VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Shaking the Ground: Intersections of Cultural Trauma, Collective Memory, and Resilience in Assyrian Popular Music and Dance

This dissertation is a study of the interstices between cultural trauma and collective memory in diasporic Assyrian popular music and dance expressions. An ethnic and religious minority from the converging borders of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, the Assyrians have experienced repeated persecution resulting in forced migration and refugee flight, most recently with the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014. The majority of Assyrians now live in diaspora, with significant communities in North America, Europe, and Australia. Focusing on the North American diaspora, this research examines how shared trauma and memory form the foundation of an imagined Assyrian nation and collective consciousness. Contributing to scholarship on forced migration, refugee flight, and community formation in diaspora, this dissertation draws from primary source data gathered through multi-sited, ethnographic fieldwork in the cities and surrounding areas of Toronto, Ontario; Chicago, Illinois; San Jose, California; and Scottsdale, Arizona. This study aims to discern the nuances of how people maintain integrity and produce, or reproduce, cultural identity in the wake of destructive forces. How have music and dance been used to communicate the (hi)story of Assyrians, with its absence in state histories, scholarly literature, and mainstream media? When physical place is not tenable as the foundation for group identity, why – and with what understandings – do Assyrians in diaspora turn to music and dance as sites for expressing or contesting collective identities? How can the expressive culture of the Assyrian community (re)place or (re)build what has been lost, and what purposes do music and dance serve for (re)constructing collectively imagined identity under circumstances of mass dispersal and displacement? Through the analysis of (1) Assyrian popular songs, (2) semi-formal interviews and participant-observation at community events, and (3) dance as embodied knowledge, my research demonstrates how migration and resettlement can bring a resolve for Assyrians to survive, celebrating or competing through cultural practices that express emergent Assyrian identities in and across their new lifeworlds.

Keywords: Assyrian
Collective Memory
Cultural Trauma
Diaspora
Minorities
Music
Advisor: Hemmasi, Farzaneh
Characterizing Inter-Zonal Airtightness and its Impact on Indoor Air Quality and Energy Performance in Multi-Unit Residential Buildings

As cities densify, more people are living in multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs). In MURBs, suite air contains some combination of outdoor air that has infiltrated through the building envelope, air from mechanical ventilation systems, and air from other zones within the building, either other suites or common areas. In MURBs, indoor air quality (IAQ) can vary significantly between zones, depending on the relative contribution of each of these air sources and the contaminant emission profiles within the building.Controlling inter-zonal air flow improves IAQ (by limiting odour/contaminant transport and improving the efficiency of mechanical ventilation systems) and energy efficiency. This is achieved through compartmentalization: the installation of continuous air barriers between individual zones, which isolate zones from one another. Current building codes/standards and certification programs include prescriptive and performance-based requirements that regulate compartmentalization in MURBs. Through a combination of field measurement and simulation studies, this dissertation characterized inter-zonal airtightness and air/contaminant transport in MURBs to, (1) provide updated data on the feasibility of performance-based compartmentalization requirements (assuming typical design/construction practices consistent with base-code prescriptive compartmentalization requirements), and (2) systematically assess the impact of compartmentalization and mechanical ventilation system design/operation on IAQ and energy consumption, to support the efficacy of performance-based requirements and identify how building design/operation practices can improve IAQ. Field measurement studies found that performance-based targets are easily achievable in concrete MURBs, assuming typical design/construction practices. Partition-level air tightness testing revealed significant inter-partition variability, with suite-to-corridor walls being consistently less airtight than suite-to-suite walls, even after controlling for construction type. These results provide support for performance-based targets and provide designers/contractors guidance on where to focus airtightness efforts. Simulation studies found that interior/exterior partition airtightness was important for reducing direct suite-to-suite air/contaminant transport. Stairwell/elevator door airtightness was critical for reducing indirect suite-to-suite air/contaminant transport via stairwell/elevator shafts, and improving pressurized corridor ventilation system efficiency. Stairwell/elevator door airtightness was more effective at decreasing the inter-suite variability of fractional contaminant concentrations (the proportion of suite contaminants that originated in other zones), compared to suite partition airtightness. The simulation results highlight the importance of compartmentalization in common areas, as well as suites.

