VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Face Motion Influences Eye Movement Patterns and Face Processing in Children

The present study examined the influence of face motion on processing strategy and eye movement patterns in 4- to 6-year-old children. The results indicated that face motion influenced featural processing similar to previous studies with adults, though this effect was not different from that of static images. Consistent with previous studies in infancy and childhood, eye-tracking analyses revealed that observing moving faces attracted longer fixation times in the mouth region and less at the eye regions compared to static images. These findings suggest that, while face processing strategy was no different when shown in motion compared to static, face motion influences eye movement patterns in early childhood.

Keywords: development
face
gaze
motion
perception
processing
Advisor: Lee, Kang
Morphological and Substrate Effects on the Electrochemical Behaviour of Doped Tin Oxide Anodes

Films of Sb-doped SnO2 were successfully fabricated on a Ti substrate through precursor application by spin coating followed by a thermal decomposition process. The dependence of film characteristics on fabrication temperature was studied in the range of 500 to 800C. An optimum electrocatalytic response was found for a firing temperature of 600C. This was attributed to a balance between Sb-doping effects, titanium substrate oxidation, and film morphological development. This was determined through observation of the morphology, crystallographic texture, and electrochemical characteristics, such as the oxygen evolution potential (OEP), ferri/ferrocyanide electron transfer reaction, and phenol oxidation. Polymerization of phenol and the subsequent deactivation of the anode surface was related to the active surface area of the SnO2 film. Preliminary studies on the effect of Ni-Sb and Zn-Sb co-doping of SnO2 were conducted. The addition of Ni was shown to decrease the film conductivity while maintaining the OEP. Inclusion of Zn resulted in the formation of a second phase, Zn2SnO4, which effectively inhibited oxygen evolution causing an increase in the OEP.

Advisor: Ruda, E Harry
G-protein Coupled Receptor Kinase 2 and Murine Circadian Clock Regulation

G-protein coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2) is a critical component in the regulation of numerous intracellular signaling pathways. However, its contribution in mammalian circadian clock functioning has not been investigated. Here, the absence of GRK2 in mice was found to lengthen the circadian period of locomotor activity rhythms and delay the process of reentrainment following jetlag, while augmenting the phase delaying response to a light-pulse during the early night. GRK2 was found to negatively regulate mper1 transcriptional activationand nuclear localization. In vitro studies showed a Casein Kinase 1 (CK1)-dependent regulatory role of GRK2 on PERIOD1 localization. GRK2 activity was found to be necessary for VIP induced internalization of VPAC2 receptor. In the absence of GRK2, the expression of VPAC2 receptors within the SCN was found to be elevated. These findings identify GRK2 as a regulator of circadian clock speed and photic entrainment via a potential VPAC2-cAMP/PKA-CK1 signaling pathway

Advisor: Cheng, Hai-Ying Mary
The Fourth Estate in the Sixth Grade: Exploring "News" in the Lives of Canadian Pre-teens Through Creative Media Inquiry

This thesis explores how young people conceive of and engage with news in the current Canadian context. It suggests the need to transcend notions of youth as either "disengaged" or "disenfranchised" in relation to news by exploring questions such as "what counts as 'news'?" and "what does news engagement look like?" The study involved one class of Grade Six students (n=26) in the Greater Toronto Area in a mix of participatory, creative activities and interviews. The results illustrated participants' diverse ways of defining news or "news vocabularies" and the importance of friends and family members to the "news ecologies" they live in and interact with. Results also demonstrated the unique complexities pre-teens face in their relationships with news. Overall, this thesis calls for further critical thinking around how Canadian society understands young people as news users, and how young people utilize news to reproduce and transform the cultures they inhabit.

