VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Narratu Sunt Digna: Aspects of the Socio-economic Life of Rome's Plebs, 275-455 CE

This dissertation provides a wide-ranging analysis of the socio-economic life of the non-elite urban population of Rome and their interactions with the institutions and administration of the city from 275 until 455 CE. The traditional view holds that during this period the life of the plebs Romana became measurably worse, as empire-wide reforms precipitated a continual numerical decline in the city's population and shrinking economic opportunity. I demonstrate, on the contrary, that a large portion of the city's population experienced vitality on a level not hitherto appreciated by historians of the later Roman empire. I first address the issue of the size of Rome's population. Through a close reading of various complex pieces of epigraphic and legal evidence pertaining to the city's food supply, I propose that Rome not only maintained a high population throughout the fourth century, but that there was also likely an increase in the number of those entitled to free food distributions, the so-called plebs frumentaria. The consequence of this argument is that a larger portion of population now possessed the opportunity to acquire wealth well above the level of subsistence. I then consider by what means Rome's plebs might access and control their wealth. Work, labour, and urban commerce prove to be useful heuristic categories. The epigraphic record reveals that members of the plebs Romana continued to identify with their work as they had during the earlier Empire, while juridical and literary texts disclose that this same population came to be defined by and fix to their work. It is here that this dissertation intersects with the broader scholarly discourse on work and labour, as I show that membership in professional associations — collegia and corpora — was imposed on all craftsmen, artisans, and entrepreneurs. Far from functioning as restrictive and oppressive institutions, these associations formed an increasingly interdependent relationship with the administrative apparatus of the city, which members both collectively and individually exploited to their political and economic benefit. The study concludes with systematic analysis of the construction industry in Rome as a case study both of collegial activity and of population dynamics. Late-antique Rome, it is shown, was a city in which a section of its non-elite population, its plebs, were able to turn the new demands imposed on them by the city and the state to their social and economic advantage.

Keywords: Demography
Guilds
Labour
Late Antiquity
Rome
Advisor: Bruun, Christer
Child Participation in Linguistic Changes in Progress in Ontario English

This dissertation investigates how children participate in language changes in progress in their community, focusing on two variables: one vowel change, /u/-fronting, and one morphosyntactic change, the genitive alternation between ’s and of. Previous studies suggest two ways that children may contribute to change: through early language learning errors, such as overgeneralization, or through socially-driven incrementation of changes in progress later in childhood. To explore both processes, this study includes children ages 4 to 12 and compares their productions with those of adults. Experiment 1 examines /u/-fronting, a phonologically conditioned change in which /u/ is initially more fronted after coronal consonants than in other contexts. From picture naming and word reading tasks, children were found to front /u/ more than adults in the non-coronal environment, and this effect was strongest for the youngest children. This pattern suggests a kind of overgeneralization of /u/-fronting, with young children extending the change to a new environment. Experiment 2 focuses on change in the genitive alternation: the s-genitive is increasing in frequency over time, conditioned by several factors including possessor animacy, type of possession relationship, and possessor/possessum length. In an elicitation task, young children produced ’s significantly more often than adults across contexts, while following the same patterns of internal constraints. This bias towards ’s decreased in the middle group of children, but increased again in 10- to 12-year-olds, potentially reflecting incrementation effects later in childhood. Taken together, these findings suggest that mechanisms of child language acquisition can contribute to both phonological and morphosyntactic change. Although the details differ across variables, young children’s production patterns align with the direction of historical change. Theories of language change should consider not only the contributions of adolescents, but also potential learning tendencies in children that can introduce or advance changes in the system.

Advisor: Perez-Leroux, Ana T
Princess Point: Inter-community Variation and Localized Settlement-subsistence Practice

