VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
An Investigation of the Experiences of Graduate Students with a Mental Health Condition
Keywords: Graduate education
Graduate students
Higher education
Mental health
Student services

Discussion of postsecondary students’ mental health often overlooks the graduate student population, focusing on the undergraduate student population instead. The overall purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of graduate students with mental health conditions and to examine the challenges they face and the supports they use. The study followed a sequential-explanatory approach. In Phase 1, the 2016 Canadian Reference Group data from the National College Health Assessment was used to obtain an overall understanding of Canadian graduate students’ mental health. Findings from the quantitative analyses showed significant differences between a sample of 1,461 graduate/professional students with mental health conditions and 3,291 graduate/professional students without mental health conditions. Specifically, participants with mental health conditions reported experiencing higher levels of stress and more impediments to academic performance. Additionally, participants with mental health conditions were significantly more likely to report accessing providers for mental health support and to report that they would seek mental health support in the future if they had a problem that was bothering them. For Phase 2, 38 semi-structured interviews were conducted with doctoral students in Ontario who identified as having a mental health challenge or disability. Analyses found that some participants felt their mental health condition(s) delayed their academic progress. Participants who were not considered on-track to completing their degree on-time typically reported that the comprehensive exam stage was problematic. For support, participants often disclosed mental health-related concerns to peers and supervisors in addition to seeking formal support from on- or off-campus services. Overall, the findings suggest that the experiences of graduate students with mental health challenges may differ from their peers without mental health challenges. For faculty, academic programs, departments, and student services offices, understanding such differences is important for the delivery of effective and tailored support that meets the needs of this specific population of students.
Group 13 Radical and Lewis Acid Chemistry
Keywords: Frustrated Lewis Pair
Group 13
Lewis Acid
Radical
Single electron transfer

Since the discovery of frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs), a pair of sterically encumbered Lewis acids and bases that rapidly activate numerous small molecules, such advances have led to synthetic applications in organic, polymer and radical chemistry. The objective for this thesis is to explore the radical and Lewis acid chemistry of Group 13 compounds at a fundamental level, and their applications in FLP chemistry. Reduction of an N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) stabilized planar borenium compound led to the generation of a unique diborane compound which rapidly undergoes homolytic cleavage reactions with various substrates. Furthermore, protection with steric bulk on the NHC of the borenium with the combination of the FLP, B(C6F5)3 and tBu3P leads to generation of a boron based dianion radical upon reduction. Combination of tBu3P and E(C6F5)3 (E = B, Al) led to a typical two electron pathway upon treatment with chloranil (p-C6Cl4O2) and Ph3SnH. However, replacing the phosphine with Mes3P resulted in the reaction proceeding through single electron transfer (SET) to the Lewis acids, with homolytic cleavage of the Sn-H bond. Further studies on the SET chemistry between Lewis acids (E(C6F5)3, E = B, Al, Zn(C6F5)2), the reductant Cp*2Fe and conventional weak Lewis bases (chalcogenide species) led to the synthesis of various unique anions and radicals. The results of the stabilization of the weak Lewis acid-base adducts from SET led to the attempts of one electron reduction of the reported unstable (Ph2CN2)B(C¬6F5)3 adducts, resulting in the stabilization of the N2 fragment and activation of C-H bonds. Reactions of hydride abstraction from (IBn)AlH3 resulted in unanticipated redistribution reactions, which gave a rare dicationic aluminum-hydride stabilized by two NHCs (IBn). On the other hand, attempts to prepare the analogous cyclic (alkyl)(amino) carbene (cAAC) alane adducts gave rise to a monomeric neutral aluminum-hydride that rapidly undergoes a 1,2-hydride shift between the Al and carbene carbon centers in solution. Finally, attempts to prepare an ethylene-bridged intramolecular P/Al compounds have been carried out. HAl(C6F5)2 and phosphinoalanes Mes2PAl(C6F5)2 have been successfully generated. While HAl(C6F5)2 enabled the hydroalumination and dehydrocoupling reactions with terminal alkynes, Mes2PAl(C6F5)2 demonstrated the addition across CO2 gas, and reacting with other functional groups.
Macroscopic Electrostatics at Positive Temperature from the Density Functional Theory
Keywords: density functional theory
derivation
dielectric effect
effective equation
Kohn-Sham
Poisson equation

