VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Regulating and Supporting Ecosystem Services Provided by Urban Greenspace and Restored Meadows along a Hydro Corridor in Toronto
Keywords: ecosystem restoration
ecosystem service
green infrastructure
soil nutrient analysis
urban ecosystem
water balance analysis

The Meadoway project, led by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), aims to restore 200 ha of meadow habitats along the Gatineau Hydro Corridor across Scarborough, Ontario. The hydro corridor’s transition from turf grass to deep-rooted native meadow plants is hypothesized to enhance regulating and supporting services. To evaluate this hypothesis, in-situ infiltration, penetrometer tests, and soil sampling were conducted on two pre-restored turf lands and two restored meadows in 2020. Soil samples were analyzed for bulk density, porosity, pore structure, total carbon, total nitrogen, and available phosphorus. Water balance analysis was conducted by simulating artificial rainfall events upon undisturbed vegetated soil samples accompanied by saturated hydraulic conductivity measurements. The meadow restoration altered soil structure and enhanced its runoff reduction and available water capacity, and decreased soil available phosphorus. The Meadoway can potentially enhance multiple ecosystem services including flood and erosion control, and soil quality and nutrient cycling regulation.
Testing Pyrrhotite Trace Element Chemistry as A Vector Towards the Mineralization in The Sullivan Deposit, B.C.
Keywords: Economic Geology
Geology
Pyrrhotite
SEDEX
Trace elements

Mineral exploration methods are expensive and time-consuming, especially more recently because most near surface deposits have been found. To overcome these challenges, new strategies must be developed. Here we test whether trace element chemistry of pyrrhotite changes systematically with distance from mineralization at the Sullivan deposit, B.C. If so, this will be an additional tool to search for new ore bodies, especially in areas too deep for current techniques. Forty samples of the hangingwall, footwall and host horizon were collected from six drill holes proximal and distal to the Sullivan deposit. These were then analyzed using reflected light microscopy, electron microprobe, and LA-ICPMS (laser ablation, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry). Three hundred ninety LA-ICPMS analyses were used to build machine learning classifiers (cluster analysis and random forests) to identify whether an unknown pyrrhotite sample was from the mineralized horizon and if so whether it was from near the mineralization.
Exploring Autophagy-related Genetic Interactions in Renca cells via genome-wide CRISPR Screens
Keywords: autophagy
CRISPR-Cas9 screen
genetic interaction
TNFa signaling

Previous CRISPR-Cas9 TNFα killing screens performed in Renca cancer cells identified Atg5 and Atg16l1 as top resistance genes in Atg12Δ cells, indicating a positive genetic interaction between Atg12 and Atg5/16l1, where Atg12Δ-Atg5Δ and Atg12Δ-Atg16l1Δ cells have improved cell fitness and survival under TNFα pressure compared to single-mutant cells (e.g., Atg12Δ). However, knowledge of genetic pathways responsible for mediating differential sensitivity to TNFα between single- and double-mutants is currently unknown. Here, I performed a pooled genome-wide TNFα killing screen in Renca Atg5Δ-Atg12Δ cells to determine genetic pathways that protect double-mutant cells (Atg5Δ-Atg12Δ) against TNFα-mediated cytotoxicity. CRISPR screening identified several non-canonical pro-survival TNFα signaling factors in Atg5Δ-Atg12Δ cells and revealed differential TNFα signaling pathways between Atg12Δ and Atg5Δ-Atg12Δ cells.
Brain Alterations in Obese Children and Adolescents with Obstructive Sleep Apnea: an MRI Study
Keywords: Adolescence
Childhood
Cortical thickness
MRI
Obesity
Obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a breathing disorder associated with obesity, characterized by recurrent episodes of apnea and/or hypopnea during sleep. Both obesity and OSA independently lead to systemic derangements; when combined, they may cause significant brain structure alterations, particularly in childhood. This study investigated cortical thickness alterations in obese youths with no, mild, and moderate/severe OSA. We hypothesized that OSA is associated with global and regional alterations (with sex differences), and that it causes a deviation from the typical trajectory of age-related cortical thickness decrease reported in lean subjects. Overall, there were no differences in global and regional cortical thickness between groups or sexes. However, the trajectory of the expected age-related cortical thickness decrease was significantly altered: absent in mild OSA, it presented a significant increase in moderate/severe OSA, involving several areas of the cortex. Therefore, cortical alterations caused by OSA in obese youths appear significantly associated with age.
Deep Brain Stimulation as a Treatment for Depressive-like Behaviour in Rodents: Role of the 5-HT1A and 5-HT1B Serotonin Receptors in a Modified Chronic Social Defeat Stress Model
Keywords: Animal models of depression
Deep Brain Stimulation
Depression
Neuroscience
Serotonin
Treatment Resistant Depression

