VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Potential of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) as Nitrosamine Precursors during Drinking Water Disinfection

N-nitrosamines are considered as a group of emerging disinfection byproducts (DBPs) with potential carcinogenicity at ng/L level. The presence of nitrosamines in drinking water is most commonly associated with chloramination of amine-based precursors. This research investigates the potential of amine-based pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) as nitrosamine precursors under practical drinking water disinfection conditions, as well as some critical factors that may affect the nitrosamine formation via PPCPs. All of the twenty selected PPCPs were able to form the corresponding nitrosamines upon chloramine disinfection, and eight of them rendered molar conversions higher than 1 % under practical disinfection conditions. Ranitidine had the highest N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) molar conversion among the tested PPCPs. A three-parameter kinetic model was proposed to describe and predict the NDMA formation from pharmaceuticals during chloramination in various water matrices. The model accurately reflected all three significant characteristics of the NDMA formation curve, including an initial lag phase, followed by a fast increase in NDMA formation, and eventually reaching a plateau. In lab-grade water, the NDMA formation from pharmaceuticals was affected by the Cl2:NH4-N mass ratio, pH, and prechlorination. The NDMA formation increased with the Cl2:NH4-N mass ratio, indicating an enhancement effect of dichloramine. The pH affected both the ultimate NDMA conversion and the reaction rate. The reaction rate is mainly determined by the level of non-protonated amine species, and it increased consistently with increasing pH. The ultimate NDMA conversion is limited by the level of dichloramine, and the maximum NDMA formation occurred in the pH range of 7 to 8. The application of prechlorination may increase or reduce the NDMA conversion, depending on the chlorine reactivity towards the amine group and its surrounding structures. Water matrix components can slow down the initial NDMA formation from selected pharmaceuticals most likely due to the formation of natural organic matter (NOM)-pharmaceutical complexes, while they had less impact on the ultimate NDMA molar conversion. The application of prechlorination may enhance the initial reaction by destroying the NOM-pharmaceutical complexes, but prolonged prechlorination may further inhibit the NDMA formation due to the binding between pharmaceuticals and NOM breakdown products.

Keywords: Drinking Water Disinfection
Disinfection By-Products
Water Treatment
Environmental Engineering
Advisor: Andrews, Susan
Exploring Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy in Initial Teacher Education: A Critical Practitioner Reseach Study

This thesis is a critical practitioner research study of an innovative teacher education initiative: the Diverse Schools (DS) Initiative. The DS Initiative fuses two pedagogical approaches - culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching - into an approach they call Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy (CRRP). The DS Initiative uses CRRP as a theoretical framework for equity-based work in a university-school based partnership. This research considers the impact of the DS Initiative on teacher candidates’ and associate teachers’ practicum experiences. The twenty research participants (teacher candidates, associate teachers and administrators) interviewed reveal a spectrum of understanding of the DS Initiative, CRRP, and their overall implications for teacher education programs that extend beyond the DS Initiative. The research found that participants’ identities and practicum contexts greatly shaped their understandings and uses of CRRP. Many participants were unaware that the purpose of the DS Initiative was to create a shared theoretical understanding of CRRP among associate teachers and teacher candidates. However, most participants recognized the merits of an equity-focused university-school partnership for practicum, but believed it could be more effective if they were involved in developing the content of the DS Initiative. The participants’ narratives suggest that there is great value in creating a space to build on existing teacher candidate/associate teacher identities in equity-based initiatives. Participants emphasize the importance of delivering a university-school partnership program that is fluid and open to changing content, direction and goals to reflect the diversity of the participants. This study demonstrates the value and effectiveness of engaging participants in critical inquiry reflection to provide insight into content, goals, and clarity on teacher education initiatives. This research will be of interest to university faculty, administrators, and school staff wishing to examine practicum concerns in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs and seeking to address them using a collaborative university-school partnership model. Finally, this study contributes to the greater scholarly practitioner research conversations about equity and critical pedagogy, teacher identity, and the challenges stakeholders in teacher education need to note, reflect upon, and respond to in order to address the needs of our increasingly diverse students.

