VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Maya Women, Non-traditional Agriculture and “Care” : Rethinking Feminist Geographies of “Care” from the Guatemalan Highlands

To alleviate poverty, the Guatemalan State and USAID facilitated a transition from sustenance to non-traditional export crops in the 1970s. The transition disrupted Maya women’s land management practices by reducing land access. Today, the Highlands is the nation’s leading vegetable exporter, while boasting the highest rates of food insecurity and malnutrition. This thesis demonstrates how the meanings of care work within development discourses imperil and undermine Maya women’s access to, and control over, land. I draw on the concept of cuerpo-territorio (body-land) to highlight how access to land is constitutive of Maya women’s ability to care for communities. I undertake a discourse analysis of export policies, while tracing the movement of the Women’s Association for the Development of Sacatepéquez as they transition back to milpa sustenance farming. My findings demonstrate how territorial dispossession and Indigenous geographies of care are interconnected, revealing a more complicated understandings of care in feminist geography. Para aliviar la pobreza, el Estado guatemalteco y USAID facilitaron una transición de cultivos de sustento a cultivos de exportación no tradicionales en la década de 1970. La transición interrumpió las prácticas de gestión de la tierra de las mujeres mayas al reducir el acceso a la tierra. Hoy, los altiplanos es el principal exportador de vegetales del país, al tiempo que cuenta con las tasas más altas de inseguridad alimentaria y desnutrición. Esta tesis demuestra cómo los significados del trabajo de cuidado dentro de los discursos de desarrollo ponen en peligro y socavan el acceso y el control de las mujeres mayas sobre la tierra. Se basa en el concepto de cuerpo-territorio para resaltar cómo el acceso a la tierra es constitutivo de la capacidad de las mujeres mayas para cuidar de las comunidades. Realizo un análisis del discurso de las políticas de exportación, al mismo tiempo que sigo el movimiento de la Asociación de mujeres para el desarrollo de Sacatepéquez en su transición de regreso a la agricultura de subsistencia de la milpa. Mis hallazgos demuestran cómo el despojo territorial y las geografías indígenas del cuidado están interconectados, revelando una comprensión más complicada del cuidado en la geografía feminista.

Keywords: care
care work
cuerpo-territorio
Development
feminist political ecology
Advisor: Mollett, Sharlene
Longitudinal Patterns of Functional Connectivity in the Frontoparietal and Default Mode Networks in Moderate-severe Traumatic Brain Injury

Moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) disrupts neural network functional connectivity, with recovery implications. Longitudinal studies in the chronic stages of injury are needed to better understand connectivity trajectories and mechanisms. This thesis characterized resting-state functional connectivity patterns in the frontoparietal network (FPN) and default mode network (DMN) at approximately 0.5, 1-1.5, and 3+ years after moderate-severe TBI compared to healthy controls. Linear mixed-effects modeling with a linear spline at 1.5 years demonstrated hypoconnectivity in patients at approximately 0.5 years post-injury in the FPN and DMN. In patients, these networks showed connectivity increases between 0.5 and 1.5 years post-injury. Between 1.5 to 3+ years, marginal functional connectivity declines were observed in the right FPN, and estimated declines were observed in the DMN and left FPN. These novel findings may reflect initial compensatory functional reorganization, followed by the deleterious network impacts of chronically increased metabolic load and structural neurodegeneration.

Keywords: functional connectivity
longitudinal
magnetic resonance imaging
recovery
traumatic brain injury
Advisor: Green, Robin EA
Mikulis, David J
Antenna Pattern Measurement of a Microsatellite Platform with Articulating Solar Arrays and the Commissioning of NewSpace and Microspace Satellites

Two crucial milestones all satellite missions encounter are antenna pattern characterization and commissioning. The SPARTAN platform, newly developed by the Space Flight Laboratory, is tailored to serve NewSpace businesses’ needs. Unique to the platform are two deployable articulating solar arrays for power-demanding payloads. This thesis explores the effect of the articulating arrays on the platform’s primary antennas. An antenna’s radiation pattern is paramount to satellite communication and is influenced by its surroundings. The pattern measurement methodology, fixture design, analysis, and result comparison with simulation for the new platform are presented. After launch, spacecraft are commissioned, where satellites are methodically brought up to full functionality. Avionics and payload health is confirmed, attitude sensors are tuned, and the platform’s physical properties are estimated. Through the lens of an operator, this thesis discusses the successful commissioning of the maiden SPARTAN mission and NorSat-3, the latest maritime monitoring satellites developed for the Norwegians.

