identifier: Thomson, Ashley  (2013) Phylogeography, introgression, and population structure of the eastern North American birches Betula alleghaniensis, B. papyrifera, and B. lenta.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This study examines phylogeography, population genetics, and introgression in birches (Betula spp.) of eastern North America with a specific focus on B. papyrifera Marsh., B. alleghaniensis Britt., and B. lenta L. Betula papyrifera (2n=56, 70, 84)occupies a wide variety of habitats across the transcontinental boreal zone and into northeastern temperate forests. Betula alleghaniensis (2n=84) is a mesophytic species occurring from southeastern Canada and New England to the southern Appalachians. Betula lenta (2n=28) is endemic to the Appalachian region of the United States, where it occurs primarily on moist, cool sites. Phylogeographic analyses based on chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) markers were used for inferring locations of glacial refugia and patterns of post-glacial migration. Nuclear microsatellite markers were used for investigating
allelic richness, gene diversity, and genetic structure of populations of each species. The haplotype sharing among species was examined to elucidate patterns of cpDNA
introgression, and nuclear microsatellite allele sharing was investigated to determine the incidence of nuclear genomic introgression. The cpDNA analyses revealed phylogeographic structuring of eastern and western populations of B. alleghaniensis and B. papyrifera suggesting postglacial colonization from separate refugia. The geographically structured patterns of regional cpDNA haplotype sharing between B. alleghaniensis and B. papyrifera suggest widespread introgression between species during the postglacial recolonization. In contrast, cpDNA markers were monomorphic in B. lenta and no haplotype sharing between B. lenta and other species were detected. Nuclear  microsatellite data revealed low levels of population genetic substructure in each of the species with significant differentiation at larger spatial scales due to isolation by
distance. The low level of population differentiation over relatively long distances probably reflects the long distance pollen and seed dispersal of these species. The
analysis of nuclear microsatellite allele-sharing revealed that despite moderate to high proportions of shared alleles, each of the species was significantly genetically
differentiated. No strong evidence of genetic introgression was found for B. alleghaniensis and B. lenta, or B. papyrifera and B. lenta. Admixture proportions were
higher between B. alleghaniensis and B. papyrifera in the western Great Lakes, which is a previously-documented zone of hybridization based on the occurrence of morphological
intermediates.


identifier: Tabri, Nassim  (2013) Does university students' attachment to their social class background promote their expectations of moving up the social class hierarchy?  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract:
Research on social class in higher education indicates that students with a lower social class background are less integrated in the university setting (Rubin, 2012), have
poorer academic outcomes (e.g., Walpole, 2003), and lower expectations of social mobility (Jetten et al., 2008). The novelty of the present research is that students’ social
class background was conceptualized in terms of a collective identity (Ashmore et al., 2004) that may have beneficial consequences. The present research demonstrated that university students’ social class background is a meaningful aspect of the self involving attachment (a sense of belonging to one’s class background), private regard(feeling good about one’s class background), and public regard (perceptions of how much others value one’s class background). On the basis of attachment theory (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007), it was theorized that students’ attachment to their social class background is a psychological resource that promotes exploration and success, which would be reflected in their greater integration in the university milieu and their greater expectations of upward class mobility via their studies. As expected, in Study 1(N = 959), working and middle class students’ greater attachment to their class background was associated with greater belonging in the student community as well as with greater expectations of upward mobility. Attachment to one’s class background was distinct from private and public regard for one’s class background, as well as from attachment to parents and friends, and from perceived support from parents. In Studies 2 and 3 (total N = 298), the salience of attachment to and private regard for one’s class background were manipulated. As expected, students in the attachment condition reported greater expectations of mobility relative to students in the private regard condition. The findings
are discussed with regards to prior research on social class, the social identity model of identity change, and the origins of attachment to one’s social class background.


identifier: de Montigny, Julia  (2013) Negotiating Everyday Spaces, Making Places: Queer & Trans* Youth in Montréal.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis qualitatively maps the spatial experiences of queer and trans* youth in Montréal by relying on community-based research with Project 10, a local Montréal community organization that supports LGBTQ youth. The purpose of this thesis is to address the particular social and spatial exclusions that young queer and trans* people face, and to highlight the ways they seek, access and build safer spaces for themselves. The research examines the spatial experiences of a largely Anglophone group of queer and trans* youth between the ages of 15 and 18 years of age by relying on data collected through a focus group, semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The thesis begins by reviewing the literature on queer geographies, children’s and youth geographies, and cultural studies on queer and trans* youth. Next, reflections on the complex experience of conducting research with a community organization are presented. The empirical chapters examine the multiple identities of the queer and trans* youth participants; how they negotiate their presence in everyday spaces such as the home, school and public spaces of the city; and how they create spaces for themselves through relationships, virtual spaces, and community organizations, particularly Project 10. In these chapters I present their particular stories, reflect on how their unique embodiments inform their experiences and consider the intersections between their identities. I argue that while queer and trans* youth face significant spatial exclusions in everyday environments, they find ways to negotiate these exclusions and to participate in and create meaningful places for themselves. Their spatial experiences, therefore, provide insights into how positive spaces for queer and trans* youth may be created, fostered and made most meaningful.


identifier: Ayati, Ehsan  (2013) Quantitative Cost of Quality Model in Manufacturing Supply Chain.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In the present business environment where quality is a key factor and customer expectation of quality is ever-changing, measuring Cost of Quality (COQ) seems to be a critical factor for organizations in order to keep or grow their market share.  However, until now the COQ has been measured almost exclusively only internally, i.e. within a company, while the role of a supply chain in delivering quality product to end users has been ignored. In this thesis we argue that all the entities within supply chain affect the quality of a product or a service and their quality related activities should thus be inevitably considered. Incorporating all the quality related costs of the supply chain entities into the COQ measurement will create a powerful measure of improvement in an organization. The objective of this research is to develop a mathematical model to estimate COQ as key performance measurement within manufacturing supply chain while considering quality Excellency status. Using classic PAF (Prevention-Appraisal-Failure) model classification to develop mathematical model and its integration with significant variables in supply chain entities are the key methodology in this work. Perceived quality is assumed as an appropriate definition of quality in manufacturing supply chain. Moreover, proposed model is examined against real time quality cost data of manufacturing supply chain in two intervals, first at quality immaturity period and then at quality maturity period. Statistical tools are used to validate the model and compare its behavior in the two intervals. The results are then analyzed and discussed, and possible future works are presented.


identifier: Gagnon, Claudia  (2013) Le jeu vidéo comme modèle de légitimation de la localisation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
RÉSUMÉ

Le jeu vidéo comme modèle de légitimation de la localisation

Claudia Gagnon

Par ce travail, nous cherchons à disséquer la localisation, à mettre de l’avant sa composition, d’abord comme processus, et ensuite en tant que domaine professionnel, afin de favoriser sa compréhension et sa légitimation. De par sa nature numérique qui la lie aux plateformes technologiques et parce qu’elle est la solution communicationnelle internationale la plus représentative de notre époque, il nous semble injustifié que la localisation soit encore méconnue des domaines professionnels et universitaires. Bien qu’elle soit essentielle à la distribution d’un produit et, qu’en ce sens, elle représente une clé de la progression économique, la localisation reste souvent, à la manière de l’invisibilité du traducteur, sous-entendue ou oubliée. L’interdisciplinarité typique de la localisation et le flou de ses définitions qui semblent entraver sa reconnaissance nous ont amenée à vouloir expliquer son rôle dans la réalité de l’industrie du jeu vidéo, plus précisément à Ubisoft Montréal. D’un côté, le fort capital symbolique associé à l’objet culturel du jeu vidéo et la prépondérance de la communauté de joueurs internationale sauraient donner la visibilité au domaine de la localisation; de l’autre, l’agencement technique et narratif du jeu vidéo instituerait une vaste étendue d’éléments à étudier, évoquant la complexité de la localisation.

Mots-clés : localisation, légitimation, interdisciplinarité, jeu vidéo, technologies, économie, distribution, communauté.

_ _ _

ABSTRACT

Video Game as a Model of Legitimation of Localization

Claudia Gagnon

It is our intention with this work to unpack and analyze the concept of localization, and to bring to the fore its composition, first as a process and then as a professional domain and discipline in its own right, in order to help cultivate its understanding and legitimation. Its digital nature, its relation to technological platforms and the fact that it is most representative of the international communication solutions of our time would seem to warrant a more comprehensive understanding of localization, which still remains unfamiliar and misunderstood by many professionals and academics. Essential for the distribution of products, and as such representing a key element of economic growth, localization often remains, like the translator’s invisibility, implied or forgotten. Localization’s inherent interdisciplinarity, compounded with the lack of clarity of its definitions seem to hinder its recognition. These reasons have motivated us to choose to explain its role in terms of the reality of the video game industry, specifically at Ubisoft Montréal. On the one hand, the strong symbolic capital associated with video game as a cultural object and the preponderance of the international community of players can potentially give visibility to the field of localization; on the other hand, the technical and narrative configuration of video games furnishes us with a long list of elements able to be scrutinized and studied, which suggests the complexity of localization.

