VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Institutional Assessment as an Agent of Reform: An Analysis of Nigerian Legal Education

The quality of Nigerian Legal Education is fast deteriorating and in addition, the current structure of monitoring the training of lawyers is grossly ineffective. This thesis discusses steps that can be taken in reforming the current structure of Nigerian legal education to revert this trend. This thesis proposes a sytem of internal institutional assessment by law faculties in Nigeria. Financial, social-cultural constraints and politicl economy interference are obstacles to reforming Nigerian legal education, but institutional assessment can mitigagte these obstacles. Using Mariana Prado's concept of institutional bypass as a solution to overcoming these obstacles and also as a means of advancing reforms in the training of lawyers in Nigeria, this thesis proposes the adoption of institutional assessment as a strategy to create an avenue for stimulating reforms and promoting quality in Nigerian legal education.

Keywords: Institutional Assessment
Reforms
Advisor: Prado, Mariana Mota
Design and Development of a Direct-acting Piezoelectric Fuel Injector

Manufacturers face the challenge of enhancing fuel efficiency, engine performance, and reducing harmful emissions. Novel fuel injection technologies can assist in meeting such demands. This dissertation summarizes the stages in the design, prototyping and experimental analysis of a direct-acting piezoelectric fuel injector concept. In the proposed design, a piezoelectric stack actuator is used to directly control the injection of fuel in order to enhance the injection characteristics by utilizing the fast response time of the actuator. The direct-acting concept was implemented by developing a motion inverter in the form of a disc that reverses the direction of the input and allows the actuator to directly control injections. Tests with input signals similar to those used in diesel engines confirmed the theoretical calculations and verified the prototype’s performance. This design can control the quantity of injected fuel more precisely than currently available commercial injectors.

Keywords: Piezoelectric
Fuel injector
Diesel Engine
Advisor: Mrad, Ridha Ben
Sinclair, Anthony
He, Siyuan
Prasad, Eswar
Thresholds of Engagement: Integrating Image-based Digital Resources into Textual Scholarship

In recent years, technological advances in creating, storing, and accessing digital facsimiles of print and manuscript documents has resulted in an explosion of digitization initiatives. While such initiatives commonly endorse the viewpoint that digital facsimiles either replace or successfully stand in for their physical originals, textual scholars, whose principle interest is in the text as material artifact, do not share this perspective. Thresholds of Engagement explores the ways textual scholars engage with textual artifacts, tests the limits of representation of digital facsimiles and of the interfaces that house them, and proposes a model for the relationship between physical texts and their digital counterparts that privileges the requirements of textual scholars. The digital-facsimile interface proposed in this study is designed to facilitate methods described by textual scholars in interview—methods of comparison, material analysis, pattern recognition, and modelling—using an open-source web-based approach that is accessible for individuals to innovate and build upon.

Keywords: image-based humanities computing
book history
textual scholarship
bibliography
web design
digital facsimile
Advisor: Galey, Alan
Numerical Modelling of Staged Combustion Aft-injected Hybrid Rocket Motors

The staged combustion aft-injected hybrid (SCAIH) rocket motor is a promising design for the future of hybrid rocket propulsion. Advances in computational fluid dynamics and scientific computing have made computational modelling an effective tool in design and development. The focus of this thesis is the numerical modelling of the SCAIH rocket motor in a turbulent combustion, high-speed, reactive flow accounting for solid soot transport and radiative heat transfer. The SCAIH motor has a shear coaxial injector with liquid oxygen injected centrally at sub-critical conditions: 150K, 150m/s (Mach≈0.9), and a gas-generator gas-solid mixture of one-third carbon soot by mass injected in the annual opening at 1175K, and 460m/s (Mach≈0.6). Flow conditions in the near injector region and the flame anchoring mechanism are of particular interest. Overall, the flow is shown to exhibit instabilities and the flame is shown to anchor directly on the injector faceplate with temperatures in excess of 2700K.

Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics
Turbulent Combustion
Hybrid Rocket Motors
Numerical Modelling
Advisor: Groth, Clinton P. T.
Role of the Ventral Hippocampus in Exploration and Ventral Hippocampal Parvalbumin Neurons in Behaviors relevant to Schizophrenia

We conducted experiments to understand the role of Ventral Hippocampus (vHPC) projections to the Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) in exploratory locomotion, and to determine if the reduced vHPC parvalbumin neuron activity can result in behaviors associated with schizophrenia. Through the use of optogenetics, we activated vHPC neurons and vHPC terminals in the NAc. Both manipulations significantly increased locomotor activity in the open field. Selective inhibition of vHPC terminals in the NAc during a test for novel environment exploration significantly reduced preference for novel environments over familiar environments. DREADD-mediated inhibition of activation of vHPC parvalbumin neuron activity did not significantly alter amphetamine-induced locomotion. Overall, these experiments provide support for the role of the vHPC-NAc pathway in mediating exploratory behavior in novel environments, but it remains inconclusive whether dysregulated vHPC activity due to the loss of parvalbumin neurons leads to behaviors associated with schizophrenia.

Keywords: ventral hippocampus
exploration
parvalbumin
optogenetics
DREADD
Advisor: Kim, Junchul
Concurrent Individual and Social Learning in Robotic Teams

Despite the advancement of research and development on multi-robot teams, a key challenge still remains as to how to develop effective mechanisms that enable the robots to autonomously generate, adapt, and enhance team behaviours while improving their individual performance simultaneously. After a literature review of various multi-agent learning approaches, the two most promising learning paradigms, i.e., cooperative learning and advice sharing are adopted for future development. Although individually these methodologies may not provide a solution, their proper integration will provide a platform that allows for the incorporation of multi-agent learning with social behaviours. These methods are examined in relation to the performance characteristics of single-robot learning to ascertain if they retain viable learning characteristics despite the integration of individual learning into team behaviour. Further, various modifications to the Q-Learning algorithm were tested, and the best performing modification was implemented into the proposed multi robot learning approach.

Keywords: Cooperative Learning
Multi-Robot
Individual Learning
Advice Sharing
Advisor: Emami, Mohammad Reza
Punching Shear Behaviour of Thick Reinforced Concrete Slabs

Experiments were conducted to investigate the punching shear behaviour of thick slabs with identical spans and depths, subjected to monotonic point load conditions. Variables included: reinforcement ratio, column size, and reinforcement size. Analytical studies conducted as part of this thesis indicate that the current CSA A23.3 and the ACI 318 can be unconservative for thick slabs with low reinforcement ratios. The new fib Model Code provisions for punching offer an effective method for determining the full load-rotation behaviour of a slab up to failure, including accurate failure predictions. A summary of the background of current design procedures and standards will be presented, and a comparison between the different design equations and theories will be given. Based on the findings of this project, it is proposed that the provisions accepted by the fib Model Code should be considered for implementation in the CSA and ACI standards.

Keywords: Concrete
Punching
Shear
Slabs
Strut-and-tie
punching shear
Reinforcement ratio
column size
ACI 318
CSA A23.3
2010 Model Code
structures
deep
thick
Advisor: Collins, Michael P.
Bentz, Evan
Goal Structuring of a Knowledge Domain

This thesis aims to develop a knowledge structuring framework to organize knowledge according to means-ends relationships. Means-ends relationships are particularly relevant in technology and goal-oriented domains such as the geo-engineering domain, where technical problems are identified, and solutions proposed. The proposed goal oriented representation in this thesis does not replace current classification methodologies. In this project, a small corpus of research publications from a technology domain is used to help construct the framework. The main means-ends relationships from the articles are manually extracted and represented in a graphical model showing which problems are approached, by which solutions proposed, and in which publications. Proposed solutions can lead to new problems which are in turn addressed by solutions proposed in other publications. A metamodel is derived to capture the important concepts and relationships relevant for this purpose. The metamodel, and the framework have undergone several iterations before finalization.

Keywords: knowledge management
goal oriented requirements engineering
design reuse
goal structuring
classification
technology domain
Advisor: Yu, Eric
A Preliminary Exploration of Memory Controller Policies on Smartphone Workloads

This thesis explores memory performance for smartphone workloads. We design a Video Conference Workload (VCW) to model typical smartphone usage. We describe a trace-based methodology which uses a software implementation to mimic the behaviour of specialised hardware accelerators. Our methodology stores dataflow information from the original application to maintain the relationships between requests. We first study seven address mapping schemes with our VCW, using a first-ready, first-come-first-served (FR-FCFS) memory scheduler. Our results show the best performing scheme is up to 82% faster than the worst. The VCW is memory intensive, with up to 86.8% bandwidth utilisation using the best performing scheme. We also test a Web Browsing and a set of computer vision workloads. Most are not memory intensive, with utilisation under 15%. Finally, we compare four schedulers and find that the FR-FCFS scheduler using the Write Drain mode [8] performed the best, outperforming the worst scheduler by 6.3%.

