VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Phonological and Morphological Skills in Emerging English-Hebrew Bilinguals
Keywords: bilinualism
development
English
Hebrew
morphology
phonology

Metalinguistic abilities such as phonological and morphological awareness are important language proficiency components. Three interrelated studies, based on a longitudinal project, investigated the development of phonological and morphological skills in children with English as the home language and Hebrew as an emerging second language. Two cohorts were followed for two years: The first (N= 48) was followed from junior kindergarten (JK) to Grade 1, the second (N= 38) was followed from senior kindergarten (SK) to Grade 2. Order of acquisition of phonological and morphological skills was explored longitudinally and processes of transfer from the strong to the weak language were examined. Data were analyzed by using General Estimating Equations.Findings indicated improvement across grades on final phoneme and syllable deletion tasks and a decline between SK to Grade 1 on initial phoneme task in Hebrew. The decline may reflect a growing exposure to the Hebrew orthography and to its body + coda construct. Performance on final phoneme isolation and syllable deletion was predicted by English phonological awareness, but not initial phoneme isolation performance. In English and Hebrew, a gradual development from SK to Grade 2 was noted on different morphological components (inflections, derivations and compounds). Transfer of inflectional morphology from English to Hebrew was also noted. In Hebrew, children demonstrated the ability to produce nouns spontaneously followed by the ability to produce adjectives and verbs in a learning process that was more sequential than parallel, and that may reflect the method of instruction. The process of learning how to inflect words followed by the ability to derive words was demonstrated in both languages on parallel experimental measures and on the Hebrew narrative task. The children figured out the morphological combinations that were more frequent, consistent, or salient. This explains the relationship between English and Hebrew in terms of order of acquisition. The findings support the effect of cogintive universal processes and language specific characteristics on the developemt of English (L1) and Hebrew (L2). The findings bear theoretical implications and practical implications for school instruction methods, particularly among teachers who work with young bilingual children.
Speckle And Motion Based Vascular Image Analysis for Optical Coherence Tomography
Keywords: Endovascular Imaging
Microvascular Imaging
Optical Coherence Tomography
Speckle

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is an emerging optical imaging modality that is capable of imaging biological tissues with micron resolution and millimeter penetration depth. In clinical diagnostic imaging and pathology, OCT has helped fill a gap in terms of both resolution and imaging depth, in between traditional fluoroescence based microscopes and non-invasive organ level imaging. In this domain, OCT can be used both as an ex vivo pathological examination tool or in vivo imaging modality.OCT has been successful in ophthalmology owing to its excellent in vivo optical sectioning ability and penetration depth. Over the years, OCT has seen substantial progress in terms of application diversification and functionalities. In addition to being able to image more organs and tissues, OCT has been configured to be incorporated inside catheters, enabling wall structure imaging in luminal settings, for example, major blood vessels or the digestive tract. And other than anatomical structures, OCT has also been able to specifically map out flow or elasticity.As OCT becomes more diversified, data obtained also become more diversified in terms of information but more complicated. For instance, in endovascular OCT (EV-OCT), data were acquired radially instead of the traditional raster scanning. Moreover, during the pullback scanning in EV-OCT, motion artefacts are severe and this restricts the amount of functional information to be obtained. Furthermore, as OCT imaging speed becomes faster, reaching as high as 3.2 MHz axial scan rate, flow imaging is obliged to undergo paradigm shift, particularly from conventional ultrasound practices.The main goal of this thesis was to address the development and validation of a set of algorithms that tackle these problems we now face in modern OCT systems and increase the utility of information obtained. In this thesis, an experimental protocol was first developed for proper porcine carotid arterial EV-OCT imaging. The data obtained were then utilized for the first time to dynamically detect microvessels (vasa vasorum) in major arterial wall. Meanwhile optimized digital speckle noise removal was performed for the first time on Fourier domain EV-OCT system data to further facilitate vessel wall evaluation and microvessel detection. Lastly, a novel depth enhanced OCT microangiography algorithm was devised for in vivo microvascular imaging of malformed vascular networks of human skin with genetic origins for the first time. The significance of this thesis lies in the potential of helping better understand the mechanism, progression and the effect of therapeutic intervention on various vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. Better preventive measures and treatment options can ultimately be devised with advanced understanding of vascular diseases formation.
Geometry Control System for Exploratory Shape Optimization Applied to High-fidelity Aerodynamic Design of Unconventional Aircraft
Keywords: aerodynamic shape optimization
aircraft design
geometry generation
induced drag
NURBS
shape exploration

