VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Nonprofitized Welfare State: Examining the Relationship between Social Welfare Nonprofitization and Service Expansiveness in Canada and the United Kingdom
Keywords: Comparative politics
Nonprofitization
Political economy
Public policy
Social policy
Welfare state

When governments reach out to nonprofit organizations to provide social welfare services, a common argument posits, service expansiveness is weakened: either contracting out is an explicit abdication of public duty or it creates incentives that undermine service expansiveness over time. And yet the evidence does not seem to support this simple explanation of welfare state nonprofitization. This dissertation presents a comparison of nonprofitized welfare in two countries – Canada and the United Kingdom – and two policy areas – homelessness and emergency management. It argues, first, that there is no necessary relationship between the level of nonprofitization and social welfare expansiveness. Nonprofitization occurs within a context where the public duty is being continuously renegotiated, meaning that the boundaries of the welfare state are always in flux. Two pathways to nonprofitization result from the different directions of these fluctuations: cost-cutting and co-optation. While the cost-cutting pathway is linked to service contraction, co-optation is linked to the expansion of public duty. Thus, there is no single overarching relationship between welfare nonprofitization and service expansiveness: nonprofitization operates in both directions. However, this dissertation also argues that the choices that governments make about how to institutionalize nonprofit social welfare can influence whether welfare expansiveness erodes over time or, indeed, actually increases. Service expansiveness is undermined when institutions of acquisition embed values of free-market competition, rather than collaboration or service stability. Service expansiveness is facilitated where the policy structure offers opportunities for nonprofit voice through advocacy, shaping the service, and piloting.
Telemonitoring for Patients with Complex Chronic Conditions in Nurse-led Integrated Care
Keywords: Health informatics
Health information
Health services research
Telemonitoring

Patients with complex chronic conditions (CCC) represent a significant challenge to the Canadian health care system. The heterogeneity of patients with complex and multi-morbid conditions does not align with current models of care delivery. The system of health care delivery in Canada is built on a foundation which continues to be focused on single chronic conditions. These single silos do not effectively bridge sudden, and frequent episodic health encounters to broader care plans impeding the delivery of person-centered care overall. This dissertation explores a nurse-led integrated chronic care delivery model, using telemonitoring (TM) as an intervention to facilitate better information sharing, improved patient self-care and needs-based clinical care practices. A multi-method study was conducted in three phases to determine 1) what are the opportunities of nurse-led models of care in complex chronic disease management, 2) to explore the needs and perspectives of patients and providers to inform the development of an innovative integrated model of care and the needs of TM for patients with CCC, and 3) to determine the feasibility of implementing a smartphone-based TM system into a nurse-led integrated care model. This work details how TM can be introduced and embedded within the processes of everyday clinical work for clinicians caring for this complex chronic patient population. Patients demonstrated high adherence rates and perceived the smartphone-based TM platform for CCC as useful in managing their everyday routines. The nurse-led team successfully embedded the technology into their regular clinical work as TM aligned well existing complex chronic care delivery practices and could facilitate the high-touch care requirements as a co-located interdisciplinary team. TM-enabled nurse led care models were viewed as a ‘wedge' to fill the growing gap between primary and acute care, fulfilling a need care for complex chronic patients. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate feasibility of TM in this novel nurse-led integrated care model for patients with CCC. This thesis lays the foundations for future research to improve implementations of nurse-led integrated care models as well as outline opportunities which evaluate efficacy and health utilization of TM in this high-risk and high-needs population.
What Shapes Academic Librarians’ Teaching Practices? A Holistic Study of Individual Librarians, their Contexts, and their Professional Learning Activities
Keywords: higher education
librarians
narrative
professional learning
qualitative
teaching

