VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Cold War on Cancer: Inuit and the Canadian Epidemiological Imagination
Keywords: Cancer
Epidemiology
Geographic Pathology
Health Metrics
Inuit
Risk

From the early twentieth century to the present day, health professionals have commented on the exceptional nature of Inuit cancer patterns. Over the past hundred years, Inuit have been thought to possess a unique distribution of disease characterized, at different points, by higher than-average rates of lung, cervical and salivary gland cancer, lower than average rates of breast cancer, and substantial and growing rates of the disease overall. This thesis explores why Inuit cancer patterns have been characterized in this way and discusses their contemporary implications for Inuit health. This project argues that past and current representations of Inuit cancer incidence evolved in tandem with geographic pathology—a branch of cancer research (and predecessor of cancer epidemiology) that posited that examining the cancer rates of colonial populations could help shed light on the disease’s underlying causes. I examine how rising scientific internationalism, increased Arctic militarization, hierarchical discourses of civilization and human development, and settler policies of protectionism, segregation, assimilation, and experimentation not only allowed geographic pathology to take hold in Canada, but also transformed Inuit Nunangat into an important site in the national fight against the disease. Over the course of six-case studies, I show how Inuit served as central nodes and excluded margins of cancer knowledge production. Canadian researchers used Inuit as resources for generating etiological hypotheses and developing new diagnostic imaging devices and screening techniques. However, most of these medical insights and interventions were exported to southern Canadian urban centres—leaving Inuit to contend with the still-unfolding aftermaths of geographic pathology and its relationship to colonial rule's historical construction, and attempted elimination, of otherness. To assess the evolution and ramifications of Arctic cancer epidemiology, this thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach, juxtaposing archival materials with contemporary accounts centered on Indigenous social actors. Oscillating between different methods, sources, and temporalities reveals how historical events resurface within contemporary conditions. It also contributes to growing scholarly interest in how cancer is understood and managed in the context of colonial and post-colonial relations of power and allows us to reflect on how settler-colonial structures produce and continue to pervade cancer service delivery in northern settings.
On the Explanatory and Interpretative Functions of Mathematical Models in Evolutionary Biology
Keywords: Explanation
Fundamental theorem of natural selection
Interpretative models
mathematical models

The thesis investigates the explanatory and interpretative functions of formal mathematical models in evolutionary biology. It is organized around three recent debates in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of science in general. The chapters are also responses to these debates.Chapters 2 and 3 examine the statisticalist-causalist debate over the right interpretation of modern evolutionary theory. I defend a middle-ground position between the two sides. Although the statisticalists’ construal of drift is largely reasonable, we should adopt a causal-form interpretation of natural selection. While some statistical explanations in population biology are nevertheless causal, at least two types of them— explanatory cases of non-representation and explanatory cases of misrepresentation— are indeed non-causal. They refute the Representationalism of mathematics. Chapter 4 inspects the debate over “genuinely mathematical explanations” (GMEs) and “distinctively mathematical explanations” (DMEs). I argue that existing objections to GMEs are unsound. To further justify GMEs, one could either presume a Pythagorean metaphysics or adopt some non-ontic conception of explanation. Moreover, Marc Lange, the primary advocate of DMEs, has conflated two kinds of presuppositions in an explanatory task: prerequisites of a why-question and auxiliary assumptions in an explanation. Nevertheless, the existence of DMEs is defensible. Focusing on the explanatory function of formal models, Chapters 2-4 constitute the first part of the dissertation. To justify the existence of non-causal statistical explanations and DMEs, I have developed a weak pragmatic account of explanatory (ir)relevance. Chapters 5 and 6 constitute the second part of the dissertation, which concerns the interpretative function of models. They examine the debate over the appropriate interpretation and assessment of Fisher’s “fundamental theorem of natural selection” (FTNS). I propose a new variant of the modern interpretation of the FTNS. I also argue that both the traditional and the modern interpretations are embedded in a bipartite “laws of nature—world” framework, which has hindered us from adequately appreciating the significance of the FTNS. Instead, a tripartite “theory—model—world” framework is preferable. Accordingly, we should consider the FTNS as a product of an ideal “interpretative model” rather than as a standalone law.
The Voices and Stories of Two-Spirit People
Keywords: Family
Identity
Language
Residential Schools
Two-Spirt
Voices and Stories

