identifier: Whitebean, Wahéhshon Shiann  (2019) Child-Targeted Assimilation: An Oral History of Indian Day School Education in Kahnawà:ke.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Child-Targeted Assimilation:
An Oral History of Indian Day School Education in Kahnawà:ke

Wahéhshon Shiann Whitebean

Recent studies about Indigenous education in Canada largely focus on the effects of Residential Schooling. Yet, Indigenous children in Canada attended Day Schools in greater numbers than Residential Schools and we still know little about their experiences. For many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children, the loss of language, culture, and identity caused by Day Schooling are traumatic experiences that spanned several generations. The Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community of Kahnawà:ke had several Day Schools, the earliest of which opened in the 1820s. This research seeks out the oral histories and experiences at Indian Day Schools of four Kanien’kehá:ka elders from Kahnawà:ke. The research is approached with a combination of Indigenous and qualitative research methods including oral history and narrative inquiry. Through a critical self-reflexive autobiographical narrative process, experiences and impacts of Day Schools are analyzed and interpreted as a co-creation of knowledge. The term child-targeted assimilation is introduced as a means of identifying a pattern of child-focused colonization that has resulted in layers of trauma in families and communities. This research demonstrates ways that multigenerational storying facilitates a deeper understanding of colonization and approaches painful issues without traumatizing or victimizing Indigenous peoples. Effects of Indian Day Schooling are understood through the lens of lived reality, set in the broader context of colonization and other facets of indigenous life. The outcome is a process of decolonizing, healing, and approaching research as story and as medicine.


identifier: Messina-Pacheco, Stephanie  (2019) Meta-omics analyses of the diversity and metabolism of the uncultivated CL500-3 clade of Planctomycetes in seasonally ice-covered northern lakes.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract: Owing to cold water temperature and low light penetration through ice, microbial communities were thought to be dormant during winter in seasonally ice-covered lakes. Recent observations of under-ice blooms have challenged this view and raised questions about how microbes contribute to nutrient cycling throughout the year. A previous study demonstrated that Planctomycetes bacteria were commonly abundant under the ice. Therefore, in this thesis, I investigated the diversity and metabolic traits of Planctomycetes in three distinct Canadian lakes over a three-year time series using a combination of 16S rRNA gene sequencing, metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses. Winter Planctomycetes assemblages were comprised in large part of the uncultivated CL500-3 clade, which consisted of five subclades (CL500-3a to CL500-3e), each exhibiting a seasonal and biogeographical distribution. Six CL500-3 genomes were reconstructed from Quebec lake metagenomic data and a large fraction of genes were detected in the metatranscriptomic datasets, supporting the notion that CL500-3 subclades were metabolically active throughout the year. CL500-3 genomes were enriched in amino acid degradation pathways and depleted in carbohydrate degrading enzymes compared to other Planctomycetes. The abundance and expression of amino acid degradation pathways suggests that they serve as a source of nitrogen, as well as carbon substrates that feed into the citric acid cycle. Additionally, expression of phosphate-selective porins and chemotactic genes indicates the ability to adapt and respond to cellular and environmental changes. In total, these findings shed light on the metabolism of the widely distributed but poorly characterized CL500-3 clade of Planctomycetes and increase our understanding of the diversity and metabolic processes occurring under-ice in northern lakes ecosystems.


identifier: Jeyaraj, Andrew Kingsley ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6032-5451 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6032-5451>  (2019) A Model-Based Systems Engineering Approach for Efficient System Architecture Representation in Conceptual Design: A Case Study for Flight Control Systems.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The reduction of the environmental footprint of aviation requires the development of more efficient aircraft. Emergent technologies in aircraft systems, such as more-electrical aircraft, are potential enablers for the next generation of aircraft. To support the adoption of these new technologies and to tackle the underlying integration challenges, aircraft system architectures need to be considered earlier in the aircraft design process, specifically within the conceptual design stage. To deal with the complexity and to make the system architecture development process more efficient and effective, a key enabler is to improve the representation of system architectures early in the design process. Introducing better architecture representations removes ambiguity and allows engineers to develop a shared understanding of the system. Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) has emerged as a systematic methodology to address complexity in systems design and overcome the drawbacks of the traditional paper based systems engineering approach used in aircraft development. This thesis investigates the use of the ARCADIA/Capella MBSE environment for the representation and specification of aircraft systems architecture in conceptual design. This thesis includes survey on the needs for system architecture representations in conceptual design. A methodology is developed within Capella to create architecture representations that are suitable for use in conceptual design. The primary flight control systems (PFCS), which by extension also includes the associated power systems, is selected to illustrate the proposed methodology. The proposed methodology consists of capturing architectural features such as interfaces, exchanges and variability. A catalog of modelling artifacts representing the various flight control actuation technologies at system level, logical and physical level has been developed. These elements can be combined to define any primary flight control system architecture. The model-based specification addresses the need to define rapidly many architecture variants for conventional and more-electrical technologies. The developed methodology is applicable to other aircraft systems. Overall, this work is an initial step towards introducing MBSE earlier in the aircraft development process thereby making it more efficient and responsive to the emerging needs of aircraft development.


identifier: KOUSHKI, PANTEA  (2019) Additively Manufactured Hemp Fibers Reinforced Silicone.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Additive manufacturing provides a broad range of applications and o�ers significant
advantages over conventional molding methods. One of the advantages with
additive manufacturing is its high e�ciency of feedstock utilization. Although, the
most common polymer and metallic composites feedstocks used within additive manufacturing
are normally obtained from ine�cient, and non-sustainable sources. This
contribution explores the 3D printability of a new material based on silicone and
hemp �bers from renewable, sustainable and non-petroleum resources with the aim
of enhancing mechanical properties of silicone.
To improve composites printing technology, it's required to discover the desired
mixing composition. At �rst, to determine the proper amount of �bers, samples were
fabricated by molding. Incorporation of �bers improved the mechanical properties of
the silicone matrix. However, �bers distribution within the matrix adversely a�ected
the printability of silicone due to the resulting high viscosity. Therefore, behavior
of the new manufactured material with varying �ber and solvent composition was
analyzed using rheological study to obtain a printable material. The composition
containing 15 (wt%) hemp �bers and 20 (wt%) solvent with enhanced mechanical
properties displayed desirable printability. Moreover, the mechanical properties of the
3D printed and molded samples were studied. The results revealed that 3D printed
samples outperformed the molded counterparts in tensile strength and hardness. Finally,
a simple gripper and honeycomb structure were fabricated to demonstrate the
application of the developed material.


identifier: Abbaszadeh, Samaneh  (2019) Six-Motor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Design Performance.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The topic of this thesis is on the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Due to the growth of interests in this kind of equipment in different fields, the various features are under investigation. The specific type of UAV considered in this study is the multi-rotor drone. Basically, the kinematics and dynamics of the system are both reviewed in details within the fundamental concepts of this vehicle.
The main focus of the thesis is enhancing the performance of the quadrotor, mainly the forward speed. This vehicle is able to hover at any step of the flight and fast flight in forwarding direction. The Newton-Euler equations are used to model the quadrotor. Different strategies for adding rotor in the x-direction are studied to make changes in the quadrotor to be able to fly fast in forwarding direction. The six-motor design is considered to cover all the requirements. This design is mathematically studied by using the Newton-Euler formulations. The dynamic model of six-motor design is developed based on existent models for UAVs.
Also, wind tunnel tests were carried out with the objective of extracting the aerodynamic forces. The quadrotor and one motor with its propeller are examined at different angles of installation. The results from the wind tunnel experiments are used in the simulation models.
The quadrotor and the six-motor UAV are both modeled and solved with MATLAB-Simulink. PID control is used for modeling the vehicles. The results of the simulations are compared. The performance of the quadrotor and six-motor UAV design is similar to the four-rotor drone under the hovering conditions.


identifier: Wang, Ruolin  (2019) Attic Ventilation in Extremely Cold Climate - Field Measurements and Hygrothermal Simulation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Attic ventilation is typically recommended for the removal of moisture build-up caused by air leakage from indoors in cold climates, however, it may also increase the amount of snow and rain penetration into the attic, especially in the extremely cold climates. In northern regions, extremely cold temperatures can cause snow particles to become very fine, which will penetrate vents or unsealed openings. The snow accumulated in the attic would melt at temperatures above zero and penetrate to indoors through the ceiling and cause moisture problems. One of the solutions is to add filter membranes along a ventilation cavity behind the façade to prevent snow from entering the attic. The ventilated attics with filter membrane had some success but there were instances with reported water leakages and moisture damages. There have been also attempts to use un-ventilated cold roofs. Un-ventilated attics prevent snow accumulation but do not allow for effective removal of moisture, which could be risky and prone to moisture damages.
In this thesis, three houses in northern Canada are investigated, two of them have ventilated attics with different filter membrane designs located in Kuujjuaq and another has un-ventilated attic located in Iqaluit. Field measurements are setup in these three houses to monitor their hygrothermal performance under different venting systems. Measured results indicate ventilated attic has reasonable hygrothermal conditions which moisture content level on attic sheathing is under 20% and un-ventilated attic has higher risk of moisture problems. At the same time, hygrothermal modelling using WUFI Plus, a whole-building hygrothermal simulation software, are performed and simulation results are compared with measurements for model validation. Validated models are also performed in other location to further verify their universality. Attic ventilation rate, air leakage rate, un-intentional air infiltration rate and indoor conditions are set as variable parameters in WUFI Plus to discuss their effect on the hygrothermal performance of attics.
This thesis is intended to provide documented evidence of the hygrothermal performance of ventilated and un-ventilated attics in extremely cold climate. Simulation models validated by field measurements can be used under other climates. Recommendations on proper attic design are provided for Canadian northern housing.


