bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Aging and Decisions From Experience: Differences in Information Search and Subsequent Decision Quality
Authors: Wegier Pete
Published: May 2021

Across a wide variety of choice tasks requiring information to be learned prior to a decision be made, older adults have been found to search for less information than their younger adult counterparts. This dissertation proposed and investigated several potential causes of this age-related decline in the extent of information search: (1) Domain familiarity; (2) Search patterns; (3) Affect; and (4) Risk. The results of four experiments are presented. In each, no significant age-related decline in the extent of information search was found. Despite this, each experiment presents novel findings, adding to our understanding of how information search and subsequent decision quality in choice changes with age.
Experiment 1 revealed an age-related shift in search pattern selection during pre-decisional information search. Older adults showed a preference for the use of a comprehensive, infrequent-switch, pattern during search. Experiment 2 demonstrated the significant impact that search patterns can have on decision quality. Search pattern use was strictly enforced and it was found that searching using a piecewise search pattern resulted in a
significant improvement in performance, relative to comprehensive search, across both younger and older adult age groups, despite older adults showing declines in their fluid intelligence. Experiment 3 investigated the role of affective feedback on decision quality. When given affect-rich and affect-poor feedback, an interaction of age and affective feedback on decision quality was observed. Younger adults’ performance was greater when they were provided with affect-poor performance feedback compared to affect-rich feedback, but a similar trend was not observed in older adults. Experiment 4 found older adults to be no less efficient in identifying higher value outcomes than younger adults.
Overall, this dissertation presents several novel findings in the field of decision-making research. The importance of search pattern selection on decision quality was demonstrated. More critical is the finding that older adults are no less effective in their decisions across a wide
array of tasks and manipulations, despite existing stereotypes and evidence of age-related declines in cognitive abilities. Moving forward, the work presented here could be used to guide the future creation of decision aids and new approaches to choice.
An investigation of fear of the dark in individuals with insomnia disorder
Authors: Maich Kristin H. G.
Published: May 2021

Past research found that individuals with poor sleep report and physiologically exhibit greater fear of the dark (FOD) than good sleepers (Carney et al., 2013). The presence of FOD in individuals with insomnia disorder (ID) would have important implications to our understanding of ID and its treatment. Thus, the present study compared individuals with ID to good sleepers (N = 50) on objective and subjective FOD, and explored the FOD construct through participant
interviews. Contrary to expectations, ID and good sleeper groups did not differ on FOD measures. Cognitive arousal and trauma history were related to reported dark discomfort. For those with ID, experiences in the dark were characterized by greater sleep effort and pre-sleep arousal generally, but not dark-specific fear per se. For those who were fearful of the dark we posit that there may be a trauma-activated pathway to arousal. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.
Print culture in the digital era : the publishing industry in the 21st century
Authors: Culver Shannon
Published: May 2021

This thesis provides an examination of the impact of new technologies on the book publishing industry and literary culture; analyzing the ways in which digital technologies like the eBook and eReader are changing reading practices and the conception of the book as a physical object and cultural artifact, as well as the way in which the internet, and Web 2.0 applications in particular, are being used to create new literary communities. I posit that the communications circuit described by Robert Darnton is disrupted and reconfigured by new technologies that facilitate novel forms of communication between authors, publishers, booksellers and readers, but that these changes are an extension of existing practices within literary culture. Further, in significant ways, these changes signal a recuperation of collaborative forms of production and reading practices that predate the print era, and herald an era of renewed collaboration and communication amongst literary communities.
"Well, Listen... " : Acoustic Community on Toronto Island.
Authors: Scott Charlotte
Published: May 2021

"Well, listen. .. "is a sound composition about the acoustic community of Toronto Island and Toronto Harbour. The project explores how people create and experience acoustic community, how perceptions of the soundscape are related to attitudes about nature and culture, and how power relationships are articulated through sound. The project is based in environmental cultural studies and in sound ecology, notably the work of Williams (1973), Schafer (1977), Westerkamp (2002) and Truax (1984), and concludes seven months of soundwalks, interviews, composition, editing and field research.

Participants discussed the soundscape of Toronto Island, noise pollution in Toronto Harbour and the relationship between sound, community and ecology. These interviews were edited and re-assembled in a manner inspired by the contrapuntal voice compositions of Glenn Gould. Field recordings reflect the complex mix of natural, social, and industrial sounds that make up the soundscape of the harbour, and document the acts of sound walking and deep listening that are the core methods of soundscape research.

