cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Simple and Fast Biased Locks
Creators: name: Vasudevan, Nalini
name: Namjoshi, Kedar S.
name: Edwards, Stephen A.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2010
Subjects: Computer science

description: Locks are used to ensure exclusive access to shared memory locations. Unfortunately, lock operations are expensive, so much work has been done on optimizing their performance for common access patterns. One such pattern is found in networking applications, where there is a single thread dominating lock accesses. An important special case arises when a single-threaded program calls a thread-safe library that uses locks. An effective way to optimize the dominant-thread pattern is to "bias" the lock implementation so that accesses by the dominant thread have negligible overhead. We take this approach in this work: we simplify and generalize existing techniques for biased locks, producing a large design space with many trade-offs. For example, if we assume the dominant process acquires the lock infinitely often (a reasonable assumption for packet processing), it is possible to make the dominant process perform a lock operation without expensive fence or compare-and-swap instructions. This gives a very low overhead solution; we confirm its efficacy by experiments. We show how these constructions can be extended for lock reservation, re-reservation, and to reader-writer situations.
A Virial Core in the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
Creators: name: Agnello, A.
name: Evans, N. W.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The projected virial theorem is applied to the case of multiple stellar populations in the nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies. As each population must reside in the same gravitational potential, this provides strong constraints on the nature of the dark matter halo. We derive necessary conditions for two populations with Plummer or exponential surface brightnesses to reside in a cusped Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) halo. We apply our methods to the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal, and show that there is no NFW halo compatible with the energetics of the two populations. The dark halo must possess a core radius of ~ 120 pc for the virial solutions for the two populations to be consistent. This conclusion remains true, even if the effects of flattening or self-gravity of the stellar populations are included.
description: 4 pages, 2 figures, ApJL, submitted
Crossover from Hydrodynamics to the Kinetic Regime in Confined Nanoflows
Creators: name: Lissandrello, C.
name: Yakhot, V.
name: Ekinci, K. L.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present an experimental study of a confined nanoflow, which is generated by a sphere oscillating in the proximity of a flat solid wall in a simple fluid. Varying the oscillation frequency, the confining length scale and the fluid mean free path over a broad range provides a detailed map of the flow. We use this experimental map to construct a scaling function, which describes the nanoflow in the entire parameter space, including both the hydrodynamic and the kinetic regimes. Our scaling function unifies previous theories based on the slip boundary condition and the effective viscosity.
Reward Neurocircuitry in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Creators: name: Schuetze, Manuela
Publisher: name: Cumming School of Medicine
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Autism Spectrum Disorder
subject: Reinforcement Learning
subject: Neuroscience

description: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with social impairments and restricted interests. Early behavioural interventions often focus on reinforcing desired behaviours (e.g., eye contact) and reducing atypical behaviours (e.g., echoing others' phrases). A recent framework suggests reward system dysfunction to be at the core of ASD symptoms. However, if the reward system is impaired in ASD, it is paradoxical that reward-based strategies are commonly used during interventions. The goal of this thesis was to investigate the reward neurocircuitry to explore whether reward system dysfunction contributes to the ASD phenotype. We conducted a literature review on physiological, behavioural, and neural responses to reinforcers to look for common atypical patterns across all domains. We then investigated structural changes in basal ganglia and the thalamus using advanced surface-based methodology. For this, we modelled effects of diagnosis, age, and their interaction on volume, shape, and surface area on T1-weighted anatomical images of 373 male participants with ASD and 384 typically developing (TD). Finally, we investigated neural responses in the context of learning using rewards that were tailored to participants’ unique interests. 27 adolescents with ASD and 31 TD adolescents performed a reinforcement learning task while we collected fMRI data. Participants had to learn which of two doors showed images of their personal interests. The literature review revealed no consistent pattern of atypical reward responses in ASD. Further, we found that subcortical regions did not differ in volume between individuals with and without ASD. However, we found localized structural changes in shape and surface area of the putamen, globus pallidus and thalamus. Some changes were modulated by age, IQ and symptom severity. Interestingly, when using personal interests as reinforcers during a learning task, we found intact learning performance and similar neural responses in the reward system between ASD and TD groups. Taken together, mixed findings from the literature review and subtle structural changes in subcortical regions of the reward system suggest a role of this neurocircuitry in the ASD phenotype. However, intact learning and typical neural responses towards individual interests suggest that the reward system is not generally impaired in ASD.
title: Atlantoaxial rotatory subluxation/fixation and Grisel’s syndrome: the importance of imaging and clinical findings
Creators: name: Barakat, Massimo
Publisher: name: European Congress of Radiology
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Not applicable
subject: Not applicable
subject: Inflammation
subject: Infection
subject: Acute
subject: Diagnostic procedure
subject: MR
subject: CT
subject: Paediatric
subject: Musculoskeletal spine
subject: Head and neck
subject: Head and Neck