Keywords: Teacher Education
Urban Studies
Equity Studies
Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy
Advisor: Goldstein, Tara
Understanding how the Implementation of the Specialist High Skills Majors Programs in Ontario Schools Contributes to Student Outcomes

New programming, such as the Specialist High Skills Major has been implemented in Ontario as part of the Student Success Learning to 18 Strategy to increase secondary graduation rates. Yet it has been unclear if this type of programming is actually improving student outcomes. As a result, this study asks: How does the implementation of the Specialist High Skills Majors (SHSM) contribute to student outcomes? Sub-research questions inquire about the consistency of the SHSM across Ontario, which students the SHSM has the greatest impact on academic success and if participation in the SHSM increases students’ academic success as defined by credit accumulation, marks, and graduation. The conceptual framework in this study is an amended version of Fullan’s (2007) critical factors that affect policy implementation. The study’s methods first included reviewing Ontario School Information System data on student achievement in the SHSM program. Interviews with thirty-four people also took place in eight schools from a mix of four geographically diverse Catholic and public school districts in Ontario that had high student enrollment in the SHSM program. While there were many findings within this study, four were key. The first finding was that there was great consistency to some aspects of implementing the SHSM program province-wide when there was top-down direction, while there was also great variability in other areas where there was increased flexibility. The second key finding centers around the role of leadership, including effective styles of leadership, consistency in leadership, and the importance of delegating leadership responsibility. The third finding highlights the importance of resources in implementing change. The last finding discusses the type of SHSM student that is most successful in the SHSM program and how program implementation directly affects student success.

Keywords: secondary schools
Specialist High Skills Majors program
program implementation
student outcomes
Advisor: Levin, Ben
Reliable Approximate Solution of Systems of Delay Volterra Integro-differential Equations

Ordinary and partial differential equations are often derived as a first approximation to model a real-world situation, where the state of the system depends not only on the present time, but also on the history of the system. In this situation, a higher level of realism can be achieved by incorporating distributed delays in the mathematical models described by differential equations which results in delay Volterra integro-differential equations (denoted DVIDEs). Although DVIDEs serve as indispensable tools for modelling real systems, we still lack efficient and reliable software to approximate the solution of systems of DVIDEs. This thesis is concerned with designing, analyzing and implementing an efficient method to approximate the solution of a general system of neutral Volterra integro-differential equations with time-dependent delay arguments using a continuous Runge-Kutta (CRK) method. We introduce an adaptive stepsize selection strategy resulting in an approximate solution whose associated defect (residual) satisfies certain properties that allow us to monitor the global error reliably and efficiently. We prove the classic and optimal convergence of the numerical approximation to the exact solution. In addition, a companion system of equations is introduced in order to estimate the mathematical conditioning of the problem. A side effect of introducing this companion system is that it provides an effective estimate of the global error of the approximate solution, at a modest increase in cost. We have implemented our approach as an experimental Fortran 90 code capable of handling various kinds of DVIDEs with non-vanishing, vanishing, and infinite delay arguments.

Keywords: Delay Integro-Differential Equations
Error Control
Numerical Software
Continuous Approximate Solutions
Advisor: Enright, Wayne
Lake Benthic Algal Production and Extracellular Material

Littoral zone primary production is under-studied relative to the pelagic zone, despite recent work indicating its importance to the lake as a whole. Benthic extracellular material, shown to be important for food web dynamics and stabilization of the surrounding ecosystem in the marine intertidal, is even less frequently studied in lakes. I examined the environmental and community level drivers of benthic primary production, and found production to increase over the summer and to decrease with disturbance. I also found that maximum photosynthesis and efficiency under sub-saturating light both increased with depth, contrary to the existing, laboratory-derived paradigm of a trade-off between the two. I also examined how benthic primary production and environmental factors were correlated with the amount of extracellular material. I found that loosely bound colloidal extracellular material decreased with in situ photosynthesis and was affected by algal community composition, whereas tightly bound capsular extracellular material was affected only by date, indicating that capsular material is refractory in lakes just as it is in marine systems. Contrary to what is seen in marine systems, however, there were no direct effects of the environmental factors, possibly the result of physical differences between these systems. I also performed the first cross-ecosystem comparison of extracellular material. Despite relatively few studies from lakes and streams, and methods which have not been standardized, I found that lakes were similar to marine intertidal zones both in their median amounts of extracellular material and their relationships between extracellular material and chlorophyll a. This relationship appeared to be quite different in streams, with very low amounts of extracellular material found at sites with either high or low chlorophyll a concentrations. While the above studies will improve future estimates of lake carbon budgets and whole-lake production, my development of a permutation test for path analysis, and a novel application of the Bayesian principal components analysis, will assist all ecological studies that are often restricted in their sample sizes or compromised by missing data.

