VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Phasor Measurement Unit Enabled Power Dispatch and Autonomous Black Start of AC Microgrids
Keywords: ac microgrids
black start
Phasor measurement units

The aim of this thesis is to develop a mathematical model and control for black start and power dispatch of AC microgrids powered by converter interfaced distributed energy resources (DERs). This utilizes the development of microgrid controls in an asynchronous reference frame to maintain the operation of local current mode control regardless of synchronization of dq-frame across dispersed DERs. The viability of using Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) to leverage the capabilities of existing and upcoming microgrids to provide grid support is also evaluated. This thesis develops controls for operation of DER-fed AC microgrids in both islanded and grid connected modes. A power dispatch mechanism is proposed to either supply local loads using PMU values to calculate load demand, or provide dispatchable power, when in grid connected mode. In doing so, this thesis establishes a microgrid that can both energize and operate autonomously while also providing network support when grid connected.
Invisible Violence Against Hypervisible Women: Understanding Islamophobic Violence in the Greater Toronto Area Through Qualitative Interviews and Arts-Based Inquiry
Keywords: Canada
Gendered Islamophobia
Hate crimes
Islamophobia
Muslim women
Violence against women

Islamophobic violence against Muslim women is an understudied issue in Canada, even as it is increasing. Using an anti-colonial Muslim feminist theoretical framework and praxis, I conducted 21 interviews of Muslim women survivors of Islamophobic violence in the GTA, and analyzed these interviews to characterize the discourses that sanction Islamophobic violence; the different forms of Islamophobic violence and its impacts, including its relation to trauma; challenges for bystander intervention; and Muslim women’s strength and agency. Notably, several participants employed faith-based methods of understanding and responding to Islamophobic violence. Poetry by six Muslim women survivors of Islamophobic violence supplemented these findings by enriching them with emotional depth; this poetry will be included in a community toolkit on Islamophobic violence that will emerge from this study. Future research should continue to centre diverse Muslim women’s voices and focus on anti-colonial methods of challenging Islamophobia that focus on building relationships with Indigenous peoples.
Evaluation of Current Construction Permitting Process in City of Toronto and Future of Permitting in the Global Construction Industry
Keywords: Building Information Model (BIM)
Construction Permit
e-permitting
Smart Urban Management
Tall Buildings

In this research, an evaluation of the construction permitting process for tall buildings in City of Toronto over the last decade was conducted, including gathering of a detailed database on the approval process of 174 tall residential buildings. This investigation identified e-permitting and automated code compliance checking as viable solutions to address many of the existing challenges with the current permitting process at City of Toronto. These recommendations were then investigated from a global perspective which resulted in development of a framework for automated model-based e-permitting system. This framework takes advantage of the recent technological advancements in the industry, including using BIM for automated code compliance checking and integrating BIM and GIS information for smart urban management applications. The three-level e-permitting framework is envisioned as a road map for advancing from traditional paper-based permitting practices to fully integrated city planning capabilities required to support the future of our built infrastructure.
Verifying Candidate Genes Underlying Flowering Time in Arabidopsis thaliana using tDNA Insertion Lines
Keywords: Arabidopsis thaliana
Evolutionary genetics
Flowering time
Gene knockout
Quantitative genetics
tDNA insertion line

Population genomic scan has emerged as a powerful tool in revealing regions in the genome that are potential targets of selection. Despite the success of genomic scans in identifying novel lists of loci underlying adaptation, few studies proceed to validate the function of these candidate genes. In this study, we used tDNA insertion lines to evaluate the effects of 31 candidate genes on flowering time in North American accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana. We compared the flowering time of tDNA insertion lines to a wildtype under long- and short-day conditions. Collectively, we validated the well-known effect of long-day conditions in accelerating flowering time and found that gene disruption caused by insertional mutagenesis tends to delay flowering. Finally, we identified six genes that significantly delayed flowering time under both long and short days, which provide invaluable opportunities for future work in investigating their role in controlling flowering time adaptation in angiosperms.
An Analysis of How the Ontario Social Studies Curriculum Addresses Issues of Social Justice
Keywords: critical pedagogy
curriculum
social justice
social studies
truth and reconciliation commission
whitewash

While it is generally agreed that social studies is the integrated study of history, social sciences, and the humanities, there is significant debate about what to include and what to emphasize. With social justice increasingly on the Social Studies agenda, the most recent version of the Ontario Social Studies curriculum includes an increase in references to social justice and equity. Such curriculum, however, has yet to be thoroughly examined for how it addresses issues of social justice. As a result, informed by Critical Pedagogy, Critical Race Theory, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I examine the 2013 Ontario Social Studies curriculum for how it addresses social justice issues, such as the Indian Residential Schools, racism, gender, and disability. Findings suggest that, despite its increasing use of vocabulary about social justice, the 2013 Ontario Social Studies curriculum remains dominated by forms of bias that whitewash history and social relations in Canada.
Comparison of carbohydrate oxidase activity produced using in vivo versus cell-free in vitro systems
Keywords: cell-free protein synthesis
galactose oxidase
glucooligosaccharide oxidase
in vitro protein synthesis

