VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Translanguaging as an Agentive, Collaborative and Socioculturally Responsive Pedagogy for Multilingual Learners
Keywords: collaborative learning
English as a Second Language
English Language Learner
language policy
multilingual education
translanguaging

The translanguaging turn in language education offers a new perspective on multilingualism by positing that multilingual learners have one linguistic repertoire rather than two or more autonomous language systems (García Li Wei, 2014). When learners engage in translanguaging, they draw on all the features from their repertoire in a flexible and integrated way (Otheguy, García, Reid, 2015). While many studies have advocated for the use of teacher-led pedagogical translanguaging, less research has documented the affordances of student-led collaborative translanguaging, and the factors that may constrain their use of translanguaging. My study is a step in this direction as it provides evidence of the potential of translanguaging as an intentional and agentive student-led collaborative pedagogy for multilingual learners. My research was a case study of two trilingual Grade 5 English language classes in a Malaysian elementary school – one class with an English-only policy, and one class without. Over 6 months, I recorded learners’ interactions as they worked in groups of 3-5 on collaborative learning activities. My data sources also included interviews with 55 learners and their two teachers, artefacts, field notes, and reflexive journal entries. Using sociocultural critical discourse analysis (Fairclough Wodak, 1997; Mercer, 2004), I conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of 100 30-minute to 1.5-hour long transcripts of learners’ interactions, and conducted a thematic analysis (Nowell, Norris, White Moules, 2017) of the interviews. The results revealed that learners in both classes used translanguaging agentively to fulfil 100 cognitive-conceptual, planning-organizational, affective-social and linguistic-discursive functions that supported their individual and collective learning. Even with an English-only policy in place, learners harnessed the affordances of translanguaging using multimodal resources such as symbols, images, videos, and gestures. However, their specific language choices and beliefs about language were influenced and at times constrained by the teacher’s language policies and practices, parental discourses about linguistic capital, and ethnic tensions in the country. My research positions translanguaging as collaborative and agentive, socioculturally situated and culturally responsive, and a resource for learning as well as a process of learning. As an outcome of this study, I provide recommendations for a collaborative translanguaging pedagogy approach.
Development of an Immersed Boundary Method for the Simulation of Moving Bodies at Fluid-fluid Interfaces
Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics
Contact Lines
Immersed Boundary Method
Multiphase Flow
Surface Tension
Volume-Of-Fluid

Particles interacting with interfaces in multiphase flows appear in many scenarios of industrial interest, including bitumen extraction, mineral recovery via froth flotation, soil remediation, and many others. This thesis presents the development of Immersed Boundary Methods (IBMs) coupled to a two-phase incompressible flow solver. The phases are treated as immiscible, and are modelled using the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method. The methods developed to include the effects of surface tension and contact lines are presented. A detailed description of the numerical methods, as well as their implementation into a new software framework, are presented. Details regarding the solution of the resulting large systems of sparse equations in parallel are briefly described. The accuracy of the proposed models are demonstrated in three chapters; test cases range from validation of the correct contact angle for droplets sitting on curved surfaces, to more complex Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems involving moving objects at fluid-fluid interfaces. Stationary IBMs were coupled with a VOF multiphase solver, with the effects of surface tension included via the Continuum Surface Force (CSF) method. The domain was separated into fluid and solid regions, with coupling between them achieved through a ghost-cell interpolation procedure, which in effect prescribed the desired boundary conditions for the velocity and pressure fields. A new method was developed to include the effects of contact angle/wetting for moving boundary problems. For these problems, a unified momentum equation for both the fluid and solid phases was solved, and the effect of the boundary was introduced into the momentum equation via a body force term. Solutions to FSI problems involving strong capillary forces are presented and compared to experiments. Finally, an application of the proposed numerical methods to simulating porous media injection is shown. The algorithm's ability to predict an interface's transition between stable displacement, viscous fingering and capillary fingering is demonstrated.
Digging up the Medicines: Urban Métis Women’s Identity and Experiences with Health and Social Services in Toronto, Ontario
Keywords: Access
Health
Identity
Métis
Toronto
Women