Advisor: Touchie, Marianne F
Visualizing Posttraumatic stress disorder with in vivo brain imaging: a multimodal approach

Our limited understanding of biological mechanisms underpinning Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is preventing effective drug development. Inflammation and oxidative stress have been implicated in brain pathology of PTSD and research suggests systemic immune dysfunction might be implicated as well. To date there is a lack of in vivo studies assessing these biological processes in humans with PTSD. The aim of the current thesis was to investigate inflammation and oxidative stress in PTSD using multimodal imaging and stimulated blood sampling. 17 PTSD and 20 HC participants completed positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of the Translocator Protein (TSPO, index of microglia activation); Glutathione (GSH, antioxidant) was acquired via magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in 32 PTSD and 24 HC participants; and Lipopolysaccharide (LPS, innate immune system activator) stimulated whole blood samples were collected in 21 PTSD and 20 HC participants. No group differences in TSPO binding were observed, however frontal-limbic TSPO binding was higher in PTSD cannabis users and positively related with serum cortisol concentrations in PTSD participants. Brain GSH was not altered in PTSD but was positively correlated with plasma TIMP-2 in PTSD participants. Additionally, plasma MPO and MMP-9 were negatively correlated with duration of PTSD. Finally, men with PTSD exhibited reduced innate immune function, and lower resting inflammatory state, while females exhibited a higher resting inflammatory state. There were no relationships reported between study outcomes and PTSD symptoms. The current thesis highlighted the importance of considering sample heterogeneity in PTSD and sex specific data analysis, and draws attention to the systemic aspect of the disorder. While no group differences were observed in central proteins between PTSD and HC, subgroups of PTSD exhibited higher TSPO binding and GSH. Additionally, several sex specific findings emerged that suggest sex differences in the neurobiology of PTSD. To achieve therapeutic treatment that will benefit all with PTSD, future studies need to 1) study larger sample sizes to understand how sample heterogeneity in PTSD affects biological outcomes; 2) conduct sex stratified analysis to understand sex differences in PTSD; and 3) pursue systemic dysregulation in the disorders and investigate the potential role MMPs might have.

Keywords: Brain imaging
Glutathione
Immuno-inflammatory
Microglia
PTSD
Advisor: Boileau, Isabelle
The City of the Humble: St. Augustine on Power, Domination, and the Status of Humilitas within Political Life

This dissertation analyzes the writings of St. Augustine in order to investigate whether “humility” can be considered a political virtue. Both historical and contemporary writers have had mixed thoughts about the status of humility. Some writers see humility as a critical virtue, which helps to maintain good civic relations. However, other writers consider humility to be a dangerous quality which renders people weak, and leaves them vulnerable to domination. The City of the Humble draws on the writings of St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, in order to consider the possibility that humility can be both valuable and costly. For Augustine, pride is the primeval human evil, and it is the fundamental cause of political disorder. By contrast, humility is a god-like virtue which teaches people to accept the truth of human limits, and inclines them towards self-giving love. However, at the same time, Augustine understands that in a fallen world, the practice of humility is not always easy. While the humble are capable of fusing their humility with political power under certain circumstances, there are also certain moments where humility demands self-sacrifice. Augustine concludes that such self-sacrifice is worthwhile, both because it confers spiritual goods to those who practice it, and because it serves as a means of showing the limits of political life

Keywords: Augustine
Humility
Pride
Advisor: Balot, Ryan K
The Role of Non-Academic (Soft) Skills in Student Transition to Postsecondary Education: A Mixed Methods Study

This study is a sequential mixed methods explanatory examination of the role of soft (non-academic) skills in shaping student transition from high school to postsecondary education (PSE). Specifically, this study looked at students’ soft skills, such as logical thinking, communication, and attentiveness, assessed as part of the application system for those who applied to the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (FASE) undergraduate cohort in 2016, completed an Online Student Profile, and were admitted, and investigated the role of these skills in predicting further success and persistence in the program of study. The quantitative findings of this study revealed a weak positive and statistically significant association of students’ soft skills with first-semester sessional grade point average (SGPA) of first and second year and cumulative grade point average (CGPA). This association was not practically significant, however, and indicated a minimal predictive power of soft skills on SGPA and CGPA. The findings showed statistically significant differences in soft skills scores between groups based on background variables (e.g., gender and school type). The results from logistic regression of soft skills on time to graduation showed that students with higher logical thinking, written communication, communication average (oral and written), attentiveness, and total skills average are more likely to graduate within four years or, if they did a professional experience year, within five years. The qualitative findings, based on two interviews with each of nine participants representing a range of active and graduated students from different FASE cohorts and programs, revealed that participants viewed the transition to PSE as a complex and multifaceted process, with many different factors to negotiate. The findings indicated that participants entered the program with a solid foundation of soft skills acquired through various pre-postsecondary environments and experiences. Most participants had high efficacy beliefs, self-regulation, perseverance, logical thinking, and communication skills. The findings also demonstrated that participants were academically prepared. Transitioning into the program presented various difficulties for many participants. Nonetheless, they persisted by drawing on their soft and academic skills and adjusting their academic and career goals. Additionally, they were able to access various types of support.

