VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Experimental and Numerical Investigations of the Behaviour of Intact Veined Andesite

Veined rock masses host some of the worldâ s largest mineral deposits. The fundamental behaviour of veined rock mass under load has not been fully understood. Currently there is an absence of validated engineering tools to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the behaviour of veined rock. The main objectives of this thesis are (1) to characterize the mechanical behaviour of intact veined rock in the laboratory environment in compression and (2) to develop and validate an engineering approach that captures the behaviour of intact vein rock using 3D numerical simulations. A comprehensive experimental program was instigated for intact veined andesite from the El Teniente Mine (Chile). As part of this thesis, high quality specimens were collected from the mine site and characterised using the developed Discrete Vein Network methodology. The selected rock specimens were tested under triaxial compression. The experimental program established that the veins acted as weak mechanical components in the specimens, promoting rock fracture under stress. The experimental results indicated that the stress thresholds identifying the onset of dilatancy and the transition from the stable to unstable fracturing were higher in intact veined rock than in intact rock. The observed behaviour illustrated a significant departure from intact rock where the onset of Acoustic Emissions (AE) correlates with the onset of specimen dilatancy. The experimental results from intact veined rock indicated that the onset of AE correlated with the crack damage stress. The departure from the behaviour of intact rock is attributed to the presence of veins and has significant implications on the behaviour of intact veined rock. A methodology was developed for numerical simulations of the laboratory experiments on intact veined rock using the Synthetic Rock Mass (SRM). A contribution of this thesis was the development of two sets of algorithms to capture the mechanical behaviour of intact veined rock. The first approach was based on the use of clumped Bonded Particle Models (BPM). Subsequently the Bonded Block Model (BBM) approach was further developed and implemented. This approach was shown superior in modelling and validating the intact component of veined rock. The developed numerical approaches were successful in capturing and reproducing the observed laboratory behaviour of intact veined rock. The laboratory and numerical investigations made a significant contribution in characterizing the role of veins in defining the behaviour of intact veined rock.

Keywords: Acoustic emissions
El Teniente
Intact veined rock
Numerical modelling
Synthetic rock mass
Triaxial testing
Advisor: Hadjigeorgiou, John
Highest Weights for Truncated Shifted Yangians

Truncated shifted Yangians are a family of algebras which are conjectured to quantize slices to Schubert varieties in the affine Grassmannian. In this thesis we study the highest weight theory of these algebras, and explore connections with Nakajima quiver varieties and their cohomology. We give a conjectural parametrization of the set of highest weights in terms of product monomial crystals, which are related to Nakajima’s monomial crystal. In type A we prove this conjecture. Our main tool in describing the set of highest weights is the B–algebra, which is a non-commutative generalization of the notion of torus fixed-point subscheme. We give a conjectural presentation for this algebra based on calculations using Yangians, and show how this presentation admits a natural geometric interpretation in terms of the equivariant cohomology of quiver varieties. We conjecture that this gives an explicit presentation for the equivariant cohomology ring of the Nakajima quiver variety of a finite ADE quiver, and show that this conjecture could be deduced from a special case. We give a proof of this conjecture in type A. We also describe a common thread between all of the above objects: the existence of (co)product maps. This work can be thought of in the context of symplectic duality: slices to Schubert varieties in the affine Grassmannian are expected to be symplectic dual to Nakajima quiver varieties. The relationship between B–algebras and equivariant cohomology is part of a pair of general conjectures for symplectic dual varieties, due to Hikita and Nakajima. These ideas represent a first approximation to expected connections between the category O’s for a symplectic dual pair of varieties.

Advisor: Kamnitzer, Joel
Regulation and Activation of PARK2-mediated Mitophagy

An accumulation of damaged mitochondria by reactive oxygen species (ROS) can trigger apoptosis. This process has been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinsonâ s disease (PD). About 10% of the PD cases are caused by mutations in the PARK genes that are inheritable. The product of PARK2, Parkin, can mediate the autophagic degradation of damaged mitochondria. Autophagy is a process by which bulky cytoplasmic contents are degraded by lysosomes. PARK2 is recruited to the damaged mitochondria and ubiquitinates outer mitochondrial proteins. Ubiquitin serves as an important signal to recruit autophagy machineries to the mitochondria and deliver mitochondria to the lysosomes. Even though the major molecular events in PARK2-mediated mitophagy are revealed, how this pathway is activated and regulated remains unclear. In my thesis, I identified two deubiquitinating enzymes, ubiquitin specific protease 30 (USP30) and 35 (USP35), that can regulate PARK2-mediated mitophagy. I showed that USP30 antagonizes PARK2 activity by deubiquitinating some of the PARK2 substrates, interfering with PARK2-substrate interactions, and delaying PARK2 recruitment to the mitochondria. USP35 affects the protein and mRNA levels of mitofusins 2 as well as PARK2-substrate interactions. However, USP35 did not interfere with PARK2 recruitment. Furthermore, I described the development and characterization of a technique to activate mitophagy with a photo-sensitizer, mitochondrial-targeting KillerRed (mtKR). I showed that a sudden increase in ROS levels in the mitochondria induces mitochondrial depolarization and recruitment of PARK2. I also provided evidence that elongated mitochondria are more resistant to mtKR-induced mitophagy while fragmented mitochondria are more prone to mitophagy activation.

