VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Distributed Coordination Theory for Ground and Aerial Robot Teams
Keywords: Autonomous robotics
Cooperative control
Distributed control
Stability of nonlinear systems

This thesis investigates distributed coordination problems for two important classes of robots. One class corresponds to ground-based mobile robots, each modelled as a kinematic unicycle. The second corresponds to flying robots, each propelled by a thrust vector and endowed with an actuation mechanism producing torques about three orthogonal body axes. The following coordination problems are studied in this thesis: rendezvous, formation control, linear and circular formation flocking and formation path following. For rendezvous of kinematic unicycles, a smooth, time-independent control law is presented that drives the unicycles to a common position from arbitrary initial conditions, under the assumption that the sensing digraph is time-invariant and contains a globally reachable node. The proposed feedback is very simple and is local and distributed. For rendezvous of flying robots, a control strategy is presented that makes the centres of mass of the vehicles converge to an arbitrarily small neighborhood of one another. The convergence is global, and each vehicle can compute its own control input using local and distributed feedback. For formation control, the objective is to make an ensemble of kinematic unicycles achieve pre-defined inter-agent spacings with parallel heading angles. We consider scenarios where the formation either stops or moves with a final collective motion. In the latter case, problems of linear and circular formation flocking and formation path following are studied. A control law is presented in each case that solves the problem for almost all initial conditions. For stopping and flocking formations, the proposed control laws are local and distributed while for formation path following, the control laws additionally require each agent to measure its displacement from the path. The idea used to solve the formation control problems is to rigidly attach an offset vector to the body frame of each unicycle. It is shown that stabilizing the desired formation amounts to achieving consensus of the endpoints of the offset vectors, and simultaneously synchronizing the unicycles' heading angles. Extension of formation control to flying robots using strictly local and distributed feedback is not addressed in this work and remains a challenging open problem.
Liberating the Family: Education, Aspiration and Resistance Among South African University Students
Keywords: Aspirations
Debt
Higher Education
South Africa
Student Activism
Youth

In October 2015, South Africa witnessed the largest student protests since the end of apartheid over rising tuition costs. Based on qualitative research conducted between 2015-2016, this dissertation analyses these protests through the experiences of working-class students from Khayelitsha, an urban township in Cape Town, South Africa. Education-based resistance since the end of apartheid occurs in a context of rapid and shifting patterns of class formation, in which higher education is both critical to ensuring social mobility and avoiding chronic unemployment. At the same time, higher education access is constrained by the endurance of racial and spatial inequalities, and limited forms of state support for working class students. My research reveals how working-class students develop aspirations toward higher education and how these are intimately connected to circumstances of household poverty. For these students, support for the protests did not merely involve opposition to commodification, but was connected to shared experiences of racialized poverty, aspirations toward collective social mobility, and the debilitating role of student debt. By focusing on how higher education reconfigured young people’s bonds with family and generated anticipated financial obligations, I highlight how the protests spoke to a crisis of social reproduction affecting working-class households. In doing so, I highlight young people’s role as economic actors in household distributive economies. This dissertation also reveals how higher education is frequently a contradictory resource for working class youth. It provides pathways toward social mobility for a limited number, while simultaneously binding them into systems that reproduce wider forms of social inequality. Rather than simply struggles against neoliberalism then, the protests reveal the multiple and contradictory functions of higher education in South Africa, as it is aimed at addressing racialized inequalities while meeting the human capital requirements of a globalized economy. Finally, I highlight the importance of relational approaches to youth studies, that understand young people’s agency as embedded within wider social, political and economic structures.
Making Legislatures Matter: The Paradox and Potential of South African Parliamentary Reform
Keywords: Budget Oversight
Constitutional Design
Good Governance
Legislative Studies
Parliamentary Reform
South Africa

Calls for parliamentary reform and strengthening, especially the budget oversight and scrutiny function, are common among parliamentarians. Experience, however, shows that parliamentarians rarely actually enact significant reforms to enhance parliament’s effectiveness. Legislative studies scholarship focuses primarily on explaining why major reform rarely occurs. This study explains a South African case of major provincial parliamentary strengthening that occurred in a manner and during specific conditions that legislative studies theory suggests would either prohibit reform or weaken the legislature. The Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) initiated and adopted a full reform package under the name ‘Programme Evaluation and Budget Analysis’ (PEBA) between 1998 and 2004. This reform expanded and deepened budget oversight and scrutiny processes in just six years, surpassing various formal reform efforts in the United Kingdom and Canada over roughly sixty years. This contrast in reform outcomes is explored at length. The GPL’s reforms also made public participation a formally integral component of budget oversight and scrutiny. PEBA’s development, adoption, and implementation overturn conventional theorizing in the legislative studies field on parliamentary reform and transformation. This study uses the heuristic case study design and a theoretically eclectic approach in light of the truly paradoxical nature of the GPL’s reforms. After exploring the full scope of the paradox in light of a century’s worth of legislative studies theorizing, the study incorporates elements of the theoretical structure advanced by critical liberalism, federalism studies, and deliberative democratic theory to develop a working hypothesis. Testing the working hypothesis produces refinements that increase confidence in the study’s findings and justify optimism about prospects for parliamentary strengthening. Future research to expand testing of the hypothesis may lay the foundations for a new theory of parliamentary transformation and demonstrates the necessity of being open to developments in parliamentary innovation where it is least expected.
Multimodal Optical Imaging of Seizure with Flowmetry Stabilization
Keywords: fluorescence
microscopy
multimodal
photoacoustics
seizure
speckle