This dissertation examines Princess Point macrobotanical remains as a means of identifying and exploring the nature and extent of inter-community variations in local subsistence practice, small-scale habitat production, and the operation of settlement-subsistence based communities of practice in Early Late Woodland Period (AD 500-1050) southern Ontario. The Princess Point Complex is one of a number of pre-contact cultures that existed throughout South-Central Ontario during the Early Late Woodland period and are likely ancestral to later Iroquoian societies (Saunders 2002). By employing multi-scalar, comparative analyses of eight Princess Point botanical assemblages, this project seeks to identify the critical similarities and differences between them as a means of better understanding to what extent Princess Point communities were either characterized by a strict adherence to a single, uniform settlement-subsistence strategy or differentiated from one another by variations in localized human-environmental relationships as evidenced by a reliance on differing suites of target resources. This study is also concerned with generating understandings of the social dynamics and environmental factors which may have underlain Princess Point settlement-subsistence decision-making processes. This study also explores the relative importance of localized subsistence-based communities of practice among the Princess Point and the degree to which Traditional Ecological Knowledge may have either been shared via cooperative action or developed in relative isolation via the independent operation of otherwise neighbouring or spatially affiliated pre-contact communities. Beyond the identification of significant inter-community variability in localized subsistence practice and site-level subsistence-based communities of practice among the Princess Point, this study also identifies a number of broader trends in Princess Point human-environmental relationships and highlights the flexible, often idiosyncratic, nature of localized Princess Point settlement-subsistence decision-making processes. Evidence presented in this study also suggests the parallel operation of a broader, more regionally consistent community of practice at the regional level. This study also engages more directly with questions pertaining to the organization of Princess Point community social dynamics. In this regard, Princess Point subsistence-based communities of practice appear to have represented largely autonomous social units within a broader, overarching cultural landscape characterized, in part, by an adherence to a shared set of traditional subsistence practices.

Keywords: Communities of Practice
Environmental Archaeology
Northeast Archaeology
Palaeoethnobotany
Princess Point
Advisor: Smith, David G
Tone-Metric Analysis: A Novel Approach to the Study of Form and Performance in North German Baroque Organ Music

This dissertation studies the principles and applications of tone-metric analysis, a novel analytical approach based on the assumption that beat (or tactus) is a combinatorial set of strong and weak beats. As such, tactus can be studied using mathematical tools such as Pascal’s and Sierpinsky’s triangles, which help to quantitatively describe and model, through graphic constructs such as tone-metric waves and trees, the relationship between rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic designs as unfolding functions of the tactus’s regularity. The specificity of these functions, and their lengths and positioning within a piece, have consequences for the performance and perception of music, the analysis of which is at the core of this dissertation. Therefore, waves and trees can be used to describe phenomena such as the perception of tension and relaxation in music, and to initiate the analysis of how agogic elements can be integrated and rendered in performance. Because of its ability to describe and graphically model the elusiveness of music’s unfolding in time, tone-metric analysis is an ideal tool for the analysis, performance, and perception of repertoires that display a high degree of phrasal and formal variety, and are improvisatory in character. This dissertation studies primarily North German organ music, focusing on stylus ii phantasticus preludes and fantasias, chorale-based pieces, and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach, Nicholaus Bruhns, Dietrich Buxtehude, Nicholaus Hanff, and Johann Pachelbel. For comparison, the dissertation also explores brief passages from later repertoires (classical, romantic, and extended tonal) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frédéric Chopin, and Alban Berg. A major novelty of tone-metric analysis is its approach to the combinatorial and geometrical nature and features of tactus, and the consequent generation of an algorithmic basis for the analytical discourse. This approach raises questions about the nature of the relationship between tactus and other musical parameters such as melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements, and about their role in shaping phrasal and formal designs in music governed by a steady beat. The thesis thus recommends a new look at the fundamental nature of tactus as a conceptually combinatorial and fractal space for music.

Keywords: form
fractal
organ
performance
tactus
Advisor: McLean, Don
Understanding the Role of Latent Heating in the Heat and Mass Transport of the Global Atmospheric Circulation

Almost one quarter of the insolation from the sun evaporates water vapor at the surface, which adds thermal energy to the atmosphere through latent heating. The main goals of this thesis are to diagnose and quantify the role that this latent heating plays in atmospheric transport and the global general circulation. Using the equivalent potential temperature (θe) as a variable to study the circulation implicitly accounts for the effects of latent heating on the dynamics, suggesting that tropospheric transport should follow these surfaces. In chapter 2 this idea is heuristically tested using an idealized moist general circulation model with perturbed midlatitude surface temperatures; the atmosphere responds by transporting warm air along climatological θe surfaces. In chapter 3 we study the mass transport of the general circulation projected onto θe surfaces using the Statistical Transformed Eulerian Mean (STEM), which parameterizes this circulation using zonal mean statistics. The functional dependence of the STEM is exploited to understand the response of the circulation on θe surfaces to climate perturbations, by calculating the functional derivatives. One key finding is that the sensitivity of the circulation is inversely proportional to the zonal mean standard deviation of θe. The preceding analysis using θe is complemented in chapter 4 by a novel heat tagging method developed in this thesis which allows us to attribute the potential temperature (θ) content of the atmosphere to specific diabatic processes. The heat tags includes both locally produced and remotely advected tagged tracer content, providing insight into regions which may be sensitive to remote diabatic processes. This method is applied to an idealized moist general circulation model. The majority of θ in the troposphere is from latent heating, even in the poles here where there is no latent heating. The variability of the heat tags, their use in decomposing heat transport, and the response to a CO2 doubling experiment are also studied.