Keywords: benthic algae
extracellular material
environment
cross ecosystem comparison
Advisor: Zimmerman, Ann
Jackson, Donald Andrew
Knowledge, Organization and the Division Of Labour: Evaluating the Knowledge Class in Canada

This dissertation explores the claim that, in advanced capitalist countries like Canada, a powerful knowledge class is assuming increasing dominance within the social relations of production. Attached to such theories are claims of trends toward post-bureaucratic organizations, rising job complexity and autonomy, and increased power within operational and strategic decision-making processes. In my study I focus on Canadian “specialist” employees (professionals and semi-professionals) and managers. I present aggregated and disaggregated data from two Canadian surveys conducted in 1983 and 2004 and complement this with original interviews with information technology (IT) workers and engineers. I find a seeming paradox within the labour process of specialists and managers, with task-level autonomy declining even as job complexity and involvement in organizational decisions are rising. I provide evidence that imperatives for profit/cost effectiveness are leading to efforts to make specialist and managerial labour and knowledge more transparent, integrated, and manageable, but this is not the same as degradation or proletarianization. In contrast to my expectation, I find boundaries in the division of labour are durable despite this “socialization” of many labour processes. I argue that a specialist-and-managerial class (SMC) exists in Canada, and will continue to exist, though it is subordinate to and exploited by the capitalist elite even as it excludes and exploits the working class through occupational closure and credential barriers. The SMC is thus contradictory, internally heterogeneous and fraying at its borders, but simultaneously resilient. The resiliency comes via possession of specific strategic knowledge and consequent ability to secure rents and/or control specific organization assets via delegated authority. Resiliency is also structural, with management in many organizations retaining an interest in separating planning and design (“conception”), on the one hand, from process and completion (“execution”), on the other, in order to maximize efficiency and productivity through more centralized control.

Keywords: class
occupation
postindustrial
labour process
skill
organization
Marx
Weber
closure
knowledge
Advisor: Livingstone, David W.
Making Sense of the First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework

Abstract In 2007 the Ministry of Education in Ontario identified Aboriginal education as one of its key priorities with the release of the First Nation, Métis and Inuit Education Policy Framework (FNMI). Improving educational outcomes and closing the achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students is the focus of this policy. This study examines the policy implementation process in one school board in Ontario by focusing on how teachers in two elementary schools made sense of the policy expectations and how this sense-making impacted their professional practice. In order to examine how implementation was understood and acted upon by these teachers, the sense-making/co-construction model developed by Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan (2002) provides the starting point for analysis. This study seeks to make visible the sense-making cues that teachers used to notice and select new information and to examine how these cues impacted teacher enactment of the FNMI policy. Sense-making theory supports the examination of change at the micro level of local policy actors; while the co-construction model with its meditational system of individual agency, organizational structure/culture, and environmental messaging contextualizes the individual sense-making of teachers within a larger social environment. The research methodology included teacher interviews designed to collect evidence of teacher sense-making during the policy implementation process, and school visits to observe evidence of school culture and structure. Interview responses of 15 elementary teachers and 2 principals were analyzed for sense-making cues. The findings revealed clusters of sense-making cues connected to three main sense-making frameworks or discourses. These discourses included the teacher as professional, equity and inclusion, and leadership and change. These findings support previous research on sense-making and policy implementation and contribute further insight into the micro processes of policy implementation, which could be leveraged to improve policy implementation. Key Words: policy implementation, teacher sense-making, leadership, co-construction model

Keywords: policy implementation
co-construction
teacher sense-making
leadership
Advisor: Flessa, Joseph
Circuit and System Design for mm-wave Radar and Radio Applications