identifier: Rahman, Saif Muhammad Musfir  (2019) Forklift Routing Optimization in a Warehouse using a Clustering-based Approach.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Order picking in a warehouse is considered to be a time-consuming and costly process that results in loss of profit for the management. Hence a warehouse management team is always looking to improve their picking process and increase their efficiency. In this research, a warehouse with narrow aisles is studied. The aisles are so narrow that a forklift is only allowed to traverse them in one direction thus making them unidirectional. The picking process is modeled first as an uncapacitated vehicle routing problem and then as a capacitated vehicle routing problem. The objective is to minimize the total travel distance. Since the Mixed Integer Programming model takes a
long time to solve large instances, we develop a heuristic algorithm both for the uncapacitated and capacitated problems by combining two methodologies of heuristics
and machine learning. The algorithm is able to solve the instances to near optimality
quickly, finding practical solutions that could potentially be implemented into actual
warehouses to reduce order picking time and hence, overall warehouse costs.


identifier: Jahanara, Hasti  (2019) A model-based systems engineering approach for the specification of test means for flight control computers.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The aerospace industry is a competitive environment, in which aircraft system suppliers need to develop innovative, increasingly complex systems in ever-shorter time, serving various customer needs. Therefore, aircraft system suppliers need to improve all steps of their development process, from specification through testing.
This thesis proposes a model-based system engineering (MBSE) approach to improve the specification process. As part of a collaborative project with Thales Avionics Canada, this thesis focuses on specifically on the development of test means for flight control computers (FCC). There are two challenges regarding development of test means: (1) tight timeline from the specification to the entry into service and (2) complexity of the architecture. Implementing an MBSE approach to the development of test means is promising to reduce the development time and to increase the quality.
The ARCADIA/Capella MBSE framework is used to develop a generic, re-usable specification model for various flight control computer test means. To develop a generic model, various categories, types and component of FCC test means are analyzed. A variability management model is developed to manage efficiently common and optional feature and components. To do so, Pure::Variants, a product line engineering tool is used. The developed MBSE specification provides an overview of the test means entities, functions, interfaces and components.
In summary, this thesis establishes a more efficient approach for the FCC test means development, potentially decreasing development time and increasing the competitiveness of the system developer.


identifier: Yeboah, Nana O.  (2019) The Frame of Invisibility: A Study of Toronto Television News and Visible Racialized Minority Group Representation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The mainstream media are able to potentially influence attitudes and opinions in any society.  This influence may extend to how individuals view other groups and people, including members of visible minority groups.  This thesis examines whether or not Practices of Exclusion and Practices of Inclusion can be observed though Toronto television news, one of the largest television news markets. This research was conducted through a simple study of observing newscasts in the Spring of 2015 and a brief update in 2018 to see if there were any changes. The research illustrates how members of visible racialized minority communities are represented in local Canadian television newscasts both in being featured as central characters in news stories and presenting the news to the audience.  It takes as its object of study the Toronto television news market and has a goal of bringing about further awareness about the possible imbalance of minority representation in Toronto news media, especially in a nation that prides itself on multicultural inclusion.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine Toronto news media and to assess how it represents visible minorities in their news coverage.  This thesis rests upon the argument that media representation of visible minorities can result in supporting an underlying system of racism because of their invisibility in news media.  There is no doubt that inclusion of the various ethnic voices in Canada has improved, but the discussion is far from over.


identifier: Mirzaee, Ali  (2019) Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Polypropylene Foam Formation through Extrusion Process.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Polymeric foams appear in diverse fields from automotive to medical applications due to their unique characteristics. The morphology of the polymer foams has a huge impact on their mechanical and physical properties such as strength and density. In this thesis, nucleation and growth of bubbles in foaming of Polypropylene through the extrusion process have been investigated both experimentally and numerically. Both cell nucleation and cell growth phenomenon should be controlled through the process in order to have a customized foam. Several models have been proposed for many years and theoretical and experimental investigations have been performed on both bubble nucleation and bubble growth phenomenon. In the nucleation step, a semi-experimental model has been adopted in our studies after reconciling between the accuracy and complexity of the models. This model uses the heterogeneous nucleation mechanism, proposed by classical nucleation theory, as the main mechanism of nucleation in the foaming process and modifies it by introducing energy reduction and frequency factors. For the growth stage, a two-dimensional model that accounts for the diffusion-driven growth of bubbles in the viscoelastic fluid (PP melt) has been chosen. The two-dimensional models have a higher accuracy in predicting the final bubble radius compared to the one-dimensional models (e.g. cell model) and is capable of predicting the exact shape of non-spherical bubbles in the polymer. Using a mini-extruder, the effect of processing parameters on the final foam morphology has been studied qualitatively. Then the governing equations for the diffusion-driven bubble growth have been solved by the finite element method. The sensitivity of the growth dynamic to the processing parameters has been studied by simulating the evolution of a single bubble enclosed inside an influence volume under the assumptions of the cell model. The interactions between the bubbles, which cannot be thoroughly considered in the cell model, have been simulated by the two-dimensional model and the predictions of the bubble shapes at different processing conditions have been performed. Finally, the ability of the cell model and the two-dimensional model in predicting the final foam density have been compared with the experimental data. The results show that the accuracy of the cell model decays as the cell density and the bubble-bubble interactions increases while the 2D model has the capability of predicting foam density and the average bubble size with acceptable accuracy in nearly all experimental conditions.


identifier: Reeves, Sabrina  (2018) Descansos.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Descansos

abstract:
Littered along the treacherous roads that wind through the mountains of New Mexico, descansos —handmade wooden crosses—mark the place where someone’s beloved died. Haley’s mother, Nina, stares at those mountains every day, as she drinks her way through bottle after bottle of wine. On the other side of the country, Haley receives worried calls about her mother from neighbors and friends, who fear the once beautiful and brilliant artist is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Haley doesn’t correct them; Alzheimer’s is more acceptable than alcoholism.

As Haley and her brothers, Jack and Idris, attempt to rescue their mother from the horrors of end-stage alcoholism, they find themselves up against a manipulative new boyfriend, a system that seems intent on thwarting them, doctors who believe a pill will cure anything, and, hardest of all, a mother who doesn’t want to be saved. Revisiting all the descansos in her mother’s life and her own, Haley’s struggle becomes increasingly tangled and complex. Who is she really fighting for? Is she truly helping her mother? Caught in the web of inter-generational trauma, Haley needs to find a thread that will lead to redemption: for her mother, herself, and her own daughters.


identifier: Sun, Hao  (2019) Four-Mode Broadband PLC-based Converter-(de)Multiplexer.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Mode-division (de)multiplexing (MDM) is one of the technologies that are being developed to increase the transmission capacity in optical communication. Signals are transmitted through different modes in such a system, and each mode is a channel. Generally speaking, in an MDM system, the fundamental mode is first converted into higher modes, then multiplexed into one few-mode fibre (FMF) or waveguide, and finally demultiplexed after the transmission in order to retrieve the original signals. Therefore, mode converters and (de)multiplexers are the key devices in the MDM system.
Mode converting and (de)multiplexing can be realized through varying methods and technologies. Initially, devices based on free-space optics have been studied. These devices use phase masks to match input modes to output modes. Free-space optics based devices are more wavelength independent but too complex to apply and are accompanied by high insertion loss. Other approaches are through fibre and other waveguides, which include all-fibre structure, tapered fibre, fibre grating, planar lightwave circuit (PLC), photonic crystal fibre (PCF) and Y-junction. Theses devices have high conversion efficiency and are more compact thus easier to apply in practice.
In this thesis, a broadband four-mode converter-(de)multiplexer based on silica planar lightwave circuit using two assistant waveguides is designed and analyzed under simulation.
First of all, a two-mode converter-(de)multiplexer is designed to justify the mode coupling method using Neff matching. Because the waveguides utilized in all designs are weak waveguides, the power in one waveguide transmitting as mode 1 can be transferred to another waveguide while converting to mode 2. The key to mode converting is that the value of Neff for the two different modes at each waveguide should be manipulated to be as close as possible, which can be achieved by changing the structure width. Insertion loss over the entire S, C, L-band is less than 1.5 dB, and less than 0.2 dB at the central wavelength of 1550 nm. The extinction ratio over the S, C, L-band is higher than 22 dB.
iv
Next, a four-mode converter-(de)multiplexer designed for TE0, TE1, TE2 and TE3 mode over entire S, C, L-band is demonstrated. The structure includes six waveguides and two of them serve as assistant waveguides. At the end of process, four inputs of TE0 mode are converted and multiplexed to the central waveguide in the form of TE0, TE1, TE2 and TE3 mode. The insertion loss over the C-band when converting and (de)multiplexing TE0 mode to TE1, TE2 and TE3 mode is less than 0.5 dB. And over the S, C, L-band, the insertion loss for conversion between TE0, TE1, TE2 mode is less than 2 dB. Moreover, the extinction ratio for TE0, TE1, TE2 and TE3 mode over the S, C, L -band is over 17 dB, and is higher than 23 dB for the C-band. Furthermore, the insertion loss between TE0 and TE3 is less than 0.5 dB for the C-band with the extinction ratio higher than 32 dB in the same range. The crosstalk between the TE0, TE1, TE2 and TE3 mode is below 0.4 dB over the C-band and below 1.1 dB over the S, C, L-band.