Potential industrially relevant enzymes are left uncharacterized across phylogenies due to the limitations of traditional in vivo protein expression. Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) can permit rapid surveys of enzymes across a phylogeny, which can help identify enzymes industrially relevant for recombinant protein expression and characterization. The CFPS method was tested for its ability to produce the Sarocladium strictum gluco-oligosaccharide oxidase (GOOX) and the Fusarium graminearum galactose oxidase (GAO), and the commercial PURExpress protein synthesis was optimized for this production. The method was able to express analytical quantities of these enzymes within four hours, which were subsequently tested using a sensitive Amplex Red assay. The CFPS was optimized for reaction temperature and timing of the cofactor addition, and the activity profiles of the synthesized enzymes were similar to their recombinant in vivo expressed counterparts.
Model-based Exploration of the Variability in Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush) BAFs caused by Physiology and Trophic Relationships
Keywords: Bioaccumulation
Bioenergetics
Lake trout
Modelling
Persistent organic pollutants

Because eating fish is often a major vector of human exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs), much effort is directed towards a quantitative understanding of fish bioaccumulation using mechanistic models. Many such models fail to consider how uptake and loss rate constants relate to fish physiology. Here, we calculate the bioaccumulation factor (BAF) of hypothetical POPs, with octanol-water partition coefficients values ranging from 104.5 to 108.5, in lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), with a food web bioaccumulation model that uses bioenergetics to ensure that physiological parameters applied to a species are internally consistent and energetically balanced. Fish in six Canadian lakes were modelled to understand what causes the BAFs of differently sized lake trout to vary between and within lakes. Lake trout activity, diet composition, prey contamination levels and the fraction of the total energy intake spent on growth were found to affect the bioaccumulation potential of chemicals.
Parent Engagement and Schooling: Examining Black Parents' Experiences in the Greater Toronto Area
Keywords: African
Black
Critical Race Theory
Parent Engagement
Parent Involvement

Within the dominant discourse, Black parents have been positioned as disinterested in the school system, their involvement analyzed from a deficit approach, and barriers to their engagement not fully examined. This research utilized Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) to examine the engagement of three Black parents in the Greater Toronto Area, their experiences navigating the school system, the challenges and tensions they experienced, and the strategies they employed. The study used a narrative inquiry approach to examine and explore their experiences. The findings reveal that Black parents, contrary to the dominant discourse, are advocates for their children. The study also highlights the significance of race in the relationship of Black parents with schools, and the ways in which this impacts their engagement. The findings of this study will be important to teachers, teacher education programs, school leaders, administrators and all stakeholders in education.
An Event-Based Language for Programmable Debugging
Keywords: Debugging tools
Domain-specific languages
Dynamic instrumentation
Software engineering
Systems programming

Conventional debuggers do not provide an efficient means to perform complex observations. This has motivated the development of tools for programmable debugging. Heavyweight instrumentation frameworks such as Valgrind and DynamoRIO can perform a wide variety of observations, but development of plugins for these frameworks is a difficult and low-level task. The event-based approach introduced in the DTrace and SystemTap languages allows observations to be expressed compactly, but these languages lack the flexibility to observe combinations of events required for debugging. This thesis introduces E, an event-based language for debugging complex software problems, designed around a high-level model of the state transitions and events within a program’s execution. E provides a simple and expressive means for programming heavyweight instrumentation plugins. The thesis presents an E implementation based on heavyweight instrumentation frameworks and demonstrates how E can simplify the diagnosis process for complex real-world debugging scenarios.
Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Bolted Flanges in Aero-Engine Casings
Keywords: Aero-engine
Bi-linear stiffness
Bolted flange
Nonlinear structural dynamics
Partial clearance
Spigot connection

Bolted flanges in aero-engine casings exhibit a nonlinear response when subjected to forced vibration. The current models for the structural dynamic analysis of bolted flanges are accurate, but they are cumbersome for the design of new structures. The challenge lies in building a nonlinear model that is computationally efficient and has easily identifiable parameters. This study presents a new lump model that accounts for the nonlinear phenomena of partial clearance and friction, and has analytical parameters related to the flange geometry. The model was implemented in finite element analysis and compared with an experiment where a test structure is excited by an electromechanical shaker. The lump model predicts the structural response better than a traditional linear method and it solves faster than distributed contact elements, the most popular approach for nonlinear joint modeling. This study supports the use of geometric lump models in the field of nonlinear structural dynamics.
The Development of Propagated Discharge and Behavioural Arrest in Temporal Lobe Focal Seizures with Impairment of Awareness
Keywords: awareness
behavioural arrest
consciousness
epilepsy
seizures
temporal lobe

