VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Device Engineering and Outdoor Weathering of Novel Tri-layer and Bi-layer Organic Photovoltaic Devices using Boron Subphthalocyanine and its Derivatives
Keywords: Ageing
Boron Subphthalocyanine
ISOS
Multi-layer
Organic
Solar

Organic solar cells are gaining interest commercially and in academia due to their ease of manufacturing and low-cost materials. Currently, they are less efficient than commercially available silicon solar cells and their long-term degradation is not well known. A commonly used material in organic solar devices is boron subphthalocyanine, which has strong absorbance at the peak of the solar spectrum at wavelengths between 500 and 600 nm. In this work, I fabricated novel multi-layer devices using boron subphthalocyanine and its derivatives, with the goal of increasing the power conversion efficiency above baseline bi-layer devices. I fabricated novel devices utilizing boron subphthalocyanine as an electron donor and an electron acceptor. Simultaneously, I tested the outdoor long-term degradation of the novel devices on a custom rooftop testing apparatus to ensure they maintain high performance over long periods of time.
Uncertainty-constrained Trajectory Optimization in Belief Space for Vision-based Robots
Keywords: Belief Space
Uncertainty-constrained
Vision-based planning

Planning in belief space provides a unified approach to tightly couple the perception, planning and control modules, leading to trajectories that are aware of the detrimental effects of environments with varying information content. However, existing methods handle uncertainties as costs that require manual tuning for varying environments and hardware without explicit guarantees of localization quality. Furthermore, many extrinsic sensors, such as cameras are viewpoint limited, leading to discontinuous belief dynamics that cause belief space trajectory optimization methods to fail. We therefore propose a novel trajectory optimization formulation that incorporates inequality constraints on uncertainty and a novel Augmented Lagrangian based stochastic differential dynamic programming method in belief space. Furthermore, we develop a probabilistic visibility model that accounts for discontinuities due to feature visibility limits. The resulting algorithm thus has the ability to incorporate viewpoint limitations and select non-myopic active perception control actions that are informed by localization uncertainty along the trajectory.
Combining a Smartphone App into a Web-based Smart Survey Tool
Keywords: Household travel survey
Machine learning
Smartphone-based travel survey
Travel mode detection
Trip purpose imputation
Web-based travel survey

Smartphone-based travel data collection has been a trending topic in the transportation industry, which is believed to have many advantages over traditional travel survey methods, including reducing respondent burden and providing frequent updates. Smartphone-based travel data collection involves passively collecting participants’ travel data through designated smartphone apps. This thesis proposes to incorporate smartphone-based travel data collection with an in-house online travel survey platform named TRAISI to form a web-based smart survey tool. Travel mode detection algorithms and trip purpose inference algorithms are investigated so that trip modes and purposes can be inferred from passively collected smartphone location data. The integration between smartphone collected data and the TRAISI platform is discussed, and the current design of the web interface is presented. The proposed system can take advantage of both the online travel survey platform and smartphone-based passive data collection to make travel surveys more efficient and less burdensome for respondents.
Effects of Flow Field and Spray Characteristics on Soot in a Swirl-stabilized Model Combustor
Keywords: Jet A-1
LII
model-validation suited data
n-Pentanol
soot
SPIV

The effect on spray structure, flow field, and sooting characteristics of swirl-stabilized neat Jet A-1 spray flames with n-Pentanol addition was investigated. n-Pentanol addition up to 20% by thermal power was added to neat Jet A-1 fuel to produce flames with a constant thermal output of 8.83 kW. Two air flow rates were used to produce two globally fuel-lean mixtures. Fraunhofer diffraction characterized the fuel spray while stereoscopic particle image velocimetry was used to visualize the flow field. Auto-compensating laser-induced incandescence was used to measure soot volume fraction and primary soot particle diameter at various locations in the flame. Noticeable variations in spray structure were measured with n-Pentanol addition compared to neat Jet A-1 flames. Soot was detected below 40 mm axially with 10% n-Pentanol addition which was explained by the increased evaporation rates of the fuel with n-Pentanol addition. Total soot loading in the combustor decreased monotonically with increasing n-Pentanol addition.
R2* and Magnetic Susceptibility Mapping for Quantifying Radiation-induced Alterations in Brain Development in a Mouse Model
Keywords: late effects
MRI
quantitative susceptibility mapping
R2*
white matter