identifier: Jazaerli, Hani  (2019) Development of Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS) using Suspension Plasma Spray.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Ice accumulation on aerodynamic surfaces of aircrafts is one of the major threats facing aerospace companies. A potential solution to alleviate the problems caused by aircraft icing is the development of a slippery surface that can delay ice build-up and facilitate its removal. Using suspension plasma spraying of submicron-sized TiO2 feedstock particles, a porous microstructure has been developed which comprises pillars approximately 200 μm in height. These surfaces can be impregnated using various lubricating liquids/oils where the micro-pores can act as reservoirs. The resulting solid/oil interface is exceptionally slippery with a water contact angle hysteresis smaller than 2° which allows water droplets to slide on the surface with minimal energy dissipation. Icing tests in an icing wind tunnel have demonstrated icing mitigation, reduced ice adhesion and reasonable durability. Different types of oils with various properties have been used to determine the best performance and durability at different icing/deicing conditions. Additionally, confocal laser microscopy and scanning electron microscopy have been used to study the microstructure and microtexture of the coatings as well as oil penetration in the pores and oil depletion after coatings have been tested in icing conditions.


identifier: Soeanu Caval, Andrei Tudor  (2019) Risk Assessment and Collaborative Information Awareness for Plan Execution.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Joint organizational planning and plan execution in risk-prone environment, has seen renewed research interest given its potential for agility and cost reduction. The participants are often asked to quickly plan and execute tasks in partially known or hostile environments. This requires advanced decision support systems for situational response whereby state-of-the-art technologies can be used to handle issues such as plan risk assessment, appropriate information exchange, asset localization and adaptive planning with risk mitigation. Toward this end, this thesis contributes innovative approaches to address these issues, focusing on logistic support over risk-prone transport network as many organizational plans have key logistic components. Plan risk assessment involves property evaluation for vehicle risk exposure, cost bounds and contingency options assessment. Appropriate information exchange involves participant specific shared information awareness under unreliable communication.  Asset localization mandates efficient sensor network management. Adaptive planning with risk mitigation entails limited risk exposure replanning, factoring potential vehicle and cargo loss. In this pursuit, this thesis first investigates risk assessment for asset movement and contingency valuation using probabilistic model-checking and decision trees, followed by elaborating a gossip based protocol for hierarchy-aware shared information awareness, also assessed via probabilistic model-checking. Then, the thesis proposes an evolutionary learning heuristic for efficiently managing sensor networks constrained in terms of sensor range, capacity and energy use. Finally, the thesis presents a learning based heuristic for cost effective adaptive logistic planning with risk mitigation. Instructive case studies are also provided for each contribution along with benchmark results evaluating the performance of the proposed heuristic techniques.


identifier: Davey, Marshall  (2019) Transit Network Complexity in the Context of Transit Itinerary Inference with Travel Survey Data and GTFS.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Researchers and planners have taken great interest in the rich data-resource that smartphone and GPS travel surveys can now produce. The interpretation of this data has become a popular topic with methods such as transit itinerary inference (TII) from travel survey data and GTFS emerging as useful tools in the field of travel behavior analysis. This exploratory research develops metrics to quantify a characteristic of GTFS data that complicates the overlay processing of travel survey GPS points and bus route geometries in TII: the spatiotemporal overlap of bus routes in the GTFS record. Accurate route inference is difficult in regions where rider data coincides with overlapping routes and various TII approaches have been tested to address this challenge. In this research, detecting overlap, and quantifying the degree of overlap on road links is achieved in 5 study regions through the application of two proposed measures: The Overlapping Routes on Links (OROL) index, and the Probability of Passage (POP) score. The latter’s output is seen as one way to improve route matching rates in TII. These measures build off the traditional Line Overlapping Index (LOI) and improve upon it by providing previously unobtainable road-link level detail; the OROL index, in fact, represents a spatially precise decomposition of the LOI. To ensure accurate analysis between networks, an additional novel procedure is developed that converts GTFS data into a simplified stand-in road network representation, thus providing a base layer for disaggregate network measures, and replacing the need for additional road network sources entirely.


identifier: Nichol, Simone  (2019) Out of the margins: Opening spaces for creative communities in mainstream education - Integrating community-based arts projects.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This paper examines the feasibility of Community-Based Arts (CBA) projects and Community Cultural Development (CCD) projects as a legitimate pedagogical alternative to traditional
classroom education.
The first chapter explains the theoretical underpinnings of CBA and CCD, and explains the reasoning and theoretical background behind the current study. The second section reviews a variety of policy documents published within the Québec education system and addresses these types of projects in the context of the Québec curriculum. The third chapter presents five case CCD studies: three with the principal investigator as facilitator, and two additional projects conducted by others. The fourth chapter extends the discussion toward concepts arising from the current study: participatory democracy, identity, and other educational spaces. This section concludes with a discussion of the limitations of this study, and offers future directions for research projects of this nature.


identifier: Sun, Ke  (2019) A Study of the Predictability of Google Search Volume, CEO Reputation, and Firm Reputation on SEO Performance.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This paper studies the predictability of Google search volume index, CEO reputation, and firm reputation, on the stock performance of seasoned equity offering within a one-year period. The results have shown that the Google search volume indexes searched according to both firm name and firm ticker can significantly predict the stock performance in the first 3 months and the performance from the 8th month to one year. After classifying the search volume indexes by their magnitude, the predictability of the search volume index varies according to the index magnitude and the search content. Among the CEO reputation proxies, only CEO tenure shows significant but fragmented predictability. Among the three independent variables studied in this paper, firm reputation has the most protracted and significant predictability on the post-SEO performance.


identifier: Karanfil, Mark  (2019) Network and System Management for the Security Monitoring of Microgrids using IEC 62351-7.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Interest in adding renewable energy sources to the power grid has risen substantially in recent years. As a response to this growing interest, the deployment of microgrids capable of integrating renewable energy has become more widespread. Microgrids are independent power systems that deliver power from different kinds of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to local energy consumers
more efficiently than the conventional power grid. The microgrid leverages advanced information and communication technologies for vital protection, monitoring, and control operations as well as for energy management. With the use of information technology comes the need to protect the microgrid information layer from cyberattacks that can impact critical microgrid power operations. In this research, a security monitoring system to detect cyberattacks against the microgrid, in near-real time, is designed and implemented. To achieve this, the system applies Network and System Management (NSM) for microgrid security monitoring, as specified by the IEC 62351-7 security standard for power systems. The specific contributions of this research are (i) an investigation on the suitability of NSM for microgrid security monitoring; (ii) the design and implementation of an NSM platform; (iii) the design and implementation of a security analytics framework for NSM based on deep learning models; (iv) the elaboration of a comprehensive microgrid simulation model deployed on a Hardware in the Loop (HIL) co-simulation framework; and (v) an experimental evaluation
on the effectiveness and scalability of the NSM security monitoring platform for detection against microgrid attack scenarios, with a methodology being used to systematically generate the scenarios. The experimental results validate the usefulness of NSM in detecting attacks against the microgrid.


identifier: Zenderoudi, Sami  (2019) The natural world onscreen: Non-anthropocentric narratives examined through phenomenology and filmmaking.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

format: text video video

abstract: In the past 12 to 15 years, the proliferation of films with environmental themes has led to the development of ecocinema theory, broadly defined as “ecologically minded film criticism” (Ivakhiv, 1) which studies the framing of environmental narratives and metaphors. Although there exists scholarship on Hollywood productions (Cubitt, Rust), experimental films (MacDonald), and Third and Fourth cinemas (Kääpä, Lu and Mi), to date few scholars have focused on emergent art-house cinema. Addressing this gap, this research-creation conducts an ecocritcal study of works from three contemporary auteurs: Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes (2006), Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte (2010) and Roberto Minervini’s Low Tide (2012). Drawing on environmental interpretations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of perception, I argue that the chosen films both reflect and themselves produce a phenomenology of nature in accordance with Merleau-Pontian environmentalism. The last chapter discusses the creation portion of my thesis, which involved making two short fiction films, Gaea (2018) and Absence (2019). Both films are centered around young adults yet portray their lives as inseparable from the natural world, thus seeking to create non-anthropocentric narratives.