Patients with focal temporal lobe seizures often experience transient episodes of impaired awareness with behavioural arrest, but the precise mechanism remains unknown. The Blumenfeld hypothesis attributes these deficits to a loss of cholinergic input to the cortex. This is presumed to result from increased activation of inhibitory regions that suppress subcortical arousal, giving rise to slow wave activity. To investigate this hypothesis – and more specifically, to characterize the relationship between propagated discharge, cortical slow waves and behavioural arrest – we performed kindling studies in rats. We found that the onset of propagated discharge in subcortical and cortical sites did not always match with the onset of behavioural arrest. In the addition, the activity seen in the cortex did not resemble the slow waves seen in deep sleep. Together, these findings suggest an additional mechanism – other than the Blumenfeld hypothesis – to explain how temporal lobe seizures may produce behavioural arrest and impair awareness.
In Silico Comparative Evaluation of Classical and Robust Dimension Reduction for Psychological Assessment
Keywords: dimension reduction
PCA
projection pursuit
robust

The classic exploration of correlated multivariable psychological assessment data employs dimension reduction of the original p¬ variables to a lower q-dimensional space through principal component analysis (PCA). Standard criteria in the selection of the number of q dimensions may be affected by non-normal distributions and atypical observations. Performance of PCA was compared to robust dimension reduction techniques including Grid Projection Pursuit and robust covariance estimation (ROBPCA) in the accurate identification of the predetermined number of q-dimensions according to selection criteria for the cumulative proportion of variation, Kaiser-Guttman eigenvalue rule, and quantitative localization of Cattell’s scree plot ‘elbow’ via segmented regression. Based on in silico benchmarking using various simulated multivariate conditions, ROBPCA was consistent in correctly identifying the true q-dimensions. PCA can be improved through the adjustment of values for the cumulative proportion of variation and eigenvalue thresholds. Grid Projection Pursuit was the lowest performer among the techniques under simulated conditions.
Curious Pressure Dependence of the Stability of d(TGnT)
Keywords: cancer
G Quadruplex
high pressure
tetramolecular
volume

Monomolecular guanine-rich four-stranded DNA molecules (G-quadruplexes) are destabilized by hydrostatic pressure. These G-quadruplexes (GQ) are made up of loops (non-guanine regions) and tetrads (guanine-rich regions). The molar volume change (∆V total) of monomolecular GQ is the difference in the molar volume of the unfolded and folded states. We studied the effect of pressure on tetramolecular GQs because they have no “loops". From this, we determined the ∆V of each G-tetrad and the ∆V of the loops in monomolecular GQ. Our data show that there is no net molar ∆V between the folded and unfolded states of d(TG3-4T)4. Furthermore, the ∆V is unrelated to the parallel orientation of the strands in d(TG3-4T)4. Therefore, the factors causing the ∆V arising from the formation of tetramolecular GQ balance each other resulting in the net ∆V as zero. Thus, the ∆V values in monomolecular GQ are due to the “loop” regions of those structures.
The Association Between University Sport Participation and Well-Being of Former Athletes in Mid-Adulthood: A Focus on Prior Concussions and Type of Sport Played
Keywords: Concussion
Middle-Aged Former Athletes
Sport Type
University Sport Participation
Well-Being

Sport-related concussions and collision sport participation have been associated with long-term cognitive, neurobehavioural, and psychiatric issues. However, research to date has primarily examined former professional male athletes. This thesis examined the association between sport participation and well-being in middle-aged male and female former university athletes, with specific focus on prior concussions and sport type. Former athletes reported fewer depressive symptoms, greater mental and physical health, and higher life satisfaction than non-athletes. Former athletes with a history of concussion reported more anxiety symptoms than athletes without a history of concussion. Sport type (i.e., collision, contact, non-contact) was not associated with self-reported well-being after controlling for concussion history, gender, and age. Results suggest former athletes in mid-adulthood generally report greater well-being than non-athletes. Furthermore, compared to research examining former professional male athletes, prior concussions and participation in collision sports at the university level are not associated with profound negative health outcomes.
Characterizing a Novel Ligand for the Farnesoid X Receptor using Transgenic Zebrafish
Keywords: Drug Screening
Farnesoid X Receptor
Ligand Characterization
Ligand Trap System
Nuclear Receptor

