VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Employment and Education Pathways: Exploring Traditional Knowledges Supports for Transitions Out of Homelessness for Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous Peoples are the fastest growing population in Canada, yet face persistent housing and homelessness crises. While Indigenous Peoples often move to cities in search of employment and education, they are overrepresented among the homeless population. There is little known about what current life transitions out of homelessness look like for Indigenous Peoples. This study asked: “How do traditional knowledge/Elders support the mental health and wellbeing of Indigenous homeless individuals transitioning to housing and seeking employment/education?” This study interviewed 13 Indigenous participants using a narrative inquiry methodology, in which their perspectives, experiences, and insights on housing transitions, employment barriers, and education supports were shared. Results included five metathemes: Housing Shelter; Indigenous Knowledges Community Connections; Education Employment Pathways; Social Services Programming, and Indigenous Existence in Society. Limitations, future directions, and implications for policy are included in this work.

Keywords: Indigenous homelessness
Indigenous mental health
Indigenous traditional knowledges
Indigenous youth education
employment
Indigenous youth life transitions
Advisor: Stewart, Suzanne L
Automating Log-based Software Debugging on Distributed Server Stacks

Debugging is one of the oldest yet hardest problems in the computer engineering field. People have been spending billions of dollars each year fighting with software bugs, yet debugging is still a highly inefficient process that requires a lot of manual efforts. While computer systems are getting more complicated, manual debugging has become extremely time-consuming. This thesis aims to automate debugging from a log-based perspective. Log-based debugging,or printf debugging, is important for three reasons. First, logs contain rich debugging information. They are printed by log printing statements that are manually inserted by software developers. Second, logs are cheap. The cost of printing logs is often lower comparing with other tools. Finally, logs are sometimes the only source of runtime information in production environments. However, current log-based debugging is largely manual, which has severe limitations. First, it is hard for manual logging to control the log quality. In practice, people don’t spend enough time on writing log printing statements. Second, logs are often outputted in high volumes,making it hard for manual analysis. This thesis aims to solve these two problems. First, it solves the problem of “where to log” based on the following observation: the decision of where to print log messages is a trade-off between their usefulness in debugging and the cost to print them. We further define the logs’ usefulness by their abilities to differentiate execution paths. On top of this, we build a tool, Log20, that can automatically insert the optimal log printing statements under a given performance threshold. Second, it solves the problem of “how to correlate the logs”. Correlating log messages from the same execution flow is a critical step in debugging, where an execution flow is a sequence of computer instructions triggered by a user request. We solve this problem by proposing the Flow Reconstruction Principle: programmers will insert sufficient information in the logs in order to reconstruct the execution in post-mortem diagnosis. We further apply this principle in the Stitch tool, and demonstrate its usefulness by performing real world system diagnosis tasks in a user study.

Keywords: Debugging
Distributed server stacks
Failure diagnosis
Logging
Advisor: Yuan, Ding
Psychological Distress Among LGBTQ People of Colour: Understanding the Role of Intersectional Microaggressions, Social Identity, and Community Connectedness

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people of colour (LGBTQ-POC) are confronted with daily, subtle racist and heterosexist microaggressions, which have been linked to stress and increased likelihood of mental health problems. The current study applied an intersectional framework to understand the role that intersectional microaggressions play in predicting psychological distress among LGBTQ-POC. Furthermore, rather than merely investigating risk, the current study integrated a resiliency perspective to understand how individual- and community-level promotive factors compensate for and protect against psychological distress in the face of intersectional microaggressions. A racially diverse sample of 200 LGBTQ emerging adults of colour (ages 18-29) participated in an online study that assessed psychological distress, three types of microaggressions (racial, heterosexist, and intersectional), social identity, and community connectedness. Results indicated that although heterosexist and racial microaggressions predicted psychological distress, when considered together, intersectional microaggressions accounted for the majority of the relationship and were a better predictor of psychological distress. Additionally, although social identity was not protective, connectedness with each of the three communities (LGBTQ, POC, LGBTQ-POC) had a direct compensatory effect on psychological distress. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords: Emerging adults
Intersectionality
LGBTQ people of colour
Microaggressions
Psychological distress
Advisor: Goldstein, Abby L
Air Pollution Measurements near Roadways: Verifying Measurements and Discerning Traffic-related Signal from Background