identifier: Shahin, Amr  (2019) Content-based genre classification of large texts.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The advent of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and deep learning allows us to
achieve tasks that sounded impossible about 10 years ago, one of those tasks is genre
classification for large text bodies. Movies, books, novels, and various other texts
more often than not, belong to one or more genres, the purpose of this research is
to classify those texts into their genres while also calculating the weighed presence of
this genre in the aforementioned texts. Movies in particular are classified into genres
mostly for marketing purposes, and with no indication on which genre is the most
autocratic.
In this thesis, we explore the possibility of using deep neural networks and NLP to
classify movies using the contents of the movie script. We follow the philosophy that
scenes makes movies and generate the final result based on the classification of each
individual scene. the results were obtained by training Convolutional Neural Networks
(ConvNet or CNN) and Hierarchical Attention Networks (HAN) and compare their
performance to the de-facto architectures for NLP, namely Recurrent Neural Networks
(RNN) and Attention Models.
The results we got on the validation data-set are comparable to those obtained by
similar research done mostly on sentiment analysis or rating predictions, the accuracy
is about 85% which is an acceptable measure in the literature. We dedicated a part
iii
of our conclusion discussing how our models would perform on a larger dataset and
what steps could be taken to increase the accuracy.


identifier: Kamel, Mahmoud ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6013-5914 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6013-5914>  (2019) Performance Evaluation of Ultra-Dense Networks with Applications in Internet-of-Things.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The new wireless era in the next decade and beyond would be very different from our experience nowadays. The fast pace of introducing new technologies, services, and applications requires the researchers and practitioners in the field be ready by making paradigm shifts. The stringent requirements on 5G networks, in terms of throughput, latency, and connectivity, challenge traditional incremental improvement in the network performance. This urges the development of unconventional solutions such as network densification, massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO), cloud-based radio access network (C-RAN), millimeter Waves (mmWaves), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), full-duplex communication, wireless network virtualization, and proactive content-caching to name a few.

Ultra-Dense Network (UDN) is one of the preeminent technologies in the racetrack towards fulfilling the requirements of next generation mobile networks. Dense networks are featured by the deployment of abundant of small cells in hotspots where immense traffic is generated. In this context, the density of small cells surpasses the active users’ density providing a new wireless environment that has never been experienced in mobile communication networks. The high density of small cells brings the serving cells much closer to the end users providing a two-fold gain where better link quality is achieved and more spatial reuse is accomplished.

In this thesis, we identified the distinguishing features of dense networks which include: close proximity of many cells to a given user, potential inactivity of most base stations (BSs) due to lack of users, drastic inter-cell interference in hot-spots, capacity limitation by virtue of the backhaul bottleneck, and fundamentally different propagation environments. With these features in mind, we recognized several problems associated with the performance evaluation of UDN which require a treatment different from traditional cellular networks. Using rigorous advanced mathematical techniques along with extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we modelled and analytically studied the problems in question. Consequently, we developed several mathematical frameworks providing closed-form and easy-computable mathematical instruments which network designers and operators can use to tune the networks in order to achieve the optimal performance. Moreover, the investigations performed in this thesis furnish a solid ground for addressing more problems to better understand and exploit the UDN technology for higher performance grades.

In Chapter 3, we propose the multiple association in dense network environment where the BSs are equipped with idle mode capabilities. This provides the user with a “data-shower,” where the user’s traffic is split into multiple paths, which helps overcoming the capacity limitations imposed by the backhaul links. We evaluate the performance of the proposed association scheme considering general fading channel distributions. To this end, we develop a tractable framework for the computation of the average downlink rate.

In Chapter 4, we study the downlink performance of UDNs considering Stretched Exponential Path-Loss (SEPL) to capture the short distances of the communication links. Considering the idle mode probability of small cells, we draw conclusions which better reflect the performance of network densification considering SEPL model. Our findings reveal that the idle mode capabilities of the BSs provide a very useful interference mitigation technique. Another interesting insight is that the system interference in idle mode capable UDNs is upper-bounded by the interference generated from the active BSs, and in turn, this is upper-bounded by the number of active users where more active users is translated to more interference in the system. This means that the interference becomes independent of the density of the small cells as this density increases.

In Chapter 5, we provide the derivation of the average secrecy rate in UDNs considering their distinct traits, namely, idle mode BSs and LOS transmission. To this end, we exploit the standard moment generating function (MGF)-based approach to derive relatively simple and easily computable expressions for the average secrecy rate considering the idle mode probability and Rician fading channel. The result of this investigation avoids the system level simulations where the performance evaluation complexity can be greatly reduced with the aid of the derived analytical expressions.

In Chapter 6, we model the uplink coverage of mMTC deployment scenario considering a UDN environment. The presented analysis reveals the significant and unexpected impact of the high density of small cells in UDNs on the maximum transmit power of the MTC nodes. This finding relaxes the requirements on the maximum transmit power which in turn allows for less complexity, brings more cost savings, and yields much longer battery life. This investigation provides accurate, simple, and insightful expressions which shows the impact of every single system parameter on the network performance allowing for guided tunability of the network. Moreover, the results signify the asymptotic limits of the impact of all system parameters on the network performance. This allows for the efficient operation of the network by designing the system parameters which maximizes the network performance.

In Chapter 7, we address the impact of the coexistence of MTC and HTC communications on the network performance in UDNs. In this investigation, we study the downlink network performance in terms of the coverage probability and the cell load where we propose two association schemes for the MTC devices, namely, Connect-to-Closest (C2C) and Connect-to-Active (C2A). The network performance is then analyzed and compared in both association schemes.

In Chapter 8, we model the uplink coverage of HTC users and MTC devices paired together in NOMA-based radio access. Closed-form and easy-computable analytical results are derived for the considered performance metrics, namely the uplink coverage and the uplink network throughput. The analytical results, which are validated by extensive Monte Carlo simulations, reveal that increasing the density of small cells and the available bandwidth significantly improves the network performance. On the other side, the power control parameters has to be tuned carefully to approach the optimal performance of both the uplink coverage and the uplink network throughput.


identifier: Power, Melanie  (2019) The Audacity of Spring.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: The Audacity of Spring

abstract: The Audacity of Spring is a collection of lyric poems that engage with classic and modern poetic strategies, employing modes and forms such as the elegy, the sonnet, and the villanelle. This collection is otherwise written in free verse, with close attention paid to the sonic, rhythmic quality of language. These poems consider notions of embodiment— in particular, they explore conceptions of the female body, or the human body generally, and how these bodies are commodified and objectified by patriarchal society and neoliberal ideology. The speaker in this work peers into the past: a personal past and a literary one— cataloguing the rites of girlhood and family, as well as engaging with a series of intractable poetic influences. The speaker also examines crucial intersections of desire and lack, of subjectivity and objectivity, of natural and artificial, of human and animal— interrogating and troubling these binaries. The work explores how the internal self is mediated, morphed and distorted by its interactions with the external environment. The Atlantic Canadian landscape features prominently in these poems, highlighting the speaker’s various connections to, as well as their fragmentation from, the natural world. These poems examine human agency and expose the contradictions or limitations of our existence when confronted by the sublimity of the natural world, all the while confronting the ongoing perils of climate change amid progressive environmental decay.


identifier: Hyslop, Megan Jane  (2019) Natural Clowning as Inquiry: An Ecology and Performance Towards a Scholarship of Feeling.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This study consists of the practice and research of theatrical clowning and nature as a world view towards a scholarship of feeling.  The assumption of this study is that clowning and land relationship connect through their potential to catalyze and support personal inquiry and growth.  The goal of this doctoral research is to articulate a theory and practice of Natural Clowning as inquiry.  This study uses arts-based research and more particularly, clowning and nature as a world view as techniques to connect to feelings through play, humour, story, sensory connection, dramatic reality, physicality, and authentic impulse, to thus access parts of the unconscious, and to integrate these parts of self into awareness.  I believe these parts, when allowed to express or communicate in their own right, may offer not “right” answers per se but honest answers with the potential for great wisdom.
Although this doctoral study began as a question as to how clowning could inform ecological activism, it became a healing journey for me towards wholeness and what it means to be in relation with self and others, both human and other-than-human, as a settler of British ancestry living in Mi’kma’ki.  I documented and artistically expressed experiences in clown trainings, performances, and experimental workshops, as well as mentorship and practice in land communication for three years (2014-2017) through reflective analytic memos, field notes, song, and storybook writing.  I reference literature in diverse fields such as theatrical clowning, drama therapy, nature as a world view, child development, humour, and play.  These references share space with stories that I hope will bring the literature to life.  They are my own stories, and while they are personal to me, I believe they will have applicability to other Euro-settlers who are on a similar journey towards growth and wholeness.


identifier: Mohammadi, Omid  (2019) How Perception of Preventive Behaviors impacts Seasonal Influenza Outbreaks: An Agent Based Model.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Individual perceptions about preventive behaviours against an infectious disease play an important role in taking appropriate actions to reduce the risk of infection. We developed a Health Belief Model (HBM) by survey instrument in order to understand student perceptions of the influenza virus and two preventive behaviours; hand-washing and vaccination. An educational program was delivered to the treatment group. This health education program was developed by a health promotion specialist and it aimed to increase preventive behaviours and awareness of influenza. The control group answered the questionnaire without receiving an educational program. The two groups were compared and the relationship between preventive behaviours and HBM variables were analysed. An Agent Based Model (ABM) was developed to simulate influenza transmission based on students’ health beliefs and how likely they are to apply preventive behaviours.


