VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Sonic Poetics of Home and the Art of Making Do in Sinophone Toronto

This dissertation is an ethnography of the “homes” imagined and practiced through sound and music in Chinese-speaking immigrant communities of Toronto. The notion of “home” and the social imaginary of homelands have been theorized extensively as important linchpins for forming diasporic identities and cohering transnational migrant communities. Music plays a vital role in these processes, as the ethnomusicology of diaspora has demonstrated. Although important, the dominance of formal musical performance in both academic and popular discourses tend to eclipse the fine-grained work of everyday life in contemporary immigrant experiences. This dissertation offers a complementary alternative, arguing that diasporic subjectivities emerge more from accumulations of everyday practices than through self-conscious memorialization of the lost homelands. Based on ethnographic research, I examine how homeland imaginaries mediate diasporic experiences of “home” in everyday singing, speaking, and modes of listening. I also explore how a person’s sonic expressivity interacts with conditioning contexts such as Canada’s multicultural ideology. In the first of three case studies, I explore how ethnic and age identities were contested through sounding and listening in a Chinese nursing home. The second case study focuses on an apartment where queer immigrants gathered for respite from the palpable heteronormativity and homophobia of Toronto’s Chinese diaspora. The final case study follows a young woman as she aurally forged diasporic intimacy in ethnic retail spaces, a boarding house, and a kitchen. Each case study considers the emergence of a particular kind of diasporic subjectivity through accumulations of everyday sonic practices where mediations between public and private, and collectivity and individuality occur. Re-orienting toward the cumulative effects of everyday life, this dissertation reveals how diasporic “homes” can be unsettling and fractured. It also shows, by the same token, how senses of belonging are born out of continuous negotiations, and should not be taken for granted.

Keywords: CANADA
DIASPORA
ETHNICITY
EVERYDAY LIFE
SINOPHONE
SOUND
Advisor: PILZER, JOSHUA D
Choosing Service Providers: What Clients Want and Service Providers Do

A large component of marketing communication consists of service providers trying to persuade clients to use their services. This persuasive information frequently takes the form of service providers’ past experience, some of which is highly relevant to the clients’ interest and others less so. Two essays investigated how different ways of describing the work experience of service providers influence clients’ choices. The first essay examined how service providers and clients chose between two work descriptions which described the less relevant work experience using either a specific (e.g., fund manager) or general (e.g., financial service) job category. Findings show that service providers choose a specific description of their work experience with more information than clients would want to see. It was because service providers judged presenting specific descriptions as a signal of their transparency more than clients judged it. Specific descriptions were judged as transparent when participants considered that a service provider could have described the same experience using a less-revealing general description. Considering that the service provider could have chosen a less transparent description was easier for service providers whereas this same transparency is more difficult for clients to observe. The second essay identified two types of experience, broad and deep, and examined whether and when each type of experience is evaluated more favorably. Drawing upon the theory of mindset, I found that deep experience is evaluated highly when clients adopt an implemental mindset. Clients evaluated a service provider with deep experience more favorably when they need someone to implement a task than when they need someone to consult with to find a solution for their problem. Moreover, a service provider with deep experience was evaluated highly when clients needed the service immediately and reviewed implemental steps for solving their problem. The current research contributes to the literature by showing that evaluation of a specific information format and an information format highlighting depth of experience depends on the type of viewer and implemental mindset. Furthermore, the findings offer insights into service literature by showing transparency inferred from self-description and depth of experience as factors influencing choice.

Keywords: choice
honesty
judgment and decision making
mindset
service
Advisor: Soman, Dilip
Zhao, Min
Development of Coping Strategies and Sexual Subjectivity among Female Youth in the Northwest Territories, described through Body Mapping

Background: The sexual and mental health of young women in the Northwest Territories (NWT) is a serious public health concern. In response, I developed an arts-based intervention called FOXY (Fostering Open eXpression among Youth). FOXY is grounded in social ecological theory and guided by a trauma-informed lens. Objectives: To learn about sexual and mental health from young women in the NWT attending FOXY, using the arts-based method of body mapping. Specifically, to 1) describe and evaluate body mapping an as approach for educational intervention and research data collection with young NWT women; 2) discover the self-identified strategies that young women in the NWT use to cope with mental health issues; and 3) explore how young NWT women develop their sexual subjectivity within the context of contraception use and access. Results: 41 female FOXY youth (aged 13 to 17 years) from six NWT communities completed in-depth interviews, and seven FOXY facilitators provided written reflections. Body mapping was an intervention tool that supported and encouraged participant self-reflection, introspection, personal connectedness, and processing difficult emotions. The process catalyzed data collection that enabled trust and youth voice in research, reduced verbal communication barriers, and facilitated collection of rich data regarding personal experiences. Participants used five mental health coping strategies: grounding via nature, strength through Indigenous cultures, connection with God and Christian beliefs, expression using the arts, and relationships with social supports. Barriers to the development of sexual subjectivity included a culture of stigma and shame surrounding sexuality; pervasive alcohol use in communities; predatory behaviours by older men; poor quality sexual health education offered in schools; and, issues with accessing health services. Comprehensive sexual health education; widespread access to free condoms; and, positive health support networks with female relatives, peers, and some teachers were identified as facilitators for the development of sexual subjectivity. Conclusion: A trauma-informed, holistic, culturally relevant framework of multiple intervention strategies at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, community, and societal levels within a comprehensive social ecological model can address the complex interplay of sexual and mental health needs of young NWT women.

