VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Investigating the reliability and clinical utility of minimally-invasive portable electroretinography and optical coherence tomography techniques in children undergoing vigabatrin therapy

The antiepileptic drug for Infantile Spasms – vigabatrin, has been associated with retinal toxicity in over one third of children treated. Young and non-verbal children cannot cooperate with conventional adult-oriented monitoring devices, therefore a safe and reliable technique to monitor for vigabatrin retinal toxicity is missing. This study evaluated the tolerability, reliability and clinical feasibility of two alternative, handheld systems for assessment of retinal function: the RETeval ERG and Envisu OCT. We found that non-sedated children showed poor tolerability on the RETeval ERG. Under sedation the same children showed high tolerability on the handheld OCT. Responses from both techniques demonstrated good reliability, however the assessments of longitudinal changes and clinical feasibility were limited by the small sample size. We suggest that the RETeval device is used in situations where sedation for clinical ERG is not possible, and the Envisu OCT is used alongside the clinical ERG to monitor for vigabatrin retinal toxicity prospectively.

Keywords: Clinical feasibility
Handheld ERG
Handheld OCT
Reliability
Vigabatrin
Vigabatrin-associated visual toxicity
Advisor: Westall, Carol
Microstructural Characterization of Copper Coatings on Nuclear Waste Containers for the Long-Term Disposal of Canada’s Used Nuclear Fuel

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has proposed a deep geological repository solution for the long-term disposal of Canada’s nuclear waste fuel. A critical part of this solution is the used fuel container which houses the waste fuel. This container is made of steel and is coated with copper via the electrodeposition and cold spray processes to provide corrosion resistance. Microstructural characterization was conducted on the electrodeposited and cold sprayed copper coatings of the UFC, as well as wrought copper reference material through electron backscattered diffraction, focused ion beam microscopy, and SEM imaging. Electrodeposited copper is expected to have the optimal corrosion resistance based on the structure-property relationships for corrosion of pure copper. This is primarily due to its smaller grain size and higher frequency of special grain boundaries.

Keywords: Cold Spray
Electrodeposition
Electron Backscattered Diffraction
Materials Characterization
Nuclear Waste Management
Pure Copper
Advisor: Erb, Uwe
Giallonardo, Jason
Global or Body-Related Self-Conscious Emotions: What Matters Most for Mental Health?

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative relationships between global and body-related self-conscious emotions and indicators of mental health. Adult men and women (N = 520; Mage = 35.4, SD = 10.1; 42% female) completed an online questionnaire to assess global and body-related shame, guilt and authentic pride, and multiple indices of mental health. Body-related shame and guilt were stronger predictors of the mental health indicators of psychological distress, depression, anxiety, eating pathology, self-esteem and the mental component of role functioning (β = -.51-.63, p

Keywords: Guilt
Mental health
Physical self
Pride
Shame
Advisor: Sabiston, Catherine M.
Modular Symbolic Encoding of Timed Discrete-Event Systems

Owing to the NP-hardness of the supervisory control synthesis, it is necessary to ex- ploit efficient tools for synthesizing large-scale systems. State tree structures have been demonstrated to be a relatively efficient framework for addressing discrete-event systems with large state spaces. In this thesis we study the fundamentals of exploiting similar techniques to those of the STS framework in the case of timed systems. Specifically, we introduce a symbolic encoding scheme for timed discrete-event systems, and extend the state-based control theory to synthesize supervisors for timed systems. A software package is also developed as a part of this work to test the encoding and theory on sev- eral examples. All results obtained by our software package are consistent with those previously obtained by the timed TCT (TTCT) package.