Keywords: creative methods
engagement
media education
news
pre-teens
youth
Advisor: Farmer, Diane
The PREVENT Study: Psychiatric Reporting to Ease Vehicular Events Near Traffic

This thesis analyses health services data for a group of 23,145 patients who were warned by their physicians regarding motor vehicle driving risks between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2011. A three-year baseline interval prior to the warning was compared to the one year subsequent to the warning for the rate of involvement in motor vehicle crashes and for psychiatric hospitalization. The relative risk of involvement in a serious crash in the subsequent compared to the baseline interval was 0.69 (95% confidence interval 0.59 to 0.81, P

Keywords: Mental Health
Motor Vehicle Crashes
Traffic Safety
Advisor: Redelmeier, A Donald
Theorizing Paradox and Agency: Muslim Women between Creativity and Constraint

This thesis analyzes critical conceptions of human agency, resistance and freedom as well as their implications for conceiving of human action and experience in complex, life affirming ways. I pursue this analysis by examining the contemporary debate surrounding the agential capacity and embodied practices of the "Muslim woman." I argue that contemporary feminist disagreements regarding how the "Muslim woman" exercise and embody their agency belittle the possibility of paradox from entering the discursive realm. Current debates eclipse the idea that there is an essential existential tension where human agency is understood as being entangled within the terrains of creativity and constraint. Addressing paradox in the face of the worldwide cultural preoccupation with the "Muslim woman" can help reconfigure our social imagining of the practice of agency and resistance, while revealing the living paradox that we are both bound and free.

Keywords: Agency
Islam
Muslim Women
Paradox
Resistance
Advisor: Titchkosky, Tanya
The Foraging Gene and Aggression in the Vinegar Fly, Drosophila melanogaster

Understanding the causes of phenotypic diversity and evolution is a central challenge for evolutionary biology. The genetic basis of behavioral diversity is currently poorly understood. I provide a selected review describing the extent of our currrent knowledge on the causes of variation in aggressive behaviors and perform a series of genetic experiments on two strains of the vinegar fly (Drosophila melanogaster) called forR "Rover" and forS "Sitter". I investigate how the foraging gene contributes to differences in aggression between pairs of forR and pairs of forS flies and show 1) that F1 heterozygotes derived from a cross between forR and forS strains display intermediate aggression levels when paired against each other 2) that a null mutation at the foraging locus diminishes aggression levels in paired forR and forS fights 3) that foraging alleles from the forR and forS strains have similar effects on aggression in F1 heterozygotes and 4) that increased expression of the foraging gene in aggression-associated cells fails to increase aggression levels in the forS strain.

Keywords: aggression
behavioral polymorphism
foraging gene
Advisor: Sokolowski, Marla
The Effects of Food Availability on Body Condition and Dispersal in the Backswimmer, Notonecta undulata

Dispersal is the movement of organisms across space that has the potential to cause gene flow. It therefore has important implications for ecological and evolutionary processes. Previous studies have demonstrated that dispersal is influenced by body condition; however, the results of these studies have been inconsistent with respect to the direction of this relationship. I asked whether predation risk interacts with condition to cause variable effects on dispersal. I tested this by imposing diet treatments on backswimmers (Notonecta undulata) in the laboratory. I measured the effects of food availability on condition. I then measured the effects of condition and predators on dispersal in a field experiment. I found that dispersal was a positive function of both body condition and predation risk. However, their effects were additive, not interactive.Therefore, the interaction between condition and predation risk is likely not contributing to the inconsistency in the results of condition-dependent dispersal studies.

Keywords: behaviour
dispersal
Notonecta
physiological condition
predation
Advisor: Rowe, Locke
Vitamin D and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in an Aboriginal Community

Both vitamin D deficiency and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are highly prevalent among the Aboriginal Canadian population. Emerging evidence suggests that vitamin D may be associated with T2DM, however current data are inconsistent. The objectives of this thesis were to investigate the associations of total, bioavailable and free 25(OH)D with insulin resistance (IR), β-cell dysfunction and the metabolic syndrome (MetS) in an Aboriginal community. The study included individuals from the Sandy Lake Health and Diabetes Project, a population-based cohort of individuals at high risk of T2DM. Lower serum total and bioavailable 25(OH)D were cross-sectionally associated with greater IR and poorer β-cell function. Also, lower serum total 25(OH)D was associated with a greater prevalence of the MetS and its components. Future carefully designed randomized controlled trials are required to determine whether vitamin D supplementation can reduce the burden of T2DM and MetS in the Aboriginal population.

