VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Effects of Biochar on Green Roofs' Hydrology in a Southern Ontario Climate
Keywords: Biochar
Green roofs
Hydrology

Wide implementation of green roofs throughout urban areas has been carried out across the globe and has the potential to reduce and attenuate volume and peak discharge caused by natural precipitation. Research shows that implementing green roofs in urban environments can be a feasible solution to manage stormwater more effectively, alleviating the capacity compromise of conventional combined sewer overflows systems, as well as other ecological and socio-economic benefits. This study evaluated the hydrologic performance from eight extensive green roof testbeds with a substrate depth of 15 cm, two types of soil media (amended with biochar and control), and two types of vegetation (Sedum and native species) at the University of Toronto’s GRITlab 2 (Spadina) between April and August of 2021. This short-term study showed an overall good performance on water retention and peak attenuation, mainly through evapotranspiration (ET) throughout the monitoring period.
Exploring Dentists’ Personal Knowledge in Practice in the Delivery of Mandibular Anesthesia: A Qualitative Study
Keywords: Dental education
Dentistry
Local anesthesia
Mandibular anesthesia
Personal knowledge
Tacit knowledge

Background: Local anesthesia, an essential component of dentistry, eliminates the pain associated with invasive surgical treatment. Despite an adequate understanding of theory, students often struggle to consistently achieve mandibular anesthesia in clinic. Objectives: The aim of this study is to explore the personal knowledge and experiences that inform dentists’ delivery of mandibular anesthesia in practice. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 dentists using the Zoom teleconferencing application and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Three themes were developed: 1) Practice makes proficient, 2) Mandibular anesthesia delivery is a dynamic process, not a single injection, and 3) Mandibular anesthesia delivery is patient-tailored and responsive. Conclusion: Mandibular anesthesia delivery is a dynamic process that requires both technical and non-technical competencies. Significance: Collectively, our findings suggest students would benefit from receiving more and diverse clinical instruction and practice, combined with a systematic framework of evaluation for clinical troubleshooting and technique development.
Examining an Investigative Balance Prosthesis during Balance and Working Memory Tasks in Children and Young Adults with Cochleovestibular Dysfunction
Keywords: Balance
Cochlear Implants
Hearing Loss
Vestibular Dysfunction
Working Memory

The present study examines balance, working memory, and an investigative balance prosthesis (BalanCI) in children with cochleovestibular dysfunction. Many children with cochleovestibular dysfunction have poor balance. Balance requires cognitive resources and can impact cognitive load. The BalanCI provides auditory balance feedback through the user’s cochlear implants so they can adjust their posture, remaining upright. It was hypothesized that children and young adults with cochleovestibular dysfunction would perform worse than normal on balance perturbations and dual balance-cognition tasks, and performance would be improved with BalanCI use. Children and young adults with cochleovestibular dysfunction responded to balance perturbations and completed auditory and visuospatial dual balance-cognition tasks with and without the BalanCI. Participants with cochleovestibular dysfunction demonstrated poorer balance than normal, but the BalanCI improved stability on some perturbations and alleviated balance deficits associated with the auditory dual balance-cognition task. The BalanCI provides promise as a balance intervention for children with cochleovestibular dysfunction.
Characterization of Graft Injury by Respiratory Oscillometry following Lung Transplantation
Keywords: acute rejection
chronic lung allograft disfunction
lung transplantation
oscillometry
pulmonary function testing

