VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
LegUp: Open-source High-level Synthesis Research Framework
Keywords: Computer Aided Design
Electronic System Level Design
FPGA
High-Level Synthesis
Loop Pipelining
Multi-pumping

The rate of increase in computing performance has been slowing due to the end of processor frequency scaling and diminishing returns from multiple cores. We believe the industry is heading towards heterogeneous computing, an accelerator era, where specialized hardware is harnessed for better power efficiency and compute performance. A natural platform for these accelerators are field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are integrated circuits that can implement large custom digital circuits including complete system-on-chips. However, programming an FPGA can be an arduous undertaking even for experienced hardware engineers. We propose raising the abstraction level by allowing a designer to incrementally move their design from a processor to a set of hardware accelerators, each automatically synthesized from a software implementation. This dissertation describes LegUp, an open-source high-level synthesis (HLS) framework that enables this new design methodology. We further present novel improvements to the quality of the synthesized circuits when targeting FPGAs. First, we present the LegUp high-level synthesis framework with an overview of our design flow. The software is unique among academic tools for offering a wide support of the ANSI C software language, for targeting a hybrid processor/accelerator architecture, and for being open-source. We also show that the quality of results produced by LegUp are competitive with a commercial HLS tool. Next, we present an FPGA architecture-specific HLS resource sharing approach. Our technique multi-pumps high-speed DSP blocks on modern FPGAs by clocking them at twice the system clock frequency. We show that multi-pumping can reduce circuit area without impacting performance. Following this, we describe a novel loop pipeline scheduling algorithm. Our approach handles complex constraints by using a backtracking method to discover better scheduling possibilities. This scheduling algorithm improves throughput for complex loop pipelines compared to prior work and a commercial tool. Finally, we examine LegUp's target memory architecture and describe how to partition memory within the circuit hierarchy using information from compiler alias analysis. We also present a method to efficiently use the block RAMs present in modern FPGAs by grouping memories together. These techniques decrease memory usage and improve performance for our HLS-generated circuits.
Victorian Girls and At-­home Theatricals: Performing and Playing with Possible Futures
Keywords: Amateur Theatre
Girlhood
Hope
Identity
Juvenile Theatre
Nineteenth-Century Theatre

During the long nineteenth century, amateur, juvenile at-home theatricals were a popular pastime in English middle-class homes. The scripts, the process of “getting-up” a play, and opportunity to perform a variety of historical, fairy tale, and “Oriental” characters offered young people, especially girls, opportunities to act agentically, to explore alternate identities, and to imagine possible futures for themselves that went beyond the conventional expectations for Victorian girls. These performances were especially potent in the mid- to late- nineteenth century because at that time social, political, legal, education, and career opportunities for girls were frequently challenged and gradually changing: at-home theatrical experiences encouraged and enabled girls to push at the increasingly porous boundaries that contained their daily lives. I focus on English scripts (1850 and 1910) published for the young people’s home market, related fiction and newspaper articles, and a range of diaries, letters, memoirs, playbills, and juvenile newspapers written by children for their families. Methodologically, following Doreen Massey (2005) and Rebecca Schneider (2005), I adopt a fluid conception of space and time in order to employ late twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship on girls, especially in drama education settings (Gallagher 2001; Hatton 2013; Neelands and Nelson 2013). Although girls today cannot speak for located Victorian middle-class girls, recent experiences help to inform how nineteenth-century girls’ performer and spectator experiences might have stretched their imaginations regarding desirable identities and futures. I lean on the following theoretical lenses: Jill Dolan’s “utopian performatives” (2006); object and thing theory (Robin Bernstein 2011; Bill Brown 2001; Andrew Sofer 2003); feminist reinterpretations of Orientalism and connections between adolescence and race (Nancy Lesko 2012). The analysis demonstrates that playwrights used their scripts as vehicles to challenge and discuss contemporary socio-political issues, and through theatricals girls could expand their imaginations regarding their identities and their own futures.
Professional Learning in Informal Online Environments: Examining Elementary Teachers’ Cognitive Processes and Learning Experiences as They Navigate a Professional Development Website
Keywords: online professional development
teacher cognition
teacher learning
teacher professional development
think aloud methodology

