VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Essential Internet: Locating Internet Contingent Practices Activities at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation
Keywords: Community informatics
Internet policy
Social technology studies
Technology inclusion
Telecommunications policy
Universal broadband

This doctoral dissertation examines household internet use amongst residents of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), North America’s second largest social housing undertaking, comprised of 60,000 residential units that provide housing for more than 100,000 low-income individuals. Primary data was collected from rent-geared-to-income residents at three facilities characterized by elderly, single, and family occupancy. The research methodology utilizes a Social Systems Theory framework which situates household internet service as a technical resource employed by residents in the course of their basic needs undertakings. Five basic needs activity areas were investigated in order to ascertain the extent to which internet services facilitate and support household routines: education, health, childcare, nutrition, and finances. The results of the study suggest that household internet services can elevate the productivity of residents by multiplying the volume of tasks they are able to perform, and with greater efficiencies across interconnected basic needs activity areas. As internet use becomes normalized within the household, basic needs activities and routines that are arranged around household internet services can become contingent on access to the technology, and are consequently at risk of being destabilized during periods of long-term internet service disruption. This precarity is heightened by the experience of fixed and limited income resources liminal to the poverty threshold in TCHC households. The data collected in this study suggests that traditional policy approaches to remediating digital exclusion, such as retail market incentives and investment in community intermediaries, are insufficient to support the internet needs of the TCHC households who participated in the study. First, income to expense ratios in family households further tension the affordability constraints associated with maintaining their retail internet services. Second, the temporary access facilitated by community intermediaries, such as public schools and public libraries, is insufficient in supporting household routines which have been patterned on household internet services, and should not be situated as proxies for fixed at-home internet services. The results of this study broaden the scope of scholarship concerned with issues of digital exclusion, as well as public policy interested in ameliorating digital divides and fostering digital inclusion.
Instructor’s Emotional Responses during Online Asynchronous Teaching
Keywords: Case study
Emotions
Higher Education
IMotions
Online Instruction

Online instruction is becoming a more dominant method of instruction; over 69% of higher education institutions now say that online learning is a critical part of their long-term strategy (Allen and Seaman, 2017). The expansion of online education can create multiple challenges for educators due to a lack of resources, time, training, and experience. Faculty are faced with learning curves around course content and delivery while simultaneously adapting to new technologies (Keengwe Kidd, 2010; Rehfuss, Kirk-Jenkins, Milliken, 2015). Therefore, online instructors' emotions are of central importance, as the well-being and general demeanour of instructors, even behind the computer, can impact their relationships with their students. Students and instructors in online learning should develop a reciprocal relationship where both understand and communicate effectively to prevent negative emotions, such as frustration and contempt. However, little is known about instructor emotional experiences in online learning, and most studies on teacher and instructor emotions are done through self-report. Survey results showed a high level of well-being and positive emotions across all instructors. Open-ended responses on the emotional profile were coded into four themes, technical and organizational, communication, instructor experiences and attention and engagement. Instructors expressed that their online learning emotions were largely dependent on student attention and engagement, with achievement specifically being the prime influence in their emotions while completing instructional activities. Further investigation of four instructors in IMotions, all of which chose to complete student feedback activities as their filmed task, highlighted the use of comments on student assignments as a means of communication between instructor and student and a method of understanding student profiles. This task proved to be a highly emotional experience, with frustration and contempt being the two most consistently reported emotions in IMotions throughout each recorded task.. Therefore, this study highlights the importance of capturing instructor emotions in real-time and through self-report. Each method captures a specific point of the instructional experience and instructors' expressed emotions during instructional tasks and their emotional state while completing these tasks.
Galaxy Cluster Pressure Profiles and The Next Generation of South Pole Telescope Science and Instrumentation
Keywords: Cosmology
Galaxy Clusters
Instrumentation