Key words: localization, legitimation, interdisciplinarity, video game, technologies, economy, distribution, community.


identifier: Wong, Alan  (2013) “Between Rage and Love”: Disidentifications Among Racialized, Ethnicized, and Colonized Allosexual Activists in Montreal.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This dissertation is an interdisciplinary analysis of activists in contemporary Montreal whose bodies are marked by the intersections of sexuality, race, ethnicity, colonization, gender, and class. I apply José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of disidentification, as read through Giorgio Agamben’s conceptualization of “whatever being,” to life story interviews collected from eight activists as well as to my own life narrative in order to interrogate and explore our construction of singular spaces—disidentificatory spaces—for ourselves. Within these spaces, we discover meaningful ways to belong without subjecting ourselves to the discursive demands of identification or non-identification. By focusing my study on three institutional aspects of our lives—family, citizenship, and activism—I show how our histories provide us with citations that disrupt the dominant narratives that aim to structure our lives in increasingly invasive, oppressive, and violent ways. In this respect, Montreal is an intriguing site for such disruptions to take place: a multicultural city in the North/West built on colonized land wherein sexual rights and freedoms commingle with language and nationalist politics to become a constant source of tension among its denizens. Thus, I argue that an expression of affect and emotion produced within a disidentifactory space is vital for minoritized subjects to negotiate this messiness, for disidentification itself is a messy process. I conclude by demonstrating that engaging with this messy process is necessary to the production of new forms of sociality, laying the path to a hopeful future that Muñoz calls “queer utopia.


identifier: Rossy, Katherine  (2013) Forgotten Agents in a Forgotten Zone: German Women under French Occupation in Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1949.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
By the spring of 1945, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and France commenced the difficult task of restoring order to a continent that had witnessed unprecedented death and destruction at the hands of the Nazis. This task proved to be most arduous in post-Nazi Germany, where aerial bombings, mass rape and endemic hunger created inherently gendered experiences of defeat and occupation for a civilian population in which women largely outnumbered men.
     As the occupation took shape, the Soviet, British and American Military Governments granted German women in their Zones a relative degree of social and political agency by sanctioning women’s activities and organizations. The French Zone, on the other hand, one that has come to be known as the 'forgotten Zone' in postwar historiography, did not follow suit.
     The lack of French occupation policy toward German women disempowered them in the public sphere, where the failure of denazification and cultural imperialist policies and the absence of sanctioned women’s agencies stripped women of their agency altogether. Postwar depopulation anxieties and Gaullist ambitions of French ‘grandeur’ soon led to reforms in post-Liberation family and immigration policy, furthermore. Designed to reconstruct the ideal 'French race' along the lines of race, gender and nationalism, the French Zone became the base of a contentious repatriation program that radically subverted German motherhood.
     By charting the interaction between German women and French occupation policy- or often lack thereof- this dissertation charts the ways in which women under French occupation were socially and politically marginalized within the broader context of the other Allies’ occupations policies. In other words, it excavates the lost narrative of forgotten agents in a forgotten Zone between 1945 and 1949.


identifier: Khorsand Sourkohi, Behnoush  (2013) Development of stimuli-responsive degradable block copolymer micelles as smart drug delivery nanocarriers.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Polymer-based drug delivery systems offer the potential to increase the bioavailability of drug molecules without leaving toxic byproducts in the body. In particular, micellar aggregates based on amphiphilic block copolymers (ABPs) consisting of a hydrophobic core and a hydrophilic corona can enable the physical encapsulation of poorly water-soluble drugs. These micelles possess several advantages as drug delivery carriers due to their colloidal stability and tunable sizes with narrow size distribution. In addition, their physicochemical properties and small size enable passive tumor targeting through the enhanced permeability and retention effect. Also their chemical flexibility allows them to be tailored for active targeting. One additional benefit of using ABP-based micelles is that they can be engineered to incorporate stimuli-responsive moieties to control release of encapsulated drugs as a result of micellar degradation in response to external triggers such as pH, thiols and temperature. With this knowledge, ABP micelles can be designed with the ability to respond to stimuli that are inherently present in living systems and release their payload before being evacuated from the body. Presence of pH and redox gradients within the body makes them ideal stimuli in the design and development of stimuli-responsive degradable micelles for controlled release of therapeutics.
For better understanding of the structure-property relationship between morphological variance and stimuli-responsive degradation, we have developed new pH-sensitive degradable micelles having pendant t-butyl groups, as well as reductively degradable ABP micelles with single disulfide linkages positioned in the center of  triblock copolymers, or with pendant disulfides positioned on the hydrophobic block. They were synthesized by atom transfer radical polymerization, a dynamic controlled radical polymerization method enabling the synthesis of copolymers with narrow molecular weight distributions and pre-determined molecular weights. Aqueous self-assembly of ABPs resulted in colloidally stable spherical micelles capable of encapsulating hydrophobic model drugs at above critical micellar concentration. Various analytical methods were used to characterize ABPs and their micelles. The resulting micelles in aqueous solutions were destabilized in response to acidic conditions or reductive conditions, which suggests the possibility of enhanced release of encapsulated compounds. Results show that degradable ABPs of varying architectures and designs, upon the proper stimuli, will be dissociated at different rates, leading to a wide range of morphologies and sustained release rates of the encapsulated molecules.


identifier: Edwards, Gwyneth  (2013) The Influence of CEO Narratives in Organizational Path Dependence.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: CEOs have long been considered the grand architects of firm strategy. Research not only supports their pivotal role in strategy making, but also suggests that CEOs directly influence outcomes of strategy. CEOs are often blamed for corporate failure and credited for corporate success. What is less clear is how CEOs influence strategy. Although research attributes the CEO’s influence on performance to demographics, personality and previous experience, how a CEO influences the firm’s strategic trajectory over time is less clear. -- This research investigates the role of CEO strategy narratives on the firm’s trajectory. Grounded in organizational path dependence theory, the thesis analyzes how CEO narratives, produced for both internal and external consumption, influence strategic direction. -- Organizational path dependence theory argues that the future is influenced by the past and that, over time, through a series of incremental decisions, options are reduced and outcomes are constrained. Core to the argument is the theorized existence of rent-seeking self-reinforcing social processes that may eventually lead the organization towards rigidity and an inefficient locked-in organizational state. -- Narrative in strategy is considered a primary means of sensemaking for organizational stakeholders. Narratives both represent and construct organizational reality by giving meaning to the past and setting expectations of the future, while creating and reinforcing organizational identity through the communication of norms, values, and beliefs. Strategy narratives focus on creating a discourse of direction to represent the past and influence the behaviour of organizational members. -- This thesis joins theory on organizational path dependence and strategy narratives to investigate the influence of CEO narratives on strategic lock-in. Through a historical document analysis, the thesis presents a case study of a Canadian-based multinational firm (Nortel) using strategy texts authored by the company’s four Chief Executive Officers from 2002 to 2010. The texts include public documents (shareholder letters, news releases, media articles, and analyst conference calls) along with a unique data set consisting of 168 CEO all-employee emails. -- Findings indicate that, collectively, CEO narratives act as a self-reinforcing process that encourages the adoption of other firm-level processes. CEO narratives represent a discourse of direction and a discourse of behaviour, to encourage both the understanding of firm strategy and the implementation of associated processes. Although the CEO narratives initially create benefits, over time they are constrained by what was said in the past and contribute toward the persistence of the firm’s organizational path.


identifier: Bailey, Jennifer Anne  (2013) Evidence for a sensitive period for musical training.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The aim of the current dissertation was to investigate evidence for a sensitive period for musical training. The first study examined behavioural performance on an auditory-motor synchronization task and cognitive abilities in three groups: early-trained musicians, late-trained musicians, and non-musicians. The early-trained musicians were better able to reproduce the auditory rhythms, even after controlling for differences in musical experience using a matching paradigm. Both musician groups outperformed the non-musician group. The second study used these same groups of participants and their performance data to investigate differences in grey matter structure associated with early musical training. Several different structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging analysis techniques were used to examine differences in grey matter between groups and results suggest greater grey matter volume and cortical surface area in the right ventral pre-motor cortex among early-trained musicians. Extracted values from this region of difference correlated with auditory-motor synchronization performance and age of onset in the musician groups. Previous literature supports the role of the pre-motor cortex in the auditory rhythm task, as well as timed motor movements (Chen, Penhune, & Zatorre, 2008). The third study used a larger, un-matched sample of musicians to examine the relationship between age of onset of musical training as a continuous variable and performance on the auditory-motor synchronization task. In addition, individual working memory scores and years of formal training were considered as task correlates. These findings suggest the presence of a non-linear relationship between age of onset of musical training and auditory-motor synchronization performance. Working memory scores seemed to predict task performance, regardless of when musical training began; however, years of formal training was a significant predictor of task performance only among those who began at an earlier age. Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis of a sensitive period for musical training and shed light on the complexity of the relationship between brain maturation processes and training-induced plasticity.


