UWSpace

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Recent Submissions

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    Incremental call graph construction for the eclipse IDE
    (University of Waterloo, 2009-02-18) Ismail, Usman
    A call graph is a powerful tool for program analysis and can be used to: help plan testing strategies, reduce program size and help programmers understand and debug large programs. We can use either dynamic or static call graph generation techniques. Dynamic call graphs tend to underestimate the number of target methods for a call site where as static call graphs tend to overestimate this number. A theoretically ideal call graph is the union of the dynamic call graphs over all possible executions of the program. Dynamic call graphs are not safe and generating static call graphs is computationally expensive. We propose an incremental call graph generation approach which will compute graphs for fragments of the program as they are being developed. It will then recursively combine fragments until a graph for the whole program is generated. The graph will be as precise as corresponding traditional algorithms and will present, upon completion, a safe call graph.
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    From Displacement to Relation: A District of Disposal in Toronto’s Junction Neighbourhood
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-09-24) Li, Leanne
    North American waste systems are designed to operate invisibly, with little public presence, as the networks and infrastructures that manage waste have traditionally remained outside the scope of architectural designers. In Toronto, waste follows this pattern, creating limited public visibility and engagement, as materials are sorted and directed to transfer stations, landfills or exports. This fragmentation obscures public understanding of how waste is treated, handled and processed, while North American cities continue the cycle of consumption and displacement. While circular economy frameworks seek to position waste as a resource through the recovery of materials within production cycles, waste remains largely invisible, spatially and socially distant from the public. The thesis examines how architecture can spatially integrate disposal, recovery and material transformation into visible, public and participatory processes within the urban fabric, creating new forms of civic activity built on material recovery, skill development and production knowledge. It proposes a larger urban vision of a district centred on disposal and its recovery, where skilled workers, artisans, entrepreneurs, salvagers and members of the public participate in an alternative economy to consumption grounded in waste material recovery, production, learning and exchanges. West Toronto Junction, a major industrial production hub in the late nineteenth century, has gradually shifted from a landscape of production into one defined by consumption. Large corporations and retailers are concentrated within a shopping-oriented district, while disposal of post-consumed goods remains hidden from public view. Recovering waste and making disposal visible in urban civic life can inspire new publics to be created. Disposal becomes more than a management act, and instead a civic process capable of bringing together residents, recyclers, entrepreneurs, artisan makers and skilled labourers. Through participation, spatializing circular systems becomes an opportunity to learn about recovery, participate in labour or skill development and have access to facilities such as workshops, incubators, and shopfronts in light industrial operations.
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    Collaborative preference elicitation
    (University of Waterloo, 2009-02-18) Ismail, Usman
    The inherent inaccuracies in user modelling and the use of non-deterministic algorithms means that Preference Elicitation systems are often unsatisfactory for users. We address this issue using a technique called collaborative elicitation. Leveraging the fact that humans rarely have unique preferences, we minimize explicit elicitation from users while attempting to improve user satisfaction. We categorize users into groups using collaborative techniques based on Von Ahn's "Games with a purpose." We then allow groups of users to collectively select default preferences for their peers.
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    Big-step semantics
    (University of Waterloo, 2009-03-06) Esmaeilsakzali, Shahram; Day, Nancy A.; Atlee, Joanne M.; Niu, Jianwei
    With the popularity of model-driven methodologies, and the abundance of modelling languages, a major question for a requirements engineer is: which language is suitable for modelling a system under study? We address this question from a semantic point-of-view for big-step modelling languages (BSMLs). BSMLs are a popular class of behavioural modelling languages in which a model can respond to an environmental input by executing multiple, possibly concurrent, transitions. We deconstruct the semantics of a large class of BSMLs into high-level, orthogonal semantic aspects and discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of the semantic options for each of these aspects to allow a requirements engineer to compare and choose the right BSML. We accompany our presentation with many modelling examples that illustrate the differences between a set of relevant semantic options.
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    A heuristic for fair correlation-aware resource placement
    (University of Waterloo, 2009-01-20) Boutaba, Raouf; Karsten, Martin; Young, Maxwell
    The configuration of network resources greatly impacts the communication overhead for data intensive tasks and constitutes a critical problem in the design and maintenance of networks. To address the issue of resource placement, we analyze the implement a heuristic for solving a known NP-complete graph optimization problem called MAXIMUM SIZE BOUNDED CAPACITY CUT. Experimental results for our heuristic demonstrate promising performance on both synthetic and real world data. Next our heuristic is used as a sub-routine to solve another known NP-complete problem called MIN-MAX MULTIWAY CUT whose traits we adapt to yield a resource placement scheme that exploits correlations between network resources. Our experimental results show that the resulting placement scheme achieves a significant savings in communication overhead.