For academic librarians, teaching is often a core part of their work, but they typically receive limited preparation for this role in their professional education. The literature on librarians’ development as teachers generally stresses their professional development opportunities. This qualitative study explored the range of experiences, professional contexts, and professional learning activities that shape 12 academic librarians’ teaching practices. As both librarian and researcher, I was positioned as an insider-outsider. I took a bricolage approach that combined narrative, case study, and analysis based on an a priori model that situated the individual librarians in their local, professional, higher education, and societal contexts. I recruited 12 teaching librarians from Canada and the United States and conducted two semi-structured interviews with each. I stitched together a composite picture of the participants’ unique, varying experiences, with rich examples of the ways they understood and developed their teaching roles in relationship to their varied contexts, and in relationship to their own values (e.g., a commitment to social justice; an ethic of care), identities, and prior experiences. I identified two stages in their learning: 1) an initial “learning to teach as a librarian” stage, in which they required (but did not always receive) greater support, and 2) lifelong learning. Librarians in both stages were strongly self-directed and employed a variety of strategies. The professional context served as a broad community of practice that supported their development of a teacher identity and provided them with norms and guidelines. The individuals and their contexts varied enough, however, that no single picture of librarians’ teaching could emerge. This holistic approach to studying librarians’ development as teachers suggests new approaches for practice as well as new questions for research. In particular, the initial “learning to teach as a librarian” stage demands more attention. More broadly, studying and valuing the librarians’ experiences provides important and often absent perspectives on the work of academic librarians in the United States and Canada. It positions librarians as practitioners with important emic perspectives that enable them to generate knowledge that is both local and public.
Independent Together: Building and Maintaining Values in a Distributed Web Infrastructure
Keywords: Decentralization
Design
Infrastructures
Internet
Values
World Wide Web

This dissertation studies a community of web developers building the IndieWeb, a modular and decentralized social web infrastructure through which people can produce and share content and participate in online communities without being dependent on corporate platforms. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how developers’ values shape and are shaped by this infrastructure, including how concentrations of power and influence affect individuals’ capacity to participate in design-decisions related to values. Individuals’ design activities are situated in a sociotechnical system to address influence among individual software artifacts, peers in the community, mechanisms for interoperability, and broader internet infrastructures. Multiple methods are combined to address design activities across individual, community, and infrastructural scales. I observed discussions and development activities in IndieWeb’s online chat and at in-person events, studied source-code and developer decision-making on GitHub, and conducted 15 in-depth interviews with IndieWeb contributors between April 2018 and June 2019. I engaged in critical making to reflect on and document the process of building software for this infrastructure. And I employed computational analyses including social network analysis and topic modelling to study the structure of developers’ online activities. This dissertation identifies how values of import to IndieWeb’s community are employed in designing its material architectures as well as community policies. This includes an ongoing balance between supporting individuals’ agency over personal design decisions and a need to maintain commensurability for the sake of interoperability. In many cases, early decisions about this balance have contributed to barriers for certain types of participants. Yet, those who can cross those barriers experience a lack of stabilization in IndieWeb’s infrastructure as a means of achieving richer engagements with technology. By studying design activities as longitudinal and situated within broader infrastructures, this dissertation describes how changing situations and a variety of influences affect possibilities for articulating values through material engagement, offering insights about how to support positive and healthy relationships with technology.
Effects of Local Environment on C−H Bond Scission and Formation and C−O Bond Hydrogenolysis on Late Transition Metal Catalysts
Keywords: Arene hydrogenation
C−H activation
C−H formation
C−O activation
Methane oxidation
Phenolics hydrodeoxygenation

Molecular insights and effects of local environment on C−H bond scission of methane, C−H bond formation of benzene, and C−O bond hydrogenolysis of lignin derived methoxy and hydroxyl substituted arenes on late transition metal nanoparticles are established on the basis of kinetic, isotopic, spectroscopic, and theoretical assessments. These fundamental understandings capture the consequences of oxygen chemical potentials during methane oxidation, surface sulfur species during benzene hydrogenation, and interfacial properties during substituted arene hydrodeoxygenation and the catalytic roles of these critical local environmental factors in the elementary steps of their respective catalytic systems, benefitting the promotion of their efficiency. The probe of C−H bond scission of methane demonstrates that the optimal Pt-to-Pd atomic ratio of biphasic Pt−Pd catalysts, where small monometallic Pt clusters (
The Sound Culture of Space Science
Keywords: Sound Culture
Sound Studies
Space Science