identifier: Naghib Zadeh, Saman  (2013) Mesh Requirement Investigation for 2D and 3D Aerodynamic Simulation of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The accuracy of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model to capture the complex flow around a small vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) on 2D and 3D grids is investigated. The aerodynamic complexity of the flow is mostly due to rapid variation of the angle of attack of the rotating blades. The resulting flow includes large separation flows over the blades, dynamic stall, and wake-blade interaction. These features are sensitive to the grid resolution and turbulence models. In the present research, a grid convergence study is conducted on 2D grids to examine the CFD model sensitivity to mesh resolution and to identify when grid convergence is obtained. An averaged-grid size of y^+>30 is employed along the wall to capture the near-wall region flow structures. Moreover, a parallel OpenFOAM solver is used to investigate the numerical solution of Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations coupled with Spalart-Allmaras (SA) turbulence model. As a result, it is seen that the Power Coefficient (C_p), in 2D investigations, increases with the mesh size until it achieves grid convergence. For a 3D simulation, only a coarse mesh can be used due to large computational requirements. It is found that the 3D coarse mesh significantly under-predicts the Power Coefficient but is able to predict tip vortices.


identifier: Sidokhine, Felix  (2013) On some measure theory textbooks and their use by some professors in graduate-level courses.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Previous research has reported on students' uses of mathematics textbooks at pre-university and undergraduate levels. Also, some research has been done on textbooks as standalone objects, looking at their format and didactic and mathematical discourses. However, very few researchers have investigated instructors' uses of textbooks. In this thesis we do so at the graduate level; in particular, we investigate one instructor's account of his use of a textbook and two mathematics professors' views of which textbook they would use and how if they were to teach a Measure Theory course. We chose measure theory because of its important role as a foundation for much of what is modern analysis, a branch of mathematics with many applications such as electronics, signal processing and even probability and statistics. We chose the graduate level because textbooks we assume them to have an important role in the teaching and learning of graduate mathematics courses; this is based on our own classroom experiences as little research has been done so far in this direction. In the first part of our research, we draw on Eco's notion of model reader and characterized the target instructor audience of four measure theory textbooks. We also analyzed the mathematical knowledge that these textbooks contain in light of a review of the history of the development of measure theory. Finally, we analyzed the textbooks as teaching instruments from the perspective of Sierpinska's notion of apodictic vs. liberal textbooks. In the second part of our research, we interviewed three university professors in order to understand their beliefs about textbooks, mathematics and learning. In particular, we sketched different types of instructors' profiles and have been able to match them with textbooks whose use in their teaching activity would likely be most effective.


identifier: Zolghadr, Khadijeh  (2013) Contemporary Gender Thought in Islam and Judaism: The Position of Women According to Ayatollah Morteza Mutahhari and Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In a basic outlook shared by Islam and Judaism, addressed in this study, man is born as man and woman as woman, so that manhood and womanhood are natural states entailing different personalities, rights, and responsibilities. In other words, in both the Islamic and Jewish worldviews, man and woman are created differently in order to accomplish different tasks, which are finally aimed together at the single objective of obeying and encountering God. This basic conception is faithfully reflected in the numerous detailed regulations of these two law-centered traditions. A study of gender issues in Islam and Judaism is thus bound to take into account how the status of the genders is defined in the tradition; how the different positions prescribed for men and women are thought to serve humanity in its journey to God; and whether those positions entail superiority and inferiority.
In light of this outlook the present study offers a critical appreciation of the views on gender of two prominent clerical authorities, one each from the Muslim and Jewish traditions: Ayatollah Morteza Mutahhari (1920-1979 CE) and Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (1903-1993 CE). This thesis constitutes the first attempt to draw a comparison of gender thought at the heart of Judaism and Islam in modern times, through two influential scholars devoted and loyal to the original principles of their religions.
A properly critical account of thought requires examination not only of context and structure, but also apparent limitations and inconsistencies. That has been the approach taken here, in contrast - in the case of Mutahhari at least - to existing literature, which tends to be admiring. The thesis has also, however, tried to discern the affective qualities of the gender thought of the two scholars; comparison has been especially useful in this regard. Thus I have suggested that Mutahhari’s ideas about women along with those of Soloveitchik are ultimately in harmony with their sense of the tradition and its fundamental spirit; this is the basic impulse for both, rather than systemization. I have also suggested that difficulty in appreciating the feelings of women sets limits on the understanding of both scholars; but they are far from being misogynistic, and feel very genuinely that women are valuable as human beings and have vital, respected roles in religion and society. This leads to the subject with which I close the thesis: the reception of Soloveitchik and Mutahhari’s gender thought by women.
The thesis also draws attentions to two outstanding differences in the thought of Mutahhari and Soloveitchik: their mode of approaching gender and the ways they see their traditions responding to evolving times and circumstances. In brief, Mutahhari’s approach and tone is more defensive, polemical and political than that of Soloveitchik; and Soloveitchik seems less ready than Mutahhari to contemplate change in the tradition in response to changes in society or pressure from the broader Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish community. However, when we consider, as should be the rule in comparative studies, both figures together in their contexts, we see that Mutahhari’s openness to change was somewhat theoretical, since he lived at a time before the consolidation of the Islamic Republic of Iran when official religious ideology did not hold much formal power over women’s or people’s lives. By the same token, Soloveitchik’s discourse should be read against the background of his actions, which do show that he was willing to admit evolution in the Halakhah as long as what he considered basic principles were preserved, as well as in light of his attitude toward women’s learning, which demonstrates his ability to contemplate change that would allow the community to effectively meet the modern world.


identifier: Safaripour, Razieh  (2013) A RESTful Architecture for the Development and Deployment of Companion Robots Applications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT

Improving the quality of life particularly for the elderly and disabled persons is essential for society today. Despite their existing disabilities and limitations the elderly and the disabled still need and desire to be an integral part of society.
 Statistics shows that the number of persons requiring home health care in the year 2040 will make up nearly 3.5 % of the population. The need for companion robots is growing with factors such as an aging population, limited infrastructure and social support. Robots capable of assisting people in daily tasks and providing various services represent part of the future solution.
The lack of a reusable platform is a significant obstacle to such a solution.  In this thesis, we are proposing an architecture that will enable the development and deployment of companion robots applications. The architecture consists of a set of components at different layers, ranging from low-level robotics services to end user application components. The multiple layers interact through RESTful web services. This architecture enables the development of a range of applications, and can deal with robots that have varying capabilities and hardware.


identifier: Lee, Richard  (2013) Early and Accurate Modeling of Streaming Embedded Applications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis presents automatic generation of fast and accurate timed models of streaming embedded applications, before the complete software-hardware platform is available. We focus on streaming applications, because they tend to be the most compute-intensive applications on mobile devices. Therefore, it is critical to optimize the hardware-software platform for streaming applications, as early as possible in the design process. As such, fast, accurate and early models are essential for hardware-software optimization.
Our design methodology is as follows. First, a measurement model is generated and executed, on the target processor, to predict the computation delays in an application. Next, the delays are annotated in the application code to generate a host-compiled model of the application. Our experiments show that such models can be generated and simulated at very high speed and accurately predict the computation load offered by the application. Our results with large streaming media applications, such as music and voice codecs, show that the estimation errors are less than 3.3%, while providing very high simulation speed. Therefore, using our models, embedded system designers can perform early optimizations to the system architecture with high confidence.


identifier: Allard, Amélie  (2013) A Linear Data-Driven System Identification Methodology for an Active/Passive Solar Thermal Storage System and Application to a Solar House.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis presents a methodology developed to identify a parametric model of a thermally-activated building system (TABS) using a system identification (SI) tool. The model was identified with collected data from an energy efficient solar single-family residential building, the Ecoterra™ house located in Eastman, Quebec. The TABS is a ventilated concrete slab (VCS) serving as an energy storage medium for active and passive solar gains in the basement. The system uses the structural mass of the house to store active solar gains collected by the building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) roof and passive solar gains entering the living space through the energy efficient windows.
A data-driven system identification approach is used. Identifying a linear model and obtaining a low-order polynomial model were the main identification criteria. The thesis addresses the issues of the monitoring sensor accuracy on the model parameters, how physical knowledge of the VCS dynamic system can be considered during its validation and how the identification assumptions guide the future use of the model.
This thesis also demonstrates that the identified linear polynomial model is an efficient tool to carry out redesign studies and possible control studies. Improved BIPV/T roof designs are compared based on increased solar energy utilization potential and potential increase of collected thermal energy stored into the VCS. The effect of modifying the BIPV/T roof angle and including a glazing section are analyzed and discussed, demonstrating the use of the identified transfer function model of the VCS as a more efficient and quicker alternative to whole building detailed simulations, particularly for comparing design and operation options on a relative basis.


