VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Synthesizing Structure: Patterned Control of Distributed Systems
Keywords: Control theory
Decentralized control
Distributed control
Geometric control
Linear systems
Multiagent systems

Nature provides fabulous proofs-of-concept for distributed systems, such as flocks of starlings that perform stunning aerial displays without the direction of a single leader. Autonomous engineering systems (such as groups of robots) are often architected in the same fashion, with a control action split among several independent parts rather than being centralized. In these instances, a system's parts interact with a distinct interconnection structure - a pattern - that must be adhered to by the system's controller. This thesis explores a method for preserving patterns in control design: for several common control problems, we show how to check whether a pattern-preserving controller exists, and we provide a method by which to find one. To do so, we encode patterns through algebraic commuting relationships, and we carry those commuting relationships through the standard controller design steps of system decomposition and feedback synthesis (among others). We also discover how these patterns alter a systemâ s basic properties such as controllability and observability. Our results apply in a variety of fields, ranging from formation flying to distributed power generation and from coupled chemical tanks to self-driving cars. Though we take our initial cues from nature, we hope that our work is not just "for the birds".
An Investigation into Employee Engagement and Professional Development Policy Creation and Implementation on Full-time Faculty Employees in the Ontario College Sector: A Case Study
Keywords: Employee Engagement
Human Resource Development
Organizational Policies
Professional Development

Abstract Concern for the importance of employee engagement amongst organizational leadership has been recognizable, albeit unevenly, wherever work processes require the enthusiasm, skill and judgement of employees in order to be successful. It is increasingly clear that engagement is linked to positive outcomes, both for individuals and for organizations. An increased interest in the engagement level of employees has highlighted the positive effects of employee engagement on organizational performance (Harter, Schmidt Hayes, 2002; Kahn, 1992; Shuck, Rocco Albornoz, 2011); however, I found in my literature review that relatively little is known about the impact of organizational policy creation and implementation on employee engagement. This research study was undertaken to extend and clarify an understanding of employee engagement rooted in an elaboration of concepts offered originally in Kahn’s influential ‘Engagement Model’ (1990). This approach argued by Kahn and his colleagues represents a key point of departure within the field of Human Resource Development (HRD) (Shuck Reio, 2011; Shuck, Reio Rocco, 2011; Shuck Rose, 2013; Shuck Wollard, 2010) by focusing on the employee experience. With this study, I aimed to fill an important void in the HRD literature (McGoldrick, Stewart Watson, 2002). Specifically, the objective of this study was to generate an exploratory and descriptive account of how professional development policy-making influences the engagement of full-time faculty at Durham College (Ontario, Canada). This research examines the effect that the implementation of a professional development policy had on the employee engagement of full-time faculty employees. This research presents a new framework for assisting college leaders to increase employee engagement and contributes to the HRD literature by illuminating theory-based strategies for faculty employee involvement in the creation and implementation of professional development policies.
Writing Villages: Language, Objects, and Spirituality in the Discovery of Rural China, 1911-1949
Keywords: Dialect
Folksongs
Modern China
Republican Period
Rural Studies
Xiangtu Wenxue