Keywords: Broad-Based Admission
Engineering
Persistence
Postsecondary Education
Soft Skills
Transition
Advisor: Childs, Ruth
On the RNA-binding specificities of RNA-binding proteins

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are numerous and diverse, with the number of candidate human RBPs rapidly increasing over the past decade. Identification of the binding specificities (i.e., motifs) of RBPs is essential for the identification of their RNA target sites, which in turn provides insight into RBP functions and the consequences of aberrant binding. The vast majority of RBPs, however, lack a nucleotide sequence motif, and even fewer have been investigated for RNA structure specificity. In this thesis, I describe two studies that examine the specificities of RBPs. I first describe the development of PRIESSTESS, a universal RNA sequence and structure motif finding method that can be applied to diverse RNA binding datasets. PRIESSTESS is the first method to determine the appropriate level of RNA structure detail and the number of motifs required to represent the binding specificity of an RBP, without human intervention. Moreover, PRIESSTESS produces easily interpreted models and provides a measure of RBP secondary structure specificity. By applying PRIESSTESS to binding data for 144 RBPs, I found that 75% showed an RNA secondary structure preference but only 10% had a preference besides unpaired bases, suggesting that most RBPs simply recognize the accessibility of primary sequences. I next examined RBP specificities by contributing to the analysis of unconventional RBPs (ucRBPs) —proteins that associate with RNA but lack known RNA-binding domains (RBDs). With collaborators, I analyzed 492 human ucRBPs for intrinsic RNA-binding in vitro and identified 23 that bind specific RNA sequences by implementing a classifier to detect successful experiments. This striking lack of sequence specificity for most ucRBPs, which I confirmed through the analysis of eCLIP data, implies that they may be indirectly recruited to RNA or bind RNA independently, but nonspecifically. My analyses of these ucRBPs revealed a set of highly abundant proteins that are enriched for intrinsically disordered regions, suggesting that their identification in RNA interactome capture studies could result from weak transient associations or nonspecific RNA interactions. Through the examination of both conventional and unconventional RBPs I provide novel insights into their specificities, generating comprehensive models of complex motifs and investigating RNA binding by proteins that lack specificity entirely.

Keywords: Computational biology
Functional genomics
Motif
Post-transcriptional regulation
RNA-binding protein
Advisor: Hughes, Timothy R
Morris, Quaid
Optimization Techniques for Graph Databases: Challenges and Approaches

Graphs are everywhere and will retain their popularity due to the continuous growth of social networks, the rise of the Semantic Web, and the characterization of biological networks. The popularity and utility of graphs have led to the need for graph databases to manage and query large graphs. This has raised many challenges, such as how to evaluate complex graph queries. The evaluation of conjunctive graph queries can face great computational redundancy due to the "many-to-many" joins with the graph, which can degrade the performance drastically. Another challenge is that when running queries in batches, there can be commonalities between the queries. Evaluating the queries independently results in these overlaps being reevaluated.This can be avoided by sharing results among the queries' evaluation. In recent years, there has been interest in different architectures for building graph database systems, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the right architecture that best suits the desired tasks is a challenge. In this dissertation, we introduce three frameworks to meet each of the above three challenges. First, we introduce a factorization approach to overcome "multiplicity", recomputing the same sub-answers repeatedly during the evaluation of conjunctive graph queries. We implement this approach in our Wireframe framework. This provides a cost-based optimizer to generate query plans and an evaluator for executing the plans. Second, we introduce techniques for multiple query optimization, which exploit commonalities among path queries to be evaluated in batch. We implement this in our ASWEET framework. This provides an optimizer to detect commonalities among the path queries in the batch to choose a global evaluation plan for them accordingly. Lastly, we design and implement a benchmark, TGDB, to evaluate performance across graph database systems. TGDB has various workloads and targeted algorithms for evaluating different erformance aspects of graph database systems.

Keywords: Big Data Systems
Database Systems
Factorization
Graph Databases
Graphs
Query Optimization
Advisor: Chignell, Mark
Godfrey, Parke
Principal Agent Mean Field Problems and Multi-period Compliance Problems with Applications in REC Markets

