VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
We are what we attend to: Individual differences in attention and personality

As the gatekeeper of conscious awareness, visual attention plays a formative role in how and what we experience. Visual attention is influenced by a cluster of exogenous (e.g., visual onsets and motion) and endogenous factors (e.g., goals, desires), which work in tandem to influence how visual attention is calibrated in terms of spatial scope (spatial spread) and selectivity (biased enhancement of relevant and suppression of irrelevant information). While the influence of exogenous factors on visual attention has been studied widely, the relationship between endogenous factors, such as personality, and visual attention is less clear. There has been some work exploring the relationship between attention and personality, but this field of interdisciplinary work lacks a unifying theory that operationalizes these relationships. The aim of this thesis is to propose such a guiding framework, the Attention and Personality Framework, and demonstrate how this framework can provide insight into individual differences in visual processing. This framework suggests visual attention is related to specific personality traits. Specifically, Conscientiousness is related to the selectivity of attention, while Openness is related to the spatial scope of attention. The experiments in this thesis provide evidence supporting this hypothesis and demonstrate the utility of this guiding framework. In particular, performance on a task probing the spatial scope of visual attention is predicted by Openness (Inhibition of Return, Chapter 2), while performance on a task probing the selectivity of attention is predicted by Conscientiousness (Localized Attentional Interference, Chapter 3). Further, these relationships are evident in other forms of visual processing that rely on visual attention, such as iconic memory (Chapter 4) and visual working memory (Chapter 5). Taken together, this thesis provides a framework that refines our understanding of individual differences in visual cognition and personality and demonstrates its utility in visual cognition and personality research.

Keywords: Big Five Personality Traits
Individual Differences
Scope of Attention
Selective Attention
Visual Attention
Visual Working Memory
Advisor: Ferber, Susanne
Israel/Palestine Experience and Engagement: A Multidirectional Study of Collective Memory Through an Analysis of Trauma, Identity and Victim Beliefs

Abstract The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has sparked a debate in Canada (and elsewhere) that is as intractable as the conflict itself. This study looks at two Diasporas, Palestinian and Jewish, in the Toronto area, as typical of the challenges within these communities worldwide when it comes to deeply understanding the Other. Collective memory, a representation of the past shared by a group, is viewed in this study as a prime factor in how conflicts become intractable, insulating the groups from deeply acknowledging the Other and the Other’s history. I look at three primary catalysts that concretize memory within groups: identity, trauma and victim beliefs. This study engages in the experiences and memories of these experiences in the eight participants who I have interviewed for this study. The participants engaged in two interviews, a narrative interview where they shared their stories with me and an interaction interview where they responded to the stories of the Other. This research is not a peace plan or even a path towards peace, but is a process of unraveling. As the researcher I unravel my own victimhood as a Jew from a family of the Shoah. I am also unraveling two seemingly disparate realities, the ways in which collective memory has become ensconced within the two groups and the reality that the two groups’ situations today are starkly different. While both groups have experienced very traumatic histories, the trauma of Occupation is ongoing for Palestinians. This research offers an alternative to typical “dialogue”, acknowledging the importance of hearing the Other’s stories within a framework of social justice and human rights. While recognizing the importance of sharing in the experiences of the Other, the Jewish community has a greater responsibility to alter the situation on the ground for those living in the Occupied territories.

Keywords: Collective Memory
Conflict
Holocaust Memory
Israel/Palestine
Non-competitive memory
Oral History
Advisor: Goldstein, Tara
Individualism and Audibility in Jazz: The Music of Bunky Green

This dissertation explores questions of influence, individualism, style, and innovation in jazz and their stakes through the music of Vernice “Bunky” Green. Green is an American saxophonist who, I argue, has made a significant impact on the present-day jazz landscape, if not directly, then through the work of other prominent saxophonists like Steve Coleman and Greg Osby. In addition to exploring Green’s musical development and legacies, I discuss the stakes for his approach, which broke away from the dominant paradigm of alto performance established by Charlie Parker. Despite his many new contributions to saxophone soloing, Green was not embraced as an innovator in the eyes of many of his contemporaries, critics, or audiences. To better understand Green’s seemingly contradictory place in jazz history, I discuss his difficulties in getting support from record companies as well as other factors that would have contributed to his relative obscurity. I suggest that Green’s “inside/outside” concept of playing, placing him somewhere between bebop and free jazz, may have been one reason his music was difficult to market to a wide audience. In addition to discussing these concepts in a general manner, this dissertation provides commentary from Coleman, Osby, and others that point towards the too often overlooked importance of Green’s work and its influence on particular, but nevertheless, notable performers within today’s jazz community. Although Green has received some recognition from his collaborations with some of these performers, his work continues to be relatively unknown outside of a handful of jazz musicians and enthusiasts. My dissertation therefore contributes to a more complete picture of saxophone performance practices and history by looking at the work of a creative musician who has been overlooked by many musicians and most scholars and critics. Moreover, it points to the importance of engaging with the music and perspectives of jazz saxophonists who have been excluded from the canon of jazz writing and music. Beyond its importance for jazz historians, such attention to other jazz histories offers vast possibilities for young jazz musicians to diversify their musical practice and engender new directions in jazz.

