VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Development and Application of Environmental Comprehensive Multiphase Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Keywords: CMP-NMR
Environmental NMR
Multiphase
NMR

Environmental samples contain multiple phases (solution, gel, and solid) and the synergy and interactions between these phases give rise to their physical structure and environmental reactivity. It is important to analyze samples as close to their intact state as possible to preserve such information. Comprehensive multiphase nuclear magnetic resonance (CMP-NMR) combines all the hardware features from traditional NMR approaches (solution-state, solid-state, and HR-MAS) and can differentiate components in all phases in intact samples. As CMP-NMR technology is relatively new, continued improvement is being made to expand its applicability and compatibility with more multiphase environmental samples. This dissertation focuses on the development of CMP-NMR technologies and expanding their applications on a greater variety of natural samples. The first study introduces a quantitative technique (stepped decoupling) which through effective decoupling, can provide quantification to components in all phases without bias. This approach can be used to quantify specific compounds and to give a quantitative overview of the components in all phases. In the second study, spectral editing techniques, along with stepped decoupling, are applied to differentiate and characterize multiphase components in algae biofuel products that have been extracted under various reaction conditions. The findings demonstrate CMP-NMR’s capability of studying a multiphase reaction process and suggest the possibility to optimize reaction conditions to produce useful biofuel extraction by-products. In the third study, a new coil design is adapted to CMP-NMR, significantly reducing sample heating induced by high-power decoupling for solid-state components. This study not only showcases the improved survival rate of in vivo Hyalella azteca (freshwater shrimp) under high decoupling power but also presents the importance of using proper high decoupling power for natural samples. The fourth study introduces a 7 mm probe, providing significantly larger sample volume compared to the current 4 mm system. The increased sample volume allows for natural non-enriched samples to be studied in a reasonable timeframe and for larger samples such as a pomegranate aril and a softgel pharmaceutical capsule to be studied intact. The work in this dissertation demonstrates the continuing development of CMP-NMR to expand its compatibility with a wider range of multiphase samples and processes.
Quantifying Similarity in Paleontological Settings: Accuracy, Complexity, and Macroevolutionary Implications
Keywords: Dissimilarity Indices
Paleobiology
Paleoecology
Paleontology
Similarity Indices
Soft Computing

In paleontological settings, similarity measures serve multiple roles, from arranging taxa into phylogenetic trees, to quantifying overlap between communities in terms of several interrelated factors. Any measure that attempts to incorporate such a wide variety of concepts will struggle to handle lost information, and the well-known biases of the fossil record represent a significant hurdle to accurate quantification of similarity. In this thesis I explore the accuracy of several well-known similarity measures when they are applied in paleontological settings, and discuss how measuring similarity can allow us to better understand long-term evolutionary dynamics. Using a combination of numerical models that simulate the biases of the fossil record, alongside field-based samples from rapidly lithifying environments, I demonstrate that only a small subset of popular similarity measures work in paleontological settings. I explore how the most accurate measures can be modified to incorporate additional information about inter-community overlap, expanding our conception of what constitutes a “similar” ecosystem. While articulating the assumptions underlying the most commonly used similarity indices, I wrote a proof demonstrating that one of the most popular similarity measures in paleontological research (convex hull overlap) does not work like other measures and can return inaccurate results even in unbiased settings. Finally, I looked at two key questions in the application of similarity to paleontological problems. The first of these issues involves the problem of a tie when classifying taxa into groups based on functional similarity. In classical classification protocols, when a given taxon is equally likely to belong to two or more groups, there is no clear solution. Here I explore how the mathematical approach of fuzzy set theory can offer a potential means of solving this problem. Finally, I explore how quantifying similarity can offer a possible mechanistic explanation for one of the most unusual patterns in the fossil record – the decoupling of the taxonomic and ecological consequences of a mass extinction event. My research provides the first quantitative evidence that functional similarity, long proposed to have a stabilizing effect on small-scale ecosystems, could potentially prevent widespread collapse in the face of a global climatic shift.
Rendering Service to the Community: The Spiritual Life of the Ursuline Nuns of Quebec City, 1639-1780
Keywords: education
New France
nuns
spiritual life
spirituality
Ursulines