identifier: Emirkanian-Bouchard, Mickael  (2013) Towards Metric-Driven, Application Specific Visualizations of Attack Graphs.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: As a model of vulnerability information, attack graphs have seen successes in many automated analyses for defending computer networks against potential intrusions. On the other hand, attack graphs have long been criticized for their poor scalability when serving as a visualization model for human analysts to comprehend, since even a small network may yield an overly complex and incomprehensible attack graph. In this thesis, we propose two novel approaches to improving attack graph visualization. First, we employ recent advances in network security metrics to design metric-driven visualization techniques, which render the most critical information (with the highest metric scores) the most highlighted or magnified. Second, we observe that existing techniques usually aim at a one-size-fits-all solution, which actually renders them less effective for specific applications, and hence we propose to design application-specific visualization solutions. In this thesis, we focus on two such solutions, for network overview and situational awareness, respectively. We present the model and algorithms, describe our implementation, and present our simulation results with regards to scalability and performance.


identifier: Gutierrez, Augusto  (2013) Ruptura y continuidad en la poesía indígena escrita en castellano de México y Guatemala.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT

Ruptura y continuidad en la poesía indígena contemporánea escrita en castellano de México y Guatemala

Augusto Gutiérrez

	In Mexico and Guatemala the dominant culture continues to dismiss the existence of an indigenous literature, and so their work is persistently excluded from all official artistic and literary circles. This study aims to demonstrate, from a theoretical and literary perspective, that contemporary indigenous poetry from Mexico and Guatemala constitutes a literary phenomenon in which the oral and written traditions interact within a highly complex and conflictive cultural space. I will examine how this relatively new poetic movement aims to resume a line of continuity between the past and the present, and to establish itself as a literary alternative to the dominant culture. For this purpose, I have focused on two central issues: first, the tension between orality and literacy, which constitutes an essential element in the creative process of a bilingual text belonging to two different cultures in conflict. Secondly, the act of translation plays a pertinent role allowing the contemporary indigenous poet from Mexico and Guatemala to underscore the inter-semiotic and inter-linguistic tensions that arise from translating his/her literature, and how this conflictive interaction operates in the present to form the aesthetic and ideological framework for the construction of a differentiated literature.


identifier: Amoozegar, Arash  (2013) On the Role of the Chief Risk Officer and the Risk Committee in Insuring Financial Institutions against Litigation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Can Chief Risk Officers (CROs) act as insurance against litigation risks in financial institutions? In most financial institutions, CROs and their risk management staff fulfill a key role in managing risk exposures, yet their lack of involvement in the governance of banks has been cited as an influential factor that contributed to management team failure and the financial crisis of 2007-2008. A variety of legislative and regulatory bodies have pressured financial firms to improve their risk governance structures to better weather any potential future crises. Assuming that CROs are indeed given sufficient power to influence the corporate governance of financial institutions, can they provide these firms with the promised benefits? To partially answer this question, we consider one of the final outcomes of risky behavior: shareholder litigation. By comparing the risk governance characteristics of sued firms with their non-sued peers, we show that proper risk governance reduces a firm’s litigation probability. We accomplish this by using principal component analysis and by constructing a single measure that captures various aspects of risk management in a firm. In addition, we show that the addition of our risk management factor to models that have been previously proposed in the literature improves the accuracy of those models in identifying companies that are most susceptible to class action lawsuits.


identifier: Grube-Cavers, C. Annelise  (2013) The Effects of Urban Rapid Rail Transit on Gentrification in Canadian Urban Centres.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Throughout the second half of the 20th century theories attempting to explain the phenomenon of gentrification have been pervasive among studies of the changing social structures of urban centres in Europe and North America. Gentrification is defined as a process whereby higher income households move into what were previously working class neighbourhoods, resulting in either direct or indirect displacement of working class households, and ultimately transforming the social character of the neighbourhood. There has been contentious debate over the definition of gentrification, but  but through its evolution and adaptation to new contexts it has remained a popular topic among scholars in urban planning. Among the studies and papers published, there are many that show that the process is not only driven by individual actors', but it is also a process deeply affected by government interests and objectives and therefore by public investments.
The consequences of the process are still debated; some hail the process as a boost for everyone, (e.g. Duany, 2001), while others assert that gentrification limits accessibility to urban space for lower-income, working-class households, often with already reduced options in terms of housing, and ultimately contributes to creating increasingly socially polarized urban spaces (Marcuse, 1986; Newman and Wyly, 2006).
Keeping a necessarily critical perspective in mind, this study identifies the onset of gentrification  in Canadian cities and links this process to an element of urban infrastructure essential to cities; transit. The objective of this research is not only to see what the effects of the implementation of transit are on gentrification when it is initially implemented, but also to look at the impacts of transit over time on the gentrification of surrounding neighbourhoods.
In the gentrification literature there are a number of articles that make mention of the influential role of accessibility, and transit, on the process of gentrification. The relationship between neighbourhood changes and the implementation and upgrading of transit infrastructure, has, as of yet, not been clearly established. Though transit has long been recognized as having important connections to changes in land-use in the areas surrounding it, there have been few studies that attempt to explore, explicitly, the connections between the implementation of rail transit infrastructure and the process of gentrification in the surrounding metropolitan area. Additionally the few studies that do exist that explicitly address the relationship between transit and gentrification do not adhere to the conventional definition of gentrification according to the literature. The hypothesis of this project is that the implementation of rapid rail transit contributes to the gentrification of surrounding neighbourhoods and may result in the displacement of lower-income households, who would have the greatest marginal benefit from access to transit. This study presents data and analysis in order to assess the hypothesis using a number of indicators of gentrification and covering a study period long enough to capture the effects of major urban rapid rail transit as it has been implemented and upgraded in Canadian cities in the 20th century. This study will specifically address the effects of rail transit infrastructure on gentrification in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.


identifier: Ortiz, Camilo  (2013) The Minimum Flow Cost Hamiltonian Tour Problem.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In this thesis we introduce the minimum flow cost Hamiltonian tour problem(FCHT). Given a graph and positive flow between pairs of vertices, the FCHT consists of �finding a Hamiltonian cycle that minimizes the total cost for sending flows between pairs of vertices thorough the shortest path on the cycle. We prove that the FCHT belongs to the class of NP-hard problems and study the polyhedral structure of its set of feasible solutions. In particular, we present �five di�different MIP formulations which are theoretically and computationally compared. We also develop some approximate and exact solution procedures to solve the FCHT. We present a combinatorial bound and two heuristic procedures: a greedy deterministic method and a greedy randomized adaptive search procedure. Finally, a branch-and-cut algorithm is also proposed to solve the problem exactly.


identifier: Novin, Alamir  (2013) DEBATECITED: An empirical experiment into the value of open-source research methods and peer collaboration to science journalism.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis studied the effects of science journalists opening their research to each other prior to producing an article. This was explored by examining the effects opening research has on the accuracy (the number of errors on verifiable information) and robustness (overall comprehension of different sides of a story) of science journalism stories. Due to critiques from scholars and the scientific domain on the accuracy and robustness of the science journalism found in newspapers, it is important to search for viable solutions to such problems. Theoretically, this problem was approached by using the gains of open-source journalism with the advantages provided by concept-mapping from the field of science education. Methodologically, this project used a mixed methods approach to examine the use of a web application (named DEBATECITED), which was designed to allow science journalists to layout their research through a version of concept-mapping. This examination recruited both student journalists and professional journalists to write ‘test’ journalism on topics (biofuels and genomics) with and without the use of DEBATECITED. This project gave three main results: (1) a qualitative analysis via an open questionnaire revealed that most of the journalists believed that DEBATECITED helped them; (2) a quantitative analysis via a ranking test using a panelists of scientists revealed that DEBATECITED had an effect on the accuracy and robustness of articles; and (3) a final test using a panel of scientists revealed that they preferred the articles produced by journalists when they were using DEBATECITED . Overall, this thesis indicated that DEBATECITED’s usefulness to journalists was statistically significant and created stronger articles.  This study concludes that open-source journalism in combination with concept-mapping is a promising online tool to help science journalists counter some critiques of their journalism.