The composition creates an imaginary aural space that integrates the voices and reflections of the Island's acoustic community with the contested soundscape of their island home. The project paper outlines the theory and methods that informed the sound composition, and further explores the political economy of noise pollution, especially in relation to the Docks nightclub dispute and to current research in sound ecology.
Standardized measure for phosphatidylinositol, 4,5-bisphosphate by mass spectrometry
Authors: Jawanda Jaspreet
Published: May 2021

Phosphoinositides (PIs) play a fundamental role in many physiological processes such as cell surface signal transduction, membrane trafficking, cytoskeleton regulation, nuclear events and permeability and transport functions of membranes. Levels of PIs vary under different physiological conditions thus PI profiling may be an important step in elucidation of importance in the progression towards many diseases. Previous methods for PI analysis have several disadvantages in time-constraints, use of radioactive samples and inconsistent results due to lack of sensitivity. Mass spectrometry has previously been utilized to quantify low abundance peptides, metabolites and lipids. Here we propose a novel approach for PI quantitation based on inositol head cleavage coupled to high-performance liquid-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) to overcome these issues. First, we highlight the extraction and deacylation of PIs from S. Ceravisiae, followed by purification via reverse phase chromatography with a Sep-Pak. Next, using commercially purchased PI (4,5) P2 standards, we created a tune file which provide the correct conditions sensitive enough to identify prolific ion peaks to be utilized in characterization of biological samples. Using the standard tune file, we successfully identified and quantitated the PI (4,5) P2 in cells lacking INP51 which have 2-4 fold increase in PI (4,5)P(subscript 2) and comparing them to the wild type cells. The methods described may form a basis for further optimization of mass spectral based quantitation of PIs.
An analytical investigation of the effectiveness of customer loyalty programs
Authors: Gandomi Amir
Published: May 2021

This dissertation investigates the effectiveness of customer loyalty programs. Loyalty programs, as a prevalent marketing strategy, aim to enhance customers’ loyalty and thereby increase a firm’s long-term profitability. Despite the ubiquity of loyalty programs, the empirical research shows contradictory findings on their effectiveness. Analytical studies, on the other hand, leave notable gaps in the research on different aspects of loyalty programs. In this study, taking an analytical approach, some of the research gaps in the adoption as well as the design of loyalty programs are addressed. Specifically, in evaluating the profitability of loyalty programs, this study incorporates customers’ valuation for the product and their post-purchase satisfaction level, two factors that are not considered in previous studies. The formulations result in stochastic models that are analyzed to gain insights into the profitability of loyalty programs. Based on the model assumptions, it is observed that if a firm maintains satisfaction among customers, not adopting a loyalty program yields optimal profits. It is also shown that this result holds even when the uncertainty in customers’ satisfaction levels is incorporated in the model.

From the design perspective, the reward structure is discussed as one of the main drivers of loyalty programs’ effectiveness. Particularly, the multitier reward scheme, a commonly-used yet underexplored reward structure, is studied. A model is developed to compare the effectiveness of multitier reward schemes with that of single-tier rewards. In the framework of the model assumptions, it is shown that the multitier scheme is more effective than the single-tier scheme in increasing a firm’s profitability and driving repeat purchase behavior. Also, a model is developed to characterize the conditions under which a multitier reward scheme is the preferred choice. The conditions are formulated based on the sensitivity of customers’ demand to the offered price, rewards and the distance from the next tier, and also based on the price offered by the competitor. It is shown that low levels of sensitivity to rewards and distance in customers can result in suboptimal revenue from a multitier reward scheme. Also, it is observed that if the competitor offers deeper discounts, the multitier reward structure becomes optimal in more cases.
Resilient Coupling: The Systems Of Coastally Dependent Communities
Authors: Bortoluzzi Brandon Saverio Knight
Published: May 2021

As climate change becomes a more prevalent reality, rising sea levels are increasingly a threat to cities and communities in coastal regions. In light of this it is important to consider architecture’s role in the strategizing of defences and resilience. The major issue with traditionally implemented coastal defence programs, such as those considered by the US Army Corp of Engineers, is their brute force approach is repressively one dimensional, undermining the diverse, and complex realities of any community. Orienting itself in the diverse and complex communities of Atlantic Canada, this thesis operates in the face of these challenges and shortfalls. Instead a coupling of systems, activities and events in these coastal communities can make possible an architecture that accommodates, and makes visible, the realities of its changing environs at a multitude of scales, allowing the continued success of human settlement.
On Using Social Media to Predict Elections. A Meta-Analysis
Authors: Pretty Brent
Published: May 2021

