VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Distributed Optimization of Sustainable Power Dispatch and Flexible Consumer Loads for Resilient Power Grid Operations

Today's electric grid is rapidly evolving to provision for heterogeneous system components (e.g. intermittent generation, electric vehicles, storage devices, etc.) while catering to diverse consumer power demand patterns. In order to accommodate this changing landscape, the widespread integration of cyber communication with physical components can be witnessed in all tenets of the modern power grid. This ubiquitous connectivity provides an elevated level of awareness and decision-making ability to system operators. Moreover, devices that were typically passive in the traditional grid are now `smarter' as these can respond to remote signals, learn about local conditions and even make their own actuation decisions if necessary. These advantages can be leveraged to reap unprecedented long-term benefits that include sustainable, efficient and economical power grid operations. Furthermore, challenges introduced by emerging trends in the grid such as high penetration of distributed energy sources, rising power demands, deregulations and cyber-security concerns due to vulnerabilities in standard communication protocols can be overcome by tapping onto the active nature of modern power grid components. In this thesis, distributed constructs in optimization and game theory are utilized to design the seamless real-time integration of a large number of heterogeneous power components such as distributed energy sources with highly fluctuating generation capacities and flexible power consumers with varying demand patterns to achieve optimal operations across multiple levels of hierarchy in the power grid. Specifically, advanced data acquisition, cloud analytics (such as prediction), control and storage systems are leveraged to promote sustainable and economical grid operations while ensuring that physical network, generation and consumer comfort requirements are met. Moreover, privacy and security considerations are incorporated into the core of the proposed designs and these serve to improve the resiliency of the future smart grid. It is demonstrated both theoretically and practically that the techniques proposed in this thesis are highly scalable and robust with superior convergence characteristics. These distributed and decentralized algorithms allow individual actuating nodes to execute self-healing and adaptive actions when exposed to changes in the grid so that the optimal operating state in the grid is maintained consistently.

Keywords: Distributed Optimization
Game theory
Sustainability
Advisor: Kundur, Deepa
Qualified, Yet Denied: Life Experiences of Immigrant Medical Doctors After Denial of Medical Recertification in Ontario

Canada’s non-discriminatory immigration policy, advanced medical research, ongoing need for doctors, and promises of transitioning immigrant professionals to professional jobs, attract many doctors from developing and non-English-speaking countries. Medical doctors arrive in Canada in anticipation of a better life and to continue their medical careers. However, the majority end up in underemployed low-wage jobs outside of medicine. They risk termination of their lifelong professional identity and status after arrival in Canada. Despite passing the Canadian medical exams and meeting the requirements for re-licensure, immigrant medical doctors (IMDs) face systemic denial of access to the profession. Foreign credentials, culture, and language are identified as ongoing barriers that set IMDs apart. This study explores the professional, personal, and social impacts on the lives of IMDs who are qualified for medical recertification in Ontario, yet denied opportunities for a license to practice medicine. I briefly ¬trace the history of the medical profession for a better understanding of how the profession was established, organized and regulated. I seek to understand how IMDs of visible minority backgrounds are viewed within the existing structure of the profession. Using a qualitative research methodology, I interviewed 15 IMDs from countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America, and the West Indies. Participants’ motivation for continuing to seek opportunities for medical recertification, after being denied, struggles and frustrations they face as desperate need for doctors continue to exist, are revealed in this study. I make recommendations for re-imagining and adapting IMDs’ foreign skills as a valuable contribution to the patient-care delivery in Ontario’s diverse population. I provide suggestions for change to resolve the prevailing IMD problem and including more IMDs in residency training and the medical workforce. Keywords: Immigrant doctors, IMDs/IMGs, Immigration, History of medicine, Medical recertification, CanMEDS, Anti-colonialism, Motivation, Governance, Social justice.

Keywords: CanMEDS
History of Medicine
Immigrant Doctors
Immigration
Medical Recertification
Sociology/Social Justice
Advisor: Olson, Paul
Simultaneous EEG-fMRI Study of Audiovisual Sensory Processing

Simultaneous acquisition of Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) enables studying of brain function with high spatial resolution of fMRI and high temporal resolution of EEG. The complementary characteristics of the two modalities have made simultaneous EEG-fMRI into a rapidly growing neuroimaging technique with a wide range of cognitive and clinical applications. This thesis uses simultaneous EEG-fMRI to investigate the relationship between electrophysiological activity of the brain and the corresponding hemodynamic response during sensory processing of auditory and visual stimuli. Despite major improvements during the short history of EEG-fMRI, several technical and methodological challenges still remain. The main challenge in EEG-fMRI is the compromised EEG data quality. EEG data recorded inside the MR scanner is contaminated by artifacts caused by the MR magnetic fields. This thesis provides a comparative evaluation of the existing EEG artifact removal methods and proposes new analysis approaches to improve the EEG data quality. Another open question in the field of EEG-fMRI is the optimal choice of measures and techniques for data integration. This thesis proposes a new multivariate approach for EEG-fMRI data integration, which enables taking advantage of the full spectrum of the data available in two modalities. The proposed multivariate technique as well as conventional univariate methods are then used to explore the relationship between various aspects of the brainâ s electrophysiological activity (i.e. the transient evoked activity, oscillatory evoked activity and spontaneous oscillatory activity) and the associated hemodynamic response in auditory and visual cortices.

