title: Covering Arrays from Maximal Sequences over Finite Fields

abstract:
The focus of this thesis is the study and construction of covering arrays, relying on maximal period sequences and other tools from finite fields. A covering array of strength t, denoted CA(N; t, k, v), is an N × k array with entries from an alphabet A of size v, with the property that in the N × t subarray defined by any t columns, each of the v t vectors in A t appears at least once as a row. Covering arrays generalize orthogonal arrays, which are classic combinatorial objects that have been studied extensively. Constructing covering arrays with a small rowto-column ratio is important in the design of statistical experiments, however it is also a challenging mathematical problem.
Linear feedback shift register (LFSR) sequences are sequences of elements from a finite field that satisfy a linear recurrence relation. It is well-known that these are periodic; LFSR sequences that attain the maximum possible period are maximal (period) sequences, often abbreviated to m-sequences in the literature. Arrays constructed from cyclic shifts of maximal sequences possess strong combinatorial properties and have been previously used to construct orthogonal and covering arrays [62], although only one of the known constructions is for covering arrays that are not orthogonal arrays [75]. In this thesis we present several new such constructions.
The cornerstone of our results is a study of the combinatorial properties of arrays constructed from maximal sequences, where we make fundamental connections with concepts from diverse areas of discrete mathematics, such as orthogonal arrays, error-correcting codes, divisibility of polynomials and structures of finite geometry.
One aspect of our work involves concatenating arrays corresponding to different maximal sequences and finding subarrays that are covering arrays. We express this as an optimization problem, to which we give an algorithmic solution based on backtracking, an underlying finite field theory and connections to other combinatorial objects. The results of our experiments include 37 new covering arrays of strength 4 and one of strength 5.
For integers v ≥ 2, we introduce cyclic trace arrays modulo v, a variation of arrays from maximal sequences that we study using finite field characters - homomorphisms from the finite field to the unit circle of complex numbers. In particular, we use well-known bounds on character sums to derive conditions subject to which cyclic trace arrays modulo v are covering arrays, and we present new infinite families of covering arrays of strengths 3 and 4, as well as one of arbitrary strength which appears to be the second such family in the known literature [25]. We also express the number of times that different vectors appear in the rows of a cyclic trace array modulo v as the solution of a linear program.


title: Building Fiction: Exit Through Looking-Glass

abstract:
Architectural performance frames the human experience within and outlines each moment as a private story that can be retold verbally, pictorially and spatially. The delineation of a performance space is defined by both actors’ portrayals and the audience’s perception of the event. There exists an interplay between the performance and the structure, leading to the multi-sensory understanding of an architectural narrative.
This thesis looks to reinvigorate the Imperial Theatre (otherwise known as Barrymore’s Music Hall, Ottawa) through a whimsical interpretation, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. A nonsensical narrative is created to lead both the actors and the audience on a journey through space and scale. By focusing on the concepts of immersive theatre, this thesis will stage the unexpected as a series of abstract experiences.


title: Occupy Griffintown:  Activating Public Space

abstract:
From a ghost town to a sleeping town? Griffintown was, up to recently, a forgotten neighbourhood in Montreal. The locals often referred to it as a “ghost town” due to the deterioration of the built environment. Although this image is not necessarily flattering, urban ruins are celebrated during walking tours, acting as collective memory anchors.
The neighbourhood is now facing rapid housing development because of its proximity to the downtown core. With an increasing number of residents moving in and the (inevitable?) destruction of the existing fabric, the neighbourhood’s identity is shifting. While revitalization is often associated with building anew, could buildings and infrastructure in their actual state (more or less decaying) be useful for the creation of a new identity? Mobile public space activating four sites is proposed as a way to give residents of Griffintown the opportunity to participate in the creation of alternative public spaces.


title: Waterwoes

abstract:
In recent years, the City of Toronto has experienced an exponential development on its waterfront. From the extensive debates on the future of the Gardiner Expressway to the troubling condominiumization of the downtown core, these schemes all demonstrate a growing interest in restoring the city’s historical relationship to Lake Ontario.
However, as city planner Wayne C. Reeves explains in his book, Visions for the Metropolitan Toronto, the solutions of one day often become problems of the next, prompting a new round of vision-making and corrective action.
This thesis proposes a new kind of development that could address the present environmental issues plaguing the harbour by considering the city’s history and its current state as a commercial, financial, and industrial global centre. The proposal attempts to restore Toronto's connection with its most scenic and significant geographic feature.


title: The Dissolving "I": Abjection and Becoming in Queer Cinema

abstract: This thesis explores abject depictions of gay, racialized and gender nonconforming people in independent and experimental queer films. I analyze O Fantasma (Portugal, João Pedro Rodrigues, 2000) and The Living End (US, Gregg Araki, 1992) in relation to theories of queer negativity, utopia, affect and embodied spectatorship; Un chant d’amour (France, Jean Genet, 1950) and The Attendant (UK, Isaac Julien, 1993) through theories of race, bottoming, shame and debasement; and Liquid Sky (USA, Slava Tsukerman, 1982) and Dandy Dust (UK, A. Hans Scheirl, 1998) in conjunction with posthumanist and transgender theories of becoming. I argue that these films create opportunities for ambiguity, in-between states, and multiplicities, eliciting intellectual and affective responses that exceed anti-normative and nihilistic approaches in queer theory.


title: Experimental Study and Surface Deposition Modelling of Amended Oil Sands Tailings Products

abstract:
Recent pilots on emerging oil sands tailings technologies have confirmed that deposit thickness is an important parameter controlling tailings dewatering, and a key parameter governing cost. Controlling or managing deposit thickness continues to be an important challenge for full-scale implementation of tailings technologies that exhibit a yield stress. From the perspective of deterministic modelling of such deposits, there are many challenges, including measurement of the relevant rheological parameters, and how to handle time-variant rheology when modelling.
This research characterizes the rheology of a mineral slurry with relatively high clay content, which is treated with a high molecular weight anionic polymer to induce flocculation. Rheometry results showed that while flocs break down under high shear, flocs reform at lower shear rates. Breakdown and recovery of flocs was confirmed by measuring the shear modulus under dynamic loading and a set of microstructural analysis. Moreover, it was shown that the tailings manifest viscosity bifurcation behaviour similar to pure clay, including shear history dependent apparent yield stress. The measured rheology was then modeled using a previously published viscosity bifurcation model that accounts for hysteresis in the apparent yield stress.
The rheology results are used semi-quantitatively to explain deposition rate dependent behaviour seen in flume tests. The geometry of tailings in flume tests with relatively slow deposition is affected by the behaviour of earliest deposited tailings, which appear to have recovered structure sufficiently to manifest a large yield stress. This yield stress is much larger than the yield stress exhibited by tailings when they initially come to rest. This full recovery of the yield stress seems to be particularly important to managing surface deposition, as zones of tailings that have stopped moving substantially steepen the slope of deposits near the deposition point.
Finally, and using the rheological models obtained, an attempt was made to model such flows at bench and pilot scales using 3D/2D numerical simulations. The flume test and field deposition conducted were simulated using CFX. It is found that using the lower limit yield stress value and by conducting simulation in several stages (to account for ageing behaviour), more realistic results could be obtained.


title: Estimation of Air Quality Criterion-based Building Setback Distance From Urban Roads and Freeway Using Microscopic Simulation of Traffic, Emissions, and Pollution Dispersion

abstract:
Emissions from road vehicles and other sources that exceed well-defined concentrations affect human health. To protect people, especially vulnerable members of population, ambient air quality standards and guidelines should be met. According to projections, the internal combustion engine vehicles are likely to maintain their dominance for many decades and only marginal improvements in emission reduction can be expected. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate separation distance between vulnerable receptors and high traffic roads and highways.
Available guidelines on setback distance from urban roads and highways and the associated land use considerations do not account for pollutant dispersion and air quality standards. Also, methods are not available to predict pollutant concentration at various setback distances and heights under worst case of traffic and wind condition.
This research is aimed at the development of methods for determining air quality criterion-based building setback distance from urban roads and freeways. The research approach integrates microscopic models for simulating vehicle trajectories, emission factors and pollutant dispersion. Prior to application, the models were verified with field data on vehicle trajectories and emissions. In addition, data on background pollution concentrations were investigated. The integrated simulation model when applied to selected building locations in Ottawa produced logical results.
To meet the objective of developing tools that could be used to check pollutant concentrations at various distances and heights or to find setback distance for specified conditions, the simulation design methodology was developed and applied while meeting the statistical reliability requirements. Simulation results were used to develop statistically significant predictive models for CO, NO2, and PM2.5 concentration. The non-linear regression models are better than linear regression models and the ANN models compare well with non-linear models. The new predictive models are designed to provide 1-hour pollutant concentration on the worst case basis.
Example applications show logical results of potential interest to professional persons and researchers. In addition, ideas are advanced for future research. It is contended that the products of this research can be of immediate assistance to the real-world planners and policy analysts in establishing setback guidelines that take into account air quality standards.