identifier: Hormati, Mohammadmajid  (2013) Application Layer Architectures for Disaster Response Systems.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Traditional disaster response methods face several issues such as limited situational awareness, lack of interoperability and reliance on voice-oriented communications. Disaster response systems (DRSs) aim to address these issues and assist responders by providing a wide range of services. Since the network infrastructure in disaster area may become non-operational, mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) are the only alternative to provide connectivity and other network services. Because of the dynamic nature of MANETs the applications/services provided by DRSs should be based on distributed architectures. These distributed application/services form overlays on top of MANETs.
This thesis aims to improve three main aspect of DRSs: interoperability, automation, and prioritization. Interoperability enables the communication and collaboration between different rescue teams which improve the efficiency of rescue operations and avoid potential interferences between teams. Automation allows responders to focus more on their tasks by minimizing the required human interventions in DRSs. Automation also allows machines to operate in areas where human cannot because of safety issues. Prioritization ensures that emergency services (e.g. firefighter communications) in DRSs have higher priority to receive resources (e.g. network services) than non-emergency services (e.g. new reporters’ communications). Prioritizing vital services in disaster area can save lives.
This thesis proposes application layer architectures that enable three important services in DRSs and contribute to the improvement of the three aforementioned aspects of DRSs: overlay interconnection, service discovery and differentiated quality of service (QoS). The overlay interconnection architecture provides a distributed and scalable mechanism to interconnect end-user application overlays and gateway overlays in MANETs. The service discovery architecture is a distributed directory-based service discovery mechanism based on the standard Domain Name System (DNS) protocol. Lastly, a differentiated QoS architecture is presented that provides admission control and policy enforcement functions based on a given prioritization scheme.
For each of the provided services, a motivation scenario is presented, requirements are derived and related work is evaluated with respect to these requirements. Furthermore, performance evaluations are provided for each of the proposed architectures. For the overlay interconnection architecture, a prototype is presented along with performance measurements. The results show that our architecture achieves acceptable request-response delays and network load overhead. For the service discovery architecture, extensive simulations have been run to evaluate the performance of our architecture and to compare it with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) directory-less service discovery proposal based on Multicast DNS. The results show that our architecture generates less overall network load and ensures successful discovery with higher probability. Finally, for the differentiated QoS architecture, simulations results show that our architecture not only enables differentiated QoS, it also improves overall QoS in terms of the number of successful overlay flows.


identifier: George, Jerry  (2013) A Semantic-Oriented Description Framework and Broker Architecture for Publication and Discovery in Cloud Based Conferencing.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm for provisioning network, storage, and computing resources on demand using a pay-per-use model. Conferencing is the conversational exchange of media between several parties. Cloud-based conferencing services can provide benefits such as easy introduction of different types of conferences, resource usage efficiency and scalability.
A business model has been recently proposed in a position paper for cloud-based conferencing with the following roles: conference substrate provider, conference infrastructure provider, conference platform provider, conference service provider, and broker. Conference substrates are generally atomic and served as elementary building blocks (e.g. signaling, mixing) of conferencing applications. They can be virtualized and shared for resource efficiency purposes. Multiple conferencing substrates can be combined to build a conferencing service (e.g. a dial-out audio signaling conference service composed from dial-out signaling and audio mixer substrates).
The focus of this thesis is to design a semantic-oriented description framework for conferencing substrates and an architecture for their publication and discovery. The description framework is made up of a description language and a cloud-based conference ontology. The conference ontology is modeled on the basis of the interacting roles in the proposed cloud-based conferencing business model. The overall publication and discovery architecture for cloud-based conference substrates is made up of three brokers and the related publication and discovery interfaces. The publication and discovery interfaces are modelled using REpresentation State Transfer (REST) interfaces. A prototype is built to demonstrate the feasibility of this architecture. The effectiveness of the architecture is also proved using the performance measurements.


identifier: Abdul-Baki, Ramzi  (2013) Do information asymmetry proxies measure information asymmetry?  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Market microstructure based proxies for information asymmetry have been widely used for over two decades. However, their empirical validation is surprisingly scarce. We attempt to address this gap by empirically testing two of the more popular proxies, namely, Glosten and Harris (1988) adverse selection cost component of the bid-ask spread (lambda), and Easley, Hvidkjaer, and O’Hara (2002) probability of informed trading (PIN). We estimate these proxies across three portfolios: broad-based ETFs, sector ETFs, and common stocks. Arguably, information asymmetry about broad-based ETFs should be primarily related to market wide information asymmetry, while information asymmetry about stocks should be mostly related to firm characteristics. We find that while PIN is highest for the broad-based portfolio and lowest for the stock portfolio, lambda is highest for the stock portfolio and lowest for the broad-based portfolio. To the extent that information asymmetry about stocks should be greater than information asymmetry about systematic factors, we provide evidence in support of lambda as a measure of information asymmetry. PIN is more closely related to liquidity.


identifier: Jalali, Mohsen  (2013) Improving Electromagnetic Shielding with Metallic Nanoparticles.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Due to major advantages (e.g. weight saving, maintenance advantages), the airframe manufacturers use more and more Polymer Matrix Composites (PMCs) in different parts of aircraft structures. But PMCs have the substantial disadvantage of low conductivity and therefore low Electromagnetic (EM) Shielding. Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) sources are all around and inside aircraft and can potentially threaten the immunity of the aircraft. Metallic meshes have been used to overcome this deficiency. However at high frequencies (UHF, SHF), most of the metallic mesh loses the performance. Regrettably most of the present and upcoming systems onboard of aircraft are functional in the mentioned range of frequencies. Furthermore, passengers are using more and more Personal Electronic Devices (PEDs) onboard of aircraft. Interference caused by PEDs are also in the same range of frequencies. Measured susceptibility caused by PEDs is higher in composite aircraft comparing to metallic one. To develop this disadvantage of composite aircrafts, design of a new lightweight shield, particularly for aeronautic applications, is needed. Metallic nanoparticles have a great potential to be used as new EM shields for aerospace applications. The promising results of this work encourage the designers to use metallic nanoparticles as a new shield for protection of composite aircrafts.


identifier: Fan, Yan Feng  (2013) Experimental Investigations of Flow Boiling Heat Transfer and Flow Instability in a Horizontal Microtube with an Inlet Orifice.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Flow boiling heat transfer mechanism has been shown to be an attractive method for satisfying the expected cooling loads of microelectronic devices. One of the main challenges associated with flow boiling is the flow instability created by the two-phase flow process. The design of orifice placed at the entrance of microchannels has been proven to be an effective way of reducing or eliminating these flow instabilities in multichannel systems.
The present thesis experimentally investigated the effect of inlet orifice in a single microtube on flow boiling heat transfer and associated flow instabilities using FC-72 as working fluid. The hydraulic diameter and length of microtube were fixed at 889 µm and 150 mm, respectively. The area ratios of inlet orifice to main microtube were selected as 50%, 35%, and 20%. The results showed that the ratio of pressure drop by inlet orifice to the total pressure drop reduced as mass flux and vapor quality increased. Inlet orifice did not have significant effects on the forced convective boiling heat transfer and normal critical heat flux, but increased the nucleate boiling heat transfer and premature critical heat flux. A novel flow stability map was developed and two critical boundaries were identified, which divide the flow into stable and unstable regimes. The microtube with 20% inlet orifice had a best performance on flow stabilization since a large upstream pressure was created. A methodology was also developed in order to predict the onset of flow instability in single microtubes with different sizes of inlet orifices. The predicted heat flux at the onset of flow instability was compared with the experiment and showed a reasonable agreement within ± 30%.
Overall, the performance of inlet orifices on flow boiling heat transfer and flow instability has been investigated in a single microtube. The present fundamental work is expected to lead to creation and development of a number of miniaturized devices, which are associated with flow boiling.


identifier: Duval, Kimberly  (2013) Improving the Social Normative Influence of Self-Prophecy: The Effect of a Perceived Audience and the Moderating Role of Self-Construal.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Self-prophecy (SP) is a viable marketing strategy shown to increase the prevalence of socially normative behaviours in a variety of contexts, by simply asking people to make a prediction regarding their performance of the target behaviour. The goal of the current research was to extend SP effects in a consumer behaviour context for increasing “green” product consumption and to investigate whether the efficacy of a SP-based advertisement can be influenced by the use of an audience cue and the recipient’s self-construal (i.e., independence vs. interdependence). In study 1, results showed that compared to a traditional text-only SP advertisement, an SP advertisement with an audience cue led to greater preference for sustainable products. Results from study 2 showed that self-construal did not influence susceptibility to a text-only SP message, however greater interdependence led to greater preference for sustainable products after exposure to an SP advertisement with an audience cue. Findings suggest that SP-based advertising may be useful for increasing the prevalence of sustainable product consumption, and that the delivery of an SP-based message can be improved by including a subtle audience cue.


identifier: Vatani, Ameneh  (2013) Degradation Prognostics in Gas Turbine Engines Using Neural Networks.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In complex systems such as aircraft engines, system reliability and adequate monitoring is of high priority. The performance of all physical systems degrades over time due to aging, the working and environmental conditions. Considering both time and safety, it is important to predict the system health condition in future in order to be able to assign a suitable maintenance policy. Towards this end, two  artificial intelligence based methodologies are proposed and investigated in this thesis. The main objective is to predict degradation trends by studying their effects on the engine measurable parameters such as the temperature and pressure at critical points of a gas turbine engine.

The first proposed prognostic scheme for the gas  turbine engine is based on a recurrent neural networks (RNN) architecture. This closed-loop architecture enables the network to learn the increasing degradation dynamics using
the collected data set. Training the neural networks and determining the suitable number  of network parameters are  challenging tasks. The other challenge associated with the prognostic problem is the uncertainty management. This is inherent in such schemes due to measurement noise and the fact that one is trying to project forward in time. To overcome this problem, upper and lower prediction bounds are defined and obtained in this thesis. The two bounds constitute a prediction band which helps one not to merely depend on the single point prediction. The prediction bands along with the prediction  error statistical measures, allow one to decide on the goodness of the prediction results.