Keywords: arts-based research methods
body mapping
Indigenous populations
mental health
sexual subjectivity
youth
Advisor: Gesink, Dionne
Utilizing Combinatorial Screening Platforms and Modelling Techniques to Predict Optimal Design Conditions for 3D Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Based Heart Valve Tissue Engineering

Microenvironmental factors such as biomaterial physical and chemical properties, mechanical stimuli, and soluble chemical cues integrate in vivo to direct the differentiation of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). Identifying what factor combinations best promote the differentiation of MSCs into myofibroblasts (tissue-synthetic cells of developing valves), but not into osteoblasts, is challenging when designing for heart valve tissue engineering (HVTE). To date, select combinations of microenvironmental factors have been studied in two-dimensional (2D) culture, but systematic consideration of the integration of factors in 3D culture has not been explored fully. We first developed a screening platform using polyethylene glycol norbornene (PEG-NB) as a model biomaterial with which the polymer wt% (to control elastic modulus), adhesion peptide types (RGD, DGEA, YIGSR) and densities, and soluble TGF-β1 could be controlled independently and combinatorially in arrays of 3D hydrogels. We then utilized a deformable membrane platform to screen those same factors under dynamic mechanical stimulation. In a static system, low PEG-NB wt% materials with high concentrations of RGD permitted significant spreading and expression of myofibroblastic markers (α-SMA and collagen type I) in the presence of TGF-β1. In the dynamic system, multiple metrics for α-SMA and collagen type I expression converged to show that mechanical stimulation and TGF-β1 can have different individual and integrated effects on myofibrogenesis depending on the presence of other factors (most notably, PEGNB or RGD), meaning that design decisions could be erroneous if made based on experiments that do not consider integrative effects. When combined with a design of experiments approach, statistical modelling defined previously undescribed response relationships that predicted conditions (subsequently experimentally validated) that promoted maximal α-SMA and collagen expression beyond the initial screening data. Modelling complex interactions has the potential to reveal key regulatory pathways for myofibrogenesis, which has implications for study in other areas like pathological fibrosis and cancer research.

Keywords: 3D
combinatorial screening
heart valve
microenvironment
response surface
tissue engineering
Advisor: Simmons, Craig A
“Yo no Hablo Italiano (no)”. Negative Doubling in Chipilo, Mexico

This dissertation explores a phenomenon of negative doubling in Chipilo, Mexico, an area of contact between Spanish and Veneto (an Italo-Romance language). The current project presents a rare window for the study of simultaneous bilingualism and contact-induced language change through the combination of different methods: elicited conversational speech and experimental work. It has been hypothesized that Italo-Mexican bilinguals who speak Veneto (L1) and Spanish (L2) have transferred a second no in final position (no fui no ‘I did not go NEG’) from their L1 into Spanish, a language that does not allow repetition of the same negator in postverbal position. This study analysed the data of 117 participants (Chipileños, participants of mixed descent, and monolingual speakers) classified into two sex, two age and four ethnicity groups. The project investigated whether transfer was present and how social and linguistic factors influenced the phenomenon. Participants performed one semi-spontaneous task and three controlled tasks (Forced Choice Preference Task, Sentence Completion Task, and Sentence Repetition Task). The results reveal transfer from L1 to L2 in the bilinguals’ speech, specifically in the discourse of males and younger speakers across all four tasks, with the higher rate in two controlled tasks. With regard to linguistic factors, second negative mention and specific negators in a preverbal position had a significantly favouring effect on the production of negative doubling (ND), which suggests transfer effects from minority language to the majority language. Overall, this project is pioneering as it provides important insight into studying morphosyntactic variation, specifically negation in a bilingual context, by using a combination of sociolinguistic methodology and experimental work. This project makes crucial contributions to the field of language variation and change, by stressing the importance of studying variation through the interplay of structural and non-structural factors that promote or impede contact-induced changes in a given community.

