VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Investigating Translocator Protein Binding in Borderline Personality Disorder with Serious Self-harm Behavior: An [18 F] FEPPA Positron Emission Tomography Study
Keywords: Borderline Personality Disorder
Microglial Activation
Neuroimaging
Non-Suicidal Self-Injury
Positron Emission Tomography
Translocator Protein

Several studies have demonstrated that microglial activation is implicated in various psychiatric illnesses. The role of microglial activation in borderline personality disorder (BPD), however, and its relationship to behavioral symptoms remains elusive. Translocator protein-18 kDa (TSPO), a marker of activated microglia, can be evaluated by utilizing the radioligand, [18F]-FEPPA, in a positron emission tomography (PET) scan. We compared the TSPO total distribution volume (TSPO VT) of 12 BPD with non-suicidal self-injury to 14 controls using [18F]-FEPPA PET. We also correlated the TSPO VT of different brain regions in BPD subjects to the severity of BPD features. Results indicated that the TSPO VT in the anterior cingulate cortex of BPD participants with a high-affinity binding genotype was reduced. Significant negative associations were also identified between the TSPO VT in frontal structures of BPD subjects and features of BPD after controlling for genotype. These findings suggest a neuroinflammatory imbalance in this population.
Waveform Visualization in Augmented Reality using Electric Machines and Software-defined Radio with High Dynamic Range Signal Compositing
Keywords: Augmented Reality
Electric Machines
Electroencephalogram
High Dynamic Range
Signal Processing
Software-Defined Radio

The human eye can only perceive the visible spectrum, a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Scientific instruments can be employed to measure a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum compared to the human eye, but these instruments fail to directly connect their measurements to the environment. The Sequential Wave Imprinting Machine (SWIM) was originally invented in the 1970s to allow the human eye to perceive electromagnetic waves in the environment, such as radio waves, in phenomenological augmented reality, a type of augmented reality. One disadvantage with this original SWIM implementation is hardware complexity, which requires specialized hardware such as lock-in amplifiers to function. In this thesis, the goal is to utilize software-defined radios (SDRs) to facilitate miniaturization of the SWIM and examine the possible use of high dynamic range technique to improve the dynamic range of the SDR-based SWIM. The SWIM is also combined with electric machines and EEG.
Relationship Between Lateral Load and Interstorey Drift in Total Precast Concrete Buildings
Keywords: grouted dowel connection
interstorey drift
Relationship Between Lateral Load and Interstorey Drift
total precast building
Total Precast Concrete Buildings
welded plate conncection

This thesis documents the first phase of the project in which the end goal is to develop a model that characterizes the relationship between lateral load and interstorey drift in total precast concrete buildings. CSA Standard A23.3 and the CPCI Design Manual will be used as the main source of design codes and standards for this project. In this thesis, the lateral load-deflection response of the welded plate connection, which is one of the two main connection types used in total precast concrete buildings, has been developed based on a series of experiments. The following have also been completed in this thesis: 1. The experimental design for characterizing the tensile load-deflection response of the grouted dowel connection, which is the other main connection type, and 2. The preliminary experimental design for a storey test, which aims to characterize the behaviour of a storey within a total precast building.
Development and Application of Sampling and Extraction Methods for Microplastics in Drinking Water
Keywords: Drinking Water
Methods
Microplastics
QA/QC

To-date, no standardized methods have been proposed for analyzing microplastics in drinking waters. This study assessed known methods to collect and extract microplastics from treated drinking waters and identified two common limitations: use of insufficient water, and lack of method recovery assessment. In response, this study developed an in-line filtration method, which improved accuracy when compared to in-laboratory filtration methods. In-line filtration was shown to have higher recoveries for the reference microplastics examined (+37% for PVC fragments, +23% for PET fragments, +22% for nylon fibers and +7% for PET fibers) and a greater potential to reduce microplastic contamination. The filtration capacity of in-line filtration method was observed to exceed 350 L of treated water. Application of in-line filtration was validated using ultrafiltration (UF) influent and effluent from two full-scale drinking water treatment facilities. UF represents an effective technology which is capable of removing ~95% of microplastics from drinking water.
The Effect of Steam on Potassium and Chlorine Release during Biomass Combustion
Keywords: Biomass
Black Liquor
Chlorine
Combustion
Potassium

