VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Longitudinal Analysis of Out-of-home Activity Generation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
Keywords: Activity Generation
Activity Participation/Frequency
Activity Timing (Start Time and Duration)
Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
Longitudinal Analysis

“Activity generation” is a critical component of any agent-based, activity-based travel demand model since it determines the overall activity/travel levels, which are then utilized for answering various transportation-, land use- and environment-related research/policy questions. This thesis reports on significant progress in three research areas regarding activity generation modelling with a focus on activity participation/frequency and timing (start time/duration) decisions. The analyses cover investigating the behaviour associated mainly with work- and school-related activities, in addition to shopping and other activities, in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area over a 20-year period between 1996 and 2016. First, cross-sectional models and four types of “joint/pooled” models of activity/trip generation are estimated for various activity purposes to examine changes in behaviour over time. Strong temporal stability is observed in utility-based econometric model parameters when the parameter estimates of cross-sectional and joint models are statistically compared. This major contribution supports the development and use of robust parametric joint models for forecasting applications in the region utilizing full information accrued over the years. Second, to explore the interpretability of machine learning models and to inspect how these powerful tools can be leveraged within a microsimulation framework, longitudinal models of work and school activity participation are developed using a diverse set of algorithms, which are compared to microeconomic models. Remarkable parallelism is detected between microeconomic models and machine learning algorithms in terms of activity frequency model specifications. This notable finding encourages researchers to benefit from both modelling domains, integrating their strengths. Third, joint models of activity start time and duration are built adopting a copula approach for work and school activities of agents/individuals from mutually exclusive population subsamples: “worker”, “student”, and “both worker and student”. Simultaneous activity episode start time and duration simulation models show that complex timing behaviour can be captured with relatively parsimonious models. Each of these three modelling applications additionally demonstrates the significance of establishing a comprehensive disaggregation structure for the analyses, since considerable differences have been observed across distinct agent classes and activity types.
A Class of Mixture of Experts Models for General Insurance Ratemaking and Reserving
Keywords: Claim frequency and severity modeling
Denseness theory
Mixture of Experts Models
Multivariate regression analysis
Property and Casualty Insurance

Understanding the effect of policyholders' risk profile on the number and the amount of claims, as well as the dependence among different types of claims, are critical to insurance ratemaking and IBNR-type reserving. To accurately quantify such features, it is essential to develop a regression model which is flexible, interpretable and statistically tractable. In this thesis, we first propose a highly flexible nonlinear regression model, namely the logit-weighted reduced mixture of experts (LRMoE) models, for multivariate claim frequencies or severities distributions. The LRMoE model is interpretable as it has two components: Gating functions to classify policyholders into various latent sub-classes and Expert functions to govern the distributional properties of the claims. The model is also flexible to fit any types of claim data accurately and hence minimize the issue of model selection. Model implementation is then illustrated in two ways using a real automobile insurance dataset from a major European insurance company. We first fit the multivariate claim frequencies using an Erlang count expert function. Apart from showing excellent fitting results, we can interpret the fitted model in an insurance perspective and visualize the relationship between policyholders' information and their risk level. We further demonstrate how the fitted model may be useful for insurance ratemaking. The second illustration deals with insurance loss severity data that often exhibits heavy-tail behavior. Using a Transformed Gamma expert function, our model is applicable to fit the severity and reporting delay components of the dataset, which is ultimately shown to be useful and crucial for an adequate prediction of IBNR reserve. After that, we further extend the fitting algorithm to efficiently fit the LRMoE to random censored and truncated regression data. Such an extended algorithm is then found useful and important for broader actuarial applications such as unbiased claim reporting delay modeling and deductible ratemaking.
Black Howler Monkey (Alouatta pigra) Demography and Behaviour in Unprotected Forest Fragments around Palenque National Park, Chiapas, Mexico
Keywords: animal behaviour
conservation biology
demography
endangered species
habitat loss and fragmentation
primates