As of late there's been great interest in social media’s ability to predict elections. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, owing to their cultural ubiquity, offer a plethora of data and an opportunity to track public perception at a granular level in real time.
The ability to passively analyze public opinion is a massive step forward in the realm of political prediction, and has the potential to redefine the field of campaign strategy.
In this piece of research I analyzed the current state of social media based electoral prediction. I examined the methods and techniques used to collect and analyze data, and compared their results against both each other and other methods of prediction such as telephone polling.
In this I found a field that is still in its infancy. Much work remains to be done until a set of best practices surrounding social media based electoral prediction are accumulated.
Progress Toward the Synthesis of Labeled Derivatives of the Cystic Fibrosis Drug Ivacaftor
Authors: Elmallah Salma
Published: May 2021

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is one of the most common genetic diseases, affecting approximately 70,000 people worldwide causing severe complications and often leading to early death. CF is caused by a mutation in the gene encoding for the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein which is responsible for fluid and ion transport through epithelial membranes maintaining the formation of a thin slippery mucous layer. CFTR mutations either lead to a trafficking defect where the CFTR protein does not reach the plasma membrane or a gating defect where CFTR protein at the plasma membrane does not function properly. Treatment of cystic fibrosis usually addresses the symptoms to overcome the complications of the disease such as pneumonia, lung infections, pancreatitis, maldigestion and infertility. Vertex pharmaceuticals has been interested in developing small molecules that have the ability to interact with mutated CFTR proteins, aiding in their delivery to the cell membrane and/or restoring their channel function. VX-770 is an orally bioavailable potentiator that has the ability to improve the gating activity and increasing the open probability of CFTR protein in patients carrying the G551D mutation. VX770, Ivacaftor, was recently approved by the US FDA after showing very good improvements in the lung function in CF patients with good safety profile. Our research is focusing on the synthesis of VX770 under mild conditions and formation of labeled derivatives to help in the understanding of its exact mode of action. Different methods were developed toward the synthesis of the two main components, LHS and RHS, of VX770 by using less harsh conditions for a short period of time. We were successfully able to make two photoaffinity labeled derivatives, aryl azide and benzophenone derivatives, which will be beneficial in tracking the drug molecule and revealing the exact site of interaction between the drug and the protein. Synthesis of VX770 fragments was is another focus of interest in our research as they will provide us with information about the best positions for further derivatization.
Trajectory Based Market Models for Two Stocks
Authors: Crisci Dario R.
Published: May 2021

This paper studies the explicit calculation of the set of superhedging (and underhedging) portfolios where one asset is used to superhedge another in a discrete time setting. A general operational framework is proposed and trajectory models are defined based on a class of investors characterized by how they operate on financial data leading to potential portfolio rebalances. Trajectory market models will be specified by a trajectory set and a set of portfolios. Beginning with observing charts in an operationally prescribed manner, our trajectory sets will be constructed by moving forward recursively, while our superhedging portfolios are computed through a backwards recursion process involving a convex hull algorithm. The models proposed in this thesis allow for an arbitrary number of stocks and arbitrary choice of numeraire. Although price bounds, V 0 (X0, X2 ,M) ≤ V 0(X0, X2 ,M), will never yield a market misprice, our models will allow an investor to determine the amount of risk associated with an initial investment v.
intimate geographies of the room
Authors: Rahnamaei Nahal
Published: May 2021

The private room has existed as a place of refuge from the pressures of public life, the burden of domestic work and has been a signifier of privilege within social constructs. With previous notions of privacy challenged today, it is increasingly important to unpack the structures and ideologies of our intimate built environment. Domestic theatrics are fragmented beyond the confines of the nostalgic house, existing in a slippery state between public and private. The home becomes a dynamic assembly of rooms in which we dwell temporally, hosting a variety of occupants, activities, and objects, assembling a state in which methods of subversion serve to liberate from domestic constructs. By deconstructing the elements of a house, the performance of each room and ritual begins to exhibit an uncanny connection to other spaces. This deconstruction can be facilitated using a dollhouse, which allows architectural elements to be released from their structural and thermal duties: here they are objects of performance, devices to interact through, and explore the boundaries of privacy.
Abrasive jet micro-machining of metals
Authors: Ally Sayeed
Published: May 2021

Abrasive jet micro-machining is a process that utilizes small abrasive particles entrained in a gas stream to erode material, creating micro-features such as channels and holes. Erosion experiments were carried out on aluminum 6061-T6, Ti-6A1-4V alloy, and 316L stainless steel using 50 μm A1₂O₃ abrasive powder launched at an average speed of 106 m/s. The dependence of erosion rate on impact angle was measured and fitted to a semi-empirical model. The erosion data was used in an analytical model to predict the surface evolution of unmasked channels machined with the abrasive jet at normal and oblique incidence, and masked channels at normal incidence. The predictions of the model were in good agreement with the measured profiles for unmasked channels at normal and oblique impact, and masked channels in at normal incidence up to an aspect ratio (channel depth/width) of 1.25. For the first time, it has been demonstrated that the surface evolution of features machined in metals can be predicted.
Keep it “real”: the co-construction of authentic performance and audience connection in poetry slam competitions
Authors: Eid Gloria
Published: May 2021

