VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Flow Field and Soot Formation Characteristics in Swirl-stabilized Non-premixed Turbulent Flames

Soot formation and evolution in relation with the flow fields were investigated experimentally in turbulent swirl-stabilized non-premixed flames using three different fuels: methane, ethanol and aviation Jet A-1. The studied flames were confined and stabilized in a model gas turbine combustor with a swirl number of ~0.55. Soot volume fraction, fv, and primary soot particle size, dp, were measured using auto-compensating laser-induced incandescence, and planar three-component velocity fields were measured using stereoscopic particle image velocimetry. Measurements of planar laser-induced fluorescence of OH and OH* chemiluminescence were also made for methane and ethanol flames. The OH* field was further Abel-inverted to qualitatively locate the heat release zone. The flow field for all flames featured pronounced inner and outer recirculation zones (IRZ, ORZ), each bounded by their corresponding inner and outer shear layers (ISL, OSL). Abel-inverted OH* intensity maps showed that primary reaction zones occurred in the vicinity of ISL. The central fuel jet penetrating into the IRZ accompanied by a stagnation zone was observed in all methane flames. Soot measurements showed that the overall dp for methane and Jet A-1 flames ranged between 30 nm and 60 nm without discernible trends. In methane flames, peak time-averaged fv occurred between the central jet penetration and the ISL. The decrease and the final disappearance of time-averaged fv were strongly correlated with elevated OH, demonstrating a dominant oxidative attack of OH on soot. With a ~7% increase in air flow rate, the level of soot volume fraction dropped by nearly threefold due to enhanced turbulence intermittency. The appearance of ethanol spray flames, which lacked a bright yellow color, largely differed from others. The absence of soot was confirmed in the laser-induced incandescence measurements. The isothermal flow field of ethanol flames exhibited a large-scale structure of precessing vortex core which was then suppressed under reacting conditions. In Jet A-1 flames, spray pattern changed from V-shaped hollow cone to semi-solid cone when air flow rate increased by 20%, resulting in a 60% reduction in peak time-averaged fv. In contrast to results obtained from the methane flame, soot was found primarily outside the ISL where fuel existed in abundance.

Keywords: Laser diagnostics
Soot
Swirl-stabilized flames
Turbulent combustion
Advisor: Gulder, Omer L.
Investigation of the Antibody Response and the Role of IgM Immunoglobulin in Experimental Cervical Spinal Cord Injury

Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) results in motor, autonomic and sensory impairment, and is a condition for which there are no established therapies that promote repair or regeneration. Antibody responses are dysregulated in traumatic SCI, leading to increased infections and autoimmunity. However, the status of antibody responses in cervical SCI (cSCI), the most common injury level seen in patients is unknown. In this thesis, I characterized the antibody responses in a clinically relevant rodent model of cSCI. There was an autoantibody response against the spinal cord in the subacute phase (2 weeks post-injury), which did not persist in the chronic phases (10 and 20 weeks post-injury) of the condition. I observed localization of IgG and IgM antibodies in the injured spinal cord, which appeared to target perilesional astrocytes and ventral horn neurons. In parallel, I found that peripheral T- and B-cell frequencies and total serum immunoglobulins were decreased 2 weeks after injury, suggesting that peripheral immune suppression and spinal cord-targeted autoreactivity co-exist in cSCI. Additionally, I found increased serum IgM immunoglobulin at 10 weeks post-injury. As IgM immunoglobulin is important in homeostasis against autoimmunity, I investigated the role of IgM immunoglobulin in IgG-mediated autoimmunity after cSCI. Mice that lacked secreted IgM were found to have impaired neurobehavioral recovery, increased lesion size and less spared white matter in their spinal cords after cCSI, as compared to wild-type controls. Moreover, IgM-deficient mice had higher complement-fixing IgG antibody deposition in the spinal cord, coupled by increased T-lymphocyte and microglia/macrophages. Taken together, these data suggest that IgM immunoglobulin serves to regulate detrimental IgG deposition during the recovery phase after SCI. In conclusion, I demonstrated that cSCI provokes an autoantibody response against the spinal cord, in conjunction with peripheral immune suppression, during the subacute phase of injury. I have also shown that IgM immunoglobulin is necessary for spontaneous recovery in cSCI, by limiting detrimental IgG deposition in the lesioned spinal cord. These novel findings advance our knowledge of the immune-mediated pathology after cSCI and warrant the further investigation of the therapeutic potential of IgM immunoglobulin during the subacute phase of SCI.

