VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Development of Outcome Measures and Identification of Effective Behavioral Modification Strategies to Study the Efficacy of Habitual Physical Activity on Health Outcome in Children with Chronic Disease
Keywords: Behavioural Change
Interventions
Paediatric Chronic Conditions
Physical Activity

Background Physical activity (PA) may play an integral role in improving the quality of life of children with chronic conditions by ameliorating disease symptoms, preventing the onset of disability and reducing secondary disease risk. A lack of valid outcome measures, tools and behavioral strategies to implement PA interventions negatively impacts the quality of studies. Objective The objective of this thesis was to determine the validity of PA outcome measures, tools to identify readiness to take part in physical activity, as well as to determine the efficacy of behavioral theories and techniques for increasing PA in children with chronic conditions. Methods The validity of accelerometry, a PA measurement tool, was studied by comparing accelerometer output to a gold standard measure of energy expenditure. Strategies for dealing with missing data from accelerometers were synthesized in a review of the literature. The face, content and construct validity of the stage of exercise scale (SOES), used to identify readiness to exercise, was examined by studying the relationships among SOES and itâ s theoretical constructs. Finally, the efficacy of behavioral techniques and theories applied to interventions to increase PA was identified by systematic review. Results Pre-existing accelerometer equations and cut points are not valid for children with chronic conditions. In response, disease specific equations and cut points were developed. Multiple imputation demonstrated the least bias in replacing missing accelerometer data. The SOES demonstrated acceptable face, content and construct validity. Physical activity interventions demonstrated a small effect on increasing PA levels. Overall, theory informed interventions did not demonstrate a significant effect. Social Cognitive Theory demonstrated limited efficacy with strongest evidence for behavioral techniques associated with goals and planning. Conclusions This thesis has contributed tools, measures and strategies that are valid, accurate and efficacious that will facilitate the delivery of PA interventions to children with chronic conditions.
Hacking the Master Switch? The Role of Infrastructure in Googleâ s Network Neutrality Strategy in the 2000s
Keywords: business strategy
infrastructure studies
Internet governance
science and technology studies
telecommunications regulation

During most of the decade of the 2000s, global Internet company Google Inc. was one of the most prominent public champions of the notion of network neutrality, the network design principle conceived by Tim Wu that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by network operators. However, in 2010, following a series of joint policy statements on network neutrality with telecommunications giant Verizon, Google fell nearly silent on the issue, despite Wu arguing that a neutral Internet was vital to Google’s survival. During this period, Google engaged in a massive expansion of its services and technical infrastructure. My research examines the influence of Google’s systems and service offerings on the company’s approach to network neutrality policy making. Drawing on documentary evidence and network analysis data, I identify Google’s global proprietary networks and server locations worldwide, including over 1500 Google edge caching servers located at Internet service providers. I argue that the affordances provided by its systems allowed Google to mitigate potential retail and transit ISP gatekeeping. Drawing on the work of Latour and Callon in Actor–network theory, I posit the existence of at least one actor-network formed among Google and ISPs, centred on an interest in the utility of Google’s edge caching servers and the success of the Android operating system. I suggest that this actor-network was a manifestation of the transformation of Google from a content provider as conceived by Wu into a new kind of Internet governance policy and network actor: the platform hybrid. Drawing on the work of Ciborra, I suggest a number of processes of technological and organisational change that were central to this transformation, allowing Google to at least partially “hack” Wu’s master switch. In conclusion, I describe the characteristics of Google as a platform hybrid and its implications for network neutrality policy making and Internet governance.
Miniaturized, label free optical systems for imaging brain hemodynamics
Keywords: Biophotonics
Brain imaging
Hemodynamics
Imaging systems
Optical imaging

This dissertation focuses on instrumentation development for optical monitoring of hemodynamics in rodent brains, which would allow neurophysiologists, conducting pre-clinical research on brain diseases and disorders, to better understand disease onset and progression, and evaluate treatment options. Three specific challenges in applying optical tools to brain imaging were addressed: (1) the limited robustness of optical imaging in the presence of misfocus, (2) the low sensitivity in imaging brain activity under anaesthesia in chronic, longitudinal studies, and (3) the limited penetration depth of optical microscopy in tissue. Two methods were proposed to address misfocus-related imaging artefacts, which enable quantitative optical measurements of blood flow to take place across large fields of view and over long imaging time-frames. A system for blood flow monitoring with extended depth of field was developed, showing improved ability to accurately image flow speeds over large areas in the brain. In addition, a novel measure for misfocus was proposed, enabling robust autofocusing in the presence of measurement noise. A miniaturized, skull-mounted multi-modal optical imaging system was designed for imaging brain blood flow and oxygenation changes in freely-behaving animals. This device constituted the first demonstration of wide-field optical imaging of brain blood flow and oxygenation in a chronic setting, suitable for longitudinal studies of brain disease progression and investigating treatment efficacy. Lastly, a novel endoscopy method was proposed to measure flow speeds of scattering fluids through a single, multi-mode optical fiber. This endoscopy method could enable imaging blood flow speeds in deep brain structures using a minimally-invasive probe that is over 2x smaller than conventional micro-endoscopes used today. Combined, the accomplishments described in this dissertation contributed to making optical measurements of brain hemodynamics applicable to a wider range of imaging assays, and to making optical imaging a more accessible tool for the study of brain vasculature.
La retorica della storiografia letteraria nell'etĂ  dell'Arcadia
Keywords: Becelli
Crescimbeni
Gimma
Quadrio
Storiografia letteraria
Zeno

