VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Robotic Cell Manipulation for Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI)

Infertility is a global health issue and affects millions of people. ICSI is the most commonly used technique for infertility treatment, and it achieved higher live birth rate than artificial insemination. ICSI involves the injection of a single sperm into an oocyte with a sharp glass micropipette. However, manual operation of ICSI suffers from inconsistency and potential damage to the cells. This research has addressed these two limitations by developing techniques of automation and less invasiveness for ICSI. Automated system was developed for measuring both motility and morphology of individual live sperm, to provide quantitative data for embryologists to select a single sperm for ICSI. The system has been validated to be highly reproducible and reliable. With customized design to add rotational degree of freedom, robotic micropipette alignment was developed based on kinematics modeling and controller design. The accurate alignment helped increase the success rate of sperm immobilization. Automated sperm aspiration was also proposed by establishing a nonlinear dynamics model and an adaptive controller to achieve high positioning accuracy within micropipette. To reduce cell damage during ICSI operation, robotic orientation control of deformable cells was developed. Polar body needs to be rotated towards 12 o'clock orientation before injection to prevent damaging the spindle. Deep neural networks were trained for robust detection of polar bodies to provide visual feedback. By force modeling and optimal control, an oocyte can be effectively rotated while consistently maintaining minimal cell deformation to avoid cell damage. Oocytes also suffer large deformation during injection, and cytoplasm needs to be aspirated into the micropipette to break oolemma. A new piezo drill was designed to penetrate the oocyte with less deformation and without cytoplasm aspiration. Robotic techniques were also developed to minimize the disturbance of piezo drill to cytoplasm. These techniques of robotic cell manipulation for clinical ICSI can achieve consistent outcomes independent of operator training and experience, increase operation safety by removal of human errors, and improve outcomes by reducing cell damage.

Keywords: Automation
In Vitro Fertilization
Robotics
Sperm
Advisor: Sun, Yu
Gendering Asceticism in Medieval Sufism

Medieval Sufis reoriented the practice of Islamic mysticism away from asceticism and towards a structured program of inner cultivation under the guidance of elite male teachers. This dissertation argues that this inward turn represents a key historical moment in which Sufi identity was deliberately constructed upon idealized elite masculinity to combat rival groups in fifth/eleventh-century Nishapur. While previous scholars suggest medieval Sufism arose out of the Baghdadi context, an examination of the writings of two influential Nishapuri authors, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) and Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1074) reveals sociopolitical conflicts unique to Nishapur that provoked the formation of an urban institutionalized Sufism that excluded all but the male elite. The gendered consequences of this institutionalization is explored through the legacy of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī and the reproduction of their gendered discourse in the writings of Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and Abū al-Faraj b. al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200). Through a gender-sensitive critical re-reading of asceticism in historicizations of medieval Nishapur, I demonstrate the role of opposition to rival ascetic groups in the institutionalization and perpetuation of elite androcentric Sufism. This study investigates shifting gendered discourses in representations of four early ascetic practices: bodily mortification (zuhd), wandering without provision (siyāḥa), sexual abstinence (ʿuzla, ʿafāf), and excessive voluntary fasting (jūʿ, ṣawm). The decline in popularity of these exercises came with increasingly more obvious language of gender differentiation in the writings of Sufi authors. Through an intersectional gender analysis that compares elite male depictions of women to those of youths, the enslaved, and racialized individuals, I problematize modern scholarship on Sufism and Islam that employs gender binaries without considering other social markers of difference in Islamicate literatures. I conclude that authors of medieval Sufism reinvented asceticism to oppose those they deemed deviant to their own hegemonic masculinity. Understanding that elite social actors negotiate orthodoxy and regulate practice through the language of gender demonstrates the usefulness of gender analysis as a method of exposing discourses of power in the formation of religious identity.

Keywords: Asceticism
Gender analysis
Nishapur
Qushayri
Sufism
Sulami
Advisor: Saleh, Walid
Transcolonial Politics of Poverty: Educating the Civil Society and Creating Neoliberal Citizenship in the Periphery

