identifier: Karbab, ElMouatez Billah  (2020) Resilient and Scalable Android Malware Fingerprinting and Detection.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Malicious software (Malware) proliferation reaches hundreds of thousands daily. The manual analysis of such a large volume of malware is daunting and time-consuming. The diversity of targeted systems in terms of architecture and platforms compounds the challenges of Android malware detection and malware in general. This highlights the need to design and implement new scalable and robust methods, techniques, and tools to detect Android malware. In this thesis, we develop a malware fingerprinting framework to cover accurate Android malware detection and family attribution. In this context, we emphasize the following: (i) the scalability over a large malware corpus; (ii) the resiliency to common obfuscation techniques; (iii) the portability over different platforms and architectures.

In the context of bulk and offline detection on the laboratory/vendor level: First, we propose an approximate fingerprinting technique for Android packaging that captures the underlying static structure of the Android apps. We also propose a malware clustering framework on top of this fingerprinting technique to perform unsupervised malware detection and grouping by building and partitioning a similarity network of malicious apps. Second, we propose an approximate fingerprinting technique for Android malware's behavior reports generated using dynamic analyses leveraging natural language processing techniques. Based on this fingerprinting technique, we propose a portable malware detection and family threat attribution framework employing supervised machine learning techniques. Third, we design an automatic framework to produce intelligence about the underlying malicious cyber-infrastructures of Android malware. We leverage graph analysis techniques to generate relevant, actionable, and granular intelligence that can be used to identify the threat effects induced by malicious Internet activity associated to Android malicious apps.

In the context of the single app and online detection on the mobile device level, we further propose the following: Fourth, we design a portable and effective Android malware detection system that is suitable for deployment on mobile and resource constrained devices, using machine learning classification on raw method call sequences. Fifth, we elaborate a framework for Android malware detection that is resilient to common code obfuscation techniques and adaptive to operating systems and malware change overtime, using natural language processing and deep learning techniques.

We also evaluate the portability of the proposed techniques and methods beyond Android platform malware, as follows: Sixth, we leverage the previously elaborated techniques to build a framework for cross-platform ransomware fingerprinting relying on raw hybrid features in conjunction with advanced deep learning techniques.


identifier: Miller-Béland, Danielle  (2020) Environmental Contamination, Empowerment and Stigma. Understanding the Social Impacts of Mercurialism in Idrija, Slovenia.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract:
The increase of anthropogenic activities is linked to a significant rise of large-scale environmental contaminations. As much as the environmental, the social and health impacts of these contaminations are raising serious concerns. Many studies, situated within the Environmental Racism or Environmental Justice paradigms, have demonstrated the long term negative social effects on communities’ social fabric. However, fewer studies have looked at how some communities were impressively successful in reducing these negative consequences and avoid the stigmatization and exclusion that plague other sites.
By focusing on the historical analysis of a small community built on the world’s second-biggest mercury mine, my M.A. underlines different social aspects of large-scale contamination and remediation. The town of Idrija, in Slovenia, has been recognized as one of the most naturally contaminated regions of the world. Combined with 500 years of large-scale mercury mining, this town initially suffered severe negative environmental and health effects. Although the mines closed relatively recently, in 1994, the town has experienced no harmful long-term social consequences from mercury mining, quite the opposite, being now designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My M.A. aims to highlight some factors that influenced remediation in Idrija while ensuring this community’s sustainable development.


identifier: Samiei, Mandana  (2020) Meta-Learning for Cancer Phenotype Prediction from Gene Expression Data.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Deep learning has become an essential element in various applications of technology over the past decades. Deep neural networks are now reaching performance on par with, or even beyond, human-level on a broad range of tasks.  However, there are still several concerns and deficiencies that make these models impractical for some real-world applications.
One of the important issues comes from a data-efficiency perspective. Most of the deep learning techniques need a large number of training samples in order to achieve a high performance on a given problem. This procedure is far from human general intelligence. Humans are good at learning from a few number of samples and quickly adapting to new tasks.
In this work, we leverage the meta-learning framework in which the model can learn novel tasks by developing prior knowledge over past experiences. For this purpose, we propose a Meta-Dataset that contains 174 genomics and clinical tasks. Furthermore, we suggest a meta-model under the few-shot learning regime that can learn new genomics tasks. Finally, a comparison between the performance of the meta-learner and the performance of other classical baselines is also presented.


identifier: Beheshti Kisomi, Alireza  (2020) Analytical and Experimental Analyses of Isotropic and Anisotropic Magnetoactive Elastomers.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Magnetoactive elastomers (MAEs) are emerging smart materials, which exhibit rapid and reversible variations in the viscoelastic properties under an applied magnetic field. While response behaviors of these novel materials have been widely studied using phenomenological based approaches, only a few studies have attempted the physics based analyses of MAEs. The main aim of the present thesis research is to develop a continuum based formulation considering the magneto-elastic coupling for predicting the quasi-static behavior of both the isotropic and anisotropic MAEs undergoing small and finite deformations. Firstly, the constitutive magneto-mechanical equations for an isotropic magnetoactive medium are formulated considering the principle of material objectivity. A stored energy density function has been introduced with respect to the invariants of the Cauchy-Green deformation tensor and the magnetic field induction vector. The proposed function is subsequently used to develop a material model for finite deformation analysis of the isotropic MAEs. A linearization scheme has also been implemented to formulate a small-deformation theory for the isotropic material.
In the second part, a novel energy density function for an incompressible transversely-isotropic deformable magnetic solid has been presented in terms of some invariants based on both the mechanical and magnetic anisotropy. The proposed energy density function is effectively used to formulate a coupled magneto-elastic model of the transversely-isotropic MAEs.
The validity of the proposed models is demonstrated through comparisons of the model responses with the laboratory measured characteristics. For this purpose, the isotropic and transversely-isotropic cylindrical MAEs were fabricated in the laboratory by mixing silicon rubber with micron-sized carbonyl iron particles (15% volume fraction). The mixture was cured in the absence and presence of the external magnetic field, respectively, to realize isotropic and anisotropic structures. An experimental set-up was designed to accurately measure the relative permeability of the isotropic and anisotropic samples. The torsion-deflection characteristics of the MAEs were also measured under varying applied magnetic field by utilizing a magneto-rheometer.
The measured data were used to examine validity of the proposed models and to identify parameters of constitutive equations for both the isotropic and anisotropic MAEs. The comparison revealed reasonably good agreements between the analytical and experimental results. The proposed models could thus serve as essential tools for designing MAE-based devices for noise and vibration control applications.


identifier: Aranibar Zeballos, Maria Daniela  (2020) Street Papers: An Educational Tool for Social Change.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Abstract
Street Papers: An Educational Tool for Social Change
Maria Daniela Aranibar Zeballos
Discourses and representations of homelessness and poverty tend to emphasize individual factors, while disregarding systemic causes. However, public discourses are shifting, as local governments begin to recognize structural inequalities that propel individuals into poverty and take them into account in policymaking. Therefore, initiatives that reframe representations of homelessness, need to be properly examined.
This research project examines the processes through which public understandings of homelessness can be transformed by looking at one such initiative: street newspapers. With an urban qualitative methodological approach, this project assesses the educational value of Montreal’s local street paper, L’Itinéraire. I analyze the data analysis results using a theoretical lens based on social justice and public pedagogy frameworks.
This project addresses three research questions:
(1) How does participation in street papers impact the sense of agency of those who have experienced homelessness or poverty, if at all?
(2) Does reading street papers influence individuals perception of homelessness and poverty?
(3) How might public actions/attitudes towards homelessness and poverty be impacted?
My results show that L’Itinéraire impacts the sense of agency of its vendors, and shifts readers’ perspectives on homelessness, poverty and other social issues by enabling them to critically interrogate common sources of knowledge production, by legitimizing marginalized voices, by starting processes of collective reflection on current social structures and by ultimately creating spaces for social action. However, vendors and readers alike feel their ability to enact social change is limited, especially at an individual level.


identifier: Lee, Jennifer  (2020) Can the impact of contagion effects on global equities be reduced through a dynamic asset allocation strategy based on capital flows data?  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The literature supports evidence of a contagion effect, where an increase in correlations and price movements is observed across assets during a market downturn. This contagion effect can diminish the diversification expected from a portfolio’s asset allocation. There is research showing a connection between capital flows and contagion. This thesis considers this connection through a dynamic allocation strategy with allocation decisions based on capital flow movements. This strategy is applied to an equity-only portfolio with the objective of maintaining some benefits of diversification while preserving capital. In an out of sample test, a regime switching model is used to predict market downturns for the period from January 1998 to December 2018. For the predicted downturns, portfolios’ geographical allocation is altered with allocation changes based on the countries’ capital flows. Results from historical back tests show weak evidence of higher returns and similar Sharpe ratios for a dynamic strategy versus a static strategy for portfolios of developed market equities. The implications for portfolios of emerging market equities are less obvious.


identifier: Zayed, Abdelrahman  (2020) Ultrasound Elastography using Machine Learning.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis aims at solving two main problems that we face in ultrasound elastography, namely fast strain estimation and radio frequency (RF) frame selection. We rely on machine learning concepts such as Principal Components Analysis (PCA), multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and convolutional neural networks (CNN) to build 3 models that are trained on both phantom and in vivo data. In our first work, we developed a method to estimate the initial displacement between two ultrasound RF frames using PCA. We first compute an initial displacement estimate of around 1% of the samples, and then decompose the displacement into a linear combination of principal components (obtained offline during the training step). Our method assumes that the initial displacement of the whole image could also be described by this linear combination of principal components. This yields the same result that we could have had if we run dynamic programming (DP). The advantage of using PCA is that we could compute the same initial displacement image more than 10 times faster than DP. We then pass the result to GLobal Ultrasound Elastography (GLUE) for fine-tuning it, so we call the method PCA-GLUE.

