VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Kampoeng Cyber: Community-based Internet Development in Post-Suharto Indonesia

This dissertation based primarily on ethnographic data obtained from research conducted in Yogyagarta, Indonesia between 2012 and 2014, explores the community development practices of a low-income Javanese neighborhood (or kampung). This neighborhood, known locally as “Kampoeng Cyber,” initiated a grassroots internet-access project in 2008 to provide low-cost high-speed internet to most of its 150 or so residents. Through practices of narrative performance, informal branding, and online identity construction, the residents of Kampoeng Cyber have attracted local, national, and international attention (and modest sponsorship from various donors) for their community-based development efforts to improve neighborhood internet connectivity and literacy. The thesis argues that despite Kampoeng Cyber’s seemingly novel and unique approach to self-initiated development, the community’s practices represent both continuity with past Javanese practices of cultural expression, and an evolving shift in Indonesian development discourse and orientation over recent decades. This transition involved a broad (though incomplete) reorientation from top-down state-controlled programs that dominated during the New Order period under President Suharto (1966-1998), toward a model of community-empowerment and grassroots development. In the gap left behind by large-scale programs that have failed to connect most of Indonesia’s population to the internet, some communities have begun to find their own solutions to the digital divide—solutions which find close parallels with international development rhetoric centered on community access to information and communications technology. Overall, the dissertation traces the practices that result in alignments between small-scale community and international development discourse.

Keywords: Branding
Development
Governmentality
ICT4D
Internet
Kampung
Advisor: Li, Tania
Barker, Joshua
Caregiver Support Policies in Ontario: Analyzing the Pace and Direction of Policy Change

Population aging and concomitant growth in the number of older Canadians experiencing multiple chronic health and social needs has sparked inquiry respecting the support of informal caregivers—the family, friends and neighbours who provide the bulk of the everyday personal, instrumental and emotional help required by persons with chronic needs to maintain well-being and independence. The central argument proposed in this thesis is that, although there have been advances in caregiver support policies in Ontario, for the most part, progress in this area has been uneven, halting, and at the policy margins. Chapter 2 (Study 1) identifies policy instrument use, programmatic interventions, and the comprehensiveness of supports targeting caregivers among five OECD Member States: Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Policies for informal caregivers of seniors in Ontario are also examined from 1981 to 2016. Results demonstrated despite a similar policy context, heterogeneity exists among interventions and policy instruments across the OECD. Additionally, as early as the mid-1980s a large and growing body of evidence documented the difficulties of Ontario’s caregivers, and yet, their situation remains only minimally addressed by policymakers. Chapter 3 (Study 2), examines the Caregiver Framework for Seniors Project (CFSP) using quantitative analysis. Results demonstrated that the mix, cost, and volume of supports selected in care plans signaled that program resources were deployed to cross-subsidize and offset rising care burden amidst constricted home and community care budgets. Chapter 4 (Study 3), examines the dynamics of policy change and/or stasis in Ontario. As neo-institutional theory would predict, change is heavily influenced by political and historical factors, including: (1) powerful interests and the structure of health system design on resource allocation, (2) economic and demand side factors, and (3) institutional factors that limit scale and spread. Chapter 5 reviews key findings, strengths and limitations. Recommendations for future research are also presented in this concluding chapter. The findings of this thesis confirm that progress across Canada has been halting. With few exceptions, including the Ontario case, even promising initiatives such as the CFSP have not scaled or spread.

Keywords: Canada
Caregivers
Dementia
Health Policy
International
Advisor: Williams, A P
Accessibility Beyond the Schedule

The study of accessibility - the ease of reaching destinations - by public transport has made huge advances thanks to the availability of standardized, routable transit schedule data. The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) has provided researchers with a vast trove of machine-readable data allowing for highly detailed spatio-temporal modelling of scheduled transit operations. Yet it is well established that in the real-world schedules are imperfect - vehicles often run late, get bunched, miss transfers, arrive too full for anyone to board, and otherwise behave in predictably unpredictable ways. Schedule data alone cannot possibly account for this distinctly stochastic component of much transit service, which to date has been considered separate from accessibility analysis under the umbrella of "reliability''. This dissertation takes the perspective that transit service is reliably unreliable and will continue to be so until humans are taken out of the equation. Detailed observations of actual service can be used to construct more realistic models for estimating travel times and thus accessibility via transit. Chapter 2 introduces a novel method of converting a detailed GPS record of transit fleet locations into a retrospective GTFS package. This backward-looking "schedule'' format allows the same tools developed for schedule-based GTFS analysis to be applied in Chapter 3 to a more accurate depiction of actual transit accessibility. The findings indicate that models of transit accessibility based on schedule data alone tend to produce substantial overestimates of accessibility and systematic spatial errors by failing to account for normal irregularities in service provision. Chapter 4 points toward a way of better suiting available GTFS analysis tools to actual transit service by addressing the problem of imperfect information in modelled route choice. The travel time implications for a large minority of trips are shown to be substantial. Transit accessibility research has come a long way in the last decade and has a long way yet to go. Models based on schedule data alone should give way in many cases to models based on service as actually provided, acknowledging that schedules may guide but rarely constrain the transit services that passengers actually use every day.