description: Learning objectives Background Findings and procedure details Conclusion Personal information and conflict of interest References
description: Learning objectives: The aim of this work is to describe the imaging (diagnostic criteria-grading system) and clinical findings of atlantoaxial rotatory subluxation/fixation (AARS/F), with special regard to Grisel’s...
Reclaiming Our Identities as Good Mothers: Narratives of Mothers with Child Welfare Experience
Creators: name: Yoo, Hee-Jeong
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: motherhood
subject: mothering
subject: Child Welfare
subject: Social Work
subject: FOS: Sociology

description: The predominant definition of motherhood in Canada, and Western Society, reflects the notion of intensive mothering, whereby mothers are expected to manage their responsibilities as the primary caregiver of their children and household, while maintaining employment outside of the home. This notion, based on a middle-class, Eurocentric construct leaves little consideration for the experiences of mothers from diverse socio-economic, and ethno-racial backgrounds. Mothers involved in child welfare for allegations of abuse are challenged with identifying with this definition of motherhood, as they face stigmatization by their communities and shame for their care of their children. Research affirms that mothers in child welfare are disproportionately younger, and of lower-economic status compared to the general population, in addition to having higher rates of homelessness, unemployment, and mental health concerns. My research question is: How do the narratives of mothers with child welfare involvement challenge good mothering ideology? This qualitative, exploratory study collaborates with three mothers in Calgary, Alberta, who, over the course of a series on in-depth interviews shared stories of the mothering they experienced in childhood, the challenges in their own mothering which resulted in having their children apprehended by the state, and finally their journey to regaining custody of their children. Interviews were audio-taped, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. These women’s narratives highlighted their resiliency in their reclaiming identities as good mothers while challenging socially-constructed beliefs about women, and mothering. Our intention is that the women’s stories can inform child welfare policies and procedures to best support diverse families involved in the child welfare system.
Breaking down the magnonic Wiedemann-Franz law in the hydrodynamic regime
Creators: name: Sano, Ryotaro
name: Matsuo, Mamoru
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Recent experiments have shown an indication of a hydrodynamic magnon behavior in ultrapure ferromagnetic insulators; however, its direct observation is still lacking. Here, we derive a set of coupled hydrodynamic equations and study the thermal and spin conductivities for such a magnon fluid. We reveal the drastic breakdown of the magnonic Wiedemann-Franz law as a hallmark of the hydrodynamics regime, which will become key evidence for the experimental realization of an emergent hydrodynamic magnon behavior. Therefore, our results pave the way towards the direct observation of magnon fluids.
description: 7 pages, 1 figure, and supplemental material (13 pages)
title: Threats to democracy: Climate misinformation and gendered disinformation
Creators: name: Berger, Cathleen
name: Freihse, Charlotte
name: Hofmann, Vincent
name: Kettemann, Matthias C.
name: Mosene, Katharina
Publisher: name: Bertelsmann Stiftung
Year: 2023
Subjects: Disinformation
Democracy
Climate Change
Gendered Disinformation

description: Our information ecosystem is under pressure, challenging democracies around the world. Digital disinformation reaches millions of people with devasting effects: online campaigns turned into hate-motivated violent attacks in Christchurch, Halle an der Saale, and El Paso; deny, delay and diffuse tactics in context of the climate crisis are slowing or even halting necessary action and regulation with severe consequences for people’s lives, biodiversity, and more. But what if the content is awful, but lawful?