Long-term survival after lung transplantation is limited by the development of chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD), with acute cellular rejection (ACR) being a significant contributing risk factor. Earlier identification and treatment of ACR are facilitated by routine monitoring with spirometry. Our previous results showed higher sensitivity of oscillometry in detecting graft injury associated with ACR compared to spirometry. As such, we hypothesized that oscillometry is a metric sensitive to ACR- and CLAD-associated injuries. We evaluated association between oscillometry, ongoing graft injury and risk of CLAD development in the post-lung transplant cohort. Our results revealed that the variance in oscillometry was significantly associated with a cumulative rejection index, A-score. The higher intra-subject variance in X5, AX and R5-19 was independently predictive of subsequent CLAD development. We concluded that oscillometry is a sensitive biomarker of ongoing graft injury following lung transplantation and may assist in identifying recipients at increased risk for CLAD.
Nutrient Acquisition Strategies and Performance of Crops in Response to Agroecological Interventions
Keywords: agroecology
functional traits
nutrient acquisition
organic systems
root ecology

Despite growing attention on agroecological interventions in crop production, little work explores the effects of multiple strategies to confer both soil and plant health. Here, I utilize a functional-trait approach to evaluate resource acquisition response of soybean and wheat to an organic amendment and to a growth-promoting bacterial seed inoculant. Amendments differentially influenced crops, with only wheat expressing differences in root strategies. There was no detectable influence of inoculation on roots, and interactive effects of amendments and inoculation was minimal. Inoculation and amendments impacted height, leaf chlorophyll content, leaf dry matter content, and stem diameter. Root traits showed trade-offs similar to those described in the root economic spectrum, with crops showing decreases in resource acquiring strategies with ontogeny. Broadly, soil amendments had the strongest impact on crop root response compared to seed inoculants. This study informs crop resource acquisition strategies, and crop response to interventions that emphasize agroecological crop production.
Validation of a Novel Optogenetic Drug Screening Platform for the Discovery of Neuroactive Compounds
Keywords: Drug-screening
Optogenetics
Zebrafish

Zebrafish provide a powerful system for behavior-based drug discovery aimed at treating disorders of the nervous system. However, current approaches cannot target screening for the identification of drugs that alter specific neuronal cell-types. The incorporation of optogenetics, a technique for the modulation of neural activity using light, with drug screening has the potential to provide targeted screening. Here, we present research aimed at validating this novel screening approach using transgenic zebrafish that express the excitatory optogenetic protein channelrhodopsin-2 in glutamatergic or GABAergic neurons. Using a collection of compounds with known central nervous system targets, we found that optogenetics can enable targeted screening, but in unpredicted ways. We also discovered that optogenetics can amplify the effects of drugs, providing an advantage when screening for new compounds. Our results support further investigation of this drug screening strategy using more compounds with known targets as well as transgenic lines for the optogenetic stimulation of additional cell-types.
Effect of Ecological Restoration on Plant-Pollinator Networks in Urban Meadows
Keywords: Biodiversity
Conservation
Interaction Network
Pollination
Restoration
Urban green space

Implementing restoration and management practices that aim to replicate natural areas within urban green spaces have been demonstrated to promote native species success and combat negative effects of urbanization, such as habitat loss. In my thesis, I set out to determine the impacts of urban green space restoration on wild bee communities to understand how plant richness, surrounding urbanization level, and restoration age support these critically important species. To do this, I evaluate wild bee-plant interaction networks, and wild bee diversity across a multi-year, early-successional meadow restoration project in the City of Toronto in Canada. Bee abundance and richness were positively correlated with restoration year, and bee community evenness was negatively correlated with restoration year. Plant-pollinator networks were specialized, but consisted of several dominant plant species, suggesting that future conservation efforts should focus on supporting the rare and underrepresented bee genera present in this study which may be more susceptible to disturbance.
Designing a Framework for an Open-source Ventilator Controller Agnostic to Specific Ventilator Designs
Keywords: Controller Design
COVID-19
Mechanical Ventilator
Open-Source Design