The performance of biomass and kraft recovery boilers is hindered by alkali and chlorine in the fuel because these elements aect fouling and corrosion in the covective passes.The release of alkali and chlorides during combustion in environments containing steam, like that inside a boiler, is not well understood. Here, the release of K and Cl from three biomass fuels in dierent gas environments is measured. Additionally, mass loss and particle temperature throughout combustion are measured. In biomass, steam and CO2 in the gas environment are signicant during char oxidation. Their presence slows the release of K and Cl during char conversion, while increasing the char conversion rate and decreasing the particle temperature. It is suspected that this decrease in char temperature is due to the endothermic gasication reactions on the char surface by steam and CO2. The decrease in the char temperature results in a lower KCl vapour pressure and lower KCl vapourization rate. Steam and CO2 did not aect the mass loss or the release of K and Cl from black liquor, though. The black liquor particle temperature was lowered by steam.
Inhibitory Control Mediates the Association between Emotion Dysregulation and Symptoms of ADHD and ODD in Children with Disruptive Behaviour
Keywords: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Childhood
Emotion Dysregulation
Inhibitory Control
Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) often show emotion dysregulation associated with considerable impairment in social, academic, and family domains. Inhibitory control is a cognitive mechanism that influences emotion regulation and is also often impaired in children with ADHD and/or ODD. The present study investigates the role of inhibitory control as a possible mediator in the association between emotion dysregulation and symptoms of ADHD and ODD. Standardized questionnaires and clinician-facilitated structured interviews were used to collect parent and teacher ratings of difficulties in a clinical sample of 297 children (M age = 8.24 (1.7); 79.3% male) with disruptive behaviour. Findings suggest that inhibitory control is a key cognitive mechanism that mediates the relationship between emotional and behavioural difficulties in children with disruptive behaviour. Consequently, emotion dysregulation and inhibitory control may be important targets in psychosocial interventions for children with ADHD and/or ODD symptoms.
The Synthesis and Kinetic Characterization of Bi-substrate Inhibitors Targeting M. Tuberculosis GlmU Acetyltransferase
Keywords: Antibiotic
Bi-substrate inhibitor
Chemoenzymatic
GlmU
Synthesis
Tuberculosis

In an arms race against pathogenic bacteria, novel antibacterial agents are constantly being developed. To disrupt the integrity of the bacterial cell wall, a method of inhibiting peptidoglycan biosynthesis has been proposed. In this work, the chemoenzymatic synthesis of a bi-substrate inhibitor targeting M. tuberculosis GlmU was performed. Fortunately, no eukaryotic orthologue of GlmU acetyltransferase exists, making this domain an attractive target for inhibition. In an attempt to elucidate key structural components leading to increased inhibition of GlmU, the linker of the bi-substrate inhibitor was explored. This required synthesizing challenging glycosyl-1-phosphate intermediates using the promiscuous NahK enzyme. To determine GlmU two-substrate kinetics and measure inhibition of our inhibitors, an in vitro UV-vis continuous assay employing an Ellman’s reagent derivative was used. The inhibitor (LB1115) displayed a competitive Ki, AcCoA of 4.1 ± 0.3 μM and a non-competitive Ki, GlcN-1-P of 3.9 ± 0.2 μM.
Metabolic Immaturity of Stem Cell-derived β Cells Impairs Glucose Stimulated Insulin Secretion
Keywords: beta cell
diabetes
islets
metabolism

