VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
"Gathering the Pieces Back Together": The Experiences of Queer Second-Generation South Asians in Counselling and Psychotherapy

Second-generation South Asian sexual minorities endure numerous challenges to their mental health and well-being often arising from their generational, ethnoracial and sexual identities, which are difficult to reconcile and develop into a cohesive and consistent personal identity due to discriminatory ideologies and experiences within ethnocultural/religious communities, mainstream queer spaces and Western society. These individuals must also adhere to the codes of South Asian family life and navigate competing cultural influences. Yet, queer second-generation South Asians seem to underutilize counselling services, suggesting that the mental health needs of this population may be unmet. Furthermore, whether psychotherapeutic practice can effectively address the mental health needs of this community remains unclear given the paucity of research and practice literature. The present study aimed to better understand the mental health and treatment-seeking experiences of this community through the research question: What are the experiences of queer second-generation South Asian clients in counselling and psychotherapy? Participants consisted of thirteen (cisgender) women and men of South Asian descent, who were born in Canada, identified as queer and had experience in counselling and psychotherapy. Research methods involved qualitative interviewing and the use of social constructivist grounded theory. Four key themes emerged: Experience Leading Up to Initial Counselling and Psychotherapy, Experience Inside Counselling and Psychotherapy, Impacts of Counselling and Psychotherapy and The Therapy Relationship. Findings suggest that queer second-generation South Asians first engage therapy in particular conditions, including the presence of multiple issues that overwhelm and isolate them, and when access to therapeutic supports are availed through personal circumstances and resources. Moreover, the presence (or absence) of topics and processes in therapy shape their experiences both inside and outside the counselling space. Ultimately, engaging in psychotherapy impacts these clients personally, relationally and experientially. Notably, all participants were multiple users of psychotherapy, and over time psychotherapeutic engagement was increasingly oriented towards a therapy relationship seemingly capable of supporting the integration of their identities and experiences. A mid-level theory was generated from this study’s findings. Additionally, implications of this research on the field of psychotherapy and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: Counselling and Psychotherapy
LGBTQ+
Mental Health
Second-generation
Sexual Minority
South Asian
Advisor: Moodley, Roy
A Cultural Geography of Gardens in Early Twentieth-Century Viennese Opera

This dissertation offers a new exploration of music, space, and place in early twentieth-century Vienna, through a focus on gardens as represented in opera and encountered in the city. I provide alternatives to longstanding interpretations of fin-de-siècle Viennese gardens as symbolic of aestheticist escapism by attending to a range of garden types and emphasizing their embeddedness within social and material contexts. I identify various metaphorical, literal, and discursive resonances between my chosen operatic gardens and counterparts in the built environment. Reading musical-dramatic gardens in light of contemporary urban and artistic developments, I argue, recognizes the mutual inflection of physical environments and artistic representations of them, and newly illuminates gardens’ diverse cultural associations and their dramaturgical functions in opera. Following my Introduction, the second Chapter outlines Richard Wagner’s musical-dramatic gardens, which served as precedents for the Viennese operatic gardens at the centre of my project. My third Chapter addresses the spatial dimensions of domestic, enclosed gardens and their entwinement with concerns around gender and psychological wellness in the modern urban landscape, through which I frame the garden in Arnold Schoenberg’s monodrama Erwartung (1909, premiered 1924). Chapter 4 theorizes open-air garden theatres as a locus for understanding the changing significance of neo-Baroque style for Vienna’s self-conception and theatrical ethos before and after World War I. I trace these themes in Franz Schreker’s pantomime Der Geburtstag der Infantin (1908), which premiered at the garden theatre of the Klimt circle’s Kunstschau 1908, and in the self-consciously Wagnerian garden scene in Alexander Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (1921, premiered 1922). My fifth Chapter focuses on pleasure gardens—a label I apply to the turn-of-the-century amusement park “Venedig in Wien” and the island of Elysium in Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten (1913-15, premiered 1918)—wherein sound and music evoke otherworldly atmospheres and transport listeners to imaginary spaces. Through a combined historical and interpretive approach, this project deepens musicological understanding of the connections between turn-of-the-century opera and urban environments, explores literal and metaphorical relationships between music and space, and contributes a music-focused cultural geographic perspective on gardens’ significance for Viennese material and artistic life around 1900.

