identifier: Bakhtar, Sahar  (2022) Local Community Detection in Social Networks.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Recent years have witnessed the rapid growth of social network services and consequently research problems investigated in this area. Community detection is one of the most important problems in social networks. A good community can be defined as a group of vertices that are highly connected and loosely connected to the vertices outside the group. Community detection includes exploring the community partitioning in social networks. Regarding the fact that social networks are huge, having complete information about the whole network is almost impossible. As a result, the problem of local community detection has become more popular in recent years. This problem can be defined as the detection of a community for a given node by using local information. It is noteworthy that the focus of this study is on the problem of local community detection. One major question to the problem of community detection is how to assess different communities. The most widely used technique to evaluate the quality of communities is to compare them with ground-truth communities. However, for many networks, the ground-truth communities are not known. As a result, it is necessary to have a comprehensive metric to evaluate the quality of communities. In this study, a local quality metric noted as GDM is proposed, several local community detection algorithms are compared by assessing their detected communities. The experimental results, illustrate that the local community detection algorithms are fairly compared using GDM. It is also discussed how GDM covers the drawbacks of other existing local metrics. Moreover, it is shown that the judgment of GDM is almost the same as that of the F-score, i.e. the metric which compares the community with its ground-truth community. Furthermore, a new metric, called P, and a new local community detection algorithm, Alg P are proposed. To detect communities locally, researchers mostly utilize an evaluation metric along with an algorithm to explore communities. The proposed algorithm includes three different steps in which relevant nodes are added in the first step and irrelevant nodes are removed in the second and third steps. It should be mentioned that at each iteration, more than one node is added to the community. Thus, the algorithm is terminated faster than the other algorithms with near-complexity. Regarding the experimental results, it is shown that the proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art local community detection algorithms. Real-world social networks are dynamic and change over time.
    In order to model dynamic social networks, network history is partitioned into a series of snapshots, each one of which shows the state of the network at a time. Regarding dynamic networks, the problem of local community detection is not widely investigated. In this concern, a dynamic local community detection algorithm noted as DevDynaP, is proposed. The main feature of the proposed algorithm is that it starts from a given node, explores the network incrementally, and detects communities simultaneously at each snapshot. The experimental results show that the community partitioning resulting from the proposed dynamic algorithm outperforms that of the other compared algorithm. Also, the proposed algorithm explores the network faster than the compared algorithm. Many networks contain both positive and negative relations. A community in signed networks is defined as a group of nodes that are densely connected by positive links within the community and negative links between communities. Considering the problem of local community detection in signed networks, a new algorithm, noted as Alg SP, is developed by extending the metric $P$ for signed networks. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can detect the ground-truth communities independently from the starting nodes.


identifier: Hassencahl-Perley, Emma  (2022) Changers: A Spiritual Renaissance - Recentering Indigenous Women's Self-Determination, Artistic Sovereignty and Excellence in the 1980s and 1990s.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract:
This thesis builds upon an Indigenous feminist archive by analyzing the exhibition Changers: A Spiritual Renaissance within the social and political art climate of the 1980s and 1990s. Changers is the first contemporary art exhibition in Canada highlighting work by Indigenous women artists from the perspective of an Indigenous woman curator. It was organized by the Indian Art Centre (now the Indigenous Art Centre) in 1989 and curated by Wolastoqey elder, artist, and writer Shirley Bear of Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation).
The systematic disempowerment of Indigenous women provided the grounds for women’s activism, which paved a path for self-determination and amplified women’s political voice beginning with the “Indian Women’s Movement.” Changers represents a specific expression of feminism initiated by Bear’s activism in the 80s and 90s. Her exhibition text an instrumental tool to Indigenous women’s art history, as it addresses colonialist and patriarchal narratives imposed on Indigenous peoples, specifically how these systems impact the women. The exhibition serves as a counter-narrative and strategy to recenter Indigenous women’s art, experience, and excellence.
Bear’s exhibition advanced discussions around visual sovereignty, survival, refusal, decolonial aesthetics, by drawing on feminist scholars such as Jolene Rickard, Sherry Farrell Racette, and Julie Nagam. The exhibition demonstrates Indigenous relational aesthetics – an Indigenous feminist framework from Jas M. Morgan (previously Lindsay Nixon) – that centers relationships and care through kinship networks.


identifier: Jalabi, Afra  (2022) The Resurrection of Socrates: Towards Rehabilitating the Political in Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The Resurrection of Socrates:
Towards Rehabilitating the Political in Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics

Afra Jalabi, Ph.D.

Concordia University 2022

This dissertation aims to rehabilitate the dialogical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer as a way of offering a new critical approach to navigating, and even possibly transmuting, power relations by exploring the ethical and political implications of his project. Given the centrality of the dialogic in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, the dissertation itself engages in a dialogue with the projects of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt. Foucault’s relational conception of power brings out a political dimension in Gadamer’s dynamic dialogical modality, but while Gadamer’s main metaphor of the human condition is conversation, Foucault’s main metaphor is war. Consequently, Foucault’s discussion of the ineluctability of power relations in the social matrix and his doubt about the possibility of turning “relations of domination” into “relations of meaning” arises as an inevitable contention between their perspectives. On the other hand, Arendt’s redefinition of the category of the political in dialogical terms closes some of the gaps that arise between Gadamer and Foucault. Her metaphor of the political as an oasis emerging from the sterile desert of domination aligns with Gadamer’s dialogical ontology as an alternative to such domination. Arendt argues that with the execution of Socrates, Western philosophy divorced itself from the political, ever since Plato retreated into the "Academy," and given how Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics resurrects the Socratic dialogue, their respective projects intersect in ways that create radically new political possibilities. Arendt’s dialogical reconceptualization of the category of the political allows a new reading of Gadamer’s project, in which hermeneutics re-orients us back to the Polis given the ineluctability of encounter. With these intersections, we see how philosophical hermeneutics, with its emphasis on phronesis, could be rehabilitated to investigate and interpret the inevitability of difficult and concrete dialogues in desert conditions. Gadamer’s conception of language as the horizon of a hermeneutic ontology provides new ways of maneuvering, because in Gadamer's linguistic turn understanding does not merely interpret the world but it changes it. The dissertation aims therefore to explore the power of hermeneutics as an alternative to the hermeneutics of power by examining the implications of Gadamer's dialogical ontology in light of the main questions raised by Foucault and Arendt about the nature of power and the promise of the political.