Recent advancements in silicon technology have paved the way for the development of integrated transceivers operating well inside the mm-wave frequency range (30 - 300 GHz). This band offers opportunities for new applications such as remote sensing, short range radar, active imaging and multi-Gb/s radios. This thesis presents new ideas at the circuit and system level for a variety of such applications, up to 145 GHz and in both state-of-the-art nanoscale CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS technologies. After reviewing the theory of operation behind linear and power amplifiers, a purely digital, scalable solution for power amplification that takes advantage of the significant ft/fmax improvement in pFETs as a result of strain engineering in nanoscale CMOS is presented. The proposed Class-D power amplifier, features a stacked, cascode CMOS inverter output stage, which facilitates high voltage operation while employing only thin-oxide devices in a 45 nm SOI CMOS process. Next, a single-chip, 70-80 GHz wireless transceiver for last-mile point-to-point links is described. The transceiver was fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology and can operate at data rates in excess of 18 Gbps. The high bitrate is accomplished by taking advantage of the ample bandwidth available at the W-band frequency range, as well as by employing a direct QPSK modulator, which eliminates the need for separate upconversion and power amplification. Lastly, the system and circuit level implementation of a mm-wave precision distance and velocity sensor at 122 and 145 GHz is presented. Both systems feature a heterodyne architecture to mitigate the receiver 1/f noise, as well as self-test and calibration capabilities along with simple packaging techniques to reduce the overall system cost.

Keywords: mm-wave
radar
radio
CMOS
SiGe
power amplifier
packaging
antenna
system
noise figure
receiver
transitter
transceiver
output power
stacked cascode
high frequency
multi-Gb/s
last mile
Advisor: Voinigescu, Sorin
Frameworks for Personalized Privacy and Privacy Auditing

As individuals are increasingly benefiting from the use of online services, there are growing concerns about the treatment of personal information. Society’s ongoing response to these concerns often gives rise to privacy policies expressed in legislation and regulation. These policies are written in natural language (or legalese) as privacy agreements that users must agree to, or presented as a set of privacy settings and options that users must opt in or out of in order to receive the service they want. But comprehensibility of privacy policies and settings is becoming increasingly challenging as agreements become longer and there are many privacy options to choose from. Additionally, organizations face the challenge of assuring compliance with policies that govern collecting, using, and sharing of personal data. This thesis proposes frameworks for personalized privacy and privacy auditing to address these two problems. In this thesis, we focus our investigation on the comprehensibility issues of personalized privacy using the concrete application domain of personal health data as recorded in systems known as personal health records (PHR). We develop the Privacy Goals and Settings Mediator (PGSM) model, which is based on i* multi-agent modelling techniques, as a way to help users comprehend privacy settings when employing multiple services over a web platform. Additionally, the PGSM model helps privacy experts contribute their privacy knowledge to the users’ privacy decision-making task. To address the privacy auditing problem, we propose two light-weight ontologies, L2TAP and SCIP, that are designed for deployment as Linked Data, an emerging standard for representing and publishing web data. L2TAP (Linked Data Log to Transparency, Accountability and Privacy) provides flexible and extensible provenance-enabled logging of privacy events. SCIP (Simple Contextual Integrity Privacy) provides a simple target for mapping the key concepts of Contextual Integrity and enables SPARQL query-based solutions for two important privacy processes: compliance checking and obligation derivation. This thesis validates the premise of PHR users’ privacy concerns, attitudes and behaviour through an empirical study. The usefulness of the PGSM model for privacy experts is evaluated through interviews with experts. Finally, the scalability and practical benefits of L2TAP+SCIP for log-based privacy auditing are validated experimentally.

Keywords: Privacy
Ontology
Audit log
Linked Data
Personal Health Record
Personal Web
Compliance queries
Advisor: Consens, Mariano P.
Topaloglou, Theodoros
Modeling Three-dimensional Flow and Heat Transfer in Variable Surface Tension Two-phase Flows

In the present study a parallel three dimensional Volume of Fluid (VOF) method is developed to simulate Marangoni force in immiscible fluids with variable surface tension. Conservation equations are solved based on cell-averaged one-field volume tracking scheme. Evaluating the convective term in the energy equation along the boundary between the fluids highly depends on the position and orientation of the interface; hence, using average cell values simply ignores the interface shape and leads to computational uncertainty. As a remedy to this issue, the original idea behind the volume tracking method is used not only to advect mass and momentum but also energy across cells. To verify the proposed algorithm, results are compared against theoretically predicted thermocapillary migration velocity of a droplet at the limit of zero Marangoni number. However, at relatively high Marangoni numbers, thermal boundary layers are very thin and challenging to resolve. To demonstrate the capabilities of the heat transfer module, simulations of a Fluorinert droplet moving in silicon oil under applied temperature gradient in microgravity are compared against the available experimental results and the migration velocity of the droplet are reported.

Keywords: Two-Phase Flows
Variable Surface Tension
Volume of Fluid
Advisor: Mostaghimi, Javad
Moreau, Christian