This dissertation explores the spiritual life of the Ursulines nuns of Quebec City as the central feature of their lives. While other historians have illuminated the political power, economic influence, and social role of the nuns, this study places the nuns’ stated goals of dedicating their lives to God at the centre of this examination and as linked with these other roles. It begins with an exploration of the Ursulines in France, the creation and modification of their constitutions, and the unique rules of the Quebec monastery. It then delves into the spiritual imagery of the Quebec constitutions, focusing on the competing images of nuns as Mary and Martha or as brides of Christ. The dissertation then examines the lifecycle of the Ursuline nuns. It brings a fresh examination on how recruitment was conducted, who entered, the process of the novitiate, the selection of the leadership of the community, followed by the spiritual concerns at end-of-life. It particularly brings attention to converse nuns, who although working as servants in the monastery, were just as dedicated to the life of prayer as the choir nuns. Moving from how the nuns lived, the dissertation then examines how they wrote about themselves. Particular attention is paid to the monastery’s annals and necrology, which documented the communal and individual lives of the nuns. These sources reveal that the nuns put a high value on retaining the religious value of charity, acknowledging Divine Providence, and on serving their monastery. Their religious ideals surrounding education and religious practice were evident in the teaching of Indigenous, French, and English girls who were students at the monastery. The nuns were not blind to racial and ethnic identity, but they prioritized religion in their decision regarding how they educated girls, bringing the nuns into conflict with colonial officials. Their dedication to education meant they schooled a significant number of Quebec girls and women resulting in high rates of literacy. Their spiritual intensity persisted all through the century and a half studied here, shaping their devotional practices and love of cloister as well as teaching.
Principals and the Hiring Process for Teachers in the Private Schools of Lahore, Pakistan
Keywords: Lahore
Pakistan
Private Schools
Teacher hiring
Teachers characteristics

Based primarily on private secondary schools of Lahore, Pakistan, this qualitative study investigates the processes involved in hiring suitable teachers. In doing so it explores in particular the expectations that principals put forth for teaching candidates and how these, then, dictate the hiring process. Fifteen principals with at least five years’ experience were selected for this study. These principals were in charge of private schools which are uniformly following the local education system of Matriculation and charging tuition fee ranging from Rs. 4000 – 7000. Qualitative research approach is used for this study in which data was collected through one-on-one interviews with the help of a semi-structured interview guide. The participants involved in the study have vast experience of hiring teachers, as their administrative experience ranges from six to twenty years in school setting. The research concludes that a good teaching candidate should have strong content knowledge, good personal characteristics, robust teaching experience and subject-specific pedagogy, proficiency in academic and non-academic tasks, strong written and oral communication skills, good discipline, immaculate handwriting and proficiency in notebook correction, adaptability, and capacity to model oneself to the taught group. The research also lists shortcomings usually found in teaching candidates, which include limited occupational choice, stark differences between paper and real qualifications, lack of teaching qualification/teacher training, poor communication skills, handwriting and work ethics, and gap between university education and practical professional life. The implications of the study suggest that university education programs need drastic, informed changes. It seems imperative to take into account not just how private school teachers are hired but who exactly is hired, and what professional qualifications such candidates hold and what effect this variable has. Based on the findings, the study has made recommendations for teaching candidates and principals as they indulge in the hiring process, and to universities as well in relation to their teacher education programs. Finally, it provides directions for future research and suggests how this study can be enhanced.
Learning-based Path-tracking Control for Ground Robots with Discrete Changes in Dynamics
Keywords: field robotics
machine learning
model predictive control

Control algorithms such as stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) choose control inputs that guide the robot towards its goal by minimising a cost function while limiting the risk of collision to an acceptable threshold. This ability to manage risk makes it appropriate for autonomous mobile robots to manage the potential for damage to the robot and its environment. A key ingredient in SMPC is a dynamics model that predicts the motion of the robot, including an estimate of uncertainty in that prediction. This thesis focuses on using data to improve this dynamics model in changing conditions with limited prior knowledge about those changes. Existing approaches focus on either a single model that can be adapted to slowly changing dynamics or a fixed number of models that are known ahead of time. In contrast, we focus on the case where the robot dynamics may be subjected to an unknown number of potentially large changes. First, we develop a method to model the robot dynamics as a Gaussian Process (GP), learning new models when new dynamics are encountered and leveraging existing models when possible. However, the GPs resulting from this method are too computationally expensive for use in closed-loop experiments. To reduce their computational cost, we switch to a repetitive path-following task and an experience-recommendation paradigm, whereby a single, local GP is constructed based on relevant data from previous traversals of the path. We then build on this framework using Bayesian Linear Regression (BLR) to model the robot dynamics which facilitates continuous adaptation to changing dynamics in addition to leveraging data from previous traversals. To make better use of data available apriori, we develop a method to learn basis functions for BLR from data rather than requiring that they be specified by hand. Finally, we develop a method to learn a correction to the cost function used in SMPC that automatically discourages the robot from entering states where the dynamics model does not accurately predict the cost associated with a sequence of control inputs. These approaches are validated through a series of experiments on ground robots.
Strategies for Noisy Photonic Quantum Technologies: Quantum Computation to Quantum Key Distribution
Keywords: bosonic qubits
MDI QKD
photonics
quantum computing
quantum key distribution
quantum optics

