VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Using Machine Learning to Predict Children’s Reading Comprehension from Lexical and Syntactic Features Extracted from Spoken and Written Language

Advances in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) have introduced exciting prospects to educational research and practice. These technologies are poised to contribute to a deeper understanding of the linguistic and cognitive processes associated with successful reading comprehension, which is a critical aspect of children’s educational success. In this thesis, I used ML to investigate and compare associations between children’s reading comprehension and 260 linguistic features extracted through NLP from their speech and writing. Spoken and written language samples were gathered from 172 linguistically diverse children in Grades 4-6 using Talk2Me, Jr., an online language and literacy assessment platform. Lexical and syntactic linguistic features were extracted via a consolidated NLP pipeline. For the first research question, I compared eight supervised ML models predicting reading comprehension from the linguistic features, and then, using the best model, analyzed the 20 top predicting features. For the second question, I checked for differential functioning by examining interactions between top predictors and language-related demographics in predicting reading comprehension. For the third question, I used unsupervised ML to examine the latent factors constituting the linguistic features and explored how these factors predict reading comprehension differently from the ML models in the first research question. All three parts of the study were performed across four datasets: speech- and writing-elicited linguistic features, for both older/more skilled and younger/less skilled readers. The study contributes to the literature by concluding that suggest a substantial amount of variance in children’s reading comprehension can be predicted by productive grammar and vocabulary. A broad implication is that features of both spoken and written language features correlate with successful reading comprehension, but relationships differ whether individual features or multi-feature factors are used, and whether the data pertain to older/more skilled or younger/less skilled readers. There is evidence that some linguistic features may interact with language-related demographics in predicting reading comprehension, suggesting the need for further research. The study highlights how NLP and ML can enable nuanced examination of the language processes associated with reading comprehension and support innovations in language and literacy research and practice, but also that limitations exist and must be considered.

Keywords: Grammar
Machine learning
Natural language processing
Oral language
Reading comprehension
Vocabulary
Advisor: Jang, Eunice Eunhee
Model Re-framings: Asian Canadian Racial Pedagogies and Political Affects

This dissertation is a collection of criticism about race, cultural politics and affect in Canada. It specifically examines the lives and work of four Asian Canadian artists: Filipina director Nina Lee Aquino; Chinese filmmaker Richard Fung; Japanese writer Terry Watada; and Sri Lankan poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Drawing from the feminist sociologies of Himani Bannerji and Arlie Hochschild, it argues that the pedagogical examples these four artists provide are “model re-framings”—cultural work that challenges pre-existing ideas about social difference, affect and community formation as structured by state-led Canadian multiculturalism.

Keywords: Affect
Asian Canadian
Canada
Cultural Studies
Multiculturalism
Race
Advisor: Walcott, Rinaldo W
A Genesis of Jewishness: Collective Memory, Identity Work, and Ethnic Boundary Making among Jews in Toronto

Recent decades have seen exceptional growth in research investigating the social, political, and cultural lives of Jews in Canada, and for good reason. The Jewish experience in Canada is one that is often characterized as achieving the goals of multiculturalism, that is, retaining a rich and meaningful ethnic and cultural identity while integrating into the political and economic mainstream. Yet, absent from much of the work done on Jewish life in Canada is research into how Jews make sense of their Jewishness in a multicultural context. In this dissertation, I examine the group-making projects of Jews in Toronto by analyzing how collective memory informs what it means to be Jewish and how it is mobilized in the production and maintenance of ethnic boundaries. This dissertation is comprised of three interrelated studies that explore significant aspects of contemporary Jewish life in Canada, namely organizational participation, residential patterns, and the boundaries of Jewish otherness. Data come from qualitative interviews with Jews living in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area who approximate the diversity of Toronto’s Jewish population and identify with a range of Jewish denominations, including no affiliation at all, and express their commitment to Jewish principles and practices in various ways. In the first study, I consider overnight Jewish summer camps as an important site for the production of ethnic boundaries in the Jewish community and explore the boundary work of camp participants. In the second study, I examine Jewish residential patterns in Toronto and identify four collective memory schemas which serve as prominent scripts that shape the Jewish residential landscape in Toronto. In the third study, I attend directly to the issue of Jewish otherness and examine how a fragmented collective memory around the Holocaust and State of Israel delineate boundaries of inclusion and separateness.