This thesis is comprised of two studies. The first is a mixed methods study comparing three types of think aloud methods for examining elementary teachers’ cognitive processes as they use a multimedia professional development website. Forty-five elementary teachers were assigned to one of three think aloud conditions—concurrent, retrospective, and virtual revisit. Participants in the concurrent condition verbalized their thoughts while simultaneously navigating the website for 20 minutes; participants in the retrospective condition verbalized their thoughts immediately following their 20-mintue navigation without any aids; and participants in the virtual revisit condition verbalized their thoughts while viewing a screen recording of their 20-minute navigation. Results revealed differences (p
Changing Behaviors One Passionate Conversation at a Time: How Speakers’ Passion about Issues Influence Listeners’ Support
Keywords: Emotions
Entrepreneurship
Epistemic Motivation
Passion
Positive Affect

My dissertation investigates how and why passion helps people obtain support from others for issues that are important to them. Passion is an intense positive feeling about a specific issue that is important to an individual’s identity. I argue that speakers’ passion increases listeners’ support (i.e., listeners’ active participation and involvement in the issues that speakers promote) when the listeners’ epistemic motivation is lower, because listeners catch and subsequently act on the passion that speakers express. I also propose that passion decreases listeners’ support when the listeners’ epistemic motivation is higher, because listeners pay close attention to arguments, and arguments are less compelling when speakers feel passion. I test the propositions in observational and experimental studies. In Study 1A, I test whether passion exhibited by entrepreneurs on the television show Dragons’ Den is associated with venture capitalists’ investment in their companies, and find that the association between speakers’ passion and listeners’ support is positive, and only when listeners’ epistemic motivation is lower rather than higher. In Study 1B, I explore mechanisms that may explain the results in Study 1A and find that perception that speakers stand for their principles mediates the conditional association between speakers’ passion and listeners’ support. In Study 2, I test the causal effects of speakers’ passion and listeners’ epistemic motivation in a 2 x 2 between-person experimental design. Contrary to expectation, there were no effects of the interaction between speakers’ passion and listeners’ epistemic motivation on listeners’ support or on perceptions that speakers stand for their principles. Overall, my dissertation suggests that speakers’ passion does not always result in positive outcomes and identifies when speakers’ passion facilitates listeners’ support and when it does not. Contributions to the literature on passion in organizations and practical implications are discussed.
Jacques Derrida and the Theologico-political Complex
Keywords: democracy
Derrida
messianic
secular
theologico-political
translation

This dissertation investigates the relationship between the theological and the political in the contemporary predicament by exploring the undervalued political thought of Jacques Derrida. It examines the complex interaction between religion and politics, especially as it relates to political authority and community by also paying attention to the conceptions of language and time at work in the political understandings of and normative responses to cultural and religious diversity. Through a close reading of Derrida’s work on language, time, religion and politics, I argue that his political thought offers significant resources to re-think the theologico-political relationship in more complex and critical ways, especially beyond the radical separation between religion and politics so common in the classical modern paradigm. The project’s central aim is two-fold: first, to offer a theoretical response to the empirical significance of religions in the public sphere by seeking to further the understanding of how the political and the theological interacts in politics; and second, to contribute to current debates on religion and politics in political theory as well as to Derrida scholarship by offering a politico-philosophical analysis of how his view of the theologico-political relates, in its various ramifications, to political foundations.
Word Order and Information Structure in Finite Verb Clauses in Hellenistic Period Hebrew
Keywords: dislocation
fronting
Hebrew
linguistics
Qumran
syntax

This study investigates the relationship between word order and information structure in finite verb clauses in three ancient Hebrew texts from among the Dead Sea Scrolls—the Community Rule, the War Rule, and the Habakkuk Pesher. An excursus provides a separate treatment of Daniel 8–12. The theoretical linguistic foundations of the study are rooted in generative linguistics, especially the work of J. Uriagereka and N. Erteschik-Shir. The Early Immediate Constituent Theory of J. Hawkins also plays an important role. The emphasis is on syntactic structures where word order is flexible in order to investigate the effect of variation on information structure. The basic word order of subject and verb is indeterminate, and therefore it is not possible to know whether SV or VS order is marked (although the tendencies of each order are nonetheless clear). However, it is simple to determine that the basic word order of verb and object is VO. Deviations from the basic VO order can be explained using three structures: left-dislocation of a shift topic; fronting of a Topic (whether a shift topic, contrastive constituent, or restrictive constituent); and fronting of a non-Topic (whether a cleft constituent or a constituent that opens the clause-final attentive focus position for a different constituent). The largest clause-level constituent is normally placed in clause-final position in order to satisfy the EICT.
The Role of Rac and Filamin A in Osteoclast Function and Osteoclast Heterogeneity
Keywords: Bone
Mice
Osteoclasts

