VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Ghost of Liaozhai: Pu Songling's Ghostlore and Its History of Reception
Keywords: Chinese literature
Ghost tale

This dissertation looks beyond the prevailing view of Pu Songling’s (1640-1715) Liaozhai zhiyi as an undisputed classic of Chinese literature, positing that much of the work’s cultural relevance and popular appeal derives from its status as “minor discourse” rooted in the tradition of the ghost tale. The first half of the dissertation examines the ghosts depicted within Liaozhai, reconnecting their tamed and feminized images with their dark and anarchic origins. The second half studies the reception of Liaozhai, chronicling the book’s cultural ascension from xiaoshuo, in the original sense of a minor form of discourse fraught with generic and ideological tensions, to a major work of fiction (xiaoshuo in its modern sense). However, the book’s canonical status remains unsettled, haunted by its heterogeneous literary and cultural roots. The Introduction reviews current scholarship on Liaozhai, justifying the need to further investigate the relationship between popular perceptions of Liaozhai and the Chinese notion of ghosts. Chapter One delineates Pu Songling’s position in late imperial ghost discourse and examines how the ghost tale reflects his ambivalence toward being a Confucian literatus. Chapter Two reads Pu Songling’s “The Painted Skin” in conjunction with its literary antecedents, demonstrating that Pu’s uses of both zhiguai and chuanqi modes are essential for the exploration of the ghost’s critical and creative potential. Chapter Three takes up the issues of genre, canon and ideology in the “remaking” of the book by Qing dynasty critics, publishers and commentators, a process in which Liaozhai gains prestige but Liaozhai ghosts become aestheticized into objects of connoisseurship. Chapter Four looks at the ruptures in modern ghost discourse that paradoxically create new vantage points from which Liaozhai regains its “minor” status, most notably in Hong Kong ghost films. The Conclusion revisits “The Painted Skin,” a Liaozhai story that exemplifies the complex cultural ramifications of the ghost. The dissertation combines a study of Liaozhai’s textual formation and its subsequent history of reception with a dialogic inquiry into the ghost, which occupies a highly contested field of cultural discourse, functioning variously as a psychological projection, a token of belief, a literary motif and an aesthetic construction.
The Impact of Depression on Outcomes Following Acute Myocardial Infarction
Keywords: Health Service Utilization

This thesis uses observational study design methods to explore the relationship between depression and various outcomes following acute myocardial infarction (AMI). There are three main studies. First, the relationship between depression and mortality following AMI was measured. The main finding was that the factor determining the increased mortality rate in depressed patients is reduced cardiac functional status. The main implication was that efforts to address increased mortality in depressed patients with cardiovascular illnesses should focus on processes that impact cardiac functional status. Second, the impact of depression on service consumption following AMI was examined. Depressive symptoms were associated with a 24% (Adjusted RR:1.24; 95% CI:1.19-1.30, P<0.001), 9% (Adjusted RR:1.09; 95% CI:1.02-1.16, P=0.007) and 43% (Adjusted RR: 1.43; 95% CI:1.34-1.52, P<0.001) increase in total, cardiac, and non-cardiac hospitalization days post-AMI respectively, after adjusting for baseline patient and hospital characteristics. Depressive-associated increases in cardiac health service consumption were significantly more pronounced among patients of lower than higher cardiac risk severity. The disproportionately higher cardiac health service consumption among lower-risk AMI depressive patients may suggest that health seeking behaviors are mediated by psychosocial factors more so than by objective measures of cardiovascular risk or necessity. Third, methodological issues related to missing data were explored. A systematic review of three psychiatric journals revealed that a small minority of studies (5.8%) addressed the impact of missing data in a meaningful way. An example using real data demonstrated the potential bias introduced by missing data and different ways to address this bias. The paper concludes with recommendations for both reporting and analyzing studies with substantial amounts of missing data. Overall, the studies add to the literature exploring the relationship between depression and outcomes following acute myocardial infarction. Future studies measuring the relationship between depression and mortality will need to factor the mediating relationship between depression and cardiac functional status. The increased health service utilization associated with depression will need to be replicated in other illness models. Together, the studies add to the existing conceptual framework for measuring relationships between depression and outcomes in patients with cardiovascular illnesses.
Controlling Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers for Robust Integrated Photonic Signal Processing
Keywords: semiconductor optical amplifiers
optical control
state-space methods
feedback control
feedforward control
integrated photonics
optical crosstalk
equivalent circuits