This thesis focuses on photonic implementations of two quantum technologies: quantum computers and quantum key distribution (QKD). Part I concentrates on photonic quantum computation using a qubit encoding for continuous-variable (CV) systems such as photonic modes known as Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states. GKP states would be an advantageous encoding for photonics due to their error-correcting properties in the CV space and due to the experimental accessibility of gate and measurement implementations. This thesis advances the prospect of photonic quantum computation with GKP states on three fronts: first, to address the outstanding issue of how to prepare these qubits in optics, we analyze a proposal for their generation using two experimentally-accessible resources, multimode squeezed states and photon-number resolving detectors. Next, to overcome the difficulty of simulating GKP states in the Fock basis, a phase space simulation technique is introduced to understand realistic noise on these qubits. Lastly, to determine the potential of GKP qubits for fault-tolerant photonic quantum computation, a measurement-based architecture with GKP states is analyzed to determine thresholds for the quality of state required. Part II shifts focus to QKD, and how security proofs can account for realistic device imperfections. We first examine entanglement-based QKD protocols that employ high-dimensional photonic degrees of freedom (e.g. time-frequency or electric field quadrature) to produce more bits of key per optical signal. While entanglement-based protocols circumvent security assumptions about the quantum state source, they come at the cost of having to trust one's detectors. This thesis analyzes a previously-identified detector loophole for these schemes, and provides a modified security proof that succeeds in establishing security when encoding in electric field quadrature, with limited success for time-frequency encoding. Luckily, an alternative protocol known as measurement-device-independent (MDI) QKD requires no security assumptions about detectors. Instead, MDI QKD requires trusted sources of quantum states, which are nonetheless subject to their own imperfections that can compromise security. In the remainder of the thesis, we advance security proofs for MDI QKD in the presence of two potential source flaws: noise that introduces mixedness to the quantum states, and side-channels that leak information about the encoding choices of states.
CYP2D in the Brain Alters Response to Drugs and Neurotoxins
Keywords: Brain
Cytochrome P450
Drug metabolism
Haloperidol
Harmine
Methamphetamine

Cytochrome P450 2D (CYP2D) is a subfamily of enzymes that metabolize many centrally acting drugs and neurotoxins. In humans, CYP2D6 is genetically polymorphic, resulting in variable activity. CYP2D in the liver is regulated primarily by genetics, while CYP2D in the brain is affected by genetics and other factors, including xenobiotic induction and hormonal regulation. Thus, CYP2D in the brain is highly variable and may alter brain drug concentrations and drug response. This thesis investigated the impact of inhibiting CYP2D specifically in the brain, without affecting CYP2D in the liver, on brain drug metabolism and resulting responses. CYP2D in rat brain was inhibited using a twenty-hour intracerebroventricular pretreatment with an irreversible inhibitor of CYP2D. We found that inhibiting CYP2D in rat brain increased brain methamphetamine concentrations and decreased the methamphetamine p-hydroxylation metabolic ratio in the brain, enhanced striatal dopamine and serotonin release, exacerbated acute methamphetamine-induced rearing, and enhanced repeated methamphetamine-induced stereotypy sensitization. Next, to assess the role of human CYP2D6 in brain in vivo, humanized CYP2D6-expressing transgenic mice and wild-type mice were given intracerebroventricular pretreatments with a CYP2D inhibitor. A four-hour inhibitor pretreatment irreversibly inhibited human CYP2D6 in transgenic brain and competitively inhibited mouse CYP2D in transgenic and wild-type brain. This four-hour inhibitor pretreatment exacerbated harmine-induced hypothermia and tremor in transgenic mice and exacerbated only hypothermia in wild-type mice. A twenty-four-hour inhibitor pretreatment irreversibly inhibited human CYP2D6 in transgenic brain only and was thus used to test the specific contribution of human CYP2D6 in vivo in brain. The twenty-four-hour inhibitor pretreatment exacerbated harmine-induced hypothermia in transgenic mice, having no effect in wild-type mice. Confirming an impact of human CYP2D6 in brain, the twenty-four-hour inhibitor pretreatment also reduced haloperidol-induced catalepsy in transgenic mice. We demonstrated that CYP2D in rat brain alters brain methamphetamine concentrations and methamphetamine-induced neurotransmitter release and behavioral sensitization. Further, we demonstrated that human CYP2D6 is active in vivo in brain, and its activity is sufficient to alter haloperidol-induced adverse effects and harmine-induced neurotoxicity. In conclusion, the extensive variation in CYP2D6 in the human brain may contribute to interindividual differences in drug-induced neurochemical and behavioral responses, adverse effects, and neurotoxicity.
Practice Patterns and Long-term Health Outcomes of Bilateral Salpingo-Oophorectomy at Benign Hysterectomy
Keywords: Gynecology
Health services research
Hysterectomy
Mortality
Oncology
Oophorectomy

