title: Factors affecting contaminant transformation by heat-activated persulfate

abstract: Persulfate-based in situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) involves the injection of persulfate (S2O82-) into the subsurface to remediate contaminated groundwater and soils. Although S2O82- does not react with contaminants to an appreciable extent, it can be activated into stronger oxidants (e.g., SO4• and •OH) by heat, alkaline solutions, dissolved iron and iron-containing minerals. The objective of the research described in this thesis is to explore the influence of temperature and background solutes on contaminant transformation by heat- and mineral-activated S2O82-. Through the transformation of benzoic acid (a model organic compound) and chlorendic acid (a flame retardant), it was discovered that temperature affects not only the rate of contaminant transformation but also the transformation pathway and distribution of byproducts. Solution pH, alkalinity, and chloride also influence the rates of persulfate activation and contaminant degradation. These novel understandings may help improve the design and operation of S2O82--based remedial systems.


title: A Fully Synthesized Injection Locked Ring Oscillator Based on a Pulse Injection Locking Technique

abstract: This thesis proposes a novel, all synthesized, Injection Locked Ring Oscillator (ILRO). It employs a digitally tunable oscillator and a pulse injection locking technique. The frequency tuning range of the free running oscillator is from 210 MHz to 1.8 GHz with a 1.1 volt power supply. The tuning range from 1.0 to 1.8 GHz can be achieved with 215 tuning steps with a maximum step size of 11.2 MHz, that is well within the worst case 75 MHz (3rd sub-harmonic) and 32 MHz (9th sub-harmonic) locking range of the oscillator. The design occupies 127.5 um by 31.5 um of chip area and is implemented in TSMC’s 65-nm CMOS technology. For 3rd harmonic injection locking, the ILRO’s RMS jitter is 192.7 fs (1 KHz to 40 MHz) with a phase noise of -130.9 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from the 1.62 GHz carrier while consuming 7.15 mW of power.


title: From Adaptability to Mobility: Spaces for Learning in the War Zones of the Syrian Arab Republic

abstract: This Thesis is a response to the humanitarian crisis and the displacement of more than 11 million people in the Syrian Arab Republic. It is mainly focused on the city of Aleppo and some of its young civilians, children in school aged 6-12 years old, as they experience an ongoing brutal and radical transformation due to the Syrian Civil War, which is now entering its sixth year and is currently in a ceasefire stage. As a result of this merciless war, a whole generation in Syria has lost their right to education for more than five years now. When a government fails to protect its own people, perhaps the responsibility rests on the shoulder of a wider global community to find solutions and help rebuild a war torn country.


title: Millimeter Wave Small Cell Network Planning for Outdoor Line-of-Sight Coverage

abstract:
The millimeter wave is considered as an important candidate for providing most of the capacity in a future heterogeneous network. Network densification is also necessary for enhanced capacity and high-rate coverage. However, deploying a very large number of the base stations is costly. We develop an outdoor small cell millimeter wave network planner and minimize the number of base stations.
First, we estimate the base station densities required for small cell line-of-sight millimeter wave networks. We develop an automatic outdoor network planner by first, placing many candidates on the map and then, selecting a subset of candidates to minimize the total number of base stations. We run our simulations over two large dense urban areas.
Second, we design a wireless backhaul network planner to further reduce the costs by reducing the number of wired connections in the network, where we consider millimeter wave line-of-sight wireless backhauling as our choice.


title: In Vitro Study of Mechanisms Underlying the Developmental Effects of Bisphenol A Using Human Fetal Lung Fibroblasts

abstract: Both experimental and/or epidemiological studies suggest that prenatal exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) may delay fetal lung development and maturation and increase the susceptibility to childhood respiratory disease. However, the underlying mechanisms remain to be elucidated. In our study with cultured human fetal lung fibroblasts (HFLF), we demonstrated that 24 h exposure to 1 and 100 µM BPA increased nuclear expression of GPR30, at 100 μM, also increased cytoplasmic expression of ERβ and release of GDF-15, as well as decreased release of IL-6, ET-1, and IP-10 through suppression of NFκB phosphorylation, with no effects on cell viability. By performing global gene expression and pathway analyses, we identified molecular pathways, gene networks, and key molecules that were affected by 100, but not 0.01 and 1, µM BPA in HFLF. Using multiple genomic and proteomic tools, we confirmed these changes at both gene and protein levels. Our data suggest that 100 μM BPA increased CYP1B1 and HSD17B14 gene and protein expression and release of endogenous estradiol, which was associated with increased ROS production and DNA double strand breaks, upregulation of genes and/or proteins in steroid synthesis and metabolism, and activation of Nrf2-regulated stress response pathways. In addition, BPA also activated ATM-p53 signaling pathway, resulting in increased cell cycle arrest at G1 phase, senescence, and autophagy in HFLF. Fetal lung development and maturation requires paracrine interaction between fetal lung alveolar type II epithelial cells and fibroblasts. The results from our studies suggest that prenatal exposure to BPA at high enough concentrations may affect fetal lung development and maturation, by altering the release of developmental, immune, and hormonal modulators from fetal lung fibroblasts, and thereby affecting susceptibility to childhood respiratory disease.


title: Transgressing Boundaries: A Discussion Concerning Methodology, Έρως, and Politics in Symposium and Platonic Philosophy

abstract: This thesis does three things in three distinct sections. First, this thesis is a discussion and critique of method. I attempt to address pivotal issues that permeate throughout the Platonic scholarship, problems of method and the problem of authorial intent. Following discussion of the methodological problems that hinder the Platonic scholarship, I propose an overlooked methodological model and psychology that is skeptical, flexible, and pragmatic: eclecticism. Second, I apply the method and demonstrate its strength while investigating the concept of ἔρως (eros) in the first six speeches in Plato’s Symposium. Third, I discuss my findings. From my exegesis, I engage in phenomenology of eros and reflect on its metaphysical underpinnings. I argue that eros is by nature fundamentally self-negating and thus absurd. I then discuss the importance of renewed and further reflection on the nature of eros and its role as an engine for philosophy and political life.


title: Experimental Characterization and Modelling of a Heat Pump Water Heater

abstract: This study involved the development of a new heat pump water heater (HPWH) model in the TRNSYS simulation software to investigate the effect of a HPWH unit on the space heating and cooling requirements of a house. The result of the study showed that humidity has a negative effect on the performance of the unit at low temperatures. The unit had a maximum coefficient of performance (COP) of 3.07 and minimum of 2.46 for a basement temperature held at 18oC. It was found the HPWH unit is not cost effective in comparison to a natural gas water heater. However, the HPWH significantly reduces house emissions. Furthermore, the HPWH was shown to have a payback period of 4 years in Ontario in comparison to a 12 and 9 year payback period in Quebec and British Columbia, respectively.


title: Playing in Synch: A Three-Part Typology of Synch Points Between Image and Sound in Bioshock Infinite

abstract: Video games make extensive use of image and sound, as well as player interactivity to communicate narrative and gameplay information. While scholars (e.g., Kaae, 2008 and Collins, 2013) have made significant contributions to understanding these forms of communication, there are still fruitful directions to explore. This thesis adds Chion’s (1994) concept of points of synchronization to the discussion by addressing how they might be used as a tool to create emphasis and to provide an auditory and visual setting around a video game’s narrative and gameplay elements. I will argue that it is useful to divide synch points into three types (narrative, gameplay, and serendipitous), and will explore how Chion’s concept, originally developed for cinematic sound, can be expanded to include the complexities afforded by interactive gameplay. I will use Bioshock Infinite (2K Games, 2013) as a case study to demonstrate the utility of this typological approach to synch points.


title: Reducing electricity consumption in multi-tenant commercial buildings: The impact of behavioural change

abstract: Pressure to conserve energy in commercial buildings is increasing in order to meet nationwide greenhouse gas reduction targets. In the commercial building sector, tenants often receive yearly electricity bills based on their occupied floor area and not actual electricity consumption. This results in diffused responsibility and no incentive to curtail electricity consumption. In this thesis, two office towers in Eastern Ontario installed submeters to accurately bill tenants for their electricity use. This study uses a competition, in-person tenant meetings and suite walkthroughs and submetering paired with data measurement and verification to assess the effect of the interventions on energy use behaviour. Results demonstrate that commercial tenant electricity use, between tenants, is highly variable; that tenant loads are lower than ASHRAE design values; and, that tenant plug loads are not fully shut off at night. The project concludes, 15 months after implementation, that submetering does result in tenant electricity reductions.


title: Executive Function and Prospective Memory: The Effect of Inhibitory Control and Working Memory Load

abstract: This study examined the impact of a dual-task load on four- and five-year-olds’ event-based prospective memory (PM), as well as the relation between PM and two executive function skills: working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC). Children completed an ongoing task (OT), which required pointing to pictures of animals in each image array. Embedded in this task was the PM task, which required children to ring a bell when they saw a picture of a cat. To manipulate the effect of dual-task load, children were assigned to one of three conditions: Control (OT and PM); WM-load (OT, PM, simultaneously with WM task); or IC-load (OT, PM, simultaneously with IC task). Five-year-olds outperformed four-year-olds on the PM task. There was no effect of condition on children’s PM performance. Furthermore, WM and IC did not predict PM performance after controlling for age and language ability. Limitations and future directions are discussed.


