VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Budgeting and Psychological Motivations in Sales Management

Sales force incentives are used to motivate, control, and reward salespeople, and represent a substantial expenditure for many firms. In this dissertation, I examine the role that sales managers play in setting budgets for sales force incentives and I investigate how public recognition of performance in sales contests (a common form of incentive) affects salespeople's motivations. The standard analytical models used in the literature on sales force incentives consist of a firm and a salesperson, with sales managers assumed (often implicitly) to be interchangeable with the firm. In my first study, I treat sales managers as distinct from their firms, in both their objectives and their information. I use this model to explore why many firms allow managers to participate in setting budgets for their salespeople's incentives despite the apparent conflict of interest that results. I show that allowing such participation can be beneficial when it reveals useful information about the manager's salesperson or their territory. I then propose a budget-setting approach that reveals such information and identify the conditions under which it is feasible and optimal. In my next study, I consider alternative solutions to the challenge of revealing a sales manager's private information about her salespeople or territories. In particular, I examine how the manager's own compensation can be designed for this purpose. This can be achieved by offering the manager a menu of contracts, each consisting of a compensation plan for the manager and a budget constraint within which the manager must design the salesperson's compensation plan. In my final study, a joint work with Tanjim Hossain and Mengze Shi, I use a combination of analytical modeling and laboratory experiments to investigate how a salesperson's psychological motivations re affected by the design of a sales contest. I am primarily interested in the public disclosure of contest results, such as the names and/or ranks of winners and losers. I find that recognizing winners generates positive psychological motivations, but that the relative performance of particular disclosure approaches can depend on the contest prize structure.

Keywords: budgeting
lobbying
recognition programs
sales contests
sales force compensation
sales management
Advisor: Shi, Mengze
A Genome-scale RNA Interference Screen Identifies Novel Regulators of DNA Double-strand Break Repair

All living organisms are continuously challenged by agents in their normal cellular environment that can inflict damage to their genetic material. DNA damage can have negative implications on cellular fitness by disrupting genomic processes such as DNA replication and gene expression. In addition, DNA lesions can lead to gene mutation and gross chromosomal rearrangements, events that are implicated in the development of cancer. DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are considered one of the most severe types of DNA damage. To protect genome integrity, organisms have evolved several DSB repair mechanisms. Homologous recombination (HR) is an essential DSB repair pathway that is of critical importance during the S- and G2-phases of the cell cycle. HR plays a central role in promoting genome stability and preventing tumourigenesis. For example, mutations in the genes coding for the HR factors BRCA1 and BRCA2 are responsible for familial breast and ovarian cancer. The limiting step in the HR pathway is the generation of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) by DNA end resection. In this thesis, I describe the establishment of an immunofluorescence-based assay that monitors end resection by quantitative image-based cytometry (QIBC). Employing this assay, I conducted a plate-based RNA interference (RNAi) screen using a library that targets 18,452 genes. As expected, the top hits in my screen were known regulators of end resection including CtIP and all three subunits of the MRE11-RAD50-NBS1 (MRN) complex. I also outline the validation of one the strongest candidate end resection activators identified in the screen, the zinc finger protein, ZNF335. I demonstrate that ZNF335 promotes DSB repair by HR through the enhancement of DNA end resection. In the final chapter of this thesis, I describe the establishment of a cell microarray-based platform for conducting RNAi screens. The platform circumvents the long liquid-handling robotic procedures and large quantities of reagents that are common for plate-based screens.

Keywords: Cell microarrays
DNA double-strand breaks
DNA repair
High-content screening
Homologous recombination
Microcephaly
Advisor: Durocher, Daniel
Metabolic Feedback Control through H3K4 Demethylation