title: Capillary Electrophoresis Analysis of Metal/Metalloid Oxide Nanoparticles in Water: Method Development for the Enhancement of UV Detection Sensitivity

abstract:
Increasing production and applications of metal/metalloid oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have greatly raised the demand for new analytical techniques capable for trace quantification in water. A new analytical method was developed for the sensitive detection of silica (SiO2), titania (TiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO) as model metal/metalloid oxide NPs. This method was based on the formation of molecular layers and polymeric coatings on the NPs directly in water to selectively add chromophores to their surface for enhanced ultraviolet (UV) light absorption in capillary electrophoresis (CE) analysis.
Controlled polymerization of 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate (HPMA) on SiO2 NPs added a coating of poly-2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate (PHPMA) that increased their UV detection sensitivity by 6±1 folds initially. A second coating with polydopamine produced a larger size of PHPMA-SiO2 NPs, as confirmed by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy, further enhancing their UV detection sensitivity by 12±2 folds. Chitosan coating and HPMA binding on SiO2 NPs produced a significant enhancement of UV detection sensitivity by 50±1 folds. This method was selective for SiO2 in the presence of TiO2 NPs in 10 mM Na2HPO4.
Selective enhancement of UV detection sensitivity of TiO2 in the presence of alumina (Al2O3), SiO2, and ZnO NPs in 100 mM Tris was achieved using deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG). Single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) exhibited better performance than double-stranded DNA in enhancing the sensitivity of UV detection. PEG coating of ssDNA-TiO2 NPs further enhanced the CE-UV detection sensitivity of TiO2, by providing electrosteric stabilization, up to 13±3 folds.
A monolayer adsorption of dithiothreitol (DTT) and cysteine (Cys) onto ZnO NPs in 10 mM Na2HPO4 improved their detection sensitivity by 28±1 and 25±1 folds, respectively. The selectivity of DTT and Cys towards ZnO was validated in the presence of Al2O3, ceria (CeO2), SiO2 and TiO2 as no changes were observed in the CE-UV peak area of either adsorbates or the NPs. Similar evidence was provided using DLS by determining the hydrodynamic diameters of NPs in the presence of adsorbates.
The new approach provides a simple, rapid and efficient CE-based method towards the detection of SiO2, TiO2 and ZnO selectively with enhanced sensitivity.


title: Labour Market Transition: Barriers and Supports for First Generation Immigrant and Refugee Youth

abstract: Immigrant and refugee youth (IRY) face higher unemployment rates than their Canadian-born counterparts (Statistics Canada, 2016). The barriers IRY face in their labour market transition (Shields et al., 2006) and the consequences of youth unemployment (Hammarström, 1994) are well-known. Informal sources of employment supports, such as that provided by one’s social networks, can help with one’s job search; however, IRY are recognized as lacking access to a vast and resourceful social network (Lauer et al., 2012). Little is known about how IRY navigate formal employment supports. In contributing to this gap in the literature, this study found that while formal employment supports (employment centres and employment programs and services) were regarded to be helpful to IRY, there existed barriers in their abilities to access employment centres and negative experiences with EPS were raised. IRY’s multidimensional identities and social positions underpin their experiences in navigating employment and employment supports.


title: Void:  Bridging Rail - City

abstract: Absence being the death of architecture simultaneously offers new opportunities. The remaining semi-abandoned rail lines situated in the core of Regina, Saskatchewan form an edge that terminates the industrial warehouse district and determines a threshold toward the downtown area. The in-between is a vacant 17.5 acre lot framed by the main economic life blood of the city, the Canadian Pacific Rail. The void within the city creates a divide while providing an opportunity to intervene and reconnect the streets, the communities and the city. However, there is a peculiar beauty of the vast bareness and quietude of the remaining dust land with the main C.P.R. tracks sprawling outward to the prairie horizon. In what ways can absence manifest itself? How can one design and author absence?


title: Collectively Intelligent Material Systems: Compositing Digital Systems Within Architectural Smart Material Applications

abstract: Developed through the field of material science in the late 90’s, ‘smart materials’ have been employed by the fields of science and engineering to miniaturize, expand and reflect a physical world saturated with information rich environments. However, these ‘smart-materials’ are infrequently employed by architects to address both technical, aesthetic and spatial architectural issues. This thesis aims to uncover this hesitation by design professionals, critiquing the reference of ‘smart’ and proposes a Collectively Intelligent Material system (CIM system). This design proposal sets forth a practical response to truly intelligent architecture through specific models of Collectively Intelligent Material (CIM) applications by producing ‘smart composite’ facade experimentations. The work seeks to combine the process of optical lithography and Arduino based digital processing to develop a CIM system. This can be employed by the architect over new or existing façades to facilitate intelligent building surfaces.


title: Repackagaing Packaging:  Using Plastic Waste as an Architectural Material to Rehabilitate Ecosystems

abstract:
Plastic waste and microplastics are wreaking havoc on aquatic ecosystems everywhere. Removal of this plastic waste is essential, however, once removed most plastic items end up in landfills and microplastics are almost impossible to recover. This speculative design and research paper aims to combine real-world technologies with future possibility and utilize repurposed plastic packaging to create ‘plastic eating’ machines. These machines would passively roam bodies of water remediating microplastics and other plastic waste from the ecosystem while functioning as an interdisciplinary research facility.
Shredding and melting experiments are undertaken to determine the best and most economic techniques to reform reclaimed plastic. Research is presented on innovative biotechnology that makes use of bacteria to both gather and eliminate plastic from water. Architectural drawings, sketches and designs for the machines are proposed.


title: In(tro)vert:  A Dimension of the Fantastic

abstract:
A curtain, in terms of performance, creates a threshold of control between viewer and performer. This act of concealment enables the engagement of one’s imagination concerning the potential for what is to come. What is the potential of a curtain? For the purposes of theatre, the curtain is used as a movable screen serving to disguise the stage, the performance of seeing without being seen.
There is a feeling of anticipation, which builds through the metaphor of the curtain. The mind is given the ability to cross freely between the thresholds of fantasy and reality. Similarly, photography carries a meaning in itself; a capture revealing the curtain’s moment of anticipation. Utilizing photography as a means of translating the dimension of the fantastic into built form develops a narrative of controlled light, movement, and space. The city, the street, and the obscured reality beyond will be discovered through this lens.


title: Deconstruction and Design for Disassembly:  Analyzing Building Material Salvage and Reuse

abstract:
Building construction and demolition waste greatly contribute to the total mass found in landfills. While the traditional linear building model demands new materials for new projects, adopting cyclical models of reclamation and reuse will provide a more resourceful and sustainable future.
This thesis proposes designing a building for disassembly by reusing salvaged materials in the Vanier neighbourhood of Ottawa. As the last major area near downtown that has yet to be developed, Vanier is a model that represents places where aging structures provide an opportunity for material evolution among the existing urban fabric, and where land value is beginning to outweigh the value in rehabilitating obsolete buildings situated on it.
Utilizing digital workflows, this thesis project will examine deconstructing derelict buildings and structures found on several Vanier properties as the base material palette for designing a new addition to an existing commercial structure with the ability to be methodically disassembled.


title: Kichesippi Blues: Activating Indigenous Memory Through a Journey on Ottawa's Great River

abstract:
One could live every day in Ottawa without awareness of the Indigenous history and contested nature of its land, still unceded by the Algonquin people. While the majesty of the Kichesippi River cannot go unnoticed by anyone who sees it, its significance for the Algonquin people is easily overlooked by non-Indigenous citizens or visitors. Today, Indigenous identity and presence in the nation’s capital begs to be expressed. As a powerful territory that has eluded development, the river offers a vital starting point to this end.
This thesis envisions an inhabitation of the river via a four-part floating pavilion – known as the Migrating Spirits Pavilion – dedicated to language and cultural learning. The pavilion parts journey toward seasonal resting places, engaging other parts of the community. This architectural inhabitation of the river accepts its role as a place for awareness of and reckoning with, Indigenous memory and identity.


title: ReAwakening: On Absence, Presence, and the Restorative Power of Music for People with Alzheimer's Disease

abstract:
‘lost’, ‘empty’, ‘forgotten’, ... are terms that people with Alzheimer’s disease wrestle with. Understanding our past, present, and future within time and the environment plays an integral role in giving us confidence, identity, and purpose. A vital task of architecture is to help us to situate ourselves in the world, but one’s ability to navigate and situate in a space is greatly hampered by Alzheimer’s disease.
The thesis aims to propose a space that provides assisted and independent living for people with varying degrees of Alzheimer’s disease while incorporating music, as a therapeutic process and intervention means. The project is developed from the investigation of music and its restorative powers. The amalgamation of day-to-day living and music, creates moments of active participation, where residents, caregivers, and family members, interact to form new memories and reflect on old ones.


title: The Role of Social Enterprises in Building Inclusive Social Capital: Evidences from Multi-Case, Qualitative Field Study

abstract:
The purpose of this research is to understand how income generating activities of social enterprises build inclusive social capital. Specifically, I explore the impact of structuring decision, i.e. extent of coverage and degree of participatory implementation, of social enterprises on inclusive social capital. The concept of inclusive social capital, i.e. cross-cutting ties among different socio-economic groups, implies a breakdown of unequal social norms and thus provides a deeper understanding of ‘social’ to assess the social impact of social enterprises. Through this concept, I also bridge the gap between the communitarian and the critical approach to social capital. I argue that while the communitarian approach overemphasizes the social benefits of economic programs, the critical approach struggles to explain the transformative potential of development activities. Contrasting cases where social enterprises were able to build inclusive social capital with cases where these efforts were unsuccessful, I show a transformative understanding of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and extend the scope of the critical perspective on social capital.
I used qualitative case study method to explore the research objectives. Four social enterprises that were involved in income generating activities were selected from the central province of India. Findings from this research suggest that social enterprises can build inclusive social capital if they implement their programs at village level and create discursive space to address individual as well as collective needs. Furthermore, this research also demonstrates that social enterprises that implement multiple programs to address the heterogeneity of interests, and have a long-term and deeper engagement with the communities are relatively more successful in building inclusive social capital, compare to those social enterprises that focus on scalability and prioritized financial sustainability over social objectives.
Findings from this research make several contributions to the international development and management studies. It provides a conceptual framework to assess the social impact of social enterprises and offers insights in implementing development projects in hierarchical communities. This research supports that the potential of social enterprises in development can only be materialized if income generating activities of social enterprises are supported by the processes, activities, and incentives that are social in nature.


