VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Resolution Complexity of Random Constraint Satisfaction Problems

The resolution complexity of random constraint satisfaction problems is a widely studied topic. This line of research started with a seminal paper by Chvátal and Szemeréd. They showed that for any 𝑘 ≥ 3, w.h.p. an unsatisfiable random 𝑘-SAT instance has exponentially high resolution complexity when the clause density is a constant. The result was later extended to settings with super-constant clause density. The random (𝑑, 𝑘, 𝑡)-CSP model is another well-studied random CSP model. It is a natural generalization of the random 𝑘-SAT model by allowing a more general domain of 𝑑 ≥ 2 variable values instead of {TRUE, FALSE}, and allowing 𝑡 ≥ 1 restrictions in each constraint (clause) instead of only one. Earlier results give the whole picture for the resolution complexity of random (𝑑, 𝑘, 𝑡)-CSP instances for every constant triple of (𝑑, 𝑘, 𝑡) and every constant constraint density Δ. However, very little is known for the resolution complexity when the constraint density grows beyond constant. In this thesis, we generalize the resolution complexity results for random (𝑑, 𝑘, 𝑡)-CSP to settings with super-constant constraint density, just like the later studies extended the 𝑘-SAT result of Chvátal and Szemeréd to settings with super-constant clause density. We introduce a general approach for studying the resolution and tree resolution complexity of random (𝑑, 𝑘, 𝑡)-CSP with super-constant constraint density. We are particularly interested in the ranges of constraint density where the resolution and tree resolution complexity drop from superpolynomial to polynomial. By applying our approach, we obtain new lower and upper bounds on these constraint density ranges. In particular, the bounds for the tree resolution complexity are tight up to a 𝑜(1) term in the exponent. The settings we consider include two generalizations of the random 𝑘-SAT model, and the bounds we obtain almost match the best known bounds for the random 𝑘-SAT model. Therefore, our results can be regarded as generalizations of the resolution complexity results for random 𝑘-SAT. Finally, it seems possible to apply our approach to other models of random CSPs as well.

Keywords: Proof Complexity
Random CSP
Resolution
Advisor: Molloy, Michael
Economic Integration or Segregation? Immigrant Women's Labor Market Entrance and Their Support Service Utilization in South Korea

This dissertation is comprised of three independent yet interconnected studies. The main objective of the three chapters was to examine the economic integration/segregation of immigrant wives in South Korea, with a particular focus placed on their entrance into the labor market and their utilization of immigrant support services. Possible reasons for immigrant wives’ relatively low position within the labor market compared to their native counterparts were examined based on a framework that encompasses human capital theory, dual labor market theory and statistical discrimination theory. Specifically, the first study identified underlying forces that contribute to the different employment outcomes between Korean and immigrant wives. Data from the National Survey on Multicultural Families and the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study, both conducted in 2009, were used to obtain information on immigrant and native Korean wives. A decomposition technique was used to assess the extent to which the gap between the two groups was attributable to discrimination. Focusing on the heavy concentration of immigrant wives in the informal-sector labor market, the second study documented some possible mechanisms assigning this group to such a bottom segment of the labor market. Specifically, the study paid attention to identifying the causes of different qualities of career positions between immigrant and native Korean women in the labor market. Finally, by utilizing Gelberg-Anersen’s behavioral model, the third study examined factors that determined immigrant wives’ support services use. A structural equation modeling method was used to examine possible differences in service utilization patterns depending on immigrant their employment status situations. Overall, the findings from the three studies suggest that immigrant wives have been incorporated into the Korean labor market in a segregated way. Immigrant wives appear to be employed predominantly in precarious jobs where their human capital credentials are not fully recognized. In line with statistical discrimination theory, employers’ preference to native Korean workers over immigrant wives seems to persist in the formal sector. Further, regarding immigrant support services, the cleavages that exist between the intended purposes and the actual usage patterns raise questions about the effectiveness of the services. This dissertation hopes to augment the relatively thin research on the economic integration of immigrant women in newly emerging immigrant destination countries, especially in the context of East Asia.