identifier: Flanagan, Matthew  (2018) Adam Smith and the Pursuit of Praiseworthiness.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Adam Smith made significant changes to the 6th and final edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) that altered both the argument and tone of the work. These changes appear to be a response to the flaws inherent in conventional morality and the corruptive influence commercial society has on our pursuit of happiness. The concept of praiseworthiness is essential to understanding the changes Smith made to the 6th edition of TMS and how these fit together to redefine his argument. The existing literature on Smith has neglected the concept of praiseworthiness and has thus offered incomplete understandings of TMS. By focusing on praiseworthiness I attempt to provide a more complete analysis of Smith’s argument and its significance. I argue that the key to understanding praiseworthiness is the teleological framework outlined by Smith within TMS. This teleology tells us how we can perfect ourselves by following the golden rule and thus how to live a life of virtue and happiness. Prior to the 6th edition of TMS Smith focused on a descriptive analysis of sympathy and how this made social cohesion possible. The changes made to the 6th edition supplement this descriptive analysis by offering a normative argument that prioritizes self-perfection over social cohesion. Praiseworthiness facilitates the development of an authoritative and independent conscience which allows us to depart from corrupt moral conventions and pursue self-perfection and happiness.


identifier: Elalouf, Karine  (2018) Identifying objective markers of sexual arousal: Using eye-tracking, pupillometry, and heart rate variability.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Sexual arousal has long been defined as a mind/body connection that consists of experiencing both subjective awareness of one’s sexual arousal and the subsequent genital response (Schacter & Singer, 1982). However, new research interested in this construct has demonstrated that not everyone experiences sexual arousal in the same way. Notably, women often do no experience this mind/body connection, where they experience a lack of concordance between their subjective and objective sexual arousal (Chivers & Bailey, 2005; Chivers, 2010). For example, experiencing vaginal engorgement when not subjectively aroused. Traditional objective measures (e.g. vaginal plethysmography) can capture these genital responses that do not reflect subjective appraisals. The purpose of this thesis is to explore different objective measures (i.e.: Eye Movement Variability; EMV, Pupillometry, and Heart Rate Variability; HRV) in the aim of finding one that would measure objective sexual arousal that was concordant with the subjective experience. The results of this experiment allowed us to determine that HRV may only be a suitable objective measure for assessing negative affect. In addition, they show that negative arousal may decrease EMV as positive arousal can. Finally, there was a correspondence between pupillary responses and arousing instances. Unfortunately, due to statistical limitations, we were unable to find quantitative correspondences between the subjective and objective assessments.  Additionally, we were interested in the use of video stimuli instead of images. Where these do offer notable advantages such as time efficiency and the possibility of presenting a large array of stimuli, they lack ecological validity. With the addition of sound and a storyline, videos may offer more context and may also elicit stronger emotive responses (Rupp & Wallen, 2008). As such, we aimed to create a bank of validated videos. Results of this experiment allowed us to obtain the videos used for the second study of this thesis.


identifier: Fitzgerald, Alannah Teresa Dysart ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0392-2740 <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0392-2740>  (2018) A new paradigm for open data-driven language learning systems design in higher education.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This doctoral thesis presents three studies in collaboration with the open source FLAX project (Flexible Language Acquisition flax.nzdl.org). This research makes an original contribution to the fields of language education and educational technology by mobilising knowledge from computer science, corpus linguistics and open education, and proposes a new paradigm for open data-driven language learning systems design in higher education. Furthermore, the research presented in this thesis uncovers and engages with an infrastructure of open educational practices (OEP) that push at the parameters of policy for the reuse of open access research and pedagogic content in the design, development, distribution, adoption and evaluation of data-driven language learning systems.

Study 1 employs automated content analysis to mine the concept of open educational systems and practices from qualitative reflections spanning 2012-2019 with stakeholders from an on-going multi-site design-based research study with the FLAX project. Design considerations are presented for remixing domain-specific open access content for academic English language provision across formal and non-formal higher education contexts. Primary stakeholders in this ongoing research collaboration include the following: knowledge organisations – libraries and archives including the British Library and the Oxford Text Archive, universities in collaboration with Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers; an interdisciplinary team of researchers; and knowledge users in formal higher education – English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioners. Themes arising from the qualitative dataset point to affordances as well as barriers with the adoption of open policies and practices for remixing open access content for data-driven language learning applications in higher education against the backdrop of different business models and cultural practices present within participating knowledge organisations.

Study 2 presents a data-driven experiment in non-formal higher education by triangulating user query system log data with learner participant data from surveys (N=174) on the interface designs and usability of an automated open source digital library scheme, FLAX. Text and data mining approaches (TDM) common to natural language processing (NLP) were applied to pedagogical English language corpora, derived from the content of two MOOCs, (Harvard University with edX, and the University of London with Coursera), and one networked course (Harvard Law School with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society), which were then linked to external open resources (e.g. Wikipedia, the FLAX Learning Collocations system, WordNet), so that learners could employ the information discovery techniques (e.g. searching and browsing) that they have become accustomed to using through search engines (e.g. Google, Bing) for discovering and learning the domain-specific language features of their interests. Findings indicate a positive user experience with interfaces that include advanced affordances for course content browse, search and retrieval that transcend the MOOC platform and Learning Management System (LMS) standard. Further survey questions derived from an open education research bank from the Hewlett Foundation are reused in this study and presented against a larger dataset from the Hewlett Foundation (N=1921) on motivations for the uptake of open educational resources.

Study 3 presents a data-driven experiment in formal higher education from the legal English field to measure quantitatively the usefulness and effectiveness of employing the open Law Collections in FLAX in the teaching of legal English at the University of Murcia in Spain. Informants were divided into an experimental and a control group and were asked to write an essay on a given set of legal English topics, defined by the subject instructor as part of their final assessment. The experimental group only consulted the FLAX English Common Law MOOC collection as the single source of information to draft their essays, and the control group used any information source available from the Internet to draft their essays. Findings from an analysis of the two learner corpora of essays indicate that members of the experimental group appear to have acquired the specialised terminology of the area better than those in the control group, as attested by the higher term average obtained by the texts in the FLAX-based corpus (56.5) as opposed to the non-FLAX-based text collection, at 13.73 points below.


identifier: Chammaa, Zaki  (2019) A Context-Aware Architecture for Smart Applications with Enabled Adaptation and Reasoning Capabilities.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The term ''smart city'' refers to an instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent city built by leveraging Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In such a city, a combination of embedded hardware and software involving sensors, actuators, and a host of mobile devices and wearables that are connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) networks will sense data in different contexts and automatically drive desired adaptations through actuators. Through adaptations, city planners, professionals, and researchers aim to optimize resource consumption and cost of providing services while improving the quality of life for the ever increasing urban population. To fully realize this goal, a context-aware and data-centric inference is a necessity. A system is said to be context-aware if it is able to adapt its operations to the current context without explicit user intervention. This thesis proposes a generic context-aware system architecture for development of smart city applications. The proposed architecture puts special emphasis on privacy and security, incorporating mechanisms to protect the system and sensitive information at each layer of the architecture. Furthermore, this architecture integrates with a reasoning component, whose inference engine can be driven by logic or other formalisms. A prototype implementation and a case study done in this thesis indicate the practical merits of the proposed  architecture and provide a proof of concept.


identifier: Zhai, Xinkai  (2019) IPO Performance and the Size Effect: Evidence for the US and Canada.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This study investigates the interaction between firm size and IPO underpricing in the US and Canadian markets between the years 2007-2016. We find a size effect on IPO underpricing in both Canada and the US, which is larger for Canadian firms. Canadian small firms show more underpricing than US small firms (19.32% vs. 13.87%). Large Canadian firms also exhibit more underpricing than their US counterparts over the sample period (12.83% vs. 10.09%). A size effect on performance is not apparent for holding periods beyond six months from the IPO in both countries, consistent with seasoning effects that reduce information asymmetries across firms over longer investment horizons.
Keyword: IPO performance; size effects; short-term information asymmetries


identifier: Chohra, Aniss  (2019) Scalable and Efficient Network Anomaly Detection on Connection Data Streams.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Everyday, security experts and analysts must deal with and face the huge increase of cyber security threats that are propagating very fast on the Internet and threatening the security of hundreds of millions of users worldwide. The detection of such threats and attacks is of paramount importance to these experts in order to prevent these threats and mitigate their effects in the future. Thus, the need for security solutions that can prevent, detect, and mitigate such threats is imminent and must be addressed with scalable and efficient solutions. To this end, we propose a scalable framework, called Daedalus,  to analyze streams of NIDS (network-based intrusion detection system) logs in near real-time and to extract useful threat security intelligence. The proposed system pre-processes massive amounts of connections stream logs received from different participating organizations and applies an elaborated anomaly detection technique in order to distinguish between normal and abnormal or anomalous network behaviors. As such, Daedalus detects network traffic anomalies by extracting a set of significant pre-defined features from the connection logs and then applying a time series-based technique in order to detect abnormal behavior in near real-time. Moreover, we correlate IP blocks extracted from the logs with some external security signature-based feeds that detect factual malicious activities (e.g., malware families and hashes, ransomware distribution, and command and control centers) in order to validate the proposed approach. Performed experiments demonstrate that Daedalus accurately identifies the malicious activities with an average F_1 score of 92.88\%. We further compare our proposed approach with existing K-Means and deep learning (LSTMs) approaches and demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our system.