Keywords: Atmospheric Dynamics
Climate Dynamics
Fluid Mechanics
General Circulation Modelling
Global Circulation
Thermodynamics
Advisor: Kushner, Paul J
The Unique and Cumulative Predictive Capacity of Validity Measures to Detect Feigned Psychological, Cognitive, and Medical Conditions: An Analogue Investigation

Contemporary psychological assessments regularly inform high-stakes decisions (e.g., access to treatment, disability status, personnel selection, psychological capacity, work accommodations); the appropriateness of these decisions is not only dependent on accurate test data but also on a clinician’s skill in interpreting response validity. One strength of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) is its array of validity scales designed to detect symptom over-reporting, with certain scales designed to target specific (feigned) symptom clusters (e.g., psychotic, emotional, somatic, cognitive symptoms). Empirical evidence consistently demonstrates that the MMPI-2-RF over-reporting validity scales can systematically differentiate between veridical and non-veridical response styles in both clinical and non-clinical samples. However, recent research suggests that the MMPI-2-RF five over-reporting validity scales, which ostensibly target different sets of feigned symptoms, may lack specificity in differentiating between different types of known-feigning groups. The primary goal of this study was to examine the unique contribution of each of these five MMPI-2-RF over-reporting scales to detect differentially the feigning of psychotic, emotional, cognitive, or somatic disorders/conditions using analogue samples. The secondary goal of this study aimed to explore whether commonly used performance-based validity measures (PVT) offer incremental validity to the MMPI-2-RF over-reporting validity scales in detecting these feigned disorders/conditions. To achieve these goals, 185 undergraduate students participated in a part mixed-model analogue design and were randomly assigned to one of six experimental groups. Participants completed the MMPI-2-RF on two occasions; once with the standard test instructions and then again with different sets of instructions, in which they were coached to feign one of several disorders/conditions; on this occasion the participants also completed a battery of PVTs. Results from this study are broadly consistent with past research indicating that the MMPI-2-RF over-reporting scales can effectively differentiate between veridical and feigned response styles. However, the results from this study offer evidence of incongruence between the conceptual underpinnings and reputed function of some of the over-reporting scales to differentially predict some of the feigned disorders/conditions. Results for the PVTs used in this study highlight the potential benefit of using a multi-method measurement approach in the assessment of non-credible responding.

Keywords: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-RF
Performance validity measures
Predictive validity
Symptom validity measures
Advisor: Bagby, Michael
Pollen Ice Nucleating Particles and Their Response to Atmospheric Processing

Clouds are crucial to life on Earth as they help regulate temperature and distribute water resources. Yet, large uncertainties exist around cloud development and evolution with many open questions about processes spanning from micro- to macro-scales. On the micro-scale, ice formation contributes to precipitation formation and cloud radiative properties; yet our understanding of this process is limited. This thesis assesses the ice nucleating (IN) ability of pollen and subpollen particles (SPPs) under mixed-phase and cold cloud conditions. In a first step, pollen IN activity was investigated under mixed-phase cloud conditions where IN activity was found to vary between pollen types and that submicron SPPs drive pollen IN activity. Additionally, one pollen type, grey alder, was identified to initiate freezing above −10°C, thus contributing to a small set of highly active ice nucleating particles (INPs). In a second step, atmospheric processing of SPPs was investigated, as SPPs can experience atmospheric transport and exposure to varying environmental conditions. Several processing pathways were found to compromise pollen IN activity. The largest impacts were observed for the most IN active pollen by exposure to simulated solar radiation. Under cold cloud conditions, chemical oxidation negatively impacts the IN activity of silver birch and grey alder pollen, occurring on a similar timescale as changes to the molecular structure were observed. The findings from laboratory INP measurements were translated to parametrize INP concentrations from SPPs, indicating INP concentrations below 10-2 m-3 in one modeling scenario. To overcome potential barriers in detecting such low INP concentrations by commonly used INP instruments, a Portable Fine Particle Concentrator was evaluated for INP measurements in the field. Enrichment factors are found to be particle size dependent while an INP enrichment factor of 16±5 was achieved in a mountain-top field study. The insights gained from this thesis will help assess the importance of pollen as INPs and reduce uncertainties that cloud processes currently impose on weather and climate predictions.