Keywords: Collective Memory
Ethnic Boundaries
Jews
Toronto
Advisor: Fong, Eric
Towards Continuous Mobile Sensing for Remote COPD Monitoring

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a debilitating and life-threatening disease. In 2016 there were an estimated 251 million cases of COPD globally and the World Health Organization predicts that by 2030 COPD will be the third leading cause of death worldwide. Technologies that help people with COPD manage their condition could have significant impact on their lives. The work presented in this thesis outlines a system that uses wearable and mobile devices to passively sense and monitor patients with COPD. Mobile and wearable devices contain a myriad of sensors and have been used in applications ranging from earthquake detection to flight control for drones. To make these devices relevant for COPD monitoring, this thesis focuses on two signals that can be extracted from wearable sensors, respiratory rate and coughing. To detect respiratory rate, we propose WearBreathing -- our system for respiratory rate detection using the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors found in smartwatches. While respiratory rate from a smartwatch has been done in previous works, existing methods are only accurate in in-lab settings and while participants are stationary, making them unsuitable for remote monitoring. Therefore, WearBreathing is designed specifically to operate in the wild and we show that it is indeed more accurate in the wild than existing methods. Similar to respiratory rate, we found that existing cough detection solutions do not perform well in the wild. Using an in-the-wild dataset that we collect from COPD patients, we first characterize the sounds captured by a smartwatch microphone in a wild setting. Using our dataset, we build a state of the art cough detector, which we call CoughWatch that works on in-the-wild data and is more accurate than existing cough detectors. Finally, because mobile devices are resource constrained devices designed for intermittent use, battery life becomes a significant concern when attempting to continuously monitor sensor data. End users, such as patients with COPD, are unlikely to use a device that provides only a few hours of battery life per charge. Therefore, we propose Sidewinder, a developer friendly hardware architecture for energy efficient continuous sensing on mobile devices.

Keywords: COPD
Cough detection
Health monitoring
Machine learning
Respiratory rate
Wearable devices
Advisor: de Lara, Eyal
Rudzicz, Frank
Passé recomposé: Neoclassical Sonata Form in Interwar France

This dissertation offers a theory of neoclassical sonata form in interwar France. My theory is based on analysis of fifteen representative sonata-form chamber movements written during the 1920s and 30s by Ravel, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Milhaud, Honegger, Tailleferre, Auric, Durey, and Ibert. My method, largely inspired by William Caplin’s Classical Form, employs a form-functional approach to melodic material rather than tonal-harmonic material, allowing this theory to be applied to this repertoire, despite the various systems of post-tonal pitch organization. The analyses reveal that the treatment of melodic elements can be used to express beginning, middle, or ending functions. These functions combine to create more complex structures that can include framing units as well as structures nested inside larger structures. The avoidance of some melodic elements can also be used to create music that does not clearly express any function, music that seems to exist outside of musical time. In Chapter One, I situate my research by providing the historical and philosophical backdrop for the repertoire and then by placing my methodology within the Formenlehre tradition. Notions of time play a central role in this chapter, and indeed throughout the dissertation. In Chapters Two and Three, I define the elements of this music that are used to express beginning, middle and ending functions. These formal functions are considered in combination with grouping structure in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five, I detail the structural elements of neoclassical sonata form, and in Chapter Six I demonstrate these structural elements using four full-movement neoclassical sonata forms. The Epilogue harks back to the first chapter, with a greater emphasis on the notion of time. At the heart of neoclassicism is the exploration of temporality: a desire to situate oneself historically, and a preoccupation with the experience of time. Form becomes the arena where historical and musical time are explored. In this repertoire, once the sonata-structure has been suggested, the form is reinvented, subverted or even abandoned. A new type of sonata form, a neoclassical sonata form, becomes the vehicle for expressing the experience of time.

Keywords: France
Milhaud
neoclassic
Poulenc
Ravel
sonata form
Advisor: Vande Moortele, Steven
Biofeedback-enhanced Interactive Computer Play to Improve Hand Function in Youth with Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common childhood physical disability. Persons with CP frequently have impaired hand function affecting motor activities, usually requiring frequent and intense rehabilitation practices. Importantly, biofeedback, where a person receives information about their body state can help improve function. Biofeedback can readily be delivered through interactive computer play (ICP) technologies to motivate highly repetitive practice at home. In this thesis an evidence-based biofeedback strategy is identified by systematic review and embedded into a novel ICP technology via co-creation with individuals with CP and clinicians. Feasibility of the resulting technology is evaluated by 19 young people with CP during a 1-month home-based intervention. The systematic review showed positive but very low-quality evidence due to the number of non-controlled studies and the heterogeneity of outcome measures. Interventions frequently implemented characteristics of biofeedback incongruent with motor learning principles expected to facilitate retention. Interventions would be improved by through self-regulation, varied timing and presentation, and connecting ICP and movement goals. The biofeedback implementation proved efficient (participants reduced compensatory arm movements by 10.2±4.0%), effective (participants made higher quality gestures over time) and engaging (participants reviewed biofeedback 65.4±22.4% of the time). Home-based calibration showed good agreement with video-verified true labels (0.86±0.11, 95%CI=0.93-0.97). Across participants, classifier performance (F1-score) was 0.90±0.05 (95%CI=0.87-0.92) and, for the secondary gesture, 0.82±0.09 (95%CI=0.77-0.86). Features sensitive to signs of CP (flexor tone, extensor weakness, impaired movement isolation) were significant contributors to classification. Evaluation of the a priori feasibility success criteria proved the protocol feasible with minor modifications. Recruitment (31%) and completion (84%) rates were good. 74% of participants reached self-identified practice goals and 83% of technical issues were resolved immediately. Moderate effects were observed in Body Function measures (active wrist extension: SMD=1.82, 95%CI=0.85–2.78; grip strength: SMD=0.63, 95%CI=0.65–1.91) and small-moderate effects in Activities and Participation measures (Assisting Hand Assessment: Hedge’s g=0.29, 95%CI=-0.39–0.97, Canadian Occupational Performance Measure: r=0.60, 95%CI=0.13–0.82. A definitive RCT is warranted following improvements in technical robustness and increased clinician involvement in the protocol. This thesis provides strategies and practical tools to enhance the efficacy of ICP technologies to support home-based manual therapy.