Keywords: smartphone workloads
workload characterisation
memory controller
main memory
DRAM
address mapping
memory scheduler
memory performance
Advisor: Moshovos, Andreas
The Role of the Ubiquitin Ligase Nedd4-1 in Skeletal Muscle Atrophy

Skeletal muscle (SM) atrophy complicates many illnesses, diminishing quality of life and increasing disease morbidity, health resource utilization and health care costs. In animal models of muscle atrophy, loss of SM mass results predominantly from ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and ubiquitin ligases are the key enzymes that catalyze protein ubiquitination. We have previously shown that ubiquitin ligase Nedd4-1 is up-regulated in a rodent model of denervation-induced SM atrophy and the constitutive expression of Nedd4-1 is sufficient to induce myotube atrophy in vitro, suggesting an important role for Nedd4-1 in the regulation of muscle mass. In this study we generate a Nedd4-1 SM specific-knockout mouse and demonstrate that the loss of Nedd4-1 partially protects SM from denervation-induced atrophy confirming a regulatory role for Nedd4-1 in the maintenance of muscle mass in vivo. Nedd4-1 did not signal downstream through its known substrates Notch-1, MTMR4 or FGFR1, suggesting a novel substrate mediates Nedd4-1’s induction of SM atrophy.

Keywords: Nedd4
skeletal muscle
skeletal muscle atrophy
Ubiquitin ligase
Advisor: Batt, Jane
Cocaethylene as a Biomarker in Human Hair of Concomitant Alcohol and Cocaine Use in a High-risk Population

Cocaethylene (CE) is a cocaine metabolite formed during alcohol and cocaine co-consumption. To our knowledge, no previous studies were conducted assessing CE as a biomarker indicating chronic excessive alcohol consumption in a suspected high-risk population. In this study, we hypothesized that hair CE can be an effective marker for alcohol consumption in a high-risk population. We recorded cocaine, benzoylecgonine, and CE levels in hair samples from individuals, establishing the predictive value of CE by comparing it to hair levels of the widely used hair fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE), direct markers of chronic excessive alcohol consumption. CE had 14.04% sensitivity and 95.18% specificity in samples separating FAEE positive/negative results. The positive predictive value was 0.66, showing that the results for individuals with CE positive results were more than likely to be FAEE positive, but not conclusively. Thus, CE cannot be used as a definitive marker, indicating chronic excessive alcohol consumption.

Keywords: Clinical
Pharmacology
Hair
Testing
Cocaine
Alcohol
Concomitant
Consumption
High-Risk
Population
Fatty Acid Ethyl Esters
Cocaethylene
Advisor: Koren, Gideon
Leveling of the Curve of Spee in Deep Overbite Cases Treated with the IncognitoTM Lingual Orthodontic Appliance System: A Cephalometric Study

An excessive curve of Spee (COS) is a common orthodontic finding, particularly in patients with a deep overbite (OB). The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate COS leveling and OB correction in patients treated with IncognitoTM, a customized lingual appliance system. Pre- and post-treatment cephalometric radiographs were compared for 34 patients with a deep OB and excessive COS treated with IncognitoTM. The mean pre- and post-treatment COS was 1.78 mm (SD: 0.36 mm) and 0.37 mm (SD: 0.41 mm) respectively, indicating a significant amount of leveling (-1.41 mm, SD: 0.49 mm, p<0.001). The mean pre- and post-treatment OB was 5.80 mm (SD: 1.26 mm) and 2.91 mm (SD: 0.86 mm) respectively, demonstrating a significant reduction in OB (-2.89 mm, SD 1.27 mm, p<0.001). COS and OB correction was accomplished by incisor proclination, and a greater (but not significantly different) amount of mandibular incisor intrusion versus premolar and molar extrusion.