In our second work, we developed a novel method to address the problem of RF frame selection in ultrasound elastography. Intuitively, we would like to have a classifier that gives a binary 1 to
RF frame pairs that yield high-quality strain images. We make use of our previous work where we decompose the initial displacement between two RF frames into a weight vector multiplied by some principal components. We consider the weight vector as our input feature vector to an MLP model. Given two RF frames I1 and I2, the MLP model predicts the normalized cross correlation (NCC) between the two RF frames I1 and I2′ (I2′ is I2 after being displaced according to the displacement of GLUE/PCA-GLUE). Our final contribution in this line of research is the introduction of a CNN-based method for RF frame selection as follows. First, we changed the architecture from an MLP model to a CNN that takes the two RF frames on two channels. The CNN has better results compared to the MLP model due to having more features. Second, we improved the automatic labelling of the data by having physical conditions that must be satisfied together in order to consider the pair as a suitable pair of RF frames.


identifier: Proulx-Chénard, Samuel  (2020) Réformes et discours sur l'immigration temporaire: De nouvelles politiques au Québec?  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Ce mémoire vise à explorer un phénomène migratoire relativement récent au Québec et que plusieurs auteurs considèrent comme marquant un tournant en matière de politiques d’immigration. Plus précisément, cette recherche porte sur ce que l’auteure Catherine Dauvergne qualifie de nouvelles politiques. Celles-ci se caractériseraient par des mesures axées davantage sur l’économie de marché que sur des logiques de peuplement et d’intégration identitaire. Ces nouvelles politiques se traduisent par une préférence des gouvernements pour les programmes d’immigration temporaire et l’admission de main-d’oeuvre issue de l’étranger afin de pallier les lacunes du marché de l’emploi. Notre recherche vise à vérifier cette thèse dans le cas du Québec et s’intéresse au discours gouvernemental légitimant ces politiques publiques en lien avec l’immigration temporaire.

Depuis quelques années, la hausse des taux d’admissions au Québec dans les programmes d’immigration temporaire témoigne d’un engouement affirmé pour l’immigration circulaire visant à combler les déficits de main-d’oeuvre. C’est dans cet ordre d’idées que ce projet présente comme étude de cas l’évolution de l’État québécois et ses institutions en matière d’immigration temporaire entre 2003 et 2018, et ce, plus précisément en termes de discours et de politiques publiques. Cet exercice permet d’éclaircir le constat empirique de cet enthousiasme institutionnel pour l’immigration temporaire au Québec d’un point de vue étatique. À l’aide d’une méthodologie majoritairement qualitative s’inspirant de la littérature politique sur l’immigration, cette recherche propose d’examiner les données provenant d’un large corpus de documents de politiques publiques afin de pouvoir mieux situer le cas québécois en parallèle avec la littérature sur les nouvelles politiques d’immigration.

D’une part, cette recherche confirme l’hypothèse selon laquelle, d’un côté, de nouvelles politiques d’immigration au Québec marquent un tournant en facilitant toujours plus l’admission des ressortissants(es) temporaires, puis de l’autre, complexifient le processus de sélection et restreignent l’accès à la résidence permanente. D’autre part, cette recherche ne parvient toutefois pas à faire le constat de la « fin d’une ère » migratoire au Québec, et ce, autant du point discursif que politique. En effet, l’insistance sur l’intégration linguistique et socioculturelle reste un enjeu identitaire omniprésent dans le discours de l’État en immigration, puis il encourage explicitement les anciens ressortissants temporaires à transiter vers le statut permanent. Enfin, il ne s’agit que d’une confirmation partielle de la thèse de Dauvergne s’appliquant au cas d’étude québécois. Ces résultats de recherche ouvrent la porte à une réflexion plus profonde sur les implications et la pertinence de ce modèle appliqué au contexte provincial, ainsi que sur la nature de cette particularité québécoise en immigration.


identifier: Vajda, Paul  (2020) An Ontological Approach to Autonomous Navigational Decision Making in Aircraft Systems.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Aircraft systems are becoming increasingly complex, and automation increasingly necessary for safe aircraft operation. Current industry trends are encouraging either a reduction of crew num- bers or complete elimination. After surveying the evolution of aircraft automation systems, pilot tasks and situational awareness, we argue that a hurdle to crew reduction is that of autonomous navigation. In this thesis, we put forth an ontology based approach for defining autonomous navigational decision making. The ontology is designed to capture elements representing the environment in which aircraft operate; the “air environment”. An expert system is then pro- grammed and uses the ontology as its knowledge base. Combining the environmental ontology with a second one describing a generic air vehicle, the expert system is programmed to make navigational decisions based on environment, vehicle state and mission. Case studies show the functionality of the implementation, and a validation study demonstrates the feasibility of the solution. The thesis closes by relating it to other research and recently released industry avionics solutions.


identifier: Fox, Rachelle  (2020) Les monologues tragiques : la théâtralisation de l’actualité sur les réseaux sociaux.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Il existe des périodes de grands bouleversements sociaux où notre rapport à soi, à l’autre et à la réalité se voient transformés par l’introduction de nouvelles technologies dans la sphère publique. Au XXIe siècle, les réseaux sociaux, qui génèrent une exposition constante de soi, recourent au monologue comme principal moyen d’expression ; ces réseaux modifient de manière significative la façon dont nous communiquons et offrent une spectacularisation, voire une théâtralisation, autant de l’actualité que de l’intime.

Dans ce projet de recherche-création en trois temps, nous étudions à la fois les pièces de théâtre intégrant les réseaux sociaux ainsi que l’émergence de véritables monologues tragiques (assumés ou semi-fictionnels) sur les réseaux sociaux. Plus précisément, nous illustrons la tendance contemporaine à monologuer, identifions un nouveau type de monologue existant en ligne — le monologue (a)social — et analysons l’impact de ces monologues (a)sociaux sur notre capacité de communiquer, sur notre perception de la réalité et sur notre penchant pour le mélodrame. La théâtralisation des réseaux sociaux est d’abord étudiée à la lumière des codes du monologue, puis illustrée par la création d’une plateforme web imitant les commentaires en direct sur des questions urgentes et inquiétantes. Une pièce de théâtre en a été tirée afin de saisir l’essentiel des monologues (a)sociaux et de transposer la théâtralisation abusive des réseaux sociaux dans un espace dramaturgique et véritablement théâtral.


identifier: Song, Ying  (2020) What affects the new generation’s luxury purchase intention? The moderating role of culture and cosmopolitan.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: As the new generation is becoming the primary consumer in the luxury market, the purpose of this study is to examine what factors would affect their luxury purchase intention. Specifically, status consumption and hedonistic consumption are selected to represent extrinsic and intrinsic motivation respectively. The moderating effects of cultural variables and cosmopolitan are also investigated. An online questionnaire with a worldwide sample of 222 young adults (aged from 20 to 35) was conducted. Findings show that both status consumption and hedonistic consumption have a positive relationship with young adults’ luxury purchase intention. Moreover, the effect of status consumption on luxury purchase intention is stronger in collectivistic, long-term orientated, lower uncertainty avoidance cultures and for cosmopolitan consumers, while the relationship between hedonistic consumption and luxury purchase intention is stronger in lower power distance and short- term oriented cultures.


identifier: Banerjee, Upasana  (2020) Impact of Meal Context On Food Advertising Outcomes.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This research examines to what extent the presence of meal context as a visual component embedded in food advertisements influences consumers’ responses. It empirically tested whether meal context (vs. no meal context) impacts consumers’ attitude towards the advertisement, the advertised brand, brand purchase intentions, product evaluation and appetitive motivation. An experiment involving a range of existing food products and brands was conducted with a sample of adult Canadian consumers. Contrary to predictions, meal context did not significantly impact consumer responses. Brand familiarity and product preference emerged as the most important
predictors of consumer responses. This research has a number of implications for future research on meal context effects.


identifier: Agharazy Dormeny, Armin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4966-9007 <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4966-9007>  (2020) Design and Simulation of a Refractive Index Sensor Based on SPR and LSPR using Gold Nanostructures.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In the last two decades, the unusual optical and physical properties of novel metallic nanostructures (such as gold, silver, and aluminum) has been the subject of intense research efforts. Surface plasmon resonance and localized surface plasmon resonance are two of the unique phenomena in novel metals which can be used to create different kinds of sensitive sensors and biosensors.
  In this work, a refractive index sensor based on surface plasmon resonance is designed and analytically investigated by a finite element method via COMSOL Multiphysics to detect chemicals. The intensity, spectral width and sensitivity of the plasmonic signals are highly affected by the shape, size, and configuration of the metallic nanostructures. Patterning the planar metallic thin film with cavities or protrusion can result in obtaining a tunable sensitivity for the sensor. The architecture of the nanohole/nanowire arrays leads to a nanostructure having multiple plasmonics properties.
The simulation results show that the co-excitation of surface plasmon resonance and localized surface plasmon resonance modes can enhance the sensitivity of the SPR-based sensors significantly. To obtain this result, several cut lines through the metallic thin film were considered and the variation of the electric field intensity along those cut lines is studied. To determine the SPR and LSPR modes, the penetration depth of the plasmon field is characterized at metal/dielectric interfaces.
After investigation of three models for the metallic layer (planar thin film, nanohole patterned thin film, and protrusive thin film), it was concluded that the device made of 20 nm cylindrical nanowire supported by a 40 nm thin film can result in the best performance parameters (in terms of sensitivity, absorption, and accuracy). Eight substances with refractive indices ranging from 1.333 to 1.38 were used to obtain the calibration data of the optimum sensor. The linear characteristic of the calibration curve shows that the sensor is able to detect unknown materials as a function of resonance wavelength. This study is proposing a new way to show the duality nature of patterned thin films to support both propagating and localized surface plasmon modes.