From the cosmic background noise that proved the so-called Big Bang Theory in the 1960s, to more recent models using sound waves to explain solar activity, modern science agrees with ancient cosmology that the universe is far from silent. But, as most twenty-first-century space scientists will assert, there is no serious place for sound in the modern study of outer space. This dissertation demonstrates sound’s ability to simultaneously mediate and reinforce social and ontological boundaries within the network of ideas, values, individuals and institutions that produce information about the universe. I argue that the rejection of both sound and music from astronomy can be attributed to the discourse within space science communities that conflates ideas about music with ideas about sound, and to the increased use of music in the marketing and public relations initiatives of nationally funded science agencies. I also outline some of the politics by which sound, music, and listening define collective culture for communities of space scientists and contribute to the creation of scientific truth despite being considered essentially non-scientific.
Theory of Nanoscale Energy Exchange in Quantum Thermodynamics
Keywords: fluctuations
full counting statistics
open quantum systems
quantum thermodynamics
quantum transport
theory

Device miniaturization allows for the improved speed and performance of modern-day computers compared to initial computing technologies. To continue this trend, it is crucial to understand thermodynamics at the nanoscale to manage the heat flow in these shrinking devices. Just as the steam engine was instrumental to 19th century classical thermodynamics, studies of the quantum heat engine and absorption refrigerator are ongoing to establish thermodynamic theory from quantum principles. In a quantum heat engine, the nanoscale components exchange energy and heat between macro scale bodies to achieve a specific function. Such systems are realized, oftentimes, using inorganic nanoparticles (quantum dots) or trapped ions. In this work, we study three properties in open quantum systems that affect quantum thermal devices: cooperative environmental effects (strong coupling), heat leakage, and fluctuations. We use a full-counting statistics approach to derive equations of motion for the density matrix of the “working fluid” analogue. We use this theory to describe the effects of strong coupling on current and noise, and mechanisms of heat loss and its effects on device operation. We also study the trade-off between heat dissipation and precision in the form of the thermodynamic uncertainty relation, looking at non-Markovian effects, and validating the bound in experimental quantum coherent charge transport through atomic gold junctions. These operational bounds are very important to the performance of a device, and offer general principles for engineering design.
An Examination of Institutional Structures, Policy, Narratives and Professorial and Other Stakeholder Perceptions and Experiences vis-à-vis Academic Integrity
Keywords: academic integrity
academic policy
higher education
institutional analysis
organizational theory
pan-organizational

An Examination of Institutional Structures, Policy, Narratives and Professorial and Other Stakeholder Perceptions and Experiences vis-à-vis Academic Integrity Janet Joanne Shuh Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education University of Toronto 2020 Abstract This study explores the academic integrity mandate of a large multi-campus University in Ontario, Canada through the examination of faculty, staff, and administrator perceptions and experiences as well as the institution’s structures, policies and narratives. The study analyzed findings from three discrete data sources: institutional documents and structures; key informant interviews; and a faculty survey. The research questions and methodology drew from an emerging body of literature that has challenged researchers and practitioners to reframe their understanding of academic integrity from a “student” to an “institutional” (Bertram Gallant, 2016); “educational” (Bretag, 2016a; Fishman, 2016); and “academic literacy” (Howard, 2016) issue. Bolman and Deal’s (2003) four-frame model was used to explore the University’s approach to academic integrity through the structural, human resource, political, and symbolic “frames” as lenses for understanding organizational emphasis and leadership change vis-à-vis academic integrity. Faculty members’ experiences and perceptions were assessed, for the: prevalence of student dishonesty; salience of the underlying factors (individual student versus institutional/situational); and the impact of eroding integrity on core University functions, and the value of the four frames. The survey data were also analyzed for significant differences across the respondent characteristics of: academic discipline; primary campus of teaching; and length of teaching career.The study found that the University’s responses to academic integrity as well as the importance of approaches and considerations as assessed by faculty members were largely reflective of a structural lens. This was expected in that the structural frame (Bolman Deal, 2003) includes the central components of organizations, including “roles, goals, policies, technology, and environment” (p. 16) that are foundational to the post-secondary sector’s response to academic integrity concerns and/or opportunities. Key recommendations include creating more fulsome opportunities for academic integrity dialogue especially with students; acknowledging and mitigating inherent power imbalances; and incorporating symbolic and values-based strategies. The study also recommends aligning academic integrity more closely with the University’s quality assurance, research mandate, and institutional purpose; and fostering a commitment to continuous improvement of academic integrity policy, procedures, and governance.
Carrier Dynamics and Lasing Applications of Colloidal Quantum Dots
Keywords: lasers
perovskites
photonic crystals
quantum dots
spectroscopy