Keywords: Autophagy
Deubiquitinating Enzymes
Mitophagy
Parkinson Disease
Reactive Oxygen Species
Advisor: McQuibban, George A
Kim, Peter K
Understanding Social Assistance in Northern Ontario: 1997-2010

This study explores how the post-1997, redeveloped Ontario Works welfare system, together with the economic and social conditions in northern Ontario, influenced the administration and delivery of social assistance. In particular, this research aims to expand the limited knowledge of welfare in northern rural and non-metropolitan contexts and to increase understanding of how economic and social conditions influence the provision of the Ontario Work program. Using a constructivist grounded theory methodology, the experiences of Ontario Works program deliverers were drawn upon to foster an increased understanding of issues commonly encountered when providing social assistance to northern Ontario residents. Data were gathered over two primary periods through in-depth interviews, and follow-up interviews conducted throughout a several year data collection and analysis process. Forty-three northern Ontario Works program deliverers comprised of Ontario Works managers, supervisors, and caseworkers from across northern Ontario participated in the study. The analysis of the data reveals that northern Ontario Works program deliverers experience a multitude of resource constraints arising from local northern conditions as well as those situated within the welfare system. Research participants across northern Ontario reported that northern areas had limited economic capacity to provide adequate social services and infrastructure necessary to support the fulfillment of social assistance employment objectives. This study also found that social assistance employment objectives were compromised by limited local control over decision-making, under-resourcing within the Ontario Works program, and â urban-centricâ funding arrangements that disadvantaged northern areas. In addition, northern Ontario Works program deliverers reported substantive barriers to employment due to extremely low human capital among welfare recipients. Moreover, findings indicate that these constraints are compounding. In other words, northern Ontario Works program deliverers frequently encountered multiple and simultaneously occurring resource barriers. The result was described as intensifying resource deficiencies and inhibiting efforts to facilitate sustained labour market attachment among welfare recipients.

Keywords: northern ontario
social assistance
social policy
welfare reform
Advisor: Mishna, Faye
The Role of Ancient Liberty in Rousseau's Democratic Vision

This dissertation investigates Rousseau’s normative defence of democracy, beginning with his thoughts on the best kind of political practice. Despite recent attempts to highlight parts of his thought that are sympathetic to cherished liberal principles, current readers still struggle to defang what appear to be Rousseau’s populist excesses: his acceptance of majority-rule and his admiration for oppressive societies like ancient Sparta, Rome, or puritan Geneva. Rousseau defended a theory of legitimacy founded on individual consent, while characterizing the kind of politics practiced in these republics as normatively superior to all others. Motivated by this observation, the dissertation begins by investigating Rousseau’s thoughts on the institutions of republican Rome and Geneva. It concludes that his democratic vision has a very particular normative bent, which has hitherto been obscured by both liberal and collectivist readings. Rousseau’s political ideas suggest that a genuinely communal life is only possible where individuals participate actively in defending their interests. These interests are not abstract and uniform for all, but different and concrete. What Rousseau objected to was not individual interest as such, but a corrosive individualism founded on the belief that the concept ‘state’ is pure fabrication. This belief originates, and is nourished by, the alienation of legislative power to representative bodies. Rousseau’s defence of democratic participation, therefore, as well as his admiration for societies where citizens participated directly in the legislative process, are by no means secondary to his theory of consent. For such consent can only be known to exist where citizens participate continuously and directly in legislative assemblies. In this sense, Rousseau’s thought ought to be understood as inherently opposed to all forms of politics founded on a concept of the people that transcends (and is often alien to) the concrete and heterogenous reality that it is meant to signify.