Advisor: Wonham, Murray
The Effect of Stressful Life Events and Schizophrenia Polygenic Risk on Suicide in Schizophrenia

Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are prevalent in individuals with schizophrenia. Recent stressful life events are associated with suicidal ideation, and early-life stressful events and polygenic risk score for schizophrenia are implicated in suicide attempt. My thesis aimed to determine if recent stressful life events are associated with emergent suicidal ideation, and whether specific domains of stressful events are involved. It also aimed to determine whether traumatic and non-traumatic early-life stressful events and the polygenic risk score for schizophrenia predict lifetime suicide attempt status. Logistic regression, classification trees, and random forest models were used. Recent stress total scores were not significantly associated with emergent suicidal ideation, but health-related stress was. Greater early-life stressful events were significantly predictive of suicide attempt. In modestly-sensitive models, sexual molestation and mental illness in early life were, overall, the most important predictors. The genome-wide schizophrenia polygenic risk scores were not significantly predictive.

Keywords: polygenic risk
Schizophrenia
Stressful life event
Suicide
Advisor: De Luca, Vincenzo
Phononic heat transport in molecular junctions: quantum effects and vibrational mismatch

In this work, we employ the quantum self-consistent reservoir (QSCR) method, which is based on the generalized quantum Langevin equation, to calculate phononic thermal conduction in molecular junctions. The method emulates phonon inelastic scattering processes while taking into account quantum effects. Specifically, we simulate the thermal conductance of linear, one-dimensional molecules with 3-10 particles bridging harmonic solids, while taking into account effective molecular anharmonicity by using the QSCR method. The results display the expected behavior of thermal conductance in anharmonic chains, as a function of length, phonon scattering rate, as well as temperature, thus validating the computational scheme. Moreover, we examine the effects of vibrational mismatch at the contacts on the heat transfer characteristics, and reveal the dual role of vibrational anharmonicity: It enhances the resistance of the system due to inelastic scattering processes, but it can promote energy transport across a vibrational mismatch by enabling phonon up-and-down-conversion processes.

Keywords: Generalized Quantum Langevin Equation
Molecular Junction
Phonon
Self-consistent Reservoir
Thermal Conductance
Vibrational Anharmonicity
Advisor: Segal, Dvira
Sex-specific differences in cerebral blood flow for athletes with a history of concussion

Growing evidence suggests that a history of sport concussion may lead to long-term changes in brain physiology. Changes have been observed in both retired and current athletes; however, it is unknown whether these changes are sex-specific. Previous research has shown that sex impacts the incidence of concussion, as well as reported symptoms and cognitive impairments post-concussion. These acute differences suggest the potential for long-term sex differences in brain recovery. The goal of this thesis was to evaluate sex differences in cerebral blood flow (CBF) in asymptomatic athletes with and without a history of concussion. Using Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL), an advanced magnetic resonance imaging technique, 138 athletes were segregated into cohorts based on sex and concussion history. Males with a history of concussion had a stronger and more extensive reduction in CBF compared to females and compared to males with no history of concussion.

Keywords: cerebral blood flow
concussion
gender differences
neuroimaging
sex differences
traumatic brain injury
Advisor: Schweizer, Tom A
Metformin Attenuates Hepatic Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Oxidative Stress in a Model of Burn Injury

Elderly burn patients are a high-risk group with poor survival rates. The incidence of organ failure for elderly burns is particularly high, and the organs typically affected, such as the liver, are mitochondria rich. This suggests that mitochondria underly the vulnerability of the elderly to burns, and thus treatments directly targeting mitochondria, such as metformin, may improve their outcome. Thus, we hypothesize that the elderly have a worse outcome due to faulty hepatic mitochondria and that metformin intervention would enable recovery. Our data shows that while adult murine mitochondria rebound from the initial insult, older animals display delayed recovery of mitochondrial bioenergetics. Moreover, metformin treatment suppresses the hypermetabolic mitochondria of the younger cohort while significantly increasing respiration in the aged group. These findings suggest that aging leads to a failure to normalize hepatic mitochondria after trauma and that metformin is a possible agent that can restore mitochondrial responses to burns.