This thesis represents a step forward to bring geometry parameterization and control on par with the disciplinary analyses involved in shape optimization, particularly high-fidelity aerodynamic shape optimization. Central to the proposed methodology is the non-uniform rational B-spline, used here to develop a new geometry generator and geometry control system applicable to the aerodynamic design of both conventional and unconventional aircraft. The geometry generator adopts a component-based approach, where any number of predefined but modifiable (parametric) wing, fuselage, junction, etc., components can be arbitrarily assembled to generate the outer mold line of aircraft geometry. A unique Python-based user interface incorporating an interactive OpenGL windowing system is proposed. Together, these tools allow for the generation of high-quality, C2 continuous (or higher), and customized aircraft geometry with fast turnaround. The geometry control system tightly integrates shape parameterization with volume mesh movement using a two-level free-form deformation approach. The framework is augmented with axial curves, which are shown to be flexible and efficient at parameterizing wing systems of arbitrary topology. A key aspect of this methodology is that very large shape deformations can be achieved with only a few, intuitive control parameters. Shape deformation consumes a few tenths of a second on a single processor and surface sensitivities are machine accurate. The geometry control system is implemented within an existing aerodynamic optimizer comprising a flow solver for the Euler equations and a sequential quadratic programming optimizer. Gradients are evaluated exactly with discrete-adjoint variables. The algorithm is first validated by recovering an elliptical lift distribution on a rectangular wing, and then demonstrated through the exploratory shape optimization of a three-pronged feathered winglet leading to a span efficiency of 1.22 under a height-to-span ratio constraint of 0.1. Finally, unconventional aircraft configurations sized for a regional mission are compared against a conventional baseline. Each aircraft is optimized by varying wing section and wing planform (excluding span) under lift and trim constraints at a single operating point. Based on inviscid pressure drag, the box-wing, C-tip blended-wingbody, and braced-wing configurations considered here are respectively 22%, 25%, and 45% more efficient than the tube-and-wing configuration.
GABA Receptor and KCa Channel-mediated Electrical Suppression in Anoxic Cortical Pyramidal Neurons of the Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta bellii)
Keywords: Anoxia
Channel arrest
GABAA receptor
Pyramidal neuron
Spike arrest
Turtle

The high energetic cost of neuronal communication requires large amounts of ATP to maintain function. In mammals, oxidative phosphorylation is required to meet these energy demands and without sufficient oxygen supply neuronal hyperexcitability and excitotoxic cell death occurs. This catastrophic cascade of events does not happen in the freshwater painted turtle Chrysemys picta bellii, instead there is a coordinated downregulation of cellular ATP consuming processes to match the lower anaerobic ATP supply. To reduce the energetic burden during anoxia turtles have evolved a sophisticated network of neuroprotective mechanisms including channel arrest and spike arrest which combine to prevent membrane depolarization and activation of excessive electrical activity. The aim of my research was to identify and elucidate cellular mechanisms responsible for suppression of electrical activity in anoxic turtle dorsal cortical brain pyramidal neurons. Using electrophysiological and fluorescent imaging techniques I demonstrate for the first time that: 1) in turtle dorsal cortex gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) release increases during anoxia and enhances a unique GABAA receptor-mediated giant postsynaptic current, and shifts membrane potential to the GABA reversal potential (EGABA), reducing electrical excitability; 2) endogenous GABAergic mechanisms responsible for anoxia-tolerance also protect against a debilitating ischemic solution that mimics the cerebral fluid in the penumbral area that surrounds the infarct core; 3) in pyramidal neurons the open probability of Ca2+-activated K+ channels decreases during anoxia and this is prevented by inhibition of protein kinase C; and 4) anoxia-mediated decreases in mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production are sufficient to initiate a redox-sensitive inhibitory GABA signaling cascade that suppresses electrical activity. Together this research significantly contributes to our understanding of the turtle's natural anoxia-tolerant strategy in brain and highlights the integral role of channel arrest and GABAergic spike arrest in prevention of anoxic or ischemic cell damage
The Development of Pragmatic Markers in Canadian English
Keywords: Canadian English
grammaticalization
language change
pragmatic markers
variationist sociolinguistics