Despite the prevalence and pervasiveness of major depression disorder (MDD), ~30% of patients demonstrate resistance to all forms of conventional treatment. An alternative therapy, deep brain stimulation (DBS), has consistently reversed a depressive-like phenotype (DLP) in rodents when targeted to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). While the underlying mechanisms remain elusive, the antidepressant-like response of DBS has demonstrated dependence on the serotonergic system. This thesis examined the validity of a modified chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) model and the potential mediatory role of the serotonin receptors, 5-HT1A and 5-HT1B, in a DBS response. This model reliably induced DLP in mice, which chronic vmPFC DBS reversed. The antidepressant-like effects of DBS were sustained following 5-HT1A antagonism but abolished with 5-HT1B antagonism. These findings demonstrate the face and construct validity of a modified CSDS model and suggest that the modulation of the 5-HT1B receptor may be intrinsic to DBS for the treatment of depression.
Enabling Privacy-preserving Model Personalization via On-device Incremental Training
Keywords: Deep Learning
Incremental Learning
Model Personalization
On-Device Learning

Inference on edge devices (e.g., smartphones) is becoming increasingly common, benefiting from low-latency inference and user privacy by keeping data on-device. However, on-device training is still considered impractical due to mobile computational and memory capacity constraints. Nevertheless, on-device training is an important direction for enabling privacy-preserving model personalization, whereby a model is customized to a user’s preferences and behaviors. We propose MoIL which enables privacy-preserving, efficient, and accurate model personalization by performing compute-intensive training on a curated user-general global dataset in the cloud, and continuing training incrementally on-device using a user-specific local dataset. MoIL reduces the training time of an image classification model from 3.1 years to 48 minutes and an audio tagging model from 5.2 months to 61 minutes. MoIL achieves local/global on-device accuracy comparable to training on centralized local/global datasets in the cloud, deviating at most 7.3% for global accuracy and 0.9% for local accuracy.
Thinking through Curriculum as a Site for Decolonial Education: Indigenous Related Content and Cognitive Imperialism
Keywords: compartmentalization
Curriculum
decolonial
Education
Indigenous
justice

This qualitative curriculum analysis study examines practices of compartmentalization in the framing of Indigenous-related content in grades 3-6 of the Ontario social studies curriculum. Findings suggest that cognitive imperialism, through practices of compartmentalization, is reinforced through 1) the prevalence of dominance-imbued binary constructions, 2) curricular enclosures, and 3) the divorcing of power analysis from an emphasis on perspective-taking. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for cognitive imperialism, specifically, and for decolonial justice education more broadly.
Real-time Minimum Foot Clearance Estimation using a Wearable Biofeedback System to Prevent Trip-related Falls
Keywords: Fall Prevention
Gait Analysis
Minimum Foot Clearance
Time-of-Flight Sensor
Tripping
Wearable