This study documents the life histories of five Two-Spirit people and one Indigenous genderqueer gay person all coming from different Nations and communities (Saulteaux, Ojibwe, Cree, Mohawk). Using a life history methodology, I used semi-structured interviews to unearth key moments in the lives of my sisters and cousin (the term I use to describe these Two-Spirit individuals). After conducting interviews, I analyzed the stories through an Indigenous lens: the Biinskobiisin Bimaadsiiwin (The Circle of Life) Medicine Wheel. This Medicine Wheel has eight components: Nurturing Two-Spirits, Silences, Relearning Relationships for Change, Language as a Relational Process, Types of Truth, Seven Grandfather Teachings, Clans, and Gathering Together. Each of these components relates to different iterative stages in my sisters’ and cousin’s life; they each shape the life journeys of these individuals. These life histories are meant to challenge silences around Two-Spirit experiences within Indigenous and non- Indigenous communities. These stories represent the voices of people who do not always get to have their voices listened to. This sharing of stories is a form of healing in itself. These stories come alive after being shared and are looked upon as being precious and sacred.
A Cross-Voxel Exchange Model for the Non-invasive Imaging of Tracer Transport in Tumours
Keywords: DCE-CT
DCE-MRI
Non-Invasive Imaging
Personalized Medicine
Tofts Model
Transport Modelling

Tumours exhibit abnormal interstitial structures and vasculature function often leading to an impaired and heterogeneous drug delivery. Predictions of tumour perfusion are key determinants of drug delivery and responsiveness to therapy. Pharmacokinetic models allow for the quantification of tracer perfusion based on contrast enhancement measured with non-invasive imaging techniques. In this thesis, a mathematical framework was developed to provide a comprehensive description of tracer extravasation as well as advection and diffusion based on cross-voxel tracer kinetics. The focus of the first part is on examining the assumptions made by Tofts Model (TM), a widely employed predecessor, and building upon the findings to develop an advanced Cross-Voxel Exchange Model (CVXM). The second part employs in silico datasets quantifying the roles of convection and diffusion in tracer transport (which TM ignores) to investigate the validity of Tofts’ perfusion parameters compared to CVXM. In the third part, transport parameters were derived from the dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance images of human cervical carcinoma xenografts by using CVXM. The resulting velocity flows, tracer diffusivities and extravasation parameters were employed to explain the heterogeneous distribution of the tracer across the tumour and its accumulation at the periphery. Finally, a minimum scan time was advised for the pre-clinical datasets that renders informative estimations of the transport parameters. Concluding, the new mathematical framework, based on CVXM, can determine transport metrics characterizing the exchange of tracer between the vasculature and the tumour tissue, potentially leading to its clinical application in personalized treatment planning and its employment in drug development research.
Fluid Realms: Chinese Visions of Maritime Space in the South China Sea Islands
Keywords: Qing and Modern China
South China Sea Islands Dispute
Pratas
Paracel
Spratly
Maritime Frontier
Sovereignty
Territory
Spatiality
Nation-Building
Border-Making
Geo-Body
Modernity
Global History

This dissertation explores the historical convergence between modernity and maritime space in China by analyzing the formation of its island claims in the South China Sea during the early 20th century. Drawing from largely unused Qing and Republican Chinese archival sources on the islands, it examines how Chinese notions of space and sovereignty in the maritime frontier since the late 18th century intersected with global ideas of political and legal modernity to shape China’s policies and positions in the contested Pratas, Paracel, and Spratly Archipelagos. Specifically, this dissertation traces a deeper transition between two discursive frameworks that predominantly guided political understandings of maritime space and sovereignty in China. This transition, I contend, fuelled the formation of China’s island claims. The first of these spatial modes, which I term “islands of sovereignty,” prioritized political control over imperial subjects and the boats they used to traverse the seas. Maritime space was thus only ever understood within and supplementary to this goal’s fulfillment. Following the advent of foreign imperialism in China with the First Opium War, however, “islands of sovereignty” was gradually repurposed to effect a second maritime spatial mode. This framework, labelled “markers of effective occupation,” increasingly centred Chinese conceptions of maritime space and sovereignty upon precisely-defined national territory using conceptions of international law and modern geography. Maritime peoples, formerly the target of Qing efforts to order the largely non-delineated sea, instead became a means towards ‘evidencing’ the emerging Chinese nation-state’s maritime borders. This dissertation ultimately argues that non-official actors such as fishermen, geographers, and community organizations were central to this spatial transition, and thus, to the formation of China’s island claims. It details how these non-official actors compelled government adoption of their understandings of the sea by fusing disparate Qing notions of maritime space with incoming Western and Japanese ideas of geography, international law, and the nation-state. Qing and Republican government actors were accordingly forced to negotiate their political worldviews with the non-official narratives they relied on to understand the islands, their place within the emerging nation-state — and indeed, what constituted China itself.
Leveraging Associations to Influence the Organization, Quantity, and Quality of Episodic Recollection
Keywords: autobiographical memory
context
episodic memory
recall