Keywords: Democracy
Liberty
Montesquieu
Nationalism
Representation
Rousseau
Advisor: Balot, Ryan
Beiner, Ronald
Delicious: A History of Monosodium Glutamate and Umami, the Fifth Taste Sensation

My dissertation examines two interrelated objects: the global commodity and flavour enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG), and umami (roughly translated from the Japanese as “deliciousness”), the fifth basic taste that MSG is understood to confer. This project situates umami within transmutations of the life sciences between Japan and the United States, and shows how the metabolics of taste are inseparable from global capitalisms. My research demonstrates how the infusion of molecular technique into taste psychophysics, food technology, and emerging arenas like gastrophysics has provided a boon to corporate producers and commercial users of MSG, who have toiled since the 1970s to forge consensus around the scientific validity of umami taste and thus equate MSG—which crossed the Pacific as a food technology for improving troop morale after World War II—with ‘natural’ sources of umami. In the United States, MSG has been heavily coded as East Asian, despite the fact that it has been used pervasively in iconic Anglo-American food products (e.g. Campbell’s soup, flavoured chips)—and is even now bound up in the international branding of Japanese cuisine. I suggest that MSG’s implication in a ‘symptom complex’ (ranging from numbness and tingling to asthma and indigestion) may indicate that the additive’s metabolism by humans is less well understood than regulatory standards reflect—and that all umami tastants may not be metabolically equivalent. I argue that monosodium glutamate and similar umami-conferring additives not only help to make possible, they make palatable, the hegemony of ‘Big Food.’ MSG helps to make unhealthy, cheap foods taste good, and as such it illuminates the insidious appeal and potential spread of processed foods in an increasingly food-scarce world.

Keywords: food science
Japan
monosodium glutamate
MSG
umami
United States
Advisor: Murphy, Michelle
Introduction to Mexican Music for Solo Cello (1962-2014) from a Performer's Perspective

This paper examines fifty-two Mexican solo cello works (and also three works written for two cellos, one written for cello and actor, and one written for cello and tape), all of which were acquired over a four-year course of research. All of these works were composed in the modern or avant-garde style between 1962 and 2014 and represent a lesser-known area of Mexican music. During the period from 2013 through 2014, eleven works were given to the author by Carlos Prieto, thirty-five works were obtained directly from composers, and five works came from library consultations during research trips to Mexico: at the National Library in Mexico City, at the National Center for Investigation and Documentation of Music in Mexico (CENEDIM), and at the National Center for the Arts in Mexico (CENART). Introduction to Mexican Music for Solo Cello (1962-2012) from a Performer’s Perspective documents an interdisciplinary approach to research: interactions and interviews with living Mexican composers, analysis and thoughts on interpretation of works by those composers, compilation of a list of works for solo cello written between 1962 and 2014 based on Adventure of a Cello by Carlos Prieto, Influence of Carlos Prieto on Contemporary Cello Repertoire by A.S. Saucedo Estrada, and the author’s research. The paper focuses on the vital contribution of cellist Carlos Prieto to the growth and proliferation of contemporary Mexican cello music. The paper includes documented interviews by the author with prominent composers and artists in Mexico including Carlos Prieto, Manuel de Elias, Ana Lara, Max Lifchitz, Samuel Máynez, Lucia Álvarez, Radko Tichavský, and Iracema de Andrade. This research is the first of its kind to document Mexican works for solo cello and to provide background analysis of these works from a performer’s perspective. All of the pieces covered in this project have yet to make a significant impact on the wider world or on professional cellists outside of Mexico.

Keywords: Cello
cello solo
Mexican cello music
Mexican music
Mexican music for solo cello
Advisor: Elliott, Robin
Rolston, Shauna
Quantomorphisms and Quantized Energy Levels for Metaplectic-c Quantization

Metaplectic-c quantization was developed by Robinson and Rawnsley as an alternative to the classical Kostant-Souriau quantization procedure with half-form correction. This thesis extends certain properties of Kostant-Souriau quantization to the metaplectic-c context. We show that the Kostant-Souriau results are replicated or improved upon with metaplectic-c quantization. We consider two topics: quantomorphisms and quantized energy levels. If a symplectic manifold admits a Kostant-Souriau prequantization circle bundle, then its Poisson algebra is realized as the space of infinitesimal quantomorphisms of that circle bundle. We present a definition for a metaplectic-c quantomorphism, and prove that the space of infinitesimal metaplectic-c quantomorphisms exhibits all of the same properties that are seen in the Kostant-Souriau case. Next, given a metaplectic-c prequantized symplectic manifold ( M, ω) and a function H ∈ C ∞(M), we propose a condition under which E, a regular value of H, is a quantized energy level for the system (M, ω, H). We prove that our definition is dynamically invariant: if two functions on M share a regular level set, then the quantization condition over that level set is identical for both functions. We calculate the quantized energy levels for the n-dimensional harmonic oscillator and the hydrogen atom, and obtain the quantum mechanical predictions in both cases. Lastly, we generalize the quantization condition to a level set of a family of Poisson-commuting functions, and show that in the special case of a completely integrable system, it reduces to a Bohr-Sommerfeld condition.