identifier: Duenas Gil, Nelson Javier  (2022) Governing the Donor-NGO Relationship: Three Essays on Accounting in International Cooperation and Development.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This dissertation reports on three essays relating to the governance of international cooperation relationships between donors and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that implement development aid projects in Global South countries. These essays draw on a case study of a human rights Colombian NGO and multiple interviews with actors along the international cooperation chain, to explore how trust, control, and accountability impact the donor-NGO relationship. The first chapter draws on Lewis and Weigert’s sociological perspective of trust to unpack trust and its underlying emotional and cognitive dimensions over time, in the relationship between the NGO and its donors. This study highlights that trust in NGOs is not replaced by accountability, as accounting and civil society research argues. Instead, accountability and trust, especially its emotional dimension, are mutually constitutive. The second chapter builds on the ideas above to discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the trust-control interplay, a longstanding debate in management accounting literature. Using the same sociological perspective as a method theory, the study proposes that a qualitative mix of cognitions and emotions is what determines trust and its relationship with technocratic control at any point in an inter-organizational relationship within the aid chain. The evidence suggests that trust and control have a reinforcing relationship, as the latter serves the cognitive dimension of trust along the different stages of an inter-organizational relationship. These results come from the continuous rearrangement of trust’s constitutive dimensions, emotions, and cognitions, which call for specific technocratic control mechanisms. The final chapter delves into issues of NGO agency in what critical accounting literature calls the international development assemblage. It aims at understanding how the Colombian NGO responds to donor practices and conditionalities in development and managerial agendas and what is the role of accounting in this process of NGO agency. The study finds that the NGO deploys five responses that allows it to navigate the development assemblage. By relying on Bhabha’s post-colonial approach of hybridity, mimicry, and ambivalence, it suggests that accounting is an ambivalent means that allows donors to advance their development and managerial agendas, but also helps the Southern NGO to mobilize its own ambitions. Altogether, these three studies illustrate the complexities of governing international cooperation and development relationships, and the role of accounting in them.


identifier: Nasser, Noura  (2022) Diverse Food Practices by and for Racialized People in Little Burgundy.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Drawing from a qualitative community-based project in Little Burgundy, a predominantly Black Montreal neighbourhood, this thesis applies community-based and critical ethnographic methods to explain a range of diverse food practices by and for racialized people. Given the changing character of its socio-spatial configurations, this neighbourhood and its history are far more com-plex and multilayered than mainstream narratives would suggest. In this thesis, I explain how individuals depicted as food insecure by community food organizations are in fact involved in diverse food practices rooted in an ethic of mutual care and racial justice while sustaining their cultures and traditions. Rather than attempt to offer a complete story of food landscapes, this thesis provides a glimpse of the diverse and innovative ways racialized people enact community food economies through a series of vignettes situated in four ongoing food projects: a community garden, a food bank, an at-home gardening initiative and a Citizen’s market. At these sites, I turn to the theory of racial viscosity to make sense of how processes of racialization create, obscure, and reinforce lines of separation and belonging in the studied sites. Sketching connections be-tween viscosity, mutual care and racial justice, this research study sheds light on how and why racialization is key to the study of everyday food practices.


identifier: Jackson, Lindsey  (2022) Brit Without Milah: Jewish Responses to Ritual Circumcision in Canada and the United States.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This dissertation is an ethnographic study that examines contemporary Jewish engagement with ritual circumcision (brit milah), with a particular focus on Jewish parents who are choosing not to circumcise their sons. Centered on a handful of key cities in Canada and the United States, this example of circumcision shows the complex interplay of factors that determine the negotiation of religious practice. Family dynamics, community response and acceptance, ethics, bodily integrity, consent, and medical discourse are layered into this decision. Gendered constructions of parenting and perceptions of the ideal male body are also infused in this ritual moment. This study also showcases the delicate interplay between religious traditions and wider societal values, and how shifts at the societal level impact religious praxis. Circumcision encompasses a complex ritual choice and there are multiple layers that are factored into the decision to opt in or to opt out.

I argue that non-circumcision families are not opting out of Judaism; their rejection of circumcision does not represent a rejection of Judaism. Choosing an alternative ritual represents a means of engaging with tradition and affirming one’s Jewish identity. The non-circumcision Jews featured in this study have strong Jewish identities, observe Jewish rituals and traditions, and care about raising a Jewish family. They are not ambivalent Jews. They want to welcome their son into the Jewish community via a Jewish welcoming ceremony, and they want this ceremony to be officiated by a rabbi. Families who opt out often agonize over their decision and grapple with the consequences of choosing not to circumcise.