Keywords: gardens
opera
Schoenberg
Schreker
Vienna
Zemlinsky
Advisor: Lee, Sherry
Individual Differences as Predictors of Participation in Sound Change

Models of sound change rely on individual listeners-turned-speakers to propagate variation which eventually turns into large-scale change. Sociolinguistic research, meanwhile, documents sound changes by aggregating data from a large number of speakers, usually disregarding individuals who deviate from the group norm. Psycholinguistic approaches to speech perception and production offer compelling evidence that individual cognitive differences are implicated in our linguistic behaviour. This dissertation aims to bring together individual difference frameworks and models of phonetically-motivated sound change to explore an instance of linguistic variation in Toronto. The production of /u/ has an allophonic distribution in which it is fronted following coronal segments and less fronted elsewhere. Post-coronal fronting has been documented as a long-term change-in-progress, while recent research indicates that the phonetic conditioning is loosening and fronting is spreading to non-coronal environments. A production experiment testing for correlations between individual cognitive differences and F2 of /u/ in two phonetic environments finds that female speakers who score low on the Empathizing Quotient scale have a significantly further back production of /u/ in the newly fronting environment, meaning that they are less innovative than their high-scoring counterparts. I argue that although this result is the opposite of the hypothesis that high-empathy women lead change, this low-empathy profile is compatible with a canonical description of a leader of sociolinguistic change. A perception experiment tests for correlations between the same cognitive factors and the perception of /u/ in coronal and non-coronal environments, to determine whether listeners at either end of the cognitive scales compensate for environment to different degrees. Women at either end of the empathizing scale do not differentiate between environments, leading to the conclusion that they are less affected by the onset than listeners who score highly on the systemizing scale. I suggest that the innovators are those whose low level of attention to detail allows them to ignore phonetic conditioning in their perception of /u/ providing the opportunity for /u/ to front in traditionally non-fronting environments, and whose low level of empathizing allows them to deviate from their peers. Both attributes are necessary to lead a co-articulatorily motivated sound change.

Keywords: /u/-fronting
individual differences
sound change
Advisor: Chambers, J.K.
Exploring Symmetry and Field-induced Phenomena in Kitaev Materials

A large part of modern condensed matter concerns non-local or global properties of systems under the broad term of topology. Closely intertwined with certain senses of topology are symmetries of the system, which physically constrain our description and offer non-perturbative insights into material properties. The range of possible phases of matter is greatly enriched by quantum mechanics, including certain types of non-local entanglement that cannot be understood in the usual symmetry-breaking paradigm of local order parameters. Beyond weakly interacting topology we find the stronger notion of \textit{topological order} in correlated systems, a prominent example being the $S = \tfrac{1}{2}$ Kitaev honeycomb model in a weak magnetic field.Through a remarkable combination of lattice geometry, strong spin-orbit coupling, and electron interactions, several material candidates have been put forward to realize Kitaev physics, including the $4d$ Mott insulator $\alpha$-RuCl$_{3}$ which offers tantalizing experimental hints of topological order. In this thesis we explore several aspects of Kitaev candidates and related systems under two broad themes. One involves symmetry-informed and constrained observables, including a proposed singularity in a thermodynamic quantity accompanying phase transitions between two Ising topological orders (ITOs). The ITO physics realized by the Kitaev model requires time-reversal symmetry to be broken, and much of the non-trivial physics is found at finite magnetic field. To this end, we study a microscopic spin model appropriate for $\alpha$-RuCl$_{3}$ and show that it exhibits an interesting field-induced paramagnetic state between the low- and high-field magnetic orders, consistent with recent experimental findings. We determine several properties of a lower-dimensional spin-$S$ analogue of the Kitaev model, including a multi-critical point at finite field separating different topological phases. Finally, we derive quantum state purities of entangled photons emitted from a spin-triplet superconducting heterostructure and discuss its use in a new paradigm of entangled spectroscopy.

Keywords: Kitaev
Magnetic Field
Magnetism
Spin Liquid
Symmetry
Topological Order
Advisor: Kee, Hae-Young
Versatile Polymer Coatings for Advanced Stability and Bioanalytical Applications of Nanoparticles

