VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Comorbidity of Eating and Substance use Disorders in Women: Explorations of Childhood Maltreatment, Multidimensional Perfectionism and Shame

This investigation examined multidimensional perfectionism, shame and maltreatment in 45 women with bulimia nervosa, 14 women with binge eating disorder and 26 women with anorexia nervosa, purging type, all of whom suffered from comorbid substance use disorders. Participants completed three perfectionism scales, one shame scale and one maltreatment scale. Results revealed that in the bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder group, perfectionistic self-promotion and bodily shame were significant predictors of eating disorder severity while other-oriented perfectionism was a significant predictor of alcohol use severity. In the anorexia group, other-oriented perfectionism and bodily shame were significant predictors of eating disorder severity and nondisplay of imperfection was a significant predictor of drug use severity. All participants experienced elevated levels on all types of shame and maltreatment and on most perfectionism dimensions compared to normative samples. Findings should be utilized in developing treatment programs for those with comorbid eating and substance use disorders.

Keywords: eating disorders
perfectionism
shame
maltreatment
substance use disorders
Advisor: Piran, Niva
Biomimetic Design Applied to the Redesign of a PEM Fuel Cell Flow Field

In this thesis biomimetic design is applied to the redesign of a PEM fuel cell flow field. A number of designs inspired by biological phenomena were developed to address the problem of attaining a uniform current density distribution across a PEM fuel cell. These designs are evaluated using a numerical model. One design, inspired by Murray’s law of branching in plants and animals, is further evaluated using and a physical model and comparing it to a commercial triple serpentine flow field. Improvements in pressure drop were seen for the Murray’s law inspired flow field, however, it was found to be prone to flooding. If this flow field design were to be applied to high temperature membrane materials, materials that can operate above 100 °C where water is always in the vapor state, the mass transfer and reduced pressure drop advantages of the Murray flow field could be fully achieved.

Keywords: PEM
fuel cell
flow field
biomimetic
design
Advisor: Wallace, James S.
Shu, Lily H.
Developmental Profile of Hepatic CYP2B Expression, In Vivo and In Vitro Nicotine Metabolism in Rats

Initiation of smoking occurs during adolescence. Some studies found that adolescent rats develop self-administration at higher nicotine doses than adults. For the same nicotine dose, adolescents have lower plasma nicotine levels than adults, suggesting they may have faster nicotine metabolism which may contribute to the differences in nicotine-induced behaviours. This study investigated the developmental differences in rat hepatic CYP2B protein expression, in vivo and in vitro nicotine metabolism. Plasma and brain nicotine levels were lower in early-adolescents than adults, however, cotinine levels were also lower. Slower rates of cotinine formation in early-adolescents may explain their lower cotinine levels. Early-adolescents express higher total CYP2B proteins than adults, but they appear to have less of CYP2B1, the nicotine metabolizing enzyme. These findings provide a better understanding of this animal model and indicate that differences in pharmacokinetics should be considered when comparing nicotine’s effects in adolescents and adults extrapolating behavioural findings to human.

Keywords: nicotine
metabolism
rat
CYP2B
developmental
age
adolescent
adult
in vivo
in vitro
Advisor: Tyndale, Rachel
Examining the Effect of Laminar Flow on Ex Vivo Pancreatic Islet Associated Endothelial Cells

Pancreatic islets are heavily vascularized micro-organs containing insulin secreting beta-cells coupled with endothelial cells (EC). These EC slowly deteriorate in static culture, precluding long term study of beta-cell-EC interaction, and likely limiting tissue revascularization post-transplantation. We postulate this EC deterioration is due to an absence of hemodynamics, blood movement. We created a microfluidic device to mimic aspects of hemodynamics, delivering a range of media flow to ex vivo islets. With our resulting desk-top system, we have conducted long term incubations (72 hrs), fixed tissue treatments (maintaining endothelial cell morphology) and real-time live tissue imaging (glucose-stimulated Ca2+-response). Our data show that flow in a microfluidic device maintains EC morphology in ex vivo islets better than non-flowing culture, providing an improved platform to study ex vivo islets and to examine the interaction between beta-cells and EC. Our data also suggest an opportunity to prime islet EC for revascularization using microfluidic flow prior to transplantation.