How do we balance the need to counter harmful content with the obligation to protect freedom of expression and privacy?
Predicting thermal deformations during roll forming of thermoplastic matrix composites
Creators: name: Lynam, Corey
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: Thermal deformations that occur during the manufacturing processes of long fibre reinforced composite have been a continued challenge for manufacturers. These deformations can be difficult to predict due to the complex thermal and mechanical behaviour of composite laminates. This thesis examines the fundamental mechanisms that lead to a final part shape to be different from the original mould shape. While the discussion is framed around a comingled polypropylene and E-glass thermoplastic matrix composite as well as a roll forming manufacturing process, it is also relevant to the wider group of thermoplastic matrix composites and their manufacturing methods. A methodology is developed that can be used to characterize the thermal mechanical behaviour of the laminate, optimize the manufacturing process controls and predict the magnitude of thermal deformations. It was found that, for the case of roll forming of comingled polypropylene and E-glass laminates, process controls should be optimized first so that crystallization of the matrix material occurs at the ideal position along the forming line. Once the process is optimized, thermoelastic modeling methods should give an adequate prediction of the thermal deformations. However, for other manufacturing processes and for other materials, a complete thermoviscoelastic process model may be required in order to yield accurate predictions. Ultimately, the methodology presented in this study can be used by thermoplastic matrix composite manufacturers to reduce the time and cost associated with developing the manufacturing process of a new component by reducing the need for trial and error iterations of process controls and tooling geometries.
Active learning-assisted neutron spectroscopy with log-Gaussian processes
Creators: name: Parente, Mario Teixeira
name: Brandl, Georg
name: Franz, Christian
name: Stuhr, Uwe
name: Ganeva, Marina
name: Schneidewind, Astrid
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an)
subject: Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)
subject: Machine Learning (stat.ML)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Neutron scattering experiments at three-axes spectrometers (TAS) investigate magnetic and lattice excitations by measuring intensity distributions to understand the origins of materials properties. The high demand and limited availability of beam time for TAS experiments however raise the natural question whether we can improve their efficiency and make better use of the experimenter's time. In fact, there are a number of scientific problems that require searching for signals, which may be time consuming and inefficient if done manually due to measurements in uninformative regions. Here, we describe a probabilistic active learning approach that not only runs autonomously, i.e., without human interference, but can also directly provide locations for informative measurements in a mathematically sound and methodologically robust way by exploiting log-Gaussian processes. Ultimately, the resulting benefits can be demonstrated on a real TAS experiment and a benchmark including numerous different excitations.
description: Main: 24 pages, 6 figures, 1 table | Supplementary Information: 19 pages, 12 figures, 1 table
Reheating, Multifield Inflation and the Fate of the Primordial Observables
Creators: name: Leung, Godfrey
name: Tarrant, Ewan R. M.
name: Byrnes, Christian T.
name: Copeland, Edmund J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the effects of perturbative reheating on the evolution of the curvature perturbation ζ, in two-field inflation models. We use numerical methods to explore the sensitivity of f_NL, n_s and r to the reheating process, and present simple qualitative arguments to explain our results. In general, if a large non-Gaussian signal exists at the start of reheating, it will remain non zero at the end of reheating. Unless all isocurvature modes have completely decayed before the start of reheating, we find that the non-linearity parameter, f_NL, can be sensitive to the reheating timescale, and that this dependence is most appreciable for `runaway' inflationary potentials that only have a minimum in one direction. For potentials with a minimum in both directions, f_NL can also be sensitive to reheating if a mild hierarchy exists between the decay rates of each field. Within the class of models studied, we find that the spectral index n_s, is fairly insensitive to large changes in the field decay rates, indicating that n_s is a more robust inflationary observable, unlike the non-linearity parameter f_NL. Our results imply that the statistics of ζ, especially f_NL, can only be reliably used to discriminate between models of two-field inflation if the physics of reheating are properly accounted for.
description: 25 pages, 8 figures. Comments welcome
Digital fingerprints: implementing algorithms as technical controls
Creators: name: Gazvoda, Gregg
name: Covance, Publisher
Publisher: name: Mountain Scholar
Year: 2016
Subjects: evolution
data collection systems
controls
hash function
MD5 algorithm
risks

description: Presented at the National data integrity conference: data sharing: the how, why, when and when not to share held on June 2-3, 2016 at University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado. The National Data Integrity Conference is a gathering of people sharing new challenges and solutions regarding research data and integrity. This conference aims to provide attendees with both an understanding of data integrity issues and impart practical tools and skills to deal with them. Topics addressed will include data privacy, openness, policy, education and the impacts of sharing data, how to do it, when to do it, and when not to. Speakers and audience members come from diverse fields such as: Academic Research; Information Technology; Quality Assurance; Regulatory Compliance; Private Industry; Grant Funding; Government.
description: PowerPoint presentation during Lightning Talks given on June 3, 2016.
description: Includes bibliographical references.
At Home and Abroad: An Exploration of the Development of Global Citizenship Identity through Service-Learning
Creators: name: Muehlethaler, Stephanie Elisabeth
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Education--Administration
subject: Education--Community College
subject: Education--Higher