Métis Peoples comprise over a third of the Indigenous population in Canada while experiencing major gaps in access to culturally safe health services. These gaps are problematic given the severe disparities in health determinants and outcomes that Métis Peoples experience, compared to the non-Indigenous Canadian population. To address the Métis health service gap, this qualitative study applied a conversational method to follow up with a subgroup of Métis women who participated in the Our Health Counts Toronto longitudinal cohort. Guided by a Decolonizing Praxis woven with Indigenous Feminist Theory, conversations explored Métis women’s perspectives on identity and their experiences with health and social services in Toronto. The three manuscripts presented in this dissertation expose the multitude of barriers Métis women face when trying to access services in Toronto. In the first manuscript, Métis women share about the influence of patriarchy in health and social services in Toronto. This included men dominating policies regarding Métis identity; cultural mentors crossing barriers; physicians who were judgmental and sexually violent; and being forced to advocate for basic services. This manuscript highlights the need for Métis women to be re-centered in positions of leadership. The second manuscript reveals the experiences with racism and discrimination that Métis women face when trying to access health and social services in Toronto. This included witnessing, absorbing, and facing racism, feeling unwelcomed, and experiencing lateral violence. This manuscript underscores the urgency and importance of understanding and addressing racism as a determinant of Métis Peoples’ health. The third manuscript provides recommendations by Métis women to improve access to health and social services in Toronto for the Métis community. This included having a Métis presence within services; culturally relevant design; Métis specific and/or informed services; welcoming reception; and service providers with an understanding of Indigenous Peoples’ histories and complexities. This research illustrates the multitude of barriers that Métis women have experienced when trying to access health and social services in Toronto. At the same time, this research demonstrates that Métis women hold practical solutions to develop culturally-specific, appropriate, and effective health programs and services for Métis Peoples in Toronto.
Tunnelling Time of a Bose-Einstein condensate
Keywords: BEC
delta kick cooling
Larmor clock
tunneling
tunneling time

Tunnelling is one of the phenomena at the heart of quantum mechanics. Despite its central role in physics, the duration of the tunnelling process has been debated since the development of quantum theory without a definite answer. In this thesis, the question of how long a particle takes to tunnel is investigated experimentally using ultracold atoms. These systems provide an ideal platform to address this question due to their isolation from the external environment and the ability to create almost arbitrary potentials for the atoms. As the tunnelling time experiment requires low temperatures, the realization and characterization of wave packets below the nanokelvin regime are studied first. A 16x reduction of the effective temperature of the atoms is obtained through delta-kick cooling. However, the achieved temperatures are so low that a new method, dubbed the “knife-edge technique”, is developed to characterize the final atomic state accurately. Through this new method, a final temperature of 900 ± 200 pK is found. Finally, the tunnelling time is investigated using a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one dimensional waveguide intersected by a 1.3 μm barrier. As the atoms tunnel through the thin potential, their spins time the tunnelling event through the Larmor precession induced by a pseudo-magnetic field localized inside the barrier. The precession angle is found by performing tomography on the spin state of the tunnelling atoms. With the knowledge of the Larmor frequency and the rotation angles, we find a tunnelling time of 0.65(7) ms. This experiment achieves a long-sought tunnelling time measurement with a clear interpretation, and its results show good quantitative agreement with theory based on the weak measurement formalism.
In the Image of a Woman: Spirited Identifications and Embodied Interpellations Along the Betsiboka Valley
Keywords: LGBT
Madagascar
queer
religion
Sakalava
spirit possession

Amidst ongoing political turmoil and economic instability across Madagascar, sarimbavy (male-bodied, same-sex desiring and/or gender-expansive persons) are increasingly conceived of as timely subjects by HIV-prevention industries, homonationalist LGBT rights projects backed by the United States Embassy, and Christian religious publics. Based on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Betsiboka Valley, this dissertation both considers and diverges from these biomedical and moral panics by attending to the dynamic and often ambiguous relationship between sarimbavy and tromba spirit mediumship. In focusing upon the epistemological and hermeneutical labor that possession provides for those who live “in the image of a woman,” tromba (spirits of former reigning members of the Sakalava monarchy), and the wider social worlds in which they all reside, In the Image of a Woman offers a portrait of burgeoning sarimbavy counterpublics in Antananarivo, Mahajanga, and the rural district of Ambato-Boéni. This dissertation charts how these queer networks have flourished within the entangled milieus of possession pilgrimage, the use of an in-group “secret” sociolect, and the development of MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) activism. In the Image of a Woman bypasses strict functionalist explanations for the affinity between tromba and sarimbavy subjectivity. Nevertheless, this dissertation meditates upon how future-oriented MSM/LGBT rights-work and its attendant HIV-prevention activism (widely conceptualized by interlocutors as modern phenomena connected to foreign intervention) were uncannily facilitated through spirit mediumship (generally articulated by interlocutors as a longstanding “custom of the ancestors”). In thinking alongside these shifting temporal allegiances of sarimbavy medium-activists, the ethnography contained therein intervenes in the literature on global LGBT rights movements and religiosity by troubling the assumption that their relationship is inherently antagonistic.
Perovskite Semiconductor Nanostructures for Light Emission
Keywords: Nanoscience
Perovskite
Photonics
Semiconductor