Episodic memory enables us to situate ourselves back to the place and time of specific personal events in the past, affording us the ability to re-experience them in rich detail. Previous work suggests that our episodic memories are roughly organized along the dimensions of space, time, and concepts. This organizational structure is critical in guiding memory search, as assessed by studying the order in which we retrieve items from memory. However, less is known about how this organization can be leveraged to influence memory recall, both in terms of its quantity (i.e., how much is recalled) and quality (i.e., how richly they are recalled). Across three behavioural studies, I examined how facilitating the associations between the contents of episodic memory affected how those memories are later recalled. In Chapter 2, I modified the traditional word list-learning paradigm by introducing an intermediate review phase that emphasized either the temporal or semantic associations between encoded items prior to retrieval. This review led to increased clustering along the emphasized dimension at recall. Moreover, emphasizing semantic associations boosted overall memory recall, with the degree of semantic clustering at recall predicting memory performance. In Chapters 3 and 4, I investigated how facilitating associations between adjacent events at recall affects the detailed recollection of more naturalistic stimuli. Participants described their memories for personal life events in Chapter 3, or events from the movie Forrest Gump in Chapter 4. In Chapter 3, I found that event similarity had no effect on the episodic detail of recall—however, participants provided more extraneous information for cued events when the preceding event was both semantically similar, yet simultaneously distant in time or space. In Chapter 4, I found that recall had both more episodic information and false details when the preceding event was within the same life period. Furthermore, participants provided more intrusions from outside a cued event when the preceding event was temporally distant—these intrusions were likely provided to help scaffold memory for a cued event. Together, these studies further our understanding of the organization of episodic memory by elucidating the influence that associations have on later recollection.
Hamiltonian Geometry of Generalized Kahler Metrics
Keywords: Generalized geometry
Kähler geometry
Ricci flat
Symplectic geometry

Generalized Kähler structures are a natural generalization of Kähler metrics. In this thesis, we pose and investigate the question of finding a generalized Kähler metric with a prescribed volume form in a given generalized Kähler class. This is a natural generalization of the famous Calabi conjecture. We define a generalized Kähler class as a homotopy class of bisections in a holomorphic symplectic Morita equivalence between holomorphic Poisson manifolds. To answer this question we introduce holomorphic families of branes, a novice concept to study variations of generalized complex branes with a complex parameter. We then apply this to families of Lagrangian brane bisections in a symplectic Morita equivalence to analyze variations in generalized Kähler metrics. We construct an almost Kähler metric on the infinite-dimensional space of prequantized generalized Kähler metrics and set up a Hamiltonian group action by gauge transformations. This setup leads to a downward gradient flow of a functional on the space of generalized Kähler metrics towards the metric with prescribed volume form.
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Ontario’s Long-term Care Homes
Keywords: Clinical Epidemiology
Coronavirus Disease 2019
Geriatric Medicine
Long-Term Care
Nursing Home

Ontario long-term care home residents have experienced disproportionately high morbidity and mortality, both from COVID-19 and from the conditions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. As of March 16, 2022, a total of 4,286 long-term care home residents have died of COVID-19, totaling 43.0% of all 9,245 COVID-19 deaths in Ontario. The most important risk factors for whether a long-term care home will experience an outbreak is the daily incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the communities surrounding the home and the occurrence of staff infections. The most important risk factors for the extent of an outbreak and the number of resulting resident deaths are older home design, chain ownership, and crowding. Many Ontario long-term care home residents have experienced severe and potentially irreversible physical, cognitive, psychological, and functional declines as a result of precautionary public health interventions imposed on homes, such as limiting access to general visitors and essential caregivers, resident absences, and group activities. There has also been an increase in the prescribing of psychoactive drugs to Ontario long-term care residents during the pandemic. The accumulating evidence on COVID-19 in Ontario’s long-term care homes has been leveraged in several ways to support public health interventions and policy during the pandemic. Several further measures could be effective in preventing COVID-19 outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths in Ontario’s long-term care homes. This includes improving staffing, minimizing long-term care worker infection, reducing crowding in long-term care homes, enhanced infection prevention and control (IPAC) measures, a more balanced and nuanced approach to public health measures, and additional strategies to promote COVID-19 vaccine acceptance amongst residents and staff.
Data Profiling, Machine Learning, and Data Visualizations for a Multilingual Crowdsourced Knowledge Graph: The Case of Wikidata
Keywords: data profiling
data visualization
knowledge graphs
machine learning
multilingual
wikidata