Colloidal quantum dots have seen progress over the last three decades as an active material for solution processed optoelectronics. Quantum dots offer a tunable optical bandgap from the UV to the mid-IR via control over size and chemical composition. Their optical and electronic properties can be further manipulated through surface engineering and heterostructuring. These materials are processed from solution, enabling low-cost fabrication; and are compatible with a wide range of substrates.In this thesis, I investigate properties of colloidal quantum dots for lasing applications. My findings illuminate fundamental processes that determine their performance in lasing; and point to strategies to overcome present-day limitations. First, I investigate the effects of temperatures reached during continuous-wave excitation on the charge carrier dynamics in CdSe/CdS core/shell QDs, and their effect on the lasing threshold. Modelling and experimental characterization reveal a temperature-activated sub- picosecond electron trapping process that depletes the population of excited QDs. Accordingly, a small decrease in the athermal lasing threshold can yield a large decrease in the continuous- wave lasing threshold due to reduced heat generation. In CdSe/CdS QDs, built-in biaxial strain reduces the valence band-edge degeneracy, lowering the athermal and CW lasing threshold by 30% and 70% respectively. Next I investigate graded CdSe/CdS shells on infrared InAs QDs to suppress non-radiative biexciton Auger recombination. Infrared InAs QDs are promising materials for infrared light emitting devices, but their Auger lifetime is much shorter than those found in more widely explored cadmium and lead chalcogenide materials. The graded CdSe/CdS shells on InAs which I develop herein result in a 2x increase in the Auger lifetime relative to the best value reported in prior InAs QD literature. Finally, I propose a method to achieve nanosecond deep-blue lasing using CsPbCl3 QDs. These perovskite quantum dots suffer from fast biexciton Auger lifetimes, and are consequently able to sustain lasing only under femtosecond pulsed photoexcitation. Forming a superlattice of QDs with aligned dipoles, and coupling them to a high Q-factor distributed feedback grating, is a step toward quasi-CW lasing in this materials system. I design the grating for single mode operation within the gain spectrum of the CsPbCl3 QDs.
Design, Characterization, and Performance of Composite Electrospun Nanofiber Membrane Adsorption Systems for the Removal of Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Products from Water
Keywords: Adsorption
Electrospinning
Environment
Membrane
Nanofiber
Pharmaceutical

The contamination of water bodies by pollutants such as pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) is a globally widespread phenomenon resulting mainly from incomplete removal in wastewater treatment. Several technologies exist to remedy this problem, among them adsorption onto micro- and nanoparticles. However, a disadvantage of treatment by adsorbents such as powdered activated carbon (PAC) by dosing is the requirement to remove them in a subsequent step. A system capable of anchoring adsorbents onto a membrane to prevent leaching into treated water has the potential to present significant advantages in the field.Electrospun nanofiber membranes (ENMs) are a new generation of membrane with a large void fraction and interconnected pore structure. Although often used as size-exclusion membranes, they can also be used as adsorptive membranes. It was found that carbonaceous adsorbents can be successfully immobilized by ENMs either in sandwich membrane or co-electrospun configurations. In this study, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and PAC were sandwiched by two superimposed ENM sheets, which prevented the adsorbents from leaching into the permeate while achieving high removals of the 6 tested PPCPs. PAC was also successfully co-electrospun into an adsorptive ENM. To maximize their exposure, two aspects of ENM design were addressed: controlling fiber diameter via the addition of salt and controlling particle diameter by sieving the PAC particles into different size bins. Addition of salt produced PAC-ENMs with thinner fibers and enhanced surface area. This resulted in an enhancement of adsorption capacity, faster adsorption kinetics, and delayed breakthrough behaviour of a model contaminant. Electrospinnig membranes with different PAC size fractions showed that surface area, adsorption capacity, and adsorption kinetics were strongly correlated to the external surface area of PAC particles, and were thus maximized for the smallest size fraction of PAC. A model representing the initial fractional removal as a function of residence time in dynamic filtration was developed, and an exponential relationship was elucidated. In static adsorption, the correlation between the kinetic constants and the surface area of the adsorptive ENM was modelled by the predictively accurate Active Layer Diffusion Model (ALDM).