Type I diabetes is characterized by an autoimmune-mediated loss of β cells and subsequent insufficiency of insulin. Unmet donor supply has potentiated the need for other islet transplant cell sources, including human embryonic stem cell-derived β cells (hESC-β), to achieve long-term insulin independence without the need for exogenous insulin. However, hESC-β have limited insulin secretion function in vitro. We have demonstrated that these β-like cells are metabolically immature resulting in impaired insulin secretion in response to glucose and alternative secretagogues. Compared to human islets, hESC-β appear to predominantly use glycolysis over oxidative phosphorylation resulting in inefficient metabolism. hESC-β also have a reduced spare respiratory capacity demonstrating inefficiencies in mitochondrial function. Lastly, while these immature β-like cells express essential β cell genes, they maintain expression of the disallowed genes hexokinase I/II and lactate dehydrogenase A, which may have a role in impairing glucose responsiveness and β cell maturity.
Social Responsibility in Future Worlds: Using Student-led Futures Thinking Practices to Assist in Redesigning Engineering Education
Keywords: Civic Design
Design Fiction
Futures Studies
Holistic Engineering
Speculative Design
Student-led

This research explores the potential for integrating futures thinking and speculative design practices in undergraduate engineering education, as a move to push Canadian engineering pedagogy into student-led spaces for more creative, reflective, and civic-oriented thinking. The research examines iterative design and development sessions, which detail the transformation of an educational, student-led intervention into an exploratory, futures-based workshop— Undiscipline. Though pilot play sessions, the potential of this tool is examined, particularly in its encouragement of participants to continually question their perception of the future, their understanding of society, and their role and responsibility to shape a preferable future. Lastly, this study discusses the potential for this game as a tool for student-led and values-driven education, to propose the implementation of futures studies in mainstream education as a method for reflective and creative growth, and how Undiscipline can be used as a lens to examine institutional pushback and burgeoning possibilities for educator implementation.
When Your Outcomes Become My Rewards: Individual Differences in the Neural Representation of Others’ Outcomes Drives Prosociality (or Antisociality)
Keywords: altruism
empathy
prosociality
reward
social cognition
social decision-making

Contemporary theories of prosociality suggest the mesolimbic dopamine reward circuit may play a critical role in enabling prosociality during social decision-making. One implication is that people who find good outcomes for others to be rewarding should incorporate this signal during decision-making, and variance in the strength of this signal should lead to variations in decision-making. The degree to which others’ outcomes were experienced as rewarding was estimated through the modelling of outcome-period BOLD activity in a social decision-making task. Variation in reward to others’ outcomes moderated decision-making and related to established metrics of empathy, suggesting that the degree to which others’ outcomes will be rewarding to the self are incorporated during decision-making. The ability of the reward system to represent others’ outcomes may be an exaptation of the reward system in hypersocial animals, though, how others’ outcomes are represented in the reward system can promote either prosocial or antisocial behaviour.
Performance Monitoring of Multi-FPGA Systems
Keywords: Computer Hardware
FPGA
Networks
Performance Monitoring
Profiling
Reconfigurable Computing

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have been increasingly deployed in datacenters and there has been a lot of focus on tools that help the development of FPGA applications. Among the most important tools are performance monitors that provide visibility into the state of the hardware. As the application platforms scale from one FPGA to many FPGAs, such as the well-known examples demonstrated on the Microsoft Catapult platform, it is no longer feasible to rely on low-level FPGA tools such as embedded logic analyzers. This thesis presents Pharos, a lightweight, generic performance monitor for multi-FPGA systems. We show that Pharos is able to measure cycle-accurate unidirectional point-to-point latency between multiple network-connected FPGAs. Pharos is also capable of monitoring network traffic and conducting throughput measurements, as well as tracing events across the datacenter.
Flexure and Shear Base-mechanism for the Enhanced Resilience of RC Coupled High-rise Buildings
Keywords: base-mechanism
high-rise buildings
higher-mode effects
reinforced concrete coupled walls
seismic resilience