Opting out of circumcision, or put another way, opting for an alternative ritual, highlights how contemporary Jews understand Judaism and Jewish practice. Religion is something that can be adapted to conform with one’s personal beliefs and values, and this is precisely how non-circumcision Jews are engaging with religion. Rituals deemed problematic are not discarded; instead, they are modified, and this modification allows for Jews to continue engaging with their religion. Non-circumcision Jews are using alternative rituals as a means of engaging with tradition and affirming their Jewish identity.


identifier: Ghaderi, Parsa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2395-6705 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2395-6705>  (2022) Topology Discovery in Autonomic Networks.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The network Management Research Group (NMRG) introduced their own version of autonomic
networks based on the viewpoint of the Internet Society and following the definition provided by
IBM of autonomic systems. NMRG focused on self-optimizing, self-configuring, self-protecting,
and self-healing capabilities in the proposed design model of autonomic networks. Later the Autonomic
Networking Integrated Model and Approach (ANIMA) working group of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) designed protocols to support the goals set by NMRG. The proposed
autonomic network mitigates the human administration influence as much as possible and make the
nodes dependent on themselves and the communications with their neighbors. Therefore, autonomic
nodes will act as a network management entity that depends on the information they receive/send
from/to their surroundings and their knowledge about themselves.
In network management, knowing the network’s topology gives nodes a great advantage toward
becoming more autonomic. Knowing the topology can help nodes with management tasks such
as link failure recovery, routing, and imposing policy. Topology Discovery (TD) is the process
of collecting the neighboring information of all nodes and distributing the processed information
among them. Topology Maintenance (TM) takes place after the topology map is generated during
the TD process. TM updates all nodes upon the changes in the topology map. The TD and TM
can be heavy tasks on the network since they require collecting information from all nodes and
distributing it among them.
We focus on supporting the benefits of autonomic nodes knowing the network’s topology and suggest efficient methods to collect and maintain the topological information of an autonomic network.
Our goal is to minimize the bandwidth consumption by reducing the number of exchanged
messages for TD or TM purposes. There have been many approaches proposed to improve the performance
of TD and TM. There has been thorough research on TD methodologies but not all the
proposed solutions can be applied to autonomic networks.
In this thesis, we review different methods for TD and discuss their compatibility with the
proposed autonomic network guidelines. We then propose two new solutions. Our first solution
is based on a clustering algorithm that allows the autonomic nodes to join clusters and limits the
message passing to intra-cluster communications and inter-cluster communication between clusterheads.
The second proposed solution is based on taking advantage of the secure boot-strapping
protocol (BRSKI) for autonomic nodes to generate the topology map of the autonomic network.


identifier: Levesque, Janelle  (2022) "I know I have to look after myself": A thematic analysis of neoliberal discourse in an online forum for Canadians suffering from depression.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Neoliberalism is an approach to government and policy that favours welfare state retrenchment and free-market economics, as well as a sociocultural ideology that promotes the market values of individualism and personal responsibility. These intensified values have transformed mental healthcare and the ways in which individuals experience, discuss, and manage chronic mental illnesses such as depression. As such, the aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the extent to which neoliberal discourse informs sufferers’ everyday experiences and management of depression. Posts by members of an online Canadian depression forum were analyzed using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Findings revealed that neoliberal ideology was implicit in members’ discussions about depression vis-à-vis their engagement with solitary and healthist self-management practices, their experiences of stigma, and their continued endorsement of the biomedical model of mental illness despite repeated negative encounters with the mental healthcare system. These findings call for further qualitative investigation into the ways in which individuals suffering from depression understand, discuss, and cope with this illness. More research on depression forums in particular is warranted.


identifier: Meghdadi, Sima  (2022) “The Myth of the Lying Woman”: An Analysis of Testimony in Contemporary South African Fiction.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT

“The Myth of the Lying Woman”:
An Analysis of Testimony in Contemporary South African Fiction

Sima Meghdadi

This paper focuses on the notion that the social narratives that circulate around the topic of sexual violence have harmful effects, ultimately perpetuating rape-tolerant culture. With South Africa as the country on which my research is centred, I argue that these narratives dissuade rape survivors from coming forward and sharing their stories, which are frequently met with disbelief and a lack of seriousness. Moreover, I offer an analysis of Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit, one of this paper’s primary texts, and attend to the complexities of effecting reconciliation. I maintain that the novel refuses the idea that with speaking comes healing and that past and present can be detached from one another. Dangor’s aforementioned text and Kagiso Lesego Molope’s This Book Betrays My Brother will inform the following analysis about rape-tolerant culture and survivor believability and help me draw attention to changes that need to be made.


identifier: Villaruel, Franz Robert  (2022) Corticostriatal control of extinction in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Animals use environmental cues to guide their behaviour to obtain desirable outcomes and avoid aversive ones. Through extinction, animals can learn to suppress learned behaviours when the expected appetitive or aversive outcome is omitted. The infralimbic cortex (IL) and its efferent projections to the nucleus accumbens shell (NAcS) and the basolateral amygdala (BLA) are thought to be critical for extinction and suppressing responding to cues that predict aversive outcomes and responding for drugs of abuse. However, fewer research has investigated whether the IL and its neural projections are important for extinction of responding to cues that predict more naturalistic appetitive outcomes.

The present thesis examined the effects of augmenting activity in the IL, the IL-to-NAcS projection, and the IL-to-BLA projection on extinction of conditioned approach to a sucrose cue. In two experimental chapters (Chapters 3 and 4) we used a renewal task, to test whether optogenetic stimulation of the IL, IL-to-NAcS, and IL-to-BLA would suppress the return of responding after extinction. Briefly, in the renewal task, rats first received Pavlovian conditioning in a specific context (Context A) to associate an auditory conditioned stimulus (CS) with the delivery of a sucrose unconditioned stimulus (US). Next, rats received extinction in a different context (Context B) by presenting the CS but omitting the expected US, leading to a reduction in conditioned responding. After extinction, renewal of responding to the CS was triggered by presenting the CS alone in the original Pavlovian conditioning context (Context A). We found that optogenetic stimulation of the IL and IL-to-NAcS projection but not the IL-to-BLA projection during the CS attenuated the renewal of appetitive Pavlovian conditioned responding.

In the last chapter (Chapter 5), we explored potential mechanisms by which stimulation of the IL-to-NAcS projection suppresses appetitive Pavlovian conditioned responding. First, we tested whether prior extinction training was necessary for IL-to-NAcS stimulation to suppress conditioned responding. Second, we tested whether stimulation during Pavlovian conditioning would lead to general suppression of responding. We found that IL-to-NAcS stimulation during the CS suppressed conditioned responding regardless of prior extinction training. Further, IL-to-NAcS stimulation during Pavlovian conditioning did not appear to indiscriminately suppress responding, but altered the expression of conditioned responding to the CS.