Keywords: Aging
Burns
Elderly
Metabolism
Metformin
Mitochondria
Advisor: Jeschke, Marc G
Design and Control of A Tilt-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Wetland Inspection

This thesis presents a tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that combines a quadrotor frame and a tailless wing-body through a servo-operated tilting mechanism. The UAV is capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) on land and water, has high endurance and long range. The dynamics of the UAV are modelled using a built-up method with the motor-propeller data, the aerodynamic analysis data, and the computer-aided design (CAD) modelling data. For transition from hover to forward flight, a gain-scheduled altitude controller is developed to ensure minimal altitude change, and a singularity-free quaternion-based attitude tracking controller is implemented to command the pitch angle of the quadrotor-body from 0 deg to -90 deg. The dynamics and controllers are simulated using MATLAB Simulink to show successful transition. The altitude controller proposed is implemented in the ArduPilot firmware, and flight tests are conducted to validate the flight-worthiness of the proposed design and control.

Keywords: Design
Tilt-Rotor
Transition Control
UAV
VTOL
Wetland Inspection
Advisor: Liu, Hugh H. T.
Decolonizing autoethnography: Where's the water in kinesiology?

Kinesiology is a multi-disciplinary field studying the human body in relation to movement, and, yet, water is largely taken-for-granted. This is astonishing, considering ~70% of the human body is comprised of water and access to (reliable, safe, clean) water fundamentally shapes human lives. Furthermore, identities, geographies, histories, societies, cultures, economics, and politics have been, and continue to be, shaped by water. Therefore, to enhance decolonial water education in kinesiology, this thesis is presented in three “braided streams”. First, I critically reflect on my settler colonial history and complicity in relation to water issues impacting First Nations. Next, I critique kinesiology’s research, teaching, and practices to establish “where’s the water in kinesiology?” Last, with consent and support from Grandmother Josephine Mandamin and Joanne Robertson, I am contributing to an archive and story map of the Mother Earth Water Walks (2003-2018), an Anishinabe ceremony that nourishes sacred relationships between peoples and waters.

Keywords: Decolonizing
Education
Indigenous Methodologies
Spirituality
Storytelling
Water
Advisor: Fusco, Caroline
Helping Others and Receiving Help: Refugee Children's Narration of Post-Transition Prosocial Experiences

This study examined refugee children’s narratives about giving and receiving prosociality. Children and their primary caregivers (N = 86, 5 – 12-year-olds, M = 8.05, SD = 2.22, 47 girls; 55%) were asked to recount a time they provided help to someone and a time they received helped from someone else. Narratives were coded for themes (e.g., behaviours and prosocial motives) that reflected prosocial tendencies. Both children and their caregivers also completed measures assessing children’s dispositional sympathy and overt prosocial behaviour. Children most frequently reported providing direct help and receiving teaching help. The motivations children reported did not significantly differ between providing and receiving help narratives. We also found developmental differences in the types of help and prosocial motives children reported. No overt links between narrative themes with sympathy and prosocial behaviour were observed. The findings will be discussed in relation to previous research on prosocial development in adverse contexts.

Keywords: adverse experiences
narratives
prosocial development
refugee children
Advisor: Malti, Tina
Development and Evaluation of an Optical Sensor for Measuring Cognitive-Motor Function across Different Upper Limb Reaction Time Tasks

The following study presents the development and evaluation of an optical sensor system to measure cognitive-motor function across different reaction time tasks involving the upper-limb movement. The unique feature of this work is the system can measure reaction time and concurrently track finger tapping to provide the quantifiable measure of fine motor performances across different upper-limb motor tasks. The preliminary configuration design conducted in this work was to test the impacts of the environmental conditions on the signals. It was found that the lighting and orientation conditions had no impact on the signal quality. The results obtained from the evaluation test in a healthy group ages ranging between 18-40 found that the optical sensor demonstrated an excellent correlation with VICON system in reaction time measure across four upper-limb tasks. The median difference between two systems across four reaction-time tasks was 48msec falling within the 95% confidence interval (-0.98, 0.171).