Transcolonial Politics of Poverty: Educating the Civil Society and Creating Neoliberal Citizenship in the periphery Ph.D. -Social Justice Education, 2020 Udeani Prasanga Alawattage Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) University of Toronto Abstract Microfinance has been one of the most extensive social engineering programs in less developed countries (LDCs). It entails a “credit plus” approach of neoliberal development constituting a massive civil society education program that links the grassroots poor with the neoliberal development doctrines and ideologies through a well sophisticated institutional infrastructure of development education. In this institutional setting, microfinance education is projected to the grassroots poor as an emancipatory form of education, especially capable of liberating the poor women. The existing research on microfinance has often been functionalist and managerial which lopsidedly concentrated mainly on the assessment of the efficacy of microfinance with very little attention on the ‘neoliberal politics’ of microfinance’s educational and discursive elements. There has been no substantive ethnographic study that attempts to offer a critical theorization of the ways in which microfinance subjugates the lives of the peripheral poor. As such, this study offers a critical theorization of the ‘neoliberal politics’ embedded in microfinance education. It reveals the ways in which microfinance creates a new form of neoliberal citizenship through the discourses of financial inclusion, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship and how it connects the grassroots poor with the intensification and acceleration of the circuit of the global financial capital. Methodologically this thesis draws on an ‘extended case study’ of Sri Lankan microfinance industry covering nine villages in six districts. It extends its micro ethnographic data to its macro-political, historical, and institutional contexts to explain the transcolonial political character of microfinance pedagogy. Theoretically, it draws eclectically on several Foucauldian, postcolonial/anticolonial frameworks to relate such ethnographic data to underlying structural and discursive apparatuses of global neoliberalism. In this manner, the thesis provides a theoretically informed rich empirical narrative of how the microfinance subjugates and objectifies the grassroots poor through its pedagogy of financial literacy, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship in order to place them within the circuit of global capital. It reveals not only the transcolonial nature of microfinance discourses but also the ways in which the poor accommodate and resist such discourses. Keywords: Microfinance education; Sri Lanka; transcolonialism; civil society education; neoliberalism; ontological politics and poverty

Keywords: Civil society education
Microfinance education
Ontological politics
Poverty
Sri Lanka
Transcolonialism
Advisor: Dei, George
The Temporal Structure of Neural Processes Underlying Human Precision Grasp Computations

Object grasping is fundamental to our interaction with the environment. To plan a grasp, the brain relies on lateral and medial pathways within a parieto-frontal network that convert grasp-relevant object features into motor plans to guide hand movements. While much is known about their cortical loci, little is known about when representations of visual and visuomotor features emerge and how they unfold over time. Characterizing the temporal dynamics of these representations is crucial in order to provide a complete functional description of the grasp network and to elucidate the computational steps during grasp planning. The objective of this dissertation was to examine the temporal structure of neural processes underlying grasp planning and execution. To this end three studies were conducted in which electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded while participants planned and executed precision grasps upon viewing 3D objects. Time-resolved multivariate pattern analyses were employed to infer visual and visuomotor representations from the data. I demonstrate that grasp-relevant visual and visuomotor computations follow similar time courses but display different properties and dynamics. Further, grasp planning follows a monotonic progression from visual to motor representations but a partially non-monotonic progression from higher to lower level processes. Finally, visuomotor representations of grip size (implied by object size) and orientation progress differently over time but are similarly integrated into the grasp program. The latter is driven by overlapping neural processes that control left-handed and bimanual grasps and occur at an intermediate level of grasp control (i.e., upstream from the control of effectors but downstream from effector-independent goal representations). These results provide novel insights into the visual-to-motor transformations and hierarchical structure underlying the control of human precision grasps. Further, they highlight the need for temporally highly resolved methods like EEG or MEG to attain a comprehensive understanding of human grasp control.

Keywords: Decoding
EEG
Grasping
Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA)
Sensorimotor Control
Visuomotor
Advisor: Niemeier, Matthias
Intergroup Contact Theory in a Nutshell: A Meta-meta- analytic Examination of Intergroup Contact Theory and the Contact Space

Over 65 years of research on intergroup contact theory has supported its claim that contact with people from different groups is a powerful method of improving attitudes towards these groups. This contact can take on five forms, which are direct contact, direct friendship, extended contact, imagined contact, and media contact. With research on intergroup contact having culminated on a meta-analysis on each of these forms, this project summarizes these meta-analyses into a narrative and statistical review to answer questions about intergroup contact that crosses its five forms. Major findings from both these reviews indicate that direct friendship and extended contact are empirically alike and different from these other forms of intergroup contact. This statistical review also found that closer cross-group relationships and more self-involvement in intergroup contact potentiate its effects on intergroup attitudes, whereas richness of intergroup contact does not do so. These results have important implications for intergroup contact theory, which includes determining where in the contact space intergroup contact is more or less effective and identifying direct friendship and extended contact versus direct contact, imagined contact, and media contact as a new and empirically valid system for classifying forms of intergroup contact. Including most of the existing research on every form of intergroup contact, this summary answers large-scale questions about intergroup contact that crosses its five forms while providing a comprehensive overview of this massive literature.