description: Post-secondary institutions strive to create experiential learning opportunities to foster students’ development. Service-learning, a form of experiential learning, has been employed as an effective strategy for exploration and development of outcomes that have been associated with global citizenship identity (Beard & Wilson, 2010; Jacoby 1996, 2015). This research explores students’ development of global citizenship identity from a different vantage point – engagement in a college-level, co-curricular service-learning program that offered both an international and domestic experience. The following question guided my study: What elements of a co-curricular service-learning trip foster and shape students’ understanding and development of their identities as global citizens? This study utilized case study methodology to gather in-depth perspectives on the experiences of college students who participated in either a domestic or an international co-curricular service-learning experience. Participants were interviewed twice: prior to and after they returned from the travel portion of their experience. Additional data sources included participants’ journals and photos that they took as records of their experience. For this study I developed and applied a conceptual framework to reflect how college students may understand and develop a global citizenship identity. This framework is supported by Jacoby’s (1996, 2015) argument that service-learning can be co-curricular, and experienced both domestically and internationally, Chickering and Reisser’s (1993) theory of identity development, and Baxter Magolda’s insights on self-authorship. Additionally, the framework incorporates Brigham’s (2011) model for global citizenship pedagogy and OXFAM’s definition of global citizenship (2006). Findings illustrate that participation in service-learning in one’s own country can foster development of global citizenship identity. This study demonstrates that when co-curricular service-learning experiences are thoughtfully designed, incorporating both reciprocity and reflection, they can be both successful and transformational for participants. Findings highlight how challenging it can be for students, even after engaging in service-learning, to define global citizenship and articulate an identity as a global citizen. This research contributes to the gap in Canadian scholarship pertaining to this topic, and findings are intended as a starting point, including some cautions, for post-secondary service-learning educators as they develop experiential learning opportunities designed to foster students’ global citizenship identity development.
Decoherence and the retrieval of lost information
Creators: name: Ye, Yin
name: Cao, Yunshan
name: Li, Xin-Qi
name: Gurvitz, Shmuel
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We found that in contrast with the common premise, a measurement on the environment of an open quantum system can {\em reduce} its decoherence rate. We demonstrate it by studying an example of indirect qubit's measurement, where the information on its state is hidden in the environment. This information is extracted by a distant device, coupled with the environment. We also show that the reduction of decoherence generated by this device, is accompanied with diminution of the environmental noise in a vicinity of the qubit. An interpretation of these results in terms of quantum interference on large scales is presented.
description: 9 pages, 8 figures, additional explanations added, Phys. Rev. B, in press
title: Asbestos exposure: anotherone bites the dust
Creators: name: González Moreno, Isabel María
Publisher: name: European Congress of Radiology
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Chest
subject: Lung
subject: Professional issues
subject: CT
subject: Diagnostic procedure
subject: Education
subject: Medico-legal issues
subject: Workforce
subject: Not applicable

description: Learning objectives Background Findings and procedure details Conclusion Personal information and conflict of interest References
description: Learning objectives: -To discuss the phisiopathology and types of asbestos fibers -To review its radiological appearances -To emphasize in the importance of asbestos exposure in medico-legal...
Inharmonic Speech: A Tool for the Study of Speech Perception and Separation
Creators: name: Ellis, Daniel P. W.
name: McDermott, Josh H.
name: Kawahara, Hideki
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2012
Subjects: Electrical engineering