identifier: Taslimi Taleghani, Setareh  (2020) The Novel Reactor Design and Operating Conditions for Sustainable Electrokinetic Recovery of Oil and Water from Oily Sludge.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Oily sludge has been an emerging concern as a waste product in the petroleum industry. It is generated in huge amounts in both upstream and downstream industries. Oily sludge is a very complex matrix with a wide range of constituents including light and heavy petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs), solids, water and different kinds of heavy metals such as nickel and vanadium. Since oily sludge has proven to expose dangers to the public health and the environment, it has been considered as hazardous waste and its treatment before disposal has been essential. Oily sludge is a very stable water-in-oil suspension that is naturally emulsified by PHCs and small solid particles, and hence its treatment is a challenging issue. The objective of this study is to present the electrokinetic method as a sustainable approach to the successful treatment of oily sludge. To achieve this purpose, a novel design of the EK reactor was proposed to undergo further investigation. The optimization of the EK reactor design was conducted on a small scale. The new design was applied to larger scales with the required modifications. In order to enhance phase separation and obtain a higher quality of recovered material, different additives were introduced into the system. Ferric chloride proved to be the most effective one according to the qualitative and quantitative study.  The large-scale EK reactor (20 L) achieved 35% of water recovery and 15% of oil recovery while it reduced the disposable volume by 35% after 150 hours of operation. The optimal conditions and configurations of the batch system were used to design an innovative continuous-flow reactor. The new reactor aimed to attain a higher recovery of oil and water and lower energy consumption during a 24-h retention period. A water recovery of 31% and an oil recovery of 11% was accomplished after 24 hours as a result of the successful operation of the novel system. The developed EK systems are ready to be applied at full scale to treat industrial and municipal sludge.


identifier: HOSSAIN, ASHRAFEE  (2020) Social Capital and Firm Dividends.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Social Capital and Firm Dividends

abstract: This thesis investigates if social capital, the internal norm of trustworthiness, acts as an external agency-mitigating determinant of corporate payout policy by using the variations in social capital in US states. A large sample of US firms containing 50,847 firm-year observations representing 7,840 unique firms, covering the period from 1998 to 2014, is used to explore the main idea of the thesis.  Overall, this thesis provides support for the conjecture that firms, on average, pay higher dividends if they are headquartered in states with a higher social capital environment and that the influence of social capital is stronger when external monitoring is weak. The association between social capital and firm dividends is found to be both statistically and economically significant. It is further shown that this relationship between social capital and firm dividends is not spurious as these results are robust to: additional controls, propensity score matching, instrumental variable approach, quasi-natural experiments, and alternate measures of main dependent and research variables. This thesis adds to the explanation of the long-standing ‘dividend puzzle’ by showing association between the social environment of a firm and its managerial decisions in the presence of micro external monitors such as institutional investors.


identifier: Rosenfield, Andrea  (2020) “If you want to communicate . . .” - The Place of Language in International Students’ Transition to University: Insights from a Language Exchange.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This study of plurilingual students in a language exchange explores how English and French language learners transition to university in Canada. The study gives voice to diverse international students, framing their experiences and perspectives in the context of the internationalization of higher education. By examining the links between learners' linguistic and cultural affiliations, language learning and use, and their sense of agency, identity and belonging, I identify unique challenges, resources and potential for language and intercultural learning in creating community.  Ethnographic description and thematic analysis drawn from interviews and group discussion combine to describe how learners experience the language exchange and the linguistic and cultural landscape of Montreal, and how they adapt their language use to navigate their transition. Despite experiencing the constraints of linguistic hierarchies in place at the university and in the wider community, these learners are reflexive agents who reorient to their languages flexibly. They engage in multiple autonomous language-learning practices and connect with other students within and across traditional boundaries of culture and language. Although they recognize formal differences of linguistic proficiency and cultural background, in practice, the students often reframe these potential barriers to move across them fluidly. Through their home languages, using English as a lingua franca, and by engaging in informal language learning, they develop and maintain social relationships and explore intercultural learning opportunities. These shared experiences offer new insights into international students’ agency in transition, identity in transformation and sense of belonging. The study ends with recommendations for how programs can include international students in the university community by promoting a multilingual habitus within intercultural and language-learning activities.


identifier: Victoria, Florence  (2020) Tailoring Chirality in Carbon Dots.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Tailoring Chirality in Carbon Dots

abstract:
Carbon dots are an emerging class of fluorescent nanoparticles within the carbon allotrope family. They have garnered significant interest in the field due to their cost-effective and sustainable synthesis, versatile optical and chemical properties, as well as low chemical toxicity. Typically, carbon dots possess a mean size of nearly 10 nm and are comprised primarily of sp2 carbons alongside oxygen, hydrogen and other heteroatoms. A variety of carbon sources ranging from simple molecules to more complex and heterogenous ones can be used to prepare these dots speaking to their sustainability and cost effectiveness. Their properties and surface chemistry are governed by the synthesis approach and starting precursors allowing us to endow them with various physico-optical properties including chirality, a property of interest due to its ubiquitous nature. Chirality has tremendous implications in drug development and design, as well as in applications such as catalysis, enantioselective recognition and sensing.
In this work, we explore the microwave-assisted synthesis of chiral carbon dots prepared from reactions of the achiral carbon-based molecule, citric acid, and the chiral amino acid, cysteine, in water. The effects of the synthesis parameters on inducing chirality in the dots were investigated in order to tailor the chiral and fluorescent properties of the dots. Separation techniques were used to glean additional insights into the formation mechanism of the dots. Finally, in order to better understand the importance of stereoselectivity in biological systems, we also utilized the chiral carbon dots as potential anti-microbials against various strains of bacteria. Our findings show promising results towards generating new insights and ideas in the field of antibiotics especially given the growing concern of global antibiotic resistance.


identifier: Perepichka, Maksym  (2020) Automation Tools for the Animation Pipeline.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Video-games and animated movies require a sophisticated multistage set of processes known as the animation pipeline for collecting animation data, beginning with actors in a Motion Capture Studio and ending in animated digital characters. Throughout the animation pipeline, varying levels of manual human intervention are typically needed to ensure animation quality. Passive markers used for Motion Capture require manual cleanup by trained MOCAP artists to fix issues such as marker occlusions, marker swaps, and noise. This thesis proposes a novel method to automate this process that works by identifying broken marker path segments and subsequently reconstructing broken markers using a kinematic reference. The result is a state-of-the-art method that outperforms existing solutions by being simultaneously more accurate as well as easier to integrate into existing animation pipelines. Once marker data is cleaned, studios will often want to retarget the captured data onto different characters, a step that usually requires the manual tweaking of various retargeting parameters in proprietary software. This thesis proposes a batch mesh-based retargeting algorithm that uses Jacobian Inverse Kinematics tracking mesh vertices to retarget animations between different skeletal rigs. This results in an efficient algorithm that is capable of retargeting multiple animation clips without requiring the manual tweaking of parameters specified.


identifier: Arjmandiasl, Zeinab  (2020) Variational Learning for Finite Shifted-Scaled Dirichlet Mixture Model and Its Applications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
With the huge amount of data produced every day, the interest in data mining and machine learning techniques has been growing. Ongoing advancement of technology has made AI systems subject to different issues. Data clustering is an important aspect of data analysis which is the process of grouping similar observations in the same subset. Among known clustering techniques, finite mixture models have led to outstanding results that created an inspiration toward further exploration of various mixture models and applications. The main idea of this clustering technique is to fit a mixture of components generated from a predetermined probability distribution into the data through parameter approximation of the components. Therefore, choosing a proper distribution based on the type of the data is another crucial step in data analysis. Although the Gaussian distribution has been widely used with mixture models, the Dirichlet family of distributions have been known to achieve better results particularly when dealing with proportional and non-Gaussian data.
Another crucial part in statistical modelling is the learning process. Among the conventional estimation approaches, Maximum Likelihood (ML) is widely used due to its simplicity in terms of implementation but it has some drawbacks, too. Bayesian approach has overcome some of the disadvantages of ML approach via taking prior knowledge into account. However, it creates new issues such as need for additional estimation methods due to the intractability of parameters' marginal probabilities. In this thesis, these limitations are discussed and addressed via defining a variational learning framework for finite shifted-scaled Dirichlet mixture model. The motivation behind applying variational inference is that compared to conventional Bayesian approach, it is much less computationally costly. Furthermore, in this method, the optimal number of components is estimated along with the parameter approximation automatically and simultaneously while convergence is guaranteed. The performance of our model, in terms of accuracy of clustering, is validated on real world challenging medical applications, including image processing, namely, Malaria detection, breast cancer diagnosis and cardiovascular disease detection as well as text-based spam email detection. Finally, in order to evaluate the merits of our model effectiveness, it is compared with four other widely used methods.