One of the challenges in transitioning nanoparticle (NPs) formulations to commercial applications is the limited colloidal stability of these materials in physiologically relevant buffers. Indeed, achieving long-term stability (>3 months) is difficult, particularly for upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) which are known for poor stability in buffers like 1×PBS. Versatile surface coatings (surface ligands that bind to many types of NPs) are also difficult to prepare because each type of NP [quantum dots (QDs), iron oxide NPs (IONPs), gold NPs (AuNPs)] has a unique composition and surface chemistry. To address these challenges, nine unique copolymers formulations were prepared and evaluated as NP overcoatings. These polymers were made of a poly(isobutylene-alt-maleic anhydride) (PIMA) backbone functionalized with varying ratios and types of phosphonate anchoring groups (PA) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) moieties. Syntheses of these polymeric ligands was done by the simple, one-pot nucleophilic addition reactions. Copolymers were subsequently coated onto UCNPs, QDs, IONPs, and AuNPs and investigated for colloidal and optical stability in different solutions including water, 1×PBS, and other common aqueous buffers. UCNP colloidal stability improved by up to 4 months when coated with copolymers containing greater proportions of anchoring groups and higher phosphonate valences. Small molecules could also be conjugated to these polymer-coated NPs by use of copper-free click chemistry. Using bio-orthogonal chemistry, folic acid (FA), tripheylphosphonium (TPP) and Cy3 dyes were conjugated to UCNPs (and QDs for Cy3) to demonstrate suitability for biosensor and bio-probe development. Cellular toxicity, uptake, and imaging studies were done to assess the bioanalytical potential of these polymer coatings. Early investigations for the potential theranostic applications of UCNPs was also done along with attempts to unravel the cellular uptake mechanism of these polymer coated NPs.

Keywords: Click Chemistry
Colloidal Stability
Inorganic Nanoparticles
Upconversion Nanoparticles
Advisor: Krull, Ulrich J
Room 41, Pictures from

This work is scored for orchestra of 3.3.3.3.4.3.3.1, 4 percussionists, piano, and strings. It comprises three movements: I - Hue Superimposed; II - Solids, Strings and Verticals; and III - Endless Rhythm. The durations of the movements are approximately 4’30”, 8’30”, and 11’30”. This composition focuses on the exploration of ideas from the Cubist art movement and in particular, the juxtaposition or combination of different perspective schemas or viewpoints. Each movement centers on musical techniques that aim to represent this idea through the co-existence of musical objects. Common to all movements are three-note pitch cells which serve as the basic object of observation. The first movement’s textualization of the cell creates viewpoints smeared in time and is inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s idea of "a static representation of movement," an idea he explored in paintings such as Sad Young Man on a Train, 1911, and Nude Descending a Staircase No.2, 1912. In the music, this texture is overlaid with versions of itself, at varying transpositions, to create multiple perspective schema. The second movement begins as a powerful release of energy, through solid, block-like, orchestrations of the cell, also combined at changing transpositions. This then moves to contrapuntal representations of the motive that are intimately presented by the string section. The third movement begins by combining the first movement's overlapping textural idea with a version of a rhythmic idea taken from the second. This transforms into repetitive rhythmic motives that change while they explore the pitch cell and build to a dramatic layering of the rhythmic patterns at the climax of the composition. The title of this work is taken from the location, room 41, that featured artworks by the emerging group of ‘salon’ Cubists who presented at the 1911 Salon des Indépendants art exhibition.

Keywords: Art
Cubism
Orchestra Score
Pattern
Rhythm
Texture
Advisor: Palej, Norbert
The Repertoire of John Beckwith for Solo Voice and Piano: An Interpretive and Pedagogical Guide

This thesis examines the compositions of John Beckwith for solo voice and piano, creating an interpretive and pedagogical guide to these works. Several questions predominate. What aspects of Beckwith’s songs contribute to the overall difficulty level of the pieces? What aspects of Beckwith’s songs should singers and teachers consider in order to give a successful performance and interpretation? What are the key elements of Beckwith’s compositional style for art song and how did these develop over the course of his compositional life? What are the values and pedagogical benefits of disseminating Beckwith songs into the teaching and singing community? This guide is intended to assist voice teachers in assigning repertoire to their students, particularly voice teachers who may not be familiar with John Beckwith’s art song compositions. One of the issues facing voice teachers is determining the level of difficulty of a song. A literature review of various evaluative rubrics for the piano/vocal pairing has revealed a necessity for developing a new grading rubric. Therefore, this guide includes a grading rubric using the Criteria-Specific Rating Scale, which assesses the difficulty level of Beckwith’s forty-six songs for voice and piano, indicating the assigned difficulty rating – Easy, Easy-Moderate, Moderate, Moderate-Difficult, and Difficult. This guide also provides annotations of song cycles, with a deeper focus on select songs. Annotated information includes the date of composition, voicing, vocal ranges, tessitura, song duration, text source and complete texts, publisher information, debut performance, and commissioners. Annotations also include specific statements about the songs from Beckwith and key collaborators, with indications of how performers can interpret each song to create a successful performance. This thesis details the personal and professional history of John Beckwith, focusing on his education and his multi-faceted career, which includes academia, writing, and composition, all of which had a significant impact on the Canadian music scene. Through his song repertoire, this thesis reveals the evolution of his writing style, the timeline of his output, his interactions with poets, performers, and organizations, his compositional processes, his treatment of the text, voice and piano, and ultimately the values and pedagogical benefits of these important works.