There are many known pathways by which gene expression responds to the environment. Signaling through transcription factors and chromatin modifiers is well established for regulating cell development, differentiation and cellular identity. In this thesis I describe an additional layer of regulation – a metabolic one. I find that perturbations in the steady state levels of a particular metabolite are associated with measurable changes in the activity of a chromatin modifying enzyme and lead to alterations in gene expression. Specifically, demethylation of histone H3 on lysine 4 (H3K4) by the evolutionarily conserved JARID1 family protein, Jhd2, can respond to the intermediary metabolite α-ketoglutarate (αKG). Under respiring growth conditions, wherein production of αKG increases, Jhd2-mediated regulation orchestrates a transcriptional response that then represses mitochondrial respiration in a homeostatic manner. Further characterization of the sole budding yeast homolog, Jhd2, reveals that the demethylase responds to mitochondrially or nutritionally derived αKG to accomplish global H3K4me3 demethylation and repression of mitochondrial respiration on a transcriptional and physiological level, specifically by controlling the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and electron transport chain (ETC). In concordance with several studies that have previously established a role for mitochondrial respiration in regulation of lifespan in varied organisms, I find that Jhd2 limits yeast replicative lifespan and respiratory growth. In contrast to the limited role of H3K4 demethylation under standard fermenting conditions, I describe additional roles for Jhd2 in regulating transcriptional and metabolic quiescence during the cell differentiation program of yeast gametogenesis, also known as sporulation. The contexts of increased cellular respiration and yeast sporulation represent physiological scenarios of S. cerevisiae alternative to the more typically investigated highly proliferative fermentative cells. The role of H3K4me dynamics and, specifically, of the JARID1 family is well established for its involvement in cellular differentiation and oncogenesis in animal models and humans by yet uncharacterized mechanisms. The work described herein sheds light on the function of JARID1 demethylases and illuminates their central role in regulating mitochondrial respiration in response to differentiation cues. These findings provide insights into candidate mechanisms by which JARID1 enzymes may regulate cellular physiology in humans and impact oncogenesis.

Keywords: Chromatin
Epigenetics
Histone demethylation
JARID1
Metabolism
Mitochondria
Advisor: Meneghini, Marc
Science-Market Analogies: A Philosophical Examination

Many philosophers have made analogies between science and the market, or between scientists and entrepreneurs. These analogies are used to buttress claims about how science ought to be organized: that science ought to be administered or regulated, or that science must be autonomous. This dissertation examines and evaluates market analogies, and ways in which the changing organization of science reflects those analogies. In the first chapter I examine Michael Polanyi's dispute with John Desmond Bernal over whether science ought to be centrally controlled, and I argue that Polanyi's account of spontaneous order in science fails. In the second I compare Philip Kitcher's model of scientist-entrepreneurs with the general equilibrium model of Arrow and Debreu and conclude that Kitcher's model lacks crucial features of the latter. In the third chapter I examine Alan Walstad's Austrian account of science and argue that his analogy fails because citations fail to fulfill all of the important functions of money in the traditional economy. In the fourth chapter I evaluate science from the perspective of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) and conclude that science is not epistemically efficient in the way that the EMH claims markets are, and then I examine ways in which science might be made more epistemically efficient through the use of prediction markets. In the final chapter I consider how, through commodification, science is becoming more like the market, and I show that this change in the organization of science allows for increased scientific collaboration, but also facilitates the commercialization of science and all of its associated dangers.

Keywords: economic epistemology
economics of science
social epistemology
Advisor: Berkovitz, Joseph
Examination of the Physical and Molecular Parameters that Modulate the Response of Malignant Gliomas to Photodynamic Therapy

Malignant glioma, accounting for 2% of all cancer deaths worldwide, despite accounting only for 1% of all tumours, are highly invasive and extremely difficult to treat. Of this group of tumours, Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) comprises the most common tumours in adults and the most aggressive intracranial tumour group. Once GBM diagnosis is rendered, the mean survival time is currently 14-16 months following aggressive standard therapies comprised of surgical removal, radiation and chemotherapy. The goal of this work was to determine if an photo-chemical technique, namely photodynamic therapy (PDT), combined with physical or molecular modifications to glioma cell lines and normal brain, both in vitro and in vivo, could result in a modality with high therapeutic index, as well as provide an alternative treatment platform for glioma therapy in general. Studies included the use of mild hypothermia (32-34Ë C) combined with PDT as well as the use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) with PDT. Mild hypothermia demonstrated efficacy as both as neuroprotectant through increasing the resilience of neurons to PDT therapy, and as an agent to increase the concentration of PpIX in the majority of tumour cell lines in vitro and in vivo. These gains were further realized in an in vivo setting where mild hypothermia led to an increase in survival of 50% in the RG2 murine glioma model. These results have implications for both fluorescence-guided resection (FGR), where total cellular fluorescence is important as well as PDT. PDT combined with TKIs led to significant reductions in LD50 of PDT in two EGFR driven cell lines tested, U87 and U87vIII. Increased efficacy in PDT was demonstrated in vivo where increased survival of animals treated with PDT + lapatinib was 40% greater than either treatment alone, working through an increase in inflammation post-PDT in conjunction with a decrease in tumour blood flow. Both of these modalities demonstrated a significant increase in the effectiveness of PDT and future clinical applications. As hypothermia and lapatinib are separately approved for other clinical indications a realization of these combination therapies should be considered.