Keywords: curve of Spee
overbite
Incognito
intrusion
Advisor: Tompson, Bryan
Suri, Sunjay
Metaxas, Angelos
Impact of Clostriduim difficile colitis on Five Year Health Outcomes of Ulcerative Colitis Patients

Clostridium difficile colitis (CDC) is associated with a higher risk of acute death among hospitalized ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. However, the risk of colectomy with CDC in these patients has varied across studies. No study has assessed the long-term health impact of CDC in UC patients. Therefore, the present study evaluated the impact of CDC on five-year health outcomes of hospitalized UC patients based on Ontario health administrative data. No overall association was observed between CDC and five-year risks of colectomy or death in overall cohort. However, patients who were discharged from hospital without undergoing colectomy demonstrated marginally higher five-year risks of colectomy and hospital re-admission. Mortality risk and length of stay during index hospitalization were also higher in patients with CDC. Analysis of a parallel cohort of UC patients derived using a published case definition corroborated most of these results, but demonstrated a higher five-year mortality risk with CDC.

Keywords: Inflammatory bowel disease
Ulcerative colitis
Clostridium difficile
Colectomy
Mortality
Hospitalization
Prognosis
Population-based study
Health Outcomes
Epidemiology
Advisor: Steinhart, A. Hillary
Access to Colorectal Cancer Screening in Canada: Does Immigrant Status Matter

Background: In 2010, immigrants comprised 20% of the Canadian population. Canada has one of the highest incidence and mortality rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) in the world. This study seeks to explore factors that are associated with CRC screening and to determine whether immigrants are less likely to be screened for CRC compared to non-immigrants. Methods: Data were obtained from Statistics Canada Canadian Community Health Survey, 2008. The Behavioral Model of Health Services Use was used as a theoretical framework. Chi-square statistics and multiple logistic regression models were employed. Results: Recent immigrants were less likely to be screened by endoscopy within 5 years (OR: 0.47; 95% CI: 0.29 – 0.77), endoscopy within 10 years (OR: 0.38; 95% CI: 0.24 - 0.60) and be up-to-date with screening (OR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.37 - 0.91) compared to non-immigrants. Conclusions: A formal screening program and patient navigators may address disparities among recent and non-immigrants.

Keywords: access
colorectal
screening
immigrants
Advisor: Barnsley, Janet
Assessment of Intestinal Microbiota in Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) includes simple hepatic steatosis (SS) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NAFLD is tightly linked to obesity and is thought to be secondary to various noxious signals, some of which may originate from the intestinal microbiota (IM). Despite a growing body of evidence supporting a link between obesity and altered IM, there are no studies assessing the IM of patients with NAFLD. In this cross-sectional study we aimed at comparing fecal levels of total bacteria, Bacteroidetes, C. coccoides, C. leptum, Bifidobacteria, E. coli, and Archaea between healthy controls (HC) and patients with SS or NASH. We found higher C. coccoides levels in NASH compared to SS and lower percentage Bacteroidetes in NASH compared to SS and HC. Controlling for body mass index and fat intake we found an association between presence of NASH and percentage Bacteroidetes. The latter inversely correlated with insulin resistance.

Keywords: fatty liver
intestinal microbiota
Advisor: Allard, Johane
A Journey down the Cell Death Pathway of Mitochondria-targeted Chlorambucil

Our lab recently demonstrated that retargeting an alkylating agent, chlorambucil (Cbl), to the mitochondrion is a viable strategy to restore drug activity and overcome drug resistance in cancer. The mechanism of action of the mitochondria-targeted chlorambucil (mt-Cbl) was studied using a cervical carcinoma model. It was discovered that mt-Cbl bound to mitochondrial DNA and various mitochondrial proteins. A ρ° model revealed that the toxicity of mt-Cbl is largely dependent on its protein targets. Damage induced by mt-Cbl was found to result in the activation of several modes of caspase-independent cell death including necrosis. In contrast, Cbl was found to only activate caspase-dependent cell death that is highly sensitive to caspase inhibition. These results illustrate that the ability of mt-Cbl to activate various orthogonal cell death pathways is what allows mt-Cbl to bypass several drug resistance mechanisms, thus making mitochondrial retargeting a lucrative strategy for future anticancer drug development.