In conclusion, the findings of the present thesis expand the role of the IL and IL-to-NAcS projection in extinction to appetitive Pavlovian cues. Further, we provide novel evidence that suppression of appetitive Pavlovian responding following IL-to-NAcS stimulation may not be dependent on an extinction process. Nevertheless, the IL-to-NAcS projection plays an important role in controlling conditioned responding to appetitive cues. These findings further our knowledge of how corticostriatal circuits contribute to adaptive behaviour which may be useful for understanding psychological disorders involving inhibition of learned behaviours.


identifier: Samadi, Ashkan  (2022) Fault Tree Analysis of Safety-Critical Systems via Statistical Model Checking.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The design of safety-critical systems have become more and more complex in recent years. As a result, identifying the sources of failure and mitigating their effects on the system are of great importance. In this context, several methods have been proposed. One of the widely-used approaches for reliability analysis of systems is fault tree analysis (FTA).
The traditional methods of FTA that are based on paper and pencil proof or simulation can be drastically time-consuming and highly prone to error, especially when analyzing complex systems with redundant architectures.
In this work, we propose a statistical model checking (SMC) based approach for FTA of safety critical systems that can mitigate the above-mentioned problems regarding the traditional FTA methods. In our approach, the FT gates are modelled using the priced timed automata (PTA) formalism, and then the full fault tree model is created by the parallel composition of the models of each gate.
Furthermore, in our method, the FT models take into account both the power consumption and failure rates of the system components. With this, it becomes possible to determine when the power source will run out of power and then the mission time of the system can be determined. As a result, the FTA time period can be restricted to the system’s mission time and the resources can be used more efficiently.
Our proposed approach is also able to perform a formal assessment of the FT model. This evaluation includes a criticality analysis to identify the fault tree’s critical elements that have the greatest impact on the probability of system failure. The critical FT components are then subjected to various risk mitigation techniques based on component redundancy, such as triple modular redundancy (TMR) and quintuple modular redundancy (QMR).


identifier: Patel, Dhyey Devendrakumar  (2022) Visual Dubbing Pipeline using Two-Pass Identity Transfer.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Visual dubbing uses visual computing and deep learning to alter the lip and mouth articulations of the actor to sync with the dubbed speech. It has the potential to disrupt the dubbing industry. Quality of the dubbed result is primary for the industry. An important requirement is that visual lip sync changes be localized to the mouth region and not affect the rest of the actor's face or the rest of the video frame. Current methods can create realistic looking fake faces with expressions. However, many fail to localize lip sync and have quality problems such as identity loss, low-res, blurs, face skin feature or colour loss, and temporal jitter. These problems mainly arise because end-to-end trained networks poorly disentangle these different visual dubbing parameters (pose, skin colour, identity, lip movements, etc.). Our main contribution is a new visual dubbing pipeline, in which, instead of end-to-end training we apply incrementally different disentangling techniques for each parameter. Our pipeline is composed of three main steps: pose alignment, identity transfer, and video reassembly. Expert models in each step are fine-tuned for the actor. We propose an identity transfer network with an added style block, which with pre-training is able to decouple face components, specifically identity and expression, and also works with short video clips like TV ads. Our pipeline also includes novel stages related to temporal smoothing of the reenacted face, actor specific super resolution to retain fine facial details, and a second pass through the identity transfer network for preserving actor identity.  Localization of lip-sync is achieved by restricting changes in the original video frame to just the actor's mouth region. The results are convincing, and a user survey also confirms their quality. Relevant quantitative metrics are included.


identifier: Muhammad, Ali  (2022) Leveraging 6G Technologies to Optimize Information Freshness for Time-Sensitive Applications.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Next-generation wireless networks (Beyond 5G, 6G) aim to provide tremendous improvements over previous generations by promising a massive connectivity, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, and soaring broadband speeds. Such transformation will give rise to a wide range of propitious Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications such as intelligent transportation systems (ITS), tactile internet, augmented/virtual reality, industry 4.0, etc. These applications possess stringent requirements of fresh and timely information updates to make critical decisions. Out-dated or stale information updates are highly undesirable for these applications as they may call forth unreliable or erroneous decisions. The conventional performance metrics such as delay and latency may not fully characterize the freshness of information for  time-critical IoT applications. Recently, information freshness has been investigated through defining a new performance metric termed as Age of Information (AoI).  AoI offers a rigorous way to quantify the information freshness as compared to other performance metrics and is deemed suitable for real-time IoT applications.
In reality, the limited energy and computing resources of IoT devices (IoTDs) is a significant challenge towards realizing the timely delivery of information updates. To address this challenge, the first aim of this dissertation is to examine the capability of multi-access edge computing (MEC) towards minimizing the AoI. In fact, MEC offers an expedited computation of resource-intensive tasks, which, if processed locally at the IoTDs, may experience excessive computational latency. In this context, an optimization problem is setup to determine the optimal scheduling policy with the goal of minimizing the expected sum AoI of multiple IoTDs, while considering the combined impact of unreliable channel conditions and random packet arrivals.
Another acute challenge is the high randomness and uncontrollable behaviour of wireless communication environments, which may severely impede the timely and reliable delivery of information updates. Towards addressing this challenge, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is leveraged to mitigate the propagation-induced impairments of the wireless environment and enhance the quality of wireless links to preserve the information freshness. First, a wireless network consisting of a base station (BS) that is forwarding information updates of multiple real-time traffic streams to their destinations is studied. The considered multiple access technique is frequency division multiple access (FDMA), which is an  orthogonal multiple access (OMA) technique. A joint user scheduling and phase-shift matrix (passive beamforming) optimization problem is formulated with the objective of minimizing the expected sum AoI of the coexisting multiple traffic streams. The resulting problem is  a mixed integer non-convex optimization problem. To evade the high coupling of the invoked optimization variables, the bi-level optimization technique is utilized, where the original problem is decomposed into an outer traffic stream scheduling problem and an inner RIS phase-shift matrix problem. Owing to the stochastic nature of packet arrivals, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) solution is employed to solve the outer problem. To do so, the traffic stream scheduling is modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) is invoked to solve it. On the other hand, the inner problem that determines the RIS configuration is solved through semi-definite relaxation (SDR).
Due to the limitations of OMA techniques in terms of the number of served IoTDs and the spectral efficiency, the focus of this dissertation shifts to explore non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme towards achieving the goal of minimizing the AoI in an uplink setting. In this context, an optimization problem is formulated to optimize the RIS configuration, the transmit power of IoTDs and their clustering policy. To solve this mixed-integer non-convex problem, the RIS configuration is obtained first by resorting to difference-of-convex (DC) along with successive convex approximation (SCA). On the other hand, the bi-level optimization is used to solve the power allocation and the clustering problems. Optimal closed-form expressions are derived for the power control scheme and the one-to-one matching is employed to solve the clustering problem. Aiming to further improve the information freshness in time-critical IoT applications, an extended version of NOMA, termed as Cooperative-NOMA (C-NOMA), is adopted. In C-NOMA, the cooperation between IoTDs through device-to-device (D2D) communication and full-duplex (FD) relaying is invoked within the NOMA scheme. In this context, the integration of RIS and C-NOMA is investigated towards achieving the goal of minimizing the average sum AoI. Precisely, it is investigated how much performance gain in terms of AoI reduction can be brought by the RIS-enabled uplink C-NOMA system compared to the conventional C-NOMA  and NOMA schemes, both with and without RIS. Results elucidate the superiority of our proposed approaches against other baseline schemes. The findings in this dissertation shed light on the choice of effective design of wireless communication networks leveraging the core future enabling technologies.