identifier: Pashaei Farahani, Shadnoush  (2020) Assessment of Urban Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory in Montréal.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Assessment of Urban Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory in Montréal
Shadnoush Pashaei Farahani

There is an increasing concern about global warming resulting from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GHGs can be produced from a wide range of anthropogenic activities at different spatial and temporal scales. Since most of the world population lives in cities, emission from urban areas is an important source of GHGs. The city is a complicated system consisting of various components and processes. Efforts have been made to mitigate urban GHG emissions. However, there is a lack of available methods for effective assessment of such emissions. Many urban sources and factors which can influence the emissions are still unknown. In the present study, the contributing factors in an urban area were identified and the GHG emission from municipal activities was assessed. A model for the assessment of urban GHG emissions was developed. Based on the collected data, a case study was conducted to evaluate urban GHG emissions in Montreal. The comprehensive assessment included the emissions from transportation (i.e. public, personal), electricity consumption, natural gas, heating oil, waste disposal, and wastewater treatment as well as the carbon sequestered by green space. This study provided a new approach for the comprehensive evaluation of urban GHG emissions. The results can help better understand the emission process, identify the major emission sources and develop the appropriate strategies for emission reduction.


identifier: Rahmani, Fahim  (2020) Do Educational Background and Macro Shocks Impact the Performance of Sell-Side Research Analysts in the Energy Sector.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis explores the performance of sell-side equity research analysts in the energy sector, specifically how the educational background of these analysts affects the accuracy of their forecasts of earnings per share. I further examine how macro-economic shocks impact forecasting accuracy by conducting difference-in-differences regressions. Finally, I also briefly examine herding, documenting how educational background affects this behaviour. This thesis expands on the literature of sell-side analyst performance, while addressing a topic, education, which few academic papers cover. I also offer insights on analyst behaviour and performance during significant macroeconomic shocks to provide a more complete narrative of the work of sell-side equity research analysts. The thesis limits its scope on equity analysts to those covering the energy sector between 2009 and 2017.


identifier: Gakhar, Sofia  (2020) Local Image Patterns for Counterfeit Coin Detection and Automatic Coin Grading.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Abstract
         Local Image Patterns for Counterfeit Coin Detection and Automatic Coin Grading
Coins are an essential part of our life, and we still use them for everyday transactions. We have always faced the issue of the counterfeiting of the coins, but it has become worse with time due to the innovation in the technology of counterfeiting, making it more difficult for detection. Through this thesis, we propose a counterfeit coin detection method that is robust and applicable to all types of coins, whether they have letters on them or just images or both of these characteristics. We use two different types of feature extraction methods. The first one is SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature transform) features, and the second one is RFR (Rotation and Flipping invariant Regional Binary Patterns) features to make our system complete in all aspects and very generic at the same time. The feature extraction methods used here are scale, rotation, illumination, and flipping invariant. We concatenate both our feature sets and use them to train our classifiers. Our feature sets highly complement each other in a way that SIFT provides us with most discriminative features that are scale and rotation invariant but do not consider the spatial value when we cluster them, and here our second set of features comes into play as it considers the spatial structure of each coin image. We train SVM classifiers with two different sets of features from each image. The method has an accuracy of 99.61% with both high and low-resolution images. We also took pictures of the coins at 90˚ and 45˚ angles using the mobile phone camera, to check the robustness of our proposed method, and we achieved promising results even with these low-resolution pictures.
Also, we work on the problem of Coin Grading, which is another issue in the field of numismatic studies. Our algorithm proposed above is customized according to the coin grading problem and calculates the coin wear and assigns a grade to it. We can use this grade to remove low-quality coins from the system, which are otherwise sold to coin collectors online for a considerable price. Coin grading is currently done by coin experts manually and is a time consuming and expensive process. We use digital images and apply computer vision and machine learning algorithms to calculate the wear on the coin and then assign it a grade based on its quality level. Our method calculates the amount of wear on coins and assign them a label and achieve an accuracy of 98.5%.


identifier: Zarei, Farideh  (2019) Evaluation of the spatial uniformity of electronic sound masking systems in an open-plan office.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Providing an optimal acoustical environment is an inherent challenge in open-plan offices. In order to avoid overhearing private conversations by the office workers and reduce the distraction by the background noises, many open-plan offices adopt an electronic sound masking system that generates an artificial sound to make background noises less sensible. The sound masking system should uniformly generate the targeted masking sound over the entire office area to provide the desired influence on the acoustical environments. To evaluate the uniformity of the masking sound field in open-plan offices, this study followed the ASTM E 1573-18 method which is a standard for assessing the spatial uniformity of the sound masking systems in open plan offices. More specifically, sound maps were created with a measurement grid of 0.6 m x 0.6m, to determine the spatial variations of the masking sound levels across the office space. This study also examined the parameters that can influence the spatial uniformity in the open-plan offices by using a computer-aided simulation. Moreover, to understand the importance of a uniform sound field across the office area, the intelligibility of the speech was assessed by calculating the Articulation Index (AI). The measurement results show that the variation of the sound pressure level (SPL) across the space is within ±1.5 dBA when considering the overall A-weighted SPL and ±4.5 dB when considering the unweighted octave band SPL for the frequencies from 250 Hz to 4 kHz. From the results of the simulation it can be found that the number of sound masking loudspeakers, partition height, and the scattering and absorption coefficient of the ceiling can affect the uniformity of the masking sound. For the defined parameters, the lowest variation was achieved when the number of the sound masking loudspeakers was increased to 7, followed by when the partitions were removed and when the whole ceiling was covered by the diffuser. Among these parameters, increasing the number of sound masking loudspeakers has the most effects on improving the uniformity of the sound field across the office space. Moreover, in all the defined conditions the SPL variation for more than 90% of the space cannot be less than ±1 dBA when considering the overall A-weighted SPL, and ±1.5 dB when considering the unweighted octave band SPL. After evaluating the variation of the speech intelligibility across the office, using the AI, the results show that when there is a higher variation in the sound field, the AI range change more. In order to have more than 60% of the office area within ±0.03 AI range, the variation of the sound field across the space should be less than ±1.5 dBA, and to have more than 80% of the office area within ±0.03 deviation for the AI value, beyond ±1 dBA deviation in the SMS should be avoided. However, as the open plan offices are much complicated than this model, achieving a tight range for the SPL uniformity of the sound masking system could not be realistic in most of the open plan offices. In this regard, more research should be done to find the necessity of defining tight tolerances and the effect of SPL variation of the masking sound on the speech inteligibility in open-plan offices.


identifier: Rappaport, Abbie "spoopy"  (2020) "Melee is Broken": Super Smash Bros. Melee: An Interdisciplinary Esports Ethnography.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This work presents a qualitative analysis of the esports community that plays and watches Super Smash Bros. Melee (SSBM), a platform-based fighting game released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2001. SSBM is unusual as an esport for the way that it is built on a grass-roots foundation shaped by players (rather than the game’s developers) and is contingent on the continued use of residual media objects, specifically the CRT television, Nintendo GameCube and Wii console coupled with the restraints of analog signal processing . SSBM players show particular dedication to dominant community practices like strict tournament rules and settings, shared use of dialect/nomenclatures, mode of play and so on,  which are derived from, embedded in, and reinforced by specific hardware and software objects. Competitive SSBM is salient case study for how a community of users can disrupt hardware and software developers’ initial ambitions for their products. The scene’s subversion of Nintendo’s intention for SSBM to be a casual party game (akin to their family-friendly Mario Party series) demonstrates how players can develop agonistic relationships to corporate power by developing their own community protocols out of the affordances and constraints of the material objects.  This thesis operates as an accessible bridge between academia and the SSBM esports community. Methodologically, I draw on auto-ethnography, networked community resources, and media archaeology. Accompanying the written work are various illustrations and designs that appeal to visual communities, offer alternative methods for narration, and contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of the argument through research-creation. Ultimately, this thesis weaves together scholarly research methods with creative practices to argue for SSBM’s unusual position as an esport structured by its players rather than its developers, and rooted in ostensibly obsolete hardware.


identifier: Hooshangitabrizi, Pedram  (2020) Scheduling, inventory management and production planning: Formulations and solution methods.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis presents formulations and solution methods for three types of problems in operations management that have received major attention in the last decade and arise in several applications. We focus on the use of mixed integer programming theory, robust optimization, and decomposition-based methods to solve each of these three problems.
We first study an online scheduling problem dealing with patients’ multiple requests for chemotherapy treatments. We propose an adaptive and flexible scheduling procedure capable of handling both the dynamic uncertainty arising from appointment requests that appear on waiting lists in real time and capable of dealing with unexpected changes. The proposed scheduling procedure incorporates several circumstances prevalent at oncology clinics such as specific intervals between two consecutive appointments and specific time slots and chairs. Computational experiments show the proposed procedure achieves consistently better results for all considered objective functions compared to those of the scheduling system in use at the cancer centre of a major metropolitan hospital in Canada.
We next present an inventory management problem that integrates perishability, demand uncertainty, and order modification decisions. We formulate the problem as a two-stage robust integer optimization model and develop an exact column-and-row generation algorithm to solve it. Based on computational results, we show that considering order modification can significantly reduce the total cost. Moreover, comparing the results obtained by the proposed robust model to those obtained from the deterministic and stochastic variants, we note that their performances are similar in the risk-neutral setting while solutions from the robust models are significantly superior in the risk-averse setting.
Finally, we study decomposition strategies for a class of production planning problems with multiple items, unlimited production capacity and, inventory bounds. Based on a new mixed integer programming formulation, we proposed a Lagrangian relaxation for the problem. We propose a deflected subgradient method and a stabilized column generation algorithm to solve the Lagrangian dual problem. Computational results confirm that the proposed formulation outperforms the previously proposed models and methods. Further analysis shows the impact of using decomposition techniques in providing tighter bounds.