Background: Bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO) is offered at the time of benign hysterectomy to prevent ovarian cancer later in life. However, BSO results in the cessation of ovarian hormone production and may be harmful to long-term health. If BSO is associated with adverse outcomes, then understanding variation in surgeon practice will help identify targets for knowledge translation and quality improvement. Methods: We performed three population-based observational studies of women undergoing benign hysterectomy in Ontario, Canada, using linked administrative databases held at ICES. We used mixed logistic regression modelling to describe between-surgeon variation in BSO; overlap propensity score weighted survival modelling to determine whether BSO was associated with all-cause and cause-specific death; and inverse probability of treatment weighted survival modelling to quantify the risk reduction in ovarian cancer associated with BSO. Results: Rates of BSO at benign hysterectomy varied markedly between surgeons even after adjusting for patient case-mix, and the surgeon providing care was one of the strongest factors influencing whether patients underwent BSO (median odds ratio 2.10, 2.49, 2.84, 2.00 in women
Three Priority Queuing Models Motivated by Healthcare Management
Keywords: healthcare
priority queue
queueing theory
service operations management

In this thesis, we study three priority queueing models in healthcare management. In the first chapter, we analyze the impact of incentive misalignment between ED and physicians. We analyze two scheduling rules: physician self-schedule and centralized schedule. For the first scheduling rule, we show, using Markov decision process, that the physician's optimal policy has a time-dependent pattern. More specifically, near the beginning of the shift, the physician is more willing to see new patients, while near the end of the shift, the physician is more willing to see reentrant patients. Using a fluid model, we demonstrate that the time-dependent behaviour increases the variance of the system, and thus raises the 90th percentile of time to physician initial assessment (TPIA). For the second scheduling rule, we show, using the fluid model, that the centralized scheduling rule decreases the 90th percentile of TPIA. In the second chapter, we analyze the practice of capacity rationing under the setting of a non-preemptive priority queueing model with c servers. In the model, an arriving low priority customer enters service without waiting only when the number of idle servers exceeds the capacity rationing level. When the service rates for high and low priority customers are equal, we demonstrate, using diffusion approximation, that the non-degenerative rationing level is at most O(√c). When the service rates for two classes are different, we develop an algorithm, using queueing and Markov chain decomposition method, that calculates the performance measures of interest. In the third chapter, we study an M/G/1 preemptive priority queue with transition delays, which happen when high priority customers preempt low priority customers. Recent literature empirically shows the existence of transition delay. We build a queueing model to incorporate the transition delay into performance analysis. For queueing systems with two priority classes, we find the analytical solution of the expected waiting time of both classes. For systems with more than two priority classes, we summarize our preliminary results, and discuss the difficulty of extending the result of the two class model to multiple classes.
Jewish Geographies: Spatial Narratives of Orthodox Jewish Leavetakers in Toronto
Keywords: Judaism
leavetaking
off the derech (OTD)
Orthodoxy
spatiality
Toronto

Through interviews with twenty self-described leavetakers from a wide range of Orthodox Jewish lifestyles in Toronto, Canada, this dissertation argues that leavetaking from normative Orthodox Judaism does not mean exiting Judaism or even stopping observance completely. Study data illustrates how leavetakers instead embark on individual journeys towards what they perceive as greater personal Jewish authenticity. They do so by restructuring their Jewishness from a perspective coloured anew by their leavetaking trajectories. Their experiences living in their old normatively Orthodox community, leaving these communities, and returning to Jewish Toronto post-disaffiliation to maintain contact with their families of origin all contribute to their new Jewish identities. Using a framework highlighting the effects of spatial and social Jewish Geography on disaffiliation and identity change, I adapt sociologist Wayne Brekhus’ typologies of gay identity disclosure in my investigation of Orthodox leavetaking trajectories. In addition, by expanding inclusion criteria to include both Haredi and other observant leavetakers towards a broader “Orthodox” participant sample, this research addresses a wider discourse on permeable religious boundaries than existing scholarship on leaving Judaism typically offers. My analysis uncovers a variety of local models for changing religiosity, from firm rejection of normative observance to break-taking and eventual return to an amended Orthodoxy and beyond. Leavetakers seek out and develop for themselves an adjacent “other Jewishness” sometimes still within observant Judaism but distinctly different from normative Orthodoxy, finding that established denominational categories do not correspond with their reconstituted Judaism. These narratives offer profound insights into what post-leavetaking Judaism looks like for disaffiliates who find themselves in indeterminate spaces still within Judaism—not outside of it.