title: Orchestrating the Public: A Contribution to the Critique of Modern Police Power

abstract:
This study examines the relationship between the projects of ‘police’ and the ‘public’ with a focus on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century police science in Europe and late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century police in London, England. The study primarily investigates how the ideals of police and the public constitute the raison d’être of the modern state; how the ideal of police and the public evolved into the institutions of the police and the public sphere; and how the main principles involved in these ideals orchestrated the kind of public specific to modern politics.
The central argument is that the construction of the public and the public sphere as governable targets has been crucial for fabricating and sustaining the modern social order, and that this construction was made convenient under modern police power. Modern police power can therefore best be understood through an examination of the kind of publics it has generated and governed. Accordingly, this study develops a new approach to the concept of the public from the perspective of the social while situating police in the broader political context of modern state formation. In so doing, the study adopts Marx’s theory to locate the projects of police and the public in capitalist class structures while Foucault’s conceptual toolkit is used to analyse the construction, implementation, and power effects of these projects through discursive and non-discursive practices.
The broad project of police is examined in relation to capital accumulation, state formation, and political economy. The abstraction of the public sphere is given a materialist reading by (re-)conceptualizing three major public spheres: the bourgeois public sphere as the ideal target, the proletarian public sphere as its dialectical opposite, and the market-public as its supplement.
In conclusion, this thesis shows that police power turns all kinds of potential dissenting populations, often pro-actively, into the public; that is, an addressable, responsible, accountable, and transparent subject. This in turn makes dissent predictable, reversible, and non-anonymous. More broadly, the perspective developed here can help to better comprehend how modern police power forms, deforms, and reforms the diverse publics of marginalized populations to make and orchestrate the public.
Keywords: police power; police science; bourgeois public sphere; proletarian public sphere; market-public.


title: The phytophagous and predatory mites (Acari) on Prunus (Rosaceae) in southeastern Canada

abstract:
During summer 2015, 192 samples of foliage were taken from 13 different Prunus species found mostly along the Ottawa River (Quebec, Ontario; 148 samples) and in the Vineland region (Ontario; 44 samples). A total of 39 mites species were collected. Estimators of the true species diversity indicated that most of the mite fauna in the areas sampled was captured. One eriophyid mite species appears to represent a new species for science. In terms of host range, phytoseiids appear to be less specific than eriophyoids and both taxa can exhibit host preferences. In addition to providing an overview of the mite fauna of Prunus foliage and galls, this project provides two identification keys to the eriophyid mite species associated with galls, one based on the mite morphology, and the other based on the morphology of the galls.
Keywords: Prunus; phytophagous mites; predatory mites; survey; biodiversity.


title: Housing and the City:  Supporting the Process of Aging in Place Through the Development of Architectural Guidelines

abstract: As the baby boomer generation ages, there is a growing senior population across Canada and a shift in demographics that raises the issue of how to better provide appropriate housing for the ageing population while maintaining their quality of life. Generally, housing options include staying at home or moving into institutional care, however, what is the middle ground between residing at home and moving into institutional care? How can we adapt existing residential dwellings and neighborhoods to support the process of ageing in place? This thesis explores how buildings can be adapted to support the elderly in aging in place through the development of guidelines for details and a new construction. The exploration of the guidelines is informed by looking at housing at a neighborhood, building, and dwelling scale.


title: Multimodal Software For Affective Education: User Interaction Design And Evaluation

abstract:
Multimodal systems allow user interaction through various methods, or modalities, such as gesture, gaze, speech or head and body movements. There have been many frameworks proposed for the design of multimodal systems, but they focus principally on issues of technical architecture. Some applications for multimodal systems, including education, however, involve issues relating to affective (emotional) user experience.
The thesis presents our experience with creating and applying a framework for multimodal software design and evaluation, with a focus on affect (i.e. emotion) in education. Our goal is to support the system designer, and indirectly also teachers and students. We outline our conceptual basis, adaptation of interaction design and evaluation techniques, and our experience over several case studies. In particular, we describe how our techniques were refined after each case study, and how the evaluation techniques led us to revisit our design techniques. We also gained new insight about the role of the teacher, leading us to develop a new affect visualization dashboard for teachers.


title: Biomechanical Analysis of the Stroking Cycle in the Sport of Sledge Hockey

abstract: The objective of this thesis is to investigate stroking cycles used to produce skating in sledge hockey (SH). Skating is produced solely from the upper limbs using two sticks with picks that make contact with the ice surface. Results are first of its kind for SH. Research presented is comprised of two studies. From aggregated results, stroke kinematics (i.e., elbow joint angles, and stick impact and push-off angles) appear to be important factors for producing enhanced skating. Stick initial impact was determined to be a potential mechanism for injury. Study 1 investigates free fall downward poling from an anatomically correct mechanical prototype (SLAM-80), with a solid-static upper limb-stick system. Study 2 investigates task naïve double poling during off-ice skating. Participants propelled themselves through a motion capture – 4 force plate system. SLAM-80 was validated from Study 2 results. Future investigations of spiking impact forces can occur without humans.


title: Tragic Disclosure:  Stoic Diagnostics in Senecan Drama

abstract:
In this thesis, I set out to render Seneca’s ostensibly anti-Stoic tragedies consistent with the practical ends of Senecan Stoicism. I do this by reconstructing Seneca’s approach to poetics and by situating this approach within a longer tradition of philosophical criticism hospitable to poetry. I then apply this hermeneutic approach to Seneca’s paradigmatic tragedy, Medea.
On my view, the Stoicism of Senecan drama lies in the meta-reflexivity Seneca invests within the phenomenon of aesthetic response. Through engagement with tragedy, the reader/auditor acquires self-knowledge instrumental to progressing along the Stoic path. Spectator response serves as a kind of diagnostic tool through which the subject learns about their disposition to allocate their care in the world, and against which they determine their alignment with Stoic doctrine.


title: Long-Range Surface Plasmon Polariton Active Structures Based on Optically-Pumped Dye-Doped Polymer Gain Media

abstract:
Solid state organic gain medium using optically-pumped dye molecules doped in a polymer host is considered as the top cladding of a long-range surface plasmon polariton (LRSPP) structure to enable active plasmonic devices with interesting applications operating in the near-infrared.
The gain media is a thin film of PMMA (poly (methyl methacrylate)) doped with ~ 0.9 wt% organic dye molecules of IR-140 and is pump optically using 8 nsec laser pulses at 810 nm to enable stimulated emission by excited dye molecules to the LRSPP mode at ~ 880 nm.
The gain media was modeled through rate equations for a four-level energy system, relating the small signal gain coefficient to the dye photo-physical parameters, dye concentration and pump irradiance. Distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) and distributed feedback (DFB) lasers were proposed using Bragg reflectors based on modulation of the metal stripe width, forming a stepped-in-width Bragg grating in the LRSPP waveguide. Single mode surface plasmon DFB and DBR lasers were designed at 882 nm, by applying coupled-mode theory and transfer matrix method (TMM).
The IR-140 doped PMMA gain medium was experimentally characterized. The maximum available material gain was identified for various pump intensities and two possible pump polarization in the gain media using the variable stripe length (VSL) method. The maximum available material gain agreed well with the theoretical gain modeling performed previously.
The DFB lasers and passive Bragg gratings were fabricated in the microfabrication laboratories at Center for Research in Photonics in University of Ottawa. Main fabrication processes included electron beam lithography to create stepped-in-width Bragg grating patterns with sharp corners and edges, with features as small as 150 nm.
Passive Bragg gratings were successfully characterized by my colleague showing a clear dip in the transmittance spectra (~ 40%) at the designed Bragg wavelength 882 nm.
DFB lasers were characterized and successfully demonstrated a highly narrowed (FWHM ~ 0.2 nm) single mode lasing peak at 882 nm. The mode profile from the DFBs’ output facet was captured by an infrared camera showing a tiny bright spot surrounded with dim spontaneous emission.


title: A Non-Frivolous Pleasure Park:  Revisiting Truro's Tidal Bore Motel Site

abstract:
Along an inlet of the Bay of Fundy, centrally located in Nova Scotia, a remarkable tidal phenomenon known as the tidal bore has long captivated locals and tourists. The tidal bore is sudden, its first wave advancing like a wall of water over the empty inlet until it gradually fills with seawater. Beyond its powerful beauty, this natural occurrence holds a very dominant sense of control over humans and the landscape - dictating the conditions of use, enjoyment and an ever-changing site.
This thesis asks how the opposing spatio-temporal pulls of local culture and tourism can be reconciled on this liminal landscape.
Revisiting the site’s long history of tourism, the design explores the crossing together of a littoral park, an RV campground and a motel. While acquiescing to humans’ desire to get close to the tidal bore experientially, the architecture seeks to reveal, not obscure, the site.