Keywords: audibility
Bunky Green
canon
Individualism
Influence
Jazz
Advisor: Packman, Jeff L
Investigating Mathematics Teachers' Knowledge for Teaching and Their Learning Trajectories

This study investigated three secondary mathematics teachers’ knowledge for teaching and their learning trajectories from their own schooling through their establishment as experienced teachers in their education system. Their current knowledge includes four categories: mathematics content, curriculum, students’ conceptions and misconceptions, and mathematics pedagogy. Three case studies were conducted through semi-structured research instruments and interviews. Other data such as prior and current official curricula and other materials related to teachers’ professional development were also collected. The findings also indicate that the process of teacher professional development is complex. Teachers learned from various formal and informal sources. The sources and motivation for the teachers’ professional development were: the school mathematics curriculum, their students, the content they taught, the school environment for professional development, their interests, and beliefs and value toward mathematics teaching and learning. The content of their teaching, and their students’ questions and challenges, helped them to reflect about their classroom practices and assisted the teachers in following various approaches to upgrade their knowledge. The findings indicate that there are five categories of professional knowledge for teachers: subject matter knowledge, curriculum knowledge, knowledge of students, mathematics pedagogy, and knowledge of professional development. Each has its subcategories. The categories and subcategories have their properties and some levels of bonds among others. Teachers’ knowledge for teaching is not static but is dynamic. The knowledge is shaped with the changes of school curriculum and teachers’ choice of approaches and learning directions for their professional development. Teacher’s subject matter knowledge is aligned with the curriculum, and the students’ prior learning. Mathematics pedagogical content knowledge is developed over many years of teaching. It depends on the approaches and directions of teachers’ professional development, what they teach and who they teach. Mathematics pedagogical content knowledge of secondary school mathematics teachers should include the alignment of elementary, secondary and post-secondary mathematics fundamental ideas, strategies, mathematics thinking and analysis structures of content. Teacher programs also need to provide approaches and directions of professional development. Inservice teacher programs need to entail teachers’ needs for subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge development in their educational system.

Keywords: Learning trejectories
Mathematics teachers' knowledge
Advisor: McDougall, Douglas
Improving Bayesian Optimization for Machine Learning using Expert Priors

Deep neural networks have recently become astonishingly successful at many machine learning problems such as object recognition and speech recognition, and they are now also being used in many new and creative ways. However, their performance critically relies on the proper setting of numerous hyperparameters. Manual tuning by an expert researcher has been a traditionally effective approach, however it is becoming increasingly infeasible as models become more complex and machine learning systems become further embedded within larger automated systems. Bayesian optimization has recently been proposed as a strategy for intelligently optimizing the hyperparameters of deep neural networks and other machine learning systems; it has been shown in many cases to outperform experts, and provides a promising way to reduce both the computational and human time required. Regardless, expert researchers can still be quite effective at hyperparameter tuning due to their ability to incorporate contextual knowledge and intuition into their search, while traditional Bayesian optimization treats each problem as a black box and therefore cannot take advantage of this knowledge. In this thesis, we draw inspiration from these abilities and incorporate them into the Bayesian optimization framework as additional prior information. These extensions include the ability to transfer knowledge between problems, the ability to transform the problem domain into one that is easier to optimize, and the ability to terminate experiments when they are no longer deemed to be promising, without requiring their training to converge. We demonstrate in experiments across a range of machine learning models that these extensions significantly reduce the cost and increase the robustness of Bayesian optimization for automatic hyperparameter tuning.