title: Structure-related interactions of brominated and organophosphate flame retardants and degradation products with thyroxine and human thyroid hormone transport proteins in vitro

abstract: One mechanism of action of thyroid disrupting compounds is the competition for thyroid hormone (TH) binding sites on vertebrate serum transport proteins, including transthyretin (TTR) and albumin (ALB). An in vitro competitive binding assay was optimized for use with thyroxine (T4) and human TTR or ALB. This assay was applied for two classes of novel and environmentally relevant flame retardant (FR) chemicals, and/or some degradation products; organophosphate (OP) triesters, and tetradecabromo-1,4-diphenoxybenzene (TeDB-DiPhOBz). Structure-related differences in the binding of these ligands with TTR or ALB were observed, including a newly discovered apparent allosteric interaction of OP esters with TTR that enhances binding of T4. Degradation products of TeDB-DiPhOBz are ligands for human TTR and ALB in vitro, as well as gull TTR in silico, with para-hydroxylated lower brominated congeners being the strongest binders. Overall, results indicate potential interference of these novel FR contaminants with human TH transport, in a structure-dependent manner.


title: Indigenous Storytelling: Contesting, Interrupting, and Intervening in the Nation-Building Project Through Historica Canada's Heritage Minutes

abstract: While Heritage Minutes are 60 second films that are well known in Canada for their celebration of the nation state, this thesis explores varied and polysemic readings of the Minutes that emerge when Indigenous media makers make use of the recognizable nationalistic media text to interject and make space for Indigenous stories about Indigenous peoples. My work aims to fill a gap in existing scholarship on Heritage Minutes that neglects to account for Indigenous involvement with Historica Canada to produce Indigenous led narratives. I center critical and Indigenous knowledges to guide and produce a complex and nuanced reading of Heritage Minutes through conversational interviews and close textual analysis to demonstrate ways in which Indigenous filmmakers contest dominant national narratives.


title: Line Dancing:  A Performative and Phenomenological Study of the Borderlands Region of Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont

abstract: This ethnographic study of the borderlands region of Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont uses an approach that draws from both performativity and phenomenology to explore the local life–world. I argue that there is a uniquely borderland way of being in the world in this region. This is reflected in the local experience of the border as something that unites rather than as something that divides. I suggest that the hardening border is taking a toll on the perceived unity of the cross–border community, even as a borderland way of being persists. I examine aspects of border enactment and claim that on the Canadian side, the border is cooperatively enacted, and that smart border crossing is a marker of borderlander identity. On the American side, border changes have made the borderlands into a zone of exclusion. Finally, I argue that borderlanders trouble the non–borderlander understanding of the border.


title: The Paleoproterozoic structural history of metamorphosed and polydeformed basement and cover rocks in the Ptarmigan Fiord area, Baffin Island, Nunavut: a tectonic component of the Quebec-Baffin segment of the Paleoproterozoic Trans-Hudson orogen

abstract: The structural geometry and Paleoproterozoic deformation history of the Ptarmigan Fiord area is based on mapping and structural analyses, integrated with published petrology and geochronology data. Early thrust repetition, of 80-200 m-thick sheets of Archean orthogneiss basement with Paleoproterozoic cover of the Lake Harbour Group, results in belts of basement-cover couplets. This was followed by DP2 penetrative transposition that occurred at amphibolite-facies at ca. 1850-1820 Ma. The major structure in the SE part of the map is an upright ~ NW- striking, tight F2b syncline that folded three basement-cover couplets. The fold has a wavelength of ~ 3 km, occurs over a strike length of ~ 11 km, and has been refolded. The NW part of the map area comprises a NW-dipping panel of basement rocks and three belts of basement-cover couplets. This NW-dipping panel was juxtaposed against the F2b syncline by a moderately NW-dipping, T3c reverse shear zone.


title: The Emerging Modern Greek Nation and British Romantic Literature

abstract: This dissertation contributes to the field of British Romantic Hellenism (and Romanticism more broadly) by emphasizing the diversity and complexity of Romantic-era writers’ attitudes towards, and portrayals of, Modern Greece, especially the ways that early nineteenth-century British literature about contemporary Greece helped to strengthen British-Greek intercultural relations and, ultimately, to situate Greece within a European sphere of influence. My study primarily focuses on fictional works because, as I demonstrate, Romantic literature, more than any other network of discourses of the early nineteenth century, intervened in debates about Modern Greece not merely by documenting facts but by creating realities, portraying imagined Greek-British encounters that encouraged readers to envisage new social, political, geographical, and cultural vistas and alliances for both Greece and Britain. As I argue, British Romantic writers’ representations of cross-cultural relations between Greeks and Britons gesture toward their growing sense of, and concern with, Britain’s international conduct and reputation, especially after 1815 when Britain was transforming into a dominant imperial power. The writers I examine use Modern Greece and Hellenism to interrogate and understand their country’s role not only within Greece, but also within a transnational, global world, the geopolitical dynamics of which were in flux. In discussing Greek-British Romantic-era intercultural relations, my study focuses on the wide range of private and public political positions available to British Romantic writers and emphasizes that the Greek War of Independence and Greece’s subsequent liberation were not isolated national events, but instead the outcome of the political, cultural, and literary debates and discourses taking place for at least half a century in Europe and Greece. By rooting my literary analysis in the historical, cultural, and geopolitical, I provide an account of British Romantic Hellenism that emphasizes the ways in which British writers engaged with a variety of discourses in reproducing versions of Greece that concretized the country. Greece is no longer merely the (imagined) topos of a glorified ancient people or of a degraded modern populace, but repositioned by British Romantic writers as a country integral to the modern, global world of the early nineteenth century.


title: Stranger Danger! The Role of Ghrelin in Modulation of Social Behavior

abstract: Ghrelin, a gut-derived peptide, is associated with feeding, energy balance, reward and the stress response. Among many of its functions, the role of ghrelin in anxiety has been particularly controversial. Here, we demonstrated that increasing ghrelin receptor activity (particularly in the VTA) in mice has anxiolytic effects in tests involving stimuli with positive incentive value (i.e. palatable food or social opportunity). A role for ghrelin in social anxiety is intriguing because social anxiety is a common symptom of depression. Thus, we explored the possibility whether treatment with ghrelin agonist GHRP6 alone of in combination with SSRI citalopram could prevent and/or alleviate stress-induced social anxiety. We found that peripheral GHRP6 treatment was not sufficient to prevent/treat stress-induced social anxiety. Interestingly, post stress GHRP6 and GHRP6+citalopram treatment reduced weight gain, a common side effect of antidepressant treatment. Thus, our finding that GHRP6 can reduce these metabolic side effects has potential therapeutic potential.


title: Adaptive Coverage for Future LTE Networks

abstract: In the past few decades, wireless communications have been growing rapidly and the growth rate is accelerating at a very fast pace. In order to meet this growing demand, researchers are struggling to solve two fundamental problems: (1) providing the spectrum resources needed to support clusters of dense users with very high data rate and (2) supplying the required spectrum at reasonable power requirement level. This thesis first outlines the extent of this capacity-power problem now and in the near future and discusses possible approaches to meet these difficult challenges. We start by introducing a new metric, called Total Energy Per Bit (TEPB), to be used as a measure for greening of the network. Then, a proposed vision of replacing Macro-eNBs with a large number of Pico-eNBs to bring the network closer to the users is provided. This naturally leads to casting the problem as an optimization problem with an objective function of minimizing the overall power consumption while supporting user demand with acceptable quality of service. Based on the optimization problem, we propose two algorithms based on the concept of self organizing network (SON) to switch on/off base stations. Simulation results show that both proposed switch on/off algorithms can improve the power requirement of the network while maintaining the required UE throughput by reducing the TEPB significantly.


title: Childhood Trauma and ADHD Diagnosis as Predictors of Consistently Elevated Internalizing Symptoms

abstract: Many children adapt to life after trauma, but children with ADHD may be at risk for post-traumatic maladaptation. ADHD is often comorbid with mental health disorders and deficits in cognitive functioning. Using data from the Multimodal Treatment of Children with ADHD study, a randomized clinical trial that tested treatments for ADHD in 579 children and later recruited 289 comparison children, the present study tests whether trauma predicts more severe levels and faster increases in depression and anxiety for children with ADHD versus developmentally typical peers. Interpersonal trauma predicted elevated depression and anxiety symptom severity, but not trajectories. Natural trauma predicted elevated anxiety symptoms, but not trajectories. Last, ADHD diagnosis predicted elevated depression symptoms, but not trajectories. There were no trauma x ADHD interactions on symptom levels or trajectories. This study informs practice and policy by guiding practitioners to use trauma history to identify children who demonstrate persistent internalizing symptoms.


title: Digitizing Failure: Development and Power in Nigerian e-Schools

abstract:
This dissertation offers a critical analysis of development communication in Africa by studying how the global computing industry transformed schools, the state, and educational culture in Ekiti State, Nigeria. It brings post-development theory together with critical approaches to communication to examine how discourses of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D), Information and Communication Technology for Education (ICT4E), and the digital divide are materialized institutionally and culturally in the context of a specific development project. It relies upon corporate and governmental policy documents, including site visits to schools, and interviews with government officials, consultants, industry partners, parents, students, and teachers to provide a comprehensive account of the failures of a flagship ICT4E project in Nigeria: the Ekiti State e-School Project.
The Ekiti State e-School Project involved the distribution of 30,000 laptops to students in 183 public secondary schools located both in the rural and urban areas at the cost of US$12.5 million. The project was implemented in 2012 in anticipation of a digital future for the Nigeria economy that rested upon the liberalization of the telecommunication sector and precipitated intense forms of collaboration between Ekiti State and global computing corporations, most notably Samsung and Microsoft. My dissertation illustrates how the discourses of education, communication, and development mediated this relationship in ways that failed to solve the problem of social inequality underpinning the digital divide in the state. In addition, it situates the failure of the project within the broader history of telecommunication, modernization theory, and development communication in Africa, as well as the experiences of those participating in and affected by the events described in this dissertation. By bringing post-development theory together with critical communication studies in a novel fashion, I displace the contemporary fascination with ‘access to information’ and ‘digital divide’ to discuss the politics of development failure in a wider context.