title: Dance with us as you can…: Art, Artist, and Witness(ing) in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Journey

abstract: This dissertation explores, through in-depth interviews, the perspectives of artists and curators with regard to the question of the roles of art and artist – and the themes of community, responsibility, and practice – in truth, healing, and reconciliation during the early through late stages of the 2008-2015 mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), as its National Events, statement taking, and other programming began to play out across the country. The author presents the findings from these interviews alongside observations drawn from the unique positioning afforded to him through his professional work in healing and reconciliation-focused education and research roles at the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (2007-2012) and the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre (2012-2016) about the ways art and artists were invoked and involved in the work of the TRC, alongside it, and/or in response to it. A chapter exploring Indigenous writing and reconciliation, with reference to the work of Basil Johnston, Jeannette Armstrong, Tomson Highway, Maria Campbell, Richard Wagamese, and many others, leads into three additional case studies. The first explores the challenges of exhibiting the legacies of Residential Schools, focusing on Jeff Thomas’ seminal curatorial work on the archival photograph-based exhibition Where Are the Children? Healing the Legacy of Residential Schools and Heather Igloliorte’s curatorial work on the exhibition ‘We were so far away…’: The Inuit Experience of Residential Schools, itself a response to feedback on Where Are the Children? Both examinations draw extensively from the author’s interviews with the curators. The final two chapters are case studies of two bodies of work, R. G. Miller’s 2008 Mush Hole Remembered and the community-based, collaborative memorial project Walking With Our Sisters, respectively, that the author was privileged to engage with in critical, collaborative, and curatorial capacities. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of research findings and recommendations for additional work in this increasingly expansive area of art, curatorial, and research practice.


title: A Fully Integrated Distributed Active Transformer Power Amplifier with Injection Locking

abstract: This work explores the design of a novel integrated RF power amplifier in IBM’s 0.13 micron RF CMOS process. Through a combination of architectures, the series output transformer coupling of a distributed active transformer (DAT) topology is paired with a gain enhancing injection-locking architecture in an attempt to realize a combination of high output power, gain and efficiency; while minimizing die area and supply voltage. By employing this novel hybrid architecture, the proposed injection-locking DAT power amplifier achieves a P1dB of 25.94 dBm with a maximum gain of 14.5 dB and peak PAE of 22% from a 1.5 V dc supply voltage (in simulation). The measurement results show discrepancies from the simulated results provided, and several hypotheses as to the cause of these differences are explored.


title: Fun Mills: The Interactive Adaptation of a Post-Industrial Economy

abstract: Fun Mills intends to revive the economy of the declining post-industrial town, Burnley, UK. Taking influence from Cedric Price’s proposed Fun Palace, this thesis explores how architecture might continue to flourish through society’s dependence on digital technology. Burnley was once England’s centre of cotton and wool production yet is now comprised of numerous vacant cotton mills that line the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. While the majority of prosperous cities in the UK have shifted their economies to knowledge industries, the predominant population of Burnley is trained in the manufacturing sector, lacking the education to move into a knowledge economy. This project proposes the transformation of unused cotton mills into a network of interactive textile labs, to bridge a sharing economy between manufacturing, knowledge, and service industries. Similar to notions of the Fun Palace, the buildings acknowledge indeterminacy by allowing reconfiguring forms to adapt to the continuous progression of technology.


title: Hobbes, Locke, and the Theological Foundations of the State of Nature

abstract: Modernity, while often understood as a secular project, seems to be inseparable from its theological origins. The thought of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke makes clear that the relationship between modernity and religion is far more complicated than the standard narrative suggests. Both Hobbes and Locke use state of nature scenarios in their thought, but these states look quite different. This is rooted in theological differences. Hobbes was a nominalist, and his God is distant and arbitrary. This renders Hobbes's state of nature a dangerous ethical vacuum. Locke's God was more rational. Through reason, Locke's God, and his commandments, are knowable. Thus, the state of nature is far more ordered and peaceful, because there is a knowable and morally obligatory natural law. What this suggests is that the foundations of modernity were highly theological, and thus our understanding of the relationship between modernity and secularization needs to be rethought.


title: Out of the Square: Engaging Communities Through Urban Gathering Spaces

abstract:
Supporting and strengthening Indigenous culture is a prerequisite for Indigenous peoples adjusting to an urban environment. Maintaining a strong sense of identity and remaining engaged in the Indigenous community is an essential and self-validating pursuit. This thesis proposes gathering spaces for different cultural groups in Montreal in order to facilitate community engagement and to invigorate cultural identity, with a focus on Indigenous culture.
For over twenty years Cabot Square in Montreal has been a central meeting space for the Inuit and First Nations communities. This project explores architecture as a medium to promote inclusivity for the Indigenous community within the urban while creating social and cultural engagement. The thesis proposes gathering spaces as a means to facilitate a meeting and exchange of cultures in order to strengthen ways of expression for the urban Indigenous communities in the city, along with other communities.


title: HOME Away From Home

abstract: Affordable housing has been the topic for many projects, resulting in numerous proposed solutions for supporting low-income families as well as refugees in need. This project proposes a new way of looking at the problem. It offers new solutions that can make a difference in people’s lives in the shortest time. Fast paced independence and integration of newcomers is the main goal of this new solution; however, creating opportunities and building support is not exclusive of other social groups. This project’s determination is to introduce a hub that can improve refugees’ quality of life by considering factors that can contribute to their mental and physical health. The aim is to provide refugees with a real sense of belonging in dignified homes, and to build a strong sense of self-confidence for a faster independence and contribution in the community as new Canadians.


title: Three Essays on Mergers and Acquisitions: Negative Premium, Failed Mergers, and Deal Quality Implications of Medium of Exchange

abstract: Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are important economic events. They not only transform firms and industries but also have significant wealth implications for shareholders. In the past decade, investment in merger and acquisition activity has reached unprecedented levels, and the increase in M&A activity and the economic significance of this form of corporate restructuring provide the fundamental motivation for the study of the antecedents and consequences of mergers and acquisitions. In particular, this thesis is motivated by three areas within the M&A literature that demand further research, and it intends to address these gaps in the literature in three separate but interrelated essays. The results from the first essay provides evidence that while target firm’s financial distress and overvaluation permit the bidder to offer a negative acquisition premium, it is the combination of the negative market reaction to the negative premium bid (resulting in a convergence of the target’s stock price to bid price) and high block ownership (resulting in lower share liquidity) that lead target shareholders to prefer the negative premium bid over selling at market prices. The second essay investigates the issue of long-run post-acquisition underperformance, and contributes evidence to the literature that target firms in terminated deals not only outperform their own pre-acquisition performance but also outperform financial and operating performance of targets in completed deals. The third essay investigates the issue medium of exchange choice (i.e., cash or stock) under conditions of asymmetric information. This third essay reports evidence that the information content of announcement returns of bidding firms in stock financed deals is associated with the bidder valuation and the quality of the combination, but only the quality of the combination for cash bidders. The three essays, though investigating different aspects of the construction of the acquisition bid, each identify that the deal construction (e.g., deal consideration, medium of exchange) and deal outcomes (e.g., failure or success) is a key determinant of post-combination outcomes, both in terms of financial and operating performance.


title: Gold Nanoparticles as a Platform for Small Molecule SELEX

abstract: Small molecules play a significant role in a variety of applications. Current detection methods present limitations leaving an unmet need for alternative methods of detection. Selected through an in vitro process known as Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX), aptamers are single stranded oligonucleotides that can bind to specific target molecules with high selectivity and affinity. Aptamers can be used as the molecular recognition agent of various biosensors. Based on a non-covalent interaction, AuNPs could potentially serve as a novel platform for small molecule SELEX. Selecting for aptamers in a manner that will mimic established AuNP biosensor conditions provides a number of advantages. As a first step towards establishing a AuNP SELEX platform, we evaluated SELEX partitioning. Having uncovered several challenges, we next synthesized, optimized, and characterized Fe3O4-AuNPs. We demonstrated that Fe3O4-AuNPs could function as a novel method to study ssDNA aptamer-AuNP non-specific interactions.


title: An Analysis of an Autonomous Smart House as an Organism: An Alternative Pattern of Organization

abstract:
This paper examines the current state of smart homes and proposes an alternative model based on biomimicry. It is argued that a house that is modeled on a living organism will be more efficient for the inhabitants, and more effective to insulate them from the unpredictable effects of climate change in the near future. By using an organism as a model, the house will be able to self-organize its systems, and adapt to both its inhabitants as well as environmental perturbations. This can be accomplished with the use of sensors and actuators in a decentralized configuration with artificial life programming. Since organisms are autonomous by definition, off-grid housing systems are infused to create a new housing model that is zero-emission, zero-waste, and can serve as a model for other forms of infrastructure at greater scales. Keywords: Smart House, Self-organizing systems, Complex Adaptive Systems, Artificial Life, Wireless sensor networks.
Keywords: Smart House; Self-Organizing Systems; Complex Adaptive Systems; Artificial Life; Wireless Sensor Networks.


title: Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity of Fourteen Medicinal Basidiomycete Fungi against Yeast and Antibiotic Resistant Esherichia coli

abstract: Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a growing concern to society and treatments require the discovery of new antimicrobial compounds. This study evaluated fourteen different edible and/or medicinal mushroom species for antimicrobial activity. Growth inhibition of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and of ciprofloxacin-resistant strains of Escherichia coli was examined using bioassays and by Minimum Inhibitory Concentration with alcohol extracts of mushroom mycelia and culture broth. Cultures used for extract preparations were grown in Potato Dextrose Broth with or without induction using a) low-nutrient medium, b) spent Escherichia coli filtrate, or c) 5-azacytidine. Several extracts resulted in a reduction in bacterial and/or yeast growth, although full inhibition was observed with only a few extracts. Fungi with antimicrobial activity may be useful as a food therapy as well as leads in drug discovery and this study confirms that basidiomycetes may provide new, useful antimicrobials.


