VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Navigating Athlete Citizenship: The Negotiation of Rights, Roles and Responsibilities by Canadian Olympians

Forms of citizenship expand beyond those based on nation-state to involve populations at both sub-national and transnational levels (Roche, 2002; Yuval-Davis, 2006; Sindic, 2011). This research examines the athlete citizenry including (1) institutionalized meanings related to rights, roles, and responsibilities of high-performance athletes; and (2) the range of meanings of athlete citizenship negotiated by athletes. Document analysis and interviews with athletes and key informants have been deployed to synthesize an athlete citizenship framework. Findings from this research are: (1) athletes express a sense of belonging to a transnational community of high-performance and Olympic athletes; thus, it is possible to derive a definition of athlete citizenry by examining the athlete community through broader models of citizenship; (2) further work is needed to uphold and expand athletes’ rights; (3) athletes with recent high-performance success tend to engage in social initiatives to derive ‘deeper’ meaning from their sporting experiences.

Keywords: athlete citizenry
athlete citizenship
athlete responsibilities
athlete rights
citizenship
Olympism
Advisor: MacNeill, Margaret
Effect of Continuity of Care on the Risk of Developing Multimorbidity in Ontario, Canada between 2001 - 2015: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Identifying modifiable, population-based factors for the prevention of multimorbidity is necessary to protect the health of patients and avoid unnecessary healthcare system costs. This study explored whether relationship continuity of care delays the onset of chronic conditions in patients from Ontario, Canada. Health administrative databases were used to assemble the cohort (N= 166,665) that was followed retrospectively between 2001 - 2015. A cause-specific hazards regression modelling approach was used to estimate the effect of continuity treated as a time-dependent exposure on the risk of developing multimorbidity and subsequent conditions adjusted for age, sex, place of residence, patient enrolment, income, and the number of physician visits. Estimates revealed that the risk of developing a second, third, and fourth condition was 8%, 10%, and 11% lower for patients with high versus low continuity, respectively. Therefore, efforts should be made to reduce the burden of multimorbidity by focusing on continuity of care.

Keywords: chronic conditions
continuity of care
multimorbidity
Advisor: Wodchis, Walter P
Removal of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) Precursors During Drinking Water Treatment

Technologies that are effective for natural organic matter and contaminant removal (i.e., coagulation) have been largely unsuccessful for the removal of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) and its precursors. A growing number of drinking water treatment plants that use chloramines for secondary disinfection have reported NDMA in finished water due to the reaction of chloramines with small nitrogen-containing molecules such as dimethylamine (DMA). This research examined the impact of pilot-scale biofilter operation on NDMA formation potential. The results of this study suggest that the use of biofiltration provides removal of NDMA precursors, regardless of filter operation. Ranitidine was also spiked at pilot scale to evaluate the ability of biofilters to remove a specific NDMA precursor and to confirm results using ambient influent waters. No significant difference (α = 0.05) was found in terms of NDMA FP removal due to filter operation strategy or empty bed contact time (EBCT).

Keywords: Biofiltration
DBP
N-DBP
NDMA
NDMA FP
Ranitidine
Advisor: Andrews, Susan
Andrews, Robert
approf: A Non-intrusive Call Hierarchy Profiler for Distributed Systems

Runtime call graph profilers, like gprof [16], are widely used as debugging tools to identify performance bottlenecks. However, the intrusive nature of existing call graph profilers prevents them from being used continuously on production systems. This thesis presents approf , a non-intrusive tool that is capable of reconstructing an approximate runtime call hierarchy of method calls solely from existing application logs. At its core, it determines the call hierarchy by using a model that contains only classto-method invocation relationships extracted from the headers of the application’s compiled bytecode classes, avoiding the expensive static analysis required to extract a more rigorous method-to-method invocation model. The key property of this class-to-method model resembles a Bloom filter [12]. Using a few intuitive heuristics to improve the accuracy, we found approf is over 99% accurate in constructing call hierarchies while processing logs at approximately 50 MB/s per CPU core.