Habitat loss and fragmentation are urgent threats to primate species worldwide. Species’ responses to these threats are mediated by many factors, and there remains an urgent need to generate species- and habitat-specific knowledge to better understand their effects. I examined how living in unprotected forest fragments shapes Endangered black howler monkey (Alouatta pigra) demography and behaviour in a single fragmented landscape around Palenque National Park (PNP) in Chiapas, Mexico. I surveyed 34 fragments and collected demographic and behavioural data on the black howlers inhabiting them (62 groups, 407 individuals). I collected data on fragment size, shape, isolation, and forest composition. I found that the demographic population structure of the black howler population in the fragmented landscape has been stable over the last 17 years, while patch occupancy and ecological density have increased. Compared to the PNP black howler population, the study population was denser, and differed mainly in a lower proportion of adult males and fewer adult males per group. I then examined how variation in fragment isolation and habitat characteristics affected the population composition of black howler monkeys within fragments, and whether this variation differentially affected adult males and females. My results showed a significant effect of fragment variables on population demography in fragments. Population size increased with fragment area while density decreased, and the proportion of adult males and females, and their average number per group, were differentially affected by variation in fragment characteristics: there were more females in larger, less isolated fragments, and more males in more isolated, secondary-growth fragments. Lastly, I analyzed how variation in fragment habitat shaped time budgets and group movements of black howler monkeys in the study fragments. Fragment habitat variables significantly explained over half of the variation in these behaviours. Results showed that black howlers employed variable strategies (energy-minimizing or energy-maximizing) in response to variation in fragment habitat quality. Taken together, my results indicate that habitat loss and fragmentation are affecting the study population via demographic and behavioural changes simultaneously, with implications for the likelihood of long-term persistence of black howlers in unprotected forest fragments around PNP.
Child Care Utilization and Stability of Quality: Implications for System Management and Oversight
Keywords: Child care
Early childhood education and care
HCC licensing
Quality assessment

Child care can be a public service tool capable of supporting multiple social and economic goals including improving gender equity and reducing inter-generational transfer of poverty through high quality early learning and care for all children, but especially those in low income families. Recent estimates indicate that almost 60% of preschool-aged children regularly spend time in non-parental care (Statistics Canada, 2019b). Yet, Canadian families also rank very low on the OECD’s measures of child care affordability and access to licensed care. This means that families must use unlicensed care which receives virtually no government oversight. Current government statistics provide accurate counts of child care centre capacities. However, little is known about licensed home child care (HCC). Even less is known about the families who utilize unlicensed care, or do without any non-parental care. Beyond access, with very few exceptions, little is known about quality of care most families can access. Such data must form the basis for a social investment strategy that reduces existing inequalities. The dissertation consists of three papers that address gaps in our knowledge of child care in Canada. The first study, used data from the 2011 General Social Survey of Canada. Study findings show substantial heterogeneity in usage rates across the country as well as inequality whereby the families with the fewest resources are more likely to use unlicensed care or to have no care at all. The second study outlines a model for individually licensing and ensuring quality in HCC providers, including requirements for annual health and safety inspections, independent quality assessment and a wide-ranging system of quality supports and enhancements. Cost estimates are provided which are substantially lower on a per provider basis than the current agency-based licensing approach to HCC used in a number of provinces. Using administrative data from the City of Toronto the third study investigated the stability of quality ratings of 1,019 preschool classrooms over a three year period. The results show significant levels of instability suggesting that the frequency of ratings cannot be reduced. Implications for service oversight, system management and further research are discussed.
Ricardo Viñes’s Pianistic Legacy: An Evaluation of his Articles, Recordings, Compositions, and Pedagogy
Keywords: Debussy
Paris Conservatoire
Piano
Ravel
Recital
Ricardo Viñes

Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943) was a Catalan pianist who spent most of his career based in Paris. He premiered many of the major piano works by Debussy, Ravel, and other French, Spanish and Latin American composers of the early twentieth century. He had a reputation among his peers as a pianist who possessed an extraordinary technique, who was selflessly committed to the integrity of his musical performances, and who sacrificed further career success to promote the music of lesser-known composers. His legacy is that of a contemporary music specialist. Literature on Viñes is based mostly on his diary, which he kept between 1885 and about 1914, testimony by his students, press reviews and homages by his peers. The English literature on Viñes is lacking a study of his published articles, compositions and recordings, and has not convincingly challenged Elaine Brody’s assertion that Viñes was essentially a self-taught pianist. This dissertation examines that material and finds that Viñes’s articles indicate his preference for romantic musical ideals, his compositions belie his purported technical prowess, his recordings reveal some technical limitations, and his training and teaching methods are rooted in the French piano school tradition. This dissertation also adds new information on Viñes to the English literature from French and Catalan sources, including the only French biography of the pianist by Mildred Clary. Viñes’s legacy of disseminating contemporary music over the course of his career was well earned, but not selflessly. The research in this dissertation demonstrates that Viñes capitalized on his association with contemporary composers to cultivate a reputation as a new music specialist, which was a career direction that played to his strengths.
Modelling Transportation System Impacts of Housing Supply Dynamics
Keywords: Causation analysis
Housing supply
Population synthesis
Singular spectrum analysis
System dynamics
Travel demand forecasting