title: Why Students Drink: Testing a Conceptual Model of How Social Anxiety and Drinking Motives Influence Drinking

abstract:
Socially anxious students may be at risk for heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems (e.g., injuries), because they may endorse more maladaptive drinking motives, such as drinking to cope with their anxiety or to conform to peer-pressure (Hingson et al., 2005). This study assessed two conceptual models: 1) whether social anxiety predicts drinking motives, which in turn predict alcohol-outcomes (i.e., a mediation model), and 2) whether social anxiety exacerbates the effect of drinking motives on alcohol-outcomes (i.e., moderation model). Undergraduates (N = 387) completed an online survey, and of these n = 76 completed a follow-up brief survey study. Both surveys assessed social anxiety, drinking motives, and alcohol-outcomes. Results showed that coping and conformity motives explained the associations between social anxiety and alcohol-related problems, and coping motives explained the association between social anxiety and heavy drinking.
Keywords: social anxiety; drinking motives; heavy drinking; alcohol-related problems; brief surveys; university students.


title: Interactive Facade

abstract:
Digital technology is rapidly increasing the dynamic interaction between building and users. The overlap of digital technology with the field of architecture has resulted in the development of Interactive Architecture, architecture that evolve beyond parametric and generative design, incorporating new technological advances, absorbing, processing and exchanging data in real time, proposing configuration adapted to the ever-changing needs of its users. Interactive Architecture designs space capable of communicating and interacting with the changing environmental context and responding in ‘real-time’ to user preferences.
This thesis is focused on investigating the question of: How can a space develop an understanding of its users (through their body gestures) and respond accordingly? Based on the thesis question this paper investigates the process of creating interactive spaces and explores architectural form generation through behaviour-based AI approaches. The thesis concludes with a proposal for a dynamic responsive architectural system, a through behaviour-based AI approaches.


title: Liminal Crossings: Venice Between Time and Space

abstract:
What lies between the city and the city? Between a city’s present and its future? The first is a liminal space, the second is a liminal time. Venice has many simultaneously occurring cities within its urban fabric: economic, social and environmental mega forces. Since the 1960’s Venice has seen an exodus of its residents, taking with them the memory of an obsolete urban identity. As tourists’ flood in by air, train and ship replacing the Venetians equally in numbers: one city is replaced by the other.
Inspired by China Miéville’s novel, The City & The City, in which Venice’s space of “Breach” is the third city that is neither local or tourist, neither permanent or temporary. It is a liminality, a stage unbound between the Venice of the past and the future. The cruise ship becomes the site of a liminal Venice, floating between the city’s present and its future.


title: Women Inside the Canadian Military, 1938-1966

abstract:
This dissertation inserts servicewomen into military history and women’s and gender history by analyzing how women voiced their place in the Canadian military between 1938 and 1966. It studies how women negotiated the conditions of their service during the Second World War, resisted demobilization in 1946, and shaped the terms on which women entered the forces permanently in 1966. Drawing on official texts, unofficial histories, and personal scrapbooks, the thesis identifies the voices of women who pursued military careers and makes three arguments. First, women have actively negotiated with defence officials for a place in the armed services in war and peace. Second, servicewomen have adopted a perspective that went beyond the war in their plans for future service and their reflections on past service. Third, servicewomen crafted their legacies and pushed for recognition of female military expertise. The thesis moves beyond Ruth Roach Pierson’s pioneering work on women in the Second World War to consider women’s long-term identifications with the forces.
Chapter one covers the establishment of the wartime women’s services. Chapter two studies wartime debates over alcohol and sexual (im)morality. Chapter three analyzes reports on the future of women in the forces written in 1946 by Acting Captain Adelaide Sinclair, Lieutenant-Colonel Daisy Royal, and an unnamed senior member of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Chapter four examines women’s continued participation in the military community through veteran’s organizations and cadet groups, and discussions over their place in the armed services between 1946 and 1955. Chapter five concentrates on a 1965 study recommending a permanent place for women in the services. Chapter six explores how servicewomen narrated their histories in scrapbooks and unofficial histories.
The research answers Cynthia Enloe’s appeal to listen carefully to women inside the military, and identifies ways women’s voices have been silenced, by both defence officials and scholars. The thesis highlights the military as a site of feminism, linking paramilitary women, servicewomen, veteran’s organizations, and cadets. Studying women’s negotiation of their military roles and their history reveals the policing of gender norms in the armed services, Canadian society, and the scholarship of the Second World War.


title: "The Lightness of the City"

abstract:
Calvino sees lightness as a powerful lens through which to understand a work of art. This approach can also be applied to a city, whose inherent nature is heavy.
In the mostly unoccupied new city of Kilamba, emptiness itself is a paradoxical weight. The intent of this thesis is to oppose the rational powers that shaped Kilamba with intuitive, Dionysian modes of resistance, to bring together modern and local historical conditions through a resistive third-party, to transcend the hegemonic political and technological forces that keep them separate and give them weight. Architecture is, in this mode, a poetic accident, uncovering a lightness “that defines the variety of things (in an) essential parity.” The elements of the city are summoned to dissolve the solidity of that world into “a fine dust of atoms,” allowing the city to raise itself above its weight. The city itself becomes a work of art.


title: Who Cares?: Women, Emotion, and Bodies in Animal Activism

abstract: This thesis uses a critical feminist lens to examine the role of gender in shaping animal rights (AR) activism in North America. It draws on the content of eight semi-structured interviews conducted with AR activists who live in a mid-sized Canadian city. I argue that North American AR activism is a feminized space within the public sphere, by virtue of the emotional labour of care that characterizes it. This community of mostly white, female AR activists reflects a dominant patriarchal hierarchy of legitimate knowledges. Insofar as we are a society constrained by gender, the women use strategies of activism that draw on their bodies and emotions which, within the gendered constraints of society, are acceptably female forms of knowledge and expression. They experience corporeal effects, observable in high rates of burnout and PTSD among activists, and through exclusions of bodies through the practices of veganism and nude activism.


title: A Relationship Focused Approach to Epistemic Injustice in Global Development Theory and Practice

abstract: Miranda Fricker’s theory of epistemic injustice articulates the connections between ethics and epistemology that come to light in the harms caused when someone is wronged in their capacities as a knower. Although Fricker’s account has provided an important contribution to the academic literature, its many flaws mean that a new approach to epistemic injustice is needed. This new account will focus more on structures of society, context, and relationships to better understand how epistemic injustices happen. This new approach will then be applied to the broad context of global development, and to the specific case study of Cuba’s education and health care policies. The goal of this project is to show that epistemic injustice interferes with effective and ethical global development work aimed at improving the well-being of people, and how taking a more structural, contextual, and relational approach will mitigate the harms of epistemic injustice.


title: Couch: A Mobile Application Designed to Investigate the Relationship Between Aesthetics and Persuasion

abstract: Aesthetics is an important aspect of the user experience. It is also among the principles for persuasive systems in the frameworks such as the functional triad by Fogg and the Persuasive Systems Design by Oinas-Kukkonen and Harjumaa. Yet, literature directly investigating the influence of aesthetics on persuasion is limited. Similarly, despite the significance of aversive stimuli on behaviour change, the research is also sparse. To understand how aesthetics affect reported persuasion, I designed a mobile app named Couch with two levels of each aesthetics and persuasion, utilizing aversive stimuli, with the aim of reducing sedentary behaviour. Participants reported significantly higher levels of persuasion in persuasive group compared to control group, showing the success of persuasion attempts. However, aesthetics had no significant effect on persuasion. I report additional findings regarding aesthetics, and discuss the implications for future work.


title: Direct Measurement of the Higgs Boson Mass, Natural Width, and Cross Section Times Branching Ratio to Four Leptons Using a Per-Event Lineshape in the Higgs to ZZ to Four Lepton Decay Channel with the ATLAS Detector

abstract:
The discovery of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations in 2012 remains the crowning achievement of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) physics programme. Five years since its discovery, Run 2 at the LHC is underway and producing more data than ever before, allowing measurements of the Higgs boson beyond the reach of Run 1. Precise measurement of the Higgs boson’s properties help guide particle physicists in understanding the Standard Model, and what lays beyond.
This thesis presents a measurement of the Higgs boson mass, natural width, and cross section times branching ratio in the H → ZZ(∗) → 4l decay channel using the full 2015+2016 combined dataset from Run 2 at the LHC, totaling 36.1/fb of p-p collisions at centre-of-mass energy √s = 13 TeV. The analysis is performed using a technique developed by the author, called the per-event response method. The technique is designed to produce a more precise, accurate, and model-independent measurement of the Higgs boson properties grounded directly on the performance of the ATLAS detector.
Using this technique, the Higgs boson mass was measured to be mH = 124.61 +/-0.44(stat.) +/-0.06(syst.) GeV. The total Higgs boson production cross section times branching ratio to four electrons or muons in p-p collisions at √s = 13 TeV was measured to be σ × BR(H → 4l) = 8.55 +/-1.23(stat.) +/-0.63(syst.) fb. An upper limit was set on the natural width of the Higgs as ΓH < 3.65(stat.) ⊕ 0.19(syst.) GeV at 95% confidence. These measurements are consistent with previous measurements and with the Standard Model. This result is the first ever measurement of Higgs boson mass using ATLAS at √s = 13 TeV, exceeding the precision of any H → 4l mH measurement made to this point.
Also presented are the author’s contributions to the precision assembly of the small-strip Thin Gap Chambers to be installed in ATLAS in 2019, and to the ATLAS reconstruction software, both essential to continued detector operation and the many physics analyses yet to come from ATLAS.