Keywords: Endothelial Cells
Microfluidic
Advisor: Rocheleau, Jonathan
Narratives of Power and the Power of Narratives: Transformation along the U.S.-Mexico Border

Using the Three Border Model developed by Mike Davis and Alessandra Moctezuma, this thesis presents a number of case studies focused on the narratives of power and transformation that continue to develop on the American side of the U.S.-Mexico border in the post-9/11 context. The first case study overviews the history of the U.S.-Mexico border in relation to the ongoing fortification of the physical boundary and its legal reification in federal policy. The second case study examines the exclusionary policies enacted by the state of Arizona as well as the anti-immigration agenda instituted by the Minuteman Project. The third case study examines the ways in which urban communities in the borderlands contest the material manifestations of the border present in their everyday lives. By surveying case studies at different sites and scales along the U.S.-Mexico boundary, this thesis challenges traditional conceptions of state power at the border.

Keywords: U.S.-Mexico border
Power
Border enforcement
Migration
Advisor: Gilbert, Emily
Examination of Expression and Function of TCF Genes in the Pancreatic Islets

Specific SNPs in intronic regions of the human TCF7L2 gene are associated with an elevated risk of T2D development and progression. Several investigations have suggested a role of TCF7L2 in pancreatic β-cells. Whether this transcription factor is indeed expressed in the pancreatic islets of rodent species, however, has been a controversial issue. Here, we found that TCF7L2 mRNA level was significantly lower in the pancreas compared to the gut or Ins-1 cell line. In addition, TCF7L2 mRNA abundance in the pancreas was decreased by insulin. Finally, both TCF7 and TCF7L1 but not LEF-1 could be detected in the mouse pancreas. mRNA abundance for these two transcription factors was also decreased by insulin, and the level of TCF7, TCF7L1, and TCF7L2 mRNAs could be down-regulated by HFD. We speculate that reduced expression of these TCF genes during hyperinsulinemia may alter the Wnt signalling pathway and therefore impair the function of β-cells.

Keywords: Type 2 Diabetes
TCF7L2
Wnt Signalling Pathway
Insulin
pancreatic beta cells
Advisor: Jin, Tianru
Climate Change and Human Rights: A Case Study of the Canadian Inuit and Global Warming in the Canadian Arctic

Climate change debates have typically centred around the environmental and economic effects of rising greenhouse gas emissions. The focus, however, has recently begun to shift towards acknowledging the human impacts of global climate change, especially in vulnerable regions and communities. This thesis considers whether human rights law can compensate for the inability of traditional, state-centred, environmental law and international law to address the human impacts of climate change. By using the situation of the Canadian Inuit as a case study, this thesis focuses on 'greening' existing human rights to address the environmental damage in the Canadian Arctic as a result of climate change. This study concludes that, although international human rights regimes provide potential forums for groups such as the Canadian Inuit, substantive environmental human rights are necessary in international law in order to best address the complex intersection of environmental degradation, such as climate change, and human rights.

Keywords: Human rights
Climate change
Advisor: Jutta, Brunnee
Parallelizing Simulated Annealing Placement for GPGPU

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices are increasing in capacity at an exponential rate, and thus there is an increasingly strong demand to accelerate simulated annealing placement. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) offer a unique opportunity to accelerate this simulated annealing placement on a manycore architecture using only commodity hardware. GPUs are optimized for applications which can tolerate single-thread latency and so GPUs can provide high throughput across many threads. However simulated annealing is not embarrassingly parallel and so single thread latency should be minimized to improve run time. Thus it is questionable whether GPUs can achieve any speedup over a sequential implementation. In this thesis, a novel subset-based simulated annealing placement framework is proposed, which specifically targets the GPU architecture. A highly optimized framework is implemented which, on average, achieves an order of magnitude speedup with less than 1% degradation for wirelength and no loss in quality for timing on realistic architectures.