Keywords: Distributed Systems
Failure Diagnosis
Logs
Advisor: Yuan, Ding
Surgical Critical Care Utilization in Adult patients undergoing Major Non-Cardiac Surgery in Ontario: A Population Based Study

Objective: Assess the inter-hospital variation and factors associated with intensive care unit (ICU) admission for adult elective non-cardiac surgical patients in Ontario. Methodology: Population databases identified 13 surgical groups between January 2006-December 2014. Primary outcome assessed early ICU utilization within 24 hours post-surgery. I described the inter-hospital variation in proportion of patients admitted to ICU, patient and hospital-level factors associated with ICU admission using multilevel logistic regression for each group. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and median odds ratio (MOR) assessed the association of individual hospitals with ICU admission. Results: 541,524 patients across 93 hospitals were studied. Early ICU admission varied between 0.9% (hysterectomy) and 90.8% (open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair). ICC ranged between 18% for hysterectomy (MOR 2.3) to 75.9% for endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (MOR 21.5). Conclusion: Ontario hospitals showed wide inter-hospital variation in early ICU admission with a large proportion of this variation attributable to the admitting hospital.

Advisor: Laupacis, Andreas
Development and Characterization of Novel Therapeutic Biologics to Enhance Immune Targeting of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) remains incurable with low 5-year survival rates despite various targeted therapies and checkpoint immunotherapy. Owing to the tumours’ immune sensitive nature and ubiquitous expression of a tumour-associated antigen carbonic anhydrase IX (CA9), this thesis exploits a novel immunotherapy strategy to target ccRCC using dual-specificity antibody T-cell engagers (DATEs). The CA9 DATEs were designed to engage human cytotoxic T cells against ccRCC cells by simultaneous binding to CD3 and CA9. My in vitro cytotoxicity co-culture results demonstrate that the CA9 DATEs potently redirected human T cells to lyse target cancer cells in an antigen-dependent manner across a panel of patient-derived ccRCC cell lines. In addition, T cell activation and cytotoxicity markers were up-regulated in concordance with cancer cell lysis. Collectively, my thesis provides proof-of-concept results with CA9 DATEs that can be further examined in pre-clinical models as a potential treatment strategy for metastatic ccRCC.

Keywords: Bi-specific T cell engaging antibody
Carbonic anhydrase IX
clear cell renal cell carcinoma
Immunotherapy
Advisor: Moffat, Jason
Motion Corruption Detection in Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI of the Breast

Motion corruption can result in difficulty identifying lesions, and incorrect diagnoses by radiologists in cases of breast cancer screening using DCE-MRI. Although registration techniques can be used to correct for motion artifacts, their use has a computational cost and can lead to a reduction in diagnostic quality rather than the desired improvement. In a clinical system it would be beneficial to identify automatically which studies have severe motion corruption and poor diagnostic quality and which studies have acceptable diagnostic quality. We have developed an automated method of estimating the degree of mis-alignment presents in a DCE-MRI study of breast screening. Two predictive models were investigated in this study and validated on a labeled dataset from radiologists denoting cases suffering from motion artifacts that affected image interpretability. We have managed to identify motion corrupted cases on our clinical dataset with an area under the AUC curve of 88%.

Keywords: Computer-Aided Diagnosis
Image Registration
Machine Learning
Medical Imaging
Motion Corruption Detection
Advisor: Martel, Anne
Decimation and Analysis: An Internal Bleeding Detection Framework for 3D Ultrasound

This thesis proposes a decimation-analysis (D-A) framework for detecting internal bleeding in 3D ultrasound medical scans. The structure consists of two main components: decimation, in which an input volume is reduced to suspect regions, and analysis, in which feature extraction is performed on said suspect regions. The D-A framework was designed to identify intuitive, easily-identiable features of blood pools as an aid for obtaining more complex shape information that can be assessed and matched to "library" data created from training volumes. The D-A framework is presented here for its concept and structure rather than for its actual performance, as rigorous, accurate testing was beyond the scope of the thesis; however, access to accurately segmented ground truth volumes (something missing during the experiment) would enable more in-depth development and validation of the framework.