Brain and spinal cord tumors are the second most common childhood cancers after leukemia. The method of care generally includes cranial radiation therapy (CRT). The probability of survival after treatment is approaching 90%, however survivors are at a significant risk for neurocognitive deficits known as late effects. Human and mouse MRI studies have shown that these cognitive late effects in children are associated with reduced white matter volume that is detectable shortly after irradiation and persists long term. Quantitative MR imaging techniques can characterize brain properties in addition to volume that may provide sensitivity to other indicators of tissue health. In this thesis, I demonstrate that mapping of R2* and quantitative susceptibility with ex vivo MRI reveals prominent CRT-induced changes in white matter with more subtle differences in cortical and subcortical brain regions.
Opioid Disposal Practices of Patients with Life-limiting Cancers in an Outpatient Palliative Care Clinic: A Cross-sectional Study
Keywords: Cancer
Disposal
Opioid
Palliative

Introduction: Proper prescription opioid disposal is essential to prevent poisonings and deaths. This study examined the opioid disposal practices of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Outpatient Palliative Care Clinic (OPCC) patients. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved a retrospective chart review of new, adult patients who were seen in the OPCC (September 2018 – August 2019) and completed a survey about opioid use. Results: 58/111 (52.3%) of study participants did not routinely dispose of their opioids. Cannabis and neuropathic medication use (OR 3.0, 95% CI 1.2 – 7.2) were positively associated with routine disposal of opioids. Patients were less likely to routinely dispose of their opioid if they responded “Yes” to “Have you had to increase the amount of opioids you take over the past six months?” (OR 0.38; 95% CI, 0.16 - 0.88). Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of people with life-limiting illnesses who do not routinely dispose of their opioids.
The Liturgical Significance of the Old Hispanic Ad Pacem
Keywords: Isidore
Liturgy
Mass
Medieval Iberia
Visigoths

One of the most unique features of the Old Hispanic Liturgy is the set of chant propersrelated to the sign of peace during Mass, designated as the prayers Ad Pacem. The texts of these prayers reflect some of the most important goals which Isidore of Seville and other Iberian clergy tried to implement through the councils which were held throughout Spain in the wake of the Visigothic conversion from Arianism. The most notable theme in this vein is the rejection of scandal caused by practices that gave a false impression of heresy. The significance of this moment also extends to the position of the sign of peace in the Old Hispanic liturgy, which illuminates some of the competing influences on the Iberian Peninsula from Rome, Africa, and the Byzantine Empire, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of how multiple rites evolved in the West during late antiquity.
Elucidating the Role of Pten in a Newly defined G0-GALERT Transition in Mammalian Müller glia
Keywords: cell migration
Muller glia
priming
Pten
regeneration
Stem cell

Müller glia are endogenous retinal glia that act as adult stem cells in fish and frogs, replacing dying cells due to injury or disease. However, mammalian Müller glia have lost this ability to self-heal. In fish and frogs, the first regenerative step is the repositioning of glial nuclei outside of their inner retinal monolayer in a process known as interkinetic nuclear migration. Herein we discover that the conditional knock-out (cKO) of Phosphatase and tensin homolog (Pten) in mammalian Müller glia leads to spontaneous interkinetic nuclear migration, altered lineage marker expression in displaced glial cells, and an enhanced proliferative response to retinal injury. We further found an upregulation of mTORC1 activity supporting the idea that these glial cells have transitioned to a metabolically active state, priming them to respond to injury, akin to the G0-GALERT priming step seen in seen in other stem cell populations.
Self-calibration of the Offset between GPS and Semantic Map Frames for Robust Localization
Keywords: Autonomous Vehicle Navigation
Localization
Sensor Fusion