Keywords: accessibility
GTFS
public transport
Toronto Transit Commission
transit
transport
Advisor: Farber, Steven
Binary Neutron Star Simulations: New Tools and Insights

On September 14th, 2015 the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected gravitational waves from a merging binary black hole. Just under two years later, LIGO joined by Virgo, detected gravitational waves from merging neutron stars in coincidence with detections of a gamma ray burst and kilonova. Many more detections of this kind are expected in the future. There are several problems that are facing the numerical relativity community now that binary neutron stars (BNS) have been detected by LIGO and this thesis will tackle two of them. We first present a new numerical scheme that aims to lay the groundwork for more realistic BNS simulations in the future. This code uses discontinuous Galerkin numerical methods to solve elliptic problems on curvilinear and non-conforming meshes in parallel on large supercomputers. We test this code on several problems in numerical relativity, including one that mimicks the discontinuities in the phase transitions of a Neutron star, as well as the two and three black-hole initial gravitational data problem. This code will be used in the future to obtain highly accurate initial gravitational data for BNS simulations. Following this, we present a set of twelve new BNS simulations using a current state-of-the-art numerical relativity code. We study the neutrino and matter emission from this set of twelve simulations to establish trends between the source parameters and the emission from the binary. Large sets of BNS merger simulations will be crucial for the upcoming LIGO observation runs to maximize the extractions of astrophysical information from the instrument data. Finally we conclude the thesis by overviewing upcoming work involving our new code and simulations. This includes porting our discontinuous Galerkin code to the new task-based parallel framework SpECTRE and importing our BNS simulation data into long-term disk evolution codes and nuclear reaction networks to compute kilonova light curves.

Keywords: binary neutron star
discontinuous Galerkin
neutrino
numerical relativity
Advisor: Pfeiffer, Harald P
Unemployment, Unemployment Protection, and Health in the Era of Neoliberal Welfare State Retrenchment

Research in the field of public health has generated a broad consensus that the organization of the welfare state has a major influence on the distribution of health within and across populations. By and large, extant contributions to this body of scholarship have adopted a relatively static view of the welfare state. Yet, due to the rise of neoliberalism and its attendant political consequences, contemporary welfare state arrangements differ in important respects from the prevailing regimes of the past. In fact, over the last several decades, governments in a vast majority of advanced capitalist countries have undertaken substantial efforts to reduce the scope and generosity of their social protection systems. From a public health standpoint, these developments raise important questions concerning the extent to which neoliberal-era welfare state policies remain effective levers with which to protect population health and promote health equity. In the present dissertation, I pursue this line of inquiry with specific reference to the neoliberal-era connections between unemployment, unemployment protection, and health in two retrenched welfare states: Canada and Germany. Through a series of empirical studies, I show that: (i) health inequalities between employed and unemployed workers are widening over time; (ii) unemployment benefits play an important role in protecting workers against the adverse health consequences of unemployment; and (iii) the neoliberal retrenchment of unemployment benefits has negatively impacted the health of unemployed workers. Taken together, my findings implicate the neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state as a significant factor contributing to adverse trends in the health of the unemployed and, by extension, as a driving force behind widening unemployment-related health inequalities. These insights, in turn, add empirical weight to growing political demands for the expansion of the welfare state. Beyond illustrating the value and importance of adopting a dynamic view of the welfare state determinants of health, this dissertation makes a contribution to outstanding efforts on the part of public health researchers and practitioners to tackle the problem of persistent health inequalities in our neoliberal times.