description: Sounds created by a periodic process have a Fourier representation with harmonic structure – i.e., components at multiples of a fundamental frequency. Harmonic frequency relations are a prominent feature of speech and many other natural sounds. Harmonicity is closely related to the perception of pitch and is believed to provide an important acoustic grouping cue underlying sound segregation. Here we introduce a method to manipulate the harmonicity of otherwise natural-sounding speech tokens, providing stimuli with which to study the role of harmonicity in speech perception. Our algorithm utilizes elements of the STRAIGHT framework for speech manipulation and synthesis, in which a recorded speech utterance is decomposed into voiced and unvoiced vocal
excitation and vocal tract filtering. Unlike the conventional STRAIGHT method, we model voiced excitation as a combination of time-varying sinusoids. By individually modifying the frequency of each sinusoid, we introduce inharmonic excitation without changing other aspects of the speech signal. The resulting signal remains highly intelligible, and can be used to assess the role of harmonicity in the perception of prosody or in the segregation of speech from mixtures of talkers.
Automated PolyU Palmprint sample Registration and Coarse Classification
Creators: name: M., Dhananjay D.
name: Rao, C. V. Guru
name: Muralikrishna, I. V.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Biometric based authentication for secured access to resources has gained importance, due to their reliable, invariant and discriminating features. Palmprint is one such biometric entity. Prior to classification and identification registering a sample palmprint is an important activity. In this paper we propose a computationally effective method for automated registration of samples from PlolyU palmprint database. In our approach we preprocess the sample and trace the border to find the nearest point from center of sample. Angle between vector representing the nearest point and vector passing through the center is used for automated palm sample registration. The angle of inclination between start and end point of heart line and life line is used for basic classification of palmprint samples in left class and right class.
description: 6 PAGES
Nonlinear electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for lithium-ion battery model parameterization
Creators: name: Kirk, T. L.
name: Lewis-Douglas, A.
name: Howey, D. A.
name: Please, C. P.
name: Chapman, S. J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In this work we analyse the local nonlinear electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (NLEIS) response of a lithium-ion battery and estimate model parameters from measured NLEIS data. The analysis assumes a single-particle model including nonlinear diffusion of lithium within the electrode particles and asymmetric charge transfer kinetics at their surface. Based on this model and assuming a moderately-small excitation amplitude, we systematically derive analytical formulae for the impedances up to the second harmonic response, allowing the meaningful interpretation of each contribution in terms of physical processes and nonlinearities in the model. The implications of this for parameterization are explored, including structural identifiability analysis and parameter estimation using maximum likelihood, with both synthetic and experimentally measured impedance data. Accurate fits to impedance data are possible, however inconsistencies in the fitted diffusion timescales suggest that a nonlinear diffusion model may not be appropriate for the cells considered. Model validation is also demonstrated by predicting time-domain voltage response using the parameterized model and this is shown to have excellent agreement with measured voltage time-series data (11.1 mV RMSE).
description: 40 pages (excluding supplementary material). Submitted to the Journal of the Electrochemical Society
Machine-Actionable Metadata Models
Creators: name: Gonzalez-Beltran, Alejandra
name: Batista, Dominique
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2019
Subjects: metadata model, machine-actionable, json, json-ld, jsonschema

description: Presentation on Machine-Actionable Metadata Models, presenting two software tools:

JSONLDschema: a python module for JSON-schemas for JSON-LD

JSON-Schema documenter: a web tool to visualise JSON-schemas
“It's a whole package…all part of your body and mind, your soul”: Experiences and Knowledge of Mental Wellness Among Urban Indigenous Elders in the Southern Interior of British Columbia
Creators: name: Schill, Kaela
Publisher: name: Cumming School of Medicine
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Indigenous wellness
subject: Mental wellness
subject: Elders
subject: Urban communities
subject: Qualitative methodologies
subject: Postcolonial paradigm
subject: Cultural safety
subject: Mental Health

description: Indigenous peoples in Canada experience higher rates of adverse health outcomes due to historical and contemporary colonialism. In conjunction with a Community Advisory Committee, this research project explored knowledge and experiences of mental wellness among urban Indigenous Elders in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. This project used a qualitative methodology, including traditional and modified sharing circles and individual interviews for data collection. The resulting transcripts were thematically analyzed. Internal validity was established using member checking. Five themes were identified, including: holistic wellness; poor mental wellness outcomes; determinants of mental wellness; the healing journey; and, services and supports. A self-reflection chapter provides insight on the project from the student’s perspective. The research findings are located within the existing academic literature, and the unique ways urban Indigenous Elders experience mental wellness are discussed. Implications of the findings are provided for healthcare systems, cultural safety, policy makers, inter-sectoral collaboration, and future research.
title: Variants and MRI appearances of bucket handle tears - corelation with arthroscopy images
Creators: name: Colta, Rafal
Publisher: name: European Congress of Radiology
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Musculoskeletal
subject: Musculoskeletal joint
subject: Trauma
subject: MR
subject: Imaging sequences
subject: Intraoperative
subject: Acute
subject: Athletic injuries
subject: Retrospective
subject: Observational
subject: Performed at one institution