identifier: Curran, William (Liam)  (2020) Advocating against the Tide Child welfare social workers responding to cases of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder(s) in Ireland: A Grounded Theory study.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis PeerReviewed

abstract:
In the early 1970s, clinical evidence emerged documenting the first direct causal links between prenatal alcohol exposure and children’s behaviors observed in child welfare services. Subsequently, the term Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder(s) (FASDs) was introduced to encompass the range of possible diagnoses associated with prenatal alcohol exposure. Although forty years have passed, FASDs remains in the margins of public health priorities. It is considered a widespread problem and is increasingly recognized across countries as a fiscal and social burden on society. A plethora of research exists documenting the direct effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on physical, cognitive and behavioral outcomes. However, few studies focus on the critical interface of children entering public care with an FASD, and the statutory requirement of Child Welfare Social Workers (CWSWs) to plan safe care. Applying a Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology, this doctoral research sought to document the voices of CWSWs about the manner in which they respond with this vulnerable cohort of children using methodology based on constructivist grounded theory. Eleven CWSWs, five allied health professionals and three foster parents comprised the study sample (n=18) and participated in in-depth interviews. Findings indicate that social workers are struggling in their mandated statuatory duty to offer plans of safe care for children with a FASD. Specific concepts in the data included struggling advocacy, professional positioning and lack of procedural guidance. CWSWs are in urgent need of a clear pathway and FASD informed knowledge to help guide their interventions and their capacity to advocate for this vulnerable population of children.
Keywords: CWSWs, constructivist grounded theory, statutory duty, FASDs, child welfare service.


identifier: Sharif Arani, Seyed Amirhosain  (2020) Optimizing energy performance of building renovation using traditional and machine learning approaches.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
International Energy Agency (IEA) studies show that buildings are responsible for more than 30% of the total energy consumption and an equally large amount of related greenhouse gas emissions. Improving the energy performance of buildings is a critical element of building energy conservation. Furthermore, renovating existing buildings envelopes and systems offers significant opportunities for reducing Life-Cycle cost (LCC) and minimizing negative environmental impacts. This approach can be considered as one of the key strategies for achieving sustainable development goals at a relatively low cost, especially when compared with the demolition and reconstruction of new buildings. One of the main methodological and technical issues of this approach is selecting a desirable renovation strategy among a wide range of available options.
The main motivation behind this research relies on trying to bridge the gap between building simulation, optimization algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, to take full advantage of the value of their couplings. Furthermore, for a whole building simulation and optimization, current simulation-based optimization models, often need thousands of simulation evaluations. Therefore, the optimization becomes unfeasible because of the computation time and complexity of the dependent parameters. To this end, one feasible technique to solve this problem is to implement surrogate models to computationally imitate expensive real building simulation models.
The aim of this research is three-fold: (1) to propose a Simulation-Based Multi-Objective Optimization (SBMO) model for optimizing the selection of renovation scenarios for existing buildings by minimizing Total Energy Consumption (TEC), LCC and negative environmental impacts considering Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA); (2) to develop surrogate Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) for selecting near-optimal building energy renovation methods; and (3) to develop generative deep Machine Learning Models (MLMs) to generate renovation scenarios considering TEC and LCC. This study considers three main areas of building renovation, which are the building envelope, Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system, and lighting system; each of which has a significant impact on building energy performance.
On this premise, this research initially develops a framework for data collection and preparation to define the renovation strategies and proposes a comprehensive database including different renovation methods. Using this database, different renovation scenarios can be compared to find the near-optimal scenario based on the renovation strategy. Each scenario is created from the combination of several methods within the applicable strategy. The SBMO model simulates the process of renovating buildings by using the renovation data in energy analysis software to analyze TEC, LCC, and LCA and identifies the near-optimal renovation scenarios based on the selected renovation methods. Furthermore, an LCA tool is used to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the final decision.
It is found that, although the proposed SBMO is accurate, the process of simulation is time consuming. To this end, the second objective focuses on developing robust MLMs to explore vast and complex data generated from the SBMO model and develop a surrogate building energy model to predict TEC, LCC, and LCA for all building renovation scenarios. The main advantage of these MLMs is improving the computing time while achieving acceptable accuracy. More specifically, the second developed model integrates the optimization power of SBMO with the modeling capability of ANNs. While, the proposed ANNs are found to provide satisfactory approximation to the SBMO model in a very short period of time, they do not have the capability to generate renovation scenarios.
Finally, the third objective focuses on developing a generative deep learning building energy model using Variational Autoencoders (VAEs). The proposed semi-supervised VAEs extract deep features from a whole building renovation dataset and generate renovation scenarios considering TEC and LCC of existing institutional buildings. The proposed model also has the generalization ability due to its potential to reuse the dataset from a specific case in similar situations.
The proposed models will potentially offer new venues in two directions: (1) to predict TEC, LCC, and LCA for different renovation scenarios, and select the near-optimal scenario, and (2) to generate renovation scenarios considering TEC and LCC. Architects and engineers can see the effects of different materials, HVAC systems, etc., on the energy consumption, and make necessary changes to increase the energy performance of the building. The proposed models encourage the implementation of sustainable materials and components to decrease negative environmental impacts. The ultimate impact of the practical implementation of this research is significant savings in buildings’ energy consumption and having more environmentally friendly buildings within the predefined renovation budget.


identifier: Bangert, Renita  (2020) "The Other Ganges": Genre-Blending in Journalistic Storytelling.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

format: text audio audio audio audio audio

abstract:
This research-creation thesis explores the practice of subjectivity in journalistic storytelling and the broader concept of “genre-blending” in research. “Genre-blending” is described here as the practice of creating work that reaches beyond the institutional limitations of artistic, professional, or academic work. This kind of work is an effective way to create a cultural archive and to expand the knowledge pool beyond its previous boundaries. Subjective practice in narrative journalism, particularly with stories that require a high level of empathy, allows for greater connection between journalist, interviewee, and audience. This research works within the audio medium – the case study for subjective practice is established in a “genre-blended” podcast series that situates the journalist as a character in the story they are building. The audio medium
is a prime candidate both for “genre-blending” and for subjective journalism due to both the increased intimacy afforded by the recorded human voice and to the long history of audio documentary on the radio and more recently in podcasting. The topic discussed in this research as a good candidate for subjective narrative reporting is immigration/immigrants. Other reporting topics that could benefit from purposefully subjective and emotional reporting include stories
surrounding other vulnerable populations, or stories that engage with “wicked problems” like climate change, which are easier for an audience to understand via person-to-person narratives.


identifier: Massahi, Samira  (2020) Candida albicans exhibits distinct cytoprotective responses to anti-fungal drugs that facilitate the evolution of drug resistance.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Candida albicans is both a human commensal and opportunistic pathogen. Nosocomial infections due to pathogenic C. albicans are the fourth l argest i n North America and carry significant socioeconomic burden. Systemic Candida i nfections of i mmune-compromised individuals are frequently l ethal even when treated optimally. Drug resistance i s sometimes due to the pre-existence of genetic polymorphisms that bypass the mode of action of the drug. In other cases, resistance i s acquired via the evolution of genetic polymorphisms. There is evidence that C. albicans possesses a drug tolerance response which “buys time” for individuals to gain such beneficial mutations. Our goal i s to characterize this poorly understood epigenetic cytoprotective program at the single cell molecular level. Our hypothesis i s that i ndividuals will respond differently to drug exposure. Some will not mount a sufficient epigenetic response and die, while others will survive using different pathways. We modified a single cell platform for the fungal setting and used it to transcriptionally profile thousands of treated and untreated cells at early (tolerance) and late (resistance) timepoints. Untreated populations exhibit multivariate epigenetic responses with individuals partitioning into distinct subpopulations, each with a unique survival strategy involving efflux pumps, chaperones, transport mechanisms, and cell wall maintenance. Cell imaging will be used to validate these observations. Whole genome DNA-sequencing will be used to determine i f there i s i ncreased i nstability during the tolerance phase. Targeting the tolerance response concomitantly with standard therapies could represent an efficient approach to ablating clinical persistence.


identifier: Lyons, Stephen  (2018) Rezoning the Alternative: Art and Politics in New York at the Dawn of the Reagan Era.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis studies the history of alternative art spaces in New York, with a particular focus on the changing use and understanding of the term “alternative” at the turn of the 1980s. Exploring the impact of New York’s 1975 fiscal crisis, funding cuts in the public sector, gentrification, and the professionalization of established alternative spaces on the formation of new forms of artists’ self-organization, this thesis reveals the brief period of 1978 to 1981 as a lynchpin in the history of alternative art in New York. Each chapter examines an identity crisis that began to emerge when the first wave of alternative art institutions that formed at the beginning of the 1970s was confronted by a second wave that was poised to replace it. Representatives of this second wave, which included Collaborative Projects, Inc. (1978-1985), Fashion Moda (1978-1993), Group Material (1980-1996), and Political Art Documentation/Distribution (1980-1988), railed in different ways: against the bureaucratization of existing alternative spaces (Chapter One); against the continued exclusion of racial and ethnic minorities (Chapter Two); against the widespread refusal of artists to engage in radical politics (Chapter Three); and against the complicity of alternative spaces in gentrification and displacement (Chapter Four). By examining how competing ideas of the “alternative” coexisted during this brief period of time, I expose the “alternative” as a site of contestation—an unstable keyword struggled over in art discourse and practice.