title: An Adaptive User Interface for Walking While Reading on a Mobile Device

abstract: Smartphones are constantly being used in different use scenarios and contexts. This Thesis puts forth the notion that Adaptive User Interfaces (AUIs) can be implemented in mobile devices to help mitigate the negative usability effects associated with certain contexts. Using an auto-scroll and an auto-scroll + zoom function, two different AUIs were implemented to see if it is possible to mitigate the negative effects associated with reading while walking. Participants using these two interfaces, along with a static interface, were tested on reading comprehension tests while either sitting or walking a course with pedestrian traffic. The results indicate that the walking context had an adverse effect on reading comprehension. Participants most preferred an AUI interface while walking, with the auto-scroll AUI resulting in faster walking, faster course completion, and faster reading. It is concluded that AUIs can be used to alleviate some negative effects associated with concurrent reading and walking.


title: Serving Resistance on the Menu:  The Cultural Politics of Filipino Cuisine in Winnipeg and Ottawa

abstract: This thesis explores the cultural politics of Filipino cuisine in Canada. Filipinos are the fourth largest visible minority group in Canada yet their cuisine remains underrepresented in the Canadian foodscape compared to other Asian groups. By comparing Winnipeg and Ottawa’s contexts, I explore how Filipino cuisine entrepreneurs “do” Filipino cuisine through their establishments. I also examine potential explanations as to why Filipino cuisine is not mainstream. The findings suggest that the underrepresentation of Filipino cuisine can be attributed to structural barriers (colonialism and institutional racism) and the low incidence of Filipino entrepreneurship. Through culinary entrepreneurial practices, Filipino cuisine entrepreneurs engage in a politics of resistance and identity work. For some, the production of Filipino cuisine is implicated in the struggle against cultural assimilation. For others, it is an act of cultural pride and a politics of representation that seeks to disrupt the “hypervisibility” and “invisibility” of Filipino-Canadians and Filipino cuisine.


title: Monaural Music Separation via Supervised Non-Negative Matrix Factor with Side-Information

abstract:
In this dissertation, a supervised source template nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) algorithm is proposed to solve the monaural music source separation problem. Different from the previous state-of-the-art algorithms, the basic theoretical concept of the proposed algorithm considers the spectrogram from an audio mixture as linear combinations of note templates. Having prior knowledge of these note templates for each source, we can estimate and determine the activities of each template in recordings to build a mask of each source. Through the masks, the audio of target tracks can be reconstructed.
We reviewed previous research on source separation for monaural music audio separation and compared these work with our proposed algorithm not only in mathematical expressions but also in separation performances. First, the prior knowledge of note templates is informed by musical instrument audio dataset. The spectrograms from these instruments are obtained and factored into a source resonance character matrix and a source impulse excitation matrix by assuming that the spectrum of the different notes are formed by the resonance effects from an impulse excitation. Secondary, according to the prior informed note templates, their onset-offset-like features are estimated by using the multiplicative update rule and supervised by the proposed pitch-checking algorithm to remove misleading estimations. Finally, the supervised note onset-offset-like features alternatively become a constraint to help the proposed model evolve its prior informed note templates into the forms given by the recorded instruments.
We employed the TRIOS and the Bach-10 dataset for our multi-source separation performance tests. Among the source separation algorithms, our proposed supervised source template NMF and the state-of-the-art algorithms including the sound-prism and the Oracle-toolbox methods were selected to make comparisons. Furthermore, we added white Gaussian noise into the audio mixture to simulate the background full of the random noise to test the noise characteristics of each algorithm. The experimental results SDR (signal to distortion ratio), SIR (signal to interferences ratio), and SAR (signal to artifacts ratio) indicate that with the note templates from side-information, the proposed supervised source template NMF algorithm can have equivalent or higher performance in two-source separation and have a better performance under noise.


title: The Mutable Dynamics of HIV-Prevention: Insights from Ontarian MSM on Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP)

abstract: Pre-exposure prophylaxis or “PrEP,” is a cluster of methods that keep HIV-negative persons from contacting the virus. Effectively PrEP allows members of “high risk” communities a form of immunity against the virus. This thesis examines how PrEP is interpreted by men who have sex with men (MSM) PrEP users and non-users from south-east Ontario. Comparing the accounts of MSM users and interested non-users of PrEP, I examine barriers to implementation and how PrEP interacts with established methods of sexual hygiene and prophylactic preference. I examine how HIV-stigma is challenged by PrEP and challenges PrEP’s viability as a technology. I discuss how a successful implementation of PrEP as a mainstay of HIV prevention technologies stands to significantly impact HIV stigma and allows for forms of intimacy not afforded by current HIV technologies or safer sex practices.


title: The Fragility of Fear: The Contentious Politics of Emotion and Security in Canada

abstract:
International Relations (IR) theory commonly holds security arguments as powerful instruments of political mobilization because they work to instill, circulate, and intensify popular fears over a threat to a community. Missing from this view is how security arguments often provoke a much wider range of emotional reactions, many of which frustrate and constrain state officials’ attempts to frame issues as security problems.
This dissertation offers a corrective by outlining a theory of the contentious politics of emotion and security. Drawing inspiration from a variety of different social theorists of emotion, including Goffman’s interactionist sociology, this approach treats emotions as emerging from distinctive repertoires of social interaction. These emotions play a key role in enabling audiences to sort through the sound and noise of security discourse by indexing the significance of different events to our bodies. Yet popular emotions are rarely harmonious; they’re socialized and circulated through a myriad of different pathways. Different repertoires of interaction in popular culture, public rituals, and memorialization leave audiences with different ways of feeling about putative threats. The result is mixed and contentious emotions which shape both opportunities and constraints for new security policies.
The empirical purchase of this theory is illustrated with two cases drawn from the Canadian context: indigenous protest and the F-35 procurement. Both represent cases where attempts by state officials to frame an issue as a security problem were frustrated and constrained by a contentious politics of emotion. In the conclusion, I argue these findings should push IR theorists to adopt a more circumspect view of the mobilization of fear, and a greater awareness of how emotions can play a key role in constituting the limits of the politics of security.


title: The Electoral Temptations of Natural Resource Revenues: Towards a Theory on the Origins of Sovereign Wealth Funds in Canada

abstract: This thesis works towards establishing a theory on the origins of sovereign wealth funds in Canada and argues that despite claims that they are inter-generational savings vehicles, in practice these funds are a means to create near- and medium-term fiscal flexibility that benefits the electoral prospects of incumbent governments. In an era of global tax competition, electoral resistance to taxation, and growing demographic pressures on public expenditures, governments have turned to sovereign wealth funds to generate much needed revenues while avoiding tax increases more visible to their electorates. Alberta is this thesis’ primary case study and illustrates the expected behaviour of sovereign wealth funds in Canada in the absence of strong governance structures, defined contribution rules, clearly articulated fund goals and strong fund connection to voters - four key elements present in widely recognized model funds like Norway and Alaska.


title: Reconstruction Based on Visibility

abstract:
The thesis investigates geometric compression of graphs and reconstruction of geometric objects based on partial information about them. In the first part we study properties of proximity graphs, such as minimum spanning trees, relative neighborhood graphs, Gabriel graphs, beta-skeletons and Delaunay triangulations, in the constraint setting. Given a plane graph I=(V,E) we find the minimum set S of edges of I such that the edge-constrained proximity graph over the set V of vertices and the set S of constraints contains I. We present efficient algorithms that solve this problem.
In the second part, we turn our attention to the probing of convex polygons with a wedge. An omega-wedge consists of two rays emanating from a point and forming an angle omega. Let B be the number of vertices of a convex polygon O whose internal angle is at most omega, (we show that 0<=B<=3). We reconstruct O with B=0 using 2n-2 omega-probes; or 2n-3 omega-probes if omega=90. We show that both results are optimal. We reconstruct O with B=1 (respectively B=2, B=3) using 2n-1 (respectively 2n+3, 2n+5) omega-probes. We prove optimality for the first case and show that the other two cases are almost optimal.
The third and the fourth problems revolve around the Art Gallery Localization problem. In the third part we study the problem of placing a set T of broadcast towers in a simple polygon P in order for any point to locate itself in the interior of P. Let V(p) denote the visibility polygon of p. For any point p in P: for each tower t in V(p) the point p receives the coordinates of t and the Euclidean distance between t and p. From this information p can determine its coordinates. We show a tower-positioning algorithm that computes such a set T of size at most 2n/3, where n is the size of P.
In the fourth part we study the computational complexity of the Art Gallery Localization problem. We show that determining the minimum number of broadcast towers that can localize a point anywhere in a simple polygon P is NP-hard problem.