Keywords: austerity
health inequalities
neoliberalism
unemployment
welfare reform
welfare state
Advisor: Siddiqi, Arjumand
Muntaner, Carles
A Modular and Hierarchical Framework for Motion Planning with Feedback-based Motion Primitives

As robots become more integrated into everyday society, an increasing emphasis is being placed on their ability to execute complex tasks while maintaining safety. One of the most fundamental tasks in motion planning and control is the coordination of multiple robots to safely and efficiently reach target destinations. In recent years, a hybrid systems approach, that which combines both continuous and discrete system descriptions, has proven to be an attractive methodology for control with complex specifications. Although there is extensive literature on both the design of continuous time feedback controllers and discrete motion planning algorithms, relatively few works address the rigorous integration of these two components, especially in the context of multi-vehicle coordination. In this dissertation, we leverage the hybrid systems paradigm to formulate a novel framework for motion planning and control of multi-vehicle systems that is modular, robust, and provably safe. This dissertation contains three distinct contributions. The first contribution considers the synthesis of low level continuous time feedback controllers for guiding system trajectories along a desired direction; to this end, an open problem in classical linear quadratic control was solved. The second contribution broadens the scope to develop a modular motion planning framework that combines low level feedback-based motion primitives with high level planning algorithms. Finally, the third contribution extends this modular framework towards a multi-hierarchy of motion primitives in order to improve scalability with respect to the number of vehicles. Both the second and third contributions include experimental validation on a collection of quadrocopters.

Keywords: Control theory
Motion planning
Optimal control
Quadrotors
Advisor: Broucke, Mireille E
Schoellig, Angela P
Central and Peripheral Neuroimaging in Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound

Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a non-invasive treatment modality which uses acoustic waves to generate precise thermal lesions. There is growing interest in its application to the treatment of neurological conditions. Conventional MR contrasts can provide anatomical references for targeting and lesion identification but do not impart information about the cellular environment or neural microstructure. Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is a technique sensitive to the motion of water within tissue that can be used to visualize fiber bundles and quantitatively assess treatment changes to nerve architecture in vivo. The main aims of this thesis are to: 1) develop an imaging and acoustic sonication procedure using DWI and tractography; and 2) incorporate DWI in the thermal lesioning of intracranial white matter and peripheral nerves to enhance targeting and understand the treatment effect on tissue microstructure. Specific aims of this thesis are to: 1) investigate the DWI characteristics of ex vivo animal brain tissue as a model for neurosurgical treatment development; 2) generate thermal lesions on brain white matter in an in vivo animal model and determine the treatment effect via diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics, tractography, and histological validation; 3) reconstruct the sciatic nerves via tractography to enhance target determination; and 4) produce focal ablations on the sciatic nerve and measure the microstructural changes via DTI metrics. Imaging results from Study I reveal that non-fixed ex vivo brain tissue does not differ from in vivo tissue in terms of diffusion anisotropy, demonstrating its potential use in neurosurgical technique characterization. In Study II, lesion size and location were automatically determined in vivo using Mean DWI and confirmed by histology. DTI metrics in the lesion revealed a pattern of treatment-related anisotropy and diffusivity alterations. Affected fiber pathways were visualized via tractography. In Study III, higher order tractography methods permitted consistent reconstruction of sciatic nerves and precise MRgFUS target placement. Significant microstructural changes in the nerve were observed due to lesioning. Taken together, this thesis demonstrates significant advancements in the visualization of MRgFUS treatment targets and the assessment of microstructural changes that occur following thermal ablation within the central and peripheral nervous systems.

Keywords: diffusion tensor imaging
diffusion weighted imaging
focused ultrasound
neuroimaging
therapeutic ultrasound
tractography
Advisor: Hodaie, Mojgan
Cytoplasmic Mislocalization of CTCF by Leukemic Oncogene NPM1c in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells with normal cytogenetics frequently harbor a TCTG insertion in exon 12 of Nucleophosmin 1 (NPM1), resulting in a frameshift creating a nuclear export signal and cytoplasmic localization of the mutant protein NPM1c. Although the mutation directs NPM1c to the cytoplasm, the underlying mechanism of how NPM1c causes AML remains incompletely understood. NPM1 participates in multiple protein-protein interactions; among those interacting proteins is the CCCTC binding factor (CTCF), the master weaver of the genome. CTCF is involved in several important nuclear functions including DNA looping, regulation of gene expression, and RNA splicing through binding to CTCF DNA binding sites. I hypothesized that NPM1c could mislocalize CTCF into the cytoplasm, thereby reducing the functional level of nuclear CTCF and so alter its regulatory roles regarding gene expression and epigenetic functions in the nucleus. Our studies verified the interaction of CTCF with NPM1. Furthermore I demonstrated that CTCF interacts with NPM1c, partially redistributing CTCF into the cytoplasm. The interaction of CTCF and NPM1c involves the amino terminus of CTCF and the last 50 amino acids on the C-terminus of NPM1. Moreover, cytoplasmic CTCF can be relocalized to the nucleus by interfering with the interaction of CTCF and NPM1c.