Keywords: Cognitive-motor function
Concussion
Finger tapping
Optical sensor
Reaction time
Simple and Dual tasks
Advisor: Zabjek, Karl
Andrysek, Jan
Monitoring Chemical Contamination of Medical Air Using Low-Cost Sensors

Medical air is used in hospitals for patients suffering from a wide range of health problems. This air is typically produced by pressurizing outdoor air on-site and supplying it to patients through piping system. Thus, it may contain chemical pollution from outdoor sources or can be polluted because of technical problems in the production system. Hospitals in North America are mandated to meet the medical air quality standards established by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), yet medical air quality is often unmonitored. Thus, potentially failing to meet the patients' health requirements. In this study, concentration of CO, CO2, NOx, and O3, black carbon, and ultrafine particles in medical air were evaluated. Simultaneous measurements were made at the outdoor intake and patient-room ends of a medical air system at a Canadian hospital. The results showed a strong association between outdoor air pollution and the medical air quality based on correlation analysis.

Keywords: Air pollution
Low-cost sensors
Medical Air
Advisor: Evans, Greg J.
Reliable Uncertainty Quantification using Adaptive Stochastic Discontinuous Galerkin Methods

This thesis presents a reliable and efficient algorithm for combined model uncertainty and discretization error quantification of partial differential equation based simulations. Specifically, we present an adaptive solution method for stochastic partial differential equations that (i) propagates the effect of prescribed input parameter uncertainties to the output quantity of interest and (ii) effectively estimates and controls the discretization errors associated with the propagation process. Our framework builds on a high-order discontinuous Galerkin method, element-wise localized polynomial chaos expansions, the dual-weighted residual error estimate, and a spatio-stochastic anisotropic adaptation strategy. We present \textit{a priori} error bounds for our spatio-stochastic approximation and demonstrate the effectiveness of the formulation for a sample two-dimensional scalar equation, as well as compressible flow problems with uncertainties in flow conditions.

Advisor: Yano, Masayuki
The Intrinsically Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cell (ipRGC) Pathway and Its Role in Light-Induced Discomfort in Humans

Photophobia is a complex phenomenon defined by light-driven painful sensations; commonly associated with pathology. Although underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood and no objective assessment exists, growing evidence suggests that the melanopsin-containing intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell (ipRGC) light irradiance pathway plays a critical role in transducing light into a painful percept. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the properties of the recently discovered ipRGC pathway and its role in mediating light-induced discomfort. Using chromatic pupillometry, Study 1 demonstrates that melanopsin-mediated ipRGC signals are summated binocularly, a fundamental extension of the current understanding of this pathway. Using a novel objective tool to quantify light-induced visual discomfort, Study 2 then provides in-vivo evidence linking perceptual experience with features of the melanopsin system, which may mediate photophobia. In sum, this thesis expands our current understanding of the melanopsin pathway, and provides novel tools to assess photophobia in different clinical populations.

Keywords: chromatic pupillometry
light-induced discomfort
melanopsin
photophobia
post-illumination pupil response
psychophysics
Advisor: Wong, Agnes M.F
Goltz, Herbert C.
Veillametrics: An extramissive approach to analyze and visualize audio and visual sensory flux

Veillametrics is the study of sensors and their sensing capacities. This thesis describes the methodologies employed to capture the ability-to-sense (veillance) of various arbitrary audio and visual sensors through space, in order to visualize, quantitatively generalize, and model sensory veillance. Using the veillametry framework, 3D models can be rendered to visualize the quantity of exposure to sensing projected onto various environmental surfaces.The work is extended to approximate the veillance model of a human eye using non-intrusive eye-tests, using eye gaze absement metrics. Such veillance models can extend traditional eye tracking methods to reveal greater details of the biosensor and its range and capacity to sense compared to simple gaze directions. The thesis relates the extramissive (emissive) nature of veillametry to compare to intromissive theories, and gives a framework to model phenomenons such as optical power decay, blurring, and amount of independent information captured by a sensor array.