The sensitivity of ground-based Cosmic Microwave Background telescopes has exploded over the past decade. Multichroic pixel design and improved wide-field optics have allowed for huge increases to the number of background limited detectors that can be installed into a single focal plane array. Such telescopes are on the cusp of detecting the elusive primordial gravitational waves predicted by models of cosmic inflation. They will also map vast numbers of galaxy clusters out to high redshifts, providing a powerful probe of evolving structure within the largest gravitationally bound objects in our Universe. This thesis covers several active areas of research relating to the instrumentation, observations, and scientific analysis for one of the worlds leading Cosmic Microwave Background telescopes, the South Pole Telescope. We begin by covering the design, operation, and performance of the third-generation South Pole Telescope camera, SPT3G. The SPT-3G camera contains over 14,000 operable transition edge sensor detectors, and is on track to map a 1500 deg2 patch of the Cosmic Microwave Background to a depth of ∼ 2 µK-arcmin at 150 GHz. We follow this with a description of the cryogenic testbed environment that was developed for characterizing the SPT-3G detectors and readout in a laboratory environment. The dark testing results of transition edge sensor properties were used to fine-tune the fabrication process towards the desired detector performance, as well as informing future research and development efforts. This thesis concluded with an analysis of galaxy cluster pressure profiles using the cluster catalogue and data from the 2500 deg2 SPT-SZ survey. Projected temperature profiles are computed using a multi-band least-squares fit and then fit to parametric pressure profile models. We find that the the average pressure at high radii is low compared to previous works, with the discrepancy driven by a population of clusters that display strongly peaked profiles with little extended signal. Morphologically different cluster subsamples are explored which show a measurably different pressure profile structure between relaxed and disturbed clusters. We also explore deviations from self similar scaling across the mass and redshift range of the SPT-SZ catalogue, finding that the measured evolution is driven by variations in the underlying cluster morphology.
Optimization Methods based on Decision Diagrams for Constraint Programming, AI Planning, and Mathematical Programming
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence
Constraint Programming
Decision Diagrams
Discrete Optimization
Mathematical Programming

Decision diagrams (DDs) are graphical structures that can be used to solve discrete optimization problems by representing the set of feasible solutions as paths in a graph. This graphical encoding of the feasibility set can represent complex combinatorial structures and is the foundation of several novel optimization techniques. Due to their flexibility, DDs have become an attractive optimization tool for researchers in different fields, including operations research and computer science. This dissertation investigates new techniques to use DDs in conjunction with existing discrete optimization approaches based on constraint programming (CP), artificial intelligence (AI), and integer programming (IP). The central thesis of this dissertation is that DDs are effective tools to capture complex combinatorial structures of discrete optimization problems that are not fully exploited by general-purpose solvers. Thus, combinations of DDs with existing technologies can achieve state-of-the-art performance on challenging optimization problems. Throughout this work, we address this thesis by developing novel DD procedures that leverage methodologies from different optimization fields to solve discrete optimization problems. Our first project employs Lagrangian duality to strengthen DD bounds for pickup-and-delivery problems. The second project explores new ways to generate admissible heuristics for AI planning tasks by combining DD relaxations with AI planning techniques. This work also studies the relationship between DD heuristics and existing admissible heuristics in the community. Lastly, we propose a novel combinatorial lifting procedure and two cutting plane approaches based on DDs for general-form binary optimization problems. We show theoretical guarantees for our lifting procedure (e.g., conditions to obtain facet-defining inequalities) and provide a thorough theoretical analysis of our two cutting plane procedures. We apply our DD techniques to different problems, extending the usability of DDs in the field. Our first work extends the literature of DDs for sequencing problems by considering capacity constraints and proposing a DD construction procedure based on this restriction. We also present two DD encodings for delete-free AI planning and analyze the properties of both representations. Our last project introduces a new DD network flow formulation and proposes a novel DD encoding for second-order cone inequalities.
Toward Listening as a Curatorial Method: Histories, Methodologies, Propositions
Keywords: Composition for Museum
Exhibition History
John Cage
Sound art
Sound Curation
Spatial Music

From the 1960s through the 1980s, an ever-expanding exploration of sound occurred within the visual arts field, helping give birth to sound art (and its exhibition) as a unique genre. The number of sound art exhibitions has grown exponentially over time, reaching into major art institutions. Building on information gathered about more than 250 sound art group exhibitions from the 1960s to the present, involving works made by a number of artists/musicians, I recognized three main approaches for curating sound: The sonic image, the exhibition as spatial music, and musical composition for visual objects. This dissertation follows these three sound curating methodologies, their histories, and the propositions and influence they have contributed to the production, positioning, and reception of sound in art today. I start with a question: Why does the most common method for displaying multiple sound works (or works with sound) within the same gallery space invariably involve constraining these sounds with acoustic barriers to keep them separate? I maintain that this separation of sounds in museums follows how we see, and not how we hear. I argue that this method, which I have termed the “sonic image,” is made in order to ‘help’ us experience sound works as we do visual objects—to hear a sound only when we see it. Since the sonic turn of the 1990s a few composers curated sound art group shows demonstrating an auditory approach to sound curation: the “exhibition as spatial music.” Composing exhibitions as spatial music means addressing sound’s materiality and applying listening philosophies into the intricacies of the exhibitionary. In doing so, these composers composed exhibitions which—like music—stimulate an inner subjective space within the listener. The third methodology—the “musical composition for visual objects”—belongs to John Cage, who composed three compositions for museum later in his life. By relating to objects as musical notes, and curating by using a musical score, Cage’s exhibitions demonstrate that listening should not be limited to the sphere of sound, and thus methodologies informed by auditory perception can stimulate multiple layers of perception in the gallery.
Numerical Modeling of Suspension Plasma Spraying Process
Keywords: dynamic drag law
electromagnetic fields
solid concentration
suspension plasma spraying
three-dimensional unsteady plasma flow
yttria-stabilized zirconia