Nuclear receptors (NRs) are ligand activated transcription factors that are involved in variety of processes, such as metabolism, development, and reproduction. The farnesoid x receptor (FXR) is a NR that is involved in maintaining lipid homeostasis in the liver. When FXR is downregulated in the liver, diseases such as fatty liver disease can arise. Using the ligand-trap system in zebrafish, a novel ligand for FXR, 8215 Ethyl, was identified. This ligand was characterized and it was discovered that 8215 Ethyl induces FXR expression robustly and selectively in the liver at non-toxic concentrations. 8215 Ethyl is also able to induce activation of the NRs PPARγ and RORγ in zebrafish. FXR, PPARγ, and RORγ are regulated by 8215 Ethyl through the direct binding of the ligand to the ligand binding domains of these NRs. These findings indicate that 8215 Ethyl may have therapeutic potential to treat diseases associated with downregulation of FXR.
Pressure Drop of a Boger Fluid in a Converging Channel
Keywords: axisymmetric
Boger fluid
converging channel
dilute solution
hyperbolic
relaxation time

The pressure drop of viscoelastic fluids flowing through a converging channel was investigated and compared to Newtonian fluids under equivalent flow conditions. The channel shape was hyperbolic, so there was a constant extensional rate along the centreline. Three Boger fluids, one aqueous and two organic, with nearly constant viscosities were used to isolate elastic effects. The Boger fluids were fully characterised in shear and extension. The shear testing, in addition to results from literature, showed that the Oldroyd-B model does not model the first normal stress accurately. Elasticity was shown to increase the pressure drop, relative to a comparable Newtonian value. When the pressure drop was corrected for die swell, the change in pressure drop was comparable to the experimental error, suggesting that the major elastic effect is in shear, rather than extension. Unexpectedly, both hardy polymers showed signs of polymer degradation after flowing through the channel
Analyzing and Optimizing an Array of Low-Cost Gas Sensors for use in an Air Quality Measurement Device with Machine Learning
Keywords: Air Pollution
Environmental monitoring
Low-cost sensor
Machine learning
Neural Network
Smart city

Low-cost gas sensors have been proposed in place of conventional expensive instruments however they have issues due to cross-sensitivity with other pollutants. Several different types of metal oxide and electrochemical sensors and machine learning methods were evaluated. The objectives were to determine which type of sensor, metal oxide or electrochemical, is better at measuring traffic-related air pollution and whether deep neural networks (DNN) and recurrent neural networks (RNN) improve sensor performance. Three devices were deployed across three sites, two in Toronto and one in Beijing to evaluate the performance of calibration. Calibration was performed with two weeks of data from only one site and evaluated with the remaining data. The combination of metal oxide and electrochemical sensors were more accurate when measuring NOx. When targets were normalized, the RNN performed better than DNN and linear calibration, however, not when applied to measuring data well outside the range for calibration.
Custom Microporous Layers for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells
Keywords: Gas diffusion layer
Liquid water distribution
Microporous layer
Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell
Synchrotron X-ray radiography
Water management

Custom microporous layers (MPLs) were fabricated and designed to enhance fuel cell performance and water management at two specific operating conditions, operation without anode humidification and operation at high current densities. The two studies were aimed at addressing two challenges of water management, i.e., membrane dehydration and cathode liquid water flooding. The fuel cell performance and impedance measurements were paired with synchrotron X-ray visualization to quantify cell potential, membrane and mass transport resistances, and liquid water within gas diffusion layers (GDLs). The application of hydrophilic MPLs decreased the membrane resistance, and increased liquid water retention at the catalyst layer-MPL interface. MPLs with spatially graded PTFE content reduced the cathode GDL liquid water accumulation and oxygen transport resistance. Both MPLs led to increased fuel cell performance. The knowledge gained from this thesis can inform the design of next-generation fuel cell materials that further improve cell performance at desired operating conditions.
A Pathway to Interfacial Thermal Modeling for Electrochemical Devices
Keywords: Electrochemical
Interface
Interfacial
Landauer
Modeling
Thermal

Interfacial thermal transport characteristics of electrochemical devices are an important aspect of modern device design. Through the Landauer approach, we have the means to model thermal transport for a wide range of materials and for a variety of operating conditions. In this work we present the building blocks towards the end goal of a complete thermal model for electrochemical devices. The focus of this thesis is on modeling the thermal transport in the bulk, and at interfaces for solids where phonons dominate as the carrier of thermal energy. We explicitly demonstrate the modeling approach for the case of bulk silicon, as well as for a silicon-germanium interface while also describing how the approach can be applied for an arbitrary choice of materials. Additionally, by applying concepts from the modern theory of liquid thermodynamics, we discuss how the approach can be extended to characterize thermal transport for liquid and solid-liquid systems.