Keywords: Art Song
Canadian Music
Grading Rubric
Interpretative Guide
John Beckwith
Voice Pedagogy
Advisor: MacDonald, Lorna
Development of Novel Algorithms to Predict Pharmacokinetic Properties of Drug Molecules

Models of drug pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) are indispensable in modern drug design. Relatively few in silico models of PK are currently available, especially compared to in silico PD models. Clinically significant PK properties include potentially dangerous food–drug and drug–drug interactions (FDIs and DDIs); mutagenicity, typically measured using the Ames test; and inhibition of the cardiac repolarization channel, human ether-à-go-go related gene (hERG). Virtual screening (VS) of large drug candidate libraries for these properties would facilitate avoidance or prediction of these effects early in drug development. VS methods of predicting another important PK property, blood–brain barrier (BBB) penetrance, are available, but tools for considering this property in de novo drug design are limited.Here, a combination of homology modeling, docking simulations, and quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) analysis was employed in predictive modeling of drug interactions with six membrane transporters known to mediate clinically significant FDIs and DDIs in humans. The accuracy of the homology models varied with availability of foundational data, but, in general, they successfully captured known aspects of the proteins’ structures. No docking simulations accurately reflected literature substrate and inhibitor data for these proteins; further in vitro structural analysis of the proteins’ ligand binding modes is therefore recommended. Machine learning (ML)-assisted binary QSAR analysis successfully yielded predictors for BCRP and P-gp substrate and inhibitor activity, as validated by three established statistical measures of reliability. Using similar methods, a binary QSAR and a “rule of thumb”—simple set of criteria—were developed for predicting hERG inhibition, and two analogous rules were identified for predicting BBB penetrance, with one using only drug structural descriptors that can be readily calculated without computational tools. Finally, a list of structural alerts for positive Ames test results was derived from literature and ML output, and validated using the same methods as for the hERG and BBB rules. Overall, this work has established an approach to detailed, predictive in silico PK modeling based on various levels of availability of structural and fitting data, as well as many example models that can be readily enriched as more such data becomes available.

Keywords: Ames test
blood-brain barrier
hERG
mutagenicity
pharmacokinetics
qsar
Advisor: Weaver, Donald F
Experiments on the Formation of Rippled Icicles

Icicles are a common sight during winter, hanging from rooftops and otherstructures from which water drips. The long slender shape of an icicle develops through a highly non-equilibrium process in which water flows down its surface, partially freezing along the way. This is an example of ``wet ice growth.'' Many icicles exhibit rippled pattern along their length with a near universal9~mm wavelength. While measurements of icicle ripples date back to at least 1933, the mechanism through which they form has eluded physicists. The existence and amplitude of ripples was previously shown to depend on the presence of impurities in the source water, but no existing model for icicle ripples includes impurities. The problem of how icicles form in the presence of impurities is the focus of this thesis. A pre-existing model for the rippling instability was extended to includephysical effects of impurities. A linear stability analysis performed on this model showed that it did not predict ripples. The stability of the model is not sensitive to concentration, so such a model will likely never agree with experiment. A set of 120 icicles were grown using various chemical species as the impurity.The changes in morphology from impurities were only affected by the molar concentration, showing that icicle ripples only depend on the number of dissolved molecules. One of the impurities used was a dye that only fluoresces when dissolved inwater. The liquid flowing down the surface of icicles was observed directly using this dye. Contrary to previous models, we find that the ice is incompletely and intermittently wetted by the liquid phase, and the concentration of impurities modifies the wetting properties of ice. The location of impurities trapped inside of icicles was also observed. All ofthe impurities were found inside small spherical inclusions. The inclusions are organized into chevron patterns aligned with the peaks of ripples, with a layered substructure, suggestive of cyclic wetting and freezing. These observations must inform any successful model of an impurity-drivenrippling instability. Our results have general implications for the evolution of many gravity-driven wet ice growth processes.

Keywords: Dynamic wetting
Ice
Icicle Ripples
Icicles
Morphology
Pattern Formation
Advisor: Morris, Stephen W