Keywords: 3D ultrasound
hemoperitoneum
segmentation
trauma
ultrasound
Advisor: Plataniotis, Kostas N.
Functional Genomic and Chemical Biology Analysis of Echinocandin Resistance in Candida albicans

Candida albicans is a leading cause of invasive fungal infections, with mortality rates of ~40%. Effective treatment is hindered by the paucity of antifungal drugs and the emergence of resistance. My research exploits genetic and chemical screening approaches to uncover new therapeutic strategies to enhance the efficacy of the newest class of antifungals, the echinocandins. By screening mutant libraries collectively covering ~45% of the C. albicans genome, I identified 16 regulators of echinocandin tolerance, nine of which also modulate resistance. I identified a new role for the CCT chaperonin complex, which I found to modulate echinocandin susceptibility through actin. By screening 736 protein kinase inhibitors, I identified seven compounds that potentiate echinocandin activity. Chemogenomic profiling highlighted Yck2 and Hrr25 as potential targets of the most potent inhibitor, GW461484A. Future chemical validation of GW461484A targets and examination of in vivo utility will further uncover its therapeutic utility in combination with echinocandins.

Keywords: antifungal
Candida albicans
echinocandin
fungus
Hsp90
resistance
Advisor: Cowen, Leah E
Gap-Talk: How the “Achievement Gap” Reproduces Settler Colonial Constructions of Race within the Ontario Public School System

The purpose of this study is to explore how the discourse of “achievement gaps” operates within settler colonialism. This study approached critical policy analysis (CPA) through a settler colonial theoretical lens and Critical Race Theory. Together, these theoretical frameworks provide a more comprehensive understanding of the ways in which racism and settler colonialism operate within schools and education institutions. By using critical discourse analysis (CDA), I looked at documents from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) addressing the achievement and opportunity gaps. This analysis shows how these documents construct the notion of achievement as racialized in a way that upholds white settler property rights. The discourse of achievement gaps functions as a settler technology to include/exclude individuals simultaneously into the settler sector of the population. These findings have significant implications for those in educational policy research and practice interested in examining and addressing issues of power and inequality.

Keywords: Achievement Gap
Critical Race Theory
Opportunity Gap
Policy analysis
Settler Colonialism
Advisor: Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén A
Investigating the Efficacy of Meditation and Mental Rehearsal on EEG BCI Performance in a Pediatric Context

The present study investigated the short-term effects of mindfulness meditation on brain-computer interface (BCI) performance in a pediatric context. The vast majority of previous BCI research has focused on creating more effective machine-learning algorithms. However, further improvements in user training are sorely needed. Mindfulness meditation is a promising methodology owing to its potential to increase an individual’s mental control. Twelve able-bodied children between the ages of 10 and 18 years were recruited. An auditory-tactile P300-BCI was designed for each individual participant. Each participant completed two sessions, one with 15 minutes of meditation preceding BCI operation and the other without. BCI control entailed an auditory-tactile oddball task. An average accuracy of 80.66%+11.68% was achieved across participants without meditation, while five participants exhibited significantly improved accuracy following meditation training. Using time-frequency features and a Gaussian Naive Bayes classifier, meditative and rest states were differentiated with an accuracy of 83.94 %+13.00%.