This thesis presents the development and analytical investigation of a flexure and shear yielding base-mechanism that improves the seismic performance of RC coupled wall high-rise buildings. Although current design practice achieves life safety and collapse prevention during major earthquake events, there is often extensive damage located in the plastic hinging regions including the wall bases and coupling beams. A system of buckling-restrained braces located below the core is implemented as an alternative seismic fuse. With this system, the first-mode and higher-mode responses of the structure are limited through a combination of flexural and shear yielding. Nonlinear time-history analyses have been carried out comparing the performance of a reference structure to this alternative design. Results demonstrate that the base–mechanism improves the overall performance of the structure by limiting damage and improving safety at all hazard levels. Connection details for the system and design steps are also proposed.
Detect Iago Vulnerabilities in Legacy Code with Reverse Syscall Fuzzing
Keywords: Computer Secuirty
Fuzzing
Trust computing

There has been interest in mechanisms that allow legacy code to be securely used to implement trusted code that runs in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), such as Intel SGX. However, because legacy code generally assumes the presence of an operating system, this naturally raises the spectre of Iago attacks on the legacy code. We develop Emilia, which automatically detects Iago vulnerabilities in legacy applications using reverse system call fuzzing. We use Emilia to discover 50 Iago vulnerabilities in 17 applications, and find that Iago vulnerabilities are widespread and common. We conduct an in-depth analysis of the vulnerabilities we found and conclude that while common, the majority (84%) can be mitigated with simple, stateless checks in the system call forwarding layer, while the rest are best fixed by finding and patching them in the legacy code. Finally, we study and evaluate different trade-offs in the design of Emilia.
Assessment of Convolutional Neural Networks to Classify Freshwater Zooplankton
Keywords: convolutional neural networks
deep learning
taxonomy
zooplankton

Zooplankton have been used as indicators of aquatic ecosystem health, but their identification using traditional microscopy can be time consuming. Machinery such as Yokogawa Fluid Imaging Technologies FlowCam allow for rapid imaging of microscopic particles, such as zooplankton. However, these machineries lack sophisticated algorithms like convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to classify images. Here, the efficacy of CNNs to classify six freshwater zooplankton species and a fiber-like particle with images obtained from a FlowCam Macro were examined. Oxford Visual Geometry Group (VGG) CNN architecture best suited our data. CNNs were found to have validation accuracies greater than 97%. The models were further tested with independent random mixtures of species and fiber-like particles, and they achieved accuracies ranging from 84.9% to 96.33% and F1-scores ranging from 82.43% to 95.02%. These results indicate that CNNs are promising tools for the rapid identification of zooplankton species.
Continuous-time Marginal Structural Models for Adverse Drug Effects in Pharmacoepidemiology
Keywords: Case-base sampling
Causal Inference
Glucocorticoid
Marginal Structural Model
Pharmacoepidemiology
Survival Analysis

Analysis of new user cohort studies of adverse drug effects can be based on either intention-to-treat or as-treated paradigms. In the latter case, controlling for time-dependent confounding is necessary, and can be implemented through inverse probability of treatment (IPT) weighted estimation of marginal structural models (MSM). To develop the weights in the context of pharmacoepidemiological administrative data, besides a time-fixed initial dose model, the subsequent time-varying exposure can be decomposed into modeling the time of the dispensations and the dose at each time through a multinomial or multiordinal logistic model, as a marked point process. We compare different approaches for constructing the weights in a simulation study, simulating data from a multistate model. For estimation of the outcome MSM, we propose IPT weighted case-base sampling, which can reduce the size of long-format data sets needed, especially for rare outcomes. The methods are then demonstrated in a study of the effect of glucocorticoid use on fracture risk.
Peracetic Acid Disinfection Synergy With Alum and Direct Reaction With Chlorine
Keywords: alum
chlorine
peracetic acid
radicals
synergy