title: Complex NMF for Multichannel Source Separation

abstract:
Recently, a new tool known as Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) has presented itself as a formidable and useful tool for providing a parts based representation of matrix data. It has been applied with success in audio signal processing for topics such as blind source separation (BSS), music transcription and for representing musical and/or speech mixtures as additively occurring nonnegative representations of audio components. This thesis presents research and a proposed algorithm that addresses the problem of under-determined multi-channel frequency domain BSS, and investigates spatial covariance matrix (SCM) based NMF and single channel CNMF algorithms as applied to complex (as opposed to nonnegative) STFT coefficients. The research also investigates K-means clustering applied to interchannel frequency dependent phase differences in order to achieve source separation using SCM NMF based techniques.
Keywords: Nonnegative Matrix Factorization; Complex Matrix Factorization; Spatial Covariance Matrices; Underdetermined multi-channel source separation; Blind Source Separation; multi-channel STFT


title: Analysis of OpenFlow and NETCONF as SBIs in Managing the Optical Link Interconnecting Data Centers in an SDN Environment

abstract: SDN technology has primarily been applied to all types and size of network ranging from Ethernet services to large cloud environment. More recently, interest has turned towards extending programmability of the OTN. In the SDN architecture, SBIs are used to communicate between the SDN controller and the switches or routers in the network. In this thesis we deploy two major protocols as SBIs in managing BoD across the interconnected data centers over the OTN. The OpenFlow and NETCONF are the two SBIs deployed between the OpenDayLight controller and the BTI7800 optical edge transponders. We present the OpenVSwitch architecture modified for referencing the optical ports of the BTI7800 devices. Experimental demonstration and performance of both BTI YANG-based NETCONF and OpenFlow protocols are presented. Our experiments show that NETCONF is faster and efficiently handles the control message; whereas in a fully loaded system, OpenFlow offers better bandwidth utilization.


title: Representation Theory of the Lie Algebras of Divergence Zero and Hamiltonian Vector Fields on a Torus

abstract: This thesis is about the representation theory of the Lie algebras of divergence zero and Hamiltonian vector fields on an N dimensional torus, denoted SN and HN respectively. It combines the results of three research papers written during the doctoral work of the author. First, conditions for irreducibility of a certain class of tensor modules for SN, are investigated. Next, a classification of indecomposable and irreducible SN-modules, which have a compatible action by the commutative algebra of Laurent polynomials, and have a weight decomposition with finite dimensional weight spaces is presented. Such modules are referred to as category J, and it is seen that the tensor modules considered above comprise many of the irreducible SN-modules in category J. Similar techniques are then applied to give a classification of indecomposable and irreducible category J modules for HN.


title: The ANC's Medical Trial Run: the Anti-Apartheid Medical Service in Exile, 1964-1990

abstract:
South Africa’s current ruling African National Congress (ANC) government inherited a relatively well-developed healthcare system that was steeped in institutionalised racism. The apartheid era created the conditions for poor health and provided poor healthcare for black South Africans. However, little research has been done on the history of health and healthcare provision for the South Africans who were exiled by the National Party in 1960 and more specifically on the medical sector developed by the ANC for exiles in civilian settlements and military camps based in newly independent, sympathetic nation-states in southern Africa. The exiled South Africans were affected by the legacy of colonialism, exposed to the repression of apartheid and were subject to the first efforts of the ANC’s medical sector and (eventual) Health Department while they were in exile. Indeed, many health professionals who filled leadership positions in the post-apartheid Department of Health were trained in exile and had been a part of the medical sector in the liberation struggle during some portion of the thirty-year period that the ANC was in exile. This medical sector formed in exile is the subject of this dissertation.
The history of the ANC’s medical sector in exile sheds new light on the importance of health to the international legitimacy of the ANC but also to the individuals whose lives were at risk in exile. Moreover, it begins to show that the Department of Health was also a product of apartheid in the sense that it emerged as a political response to the inequalities in South Africa and was forced to contend with exiles that had been damaged by the South African system. Attempts to understand the post-apartheid National Department of Health in South Africa must first contend with this history of health and healthcare in exile.


title: Balikbayan Blues: Unfolding a Collective Consciousness Neither "Here" Nor "There"

abstract: The 21st century city has been and will continue to be re-shaped and re-defined by the socio-cultural factor of international migration and the accompanying politics of ethno-cultural difference. Balikbayan Blues: Unfolding A Collective Consciousness Neither “Here” Nor “There” will set out to examine the implications of the politics of difference and the persistence and plasticity of culture through the context of the SoMa district in San Francisco - a city home to the second largest community of Filipinos in America. A study of such dynamics will frame an analysis of the Filipino balikbayan box, utilized as a metaphorical tool in exploring new methods of building, situated within the negotiation of a collective memory of the homeland and responsive adaptations to the host locale. The architecture that emerges is neither here, nor there and neither completely fiction or faithful. Instead, the spaces that materialize are something in-between; in perpetual mutation.


title: Agrivale:  A Phantasmagorical Project for a Small Town

abstract:
Since the advent of mass production, fast food has become a staple in modern society. Our lifestyles are sustained by the convenience of ready-made products, to-go cups and take-out containers. Have we lost the connection to food we eat?
This thesis proposes a fictional future in the small town of Keswick, Georgina, Ontario. It addresses growing concerns surrounding food resources and arable land. Agrivale is the story of transition to a self-sustainable town; a speculative proposal that explores food as festivity, celebrating the seasons of growing, and architecture of enjoyment. Exaggerating stereotypical aspects of the small town, Agrivale retells the story of land and river through the seasons, focusing on local food through growth, production, packaging, sales, and consumption. This thesis asks how the intervention of an Agricarnival can develop a renewed consciousness towards farmland and bring awareness to emerging local agriculture while providing socially interactive and playful architecture.


title: The Craftsman - Reopening the Narrative to the Art of Production

abstract: The Craftsman, an identity based upon the intimate bond between the body, the mind, and the material. This thesis is a celebration of the craftsman in an effort to bring back the importance of engaging in the narrative of the object. Through the exploration of ceramics, glass work, and textiles, this thesis is a proposal that's purpose is to mend the importance of the tactile process of making. Designing for a centralized, embodied energy to create a tactile playground that highlights the art of production through the redevelopment of the vacant McCormick’s Factory located in the heart of the Old East Village in London, Ontario. This thesis creates a space where one can learn, explore, and be stimulated by the spirit of the craftsman’s process; inspiring methods of making, while at the same time bringing new life to a building that was once a source of pride for the community.


title: Gendered Space and Power Symbol: Imagining the Castle in Middle English Romance.

abstract: The subject of this thesis is to analyze the way in which a castle acts as a setting for the action of entrapment within Middle English romances. It is proposed that the castle’s symbolic attributes are both dependent upon as well as help define the nature of entrapment. The literary castle is a social space that is subject to social paradigms, yet its image evokes various symbolisms of power. Gender interactions contribute to the action of entrapment and reconfigure the way in which power is represented by the castle. The concept of the castle is fluid, as its existence is not always evident. However, by deciphering both descriptive and sometimes vague cues as to the nature of the setting within the texts, it is possible to identify this powerful structure. Once identified, the castle setting is analyzed for figurative connotations and how these relate to various modes of gendered interactions.


title: Vibrotactile Feedback for Human Balance Improvement: Experimental Investigation of Optimal Feedback Location

abstract: This thesis characterizes the use of vibrotactile feedback and evaluates the effect of feedback location on human balance via three main experiments. The first experiment characterizes common tactor types and compares their performance based on participants' perception. The better performing tactor is used in the second experiment, which investigates the optimal body location for feedback through participants' performance in sensing tactor array feedback. This study compares neck, waist, wrist, and ankle feedback weighted scores of reaction time, ability to detect feedback, and ability to discern the activated tactor and its vibration intensity. The best-performing locations, wrist and ankle, are used in the third study to show vibrotactile feedback’s positive effect on participants' balance and to identify the optimal body location for feedback. Feedback, independent of location, significantly improved percentage time spent in the deadzone, and in some tests also significantly improved AP and ML trunk tilt.


title: Ordinary Apocalypse: Zombies, Feminism and the Unmaking of Self

abstract: This thesis is a reflexive examination of my own experience, as understood through my consumption of popular culture, specifically the series, The Walking Dead. This project investigates the sociocultural phenomenon of the self through an examination of my own self, as reflected and refracted through popular culture. The thesis is grounded in a feminist and cultural studies theoretical framework that examines the nature of knowledge and the production of meaning in our culture. The methodology for this project hybridizes two distinct ethnographic approaches: autoethnography and webnography. Specifically, I draw on the story arc of Lori and Andrea to demonstrate some of the ways that the post-apocalyptic world of the series relies on a logic of masculinist protection to discursively subordinate feminine identity or self for Lori and Andrea. I use my own emotional engagement with the series to expand the idea of apocalypse to more ordinary aspects of our lives.


title: Ruin-Ophilia:  Preserving Cultural Narratives of a Lighthouse Through Controlled Ruination

abstract: Once vital aspects of safer navigation routes and icons of industrial development, the Imperial Towers of Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay dominated over the Bruce Peninsula coastal landscape for almost two centuries. Their contribution to the development of their respective regions rendered them cultural landmarks and embedded them in the larger cultural narratives of their locales. However, advancements in technologies, like many other engineering works, led these structures to become obsolete. Among these is the Nottawasaga Island Lighthouse, now with all alternative use options exhausted, awaiting its end. This thesis explores a way to turn this ruination process into an architectural experience. Through “controlled ruination” the transmission of larger cultural narratives is enabled while the man-made melts into nature.