This thesis analyses, from a rhetorical perspective, the main works of the founding fathers of Italian literary history, all of whom lived in the golden years of the Accademia dell'Arcadia: Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (1663-1728), Giacinto Gimma (1668-1735), Giulio Cesare Becelli (1686-1750), Apostolo Zeno (1669-1750), and Francesco Saverio Quadrio (1695-1756). The methodology is derived from the theoretical framework outlined by Hayden White in Metahistory (1973), adapted to the field of literary history. It is based on the four main rhetorical tropes, the methodological import of which was first pointed out by Giambattista Vico in his New Science (1725, 1730, and 1744): metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. According to White, the historiographer narrates facts through “a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse.” Such narration follows a process of pre-configuration according to one of the above-mentioned tropes, combining one of four archetypical categories of emplotment (romance, comedy, tragedy, and satire), one of four categories of argumentation (formalist, organicist, mechanistic, and contextualist), and one of the four basic categories of ideological implication: conservatism, liberalism, anarchism, and radicalism. Following the example of White in his study of eight 19th-century historians and philosophers of history--namely Michelet, Ranke, Tocqueville, and Burkhardt among the historians, and Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx, and Croce among the philosophers--this thesis classifies the five mentioned authors according to the appropriate paradigms for trope-emplotment, mode of argumentation and ideological implication. As a result, Crescimbeni’s distinctive traits are found to be synecdoche, romance, formalism and liberalism; Zeno’s are irony, contextualism, satire and conservatism; Gimma’s are metaphor, romance, contextualism and liberalism; Quadrio’s are metonymy, comedy, organicism and conservatism; and Becelli’s are metaphor, epic, organicism and radicalism. The “epic” mode of emplotment has been added to White's original framework, given the role played by Italian poetry in the cultural discourse on the nascent Italian spirit of the nation, of which it became a primary symbol.
The Mobile Distinction: Economies of Intimacy in the Field of Location Based Marketing
Keywords: Location Data
Marketing
Mobile Media
Surveillance

This thesis examines the cultural and economic significance of location data in the field of location based marketing using Pierre Bourdieuâ s conceptual framework of habitus, capital, and field. I argue that location data signifies a new kind of capital that marketers exploit to inform new epistemologies of habitus and distinction in mobile digital culture. However, the capacity to leverage location data as capital depends on how marketers can structure new kinds of intimacies of consent with consumers to participate in the production and disclosure of location. This creates complex power dynamics of interactivity between consumers and marketers, in effect creating a new field of location based marketing where the goal is to intensify the proxemics between marketers and consumers by successfully exploiting location data as capital.Â  A major finding of this thesis is that location data is informing new models of consumer clustering and segmentation. These in some respects mimic the logic of geodemographics, but are unique in that they are constructed by new theoretical and cultural beliefs about the significance of mobility and fluidity. Therefore, marketers are increasingly exploiting new kinds of mobile and location based technologies to surveil urban environments in order to construct these new segmentation models. This is done primarily by extracting location data from smartphones, but increasingly invisible methods are being tested, such as passive RF sensing. This suggests that the economies of intimacy desired by marketers must negotiate several key risks concerning the extent to which consumers perceive and consent to this kind of surveillance. This thesis draws on semi-structured qualitative interviews with key participants in the North American mobile and location based marketing industry, participant observation in several marketing events, and discourse analysis of marketing white papers to produce a small-scale exploratory investigation into an emerging field of marketing. It contributes to several fields of academic research, including consumer surveillance, urban geography, and mobile media, in order to stimulate new researchÂ directions in mobile digital culture that depart from user-centric studies.
Digital mm-Wave Transmitters
Keywords: digital transmitter
power amplifier
RF-DAC
SOI CMOS
transistor stacking
wireless