Keywords: 25(OH)D
Aboriginal
beta cell dysfunction
insulin resistance
metabolic syndrome
type 2 diabetes
Advisor: Hanley, JG Anthony
Microbial Community Structure and Function in Coarse Woody Debris and Boreal Forest Soils after Intensified Biomass Harvests

Intensified biomass harvesting could prove to be negative for forest ecological health through the impacts this type of forest management could exert on microbial community structure and function in forest soils and in CWD pools. Microbial community functional characteristics as well as community structure (through T-RFLP and pyrotag sequencing of ssu rRNA) were assayed soils in a boreal jack pine forest exposed to a clearcut intensified harvesting gradient. Microbial communities within CWD of various decay stages were also assessed in order to determine habitat specificity of the decomposer communities within them. Soil microbial communities were altered by harvesting, but intensification did not cause further disturbance. Soils in harvested sites were different from fire sites also assayed, meaning that these disturbance types may have different impacts on microbial community structure and functioning. CWD communities within logs had different characteristics in different sites. Intensification could reduce site specific organisms important in decay initiation.

Keywords: Biomass Harvesting
Boreal
Coarse woody debris
Ecology
Forestry
Microbial ecology
Advisor: Caspersen, John
ECG Biometrics using Intuitive Bases and Support Vector Machines

In this thesis, a parts-based intuitive customized basis has been proposed using the non-negative sparse coding method for feature templates of the electrocardiogram(ECG) signal for biometrics. Combining with two classifier choices, two algorithms are proposed with complexity considerations for practical application scenarios using dependent classification.Using the proposed methods, a large scale fingertips ECG database was evaluated for biometrics potential, while observing the effect of user population size variation. The lowest known equal error rate (EER) for large-scale ECG biometrics was reported, which is 2.59% for 1012 users.Two unprecedented databases containing signals from a single arm were collected and analysed for biometrics application, following evidence of ECG pulses in the upper left arm. They reported encouraging EERs, based on the proposed methods. Best EERs obtained were 3.26% in the single-lead, and 6.97% for the multiple-lead signals, both for `sitting' posture.

Keywords: biometrics
electrocardiogram
intuitive
single arm
Advisor: Hatzinakos, Dimitrios
Theory versus Practice: Conceptions of the University and Contemporary Challenges

The tension between thought and practice is an ancient one in Western societies. Universities, as institutions of learning, have been at the centre of this tension since their inception. In the first chapter I trace the history of the university, noting shifts in their tendency to dedicate their activities to thought or to practice, describing the present situation as another shift toward practice. In the second chapter, I examine three conceptions of a university--liberal, scientific, and economic--which are current in the present debate over the university's purpose. In the third chapter, I describe the philosophical division of theory and practice, and how a tendency to divorce the two relates to the three conceptions of a university. Using the philosophy of John Dewey, I argue that a divorce of the two is unsupportable, and propose a Deweyan idea of the university that addresses the contemporary problems described earlier.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial
John Dewey
Liberal
Research
Universities
Advisor: Bredo, Eric
An Advanced Time Averaging Modelling Technique for Power Electronic Circuits

For stable and efficient performance of power converters, a good mathematical model is needed. This thesis presents a new modelling technique for DC/DC and DC/AC Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) converters. The new model is more accurate than the existing modelling techniques such as State Space Averaging (SSA) and Discrete Time Modelling. Unlike the SSA model, the new modelling technique, the Advanced Time Averaging Model (ATAM) includes the averaging dynamics of the converter's output. In addition to offering enhanced model accuracy, application of linearization techniques to the ATAM enables the use of conventional linear control design tools. A controller designapplication demonstrates that a controller designed based on the ATAM outperforms one designed using the ubiquitous SSA model. Unlike the SSA model, ATAM for DC/AC augments the system's dynamics with the dynamics needed for subcycle fundamental contribution (SFC) calculation. This allows for controller design that is based on an exact model.