Two novel multimodal optical imaging systems, both providing concurrent full-field blood flow and oxygenation/volume mapping, were developed to investigate epilepsy-related disease models: 1) An epifluorescence microscope-integrated system, permitting simultaneous intracellular calcium imaging and electrographic recording of brain activity and 2) a miniaturized head-mounted system (collaborative work), permitting brain imaging of freely-behaving rats. The microscope-integrated system investigated microvascular dynamics during seizure, revealing large arteriole dilation associated with seizure onset. Furthermore, the electrographically correlated neurovascular seizure responses, intracellular calcium dynamics, and inter-seizure consistency were found to be modified after anti-seizure drug administration. The miniaturized system investigated an absence seizure model, revealing a previously under-characterized biphasic neurovascular response to motor arrest at seizure onset. Blood flow was measured using laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI), permitting high spatiotemporal resolution flowmetry. While all the imaging modalities employed have a high dynamic range, LSCI-derived image sequences have rapidly varying high spatial frequency distortions. These distortions significantly reduce the reliability of misfocus correction and image registration approaches, which are required for brain-motion insensitive signal amplification. Novel speckle noise insensitive parameters were developed for sub-depth of field active LSCI misfocus correction and high precision LSCI image registration, permitting flowmetry stabilization. An adaptive cardiographic synchronization scheme enabled precise cardiac cycle-driven blood flow trace characterization and greater flowmetry stabilization than previously reported. The LSCI image registration approach exploited high precision vessel edge detection filters which are stable in the presence of a spatial sparsity enforcement scheme that preserves temporal flow dynamics. Consequently, these filters provide a data decompression mechanism that permits the measurement of arteriole diameter changes and blood flow dynamics at/below 1.0±0.5% and 0.10±0.05% data retention, respectively. Concurrent compression of oxygenation and calcium imaging data is feasible for most applications given their lower spatiotemporal contrast. Ongoing research is presented supporting the suitability of photoacoustic imaging for whole-brain myelin mapping, demyelination assessment, and hypoxia-ischemia tracking. Cardiographic synchronization permitted deep cerebral artery visualization with improved artery occlusion sensitivity. The several proof-of-principle innovations presented will enable expanded multimodal imaging studies of disease processes, progression and treatment effects in freely-behaving animals with improved flowmetry stability and data transmission efficiency.
Lexical Stress in East Slavic: Variation in Space and Time
Keywords: Accentology
East Slavic languages
Lexical stress
Phonology

Lexical stress systems are known for their complexity and dependence on morphology. This thesis proposes a unified account of nominal stress in three East Slavic languages (Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian). When analyzed individually and without diachronic context, they seem to be unpredictable. In addition, most existing formal analyses of individual East Slavic languages omit some stress patterns as non-significant or treat them as exceptional. The analysis here employs single bracketed grid representations. Whereas analyses using Optimality Theory tend to incur some descriptive and theoretical problems, this framework enables an analysis that covers all existing stress patterns in the three languages, and sheds light on the synchronic and diachronic patterning of lexical stress systems. Tracing the development of stress in nominal inflectional paradigms from Common Slavic to the modern East Slavic languages shifts the focus from the Russian stress system, which continues to be the most studied, and puts it into a broader context. It is found that a historical opposition between accented and unaccented stems and suffixes, which became obscure due to a series of sound changes, has been gradually replaced by a new opposition between singular and plural subparadigms. This new opposition led to the emergence of shifting stems with stress patterns that depend on number, and to the subsequent reanalysis of many historically unaccented and post-accenting stems and some accented stems as shifting. Putting the burden of accentual contrast on the stem led to the loss of lexical accent from the suffixes. Since this tendency has not yet been completed and has proceeded at a different pace in each of the three languages, their stress systems vary in the degree of regularization, with Belarusian being the most regular, Ukrainian in the middle, and Russian the least regular. The introduction of shifting stems, which are marked in the lexicon as being subject to the shifting rules, makes possible an analysis which covers all existing nominal stress patterns in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian.
A Defense of Intellectualism: Will, Intellect, and Control in Late Thirteenth-century Philosophy
Keywords: action
control
intellect
medieval philosophy
will