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused a shortage of mechanical ventilators due to the complexity of the devices and lack of proper documentation of open-source designs. The goal is to design an open-source ventilator controller framework agnostic to the mechanical design and able to operate both emergency-use and ICU ventilators. Through understanding the ventilation modes and the existing open-source designs, a list of input and output parameters and a series of flow chart diagrams for each ventilation mode are created. These inform the design of the framework, which is composed of pseudocode for all relevant controller modules and a list of the minimum hardware requirements. The framework is tested by running a ventilation simulation to showcase the output is functional and meets the gap occurring during respiratory illness pandemics. Next steps for the investigation involve publishing the framework under an open-source license and performing testing on a physical ventilator.
Health Care Organizations Adopting Anchor Institute or Similar Practices: A Scoping Review
Keywords: anchor institutions
hospitals
scoping review
social determinants

Health care organizations and systems have increasingly invested in prevention efforts and addressing upstream social determinants of health. Some of these institutions have worked to develop their role as “anchor institutions”: socially responsible entities that leverage their resources to build community wealth. A scoping review was completed to explore the state of the literature on health care organizations adopting “anchor practices” and more broadly investing in community needs. In total, 81 articles were included in the scoping review, which reflect academic articles and grey literature or reports with an analytical focus on health care organizations and systems adopting an anchor mandate or similar practices. Findings suggest there is a limited evidence base of health care organizations and systems adopting anchor mandates. The results of this research can help to spark health care organizations to think beyond their four walls and create shared value for their organization and the community.
Tracking Cinical Care among Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain: The Utility of Performance-based Measures of Physical Performance and Disability
Keywords: chronic low back pain
disability
physical performance

Objective: The objective was to describe the relationships between four physical performance (PP) tests and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) in chronic low back pain (cLBP). Methods: A cross-sectional and longitudinal cohort study of GLA:D® Back participants, with four PP measures (flexibility, endurance, sit-to-stand) pre-, post-program and ODI. Correlations and multiple regression described the relationship between ODI and the four PPs and for additional predictive ability of pre-program PPs. Results: Correlations between ODI and PP tests cross-sectionally were negative (-.2 to -.3), and much weaker (-.01 to -.17) for change. PP tests explained 17-18% of variance in ODI pre- and post. Variance explained in follow-up ODI was R2 = 0.514 using baseline ODI score and increased to 0.569 when adding PPs. Conclusions: While the four PPs had modest relationships with ODI, they added no additional predictive value for disability. PP measures when assessing individuals with cLBP should not be the only outcome utilized.
Formative Feedback on Problem-solving Skills: Intent and Action
Keywords: Assessment
Formative feedback
Problem solving
Teaching perspectives

Formative feedback is integral for the learning of difficult skills such as problem solving. To understand why less than ideal amounts of feedback are sometimes provided to students, this study elicited undergraduate engineering instructors’ intentions, and then observed their actions regarding formative feedback on midterm exams in courses that purport to teach problem solving. Intentions were collected through a survey that emulated the intentions-focused portion of the Teaching Perspectives Inventory. The questions were reworked to reference Fink’s FIDeLity feedback system. Actions were then measured by analyzing feedback provided on previous midterm exams administered by the same instructors who filled out the survey. Alignment between the instructors’ intentions and actions were analyzed by comparing the survey results and the midterm exam marking. Overall, instructors’ actions are generally aligned with their intentions. However, their intentions tend to favour time saving practices rather than using every known method for providing high-quality formative feedback.
Automatic Generation and Detection of Motivational Interviewing-style Reflections for Smoking Cessation Therapeutic Conversations using Transformer-based Language Models
Keywords: automated medicine
chatbot
language model
motivational interviewing
natural language processing
transformer

If conversational agents can take on a therapeutic role, they may provide a scalable way to help many more people suffering from addictions. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a validated therapy for behaviour change that has been used to help smokers to quit. A key MI skill is to produce reflections on a patient’s statements about a behaviour. Reflections are simple restatements or complex inferences drawing on conversation history or general experience. This thesis presents a method of generating reflections using GPT-2 and GPT-3 language models. These models produce promising reflections; however, some generated reflections are poor quality. To address this, we train a classifier on samples labeled by an MI expert to act as a filter. Its sensitivity is 90%, and specificity 71%. GPT-2 produces reflections 54% of the time with few-shot priming which GPT-3 improves to 89%. With fine-tuning and filtering, GPT-2 generation hit-rate improves to 81%.
Identification of Human microRNAs Regulating Skeletal Muscle Regeneration In Patients with Sustained Intensive Care Unit Acquired Weakness
Keywords: gene network analysis
ICU-acquired weakness
microarray
muscle atrophy
muscle regeneration
muscle weakness