identifier: F. Duarte, F. Daniel  (2019) Optimization of Tapered Composite Beams.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Optimization of Tapered Composite Beams

abstract: A study on the optimization of tapered composite beams for vibration is conducted. Designers of tapered rotating structural components such as wind mill, helicopter or turbine blades are increasingly considering composite materials as an option to create lighter structures without compromising structural stiffness and to significantly increase their efficiency. In the design of composite material structures, a challenge arises due to a large number of design variables, therefore numerical optimization is required for a better design. Given this, the purpose of this study is to propose an optimization methodology for the design of a tapered beam, considering the vibration constrains present in rotating components. This is achieved by coupling a numerical model which considers the bending modes of vibration, with an optimization algorithm, both coded in MATLAB. Five optimization algorithms, heuristic and deterministic, are coded and compared and the most efficient method is selected. Because the ply orientation angles can assume an infinite number of possible angles, or follow the regular 0 / ±45 / 90 degrees approach, four possible tuning approaches are defined. The beam is optimized for the following design cases of boundary conditions and design requirements: the presence or absence of a tensile axial force, the presence or absence of a taper, three taper configurations, four proposed structural tuning approaches and four boundary conditions. Two of these structural tuning approaches are compared for its influence in the dynamic behavior of the structural component and in achieving better values of in-plane and out-of-plane stresses. The results demonstrate the Genetic Algorithm is an efficient method for optimization, a design analysis is an important step in optimization, and an appropriate tuning approach can improve the overall efficiency of the optimized structure.


identifier: Arroyo, Brandon  (2018) Explicit Affects: Confession, Identity, and Desire Across Digital Platforms.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This study accounts for what happens when a gay male identity politics centered around Western state power comes in contact with a pornographic aesthetic queerly subverting the markers composing this type of identity formation. While pornography has long affirmed and legitimized gay sexuality within a homophobic society, this dynamic requires reconsideration within a contemporary neoliberal media environment dictating the parameters of gay identity by showcasing gay reality stars, actors, and storylines. If this homonormative inclusion of gay identity aesthetics within mainstream media assures representation of gay camaraderie, affection, and even sometimes sexuality, then what role can pornography play in influencing gay identity today?

Despite these shifts, pornography remains an essential genre within gay communal formations because it showcases what the mainstream cannot: explicit sex. While mainstream media affirms and solidifies normative gay identity, I argue that this dynamic has meant that pornography has become a primary media mode actively destabilizing and confusing identity conventions. While an approach looking for ruptures in identity formation might typically situate itself within the foundations of queer theory as developed by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and perhaps Michel Foucault, I instead highlight contexts where their queer conceptions of identity become too easily coopted by nationalist right-wing forces, or in the case of Foucault, does not allow for desire to exist outside of power relations. As an alternative, I argue for an affective understanding of individuation as understood by Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Gilbert Simondon, and Brian Massumi. What their understanding of affect theory offers queer thinking is a focus on process rather than stability.

This becomes crucial within a social media environment where most users are actively consuming, creating, and exchanging pornographic imagery of themselves and others across various media platforms, and within a multitude of social contexts. This is how gay identity becomes pornographic, by engaging in an active process where identity exists in between both a pornographic and non-pornographic assemblage. The three case studies analyzed here are instances where both identity and pornographic aesthetics are situated within a process of becoming. The first chapter considers how confession becomes pornographic. I do so by analyzing the amateur pornographic projects of Colby Keller and the Black Spark, who subvert both confessional and pornographic norms by utilizing masks as part of their pornographic aesthetic. These masks embody a type of queer opacity that makes one question the role of the face within a social media age of overexposure. The second chapter documents how a viral YouTube celebrity becomes a pornographic performer. Chris Crocker’s identity exists across media platforms where he is a singer, a television personality, a documentary subject, and a pornographic performer. Enacting the intensities of these various media forms points to the idea of a transindividual. Simondon’s notion of the transindividual situates identity as being relational rather than inherent. Such an understanding productively shifts gay identity beyond a “Born This Way” ethos. The final chapter considers how a Gay Village becomes pornographic due to the multitude of screens showing pornography as part of its architecture. This visualization of sexuality infuses the neighborhood with pornographic affects enacting the potential to turn any place into a pornographic space. These instances ultimately offer us an opportunity to shift queer identity formations from their traditional understanding within a discipline society, to ones circulating within a control society.


identifier: Nguyen Dinh, Hieu  (2019) Variational Approaches For Learning Finite Scaled Dirichlet Mixture Models.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
With a massive amount of data created on a daily basis, the ubiquitous demand for data analysis is undisputed. Recent development of technology has made machine learning techniques applicable to various problems. Particularly, we emphasize on cluster analysis, an important aspect of data analysis. Recent works with excellent results on the aforementioned task using finite mixture models have motivated us to further explore their extents with different applications. In other words, the main idea of mixture model is that the observations are generated from a mixture of components, in each of which the probability distribution should provide strong flexibility in order to fit numerous types of data. Indeed, the Dirichlet family of distributions has been known to achieve better clustering performances than those of Gaussian when the data are clearly non-Gaussian, especially proportional data.
Thus, we introduce several variational approaches for finite Scaled Dirichlet mixture models. The proposed algorithms guarantee reaching convergence while avoiding the computational complexity of conventional Bayesian inference. In summary, our contributions are threefold. First, we propose a variational Bayesian learning framework for finite Scaled Dirichlet mixture models, in which the parameters and complexity of the models are naturally estimated through the process of minimizing the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence between the approximated posterior distribution and the true one. Secondly, we integrate component splitting into the first model, a local model selection scheme, which gradually splits the components based on their mixing weights to obtain the optimal number of components. Finally, an online variational inference framework for finite Scaled Dirichlet mixture models is developed by employing a stochastic approximation method in order to improve the scalability of finite mixture models for handling large scale data in real time. The effectiveness of our models is validated with real-life challenging problems including object, texture, and scene categorization, text-based and image-based spam email detection.


identifier: Crivello, Cristina  (2019) Who knows best? Mechanisms underlying infants’ selective social learning.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The main objective of the present dissertation was to investigate the psychological mechanisms underlying selective social learning in infancy. Specifically, it was of interest to examine whether domain-specific or domain-general abilities guide infants’ selective behaviour. The aim of Study 1 was to examine whether theory of mind abilities (knowledge inference and false belief) and/or statistical learning abilities relate to 18-month-olds’ selective word learning. Results demonstrated that infants who had a superior performance on the knowledge inference task were less likely to learn a novel word from an informant who labeled objects inaccurately (i.e., who labeled a ball as a shoe). Infants’ false belief and statistical learning abilities were unrelated to their selective social learning.

The goal of Study 2 was to examine whether infants’ knowledge inference and/or associative learning abilities were linked with 14-month-olds’ selective trust in an emotional congruence paradigm. Findings revealed that infants with superior knowledge inference abilities were less likely to trust an incongruent emoter, that is, an emoter who expressed an emotional reaction that did not match the situation (i.e., expressing happiness after examining an empty container). No relation was present with the associative learning task.

Lastly, the objective of Study 3 was to investigate whether infants’ theory of mind abilities (knowledge inference and false belief) and/or associative learning abilities were related to 18-month-olds’ performance on a selective word learning task using a within-subjects paradigm. Consistent with the two previous studies, only infants’ knowledge inference abilities were associated with their mistrust of the unreliable informant.

Taken together, the findings from the three studies demonstrate that infants use domain-specific abilities, such as their ability to infer others’ knowledge states, to selectively trust and learn from others. In other words, infants with superior knowledge inference abilities may be better able to infer whether someone is ignorant/unreliable and therefore not a good source to learn from. These results provide evidence for a rich interpretation of infants’ selective social learning.


identifier: Nazarzadeoghaz, Navid  (2019) Generation of Network Service Descriptors from Network Service Requirements.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a new paradigm in Network Service (NS) provisioning. European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) proposed and standardized an architectural framework for NFV. By leveraging virtualization and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies, NFV decouples network functionality from hardware infrastructure. This enables the automated provisioning of NSs and reduces the capital and operational costs for service operators. NFV Management and Orchestration (NFV-MANO) is a functional block in the NFV framework, and it is responsible for the deployment and life-cycle management of NSs. With NFV, the telecommunication industry is moving towards zero-touch, i.e. automation of all the processes. In order to orchestrate and manage an NS, NFV-MANO requires the NS’s deployment template. This template is referred to as NS Descriptor (NSD) and contains all the details for deployment and orchestration of the NS. De-signing such a descriptor requires the design of the NS, which is actually out of the NFV scope. Traditionally, service operators’ experts design NSs and NSDs. However, this design activity is time-consuming and error-prone; moreover, it is not fitting the Telecom’s vision of zero-touch.