How can we evaluate and design integrated photonic circuit performance systematically? Can active photonic circuits be controlled for optimized performance? This work uses control theory to analyze, design, and optimize photonic integrated circuits based on versatile semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Control theory provides a mathematically robust set of tools for system analysis, design, and control. Although control theory is a rich and well-developed field, its application to the analysis and design of photonic circuits is not widespread. Following control theoretic methods already used for fibreline systems we derive three interrelated state-space models: a core photonic model, a photonic model with gain compression, and a equivalent circuit optoelectronic model. We validate each model and calibrate the gain compression model by pump/probe experiments. We then linearize the state-space models to design and analyze SOA controllers. We apply each linearized model to proof-of-concept SOA control applications such as suppressing interchannel crosstalk and regulating output power. We demonstrate the power of linearized state-space models in controller design and stability analysis. To illustrate the importance of using the complete equivalent circuit model in controller design, we demonstrate an intuitive bias-current controller that fails due to the dynamics of the intervening parasitic circuitry of the SOA. We use the linearized state-space models to map a relationship between feedback delay and controller strength for stable operation, and demonstrate that SOAs pose unusual control difficulties due to their ultrafast dynamics. Finally, we leverage the linearized models to design a novel and successful hybrid controller that uses one SOA to control another via feedback (for reliability) and feedforward (for speed) control. The feedback controller takes full advantage of the equivalent circuit modelling by sampling the voltage of the controlled SOA and using the error to drive the bias current of the controller SOA. Filtering in the feedback path is specified by transfer function analysis. The feedforward design uses a novel application of the linearized models to set the controller bias points correctly. The modelling and design framework we develop is entirely general and opens the way to the robust optoelectronic control of integrated photonic circuits.
Legal Rules and Reasoning: On the Nature of Legal Validity
Keywords: Philosophy of Law
Hart, H. L. A.
Dworkin, Ronald
Jurisprudence
Legal Philosophy

Abstract: In this dissertation, I propose a solution to Ronald Dworkin’s challenge from hard cases. Hard cases are cases in which the judges agree on the facts of the case and on what the posited law requires, but they disagree on what the law on the matter is. It is commonly thought that hard cases are decided on moral grounds, and that this problem raises the problem of explaining how the law can include unposited moral considerations. Dworkin argues that this problem generalizes, and that a theory of law must explain how all attempts to determine what the law is must make appeal to moral considerations. I argue that existing attempts to solve this problem fail. On the one hand, Dworkin argues that every attempt to determine what the law is must include an appeal to all moral considerations. This overstates the role of morality in law. Legal positivists, on the other hand, hold that moral considerations can be legally binding only when they are anticipated by the posited law. This understates the role of morality in law. By making the validity of moral considerations depend on the posited rules, inclusive positivists remain vulnerable to the possibility that a new hard case will arise that is not anticipated by the posited rules, but that the law can resolve nonetheless. And by excluding all moral considerations from law, exclusive positivists fail to explain law as we know it. Instead, I propose an alternative positivist solution to Dworkin’s challenge. First, legal positivists need not accept Dworkin’s understanding of source-based considerations as excluding all appeals to morality in their applications By econfiguring this problematic distinction, positivists can explain who the law can require frequent appeal to morality in the application of its rules. Secondly, I argue, the problem of hard cases is best understood as in instance of the prior problem of distinguishing legal rules from all other rules to which people are subject. And, I hold that Hart’s solution to this prior problem solves this problem as well. I thus conclude that the problem of hard cases poses no special threat to legal positivism.
Matrix Factorizations of the Classical Discriminant
Keywords: commutative algebra
algebraic geometry
discriminants
singularities
matrix factorizations
homological algebra

The classical discriminant D_n of degree n polynomials detects whether a given univariate polynomial f has a repeated root. It is itself a polynomial in the coefficients of f which, according to several classical results by Bézout, Sylvester, Cayley, and others, may be expressed as the determinant of a matrix whose entries are much simpler polynomials in the coefficients of f. This thesis is concerned with the construction and classification of such determinantal formulae for D_n. In particular, all of the formulae for D_n appearing in the classical literature are equivalent in the sense that the cokernels of their associated matrices are isomorphic as modules over the associated polynomial ring. This begs the question of whether there exist formulae which are not equivalent to the classical formulae and not trivial in the sense of having the same cokernel as the 1 x 1 matrix (D_n). The results of this thesis lie in two directions. First, we construct an explicit non-classical formula: the presentation matrix of the open swallowtail first studied by Arnol'd and Givental. We study the properties of this formula, contrasting them with the properties of the classical formulae. Second, for the discriminant of the polynomial x^4+a_2x^2+a_3x+a_4 we embark on a classification of determinantal formulae which are homogeneous in the sense that the cokernels of their associated matrices are graded modules with respect to the grading deg a_i=i. To this end, we use deformation theory: a moduli space of such modules arises from the base spaces of versal deformations of certain modules over the E_6 singularity {x^4-y^3}. The method developed here can in principle be used to classify determinantal formulae for all discriminants, and, indeed, for all singularities.
Chldren's Ideas About Climate Change
Keywords: Climate Change
Perceptions
Children