Keywords: auditory
multivariate
sensory
Simulteneous EEG-fMRI
visual
Advisor: Strother, Stephen
The Development of Outcome Measures and Identification of Effective Behavioral Modification Strategies to Study the Efficacy of Habitual Physical Activity on Health Outcome in Children with Chronic Disease

Background Physical activity (PA) may play an integral role in improving the quality of life of children with chronic conditions by ameliorating disease symptoms, preventing the onset of disability and reducing secondary disease risk. A lack of valid outcome measures, tools and behavioral strategies to implement PA interventions negatively impacts the quality of studies. Objective The objective of this thesis was to determine the validity of PA outcome measures, tools to identify readiness to take part in physical activity, as well as to determine the efficacy of behavioral theories and techniques for increasing PA in children with chronic conditions. Methods The validity of accelerometry, a PA measurement tool, was studied by comparing accelerometer output to a gold standard measure of energy expenditure. Strategies for dealing with missing data from accelerometers were synthesized in a review of the literature. The face, content and construct validity of the stage of exercise scale (SOES), used to identify readiness to exercise, was examined by studying the relationships among SOES and itâ s theoretical constructs. Finally, the efficacy of behavioral techniques and theories applied to interventions to increase PA was identified by systematic review. Results Pre-existing accelerometer equations and cut points are not valid for children with chronic conditions. In response, disease specific equations and cut points were developed. Multiple imputation demonstrated the least bias in replacing missing accelerometer data. The SOES demonstrated acceptable face, content and construct validity. Physical activity interventions demonstrated a small effect on increasing PA levels. Overall, theory informed interventions did not demonstrate a significant effect. Social Cognitive Theory demonstrated limited efficacy with strongest evidence for behavioral techniques associated with goals and planning. Conclusions This thesis has contributed tools, measures and strategies that are valid, accurate and efficacious that will facilitate the delivery of PA interventions to children with chronic conditions.

Keywords: Behavioural Change
Interventions
Paediatric Chronic Conditions
Physical Activity
Advisor: Feldman, Brian M.
Hacking the Master Switch? The Role of Infrastructure in Googleâ s Network Neutrality Strategy in the 2000s

During most of the decade of the 2000s, global Internet company Google Inc. was one of the most prominent public champions of the notion of network neutrality, the network design principle conceived by Tim Wu that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by network operators. However, in 2010, following a series of joint policy statements on network neutrality with telecommunications giant Verizon, Google fell nearly silent on the issue, despite Wu arguing that a neutral Internet was vital to Google’s survival. During this period, Google engaged in a massive expansion of its services and technical infrastructure. My research examines the influence of Google’s systems and service offerings on the company’s approach to network neutrality policy making. Drawing on documentary evidence and network analysis data, I identify Google’s global proprietary networks and server locations worldwide, including over 1500 Google edge caching servers located at Internet service providers. I argue that the affordances provided by its systems allowed Google to mitigate potential retail and transit ISP gatekeeping. Drawing on the work of Latour and Callon in Actor–network theory, I posit the existence of at least one actor-network formed among Google and ISPs, centred on an interest in the utility of Google’s edge caching servers and the success of the Android operating system. I suggest that this actor-network was a manifestation of the transformation of Google from a content provider as conceived by Wu into a new kind of Internet governance policy and network actor: the platform hybrid. Drawing on the work of Ciborra, I suggest a number of processes of technological and organisational change that were central to this transformation, allowing Google to at least partially “hack” Wu’s master switch. In conclusion, I describe the characteristics of Google as a platform hybrid and its implications for network neutrality policy making and Internet governance.