This thesis investigates housing supply dynamics in the City of Toronto and the related transportation impacts in two parts. In the first part, the dynamic temporal interaction of housing starts, public transit ridership, and national/regional socioeconomic factors is investigated using a multichannel singular spectrum analysis (MSSA). Recognizing the importance of a holistic view of the relationship between the interacting variables temporal movements supports research to integrate methods from different analytical domains, or “silos”. The research strategy is to fuse the nonparametric MSSA analysis of the variables series collection with Granger bidirectional/bivariate causality and feedback tests to build a statistically significant causal loop that can empirically explain the oscillatory components in the system. A system view of the temporal interaction of the variables is constructed from the MSSA analysis spectrum decomposition and Granger causality tests. The system’s nonlinear dynamic fingerprint is identified using cause-effect diagrams of the system’s components. Stock components are introduced to absorb the interactions’ lags and to actuate the system’s dynamical behaviour. In the second part of the thesis a traffic impact sketch planning (TISP) model is developed and implemented for estimating the likely travel demand and behaviour generated by Bayside mixed-use development (MXD), a major land development project at Waterfront Toronto. TISP model deploys the operational TASHA-based GTAModel V4.1 travel demand model system for a detailed transportation impacts assessment of the proposed precinct development. To enable the use of an agent-based microsimulation (ABM) model, a population synthesis procedure is developed that converts the architectural design of the development; that is, number and type of dwellings by number of bedrooms and non-residential floorspace into relevant attributes of households, persons, and employment that are likely to occupy the units. Datasets of different geographic areas of Toronto, with some common control variables, are synthesized and cascaded into a disaggregate population of residents and non-residents for Bayside MXD. The diurnal peaking travel times trips estimated by TISP model are compared with the peak period trips shown in the project’s traffic impact study and the Trip Generation Manual peak-hour weekday trip rates of relevant land uses.
Identification and Characterization of the TGFβ/Hippo Crosstalk through Mathematical Modeling
Keywords: Mathematical modelling
Smad nuclear accumulation
TGFβ/Hippo crosstalk
Transforming Growth Factor-beta

Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGFβ) superfamily members control a myriad of cellular activities and are key regulators of most developmental and homeostatic processes. The Hippo pathway is a major regulator of tissue growth and organ size. Hippo and TGFβ pathways are intimately interconnected. Hippo pathway mediators Taz/Yap interact with the TGFβ regulated Smads and when Hippo is activated, the cytoplasmically localized Taz/Yap reduces or prevents Smad nuclear accumulation thereby dampening TGFβ induced transcriptional activity. In the nucleus, Taz/Yap can transcriptionally cooperate with Smads to alter target genes regulation. With the aim of identifying the TGFβ/Hippo crosstalk, I used experimental data and computational modeling of Hippo and TGFβ crosstalk. Quantitative high-content immunofluorescence (IF) microscopy showed that Taz/Yap abrogation reduces nuclear accumulation of Smads and the reduction is not due to degradation of Smad/Taz/Yap proteins or receptors. Immunoblotting experiments revealed that Taz/Yap knock down alters phosphorylation/dephosphorylation of Smads. IF microscopy showed that there is no difference in the export and dephosphorylation rates in cells transfected with siCTL versus siTaz/Yap while TGFβ receptor activity is inhibited. IF microscopy, immunoblotting and statistical analysis showed that Taz/Yap levels in the cytoplasm or nucleus is constant regardless of dose of TGFβ or time of treatment when the Hippo pathway activity is constant. Mathematical modeling predicted that the differential accumulation of Smads at cells transfected with siCTL and siTaz/Yap might be due to both receptor activity alteration and existence of a Taz/Yap regulated retention factor. As a candidate retention factor, Med18 the subunit 18 of the mediator complex was identified. IF experiment results confirmed that knocking down Med18 reduces nuclear accumulation of Smads. Analysis of RNAseq data for cells transfected with siCTL or siTaz/Yap showed that Hippo pathway perturbation yielded differential effects. Mathematical modeling revealed that TGFβ target genes might have constant or time varying mRNA degradation rate. In addition, Taz/Yap could modulate the temporal expression patterns of TGFβ target genes by selectively changing the kinetic parameters of the gene expression model. Analysis of the gene expression patterns of selected genes showed that TGFβ/Hippo pathway crosstalk might be a mechanism to control the sequence of gene activation.
The Influence of Environment, Landscape and Paleogeography on the Evolution and Diversification of Two Neotropical Fish Groups
Keywords: Amazon
Biogeography
Marine Incursions
Phylogenetics
SNPs
Water Types