Keywords: contact space
direct contact
indirect contact
intergroup contact
meta-analysis
Advisor: Page-Gould, Elizabeth
Ecology, Ontogeny, and Taxonomy of the Diverse Early Permian Dissorophoid Assemblage from Richards Spur, Oklahoma

Dissorophoids are a diverse clade of temnospondyl amphibians that have long been of interest for their hypothesized relationship to modern lissamphibians and for their exceptional diversity in Permo-Carboniferous paleoenvironments of North America and western Europe. Beyond representing the earliest stages of lissamphibian evolution, dissorophoids represent arguably the most successful radiation of temnospondyls into terrestrial environments, in which they are both ubiquitous and remarkably diverse. The Richards Spur locality in Oklahoma, USA preserves the richest assemblage of terrestrial dissorophoids, positioning it as an excellent case study for furthering our understanding of dissorophoid evolution. To date most dissorophoid studies have been confined to the classic paleontological description of external anatomy. Using neutron computed tomography and paleohistology to augment the traditional descriptive approach, I provide greatly enhanced characterizations of morphology, ontogenetic trends, and phylogenetic patterns across the three terrestrial groups. For amphibamiforms, I produce the largest skeletochronological study of any Paleozoic tetrapod using femora of the stem lissamphibian Doleserpeton annectens, which identifies marked intraspecific variation and biannual responses to climatic harshness. For dissorophids, I produce the most detailed cranial ontogeny of any dissorophid to date for the eucacopine Cacops morrisi and provide the first records of three additional dissorophid taxa. High-resolution CT data reveals new complexities on osteoderm morphology that question traditional interpretations of osteoderm evolution in dissorophids. For trematopids, I describe a markedly immature specimen that highlights the challenges of gaps in the ontogenetic record, which are then tested in a phylogenetic context that reveals widespread confounding of inference by ontogenetic disparity for trematopids. Lastly, I produce tomographic comparisons of dissorophid and trematopid neurocrania and identify a conserved ontogenetic trajectory, a cryptic synotic tectum ossification of questionable homology to the amniote supraoccipital, and a surprising gap in the record of truly “adult” individuals of Cacops in the fossil record. Collectively, these studies greatly expand our understanding of the paleobiology of terrestrial dissorophoids through improved constraints of ontogenetic transformations and patterns of evolution across different regions of the skeleton. In turn, this work provides a more robust ontogenetic and phylogenetic framework through which to address broad questions of temnospondyl and lissamphibian evolution.

Keywords: Dissorophoidea
paleontology
Permian
Temnospondyli
Tetrapoda
Advisor: Reisz, Robert R
Exploring the Connection between Physician Involvement in Quality Improvement and Medical Engagement

Substantial efforts are required to improve the performance of healthcare systems, however, healthcare organizations tend to have structures and cultures that are highly resistant to change. Though such resistance will make significant changes in healthcare challenging there has been a call for reform in Canada’s healthcare system (e.g. Atkinson et al., 2011; CMA, 2012; Clark, 2012; Denis et al., 2013; Dickinson Ham, 2008; Dickson, 2011; Gosfield Reinertsen, 2007; Kirby, 2002; Romanow, 2002; Tuohy, 1999, 2002; Willis et al., 2012).Medical engagement has been suggested as one means of achieving this desired reform and overcoming the challenges of resistance to change (Baker Denis, 2011; Singer Shortell, 2011). Similarly, the involvement of physicians in quality improvement has been purported to contribute to improved health outcomes and decreased costs (Peterson, Jaen Phillips, 2013). Baker Denis (2011) note that many of the growing efforts to engage physicians in leading change are focused on changes in organizational structure and in broader system-wide leadership; however, there have been few studies examining the extent to which these changes have resulted in the enhanced levels of engagement. Similarly absent is empirical work examining the role of physician involvement in quality improvement in building medical engagement, despite suggestions that both will contribute to enhanced organizational and systems outcomes. The role that organizational commitment has on medical engagement is also of interest, given the recognized theoretical links between commitment and engagement. This thesis reports a mixed methods investigation to explore the connection between physician involvement in quality improvement, organizational commitment and medical engagement levels in two healthcare organizations in Ontario. In the first phase of the inquiry, organizational commitment and organizational support for quality improvement were quantified in a survey to determine the relationship among these concepts. The secondary, qualitative phase, allows for a deeper understanding of physicians’ perspectives regarding the connection between quality improvement, organizational commitment and medical engagement while exploring the results of the survey. Overall, this dissertation furthers our knowledge of how Canadian healthcare organizations can effectively work with physicians to drive changes to improve healthcare.