title: Improvised Obsolescence:  Olusosun Computer Village

abstract: Over the last 20 years, exportation of used electronics have contributed immensely to shaping the economic landscape for developing countries like Nigeria. While 20% of these used electronics get refurbished, about 80% are deposited in nearby landfills. In Lagos Nigeria, the prolonged relationship between landfills and waste pickers, has generated a community that exhibit and inhabit collaged spatial qualities – an improvised small scale city in contrast to the banal conventions of its larger context. This expression ranges from improvised shanties, changing scavenging pathways, makeshift storages, markets, workstations and the overall immediacy of overlapping activities. Through an appraisal of the conditions of a Lagos landfill site and a major refurbished-electronics market nearby, this thesis proposes a spatial resolution that explores an alternative approach to making. The agency of scavenging and improvisation towards a process of remediation that acknowledges the scavenger, the scavenged, and the future eventuality of this expired wasteland.


title: 'It doesn’t always do justice to people’: Neoliberalism’s Reorganization of Social Service Delivery in Ontario

abstract: Guided by institutional ethnography and labour process theory, this project explores the ways in which the discourses and practices of neoliberal austerity organize the work experiences of frontline social service providers and workers’ various forms of resistance to this restructuring. Managerialist practices of accreditation and evidence-based practice appear to reorient service provision away from relational, social justice oriented work and community building, redistributing workers’ time and energy to administrative practices involved in assessments, evaluations, and performance measurements. These ongoing changes take a toll on worker mental wellbeing and present challenges to the sustainability of social service provision by increasing workloads and limiting workers’ access to support. While these changes in work processes present some challenges in workers’ relationships with management and one another, they also open up new spaces to demonstrate solidarity and to work together to resist the neoliberalization of the sector.


title: Becoming the State: Territorializing Ceylon, 1815-1848

abstract:
This dissertation studies the political, economic, and cosmological processes through which the idea of “total territorial rule” at the core of the modern state came into being in the context of British colonial rule on the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) between 1815 – 1848. It develops a decolonial theoretical framework informed by the idea of a “pluriverse” of multiple ontologies to show the empirical and imperial avenues through which the idea of the modern/colonial state became normalized in Ceylon. Specifically, I discuss the rajamandala system and its long history in Buddhist South Asia as an approach to organizing political society that is ontologically distinct from British approaches.
The process of “Buddhification” enabled foreign rulers to naturalize into the rajamandala system; it provides a context within which to better understand the importance of British rule across the island, traditionally marked as beginning with the 1815 Kandyan Convention. I present the Convention as a moment of sovereign ontological collision where two ontologies of sovereignty conflicted. The ontological conflict manifested in different forms of violence locally, regionally, and imperially, through insurrections, religious politics, and political economic transformations.
By drawing attention to Europe’s externalization of violence in modern state formation, we must rethink the characterization of 1815 – 1914 as “peaceful” as the peacefulness of this period depended on the violence of relational state formation. Relatedly, though historians of South Asia tend to mark the rise of the British Raj in 1858 India, one of the empirical contributions this dissertation makes is showing that the period between the 1815 Kandyan Convention and the 1848 Matale Rebellion in Ceylon and the associated contestations between colonizing and anti-colonizing vectors over land, sovereignty, economy, and spirituality should be considered an earlier site of imperial state (trans)formation.
The dissertation contributes to decolonial international relations, global history, and global political economy by emphasizing one important manifestation of modernity/coloniality: the territorial state. Relatedly, it intervenes in studies of peace and conflict studies by insisting that making sense of postcolonial crises involving territory in the 21st century, we must first understand the historical and conceptual processes that naturalized “total territorial rule.”


title: Law, Culture and Reprisals:  A Qualitative Case Study of Whistleblowing & Health Canada's Drug Approval Process

abstract: Abstract Countries around the world consider whistleblowing a first and often best early warning system for corruption and regulatory failure because whistleblowers are usually organizational insiders with first-hand knowledge of complex systems often impenetrable and unintelligible to outsiders. Why then do whistleblowers, these harbingers of wrongdoing, suffer censure and reprisals? The answer to this question sparked this case study of a whistleblower’s concerns regarding the effectiveness of Health Canada’s drug approval process in 1996 and the resulting impact on the whistleblower, the organization and ultimately the implications for public safety and accountable government. The methods used were process-tracing, in-depth interviews and data and document review. The results suggested problems with culture in the main organization Health Canada, possibly exacerbated by deregulation. The conclusion is a multi-faceted approach to addressing culture is needed before whistleblower protection legislation can work and accountable organizations can flourish.


title: A New Kind of War:  Canadian Media Coverage of ISIS

abstract: This thesis examines how Canadian journalists are adapting to changing environments in their coverage of terrorism since the rise of ISIS in 2014, the first ever social-media terrorist group. The crux of this analysis focuses on how ISIS has changed the Canadian media's normal journalistic routines and methods of reporting on terrorism and terrorists. Interviews were conducted with seven Canadian journalists to determine how the terrorism narrative has changed as a result of ISIS. In conclusion, although the nature of terrorism has not changed, the way that ISIS promulgates itself through social media proves to be a challenge for journalists.


abstract:
The term “underground” is used to describe a group or movement which explores alternative lifestyles or forms of artistic expression. At a moment when Ottawa’s music scene is thriving, several underground venues have closed down.
This thesis questions how an architect can covertly assist the underground performance scene without compromising its do-it-yourself (DIY) ideology.
As long as architecture exists within the boundaries of clients, budgets, and codes, it can only host the underground illicitly. However, Other Architecture for Uplifting Gormandizers proposes a Tricky Architecture - a venue for the underground which remains hidden in plain sight.
This thesis includes the reconstruction of a partially collapsed building in the heart of Ottawa, whose history of ongoing construction and ten-year neglect becomes a form of punk camouflage. A (seemingly) straightforward renovation is undertaken to reopen the building to serve the 9-5, while secretly leaving space for the infiltration of the other 9-5.


title: At Intervals: Envisaging the Social Incubator

abstract: The following thesis is presented to the reader in a specified way, broken into two Acts. Act I, will present the fictional section of the thesis at the forefront of the document in order to immerse the reader in a work inspired from the themes and discussions that follow shortly after. In Act II, a dialogue with authorial sources of ideas about the street and its modern conditions within North American cities will be presented. Raising the issues and bringing the writing, analysis and poetics into discussion. The reader will enter the fiction. The reader will enter the dialogue with the sources. The discussion and older philosophy will aid in drawing out the poetics.


title: Residual Capacity of Blast-Damaged Reinforced Concrete Columns

abstract: This research project forms part of a larger program designed to assess the blast resistance and residual capacity of reinforced concrete columns. Earlier phases of the program included the testing of reinforced concrete column under live explosion loading and numerical modelling of the columns. The primary objective of this current phase of the project reported in this thesis is the investigation of the residual capacity of the blast-damaged reinforced concrete columns.Thirteen (13) columns were tested in this residual capacity test program. Four (4) were undamaged control samples while the remaining nine (9) survived the field tests carried out by Siba (2014). The residual capacity tests were carried out by the applying axial force in a load control mode then lateral force in a displacement control mode. The results showed that reinforced concrete columns designed following seismic detailing guidelines have an inherent resistance against blast load.


title: Molecular Diffusion From Bone Into Cartilage: A Study of the Osteochondral Junction

abstract: Osteoarthritis is an idiopathic joint disease that affects 13% of Canadians. To gain a better understanding of the biochemical relationship between the bone and cartilage, molecular diffusion across the bone-cartilage junction was assessed. Passive diffusion of a small (605 Da), nutrient-sized, contrast agent across the osteonchondral junction was successfully measured using contrast-enhanced MRI. This method could be employed for future in vivo studies. The osteochondral junction was simulated using a finite difference method to assess the subchondral bone as a barrier. The average resistivity value was 1.65x10-6 s-1. Inclusion of resistivity in the simulation produced a better fit of the experimental data. The osteochondral junction’s permeability to larger, protein-sized, solutes was assessed by attempting to diffuse fluorescent tracers (3-70 kDa). The selected fluorescent tracers were unable to passively diffuse across the osteochondral junction. This thesis provided a better understanding of the crosstalk between bone and cartilage.


title: How to Fish Like a Psychopath: Facial Expression Recognition in Individuals with Psychopathic Tendencies and Explicit Attitudes of Sexual Coercion and Aggression

abstract:
The current study explored the extent to which psychopathic traits and explicit evaluations of sexual aggression predicted accuracy of overall emotion recognition, and fear specifically. Participants (139 undergraduate and community men) were asked to complete self-report measures, including a psychopathy scale, explicit evaluations of sexual aggression and sexual preference indicators They viewed photographs of adults, adolescents, and children, and indicated which of six universal emotions the images expressed. The findings suggested that psychopathy and evaluation of sexual aggression had minute implications on accuracy of emotion recognition, though gender, gaze direction, and age of the individuals pictured in the images influenced overall and fear emotion recognition accuracy. There was no perceived difference between the undergraduate and community samples. Replication of this study should include a forensic population to see whether this deficit in affect recognition exists with these predictor variables but with individuals with higher levels of psychopathy.
Keywords: explicit evaluations; sexual aggression; psychopathy, emotion recognition; fear


title: Dam removal as a tool for restoring fish connectivity – a literature review and field study

abstract: Little is known about whether dam removal achieves fish restoration objectives. In Chapter 2, I document the characteristics of dams that have been removed along with the methods and trends in fish response to dam removal. In addition, this chapter provides guidance for those embarking on dam removal projects to improve the evidence base (e.g., reliability, replicability, relevance) so that a systematic review on the topic will be possible in the future. In Chapter 3, I document the effectiveness of a nature-like fishway in supporting up- and down- stream movement of a threatened salmonid, bull trout, in Forty Mile Creek, Banff National Park. This chapter explores the biotic and abiotic factors influencing the probability of fish to approach and pass through the fishway as well as passage duration. This information will expand our understanding on system connectivity as a whole by combining both dam removal and fishway research together.