This dissertation examines the explosion of writings about rural life that emerged during the Republican period (1911-1949) in China, found in the essays, short stories, long-form novels, folklore journals, and ethnographic surveys that dotted the mediascape of the time period. Situating its arguments at the cross-section of Republican era village studies, intellectual history, and literary criticism, this dissertation argues that such writings did not merely reflect an already existing social reality beyond the text, but were themselves productive of the very concepts by which such a reality was to be imagined and acted upon. As such, they produced an imaginative binary that had not, hitherto, been dominant in Chinese cultural life: the urban vs. the rural. While such writings evidenced a persistent fascination with the languages, objects, and spiritual ideas that defined village cultures, they were not produced from within the geographic boundaries of village life. They were created by cosmopolitan intellectuals imbedded in translingual print networks of global reach. Such writings must thus be situated within the properly global context in which they were produced: a world roiled by the unevenness of capitalism in its imperialist form. The world system produced by capitalism sought to fix peoples into monolingual national units arranged hierarchically across historical time. When seen from this developmental lens, the rural emerged in 20th century China as a site of “backwardness,” in need of social and linguistic “reconstruction.” I track how folklorists, writers, and language reformers responded to, but also complicated, this ethnographic drive to study, classify, and transform village life. Challenging a long standing axiom in the field of modern Chinese history that Republican era intellectuals “invented” the cultural figure of the peasant as a depressed allegory of the national condition, I argue that the songs, objects, and votive practices of village life remained key points of inquiry and negotiation for intellectuals throughout the era. As such, I tell a more nuanced story regarding the urban/rural binary, one that emphasizes that the incorporation of the village into the cultural life of the new republic was not an epistemologically enclosed process.
Signaling Regulation of iNKT Cell Development and Function
Keywords: immune receptor
Intracellular signaling
Natural Killer T cell
T cell development
T cell receptor
Thymus

Beyond their potential as immunotherapeutic targets, invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells have long interested immunologists because they defy the rules of T cell development through their differential requirement for signalling molecules, such as those downstream of the TCR. In this work, we aimed to define some of the signalling requirements that govern iNKT cells development, homeostasis and function. We first investigate the biophysical properties of TCR-ligand-CD1d interaction using a panel of iNKT TCRs. Using the retrogenic mouse approach, we assessed how TCR properties impacted iNKT cell selection, differentiation, homeostasis and cytokine secretion. We showed that selection and effector differentiation are regulated by different biophysical parameters of TCR-ligand interaction, but that survival, homing and cytokine bias are largely independent of TCR strength. Second, we investigate how deletion of the Src homology domain-containing phosphatase 1 (Shp-1) changed the signal integration and phenotype of iNKT cells. Using mice conditionally lacking Shp-1 on ÎąÎ˛ T cells we showed that iNKT cells are biased towards a TH2 phenotype, and hyper-proliferated when cultured in vitro with IL-2, IL-7 or IL-15, suggesting a link between these observations. Taken together, this work highlights how the regulation of the complex signalling resulting from environmental cues, such as T cell receptor engagement and cytokine sensing, impacts the development and effector functions of iNKT cells.
The Heart and Mind Connection: Biomarkers of Cognitive Response to Exercise in Coronary Artery Disease
Keywords: ceramides
cognition
coronary artery disease
endothelial function
RHI
sphingolipids

Introduction: Subtle deficits in verbal memory indicating early neural risk are common in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). While exercise can improve cognition, cognitive response to exercise is heterogeneous, strongly warranting the investigation of mechanisms obstructing the cognitive benefits of exercise. This research assessed peripheral measurements of vasculopathy and sphingolipids as predictors of performance in verbal memory and other cognitive domains in CAD subjects undertaking cardiac rehabilitation (CR). Methods and Results: Cognitive performance in verbal memory (primary) and visuospatial memory, processing speed, executive function and global cognition (exploratory) was represented by standardized Z-scores in all studies. Study 1 assessed the relationship between endothelial function measured by reactive hyperemia index (RHI) using peripheral arterial tonometry and cognition at entry into and over the course of CR and explored associations with arterial stiffness measured by augmentation index (AI@75). In 64 CAD patients (mean age=63±7 years, 70% male, years of education=16±3 years), lower RHI was significantly associated with poorer verbal memory (=0.28, p=0.02) at baseline. An increase in RHI over CR was significantly associated with improved processing speed (b[SE]=0.40[0.19], p=0.04) and executive function (b[SE]=0.46[0.21], p=0.03). AI@75 was not associated with cognition at baseline or over CR. Study 2 assessed baseline plasma ceramide C22:0 and C24:0 concentrations as predictors of verbal memory over CR in a pilot study. In 33 CAD patients with CAD (mean age=62 ± 9 years, 85% male, years of education=17 ± 3 years), higher baseline plasma C22:0 (F1, 29 = 5.30, p = 0.03) and C24:0 (F1, 29 = 4.04, p = 0.05) concentrations significantly predicted less improvement in verbal memory over CR. Using a lipidomics approach, Study 3 determined associations between change in circulating sphingolipids and change in cognition over CR. In 120 CAD patients (mean age=64±6 years, 84% male, years of education=16±3 years), lower ceramide C18:0 concentrations were significantly associated with improvement in verbal memory (b[SE]=-0.51 [0.25], p=0.04), visuospatial memory (b[SE]=-0.44 [0.22], p=0.05), processing speed (b[SE]=-0.89 [0.32], p=0.007) and global cognition (b[SE]=-1.47 [0.59], p=0.01) over CR. Conclusions: Vascular health indices and plasma ceramide concentrations may be clinically useful makers of cognitive response to exercise and might provide insight into the etiology of cognitive dysfunction in patients with CAD.
Low-Density Parity-Check Decoder Architectures for Integrated Circuits and Quantum Cryptography
Keywords: Forward error correction
Integrated circuits
Low-density parity-check
Quantum key distribution