Keywords: Chipilo
Italians in Mexico
Mexico
morphosyntactic transfer
negative doubling
Advisor: Colantoni, Laura
Nagy, Naomi
Identification and Estimation of Empirical Games without Equilibrium Assumption

Empirical studies of games typically rely on Nash Equilibrium. However, such solution concept is rejected by experimental evidence in many situations. The incorrect imposition of Nash Equilibrium can generate bias in both estimation and counterfactual prediction. Therefore, my thesis studies the identification and estimation of empirical games without equilibrium assumption. The first two chapters focus on discrete choice games with incomplete information. Instead of restricting players to have unbiased expectation as required by equilibrium, my model treats a player's belief about the behaviors of other players as an unrestricted unknown function. This belief function is estimated together with players' payoffs. The first chapter shows that the variations of players' choice sets identify the payoff and belief functions up to scale normalizations. Moreover, the hypothesis of unbiased belief is testable. I then empirically study store hours competition between McDonald's and KFC in China. The null hypothesis of KFC's unbiased beliefs is rejected. Furthermore, the estimated payoff functions indicate that the store hours decision is a type of vertical differentiation. The second chapter, co-authored with Victor Aguirregabiria, focuses on experimental games. We show that another source of identification (i.e. one variable affects one player's payoffs without affecting this player's belief) can achieve similar identification results as chapter 1. We then apply our methods to two sets of experiments. In the matching pennies game, a player can correctly predict the other player's behavior. In contrast, the hypothesis of unbiased belief is rejected in the coordination game. When players do not adopt equilibrium strategies, they can learn from their mistakes to better perform in the future. Therefore, the third chapter studies the identification of learning behaviors using experimental data. I consider a general model that nests commonly used learning procedures. More importantly, instead of assuming monetary payoff is players' actual utility as in existing literature, I treat utility as an unknown unrestricted function. Under weak conditions, I show that players' structural learning parameters and utility function are identified. The finite sample properties of MLE and consequences of misspecification of utility function are illustrated by a Monte Carlo simulation.

Keywords: Games
Identification
Nash Equilibrium
Unbiased Beliefs
Advisor: Aguirregabiria, Victor
Feature Integration as Prediction Coding: Evidence from a Prime-Probe Paradigm

The prevalent view of visual perception is that the world’s simple features are first encoded and then bound together into more complex environments. Action planning is thought to be achieved through the anticipation of desired perceptual effects, allowing action planning to interact with perception. Evidence supporting stimulus-response binding comes from the partial repetition cost paradigm wherein there is a cost for partially repeating a previous stimulus-response episode. Recently, however, a prime-probe paradigm has been introduced in which feature binding effects are absent despite conditions in which they should be present. This abnormally suggests that feature binding theories may need to be reconsidered. Here, I test the thesis that the partial repetition costs currently viewed as support for feature binding approaches to perception are better explained via prediction coding. To do so, I first show that partial repetition costs are absent from the prime-probe paradigm with the effects being purely attentional. Then, across five additional experiments, I systematically alter the prime-probe paradigm to determine the boundary of when partial repetitions will appear. In particular, I manipulated the prime and probe stimuli’s spatial overlap, the response set overlap, and whether the responses are spatial or not. I found that feature binding effects did not appear until there was spatial overlap, the response sets were the same, and the responses were both spatial. That is to say, that feature binding effects were absent until there was substantial overlap between the prime and probe tasks. I discuss these findings as support for the prediction code view of partial repetition costs.

Advisor: Pratt, Jay
A Bioengineering Approach Towards Retina Regeneration

Currently, there is no cure for blindness. Pharmacology can only slow down the progression of a blinding disease, aiming at minimizing the symptoms. Stem cell regenerative therapy is a novel and very promising approach to overcome blindness. It has shown some potential in the eye but there remain major obstacles to be overcome before it can turn into a clinical reality, namely, the integration and survival of transplanted cells. In this work, we follow a two-pronged approach to address these challenges. Studies of photoreceptor development and degeneration could previously only be performed in vivo, due to the extremely poor survival of isolated photoreceptors in culture. Here, we describe a three-dimensional culture platform that enables isolated mouse postnatal day 11 rod photoreceptor survival and maturation in vitro and investigate its mechanism of action. We show that material stiffness does not affect photoreceptor survival and instead identify hyaluronic acid (HA) as its bioactive component. We investigate the molecular pathways activated by HA on photoreceptors and find that the Wnt, RhoA and mTOR pathways are its downstream effectors. The photoreceptors and the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) of the retina have a well-established mutual relationship in development, homeostasis and degeneration. In the second part of this work, we assess whether co-transplanting human embryonic stem cell-derived RPE and mouse postnatal day 11 rod photoreceptors in an HA hydrogel can improve behavioral recovery and cell survival compared to transplanting each cell type alone. We first validate the NaIO3 mouse model, which recapitulates advanced retinal degeneration. We next demonstrate that visual recovery in this model can be achieved only when RPE and photoreceptors are co-transplanted, as evidenced by three different outcome measures. This is accompanied by superior cell survival for both cell types in the co-transplant group. Our findings will guide future research and translation for retinal degenerative diseases.