In self-driving, GPS is generally considered to have insufficient positioning accuracy to stay in lane. Instead, many turn to LIDAR localization, but building and maintaining LIDAR maps can be costly. Another possibility is to use semantic cues such as lane markings and traffic lights to achieve localization, but these are usually not continuously visible. This can be remedied by combining semantic cues with GPS to fill in the gaps. However, due to biases accumulated between mapping and localization, the live GPS frame can be offset from the semantic map frame, requiring calibration. In this thesis, we propose a robust semantic localization algorithm that self-calibrates for the GPS-to-map offset by exploiting common semantic cues. We formulate the problem using a modified Iterated Extended Kalman Filter, which incorporates GPS and camera images for semantic cue detection. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves decimetre-level accuracy and is robust against sparse semantic features and frequent GPS dropouts.
Tactile Afference in Online Movement Guidance to a Body Location
Keywords: Goal-directed movement
Motor control
Online-control
Perception-action
Tactile feedback
Visual feedback

Like visual motion, tactile motion conveys the direction and magnitude of changes in target location (e.g., catching a slipping towel on the body). The current thesis explored tactile-based corrections to the perturbation of a target on the body and visual-based corrections to a target in the extracorporeal space. When participants only had to detect the target motion, a moving tactile target was detected earlier than a moving visual target. In contrast, in the reaching task, participants took longer to initiate limb trajectory amendments to moving tactile than visual targets. Also, when the target was perturbed toward the participant, there were larger correction magnitudes in the visual than in the tactile target condition. Such difference can be explained by the capacity of the tactile and visual receptors as well as the experimental. Overall, these findings may reflect different sensorimotor processes underlying the detection and planning of movements toward tactile stimuli.
Postoperative Buprenorphine Discontinuation in Continuously Treated Buprenorphine Patients: A Population Cohort Study
Keywords: Buprenorphine
Cohort Studies
Opioid-Related Disorders
Surgical Procedures

Sudden discontinuation of buprenorphine in opioid use disorder increases the risk of relapse and overdose. The thesis objective was to understand patient, procedural, opioid treatment-related and health service use factors associated with discontinuing buprenorphine after surgical discharge. A cohort study was conducted and included adults 18+ on stable buprenorphine preoperatively. Logistic regression modeling was used to study the association of the primary outcome (buprenorphine continuation within 14 days of surgical discharge) with demographic and treatment factors. 2176 patients were on stable buprenorphine prior to an incident surgery, and 176 (8.1%) did not resume buprenorphine postoperatively. Inpatient (versus ambulatory) surgery was associated with reduced continuity, with an OR of 0.16 (95% CI 0.11, 0.23) after adjusting for demographic and treatment factors. Most patients continued buprenorphine postoperatively, although inpatient surgery is a strong predictor of discontinuity, suggesting that buprenorphine treatment should be coordinated between inpatient and outpatient providers to improve buprenorphine continuity.
Exploring the Role of Emotion Dysregulation and Coping Motives on Cannabis-related Consequences: A Daily Diary Study among Emerging Adults
Keywords: cannabis
coping motives
daily diary
emerging adults
emotion dysregulation

