial feminist anti-racist praxis, I draw on 14 qualitative interviews with people who have organized, attended, or participated in the Folklore Festival to explore whether the festival is a space with emancipatory potential or simply another mode of reproduction of white hegemony. My analysis is supported by a theoretical foundation of critical race theory, cultural studies, ritual studies, and critical multiculturalism. My findings suggest that in its current iteration, the Folklore Festival – in line with the grander scheme of official multiculturalism – presents culture on a platter to be consumed or interacted with, but does not meet the mark as a site for anti-racist work. There are limited, if any, instances of “true learning” where attendees leave the festival having learned new information or experiencing a paradigm shift. Further, the Folklore Festival is presented as a celebration of difference, but that celebration appears to be in the interest of enriching a white majority as opposed to addressing the issues facing Black, Indigenous, and other visibly racialized peoples. This research interrogates what it means to celebrate multiculturalism fifty years after the inception of official multiculturalism policy and provides an understanding of how Thunder Bay’s racial order might be reproduced or disrupted in spaces meant to celebrate multiculturalism. Further, this work explores the implications for the quality of life that Black, Indigenous, and other visibly racialized people are able to have in the city
Neoliberal Policies and Rhetoric in the Struggle for Ontario Gig Workers' Rights
Full text linkHow have neoliberal discourses of the gig economy shaped the terrain of gig worker organizing in Ontario? This thesis interrogates and contextualizes Uber’s efforts to legitimize and further expand its operations in Ontario during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the centrality of its appeals to (and reproduction of) workers’ entrepreneurial common sense in these endeavors. Drawing on ten-semi structured interviews with current and former Uber drivers and delivery workers, it explores the contradictory form of independence experienced by platform-mediated gig workers, reflecting on the significance of gig work being perceived as the “least worst option” within the contemporary labour landscape
Flexural Behaviour of Nail-Laminated Timber Panels Subjected to Concentrated Point Loads
Full text linkThe bulk of existing research on the flexural performance of nail laminated timber (NLT) panels has focused on uniform loading cases. In this study, 17 seven-layer NLT panels were fabricated and tested under center-point bending, where a specific number of laminations were loaded. The loaded laminations were observed to experience an apparent increase in flexural strength and stiffness due to the contribution of unloaded laminations in the NLT panel, indicating a simplified approach for the analysis of NLT panels subjected to concentrated loads. Additionally, the inclusion of plywood effectively distributed concentrated loads across the width of the seven-layer NLT panel. A 2D numerical model was developed and validated against experimental results. The model was shown to replicate the behaviour of the NLT panels, under known applied loads, with good accuracy, identifying it as a useful design tool for the analysis of NLT panels
A Feminist Analysis of Social Impact Investments: Implications for Food Sovereignty and Social Reproduction in Rural Senegal
Full text linkThis thesis research explores the program Adaptation and Valorization for Entrepreneurship in Irrigated Agriculture (AVENIR); funded by the Government of Canada and Mennonite Economic Development Assistance (MEDA). The program operates in Sedhiou and Tambacounda, Senegal, and aims to empower women in rural food systems. Foreign aid programs targeting gendered empowerment, otherwise known as social impact investments, are financial mechanisms that require investigation. Grounded in a decolonial feminist analysis, this thesis investigates food sovereignty, social reproduction, and social-ecological reproduction. Semi-structured interviews discuss the challenges of foreign imposition, agricultural programs and the future of agroecology. A critical policy analysis (CPA) discusses AVENIR policies and frameworks, offering gaps in the program, its potential consequences and avenues for development. Interview contributions illuminate potential paths forward for Canadian-funded programs and the future of food systems in Senegal. The insights feed into community participation and consultation, agroecological methods, and knowledge-sharing practices