Keywords: Acute Myeloid Leukemia
alternative splicing
CTCF
cytoplasmic mislocalization
DNA methylation
NPM1c
Advisor: Minden, Mark D
Neural Synchrony in Neuromagnetic Signals and the Role of Alpha Oscillations for Working Memory

Brain functions for perception, cognition, and action involve coordination between distributed neural networks across extended brain regions. Findings from invasive intra-cranial recordings in animals suggest that brain networks interact through precise timing of neural activity. Such timing mechanism plays an important role for communication between brain areas and can be measured as synchrony in neuroelectric oscillations. Extra-cranial measurement of synchrony can be obtained from magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings in humans. However, measurement of synchrony in brain oscillations with MEG is more challenging than using direct electrode recordings because the small MEG signals are embedded in noise, and propagation of the electromagnetic signal across the brain volume may result in false interpretation of synchrony. I combined simulation studies and analysis of MEG data in a working memory (WM) study to improve the methods of detecting synchrony as an indicator of functional connectivity in the MEG. I analyzed the functional roles of alpha frequencies during working memory encoding and maintenance. I provided findings of the functional relevance of alpha oscillations in the memory retrieval process. These results will improve the feasibility of connectivity analysis using MEG in basic research and clinical applications.

Keywords: Brain oscillations
Magnetoencephalography
Neuroimaging
Working memory
Advisor: Ross, Bernhard
“Caught in the Middle”: Investigating Middle School Teachers’ Pedagogical Approaches in Instrumental Music Class

This dissertation explores how middle school instrumental music teachers describe their pedagogical approaches in order to navigate challenges encountered with their teaching assignments. This comparative case study investigates five middle school music teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical approaches in the classroom. It uses the framework of Pedagogical Content Knowledge to understand their instructional strategies in the context of middle school, including the environmental, social-relational, and psychological aspects that influence their choices. The data was collected through three semi-structured interviews over the course of the school year and was analyzed using a constructivist approach. The author argues that middle school music teachers can address the challenges of working with their instrumental music classes by incorporating different pedagogical approaches into their daily teaching. The results of this study have implications for practicing music educators and teacher candidates through recommendations focused on further developing their Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

Keywords: Curriculum
Education
Instruction
Middle School
Music
Pedagogy
Advisor: Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén A
Stewart Rose, Leslie J
Quantitative Measurement of Parliamentary Accountability using Text as Data: the Canadian House of Commons, 1945-2015

How accountable is Canada’s Westminster-style parliamentary system? Are minority parliaments more accountable than majorities, as contemporary critics assert? This dissertation develops a quantitative measurement approach to investigate parliamentary accountability using the text of speeches in Hansard, the historical record of proceedings in the Canadian House of Commons, from 1945-2015. The analysis makes a theoretical and methodological contribution to the comparative literature on legislative debate, as well as an empirical contribution to the Canadian literature on Parliament. I propose a trade-off model in which parties balance communication about goals of office-seeking (accountability) or policy-seeking (ideology) in their speeches. Assuming a constant context of speech, I argue that lexical similarity between government and opposition speeches is a valid measure of parliamentary accountability, while semantic similarity is an appropriate measure of ideological polarization. I develop a computational approach for measuring lexical and semantic similarity using word vectors and the doc2vec algorithm for word embeddings. To validate my measurement approach, I perform a qualitative case study of the 38th and 39th Parliaments, two successive minority governments with alternating governing parties. I find that similarity scores are positively related with the substantive quality of opposition questions and government responses. In the quantitative analysis phase, I study Question Periods from 1975-2010 and daily debates from 1945-2015 using the lexical similarity measurement. I find that minority parliaments are more account- able than majority governments since the 30th Parliament, but find no significant relationship between government seat percentage and parliamentary accountability. I show that Parliament becomes more accountable as a government’s popularity decreases. However, the data more strongly support a non-linear model. A structural break analysis yields one significant break at 33%: below this critical value, polling popularity and parliamentary accountability are positively related, and above, are negatively related. Finally, I confirm that the correlation between measures of lexical and semantic similarity varies in strength and direction across parliamentary sessions, suggesting two distinct generative processes are indeed at work.

Keywords: accountability
Canadian politics
debate
text analysis
text as data
Advisor: Skogstad, Grace
Cochrane, Christopher