Forward error correction enables reliable one-way communication over noisy channels, by transmitting redundant data along with the message in order to detect and resolve errors at the receiver. Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes achieve superior error-correction performance on Gaussian channels under belief propagation decoding, however, their complex parity-check matrix structure introduces hardware implementation challenges. This thesis explores how the quasi-cyclic structure of LDPC parity-check matrices can be exploited in the design of low-power hardware architectures for multi-Gigabit/second decoders realized in CMOS technology, as well as in the design and construction of multi-edge LDPC codes for long-distance (beyond 100km) quantum cryptography over optical fiber. A frame-interleaved architecture is presented with a path-unrolled message-passing schedule to reduce the complexity of routing interconnect in an integrated circuit decoder implementation. A proof-of-concept silicon test chip was fabricated in the 28nm CMOS technology node. The LDPC decoder chip supports the four codes presented in the IEEE 802.11ad standard, occupies an area of 3.41mm^2, and achieves an energy efficiency of 15pJ/bit while delivering a maximum throughput of 6.78Gb/s, and operating with a 202MHz clock at 0.9V supply. The test chip achieves the highest normalized energy efficiency among published CMOS-based decoders for the IEEE 802.11ad standard. A quasi-cyclic code construction technique is applied to a multi-edge LDPC code with block length of 10^6 bits in order to reduce the latency of LDPC decoding in the key reconciliation step of long-distance quantum key distribution. The GPU-based decoder achieves a maximum information throughput of 7.16Kb/s, and extends the current maximum transmission distance from 100km to 160km with a secret key rate of 4.10 x 10^(-7) bits/pulse under 8-dimensional reconciliation. The GPU-based decoder delivers up to 8.03x higher decoded information throughput over the upper bound on secret key rate for a lossy optical channel, thus demonstrating that key reconciliation with LDPC codes is no longer a post-processing bottleneck in quantum key distribution. The contributions presented in this thesis can be applied to future research in the implementation of silicon-based linear-program decoders for high-reliability channels, and single-chip solutions for quantum key distribution containing integrated photonics and post-processing algorithms.
Stable Matching with Generalized Preference Assumptions: Algorithmic and Incentive Compatibility Challenges
Keywords: Algorithmic Game Theory
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Economics
Stable Matching