With the poetry slam competition – a live, competitive spoken word poetry reading – as context for this project, the study explores the concepts of authenticity and audience connection as they relate to message production and meaning-making processes in the field of professional communication. This project uses a symbolic interactionist perspective and Goffman’s (1959) theory of dramaturgy to investigate the poet-audience relationship and discover how a display of authentic performance works to achieve the goal of audience connection. The researcher interviewed six slam poets from the Greater Toronto and Southwestern Ontario area about their experiences in the poetry slam world. Results from the interviews reveal that authenticity is co-constructed between poet and audience, involving a coalescence of private preparation strategies and onstage performance strategies that help craft a sense of credibility and honesty from the poet that, in turn, contribute to achieving successful audience connection by the slam poet as performer.
Taking control of diabetes: child and adolescent perspectives on the evolution of self-care
Authors: Khan Noshin
Published: May 2021

This qualitative study employed an ethnographic approach to explore perspectives of children and adolescents on diabetes self-care. Their knowledge of diabetes and feelings about having the disease was also addressed. Rooted in the new sociological approach that acknowledges children’s right to participate in issues that concern them, forty eight paediatric patients between the ages of five and eighteen years participated in individual interviews. Participants were recruited from a diabetes outpatient clinic within the largest paediatric hospital in Canada. Data were coded using McCracken’s (1988) method of analysis. This paper presents a focused analysis of three major themes: self-care, knowledge and feelings. In-depth analyses of these integrated themes provided a rich understanding of how children and adolescents with diabetes come to accept their disease and how the process of self-care evolves over time. Despite the emotional challenges and complexity of managing diabetes, children and adolescents spoke of a resolve and readiness to obtain more knowledge about their disease. This paper describes the process of diabetes self-care from the perspectives of children and adolescents and offers suggestions for clinical practice and future research.
Photographic representations of 'truth': the history and contemporary practice of photographic narrative tableaux
Authors: White D'Arcy L. l.
Published: May 2021

This thesis explores the history of photographic narrative tableau from the Victorian era, through modernism, postmodernism, and postmodernism examining, as case studies, the contemporary work of Patrick Nagatani and Gregory Crewdson. It illustrates how this genre evolved over time, noting technological, social and cultural influences affecting artists and their work. It includes a discussion of contemporaneous photographic theory and criticism, and illustrates how staged narrative tableau photographs have a paradoxical relationship to the problematic concept of truth.
Topics discussed include artifce, the uncanny, paradox, the contemporary sublime, and the aesthetics of seduction; the complicit gaze, anti narrative, and the role of the viewer; the use of language, words, and signs; fact, myth, truth, and the (re)creation of history; theatricality, melodrama, and metaphor; allegory, Simulation, simulacra, reality, and the real.
Resource allocation for multimedia services over cloud computing
Authors: Nan Xiaoming
Published: May 2021

Cloud-based multimedia application has emerged as a popular service, delivering on demand media computing and storage to millions of users. Though widely deployed, the quality of service (QoS) in current cloud-based multimedia service is not satisfying, due to the varying user demands and strict response time requirements. This thesis investigates resource allocation approaches to improve QoS for cloud-based multimedia services. A service model is desired to quantify the user demands and resource allocation. To meet this need, we propose a queueing model to characterize the cloud service process, based on which we investigate the response time minimization problem and the resource cost minimization problem in single-service scenario, multi-service scenario, and priority service scenario, respectively. Dynamic workload causes the unbalanced resource utilization and local congestion in multimedia cloud. To address this issue, we propose a two-time-scale resource configuration (TRC) scheme to dynamically allocate virtual machines (VMs) to adapt to varying workload. Based on the TRC scheme, we solve the optimal VM configuration problems to minimize the resource cost or minimize the average response time for the single-site cloud scenario and the multi-site cloud scenario, respectively. We propose optimal workload scheduling schemes at user level and task level, respectively. At user level, we optimize the workload assignment to minimize the response time or minimize the resource cost. At task level, we introduce a directed acyclic graph to model the precedence constraints among tasks, and then solve the execution time minimization problems for sequential structure, parallel structure, and mixed structure, respectively. Cloud gaming is an emerging interactive multimedia service. However, current cloud gaming suffers from a high bandwidth consumption and a large response delay. We propose a hybrid streaming framework to provide a high quality cloud gaming experience. We solve the delay-rate-distortion (d-R-D) optimization problem to minimize the overall distortion under the bandwidth and response delay constraints.
A new algorithm for time-delay estimation in ultrasonic echo signals and a comparative study of its performance evaluation in ultrasound elastography imaging
Authors: Shaswary Elyas
Published: May 2021

