VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Measures of Adherence to Varenicline: Impact on Smoking Cessation Outcomes
Keywords: Addiction
Adherence
Nicotine
Tobacco Dependence
Treatment
Varenicline

There are currently over one billion tobacco smokers worldwide and tobacco use remains a major contributor to the global disease burden. In addition to prevention, effective treatment for tobacco dependence is necessary to reduce the overall prevalence of smoking and tobacco-related disease. A significant barrier to effective treatment is low medication adherence. While varenicline is the most efficacious smoking cessation pharmacotherapy currently on the market, the impact of adherence on varenicline-assisted cessation has not been fully explored. This thesis investigated the validity of different measures of adherence to varenicline, the impact of adherence on cessation and the underlying factors contributing to low adherence. We found poor associations between self-report pill count (a widely used approach to measure smoking treatment adherence) and salivary varenicline drug concentration [Spearman rho ranges: 0.10-0.15; rate of correct classification (area under the curve ranges: 0.53-0.59)]. Approximately 20% of participants misreported pill counts relative to their varenicline drug concentration. When these individuals were excluded, the associations improved modestly suggesting self-report pill count overestimates adherence and that direct measures of adherence, such as drug concentrations, are superior. In terms of the relationship between adherence and cessation outcomes, we demonstrated that adherence based on varenicline drug concentration was predictive of both early and long-term cessation success (odds ratio ranges: 1.92-3.16), whereas adherence based on self-report pill count was not. Furthermore, a pharmacogenomic biomarker’s impact on cessation (nicotine metabolite ratio by treatment) was strengthened when adherence was confirmed by varenicline drug concentration. As lower adherence was associated with a lower likelihood of cessation success, we explored factors that lowered adherence using mediation modelling. We found that early nausea, a varenicline-related adverse effect, was associated with early-, mid- and long-term cessation success, and that this association was mediated in part by adherence, measured by varenicline concentration. Overall, our findings demonstrate the superiority of varenicline drug concentration in contrast to self-report pill count as a measure of adherence to varenicline, and provide avenues for enhancing cessation rates and reducing smoking-related disease burden.
Exploring the Relationship between Skin Tone and Self-esteem Among Females in South Asian Families in India: A Multigenerational Comparison
Keywords: body image
colourism
hegemony
self-esteem
skin color
skin tone bias

Colourism or skin colour stratification is a persistent dilemma for people in India. Socially and culturally constructed definitions of beauty based on skin tone, represent Western realities and continue to sustain beauty ideals that shape the beliefs and practices around fair skin for women. The study of skin tone and its relationship to self-esteem is essential in expanding upon the limited research examining the intersections between body image and the sociocultural experiences of South Asian Indian women. Against the backdrop of Western hegemony, the research discusses how a fair skin beauty ideal impacts different generations of women in New Delhi. More specifically, investigating the relationship between skin tone and self-esteem among women in South Asian families through a multigenerational comparison, provides a deeper understanding of how skin tone bias is perpetuated, while reinforcing and normalizing white heteropatriarchy. Skin tone bias is disseminated through the family, culture and media. The narratives highlight how skin tone bias manifests itself among adult women in different South Asian family units according to their life stage and membership in the family. Women from the young age group (generation) had the lowest self-esteem and faced the most pressure to conform to white skin beauty ideals when compared to older generations in their families. Skin tone appeared to be heavily emphasized for these young women, namely in the context of marriage.
The Impact of Open-ended Exercises on Student Experiences in Introductory Computer Science
Keywords: assignments
computer science
creativity
motivation
open-ended
self-efficacy

Improving student engagement and learning within introductory Computer Science (CS1) courses has been heavily studied within CS Education (CSE) research due to their fundamental role in a student’s early experiences with learning foundational CS concepts. One issue with many CS1 courses is that the practice of standardized grading leads to limited opportunities for creative thinking, which is problematic since the CS industry often demands and encourages creativity. This dissertation examines the impact of incorporating opportunities for creativity into a CS1 course through the use of open-ended exercises. Data was collected from 284 students in a CS1 course, where roughly half of the students completed exercises which included an open-ended aspect that allowed them to make their own decisions about their projects. The other half completed similar exercises throughout the semester but with a specifically defined, closed-ended checklist of requirements. A mixed-methods analysis of survey data collected throughout the course showed a significant connection between open-ended exercises and (1) increased motivation, especially in terms of confidence and satisfaction, (2) faster self-efficacy gains in the middle of the term, and (3) stronger feelings of enjoyment and ownership about the exercise material. Although no effect on academic performance was found, open-ended exercises had important attitudinal effects, improving personal learning experiences by fostering positive feelings in students about the coursework. The data also suggested the potential for open-ended exercises to promote diversity in CS1 by positively impacting motivation and self-efficacy particularly for female, nonmajor and inexperienced students.
An Adaptive Approach to Optimal Sparse Mobile-target Search Planning using Heterogeneous Agents
Keywords: multi agent coordination
search planning
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)
unmanned ground vehicles (UGV)
wilderness search and rescue
wireless sensor networks (WSN)