Matching markets are ubiquitous, including college admissions, school choice, reviewer paper matching, and various labour market matchings. Many of these matching markets run centralized matching schemes, using algorithms to determine the resulting match. An important property for the matches provided by the clearing house is stability. The notion of stability, where no one in the market has both the incentive and the ability to change their partner, has been empirically shown to be a very valuable property in real-world markets. However, the mechanisms used in practice make assumptions that do not hold in practice. In this thesis, we investigate problems in this gap between theory and practice. We focus on assumptions regarding participants’ preferences: the standard algorithms for this problem assume participants are able and willing to provide a full preference list, sometimes over tens of thousands of alternatives. The standard algorithms also assume participants’ preferences can be expressed by a simple ordered list over individual alternatives: a false assumption when a pair of participants, a couple, are looking for a job in the same city. We use a variety of techniques to address these issues, ranging from heuristic preference elicitation schemes, to equilibria analysis of participants’ behaviour in the market as-is, to using SAT solvers to develop new matching mechanisms with couples. Our SAT encoding exhibits improved performance, and allows for more guarantees regarding participants’ strategic behavior under certain circumstances. We find, under some settings, a common interviewing strategy is not an equilibrium. This provides further evidence for the need of elicitation schemes; ours find stable matches with much less information than traditional methods.
The Misfolding Pathway of SOD1: Implications for Drug Design in ALS
Keywords: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Chemical chaperones
Cu
Zn superoxide dismutase
Misfolding pathway
Native state stabilizers
Protein misfolding

With the development of modern medicine, many diseases and maladies have been eradicated or rendered non-fatal. This has allowed human beings to live longer and more comfortably. As the average lifespan has increased, however, diseases that tend to occur late in life have become more prominent. Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimerâ s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), affect the brain and nervous system, killing neuronal cells necessary for proper bodily function. In almost all cases, protein misfolding and the accumulation of aggregated material are involved in these toxic effects. In the case of ALS, protein misfolding and aggregation occur in motor neurons, causing them to die which leads to a progressive full-body paralysis and death by respiratory failure. In ~20% of ALS cases showing familial inheritance, over 180 mutations in the Cu, Zn superoxide dismutase protein (SOD1) have been recognized as causing the disease. These mutations do not have the common property of compromising the superoxide scavenging activity of this protein. Rather, mutations increase its propensity to adopt non-native conformations that acquire some toxic properties. The structures of the pathological misfolded protein are not known, but identifying them and the misfolding pathways that produce them are crucial for developing treatments that target the toxic conformations themselves or prevent SOD1 from misfolding and reaching those states. In this thesis, a battery of techniques was developed and applied to kinetically track multiple processes during SOD1 unfolding which has produced the most detailed mapping of the SOD1 misfolding pathway. Using this information, a computational screen was used to find molecules that might bind to and stabilize the dimer interface to prevent an early event in the pathway, dimer dissociation. Two molecules were found that inhibited misfolding and aggregation in vitro which may be the beginnings of a treatment for this currently incurable disease.
Pious Critique: Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī and the 11th Century Practice of Juristic Disputation (Munāẓara)
Keywords: Classical Schools of Law
Islamic law
Munazara
Usul al-fiqh

The 5th/11th century Shāfi‘ī jurist Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī (d. 476/1083) rose to scholarly fame in the context of a Baghdad culture of pious critical debate. The emergence of the practice of disputation (munāẓara) within the 10th century Muslim lands of Iraq and Persia had shaped a class of jurists dedicated to open and continual face-to-face debate in their search for God’s law (ijtihād). Jurists debated each other on contentious legal issues (al-khilāf): one jurist would adopt a thesis and try to defend it in the face of his opponent’s objections. They structured their practice around the boundaries of school affiliation and hierarchies. They debated those of equal rank and defended their doctrines from outside-school detractors. Their intended audience was fellow-jurists who could benefit and learn from exposure to critical debate. The ideal setting for the disputation was a space like the mosque because it was removed from the court of rulers and their potential influence on the debate. The pedagogical ethics of the disputation demanded that all present treat the practice with the seriousness and sincerity characteristic of acts of religious devotion. The jurists’ exclusion of lay Muslims from their debates entrenched their role as religious guides of the community and re-inforced the gender-hierarchy that marginalized women’s voices in the shaping of the law. Transcripts of Shīrāzī’s disputations reflect the impact of the disputation on the development of Shāfi‘ī legal doctrine. The jurists’ acknowledgement of the epistemic uncertainty of legal proofs led them to posit the need and sometimes even the obligation to have their ideas subjected to rigorous objections. Moreover, legal uncertainty justified that this process of debate continue even on issues that had already been examined over generations. The disputation did not typically resolve differences of opinion and did not spell the end of the debate. Records of Shīrāzī’s disputations show how this process of critical engagement with opponents inside and outside of the Shāfi‘ī school allowed the jurist to continue to test, develop, and refine his arguments for the law. Shīrāzī’s freedom to explore his legal tradition free from the demands of the courts and the petitions of lay Muslims permitted him to turn to building his own rendering of the Shāfi‘ī tradition with the greatest rigour possible. The impact of this process on the eventual formation of school doctrine was less certain. The canonization of Shāfi‘ī doctrine in the 13th century in the works of Yaḥyā b. Sharaf al-Nawawī (d. 676/1278) show that the eventual authoritative position of a school was not necessarily dependent on the force of argument but rather on the fame of the person who subscribed to it.
Nightscape, Dreamscape, Nightmarescape
Keywords: Music Composition
Wind Ensemble