Keywords: FPGA Placement
GPGPU
Advisor: Zhu, Jianwen
Design and Development of Generic Nanosatellite Bus Ground Control Software Suite

This thesis describes, in chronological order, the design and implementation of four separate ground control applications for use of the Generic Nanosatellite Bus, a multi-purpose satellite platform developed at the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory. A direct ground control application and time-tagged remote control application are used to provide full control over a Generic Nanosatellite Bus satellite for short and long term operational and testing purposes. Similarly, a direct control application and a scheduling application are implemented for the control of the payload computer on CanX-3 BRIght-star Target Explorer, a stellar-observation satellite based on the Generic Nanosatellite Bus platform. This thesis goes into details on how the display and control interface is implemented and used, what set of actions are taken to create and interpret packets exchanged over a communications link, and what precautions are taken in the face of expected issues.

Keywords: Nanosatellites
Ground Control
Advisor: Zee, Robert E.
Pandemics in the Age of Twitter: A Content Analysis of the 2009 H1N1 Outbreak

This thesis reports on the use of Twitter during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic to explore its use as an “infoveillance” approach complementary to traditional surveys and content analysis.  This study aimed to: 1) report on the use of “H1N1” versus “swine flu”, 2) conduct a qualitative analysis of tweet content, and 3) assess the feasibility of Twitter as a real-time content, sentiment, and public attention trend tracking tool. A manual content analysis of tweets revealed that H1N1 resources were the most commonly shared.  Few tweets provided inaccurate information.  News websites were the most popular resources while official agencies were rarely referenced directly.  Our automated analysis correlated well with manual results and showed that Twitter activity was influenced by external events. This study describes the character and quality of Twitter communications during the H1N1 pandemic, and illustrates the potential of using social media to conduct real-time “infodemiology” studies for public health.

Keywords: public health
social media
microblog
social networking
Twitter
content analysis
Web 2.0
emergency
pandemic
H1N1
Swine Flu
infodemiology
infoveillance
eHealth
Advisor: Eysenbach, Gunther
Physiologically-based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) Models for the Description of Sequential Metabolism of Codeine to Morphine and Morphine 3-Glucuronide (M3G) in Man and Rat

Whole-body PBPK models were developed based on both the intestinal traditional model (TM) and segregated-flow model (SFM) to describe codeine sequential metabolism in man/rat. Model parameters were optimized with Scientist® and Simcyp® simulator to predict literature data after oral (p.o.) and intravenous (i.v.) codeine administration in man/rat. In vivo codeine PK studies on rats were performed to provide more data for simulation. The role of fm’ (fractional formation clearance of morphine from codeine) in model discrimination between the TM and SFM was investigated. A greater difference between the [AUC_M3G/AUC_Morphine]p.o. and [AUC_M3G/AUC_Morphine]i.v. ratio existed for the SFM, especially when the fm’ was low. It was found that our tailor-made PBPK models using Scientist® were superior to those from Simcyp® in describing codeine sequential metabolism. Residual sum of squares and AUC’s were calculated for each model, which demonstrated superiority of the SFM over TM in predicting codeine sequential metabolism in man/rat.

Keywords: Pharmacokinetics
Physiologically- based pharmacokinetic modeling
Sequential metabolism
codeine
Advisor: Pang, K. Sandy
A New Look at the Cross-sectional Relationship of Self-reported Pain, Function and Walking Performance with Radiographic Wear and other Early Indicators of Total Hip Replacement Failure in Patients with Osteoarthritis

Background: Total hip replacement (THR) with post-operative surveillance is recommended for debilitating osteoarthritis (OA). Using self-reported pain, function or walking performance is one alternative to address increasing surveillance demands. Objective: A cross-sectional cohort study to evaluate the associations of pain, function and performance with two radiographic markers of potential THR failure. Participants: 110 patients, median 6 years after THR surgery for OA. Methods: Questionnaires assessed demographics, co-morbidity, arthritis severity, pain, pain catastrophizing, and functional status. Performance was measured using the six minute walk test. THR outcome was assessed radiographically. Results: Few patients had pain, functional impairment or radiographic markers of potential THR failure. A larger percentage of patients with some intermittent pain (10.7 versus 8.6%) and pain iii after walking performance (40.0 versus 27.6%) had higher wear, but these differences were not significant. Conclusion: Measures of pain are potentially important for larger studies aiming to develop alternative methods of post-operative surveillance.