description: Learning objectives Background Findings and procedure details Conclusion Personal information and conflict of interest References
description: Learning objectives: The aim of this presentation is to depict variants of meniscal bucket handle tear on MR imaging and corelate MRI findingswith arthroscopy images. Meniscal anatomy and understanding of possible meniscal bucket handle tear variations is crucial for...
The influence of landscape-scale spatial-environmental structure on the predictability of local community composition
Creators: name: Super, Laura Elizabeth
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: A primary goal in ecology is to understand why localities with similar abiotic environmental conditions often exhibit differences in species composition. Previous work points to the potential importance of historical or regional processes, such as priority effects and dispersal limitation, but the ways in which landscape structure moderates the impacts of such processes remain unclear. Using spatially explicit simulations of competitive metacommunities, I investigated if spatial autocorrelation of the environment (SAE), the degree of clustering of similar environments, in the broader landscape interacted with dispersal capacity to affect the predictability of local community composition. My study employed a fully crossed factorial design of SAE (random configuration to high positive SAE), dispersal capacity (local versus global [control]), and fundamental niche scenario (niche-differentiated versus neutral [control]). I quantified community composition predictability by measuring Bray-Curtis similarity among the same localities of replicate metacommunities. The results showed that in the absence of either niche differentiation or spatially restricted dispersal, variation in SAE had no impact on the predictability of local community composition. In contrast, in the presence of both niche differentiation and spatially restricted dispersal (characteristics of many metacommunities in nature), increasingly positive SAE increased community composition predictability. This was attributed to the enhancement of landscape connectivity facilitating deterministic species-environmental sorting of differentially adapted species, which reduced the influence of stochastic community assembly processes. Thus, the results suggest that the variation in local species composition often observed among sites with similar environmental conditions could be attributed in part to differences in the spatial configuration of environmental conditions within the broader landscape. My work has potentially profound implications for basic and applied ecology. For example, the results suggest that practitioners should expect the reliability of composition-environment correlations to vary depending upon the spatial attributes of the ecosystem in question; they should be most useful as predictive tools within ecosystems characterized by strongly positive SAE. The results also yield an apparently novel and testable prediction: ecosystems characterized by high positive SAE will exhibit more repeatable community composition-environment relationships than ecosystems characterized by less clustering of similar environmental conditions in the landscape.
Exploration of innate immune response during infectious bovine digital dermatitis and the evaluation of topical therapeutic treatment
Creators: name: Watts, Kaitlyn
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Bovine digital dermatitis
subject: Treponema spp
subject: Cathelicidins
subject: Host defense peptides
subject: keratinocytes
subject: Microbiology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Veterinary Science
subject: Immunology
subject: FOS: Clinical medicine

description: Digital dermatitis (DD) is a frequently occurring infectious disease amongst dairy cattle associated with ulcerative and necrotizing lesions. Due to the associated pain and lameness, DD is a recognized animal welfare problem and has economic implications associated with decreased milk production, lower reproduction rates, and premature culling. DD is of polymicrobial etiology, with the main causative agent identified as belonging to the Treponema genus. Current treatments include topical application of antibiotics such as oxytetracycline or foot baths containing caustic chemicals; however clinical cure rates remain highly variable. In this thesis cattle with DD were monitored to explore the skin innate immune response. An exhaustive description of the inflammatory response during disease progression and a novel description of bovine host defence peptides (HDPs) and their contribution to disease resolution are found herein. It was observed that active DD was characterized by necrotic tissue populated with neutrophils and elevated Cxcl-8 and Tlr4 expression. Tracheal antimicrobial peptide (Tap) was vastly increased in active lesions and key for the resolution of DD. An in vitro model utilizing human keratinocytes showed pro-inflammatory cytokines are released in the absence of living treponemes through Tlr2 signaling and that secretory treponeme products induced cathelicidins. The ability to manipulate inflammatory reactions via treatment with vitamin D3 in DD was compared to the commonly-used oxytetracycline. A cohort of cattle with M2 were topically treated with vitamin D3 against powdered oxytetracycline for 5 days. Although vitamin D3 did elevated Tap expression, lesions and inflammatory markers remained unchanged. In contrast, oxytetracycline reduced neutrophil chemoattractant Cxcl-8 while Tlr2 remained elevated. Histologic assessment evidenced scab formation. Taken together, this thesis established the skin innate response and role of host defence peptides (Tap) during DD and supported oxytetracycline as a treatment, providing lesion resolution and aiding in bacterial elimination.
Making a Scene: Alignment of Complete Sets of Clips Based on Pairwise Audio Match
Creators: name: Ellis, Daniel P. W.
name: Naaman, Mor
name: Su, Kai
name: Gurjar, Avadhut
name: Patel, Mohsin
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2012
Subjects: Electrical engineering

description: As the amount of social video content captured at physical-world events, and shared online, is rapidly increasing, there is a growing need for robust methods for organization and presentation of the captured content. In this work, we significantly extend prior work that examined automatic detection of videos from events that were captured at the same time, i.e. "overlapping". We go beyond finding pairwise matches between video clips and describe the construction of scenes, or sets of multiple overlapping videos, each scene presenting a coherent moment in the event. We test multiple strategies for scene construction, using a greedy algorithm to create a mapping of videos into scenes, and a clustering refinement step to increase the precision of each scene. We evaluate the strategies in multiple settings and show that a greedy and clustering approach results in best possible balance between recall and precision for all settings.
Hydration Monitoring using Microwaves: From Modelling and Estimation of Tissue Properties to Validation in Humans
Creators: name: Garrett, David
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: hydration
subject: Biomedical
subject: sensor
subject: Biophysics--Medical
subject: Engineering--Biomedical
subject: Engineering--Electronics and Electrical