Keywords: converter
exact
model
modeling
modelling
PWM
Advisor: Lehn, W Peter
Interferometric Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing

This thesis studies single-arm frequency-shifted interferometry (SA-FSI), a simple, compact, practical and versatile fiber optic sensing technique which has many advantages over conventional techniques. We further developed the theory of SA-FSI, and successfully demonstrate that SA-FSI can achieve long distance and high sensitivity sensing multiplexing.In this thesis work, we also build a model of the working principle of a distributed vibration sensing system developed by QPS Photronics Inc., and explore its sensing features. Three different types of reflective terminations (a QPS VibroFibre sensor, a flat end fiber, and a loop mirror) have been used in our experiments. Experimental results for these three reflective terminations are consistent with simulation results based on our model.

Keywords: Fiber optics
Fiber optic sensing
Multiplexing
Advisor: Qian, Li
High Performance Branch Predictors For Soft Processors

Branch prediction has been extensively studied in the context of application specific custom logic (ASIC) implementations. However, naively porting ASIC-based branch predictors to FPGAs may prove slow and/or resource-inefficient. Accordingly, this work studies the FPGA implementation of several commonly used branch predictors and does so in the context of simple pipelined processors, the most commonly used general purpose soft processor architecture. It assumes a processor implementation representative of Altera's Nios II-f and investigates the performance and resource cost of various branch predictors. The analysis confirms that existing designs are not efficient nor high-performing on reconfigurable logic. Accordingly, this work proposes FPGA-specific modifications that improve accuracy and resource cost. Finally, this work proposes a minimalistic branch predictor gRselect with the hardware budget on par with Nios II-f, as well as an overriding TAGE predictor O-TAGE-SC that delivers the highest performance among all the considered branch prediction schemes.

Keywords: Branch prediction
Computer architecture
FPGA
Soft processor
Advisor: Moshovos, Andreas
Ecohydrological Controls on Temperate Wetland Shrub Dynamics

In ecohydrology, soil moisture is the fundamental component to describe the underlying hydrologic regime at a site. Soil moisture, along with air temperature, vapour pressure deficit, and solar irradiance are significant controlling factors in plant growth and the physiological function of stomatal conductance (gs). To observe the ecohydrological controls on wetland shrub growth and physiology, an experimental plot within a post-agricultural field was established to manipulate soil moisture availability. Growth was measured as growing season increases in biomass under different levels of wetness, while gs was measured in-situ and correlated to soil moisture and site weather measurements using a logistic upper-quantile, non-linear regression approach. Two modelling techniques - a multiple linear regression model, and an adapted Jarvis-type phenomenological model - were used to illustrate growing season trends in gs. The results of this study describe plant tolerance to moisture as well as seasonal water demands, which is currently unknown for wetland shrub species.

Keywords: Ecohydrology
Modelling
Plant Morphology
Plant Physiology
Soil Moisture
Stomatal Conductance
Advisor: Duval, P Timothy
Application of Jetstream to a Suite of Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Problems

The impact of dimensionality on three aerodynamic optimization cases is studied to determine the effect of the number of geometric design variables. The cases investigated are: (1) drag minimization of an airfoil in transonic inviscid flow, (2) drag minimization through optimizing the twist distribution of a rectangular wing in subsonic inviscid flow, and (3) drag minimization through optimizing the twist distribution and section shapes of a wing in transonic turbulent flow. The optimization algorithm achieves significant drag reductions in all three cases. Valuable insight into the impact of dimensionality is gained, showing that increasing the number of design variables can provide greater flexibility. This flexibility can come at a cost to the convergence of the optimization algorithm, whether that be due to an inability to reduce the optimality significantly, the increased geometric flexibility challenging the mesh movement algorithm, or the unique aerodynamic shapes being unable to achieve converged flow solutions.