The work in this thesis examined multiple years of air quality data collected in near-roadway and urban background environments as part of an air quality monitoring pilot study, the first of its kind in Canada. In addition to validation strategies involved in assuring accuracy of these data, near-road pollutant concentrations were compared with urban background concentrations (between 2-10 km away from each near-road receptor) in order to isolate excess pollution arising from vehicle emissions, understood to be approximately equal to the difference between the two locations. One major hypothesis in this work was that these excess pollutant quantities can be estimated using the near-road data alone, an important research question as oftentimes studies do not have concurrent background measurements, and two strategies for doing this were compared with the measured site differences. Namely, utilizing differences between measurements made downwind and upwind of the roadway, and applying a background-subtraction algorithm to the near-road time series data. It was found that, relative to the explicitly measured site differences, downwind/upwind differences were 40% larger on average and not universally applicable, whereas an optimized background-subtraction algorithm replicated the site differences well and was robust across all sites. After isolating these local vehicle-related concentrations, the role of meteorological variability on vehicular plume dispersion in the near-road environment was quantified. It was found that the relationship between normalized local concentrations and wind speed was well-described with a simple exponential equation. Wind direction had the effect of enhancing this by a factor of 1.5-2.0 when downwind of the roadway, and suppressing it by a factor of 0.25-0.50 when upwind at these sites. Lastly, 15 years of continuous ambient near-road ultrafine particulate matter data were analyzed utilizing this background-subtraction methodology. It was found that local concentrations contributed ~45% to total ambient concentrations, and while these total concentrations have been steadily declining, this local fraction has remained relatively consistent. Future utilization of the methodologies developed and validated in this thesis will be useful for continued monitoring of vehicular fleet emissions.

Keywords: Aerosols
Background
Near-road
Pollution
Traffic
Urban
Advisor: Evans, Greg J.
Brook, Jeffrey R.
Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Cardio-oncology Rehabilitation (CORE) Referral in Breast Cancer Survivors

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among Canadian women. Due to advancements in cancer prevention, treatment and screening, more breast cancer survivors are living longer, for whom, survivorship issues have become a significant concern. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is recognized as the leading non-cancer cause of death in this population, and is the number one cause of death in older cancer survivors (≥65 years of age). The American Heart Association recently endorsed the use of multi-modal exercise-rehabilitation programs, similar to cardiac rehabilitation (CR), to help mitigate CVD risk in breast cancer survivors. This approach has been coined as cardio-oncology rehabilitation (CORE). Despite this, there are no clinical guidelines on who should be prioritized for CORE among people with cancer and referral of all patients would quickly overwhelm current CR programs. Against this background, we aimed to identify which early-stage breast cancer survivors should be prioritized for CORE referral until greater program capacity is available. Novel measures that were explored included, cardiac biomarkers, echocardiography derived global longitudinal strain, cardiopulmonary fitness, measures of vascular function and structure, and clinical data that is prognostic and diagnostic for CVD events in breast cancer survivors. Our research revealed that women treated with potentially cardiotoxic therapies and the presence of ≥2 CVD risk factors, vascular impairments, history of cardiotoxicity, diastolic impairment and impaired GLS (

Keywords: Anthracyclines
Breast Cancer
Cardiac Rehabilitation
Cardiovascular Disease
Referral
Trastuzumab
Advisor: Thomas, Scott
Centripetal Representation

Growing political complexity is one of the defining features of contemporary rich post-industrial society. Patterns of electoral, administrative, and societal representation have become more complex over the past fifty years as organizations and policymaking processes have stretched across borders, as relatively stable patterns of post-war party competition have broken down, and as more dynamic and ad-hoc governance networks have sprung up alongside older bureaucratic hierarchies. While populist leaders have capitalized on voters’ desire to “take back control” of institutions whose opacity they find alienating, deliberative democratic and constructivist theorists of representation tend to express substantial enthusiasm for more complex representative systems. They show why pluralizing processes of representation can promote wiser, more inclusive, more dynamic, and, ultimately, more democratically legitimate processes of self-rule. However, the fragmentation of processes of political representation can pose a serious threat to democratic legitimacy and should be countered by a specific kind of democratic simplification. Complexity exacerbates information asymmetries between representatives and constituents that afflict the resource-poor worse than others, biasing the representative system against them. Simplifying systems of political representation can help ordinary people understand and engage with their representatives and push back against gridlock, collusion, capture, and shirking. Broad inclusion of pluralistic claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery of the representative system should therefore be combined with substantial democratic simplicity at its core, with networked responsiveness in between. I use the metaphor of centripetal motion to captures the idea that pressure and influence should flow “inwards” from a heterogeneous assemblage of claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery to a relatively small and organized group at the centre. The theory of centripetal representation can help political theorists, social scientists, and political practitioners think about how to manage complexity and shape our evolving systems of representation in ways that promote democratic legitimacy by helping ordinary people to be seen and heard, rather than allowing the powerful to hide.