Time-delay estimation is a widely used signal processing task in many areas of ultrasound medical imaging and the performance of many applications is highly dependent on the accuracy and efficiency of the time-delay estimates. Time-delay estimation determines the displacement between two ultrasound echo signals. In this thesis, we propose a new time-delay estimation algorithm, which generates a zero-crossing curve to compute the time-delay estimate between two ultrasound echo signals. A comparative study, using statistical analysis and quantitative measurement of image quality in simulated and experimental ultrasound elastography, was done to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with other established algorithms, such as normalized cross-correlation (NCC) and sum squared differences (SSD). The results of comparison of various algorithms using signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios indicated that the new algorithm only marginally improved the quality of the images in ultrasound elastography. In addition, a novel strain map normalization method was implemented to enhance target visualization in ultrasound elastography by compensating for strain decay with depth.
Terra Incognita : Degrowth, community and performance
Authors: Simpson Alexandra
Published: May 2021

We live in a world in which economic and personal growth is a prerequisite to being human. The alternative lies in what has yet to be explored. Confined by what we are told and know as the “good life”, we must make a choice; will we degrow on our own initiative or will we continue until the biosphere forces us to stop? This paper is written in support of the performance documentary, TERRA INCOGNITA and the formation/creative process of the Terra Incognita Collective (TIC). It will explore the environmental, social and psychological impacts of a growth-oriented culture through a degrowth lens. Furthermore, this paper will explore art as an access point to high consumption cultures and artists as important social actors within environmental and social justice movements. Terra Incognita, its audiences and artists, explore growth histories through embodiment and collective authorship.
The urban internet: reality, virtuality, and urban social practice in internet cafes.
Authors: Powell Alison
Published: May 2021

"The purpose of this paper is to begin the examination of the internet as one aspect of everyday life, particularly in an urban context, and to chart the various ways that internet technology facilitates in-person social interactions."--Page 2.
A novel digital modulation scheme for multilevel cascaded H-bridge inverters in high power AC drives
Authors: Dong Mouzhi
Published: May 2021

The multilevel cascaded H-bridge (CHB) inverters are widely used in megawatt variable speed drives, where the voltage level normally varies from seven to thirteen and the number of active switching devices used in the inverter is in the range of 36 to 72. The design of a simple modulation scheme for such inverters with superior harmonic performance is a challenging task.

This project presents a novel digital multilevel modulation (DMM) scheme for multilevel CHB inverters. This scheme is very simple, flexible and easy to implement. To generate gate signals for all the active switches in the inverter, the scheme needs only to calculate a three-phase sine function once followed by a number of subtractions in each sampling period. In this project, the principle of the proposed modulation scheme is elaborated and its harmonic performance is analyzed. Comparisons are carried out between the DMM scheme and carrier based modulation schemes including phase-shifted and level-shifted modulations.

It is demonstrated that the harmonic performance of the DMM scheme is on par with the best of carrier based modulation techniques. On the inverter side, line-to-line voltage THD of inverter output for the proposed modulation scheme is as low as IPSD modulation scheme. On the line side, line current THD is as low as phase-shifted modulation scheme because of balanced poser consumption in each power cell.

Under the condition of device switching frequency unchanged, a new algorithm is developed to combine the advantages from both phase-shifted and IPD modulation schemes and conquer the drawback of both schemes. The simulation result shows that new modulation scheme has almost same line-to-line voltage harmonic spectrum from light to rated load with balanced power cells.
Parents’ perception of raising healthy Black children
Authors: Hall Patricia
Published: May 2021

The early learning environment is important in the development of racial identity for Black and bi-racial children as this may be the first environment outside of the children’s home environment where they learn about themselves and others. Through semi-structured interviews this qualitative research explores five Black Canadian mothers’ racial socialization practices and perceptions of how their children’s racial identity is being represented in the early learning environment. Employing a constructivist framework and Critical Race Theory (CRT) four overarching themes were identified: “racial socialization behaviours connected to Black identity”, “parents using racial socialization to combat racism”, “lack of resources supporting racial identity”, and “diversity of teachers, authority belongs to everybody”. The mothers in this study employed racial socialization behaviours to buffer against the impact of racism in order to support the healthy development of their children.
Assessment of load bearing clay brick masonry for analyzing long-term durability through field measurement and visual review
Authors: Williams Blair  E.
Published: May 2021

This thesis examines a load bearing clay brick century home research house in Toronto (Canada) which has recently undergone the addition of polyurethane foam insulation on all interior sides of the exterior clay brick load bearing walls, increasing the insulating value in areas to RSI 7.9 W/m2K, on average.