Keywords: Antenna
Commissioning
Microspace
NewSpace
Operation
Satellite
Advisor: Zee, Robert E
Predicting Functional Use of the Non-Dominant Hand using Machine Learning and Wearable Accelerometers

Children with hemiplegia use their affected hand less than expected in spontaneous bimanual activities at home compared to their ability measured in a clinic. Existing home-based assessments for affected hand use at home are often subjective and prone to reporting bias and recall errors. In this thesis project, we propose using wearable accelerometry and machine learning to measure functional hand use in children with hemiplegia and typically developing adults, respectively. The random forest classifier showed better inter-subject performance in typically developing adults (F1: 0.829 ± 0.047) compared to children with hemiplegia (F1: 0.584 ± 0.076). We also found that the machine learning approach outperformed the activity counts approach in correlation and agreement with the video observations. Overall, we expect our work will demonstrate that wearable accelerometry and machine learning can measure functional use of the hemiplegic hand and provide clinicians with a useful tool to understand treatment effectiveness at home.

Advisor: Biddiss, Elaine
In the Face of “Climate Colonialism”: A Critical Analysis of the Government of Canada’s First Nation Adapt Program as a Settler Colonial Policy Response to the Climate Crisis in First Nations Communities

First Nations communities have been planning adaptively with the environment since time immemorial and are now forced to respond to the colonial climate crisis. First Nation Adapt (FN Adapt), operated by the Government of Canada, provides funding to projects planning for these increasing changes in First Nations communities. However, the program’s position within a settler colonial institution requires interrogating FN Adapt, as such institutions have an ongoing legacy of enclosing Indigenous planning practices. This research provides a consolidated critique of the program by applying a test of enclosure, to see how the program interacts with Indigenous planning practices, outlined through literature on Indigenous Planning Theory, Anti-Colonial Planning Theory, and Indigenous Environmental Justice. Though FN Adapt makes strides towards supporting culturally relevant planning and fills a void in accessing necessary funding, its overarching government structures limit the program’s ability to fully support Indigenous planning, instead enclosing elements of Indigenous planning practices.

Keywords: Climate Crisis
Enclosure
Indigenous Environmental Justice
Indigenous Planning
Settler Colonialism
Advisor: Dorries, Heather
An Equity Evaluation of Bus Prioritization Measures within the Toronto Transit Commission’s 5-year Service Plan 10-year Outlook

In December of 2019, the Toronto Transit Commission proposed a new equity service policy to provide improved bus service for low socio-economic neighbourhoods in Toronto. While this policy will provide enhanced service for individuals within these communities, methods and data constraints may exclude equity-seeking riders outside these areas promoting greater barriers to access. With this concern in mind, this thesis aims to thoroughly examine the proposed equity policy using quantitative methods and provide recommendations that remove further barriers to transport poverty and transport-related social exclusion.

Keywords: Bus Prioritization
Equity-Seeking Transit Riders
Service Planning
Toronto
Transit Equity
Transport Poverty
Advisor: Farber, Steven
Higgins, Christopher
A Machine-learning Framework for Clustering and Calibration of Roadway Performance Models with Application in the Large-scale Traffic Assignment

The roadway performance model is one component of travel demand model systems, whose primary purpose is to replicate the congestion effect in traffic assignment. In this sub-model, accurate estimates of roadway travel time (delay), which is sensitive to road traffic volumes, have a principal role in properly assigning trips to various paths through the road network. Historically, one of the main challenges in developing these volume-delay models was the availability of data. Thanks to emerging data sources, the speed and volume for a wide range of roadway segments in the network are available in excellent temporal and spatial resolution. This study proposes a multi-stage machine-learning-based framework to clean, classify and calibrate roadway performance models of various roadway functional classes in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Recurrent spatial and temporal trends of roadway performance are further investigated, and distinctive patterns are observed for road segments with specific physical attributes.

Advisor: Miller, Eric J. EJM
Empire Online: The US Government's Reterritorialization of Cyberspace after 9/11

The US government, through cybersecurity policy and legislation, reterritorialized cyberspace after 9/11, making territory legible online in ways conducive to cyber war. Before 9/11, cybersecurity had not existed as a formal policy matter in the US. Instead, there had been three decades of disjointed policies that understood the internet primarily through its physical infrastructure. By the end of the 1990s, some policymakers argued that while the internet had radically improved many aspects of life, it also undermined borders and distance and thus posed existential risks to national security. After 9/11, the US formalized cybersecurity as part of “homeland security” and the “war on terror.” Cybersecurity, I argue, was not just a technical project, but a geographical undertaking. It discursively reimagined the cyber in spatial terms that reinscribed borders and distance with meaning. The result was a cyber homeland that could be defended and the reproduction of the American empire online.