description: Dehydration is a prevalent condition which can have profound health consequences. If detected early, it can often be treated by oral fluid replacement. A variety of assessment techniques have been proposed, but none have yet emerged as convenient and accurate indicators. This thesis investigates the use of microwave measurements at the extremities to monitor human hydration, relying on the strong relationship between dielectric properties of tissues and water content. A model describing changes in tissue properties according to dehydration is first developed. We then report an empirical feasibility study in athletes undergoing exercise, demonstrating a relationship between estimated permittivity and weight changes due to water loss. Finally, improved property estimation techniques are introduced which are suitable for reliably detecting changes due to dehydration. This thesis provides a comprehensive initial assessment of how microwave measurements may be used to provide the clinically-demanded method of human hydration assessment.
Semileptonic weak Hamiltonian to $\mathcal{O}(αα_s(μ_{\mathrm{Lattice}}))$ in momentum-space subtraction schemes
Creators: name: Gorbahn, M.
name: Jäger, S.
name: Moretti, F.
name: van der Merwe, E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The CKM unitarity precision test of the Standard Model requires a systematic treatment of electromagnetic and strong corrections for semi-leptonic decays. Electromagnetic corrections require the renormalization of a semileptonic four-fermion operator. In this work we calculate the $\mathcal{O}(αα_s)$ perturbative scheme conversion between the $\bar{\rm MS}$ scheme and several momentum-space subtraction schemes, which can also be implemented on the lattice. We consider schemes defined by MOM and SMOM kinematics and emphasize the importance of the choice of projector for each scheme. The conventional projector, that has been used in the literature for MOM kinematics, generates QCD corrections to the conversion factor that do not vanish for $α=0$ and which generate an artificial dependence on the lattice matching scale that would only disappear after summing all orders of perturbation theory. This can be traced to the violation of a Ward identity that holds in tha $α=0$ limit. We show how to remedy this by judicious choices of projector, and prove that the Wilson coefficients in those schemes are free from pure QCD contributions. The resulting Wilson coefficients (and operator matrix elements) have greatly reduced scale dependence. Our choice of the $\bar{\rm MS}$ scheme over the traditional $W$-mass scheme is motivated by the fact that, besides being more tractable at higher orders, unlike the latter it allows for a transparent separation of scales. We exploit this to obtain renormalization-group-improved leading-log and next-to-leading-log strong corrections to the electromagnetic contributions and study the (QED-induced) dependence on the lattice matching scale.
description: 1+22 pages
title: A systems analysis of child protection and a natural disaster: a study of Typhoon Yolanda and the Gigantes Islands
Creators: name: Hiddleston, Patricia Mary
Publisher: name: London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Year: 2022

description: BACKGROUND: Over the last decade, there has been a growing policy emphasis on ‘strengthening the systems’ that protect children in periods of stability and of crisis by governments and nongovernmental organisations in collaboration with and encouraged by international actors to improve the protection of children. However, the need to understand pre-existing protection systems in a given context and to consider how to integrate any national and international protection policies with those local systems receives less attention. This study emanates from a desire to understand how the dynamic complex systems that sought to protect children in one context, the Gigantes Islands in the Philippines, functioned, interacted and evolved in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda (known internationally as Typhoon Haiyan) and what implications this might have for the strengthening of child protection systems. METHODS: A qualitative study of the complex adaptive systems that operated in the Gigantes Islands was conducted using mixed methods to provide an in-depth understanding of how children were protected in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda. FINDINGS: How children were protected generally did not reflect what formal child protection policies prescribed or intended for a number of reasons, including the prevailing attitudes that consider women and children as dependent on men, an acceptance that maltreatment be endured by the victims and an assumption held by many who have some ability or duty to take action that they are not under-resourced; prescriptive processes that provided a narrow range of options reflecting a general failure to take local conditions and individual circumstances into account and a lack of recognition of how children can be protected directly and indirectly through livelihood support in the health and education systems. IMPLICATIONS: I analyse the unintended consequences of the existing practice and the implications for the promotion of a ‘systems strengthening’ policy including using systems approaches that do not prescribe top-down child protection processes without taking local realities and social constructions of harm and protection into account, involving a wider range of potential protection actors and inter-sectoral collaboration and enabling a variety of responses. I also analyse how the application of systems concepts contributes to obtaining an in-depth understanding of how children and those who care for them understand child protection and perceive how children are protected in their context. Without this deep understanding, externally supported topdown policies and processes to protect children risk failure.
Carrier Phase-Based Ionospheric Modeling and Augmentation in Uncombined Precise Point Positioning (UPPP)
Creators: name: Xiang, Yan
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: GNSS
subject: Precise Point Positioning (PPP)
subject: faster PPP
subject: ionospheric observable
subject: leveling error
subject: Differential Code Biases (DCB)
subject: mapping function
subject: uncombined PPP (UPPP)
subject: Geodesy
subject: Engineering--Aerospace
subject: Engineering--Automotive
subject: Engineering--Marine and Ocean
subject: Robotics
subject: Geotechnology