This study introduces and advances techniques to create high-resolution stitched mosaic images of the elevations to visually document the current physical condition of the brick. The critical saturation point was used to determine the capabilities of the clay brick masonry to resist freeze-thaw damage by way of frost dilatometry testing and compared to measurements taken by in-situ moisture content sensors in the brick masonry. This project also reveals how bricks expand and deteriorate in non-uniform manner during saturated three-dimensional dilatometry testing.
From Childhood Maltreatment to Depression Behind Bars : Testing a Theoretical Model of Adolescent Depression Among Juvenile Offenders
Authors: Wanklyn Sonya G.
Published: May 2021

Despite research consistently demonstrating a link between childhood maltreatment and depression, our understanding of the potential mediators of this relationship remains limited. Based on the existing literature and corresponding theories, a theoretical model was constructed to assess the effects of childhood maltreatment, impulsivity, hopelessness, and substance use on adolescent offenders' depression severity. This model was tested for sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and emotional neglect using a series of path analyses. Impulsivity and hopelessness partially mediated the effects of childhood sexual abuse and emotional abuse on depression severity, and fully mediated the effects of childhood physical abuse and emotional neglect. Contrary to expectation, substance use did not mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depression severity. These results suggest that childhood maltreatment, impulsivity, and hopelessness may be important variables to include in clinical research related to depression in incarcerated youth.
A study of grain refinement of AZ91E and Mg-9 wt.% AI alloys using zinc oxide
Authors: Saha Subrata K.
Published: May 2021

Grain refinement is a proven method to improve mechanical properties of Mg alloys. In this research, the influence of ZnO on the microstructure of selected magnesium alloys was investigated. For graphite mold casting with an addition of 0.75 wt. % ZnO, the grain size of the AZ91E alloy decreased from 217 μm to 108 μm. For the binary alloy (Mg-9 wt.% Al), the grain size reduced from 288 μm to 93 μm with an addition of 3 wt.% ZnO. No significant fading of ZnO grain refiner was observed for both the alloys.
In permanent mold casting process, with an addition of 0.5 wt.% ZnO, the grain size of the AZ91E alloy decreased from 133μm to 79 μm with significant improvements in mechanical properties. Cleavage type fracture was dominant in the base alloy while alloys refined with 0.5 wt.% ZnO showed more quasi-cleavage type fracture.
Sustainability with (out) compromise: how companies perceive, manage, and communicate trade-off decisions in the practice of corporate sustainability
Authors: Haffar Merriam
Published: May 2021

The practice of corporate sustainability is beset with compromise; it involves inevitable trade-offs across competing objectives and across a range of stakeholders and time horizons. These trade-offs create tension points that present the company with strategic choices that ultimately shape its overall approach to sustainability. Accordingly, trade-offs constitute a material aspect of a company’s sustainability practice, and ought to be disclosed in sustainability reports. The purpose of this research is therefore to understand how companies perceive, manage, and report on these critical trade-off decisions in the practice of sustainability. To achieve this objective, this dissertation conducted a study in three phases.
In Phase I, this study conducted a review and content analysis of the trade-off literature through the lens of the natural resource-based view of the firm. Through this process, this study proposed a hierarchical framework for the analysis of trade-offs based on their root tensions, their interconnections, and their connection to sustainability synergies.
In Phase II, this study used an organizational cognition perspective to posit that companies perceive and respond to these trade-off decisions in ways that reflect the company’s underlying sustainability logic. To explore this link, this study performed a content analysis of interviews with sustainability managers, as well as archival documents. This study found that companies with an instrumental logic saw trade-offs as binary and resolved them by counterbalancing the ‘lose’ dimension with ‘wins’ elsewhere. In contrast, companies with an integrative logic saw trade-offs as non-binary, and resolved them through an iterative, risk-based approach.
Finally, in Phase III, this study used a legitimacy perspective to determine whether companies are disclosing these trade-offs in their sustainability reports. To do so, this study analyzed sustainability reports and interviews with sustainability managers using content analysis. This study found that 92% of all reporting companies had encountered sustainability trade-offs but had not disclosed them in their reports. Evidence of these accounts were nevertheless present in the implicit (or latent) content of the reports. These findings highlight the negative light in which many companies perceive trade-offs, and the legitimacy threat that their disclosure poses.
Failure Recovery In SDN: A Segment Routing Based Link Protection Approach
Authors: Enan Mirja Shahriar
Published: May 2021