Advisor: Farish, Matthew
The Role of Self-determination in Indigenous Youth Wellness

Indigenous young people across Turtle Island are demonstrating self-determination by creating wellness for themselves and their communities. This work centers the voices of Indigenous young people to explore how they are defining and enacting self-determination, and how these expressions of self-determination influence the wellness of these young people and their communities. Thematic analysis was used to analyze 15 interviews with Indigenous young people about how they understood spirit and wellness in the context of community work. Interview transcripts were analyzed to understand how young people conceptualized and enacted self-determination and its relationship to wellness, and identify underlying connections to Indigenous self-determination theory. Results indicate that Indigenous young people define and enact self-determination through using Indigenous wellness practices, sharing these practices with others, creating wellness spaces for Indigenous young people, and decolonizing existing colonial spaces. Implications for researchers, policymakers, and care providers who work with Indigenous young people are considered.

Advisor: Ansloos, Jeffrey P
Goldstein, Abby
That Other Side of Our Province: Finding Crisis, Isolation, Rurality and Place in Northwestern Ontarian Theatre

In our vast province of Ontario, discourse surrounding theatre making is heavily focused on large southern and eastern cities. With an autoethnographic approach, this work begins the conversation of theatre making in Northwestern Ontario and the isolation that is within and geographically surrounding that place. With a focus on place studies and rurality, this work anchors to the isolated city of Thunder Bay Ontario and how its challenged uniquely in comparison to other cities in the province. By conducting a small survey of professional theatre in Thunder Bay over the last 5 years, this work revealed a call for a new discourse around theatre in Northwestern Ontario and rural cities in light of the mistreatment of racialized, Indigenous and marginalized bodies. In addition, this work heeds suggestions for radical change within theatre making in places with unique specificity and calls into question how to address theatre in isolated places.

Keywords: Isolation
Northwestern Ontario
Performance Studies
Place Studies
Rural
Theatre
Advisor: Carter, Jill
Stomatal Control in C4 Plants with Different Biochemical Sub-pathways

C4 NAD-ME species occurs in drier regions than C4 NADP-ME species, indicating differences in drought responses; however, a physiological mechanism explaining the geographical discrepancies remain uncertain. This study examined gas exchange patterns that might explain different distributions observed between two subtypes of C4 photosynthesis. We measured the response of leaf gas exchange to vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and CO2 in plants from six distinct C4 clades having closely related NAD-ME and NADP-ME species using a Li-Cor 6400 gas exchange system. We found that NAD-ME exhibited higher reductions in stomatal conductance with increases in VPD than NADP-ME species but no consistent subtype differences in C4 cycle activity, represented by the initial slope of the A response to intercellular CO2 concentration. Based on these results, we hypothesize the greater response of gs to increasing VPD may enable NAD-ME plants to outperform NADP-ME plants in hot, dry environments where VPD is normally high.

Keywords: C4 Ecology
C4 Plants
Plant Physiological Ecology
Stomatal Physiology
Advisor: Sage, Rowan
Post-operative Functional Disability in Unrecognized Cognitive Impairment (POF) Study: An Observational Cohort Study in Patients Undergoing Non-cardiac Surgery

Identifying individuals with unrecognized cognitive impairment may facilitate informed decision-making about the benefits and risks of undergoing surgery in these patients, and how underlying cognitive impairment relates to functional ability. Using simple screening tools in older surgical patients at baseline, post-operative 30-, 90-, and 180-days, we determine the prevalence of unrecognized cognitive impairment and its association with postoperative functional ability. Across all four timepoints, we found a prevalence of unrecognized cognitive impairment in 24.5% of participants (n = 53). A repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference in patients with or without cognitive impairment between baseline and 30-days for IADL, F (1, 43) = 0.389, p = 0.536 or for WHODAS, F (1,45) = 1.62, p = 0.210. We found that simple screening tools for cognitive impairment such as single cognitive question or AD8 can identify potential cognitive impairment in older surgical patients. Follow-up for formal diagnosis is needed.

Keywords: Cognitive impairment
Functional impairment
Older adults
Postoperative complications
Surgery
Advisor: Chung, Frances
Semantic Segmentation Models to Analyze Histological Images of Re-endothelialized Lungs

The re-endothelialization of an acellular lung scaffold is evaluated through the analysis of histological images, which is an unscalable process due to its time-consuming, work-intensive, and subjective nature. Deep learning methods present a means to accurately automate medical image analysis and in particular, semantic segmentation can be used to evaluate re-endothelialized lungs. In this thesis, we investigated the ability of semantic segmentation to determine key performance metrics in re-endothelialized mouse lungs. The cell seeding coverage, which quantifies the distribution of seeded cells in the lung scaffold, was accurately predicted by our implementation of semantic segmentation. Ruptured and dilated vessels, which deform the lung and signify problems with the recellularization procedure, were segmented with potential for improvement. Through patch-based learning, data augmentation, and transfer learning techniques, we significantly ameliorated model performance. We find that our work provides a proof-of-concept for the standard use of semantic segmentation to analyze recellularized lung images.