Keywords: democracy
representation
Advisor: Williams, Melissa S
Implementation of Outcomes-based Education in an Interdisciplinary Design Course and Curriculum: An Action Research Study

This is a case study that focuses on the challenges that I, as the action researcher and design educator at the post-secondary level face in the integration of an outcomes-based curriculum model that has been adopted in recent years by the higher education sector in Ontario in order to ensure quality, transparency and compatibility among the credentials. In this thesis, I studied the implementation of the outcomes-based education curriculum in a design program through investigative cycles of action-reflection of my own teaching practice as well as that of my colleagues in the Art and Design Foundation Program at the School of Design, George Brown College. The selection of action research as my strategy of inquiry is my response to the qualitative and critical nature of the challenges that educators are facing in their efforts to integrate learner - centered principles in their teaching practice. My research has been completed in two phases: Phase A – Critical Dialogue with Self and Phase B – Critical Dialogue with the Institution. The participants of my study are my students in Foundation Design II: Colour Theory and Practice, one Critical Expert from the Teaching and Learning Exchange, one Interested Observer (graduate of the program), Art and Design Foundation faculty and a Critical Administrator at the College. These are the synthesis of the insights I gained: Phase A – Critical Dialogue with Self: • A holistic approach to teaching and learning of the foundation of art and design. • Proactivity and reflexivity in my teaching practice with the goal of self-improvement and growth based on personal beliefs and social values. • A flexible learning - centered approach in course planning. • Sense of care towards student learning. • Mentality of success in teaching and learning: we are a team and we are working together to succeed. Phase B – Critical Dialogue with the Institution • A holistic learning - centered approach in the art and design foundation curriculum planning. • Use of new strategies to engage faculty in curriculum development. • Use of design thinking tools in curriculum design. • Empowering students and faculty by giving voice to their individual beliefs and values in art and design education.

Keywords: Action Research
Interdisciplinary Design Course and Curriculum
Outcomes- Based Education
Advisor: Janzen, Katharine K
Investigating the Role of the Ventral Hippocampus in Decision-Making under Approach-Avoidance Conflict

Approach-avoidance (AP-AV) conflict occurs when an organism encounters a stimulus that has both attractive and aversive properties and optimal resolution of this conflict is vital for survival. Existing theories of anxiety and defensive behaviours such as Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory and Imminence Continuum Theory consider long spatio-temporal distance under AP-AV conflict inducing situations to be sufficient to engage the ventral hippocampus (VH) and produce anxiety-like behaviors. Accordingly, VH engagement has been supported by studies employing the use of ethological anxiety tests and cue-based maze tasks that induce a state of AP-AV conflict. However, the role of the VH in more discrete/choice-based decision-making tasks with AP-AV conflict remains unclear. In this thesis I investigated whether discrete choices under AP-AV conflict are sensitive to VH disruption and whether the temporal distance of the conflict-inducing event affects this sensitivity. First, rats were tested in an active avoidance (AA) task with and without safety signal, and their responses in both reinforced and extinction conditions were evaluated. Inactivation of VH decreased AA responses but only in the presence of safety signal, and under extinction condition. These results indicated that AA is not dependent on VH activity, and the presence of ‘temporal distance’ alone (impending shock) is not sufficient to make behavior susceptible to VH disruption. A second experiment investigated the role of the VH in temporal decision-making under conflict. This work revealed that chemogenetic inhibition of VH did not have an effect that was specific to the conflict-inducing conditions. Instead, VH inhibition reduced timing uncertainty regardless of the presence of AP-AV conflict. Finally, animals were tested in a discrete choice task in which they had to make decisions between a high reward option with varying degrees of shock intensity and a low reward option which enabled the quantification of the point of subjective equality (PSE). Here again, inhibition of the VH did not play a role in AP-AV conflict with reinforcement but increased the preference for the low reward option and PSE in extinction. Together, these results reveal that either the omission of reinforcement or ambiguity, rather than AP-AV conflict and/or temporal distance engage the VH.