Keywords: Bayesian Optimization
Deep Learning
Gaussian Processes
Machine Learning
Neural Networks
Advisor: Zemel, Richard S
Tensor product of preprojective algebras and preprojective structure on skew-group algebras

We investigate properties of finite subgroups G < SL(n, k) for which the skew-group algebra k[x1, . . . , xn]#G does not have a grading structure of (higher) preprojective algebra. Namely, we prove that if a finite subgroup G < SL(n, k) is conjugate to a finite subgroup of SL(n1, k) × SL(n2, k), for some n1, n2 ≥ 1, n1 + n2 = n, then the skew-group algebra k[x1, . . . , xn]#G is not Morita equivalent to a (higher) preprojective algebra. One of the first examples of such a group G is (1/3(1, 2, 1, 2)), the cyclic subgroup of order 3 of SL(4, k) generated by the diagonal matrix. Motivated by this question, we study preprojective algebras over Koszul algebras. We give a quiver construction for the preprojective algebra over a basic Koszul n-representation-infinite algebra. Moreover, we show that such algebras are derivation-quotient algebras whose relations are given by a superpotential. The main problem is also related to the preprojective algebra structure on the tensor product Π := Π1 ⊗k Π2 of two Koszul preprojective algebras. We prove that a superpotential in Π is given by the shuffle product of superpotentials in Π1 and Π2. Finally, we prove that if Π has a grading structure such that it is n-Calabi-Yau of Gorentstein parameter 1, then its degree 0 component is the tensor product of a Calabi-Yau algebra and a higher representation-infinite algebra. This implies that it is infinite-dimensional, which means in particular that Π is not a preprojective algebra.

Keywords: Koszul algebra
Preprojective algebra
Skew-group algebra
Superpotential
Advisor: Buchweitz, Ragnar-Olaf
Cytoskeletal changes during classical activation of macrophages in 2D and 3D environments

As effector cells of the innate immune response, macrophages are capable of recognizing and eliminating pathogens during inflammation. Macrophages achieve maximal immunological potential by undergoing cellular activation. Classical activation of macrophages (M1) with interferon-Îł (IFNÎł) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) greatly enhances the immune response against intruding pathogens. We have previously revealed that stathmin association with microtubules (MTs) is considerably reduced in M1 macrophages using proteomics approaches. In this thesis, we demonstrate a LPS-dependent stathmin protein reduction in M1 macrophages. We also explored the functional roles of stathmin down-regulation by generating stable cell lines overexpressing stathmin-GFP. Stathmin-GFP overexpression impaired MT integrity and reduced activation-associated phenotypes. Furthermore, overexpressing stathmin-GFP inhibited complement receptor 3 (CR3)-mediated phagocytosis and cellular activation, implicating its pivotal inhibitory role in classical activation of macrophages. We next explored the role of the microenvironment in the classical activation of macrophages. Previous studies were predominately conducted on two-dimensional (2D) platforms. Consequently, we cultured macrophages in a more physiologically relevant microenvironment and examined the cellular activation and morphological changes. Our preliminary data suggested that M1 macrophages within 3D collagen matrices exhibited enhanced activation and unique adhesion complexes when compared to cells cultured on 2D platforms. Overall, our findings suggest that biochemical and physical cues provided by the extracellular matrix (ECM) modulate the morphological changes and immunological functions of macrophages.

Keywords: Classical Activation
Collagen
Cytoskeleton
Macrophage
Microtubules
Stathmin
Advisor: Harrison, Rene E
Conservation and Biological Senescence in Polar Bears: Telomeres and Inuit Traditional Knowledge

Although noninvasive genetic surveys play an increasing role in monitoring polar bear population dynamics, genetic methods of identifying age await development. Telomeres––repetitive DNA sequences at chromosome ends––may indicate biological senescence and chronological aging. In some taxa, telomere length has been shown to decline with chronological age, but may vary with tissue, sex, and environmental variation and even within and among individuals of the same age. This thesis evaluates patterns of variation in telomeres as a function of chronological age by i) developing a telomere restriction fragment (TRF) assay in grizzly bears to examine how telomere length varies with age sex, and stress in this taxa and ii) using a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to determine how telomere length varies with tissue, age, sex, and population in harvested polar bears. I also examine iii) Inuit methods of identifying polar bear characteristics to enrich interpretations of these patterns and iv) Inuit perspectives of research and management for insight into long-term community-level monitoring. TRF assays in grizzly bears are able to detect age and sex effects on telomere length, yet these findings are inconclusive. Future work using a larger sample can confirm these relationships. For heart, muscle, and skin salvaged from polar bears, significant differences in telomere length occur among populations and these involve differences in age and sex in muscle and potentially skin. Telomeres will likely serve as a better indicator of biological versus chronological aging. Inuit across Nunavut continue to share methods in identifying sex, age, body size and health of encountered polar bears and their knowledge could inform polar bear surveys. Unfortunately, not all Inuit support current research and management practices, suggesting there is a need to improve collaborative relationships. Including Inuit in monitoring programs can highlight unique, novel methods of monitoring a high profile at-risk species.