Keywords: total hip arthroplasty
total hip replacement
osteoarthritis
pain
function
performance
surveillance
polyethylene wear
radiographic wear
failure
Advisor: Hawker, Gillian
Mother Disclosure, Child Disclosure and Child Outcomes within a Domain Specific Approach

Seventy seven mothers and their 12-14 year old children participated in a study exploring the role of maternal disclosure on children's disclosure and on positive child outcomes. Disclosure was examined in two domains: protection (referring to worries and distressing situations) and control (referring to values and proper behavior), and two child outcomes were assessed for each domain: empathy and prosocial behavior (protection), and compliance and conduct problems (control). Maternal disclosure facilitated children’s protection disclosure only if children liked this disclosure. Maternal control disclosure predicted compliance only for children who liked this form of disclosure, and maternal protection disclosure predicted compliance only for children who disclosed about their own worries and concerns. Motivations behind disclosure were also assessed, revealing that mothers disclose to their child as a means of teaching behaviors and to encouraging disclosure, whereas children disclose to seek advice and comfort.

Keywords: Disclosure
Parenting
Compliance
Communication
Advisor: Grusec, Joan
The Role of Sec15b and Phosphatidylinositol-4-Phosphate in Early Compatible Pollen-pistil Interactions

Stigmas of Arabidopsis thaliana carrying the exo70A1-1 mutation are defective in early pollen-pistil interactions; pollen grain adhesion to the stigma, pollen hydration, and penetration of the stigmatic surface by the pollen tube. Exo70 function in directed secretion has been linked to its ability to bind the phosphatidylinositides. To provide support that the classical, octomeric exocyst complex, which contains the Exo70 subunit, participates in compatible pollen-pistil interactions, this process was analyzed in plants deficient in Sec15, another subunit of the exocyst. Additionally, the role of phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate (PI-4-P) in female fertility was evaluated through the use of the mutants ROOT HAIR DEFECTIVE 4-1 and PI4Kβ1β2 -/-, which have increased and decreased levels of PI-4-P respectively. Reduction of Sec15b levels or perturbation of PI-4-P in the stigma resulted in a reduced ability of of the transgenic/mutant stigmas to support pollen grain hydration; though all other stages of early pollen pistil interactions were unaffected.

Keywords: exocyst
pollination
Advisor: Goring, Daphne
Impact of Distributed Generation on Distribution Feeder Protection

Standard overcurrent protection schemes for passive radial systems assume single direction current flow. The addition of distributed generation (DG) presents issues for the protection scheme, as current can flow from multiple directions. This thesis investigates the impact of DGs on overcurrent protection designed for a radial system, and proposes solutions to address the issues. A realistic feeder system and its protection scheme are developed in PSCAD/EMTDC. A point-of-common-coupling (PCC) is identified, indicating the portion of feeder that can potentially operate as an island. One DG, with output adjusted to maintain a specified power flow at the PCC, is added to the feeder system. The performance of the overcurrent protection in the presence of line, ground, and three-phase faults is analyzed. A second machine, outputting full capacity at unity power factor, is added to the feeder system. The strategies used to develop the single-DG modified protection scheme are applied to the two-DG system. The functionality of the modified protection scheme is verified.