Planning an effective search for locating mobile-targets is essential in a variety of scenarios (e.g., search and rescue, environmental monitoring, law enforcement, etc.). Effective planning is especially important when resources are sparse (i.e., they are insufficient to search a significant fraction of the area of interest). For example, in wilderness search and rescue, where the search area is typically much larger than the search team can cover, effective planning is necessary to locate a lost person as soon as possible and maximize their probability of survival. Most research to-date has investigated the topic of effective search planning that makes use of homogeneous resources. Heterogeneous search teams (e.g., a team employing static sensors, unmanned ground vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles) could enhance the variety and overall quantity of resources deployed for search. Additionally, due to the varied nature of heterogeneous search resources, synergies between resource types could be exploited to achieve effectiveness that surpasses what would be achievable when working independently. This dissertation presents the results of an in-depth investigation into the topic of search planning for locating mobile targets. Specifically, it presents novel methods and strategies for planning a mobile-target search with heterogeneous search resources to maximize the probability of success. The strategies and methods presented herein are: (i) a spatiotemporally optimized dynamic static-sensor network deployment planning method, (ii) two static-mobile hybrid search planning methodologies, and (iii) an aerial-ground hybrid search planning method. These methodologies were developed with an application to wilderness search and rescue in mind, assuming sparseness of search resources, the existence of terrain, and limited information regarding the target. However, despite this focus, the problem formulation and solution methods presented herein are applicable to a wide variety of problems in other fields as well. The validity of the methodologies is supported by the results of extensive simulated search experiments. By developing search planning methodologies for heterogeneous search teams which include static-sensors, mobile ground units, and mobile aerial units, this research has expanded the range of resources and tools available to searchers to improve search success probability in real world mobile-target search.
Object-orieinted Representation and Interaction: A Step Towards Cognitively Direct Interaction
Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction

Since the dawn of civilization, we have striven to invent tools to support our productivity and creativity. A key role of these tools is to maintain, display, and provide means to operate on certain representations of information. The ideal representations visualize information in forms that can be perceived effortlessly and afford interactions which enable users to reason, analyze, and make sense of the information. Perhaps the most complex tool invented so far is digital computer. Since its inception, research has been striving to leverage computation to augment our productivity and creativity. The increasingly fast computation has shifted the bottleneck of employing computation from the hardware specifications to the representation of and interaction with digital information. The Window, Icons, Menus, Pointer (WIMP) user interface has been the dominant Graphical User Interface (GUI) framework of digital computers for 50 years. The many problems of the WIMP have long been recognized and yet unresolved: it relies on tedious manipulation of complex interface elements to achieve simple tasks; with mouse and keyboard as primary input, it does not effectively leverage the rich interaction capabilities we possess. We contribute a novel representation, the Object-Oriented Representation. By representing abstract elements in users’ workflow as concrete objects, the Object-Oriented Representation offloads abstract content and structure from users’ minds to external interfaces, which reduces cognitive load. By directly matching users’ internal representations of the information, it enables users to directly articulate their intentions, rather than translating them into tedious actions constrained by inappropriate representations. The smallest unit of GUI, attribute, is first objectified as Attribute Object. Attribute Object affords rich interactions which were tedious or impossible, and allows for the composition of higher-level elements to address other complex tasks, including Collection Object which holistically addresses the many problems of interacting with multiple objects, and Mapping Object which facilitates the creation of complex data visualization. This exploration demonstrates the potential of a new representation which can unleash and boost our creativity and productivity. A set of design principles are further distilled, which describe how representation, interaction, and functionality should be combined to enable of cognitively direct interaction.
On Global Solutions of the Parabolic Anderson Model and Directed Polymers in Random Environment
Keywords: Directed Polymers in Random Environment
Probability
Random Dynamical Systems
Stochastic Heat Equation
Stochastic PDEs