title: Detumbling Space Debris Using Tethers

abstract:
The population of debris in Earth orbit has exponential growth due to cascaded collisions between orbiting debris. It is critical that high-risk pieces of debris are actively removed to limit the natural growth of the space debris population. A popular strategy to capture space debris is with tethered nets. Detumbling the debris after capture represents one of the outstanding challenges associated with tethered capture of debris.
This thesis presents a new tether configuration that passively enhances the detumbling ability of the tethered net system, and compares it to the presently-accepted tether configuration. A new laboratory facility was developed to allow for an experimental comparison. Both simulation and experimental results agree that the novel tether configuration outperforms the presently-accepted configuration at detumbling debris. The experimental results are the first, to the best of the author's knowledge, to demonstrate the detumbling of debris using tethers.


title: 'This is Boedo' Stories of a Lost Football Stadium, a Buenos Aires Barrio, and How the Hinchas of San Lorenzo Fought to Return

abstract: Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro is one of Argentina’s largest professional football teams. In 1979, during Argentina’s civic-military dictatorship (1976-1983), the club was forced to close its stadium the Gasómetro located on Avenida La Plata in the Buenos Aires barrio (neighbourhood) of Boedo. The property became a Carrefour retail store in 1985. Clubs in Argentina are large member-operated social, culture, and sport institutions offering a wide range of activities alongside professional football. Clubs are often identified with their place in the urban landscape. The idealized club de barrio (neighbourhood club) of Buenos Aires, in particular, has had a profound social and cultural influence on the production of the barrio as a space in the city. In turn, the historic relationship between the barrio and the club generates a sense of belonging that hinchas feel towards their club’s barrio. San Lorenzo’s hinchas claim that through the loss of the old Gasómetro their connection to Boedo was unjustly severed. Over the past fifteen years a social movement organized by the club’s hinchas (supporters) called the Vuelta a Boedo (Return to Boedo) grew into a politically successful campaign to regain the property with the hope of one day building a new stadium. This dissertation examines how the Vuelta a Boedo generated a politicized narrative that draws from the history of the club, the performative solidarity of the football crowd, a politics of memory and justice, and the collective storytelling of hinchas of San Lorenzo. It argues that an intertextual reading of Argentina’s football crowds and the country’s political-economy more generally is required to understand how the Vuelta a Boedo emerges. Shared memories of the Gasómetro refract through the claims made by human rights organizations to articulate why the loss of the stadium should be perceived as a social injustice. This dissertation demonstrates how hinchas and their football clubs to contribute to the production of urban space. Finally, the dissertation argues for the centrality of the affective relationships between hinchas produced and mediated through their match-day performances.


title: More Stories About Ports and Polar Bears: A Future for Churchill, Manitoba

abstract: In the summer of 2016, the only arctic seaport of Canada in Churchill, Manitoba, faced a controversial and complete closure of operations. Currently, the port’s vacant grain elevators tower over the coastal tundra landscape as a landmark to the town’s existence as a former outpost of northern prosperity shaped by the railway and past technological advancements and scientific ambitions. This project imagines a re-appropriation of the Churchill sea port and its infrastructure through themes of nature and technology. A narrative of the relationship between human and nature is explored through the advent of an optimistically changing climate and the effects on buildings. This thesis substantiates a reconsideration for how climate change might influence long term decisions for the built environment in northern Canada.


title: The Great Divide:  Citizen Science in the Anthropocene at the Columbia Icefield

abstract: At the dawn of the Anthropocene humankind’s ability to influence its geophysical surroundings through processes – often times technological and industrial – has brought to the forefront the inextricably intertwined character of the natural environment and human culture. At the heart of this often reckless relationship stands Alberta, Canada. Located in Jasper and Banff National Park at hydrographic apex of the Rocky Mountains, the Columbia Icefield, an icon of historic “pristine” Canadian wilderness, is now undergoing immense change. The Icefield’s shifting environmental systems have generated new spatial and temporal relationships between humanity and nature. As a result, a new protagonist has gained prominence: the citizen scientist. This thesis seeks to open discussions on historical and future time, and our engagement with the earth through the speculative rediscovery of the Columbia Icefield by means of citizen science.


title: Architecture of Solar Energy:  Appropriating Photovoltaic Technology for the Design of Sustainable Buildings

abstract: Renewable energy is part of a 21st century sustainability paradigm that responds to environmental degradation, forming western society’s existential concern for earth- often referred to as the ‘green’ movement. New tools and technologies, both for building design and construction, have come to assist architects in the creation of buildings that produce their own energy and which consume less of it. Renewable energy production strategies are necessary in order to mitigate the issue of future energy security, as traditional sources of fuel become increasingly scarce. This thesis presents a proposal for a building that can produce power by incorporating a photovoltaic and thermal energy collection system as a programmed design component, offering an architectural solution to what is traditionally viewed as an engineering problem. From this perspective renewable energy systems can be integrated as both functional and aesthetic elements within buildings.


title: *Ask-to-Risk

abstract:
Everything around us is made to be fixed – secured, structurally reinforced to last for centuries, and armed with safety requirements – rules and regulations define the environment around us. Metaphorically speaking, everything is padded – our surroundings are designed to the standard of the ‘safe place.’ Children’s playgrounds no longer have monkey bars, tire swings, or an asphalt ground, but are now covered in bouncy rubber and squirting water features.
We are living in a community where individuals are unaware of how safety requirements keep us safe. We expect safety, but struggle to define it. Does this ideological ambiguity make us ill-equipped to react to an emergent crisis such as an apocalypse? A natural disaster? A zombie attack? A technological meltdown?
Can architecture that is built around safety protocols re-engage risk-taking to prepare us for an improvisational response in the event of a crisis scenario?


title: Kill Your Darlings, Caracas: Space as Currency in Venezuela's Capital City

abstract: Due to the unrivaled efficiency of digital banking, paper currency is facing obsolescence. Profiles may be permanently etched on the surface of bank notes, coins, and cheques, but the manner in which these vestiges narrate our lapsed human relationships will ultimately contribute to re-defining a nation’s identity, and the space of its capital city. This thesis will investigate the capital city of Caracas and its systems of exchange, expropriations and exploitation, all in the context of an evolving spatial currency. It will ask the question: how can we reveal exchange value as a function of spatial networks, and at shifting scales?


title: Revealing Memory: Rehabilitating Pedestrian Experience at The Central Experimental Farm

abstract: Landscape is one of the richest historical records available to us. A mirror of our beliefs, ideologies, and memories – each layer is gradually built up over time, contributing to the complex spirit of place. By learning to read the landscape we can begin to pull apart these layers of time, revealing memory, and therefore enabling us to better understand ourselves and our history. This thesis proposes the reading of a monumental cultural landscape in the heart of the Nation’s Capital: The Central Experimental Farm. A unique mix of national heritage, scientific legacy, and active research landscape, the Farm provides a multitude of ecological, economic, social, recreational, and educational opportunities to Ottawa. By investigating the complex layers of this cultural landscape, this thesis seeks to share those discoveries through a renewed pedestrian experience throughout the Farm, ensuring the resilience and longevity of this historic landscape in the face of change.


title: Identification and characterization of novel genes involved in DNA double strand break repair process in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

abstract:
DNA Double Strand Break (DSB) is the most severe form of DNA lesion. Unrepaired DSBs and/or mutations in key DSB repair genes can lead to genomic instability, cancer or even cell death. DSBs can be repaired by two independent pathways; Homologous Recombination (HR) and Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ). Both pathways are highly conserved from yeast to human. HR requires a homologous region to repair the damage but in NHEJ, the break ends are ligated directly. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the key protein complexes of the NHEJ pathway are: Yku70p/Yku80p (YKU), which binds to DNA and initiates the process and stabilizes the broken ends, Mre11p/Rad50p/Xrs2p (MRX), which brings broken ends close together and Dnl4p/Lif1p/Nej1p, which have ligase activities.
In this thesis, we aimed to identify novel proteins that influence the NHEJ process in yeast. To this end we performed a combination of high-throughput as well as low-throughput assays, and followed-up by verifying some of the findings. The initial large-scale plasmid repair screening that we performed revealed approximately 60 novel genes that might involve in the NHEJ process. Among these genes, PPH3/PSY2, HUR1, BUB1/BUB2, and SBP1 were selected for follow up experiments. Small-scale plasmid repair and chromosomal break repair assays were used to verify the involvement of these selected candidates in the efficiency of NHEJ. Deletion of any one of the above selected genes showed a reduction in efficiency of both plasmid repair and chromosomal repair assays. Deletion of those genes also showed increased sensitivity to DNA damaging agents Hydroxyurea (HU) and bleomycin. Our follow-up genetic studies suggested a role for PPH3/PSY2 phosphatase complex in the NHEJ process through interaction with checkpoint kinases Rad53 and Chk1. We also propose a novel role for yeast uncharacterized ORF HUR1, in NHEJ pathway through its association with Nej1. We also report that BUB1/BUB2 may affect the efficiency of NHEJ by limiting cell cycle progression. We suggest their joint participation with Apc9p (APC), Clb2p (cyclin), and Swi4p (SBF) proteins in the NHEJ repair process. Additionally, we hypothesize a role for the translational repressor SBP1 in NHEJ pathway, connecting translation control to NHEJ.