The question of whether our volitions are caused by the activity of our cognitive powers was the subject of tremendous controversy for medieval philosophers. By answering in the affirmative, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas of Sutton and Godfrey of Fontaines, the so-called intellectualists, face what I call the Problem of Control. If my wanting some object is caused by my apprehending it as good through some cognitive act, then it seems that I am not able to will otherwise than I do. For to will otherwise than I do, it would be necessary that I apprehend some other object as good. If, however, I am not able to will otherwise than I do, then I do not seem to have control over my actions. But if I do not have control over my actions, then I do not act freely, since having control over one’s actions is necessary for acting freely. My dissertation addresses the Problem of Control. I first argue that Thomas Aquinas’s notion of “perfect cognition of the end” gives the intellectualists the resources to explain how a human being has control over her actions. Second, I argue that Aquinas does not adequately explain a central feature of his intellectualism, namely, how the will “moves itself” to the exercise of its act, and discuss how the “self-motion” of the will is addressed by Thomas of Sutton and Godfrey of Fontaines. Third, I consider whether the control that a human being has over her action when she has perfect cognition of the end of that action is the kind of control that matters for free will. I argue in the affirmative by defending the intellectualist claim that having perfect cognition of the end is what makes human beings free. In general, scholars have neglected intellectualism and praised the philosophical innovations of so-called voluntarists such as John Duns Scotus. But I show that intellectualism is worth careful attention, for although they were very much criticized by their contemporaries, the intellectualists have a more plausible understanding of the relationship between volition and the activity of our cognitive powers, and of human free will.
An Exploration of Faculty Perspectives of Online Teaching in a Sample of Collaborative Baccalaureate Nursing Programs in Ontario Colleges
Keywords: College
Faculty
Nursing
Online
Perspectives
Teaching

This thesis examined online teaching in the Ontario college sector in prelicensure collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs with the purpose of exploring and understanding best practice implementation and the nature and appropriateness of curriculum content for online delivery in nursing programs, as perceived by the faculty who have taught or are teaching courses online. The overarching question for this study was: What are the perceptions of participating faculty regarding the nature, challenges and strengths of teaching online course content in prelicensure collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs, and what are the implications for online course delivery? I used an exploratory-descriptive design and constructivist lens and pragmatic worldview with a mixed-methods data collection methodology to answer the research questions. The theoretical framework was rooted in constructivism as a teaching approach. My study included a representative sample of 13 English language Colleges in Ontario that offer prelicensure collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs. Participants were full-time and part-time nursing faculty and program coordinators in these programs. Data were collected through document analysis, an online questionnaire survey completed by 32 faculty (53.3%), and interviews with 16 nursing faculty. Based on the findings, I concluded that online education is useful in these nursing programs when the content and the semesters/years are appropriate, and necessary supports are in place. Content containing complex cognitive concepts was perceived as better suited to face-to-face settings, as was experiential learning such as relational practice and psychomotor skill mastery. A hybrid delivery format was the most preferred teaching environment. Faculty experienced challenges with developing higher level online discussions and having students collaborate. Faculty perceived that online teaching took much more time and there was a need for acknowledgement by leadership of this time in workload assignments. Though the colleges in this study are representative of the Ontario CAATs, the findings are not broadly generalizable. However, they will be of interest to other academic programs that wish to assess their own use of online learning, particularly in people and practice-based professional programs that prepare practitioners who work with vulnerable populations.
Development of a 10-element Hybrid Simulation Platform and its Application to Seismic Performance Assessment of Multi-storey Braced Frames
Keywords: buckling restrained braced frame
hybrid simulation
Numerical model
seismic performance
special concentrically braced frame
yielding brace