The second prognostic scheme is based on a nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) neural networks architecture. This recurrent dynamical structure takes advantage of both features which makes it easy to manage the main objective. The  network is trained with fewer examples and the prediction errors are lower as compared to the
first architecture. The statistical error measures and the prediction bands are obtained for this architecture as well.

In order to evaluate and compare the prediction results from the two proposed neural networks a metric known as the normalized Akaike information criterion (NAIC) is applied in this thesis. This metric takes into account the prediction error, the number of parameters used in the neural networks architecture and the number of samples in the test data set. A smaller NAIC value shows a better, more accurate and more effective prediction result. The NAIC values are found for each case and the networks are compared at the end of the thesis.

Neural networks performance is based on the suitability of the data they are provided with. Two main causes of engine degradation are modelled in this thesis and a SIMULINK model is developed. Various scenarios and case studies are presented to illustrate and demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed neural networks based  prognostic approaches. The prognostic results can be employed for the engine health management purposes. This is a growing and an active area of research for the aircraft engines where  only a few references exist in the literature.


identifier: Douesnard, Manon  (2013) Multi-sensory and Kinetic Approaches to Installation Art in Outdoor Gardens: A Study of Expert and Non-expert Visitors.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT

Multi-sensory and Kinetic Approaches to Installation Art in Outdoor Gardens: A Study of Expert and Non-expert Visitors

Manon Douesnard
Concordia University, 2013

Installation art is a mainstream and important contemporary art form. Yet installation art is often difficult for museum, gallery and festival visitors to  comprehend. Installation art focuses on the  multi-sensorial and physical engagement of the visitor. Therefore, it is impossible to access or fully appreciate such works through the use of sight alone. Multi-sensory and physical engagement may help provide new educational strategies relevant to installation art. This research examines art experts and non-experts in a series of three data gathering activities around an outdoor art installation at the International Garden Festival at the Reford Gardens in Métis, Québec, Canada. Video recordings of participants’ engagements with the outdoor installation work, interviews, and video elicitation activities provided rich insights into the participants’ experiences. They were used to compare the behaviors of expert and non-expert subjects. The findings of this study show that the senses of hearing, taste, smell and touch, as well as physical engagement were essential in order to fully appreciate and understand the installation work. They enhanced participants’ experience by providing aural, physical, orientational, spatial, imaginative and interpretative dimensions to expert and non-expert participants’ art experience.  Differences between experts and non-experts focused on experts’ art training, kinetic compensatory activities and touch repression. The research also highlights the importance of participants’ previous knowledge and the value of taking time to explore. While video elicitation was originally intended only as a research procedure it proved to be a particularly valuable tool for both research and learning. As the research unfolded, it became clear that accepted definitions of expert and non-expert museum visitors did not adequately describe the participants’ responses in this study. Distinctions between my experts and non-experts were not as clearly demarcated as museum literature would suggest.


identifier: Sanjakdar, Roukana  (2013) Information Literacy Skills In Engineering Education: An Examination of the perspectives of faculty and students through a case study conducted at two universities in Canada and the United Arab Emirates.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Information literacy skills (ILS) have been recognized as critical success factors in higher education (HE). However, there is a dearth of research concerning the nature and development of ILS within different fields in HE.
Existing survey research highlights a problem, namely, faculty believe ILS skills are underdeveloped or insufficiently developed among HE students. This problem is most marked in the hard sciences and engineering. At the same time, there is little evidence that faculty in these disciplines understand how to address this problem, or have a general view that it falls within their purview. This is changing somewhat in the field of engineering now that accrediting bodies have recently focused on ILS competencies and associated life-long learning skills in their new objectives for programs. For the first time, program administrators and instructors will have to grapple directly with this issue.

Yet, little is known of engineering faculty’s understanding of ILS skills in general, or specific to the context of engineering, their conceptions of how ILS are acquired or developed and their role in this, the role of ILS skills at different stages in a students’ progression, obstacles or challenges to ILS development.
The research reported in this dissertation attempts to provide answers to some of these questions, primarily through online surveys distributed to engineering faculty at two institutions, located in Canada and the United Arab Emirates, supplemented with two focus groups. In addition, students at both institutions were also surveyed with a set of questions similar to those distributed to faculty. Student perceptions are notably absent in the HE literature on ILS. Understanding both faculty and student views of ILS, their significance, nature and development is arguably a critical first step in planning policy and developing effective curricula that address ILS in engineering education.
This is an exploratory, largely descriptive, study may form the basis for further, more focused or fine-grained research including design- or action-oriented research that would involve the development and assessment of actual strategies to support the improvement of ILS.


identifier: Pereira, Maria-Veronika  (2013) Bernard Lonergan’s Structure of the Human Good in dialogue with Bioethics.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis examines how Bernard Lonergan’s structure of the human good might serve as a tool to bridge the tension between principle-based and communitarian approaches to bioethical enquiry.
The first chapter discusses one of the current mainstream tools used in clinical and medical research bioethical evaluation which is principlism. Though there are many principles and a variety of interpretations, I will focus on the four major principles as laid out by Beauchamp and Childress which are autonomy, non maleficence, justice and beneficence.  In particular, this chapter investigates in some detail the principle of autonomy and its relationship with the notions of respect for persons, liberal individualism and the human rights ideology. Chapter two explores an alternative approach to bioethics based on  communitarian philosophy and will draw on the works of Daniel Callahan, in particular his arguments on the common good. From the first two chapters it appears that there may be a tension between the concepts of individual good and common good that, up till now, some argue bioethicists have not been able to bridge.
The final chapter explores how Bernard Lonergan’s structure of the human good might bridge these two areas of tension by reframing the meaning and significance of rights, liberty, individual good and common good. In this way Lonergan’s method might help us grasp and respond to bioethical issues in an altogether new way.


identifier: Carlisi, Tina  (2013) École libre: Visualising a Social Pedagogic Movement.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The year 2012 marks the longest and most widespread student strike in Québec’s history. During this period, art students and artists participated in initiatives to bring awareness to the movement as a means to mobilize others. In this practice-based thesis, I investigate how social commitment to affordable education inspired art students and artists to initiate engaged projects, and I will argue that these practices offer insights that can stimulate a rethinking of post-secondary art and design education. As part of my research, I developed an art project titled École libre which was presented in a solo exhibition. This project was inspired by the events and the artistic production around the 2012 student strike, but also by the history of the province’s commitment to accessible education, and by ideas associated with free education. This thesis uses a combination of methods which includes practice-based research, textual analysis, critical visual methodology and interviews with experts. By discussing examples of art initiatives, I argue that these practices adopted pedagogical frameworks and were driven by notions of possibility. Through praxis, I consider modes of production, processes and materials associated with activism, and connect them to types of learning that exists in the margins between educational institutions and the street. I will discuss the movement’s relationship to pedagogy, not only as a fight for free or affordable education, but also how it inspired many students to set their own objectives, precisely because they were involved in a larger social project that they consider meaningful.


identifier: Judge, Amber  (2013) Disabilities and Virtual Worlds: An Exploration into the Experience of Learning about Self and Other.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Research Problem: Virtual worlds like Second Life are shared 3D graphical places where people interact with each other and the environment through customizable embodied self-representations called avatars. Due to the recent nature of this research environment, the literature encompassing avatar identity, disability and learning in virtual worlds is limited. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore experiences of people with physical disabilities learning about self and other in virtual worlds.
Research Questions:  1) How do people with physical disabilities experience learning about self and other in virtual worlds? 2) What do they learn?
Literature Review: Virtual worlds’ constructs and historical developments contextualize the research environment. Definitions and typologies of selfhood and virtual identity explore the connection between person and avatar. Medical, social theory and capabilities models of disability are described, and accessibility, issues of virtual embodiment and disability in virtual worlds are explored.
Methodology: Conducted in virtual worlds and involving in-depth interviewing of three residents of Second Life who experience physical disabilities, this study follows a qualitative phenomenological approach with descriptive and interpretative analyses within and between participants.
Results and Conclusions: Self-avatar and avatar-avatar interactions lead to participants experiencing learning about themselves, their roles, and coping with disability. Participants expressed that Second Life is freedom and that with the right knowledge and tools disabilities can be overcome. Implications include shifts in perceptions of disability in technological contexts and potential uses of virtual worlds for self-exploration. The findings are limited to this study; future research should explore their generalizability.