In this thesis, we will propose an approach to automate the process of NS and NSD design. The approach starts from a set of requirements provided as Network Service Requirements (NSReq). The NSReq describes the required network service at a high level of abstraction and focuses on the functional, architectural, and non-functional characteristics. With the help of an ontology representing the knowledge from Telecom standards and previous successful experiences, we decompose the NSReq. We select the set of Virtual Network Functions (VNF) from a catalog to design the NS. Considering all the levels of decomposition and the VNF’s dependencies captured from the ontology, we design all the possible for-warding graphs that can form an NS. We design each forwarding graph through different steps at different abstraction levels, i.e. functional, architectural, and VNF levels. According to each forwarding graph, we design an NSD along with the traffic flows in the NS. We re-fine each NSD by dimensioning its VNFs using the non-functional requirements in the NSReq. Accordingly, we refine the deployment flavor of each NSD. We have developed a prototype tool as a proof of concept for our proposed approach which we will discuss later in this thesis.


identifier: Martin, Caroline  (2019) L’enseignement du cinéma dans la classe d’arts plastiques. Deux études de cas d’écoles secondaires de la province de Québec.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Cette étude qualitative s’intéresse à l’étude de deux cas de situation d’enseignement du cinéma par des
enseignantes d’arts plastiques et tente de répondre aux questions suivantes :
1) Qu’enseigne-t-on et qu’apprend-on pendant les cours de cinéma dans la classe d’arts
plastiques ?;
2) Comment enseigne-t-on le cinéma dans la classe d’arts plastiques ?;
3) Quelle est la conception du cinéma chez les enseignantes d’arts plastiques et chez leurs élèves ?
Elle vise à mettre à jour la conception du cinéma chez les enseignantes et les répercussions de cette conception dans tous les aspects de l’enseignement de cette discipline. Elle dévoile aussi les besoins en termes de formation initiale dans les programmes universitaires en enseignement des arts et l’absence de recherche en didactique du cinéma au Québec.
L’étude a été menée grâce à des entrevues individuelles semi-dirigées avec les enseignantes, des groupes de discussion centrée avec les élèves, de l’observation participante et l’analyse des projets des élèves et du matériel pédagogique utilisé par les enseignantes.
L’étude a révélé que les enseignantes observées n’ont pas eu de formation initiale au primaire, secondaire, Cégep ou université pour imaginer les contenus à enseigner en cinéma ou encore les moyens pour les enseigner. Elles ont eu quelques lignes dans le programme du MEES pour les guider, le guide pratique Objectif film (ACPQ, 2012), des formations techniques ponctuelles et leur amour du cinéma. En ce sens, l’étude ne vise pas à faire la critique de la qualité de l’enseignement dispensé dans les deux classes observées, mais plutôt celle des carences en termes de curriculum, formation et matériel pédagogique. Les données recueillies par l’observation des deux classes sont donc présentées à titre de preuves concrètes de ces carences.


identifier: Nguyen, Minh Phuong  (2019) Impact of Water Components on Iron Nail Corrosion and Arsenic Removal Efficiency of The Kanchan Arsenic Filter (KAF).  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The Kanchan Arsenic Filter (KAF) is an intermittent, point-of-use, affordable drinking water technology for the removal arsenic from groundwater. Performance of KAFs in Nepal has been variable, with high removal in some settings and low removal in others. This study consisting of two parts (laboratory and field research) was conducted to improve the perfomance of  the KAFs.In the laboratory research, four different synthetic groundwaters spiked with arsenic were fed to the filters once a day for 35 days to evaluate the effect of water components on corrosion of iron nails and of arsenic removal in downscaled KAFs. Composition of water samples collected from those filters was analyzed using UV-Vis spectroscopy, Flame - atomic absorption spectrophotometry (F-AAS), and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Morphology of iron nail surface was done by scanning electron microscopy – energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), followed by a characterization of iron rust powder using X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). Colloids of iron corrosion products were analyzed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for their phase, images and structure. Batch tests were conducted to examine iron corrosion rates of iron nails in the presence of 2,2-bipyridine under different testing conditions. The field research in Nepal containing water quality assessments, filter checks, and household interviews was carried out to explore potential factors causing a bias and inadequate filter performance.
Results from the lab research showed remarkable impacts of water conditions on iron corrosion and arsenic removal by the KAFs, with the strong enhancing effect of hardness surpassing the inhibiting effect of phosphate. Filters running hardness-rich water (200 mg/L Ca) removed arsenic (initial concentration of 2000 µg/L) to under the limit of Nepali water standard (50 µg/L) while filters running low hardness water (40 mg/L Ca) removed much less arsenic, especially in the presence of phosphate. On average, 35.7 to 47.9% of arsenic was removed after contacting with iron nails while total arsenic removal was 85.2 to 99.5% over the duration of this study.
The field research revealed that inconsistencies in performance of the full-scale KAFs were mostly resulting from variations of groundwater quality, improper methods of maintenance and operation of the filter users and unfavorable water conditions. A change in nail type showed a moderate difference on filter performance. Addition of embedded nails in filter media significantly facilitated arsenic removal and is a promising solution for enhancing the KAF performance.


identifier: Sun, Yi  (2019) Location and the Design of Executives’ Compensation in China.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This article tries to find the effect of a firm’s location on executives’ compensation in China, especially for non-state-owned listed enterprises. Based on the data from 2013-2017, I find that there are significant gaps between executives’ remuneration of companies in smaller cities and that of companies in mega cities. Companies in mega cities pay 33.5% more in equity and 28.4% more in cash to their top managers. After controlling for the cost of living, the gaps are narrowed. Executives in smaller cities earn only 3.7% less in equity compensation and 3.8% more in cash compensation. I also find that top managers in firms in smaller cities have lower pay-for-performance sensitivity. However, the influence of firms’ location on equity-compensation-for-performance sensitivity is insignificant. This result may have some implications for the shareholders of companies in smaller cities as they can increase the proportion of equity-based compensation to connect their interests and executives’ interests better.


identifier: Shaghaghi, Shirin  (2019) Sand/Snow.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Sand/Snow

abstract: Sand/Snow is a mixed-genre novella that incorporates conventional prosaic structures, with Iranian poetic structure, and romantic vocabulary. Themes of cultural transgression, loss, and intergenerational trauma permeate this work, meant to demonstrate the difficulties of immigration and integration. This novella follows the lives of a small family of Iranians who move to Canada during the Iran-Iraq War. Struggling to find a place in the present, the microcosm of their family life is shattered when the youngest child of the family commits suicide.


identifier: Zhang, Jingning  (2019) The Context and Effects of Financial Literacy in Canada.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In the era of increasingly complex financial product-offerings, consumers face difficulty when it comes to making financial decisions. There is a plethora of options when it comes to choosing a bank, credit card, mortgage, or other financial offering. Financial literacy is a crucial element in not only making these decisions easier, but also in ensuring the consumer’s confidence in his/her financial decisions and financial well-being. This study explores the context and effects of financial literacy using data from three consumer omnibus surveys collected by Leger 360 on behalf of Equifax Canada Co. (hereafter “Equifax”). Study 1 focuses on the effect of socio-demographic variables. Age is found to have an inverted quadratic relationship with financial literacy, and men tended to score higher in financial literacy. Positive linear relationships were also uncovered between financial literacy and income, education level, and self-graded financial literacy score. Study 2 looks into the relationship between financial uncertainty, savings/debt inclination, and home ownership. Financial uncertainty from both job insecurity and lack of financial education is found to have a negative linear effect on savings inclination, which then has a negative effect on home-ownership. Study 3 investigates three aspects of financial behaviour: saving, retirement, and having adequate financial information.Three linear relationships are uncovered between these three aspects and financial situation, job concern, and parental financial teaching. Collectively, these studies connect financial literacy to home ownership and financial behaviour, demonstrating the importance of these variables to individual consumers, financial institutions, and the economy in a Canadian context.


identifier: Jayapalan, Suganya ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2948-012X <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2948-012X>  (2019) Information Sharing for improved Supply Chain Collaboration – Simulation Analysis.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Collaboration among consumer good’s manufacturer and retailers is vital in order to elevate their performance. Such mutual cooperation’s, focusing beyond day to day business and transforming from a contract-based relationship to a value-based relationship is well received in the industries. Further coupling of information sharing with the collaboration is valued as an effective forward step. The advent of technologies naturally supports information sharing across the supply chain. Satisfying consumers demand is the main goal of any supply chain, so studying supply chain behaviour with demand as a shared information, makes it more beneficial. This thesis analyses demand information sharing in a two-stage supply chain. Three different collaboration scenarios (None, Partial and Full) are simulated using Discrete Event Simulation and their impact on supply chain costs analyzed. Arena software is used to simulate the inventory control scenarios. The test simulation results show that the total system costs decrease with the increase in the level of information sharing. There is 7% cost improvement when the information is partially shared and 43% improvement when the information is fully shared in comparison with the no information sharing scenario. The proposed work can assist decision makers in design and planning of information sharing scenarios between various supply chain partners to gain competitive advantage.