Advisor: Lilge, Lothar D
Molecular Determinants of Metastasis in Pediatric Cancers

Metastasis is the spread of cancer cells from the primary site to other organs in the body. Although metastasis is responsible for 90% of all cancer-related deaths, the molecular mechanisms involved and tools to study metastasis are not well established in pediatric solid tumours. Two such tumours are osteosarcoma (OS) and neuroblastoma (NB), in which metastatic disease predicts poor survival (

Keywords: Drug Discovery
Gene Expression
Metastasis
Neuroblastoma
Osteosarcoma
Signaling
Advisor: Irwin, Meredith S
Heterogeneous Runtime Support for Partitioned Global Address Space Programming on FPGAs

We are presenting THeGASNet, a framework to provide remote memory communication and synchronization in heterogeneous, distributed systems composed of software components and FPGA components. It is intended as a runtime layer to support higher-level languages and libraries that implement the Partitioned Global Address Space(PGAS) model. PGAS is a shared memory parallel programming model intended for high-productivity programming of distributed, cluster-like systems. THeGASNet provides a communication abstraction with a common API for both software and hardware components, thereby facilitating easier migration of performance-critical application portions to reconfigurable computing hardware. To demonstrate the development flow, we have implemented three applications representing common distributed application characteristics, starting with software-only solutions and using the common API to efficiently move selected parts into FPGA hardware. Based on the accumulated experience, we illustrate why PGAS is a good model to program heterogeneous systems using FPGAs, define minimum infrastructure requirements and outline a vision for continued exploration of heterogeneous PGAS programming.

Keywords: Accelerators
FPGAs
Heterogeneous
Parallel Computing
PGAS
Advisor: Chow, Paul
Crisis Foster Care in an Age of HIV and AIDS: Experiences of the Queen Mothers of Manya Klo, Ghana

Older women in communities ravaged by HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa have been hailed as constituting the most effective response to the growing number of orphans, which has overwhelmed the customary mechanisms of support. Over 80 percent of orphans in Ghana are fostered by women, because an orphan’s kinship networks - and particularly the female members of the networks - are expected to assume responsibility for her/him. Unfortunately, in the Manya Klo Traditional Area of Ghana, AIDS, poverty and other factors have weakened kinship support and cooperation, resulting in patchy external responses to physically frail and economically disempowered traditional female leaders (queen mothers) acting as caregivers. Most of the existing research about orphan care has focused exclusively on the woman-child dyad, thereby obscuring other forms of care. In particular, the “grandmother-led household” has become a self-fulfilling truism that has blinded researchers to other relationships of care. Moreover, the analyses of the situation of orphans are based on frameworks that ignore orphans' perspectives and the social context in which fostering is negotiated. In this study, I employ mixed methods to analyze an orphan care project run by the Manya Krobo Queen Mothers Association (MKQMA) and address three issues: (1) What is the socio-economic and cultural context in which queen mothers foster orphans? In particular, how do queen mothers’ positions as traditional leaders, HIV and AIDS, poverty, and external assistance programs (state and NGO) all shape the organization of orphan care? (2) What are the challenges for depending on the Queen Mothers Association to support orphans? (3) How are orphans’ needs identified and described (from the perspectives of the caregiver, the orphans and those who assist them). In particular, can community-derived measures of childcare rather than the current measures typically used in international development and children’s projects provide better indices of the needs of children after losing a parent?

Keywords: Medical Anthropology
Advisor: Sellen, Daniel
Towards a Poetics of Bafflement: the Politics of Elsewhere in Contemporary Black Diaspora Visual Practice (1990-Present)