This thesis examines the mechanisms of linguistic change involved in the actuation and subsequent development of pragmatic markers (PMs). Using the variationist method, I test the predictions of analysts who have argued that the development of PMs unfolds according to grammaticalization theory (inter alia Hopper and Traugott 1995). In doing so, I address two desiderata suggested in the literature for a better understanding of how PMs change: 1) an examination of both real- and apparent-time data (Pichler and Levey 2011), and 2) an examination of multiple features (Tagliamonte and Denis 2010).The data come from several collections of recorded Ontario English. I examine the Toronto English Archive (Tagliamonte 2006b), a contemporary sociolinguistic corpus, and two collections of oral history interviews recorded in 1975 and 1984, the Belleville Oral History Project and the Farm Work and Farm Life Since 1890 Oral History Collection. Together, these represent an apparent-time span of over one hundred years. The features are general extenders and epistemic parentheticals both of which have been argued to show evidence of ongoing grammaticalization (e.g., Cheshire 2007; Thompson and Mulac 1991).The analysis of the general extenders system finds a lack of evidence for phonetic reduction, decategorialization, and semantic-pragmatic shift of the innovative variant 'and stuff' - each of these changes is a critical component of grammaticalization according to grammaticalization theory. I further show that although the epistemic parenthetical system of Ontario English reorganized through the twentieth century, the changes involved were not the result of gradual grammaticalization, as evidenced by a lack of ongoing fusion, a lack of change in syntactic mobility, and a lack of ongoing semantic bleaching. While the two case studies provide evidence against the idea that PMs develop according to grammaticalization theory, there is no denying that grammaticalization, the phenomenon, has taken place: lexical elements have become PMs. I conclude that the evidence suggests the grammaticalization of pragmatic markers as abrupt reanalysis of lexical material, from one syntactic category to some other syntactic category (see Roberts and Roussou 2003).
Streaming of Markov Sources over Burst Erasure Channels
Keywords: Multimedia Streaming
Multi-terminal Source Coding
Netweork Information Theory
Rate-Distortion Theory

Real-time streaming communication systems require both the sequential encoding of information sources and playback under strict latency constraints. The central focus of this thesis is on the fundamental limits of such communication systems in the presence of packet losses. In practice packet losses are unavoidable due to fading in wireless channels or congestion in wired networks. While several ad hoc approaches are used to deal with packet losses in streaming systems, in this thesis we examine these approaches using an information theoretic framework.In our setup, the source process is a sequence of vectors sampled from a spatially i.i.d. and temporally a first-order stationary Markov distribution. The encoder sequentially compresses these source vectors into channel packets. The channel may introduce a burst erasure of length up to B in an unknown location during the transmission period, and perfectly reveals the rest of the packets to the destination. The decoder is interested in reconstructing the source vectors with zero delay, except those at the time of erasure and a window of length W following it. The minimum attainable compression rate for this setup R(B,W), termed the rate-recovery function, is investigated for discrete source with lossless recovery, and Gauss-Markov sources with a quadratic distortion measure. The above setup introduces a new problem in network information theory. Our key contributions include: (1) Upper and lower bounds on the rate-recovery function for discrete memoryless sources and lossless recovery, which coincide in some special cases. (2) A new coding scheme for the Gauss-Markov sources and a quadratic distortion measure. This scheme can be interpreted as a hybrid between predictive coding and memoryless quantization-and-binning. (3) Extensions of our zero-delay setup to incorporate non-zero decoding delays. We further show that our proposed hybrid coding scheme yields significant performance gains over baseline schemes such as predictive coding, memoryless quantization-and-binning and interleaving, over statistical channels such as the i.i.d. erasure channel and the Gilbert Elliott channel, and performs close to optimally, over a wide range of channel parameters. While our information theoretic framework involves coding theorems for burst-erasure channels our resulting schemes are applicable for much broader class of erasure channels and can yield significant performance gains in practice.
The Stages of Building Public-private Partnerships in Public Health: Factors Influencing the Engagement Process in the Context of Healthy Eating in Restaurants in Ontario
Keywords: Framework development
Government
Healthy eating
Mixed-methods research
Public-private partnerships
Restaurants

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in public health are powerful tools to promote collaboration among organizations that cannot achieve their specific goals alone. Although there are frameworks that explain important aspects of multisectoral partnerships, they lack detailed descriptions of the stages and related factors to enable organizations progress along the path of PPP development, particularly in relation to obesity prevention or diet-related chronic diseases.This dissertation focuses on advancing the knowledge and understanding of factors that influence the process of building PPPs in public health, using healthy eating in restaurants in Ontario as the context for the study. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods research design was used to survey high-level representatives of organizations from the public and private sectors, non-governmental organizations and academia. Follow-up interviews were conducted to complement and expand the findings of previous survey, as well as to discover new perspectives from research participants.The integration of the findings, complemented by relevant literature, yielded the first theory-driven, empirically-based framework, which highlights 8 stages of building PPPs in public health: Awareness, Recognition, Contemplation, Dialogue, Negotiation, Deliberation, Engagement Decision, and Preparation. The Framework is a transparent tool that details the expected stages involved in PPP development, and uncovers associated factors that could enable or hinder collaboration, while enabling organizations to discuss, negotiate, and eventually deliberate and prepare openly for the successful creation of PPPs in public health, and possibly beyond.
Development of Biosensors to Monitor the Interaction of Small Molecules with Amyloidogenic Proteins using Optical and Electrochemical Methods
Keywords: aggregation
amyloid
biosensor
electrochemistry
optical
small molecules