Osteoclasts are multinucleated cells that resorb bone and carry out their function via a dynamic actin cytoskeleton that is regulated by Rho GTPases. Rho GTPases function as molecular switches that regulate the actin cytoskeleton in osteoclasts and many other cell types. A Rac GTPase validation experiment was used to prove that osteoclast function is best characterized through three-dimensional (3-D) volumetric analysis of resorption pits (Rpits). The success of this method prompted us to measure Rpits in osteoclasts lacking actin binding protein Filamin A (FLNA), which interacts with Rho GTPases to regulate osteoclast formation (osteoclastogenesis (OCG)) and function. It was observed using this technique that FLNA-knock-out (KO) osteoclasts were smaller and produced shallower Rpits compared to WT osteoclasts. Using an osteoporosis model as well as in vivo techniques measuring bone material, structural and mechanical properties, it was demonstrated that FLNA knockout (KO) bones were protected from post-menopausal osteoporosis associated with estrogen depletion. FLNA-KO cortical bones were also found to be more ductile than WT cortical bones. The discrepancy between bone behavior in vertebrae vs. femora in FLNA mice triggered the question as to whether osteoclasts behave differently depending on the skeletal site from which they originated. The osteoporosis model, resorption pit method and aforementioned in vivo techniques with the exception of bone mechanical properties were used to determine whether osteoclasts and bone turnover differed between the cranial and appendicular skeletons. Calvarial bone displayed higher turnover rates compared to long bone and mandibular bone. The novel in vitro 3-D method, characterization of FLNA in vivo and the assessment of osteoclasts arising from different bone locations were executed to provide more insight into the development of pharmacotherapeutics to better manage pathological bone loss.
Factors Motivating Sikh Canadian Youth to Become Involved in the Khalistan Movement
Keywords: Khalistan
Sikh Youth

The purpose of the study was to catalogue and analyse factors that motivate Canadian Sikh youth in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to become involved with the Khalistan movement. Two research questions were posed: (1) How does the Khalistan movement serve to order and manage intra-Sikh relationships, primarily those involving young people, in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario? (2) How does the Khalistan movement manage the Sikh identity vis-à-vis the non-Sikh realities of India and Canada? Using the theoretical frames of symbolic interactionism, functionalist homeostasis, and, to a lesser extent, postcolonial theory, applied through a case study method, three main conclusions were reached. The first finding of the study was that family influences solidified Khalistan-involved youth’s attitude of differentiation from other Canadians. Personal identity interpretations led Khalistan-involved Sikh youth to develop and reinforce a sense of differentiation from other Canadians. Khalistan thus provided an important pivot of differentiation for these participants. The second finding of the study was that participation in Khalistani movements was discovered to be a means for men to build a masculine Sikh identity in interaction with each other, women to build a general social identity based on interactions with each other, and men and women to interact with each other on the basis of collective socio-religious identity exploration and affirmation. Participation in Khalistani movements also came to be understood as a means of expression and differentiation for Sikhs that identified as Sikh only, or Sikh and Canadian, or Canadian only. The study presented a general sociological model for understanding the politicised actions of immigrant youth in Canada.
Mercenaries: The Paradoxical Effect of Pay-for-performance on Unethical Tasks
Keywords: Business ethics
Employment relationship
Experiment
Incentives
Moral identity

While some organizations, like charities and government agencies, engage in prosocial behavior that upholds the highest prescriptive moral values in our society; others, like those in the tobacco, fossil fuel, gambling, and weapons industries, operate within the confines of the legal system while nevertheless behaving antisocially and violating core moral proscriptions against harming others. Unfortunately our understanding of the psychology that enables collective moral violations is still very limited because scholarship in behavioural business ethics has tended to focus on individual-level antecedents of unethical behaviour as opposed to the interpersonal and organizational factors that lead ordinarily ethical people astray. This dissertation attempts to rectify this imbalance by asking how it is possible to motivate employees to comply with instructions that violate society’s ethical principles. Given that money is generally considered the most powerful motivational tool available to most organizations, this research examines how different financial incentive structures motivate performance of dirty work that is technically legal but violates society’s ethical norms. Surprisingly, and contrary to its well-documented positive effect on the performance of ethically-neutral work tasks, I predict that pay-for-performance incentive structures will have a negative effect on performance of unethical tasks. Existing motivational theories are unable to make similar predictions, so I contribute to our understanding of unethical behavior on behalf of organizations by considering the embedded nature of ethical decision-making and argue that pay-for-performance alters employees’ perceived employment relationships and thereby inhibits moral disengagement from societal norms. Through a series of pilot studies I identify two appropriate experimental paradigms to test my hypotheses. The first reported experiment involves a novel paradigm in which online workers are recruited as part of a marketing study to compose social-media advertising messages in support of a tobacco company. The second experiment adapts an established bug-killing paradigm in which laboratory participants are asked to place either bugs or inanimate objects into a modified coffee grinder that they subsequently activate. In both experiments, participants are either paid for their performance of this moderately unethical task or receive a comparable flat fee. This dissertation reports the results of these experiments and discusses their scholarly contribution.
Development of a Proteomics Platform for Analysis of the Plant-pathogen Interface
Keywords: Arabidopsis thaliana
Proteomics
Pseudomonas syringae
Type III secreted effector