Towards a Poetics of Bafflement asserts that blackness baffles—confuses and frustrates—the order of knowledge that deems black subjectivities as pathological. This dissertation argues for the importance of the psychic and affective spaces that emerge in the work of contemporary black women and queer artists. A poetics of bafflement is foregrounded by racial slavery and diaspora formations that inform contemporary racial antagonisms. The visual work of Deana Lawson, Zanele Muholi, and Mickalene Thomas, if read through a poetics of bafflement, engages blackness differently and conceptualizes new possibilities for world making. Black artists have long since occupied spaces of creative and critical thinking about aesthetics, race, and the politics of vision, which inform contemporary social, historical, and cultural climates. Multiculturalism and subsequent post-race concepts are inadequate in thinking about alternative possibilities of world making as they suggest racism and anti-black sentiment are somehow no longer prevalent. Multiculturalism’s claim of diversity negates the continued logics of anti-black sentiment, whereas post-racial suggests a time and place in history where race no longer informs political, economic, and socio-cultural experiences. Black cultural production continues to be at the crossroads of these debates. The complex interplay between race anxieties and the politics of contemporary visual culture remains opaque, even as it proliferates. Deana Lawson, Zanele Muholi, and Mickalene Thomas are among a generation of artists who have gained a certain level of North American and European recognition. Common to many of these artists is a concern with the limits of form and genre, particularly in relation to the photographic image, the queer body and the undoing of gender, and ruminations on desire and the erotic. Towards a Poetics of Bafflement responds to the absence of affect studies in addressing racial slavery—and, specifically, bafflement’s imprint on the present.

Keywords: aesthetics
black diaspora
humanism
queer theory
racial slavery
visuality
Advisor: Walcott, Rinaldo
Stochastic Optimization Approaches for Performance-based Contract Evaluation

Performance-based contracting (PBC) is a relatively new type of contracting promising to deliver higher capital equipment performance and better align the interests of customers and suppliers. In PBC, unlike traditional contracting, the customer pays the supplier for the performance of the asset, not for the resources used in the maintenance services. This dissertation applies stochastic optimization approaches for PBC evaluation to investigate the contractual elements quantitatively and help the contractual parties in three distinct ways. Firstly, we use stochastic programming with simple recourse on the side of the customer. We consider scenario-based stochastic programming models for capital equipment consisting of a single component to evaluate PBC alternatives. The model measures the deviation of implied operational availability and realized operational availability within a limited budget. The readiness risk of contracts is also computed by determining conditional value-at-risk to provide insight for the customer. Secondly, we evaluate PBC from the supplier's standpoint using real options theory. We use approximation scheme to decide the best time to replace the asset. The supplier's objective is to maximize his revenue by determining the optimal asset replacement time in the face of uncertainty in asset performance. Asset performance is assumed to follow a stochastic process, and we use stochastic dynamic programming to calculate the option price. Finally, we address the problem of PBC evaluation by considering a principal-agent model for structuring PBC along with two other common types of contracts: fixed-cost and cost-plus contracts. We apply stochastic mathematical programming with equilibrium constraints to evaluate the combination of contracts. The risk of cost uncertainty is incorporated into the model to relieve the impact of extreme and unexpected events that may happen in practice. With these three models, the dissertation demonstrates how PBC evaluation can be conducted by considering uncertainty in asset performance and contract parameters; it shows how each party can achieve the best outcome.

Keywords: Design of Experiments
Maintenance
Performance-based Contracting
Real Options
Reliability Engineering
Stochastic Programming
Advisor: Kwon, Roy H.
Understanding the Associations between Social Support and Physical Activity Participation among Adults

The aim of this dissertation was to explore the multidimensional operationalization of social support (SS) in the context of physical activity (PA) and associations between SS and PA among young adults. In study one, a systematic review of 20 longitudinal studies found that the strength as well as positive and negative associations between SS and PA were variable across studies, with effect sizes ranging from small to large and from negative to positive. The variability of these findings were attributed to the diverse facets of SS being examined and the distinct PA contexts. In study two, the relationship between structural, functional and perceptual SS dimensions and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) participation was tested cross-sectionally exploring the effects of gender among 819 first year students. In the model, being male as well as having more active friends and family (structural) were significant predictors of MVPA yet the relationships were not moderated by gender. In study three, the relationships among SS and PA (both MVPA and strength training) were tested over three time points spanning the first year of university. Students completed measures in the first semester (n=819), spring semester (n = 265), and the beginning of the second year of university (n =190). Having more active friends and family (structural), receiving more SS from friends and satisfaction with tangible SS (functional) was associated with MVPA and strength training at all three time points. Across studies, SS appeared to be associated with PA participation; however the strength of these relationships varied depending on the SS dimension being examined. There were consistent associations between the structural and functional dimensions of SS and PA, whereas no relationships noted with the perceptual dimension. The importance of both family and friend SS for PA participation was also highlighted; these findings have conceptual/measurement, theoretical, and practical implications.

Advisor: Sabiston, Catherine Michelle