Wikidata is a well-known collaborative knowledge graph containing multilingual data for hundreds of language locales, ranging from Arabic (ar) to Zulu (zu). As the largest publicly accessible multilingual knowledge graph on the internet, it is important to understand the kinds of entities and the range of multilingual data that exist on Wikidata. However, research on the kinds of subject matters and topics in Wikidata and the distribution of multilingual data in the labels, descriptions, and aliases has been relatively limited. This dissertation presents a suite of tools that apply data profiling, machine learning, and data visualization techniques to Wikidata in order to organize it into subject-matter domains and to identify areas for multilingual data augmentation. After an overview of a similar collaborative knowledge graph, Freebase, is provided, the research outputs are organized as follows. First, we present WikiMetaData Profiler, a data profiling tool where the input is the entire Wikidata data dump and the outputs are (1) a series of datasets containing descriptive statistics on the distribution of items, properties, and language and (2) the raw triples in the Wikidata knowledge graph. The output is presented through interactive dashboards using Google Data Studio. Second, we present WiDAR, or Wikidata i18n Data and Ranging, another suite of tools to (1) implement machine learning techniques and manual processes that identify subject-matter domains in Wikidata, (2) generate data visualizations in the form of heatmaps to help gain a sense of "the lay of the land'' with regards to the distribution of multilingual data, and (3) programmatically generate SPARQL queries that provide recommendations for multilingual data augmentation. Finally, a demonstration with a graph visualization tool and various knowledge graph embedding techniques is presented. The research presented in this dissertation works to advance the Wikidata and research community's understanding and use of Wikidata's data and multilingual aspects.
Agent, Equilibrium and Learning: A Quest Towards Taming the Master Dynamics of Games
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence
Control Theory
Dynamical Systems
Game Theory
Machine Learning
Reinforcement Learning

Unified analysis of multi-agent decision processes has garnered an increasing amount of attention in recent years. Out of this unification literature, a set of ordinary differential equations called mirror descent (MD) has emerged as the progenitor of many decision processes. In particular, MD provably converges to the Nash equilibrium (NE) of large classes of games, namely, games with strict monotonicity or strict variationally stable state (also known as VSS, a specific type of NE). However, outside of these settings, MD can fail to converge, thus greatly restricting the scope of its applications. In light of this challenge, this thesis is concerned with the design of a set of theoretically-guided methodologies that overcome such convergence barriers. These methodologies preserve the beneficial aspects of MD while bringing about convergence in broader classes of games. Our methods can also be used to create new decision processes. We begin our analysis by studying a reinforcement learning procedure based on MD, called discounted exponential learning (or DXL). We show that DXL can approximately converge to the NE of non-strictly monotone mixed-strategy finite games. Using the idea of energy dissipation, we design higher-order variants of DXL, which possess better robustness properties. We then generalize DXL to an entire class of dynamics, which we call discounted MD (or DMD), and show that DMD converges in non-strictly monotone continuous concave games. Afterward, we provide a new game characterization called relative monotonicity, which allows us to provide the convergence rates of MD-based dynamics. Combining these ideas, we design a class of second-order MD (or MD2), which can achieve exact convergence towards non-strict VSS. Finally, we consider discrete-time algorithms extracted from MD2 and provide convergence guarantees in two challenging setups: the semi-bandit case, where an agent's feedback is corrupted by Martingale-difference noise, and the full-bandit case, where each agent only receives a payoff signal which indicates its current performance. Illustrative examples are drawn from a broad set of literature with a special focus on several recent applications arising from machine learning, such as the generation of adversarial attacks and generative adversarial networks.