Perovskite-based semiconductor materials have achieved remarkable progress over the past decade, and are now considered to be promising candidates for low-cost high-performance optoelectronic devices. Wide interest in this material system stems from its versatility, low density of and high tolerance to charge carrier traps, high charge carrier mobilities, and low cost of fabrication. Nanostructures offer a number of additional benefits for light emission applications including a wide range of bandgap tuning, bright photoluminescence, and, in cases, improved long-term stability. In this thesis, I investigate properties of perovskite nanostructures for light emission applications; my findings shed light on the remarkable performance of these materials, and provide insight into avenues to enhance further their light-emitting behaviour. First I develop and investigate a dot-in-matrix strategy that enables perovskite quantum dots to exhibit photoluminescence quantum yield of over 90% in the solid-state. Modeling and experimental characterization suggest that lattice matching between the quantum dots and the matrix contributes to improved passivation, while spatial confinement enhances the radiative rate. Next I investigate perovskite shells on quantum dots as a means to inhibit intradot Auger recombination. I demonstrate experimentally that MAPbI3 perovskite shelling decreases the rate of Auger recombination in PbS quantum dots by over 1 order of magnitude. I then explore morphological properties of perovskite quantum well thin films. I use in-situ methods during film formation to understand the mechanism by which the two-dimensional perovskites assemble, and I use these observations to explain the energetic and orientational distribution of perovskite quantum wells. Finally, I study the alignment of perovskite quantum well energy levels. I study their energetic band positioning and find that the work function can be altered by surface interface dipoles across ligands. As a result, perovskite quantum well interfaces can exhibit type-I or type-II alignment depending on the density of ligands on surfaces.
Innovative Research Methods to Evaluate Effective Engagement with Consumer Mobile Health Applications for Chronic Conditions
Keywords: digital health
health services research
innovative clinical trials
mobile health
research analytics

Consumer mobile health applications (mHealth apps) hold enormous potential to provide effective, efficient, economical, and scalable chronic health care. The opportunities afforded by these interventions to positively disrupt traditional chronic care models are significant, but require a cumulative evidence base to inform policy and practice. Evaluating these interventions, however, presents unique challenges. Traditional research methods are poorly suited to accommodate the rapidly changing technology landscape, which requires mHealth apps to constantly evolve and update just to remain usable, let alone effective. Moreover, they cannot characterize the complex, multilevel, and temporally dense patterns of effective engagement required to realize improved outcomes. This program of research sought to (1) investigate the complexity of conducting innovative evaluations of consumer mHealth apps for chronic conditions, and (2) build a research analytics platform to streamline evaluations and optimize mHealth apps. We established in Study 1 that mHealth evaluation methodology has rarely deviated from common methods, despite the need for more relevant and timely evaluations. This finding led us to explore the potential of analytic research methods in Study 2, where we discerned that digital health innovators were gaining nuanced insights into engagement, but had not yet characterized effective engagement for improved outcomes. To support innovators with this effort, our research in Study 3 focused on designing, developing, and evaluating a resource to consolidate, analyze, and visualize analytic indicators of effective engagement. The Analytics Platform to Evaluate Effective Engagement with digital health interventions—APEEE for short—provided innovators with a means to characterize the breadth and depth of mHealth app engagement required to achieve intended outcomes. Motivated by the potential for APEEE to power data-driven research methods, we directed Study 4 toward studying the implementation of the platform—and research analytics more broadly—in digital health evaluative practice, and surfaced the rich complexity of engaging in this practice to evidence mHealth apps. Raising the standard of mHealth evidence may enable greater confidence in the causal effect of apps on improved chronic health outcomes. It is this opportunity afforded by innovative research methods to close the gap between promised and realized health benefits that is most meaningful.
Reduced-order Integral Equation Methods to Solve Complex Electromagnetic Problems
Keywords: Integral equations
Surface Methods