Keywords: biofeedback
cerebral palsy
gesture control
motor control
rehabilitation
user-centered design
Advisor: Biddiss, Elaine
Vigneron, Vincent
Distribution and Rates of Quaternary Deformation within the Pampean Flat Slab Segment of the Central Andes of Argentina from 30-32°S

The Pampean Flat Slab is characterized by a wide zone of active upper-plate deformation that involves both thin- and thick-skinned deformation. It provides a rare opportunity to explore the possible control of slab geometry, deformation style, and tectonic evolution of structures on upper-plate strain distribution; observe the distribution and relative proportions of shortening accommodated by Quaternary plate-boundary related and intraplate contractional deformation; compare the potential of these faults for generating devastating (≥ Mw 7) earthquakes; and apply geomorphic indices to analyze regional strain distribution patterns. This thesis provides valuable constraints on regional strain distribution for the Pampean Flat Slab since at least the Pleistocene, from both absolute and relative geomorphic slip rates. A shortening rate of ~0.4 mm/yr since Mid-Pleistocene was measured on the La Rinconada Fault Zone (LRFZ), which together with similarly low published slip rates on other regional faults is explained through nearly uniformly distributed strain in the predominantly thin-skinned Precordillera region. The LRFZ’s slip rate is associated with earthquake magnitudes of MW 6.6–7.2. In contrast, the much lower average shortening rate of ~0.2 mm/yr since the Mid-Pleistocene on the thick-skinned Las Chacras Fault Zone (LCFZ), located to the east of the LRFZ, suggests a possible W-E trend of decreasing shortening rates in the Pampean flat slab. Earthquake magnitudes of MW 6.7–7.1 estimated on the LCFZ shows that intraplate faults are equally capable of causing potentially devastating earthquakes. Relative slip rates from geomorphic indices exhibit a trend of W-E decreasing slip rates similar to that observed both in geodetic and neotectonic studies, indicating a possibly constant stress-field since at least the Pleistocene. This spatial correspondence in lowering of slip rates with the resumption of a more steeply subducting Nazca plate points to the first documented change in slip rates as a function of slab dip in the Pampean Flat Slab. Relative slip rates also pointed to sites requiring further detailed studies. Knowledge of the controls on active upper plate deformation in the Pampean Flat Slab segment therefore provides additional information for better understanding of the behavior and evolution of present-day and ancient flat slab settings worldwide.

Keywords: Andes
Earthquakes
Geomorphic Indices
Pampean flat slab
Slip Rates
Tectonic Geomorphology
Advisor: Schoenbohm, Lindsay
Discovering Novel Neoblast Phenotypes in the Stem Cell Hierarchy of the Freshwater Planarian Schmidtea mediterranea