title: Unhealthy Policies: The Role of Citizenship in the Government Response to Tuberculosis in Indigenous Populations 1945-2015

abstract:
At a time when the overall national rates of tuberculosis in Canada are among the lowest in the world, the rates of tuberculosis among the Canadian Indigenous population are ten to twenty times higher than among the Canadian non-Indigenous population. In light of factors such as Canada’s universal health care system and advancements in public health and medical interventions over the past century, the question remains as to why this disparity continues to exist. Finding the answer to that question lies at the core of this research project. It involves the analysis of a complex array of factors that lie at the intersection of public policy, politics, and the place in society that the Canadian federal government continues to attribute to Indigenous peoples.
The relationship between federal policies and health and social inequalities in Indigenous communities is examined through the lens of state power and citizenship. It’s the federal government who exercises the power to define the scope of its responsibility for ‘Indians, and lands reserved for Indians’ under Section 91 (24) of the Constitution Act. It is also the federal government, not Indigenous peoples, who decides who is an ‘Indian’ under the Indian Act for the purposes of determining who is eligible for federal services.
This research project studies the impact of the federal government’s position that it does not recognize a treaty or legal obligation for Indigenous health, and that it provides health services as a matter of policy only. Citizenship theories provide the analytical lens with which to review how the federal government chooses to include and exclude certain sub-groups of Indigenous peoples based on their Indian Status, whether they live on or off reserve, and based on which provincial or territorial jurisdiction they reside. The result is an ad-hoc network of service delivery across Canada. The research demonstrates that the federal government’s own Indigenous health policies play a central role in perpetuating the health and social inequalities that are contributing factors to the elevated rates of tuberculosis that persist in Indigenous communities.


title: Enhancement of Sludge Dewatering: A look at Polymer Maturation and Shear Optimization

abstract:
The expected growth in global population will inevitably put pressure on improvement of wastewater treatment systems. Crystalline polymers are often used for coagulation of solids, however, attempts to identify optimal polymer maturation time, with the use of viscosity and electrical conductivity, have not yielded conclusive results.
The first phase was aimed at developing a new methodology to determine the optimal polymer maturation time to yield the highest dewatering. This was done with spectrophotometry and corroborated by spiking sludge with polymers of different age. In addition, the spectrophotometer had the sensitivity to detect changes to polymer temperature, pH, chlorine content, and mixing method. In the second phase of the study the rheological properties of conditioned sludge were used to determine a relationship between the degree of shear and the resulting sludge dewaterability. The rheometer used for measuring sludge network strength was also able to capture the optimal polymer dose range.


title: The Impact of Short-Term Strategy Training in Requests for Clarification in the Japanese Classroom

abstract: This study examined whether short-term strategy training would benefit Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learners’ abilities to resolve communication difficulties using requests for clarification (RC) - strategies to request repetition, clarification, or confirmation. Two groups of high-beginner university JFL students (n=12) participated in two sessions of peer communicative practice, with one of the groups (n=6) receiving RC training prior to the sessions. The effects of the training were measured by the frequency of RC usage during the participant interviews with Japanese native speakers in pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests. A stimulated recall after the post-test was conducted to understand factors of RC use. Test results revealed an increase in the number of RC used and use of different types of RC immediately after the training. Stimulated recall results confirmed that RC were used when encountering comprehension issues and were not used when there was a partial to full understanding.


title: A Flexible Framework for Modeling Middleware Completions

abstract: Middleware has a major impact on the performance of distributed software applications. To predict the performance (e.g., response time, throughput) of an application using a performance model, it is essential to capture not only the characteristics of the application, but also the platform and the middleware. Model elements, which are added to an application software model for performance analysis are known as Completions. This research proposes a unified and flexible framework, called MMLQ (Middleware Modeling for Layered Queues), for modeling middleware completions and automatically composing them into software performance models. The existing approaches have many limitations. Some of them require to build and compose models manually, others lack generality, while others use component-based modeling which creates many elements that are not essential for performance analysis and complicate the model. MMLQ overcomes the limitations of the existing approaches and can model a wide range of middleware platforms. The contributions of this thesis include identifying the commonalities and differences among different middleware platforms, modeling their features, specializing middleware models to cater to the needs of an application, calibrating the specialized models and a proposing a process to compose calibrated models with the application models. The software application models and the middleware models are all built using Layered Queuing Network Model (LQN) developed at the RADS lab of Carleton University. The MMLQ framework is validated by showing its ability to model three different categories of middleware and by comparing the predicted performance with measured performance metrics.


title: Art Brut's Material Mythologies (1945-1976):  Dimensions, Materials and Creative Processes

abstract: This dissertation critically reassesses Jean Dubuffet's collection of Art Brut in light of both the manifold contradictions of Dubuffet's mythologizing texts, and the materiality and dimensions of its constituent artworks. Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to designate artworks made by untrained and non-professional artists. From 1947 to 1976, with the help of the Compagnie de l'Art Brut, he created an important collection of thousands of artworks - the Collection of Art Brut - gleaned from psychiatric hospitals, rural settings, and jails. For Dubuffet, the works questioned the taste and values of his period, challenging both artistic categories and conventional display practices. This thesis shows how the materials, methods of creation, and dimensions of the works collected by Dubuffet and his companions helped construct a powerful artistic myth during the middle of the twentieth century. The dissertation first analyses ways in which "poor" materials and extreme formats (ranging from very small to very big) helped support the phantasnatic idea of an Art Brut that is "humble", " natural", and "raw". The thesis then reinscribes the project of Art Brut into the history of European avant-gardes in order to show the project's specificity and political consequences. Finally, the thesis demonstrates ways in which the formats of Dubuffet's collected works led to a reform of museum space.


title: Loop Corrections in the Constituent Quark Model

abstract: Meson spectroscopy has had an extremely busy and productive decade since the discovery of the Ds(2317) and the X(3872). These states have challenged our naive quark model understanding of the mesonic spectra and forced many theorists to revisit their prior assumptions. Since their discovery, many models have been proposed to explain these new states and perhaps predict more states like them. One approach includes virtual meson loops in the constituent quark model and calculates the resulting mass corrections as a possible solution to inconsistency of the new mesons and previous models. In this work we study this model in detail, examining the various approximations and assumptions made in order to determine its viability as an answer to this problem. To do so we use the Quark Pair Creation model for the strong decay vertex. We then apply the model to various mesonic spectra to determine its viability.


title: Risks, Strengths, and Recidivism Among Justice-Involved Youth: Investigating Gender Differences and Similarities

abstract: Though males are involved in more crime than their female counterparts, females are increasingly coming to the attention of the corrections and criminal justice system. To guide the assessment and management of youthful offenders, different theoretical perspectives offer an explanation on the etiology of criminal behaviour for both males and females. The impetus for the current research was to identify important risk and strength factors predictive of criminal recidivism for both male and female justice-involved youth, through a meta-analytic review and an empirical validation of a gender informed risk assessment tool. Overall, this study found evidence in support of the Central Eight for both males and females as gender neutral factors as hypothesized, however preliminary findings emerged at the level of the individual indicators providing evidence for gender saliency (predictive for both genders but stronger in one) and gender specificity (predictive for one gender only) in the prediction of general and violent recidivism. Thus, accepting gender similarities at the domain level of risk and strengths and failing to accept that there are gender differences at the level of individual indicators will result in inaccurate assessments and missed opportunities to improve youths’ lives. The strength of the methodologies for both studies was the inclusion of a male comparison group to enable gender comparisons and make recommendations for the evidence of gender specificity and gender saliency, a limitation of previous meta-analytic and quantitative work. The findings of these studies contribute to the support of a gender informed theory of crime and have important implications for practice to take gender differences into account, beyond responsivity, to allow for the development of appropriate intervention strategies that are streamlined and targeted to make the best use of resources.


title: Evidence for the independent acquisition of aquatic specializations in pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses): insights from the study of the phylogenetic position, locomotor behaviour, and description of the stem pinniped, Puijila darwini

abstract: Monophyly of pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses) is well-established. However, it is difficult to reconcile a monophyletic origin of pinnipeds with the disparate locomotory modes and associated skeletal morphologies observed between the extant families. In this study, the skeletal anatomy of Puijila darwini, a key putative stem pinniped from Canada’s High Arctic, is fully described. A biomechanical analysis, using functional limb indices of extant carnivorans to predict locomotory modes in extinct taxa, confirms the aquatic adaptations of Puijila, and identifies it as a forelimb-dominated swimmer. Phylogenetic analyses of molecular and morphological data in isolation recover Puijila as a stem pinniped, and provide strong support for pinniped monophyly. However, a phylogenetic analysis combining molecular and morphological data together recovers an unconventional topology, suggesting the molecular and morphological data are incongruent. Closer scrutiny of previously-proposed pinniped synapomorphies suggests many features shared between seals, sea lions, and walruses arose in parallel.


title: From Dissimilar to Similar: Reverse Fading Assistance Improves Learning

abstract: This thesis investigated how worked examples could be used to fade assistance in the domain of algebra. The method of fading assistance was novel. It used similarity as the mode of assistance, with similar problem-example pairs providing high assistance and dissimilar pairs providing low assistance. Learning, performance, and gaze behaviours captured by an eye tracker were analyzed across three conditions – a faded assistance condition, a constant assistance condition, and a reverse faded assistance condition. Participant's personality traits and attitudes and behaviours regarding math were also collected and correlated with eye gaze sequences. We found that, contrary to our hypothesis, the reverse faded assistance condition resulted in the greatest learning gains. We analyzed the gaze behaviours to shed light on this finding and found that participants in this condition focused significantly more on the problem solution, suggesting more cognitive processing during problem solving than in the other conditions.