The purpose of this thesis is to study local perturbations of equilibrium crystalline states of the density functional theory (DFT) at positive temperature through the Kohn-Sham equations under local-density approximation (LDA). Under suitable scaling and at low temperature, we prove an existence result for the Kohn-Sham equations and show that local macroscopic perturbations from periodic equilibrium states give rise to the Poisson equation as an effective equation.
Passive Physiological Monitoring via Ambient Sensors Embedded in a Home Environment
Keywords: ambient monitoring
ballistocardiogram
heart failure
zero-effort technology

In Canada, heart failure (HF) costs $2.8 billion per year. Self-care or self-management of HF includes activities such as daily weight measurement, medication taking, dietary and fluid restriction, and exercise. Despite its benefits however, the efficacy of self-care is limited due to the high rate of non-adherence caused by age-related symptoms, cognitive factors, and social issues. As such, there is a need for an intelligent solution that shifts the physical and cognitive burden from the patients to the technology. This dissertation presents passive ambient solutions for vital sign monitoring of HF patients that require zero-effort from the user. The first study examined the feasibility of detecting the heart rate of healthy adults using an instrumented floor tile while standing and sitting. The instrumented floor tile was successful in collecting electrocardiogram (ECG) from the feet of healthy seated subjects with 89% agreement with the gold-standard measurement. The heart rate obtained by ballistocardiogram (BCG) while the subject was standing had 1.8 ± 4.3% error. The second study was about an unobtrusive algorithm that determines if the body experienced greater than 20mmHg of change of the systolic blood pressure (SBP) using a feature called RJ-interval, which is the time difference between the peaks of ECG and BCG. The algorithm detected increased SBP with 89.3% true positive rate (TPR) and decreased SBP with 92.3% TPR. The third study expanded the concept of the instrumented tile to a chair and used it to measure BCG of older adults with HF and younger healthy adults. The study showed potential in using the chair to address some of the limitations of using standing form factor by successfully collecting clean BCG of a HF clinical population. As an early stage investigation, the technology presented showed a significant potential to unobtrusively monitor older adults with HF to assist them self-manage their condition better.
Beyond Compare: Investigating the Effects of Compositional Characteristics and Method Selection on the Results of Skeletal Analyses
Keywords: Bioarchaeology
Data Comparison
Osteology
Paleoepidemiology
Paleopathology
Skeletal trauma

Populations are routinely characterized and compared through their prevalence of skeletal lesions. To investigate the effects of both age structure and differential bone preservation on intergroup prevalence comparisons, counts of healed trauma were compared using a variety of statistical approaches, between individuals from two populations with different cultural contexts, age compositions and element preservations: the J.C.B. Grant collection (n=172) and the Luis Lopes collection (n=161). While the bone-years metric addressed the issue of preservation-confounding that skews the person-years metric, it erroneously assumes the stability of fracture risk over the life course. Comparison of age-stratified groups by way of the common odds ratio was found to be the most reliable method for the comparison of fracture data. Workarounds to small sample sizes (extrapolating to larger sample sizes or inserting dummy values into null fields) were both found to cause more problems than they solved. Comparing element aggregates (e.g. total long bones, total cranial bones) is another potential means to detect significant intergroup or intragroup differences, however due to the common cooccurrence of certain fractures and the difficulty in reliably assessing fracture timing, the use of these aggregates also risks introducing bias. Comparing the number of individuals with at least one fracture of interest was found to be the most resilient way of mitigating bias while having the necessary scope to detect different skeletal manifestations of an event of interest. The odds of an individual in the Grant collection having at least one nasal fracture were found to be 3 times higher than in the Lisbon collection, and this overall difference was driven by differences in those 55 years of age or older. The trauma results are consistent with the boxing-etiology hypothesis which posits that the increased visibility and ritualization of specific behaviour through sport (i.e. fighting with one’s fists in boxing and prizefighting, popular activities in British populations) validates that behaviour as socially acceptable, and increases its prevalence in non-sport venues such as physical assaults. To ensure the most robust and defensible interpretations possible, researchers comparing skeletal phenomena within or between groups must ensure that they consider both the preservation and the demographic makeup of their samples, and choose their comparative approach mindfully.
Wall Forces, Bulk Flow and Impact Speeds in a Vibratory Finisher: Modeling and Force Measurements
Keywords: Discrete Element Methods
Granular Flows
Polishing
Vibratory Finishing