This thesis studies global solutions to the semidiscrete stochastic heat equation and the associated Cauchy problem known as Parabolic Anderson Model. Via a Feynman-Kac formula, it is linked with the analysis of directed polymers in random environment, and this thesis establishes a number of results for the corresponding partition function. We consider a continuous-time simple symmetric random walk on the integer lattice ℤd in dimension d ≥ 3, subject to a random potential given by two-sided Wiener processes. In the high-temperature regime, we prove the existence of the L2- and almost sure limit of the partition function as time t → ± ∞. We show that the L2-convergence rate is at least polynomial and that the limiting partition function is positive almost surely. Furthermore, we show that this limiting partition function defines a global stationary solution to the semidiscrete stochastic heat equation which is unique up to a rescaling, and which in some sense attracts solutions to the Parabolic Anderson Model for any subexponentially growing initial data. One of the primary tools in the proof of this uniqueness and attraction result is a factorization formula for the point-to-point partition function, which is related to the ones obtained by Sinai (1995) and Kifer (1997) for other polymer models, but valid not only on the diffusive scale but up to any sub-ballistic scale. This factorization formula allows us to obtain a uniqueness result for physical invariant probability measures of a certain skew product that can be naturally associated with the semidiscrete stochastic heat equation, which in turns gives uniqueness of global stationary solutions.
Faithful Listening: On Sound, Survival, and Becoming in Muslim Toronto
Keywords: canada
ethnomusicology
muslim
phenomenology
practice
sound

In this dissertation, I follow the trajectories of several contiguous, heterodox Muslim groups in the city of Toronto, and unravel the ways in which they use sound and listening to at once cultivate personal, inward-looking spiritual practices, and a more outward-feeling sense of belonging to a variegated local network of Muslim spaces and institutions, and to the city-at-large in which they reside. In the vast majority of these spaces, conversations about faith, service, justice, advocacy, local politics, global current events, and everyday life are woven into the discursive and affective fabric at hand. Across this faith-based network, fricative, disjunctive encounters are common, but do not rule out the possibility of profound moments of camaraderie and understanding across difference; such is the nature of the ummah—that is, a theoretical or imagined global community that encompasses all Muslims. I listened alongside a handful of groups affiliated with a Sufi halqa (prayer circle) located in the former municipality Scarborough (now a part of the Greater Toronto Area), including a meshk (hymn rehearsal) group and a prayer group called Masjid al-Wali that operates as a place of worship for LGBT2SIQ+ Muslims. These groups’ spiritual journeys were often, but not always, concerned with the internal and inward. Or, in terms derived from the Qur’an and Sunnah, which my interlocutors often use as guidebooks of sorts, the individuals that I encountered during fieldwork were attuned to al-batin (the inner or hidden dimension of reality). Thus, I put forward a batini ethnography—an ethnography of (shared) inner experiences. Importantly, this dissertation homes in on the roles that sounding and listening play in this realm of interiority. I discuss the ways in which the careful cultivation of modes of “faithful listening” is made possible through the development of safe-feeling spaces. In such domains of refuge, my interlocutors are able to move more freely along the maqamat (stations or stages) of being a student of Sufism, passing through difficult times—both personal and political—with hope (raja’), expansiveness (bast), contentment (qana’a), and even humour, but also, at times, with sadness (huzn), and contraction (qabd).
Essays in Macroeconomic Growth
Keywords: Growth
Innovation
Institutions
Productivity
R
Technology

The innovation of new technologies is fundamental for driving aggregate economic growth. The spread (or lack of) of these technologies across countries helps explain growth in developing countries and why large productivity gaps persist. My thesis studies the contribution of technological progress and diffusion for explaining cross-country productivity gaps and aggregate growth. The first chapter studies how the diffusion of new technologies affects growth. I develop a model of endogenous growth, in which firms decide how to invest in the adoption of a new technology and innovation. Knowledge embodied in products is more complementary to future innovations using the same technology. Consequently, as firms adopt the new technology it becomes harder to innovate with the old technology. I calibrate to empirical evidence using patent data on the diffusion of information-communication technology (ICT). Diffusion is driven by adoption early on (about 1/3) and innovation later (about 2/3). Despite large firm-level gains from adoption, aggregate growth falls by 15% over the transition because firms scale back innovation. The second chapter studies how institutional distortions prolong the adoption of new technologies in developing countries. I build a model in which firms choose technology and resource inputs given their underlying productivity and exposure to the institutional environment. I calibrate to US data on the distribution of employment and adoption pattern of new technologies. Increasing distortions to be consistent with low-income countries increases the adoption lag of new technologies by 19 years (43% of the data) and decreases productivity by 65%. The third chapter (with Faisal Ibrahim, Gaelan MacKenzie and Swapnika Rachapalli) studies the role of knowledge embodied within traded products for diffusion. We use patent data to construct a measure of embodied technology. Using this measure, we find that increases in high-knowledge traded goods are associated with higher productivity and R\ growth. To quantify the importance of this channel, we develop an endogenous growth model with trade and knowledge links. We find that a large fraction of long-run growth is attributable to spillovers with developing countries benefiting relatively more.
Investigation and Management of Coronary Artery Disease Among Patients with Heart Failure in Ontario
Keywords: coronary artery bypass
coronary artery disease
diagnostic imaging
heart failure
percutaneous coronary intervention