Keywords: Atmopsheric processing
Continuous Flow Diffusion Chamber
Droplet Freezing Technique
Ice nucleation
Particle enrichment
Primary Biological Aerosol Particles
Advisor: Abbatt, Jonathan PD
Crude Regulation: Environmental Assessments and the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Oil Industry

This research examines the role that environmental assessment and strategic environmental assessment processes play in the commercial development of oil in the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) offshore. It draws on the Regulation Approach as a way of examining the geographical and cultural specificity of the oil industry and environmental regulation in NL and how this ties to broader questions of development and capitalism, specifically the development and perpetuation of petro-capitalism in NL. Through document analysis, meeting observation, and interviews, this work examines environmental assessment processes in two locations. First, in offshore eastern NL, where all commercial offshore oil development and a significant amount of exploration has taken place. Dozens of environmental assessments have been done in the region but there has been little public contention or opposition to oil. The second location, the west coast of the island of Newfoundland, has far less experience with environmental assessment processes and oil activities. However, overlapping assessments for offshore drilling and fracking, as well as a strategic environmental assessment, led to the mobilization of communities in five provinces around the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Examining the history, current experiences, and outcomes of environmental assessments and oil industry activities in these locations illustrates the somewhat contradictory role that environmental assessments play in both supporting and challenging oil development in the province. The overarching emphasis on oil as a source of jobs and revenue in NL, especially since the cod fishery moratorium in 1992, has meant that environmental assessments often support and facilitate oil development and thus help to maintain provincial petro-capitalism. They help to contain and diffuse contention that could, if not addressed, lead to disruptions in oil-based accumulation. Yet at the same time, environmental assessments are also a space of contention where there are opportunities to challenge development projects and potentially question the province’s dependence on oil.

Keywords: Canada
environmental assessment
Newfoundland and Labrador
offshore oil
regulation approach
strategic environmental assessment
Advisor: Prudham, Scott
Journey Inwards

Journey Inwards is a single-movement, ten-minute orchestral composition scored for a medium-sized orchestra. The instrumentation consists of two flutes (piccolo), two oboes (English horn), two clarinets in Bb (bass clarinet), two bassoons (contrabassoon), four horns in F, two trumpets in C, two tenor trombones, one bass trombone, one tuba, one timpani, percussion (two players), one harp, one piano, and strings. The composition and its title are autobiographical: they reflect the composer’s self-exploration of his inner psychological reality and its various emotional levels. The work comprises three main sections. The first and last sections mirror each other in that they document parallel explorations of meaning, together forming a musical interpretation of the mixed and conflicting emotional landscape of an immigrant composer, born and raised in Iran during the eight-year war with Iraq which followed the 1979 Revolution. The middle section documents a perpetual state of lamentation for the lost souls known to the composer and countless others unknown to him. It is a state perpetually challenged by war and external and internal conflict which has left an indelible mark on the composer’s music.

Advisor: Hatzis, Christos
Physical and Mathematical Modeling of Water Atomization for Metal Powder Production

Water atomization (WA) of a molten metal is a well-established and cost-effective industrial approach to producing low-reactive metal powders. However, WA powders are characterized by a wide spread of particle size unsuitable for certain powder metallurgy applications. To address this limitation, this thesis examines some of the poorly understood fluid mechanics phenomena involved in WA, to develop fundamental knowledge that describes the relationships between the design and operating conditions of a water atomizer, and the particle size distribution (PSD) of the resulting powder. In the first part of the thesis, a flat fan water spray is studied by experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The disintegration of a liquid sheet into a spray is examined, an optical technique to measure a multi-range droplet size distribution (DSD) in a developing spray is presented, and an enhanced model to quantify the momentum flux of a spray where it impinges a melt stream is proposed. The model suggests that the momentum flux of a spray, and thus the atomization capacity, increases with spray pressure and decreases with the travel distance of the spray from the nozzle to the impingement point and with the spray spreading angle. In the second part of the thesis, the above findings are examined via production of a low melting point alloy (Bi-42% Sn) powder using a laboratory-scale water atomizer that was designed and built for this work. The effects of various design and operating parameters, including water pressure, melt superheat, apex angle, and spray configuration on the mass median size (d50) and standard deviation (SD) of the powder PSD are investigated, and correlations proposed. These correlations can be used to control the size features of water atomized powders produced at industrial scale, by engineering various design and operating parameters, and thus expanding the market for water atomized powders.

Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics
Metal Additive Manufacturing
Metal Powder
Optical Imaging
Powder Metallurgy
Water Atomization
Advisor: Chattopadhyay, Kinnor
Bussmann, Markus