The present computer network has been evolved into a complex structure with a growing challenge to manage and scale modern day’s requirements. A new approach to tackle these difficulties is SDN, which empowers network with programmability and is designed to perform fine grained traffic forwarding decisions. However, similar to the need of traditional networks, fault tolerance is necessary to achieve high availability. In this thesis, we propose a link protection method based on the Segment Routing (SR) for rapid failure recovery in OpenFlow based SDN. Our proposed scheme performs local recovery at the switch level without the controller intervention, thus significantly reducing the total recovery time. Additionally, it reduces initial load on the controller while proactively computing the backup paths by minimizing the algorithm complexity. Moreover, memory efficiency is achieved by using a per-link protection with aggregated flow rules instead of traditional per-flow based protection mechanism. In Segment Routing, we may encounter the limitation on the size of the label stack, known as Segment List Depth (SLD). Therefore, we also propose an efficient label encoding algorithm to mitigate the SLD impact.
Image Denoising in Spatial and Transform Domains
Authors: Sharifymoghaddam Mina
Published: May 2021

Image denoising is an inseparable pre-processing step of many image processing algorithms. Two mostly used image denoising algorithms are Nonlocal Means (NLM) and Block Matching and 3D Transform Domain Collaborative Filtering (BM3D). While BM3D outperforms NLM on variety of natural images, NLM is usually preferred when the algorithm complexity is an issue. In this thesis, we suggest modified version of these two methods that improve the performance of the original approaches.
The conventional NLM uses weighted version of all patches in a search neighbourhood to denoise the center patch. However, it can include some dissimilar patches. Our first contribution, denoted by Similarity Validation Based Nonlocal Means (NLM-SVB), eliminates some of those unnecessary dissimilar patches in order to improve the performance of the algorithm. We propose a hard thresholding pre-processing step based on the exact distribution of distances of similar patches. Consequently, our method eliminates about 60% of dissimilar patches and improves NLM in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Stracuteral Similarity Index Measure (SSIM).
Our second contribution, denoted by Probabilistic Weighting BM3D (PW-BM3D), is the result of our thorough study of BM3D. BM3D consists of two main steps. One is finding a basic estimate of the noiseless image by hard thresholding coefficients. The second one is using this estimate to perform wiener filtering. In both steps the weighting scheme in the aggregation process plays an important role. The current weighting process depends on the variance of retrieved coefficients after denoising which results in a biased weighting. In PW-BM3D, we propose a novel probabilistic weighting scheme which is a function of the probability of similarity of noiseless patches in each 3D group. The results show improvement over BM3D in terms of PSNR for an average of about 0.2dB.
Persons found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) for sexual offences: characteristics, risk factors, and Review Board decision making
Authors: Loney Danielle M.
Published: May 2021

This thesis examined the characteristics of persons found NCRMD for sexual offences, their offences, and the degree to which empirically supported risk factors predicted Review Board decisions. Reasons documents dated from 2006 to 2015, and examining index sexual offences were collected from LawSource ©. Search terms were derived from the Canadian Criminal Code (1985, c. C-46), and commonly accepted terminology for sexual offending. Findings suggest that persons found NCRMD for sexual offences present with general and sexual offence specific risk factors for recidivism. However, Review Board decisions were only predicted by factors related to clinical functioning and risk management factors. These findings suggest that further research is needed to examine risk assessment, decision making, and forensic mental health outcomes of persons found NCRMD for sexual offences. Implications for treatment of persons found NCRMD and knowledge dissemination to Review Boards are also discussed.
Challenging the fast fashion product: a method for use-value apparel design
Authors: Triemstra-Johnston Jennifer
Published: May 2021

Sustainable apparel design is a discipline based on challenging the status quo. Applying an interdisciplinary approach, this paper integrates the methodologies of research through practice, sustainable design, and material culture to challenge contemporary products found on the fast fashion market. Exploring use-value as an avenue for sustainable design, a typology is developed addressing the identifiers of function, aesthetics, expression, and durability as a method for generating sustainable solutions. The interpretative methods of material culture are adapted into a use-value challenge as a process for establishing sustainable and unsustainable elements embedded within a product. The concept of best practices is introduced as a procedure for assessing the solutions for the creation of alternative prototypes. A case study, challenging children’s princess costumes found on the contemporary market, provides an example of how the use-value method for apparel design can be applied to fast fashion products.
Speeding up calibration of latent Dirichlet allocation model to improve topic analysis in software engineering
Authors: Lopez Jorge Arturo
Published: May 2021

Extraction of topics from large text corpuses helps improve Software Engineering (SE) processes. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) represents one of the algorithmic tools to understand, search, exploit, and summarize a large corpus of data (documents), and it is often used to perform such analysis. However, calibration of the models is computationally expensive, especially if iterating over a large number of topics. Our goal is to create a simple formula allowing analysts to estimate the number of topics, so that the top X topics include the desired proportion of documents under study. We derived the formula from the empirical analysis of three SE-related text corpuses. We believe that practitioners can use our formula to expedite LDA analysis. The formula is also of interest to theoreticians, as it suggests that different SE text corpuses have similar underlying properties.
Welcome to Canada? A critical review and assessment of Canada's fast changing immigration policies
Authors: Jan Ali Lotf A.
Published: May 2021