Mean field type control problems (MFC) and mean field games (MFGs) are common models to characterize the asymptotic behavior of a spectrum of interacting agents. One of the successful applications of MFG lies in the study of Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) markets, where there are interacting firms regulated by a regulator through some payment structures imposed at the end of the(possibly multiple) compliance periods. The structure of the REC markets motivates us to model it with principal agent games and multi-period games in a mean-field approach. This thesis investigates a family of principal agent mean field problems and a family of multi-period mean filed games with applications in REC market modelling. The thesis contains three parts. First, we formulate a family of MF-PA problems as the principal’s optimization problem linked to the terminal conditions of a collection of MV-FBSDE systems. Under suitable assumptions, we proved the well-posedness of the proposed family of MF-PA problems and we showed the approximation consistency with respect to the principal’s objective where the MV-FBSDE systems are replaced by its discretized versions. Second, we use principal agent MFG to model the regulating problem of the REC markets, where the agents form a Nash equilibrium according to the principal’s penalty function, and the principal evaluates the resulting equilibrium. We propose and implement an alternating optimization scheme, based on the deep-BSDE method, to numerically solve the PA-MFG for the REC markets. Our numerical results demonstrate the efficacy of the algorithm and provide intriguing insights of the REC market regulating modelling in the mean-field limit. Lastly, we introduce a mean field game framework for the multi-period compliance problem in REC markets. Under a suitable regularity condition of the objective function, we apply variational analysis to the agents’ objective and derive the optimal controls of the agents together with an explicit equilibrium price that clears the market. We then derive an MV-FBSDE system that characterizes the equilibrium of the multi-period MFG.

Advisor: Jaimungal, Sebastian
Seco, Luis
VLBI Studies of the Crab Pulsar: Scintillation, Astrometry, and Emission

The Crab Pulsar is one of the youngest and best-observed pulsars, and, with its interesting emission properties, one of the key testbeds for pulsar emission theories. Its radio pulse profile shows multiple pulse components with very different characteristics, including short and bright "giant pulses", which make up most of the emission from its two dominant components, the main pulse and interpulse. Detecting the fainter emission from the Crab Pulsar poses a challenge due to its location within the radio-bright Crab Nebula. Consequently, this thesis employs very long baseline techniques, combining data from multiple telescopes to synthesize an aperture much larger than a single dish. This approach improves both the angular resolution and sensitivity, enabling new studies of the Crab Pulsar in three different ways. In this thesis, I use the bending of light in the nebula, which causes scintillation and scattering due to the interference of pulsar emission that arrives via differently delayed paths, as a interstellar interferometer to constrain the emission regions associated with the Crab Pulsar's giant pulses. I find that the giant pulse emission occurs over an extended region, and infer that relativistic motion plays an important role in producing these pulses. Furthermore, I develop a novel calibration technique using the Crab Pulsar's giant pulses to precisely measure the parallax and proper motion of the pulsar, down to sub-milliarcsecond precision. Finally, I investigate the statistical properties of giant pulses and show the weaker radio emission of the Crab Pulsar and scattering effects, notably "echoes" of the pulsar emission, by leveraging the high sensitivity I obtained through coherent combination of signals from individual telescopes.

Keywords: Interstellar scintillation
Parallax
Pulsars
Radio astrometry
Radio bursts
Very long baseline interferometry
Advisor: van Kerkwijk, Marten H.
Transnational Historiography and Twentieth-Century Modernity: Rachmaninoff Beyond Russia

My dissertation is a revisionary study of the historiography of musical modernism through the lens of the English-language reception of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s (1873–1943) international performance career. While conventional narratives of Western music history define musical modernism in aesthetic terms, focusing on advancements in musical style over time and within nationally bound spaces, recent scholarship has radically expanded understandings of modernism. Many musicologists now perceive musical modernism as including all practices that in some way respond to life in modernity, including those that cross or transcend national boundaries. This wholesale revisioning of modernism has opened an expansive realm of interpretative possibility for musical figures such as Rachmaninoff, who occupy marginalized historical spaces, excluded from the mainstream due to limiting historiographical parameters. Based on my analyses of music criticism in newspaper reviews, journal articles, and advertisements, I argue that the image of Rachmaninoff constructed by the press was shaped by a complex amalgamation of different factors, contributing to a much more nuanced and variegated narrative than his frequent portrayal as a conservative Russian Romantic in conventional historiography. The construction of Rachmaninoff’s image in the press reveals a pronounced tension between his “Russianness” and other identity markers that cut across and transcended national identifications. Furthermore, my analyses demonstrate that during Rachmaninoff’s lifetime, critics were already grappling with the conceptualization of modernism and Rachmaninoff’s place within it. Rather than exclusively fixating on his perceived conservatism, the press routinely gestured to elements of a modernist identity: his active investment in early recording technology, his position as the most recent link in a longstanding musical lineage, the “greatness” of which was predictably inscribed in Germanic terms, and even markers of harmonic experimentation in his musical style. This re-examination of Rachmaninoff manifests the insights of recent historiographical trends that consider transnational musical practices and the diversity of ways that musicians responded to the conditions of early-twentieth-century mobility and technological modernity. In revealing facets of Rachmaninoff’s modern, transnational musical identity, my study answers the impetus to re-situate musical activity in transnational, migratory, and cosmopolitan spheres, contributing to a musicology of global modernism.

Keywords: historiography
modernism
performance
Rachmaninoff
reception
transnational
Advisor: Lee, Sherry D