More broadly, this thesis asks how the austerity politics instituted in the aftermath of New York’s fiscal crisis left its trace on the organizational forms and institutional positions established in the New York art system at the turn of the 1980s. What marks of neoliberal ideology appeared before Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency of the United States? What assumptions guided artists and art critics working during this period—about the role of the alternative space, the position of the artist in society, and the potential for artists to act as agents of social change? Recovering the imprint of ideology on New York’s alternative art sphere during a moment affirmed by many artists, curators, critics, and politicians as “post-ideological,” this thesis charts the blind spots, limitations, and political consequences of ideals inherited from 1960s counterculture in the New York art system, as well as the unexpected convergence of these ideals and the nascent political imaginary of neoliberalism at the dawn of the Reagan era.


identifier: Gil, Leslie  (2020) Corrective Feedback to Second Language Learners of American Sign Language.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This study focused on the feedback practices that Deaf American Sign Language teachers used with hearing students, who are learning both a new second language (L2) and a new modality (signed versus spoken). Feedback is well-researched in the L2 teaching of spoken languages but is under-researched in sign languages, despite the growth in hearing adults’ enrollment in sign language courses (Bochner et al., 2011). Four introductory classes for university students taught by two instructors were observed for over 30 hours. An observation grid captured instances of feedback to handshape, movement, and place of articulation errors, challenging features for hearing students. The analyses examined types of feedback (based on Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) widely adopted categories), recourse to a spoken language (English) for explanations, and students’ responses (uptake) to the feedback. Teacher interviews probed perspectives on ASL acquisition, correction strategies and teaching philosophies. The findings revealed that, in contrast with research on spoken languages, i) reformulated utterances were the most common forms of feedback (direct corrections followed by recasts) and iii) students’ repetition of the reformulation was frequent. Prompts (elicitations and clarifications requests) and recourse to English were rare. The predominance of direct corrections is consistent with research on Australian sign language (Willoughby, Linder, Ellis and Fisher (2015), and adds new information on the efficacy of this type of feedback in terms of student responses. The results further our understanding of feedback in second language pedagogy in general, and point to several future directions for research on the teaching of signed languages.


identifier: Gomes, Tanha  (2020) Beyond White Walls: Anti-Racist Education in Art Museums.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This study examines how an art museum can become more inclusive of different cultural communities and why it is important that they do so. It suggests that public art institutions have a social responsibility towards citizens, including non-dominant communities and that they can play an active role in ending oppression of marginalized groups. Through the lens of critical multiculturalism, intersectionality and social justice theory, this case study closely examines the program and the role of art educators at the New New Yorkers at the Queens Museum in New York. By analyzing this multilingual arts program, designed for immigrants by immigrants and the various cultural communities surrounding the museum, my goal for this study is to assess the practices that propose creative alternatives through community engagement within (and beyond) the museum’s spaces, and apply this knowledge to my future experiences as a museum educator.


identifier: Devine, Sean ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0445-2763 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0445-2763>  (2020) Prevalence-induced Concept Change in Older Adults.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Prevalence-induced concept change describes a cognitive phenomenon whereby judgements about concepts shift as the prevalence of exemplars of that concept changes. For instance, in a task where people have to judge whether the colour of an ambiguously-coloured dot is blue or purple, if the frequency of objectively blue dots in the environment decreases,
people judge more dots to be blue than they did initially. While this phenomenon has been explored in young adults, it is unclear how it affects older adults. Past work suggests that older adults simultaneously rely less on internal representations, but that they also tend to perseverate more on cognitive tasks. Thus, the question arises: Do older adults outsource control and their
decisions become more susceptible to change or are they more rigid in their judgements than younger and resistant to prevalence-induced concept change?

In the current study, we explore how prevalence-induced concept change affects older adults’ lower-level, perceptual, and higher-order, ethical, decision-making. We find that older adults are less sensitive to prevalence-induced concept change than younger adults across both
domains. An exploratory analysis is conducted on response times to help elucidate the mechanism(s) underlying these differences. These analyses demonstrate that older adults respond more slowly than younger adults in both tasks. We offer two interpretations of this finding, both with implications for prevalence-induced concept change research more broadly: general slowing and/or a speed-accuracy trade-off. Overall, our results suggest that older adults’ judgements about concepts may be less flexible than younger adults’ when faced with a changing world.


identifier: Hogg, Norman  (2020) The Panarchy of pan-pan: Para-normal Investigations in the Neomedieval Cosmology.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Alongside documentation of the neomedieval exhibition and bookwork pan-pan, this paper advances a theory-fictional, para-academic methodology that speculates on the ‘modern’ and ‘medieval’ as mutually constitutive, temporally entangled worlds (a pancosmia) rather than developmental cultural stages set within an evolutionary timeframe. While much media attention has recently been given to the modern world’s apparent regression into a ‘post-truth’ condition, neomedievalism challenges the linear, bifurcating historicism that positions ‘the medieval’ as the primitive, base condition of ‘pre-truth’ from which a secular ‘age of reason’ evolved. If Eurocentric ‘enlightened’ modernity is taken to be the universally black-boxed ‘normal’ — wherein it is accepted that claims to objective ‘reality’ belong only to the domains of science-based reason — this paper speculates on the persistence of the ‘para-normal’ as a para-situated and multi-temporal ‘middle space’ wherein reality coalesces as oscillating, hyphenated assemblages of quasi-subjective and quasi-objective practicing entities (fiction-facts, thought-matters, medieval-modernities, person-objects etc.).

The hyphen glyph of research-creation is evoked throughout, not just as a linguistic device signifying a translation interface between two conceptual categories, but also as a material prosthesis, (an explorers stick, flagellum, probe or bridging tool) that enables the corporeal navigation and affective habituation of onto-generative spaces that exist in-between habitats — habitats hitherto regarded, under the modern classificatory episteme, as mutually excluding. Thus it is my non-bifurcating intention, not just to elucidate the academic reasoning behind the artistic creation of pan-pan’s speculative pancosmia, but to actively perform the hybridizing process of world-making through the actual making and hosting of alternate and alternating para-site worlds.


identifier: Farhad, Amiri Fard  (2019) Passive Energy Conservation Management in Retrofit Buildings: An Integrated Assessment-optimization Approach under Cost Uncertainty.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
A significant share of the total primary energy belongs to buildings. In many buildings, improving energy performance of buildings is of particular importance in new construction and existing buildings. Building refurbishment is considered a practical pathway towards energy efficiency as the replacement of older buildings is at a slow pace. There are various ways of incorporating energy conservation measures in buildings through refurbishment projects. In doing so, we have to choose among various passive or active measures. The energy usage can be significantly reduced by adopting passive measures. These methods might not need additional capital investment. An integrated building renovation approach, in which passive methods are implemented, can reduce the energy consumption of building, compensating the additional cost of new technologies.  This thesis aims at developing an integrated assessment-optimization framework to provide a decision support for prioritization and selection of building refurbishment measures with energy conservation potentials by considering the cost uncertainty.
Firstly, a literature review is carried out to ascertain the state of the art in the retrofit decisions in buildings at the presence of several decision criteria. possible and available passive measures are investigated and identified based on four energy control principles. Secondly, the analytic network process (ANP) is reviewed as a multiple criteria decision-making method capable of incorporating the interdependencies among decision criteria to arrive at an overall assessment (relative scores) for alternative retrofit measures. To incorporate uncertainties in formulating the initial cost of materials, a fuzzy set approach is adopted. Then, the scores resulted from the assessment phase are formulated a utility objective function to be maximized alongside the cost objective function(s) that are minimized.  The fuzzy numbers representing the cost uncertainties are incorporated into the cost objective function using alternative methods of graded mean integration, aggregate approach and interval approach. Various Solution approaches are then utilized for the multi-objective models to deal with the conflicting objectives including distance to ideal, compromise programming and goal programming. The cases of linear and integer assumptions about decision variables are investigated. The applicability of the proposed three-stage assessment-optimization approach under uncertainty is then illustrated through the case study of a typical building in order to verify its applicability and usefulness and the solution scenarios are explored and compared The proposed framework can assist decision makers in choosing the best passive measures in the planning phase of the building refurbishment addressing the complexities arising from multiplicity of feasible measures and their varied characteristics.Finally, in terms of the impact of the above research, it worth mentioning that 40% of final energy is used in buildings and the use of passive measures as a means of refurbishment for building stocks could create significant energy efficiency gains.