identifier: Tétrault-Farber, Jérémy  (2019) Une ville - plusieurs reels: Montreal's Multicultural Irish soundscape.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: As one of the principal European ethnic groups to populate Montreal in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Irish have left an indelible imprint on the city’s history, culture and landscape. In carving out a space for themselves in a city which they shared with French-Canadians, English, and Scots, the Montreal Irish relied on the establishment and maintenance of cultural territories, such as Irish parishes and Saint Patrick’s Day parades. Tautologically, these cultural markers of Irishness were once safeguarded by Irish people and by their immediate descendants. However, as Montreal’s Irish population became absorbed into Canadian and Québécois culture over the course of the twentieth century, an increasing number of non-Irish people adopted certain elements of Irish culture, to the point of becoming primary custodians for certain dimensions of Irish culture in Montreal. This dissertation explores the evolution of one dimension of Irish culture - Irish traditional music – in Montreal from 1970 to 2018. It maps the development of the city’s Irish soundscape and explores the social and cultural forces – local and global – that created this vibrant yet precarious milieu. These include: the acculturation – or ethnic fade – of Irish communities in Canada, Quebec, and Montreal, the privileged place of Ireland and the Irish in Québécois culture, the global flow of commodified forms of Irish culture, and the complex interplay of tradition and innovation in Irish traditional music.


identifier: Steinberg, Tanya  (2019) Place, Community and Memory in Postindustrial Pointe-Saint-Charles.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Abstract

Place, Community and Memory in Postindustrial
Pointe-Saint-Charles

Tanya Steinberg

St. Gabriel Elementary School in Pointe-Saint-Charles became a flashpoint for intense community mobilization when it was slated for closure in 2004, 2006 and 2011. Its survival speaks to Pointe-Saint-Charles’ long history of grassroots activism dating back to its nineteenth century Irish roots and industrial heritage but also recognizes that for many saving the last English school in the Point meant saving the community itself. Through the personal narratives of four lunch ladies at St. Gabe’s – each of whom have a four-decade long association with the school – this thesis explores how amidst decades of deindustrialization St. Gabe’s has endured as a place of intergenerational memory and connection in the Point and which continues to symbolize community life long gone from sidewalks and balconies in the neighbourhood.
This thesis also explores the meaning of community in disenfranchised neighbourhoods like the Point struggling with the long term effects of industrial decline, community abandonment and the persistent disappearance of meaningful sites of memory and collective history. I address this question first, through narratives of those who have spent most of their lives in the Point and second, through others who live outside the neighbourhood but work in local community based organizations. This study also addresses the existence of an enduring “urban underclass,” left behind and relegated to the economic and social margins during postindustrial transitions. Four institutional interviews provide an avenue to explore more deeply embedded subjective attitudes toward the community at St. Gabe’s and longstanding Anglophone community in the Point, particularly the extent to which subjective notions of class are implicated in community organizations turning away from the most in need.


identifier: Hackbarth, Thomas  (2019) Round PEG in a Square Hole? Defining Community Media for the Digital Age.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The legacy community media institutions known as Public, Educational, & Governmental access (or PEGs for short) are disappearing from the American consciousness. At the same time, social media platforms that allow users to upload and distribute their own creations have captured public attention. At first glance, social media platforms capture the spirit of community media, allowing anyone to be a media producer. Yet, their corporate profit-motive undermines any status as community media and lack the same democratic and education functions of PEGs.  At a time, federal regulators are threatening mass deregulation and cuts to funding structures of community media institutions, threatening the future of many PEG institutions. In this thesis, I argue that PEGs are important community media. Drawing on a definition of community media by activist filmmaker Frances J. Berrigan, PEGs are different than corporate media, community-orientated and community managed. I document how these institutions are adapting to the internet and a changing regulatory situation. My analysis demonstrates how emerging practices within PEG provide a model for future community media.


identifier: Amrollahi Biyooki, Arefeh  (2019) Distributed Fault Detection in Formation of Multi-Agent Systems with Attack Impact Analysis.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are capable of performing a variety of deepwater marine applications as in multiple mobile robots and cooperative robot reconnaissance. Due to the environment that AUVs operate in, fault detection and isolation as well as the formation control of AUVs are more challenging than other Multi-Agent Systems (MASs). In this thesis, two main challenges are tackled.

We first investigate the formation control and fault accommodation algorithms for AUVs in presence of abnormal events such as faults and communication attacks in any of the team members. These undesirable events can prevent the entire team to achieve a safe,
reliable, and efficient performance while executing underwater mission tasks. For instance, AUVs may face unexpected actuator/sensor faults and the communication between AUVs
can be compromised, and consequently make the entire multi-agent system vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Moreover, a possible deception attack on network system may have a negative
impact on the environment and more importantly the national security. Furthermore, there are certain requirements for speed, position or depth of the AUV team. For this reason, we propose a distributed fault detection scheme that is able to detect and isolate faults in AUVs while maintaining their formation under security constraints. The effects of faults and communication attacks with a control theoretical perspective will be studied.

Another contribution of this thesis is to study a state estimation problem for a linear dynamical system in presence of a Bias Injection Attack (BIA). For this purpose, a Kalman Filter (KF) is used, where we show that the impact of an attack can be analyzed as the solution of a quadratically constrained problem for which the exact solution can be found efficiently. We also introduce a lower bound for the attack impact in terms of the number of compromised actuators and a combination of sensors and actuators. The theoretical findings are accompanied by simulation results and numerical can study examples.


identifier: Abdalkareem, Rabe ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9914-5434 <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9914-5434>  (2019) Beyond Traditional Software Development: Studying and Supporting the Role of Reusing Crowdsourced Knowledge in Software Development.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
As software development is becoming increasingly complex, developers often need to reuse others’ code or knowledge made available online to tackle problems encountered during software development and maintenance. This phenomenon of using others' code or knowledge, often found on online forums, is referred to as crowdsourcing. A good example of crowdsourcing is posting a coding question on the Stack Overflow website and having others contribute code that solves that question. Recently, the phenomenon of crowdsourcing has attracted much attention from researchers and practitioners and recent studies show that crowdsourcing improves productivity and reduces time-to-market. However, like any solution, crowdsourcing brings with it challenges such as quality, maintenance, and even legal issues.

The research presented in this thesis presents the result of a series of large-scale empirical studies involving some of the most popular crowdsourcing platforms such as Stack Overflow, Node Package Manager (npm), and Python Package Index (PyPI). The focus of these empirical studies is to investigate the role of reusing crowdsourcing knowledge and more particularly crowd code in the software development process.

We first present two empirical studies on the reuse of knowledge from crowdsourcing platforms namely Stack Overflow. We found that reusing knowledge from this crowdsourcing platform has the potential to assist software development practices, specifically through source code reuse.
However, relying on such crowdsourced knowledge might also negatively affect the quality of the software projects. Second, we empirically examine the type of development knowledge constructed on crowdsourcing platforms. We examine the use of trivial packages on npm and PyPI platforms. We found that trivial packages are common and developers tend to use them because they provide them with well tested and implemented code. However, developers are concerned about the maintenance overhead of these trivial packages due to the extra dependencies that trivial packages introduce. Finally, we used the gained knowledge to propose a pragmatic solution to improve the efficiency of relying on the crowd in software development. We proposed a rule-based technique that automatically detects commits that can skip the continuous integration process. We evaluate the performance of the proposed technique on a dataset of open-source Java projects. Our results show that continuous integration can be used to improve the efficiency of the reused code from crowdsourcing platforms.

Among the findings of this thesis are that the way software is developed has changed dramatically. Developers rely on crowdsourcing to address problems encountered during software development and maintenance. The results presented in this thesis provides new insights on how knowledge from these crowdsourced platforms is reused in software systems and how some of this knowledge can be better integrated into current software development processes and best practices.


identifier: Shamayleh, Ghalia  (2019) Engagement and Monetization on Instagram Pet Influencer Communities.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Today’s online ecosystem is filled with various types of consumption phenomena waiting to be academically explored. This thesis explores the topic of pet accounts on social media, more specifically, cat accounts on Instagram. Via Netnography and 15 in-depth interviews with people who manage social media accounts for their cats, I investigate two research questions: Where does the management of a pet social media account belong in an ecosystem of performance online and offline? And what are the motivations behind, and strategies fuelling, this aforementioned performance? As a result of this research, I establish a framework identifying the types of mediated performances occurring online and offline, as well as by proxy and non-proxy. I also locate the feline appreciation virtual community on Instagram within this ecosystem of mediated performance. Additionally, I develop a typology of pet social media account managers
based on their respective desires for recognition and/or social connection. I, therefore, address the gap in the literature pertaining to this phenomenon as an online anthropomorphic performance that demonstrates a new facet of the pet-human relationship. Marketers tailoring to today’s consumers would benefit from learning about the motivations and strategies implemented by the pet social media account managers as they have become companies’ new online marketing tools as influencers.