Keywords: business strategy
infrastructure studies
Internet governance
science and technology studies
telecommunications regulation
Advisor: Clement, Andrew
Miniaturized, label free optical systems for imaging brain hemodynamics

This dissertation focuses on instrumentation development for optical monitoring of hemodynamics in rodent brains, which would allow neurophysiologists, conducting pre-clinical research on brain diseases and disorders, to better understand disease onset and progression, and evaluate treatment options. Three specific challenges in applying optical tools to brain imaging were addressed: (1) the limited robustness of optical imaging in the presence of misfocus, (2) the low sensitivity in imaging brain activity under anaesthesia in chronic, longitudinal studies, and (3) the limited penetration depth of optical microscopy in tissue. Two methods were proposed to address misfocus-related imaging artefacts, which enable quantitative optical measurements of blood flow to take place across large fields of view and over long imaging time-frames. A system for blood flow monitoring with extended depth of field was developed, showing improved ability to accurately image flow speeds over large areas in the brain. In addition, a novel measure for misfocus was proposed, enabling robust autofocusing in the presence of measurement noise. A miniaturized, skull-mounted multi-modal optical imaging system was designed for imaging brain blood flow and oxygenation changes in freely-behaving animals. This device constituted the first demonstration of wide-field optical imaging of brain blood flow and oxygenation in a chronic setting, suitable for longitudinal studies of brain disease progression and investigating treatment efficacy. Lastly, a novel endoscopy method was proposed to measure flow speeds of scattering fluids through a single, multi-mode optical fiber. This endoscopy method could enable imaging blood flow speeds in deep brain structures using a minimally-invasive probe that is over 2x smaller than conventional micro-endoscopes used today. Combined, the accomplishments described in this dissertation contributed to making optical measurements of brain hemodynamics applicable to a wider range of imaging assays, and to making optical imaging a more accessible tool for the study of brain vasculature.

Keywords: Biophotonics
Brain imaging
Hemodynamics
Imaging systems
Optical imaging
Advisor: Levi, Ofer
La retorica della storiografia letteraria nell'etĂ  dell'Arcadia

This thesis analyses, from a rhetorical perspective, the main works of the founding fathers of Italian literary history, all of whom lived in the golden years of the Accademia dell'Arcadia: Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (1663-1728), Giacinto Gimma (1668-1735), Giulio Cesare Becelli (1686-1750), Apostolo Zeno (1669-1750), and Francesco Saverio Quadrio (1695-1756). The methodology is derived from the theoretical framework outlined by Hayden White in Metahistory (1973), adapted to the field of literary history. It is based on the four main rhetorical tropes, the methodological import of which was first pointed out by Giambattista Vico in his New Science (1725, 1730, and 1744): metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. According to White, the historiographer narrates facts through “a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse.” Such narration follows a process of pre-configuration according to one of the above-mentioned tropes, combining one of four archetypical categories of emplotment (romance, comedy, tragedy, and satire), one of four categories of argumentation (formalist, organicist, mechanistic, and contextualist), and one of the four basic categories of ideological implication: conservatism, liberalism, anarchism, and radicalism. Following the example of White in his study of eight 19th-century historians and philosophers of history--namely Michelet, Ranke, Tocqueville, and Burkhardt among the historians, and Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx, and Croce among the philosophers--this thesis classifies the five mentioned authors according to the appropriate paradigms for trope-emplotment, mode of argumentation and ideological implication. As a result, Crescimbeni’s distinctive traits are found to be synecdoche, romance, formalism and liberalism; Zeno’s are irony, contextualism, satire and conservatism; Gimma’s are metaphor, romance, contextualism and liberalism; Quadrio’s are metonymy, comedy, organicism and conservatism; and Becelli’s are metaphor, epic, organicism and radicalism. The “epic” mode of emplotment has been added to White's original framework, given the role played by Italian poetry in the cultural discourse on the nascent Italian spirit of the nation, of which it became a primary symbol.

Keywords: Becelli
Crescimbeni
Gimma
Quadrio
Storiografia letteraria
Zeno
Advisor: Pietropaolo, Domenico
The Mobile Distinction: Economies of Intimacy in the Field of Location Based Marketing

This thesis examines the cultural and economic significance of location data in the field of location based marketing using Pierre Bourdieuâ s conceptual framework of habitus, capital, and field. I argue that location data signifies a new kind of capital that marketers exploit to inform new epistemologies of habitus and distinction in mobile digital culture. However, the capacity to leverage location data as capital depends on how marketers can structure new kinds of intimacies of consent with consumers to participate in the production and disclosure of location. This creates complex power dynamics of interactivity between consumers and marketers, in effect creating a new field of location based marketing where the goal is to intensify the proxemics between marketers and consumers by successfully exploiting location data as capital.Â  A major finding of this thesis is that location data is informing new models of consumer clustering and segmentation. These in some respects mimic the logic of geodemographics, but are unique in that they are constructed by new theoretical and cultural beliefs about the significance of mobility and fluidity. Therefore, marketers are increasingly exploiting new kinds of mobile and location based technologies to surveil urban environments in order to construct these new segmentation models. This is done primarily by extracting location data from smartphones, but increasingly invisible methods are being tested, such as passive RF sensing. This suggests that the economies of intimacy desired by marketers must negotiate several key risks concerning the extent to which consumers perceive and consent to this kind of surveillance. This thesis draws on semi-structured qualitative interviews with key participants in the North American mobile and location based marketing industry, participant observation in several marketing events, and discourse analysis of marketing white papers to produce a small-scale exploratory investigation into an emerging field of marketing. It contributes to several fields of academic research, including consumer surveillance, urban geography, and mobile media, in order to stimulate new researchÂ directions in mobile digital culture that depart from user-centric studies.