Intensive care unit acquired weakness (ICUAW) is a complication of critical illness characterized by skeletal muscle wasting and impaired contractile function. Dysregulated gene co-expression networks controlling muscle repair/regeneration are present in patients with persistent muscle wasting. MicroRNAs (miRs) regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by affecting the translation/degradation of mRNAs. Thus, we sought to identify miRs regulating the failure of muscle regeneration in patients with sustained ICUAW. We performed an integrated miR/mRNA analysis of quadriceps biopsies from patients with early/sustained ICUAW to identify dysregulated expression of miRs and their gene targets that regulate skeletal muscle myogenesis. We found miRs-490-3p and -744-5p to negatively regulate proliferation and differentiation respectively in human skeletal muscle myoblasts in vitro. We identified genes with significant roles in skeletal muscle repair/regeneration as potential mediators of miR-490-3p’s anti-myogenic activity. In addition, we identified novel miRs-3175 and -4739 as potential regulators of myoblast proliferation/differentiation in vitro.
Deep Neural Network Model Inversion Attack via Auxiliary Generative Adversarial Network
Keywords: Adversarial Machine Learning
Deep Neural Networks
Generative Adversarial Network
Machine Learning
Model Inversion

In recent years, predictive deep neural networks have enabled remarkable progress in pattern recognition tasks and are being used in many domains. Given this widespread use, it is important that these models do not reveal information about sensitive training data that they have been trained on. In this work, we consider a malicious ML user that attempts to recover the training dataset of a supervised neural network by having access to an "auxiliary" training dataset that only shares high-level information with the original dataset. Specifically, we propose "Auxiliary GANs" which is an algorithm based on generative adversarial networks (GAN) to recover the original training data by combining the leaked information from the predictive model with the shared information of the auxiliary dataset. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm on several datasets and show that it outperforms the previous works both in terms of accuracy and the FID score.
Change in Patterns of Anatomical and Enzymatic Expression and Allocation during the Evolution of C4 Photosynthesis in the genus Flaveria
Keywords: C4 photosynthesis
Flaveria

The evolution of C4 photosynthesis is marked by changes in anatomical and enzymatic patterns. The allocation of chloroplast, mitochondria, and the enzyme glycine decarboxylase (GDC) to photosynthetic tissues was investigated in 19 populations within the Flaveria genus. Results show a progressive increase in chloroplast and mitochondrial investment in bundle sheath (BS) cells and tissue in comparison to mesophyll (M) cells and tissue which emphasizes the BS accommodating an increase in photosynthetic metabolic activity for C2, C4-like and C4 plants. GDC localization to the BS increases in PK and C2- species, indicating a role of this enzyme in the upregulation of a rudimentary C2 cycle. Notably, populations of F. linearis from the Yucatan Peninsula were observed to have larger and more prominent BS chloroplasts than other F. linearis populations. This indicates Yucatan-localized populations can more effectively trap photorespired CO2, which could explain the lower CO2 compensation points observed in these plants.
Effect of Curing Agents on the Cure Behaviour and Thermal and Mechanical Properties of a Novel Vanillin-based Bio-epoxy Resin
Keywords: cure kinetics
epoxy