identifier: Charbonneau, David  (2022) Marie Corelli’s Popular Science Fiction and SF Criticism.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Marie Corelli’s Popular Science Fiction and SF Criticism
David Charbonneau
The impetus for this research paper originates in an interest in the significance of the recent critical identification of Corelli with generic hybridity, specifically as it relates to conceptions of science fiction (SF) as a historical genre. I will argue that Marie Corelli wrote SF and will aim to show that this argumentative position is useful for understanding the history of SF as a concept, and for understanding the generic and discursive heterogeneity of Marie Corelli’s writing.
Pursuing the line of argument that Corelli wrote SF demands analysis of her idiosyncratic writings in relation to different conceptions of the genre and helps reveal SF as a historically contested generic concept. An examination of this proposition in the context of Corelli’s reception history will allow me to explore the construction of the generic category of SF, and the definition of its canon.
Secondly, the close readings of what I will identify as Corelli’s SF novels within the context of debates about SF as a genre allows me to highlight the distinctive formal qualities of Corelli’s SF as an unlikely combination of populist Victorian ideology, proto-feminism, heterodox Christianity, and scientific enthusiasm. In my analysis of three of Corelli’s novels—A Romance of Two Worlds, The Young Diana, and The Secret Power—I will demonstrate how Corelli’s unorthodox Christian worldview works to complicate normative conceptions and identifications of SF as a form.


identifier: Imfeld, Anic  (2022) Using molecular, isotopic, and spectroscopic analysis to assess natural organic matter sources and petroleum contaminants in water and sediment of the St. Lawrence Waterway (Quebec, Canada).  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The St. Lawrence waterway is a dynamic aquatic system with inputs of organic matter (OM) originating from various terrestrial and marine sources, and a freshwater to saltwater gradient from the St. Lawrence River to the Gulf. The OM along this waterway is highly reworked in the water column, with a small fraction making its way into the sediments which acts as a long-term sink for organic matter. This waterway is also an important transportation route for numerous commodities, including petroleum and petroleum products. Our research involved the comprehensive mapping of the OM in the sediments and water column of the St. Lawrence River, Estuary, Gulf and the Saguenay Fjord. Water samples were collected along the River, Estuary, Gulf and Saguenay Fjord and parallel factor analysis was used to tease out various groups of fluorophores. In addition to the natural water samples collected along the St. Lawrence waterway, water samples containing UV irradiated petroleum products were included in the PARAFAC model to determine its efficiency at teasing out the components originating from natural OM from those linked to oil contamination. The PARAFAC analysis resulted in the identification of 6 components in our data set, with 4 components indicative of natural organic matter (3 terrestrial OM and one marine OM) and 2 representing oil components. With these findings, we were able to characterize groups of fluorophores along this transect and develop a ratio using 2 components (C4/C1) to differentiate oil contributions from natural OM in the water column. Similarly, surface sediments along the St. Lawrence Estuary, Gulf and Saguenay Fjord were collected and extracted to isolate the straight-chain n-alkanes to map the current abundances and sources of hydrocarbons in sediments of the Estuary and Gulf using molecular (diagnostic ratios) and isotopic fingerprinting (δ13C, δ2H). Variations in the carbon isotope signatures of odd-to-even straight chain alkanes allows for the differentiation of naturally occurring hydrocarbons from those of petroleum source, and the addition of hydrogen isotope signatures further increases our power of discrimination. Based on the diagnostic ratios alone, the OM sources were misrepresented and inaccurate when there was more than one input of OM. However, with the addition of the compound specific carbon and hydrogen isotope analysis, it was determined that n-alkanes were derived predominantly from natural sources. Additionally, we found that even numbered n-alkanes, which are less frequently analyzed due to their lower abundances in natural samples, would allow for the identification and tracking of petroleum-derived contaminants in sediments to a greater degree than molecular data alone. Analyzing both the possibility of oil contamination in the water column and sediments allows for the tracking of recent and long term impacts an oil spill would have along the St. Lawrence River, Estuary Gulf and Saguenay Fjord.