Advisor: Karshon, Yael
Essays on Information Acquisition, Auction Design, and Persuasion

Chapter 1 studies how the composition and voting rule of a decision-making committee affect the incentives for its members to acquire information. Fixing the voting rule, a more polarized committee acquires more information. If a committee designer can choose the committee members and voting rule to maximize her payoff from the collective decision, she forms a heterogeneous committee adopting a unanimous rule, in which one member moderately biased toward one decision serves as the decisive voter, and all others are extremely opposed to the decisive voter and serve as information providers. The decisive voter is not identical to the designer. Chapter 2 studies mechanism design by a seller privately informed of the quality of an indivisible object. The privacy of the seller's information matters for mechanism design: selecting a mechanism that maximizes the seller's profit when her information is public is not incentive compatible for the seller when her information is private, as a lower-quality seller has an incentive to mimic a higher-quality seller. I show that reserve prices are the least costly device to separate higher-quality sellers from lower-quality ones. In equilibria that maximize the expected profit of every type of the seller among all separating equilibria, the lowest-quality seller adopts her public-information optimal mechanism, and each higher-quality seller adopts a mechanism that differs from her public-information optimal mechanism only in that the reserve prices are higher. Chapter 3 studies how a privately informed persuader should persuade a group of listeners if the listeners can imperfectly verify his information at a cost. Should he bring the listeners together and persuade them simultaneously or communicate with them sequentially? The answer depends on the verification costs of the listeners. Simultaneous persuasion outperforms sequential persuasion when it is not very costly for the listeners to verify the persuader's information. The opposite can be true if verifying the persuader's information is very costly. In sequential persuasion, it is optimal for the persuader to first approach the listener who is hardest to persuade. For both persuasion modes, in the persuader-optimal equilibria, the persuader pools extreme private information, and "truthfully reveals" moderate private information.

Keywords: Committee design
Heterogeneity
Informed principal
Persuasion
Reserve price
Voting
Advisor: Osborne, Martin J
Superconducting Interfaces: Equivariant Solutions to a System of Nonlinear Wave Equations with Ginzburg-Landau Type Potential

In this thesis, we look for solutions to a two-component system of nonlinear wave equations with the properties that one component has an interface and the other is exponentially small except near the interface of the first component. The second component can be identified with a superconducting current confined to an interface. A formal analysis suggests that for suitable initial data, the energy of solutions concentrate about a codimension one timelike surface Γ whose dynamics are coupled in a highly nonlinear way to the phase of the superconducting current. We provide a rigorous verification of the predictions these formal arguments make for solutions with an equivariant symmetry in two spatial dimensions subject to a non-degeneracy condition. The contents of this thesis are based on the results presented in [32].

Keywords: Calculus of Variations
Partial differential equations
Wave equations
Advisor: Jerrard, Robert
How Orderliness Informs a More Comprehensive Model of Political Orientation

Research has consistently found that political liberalism is predicted by the Big Five trait Openness to Experience, while political conservatism is predicted by trait Conscientiousness. The majority of the research thus far, however, has adopted a trait-level model of personality. Recent work suggests that each of the Big Five traits can be divided into two distinct aspects, which offer further nuanced characterizations of each trait, and provide more independent predictive powers than the traits do alone. Thus, analyzing personality predictors of political orientation at the aspect level can increase our understanding of the motivational mechanisms that underlie these associations. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on and demonstrates that when it comes to trait Conscientiousness, it is only one of its two aspects (i.e., Orderliness) that consistently predicts political conservatism. Study 1 used a large sample to provide robust evidence suggesting that, when the Big Ten aspects are entered simultaneously to predict political orientation, Orderliness, but not Industriousness (the other aspect of trait Conscientiousness), predicted political conservatism. Study 2 examined how Orderliness is related to other dispositional factors relevant to political orientation, specifically disgust sensitivity. The results found that Orderliness mediated the association between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism, and that this effect was especially relevant for Contamination/Pathogen disgust. Studies 3 and 4 investigated potential mechanisms that underlie the link between Orderliness and conservatism, such as preference for meaning and convention. Study 3 found that preference for meaningful stimuli, as well as dislike towards surreal stimuli, mediated the link between Orderliness and conservatism. In Study 4, results showed that increased preference for conventional and traditional media, as well as dislike towards complex and unconventional media, mediated the link between Orderliness and political orientation. Taken together, these studies offer initial insights into how examining personality at the aspect level may provide more comprehensive understanding into the psychological processes behind political orientation.

Advisor: Plaks, Jason E
Peterson, Jordan B