This study presents a 10-element hybrid (experimental-numerical) simulation platform, referred to as UT10, which was developed for running pseudo-dynamic hybrid simulations of braced frames with up to 10 large-capacity physical brace specimens. This study presents the details of the development of different components of UT10 including a network interface for actuator controller, NICON-10. An adjustable brace specimen, referred to as Adjustable Yielding Brace (AYB), was designed to simulate the hysteretic response of yielding braces such as buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) thus facilitating the seismic performance evaluation of multi-storey structures with hysteretic energy dissipative braces through hybrid simulations. Also, a buckling specimen was designed to simulate the hysteretic response of conventional buckling braces. Both AYB and buckling specimens were cyclically tested in UT10. The results indicated that these specimens are capable of producing hysteretic responses with characteristics similar to BRBs and conventional braces. A five-storey buckling-restrained braced frame (BRBF) and a special concentrically braced frame (SCBF) were designed and tested, respectively, with AYB specimens and buckling specimens representing the braces. Cyclic tests of the AYB and buckling specimens, 1- and 3-element hybrid simulations of the BRBF, and 2- and 4-element hybrid simulations of the SCBF inside UT10 confirmed the functionality of UT10 for running hybrid simulations on multiple specimens. Comparison of the results of the hybrid simulations of the BRBF and SCBF with their fully numerical models showed that the modelling inaccuracies of the yielding braces could affect the global response of the multi-storey braced frames further emphasizing the need for experimental calibration or hybrid simulation for achieving more accurate response predictions. UT10 provides a simple and reconfigurable platform that can be used to achieve a realistic understanding of the seismic response of multi-storey frames with yielding braces, distinguish their modelling limitations, and improve different modelling techniques available for their seismic response prediction.
John Weinzweig and the Canadian Mediascape, 1941-1948
Keywords: Canadian music
CBC
documentaries
incidental music
John Weinzweig
NFB

This dissertation explores John Weinzweig’s incidental music for radio and film and its context in Canadian cultural life. Between 1941 and 1948, Weinzweig composed music for nearly one hundred CBC radio docudrama episodes and for four National Film Board documentaries. Weinzweig’s time at the CBC and NFB was his first large scale success as a working composer, following his graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music. Weinzweig’s incidental music was publicly broadcast across Canada, and can be interpreted in light of how it represents Canada during an anxious and difficult yet significant time in the nation’s history through the Second World War and the immediate post-war era. These works, featuring new music broadcast by organizations in their infancy, helped to shape audience perceptions of a rapidly changing country. I begin by situating Weinzweig’s documentary music both temporally and philosophically. The opening chapter explores his biography, the musical context of the 1940s in Canada, and the creation of the CBC and NFB, and it closes by discussing significant themes in the works: indigeneity, northernness, dominion over the landscape, and nation and national affect. The subsequent three chapters divide Weinzweig’s docudramas and documentaries by topic: World War Two propaganda and postwar reconstruction, Canada’s north, and finally a discussion of Weinzweig’s only radio drama The Great Flood, which premiered on CBC’s cultural program Wednesday Night in 1948. Throughout this dissertation two themes emerge: the shift from propaganda to arts programming at Canada’s two public broadcasters, and how the CBC and NFB attempted to cultivate nationalist affect (the embodied emotion of feeling Canadian). Weinzweig’s incidental music for the CBC and NFB not only provides insight into his early career, it also sheds light on how two public broadcasters in their nascent years attempted to imagine Canada and create nationalist sentiment in Canadians.
Urban Scaling and the Dynamics of Cities
Keywords: cities
sustainability
thermodynamics
urban development
urban dynamics
urban scaling

Cities connect people with various skills and interests in a multi-component, interconnected system, which displays properties consistent with other complex systems observed in nature, such as scaling. Urban scaling is the empirical observation that as cities increase in size, they achieve agglomeration economies in socioeconomic indicators (i.e., superlinear scaling in GDP, income, crime) and economies of scale in terms of physical infrastructure (i.e., sublinear scaling in road length, length of electricity cables). This thesis focuses on the foremost (if not only) model in the literature for explaining scaling of internal indicators in cities, the Origins of Scaling in Cities model by Bettencourt. The model derives a number of superlinear, sublinear, and linear scaling exponents for different indicators from basic first principles in economic geography and physics. It combines classic ideas in economic geography of cities, particularly spatial equilibria, with the properties of social and infrastructural networks. In doing so, the model introduces new variables for describing internal processes in cities. The thesis consists of three papers, each with foundations in the Origins of Scaling in Cities model but adding new contributions to the field. The first paper, Dynamics of Urban Scaling, brings in a temporal component to the model by looking at how scaling parameters changes in cities over time, particularly in response to growth or decline, as well as urban planning policies. The second paper, A New Metric for City Sustainability Based on Urban Scaling Theory, takes a closer look at the costs and benefits of cities that are outlined in the model, and it examines the point at which cities can be considered to be maximizing net benefit. The third paper, The Physics of Urban Growth Revealed by City Scaling, looks at scaling in the context of the city as a thermodynamic system, presenting a new approach to understanding energy use in cities and the transformations that occur as urban populations and economies grow. The thesis is book-ended by discussion surrounding the ability of cities of different sizes to meet the needs of their residents, and the inevitable tradeoffs that exist in rapidly growing cities.