Keywords: Aerodynamic design
Aerodynamic shape optimization
Computational fluid dynamics
Geometry parameterization
Advisor: Zingg, W David
Mechanical Subsystem Development for the CanX-7 Nanosatellite, the NEMO-HD Microsatellite, and the XPOD Mass Dummy

The proliferation of small satellites has ushered in new challenges in satellite mechanical development. The pursuit for accessibility and low cost has resulted in industry-wide implementation of standardized form factors. Yet, advances in payload technology continue to drive demands for new bus designs with significant growth potential. The Space Flight Laboratory is currently developing satellites across a wide spectrum of mission scopes. Amongst these are a challenging technology demonstration nanosatellite with a 3U CubeSat form factor, and an Earth observation microsatellite to fly with a next-generation large-scale platform. Presented herein are the advances made in mechanical engineering for these two satellites in particular, as well as other ground support equipment. Significant work is done towards the detailed design and analysis of the bus structures. As well, contributions are made in support of the assembly, integration, and testing activities on both the satellite and subsystem levels.

Keywords: CanX-7
Development
Mechanical
Microsatellite
Nanosatellite
NEMO-HD
Advisor: Zee, E Robert
Building Capacity to Live and Work Together at an Ecovillage in Support of Sustainable Community: A Case Study

Ecovillages are important models of sustainable community and reflective of an alternative lived paradigm that values collectivism over individualism and cooperation over competition, in pursuit of bio-regionally-based, shared prosperity. In the face of growing threats to the predominant social and economic models of individualism, globalization, and unfettered growth (e.g. the decline of cheap oil), some experts have postulated that the greatest contribution that ecovillages can make is to help us understand of how to live ― smaller, slower and closer (Litfin 2013) - in other words, how to organize socially and economically in a post-carbon world. Through a qualitative case study of Whole Village ecovillage in Caledon, Ontario, this thesis explores the structures and processes through which ecovillagers build capacity for living and working together, and reveals the complex interplay between elements of community building, community dynamics and capacity building, which can either support or undermine the development of sustainable community.

Keywords: Adult learning
Capacity building
Cooperation
Ecovillage
Group dynamics
Sustainable community
Advisor: Sumner, Jennifer
Employer Perceptions of Co-curricular Engagement and the Co-curricular Record in the Hiring Process

Throughout media channels, there have been concerns about a perceived job skills gap, which in turn have led to questions about the value of a university education. Canadian universities and colleges have developed the Co-Curricular Record (CCR) as a means to incentivize and recognize student engagement in co-curricular opportunities, which research has shown to positively impact student development, retention, and success (Astin, 1993; Chickering, 1969; Tinto, 1987). This study surveyed employers to explore current hiring practices, including the current value of candidate materials and hiring factors, desirable soft skills, and the perceived value of the CCR. This thesis explores the potential use of the CCR in the hiring process, and argues that the CCR can act as a translation tool, by elevating the value of co-curricular experiences in developing and articulating soft skills. This thesis also discusses current challenges and provides a series of recommendations and next steps.

Keywords: co-curricular
employers
hiring
record
skills
Advisor: Seifert, A. Tricia
Nourishing Hunger and Embodied Resistance: Men's Narratives of Eating Disorders

This qualitative research study curates the voices of five male-identified subjects who experience or who have lived with anorexia nervosa. The purpose of this endeavour is to engage with a reading of anorexic embodiment that sidesteps the lenses of psychopathology and somatic abnormality in order to highlight the interpretations articulated by the men via their own vocabulary. Although this research does not discount anorexia's dangerous implications, it still asks us to consider what the willful practice of hunger does to our understandings of performed masculinity and "healthy" bodies. What emerges is a notion of anorexia as a form of alterity and resistance alongside normative, etiological interpretations of it as a disease/disorder. This complex rendering of subjectivation - both by and about the participants - may further inform researchers and practitioners in negotiating anorexia as a phenomenon of knotted intersections and meaningful manifestations as opposed to a strict medical problem that requires intervention-based solutions.

Keywords: anorexia
disability studies
eating disorders
embodiment
masculinity
qualitative study
Advisor: Titchkosky, Tanya