Amyloidogenic protein fibrils are well known pathological hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). The Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis attributes the onset and progression of AD to an imbalance in amyloid-beta (Abeta). In PD, a definitive diagnosis of Parkinson's disease can be confirmed only by post mortem examination of the patient's substantia nigra for the presence of Lewy bodies, mainly comprised of alpha-synuclein (a-S). As the toxicity in these neurodegenerative diseases is highly correlated with the formation of soluble oligomers from their corresponding proteins, a strategy to inhibit the aggregation of Abeta and a-S may help to ameliorate AD and PD respectively (Chapter 1). Herein, we review the fundamentals of electrochemistry (Chapter 2) before demonstrating the use of electrochemical techniques, acoustic wave sensor and BiacoreX surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to characterize the aggregation of Abeta (Chapter 3). We have shown that amyloid aggregation could be monitored through these label-free methods and clioquinol (CQ) inhibits the progression of aggregation. We further increased the throughput of monitored small molecules and Abeta interactions through the use of SPR imaging (SPRi) (Chapter 4) and LED-interferometric reflective imaging sensor (LED-IRIS) (Chapter 5). These studies showed that epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) modulates the Abeta aggregation pathway to form beta-sheet absent aggregates while certain metal ions generally accelerate the Abeta aggregation process to form thick mature fibrils. These results are supported by Thioflavin T (ThT) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies.We then studied the effects of CQ on a-S (Chapter 6) using electrochemical techniques and spectroscopic dyes such as ThT and Congo Red. Both electrochemical and spectroscopic studies showed that Cu(II) accelerated the fibril formation of a-S, while CQ inhibited such activity. This electrochemical analysis was further modified to include an optical screening test on the same transduction platform by utilizing nanosphere lithography (NSL) (Chapter 7). Complemented by Localized-SPR, SPRi, TEM and ThT studies, it was found that dense and unstructured amorphous a-S aggregates were induced by EGCG, while beta-sheet-rich and compact a-S mesh-networks were promoted by Cu(II) ions, in agreement with previous results.
Porphyrin-based Nanostructure-dependent Photodynamic and Photothermal Therapies
Keywords: liposome
nanoparticle
photodynamic therapy
photothermal therapy
porphyrin
porphysome

This thesis presents the investigation of nanostructure-dependent phototherapy. We reviewed the liposomal structures for delivery of photosensitizers, and introduced a novel class of phototransducing liposomes called "porphysomes". Porphysomes are self-assembled from high packing density of pyropheophorbide -conjugated phospholipids, resulting in extreme self-quenching of porphyrin fluorescence and comparable optical absorption to gold nanoparticles for high photothermal efficiency. We demonstrated this self-assembly of porphyrin-lipid conjugates converts a singlet oxygen generating mechanism (photodynamic therapy PDT activity) of porphyrin to photothermal mechanism (photothermal therapy PTT activity). The efficacy of porphysome-enhanced PTT was then evaluated on two pre-clinical animal models. We validated porphysome-enabled focal PTT to treat orthotopic prostate cancer using MRI-guided focal laser placement to closely mimic the current clinic procedure. Furthermore, porphysome-enabled fluorescence-guided transbronchial PTT of lung cancer was demonstrated in rabbit orthotopic lung cancer models, which led to the development of an ultra-minimally invasive therapy for early-stage peripheral lung cancer. On the other hand, the nanostructure-mediated conversion of PDT to PTT can be switched back by nanoparticle dissociation. By incorporating folate-conjugated phospholipids into the formulation, porphysomes were internalized into cells rapidly via folate receptor-mediated endocytosis and resulted in efficient disruption of nanostructures, which turned back on the photodynamic activity of densely packed porphyrins, making a closed loop of conversion between PDT and PTT. The multimodal imaging and therapeutic features of porphysome make it ideal for future personalized cancer treatments.