Trip-related falls are a significant concern for older adults and gait-impaired individuals as they can lead to severe injuries, hospitalizations and negatively impact the quality of life. A low or unsuccessful Minimum Toe Clearance (MTC) is considered a predictor of tripping risk. Thus, increasing the MTC can be a key component in minimizing the likelihood of tripping. This thesis presents a wearable biofeedback system that uses two Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors located at the toe and heel to estimate different foot clearance parameters and provide auditory biofeedback in real time. The accuracy of the wearable system is validated against motion capture, and a novel real-time MTC detection algorithm is evaluated. The system is also assessed as a personalized warning and training tool to prompt users to increase their MTC in real-time. The proposed system has the potential to be integrated with assistive wearable technologies to minimize the risk of tripping and, ultimately, fall-related injuries.
A Multiple Streams Analysis of E-Cigarette Policy in Ontario
Keywords: e-cigarette
Ontario
policy
regulation
vaping

In October 2018, the Ford government in Ontario reversed the previous Wynne government’s ban on promoting vaping products, such as e-cigarettes. However, in October 2019, the Ford government enforced the vaping promotion ban again and in February 2020 passed further regulatory restrictions. This study seeks to understand what prompted these changes by applying the Multiple Streams Framework. In-depth interviews were conducted with key stakeholders from government, non-governmental organizations, universities, and trade associations (n=15). Legislative debate transcripts (n=10), committee proceeding transcripts (n=11), and newspaper articles (n=101) were also collected. Data was coded and thematically analyzed, which showed that the first reversal occurred because of the election of the Progressive Conservative Ford government. The second reversal occurred because of the rise in youth vaping and the e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury (EVALI) outbreak, which focused the attention of policymakers on the vaping problem.
Inclusive or Exclusive? Students’ Perceptions on How Teachers and Peers Treat Special Educational Needs Students in General Education Classrooms
Keywords: Inclusive education
Peer Relations
Special Educational Needs
Student Experience
Teacher Modelling

This study investigates how non-designated students perceive teacher and peer behaviours towards students designated with special educational needs (SEN). Semi-structured interviews with 25 university students who had been in general education classrooms in high school were conducted to understand how the epistemological beliefs teachers and peers hold impact the learning and experiences of students with SEN in inclusive classrooms. A thematic, phenomenological analysis identified factors such as accommodations, groupwork, presence of aides, and teacher modelling as influential in the interactions of students with SEN and their peers and teachers. The findings of this research may help schools determine how to improve the experiences of students with SEN in inclusive classrooms.
Understanding and Detecting Software Upgrade Failures in Distributed Systems
Keywords: bug detection
distributed systems
study
upgrade failure

Upgrade is one of the most disruptive yet unavoidable maintenance tasks that undermine the availability of distributed systems. Any failure during an upgrade is catastrophic, as it further extends the service disruption caused by the upgrade. The increasing adoption of continuous deployment further increases the frequency and burden of the upgrade task. In practice, upgrade failures have caused many of today’s high-profile cloud outages. Unfortunately, there has been little understanding of their characteristics. This thesis presents an in-depth study of 123 real-world upgrade failures in 8 widely used distributed systems. Our study shows that upgrade failures are more critical and catastrophic than non-upgrade failures, with most of them caught after code release. Guided by our study, we have designed a testing framework DUPTester to expose upgrade failures. Testing 4 distributed systems with DUPTester revealed 20 previously unknown upgrade failures, many of which already fixed or confirmed by developers based on our reports.
Building a Strategic Action Plan for the Ontario Construction Industry to Tackle Future Pandemics
Keywords: Construction
Pandemic

The construction industry is facing enormous challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to build a synthesized knowledge base of industry-level best practices for pandemics since there is no such knowledge base currently. The best practices were developed by synthesizing the experiences from other industries and other countries. Then, they were evaluated and prioritized by analyzing the results of industry surveys and expert interviews. Finally, the implications of the study and recommendations for the construction industry were produced and discussed. A total of 79 best practices were proposed at the end of this study. This study contributes to the development of a knowledge base of industry-level best practices for the construction industry in managing future pandemics. Future studies can investigate the implementation details of these best practices as implementation is the main concern of the construction industry.
An Electrospinning Approach to the Design of Gas-phase Heterogeneous Photocatalytic Systems
Keywords: Electrospinning
Heterogeneous
Photocatalysis
Solar fuels