Keywords: Extramission
Sensory attention
Sensory capacity
Sensory flux
Veillametry
Veillance
Advisor: Mann, Steve
Children’s Appraisals of Gender Variance: Understanding the Emergence of Negative Attitudes

Among children ages 4-to-5- and 8-to-9-years-old (N = 142; 47.2% boys), multiple measures of social preference were employed to gauge appraisals of target boys and girls depicted as gender-typical or gender-variant. Children’s gender-typed behaviour and implicit attitudes as well as parental endorsement of gender stereotypes were also assessed. Social preferences did not precisely align across measures—although some consistent patterns were observed. Among boys, gender-typed preferences increased with age; older boys preferred the gender-typical boy and rated gender-typical peers more favourably. Girls showed a same-sex preference; but older girls also showed interest in being friends with the gender-variant boy. Older children rated the gender-variant boy as less preferred by others; and all children rated gender-variant children as less happy. Boys and girls expressed preferences for boy-typed and girl-typed activities, respectively. Parental endorsement of femininity was particularly associated with more positive appraisals of feminine peers. Implications for future research are discussed.

Keywords: children's appraisals
gender
gender expression
gender norms
gender variance
peer relations
Advisor: VanderLaan, Douglas
The Effects of Alzheimer's Disease on Synaptic Plasticity and the cAMP/PKA Pathway

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a physiologically devastating form of dementia, yet an understanding of AD pathology remains elusive. One promising avenue of research is to examine synaptic plasticity within the brain centres of learning and memory in animal models of AD. Long-term potentiation (LTP) is a model of learning and memory at the synaptic level, and deficits in LTP have been proposed in AD. The aim of this work is to examine whether synaptic defects in AD involve a neuronal signalling cascade: the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)/protein kinase A (PKA) pathway. This research uses novel modes of LTP induction which manipulate the course of LTP induction. Examinations reveal alterations in basal synaptic transmission in AD mouse models. The use of a cAMP/PKA enhancing drug revealed a potential dysregulation in the cAMP/PKA cascade. Lastly, coastline analysis showed potentiation induced hyperexcitability at synapses of an AD mouse model.

Keywords: Alzheimer's Disease
electrophysiology
LTP
Synaptic Plasticity
Advisor: Collingridge, Graham L
Jia, Zheng-Ping
Towards Long-Term Vision-Based Localization in Support of Monocular Visual Teach and Repeat

This thesis presents an unsupervised learning framework within the Visual Teach and Repeat system to enable improved localization performance in the presence of lighting and scene changes. The resulting place-and-time-dependent binary descriptor is able to be updated as new experiences are gathered. We hypothesize that adapting the description function to a specific environment will improve the localization performance and allow the system to operate for a longer period of time before localization failure. We also present a low-cost monocular Visual Teach and Repeat system, which uses a calibrated camera and wheel odometry measurements for navigation in both indoor and outdoor environments. These two parts are then combined with the end goal of achieving a low-cost, robust, and easily deployable system that enables navigation in complex indoor and outdoor environments with the eventual goal of long-term operation.

Keywords: Learning Descriptors
Long-Term Localization
SLAM
Visual Descriptor
Visual Teach and Repeat
Advisor: Barfoot, Timothy D
Basal Forebrain Transient Cholinergic Signal in Prefrontal Cortex and its Role in Associative Learning

Basal forebrain (BF) cholinergic neurons constitute a main neuromodulatory system in the brain and densely innervate to neocortex and hippocampus. Traditionally, acetylcholine (ACh) released from BF cholinergic neurons are thought to slowly influence neuronal network to regulate arousal, attention, and learning and memory. However, accumulating studies report phasic ACh release upon events with innate or learned salience. Thus, the present study investigated its role in acquisition of trace eyeblink conditioning where a preceding tone is paired with an eyelid shock. Here, it was shown that suppressing cholinergic activity in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during eyelid shock facilitated the formation of the tone-shock association. The enhanced learning was accompanied by elevated mPFC network activities indicated by neuronal activity marker, c-Fos. These findings suggest that phasic ACh release does not serve as a reinforcement signal in mPFC. Rather, it may regulate cortical network state by differentially activating local excitatory and inhibitory neurons.

Keywords: basal forebrain
medial prefrontal cortex
memory
Advisor: Takehara-Nishiuchi, Kaori