Keywords: Economic integration
Employment gap
Immigrant support service
Immigrant women
Labor market discrimination
South Korea
Advisor: Tsang, Ka Tat
Interrogating Inclusion: Critical Research with Disabled Youth who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

This dissertation provides a critical exploration of the notion of inclusion, applied to the ‘case’ of disabled youth who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Oriented by Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this study examined the lives and practices of youth who use AAC to better understand how they make ‘practical sense’ of inclusion and locate their place in the world. The objective was to illuminate the extent to which the constraints of social arrangements and conditions delimited the social interactions of youth who use AAC and shaped their understandings of inclusion. Using a novel critical dialogical methodology developed for the study, data were generated with 13 Canadian youth who use AAC by combining participant-generated photographs and a graphic elicitation technique termed Belonging Circles with interviews and observations. The study results make three substantive contributions to existing research on disabled children’s lives and children’s rehabilitation. First, the participants’ narratives reflected habitus - socially constituted sets of dispositions - that predisposed them to accommodate the devalued social positions and constricted conditions of existence imposed on them. From the points of view made possible to them, the youths’ practices represent logical and practical strategies for claiming inclusion that, paradoxically, reproduce and resist the systems of categorization that constrain them. Second, by illuminating the life circumstances and delimited life trajectories of youth in the study, the research vividly demonstrates that some forms of ‘inclusion’ perpetuate symbolic violence by keeping disabled youth ‘in their place’ through the oppressive effects of misrecognised social norms, beliefs and values that privilege ‘normal’ bodies. All study participants claimed inclusion but under constricted conditions of possibility that were not of their choosing. Finally, while the youths’ practices primarily reproduced the status quo, they also worked at the margins to curate locally produced forms of inclusion that attempted to transform the ‘rules of the game’. These results make visible the mechanisms involved in reproducing significant social inequities which constrain youth who use AAC. The research suggests a need for systemic shifts past reified notions of inclusion toward fostering social spaces where alternative ways of being in the world are positively valued.

Keywords: children's rehabilitation
communication impairment
critical social theory
disability
inclusion
youth
Advisor: Gibson, Barbara E
Macarthur, Colin
Social Media, Red Squares, and Other Tactics: The 2012 Québec Student Protests

Recent social uprisings worldwide have evidenced people’s desire for social change. From the Arab Spring, to the Occupy Movement, to the protests in Brazil, Israel, and Greece, resistances worldwide cannot and should not be ignored. Although the Québec student strike of 2012 began as the students’ measured response to a proposed university tuition fee increase by the provincial government, what resulted instead was a social movement that stood against neoliberalism, austerity measures, economic injustice, the criminalization of protest, and the corporatization of the university. The thesis documents this successful youth-led struggle against their provincial government during what is now referred to as “Maple Spring.” Utilizing free-format semi-structured interviews, textual analysis, and rich media archives, this study allows for a better understanding of the Québec student strike, and the tactics used by the students during the strike, including their use of social media. The thesis draws from political economic theory, and posits that social media lends itself as a political tactic due to the structural foundations of social media (ownership, profit models, production practices, and cultural capital). The research explores techno-optimist versus techno-pessimist arguments regarding social media's abilities for emancipation and social justice. It also addresses the students' use of social media in their roles as citizen journalists. This thesis provides empirical evidence of the Québec students’ tactical use of social media. Although it was but one of many tactics utilized by the students, the impact of social media was clearly displayed throughout the strike. For one, social media enabled the students and supporters to organize and demonstrate in the streets of Montreal for over 100 nights in a row. Similarly, organizing approximately 300,000 students to protest in the streets of Montréal in the largest expression of civil disobedience in Canadian history was also made possible because of the use of social media. Moreover, by using the symbol of the red square, the physical act of banging on casserole dishes, and an event such as the well-attended (almost) nude march(es) in May, otherwise known as the “maNUfestation,” the student strike became visible worldwide because of the students’ diverse and creative tactics. My research into the Québec student strike of 2012 provides analysis and results of a successful and unique social struggle, given Québec’s rich history of student strikes. It was a resistance that captivated the imaginations of many around the world.