This thesis is focused on solar fuels systems that use gas-phase heterogeneous (GPH) photocatalysis to convert CO2, the primary greenhouse gas driving climate change, into value added products. A solar fuels system’s ability to capture light energy in chemical bonds through photocatalytic reactions is crucial to its performance but can be very difficult to isolate from other factors. This work aims to use the highly versatile technique of electrospinning to gain better control over the parameters of a solar fuels system, with the intention to inform improved lab-scale characterization of photocatalytic materials, as well as to instruct system design approaches for scaling up such a system to a commercial scale. An iterative approach is applied to fabricating highly tunable photocatalytic layers, ultimately producing a repeatable and scalable support structure for photocatalysts that offers the flexibility and control required at multiple stages in the technology’s development.
Human-animal Interactions with Autistic Youth: A Critical Qualitative Study
Keywords: Autism
Autistic
Childhood
Human-Animal Interaction
Pet
Therapy

BACKGROUND: This study critically explored biomedical assumptions about autism and the desired effects of human animal interactions (HAI) for autistic young people. METHODS: A two-phase critical qualitative study was conducted. Phase One was a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) of HAI health sciences research. In Phase Two, four interviews were conducted with autistic children 12 to18 years old, a parent, and their pets. RESULTS: The CIS revealed that animals are largely represented as therapy tools or objects that are utilized to address so called “deficits” in social function. The interviews challenged these representations, suggesting autistic children and animals form multifaceted relationships that include notions of ownership, familial bonds, friendship, and affection. IMPLICATIONS: This research challenges how HAI and autism are represented and studied in health care and has implications for research design and clinical practice.
An Examination of the Effects of Victimization from Adolescent Bullying on Early-adulthood Health and Education: A Two-stage Analysis
Keywords: Adolescence
Bullying
Education
Health
Skill
Stress

Objective: To determine whether having been bullied in mid-adolescence has a measurable effect on health and economic welfare at age 25. Methods: This analysis applies a two-stage residual inclusion approach to the Next Steps survey cohort (n = 4017) to account for endogeneity resulting from variable mismeasurement. Control variables for stress factors are included to account for other hypothesized sources of endogeneity. Results: Having been bullied during adolescence is observed to have a significant and harmful relationship with a majority of the quality-of-life measures. Evidence of hypothesized sources of endogeneity are detected. Conclusion: Having been bullied during mid-adolescence is a significant economic and health shock at the level of the individual. Furthermore, as bullying is also highly prevalent worldwide, the cumulative effects across individuals make bullying a serious burden at a societal level. Initiatives which mitigate early-life stress and adolescent transitional pressures can likely improve overall social welfare.
The Role of a Stepwise Complement-mediated PMN Activation towards NETosis in the Pathogenesis of C3 Glomerulopathy
Keywords: C3 Glomerulopathy
CD11b
Citrullinated Histone 3
Complement system
NETosis
Polymorphonuclear neutrophils

C3G is a complement-driven disease that affects the filtration unit of the kidney, the glomerulus. There is a so far not understood gap in the pathogenetic cascade from complement activation (intravascular space) to inflammation and deposition in the glomeruli (extravascular space). Recently, C3G patient kidney biopsies were found to have significant infiltration of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) suggesting an underappreciated aspect of C3G pathogenesis. Given the chronic systemic complement activation found in C3G patients, I investigated the complement-induced responses of PMNs. I found a stepwise complement mediated PMN activation with upregulation of PMN priming markers (CD11b, MPO, CitH3) but not complete NETosis (intact nuclear membrane) in serum containing conditions. Only once transferred into serum-free conditions, PMNs completed the process of NETosis. My findings not only advance understanding of C3G pathogenesis, but also point towards more specific treatments for C3G patients with the potential to improve outcomes and quality of life.
StrandStrainer – Release Strand Persistency
Keywords: Crash Consistency
Memory Ordering
Persistent Memory
Release Semantics