This thesis examines children’s (aged 11-12) ideas about climate change. Seventh grade children in 9 schools in Ontario were interviewed and submitted illustrated responses about climate change over a one year period of data collection. Qualitative grounded theory was used to allow themes from the data to emerge, and the use of computer software, NVivo7, was used to code and classify themes. The data were analyzed to answer three main research questions. First, the thesis explored if there were common similarities or differences between the children’s and adults’ responses (as gained from the literature). Second, children’s responses were grouped by geographical location. These locations included rural, urban, and suburban school. This was conducted in order to determine if any group differences exist among children in these three areas. The study found that children’s and adults perceptions are quite similar, and that in some situations, both groups tend to use substitution of other environmental knowledge (cultural models) in lieu of knowledge of climate change but that children also tended to use different cultural models to explain their ideas about climate change. The thesis concluded that no group differences existed among rural, urban, and suburban children and children in all groups tended to have much more detailed knowledge of mitigation strategies than the effects and causes of climate change. The thesis also concluded that a new educational framework, modeled after the Causes, Effects, and Mitigation Strategies of Climate Change (CEM Framework) ought to be used to redistribute this knowledge across these three areas.
Nonlinear Multicontrast Microscopy for Structural and Dynamic Investigations of Myocytes
Keywords: nonlinear microscopy
biological imaging
harmonic generation
multi-contrast microscopy

Abstract: Nonlinear multicontrast microscopy is established in this study as an important tool for understanding biological structure and function of muscle cells. Second harmonic generation, third harmonic generation and multi-photon excitation fluorescence are acquired simultaneously in order to establish the origin of nonlinear signal generation in myocytes, and investigate myocyte structure and functionality during muscle contraction. Using structural cross-correlation image analysis, an algorithm developed specifically for this research, for the first time, third harmonic generation is shown to originate from the mitochondria in myocytes. The second harmonic, which is generated from the anisotropic bands of the sarcomeres, is further shown to be dependent on the crystalline order of the sarcomeres, thereby providing a potential diagnostic tool to evaluate disorder in muscle cells. The combination of the second and third harmonic provides complementary information that can be used to further elucidate the basic principles of muscle contraction. Time-lapse nonlinear microscopic imaging showed structural and functional dynamics in the myocytes. The second harmonic contrast revealed nonsynchronized nanocontractions of sarcomeres in relaxed, non-contracting, cardiomyocytes and Drosophila muscle samples, providing insight into the asynchronous behaviour of individual sarcomeres. Furthermore, macrocontracting samples were found to exhibit a synchronization of nanocontractions, providing new evidence for how muscles contract. Dynamic image correlation analysis, another algorithm developed specifically for this investigation, is used to reveal networks of mitochondria, which show fluctuations of multi-photon excitation fluorescence and third harmonic generation signals. The intensity fluctuations in the networks reveal both slow and fast dynamics; phase shifts of the slow dynamics between different networks are observed. Fast dynamics appear only in the inner networks, suggesting functional difference between interfibrillar and subsarcolemma mitochondria. The groundwork for studying bioenergetics of mitochondria in cardiomyocytes with nonlinear multimodal microscopy is fully developed in this work. The origin of the nonlinear signals and the development of the image analysis techniques provide a solid foundation to further study of muscle contractility and bioenergetics.
Examining Different Levels of Prevention of Birth Defects and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Keywords: prevention
fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
birth defects
multivitamin
pregnancy
meconium
fatty acid ethyl esters
screening