identifier: Aghighi, Alireza  (2013) Evaluation of UV-PCO Air Cleaners Performance at Low Level VOCs Concentration.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) constitute the vast majority of indoor air contaminants. In design of ultraviolet photo-catalytic oxidation (UV-PCO) air cleaner system, the focus must be in selecting an appropriate catalyst that can transform all contaminants to harmless gases. Some produced contaminants may promote or inhibit the photocatalytic reactions, or even lead to deactivation of the catalyst. The PCO reactions of two classes of VOCs, light alcohols and alkanes (C5-C10) were studied with different types of nano titanium dioxide catalysts. The influence of relative humidity on oxidation rate of tested VOCs was discussed in detail to establish ideal operational conditions for the selected group of VOCs.
A series of laboratory experiments was conducted with a pilot four-parallel duct system setup to test the VOCs in very low concentration levels which represents a typical indoor air environment. The experiments were carried out with different types of nano TiO2 catalysts with UV lamps. A new type of titanium dioxide catalyst was specifically developed for this study to enhance the efficiency of PCO system. A systematic method was used to develop and test the synthesized photocatalysts, which helped to improve the overall performance of test system. The performance of different catalysts was studied at different humidity conditions and different VOCs concentrations.
The research objective was to develop a correlation between the PCO kinetic rate constants and physical characteristics of indoor VOCs. These correlations may be employed to eliminate the need of further experiments with every individual VOCs and they also could facilitate the design process of future PCO air cleaner. The physical characteristics of VOCs were used to estimate the performance of the PCO catalysts in a steady-state environmental test condition. The photocatalytic removal efficiency of VOCs and formation of intermediates and byproducts were studied with and without ozone generation UV lamps.


identifier: Ahmadi, Seyed Saeed  (2013) Stochastic Mortality Modelling with Levy Processes based on GLM’s and Applications.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Mortality rates have shown a gradual and steady decline over the last decades. In this thesis, we propose a stochastic process for the force of mortality. Similarly to Renshaw et al. (1996), the force of mortality will be defined using an exponential function of Legendre polynomials. In order to model perturbations in the force of mortality, we use the approach of Ballotta and Haberman (2006) and add a stochastic process which follows a one-dimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process.

We show how Generalized Linear Models can be used to estimate coefficients of the explanatory variables as well as the value of the coefficient of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. For this purpose, the estimator of this coefficient is obtained by minimizing the residual deviance.

Next we change the structure of the perturbed term in the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process by replacing Brownian motion with Levy processes. We give some examples to clarify the fitting process and show the advantages of using stochastic forces of mortality. Predictions of the probabilities of death will be investigated to show how the model can be used in actuarial applications. Life annuities are then priced and compared using the proposed model based on Levy processes and the model in Renshaw et al. (1996).

In this thesis, we also reconsider the two-factor stochastic mortality model introduced by Cairns, Blake and Dowd (2006). We first show that the underlying normality assumption of the error terms does not hold for the considered data set. We suggest to model the error terms using bivariate Generalized Hyperbolic distribution that includes four non-Gaussian, fat-tailed distributions. Our empirical analysis shows how the model can provide a better fit for the considered data.

In addition, we try to model age adjusted death rates embedded in the Swiss Re mortality bond using generalized least squares approach. We use the variable length Markov chains (VLMC) model proposed by Machler and Buhlmann (2004) to model the incidence of catastrophic events. The proposed model is compared to the current recognized models in the literature. Finally, we perform a simulation study to estimate the market price of risk that can be used to fairly price the Swiss Re bond.


identifier: Arnab, Salman Moazzem  (2013) Modeling of the Current-Voltage Characteristics of CdTe Thin-Film and Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The popularity of solar cell has been on the rise over the past few years. In order to be the substitute the fossil fuels, the energy production cost from solar cells must be reduced further. A lot of effort has been made by the scientific community to produce cheap and green energy from solar cells. High absorption coefficient and cost effective deposition technique have made polycrystalline CdTe a suitable applicant for thin-film solar cell technology. On the other hand, bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells based on blends of conjugated polymers (P3HT) and fullerene derivatives (PCBM) have shown great potential to produce efficient organic solar cells.

Low availability of Te and need for enhancement of deposition speed influence to reduce the CdTe absorber layer. However, the overall cell efficiency of CdTe/CdS thin-film solar cell deteriorates unpredictably when the absorber width is reduced to sub-micron level. Deterioration of charge transport properties and their effects on voltage-dependent charge collection in submicron CdTe solar cells are believed to be responsible for this detrimental current-voltage. An analytical model for voltage-dependent photocurrent has been proposed in this thesis, considering partial depletion of the absorber and both electron and hole drift and diffusion in the depleted region and field free region, respectively, by solving continuity equations with proper boundary conditions. Exponential photon absorption and actual solar spectrum are considered to compute the photocurrent densities at entire output voltages. The results of the analytical model are verified by the 2D Taurus Medici device simulator. The model is also compared with recently published experimental results on ultra-thin CdTe solar cells in order to determine the carrier transport properties (defects and carrier lifetimes) and effective doping concentrations.

The efficiency of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells is mostly controlled by the dissociation of bound electron and hole pairs (EHPs) and charge carrier transport properties after dissociation. An analytical model has been developed considering both drift and diffusion of charge carrier to examine the relative effects of EHP dissociation and charge collection on the current-voltage characteristics. The effects of annealing on carrier transport properties are also examined. The theoretical model is also verified by the published experimental data.


identifier: Alzraiee, Hani S. H.  (2013) Hybrid Simulation for Construction Operations.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Developing realistic and unbiased simulation models for construction operations require addressing the operational and strategic decision making levels. The dynamics and feedback processes observed in construction systems are responsible for the real behavior of such systems and drive the needs for hybrid and integrated simulation tools. The dominant simulation methods such as discrete event simulation (DES) and system dynamics (SD) are limited individually of capturing all the significant construction operation aspects that are responsible for generating the behaviour of realistic models. Therefore, this thesis presents a hybrid simulation method for simulating construction operations by utilizing the joint powerful features of the DES and SD methods.
The proposed method provides a framework to integrate DES and SD on single computational platform. Developing a hybrid simulation model commences by decomposing the construction project into units, form which simulation models (e.g. DES or SD) are developed. A unidirectional variables interaction from DES to SD models is used. The interfacing process among simulation models is achieved by defining three variables: sender, interface, and receiver. The mechanism that controls data mapping processes between variables is outlined in a new developed synchronization method. The variables interaction protocol is described using formalism. Finally, a Hybrid Simulation Application (HiSim) is coded in VB.NET to demonstrate a sequential implementation of the developed method.
A real-world earthmoving project is modeled and simulated to test the developed hybrid simulation method. The hybrid simulation structure uses unidirectional and sequential interactions between the components of DES and SD models. The simulation is run under three scenarios, is able to predict the real project completion duration with 92% accuracy, and captures the influences of the context level variables. The findings are expected to enhance hybrid simulation applications in construction and to allow for better understanding of the impact of various internal and external factors on the project schedule and its productivity performance.


identifier: Rahimi, Hannah  (2013) Stones: Stories from Sappho.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Stones: Stories from Sappho

abstract: Stones is a collection of 37 short stories and prose vignettes that take root in extant fragments of poetry by Sappho, an Ancient Greek lyricist from the 7th century BCE. One of Sappho’s fragments is embedded in the body of each story, as well as generating the title of that story. Rather than attempting to recreate the original poetic context from which these fragments emerged, I have allowed my imagination to dictate the terms of each story. Various translations of Sappho’s poetry are used in this collection: Mary Barnard’s Sappho (Berkeley, 1958); David Campbell’s Greek Lyric, Vol. I (Cambridge, 1982); Anne Carson’s If Not Winter (New York, 2002); and Jim Powell’s Sappho: A Garland (New York, 1993). Additionally, I have approximated my own translations of certain fragments, based not on the original Greek but on a survey of English translations by Barnard, Campbell, Carson and Powell, as well as Guy Davenport (Ann Arbor, 1965).


identifier: Wen, Hua-wei  (2013) Integration of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) in the Engineering Design Process.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT

Integration of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) in the Engineering Design Process

Hua-wei Wen

Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is one of the most practical design tools implemented in the product design to analyze the potential failures and to improve the design. The practice of FMEA is diversified and different approaches are proposed by different organizations and researchers from one application to another. Yet, the question is how to systematically utilize the features of FMEA along with the design process. This thesis aims to integrate different types of FMEA in the design process, which is considered as the mapping between customer requirements, product functions, and design components. These three design elements are the foundation of the integration model proposed in this thesis.