Keywords: Autoantibodies
Autoimmunity
IgG immunoglobulin
IgM immunoglobulin
Inflammation
Spinal cord injury
Advisor: Fehlings, Michael G
Essays in Financial Economics

This thesis consists of three essays on financial markets, product markets, information markets, and their interaction. Chapter 1 offers an introduction of the essays and summarizes the main findings. Chapter 2 studies how product markets shape managerial short-termism (myopia). It shows that under market competition, managerial short-termism may arise endogenously as a means for firms to commit to competing aggressively. Such managerial short-termism is facilitated by financial markets as firms tie their managers' pay to the short-term stock prices. The following two chapters focus on the interaction between financial markets and information markets; both chapters demonstrate that information markets are crucial in determining asset prices and market quality in financial markets. Chapter 3 develops an information-sales model in which investors acquire uncertain skills to interpret purchased data, thereby changing the behavior of data sellers. It leads to several novel results (e.g., price informativeness increases with skill-acquisition costs), which help clarify certain empirical regularities. Chapter 4 examines sales of financial market information in an economy with two information sellers. In equilibrium, the two sellers form either orthogonal or overlapping clientele, depending on the similarity of the information to be sold. When the two sellers' information is very distinct and the sellers have relatively large bargaining power in sharing trading profits, investors' information purchase behavior exhibits complementarity, leading to the possibility of multiple equilibria.

Keywords: Corporate
Financial Markets
Information Economics
Advisor: Yang, Liyan
Quantitative Models and Methods for Risk-informed Physical Asset Management

In the last decade, the management of physical assets has emerged as a crucial business function for companies operating in asset intensive industries. Risk, defined as the likelihood and consequence(s) of undesired events, is an integral part of asset management. In this work, we set out to develop quantitative models and methods to facilitate risk-informed decision-making for the management of physical assets in the natural gas industry. We develop a novel practical approach that can be used in reliability analysis of physical assets. A Bayesian framework is implemented to cohesively integrate objective data with expert opinion and tacit knowledge with the aim toward deriving predictive models for time to failure for physical assets. The methodology presented provides an elegant and powerful way of addressing uncertainty by allowing the analyst to take into consideration all types of available information. To quantitatively analyse potential production losses due to critical asset failures, we develop a physics-based system performance and reliability model for an underground gas storage facility. The model combines a thermo-hydraulic performance model for a gas storage facility consisting of a gathering system, compression system and transmission system with a Monte Carlo simulation of potential disruption events. The model captures interdependence of assets within the system and facilitates quantitative analysis of operational reliability risk for a gas storage system. Additionally, a framework and methodology for decision-making under risk and uncertainty is developed for prioritization of a portfolio of capital investment decisions. The methodology uses quantitative risk measures to prioritize projects based on a combination of risk tolerance criteria, cost-benefit analysis and uncertainty reduction metrics. We use multi-criteria decision analysis methods to integrate subjective decision-maker preferences with objective project performance measures to prioritize potential capital investments. The methodology provides a practical and transparent way of making decisions for the management of physical assets.

Keywords: Asset Management
Bayesian Inference
Decision Analysis
Monte Carlo Simulation
Quantitative Risk
Risk Management
Advisor: Lawryshyn, Yuri
Scaling the Huaca: Constructing Space, Time, and Identity at the Late Moche Ceremonial Centre of Huaca Colorada, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru

This dissertation examines how the ritual architecture of the Moche site of Huaca Colorada served as a form of symbolic technology that unified communities across the Jequetepeque Valley of Peru during the Late Moche (650-800) and Transitional Periods (ca AD 750-950). An investigation of the construction history of the ceremonial precinct at Huaca Colorada has identified ritualized acts of renovation that encoded a particular cosmology that materialized sociopolitical transformations through time. The analysis provides an opportunity to interpret shifts in Moche traditions as a reaction to increasing influence from distant highland communities associated with the foundation of Tecapa. An objective of the dissertation is to present a detailed diachronic study of an expression of Late Moche politico-religious ideology through the analysis of the construction and occupation sequence of a single ceremonial monument. I thus present the architectonic history of the site of Huaca Colorada in the form of two dialectically interrelated biographies, the biography of the architecture itself, and the biography of a larger political community materialized and emplaced in the landscape through rituals of architectural renovation. These two biographies reveal how the powerful ideology responsible for the creation and maintenance of this structure was grounded in explicit strategies of place-making that changed over time. Ultimately, my research at Huaca Colorada provides an empirically rich case study of how architecture and representations of place were variably wielded to “construct” and contest an imagined Moche community. Across the ancient Andes, acts of place-making relied upon the conflation of social actors, ancestors, and the built environment through cycles of renovation of sacred architecture. I argue that the creation of the Huaca Colorada religious community was realized through cyclical acts of architectural construction and renewal within the ceremonial precinct. My interpretations are based on a comparison of three-dimensional models and spatial analysis of this uniquely preserved ritual setting in relation to the material residues of practice associated with each phase of renovation. In the end, my dissertation combines phenomenological, semiotic and quantitative approaches in order to shed original light on Moche ontology, conceptions of time, and constructions of home, memory, and identity.