Keywords: Maple Spring
Quebec student strike
social media
social movement
tactics
Advisor: Shade, Leslie R
Perspectives from Ab-initio and Tight-binding: Applications to Transition Metal Compounds and Superlattices

The experimental and theoretical study of transition metal compounds have occupied condensed matter physicists for the best part of the last century. The rich variety of physical behaviour exhibited by these compounds owes its origin to the subtle balance of the energy scales at play for the d orbitals. In this thesis, we study three different systems comprised of transition metal atoms from the third, the fourth, and the fifth group of the periodic table using a combination of ab-initio density functional theory (DFT) computations and effective tight-binding models for the electronic properties. We first consider the electronic properties of artificially fabricated perovskite superlattices of the form [(SrIrO3)m / SrTiO3] with integer m denoting the number of layers of SrIrO3. After discussing the results of experiments undertaken by our collaborators, we present the results of our DFT calculations and build tight-binding models for the m = 1 and m = 2 superlattices. The active ingredient is found to be the 5d orbitals with significant spin-orbit coupling. We then study the energies of magnetic ground states within DFT and compare and contrast our results with those obtained for the bulk Ruddlesden-Popper iridates. Together with experimental measurements, our results suggest that these superlattices are an exciting venue to probe the magnetism and metal-insulator transitions that occur from the intricate balance of the spin-orbit coupling and electron interactions, as has been reported for their bulk counterparts. Next, we consider α-RuCl3, a honeycomb lattice compound. We first show using DFT calculations in conjunction with experiments performed by our collaborators, how spin-orbit coupling in the 4d orbitals of Ru is essential to understand the insulating state realized in this compound. Then, in the latter half of the chapter, we study the magnetic ground states of a two-dimensional analogue of α-RuCl3 in weak and strong-coupling regimes obtained from a tight-binding model for the 4d orbitals. We further compare these results with energies obtained from DFT calculations. We obtain a zig-zag magnetic ground state for this compound, in all the three approaches. Within DFT, we find that correlations enhance the spin-orbit coupling in this compound and that the anisotropic Kitaev interactions between the spins are dominant in a strong-coupling model. Then, we move on to study the electronic band structures of the higher manganese silicides, which are good thermoelectric materials. Using results from DFT calculations on Mn4Si7 and structural arguments, we construct an effective tight-binding model for the first three members of this series - Mn4Si7, Mn11Si19, and Mn15Si26.

Keywords: density functional theory
magnetism
spin-orbit coupling
strongly correlated systems
Advisor: Kee, Hae-Young
Accurate Identification of Adenosine Deamination

The eukaryotic transcriptome is further diversified by post-transcriptional processing, including alternative splicing and RNA editing. The latter includes the modification of adenosine to inosine (A-to-I) within structured transcripts. Uniquely, inosine has similar base-pairing properties to guanine, which can have downstream consequences to RNA secondary structure or RNA-RNA interactions. While RNA editing events were typically characterized on gene-by-gene basis, advancements in high throughput RNA-sequencing technologies have allowed A-to-I editing to be investigated on a global scale. However, accurate identification of A-to-I edits on a transcriptome-wide scale is compounded by artifacts introduced by reverse transcription, sequencing, and computational alignment, all of which can lead to false positive signals. RNA-seq read alignment for the purposes of RNA editing calls can be affected by the accuracy of spliced, gapped, multi-mapped, and mismatch alignments. To address these challenges, I developed RNAsequel, a software package that runs as a post-processing step in conjunction with an RNA-seq aligner. I benchmarked the accuracy of RNASequel using a combination of human derived simulated and biological datasets and demonstrated a clear improvement in all four of the aforementioned accuracy metrics compared to current RNA-seq alignment tools. Next, I utilized RNASequel to identify clusters of A-to-I hyper-editing in 91 C. elegans samples using a novel algorithm designed to mitigate common sources of false positive calls that are difficult to mitigate during read alignment. This resulted in the most comprehensive map of RNA editing in C. elegans to date with 197,890 sites within 10,941 clusters. I then explored the localization of the clusters to genetic features and heterochromatin. Collectively, these data show the extensive editing events in the worms, while concurrently demonstrating the utility of RNASequel.

Keywords: ADAR
Adenosine Deamination
Caenorhabditis elegans
RNA Editing
RNA-seq
Advisor: Stein, Lincoln D
Equity-minded Principals: Leadership That Promotes Academic Achievement for Marginalized Students