Keywords: Location Data
Marketing
Mobile Media
Surveillance
Advisor: Phillips, David J
Digital mm-Wave Transmitters

This thesis presents the design and implementation of digital millimeter-wave transmitters, in silicon, in the 20–140-GHz frequency range. I/Q RF-DAC transmitter architectures with unary-weighted antenna segments and binary-weighted transistor segments are explored to generate high-order QAM modulation formats, while operating in deep saturation and without resorting to upconversion. The antenna segmentation approach is proven experimentally at 100 GHz with a pair of on-die I/Q driven antenna elements, in a 45-nm SOI CMOS process. The proof-of-concept circuit has an EIRP of 15.7 dBm and a data rate of up to 10 Gb/s. Novel modulator topologies based on the Gilbert cell are proposed to improve the modulation rate and accuracy of digital mm-wave transmitters. These topologies are verified at 90 GHz and at 138 GHz through the implementation of I/Q RF power-DAC transmitters with binary-weighted transistor segments. The 90-GHz implementation results in 19 dBm of output power and modulation rates up to 15 Gbaud. At 138 GHz, a 12-bit I/Q RF power-DAC with on-die antennas is fabricated to demonstrate direct 64-QAM and OFDM modulation of a mm-wave carrier without upconversion. The 138-GHz transmitter has an EIRP of 13.2 dBm and is able to operate at data rates of up to 12 Gb/s. Next, techniques to extend the bandwidth and voltage swing of nanoscale CMOS inverter topologies, with resistive and inductive feedback, selective differential-mode inductive peaking, and series stacking are analyzed. These techniques are demonstrated for an optical front-end at 60 Gb/s, with record 4.3-Vpp single-ended output swing, in a 28-nm FD-SOI CMOS process, as well as for two RF-DAC-based radio transmitters at 1–32 GHz with data rates of 20–30-Gb/s, in a 45-nm SOI CMOS process. Lastly, mm-wave signal sources and frequency dividers are designed and experimentally verified at 60 GHz and at 240 GHz in a 45-nm SOI CMOS process and in a 55-nm SiGe BiCMOS process, respectively. At 60 GHz, both fundamental and second-harmonic signal sources for low power applications are demonstrated and compared. At 240 GHz, meanwhile, a second-harmonic source with record 7.2-dBm output power and 1-GHz divided-down output is demonstrated.

Keywords: digital transmitter
power amplifier
RF-DAC
SOI CMOS
transistor stacking
wireless
Advisor: Voinigescu, Sorin P
Characterizing the Function of the Mitochondrial Protease PARL in Mitophagy and Mitochondrial Quality Control

Mitochondrial quality control (MQC) systems are essential for preserving the functional integrity and the homeostasis of mitochondria. Dysfunction of MQC is emerging as a central mechanism for the pathogenesis of various diseases, including Parkinson’s disease. Studies in S. cerevisiae and Drosophila highlight the role of the mitochondrial rhomboid protease in modulating mitochondrial dynamics and mitophagy, which are key components of MQC. However, the role of the mammalian homologue PARL in MQC remains unclear. In this thesis, I showed that PARL regulates PINK1/PARKIN-mediated mitophagy, an essential component of MQC, by cleaving PINK1 and regulating its localization and protein level. PARL undergoes an N-terminal proteolysis (ß cleavage) that regulates its activity. Given the role of PARL in modulating the PINK1/PARKIN pathway, I further examined the role of ß cleavage in this process and showed that it is required for efficient PINK1/PARKIN mediated-mitophagy. Apart from regulating mitophagy, I demonstrated that ß cleavage is a mitochondrial stress response that is negatively correlated with mitochondrial ATP levels. In addition, I showed that PDK2, a critical modulator of energy metabolism, phosphorylates PARL and thus regulates ß cleavage. Through regulating ß cleavage and the production of a less active enzyme PACT, PDK2 negatively regulates PINK1/PARKIN-mediated mitophagy. Taken together, these data suggest a close relationship between energy metabolisms and MQC. In association with PDK2, we propose that PARL acts as a master regulator of the mitochondrial stress response by monitoring energy metabolism and sensing bioenergetic defects, thereby integrating mitochondrial energy metabolism to mitophagy and MQC.

Keywords: mitochondrial quality control
Mitophagy
Parkinson's Diseases
PARL
PDK2
PINK1/PARKIN
Advisor: McQuibban, Angus