Peracetic acid (PAA) is an effective disinfectant during wastewater treatment. Anecdotal reports suggest that its disinfection efficiency increases when combined with residual alum from upstream coagulation. This research focused on determining if PAA and aluminum could initiate an advanced oxidation process. Two probes were used during this study to test the presence of hydroxyl radicals (OH•), and neither showed OH• formation. E. coli inactivation was also assessed, with no significant increase in log reduction observed when alum was present during PAA disinfection. This research also focused on the effect of PAA on chlorine disinfection when used as a pretreatment for DBP and mussel control during drinking water treatment. A kinetic model was developed to simulate the impact of PAA on chlorine consumption as a function of pH. It was determined that chlorine decay was attributed mainly to the reaction with the slow formation of H2O2 associated with PAA decomposition.
Exploring the Development of Playfulness among Youth with Disabilities in the HB FIRST® Robotics Program
Keywords: children
disability
paediatrics
rehabilitation
robotics
youth

Background: Youth with disabilities often have less opportunities to play than their typically developing peers. An adapted robotics program is a promising way to help address problems in play development while learning educational content relevant for success across the lifespan.Objective: To understand the impact of using an adapted robotics program on the development of playfulness among youth with disabilities, aged 9 to 14 years. Methods: Observational research design using a pre-post video analysis on video-recorded raw data using the normalized and standardized assessment tool, the Test of Playfulness. Results: Participants exhibited significantly more playful behaviours following the completion of the adapted robotics program (Δ=0.8, p=0.001). Prior enrollment in the program also significantly impacted playfulness (F(1.0, 25)=10.0, p=0.004) Age, gender and disability type did not improve playfulness. Conclusion: The adapted robotics program improved the playfulness scores of youth with disabilities while enrolled in the program. These findings suggest that youth with disabilities can improve their playfulness through recreational and/or leisurely means.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Signal Processing, Augmented Reality and Wearable Technology Applications in Audiovisual Perception and Sensing
Keywords: augmented reality
electroencephalogram (EEG)
high-dynamic-range (HDR)
signal reconstruction
steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP)
wearable technology

Sensation and perception are fundamental to how we interact with our surroundings and others. By investigating our ability and capacity to sense, we may better understand human and machine perceptions. This thesis examines how the use of signal processing, augmented reality and wearable technology enhances our audiovisual experience. First, we propose methods to produce a more immersive auditory experience by increasing the dynamic range of the audio signal through HDR signal processing. Next, we explore how augmented reality techniques for visualizing otherwise invisible phenomena are useful for studying, understanding, and interacting with these phenomena. Lastly, we propose methods and algorithms that investigate the relationship of steady-state visually evoked potential responses and the visual field of the human eye with an electroencephalogram device. By tapping into wearable technology, we realize an affordable and accessible solution for auditory and vision-related personalized health care and assistive technologies.
Investigating the Influence of Fuel Volatility on Particle Emissions Phenomena in a Production Gasoline Direct Injection Engine
Keywords: Deposits
Flash-Boiling
Gasoline
Injection
Volatility

Due to both potential climate and health concerns, research interest in the formation of particulate matter in GDI engines remains strong. However, the processes driving the emissions are still not fully understood. This experimental study investigated the influence of fuel volatility on the particulate matter emissions, using both commercial and specifically targeted and controlled surrogate fuel blends to isolate the influence of fuel volatility from traditionally considered causative effects of fuel chemistry and properties. In non-ethanol containing fuels, high measured volatility fuels resulted in increased PM emissions in comparison to low volatility fuels, while also generating increased nitric oxide emissions. The effect of 10\% ethanol match blended in these fuels varied with volatility level, with E10 fuels always presenting high PM emissions, unlike their ethanol-free counterparts. A fuel injector deposit driven change in PM emissions was noted in the dataset, which appeared to show dependence on fuel volatility as well.