From July 1, 2012, until July 31, 2014, Canada's immigration system underwent significant transformations, and the changes are continuing at a very fast pace. These transformations and the ongoing changes have created a cloud of uncertainty for many prospect immigrants and unpredictability among policy analysts, non-state actors, scholars, and other stakeholders. While family reunification, economic migrants and refugees in the past have enabled Canada to step up as a global leader, today concerns are growing that recent policy shifts are making Canada less desirable, are unfair to migrant and their families, and are resulting in destruction of its international reputation and long held leadership in immigrant integration and settlement. The purpose of this paper is to build upon Alboim and Cohl's Maytree report and review both proposed and effective immigration policies that occurred between July 2012 and July 2014. Offering an in depth analysis regarding some of the major policy amendments and evaluate their potential impact on all involved parties.
Exergy analysis and efficiency evaluation for an aluminium melting furnace in a die casting plant
Authors: Lee Dennis
Published: May 2021

An aluminium melting furnace efficiency in a die casting plant was investigated using energy and exergy methods. Energy efficiency and exergy efficiency values were evaluated for the natural gas-fired furnace, and the efficiency improvement was analyzed before and after two new regenerative burners were installed on the furnace.

The research analyzed and compared the environmental impacts attributable to the melting furnace before and after the burner upgrading project, and also provided a financial analysis of the capital investment of the upgrading project.

The study shows that the exergy method can be used beneficially to analyze the furnace efficiency and that exergy efficiency is a more practical measure in reality. Thus, it is believed that further applications of exergy methods are desirable to a wider range of industrial and engineering applications.

From the results of comparisons, the study shows that the regenerative burner technology and stage-combustion technique can improve combustion performance, reduce fuel (natural gas) consumption and lower NOx and Co2 emissions. Adopting the regenerative burner and stage-combustion technique will be beneficial to the die casting plant on energy saving and cost reduction. Recommendations are also made for further efficiency improvements.
Utilizing User Feedback Data for Content Recommendations
Authors: Shena Shena
Published: May 2021

Nowadays, Internet contains massive amount of information. In this environment, people who seek specific information could be overwhelmed by the options that they can reach through the Internet. To help users filter the information and overcome the information overload problem, recommender systems play an important role. Here, we deal with a specific recommendation problem – recommending content to users in a content management system utilizing users’ feedback data. We have tried both content-based and collaborative filtering approaches. In the content-based approach, once the content profile is built, user profile could be built based on different categories of user feedback data. We have explored the effect of these different feedback categories on the recommendation result. In the collaborative filtering approach, the feedback data is used for building the user-content rating matrix and matrix factorization is then applied. The experiment result shows that content-based approach outperforms collaborative filtering approach for this particular problem.
Analysis of psychometric data using statistical and machine learning methods
Authors: Subramanian Krishnapriya
Published: May 2021

The objective of this thesis is to analyse the psychometric data using statistical and machine learning methods. Psychological data are analysed to predict illness and injury of athletes. Regression technique, one of the statistical processes for estimating the relationship among variables is used as basis of this thesis. We apply the linear regression, time series and logistics regression to predict illness and well-being. Our linear regression simulation results are mainly used, to understand the data well. By reviewing the results of linear regression, time series model is developed which predicts sickness one day ahead. The predicted values of this time series model are continuous. However, logistic regression can be used, to provide a probabilistic approach to predict the future levels as a categorical value. Hence we have developed a binomial logistics regression model, when observation variable is the type of dichotomous. Our simulation results show that this prediction model performs well. Our empirical studies also show that our method can act as early warning system for athletes.
How the Canadian academic literature and Canadian newspapers discuss “honour killing”
Authors: Temowo Adeniyi Olasunkanmi
Published: May 2021

Literature revealed limited empirical studies on honour killing in Canada. The recent cases drew attention from the media, and the public but less from the academic. Discussion on this issue revolved around immigration, multiculturalism, and violence against immigrant women. Also, it is a manifestation of patriarchy common in most societies, and a form of violence against women not exclusive to one culture but deeply rooted in culture and religion. It is not always the sexual behaviour of the victim that define the 'family honour ‘. Murder, sometimes, is a result of women not following the social rules or the gender norms in the family and the men act to preserve their reputation. To understand honour killing, we need to consider the multiple ources of oppression and think of their intersections and how they affect each other and are intertwined.

Keywords: honour, honour killing, Newspapers, violence against immigrant women, culture, Islam, Muslim