Keywords: Biomaterials
Blindness
Cell Therapy
Regenerative Medicine
Advisor: Shoichet, Molly S
Venantius Fortunatus and Christian Theology at the End of the Sixth Century in Gaul

The writings of the poet Venantius Fortunatus are a major historical source for the study of Gallic society in the sixth century CE. The amount of Christian doctrine treated in these writings is considerable, and provides a fascinating perspective on late sixth-century Gallic theological thought and how it fit into broader Christian discussions of doctrine across the Mediterranean world. This approach to studying Fortunatus’ writings is different from previous scholarship on the poet, and in addition to shedding light on Gallic society’s approach to doctrinal issues will also serve to illumine Fortunatus’ own capacity for theological discourse. Part 1 of this thesis explores his two extant sermons, one on the Apostles’ Creed (The Expositio symboli) and the other on the Lord’s Prayer (The Expositio orationis dominicae). The Expositio symboli of Fortunatus, when considered in the context of both the text from which it was adapted, Rufinus of Aquileia’s fifth-century Expositio symboli, and other sermons on the same subject from the fifth and sixth centuries, showcases his skill at shaping and transmitting Christian doctrine. The Expositio dominicae orationis also does this, but has the additional facet of containing a strong polemic against semi-Pelagianism. It becomes clear from this polemic that Fortunatus held to a strongly Augustinian doctrine of the freedom of the will. Part 2 of this thesis looks at Fortunatus’ interaction with the Christological controversies of the sixth century, centring around the Three Chapters schism fomented by the decisions of the Second Council of Constantinople held in 553. Fortunatus’ writings that touch on the subject display a careful attitude towards the schism that sought to reconcile the two sides. Venantius Fortunatus shows himself to be adept at doctrinal exposition amidst a late sixth-century Gallic church that retained a vibrant interest in these matters.

Keywords: Christianity
Fortunatus
Gaul
Theology
Venantius
Advisor: Herren, Michael
Murray, Alexander C
Unpopular Meters: Irregular Grooves and Drumbeats in the Songs of Tori Amos, Radiohead, and Tool

This dissertation investigates the drumbeat’s role in articulating irregular metric structures in rock music from the past three decades. Having analyzed a corpus of 240 songs, I theorize several distinct categories of metric irregularity; establish drumbeat conventions in the most common irregular grooves; explore connections between drumbeat, meter, hypermeter, and form; and present numerous examples of unique or idiosyncratic drumming practices. While explaining metric trends broadly within a historically situated genre, my research also highlights the metric idiolects of Tori Amos, Radiohead, and Tool. The dissertation comprises three parts. Part I establishes my theoretical position and methodological framework. In Chapter 1, I stress the importance of the snare drum in the mapping of unfamiliar metric terrain: through constant exposure to the backbeat as the standard drumbeat of 4/4 meter, popular music listeners have come to equate snare-drum articulations with a specific metric implication, which informs our interpretation of metrically irregular structures. Chapter 2 establishes a historical and generic context for discussing metric irregularity in recent rock and delineates the boundaries of the corpus. Part II consists of an annotated catalogue of every repeating metrically irregular drumbeat in the corpus. Cyclic patterns are the essence of metric hierarchy; thus, these grooves are essential to understanding the relationship between irregular meter and drumbeat. Chapter 3 reviews metrically regular drumbeat patterns other than the backbeat, including the tresillo and various triple and compound meters. Chapter 4 focuses on the two most common irregular meters—quintuple and septuple—each of which bears a distinct relationship to regular metric archetypes and, therefore, reveals a characteristic approach to irregularity. Chapter 5 concerns more complex patterns that arise in larger repeating cycles. Part III looks at non-repeating irregularities. I theorize three distinct types and discuss idiomatic uses in the music of my core artists in Chapter 6. The simplest isolated irregularities concern a single measure, but some structures affect a whole formal section. Chapter 7 shifts to the analysis of full songs, demonstrating the utility of my theoretical innovations.

Keywords: Drum
Irregular meter
Popular music
Rhythm and meter
Rock music
Advisor: McClelland, Ryan