identifier: Shi, Yuyang  (2019) Environment-Based Design (EBD) Approach to Formalize Product-Service Systems (PSS) Design Process.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In the past decade, Product-Service Systems (PSS) have been adopted by companies as a business model that can fulfill customers’ needs better, enhance market competitiveness and achieve sustainability. PSS integrates tangible product and intangible service in different ratio, which makes its design process complicated. However, in the design discipline, there has not been enough discussion for the methodological implications of PSS design, even though design components play a critical role in the development of PSS. In this thesis, a systematic approach — Environment Based Design (EBD) methodology is applied to formalize the PSS design process, focuses on analyzing the environment components and their relationships. The comparison between EBD and the conventional PSS design methodologies are conducted. A PSS life cycle model generated according to the EBD analysis is proposed in order to help designers respond quickly to changes from the environment along the whole life cycle. The benefits resulted from EBD based PSS design process are discovered. A case study of elevator PSS design reveals the effectiveness, efficiency and the benefits of EBD methodology.


identifier: Cole, Emily  (2020) The Development of an Object-Recognition Task for Rats and the Evaluation of the Internal Validity of the Novel-Object-Preference Test.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Object-recognition—the ability to discriminate the familiarity of previously presented stimuli—is assessed in laboratory rats using the delayed nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS) task and the novel-object-preference (NOP) test. The DNMS task provides a fairly precise measure of a rat’s object-recognition abilities, however, it suffers from certain drawbacks. In particular, rats require extensive training and it cannot be used to assess memory for objects following periods lasting longer than several minutes. For these reasons, most researchers have abandoned it in favour of the NOP test. The NOP test is easy to use, as it relies on measuring a rat’s natural tendency to spend more time investigating a novel object over a familiar one when both are presented in a familiar context. Some concerns have been raised, however, regarding the internal validity of the NOP test. Accordingly, the goal of the present thesis was to develop a new object-recognition task that addresses the known limitations of the existent tests. A secondary goal of the thesis was to evaluate rats’ performance on the new task to that on the NOP test as a means to validate the latter. The first experiment describes rats’ performance on the new task –the modified DNMS (mDNMS) task. Rats required significantly fewer trials to learn the nonmatching rule compared to conventional DNMS tasks, and their scores showed good test re-test reliability. The same rats’ exhibited significant novelty-preference scores on the NOP test, however their scores showed poor test re-test reliability and were not significantly correlated with mDNMS scores. The latter finding suggests that the two tasks may not tax similar underlying cognitive processes. In the experiment presented in Chapter 3, memory for objects was assessed following delays lasting 72 hr, 3 weeks, and ~45 weeks on both the mDNMS task and NOP test. Rats successfully discriminated between novel and sample objects on the mDNMS task following all three delays, however, the same rats failed to exhibit significant novelty preferences following all three delays on the NOP test. These findings reveal that the mDNMS task can be used to assess long-term memory for objects, and that a failure to exhibit a novelty preference may not necessarily reflect the status of object-recognition memory. Next, we assessed rats’ performance on the mDNMS task and NOP test following surgical lesions made to either the hippocampus (HPC) or perirhinal cortex (PRh)—two brain areas implicated in object-recognition memory. Neither HPC nor PRh lesions failed to disrupt performance on the mDNMS task, but rats with PRh lesions failed to display a novelty preference on the NOP test. The discrepancy in the PRh rats’ performance on both tasks further adds to concerns regarding the internal validity of the NOP test, such that a lack of novelty preference is not necessarily indicative of an object-recognition memory impairment. The final experiment focused on refining the mDNMS task to include an additional behavioural measure—latency to make a choice. We incorporated a Go/No-go procedure and found that latency to make a choice provided a more sensitive measure of object-recognition memory than choice-accuracy on the test. Collectively, these findings confirmed the utility of the mDNMS task as a means to gauge object-recognition memory in rats. The results also highlight the limitations of the NOP test, and raise concerns regarding the internal validity of it as a means to measure object-recognition abilities in rats.


identifier: Jangra, Raman  (2020) Characterization of the EPF family of signaling peptides controlling stomatal development in monocots.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Stomata are pores on plant epidermis which control water and gas exchanges between plants and the atmosphere. These two processes are very crucial for adaptation against environmental changes and photosynthesis process which increases biomass of a plant. As such, proper density and distribution of stomata are critical for plant growth and survival. In Arabidopsis, several Epidermal Patterning Factor (EPF) family members of small cysteine-rich peptides have been discovered as important signaling molecules that possess diverse functions in controlling plant development, including stomatal patterning and differentiation. EPF1 and EPF2, released from stomatal precursor cells, enforces stomatal spacing divisions and inhibits initiation of stomatal cell lineage, respectively. They are known as negative regulators of stomata development. STOMAGEN/EPFL9, on the other hand, being a positive regulator promotes stomatal differentiation in the epidermis and expressed in the underlying mesophyll tissues. Although much is known about Dicots’ EPFs, how EPF peptides control different stomatal patterns and morphologies exist in grasses remains unclear.
In this study, we searched for stomatal EPF homologs in other agriculturally important cereal crops using a bioinformatics followed by functional genomics studies. Our phylogenetic analysis revealed that there are genes encoding putative EPFs including stomatal EPFs, EPF1, EPF2, and STOMAGEN, in each of the grass species examined. To understand the roles of EPF peptides in grass stomatal development, we generated estradiol inducible overexpression lines for both wheat and Brachypodium EPF1, EPF2 and STOMAGEN homologous genes in Arabidopsis. It resulted in identification of antagonistic stomatal ligands, which are duplicated ortholog of Arabidopsis AtEPF2 and AtSTOMAGEN peptides, in the wheat and Brachypodium.
We further investigated the behavior of AtEPF1/2-like genes from wheat and Brachypodium in the regulation of epidermal development by analyzing cross-species complementation studies followed by phenotypic effects of exogenously applied bioactive grass EPF peptides on Brachypodium wild type seedlings, Bd21-3. Application of bioactive BdEPF1/2 peptides inhibited the stomatal initiation process in Bd21-3, whereas BdSTOMAGEN application promoted stomatal development in Bd21-3, resulting in an epidermis with clustered stomata.
Overall, the present study furthers our knowledge on conserved EPF peptides which controls different stomatal patterns that exist in nature and provides putative strategies to improve crop productivity by using plant-derived antagonistic peptides that optimize stomatal density on plant epidermis.


identifier: Chernij, Carlos  (2020) On the value of pageviews as proxies for audience interest in news: A Relevance Theory approach.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis discusses the common assumption that the quantity of pageviews a news article gets is proportional to the audience’s interest in its topic. It proposes instead that the decision to click on a headline is directly proportional to the interest in the topic it suggests, and inversely proportional to the cognitive effort required to find a personal context in which the expected information is likely to be useful. The theoretical linkage between these three concepts is established by the application of Sperber and Wilson’s (1986/1995) Relevance Theory. The validity of the hypothesis is discussed by fitting the observations made by Kormelink and Meijer (2018) regarding audience members’ rationales for clicking or not clicking on a news article, and by Boczkowski and Mitchelstein (2013) regarding the gap between editors’ and audiences’ content choices. It also suggests further applications of Relevance Theory in Journalism Studies, particularly concerning the development of metrics and key performance indicators for news analytics.


identifier: St. Georges, Darlene  (2020) Embodied Landscapes: A Creation-Research Indigenous Métissage.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Embodied Landscapes: A Creation-Research Indigenous Métissage (EL) is a self-study inquiry about identity and subjectivity fostered by the seed of my research journey of retrieving my Métis identity. It is a storying journey through entrenched notions of identity and identity politics in a  Canadian colonial context. EL is a creation story that moves through the experiential forces of subjectivity by using a creation-based Indigenous métissage spiral (IM Spiral). This inquiry approach is rooted in Indigenous epistemologies and creative and literary research practices of poetic inquiry, métissage, and artmaking. I use my own photos, images, poems, and stories for weaving, mixing, and layering artistic assemblages. EL values knowledge embedded in and generated from experiences, memories, intuitions, dreams, visions, and ancestral wisdom, and recognizes being, as in-motion and relational.
	EL contains hyperlinks to a creative productionEmbodied Landscapes: Digital Exhibit (ELDE). The two components are synthesized through a métissage of embodied personal and sociopolitical complexities, challenges, and expression. Through discussion, presentation, and engagement with the viewer/reader, EL and ELDE reveal an approach to inquiry, living curriculum (Aoki, 2005), and pedagogy rooted in relationships and in ways of being, knowing, doing, and learning with/in creation itself.
	ELDE encompasses theories and methods that invoke an interplay among theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks. The Spiral sets in motion my Self evolution through forward, backward, inward, and outward movements, around and through realms of experience. This evokes a multi-textural dialogue propelling my being as an historical subject, a community member, a researcher, an artist, a poet, a teacher, and a Métis woman. Subjective experiences, memories, and reflections of my research journey culminate with emerging pedagogical values and are discussed in context of inspiriting the arts curriculum.
	This thesis addresses the contemporary Canadian controversy over Métis identity. It critically explores the role that subjectivity plays in identification, self-understanding, learning, and ways of being and living in the world. It offers a creation-research approach and a means of exploring Self as a site of inquiry.