While all women hope to deliver a healthy baby, approximately 3-5% babies are affected by birth defects. Birth defects can occur naturally or be induced by teratogens. Alcohol is a known teratogen that causes fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), the most commonly known cause of neurobehavioural and neurodevelopmental deficits. Individuals affected with FASD are likely to be involved with or require additional assistance from healthcare, education, social services, and justice sectors. Due to this immense burden, effective prevention of FASD can have a major public impact. Prevention of FASD can occur at different levels: primary prevention (preventing alcohol-induced birth defects from occurring in the first place); secondary prevention (preventing alcohol-induced birth defects from developing or progressing); tertiary prevention (improving the outcome of individuals affected with FASD); and quaternary prevention (preventing another child from being affected with FASD). The objective of this thesis was to explore a multilevel birth defect and FASD prevention strategy. Primary prevention by was investigated by maternal multivitamin supplementation to optimize fetal growing conditions, as alcoholics are commonly deficient in nutrients. A meta-analysis of maternal multivitamin supplementation demonstrated a decreased risk for certain congenital anomalies and pediatric cancers. Secondary prevention was investigated by a randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled evaluating the ability of high doses of antioxidants (vitamin C and vitamin E) to mitigate the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure. The study was ceased due to safety concerns regarding high doses of vitamin C and vitamin E in preeclamptic studies. Tertiary prevention was investigated by anonymous meconium screening of babies of Grey-Bruce, Ontario residents delivering at or transferred to St. Joseph’s Health Care in London, Ontario. A 30% prevalence of fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) positive meconium was observed at this high-risk unit. Meconium screening is also a means of quaternary prevention since positive screens also identify mothers who were unable to stop consuming alcohol after 13 weeks of pregnancy, and therefore are at risk of delivering another child who is prenatally exposed to alcohol. The identification and engagement of these mothers into treatment programs constitutes primary prevention of FASD in subsequent pregnancies.
On Load Balancing and Routing in Peer-to-peer Systems
Keywords: peer-to-peer
load balancing
routing

A peer-to-peer (P2P) system is a networked system characterized by the lack of centralized control, in which all or most communication is symmetric. Also, a P2P system is supposed to handle frequent arrivals and departures of nodes, and is expected to scale to very large network sizes. These requirements make the design of P2P systems particularly challenging. We investigate two central issues pertaining to the design of P2P systems: load balancing and routing. In the first part of this thesis, we study the problem of load balancing in the context of Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs). Briefly, a DHT is a giant hash table that is maintained in a P2P fashion: Keys are mapped to a hash space I --- typically the interval [0,1), which is partitioned into blocks among the nodes, and each node stores the keys that are mapped to its block. Based on the position of their blocks in I, the nodes also set up connections among themselves, forming a routing network, which facilitates efficient key location. Typically, in a DHT it is desirable that the nodes' blocks are roughly of equal size, since this usually implies a balanced distribution of the load of storing keys among nodes, and it also simplifies the design of the routing network. We propose and analyze a simple distributed scheme for partitioning I, inspired by the multiple random choices paradigm. This scheme guarantees that, with high probability, the ratio between the largest and smallest blocks remains bounded by a small constant. It is also message efficient, and the arrival or departure of a node perturbs the current partition of I minimally. A unique feature of this scheme is that it tolerates adversarial arrivals and departures of nodes. In the second part of the thesis, we investigate the complexity of a natural decentralized routing protocol, in a broad family of randomized networks. The network family and routing protocol in question are inspired by a framework proposed by Kleinberg to model small-world phenomena in social networks, and they capture many designs that have been proposed for P2P systems. For this model we establish a general lower bound on the expected message complexity of routing, in terms of the average node degree. This lower bound almost matches the corresponding known upper bound.
User Interfaces for Visual Search
Keywords: Visual Search
Human Computer Interaction
User Interface Design
Displays

Visual search is an important component of many human-computer interactions and a critical task in a variety of domains. These include screening for prohibited items in x-ray imagery of luggage in airports, identifying anomalies in medical imagery, and looking for unusual activity and changes over time in satellite imagery. Unlike many other human-machine interface tasks where a small error rate is quite acceptable, a crucial element of visual search tasks in these application areas is that a single mistake can have catastrophic consequences. Thus, any improvements in technology, interfaces, or human processes that can be made to aid visual search would be invaluable in these safety critical areas. Furthermore, even when one does not consider consequential activities such as cancer screening and airport security, most human-computer interactions involve some search component, and the impact of even small improvements is magnified by a high frequency of use. This thesis explores how some of these issues affect individuals' and teams' ability to perform visual searching tasks. Considerations such as group size and display configuration are examined, as are novel interfaces that aid search on tabletop and wall displays. The overarching goal of this work is to provide system designers with immediately implementable advice and guidelines on how to improve their systems in respect to visual search and to outline further research in this critical area.