Despite vast advancements in computational hardware capabilities, full-wave electromagnetic simulations of many multiscale problems continue to be a daunting task. Multiscale problems are encountered, for example, when modeling interconnects in an integrated circuit or when simulating complex electromagnetic structures. In interconnect problems, the main challenge is to model the multiscale skin effect that develops inside the conductors at high frequency. Similarly, complex electromagnetic structures are multiscale because these surfaces are tens of wavelengths large, while each unit cell often contains subwavelength geometrical features. This thesis presents reduced-order integral equation methods to solve complex multiscale problems. For interconnect problems, it proposes a single-source surface integral equation method to model 2-D and 3-D conductors or dielectrics of arbitrary shape. In this approach, electromagnetic fields inside a conductor or a dielectric object are accurately modeled by a differential surface admittance operator and an equivalent electric current density on the object's surface. Since the proposed method does not use any volumetric unknowns, it is more efficient than volumetric methods encountered in the literature and commercial solvers, which require a fine mesh to model the skin effect. Furthermore, since the proposed approach is single-source, it is more efficient than other surface methods in the literature that require both equivalent electric and magnetic current densities. Numerical results show that the proposed method can be over 100x and 20x faster than commercial FEM solvers for 2-D and 3-D problems, respectively, while consuming significantly lower memory. The proposed surface method for conductors and dielectrics is further generalized to develop the so-called macromodeling technique to simulate complex scatterers. In this technique, a heterogeneous scatterer composed of dielectric and PEC objects is accurately modeled by equivalent electric and magnetic current densities that are introduced on a fictitious surface enclosing the element. The crux of the technique is to solve for unknowns only on the fictitious surface, instead of the scatterers, which results in fewer unknowns. Numerical results show that the proposed macromodeling technique can efficiently simulate electrically large reflectarrays composed of square patches and Jerusalem crosses, that are difficult to simulate even with commercial solvers.
Learning Differentiation in Music Education: Theory and Practice
Keywords: curriculum development
differentiation
instructional strategies
mixed ability
praxial music education
special needs learners

The purpose of this study is to use a Dual-Phased Integrated Summative and Directed Qualitative Content Analysis to determine if keywords and themes related to differentiation and varied learner needs in mixed ability classroom contexts are present in the core construct of praxial curriculum theory and the Reflective Musical Practicum curriculum design, an extension of the philosophy of praxial music education to practice. The results showed that while keywords related to differentiation were not significantly present in the body of the selected text, evidence of differentiation thematically emerged in the comparative analysis of the curricular design phases. The analysis further showed that the foundation of praxial curriculum theory and the Reflective Musical Practicum curriculum design is content driven, a complex, in-depth, and rigorous educative curricular construct of MUSICS and MUSICING. By analyzing the results of the keyword codification and integrating the foundational tenets, concepts, and strategies of differentiation instruction and curriculum theory with praxial curriculum theory, a new working curriculum design theory emerged from the expansion: Learning Differentiation Music Education Curriculum Theory. The working definition of LDMET was used as the foundation for curriculum development, constructed from the key concepts of differentiation and praxial curriculum theory, to inform pre-service music education course preparation addressing varied learner needs in mixed ability inclusion contexts.
Re-imagining Black Masculinity: Praxis of Kenyan Men in Toronto
Keywords: accent
Black masculinity
Blackness
Diaspora
Indigenous
Masculinities

This study examined Black masculinity, the representation of Black men, and by extension the Black community. Black men in North America historically have been racially targeted and profiled in employment and education (school/prison pipeline). Black masculinity scholarship has actively represented this demography through diverse scholarships. While this may be the case, the opposite is equally true; the scholarly lens does not provide the overall picture of Black men. This exploratory/descriptive qualitative Afrocentric Indigenous narrative study applied post-colonial, anti-colonial, and critical masculinity theoretical frameworks to argue that Black masculinity is implicated in epistemological violence and imperialism. The study encompassed semi-structured interviews with 10 participants (Kenyan men in Toronto), allowing for open expression of their experiences. The Kenyan story has been missing in action; that is, the Kenyan racial experiences in immigration, education, and labour remain expunged and absent. Black masculinity has not focused on accents as a racial and gendered concept of erasing Kenyan men from social and political processes. The study is framed around the limits of Black masculinity and looks at immigration, education, and labour policies in Canada and how they expel Kenyan men from the body politic. Kenyan men that were interviewed said that though they are Black they are also African based on the complex act of accent multiplier.