Keywords: Lung recellularization
Machine learning
Re-endothelialization
Semantic Segmentation
Advisor: Bazylak, Aimy
PathDiff: Systematic Differential Testing Using Symbolic Analysis

Discrepancies among software programs that implement the same specification frequently lead to bugs and vulnerabilities. Differential fuzzers, such as NEZHA, increase the efficiency of finding discrepancies by guiding the fuzzing process with domain-independent behavioural asymmetries. However, the random nature of fuzzing inevitably causes NEZHA to miss discrepancies, even if the pair of paths where the discrepancies lie has already been discovered. In this thesis, we propose PathDiff, a novel differential testing tool that leverages path asymmetry to systematically find all discrepancies for given path-pairs. PathDiff keeps the execution path in one program and iteratively negates each branch in the other program for discrepancies, exhaustively enumerating all discrepancies for given inputs. We have implemented PathDiff and evaluated it against NEZHA on 16 applications, including 12 applications used in the NEZHA paper as well as 4 newly selected ones. The results show that PathDiff finds 4.1× more discrepancies than NEZHA.

Keywords: Differential Testing
Program Analysis
Semantic Bugs
Symbolic Analysis
Advisor: Lie, David DL
Design of an Accelerated Longitudinal Cohort to Estimate Employment Trajectories using Multistate Models in a Population of Young Adults with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Background: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is the most common form of Lupus. Objectives: To design a prospective accelerated longitudinal cohort (ALC) to study the employment trajectory of young-adult SLE patients. Methods: We analyzed a multicentre retrospective cohort of SLE patients using multi-state models to assess risk factors for unfavourable employment trajectories. Additionally, we conducted a simulation study to design an ALC that optimized the precision and bias for the probability of transitioning between employment states. Results: Due to insufficient data, model convergence in the retrospective cohort and simulation study was poor. Conclusions: ALCs are an attractive design for prospective studies; however, it is not an appropriate study design for the present population. For rare diseases such as SLE, the number of transitions is likely to be small. Future work should focus on expanding the objective to include additional populations who would benefit from interventions on undesirable employment trajectories.

Keywords: Accelerated longitudinal design
Employment trajectory
experimental design
multi state model
simulation
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Advisor: Pullenayegum, Eleanor M
Tackling Resource Utilization In Deep Neural Network Accelerators

Good resource utilization plays an important role in maximizing the performance of DNN accelerators. One method to maximize resource utilization is to divide accelerator resources into multiple sub-accelerators. However, there are a couple of design considerations that are essential to the production of efficient multi-accelerator systems. The number of sub-accelerators to use and the distribution of resources are among a few considerations that are important to the design of highly efficient multi- accelerator systems. We present DataflowBay, a framework that helps guide the design of multi-accelerator systems. DataflowBay implements a scheduler that extends the state-of-the-art to map DNN layers on multi-accelerators systems with an average energy-delay product improvement of ∼11.6%. DataflowBay also implements a Bayesian optimization module to automate the fine-grained mapping of DNN layers onto the sub-accelerators and a stochastic greedy search algorithm to decide what hardware resource distribution will lead to the best performance for each sub-accelerator.

Advisor: Enright Jerger, Natalie
Three Essays on Surgical Services Optimization

In this thesis, we develop optimization and discrete-event simulation models to assess and improve the operational and financial performance of surgical services provided by hospitals. More specifically, we examine (1) whether optimized use of specific capital intensive strategies, namely utilizing Anesthesia block rooms and modern Insufflation, provide operational and financial benefits that outweigh their costs; and (2) whether optimizing daily surgical schedules can increase the throughput rate and reduce overtime costs. Using simulation experiments populated with real operational and financial data from Canadian hospitals, we show that optimized use of Anesthesia block rooms and modern Insufflation can be cost-saving and overtime costs can be significantly reduced through optimized daily schedules.

Advisor: Chan, Timothy
Sarhangian, Vahid
Utilizing Square Wave Voltammetry Pulse Potential Frequency Profiling for Nucleic Acid Detection

Developing sensitive and reliable biosensors for nucleic acids that can operate without the use of reagents is critical to expanding the use of genome-level data in routine health monitoring. Towards this goal, a reagentless electrochemical sensor was developed to detect target nucleic acids in amounts as low as 30 fmol. Unlike similar sensors that utilize peak square wave voltammetry current as the variable for detection, this sensor relies on square wave voltammetry frequency-current profiling. The main advantage of this approach, in comparison to similar sensor architectures, is its resistance to false positives – a critical feature for enhancing commercialization. This concept was also applied to the multiplexed detection of three unique nucleic acid targets on a single electrode, using a single redox reporter, under probe saturating conditions. Finally, it was demonstrated that frequency profiling reveals fundamental kinetic information about nucleic acid structures, establishing a simple, low-cost method to elucidate probe kinetics.

Keywords: Biosensor
Diagnostic
Electrochemistry
Nucleic acid
Advisor: Kelley, Shana O