This thesis presents the design and implementation of digital millimeter-wave transmitters, in silicon, in the 20–140-GHz frequency range. I/Q RF-DAC transmitter architectures with unary-weighted antenna segments and binary-weighted transistor segments are explored to generate high-order QAM modulation formats, while operating in deep saturation and without resorting to upconversion. The antenna segmentation approach is proven experimentally at 100 GHz with a pair of on-die I/Q driven antenna elements, in a 45-nm SOI CMOS process. The proof-of-concept circuit has an EIRP of 15.7 dBm and a data rate of up to 10 Gb/s. Novel modulator topologies based on the Gilbert cell are proposed to improve the modulation rate and accuracy of digital mm-wave transmitters. These topologies are verified at 90 GHz and at 138 GHz through the implementation of I/Q RF power-DAC transmitters with binary-weighted transistor segments. The 90-GHz implementation results in 19 dBm of output power and modulation rates up to 15 Gbaud. At 138 GHz, a 12-bit I/Q RF power-DAC with on-die antennas is fabricated to demonstrate direct 64-QAM and OFDM modulation of a mm-wave carrier without upconversion. The 138-GHz transmitter has an EIRP of 13.2 dBm and is able to operate at data rates of up to 12 Gb/s. Next, techniques to extend the bandwidth and voltage swing of nanoscale CMOS inverter topologies, with resistive and inductive feedback, selective differential-mode inductive peaking, and series stacking are analyzed. These techniques are demonstrated for an optical front-end at 60 Gb/s, with record 4.3-Vpp single-ended output swing, in a 28-nm FD-SOI CMOS process, as well as for two RF-DAC-based radio transmitters at 1–32 GHz with data rates of 20–30-Gb/s, in a 45-nm SOI CMOS process. Lastly, mm-wave signal sources and frequency dividers are designed and experimentally verified at 60 GHz and at 240 GHz in a 45-nm SOI CMOS process and in a 55-nm SiGe BiCMOS process, respectively. At 60 GHz, both fundamental and second-harmonic signal sources for low power applications are demonstrated and compared. At 240 GHz, meanwhile, a second-harmonic source with record 7.2-dBm output power and 1-GHz divided-down output is demonstrated.
Characterizing the Function of the Mitochondrial Protease PARL in Mitophagy and Mitochondrial Quality Control
Keywords: mitochondrial quality control
Mitophagy
Parkinson's Diseases
PARL
PDK2
PINK1/PARKIN

Mitochondrial quality control (MQC) systems are essential for preserving the functional integrity and the homeostasis of mitochondria. Dysfunction of MQC is emerging as a central mechanism for the pathogenesis of various diseases, including Parkinson’s disease. Studies in S. cerevisiae and Drosophila highlight the role of the mitochondrial rhomboid protease in modulating mitochondrial dynamics and mitophagy, which are key components of MQC. However, the role of the mammalian homologue PARL in MQC remains unclear. In this thesis, I showed that PARL regulates PINK1/PARKIN-mediated mitophagy, an essential component of MQC, by cleaving PINK1 and regulating its localization and protein level. PARL undergoes an N-terminal proteolysis (ß cleavage) that regulates its activity. Given the role of PARL in modulating the PINK1/PARKIN pathway, I further examined the role of ß cleavage in this process and showed that it is required for efficient PINK1/PARKIN mediated-mitophagy. Apart from regulating mitophagy, I demonstrated that ß cleavage is a mitochondrial stress response that is negatively correlated with mitochondrial ATP levels. In addition, I showed that PDK2, a critical modulator of energy metabolism, phosphorylates PARL and thus regulates ß cleavage. Through regulating ß cleavage and the production of a less active enzyme PACT, PDK2 negatively regulates PINK1/PARKIN-mediated mitophagy. Taken together, these data suggest a close relationship between energy metabolisms and MQC. In association with PDK2, we propose that PARL acts as a master regulator of the mitochondrial stress response by monitoring energy metabolism and sensing bioenergetic defects, thereby integrating mitochondrial energy metabolism to mitophagy and MQC.
Bang-Bang Practical Stabilization of Rigid Bodies
Keywords: Attitude Control
Bang-Bang Control
Double-Integrator Control
Spacecraft Control