Plants possess an elaborate tiered immune system to detect the presence of pathogens. Once triggered, immune responses are sufficient to abrogate pathogen growth. As a result, effective phytopathogens must either evade immune detection or interdict plant immune signalling and responses. The Gram negative bacteria Pseudomonas syringae causes diseases of economically important crops and can also infect the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The type III secretion system (T3SS) represents a critical virulence strategy employed by P. syringae to cause disease in hosts. The T3SS functions as a molecular syringe to inject proteinaceous type III secreted effectors (T3SE) into the plant cytosol. After injection, T3SE inhibit plant immunity through direct interaction with host proteins. Because T3SE interact with plant immune components, T3SE can be used as molecular probes for defining novel components of plant immunity. In this role, T3SE have been exploited to discover crucial components of plant immune systems using classical genetics and yeast two-hybrid analyses. However, there have been limited attempts to leverage T3SE as proteomic probes for isolating protein complexes involved in plant immunity. This thesis presents the first successful proteomic identification of a T3SE/Arabidopsis protein complex. The T3SE HopF2 was purified from transgenic Arabidopsis using a combination of gel filtration chromatography and immunoaffinity purification. During gel filtration, HopF2 existed as both a member of a high molecular weight complex and a monomer. Immunoaffinity purification of high molecular weight complexes containing HopF2, and identification of complex members LC-MS/MS, suggested HopF2 complexes contain plasma membrane H+-ATPases. This lead to the hypothesis that HopF2 may manipulate stomatal apertures during infection because plasma membrane H+-ATPases play a role in regulating stomatal aperture. Consistent with this, transgenic expression of HopF2 inhibits stomatal immunity and increases the virulence of surface inoculated P. syringae. Intriguingly, HopF2’s ability to inhibit stomatal aperture is independent of HopF2’s characterized ADP-ribosyltransferase activity, suggesting HopF2 is a multifunctional T3SE. Together this implies a novel virulence function of HopF2 through the manipulation of stomatal immunity.
The Role of Mechanism of Action of CD200:CD200R1 Interaction in Breast Cancer
Keywords: anti-tumour immunity
breast cancer
CD200
CD200R
immunology
immunotherapy

Cancer cells can use immune inhibitory receptors to evade the host’s anti-tumour responses and establish immunosuppressive networks in the tumour microenvironment. In this thesis, we investigated the interaction between the immunosuppressive molecule CD200 with its receptor, CD200R1, in breast cancer. We found that CD200 is expressed in the local tumour microenvironment in human breast cancer patients and developed a mouse model to study the effect of CD200 on tumour growth and metastasis. Using mouse-derived EMT6 breast cancer cells and BALB/c female hosts, we explored the effects of overexpressing and silencing the expression of CD200 and CD200R1 in hosts and tumour cells. CD200 expression by host and tumour cells enhanced tumour growth and metastasis to draining lymph nodes (DLN). Silencing CD200 expression in EMT6 tumour cells led to a reduction in primary tumour size and metastasis, as well as an increase in anti-tumour cytotoxic responses in the host. Lack of CD200R1 expression in the host resulted in a marked decrease in breast cancer development and CD200R1-/- mice were able to mount specific anti-EMT6 immune response that could be adoptively transferred to wild type naïve hosts. In addition, we extended our findings to a model in which anti-tumour immunity was explored in EMT6 tumour-bearing hosts lacking CD200 expression and treated with a combination of immunotherapy with the non-conventional chemotherapeutic agent, metformin. The findings suggest that CD200 may be an important prognostic marker and a target for breast cancer treatment that could synergize with other therapies and improve outcomes in patients.