Vibratory finishing (VF) is a mass finishing process that employs loose abrasives inside a vibrating container and, although widely used, its design is still mostly based on experience due to the complex behavior of vibrating granular media. In this work, experimental and numerical methods were employed to investigate the relationship between the container motion and the granular media behavior inside a commercial VF tub. The objectives were to understand the influence of different process parameters on the media motion, to reveal the mechanisms behind these influences, and to assess the accuracy of discrete element methods (DEM) predictions of the wall-media interactions. A parametric study was performed using DEM to understand how parameters such as amplitude and frequency of vibration influence the particle behavior in terms of media bulk flow (responsible for moving workpieces during VF processes) and local impact velocities between particles (which do work on the workpiece surface). This study revealed that local impact speeds varied more with changes in amplitude than in frequency, and that they were determined by the work done by the walls on the media per vibration cycle. In contrast, the bulk flow rate depended mostly on the vibration frequency rather than on amplitudes and it was determined by the direction of the wall-media shear in regions of greater particle density. Given the importance of wall forces in explaining the media behavior, a method for measuring wall-media contact forces was developed where a force sensor was embedded in the vibrating walls. Measurements revealed that wall forces were determined by the granular bed viscous resistance to deformation rate and that it increased with both media pressure and wall velocities. With this method, the impulse and work done by the walls on the media were also measured. The results were compared to DEM simulations and it was found that although DEM could predict the overall trends of wall forces and impulse with varying amounts of media and tub frequency, some differences from experiments, such as consistently shorter and more random collisions in DEM, persisted throughout all simulations.
Classifications of Asynchronous Shared Memory Objects
Keywords: asynchronous shared memory
bounded disagreement
precise classification
set agreement
wait-freedom

Since the early days of the shared memory model for distributed computing, researchers have sought a simple and precise characterization of an object’s ability to implement other objects in a wait-free manner. The first candidate for such a characterization was the consensus number of an object [24]. But a characterization based on consensus numbers is not precise: there are pairs of objects with the same consensus number that are not equivalent (i.e., one object cannot be wait-free implemented by instances of the other and registers) [2, 42]. A more recent candidate for such a characterization is the set agreement power of an object [15]. In this thesis, we show that this characterization is not precise even for the case of deterministic objects: there are pairs of deterministic objects with the same set agreement power that are not equivalent. Next, we show that there are uncountably many objects with distinct set agreement power. Consequently, a precise characterization of an object’s ability to implement other objects in a wait-free manner must classify objects into uncountably many cells. This suggests that there is no simple and precise characterization of objects, since the cells of an uncountable classification cannot be labeled using simple integers (as in Herlihy’s hierarchy) or even finite sequences of integers. Finally, we introduce a generalization of consensus called bounded disagreement, which differs from set agreement in that it restricts the number of disagreeing processes rather than the number of disagreeing values. More precisely, the l-bounded disagreement task for n processes has the following requirement: there is a value v such that at most l processes (the disagreers) decide values that are not v. We then show that for every integer n ≥ 2, there is a bounded disagreement object that has consensus number n, but is not equivalent to the n-consensus object. Prior to this work, the only objects known to have this unusual characteristic for n ≥ 2 (which shows that the characterization of objects via consensus numbers is not precise) were artificial objects crafted solely for the purpose of exhibiting this behaviour [2, 42].
Separate Estates: A Case Study Analysis of Competency Assessment Processes among Clinicians in a Canadian Academic Hospital
Keywords: Boyatzis model of effective performance
competence
competency assessment
interprofessional collaboration
professional dynamics
qualitative case study