Keywords: Architecture
Jequetepeque
Moche
Peru
Ritual
Spatial Analysis
Advisor: Swenson, Edward R
Electrothermal Hybrids for Soft Robotic Applications

Throughout the evolution of human technologies, electronic-based actuators have been unreplaceable. These actuators can provide superior power and speed in comparison to biological tissue. However, complexity and bulkiness are two of the major weaknesses that prevent electronic-based actuators from being implemented in biomimicking and biomedical applications. Recent advances in material sciences have suggested the possibility of flexible material-based actuators. These “smart material” actuators can be constructed by combining different composite materials, and motion or deformation can be observed once the actuator is subjected to a proper stimulus. This thesis presents a series of studies that focus on the development of novel active hybrid composites. Starting with a well-known polymeric blend shape memory polymer (SMP) and electrothermal actuator (ETA) system, the composites were first modified with nanoparticles to achieve room temperature deformability. The plasticizing effect was then utilized to enhance the actuation temperature, while conductive filler was implemented to enable electroactive ability. Lastly, a novel 4D printing fabrication process was presented, which demonstrated the possibility of using the material-based actuators in artificial muscles and soft robotic applications.

Advisor: Naguib, Hani E
Cicero’s Incomplete Orator: The Transmission and Reception of the Mutilus Text

This dissertation traces the tradition of Orator, Cicero’s late work on oratorical style, through the Middle Ages. During that time and due to mechanical losses, the text circulated in a reduced or mutilus form consisting of only the middle half and tail-end of the treatise. An early chapter (1) covers the tradition of the text as fragmentary quotations in other Classical and Late Antique authors. The core of my project, however, is a full codicological examination and catalogue (Appendix C) of the fifty-four surviving manuscript witnesses to this mutilus text. Proceeding from that research, I present the stemmatic relationships of the manuscripts, the geographic and chronological spread of the text, and the creation of two separate vulgate versions by early Italian humanists (Chapters 2 and 3). I present an edition of and commentary on a version of the text created by the early 15th c. schoolmaster Gasparino Barzizza, whose conjectures have long been praised by editors (Appendix A). I edit and classify the marginal and paratextual additions made by medieval readers to show how and why they read the text (Appendix B). Beyond the obvious contributions to textual criticism and the history of rhetoric, my dissertation demonstrates, through the lens of a single text, many of the various Ciceronianisms and Ciceros that existed in Latin intellectual history in the over a millennium and a half following his death.

Keywords: Cicero
De oratore
Gasparino Barzizza
Manuscript Tradition
Orator
Textual Criticism
Advisor: Magee, John
Gunderson, Erik
Understanding External Policy Influences in Pakistani Higher Education

Pakistan, the sixth most populous nation in the world, faces complex and multifaceted challenges as it seeks to achieve middle-income country status in the 21st century. To achieve this objective, Pakistan must address the quality, access and governance issues facing its higher education (HE) sector. With barely 1 in 10 Pakistanis being able to access tertiary-level studies, external agencies have stepped in to assist the Pakistani HE sector meets its development needs. Despite several decades of involvement, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent by international donors and aid agencies, little has been achieved. This dissertation examines the nature and extent of participation by international actors in Pakistan’s HE sector. The study explores the underlying dynamics between the external and the internal in the context of the sector, and seeks to identify points of convergence and divergence in terms of a preferred future. The central research question motivating the study is: How have external actors influenced Pakistan’s HE system, and in particular, its governance? To answer this question, 43 qualitative research interviews were conducted over 5 months in 3 large urban centres in Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad) with senior governors active in the Pakistani HE sector including representatives of Pakistani government agencies, international organizations and HE institutional leaders. The data reveals the extent of external influences in the system by type (e.g., foreign aid, policy borrowing), and by actor (e.g., the World Bank, USAID, British Council). The findings suggest that Pakistan’s HE sector is affected by external policy influences in a multitude of ways, and that endogenous and exogenous actors do not always see eye-to-eye, resulting in a mismatch of policy prescriptions at times. Above all, the findings suggest that the lack of an indigenous policy community has resulted in a sector that is outward-facing and looking for solutions from without, rather than from within, thereby resulting in an externally-oriented path dependency. Such external policy pressures will likely continue to exercise an out-sized influence on the Pakistani higher education sector unless tools for effective self-governance and self-regulation are developed.