identifier: Guo, Qi  (2022) Three Essays on Corporate Financial Communications.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Firms rely on a variety of channels to communicate with financial stakeholders, aiming at providing information, discharging of accountability obligations, building relationships, and facilitating decision-making. This dissertation includes three essays on corporate financial communications with information intermediaries and investors.
The first essay presents an overview of the relevant academic studies on firms' private communications with preferred investors or analysts in the post-Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) period. Drawing on the U.S. and China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) evidence, this essay discusses recent literature on private meetings in the post-Reg FD era and concludes with several suggestions for future research. The second essay examines listed firms' private communications. Specifically, we use the most recent private meeting records to investigate the liquidity effect of private meetings under SZSE mandatory disclosure regulation. The results provide evidence that timely disclosure of private meetings improves stock liquidity, enhances information transparency, and increases the fairness of information acquisition. The study also documents the meeting participants' heterogeneity and their different motivations for private meetings, suggesting their different influences on information transmission. The third essay explores public firms' interactive communications with investors. Using quantitative research methods, we examine whether investor-generated interactions through a centralized and stock exchange regulated platform help improve firms' investor relations and investors' information assimilation. The results suggest that interactive communication via the regulated platform helps attract the attention of market participants and increases investor and analyst following. However, increased interactions between firms and market participants may add complexity to investors and reduce their ability to assimilate firm information.
Overall, our findings could be of interest to regulators, investors, and other stakeholders interested in more transparent and effective communications between firms and market participants.


identifier: Plante, Érik  (2022) Climate drives geographic variation in worker polymorphism among populations of the carpenter ant Camponotus herculeanus.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In a world wherein climate is rapidly changing, understanding species’ adaptations to climate is crucial. Quantifying phenotypic variation occurring across the range of a species is a useful approach to infer how populations adapt or show plastic responses to climatic regimes. In understudied groups such as eusocial ant colonies, the degree of worker polymorphism, whereby workers vary in size and scaling, is a phenotypic trait of the “superorganism”. Yet, the degree to which such variation changes plastically or evolves in response to geographic variation in environmental factors remains poorly explored. Here, I first test whether the degree of variation in worker polymorphism in colonies of the carpenter ant Camponotus herculeanus varies predictably along a broad-scale latitudinal gradient and then examine the environmental factors driving this phenotypic variation. I found that the proportion of major workers within a colony decreased with increasing latitudes and was most related to regional climate. However, contrary to my expectation, variation in mean major worker body size did not correlate with worker polymorphism and was most related to colony size. These results suggest that change in the social phenotype of the superorganism is a plastic response to cooler and shorter seasons typical of northern latitudes, rather than resulting from the evolution of new developmental thresholds.  I conclude that elucidating how genes and development interact to shape phenotypes along environmental gradients is key to improving understanding and predictions of climate adaptations in social organisms.


identifier: Binte Rafiq Era, Sarjana  (2022) Removal of Nutrients from Water Using Biosurfactant Micellar Enhanced Ultrafiltration.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Removing nutrients, e.g., ammonia, nitrate and, phosphate (NH4+, NO3-, PO43-) from wastewater, has been a great challenge. Various studies have been undertaken for metal and nutrient removal from wastewater using physical and chemical treatment techniques and synthetic surfactants. However, there have been very few studies on treatment incorporating biodegradable biosurfactants which are the candidates to enhance nutrient removal from wastewater. Either a microbial-derived biosurfactant (rhamnolipid) or a yeast-derived biosurfactant (sophorolipid) or both can be used for this removal process based on their efficiency with Micellar Enhanced Ultrafiltration (MEUF). In the MEUF process, surfactant micelles, aggregates of surfactant monomers, can bind cations and anions when oppositely charged. The MEUF system works by rejecting micelles containing cations and anions with larger diameters than the pore size of the ultrafiltration membrane. The MEUF process can be incorporated in this proposed study to increase the efficiency of metal removal and lower costs by reducing pore pressure compared to reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF). The micelle-containing metal cations will be removed, and it is possible to recover the biosurfactant from the filtration system. Different parameters, e.g., surface tension, critical micelle concentration (CMC), pH, and temperature, were examined during the experimentation. The overall efficiency of the process was estimated based on the ion concentration of the final filtrate. The experimental results demonstrate that the elimination rate for NH4+, PO43-, and NO3- is around 80-90% at higher temperatures and biosurfactant concentrations. Removal rates varied from 60 to 70% at lower pH and initial ionic concentrations. However, one of the system's significant disadvantages is the reduction in membrane permeate flux produced by various experiment conditions, one being membrane fouling. The optimum conditions that deliver the most excellent nutrient removal were determined. The generated results can further be used for metal and nutrient removal from eutrophic lakes, wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), and industrial effluents in future work.


identifier: Mladenova, Vanya  (2022) Translation in the process of immigration for Syrian refugees in Canada.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In this thesis the main focus is on one chapter of the history of immigrants to Canada: that of the Syrian refugees. The civil war in Syria and the national immigration plan for assisting Syrian refugees in their migration and resettlement in Canada motivated me to consider the needs for translation and interpretation on migrants seeking asylum and refugee status in Canada. I have drawn on themes and insights from the translation and interpretation studies literature to address my study. The thesis also reflects on subjects and issues that are addressed and examined by scholarship in the interdisciplinary disciplines of migration studies and oral history. By investigating the actual migration process and Canadian five-phase Syrian refugee plan, and by identifying the points where translation and interpreting would occur, and interviewing the Syrian refugees, it was proven that translation and interpreting needs were present and were met by unofficial and official translators and interpreters – in addition to automatic machine translation. The purpose of the research was not only to clarify translation and interpreting services as they are required in the refugee migration process, but also to ascertain whether they generally met the needs of refugees as they settled into life in Canada.

Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, l'accent est mis sur un seul chapitre de l'histoire des immigrants au Canada : celui des réfugiés syriens. La guerre civile en Syrie et le plan national d'immigration pour aider les réfugiés syriens dans leur migration et leur réinstallation au Canada m'ont motivé à considérer les besoins de traduction et d'interprétation pour les migrants qui demandent l'asile et le statut de réfugié au Canada. Mon étude puise certains thèmes et idées de la littérature sur les études de traduction et d'interprétation tout au long de la recherche. Le mémoire constitue également une réflexion sur des sujets et des problèmes qui sont abordés et examinés par la recherche dans les disciplines interdisciplinaires des études sur la migration et l'histoire orale. En faisant une recherche sur le processus de migration proprement dit et sur le plan « Opération visant les réfugiés syriens » mis en place au Canada, et en identifiant les points où la traduction et l'interprétation auraient lieu et en interrogeant les réfugiés syriens, il a été prouvé que les besoins de traduction et d'interprétation étaient présents et étaient satisfaits par des traducteurs et interprètes non officiels et officiels - en plus de la traduction automatique. Le but de la recherche était non seulement de clarifier les services de traduction et d'interprétation tels qu'ils sont requis dans le processus de migration des réfugiés, mais aussi de déterminer s'ils répondaient généralement aux besoins des réfugiés lorsqu'ils s'installaient au Canada.


identifier: Taner, Irmak  (2022) Imminent Infrastructures: The promise of Kanal Istanbul and the experiences of people in Durusu.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Based on fieldwork between August and December 2019 in Istanbul, media analysis, and historical research, this thesis explores the tension between the materiality and immateriality of infrastructures. Its case is Kanal Istanbul and its impact on Durusu village. As Kanal Istanbul has been in the works for more than ten years and is still not actualized, it has engendered a speculative moment that presents a rich ground to observe how imagination and speculation come into play when thinking of this infrastructural tension. How is the emerging future that is contingent on Kanal Istanbul negotiated by the people living in Durusu, the government, and the groups resisting the construction of the canal? I will argue that even in the material absence of Kanal Istanbul, it has significant impact as a speculative imaginary. It evokes a wide range of competing affects that are embedded in the inextricably interlinked in/visibilities of multiple infrastructures and speak to the politics of future building.


identifier: Esmaeili, Foad  (2022) Biomass Supply Chain Resilience: Integrating Demand and Availability Predictions into Routing Decisions Using Machine Learning.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Renewable energy sources have been pursued as a means of mitigating carbon emission from the energy sector. As biomass resources are a part of natural carbon cycle, they have the potential to mitigate carbon emissions as a renewable source while reducing waste and residues. It shall be noted that biomass has its own challenges as well. Seasonality and disruption risks are some of the disadvantages of biomass resources. Therefore, it is imperative that biomass supply chains be managed such that to withstand disruptions and provide customers with reliable stocks available. In recent years, there has been a growing attention to research on energy supply chain resilience. In case of biomass, most studies have integrated predictions for either supply or demand side of biomass supply chains. This study aims at addressing this gap by formulating biomass supply chain resilience subject to integrating the predictions from both supply and demand dimensions. In doing so, we compare the performance of a host of machine learning techniques combined with routing algorithms. A case study with real (supply and demand) data is considered to present the applicability and usefulness of the proposed methodology accompanied by a   results analysis. We then conclude by summarizing the contributions, limitations, and presenting opportunities for future research.


identifier: Wang, Yimeng  (2022) Reorganization of functional hubs in sleep and in epilepsy.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) is a non-invasive brain imaging technique that measures brain activity non-invasively. Functional connectivity (FC) quantifies how Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent (BOLD) signal of remote brain regions correlates with each other temporally. Using variety of methodologies such as Independent Component Analysis (ICA) or sparse dictionary learning, Resting-State Networks (RSNs) are consistently found in human brain connectome. Functional hubs denote the brain regions that exhibit connections denser than others, whereas connector hubs especially participate in inter-network communication. My Master thesis is based on a previously published methodology called Sparsity-based analysis of reliable k-hubness (SPARK), which estimates the functional hubs by counting the number of RSNs connected to each brain voxels. By acquiring simultaneous electroencephalogram (EEG)-fMRI, functional connectivity (FC) during sleep can also be investigated. In addition, functional connectivity has been commonly applied to find potential biomarkers for neurological disease, such as epilepsy. Therefore, in the first study of this thesis, we investigated functional segregation during a recovery nap after total sleep deprivation and its association with cognitive performance. We applied an algorithm called Hierarchical Segregation Index (HSI) based on the hubness estimated by SPARK. As a result, we found significant correlation between functional segregation during sleep and working memory performance after sleep. In the second study of this thesis, we investigated the different patterns of functional hub reorganization in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE). By applying similar methods used in the first study, we found significant and exclusive functional hub alteration both in TLE and FLE. To conclude, in sleep, functional segregation during a whole night sleep and its association between cognitive performance can be further investigated. In TLE and FLE, further research of the hub alterations in subcortical structures will be of interest, and might serve as potential biomarkers for post-surgical outcomes.


identifier: Rasoulian, Hadise  (2022) Reliability, Availability and Resilience Assessment of Heating Systems Using Sequential Monte-Carlo Simulation and Critical Load Analysis. Masters thesis, Concordia University.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Ambitious sustainable development goals lead cities to invest in renewable energy infrastructure as the primary energy source. With an increasing number of people moving to urban areas, providing reliable heating energy, especially in cold regions needs more investigation. A resilient and reliable energy system is able to provide the intended demand in day-to-day operation under a wide range of failure modes, as well as extreme situations. This research aims to provide a framework to investigate reliability indices, availability, and resilience of electric heating systems.
The availability and reliability indices such as Energy Not Served (ENS) and Loss Of Load Expectation (LOLE) are evaluated using sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) simulation. SMC is a probabilistic approach that is able to capture the random failures and behaviour of the systems over a defined sequence of time. To evaluate the energy system resilience under a major power outage, a method considering the resilience in terms of system robustness, ENS, and Average Energy Not Served (AENS) is proposed. During the power outage, resilience metrics are analyzed considering critical loads instead of business-as-usual demand. The critical load is the minimum demand that needs to be provided to customers and it is defined based on the ranking and assigning weights to user types.
The method is applied to a district to compare the performance of centralized and decentralized ground source heat pump systems. In terms of system resilience, the two energy systems have similar performance, however, results of the reliability simulation indicate that the centralized scenario is more reliable than the decentralized design in terms of the number of hours where energy is available to the area, and the amount of energy served to the consumers.