Keywords: Mitochondria
Cancer
Mitochondria Penetrating Peptide
Chlorambucil
Cell Death
Necrosis
Advisor: Kelley, Shana O.
Anti-CD44 and Anti-platelet Antibodies have Similar but Distinct Effects in the Treatment of a Mouse Model of Arthritis

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation and eventual destruction of the synovial joints. The role of platelets in the pathophysiology of arthritis has only recently been established. Because antibodies to CD44 can deplete platelets, we hypothesized that these antibodies might be effective in arthritis through a platelet-depletion mechanism. We examined the K/BxN passive transfer mouse model of arthritis and found that most antibodies against CD44 were capable of depleting platelets. However, anti-CD44 treatment is effective when administered during developing arthritis, while anti-platelet treatment was not. While CD44 antibodies may be therapeutic through platelet-dependant and independent mechanisms, the ability of CD44 antibodies to decrease platelet counts does not seem to be the critical factor in resolving arthritis in the K/BxN model.

Keywords: Rheumatoid Arthritis
CD44
Platelets
Thrombocytopenia
Advisor: Lazarus, Alan H.
Design of an Electrochemical Cell Cytosensor

A sensitive and simple cell counting method is necessary in many pathologies including HIV [1] and cancer [2]. Cell counting sensors are used in the clinic for diagnosis of leukemia [3] or HIV [4]. Furthermore, genetic analysis of these cells is crucial for better prognosis and diagnosis [5]. However, a simple method for cell counting that allows further analysis is still lacking. This study aims to design a sensor that counts cells in the complex matrix of cell media or in the presence of non-target cells. The chip designed uses the anti-EpCAM antibody to selectively count cells via differential pulse voltammetry. The device can selectively count prostate cancer cells in both complex media with serum and a mixed cell population with a sensitivity of 125 cells per sensor. A simple and sensitive cell cytosensor was designed that can be used to count cancer cells effectively.

Keywords: Engineering
Biomedical
Advisor: Kelley, Shana O.
Neo-Liberalism, the Islamic Revival, and Urban Development in Post-War, Post-Socialist Sarajevo

This thesis examines the confluence between pan-Islamist politics, neo-liberalism and urban development in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After tracing a history of the Islamic revival in Bosnia, I examine the results of neo-liberal policy in post-war Bosnia, particularly regarding the promises of neo-liberal institutions and think tanks that privatization and inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) would de-politicize the economy and strip ethno-religious nationalist elites of their power over state-owned firms. By analyzing three prominent new urban developments in Sarajevo, all financed by FDI from the Islamic world and brought about by the privatization of urban real-estate, I show how neo-liberal policy has had unintended outcomes in Sarajevo that contradict the assertions of policy makers. In examining urban change, I bring out the role played by the city in mediating between both elites and citizens, and between the seemingly contradictory projects of pan-Islamism and neo-liberalism.

Keywords: Urban Geography
Political-Economy
Advisor: Prudham, W. Scott
Ultracapacitor/Battery Hybrid Energy Storage Systems for Electric Vehicles

This thesis deals with the design of Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) for Light Electric Vehicles (LEV) and EVs. More specifically, a tri-mode high-efficiency non-isolated half-bridge converter is developed for the LEV based HESS applications. A 2 kW, 100 V interleaved two-phase converter prototype was implemented. The peak efficiency of 97.5% and a minimum efficiency of 88% over the full load range are achieved. Furthermore, a power-mix optimizer utilizing the real-time Global Positioning System (GPS) data for the EV based HESS is proposed. For a specific design, it is shown that at the cost of less than 1.5% of the overall energy savings, the proposed scheme reduces the peak battery charge and discharge rates by 76% and 47%, respectively. A 30 kW bi-directional dc-dc converter is also designed and implemented for future deployment of the designed HESS into a prototype EV, known as A2B.

Keywords: Ultracapacitor
Battery
Electric Vehicle
Hybrid Energy Storage System
Light Electric Vehicle
Half-bridge Converter
DC-DC Converter
Quasi Resonant
Pulse Frequency Modulation
Variable Frequency Quasi-resonant
Zero Voltage Switching
High Efficiency
Power Mix Optimizer
Global Positioning System
GPS
Bi-directional DC-DC Converter
A2B
Project EVE
Advisor: Trescases, Olivier