Keywords: Active avoidance
Approach-avoidance conflict
Decision-making
Timing
Ventral Hippocampus
Advisor: Ito Lee, Rutsuko
Characterizing the Mechanical Behaviour of the Human Pelvis Through Finite Element Analysis

In the human musculoskeletal system, the pelvis functions as a crucial transfer point for upper body loads to the lower extremities. Existing treatments in the field of pelvic reconstructive surgery do not account for versatile structural differences in pelvic geometries and variations in pelvic bone properties. This thesis aims to develop a novel approach to facilitate and automate the creation of multiple specimen-specific finite element (FE) models of the pelvis and to utilize these models to characterize mechanical behavior of the pelvis, under healthy and pathologic conditions. Robust generation of pelvic FE models is necessary to understand variations in mechanical behaviour resulting from differences in gender, aging, disease, and injury. A new semi-automated landmark-based FE morphing and mapping approach was developed for pelvic FE model generation without the need for segmentation. A cohort of specimen-specific pelvic FE models was generated using the new approach and the models were validated against experimental data in double leg stance configuration. The validated cohort of specimen-specific pelvic FE models was utilized to examine pelvic strains at different phases of the gait cycle (double leg stance, heel-strike/heel-off and midstance/midswing). The FE models revealed that the strain patterns throughout the pelvic structure between the double leg stance and heel-strike/heel-off configurations are not significantly different, whereas a significant difference was found in the midstance/midswing configuration. The morphing methodology was further extended to generate pelvic FE models of different shapes and to analyze their biomechanical behaviour. A significant difference was found in the strain patterns between the android (classic male shape) and gynecoid (classic female shape) pelvises. Finally, a specimen-specific pelvic FE model of an open book fracture was developed and validated against experimental data. The strain patterns identified in the fractured model aligned with the clinical understanding of open book fracture pathology. Overall, the findings of this thesis provide new understandings into the complex biomechanical behaviour of the human pelvis. This work creates a platform for more complex future FE modeling investigations to continue to study the behaviour of this multifaceted skeletal structure.

Keywords: Finite Element Analysis
Mesh morphing/mapping
Patient-specific modeling
Pelvic biomechanics
Shape modeling
Strain patterns
Advisor: Whyne, Cari M
Object Stories: Tracing South Asian Colonial Histories of Displacement through Affective Archives

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study into unheard narratives of the 1947 Partition of India as they inform legacies of trauma, violence, and displacement for South Asian diasporic communities. In exploring the limitations of official state accounts of Partition, I turn to alternative epistemological sites in archives of the personal, in my own familial story of Partition, as a point of analysis. These sites take up the form of what I call “affective objects”: sites, things, heirlooms, and artefacts that, because they are intimately linked to familial and community histories, are laden with in-articulatable feelings. I argue that affective objects can be space- and knowledge-making for unheard intergenerational narratives of displacement as they ruminate in realms of undefinition and nonverbal modes of communication. The familial stories about Partition that are produced from these affective spaces, which are not dependant on state- sanctioned narratives, are reparative in how they allow South Asian diasporic communities to work through inherited intergenerational traumas of Partition. I bring together affective theories, object studies, and colonial and postcolonial histories of India to uncover a method to speak about the unspeakable—to explore how nonverbal meaning, through the form of physical objects, comes through the work of affect. My methodology in this project is storytelling. That is, I take my own familial stories of Partition that have been attached to various affective objects as analysis. This is a move away from discourses that have been constructed by the colonial powers that incited trauma and violence on communities affected by Partition. I question the denial in contemporary colonial systems’ romanticized readings of the past and diminished understandings of current social realities of oppression, which render the victims of these histories silent. I include the personal in this conversation not only to connect and position myself within the narrative of Partition but also to make sense of larger socio-historical colonial processes that continue to unfold from and about Partition. The turn towards the affective object, archives of the personal, and the sharing of familial stories creates spaces of possibility and potential for knowing Partition and its legacies of violence differently.

Keywords: Affect Theory
Alternative Epistemologies
India's Partition
Object Theory
Postcolonial Studies
South Asian Diaspora
Advisor: Georgis, Dina