In this thesis, we study the problem of designing a practical stabilizer for a rigid body equipped with a set of actuators generating only constant thrust. Our motivation stems from the fact that modern space missions are required to accurately control the position and orientation of spacecraft actuated by constant-thrust jet-thrusters. To comply with the performance limitations of modern thrusters, we design a feedback controller that does not induce high-frequency switching of the actuators. The proposed controller is hybrid and it asymptotically stabilizes an arbitrarily small compact neighborhood of the target position and orientation of the rigid body. The controller is characterized by a hierarchical structure comprising of two control layers. At the low level of the hierarchy, an attitude controller stabilizes the target orientation of the rigid body. At the high level, after the attitude controller has steered the rigid body sufficiently close to its desired orientation, a position controller stabilizes the desired position. The size of the neighborhood being stabilized by the controller can be adjusted via a proper selection of the controller parameters. This allows us to stabilize the rigid body to virtually any degree of accuracy. It is shown that the controller, even in the presence of measurement noise, does not induce high-frequency switching of the actuators. The key component in the design of the controller is a hybrid stabilizer for the origin of double-integrators affected by bounded external perturbations. Specifically, both the position and the attitude stabilizers consist of multiple copies of such a double-integrator controller. The proposed controller is applied to two realistic spacecraft control problems. First, we apply the position controller to the problem of stabilizing the relative position between two spacecraft flying in formation in the vicinity of the L2 libration point of the Sun-Earth system as a part of a large space telescope. The proposed position controller represents the first feedback strategy to guarantee the accuracy level required by this class of space missions using real-life electric thrusters. The final controller is applied to the control of a large space vehicle performing rendezvous and docking operations with the International Space Station. It is shown that the controller guarantees a safe docking even under the effects of biases in the placement of the on-board thrusters.
A Comparison of Full-Day and Half-Day English and French Immersion Kindergarten: Children's Outcomes and Experiences
Keywords: French immersion
Kindergarten
Play-based learning

The purpose of this research was to examine kindergarten children’s outcomes and experiences in four program models: full-day French immersion, half-day French immersion, full-day English, and half-day English. This quasi-experimental study employed a mixed methods approach. Child participants (N=70) across the four programs were administered standardized measures of English receptive vocabulary and reading, as well as a print task, a number sense task, a drawing task, and an interview, at the beginning and end of kindergarten, as well as at the beginning of Grade 1. Additionally, children from French immersion (FI) programs were administered equivalent measures in French. Parents of child participants completed questionnaires at the beginning and the end of kindergarten, which served to provide demographic information and parents’ perspectives of their children’s experiences. Finally, in order to provide context for the study, educators (N=7) across the four programs participated in semi-structured interviews relating to program implementation and child experiences. Mixed ANOVAs were conducted in order to determine program differences at each time point. Results revealed significant differences in English word identification, with children from English full-day kindergarten (FDK) scoring significantly higher at the beginning of Grade 1 than children in either FI program, and English word decoding, with only children from half-day programs (FI and English) making significant gains over the kindergarten year. However, when analyzing French literacy skills, only children from FI FDK kindergarten made significant gains in word identification scores, and scored significantly higher in receptive vocabulary than children from half-day FI kindergarten. When examining drawing complexity, results revealed only children from FDK programs (both English and FI) made significant gains between time points. Children’s interview transcripts revealed that across all programs, play was discussed more frequently at the kindergarten level, but academics were discussed more often in Grade 1. This study makes important contributions to the literature on full-day kindergarten programming as well as second-language education. Findings suggest that FDK has a greater impact on reading in second-language contexts and that increased exposure to the second language, as well as learning through play, is beneficial for vocabulary development and word identification in the second language. In the context of education in Ontario, this study has particular relevance as school boards decide whether to offer FI at the kindergarten level with the emergence of the new play-based FDK program.
High-quality constraints on the glacial isostatic adjustment process over North America: The ICE-7G_NA (VM7) model
Keywords: Climate change
Geodesy
Glacial isostatic adjustment
Mantle viscosity
Paleoclimate
Sea level evolution

The Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) process describes the response of the Earth's surface to variations in land ice cover. Models of the phenomenon, which is dominated by the influence of the Late Pleistocene cycle of glaciation and deglaciation, depend on two fundamental inputs: a history of ice-sheet loading and a model of the radial variation of mantle viscosity. Various geophysical observables enable us to test and refine these models. In this work, the impact of the GIA process on the rotational state of the planet will be analyzed, and new estimates of the long-term secular trend associated with the GIA process will be provided. It will be demonstrated that it has undertaken a significant change since the mid-1990s. Other important observables include the vast amount of geological inferences of past sea level change that exist for all the main coasts of the world. The U.S. Atlantic coast is a region of particular interest in this regard, due to the fact that data from the length of this coast provides a transect of the forebulge associated with the former Laurentide ice sheet. High-quality relative sea level histories from this region will be employed to generate a new model of the GIA process that includes for the first time data from the forebulge region in its optimization process (the ICE-6G_C (VM6) model). Then, the series of analyses is extended to include space-geodetic observations of present-day vertical uplift of the crust. A solution reconciling all available data from the continent, named ICE-7G_NA (VM7), is obtained through modest further modifications of both the viscosity structure of the model and the North American component of the surface mass loading history. It provides an excellent fit to the constraining data related to the GIA process, including observations of the time-dependent de-levelling of the Great Lakes region. Finally, to test the global exportability of the new model, its predictions of relative sea level change are tested against observations from the Western Mediterranean region.