The objective of this thesis is to develop an integration approach of FMEA in the design process. Particularly, an integration framework is developed to integrate FMEA and design process. Then, a step-by-step FMEA-facilitated design process is proposed to apply FMEA along with the design process. In the end, a detailed case study of a smartphone model is conducted to demonstrate and verify the proposed methodology. The expectedly benefits of the proposed methodology are the consistency of failure analysis information, and the utilization of the failure analysis information from one stage to the later stages of the design process.


identifier: Ly, Jinshia  (2013) Poor Sleep as a Pathophysiological Pathway Underlying the Association between Stress Exposure and the Diurnal Cortisol Profile in Children and Adolescents.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
There is increasing evidence supporting the potential contribution of poor sleep as a pathophysiological pathway underlying the association between stress exposure and disruption of the diurnal cortisol profile. Specifically, convincing evidence shows that stress exposure leads to poor sleep, which, in part, is responsible for subsequent disruption of the diurnal cortisol profile. The overarching objective of the present study was to examine whether poor sleep mediates the relation between stress exposure and the diurnal cortisol profile in children and adolescents.
Participants included children and adolescents aged 8-18 (N=220, M=12.62 years, 55.90% males). Participants’ salivary cortisol was sampled over two days to derive single sample (bedtime cortisol, maximum cortisol) and aggregate cortisol indices (AUCAG, AUCI, AUCTG, slopemax). Youth-report of stressful life events and daily hassles were obtained. Subjective reports of sleep duration and sleep quality were obtained by youth- and parent-report measures.
 Greater stressful life events were associated with elevated AUCAG and AUCTG. Greater daily hassles were associated with elevated maximum cortisol, AUCAG, AUCTG, and steeper slopemax. Greater stressful life events and daily hassles were associated with poorer sleep quality, which, in turn, was related to higher bedtime cortisol and AUCTG. Mediational analyses revealed that the sleep quality mediated the association between stress exposure and AUCTG.
The present study provided evidence for poor sleep as a potential pathophysiological pathway underlying the effects of stress exposure on the diurnal cortisol profile in children and adolescents. The current research findings have important implications and help reframe prevention efforts and public policies aimed at reducing the physiological sequelae of stress exposure. Future research should replicate current findings using objective measures of sleep to better understand specific sleep parameters that underlie the association between stress exposure and the diurnal cortisol profile.


identifier: Saberi Pirouz, Atieh  (2013) Securing email through online social networks.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Despite being one of the most basic and popular Internet applications, email still largely lacks user-to-user cryptographic protections. From a research perspective, designing privacy preserving techniques for email services is complicated by the requirement of balancing security and ease-of-use needs of everyday users. For example, users cannot be expected to manage long-term keys (e.g., PGP keypair), or understand crypto primitives.

To enable intuitive email protections for a large number of users, we design FriendlyMail by leveraging existing pre-authenticated relationships between a sender and receiver on an Online Social Networking (OSN) site, so that users can send secure emails without requiring direct key exchange with the receiver in advance. FriendlyMail can provide integrity, authentication and confidentiality guarantees for user-selected messages among OSN friends. FriendlyMail is mainly based on splitting the trust without introducing new trusted third parties. A confidentiality-protected email is encrypted by a randomly-generated key and sent through email service providers, while the key and hash of the encrypted content are privately shared with the receiver via the OSN site as a second secure channel. Our implementation consists of a Firefox addon and a Facebook application, and can secure the web-based Gmail service using Facebook as the OSN site. However, the design can be implemented for preferred email/OSN services as long as the email and OSN providers are non-colluding parties. FriendlyMail is a client-end solution and does not require changes to email or OSN servers.


identifier: Raddatz, Jonathan E.  (2013) Mind Over Matter: Altered States of Consciousness and the Narrative Rationalization of Ecstatic Visions in the Apocalypse of John.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis postulates John’s apocalypse is the author’s attempt to create a rational narrative from a series of ecstatic trance visions which he experienced in an altered state of consciousness. These involved: (1) a feeling of being “influenced” or possessed by the Spirit of God, and (2) a subsequent sensation where his “spirit” was separated from his body and able to move freely in the spirit world. I propose that taking these experiences provisionally at face value is a crucial hermeneutical key to understanding the meaning of this text, as it was perceived by John and the early proto-Christian community he was addressing. Tackling John’s religious experiences phenomenologically opens up a line of inquiry that has thus far been handled poorly by strictly literary epistemological paradigms. Little of substance has been said about the psychological function and cognitive causality behind John’s text and apocalyptic literature generally. What little research that has been published in this regard has approached the question comfortably within the confines of source and genre criticism. This thesis systematically breaks down the interpretive issues surrounding the double occurrence of the phrase evgeno,mhn evn pneu,mati (“I was in the spirit”) in Rev 1:10 and 4:2, to achieve a degree of clarity in regards to this critical experiential aspect of John’s text. From that foundation, I proceed to provide an alternative philological hypothesis taking into account the polysemic quality of John’s symbolic language in an effort to resolve the interpretive tension between the separate (but nonetheless complimentary) meanings of the phrase as it occurs in Rev 1:10 and 4:2. From there, I have a sustained look at the neurobiological aspects of altered states of consciousness (ASCs), and the mind-body problems associated with ecstatic trance and out-of-body experiences (OBEs). To better qualify these experiences on an experiential and physical level, I adopt an interdisciplinary approach that combines philology with anthropology and neurobiology. Here, I place John’s experiences on a diachronic trajectory that begins with the Jewish prophets (with an emphasis on Ezekiel) and ends by comparing and contrasting the physical and neurotheological linguistic elements of John’s experience with another New Testament ecstatic named Paul. I conclude the thesis by exploring a broad anthropological paradigm for ecstatic experiences called the shamanic complex and establish that John’s experiences strongly correlate with that model.


identifier: Pinel, Dominic  (2013) Meiotic recombination-based genome shuffling of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and characterization by genome sequencing and RNA-seq transcriptional expression profiling for improved tolerance to spent sulfite liquor.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Spent sulfite liquor (SSL) is a waste effluent from sulfite pulping that contains monomeric sugars that can be fermented to ethanol.  However, the inhibitory substances found in this complex feedstock adversely affect yeasts used for the fermentation of the sugars in SSL.  To overcome this limitation, evolutionary engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was carried out using genome shuffling based on large-scale population recursive meiotic recombination. Populations of UV-induced yeast mutants more tolerant to hardwood spent sulfite liquor (HWSSL) were isolated and then recursively mated and enriched for more tolerant populations.  After five rounds of genome shuffling, three strains were isolated that were able to grow on undiluted HWSSL and support efficient ethanol production from the sugars therein for prolonged fermentation of HWSSL.  Analyses showed that greater HWSSL tolerance is associated with improved viability in the presence of salt, sorbitol, peroxide, and acetic acid.  These results demonstrate that evolutionary engineering through genome shuffling will yield robust yeasts capable of fermenting the sugars present in HWSSL, which is a complex substrate containing multiple sources of inhibitors. The genome of R57, the most inhibitor-tolerant strain generated in this study, was sequenced by massively parallel sequencing and twenty single nucleotide polymorphism mutations were located.  Many of these mutations affect genes that correlate with known stress responses to the types of inhibition found in lignocellulosic hydrolysates.  Cross-referencing the mutation findings with RNA-seq-derived differential gene expression analysis of R57 yields genes and biological processes that are likely playing determinant roles in the HWSSL tolerance trait of R57.  The strongest findings support important roles for the following mutation-bearing proteins and biological processes: stress response transcriptional repressor, Nrg1p; NADPH-dependent glutamate dehydrogenase, Gdh1p, and a modified nitrogen usage and assimilation physiology including alterations to aromatic amino acid synthesis pathways and the associated Aro1p; protein homeostasis machinery including heat-shock 70-family proteins, especially Ssa1p, and Ubp7p and Art5p, which are related to ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis.  Redox-associated metabolites NADPH, glutathione, mainly via GSH1 mutation, and iron are also implicated.  Overall, these data provide important findings for understanding inhibition by multi-inhibitory lignocellulosic substrates; a meiotic recombination-mediated engineering strategy for generating inhibition-tolerant strains that may be unobtainable through classical evolutionary engineering; novel genetic targets for future rational biocatalyst design and inhibitor-tolerance studies; and a promising work-flow model for generating strains with desirable and complex phenotypic traits along with understanding of the genetic factors and biological processes involved in those traits.


identifier: Sakib, Md Nazmus  (2013) CFD Techniques for simulation of flow in a scour hole around a bridge pier.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The flow field around a bridge pier is complex in detail and the complexity is further increased with the development of a scour hole. As flow-induced scouring around piers can cause bridge failures, a good understanding of the flow field is important to the safe design of the hydraulic structures. The objective of this study is to simulate free-surface flow around a pier in a fixed scour hole, and to further determine shear stress distributions at the channel-bed. Simulations were mainly performed using mesh-based numerical models. The mesh-based numerical model was established using Reynolds averaged momentum and continuity equations in three dimensions, with the k-ɷ model for turbulence closure. The regions around the pier and near the channel-bed were resolved with sufficiently fine mesh so as to capture detailed velocity structures. To explore the appropriate procedures for applying smoothed particle hydrodynamics, a mesh-free model was formulated with kernel approximation of the field variables and particle approximation. The governing equations for dynamic fluid flows for the mesh-free model were written as a set of partial differential equations in Lagrangian description, known as the Navier-Stokes equations. The simulations were carried out under the same geometric and hydraulic conditions as in available laboratory experiments. One of the major findings of this research is that, both models predict a downflow near the upstream nose of the pier which would affect the stability of pier foundations. The mesh-based model results exhibit realistic vortex features around the pier and in the wake region. Another new finding is the occurrence of flow separation and complex vortex stretching confined to the upper water column behind the pier. The predicted bed shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy are shown to compare well with the experimental data. Application of the mesh-free model to the flow in a scour hole around a bridge pier has been successful in generating desired approach flow. Velocity profiles extracted from the results of both models at selected locations in the approach channel, inside the scour hole, are compared. The results presented in this thesis are of practical values for prediction of sediment scour around bridge piers.