Keywords: protection
distributed
generation
Advisor: Iravani, Mohammad Reza
Beyond Special and Differential Treatment: Regional Integration as a Means to Growth in East Asia

Special and differential treatment (SDT) provisions in GATT were created to assist developing countries achieve economic progress while assimilating into the multilateral trading system. Despite these intentions, global trade imbalances still persist. Within this context, I focus on the region of East Asia which has experienced astounding growth in just several decades, propelling it far beyond other developing country regions. Although international trade continues to be the crucial factor driving growth in the region, reliance on SDT has in certain circumstances hindered development. As such, East Asia should seek alternatives to SDT. In that vein, I argue that sustainable growth and trade liberalization can be achieved by enhancing integration through a regional trade agreement. I further discuss various proposals for an East Asian trade agreement such as ASEAN+3, FTAAP, and EARTA. Finally, I highlight the importance of governance and identify several institutions essential for a successful regional arrangement.

Keywords: International trade
special differential treatment
Asia
regional trade agreement
rules of origin
dispute settlement
East Asia
regional integration
regionalism
multilateralism
ASEAN
FTAAP
EARTA
developing countries
institutions
Advisor: Trebilcock, Michael
Predictive Modeling of Emergency Department Wait Times for Abdominal Pain Patients

Reducing emergency department (ED) wait times are a major priority for the Ontario Government. Overcrowded EDs, cumulative effects of the delays in hospital processes and lack of resources are manifested in the phenomenon of long wait times. This thesis aims to estimate in real-time, a minimum wait time confidence interval for urgent abdominal pain patients on weekdays based on ED operations, waiting room status and ED census indicators through multivariate backwards stepwise regression modeling. The ED wait times model accurately predicted a 95% wait time confidence interval for patients. Common underlying factors attributed to long wait times include the total number of emergent and urgent patients in the waiting room, the total number of patient waiting for a consultation and the number of patients not seen within the Ontario Government’s target times. This information is useful in managing patient expectations and appropriately allocating resources to improve wait times.

Keywords: Emergency Department
Modeling
Wait Times
Advisor: Carter, Michael W.
Numerically Simulated Comparative Performance of a Scramjet and Shcramjet at Mach 11

This study investigates the design and aeropropulsive performance of a complete, hydrogen powered, shock-induced combustion ramjet (shcramjet) at a ﬂight Mach number of 11 and altitude of 34.5 km. The design includes a Prandtl-Meyer compression inlet, cantilevered ramp fuel injectors, a shock-inducing wedge and a divergent nozzle. Numerical studies are undertaken using the WARP code that solves the three-dimensional Favre-averaged Navier-Stokes equations closed by the Wilcox k-ω turbulence model and the Jachimowski H2/air chemical kinetics model. Studies of fuel injection properties, mixing duct length, combustor wedge and nozzle geometry are completed to maximize the overall performance of the vehicle. The ﬁnal shcramjet conﬁguration generates a speciﬁc impulse of 1110 s. A comparison is undertaken with a scramjet vehicle at identical ﬂight conditions and using many of the same components. The comparable scramjet generates a higher speciﬁc impulse of 1450 s although it is signiﬁcantly larger and therefore heavier.

Keywords: hypersonic
propulsion
scramjet
shcramjet
performance
simulation
Advisor: Sislian, Jean Pascal
A Rudderless Regime: The United Kingdom's "Enlightened Shareholder Value" as a Model for the Duty of Loyalty in Canada

This paper argues that the despite the apparent rejection of the shareholder primacy model by the Supreme Court of Canada in Peoples Department Stores Inc. (Trustee of) v. Wise and BCE Inc. v. 1976 Debentureholders, there is a strong tradition of shareholder primacy in Canada that has persisted in jurisprudence and legislative materials. The dislodging of shareholder primacy as the guiding force in directors’ duties is discordant with this tradition and per incuriam. As such, at the moment, the duty of loyalty of directors to the corporation is adrift, lacking substantive guidance from the Supreme Court. This guidance, this paper argues, can be found in the “enlightened shareholder value” model embodied in s. 172 of the United Kingdom’s Companies Act 2006 which holds to shareholder primacy while exhorting directors to adopt an inclusive approach to the interests of non-shareholder stakeholders.

Keywords: corporate law
directors
duty of loyalty
shareholders
stakeholders
enlightened shareholder value
Advisor: MacIntosh, Jeffrey G.