title: Investigating the Impact of an Incremental Mindset Intervention on Students’ Beliefs and Programming Performance

creator: G Celis Rangel, Maria Jakeline De Guadalupe

abstract: Implicit theories of personal ability identify two kinds of mindsets, incremental and entity. Individuals with an incremental mindset believe that ability is malleable, while the opposite is true for entity individuals. Incremental beliefs can be taught via mindsetinterventions, and improvements in academic achievement were associated with these interventions, especially for challenging subjects such as math. Programing is another challenging subject, but to date little research exists on the impact of implicit theories in this domain. To address this gap, this research tests the effect of an incremental mindset intervention on students’ beliefs and programming performance. Our key results show that the incremental mindset intervention made participants significantly less entity oriented in their beliefs towards programming, and in turn they exhibited marginally more persistence in their programming activities, especially among those with less prior programming experience. However, this did not translate to improvements in performance on the programming activity.


title: "Let's Have a Date Night!": The Role of Approach Relationship Goals in Self-Expanding Relationship Activities

abstract: The goal of the present research was to examine how approach relationship goals shape shared activity planning and engagement. In a two-part study, 135 primarily dating participants planned a date to engage in with their partner, and were instructed to engage in the date during the next six days. One week later, participants completed a follow-up questionnaire about their enacted date. People higher in approach goals engaged in shared activities that were significantly more self-expanding, and desired to participate in these activities more frequently in their relationship. Thus, people higher in approach goals are more dedicated and committed to the dates that they engage in, believe their partner will be interested in these dates, and have a greater desire to participate in future self-expanding dates. These findings suggest that people higher in approach goals are more adept at planning growth-enhancing time with their partners.


title: Effects of Hydrolyzed Oat Bran Proteins on Free Radicals, Toxic Metals and Lipid Oxidation

abstract: Transition metals play an important role in wide variety of biological processes in living system. Exposure to toxic metals, specifically arsenic (As) and chromium (Cr), has been associated with inflammation, cellular damage, and cardiovascular diseases as a result of As/Cr-mediated oxidative stress. We investigated the characteristics of the oat bran protein isolates (OBPIs) and the oat bran protein hydrolysates (OBPHs), their ability to reduce the toxicity of arsenic and chromium as well as their radical scavenging properties. Results showed that OBPIs possessed higher protein contents (80%), molecular weight (MW > 20kDa) and levels of aromatic amino acid residue than OBPHs. Hydrolysis increased peroxyl radical scavenging activities (ORAC) but lowered hydroxyl radical (HO•) potentials while only minor changes were observed in the superoxide anion radical scavenging power. Data showed that OBPI and OBPH were able to reduce toxicity of arsenic and chromium in food.


title: Antioxidant and Antiapoptotic Properties of Oat Bran Protein Hydrolysates in AAPH-Induced Oxidative Stress Hepatocarcinoma HepG2

abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant activity of protein hydrolysates derived from enzymatic digestion of oat bran (OBPHs) using two two polysaccharides degrading enzymes (Viscozyme and Cellulase) and four proteases (Flavourzyme, papain, Protamex, and Alcalase) in chemistry based and HepG2 cell cultures. In the oxygen, radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay, the peroxyl radical scavenging activity was the highest in Cell/Papa (417.0 ± 5.1 Trolox Equivalent (TE)/g), and in ABTS•+ (2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid)) radical scavenging assay was the highest in Visc/Flav (863.80 ± 20.3 TE/g). In hepatic HepG2 cells culture assays, OBPHs from Viscozyme treated brans and Cell/Flav OBPH showed better efficiency in antioxidant activity induced by 2,2’-Azobis-2-methyl-propanimidamide dihydrochloride (AAPH). OBPHs protected HegG2 cells from oxidative stress due to a combination of factors including radical scavenging activity, upregulation of antioxidant enzymes, and inhibition of the activity of the apoptotic enzyme caspase-3.


title: Canada's Defence Policies, 1987-1993:  NATO, Operational Viability, and the Good Ally

abstract: This thesis uses documents from the Department of Defence and the Department of External Affairs to analyze the 1987 White Paper on Defence and the changes in defence priorities in the period 1987-1993. The purpose of the White Paper was to improve the functionality of Canada’s military, offer a full commitment to NATO, and portray Canada as a good ally. The end of the Cold War in 1989-1991 and a deep recession from 1989-1992 forced the government to reduce the military budget, and the White Paper policies never reached fruition. Canada’s NATO allies valued Canada’s forces in Europe, and the government was initially willing to fund a Task Force in Europe. The decision in 1992 to cancel the Task Force and focus on the core capabilities of the military damaged Canada-NATO relations, but Canada continued to be a contributing member of the alliance and a player in European security.


title: Environmental Degradation of Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Epoxy Composites: An Experimental Investigation

abstract:
Work presented herein investigates the chemically-induced degradation of a carbon-fibre reinforced epoxy. Monolithic coupons were conditioned from either single-sided exposure to, or complete immersion in one of five fluids; turbine oil, hydraulic fluid, ethylene glycol, deionized water or ocean water. At predefined intervals, coupons were removed from conditioning; subjected to evaluation of mass, dimensions and hardness; and destructively tested, analyzing either flexural properties or short beam strength. Secondary testing, including microscopy, x-ray micro-computed tomography and thermal analysis, was performed to further characterize degradation.
It was demonstrated that significant mechanical and physical degradation resulted from exposure to deionized and ocean water, but not from exposure to hydraulic fluid, turbine oil, or ethylene glycol. Water uptake, as evaluated by sample mass change, was non-Fickian and caused a measurable loss of constituent material. This was predicted to be due to water's polarity, allowing it to disrupt both epoxy's intermolecular and intramolecular bond structure.


title: Taking Risk Seriously: Discourses and Worldviews in a Nuclear Waste Controversy

abstract:
Policy controversies over technologies with uncertain risks are highly polarizing. Stakeholder and public discussions about such ‘risky technologies’ typically divide over policy frames grounded in different underlying narratives concerning the relational dynamics among humans, technologies, and the environment that warrant distinct approaches for understanding and managing risk. The dissertation presents an approach to depolarizing risk that involves surfacing cultural narratives and finding discursive and institutional means to bridge them. Through an interpretive policy analysis, this dissertation examines the discourse of two key policy actors in the controversy over Ontario Power Generation's (OPG's) proposed deep geological repository (DGR) for low and intermediate level nuclear waste sited near Lake Huron. Specifically, it examines how the regulator (OPG) and a community action group, Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump (STGLND), engaged in a framing struggle about the DGR and its putative environmental effects. It shows that key elements of OPG's discursive frame were anchored to a cultural narrative describing the ability of rock to protect ecologies and humans from nuclear waste. The same elements of STGLND's discursive frame anchored emphasized the vulnerability of water to contamination from nuclear waste. The dissertation argues that these competing narratives align with longstanding socio-technological worldviews.
The dissertation also discovers the presence of an intertext—a backdrop of discursive common ground—for the policy controversy amid statements by geologists describing DGRs as a promising technology that, due to environmental risks involved, requires more exhaustive and publicly accountable study. The “Responsible Geologist” intertext, it argues, has potential to act as a neutral policy frame for depolarizing public and stakeholder dialogue about DGRs. Finally, the dissertation describes how polarized dialogues around technological and environmental risk issues could be alleviated through the creation of distinctly collaborative environmental impact assessment and risk assessment procedures. Such processes would engage citizens from different socio-cultural worldviews in a deliberative mode that is at once synthetic of diversity and evidence-based while being simultaneously committed to both ethics and innovation.


title: Investigating the Impact of Using CFD Generated Unsteady Mach Number Dynamic Stall Data for Numerical Rotor Analysis of Helicopter Forward Flight

abstract: This paper investigates whether the accuracy of the blade airload prediction by current comprehensive rotor analysis methods are compromised by the exclusion of the unsteady nature of the freestream velocity in semi-empirical dynamic stall models. To study the impact of including the unsteady nature of the freestream in dynamic stall, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to generate the unsteady 2D dynamic stall aerodynamic data representative of the conditions in the steady-level flight validation case (CT/σ = 0.129, µ = 0.24) from the UH-60A Airloads program whose counter designation is c9017. The CFD data served as inputs to the in-house rotor analysis code called Qoptr to generate blade airload results. The Qoptr blade airload results generated with the unsteady CFD dynamic stall data showed better agreement with the flight test data than the results generated with semi-empirical dynamic stall models, especially in the section moment results.


title: Cultural Built Heritage's Tangible and Intangible Dimensions and Digitalization Challenges

abstract:
This research is based on the ongoing debate on the strengths and challenges brought about by the so-called ‘digital revolution’ in the field of the conservation of Cultural Built Heritage. Within this framework, this study analyzes how the dynamic relationship between tangible and intangible heritage strongly affects the understanding of a site as cultural heritage. This relationship influences the conservation actions adopted by conservators and decision makers and shapes the values that drive, and impact on, conservation choices.
The complex relationships between tangible and intangible dimensions of cultural heritage have been, until recently, surprisingly underestimated in scientific research. A possible explanation lies in the limited amount of multidimensional and interdisciplinary approaches applied by scholars of different disciplines, often interested in a sectoral analysis of either the tangible or the intangible dimensions of cultural built heritage. The research moves in the direction of integrating such dimensions through a comprehensive approach. The project aims at demonstrating that an understanding of the role of intangible dimensions of built heritage can orient the conservation process, moving towards a more inclusive approach based on the respect for different context-based perspectives and interpretations of the cultural dimensions of heritage conservation, preservation, and restoration.
The research hypothesis is that digital documentation workflows have a strong potential for integrating different sources of information, based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, by processing and integrating knowledge about tangible and intangible dimensions of built heritage. The research proposes an enhanced approach, called WikiBIM, which builds on a combination of rapid ethnographic appraisal methods and IT-supported techniques for data acquisition, processing, and management.
The research approach is tested on the concrete case of the Loka-hteik-pan temple in Bagan, Myanmar. Conclusions about the effectiveness of the approach highlight the importance of integrating local knowledge, sometimes transmitted only through oral means, in mainstream digital design tools, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), in order to improve the social, cultural and environmental sustainability of built heritage conservation.