This study examined competence and competency assessment of regulated health professionals (RHPs) through a case study approach that utilized the Boyatzis model of effective performance. In order to explore how competency assessment was enacted and understood, and how RHPs perceived and experienced competency assessment in a large Canadian academic hospital, the study used three sources of data: key informant interviews (n=19), focus group interviews (n=32), and a review of organizational documents. Participants included RHPs, managers, directors, executives, and other non-health participants, such as human resources professionals. Data were analyzed inductively using Braun and Clark’s (2006) theoretical thematic analysis, and deductively using Hsieh and Shannon’s (2005) directed content analysis, all in NVivo Version 11 for Windows. Data revealed the absence of common language for competence across the hospital’s RHP participants. Participants referred to regulatory concepts and competency frameworks when asked to define and describe competence or competency assessment in the hospital setting. At the same time, a strong organizational rhetoric around excellence was evident, as was frequent commentary on incompetence. There was little discussion on RHPs who fell between excellence and incompetence. When describing organizational competency assessment processes, participants were equivocal about what was assessed and whether this assessment focused on organizational values or practice competencies. Fundamental differences in competency assessment processes exist for unionized RHP employees, non-unionized RHP employees and appointed physicians who were not employees, creating a situation of “separate estates”. These estates made interprofessional collaboration difficult by reinforcing uniprofessional perspectives, preventing organizational level discussions of competence and limiting the organization’s ability to harmonize processes across RHPs. Competence did not feature as a prominent concern for most participants who expressed the view that as long as the individual remained in good standing with their regulatory body, competency was not a matter of organizational concern. Recommendations call for healthcare organizations to implement best practice approaches to competency assessment across all RHPs; to establish congruence between organizational and regulatory assessments of competence; and to align assessment language between healthcare workplaces and regulatory bodies in order to facilitate meaningful discussions concerning competence in the practice setting and address the issue of “separate estates”.
Career Learning and Adaptability among Professional Immigrants in the Context of Retraining
Keywords: adaptability
career development
immigrant
learning
professional immigrants
retraining

This qualitative study used grounded theory methods to better understand the ways in which professional immigrants learn and adapt in their careers within the context of career retraining. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 84 participants (50 males and 34 females). The results of the data analysis revealed three overarching themes: learning about self (learning about one’s personality, career preferences and interests), learning about work environment (learning about regulations, expectations and work culture in Canada), and marketing self within current context (networking, developing a competitive resume, learning interview skills). These overarching themes interacted bi-directionally with one other, and with social interconnectedness and expanding self. Social interconnectedness refers to the finding that participants received valuable information from others in their community, and expanding self reflects changes in identity and thinking patterns. Learning about work environment and learning about self directly affected the process by which participants lost and regained a sense of confidence and competence (rediscovering self). Knowing self (knowing one’s strengths, interests, and skills) helped participants effectively market themselves to employers. Finally, willingness to start over was central to participants’ career development journey in Canada. This theme reflected participants’ openness to retrain, begin with an entry-level position, take responsibility for desired changes, and make necessary compromises. A new model has been developed based on these results: The Learning and Adaptability Model of Career after Relocation. These results inform policy making for government-sponsored support programs for immigrants and are important for helping professionals who work with professional immigrants and others who are adjusting to a new career environment. Suggestions for future research on career learning and adaptability for professional immigrants are presented.
The Properties and Functional Significance of Error-related Electromyographic Activity over the Corrugator Supercilii for the Study of Error Monitoring, Error Awareness, and Race
Keywords: affect
corrugator
effort
emotion
ERN
error monitoring

The ability to monitor and adjust for errors in performance is critical for navigating work and social life in the modern world. This thesis investigated the functional significance and psychometric properties of a new psychophysiological measure that may be important for research on error monitoring: error-related electromyographic activity over the corrugator supercilii muscle (cEMG). In line with open science principles, this thesis makes all data available online, reports its studies and analyses in chronological order, and completely discloses the history and reasoning behind its methodological decisions. Study 1 showed that in a common error monitoring task, cEMG was not correlated with the error-related negativity (ERN), an early neural signal related to negative affect and adaptive processing, but was positively correlated with the error positivity (Pe), a later neural signal that tracks orienting and error awareness. Study 2 investigated the psychometric properties of cEMG and found that 14 error trials were necessary to obtain a stable and reliable signal. Study 3 used a modified error awareness task to directly examine cEMG’s relationship to error awareness, the race of stimuli, and the motivation to respond without racial prejudice. It found that (1) the late component of cEMG was sensitive to error awareness but the early component was not, (2) cEMG was unexpectedly not correlated with the Pe, and (3) cEMG was not related to variation in either the race of stimuli or the motivation to respond without prejudice. Together, this thesis shows the potential for cEMG to be used as a reliable measure of error awareness but highlights the complexities of the signal’s measurement and the need for more basic studies to evaluate its function and structure. This thesis also illustrates the challenges and importance of applying open science principles in psychological research following the replication crisis.