Advisor: Baker, G. Ross
Rights to Confidential Information at Private Law

This thesis explores what it means to control, own, or have a proprietary interest in information. The Anglo-American civil litigation system rejects property as an actionable basis to assert rights over secret or confidential information. Simultaneously, other components of our legal system allow private actors to treat confidential information as intangible property, at least in the sense of constituting a controllable asset. We explore the melange of legal doctrinal developments that have allowed firms to commodify information, including trade secrecy law, the breach of confidence action, intellectual property law, and certain contractual mechanisms. Within legal theory this question is wound up in the information-property debate and the Legal Realist bundle of rights depiction of property. We use a Hohfeldian-Honoré analytical lens to untangle this perspective, and to articulate the contours of the zone of control that information rights holders wield over informational assets.

Keywords: Confidential Information
Jurisprudence
Ownership
Property Theory
Proprietary Rights
Trade Secrets
Advisor: Stern, Simon
The Clinical and Economic Burden of Infections in Hospitalized Solid Organ Transplant Recipients in Canada

To date, there has been limited literature describing the epidemiology, healthcare resource utilization, and economic burden of infections in hospitalized solid-organ transplant (SOT) recipients. The first study reports on the rate and timing of these syndromes and describes the associated microbiological epidemiology in a single-centre cohort. Infections were the most common (43%) complication among the 603 hospitalizations at a rate of 0.43 episodes per 1000 transplant-days, with 85% occurring greater than 6 months post-transplantation. The most frequent infection involved the respiratory tract (27%), with 53% of patients presenting without fever, 45% having no pathogen isolated, and multi-drug resistant organisms being isolated in 27% of cases. The second study reported on measures of clinical and economic burden, along with the impact of infectious disease specialist consultation. After propensity score matching, infectious disease consultation resulted in greater 28-day survival estimates (Hazards ratio (HR) =0.33, log-rank P=0.026), and reduced 30-day rehospitalization rates (16.9% vs. 23.9%, P=0.036). The median length-of-stay and hospitalization costs were increased for patients receiving an infectious disease consultation (7.0 vs. 5.0 days, P=0.002, and $9652 vs. $6192, P=0.003). However, the median length-of-stay (5.5 vs. 5.1 days, P=0.31) and hospitalization costs ($8106 vs. $6912, P=0.63) did not differ significantly among those receiving an early (

Keywords: costs
health outcomes
infection
mortality
pharmacoeconomics
transplant
Advisor: Papadimitropoulos, Emmanuel A
Grootendorst, Paul
Competing Subjectivities: A Comparative Study of Low-paid Care Workers in Greater Seoul and the Los Angeles Koreatown

This dissertation examines how low-paid care workers, who are stratified into different sectors of the care labor market along gender, ethnicity, migration, and citizenship, form agentic political subjectivities. Through a comparative analysis of four different groups, I analyze how low-paid care workers who do similar work but are unequally positioned within social contexts give meaning to their work and cultivate a sense of worth, entitlement and dignity in relation to other care workers as well as vis-à-vis the state. Through multi-sited ethnographic research, including 98 in-depth interviews with workers in domestic service and eldercare sectors in Greater Seoul, South Korea and the Koreatown community of Los Angeles, California, I find that care workers develop distinct political subjectivities in response to their continuing precarity. This subject formation is a multi-level process that is mediated by three contexts: policy regimes, labour markets, and organizations, such as labour unions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). At the policy regime level, state policies sort and channel marginalized women into the low-paid care market through targeted forms of recruitment that rely on discourses such as “co-ethnics,” “self-sufficient women,” and “care experts.” These discourses define the kind of care that different groups of workers are expected to provide, yet workers complement and further articulate the meanings of policy discourses through their own re-interpretations of policies. In doing so, they contribute to and reinforce the structure of inequality that hierarchically divides care workers along ethnicity, migration and citizenship. In this process, organizations play a significant role in translating state policies in different ways, providing workers with sources of pride, alternative language and sense of entitlement as legitimate right-bearers. Each empirical chapters of the dissertation focuses on a specific care worker group to elaborate how divergent configurations of state policies, labour organization and labour market dynamics shape multi-level processes of subject formation. By analyzing distinct subjectivity building projects, this dissertation shows that care workers’ struggles for survival and dignity are often linked to boundary drawing practices against other care workers, limiting the possibilities for cross-ethnic solidarity and the emancipatory potential of their struggles.

Keywords: Care work
Domestic service work
IHSS
LTCI
Subjectivity
Women's labor
Advisor: Cranford, Cynthia J
Chun, Jennifer J