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This report explores how Arsenal Pulp Press participated in a bibliographic data exchange network with its online retail and data aggregation partners in Canada from May 2005 to May 2006. Looking specifically at the data requirements of Amazon.ca, BookManager, Bowker’s Books In Print, and Indigo Books & Music, this report observes the challenges faced by this midsize, independent publisher when it used a bibliographic database management system to store and distribute industry-standard marketing data (cover images and book descriptions). The conclusion of the report proposes recommendations to Canadian and international book industry institutions—BookNet Canada and EDItEUR—supply chain partners, database system developers, and Arsenal Pulp Press itself for improving the standards and procedures for exchanging comprehensive and accurate marketing data while reducing the managerial workload for the publisher.

This research re-situates Heart of Darkness within the contexts of the English adventure fiction genre during the period of high imperialism and brings to light a feature of the novel that has escaped scholarly analysis, that of the racialization of white Eureopeans. In re-situating Heart of Darkness in its literary historical contexts, this thesis identifies the adventure genre as a whole as more complex and ambivalent concerning both race and Empire than has previously been recognized. Although these inconsistencies complicate the genre, adventure fiction nonetheless reinforces the status of whiteness in order to promote contemporary racial hierarchies and imperialism. Heart of Darkness, however, does not. Conrad presents his adventure story and its white heroes with a substantial degree and frequency of unconventionality that both critiques imperialism and disrupts its promotion. Moreover, through his unconventional representation of whiteness, Conrad generates a rather startling ambivalence toward white racial identity.

The problem of model selection is addressed from a general perspective and solutions are considered within the domain of item response theory (IRT). Selection is conceptualized as including both the evaluation of individual models and the simultaneous comparison of multiple candidates. Traditional tests of goodness of fit can often be regarded as dealing with the former situation, while information criteria can only be applied to the latter. The significance of this last point is pursued in some detail. In terms of optimization, it is shown that information criteria do not provide a means of determining how well their various objective functions are satisfied. This implies that some further criterion is required in order to establish whether the candidates recommended by any information criterion are indeed satisfactory. The need for such a criterion motivates the present work. This approach begins by conceptualizing parametric stochastic models as sets of probability distributions. In any given application the purpose of such a model is to predict the relative frequencies with which an outcome variable takes on its values. This notion of prediction is described in terms of the inclusion of the distribution of the outcome variable in the set of distributions implied by the model: If this is not the case, the model is said to be inaccurate. The concept of accuracy then serves as a basis for selection in IRT. In particular, any IRT model can be represented as a manifold embedded in Euclidean space, and the proximity of any observed distribution to a point on this manifold can be interpreted in terms of the norm of their difference. Describing the geometric properties of sets of candidates provides a means of selection that is not tied to any particular set of observations; this is an important area of further investigation.

In recent years, aircraft manufacturers have been making progress in the design of more efficient aircrafts to reduce the environmental footprint. To attain this target, aircrafts manufactures work on the replacement of the hydraulic and bleed systems for electrical systems leading to a “More Electrical Aircraft”. However, the expected mass gain is a challenge, as previous technologies have been developed and optimized for decades. The new electrical solutions need to be look into detail to be competitive with previous technologies. All degrees of freedom must be considered, that is, new technologies and architectures. In particular, an HVDC network that reduces the number of rectifier stages seems a promising solution. From the HVDC network, the different three phase AC loads will be supplied by a series of power generic inverters. As the power consumption of the different loads change during the flight mission, the same inverter is used to supply different loads. The connection between the inverters and the loads is managed by a matrix of contactors. The proposed solution also considers redundant configurations, thus increasing system robustness. The design of the innovative system is presented in this document. That is, determining the optimal trade-off between the number of power inverters and the nominal power of each generic inverter that will also impact the size of the matrix of contactors. However, to assess the combinatory problem, the mass of the different components as a function of the nominal power needs to be calculated. A design environment is therefore created to perform automatic and optimized design of power converters. The different components are described using a “direct modelling” approach and coded using “object-oriented” programming. The components are validated experimentally or by numerical simulations. The different models are coupled to an optimization environment and to a frequency solver allowing a fast calculation of the steady-state waveforms. The optimization environment performs the precise design of the different parts of the power inverter: heatsink, power module, DC filter and coupling inductor. The power inverter is designed for different values of nominal power and switching frequency. The optimization assesses as well the usage of different technologies. Finally, the results are used to determine the optimal trade-off between the number of inverters and the nominal power of each inverter using a heuristic algorithm.

This essay surveys scholarly literature on the effects of globalization on developing countries with attention to poverty. I first present evidence suggesting that globalization benefits the developing countries and the poor. A second opinion argues against globalization, linking it to financial crises and negative effects on the agricultural sector. Finally, some authors find both positive and negative outcomes of globalizing. Overall, I conclude that globalization unambiguously benefits the poor only together with complementary pro-poor policies. This extended essay examines the impacts of identity theft surveying previous studies focusing on the social harm caused and suggests possible ways to protect personal information and prevent identity theft. The majority of the articles show that policy changes have a positive influence on identity theft, although sometimes not as significant as the policy makers expect. The proposal is that legislation that would treat consumer protection as a public good would be beneficial.