Current computer systems assume data transfer from volatile to persistent storage through a slow, block-based interface. Emerging Persistent Memory (PM) technologies are challenging this paradigm by providing user-space software with a fast, byte-addressable interface to persistent storage. Bypassing the heavy file system transfers, software now need to ensure its own recoverability after crashes. Our work improves prior works on providing crash consistency guarantees, and introduces a new ISA-level primitive--PersistRelease to enable efficient execution of log-free data structures (LFD) on PM-aware systems. PersistRelease leverages the release semantics seen in popular memory consistency models, and accurately mirror its semantics in the persistency domain. By incorporating the release semantics, we avoid unnecessary stalls that prior works need. We incorporate hardware structures to execute PersistRelease, and evaluate our implementation on five LFD and one traditional workloads. We see an average speedup of 4% over the baseline implementation.
The Use of Proteomic Analyses to Identify Potential Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers in Multiple Sclerosis
Keywords: Biomarkers
Cerobrospinal Fluid
Mass Spectrometry
Multiple Sclerosis
Proteomics

Multiple sclerosis (MScl) remains a highly unpredictable disease. Many hope that fluid biomarkers may contribute to better stratification of disease, aiding the personalization of treatment decisions, ultimately improving patient outcomes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the predictive value of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) brain-specific proteins from early in the disease course of MScl on long term clinical outcomes. In this prospective longitudinal study, 34 MScl patients had their CSF collected and stored within 5 years of disease onset and were then followed clinically for at least 15 years. CSF concentrations of 64 brain-specific proteins were analyzed in the 34 patient CSF, as well as 19 age and sex-matched controls, using a targeted liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry approach. We identified six CSF brain-specific proteins that significantly differentiated MScl from controls (p<0.05) and several proteins that could predict disease course over the next decade. Calcium/Calmodulin Dependent Protein Kinase II Alpha (CAMK2A) emerged as a biomarker candidate that could discriminate between MScl and controls and could predict long-term disease progression. Targeted approaches to identify and quantify biomarkers associated with MScl in the CSF may inform on long term MScl outcomes. CAMK2A may be one of several candidates, warranting further exploration.
An Economic Evaluation of Docetaxel versus Abiraterone or Enzalutamide in Addition to Androgen Deprivation Therapy for the First-Line Treatment of Metastatic Hormone-sensitive Prostate Cancer in Ontario
Keywords: Cost-effectiveness analysis
Cost-utility analysis
Medical decision making
Partitioned survival model
Pharmaceutical sciences
Prostate cancer

Background: Prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality in Canada. Docetaxel, abiraterone, and enzalutamide have demonstrated survival benefits when added to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT); however, they have never been directly compared. Objective: To evaluate the cost-utility of adding docetaxel, abiraterone, or enzalutamide to ADT in newly diagnosed metastatic hormone sensitive prostate cancer (mHPSC). Methods: A partitioned survival model was constructed to estimate total costs, quality adjusted life years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) from the public payer perspective. Results: Although the addition of abiraterone or enzalutamide resulted in greater QALY gains compared to docetaxel (0.34 and 0.35 incremental QALYs, respectively), neither drug appeared cost-effective (ICERs $155,317 and $187,290/QALY, respectively). Model results were sensitive to abiraterone and enzalutamide drug costs. Conclusion: Without a substantial reduction in abiraterone or enzalutamide pricing, docetaxel addition to ADT is the preferred strategy in mHSPC treatment from a cost-effectiveness perspective.