description: Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a stand-alone high-precision positioning technique employing carrier phase measurements and external augmentation or aiding products. PPP reduces labor and equipment costs in contrast to Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) which relies on base stations. However, PPP suffers from a long convergence time of 15 to 60 minutes to reach the centimetre level. This long initialization time restricts the applications of PPP. To address this problem, we make use of accurate and precise ionospheric corrections. This dissertation endeavors to improve the ionospheric observables, Differential Code Biases (DCBs), and Mapping Function (MF). We then leverage these to reduce the convergence time. To obtain more accurate ionospheric corrections, we retrieve ionospheric observables using PPP. The ionospheric observables from the more commonly-used carrier phase smoothed code method are adversely affected by levelling errors. PPP offers a preferable way to reduce the leveling errors and preserve the consistency of ionospheric corrections, beneficial for shortening the convergence time of PPP. We demonstrate that the ionospheric observables retrieved from three PPP models, Traditional Ionosphere-Free, University of Calgary (UofC), and Uncombined (UPPP), all agree in terms of DCBs. The differences of ionospheric observables are at centimetre level. With the improved ionospheric observables using PPP, the stability and internal accuracy of satellite and receiver DCBs are also enhanced. The Root Mean Square (RMS) of the satellite DCB estimates is improved from 0.1 nanoseconds to 0.07 nanoseconds, and the day-to-day stability is enhanced by 0.22 nanoseconds. Another factor affecting ionospheric corrections is the MF which is mostly based on the fixed height Single-Layer Model (SLM). To reduce the effects of the inhomogeneity of the ionosphere, an Ionospheric Varying Height (IVH) is proposed and examined. Results show the mapping errors are reduced by about 15% when the integral varying height is exploited. By applying the improved ionospheric corrections into UPPP, we achieve an accuracy of 0.4 metres for global constraints and 0.2 metres for the regional constraints at the first epoch. The convergence time for the simulated kinematic mode is reduced from 41 to 7.5 minutes in the east at one decimetre, from 14.5 to 4.0 minutes in the north at one decimetre, and from 11.0 to 6.5 minutes in the vertical at two decimetres at a 68% confidence level.
Casino Gaming in Canada: The Opinions of Community Leaders
Creators: name: HLT Advisory
Publisher: name: Canadian Gaming Association
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Casinos -- Canada
subject: Gambling Literature

description: The 2015 Opinions of Community Leaders Study (Study) is the first examination undertaken by the Canadian Gaming Association (CGA) of the perceptions of civic and Community Leaders who agreed to have casinos developed in their municipalities. The purpose of the Study is to provide an unequivocal examination of the impact of land-based casinos in communities across Canada. Simply put: • Did the anticipated benefits accrue to communities? • Were the negative impacts as expected? • If Community Leaders had to do it all over again, would they say “yes”?
Gain-compensated cavities for the dynamic control of light-matter interactions
Creators: name: Tserkezis, Christos
name: Wolff, Christian
name: Shuklin, Fedor A.
name: Todisco, Francesco
name: Eriksen, Mikkel H.
name: Gonçalves, P. A. D.
name: Mortensen, N. Asger
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Optics (physics.optics)
subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We propose an efficient approach for actively controlling the Rabi oscillations in emitter-cavity hybrids based on the presence of an element with optical gain. Inspired by recent developments in parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$)-symmetry photonics, we show that nano- or micro-cavities where intrinsic losses are partially or fully compensated by an externally controllable amount of gain offer unique capabilities for manipulating the dynamics of emitters. In particular, one can drastically modify the dynamics of the system, increase the overall occupation numbers, enhance the longevity of the Rabi oscillations, and even decelerate them to the point where their experimental observation becomes less challenging. Furthermore, we show that there is a specific gain value that leads to an exceptional point, where both emitter and cavity occupation oscillate practically in phase, with occupation numbers that can significantly exceed unity. By revisiting a recently-introduced Rabi-visibility measure, we provide robust guidelines for quantifying the coupling strength and achieving strong-coupling with adaptable Rabi frequency via loss compensation.