Inspired by unsettling dreams, this piece is an exploration of several – specifically three – soundscapes and their interactions, or how they can adapt and contort to each others' tempo, rhythms, and orchestration. In many ways they are inseparable even if their connotations diverge. All three of the soundscapes serve as important reflections of each other and are thus interconnected. On a personal level, the piece involves the re-usage of music that is nostalgic to me. In this case, much of the music written serves as a deconstruction and reconstruction of music from an obscure video game, “Alundra.” The game's story also serves as a parallel inspiration as it emphasizes exploring dreamscapes and the subconscious, with often lethal consequences. While not explicitly programmatically related to the music written, it does serve as the partial inspiration and is recognized as such.
The role of microRNA-132/212 in molecular circadian clock regulation
Keywords: circadian rhythms
dendritic morphology
microRNA
miR-132/212
seasonal timekeeping
suprachiasmatic nucleus

The mammalian central circadian clock is localized in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), and is responsible for orchestrating ~24-hour rhythms in behavior and physiology. An additional property of timekeeping in organisms is seasonal adaptation, or adaptation to seasonal variations in environmental conditions. Melatonin signaling has been studied for its role in adapting physiology to seasonal light/dark variations, yet the SCN is responsible for encoding and relaying daylength information by unknown mechanisms. MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. MicroRNA-132 is part of a microRNA cluster, miR-132/212, that is often expressed in tandem, with well-characterized roles in neuronal plasticity. MiR-132 has been shown to modulate photic entrainment in acute paradigms; however, the role of miR-132/212 in acute and long-term circadian plasticity has not been explored. I aimed to do so in this study using a loss-of-function approach. I found that miR-132/212 ablation alters entrainment to non-24 hour cycles and seasonal photoperiods, and is accompanied by heightened clock protein rhythm amplitude and altered photoperiod-dependent clock protein expression patterns in the SCN. MiR-132/212-deficient SCN neurons show decreased dendritic spine density, which could potentially underlie the perturbed rhythmicity in clock gene expression and behavioral phenotypes. In the seasonal mammal Mesocricetus auratus, adaptation to winter-like photoperiods correlates with decreased dendritic spine density in SCN neurons, and is independent from melatonin signaling. MeCP2 (methyl-CpG binding protein 2) is a miR-132/212 target with roles in brain development and plasticity. MeCP2 expression is altered in miR-132/212-deficient SCN, as is its downstream gene BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor) and mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) signaling. I used in vitro and in vivo approaches to explore how MeCP2 modulates dendritic morphology phenotypes, and propose that the interaction between miR-132/212-regulated MeCP2, its downstream target BDNF, and the mTOR signaling pathway, is responsible for modulating SCN neuronal plasticity, which could be the basis for encoding seasonal time.