Emerging adults (EAs; ages 18-25) have the highest rates of cannabis use and cannabis-related consequences relative to other age groups. There is substantial evidence pointing to emotion dysregulation and coping motives as important variables impacting cannabis-related consequences, however, current research is limited in examining their collective impact. The current study sought to explore trait-level facets of emotion dysregulation and state-level coping motives to determine their influence on cannabis-related consequences among EAs. Data were collected daily from 64 cannabis-using EAs who reported their cannabis use, motives, and consequences over 30 days. Emotion dysregulation was assessed at baseline. A mediation model was used to examine whether coping motives influence the relationship between emotion dysregulation and cannabis use. Hierarchical linear modelling tested whether emotion dysregulation facets moderated the within-person relationship between coping motives and cannabis problems. Findings highlight two significant facets of emotion dysregulation, Nonacceptance of Emotional Responses and Limited Access to Emotion Regulation Strategies, as contributing to coping-motivated cannabis use and subsequent cannabis-related consequences. These results help elucidate the underlying mechanisms that protect EAs from cannabis-related consequences and can be used to develop effective screening tools and interventions to help prevent problematic cannabis consumption.
Physician Attitudes towards use of Digital Health Apps for Chronic Disease Self-management in Clinical Practice
Keywords: chronic disease
digital health
health apps
virtual care

Background: Despite evidence of effectiveness, few primary care providers (PCPs) are recommending digital health apps to support chronic disease management as part of routine practice. Methods: This study explores factors that influence PCP behaviours in recommending digital apps to patients. Study design included interviews with a deductive analysis, grounded in the Theoretical Domains Framework. PCPs were recruited from across Ontario. Results: Interviews from 15 participants resulted in four key themes. While participant’s wanted to use health apps with patients, a lack of knowledge, including knowledge of evidence, the quality of the current evidence and awareness of specific apps limited prescribing. Recommended interventions to increase use including curated lists, integration with the EMR, and peers supports. Conclusions: Our results suggest knowledge gaps are a key barrier to recommending apps, however this could be addressed using targeted interventions. Future work should explore patient attitudes towards the prescribing and use of apps.
Teacher Experiences of the International Day of Pink in Ontario K-12 Schools
Keywords: bullying
Day of Pink
LGBTQ
queer youth

Although the International Day of Pink, an LGBTQ2+ awareness day meant to celebrate gender and sexual diversity, has been taking place in Ontario schools since 2007, there is little published research on this event. Utilizing interviews with 10 teachers who have organized or actively participated in the Day at school, this study provides a first look into teacher experiences of Day of Pink in Ontario K-12 public schools. The experiences explored in this study indicate that while there is little regulated training and varying levels of board and administrative support for Day of Pink, teachers worked hard to make the Day meaningful and empowering for LGBTQ2+ students. These findings point out a need to better support teachers with Day of Pink resources, training, and enhanced administrative support to ensure that they have explicit institutional guidance and shared responsibility in working toward a safer, more affirming school climate for LGBTQ2+ youth.
Salivary Gland Neoplasms: Application of RNA-sequencing and Surrogate Immunohistochemical Markers to Refine Classification
Keywords: Gene fusion
Immunohistochemistry
RNA sequencing
Salivary gland tumour

Salivary gland tumours are diagnostically challenging neoplasms. Molecular analysis is increasingly being employed in tumour diagnosis and classification. The prevalence of gene fusions in salivary gland neoplasms was investigated using a commercially available RNA-sequencing fusion panel. In a cohort of salivary gland tumours enriched for subtypes known to harbour fusion events, 71% of tumours demonstrated gene fusions by RNA-sequencing, which is comparable to techniques such as FISH and RT-PCR. These gene fusions can aid in the diagnosis and classification of salivary gland neoplasms. Immunohistochemical markers on tissue microarrays were evaluated as more practical surrogates for gene fusion detection. The sensitivity and specificity of MYB immunohistochemistry for adenoid cystic carcinoma was 48.4% and 93.6%, respectively. Additionally, the sensitivity of Pan-Trk immunohistochemistry for secretory carcinoma was 58.8%, while the specificity was 89.5%. Although surrogate immunohistochemical markers may be specific for some salivary gland tumours, they are limited by a lack of sensitivity.
Visual Localization for UAVs using Satellite Images
Keywords: localization
robotics