Keywords: aging
biological senescence
Inuit
Polar bear
telomeres
traditional knowledge
Advisor: Murphy, Robert W
McGregor, Deborah
Restorative Justice Responses to Sexual Violence as Non-Domination Promoting Instruments

This paper introduces two international restorative justice responses (RJR) to sexual violence. I draw on these examples to propose a RJR to sexual violence that could be implemented in Canada. I analyze the RJR using Braithwaite and Pettitâ s Republicanism model. I use the Republican value of non-domination to explore the process of a RJR as against the CJS process. I focus only on offenders who are willing to admit some responsibility for their crime. The work that follows focuses on the process of both the CJS and RJR, it asks the simple question: would a RJR process promote dominion in excess of CJS process? I argue that a RJR leads to greater dominion for the survivor/victim (SV) of the sexual assault, the offender and the public. I argue that a RJR employs a process that is more efficient at rectifying the harm caused by the initial act of domination.

Advisor: Chiao, Vincent
Of Unreasonable Searches and Seizures: A Blueprint for a Constitutional Challenge to the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act

This thesis scrutinizes the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act [“SoCIS”] through the lens of section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Drawing an epistemological link between search and seizure principles and the domestic exchange of information, I argue that the SoCIS falls short of the safeguards demanded by section 8. By permitting the unremitting disclosure of information, the regime casts too wide a net, and risks the exchange of information about innocent Canadians – not unlike the cases of Maher Arar, Ahmad Elmaati, Muayyed Nureddin, and Abdullaah Almalki. When measured against jurisprudential standards and lessons from commissions of inquiry involving porous information-sharing dynamics, the absence of oversight or accountability in the SoCIS proves disproportionate to its overarching objective. Thus, it cannot be saved by section 1 of the Charter, and should be declared of no force or effect.

Keywords: information-sharing
search and seizure
section 8 of Charter
surveillance
Advisor: Roach, Dr. Kent
Construction of relative discrete series representations for p-adic GLn

Let F be a nonarchimedean local field of characteristic zero and odd residual characteristic. Let G be the F-points of a connected reductive group defined over F and let θ be an F-rational involution of G. Define H to be the closed subgroup of θ-fixed points in G. The quotient variety H\G is a p-adic symmetric space. A fundamental problem in the harmonic analysis on H\G is to understand the irreducible subrepresentations of the right-regular representation of G acting on the space L2(H\G) of complex-valued square integrable functions on H\G. The irreducible subrepresentations of L2(H\G) are called relative discrete series representations. In this thesis, we give an explicit construction of relative discrete series representations for three p-adic symmetric spaces, all of which are quotients of the general linear group. We consider GLn (F) × GLn(F)\GL2n(F), GLn(F)\GLn(E), and UE/F(F)\GL2n(E), where E is a quadratic Galois extension of F and UE/F is a quasi-split unitary group. All of the representations that we construct are parabolically induced from θ-stable parabolic subgroups admitting a certain type of Levi subgroup. In particular, we give a sufficient condition for the relative discrete series representations that we construct to be non-relatively supercuspidal. Finally, in an appendix, we describe the relative discrete series for the space GLn−1(F) × GL1(F)\GLn(F).

Keywords: p-adic symmetric space
Relative discrete series
Representation theory
Advisor: Murnaghan, Fiona
Genes, behaviour, and thermal reaction norms in Caenorhabditis nematodes

Understanding how complex phenotypes like behaviour evolve requires that we determine the genetic contributions that get used by natural selection. Deciphering the genetic causes of differences in animal behaviour is challenging because behaviour phenotypes are strongly influenced by the environment, with phenotypic responses transduced through pleiotropic gene networks and the nervous system. My thesis simplifies these issues in behavioural genetics by working with a powerful genetic model animal system under tightly controlled laboratory environments that mimic natural environmental stimuli. I was able to quantify heritable natural variation in behaviour phenotypes among natural isolate strains of

Keywords: Behavioural genetics
Behavioural reaction norms
QTL
Quantitative trait loci
Thermal performance curves
Advisor: Cutter, Asher D
Ryu, William S