Keywords: BCI
brain-computer interface
children
Electroencephalography
meditation
pediatric
Advisor: Chau, Tom
Using Component Air Leakage Models to Predict the Post-Retrofit Airtightness of a High Rise Residential Building: A Case Study

In this study, CONTAM 3.2, a modeling software that uses component air leakage rates, was used to estimate post-retrofit improvements in airtightness. A 12 storey residential building in Vancouver, British Columbia was studied. Pre- and post-retrofit airtightness data were used to assess the accuracy of the model predictions. Using a heuristic and two formal approaches, a pre-retrofit model was calibrated. Next, using the calibrated model and the specified airtightness data associated with the retrofit measures, post-retrofit airtightness was estimated using two approaches. Modelling results were then compared to the post-retrofit airtightness data. Using the factorial analysis and Monte Carlo approaches it was found that the best estimates were within 36% of the measured airtightness. While modeling can be an effective estimation tool, it is likely that the model developed here underestimated airtightness improvements because the retrofit measures were more airtight than specified by the designers.

Keywords: Air Leakage
Airtightness
CONTAM
Factorial Analysis
Modelling
Monte Carlo
Advisor: Pressnail, Kim
Evaluation of Maximum Entropy Moment Closures for Predicting Radiative Heat Transfer Phenomena

This study considers an evaluation of moment closures based on the principle of maximization of entropy (MN, where N refers to the order of the closure) for providing approximate solutions to the radiative heat transfer equation (RTE). Several representative tests cases in both one- and two-dimensions are considered whereby the predictions of the MN models are compared to those of the discrete ordinates method (DOM) as well as the more commonly used spherical harmonics solutions (PN, where N refers to the order of the approximation) in terms of accuracy. More specifically, the present analysis is concerned with the lower-order approximations of the hierarchy of the MN closures, namely M1 and M2 and, for comparison purposes, the P1 and P3 spherical-harmonic closures are also considered. The potential of the M1 and M2 closures is explored and discussed for a range of problems involving radiative heat transfer in gray media.

Keywords: Combustion
Heat transfer
Maximum entropy
Moment closures
Radiation
Advisor: Groth, Clinton P. T.
Investigating the Role of Primary Cilia in Neuronal Apoptosis

Primary cilia are microtubule based, solitary emanations of the cell body present in most mammalian cells. The organelle nucleates from the basal body, which is also necessary for cell division, and thus inhibits cell cycling by its construction. It is recognized that neurons enter a detrimental cell cycle process called abortive cell cycling in a number of neurodegenerative diseases and following acute central nervous system injuries. However, it is unknown if primary cilia are retracted during this process and if their stabilization can inhibit the progression of this apoptotic cell cycle. Herein, we demonstrate that cilia are ablated in-vitro and in-vivo following injury. Furthermore, inhibition or knockdown of the proteins that disassemble the cilia increased neuron survival while forced cilia resorption enhanced cell death. Primary cilia may offer novel targets to inhibit apoptosis, which has implications for future therapeutic strategies for incurable neuronal pathologies.

Keywords: Abortive Cell Cycle
Apoptosis
Neurodegeneration
Neuroprotection
Primary Cilia
Retinal Ganglion Cells
Advisor: Koeberle, Paulo D
The Role of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex in the Formation and Retrieval of Memories for Complex Events

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has recently been speculated to support the function of schemas. To test this idea, we had patients with mPFC lesions and healthy controls view film clips which were rated as congruent (typical), incongruent (atypical), or neutral with respect to schemas. We then tested their memories to determine if schema-congruency (typicality) would influence the recall of the film clips and recognition of elements in them. Our prediction was that effects of schema congruency on recall and recognition would be diminished in patients with mPFC lesions. We found that, unlike healthy controls in previous studies, mPFC patients tended to recall schema-congruent and schema-incongruent narratives with similar error rates, over time. These results provide partial support for the view that the mPFC is crucial for the schematization of memories over time.