Different factors drive the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Although much debate around this topic exists, the importance of the environment in shaping diversity and evolution is undeniable. Changes in environmental properties, from connectivity to physicochemical factors, play fundamental role in diversification. In this thesis, I use two distinct groups of Neotropical fishes as model groups and use different molecular techniques to explore and characterize their molecular diversity. Using traditional and high-throughput sequencing, I have generated thorough phylogenies for the Neotropical freshwater stingrays and the barred knifefish (genus Steatogenys). Combining molecular and environmental data, I explore how geology (paleogeography) and physicochemical factors (water-types) have influenced their evolution across different time scales. Using paleogeographical evidence and fossil data, I generated a continental-level biogeographical hypothesis for the diversification and distribution of the Neotropical freshwater stingrays. I proposed that the evolution of this subfamily is related to changes in the connectivity of bodies of water in the last 20 million years, particularly in paleo mega wetlands in the Amazon region. I then discussed their diversification patterns, identifying an under-estimated diversity for this group and that recent diversification events, mostly related to changes in environment connectivity, are reflected in the incomplete sexual isolation between morphospecies. Using genomic evidence, I identified hybridization between species and proposed a scenario of serial diversification events. For the genus Steatogenys, both mitochondrial and genomic datasets highlighted the under-estimated diversity of this group. Using environmental data and multivariate statistics, I tested for the effects of different water types over diversification and distribution patterns. I proposed that environmental gradients affect population distribution and composition, and that confluence areas act as genomic interchange regions between populations. I found evidence of different species occurring in sympatry, but isolated sexually and with similar patterns of partial gene flow disruption between water bodies with different water types. My thesis combines computational and experimental work investigating the effects of the environment over the diversification of distinct fish groups. Broadly, I highlight the importance of the environment for evolutionary patterns, and that understanding environmental patterns is fundamental in the investigation of diversity and evolution.
Informal Revenue Generation and the State: Evidence from Sierra Leone
Keywords: informality
mediated statehood
Sierra Leone
statebuilding
taxation

How states raise revenue is critical to understanding how they govern. Orthodox analyses of the state, however, have tended to focus only on formal taxation, formal budgets, and formal revenues. I correct his bias by extending the analysis of taxation and the state beyond formal tax systems, capturing the informal dynamics of public finance that affect the majority of citizens in low-income countries. By examining informal revenue generation in the context of formal taxation, I shed light on the how and why of the state and institutional development. This study presents a new approach to understanding formal–informal institutional interactions and offers insight into a set of tangible issues of critical importance to the citizens of modern states. Classic theories of statehood anticipate that the state should always seek to control informal revenue generation. In practice, states often coexist with this informality. Informal taxing actors can reinforce state authority in unexpected ways and the relationship between the state and informal taxing actors is not necessarily zero-sum. State engagement with informal revenue generation is not always driven by a desire to gain a monopoly on taxation and authority. Instead, informal revenue generation may align with or even underpin the state’s governing strategy. Informal revenue generation can also have counterintuitive effects on statebuilding. Though informality is usually seen as detrimental to statebuilding, I show that informal revenue generation can strengthen state institutional capacity. The politics of statebuilding are, at least in part, played out at the local level in conjunction with informal institutions. It is in these local processes where informal revenue generation and informal taxing actors can reinforce modern statehood and statebuilding processes. The state that emerges may not look like a rational, Weberian institutional model. Nevertheless, it may prove more resilient and dynamic than expected.