The primary objective of this thesis is to develop a method to generate offline a map containing only Google Earth (GE) rendered images against which an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is able to localize using vision online. This eliminates the need for a manual mapping flight and would allow the UAV to fly in new unseen areas autonomously. The first part of this thesis presents a novel method for localizing live UAV images against a collection of rendered and encoded GE images that is fast and has low storage requirements. The second part implements this new measurement into the existing Visual Teach \ Repeat (VT\) system. This includes writing a script to generate a compatible map, computing the measurement in the VT\ pipeline, and using it in the localization optimization. We demonstrate the performance on a dataset of real UAV collected images at six different times of day.
The Effect of SGLT2 Inhibition on Biomarkers of Diabetic Kidney Disease and Cardiovascular Disease
Keywords: Biomarkers
Cardiovascular Disease
Diabetes
Kidney Disease
SGLT2 inhibitors

\Diabetes mellitus affects over 463 million adults globally and substantially increases the risk of developing complications such as chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Until recently, there has been a notable lack of treatment options for patients with diabetes that also effectively protect against progression of kidney disease and CVD, thus highlighting the need for novel therapeutic options in this field. Sodium glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors have been found to have unique cardiovascular and kidney protective effects in patients with diabetes. However, the mechanisms responsible for these benefits are incompletely understood, and even less so in patients with CKD where the effects of these drugs may be attenuated due to reduced kidney function. The focus of this thesis is to investigate the mechanisms behind the cardiovascular and kidney protective effects of SGLT2 inhibitors through biomarker analysis. We conducted a post hoc exploratory analysis of the VERTIS RENAL trial which involved participants with type 2 diabetes and stage 3 CKD. Participants were randomized to ertugliflozin (5 or 15 mg/day) or placebo, and measurements were taken at baseline, 26- and 52-weeks post-randomization. Ertugliflozin treatment was associated with markers of hemoconcentration including increased hematocrit and aldosterone, and decreased NT-proBNP. These changes were observed without a concurrent elevation in erythropoietin, suggesting that the increased hematocrit was primarily due to hemoconcentration rather than increased erythropoiesis. Additionally, we found that ertugliflozin was associated with a sustained lowering of the kidney tubular injury marker, KIM-1, regardless of baseline kidney function. In conclusion, these findings suggest that the cardiovascular and kidney protective effects of SGLT2 inhibitors are intact in patients with reduced kidney function.
An Examination of the Moderating Role of Depressive Symptoms in the Relationships Between Negative Affect, Interpersonal Stressors, and Alcohol Consequences in an Emerging Adult Population
Keywords: alcohol
daily diary
depression
emerging adult
interpersonal stressors
negative affect

Emerging adults (EAs) exhibit the highest prevalence of alcohol consequences compared to other age groups. Negative affect and interpersonal stressors contribute to increased alcohol consequences for EAs and are heightened among those with depression. The present study used baseline and daily diary data from 203 EAs (18 to 24 years; M = 21.15, SD = 1.91) over 30 days to test within-person hypotheses regarding depression, negative affect, interpersonal stressors, and alcohol consequences. Across participants, greater baseline depressive symptoms was associated with an increased likelihood of daily alcohol consequences. A moderation effect was observed such that the daily relationship between negative affect and alcohol consequences was significantly stronger among depressed participants compared to nondepressed participants. These findings highlight the role of depression as a facilitator of alcohol consequences on days when depressed EAs’ negative affect is higher. Interventions tailored to EAs with depression should consider the unique ways that negative affect contributes to problem drinking.
Secret Key Agreement over Gaussian Two-way Wiretap Channel
Keywords: information theory
physical layer security

We consider secret key agreement over the Gaussian two-way wiretap channel (GTWWC), where all the receivers observe the common channel output. We develop a dependence balance bound related upper bound on the secret key capacity. We establish the optimality of Gaussian inputs of secret key upper bound. We then propose an achievability scheme that is based on a variant of Schalwijk-Kailath coding scheme and exploits cooperative jamming and wiretap coding to match the upper bound, thus establishing the secret key capacity. We show the secret key capacity for single-output GTWWC also provides an operational explanation for dependence balance bound.