The freshwater planarian is one of nature’s best regenerators. In just 7 days, a tiny planarian body fragment can fully regenerate and correctly pattern all missing tissues to create a functional, proportional worm. Impressively, the asexually reproducing strain of Schmidtea mediterranea has been propagated in laboratories for decades by repeated cycles of amputation and regeneration, highlighting the essentially immortal nature of these flatworms. This regenerative ability is supported by an abundant population of adult stem cells, called neoblasts, present throughout the planarian body. For my thesis work, I have been interested in discovering new neoblast heterogeneity and understanding how different neoblast populations contribute to various aspects of planarian regeneration. To understand how neoblasts specify neural tissue and drive brain regeneration, I used single cell RNA-sequencing of neoblasts isolated from the planarian head to identify neural-committed progenitors. By using in silico pseudotime analyses, I identified several regulators of neural fate specification and discovered functional requirements for the transcription factors ski-1 and alx-3 in dorsal-lateral and whole brain regeneration, respectively. Next, to gain insight into the robust regulatory mechanisms controlling neoblasts, I hypothesized that previously described pluripotent neoblasts are reserved for regeneration. I used DNA label-retention assays to reveal that a subset of neoblasts remains quiescent for a period of several weeks during homeostasis. Further, flow cytometry analysis allowed me to identify a population of neoblasts with relatively low RNA content and several other characteristics of quiescent stem cells. These cells enter the cell cycle specifically during regeneration, and this activation is dependent on TOR signaling, similar to the case in vertebrates. Finally, in assaying a role for p53 in G0 neoblast maintenance, I uncovered instead a putative function for p53 in preventing early progeny cells from reverting to a neoblast phenotype. Overall, my work has identified new neoblast heterogeneity and has contributed to our understanding of the cell types and factors involved in planarian regeneration.

Keywords: neurogenesis
quiescence
regeneration
stem cells
Advisor: Pearson, Bret J
Using Multiple Theoretical Frameworks to Develop a Model for a Multi-System Intervention with Domestic Offenders at High Risk to Re-offend

Through undertaking a process evaluation of the High Risk Safety project, a multi-site, multi-system intervention program for men accused of domestic violence offenses, this dissertation explored the contributions of four distinct bodies of literature (the Risk-Needs, Responsivity model, Common Factors model, Procedural Justice, and Social Bonds) toward identifying promising intervention practices in immediate intervention for domestic offenders at high risk to reoffend. Through the combination of a deductive qualitative analysis, a Six Themes model was developed to understand the intervention practices undertaken by the program to attempt to reduce men’s reoffending. The model highlighted the themes of needs and responsivity (from the Risk-Needs-Responsivity model), treating clients with dignity and caring and identifying and mitigating unfair practices (from the procedural justice literature), increasing social bonds for the accused (from the social bonds literature) and fostering interagency connections (atheoretical) as promising intervention practices in the High Risk Safety project. These findings also allowed for the development of an associated logic model for the project. Following the findings in the process evaluation, an exploratory inductive qualitative analysis was conducted on data related to the responsivity principle. Findings indicated that responsivity could be operationalized into three program-level factors: Persistence in Engaging Men, Creating an Environment Conducive to Learning, and Compassion and Understanding for Clients’ Involvement in the Criminal Justice System. Implications for the inclusion of the program-level factors toward developing a means of operationalizing responsivity within multi-system intervention programs are discussed. Overall findings from the dissertation emphasize the importance of treating clients with respect and caring in the process of engaging them in helpful program activities, the conceptual similarity between therapeutic alliance and the above, as well as the unique contribution of the Risk-Needs-Responsivity model for working with criminal justice populations. Finally, the dissertation’s results indicate that intervention practices identified as related to multiple extant bodies of literature can be utilized to develop a means by which responsivity can be operationalized in multi-systemic domestic violence interventions.

Keywords: Domestic
High
Intervention
Risk
Violence
Advisor: Scott, Katreena L
The Influence of Action-based Attention on Audiovisual Integration

We inhabit a world that offers a multitude of sensory cues that need to be disambiguated in order to perceive and interact with our surrounding environment. However, it is not clear how goal-directed actions reciprocally influence multisensory integration processes. The current dissertation examined how directing attention through visual gaze and to-be-reached locations influenced multisensory perception of visual and auditory cues. Participants performed pointing movements towards one of three potential targets, while looking above or beside that target. At the onset of the movement, multisensory stimuli (i.e., one or two flashes combined with one or two beeps) could be presented at the target of the reaching action, or in one of the non-target locations. Audiovisual perception was quantified by examining the influence of the auditory beeps on the number of perceived flashes (i.e., audio-visual illusion). It was hypothesized that looking at and/ or reaching to a target would modulate audiovisual perception. The results revealed audiovisual perception (specifically the fusion illusion, though not the fission illusion) was enhanced at the target relative to the non-target locations. Audiovisual integration associated with the fusion illusion was further reduced with increasing eccentricity of non-target locations. As well, when decoupling gaze locations from the target locations, audiovisual perception was additively driven by gaze and reaching locations. Moreover, this modulation of audiovisual perception at target vs. non-target locations was only observed in the presence, but not the absence, of a goal-directed movement. Overall, the results indicated that deploying attention by looking and reaching to a target location may enhance audiovisual perception at that location, emphasizing the critical importance of voluntary movements to the perception of our surrounding environment. The data also suggest that the fusion and fission illusions may arise from distinct integration mechanisms.

Keywords: attention
audiovisual
multisensory integration
upper-limb
Advisor: Tremblay, Luc