title: Development and Evaluation of Novel, Large Area, Radiation Hard Silicon Microstrip Sensors for the ATLAS ITk Experiment at the HL-LHC

abstract: Development and evaluation of novel, large area, radiation hard silicon microstrip sensors is necessary for the operation of the ATLAS detector at the high luminosity upgrade of the LHC particle accelerator. This next-generation collider will allow an order of magnitude more premier physics data to be obtained from the facility that produces the world-leading 13 − 14T eV centre-of-mass frame collisional energy. The physics impact of this cou- pled nature is fundamental as the sensitivity to any interaction that falls within this massive energy range is naturally increased by the reduction in statistical uncertain- ties. This poses two prime opportunities for the discovery of new physics; precision measurement of known interactions and sensitive uncovering of the unknown. The HL-LHC’s increases in collision rate and experiment lifetime necessitate com- plimentary changes to the LHC detectors’ layouts, granularities, readouts, and radia- tion hardness. For the general purpose ATLAS detector the ...


title: The Effects of Temporal Comparisons on Pro-Environmental Behaviour

abstract: This research determines whether making temporal comparisons with one’s own past behaviour can promote future mitigating intentions and behaviours. Participants compared their present selves to their past selves in terms of environmental behaviours, and indicated their future environmental behaviour intentions (Study 1). Participants indicated improvement from their past selves to their present selves – increasing their level of engagement in environmental behaviours as time progressed. Those reporting steeper improvement over the past years were also more likely to indicate a greater intention to perform environmental actions in the future, but only when their improvement was made salient. Different temporal trajectories were then examined to determine their effect on participants’ environmental intentions and actual subsequent behaviours (Study 2). Whether participants had improved, declined or remained consisten in their environemental behaviour from the past had no effect on future behavioural intentions or subsequent actions.


title: Spherical Space Bessel-Legendre-Fourier Mode Solver for Electromagnetic Fields

abstract:
Controlling and confining light in three dimensions is of significant interest as it represents devices in their entirety with minimal approximations. Localized modes in resonator structures are commonly modelled using the supercell plane wave expansion method, finite element method, or the finite difference time domain. However, these standard techniques are expensive in terms of computational resources when applied to three-dimensional structures. The technique presented in this thesis is a new method for solving Maxwell’s vector wave equations for localized modes in three-dimensional spherically symmetric resonator structures as well as its application to sensor configurations. The technique requires minimal implementation, provides normalized results, works for finite size and is computationally efficient. The method is such that the structures under test can be arbitrary shape, isotropic, anisotropic, lossless, or lossy.
For the structures examined, a modified basis set composed of spherical Bessel, Legendre and Fourier functions (BLF) are used to expand the electric, magnetic, and inverse relative permittivity. These expansions allow for Maxwell’s wave equations to be cast as an eigenvalue problem from which the steady state localized modes can be determined from the eigen-frequencies and eigenvectors. This work applies to a number of spherically symmetric structures. A selection of structures whose resonator properties are reported in the literature are used to compare and verify the accuracy of the use of the BLF functions as an expansion basis.


title: Generalized Linear Models with Nonignorable Missing Covariates

abstract:
In this thesis, we present an overview of generalized linear models (GLMs) for binary and count data with missing covariates when the missing data mechanism is nonignorable. We use the maximum likelihood method to estimate the parameters in GLMs. We study a set of ML estimating equations for fitting regression models to binary and Poisson data with missing covariates.
Simulations were carried out to observe the behaviour of the MLEs under both correctly specified and misspecified structures. Our simulation study shows that the ML method generally provides unbiased and efficient estimators under correctly specified models, whereas a misspecified model provides biased and inefficient estimators. It also indicates that for small sample size, the empirical coverage probabilities of the parameter estimates are a bit apart from the nominal 95% level. Also, the average lengths of the confidence intervals for the regression parameters tend to be smaller for larger sample size.


title: “Knowing ‘Her’ Status”: Sex, Gender, and Women’s Rights in HIV and AIDS Campaigns, Lesotho

abstract: Young women in Lesotho are a high-risk group for new HIV infections despite a heavy investment in health programs for that demographic. This study investigates sexual rights discourses by both NGOs and local Basotho women to evaluate how much they align to promote women’s sexual empowerment. The underlying assumption is that how women’s rights are framed and incorporated into HIV campaigns reflects, and seeks to effect, certain social mores that may not resonate with Basotho women’s own views on sexual rights, with significant implications for the success of HIV prevention efforts. A critical discourse analysis of interviews and focus group data is used to conclude that NGOs promote discourses on women’s sexual rights that align with the discourses prevalent among local young women. However, both discourses reinforce cultural frames of women’s sexual rights that reinforce women’s sexual subservience and disempowerment, thus accounting for young women’s continued vulnerability to HIV infections.


title: Impact of Research on Economics Professors’ Compensation

abstract: The purpose of this paper is to study the observable effects research quantity and quality have on the salary compensation a professor receives. This paper aims to assess which bibliometric variable best measures research, and how that research is rewarded through salary received. Other determinants of salary, as well as institutional conditions, will be analysed so that the structure of salary can be determined. The subject of study is tenured and tenure-track economics professors in Ontario for 2015. The results indicate that for the top professors, quality of research was rewarded. For most professors, research made modest contributions to salary, with the best measure of research incorporating both quantity and quality of publications. Years of experience was the largest determinant of salary. Whether a university was unionized or not had an impact on salary, while the research intensity of the institution was not significant.


title: Behavioural response of white sturgeon and walleye to a LED based light guidance device

abstract: Hazards of water management required for human life require a growing need to protect fish. Behavioural guidance is used to reduce damage to fish from waterway infrastructure. A light guidance device designed by ATET-Tech, inc. was tested using both white sturgeon and walleye. White sturgeon were attracted to green light more than blue and red during the day. At night, white sturgeon were attracted to all lights. A louver-LGD system was tested using green light strobing at 20Hz to attract fish and red light strobing at 1Hz to deter fish. The louver was consistently effective at guiding white sturgeon toward the bypass with green light enhancing night bypass rates. Walleye were assed for their behavioural responses to green and orange light with either constant or 5Hz strobing light. Walleye avoided light significantly more compared the control. This research furthers understanding how fish react to light to reduce entrainment and impingement.


title: Functional Analysis of a User Driven Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression System

abstract: Surgery is a common treatment for low back pain, but is a significant undertaking. An emerging non – surgical alternative, noted as spinal decompression therapy has evolved into an effective non – surgical treatment. This research focuses on the development and implementation of a user driven non – surgical spinal decompression (USD) system, a first of its kind prototype. The USD system's function is validated through experiments performed on a dummy subject. In addition, a pilot study was performed on 4 human participants analyzing performance results and user feedback in regards to pedaling options, loading characteristics, restraint combinations, human response characteristics and overall comfort. Users imparted an average rating of 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of ease of utilization. In addition, 75% of users indicated the therapy underwent in the USD system felt like mild exercise, while 25% indicated it felt like a relaxation session.


title: The Effects of Single Prolonged Stress, an Animal Model of PTDS, on Novelty-Seeking Behaviours and Alterations in the Dopaminergic System in Male and Female Rats

abstract: A common underlying behavioural trait of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves novelty-seeking behaviours, which have been related to impairments in the dopaminergic system. We therefore investigated novelty-seeking behaviours and extracellular dopamine (DA) release in response to single prolonged stress (SPS), a rodent model of PTSD. Rats were exposed to SPS and then received either saline or 0.5 mg/kg, i.p. d-amphetamine (AMP) injection one week later, before being placed in a modified novel object exploration test (Experiment 1) or being subjected to in vivo microdialysis to detect extracellular DA release in the nucleus accumbens (Experiment 2). SPS exposure significantly increased novelty-seeking behaviours in males and females. Basal accumbal DA levels in males were elevated by SPS, but not in females. These data suggest that exposure to SPS results in an increase in DA-mediated behaviours in male and female rats, and enhances accumbal DA release in males.


title: Reproducing Acceleration Power Spectral Density from an Aircraft Fuselage Panel Excited by Turbulent Boundary Layer Using Piezoelectric Actuators

abstract: Noise and vibration in an aircraft cabin during cruise conditions is predominantly caused by external flow excitations from the turbulent boundary layer. The turbulent boundary layer causes the fuselage panels on the aircraft to vibrate. These vibrations radiate sound energy in the form of noise. This thesis describes a method to analytically optimize aircraft’s cabin panel parameters, to reduce the acceleration power spectral density of the panel caused by the turbulent boundary layer. Additionally, it presents an experimental validation, and modification of two existing analytical models used to calculate acceleration power spectral density for a panel, with three different excitations: an impact hammer force, a turbulent boundary layer, and a piezoelectric patch. Finally, an optimization method has been developed to reproduce the acceleration power spectral density of an aircraft panel by optimally selecting the placement of a given number of piezoelectric actuators, excited with a white noise distribution of frequencies.


title: A User Relinquishment-based Resource Assignment Scheme to Maximize the Net Profit of Cloud Service Providers

abstract: In a cloud federation, by using the pay-as-you-go billing model users can relinquish their services at any point in time and pay accordingly. Therefore, this thesis aims to study the resource assignment problem in the situation where the user relinquishment impacts the net profit of a cloud service provider. As a solution, our study 1) proposes a tool to calculate the net profit which includes income, electricity expenses, and relinquishment loss; 2) compares different ways to predict the user behavior and deduce a better prediction technique based on linear regression; and 3) proposes a relinquishment-aware resource optimization model to estimate the amount of resources based upon the predicted user behavior. Simulations were performed with the CloudSim framework. The results show that instead of blindly assigning resources to users, a cloud service provider with a finite resource pool can gain more by estimating the resources using better prediction techniques.