Keywords: Episodic Memory
Medial Prefrontal Cortex
Memory
Patients
Schemas
Typicality
Advisor: Moscovitch, Morris
Gilboa, Asaf
Characterization of the Mitochondrial Peptide Pβ

Mitophagy, the degradation of damaged mitochondria, and mitochondrial biogenesis, the formation of new mitochondria, are two critical mitochondrial quality control pathways that maintain a healthy mitochondrial network and thus a healthy cell. We propose that the mitochondrial protease presenilins-associated rhomboid-like (PARL) coordinates these two processes. PARL undergoes regulated cleavage, termed β cleavage, in response to mitochondrial stress to produce N-terminally cleaved β PARL and a 25 amino acid peptide, Pβ. We have recently demonstrated that β PARL promotes mitochondrial fragmentation and has reduced proteolytic activity for a key component of PINK1/Parkin-mediated mitophagy, PINK1, which may instigate mitophagy. In contrast, Pβ’s putative role and mechanism of action in mitochondrial biogenesis remains poorly defined. In this thesis, I determined that the mitochondrial Pβ peptide translocates to the nucleus where it associates with chromatin. Together, these results further support PARL as a key coordinator of mitophagy and mitochondrial biogenesis.

Advisor: McQuibban, Angus
Controllability of Networks of Linear Systems: a Graph Theoretic Approach

In this thesis, we study the controllability of networked single-input single-output linear time-invariant systems. We show that necessary conditions for the controllability of networks of single-integrators such as dilation, input-symmetry and equitable partitioning do not apply, in general, to more complex networks. We introduce new necessary and sufficient conditions for the controllability of networks in terms of the interconnection topology and sub-systems' properties. We also provide a number of graph-theoretic necessary conditions for controllability of networks. As a particular case of our results, we will provide necessary conditions for the controllability of diffusively coupled networks. Finally, we illustrate our results by studying the controllability of a simple neuronal network model.

Keywords: Controllability
Graph theory
Linear system
Network
Advisor: Scardovi, Luca
What patients with low back pain received care in multidisciplinary therapy versus exercise therapy? Applying funder criteria

Which treatment program a patient with low back pain (LBP) should receive is a common clinical conundrum. This thesis investigates the potential usefulness of examining routinely collected patient characteristics at baseline assessment to understanding what patients received different programs that were funded by workers’ compensation boards and auto insurers. A retrospective study design was utilized to perform a secondary analysis that examined patient information from a clinical database of a private rehabilitation provider of treatment services in Alberta and British Columbia. Regression analysis was used to examine the associations between patient-related factors and multidisciplinary or exercise treatment received. The dataset revealed that lower level of functional ability (OR Alberta 0.93, British Columbia 0.93), duration of symptoms greater than 90 days (OR Alberta 2.3, British Columbia 5.3), constant pain (OR British Columbia 2.6), being off work (OR Alberta 2.2) and WCB treatment funding (OR Alberta 5.4, British Columbia 3.8) were associated with increased odds of receiving MDT instead of ET. These results create an opportunity for stakeholders to engage and dialogue so that treatment program admission criteria can be better aligned to who receives MDT and ET.

Keywords: back pain
biopsychosocial
multidisciplinary rehabilitation
workers compensation
Advisor: Switzer-McIntyre, Sharon
Jaglal, Susan
Pressureless Silver Nanopowder Sintered Bond for Liquid Cooled IGBT Power Module for EVs and HEVs

Pressureless silver nanopowder sintering of the bonding layer between the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) and the direct bonded copper (DBC) for the liquid cooled power modules in electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles is studied. The pressureless silver nanopowder sintering is analysed using the Differential Scanning Calorimeter / Thermogravimetry / Simultaneous Thermal Analysis and the Scanning Electron Microscopy. Based on the analysis results, the sintering is optimized at 200 ˚C for 60 minutes for reliable die attachments. The bonding of the sintered silver to the IGBT is confirmed by intermetallic layers composition analysis. The nanopowders are classified by the average sizes into the micro and nano-meter scaled groups. The porosity of 30% is computed within the sintered silver layer. Overall, the experimental results verify the feasibility of the pressureless silver nanopowder sintering of the bonding layer between the IGBT and the DBC.

Keywords: IGBT packaging
nanosilver sintering
Power module packaging
Silver nanopowder
Silver sintering
Advisor: Ng, Wai Tung