identifier: Shore, Amanda  (2020) Towards a Pedagogy of Solidarity: Uprooting Traditions of Racial Plagiarism and Cultural Appropriation at Camp Ahmek.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Since the turn of the 20th century stolen Indigenous objects, stories, songs, and symbols have proliferated in the North American camping sector, and white-settler camp educators have enabled this appropriation of Indigenous land and culture. This research examines strategies used by camp educators to dispose of racialized costumes and uproot traditions of cultural appropriation and racial plagiarism. With Camp Ahmek as my case study, I examine strategies used by camp staff to repatriate costumes and props as they work to dismantle racialized traditions of make believe. I highlight Indigenous educators over the last century who have worked in summer camps, and acted with agency to safeguard cultural practices. I trace the rate of change, the patterns of curricular reform, and the success of interventions in order to understand the broader phenomenon of cultural appropriation. Ultimately, I conclude that cultural appropriation is a complex process of intellectual and cultural theft, which resists intervention and persists in many material and immaterial forms. Correspondingly, it requires an equally complex, long-term commitment to decolonizing practices directed by Indigenous educators.


identifier: Liang, Ruo  (2020) Production Planning in Remanufacturing Systems with Uncertain Component Processing Time.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Today’s manufacturing industries in many countries have developed systematic product recovery, remanufacturing and recycling procedures in an environmentally supportive manner to release the regulatory pressure as well as to achieve economic benefit. This thesis presents a mixed integer programming model addressing production planning problems in hybrid system of manufacturing and remanufacturing. The objective of solving the mathematical model is to minimize the total cost based on the optimal quantity of new items to manufacture and the optimal quantity of returned products to remanufacture in each period of the planning horizon. The proposed model has a distinctive feature that considers the uncertainty of remanufacturing time for the same type of returned products. A new heuristic solution method, similar to Silver-Meal heuristic for solving traditional lot-sizing problems, is developed to solve the considered production planning problems in hybrid manufacturing-remanufacturing systems is developed in this thesis. The developed heuristic is examined using various example problems generated in three dimensions (problem size, returned products quantity and category quantity). The results show that it can generate optimal or close-to-optimal solutions for all tested example problems with much reduced computational time. The model and the solutions were analyzed and sensitive analysis is conducted to investigate the performance of the developed model and solution method.


identifier: Huang, Ho Ying  (2020) Photoactive Nanofibers Embedded with Lanthanide Nanoparticles for Wound Dressing.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Chronic wounds are difficult to treat, require frequent changing of dressings and are slow to heal. Inflammatory status persists in chronic wounds because they are associated with fluids that impair cell growth. Electrospun poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) fibers are proven effective at absorbing excess fluid from wounds. Appropriate drugs can also be embedded in such fibers for release into wounds via diffusion to accelerate wound healing. However, to better control the release of antiinflammatory drugs into wounds, controlled drug delivery mechanisms are required.

The goal of this project is to use the unique properties of upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) to trigger drug release from electrospun fibers. These nanoparticles absorb near-infrared radiation and emit UV-radiation via an upconversion process. Since the UCNPs are born to have oleates on their surface, a variety of hydrophilic coatings have been screened to stabilize the UCNPs in an aqueous environment. Furthermore, our triggering mechanism relies on the sensitivity of onitrobenzyl (ONB) linkages towards the UV light emitted by the UCNPs. Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) was were conjugated through the photo-labile ONB molecules with levofloxacin, an antimicrobial drug whose release can be controlled via exposure of the UCNPs to infrared light. Preliminary drug release tests have shown that the drug conjugated ONB molecules can be cleaved by UV light and by the emission of UCNPs upon excitation with near-infrared light. The photolabile conjugated drug (hvL-PEG) and UCNPs were embedded in electrospun and crosslinked PVA fibers as a model system for a wound healing dressing. The UCNP/hvL-PEG electrospun fibers show high antibacterial activity against the Gram-positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli.


identifier: Zhang, Naiyuan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7620-8842 <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7620-8842>  (2020) Clutter Suppression in Ultrasound: Performance Evaluation of Low-Rank and Sparse Matrix Decomposition Methods.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Vessel diseases are often accompanied by abnormalities related to vascular shape and size. Therefore, a clear visualization of vasculature is of high clinical significance. Ultrasound Color Flow Imaging (CFI) is one of the prominent techniques for flow visualization. However, clutter signals originating from slow-moving tissue is one of the main obstacles to obtain a clear view of the vascular network. Enhancement of the vasculature by suppressing the clutters is an essential step for many applications of ultrasound CFI. In this thesis, we focus on a state-of-art algorithm framework called Decomposition into Low-rank and Sparse Matrices (DLSM) framework for ultrasound clutter suppression.
Currently, ultrasound clutter suppression is often performed by Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the data matrix, which is a branch of eigen-based filtering. This approach exhibits two well-known limitations. First, the performance of SVD is sensitive to the proper manual selection of the ranks corresponding to clutter and blood subspaces. Second, SVD is prone to failure in the presence of large random noise in the data set. A potential solution to these issues is the use of DLSM framework. SVD, as a means for singular values, is also one of the widely used algorithms for solving the minimization problem under the DLSM framework. Many other algorithms under DLSM avoid full SVD and use approximated SVD or SVD-free ideas which may have better performance with higher robustness and lower computing time due to the expensive computational cost of full SVD. In practice, these models separate blood from clutter based on the assumption that steady clutter represents a low-rank structure and the moving blood component is sparse.
In this thesis, we exploit the feasibility of exploiting low-rank and sparse decomposition schemes, originally developed in the field of computer vision, in ultrasound clutter suppression. Since ultrasound images have different texture and statistical properties compared to images in computer vision, it is of high importance to evaluate how these methods translate to ultrasound CFI. We conduct this evaluation study by adapting 106 DLSM algorithms and validating them against simulation, phantom and in vivo rat data sets.
The advantage of simulation and phantom experiments is that the ground truth vessel map is known, and the advantage of the in vivo data set is that it enables us to test algorithms in a realistic setting. Two conventional quality metrics, Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Contrast-to-Noise Ratio (CNR), are used for performance evaluation. In addition, computation times required by different algorithms for generating the clutter suppressed images are reported. Our extensive analysis shows that the DLSM framework can be successfully applied to ultrasound clutter suppression.


identifier: Giovanni, Ambre  (2020) Repenser le journalisme à travers la narration interactive.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Après avoir présenté les difficultés rencontrées par le journalisme traditionnel dans un contexte de bouleversements multiples, cette Recherche-Création montre en quoi l’engagement du public est un nouveau facteur à intégrer au sein des médias. Elle souligne ensuite les raisons pour lesquelles cette nouvelle réalité est prise en considération par la narration interactive, les caractéristiques de cette dernière ainsi que les nouveaux acteurs qu’elle met en relation. La réalisation d’un prototype de plateforme interactive permet également d’obtenir un support pédagogique destiné aux étudiants en journalisme. Enfin, le développement des propres réflexions de l’auteure de ce travail sont exposées à la fin.


identifier: Arezi, Newsha  (2020) Rational Design and Development of Dual location Dual Stimuli-Responsive Polymeric Nanocarriers for Drug Delivery.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Design and development of smart nano-sized delivery devices for controlled drug release in response to endogenous stimuli (such as acidic pH and glutathione (GSH)) inherently found in tumor tissue is a promising platform in tumor-targeting nanomedicine. This platform allows for the maximization of therapeutic efficacy whilst reducing unwanted off-target side effects. Particularly, polymeric nanocarriers self-assembled from amphiphilic block copolymers (ABCP) have gained significant attention due of their size tunability and enhanced colloidal stability. Well-controlled ABCPs enable the formation of core-shell micelles in aqueous solutions having hydrophobic cores, enabling the physical entrapment of hydrophobic anticancer drugs, surrounded with hydrophilic coronas. Further, an incorporation of stimuli-responsive degradable (SRD) linkages in ABCPs allows for controlled micelle degradation and drug release at the site of action.
In this research, a dual location dual stimuli-responsive degradation (DL-DSRD) strategy is explored as a versatile platform for intracellular tumor-targeting drug delivery. Two ABCPs exhibiting dual acidic pH/reduction-responsive degradation are studied. The self-assembled ABCPs form colloidally stable nanoassemblies showing synergistically rapid release of encapsulated doxorubicin (a clinically used anticancer drug) at pH = 5.4 in 10 mM GSH solution caused by the cleavage of acid-labile and disulfide linkages. In addition, a new approach utilizing carbonylimidazole-hydroxyl coupling chemistry is explored to synthesize reduction-degradable poly(carbonate-disulfides) labeled with disulfide linkage on the backbones. They possess multi-functionalities as well as tunable and rapid reductive-degradation through main-chain degradation mechanism. Further, the versatility of the approach is demonstrated with the synthesis of an amphiphilic triblock copolymer exhibiting DL-DSRD responses.
Overall, the results obtained through this research contribute to the advancement of current understanding and helps guide the design of improved SRD-exhibiting ABCP-based drug delivery nanocarriers.


identifier: Essis-Breton, Nicolas  (2020) Efficient Probabilistic Pricing Algorithms for Multiple Exercise Options.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis presents
efficient probabilistic
algorithms
for the pricing
of multiple exercise options.
The algorithms
handle the large class of
of constrained
multiple exercise American options.
Two algorithms are presented.
Single Pass Lookahead Search
provides a lower estimate
of an option price,
while
Nearest-Neighbor Martingale
provides
an upper estimate.
The convergence
of the algorithms
is proved
through
a Vapnik-Chernovenkis dimension analysis.
Their efficiency
is illustrated
on several examples,
including
a swing option with four constraints,
and a passport option
with 16 constraints.
The algorithms
are also applied
to the pricing
of equity-linked product
offering a reinvestment option.