Suspension plasma spraying (SPS), a relatively new deposition technique in thermal spray coating technology, has been increasingly applied to deposit high-quality thermal barrier coatings using sub-micron particles. An accurate simulation of the process includes developing a realistic plasma model both within and outside the torch. In the current work, a three-dimensional time-dependent model has been developed to simulate magneto-hydrodynamic fields inside a direct current (DC) plasma torch, including arc fluctuations. Reynolds stress model (RSM) is used to simulate the time-dependent turbulent plasma flow. A two-way coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian method is employed to investigate the effects of arc fluctuations on the droplets' trajectory, temperature, and speed. Sub-micron yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) solid particles suspended into ethanol are modeled as multicomponent droplets. Kelvin-Helmholtz Rayleigh-Taylor (KHRT) breakup model is used to simulate the droplets' atomization. This model considers the effects of both aerodynamic forces (Wave model) and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities on the atomization process combing a liquid core region (Levich model). Particles are also tracked after completion of suspension breakup and evaporation to obtain inflight particles' conditions (trajectory, size, speed, and temperature). The developed model is then employed to study the droplets' shape and solid concentration on the SPS process. A dynamic drag law is applied to analyze the effect of droplets/particles' shape on the SPS process. It was concluded that the percentage of molten particles in applying dynamic drag law (non-spherical particles) decreases significantly compared to using the spherical particles. The effect of suspension concentration is also studied. It was shown that using a higher solid concentration (20 compared to 10 wt.% YSZ) provides a denser coating as a result of the larger molten landed particles with higher velocities. Finally, the developed model is used to study the in-flight droplets/particles' atomization in the SPS process. Nine case studies are investigated to see the effect of KH, RT instabilities, and breakup length on the droplets/particles' atomization. A massive difference is represented in quantity, droplets' atomization pattern, and quality of the final landed particles over the substrate of some cases. The obtained size distributions of the trapped particles over the substrate are compared to the existing data to find the suggested ranges for the breakup model’s constants.
Weakly Measuring the Tme a Transmitted Photon Causes Atoms to Spend in the Excited State
Keywords: Excitation without loss
Light-matter interaction
Open quantum systems
Quantum mechanics
Quantum optics
Weak measurement

When a resonant photon traverses a sample of absorbing atoms, how much time do atoms spend in the excited state? Does the answer depend on whether the photon is ultimately scattered vs. transmitted? In particular, if it is not scattered, meaning that it emerges in the direction it entered, does it cause atoms to spend any time in the excited state, and if so, how much? In this thesis, I report an experimental measurement of the time a transmitted photon causes atoms to spend in the excited state. The experiment is carried out in an ultra-cold gas of Rubidium 85 atoms and involves simultaneously recording changes to the excited state occupation number induced by incident ("signal") photons and whether those photons are transmitted. The time atoms spend in the excited state, which is defined in terms of the time integral of the average excited state occupation number, is measured weakly using a separate, off-resonant “probe” laser to monitor the index of refraction of the sample—that is, I measure the nonlinear phase shift written by a signal pulse on this probe beam—and direct detection is used to isolate the effect of a single transmitted photon. For short pulses (10 ns, to be compared to the 26 ns atomic lifetime) and an optically thick medium (peak OD = 4, leading to 60% absorption given our broad bandwidth), I report that the average time atoms spend in the excited state due to one transmitted photon is not zero, but rather (77 +/- 16)% of the time the average incident photon causes them to spend in the excited state. This observation of “excitation without loss” is attributed to coherent forward emission, which arises, for instance, due to the sign-flip the instantaneous Rabi frequency (pulse envelope) picks up when a broadband pulse propagates through an optically thick medium with highly frequency-dependent absorption [1]. The results of this thesis reveal the complex history of photons as they propagate through an absorbing medium and illustrate the power of utilizing post-selection to experimentally investigate the past behaviour of observed quantum systems.
Tracing the Footsteps of the Prophet across the Indian Ocean: The Materiality of Prophetic Piety in Mughal India
Keywords: Indian Ocean
Mughal Empire
Prophet Muhammad
Qadam
Relics
Religious Materiality