In recent decades, there has been extensive research on bio-based polymers due to growing environmental and economic concerns regarding the inevitable depletion of petrochemical resources. In this work, the effect of functionality and molecular structure of the cure agent on cure kinetics and performance of a novel vanillin-based phosphorus-containing epoxy resin (VPE) was investigated. The three aliphatic amines used as the curing agents: ethylenediamine (EDA), diethylenetriamine (DETA), and triethylenetetramine (TETA), varied in the number of active hydrogens from 4 to 6. It was found that the type of amine used had a determining effect on both cure kinetics and the characteristics of the cured resins. Notably, minimal autocatalytic effect was observed in VPE-DETA system, while only a weak autocatalytic effect was observed in VPE-EDA and VPE-TETA systems. These cured VPE samples exhibited excellent thermal stability and tensile properties consistent with those of similar vanillin-based epoxy-amine systems reported in the literature. Among the three VPE-amine systems, VPE-DETA showed the best overall performance.
Effect of At-home Bodyweight Interval Exercise Before or After Breakfast on Postprandial Glycemic Control, Post-exercise Fat Oxidation and Perceptions of Appetite in Females
Keywords: Appetite
Carbohydrate
Exercise Physiology
Glycemic Control
HIIT
Lipid

Our study investigated the effect of at-home bodyweight interval exercise (BWI), performed before or after breakfast, on postprandial glycemia, post-exercise fat oxidation and appetite control. In a randomized order, 12 female participants completed two virtual trials in the mid-follicular phase of the menstrual cycle involving BWI before (EX-FED) or after (FED-EX) a standardized breakfast. Heart rate and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured during exercise, capillary blood samples were obtained postprandial, and fat oxidation and appetite perceptions were measured post-exercise. Exercise-induced heart rate and RPE were similar between conditions. Postprandial glycemia following breakfast was reduced in FED-EX relative to EX-FED, with a lower glucose mean (p=0.03), peak (p=0.01) and area under the curve (AUC) (p=0.004). Post-exercise fat oxidation was similar between conditions. Appetite was lower in FED-EX, as reflected by a greater negative AUC (p=0.029). Performing BWI after, rather than before, breakfast is superior for lowering postprandial glycemia and appetite in females.
Evaluation of the Prescription Patterns of Antibiotics among Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons in Canada
Keywords: Antibiotic Prophylaxis
Evidence-Based Practice
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
Over prescribing

Background: The rise in bacterial resistance is attributed to the inappropriate or unnecessary use of antibiotics. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the current knowledge and antibiotic prescription patterns among Canadian oral and maxillofacial surgeons. Methods: A web-based survey featuring 17 clinical scenarios was distributed to active oral and maxillofacial surgeons in Canada. The sample group was asked questions about their management these clinical scenarios. Descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed (P ≤ .05). Results: More than half of the prescriptions were generated in clinical scenarios where there is little evidence to support their use. Most prescriptions followed the correct antibiotic regimen. Clinicians with a limited scope of practice had a significantly higher overprescribing index rate than those with a more extensive scope of practice. Conclusion: Improving the available evidence and ensuring that all practitioners have up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines could help minimize unnecessary antibiotic use.
Spin-orbital Coupling and Geometric Phase Effects in the Vicinity of a Conical Seam
Keywords: Chemical Physics
Non-Adiabatic Dynamics

Non-adiabatic dynamics are ubiquitous in chemical systems, many of which have significant spin-orbital coupling. In locations where electronic states are degenerate, conical intersections often occur and from which the geometric phase arises. Here, we investigate how the geometric phase in doublet spin systems affects dynamics, by comparing these geometric phase effects with those formed previously in the case of zero spin and absence of spin-orbit coupling. To address this, we analyze the crude-adiabatic Hamiltonian modeled with parameters of the collision reaction OH + H2 → H + H2O. To reduce complexity, symmetric considerations were taken into account as an σh horizontal plane is present in the system. This symmetry operator was projected on the general 4x4 crude-adiabatic Hamiltonian, reducing our problem to a decoupled2x2 Hamiltonian. It was found that spin-orbital coupling suppresses diabatic population trans- fer from its integer-spin counterpart. Further studies are needed to understand the mechanisms surrounding this reason.