title: Adult Estimation Strategies: An Eye Tracking Investigation into Reference Point Use for an Atypical Number Line Scale

abstract: The goal of the present study focused on the use of eye tracking technology to investigate the relationship between reference point use and performance on an atypical number line estimation task. University students (N=53; M=20.8 years) completed 33 number line trials, a post-task questionnaire, and a brief math assessment. Patterns of error and fixation data were analyzed. The results presented show that adult participants adjust their strategies in response to the scale used and that the use of implicit reference points benefits performance for targets located above the midpoint value. In sum, the varying performance demonstrated within an adult population using an atypical scale suggests that adults use proportional reasoning strategies to estimate the location of a number.


title: Human Activity and Posture Classification Using Single Non-Contact Radar Sensor

abstract: Radar has been proposed for monitoring the health of elderly patients in long term care because it is safe, non-contact and preserves the privacy of patients. Random body movements (RBM) obscure radar return signals making it difficult if not impossible to accurately estimate vitals. Activity classification is presented in this thesis as a pre-processing step for dealing with RBMs. Posture classification is presented in this thesis for assistance in preventing falls. Two popular radar architectures- continuous wave (CW) Doppler and ultra-wideband (UWB) are investigated in this thesis. Activity classification is performed with 92% average accuracy with CW and 86% with UWB. Posture Classification is performed with 64% average accuracy with CW and 85% with UWB. An occupancy detection algorithm was also developed for UWB and achieved 88% average accuracy. The contribution of this thesis is a proposed hierarchical processing approach for both radar types capable of dealing with moving subjects.


title: A test of the hypothesis that the spatial scale of effect of the landscape context on an ecological response increases with increasing time scale over which the response is regulated

abstract: To detect an effect of landscape context on an ecological response one must measure the landscape variable at the appropriate spatial extent around the response, i.e. at its 'scale of effect'. However, it is not clear what determines this scale or if we can predict it a priori. One hypothesis is that the scale of effect increases with the temporal scale regulating the response. We tested this, comparing scales of effect of road density and forest amount on wood frog fecundity, abundance, and occurrence estimated from egg mass surveys of 34 ponds. We predicted the following order for scales of effect: fecundity < abundance < occurrence. Scales of effect were different for the three responses, but did not vary in the predicted order. This suggests that scales of effect cannot be predicted from the temporal scale regulating different responses and should thus be estimated empirically, rather than 'guestimated' a priori.


title: An Ultra-Compact and Reconfigurable X-band GaN-based Control MMIC for 5G Phased Array Transceivers

abstract: This thesis proposes an ultra-compact and reconfigurable X-band control MMIC, consisting of a SPDT switch, a 5-bit digital phase shifter and a 5-bit digital attenuator, for 5G phased array transceivers based on the 0.15-um GaN HEMT process. To ensure this work is fabrication-driven design, characterization of the fabricated GaN HEMTs, in which it shows the agreements between the design kit model and measurement results, is illustrated first. The SPDT switch has achieved an insertion loss of 0.65 dB and an isolation of 24.8 dB over 8-12 GHz with a IIP3 of 41 dBm. The 5-bit digital phase shifter has achieved an RMS phase and amplitude error of 9.9o and 6.5 dB. The 5-bit digital attenuator has achieved an RMS amplitude and phase error of 0.7 dB and 6o. Layout dimensions indicate the proposed control MMIC occupies an area size of 2 mm × 4 mm including RF and DC pads.


title: Simulations of Ductile Fracture in Pipeline Steels Under Quasi-Static and Dynamic Loading Conditions

abstract: In this thesis extensive finite element simulations of ductile fracture in pipeline steels were analyzed using the cohesive zone model (CZM). The analyses focused on the effect of loading mode under quasi-static loading conditions on the CTOA, and higher loading rates on the CTOA. The results of the loading mode simulations demonstrate that the CTOA has a weak dependence on the loading mode (constraint). The results of the loading rate study demonstrate that the CZM must be re-calibrated to produce an experimental parameter, such as the dynamic CTOA, for higher loading rates. A relation between the cohesive energy and crack velocity is developed to provide insight into the effect of loading rate on the CZM based on a constant CTOA model. Lastly, this study provided data which supports the notion that the upswing in the two curve method (TCM) is due to the effect of inertia.


title: Influences of male and female phenotypes on male mate-choice copying in the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

abstract: Mate-choice copying in males is a form of social learning whereby an observer male modifies his inherent mating preference after observing a demonstrator male sexually interact with a female he did not initially prefer, and copies the mate preference of the demonstrator male. Little is known about such copying behaviour in males and how the phenotypes of males and(or) females interact to influence the likelihood of mate-choice copying and the strength of the copying response. Using the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata), I investigated whether the relative sexual attractiveness of males influences the likelihood of mate-choice copying in males, and found that the highest rates of copying occurred when the demonstrator male was less sexually attractive than the observer male. Second, I tested whether the relative difference in the body size of paired females influenced the likelihood of male mate-choice copying, and did not find unequivocal evidence for such an effect.


title: Assessment of the Dynamic Properties of Soils from Triaxial Tests

abstract: A detailed laboratory testing programme was conducted on undisturbed sensitive Leda clay samples and on uniform sands under triaxial loading mode. Monotonic and cyclic behavior of sensitive Leda clay are studied by performing large strain tests at various consolidation conditions. Small strain stress controlled quasi-cyclic tests were conducted on clay and sand to establish site-specific modulus reduction and damping ratio curves at small strain amplitudes. The shear strength and cyclic resistance of Leda clay under triaxial testing mode is noted to be significantly higher than the previously reported values under simple shear loading conditions. Further consolidation stress and OCR influence the monotonic shear strength of clay. Site specific modulus reduction and damping ratio curves are proposed for Leda clay, Fraser River sand and Ottawa sand. The proposed dynamic curves indicate that the behavior of sensitive clays does not follow any particular curve proposed in the literature for non-sensitive clays.


title: Regulation of urea cycle related enzymes in response to freezing in the wood frog, Rana sylvatica

abstract: The North American wood frog, Rana sylvatica, is one of the few vertebrate species that is capable of surviving freezing. Prevention of intracellular ice formation and maintenance of osmotic balance is facilitated by the production of large concentrations of urea during freezing in the liver. The regulatory roles of three enzymes critical to production of urea; glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), carbamoyl phosphate synthetase I (CPS1), and ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC), were investigated in the liver in response to freezing. Freeze-exposed GDH had heightened substrate affinity and higher maximal activity than the control. Freeze-exposed GDH had decreased acetylation and ADP-ribosylation. CPS1 from frozen frogs was demonstrated to have a higher affinity for ammonia and decreased lysine glutarylation relative to the control. Freeze-exposed OTC demonstrated improved affinity for ornithine and increased serine phosphorylation relative. Taken together, the results suggest that urea production is sustained in the liver of the wood frog during freezing.


title: Classification and Feature Selection in Sparse High-Dimensional Models

abstract: This work deals with binary classiﬁcation in a sparse high-dimensional model. Essen tially, we have two predetermined subclasses of the normally distributed population and we want to assign a new observation to one of the two subclasses. In this thesis, we look at a classiﬁcation problem in which the sample size is less than the dimension of the data. The goal is to ﬁnd good methods for classiﬁcation that can minimize our chances of misclassiﬁcation under these circumstances. A typical high-dimensional problem, like the one studied in this thesis, has a large number of unknown parameters and not enough data to make reliable inferences about these parameters. The classical statistical methods were not designed to cope with high-dimensional problems. Therefore, when studying the classiﬁcation problem of our interest, we have proposed original statistical ideas and tools based on the notion of ‘sparsity’.


title: Isabella Bird:  An Argument for Mobility and a Changed Definition of New Womanhood

abstract: I argue that mobility and ideas of New Womanhood were mutually constitutive by the late nineteenth century onwards. Through Isabella Bird’s writing and biographies, I find that she, and by extension others of the fin-de-siècle, connected mobility with Christianity and modernity in a Western imperialist context. Her biographers are discussed as representatives of each generation’s feminist view of New Women. I focus on Bird’s writing about Korea, where she advocated missionaries and views on race and Orientalism in ways that were not simply echoes of contemporary British jingoist ideas. For example, she concluded that Russia should take over Korea after the First Sino-Japanese War. Studying Bird reevaluates and historicizes the definition of New Womanhood by emphasizing how privileges of mobility and Christian missionizing were assumptions built into fin-de-siècle writing by “New Women,” despite how late thinkers characterized them as secular progressives, like the feminist movement.


title: Measurement of a New Half-Lifetime Lower Limit for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay in Xe-136 Using the Full EXO-200 Phase 1 Data Set and Improvements to Barium Tagging for nEXO

abstract: Several major experiments are currently underway attempting to observe neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ). This decay is of interest in the physics community because a measurement of it’s half-life would lead directly to a measurement of the effective Majorana-neutrino mass and therefore the absolute neutrino mass scale. Furthermore, the decay is interesting because it demonstrates non-conservation of lepton number and the Majorana nature of neutrinos, two features which are not forbidden by the Standard Model but have not been observed experimentally. This work focuses on improvements to two such experiments, EXO-200 and it’s successor, nEXO. An improved analysis technique for EXO-200 is developed using Boosted Decision Trees, leading to a 12% improvement to sensitivity and a 13% improvement to the 0νββ half-life lower limit. Furthermore, improvements are made to the nEXO barium tagging system producing a 50% improvement in signal-to-background ratio as well as some improvement to the continuous excitation technique.