This dissertation adopts theoretical and methodological insights from the study of religious materiality to explore how Indian Ocean travel gave rise to religious discourses and practices in South Asia. It traces how the circulation of people, objects, and knowledge between North India and the Hejaz led to new forms of Muslim piety in the imperial centers of the Mughal Empire. A characteristic feature of this piety was belief in the auspicious nature of the Prophet Muḥammad’s body. This belief was expressed both in scholastic discourse and ritual practice as evidenced by the history of Prophetic relics and tradition examined in this dissertation.The introduction lays forth the concept of Prophetic piety and outlines what it means to study it from the perspective of material religion. It draws attention to the way material culture has been mobilized to preserve the memory of the Prophet Muḥammad. Chapter one looks at the arrival of a qadam or footprint relic associated with the Prophet to the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605), and focuses on the religious debates and royal rituals of veneration it engendered. The analysis offers insight on the practice of religious inquiry at the Mughal court and its role in the performance of sovereignty. Chapter two looks at the development of two monumental reliquary shrines, one in Delhi and the other in Ahmedabad, whose central relics shared a connected history. By focusing on the religious economy of the shrines, the chapter looks at how various actors invested in the shrine, including the Mughal court, Chishtī Sufis, and Sayyids, and how their interventions may have shaped devotees’ relic practices. Chapter three contextualizes these ritual practices at the reliquary shrines within new scholastic discourses that began circulating in seventeenth century Delhi. These discourses are found in the scholastic writings of North Indian Sufis who expressed a strong devotion to the Prophet and who had travelled to the Hejaz for pilgrimage and studying hadith. It is in their writings that we see clear expression of the belief in the auspicious nature of the Prophet’s body.
Deployment Dynamics and Stability of a Boom-supported Solar Sail
Keywords: axially translating continua
deployment dynamics
solar sails
structural dynamics
vibration stability

The deployment dynamics and stability of a flexible space structure, namely a solar sail consisting of membranes attached to booms, are considered. The assumed deployment is achieved by extending the booms—modelled as Euler-Bernoulli beams with no axial deflections—at a constant rate. The overall approach involves obtaining the system's equations of motion using a time-varying generalization of the extended Hamilton's principle. These equations are then discretized upon expressing the relevant deflections as truncated series involving time-varying generalized coordinates and both time- and space-varying basis functions. The basis functions are selected based on the eigenfunctions of a cantilevered beam and a clamped membrane, but given the time-varying sizes of the components involved, they are termed "quasi-modes" and viewed as snapshots of the system's modes at given times. Two models are developed: a linear model that only accounts for the out-of-plane deflections, obtains the stress field by assuming a linearly increasing pretension at the boom-membrane interfaces, and reaches discretized equations of motion that are linear in the states (generalized coordinates); and a nonlinear model that accounts for the deflections in all directions, assumes plate strains and a suitable constitutive relation to obtain the stress field, and features nonlinear terms in its discretized equations of motion. To increase the computational efficiency, coordinate transformations and linear algebraic manipulations are performed to render all necessary spatial integrals time invariant. The extension of the linear formulation from a quadrant to a complete sail is also discussed. The linear model is used for stability analysis using two approaches: by obtaining a simple analytic expression for the rate of change of vibration energy in a quadrant, which implies decreasing energy during extension and increasing energy during retraction; and using a "frozen" eigenvalue study—assuming instantaneously constant lengths—on a complete sail, which indicates possibility of divergence depending on the extension rate and the pretension. The nonlinear model also attempts to provide wrinkling predictions using the Miller-Hedgepeth model: a coarse mesh is used, the instantaneous state of each region is determined using a wrinkling criterion and averaged principal stresses, and each region's constitutive relation is adjusted based on its wrinkling state.
Instability of Electroweak Homogeneous Vacua in Strong Magnetic Fields
Keywords: analysis
bifurcation
electroweak
standard model
weak nuclear
Weinberg-Salam

We consider the classical (local) vacua of the Weinberg-Salam (WS) model of electroweak forces. These are defined as no-particle, static solutions to the WS equations minimizing the WS energy locally. In the absence of particles, the Weinberg-Salam model reduces to the Yang-Mills-Higgs (YMH) equations for the gauge group U(2). We consider the WS system in a constant external magnetic field, b, and prove that (i) there is a magnetic field threshold b* such that for b