The general question guiding this research is: How do equity-minded principals promote academic achievement for the marginalized students in their schools? The following subquestions are addressed in this study: How do equity-minded principals understand marginalization in their schools? Why do equity-minded principals see the need to attend to the academic well-being of marginalized students? What motivates them? What strategies do equity-minded principals employ to promote the academic achievement of marginalized students? What barriers do equity-minded principals encounter, and how do they address them? What recommendations would equity-minded principals give to the district school boards and the Ministry of Education as regards to promoting academic achievement for marginalized students? A critical perspective is used to examine the experiences of 16 principals from elementary schools who were identified through a snowball sampling as being equity minded. These principals are from the area of southern Ontario from both Catholic and public boards of education. They have been principals for at least 3 years. The literature I reviewed indicated that many principals, although they follow an equity/social justice approach to some degree, do not usually focus specifically on promoting the academic achievement of marginalized students as these equity-minded principals do. The participants in the study articulated their understanding of marginalization in their schools, what motivated them, the strategies they used, the barriers they faced, and how they handled them. Through this study numerous strategies that promote academic achievement for marginalized students with staff, students, and parents were identified by the equity-minded principals. I also identify critical themes: the principals' understanding of marginalization, principals' advocacy and school culture, curriculum, and instruction and staff as barriers or facilitators to promoting academic achievement of marginalized students. I conclude with highlighting the recommendations the 16 equity-minded principals identified to be useful to the Ministry of Education and boards of education in their efforts to promote the academic achievement of marginalized students. I also looked at how the equity-minded leadership framework connects/contributes to the larger body of knowledge in the educational leadership field.

Keywords: academic achievement
administration
equity
inclusive
leadership
marginalization
Advisor: Ryan, James
A Computational Model for Episodic Memory Inspired by the Brain

Memory is a pillar of intelligence, and to think like us, it may be that artificial systems must remember like us. This dissertation introduces a computational model for episodic memory that is inspired by functions of the hippocampus and its interaction with the cortex. The model has two distinct components: a recurrent neural network in which experienced episodes are represented by attracting dynamical trajectories, and a deep autoencoder that both compresses high-dimensional sensory inputs and reconstructs sensory experiences from lower-dimensional stored trajectories. The model is founded on neuroscientific research which suggests that the hippocampus acts as an associative memory system, and that hippocampal traces are unfolded in the cortex. In order to realize associative memory function, a new algorithm for the construction of recurrent neural networks has been developed. This algorithm allows recurrent networks to be trained to approximate, arbitrarily well, any prescribed dynamical system. Additionally, we present a method by which arbitrary dynamical systems of attractors can be constructed by smoothing collections of vector fields. Together, these two methods provide a mathematically rigorous, end-to-end pipeline for the construction of complex attractor networks. The power of this pipeline is demonstrated with a host of examples. Our episodic memory model is demonstrated through the storage and retrieval of movie- like visual episodes. These episodes are retrieved automatically from partial inputs that represent related or analogous experiences.

Keywords: deep learning
dynamical systems
episodic memory
recurrent neural networks
Advisor: D'Eleuterio, Gabriele MT
Sustainable and Resilient Neighbourhood Design

The objective of this thesis is to support initiation of resilience work at the neighbourhood scale, where “resilience” is the capability of dealing with future shocks and stresses (climate change related and non-related) and continuing to function. First, a framework for analyzing and improving neighbourhood resilience is developed. The key parts of this framework are the definition of the essential needs of the community, identification of future shocks/stresses, and the execution of a series of resilience analyses. This framework was partially applied to a case study neighbourhood, a proposed mixed use neighbourhood in Ontario. It was applied to identify ways to improve the resilience of the neighbourhood with respect to energy, and was found to be straightforward to use and effective in generating ideas. Second, the relationship between sustainability and resilience was explored, by examining the resilience potential of actions in the LEED for Neighbourhood Development (LEED-ND) sustainability rating system to a wide range of future shocks/stresses. LEED-ND was found to contribute resilience to a number of future shocks/stresses (especially energy shortage and heat waves), and had minimal conflicting qualities, but did not address resilience needs comprehensively, thus confirming the need for a neighbourhood resilience framework. Third, literature reviews were conducted to come up with a single set of resilience strategies to aid design for resilience. A design aid was developed consisting of 59 resilience strategies (e.g., avoidance, diversity, social capital) that improve “core,” “specified,” and “general” resilience. The design aid was used to find ways to improve the resilience of the case study neighbourhood to any threat, and also to heat waves specifically. It was found to be effective in generating many ideas, and relatively straightforward to use, albeit a little difficult in some parts and lengthy in process. Finally, a step-wise procedure for showing how the framework and design aid can be used together is presented.

Keywords: climate change
future
LEED
neighbourhood
resilience
sustainability
Advisor: Kennedy, Christopher