Keywords: External
Higher Education in Pakistan
Multilateral Agencies
Policy Community
Policy Influences
Advisor: Hayhoe, Ruth
Repertoires of Political Action: Examining the Role of National Context and Culture

This dissertation addresses the need for a more nuanced understanding of political engagement. It argues for greater attention to variation in the meaning of diverse forms of political participation cross-nationally. It also draws attention to the relationship between culture and activism. Key aspects of the literature on political participation are tested and revised. In Chapter 2, I investigate and disaggregate the broad category of non-institutional engagement. I show that, far from being a unified category of action, non-institutional engagement is made up of three distinct repertoires of activism: communicative, individualised and collective. I challenge claims that non-institutional activism is more inclusive than traditional forms of participation by measuring the relative effects of typical predictors (resources, values and contextual measures) on different repertoires of non-institutional engagement. Important distinctions emerge, pointing to the need for more nuanced definitions of political engagement and greater attention to the relationship between activism, context and individual-level social location. The relationship between engagement and national context is investigated further in Chapter 3 where I test Castells’ theory of global social movement development across a variety of countries. Castells’ theory is emblematic of broader trends in the literature that seek to identify universal pathways to mobilisation. While lending support to parts of his theory regarding online technologies, the findings suggest that national context moderates the way citizens’ dissatisfaction gets translated into engagement. Cultural factors, at the individual and contextual level, also influence the form that political participation takes. Chapter 4 advocates for a practice theory approach to the study of political behaviour. I show that distinct forms of political participation gain meaning from their location within broader repertoires of political action and from their relationship to individuals’ cultural dispositions and political preferences. In sum, political engagement is shaped by the national, political and cultural climate in which it occurs. Political practices do not have inherent, universally transposable characteristics that can be used to construct generalising typologies of engagement. To understand how people in diverse settings interact with politics, political sociologists should adopt a more nuanced understanding of political engagement as contextually and socially conditioned cultural practice.

Keywords: Activism
Cross-national
Culture
Political action
Advisor: Brym, Robert
Integration of Services in Child and Youth Mental Health: A Case Study

Background: Although approximately one in five children and youth in Canada deal with mental health issues, only a third access specialized care. Difficulties accessing and navigating the health care system are commonly reported. Integration holds promise as a mechanism to address care access and system navigation issues. Objectives: This dissertation aims to explore integration in child and youth mental health care by: identifying components of integration that improve outcomes for children and youth; describing how mental health services for children and youth are integrated and identifying factors that influence integration in Ontario, Canada; and refining an integration framework that can function as a guide for integration in child and youth mental health care settings. Methods: A multi-methods framework was utilized. A scoping review methodology was used to examine the international literature to identify components of integration. A case study methodology was used to examine integration in child and youth mental health care settings in Ontario, Canada. The case study included interviews with 33 key informants from the child and youth services, education and health sectors as well as a review of relevant government documents. A comparative mapping methodology was used to assess congruence of an integration framework with the international literature and the case study results. Results: Several common structural, infrastructure, and operational components were reported in the integration literature. While many of these components aligned with shared mental models (SSMs) of integration, SMMs were not commonly acknowledged in the literature. Additionally, the language describing integration in the child and youth literature differs from the health care literature. Numerous facilitators and barriers influence the integration of child and youth mental health care in Ontario, however two critical features: the absence of guidance in government policies and poor system-level planning are of importance as they demonstrate the lack of a system level shared mental model of integration. Conclusions: The absence of consistent system-level planning and inadequate guidance from policy documents are obstacles that need to be addressed to optimize integration planning and implementation. Addressing these issues may also influence the development of a system level SMM of integration.

Keywords: child and youth
cross sector collaboration
integration
mental health services
Advisor: Gagliardi, Anna R
The Career Profiles and Educational Activities of Ten Canadian String Quartets

This paper provides a focused look at the career profiles and educational activities of ten Canadian string quartets, concentrating on how they divide their time between performing, teaching, recording, outreach and personal projects. It examines the collaboration between string quartets and larger organisations such as orchestras or educational institutions, and explores what is contracted work and what is self-initiated by the quartets. This paper asks and answers the question, what do Canadian string quartets do besides classical music concerts, and why is it important. Ten groups, five established and five emerging, are examined through the process of interviews and surveys to delve into these issues. This paper begins with a detailed look at the outreach and educational undertakings of many important historical Canadian quartets in the twentieth century. In addition, it introduces the ten Canadian string quartets, providing biographical information about their performing career, notable recordings, and educational posts. Three other sections follow, the first detailing the emerging string quartets singularly, then a comparison of their pursuits. Secondly, a detailed look at the established string quartets one-by-one, and a section which contrasts them. Finally, both emerging and established are examined for connections and similarities as well as distinctions and differences.

Keywords: Canada
Education
Music
Quartet
String
Advisor: Elliott, Robin