Background: The investigation and management of heart failure (HF) requires extensive use of healthcare resources in Ontario, Canada. Methods: Four cohort studies using administrative databases were conducted to describe the epidemiology of HF; to assess the use of cardiac imaging and coronary revascularization; and to determine the significance of non-obstructive coronary artery disease on clinical outcomes. Results: The incidence rate of HF decreased 32% from 380 new cases (95% CI, 376-384) per 100,000 individuals in 2002 to 256 (95% CI, 254-259) per 100,000 in 2016 (P
N-cadherin Regulation of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells; the Role of DDR1 and Rho GTPases
Keywords: Cell-cell interaction
DDR1
N-cadherin
Rho GTPases
Vascular smooth muscle cells

N-cadherin mediates cell-cell contacts in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and regulates VSMC behaviours. Discoidin domain receptor 1 (DDR1) is a collagen binding receptor also implicated in these processes. Previous studies showed that both N-cadherin and DDR1 are upregulated after vascular injury, but it is not known whether the two molecules are associated. The ability to establish proper N-cadherin junctions is important in regulating VSMC behaviour. In my studies, I found that N-cadherin could associate with DDR1, and that this association was increased during VSMC migration and wound closure. I found that N-cadherin was reduced in lipid rafts and mislocalized from cell-cell junctions in the absence of DDR1. Disruption of lipid rafts by cholesterol oxidase or methyl-β-cyclodextrin removed N-cadherin from lipid rafts of DDR1+/+ VSMCs and disrupted N-cadherin contacts, and these effects were reversed by cholesterol rescue that restored lipid rafts. Knockdown of DDR1 by siRNA resulted in mislocalized N-cadherin contacts from cell junctions, and transfection of DDR1-/- VSMCs with full-length DDR1 rescued the formation of N-cadherin junctions. The mislocalization of N-cadherin contacts in DDR1-/- VSMCs was also accompanied by disruption of the actin cytoskeleton. N-cadherin contacts in VSMCs undergo constant remodeling, especially during disease processes. Calcium switch to disrupt and restore contacts did not affect N-cadherin triton solubility in DDR1+/+ and DDR1-/- VSMCs or the association between N-cadherin and DDR1. While collagen stimulation of DDR1 increased the association between N-cadherin and DDR1 in cells with mature, well-established cell contacts, it did not affect N-cadherin localization, its triton solubility, or the association between N-cadherin and DDR1 during contact disruption, restoration, and wound closure. Rho GTPases are master regulators of the cytoskeleton and can mediate cytoskeletal processes downstream of cell-cell contacts. Using calcium switch and plating on either IgG or N-cadherin-Fc coated surfaces, active Rho GTPase pull-down assays showed a consistent decrease in Cdc42 and RhoA activity after N-cadherin contact establishment in DDR1+/+ SMCs. Overall, these data reveal that N-cadherin cell-cell contacts in VSMCs can be regulated through interaction with DDR1 and localization in lipid rafts, and that the establishment of N-cadherin contacts can suppress Rho GTPase activity.
The Influence of Junior Hockey Participation on Ontario University Male Hockey Players' Identity Development
Keywords: Academic Motivation
Hockey
Identity Development
Junior Hockey
Student-Athlete
University

The over-prioritization of a professional hockey career in junior hockey has impacts on athletes’ academic motivation and identity development. Systematically, junior hockey does not support the traditional path that students take into postsecondary education, leaving many male hockey players viewing their Canadian postsecondary options as a ‘backup plan’ they hope they never have to use (Chard, 2013). The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of junior hockey participation on university expectations, experiences, and motivations. An explanatory mixed-methods approach was followed consisting of two phases of data collection and analysis (Creswell, 2009). The phase one online survey collected responses from Gaston Gayles’ (2005) Student-Athlete Motivation towards Sport and Academic Questionnaire (SAMSAQ), and produced a two-factor modified academic and sport motivation solution. The survey was completed by 113 male hockey players from 12 Ontario universities and indicated that while in university, athletes’ academic motivation is slightly higher than sport motivation, and similar to previous research on university student-athletes, male hockey players experienced a role conflict between their academic and sport roles. In phase two, semi-structured interviews were completed with 14 participants representing 9 institutions across Ontario. A thematic analysis of the data (Braun Clarke, 2013) produced results that pertained to identity development theories and led to the creation of a proposed Professional Hockey Identity Mindset Model. This model provides unique insight into the impact of sport-over-prioritization in high school on identity development and has significance for future research in hockey and athletics more broadly.