title: Street Involved Drug Use, Social Dynamics and Interactions with Police in Ottawa

abstract: Homeless populations are frequently associated with drug consumption. Drug use by homeless people is more visible leading to the assumption that homeless or street involved populations use drugs more frequently or differently. This paper challenges this idea and looks at how homeless and street involved populations consume drugs and how they understand their drug consumption. In 15 semi-structured, open-ended interviews I explored how homeless and street involved men consume and understand their drug consumption. Drawing on the idea of subjectivities, this paper looks at how these individuals understand what it means to be a “junkie” and how they understand their own drug consumption in response. Police have an impact on the daily lives of street involved drug users. How police interact with street involved drug users and how street involved drug users understand these interactions. Finally, how the “junkie” subjectivity impacts interactions between street involved users and police.


title: A Genomic Screen of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Reveals a Potential Link Between Nonstop Decay and Autophagy

abstract: Little has been described about the mechanisms of the Nonstop Decay (NSD) pathway. To discover new genes involved in NSD, we performed a genome wide investigation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae which yielded 446 gene candidates that when deleted, allowed production of a nonstop mRNA. Of the gene families found in our screen, we decided to follow up on the autophagy candidates. First, we used the autophagy inhibiting drug verteporfin to confirm that autophagy does not occur in our candidates. The results confirm our prediction that autophagy is inhibited in our two autophagy candidates. Next, we assessed the abundance of nonstop mRNA using qRT-PCR analysis. This resulted in lower than expected nonstop mRNA abundance relative to the WT, which led us to investigate nonstop protein abundance. Interestingly, we see an increase in the abundance of nonstop protein abundance relative to the WT. Our results suggest that NSD may occur through autophagy.


title: Groundwater-surface water interactions in the Jock River watershed, Ottawa, Ontario

abstract: Groundwater and surface water interactions in the Jock River watershed, Ottawa, Ontario were investigated during the 2015 growing season using end-member mixing analysis (EMMA). The Jock River sample sites were integrated into a spatially distributed single linear mixing model. Spatial and temporal variations amongst the dominant sources of baseflow were observed in the Jock River watershed. Baseflow generation across the Jock River watershed showed a dynamic relationship between the sources contributing to baseflow and antecedent moisture conditions. The wetland end-member was the dominant source of baseflow in the upper watershed and showed little temporal variation in end-member contributions throughout the growing season. Strong linear correlations between the average proportion of the wetland end-member and natural features (forest, wetland and organic deposits) were observed. Results highlight the importance of different landscape components contributing to baseflow across the watershed, specifically the importance of wetlands at mitigating high and low flow conditions.


title: The effect of dietary protein and carbohydrate availability throughout development and adulthood on life history and sexually selected traits in male Jamaican field crickets (Gryllus assimilis)

abstract: Protein and carbohydrate availability can profoundly influence development speed, size, and reproduction. To date, most researchers investigating nutritional effects have only examined one nutrient at a time. Furthermore, when researchers have examined multiple nutrients, their studies have focused on adults, ignoring juveniles. I quantified how dietary nutrient balance (protein:carbohydrate) during development and adulthood impacted fitness conferring traits using male Jamaican field crickets (Gryllus assimilis). I also examined juvenile and adult dietary nutrient preferences. My findings revealed males grow larger and faster, and begin signalling earlier when reared on high protein diets, but switching diets in adulthood did not impact signalling. Additionally, when given a choice, males consumed greater amounts of carbohydrates relative to proteins. Given larger males signal more often and produce more attractive signals, and females preferentially mate with larger males, the ability to locate and consume high protein nutrients during development profoundly impacts male fitness.


title: A Rotary Travelling Wave Oscillator Based All-Digital PLL in 65nm CMOS

abstract: This thesis presents the design and implementation of an All-Digital Phase Locked Loop (ADPLL) that uses Delta-Sigma (ΔΣ) modulation, multi-phase outputs, and Dynamic Element Matching (DEM). The system is designed using a combination of 65nm CMOS technology and an FPGA. The frequency range of the ADPLL output is 5.48GHz to 6.22GHz. Several design techniques are used to reduce the phase noise of the ADPLL output. The ADPLL uses a rotary travelling wave-based Digitally Controlled Oscillator (DCO) with multi-phase outputs to improve quantization noise. Manufacturing variations on the fine-tuning DCO input capacitors are averaged using DEM to produce more uniform frequency steps. ΔΣ modulation is used on the least significant of the DCO input bits. This modulation introduces a dithering effect on the output frequency that has the effect of moving some of the phase noise away from the ADPLL carrier frequency.


title: Investigation of Whole Genome Phylogeny and Genetic Analysis of Cyclic Lipopeptide Biosynthesis Genes in Antagonistic Strains of Bacillus

abstract: Bacillus spp. have been shown to produce antimicrobial compounds called cyclic lipopeptides. Strains of Bacillus isolates from disease suppressive compost produce three families of lipopeptides, surfactins, fengycins and iturins, however not all the isolates produce all the lipopeptides. The genetics behind the production of these lipopeptides is not that well known. The objective of this study was to confirm the identity of the bacterial isolates using whole genome phylogeny and identify the Bacillus cyclic lipopeptide biosynthesis genes. Isolates of Bacillus subtilis, B. megaterium, B. badius and Brevibacillus borstelensis were used in this study. It was shown that the identity of the bacterial isolates resembled the identity assigned using 16S rRNA sequences, except for B. subtilis isolates CU12 and M9-3. It was determined that the B. subtilis isolates and the B. borstelensis isolate possessed the gene operons for the cyclic lipopeptides whereas B. megaterium and B. badius isolates did not.


title: Low Latency Compressive Sensing using Multi-Resolution Analysis In Radar Signal Processing

abstract:
The digital world becomes dominated by electronic devices. The demand for higher speeds is growing every day which implies a higher demand for the signal acquisition and processing speeds and a wider signal bandwidth. The Shannon/Nyquist sampling theorem states, the ADC must sample the signal at a rate two times faster than the signal bandwidth in order to avoid data loss. However, the advances of ADC cannot always meet these demands. Considerable research has been done to find new approaches to acquiring the signal at a rate lower than the Nyquist rate (sub-Nyquist). In recent years, compressive sensing (CS) has come to light as a new signal processing paradigm. CS exploits signal sparsity characteristics to acquire the signal using a number of samples much lower than the Nyquist rate. Our focus is studying CS and its applications to radar. We study different successful CS practical implementation approaches. However, these approaches lead to an undesired high-latency in the computation and signal reconstruction.
This thesis has four main contributions that build on each other. First, we study the effect of prior information on the CS recovery performance and introduce a new formula to improve the utilization of the prior information in CS pulse radar. Second, we exploit prior information and multi-resolution analysis properties to introduce a low-latency sub-Nyquist adaptive sampling algorithm. The proposed algorithm is a modified version of CS sampling approach called Xampling but uses Haar wavelets. The Haar wavelet based approach is found to be useful to extract target range information for radar applications that requires only target range detection. Third, we modified our Haar approach by using S-transform bases instead of Haar bases. The S-transform based algorithm is capable of analyzing signal frequency and phase that gives the algorithm the ability to extract target range and speed information in a single reconstruction step. The S-transform approach provides a reasonable balance between the number of samples and the reconstruction processing time. Fourth, we study the recovery guarantees for the S-transform algorithm. We introduce a mathematical proof to derive an upper bound for the number of detectable targets.


title: Filling in the Blanks: Subtle Cues of Coherence, Belongingness and Meaning in Life

abstract: Heintzelman, Trent and King (2013) suggested that feelings of meaning in life (MiL) emerge when individuals perceive subtle cues of coherence. Study 1 and 2 sought to replicate and extend Heintzelman et al.’s (2013; Study 4) finding of increased self-reported MiL after being presented with coherent, in comparison to incoherent, linguistic triads. Both attempts, however, failed to replicate. Study 3 aimed to assess whether the effect of coherence on MiL is only realized when a threat to a fundamental need (belongingness) is apparent. Using an online ball-tossing game, Cyberball, to create feelings of exclusion, participants were subsequently randomly assigned to view either coherent or incoherent word triads. They then completed measures of MiL and current mood. Coherent triads (vs. incoherent triads) had no significant effect on MiL in either the inclusion or exclusion condition. Possible explanations for these discrepant findings are discussed, and potential future directions are proposed.


title: An Experimental Investigation of Spall Fracture in Neat Epoxy and an Epoxy/Carbon Nanotube Composite

abstract: The spall strength of a material can be used to parameterize its ability to resist tensile failure under high-strain-rate loading. Dynamic failure in an assortment of representative materials was studied. A focus was placed on characterizing the mechanical properties of a polymer-matrix composite. Load frame testing was carried out to measure mechanical properties at quasi-static strain rates, while plate impact experiments were conducted to examine material response under dynamic loading conditions. Successful identification of the spall strengths and fracture toughnesses of aluminum 6061-T6 and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) validated the methods used in this investigation. An effect of the curing agent on the spall strength of an epoxy was identified. Nanotubes were found to have a detrimental effect on the dynamic mechanical properties of the resulting nanocomposite. Fracture surfaces of recovered nanocomposite fragments were imaged using a scanning electron microscope to identify failure mechanisms and propose a failure process.