identifier: Belasso, Clyde Joseph  (2022) Bayesian Framework for Classification to Investigate Tau, Cortical Thickness, and Large-Scale Brain Networks Across the Alzheimer’s Disease Spectrum.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that induces deficits in multiple cognitive domains and reduces the overall quality of life. Among various physiological processes, AD is characterized by structural changes to gray matter incurred from gross neuronal loss due to the accumulation and spread of tau proteins across the brain. Neuroimaging modalities such as T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and tau positron emission tomography (PET) can quantify these disease processes. Though tau neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) follow a stereotypical pattern following the Braak staging scheme, the recent network degeneration hypothesis (NDH) has suggested that NFTs spread selectively along functional networks of the brain. This thesis investigates whether it is beneficial to incorporate network-level information into an ROI-based classification
model. To this end, we employed a Bayesian hierarchical multinomial logistic regression model and developed four statistical models with increasing levels of complexity. We assessed each model’s out-of-sample predictive ability and goodness of fit using the leave-one-out cross-validation and posterior predictive check procedures. Our results
validated the initial hypothesis and found that a hierarchical model incorporating ROI-level and network-level information was best. Furthermore, posterior predictions from the best model revealed laterality patterns across hemispheres within specific regions and
networks. Moreover, the predictions also suggested that tau precedes cortical atrophy for particular regions and networks. Lastly, tau-PET predictions suggested how though the disease may globally affect functional networks, the regions that comprise a given network display their own patterns of heterogeneity and progression.


identifier: Bavandsavadkouhi, Iman  (2022) An Autoencoding Method for Detecting Counterfeit Coins.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In our daily lives, we use coins to pay for goods and services. However, the market for antique and historical coins is another place where coin quality and genuinity are important. Since counterfeiting has become more common as a result of technological advancements, dealing with fake coins is unavoidable. As a result, researchers have considered various methods in coin detection studies. In recent years, image-based coin detection has made extensive use of 2-D and 3-D image processing approaches. We propose a method for detecting counterfeit coins based on image content in this paper. We used
SIFT, SURF, and MSER to determine the degree of similarity between our datasets. Then, using statistical analysis, we determine which descriptor is the most effective criterion for
counterfeit coin detection. SIFT was chosen as the most reliable algorithm for the Danish and Canadian coin image dataset according to the Experiments' results. The autoencoder is
then trained to detect anomalies in the coin images. A coin image is fed to the trained autoencoder as input and outputs a new image. Using the chosen criterion, the output image is compared to a baseline image. If the similarity between these two images is greater than a certain threshold, the coin is genuine. For training, most counterfeit coin detection methods require fake data. Our autoencoding-based anomaly method can eliminate this. Our
proposed method for distinguishing genuine coins from counterfeit coins yielded promising results. In addition, we present a method for increasing the speed of counterfeit coin detection. We conducted our research on the Mint Mark of Canadian toonies coin images and we were able to achieve acceptable results by combining the edge detection technique with GAN and autoencoder.


identifier: Peña Tijerina, Gabriel  (2022) After Transparency / Towards an architecture of reflection.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

format: text video

abstract:
After transparency takes a critical position regarding the conceptualization of glass in modern and contemporary architecture where it has, largely so far been viewed as an absent entity that divides interior and exterior spaces. Beyond transparency delves beneath the much-touted transparency of glass to expose how its complex material properties can generate affective atmospheres that modify/modulate our sensorial perception of architecture.
In Part I of this thesis, “A Genealogy of Glass,” I begin by exploring the etymological roots of “glass”, and then go on to examine its material, ideological and phenomenological uses in modern architecture, from Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in 1851 to the interwar period in Germany (1918 – 1930), down to contemporary projects that transgress the notion of glass as “transparency”. I show that the latter projects highlight the interplay of transparency and reflection to produce rich and complex atmospheres designed to radically transform social and perceptual interactions. Paradoxically, most of these transgressive projects seek to recuperate and enter into dialogue with some of the early intentions of glass architecture at the beginning of the century, before glass came to be seen as a material the greatest achievement of which was to be virtually absent.
Unfortunately, the discourse of absence and transparency remains very current in architecture circles,  and it is argued that this has obfuscated the utopian and sensorial properties of glass architecture dating back to the beginning of modernism. Part I of this thesis concludes with a review of the roots and intentions beyond transparency of seminal projects such as the Crystal Palace, the Glass House, the Glass Room and the Barcelona Pavilion. Here my aim is to uncover unattended routes and phenomenological intentions in glass architecture from an affective and atmospheric perspective.
In Part II, “An Anatomy of Glass Architecture”, I elaborate a theoretical structure anchored in Kenneth Frampton's Studies in tectonic Culture, augmented by a phenomenological perspective based on Gernot Böhme’s Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces. By weaving the concepts of tectonics and atmospheres together, I present a new position with respect to what “glass atmosphere” is. The concept of glass atmospheres is also explored through the shared history of glass and crystals, both in practice and concept, highlighting the importance of this relation in the production of abstract and modern architecture. The affective dimension of glass atmospheres is studied by attending to its sensuous qualities, pointing out as well to how these qualities change and transform in relation to their social, cultural, and geographical locus.
To conclude the second part of the thesis, I conceptualize the phenomenon of glass atmospheres as a perceptual apparatus. I analyze this apparatus in terms of its surface properties based on Giuliana Bruno’s studies on the projective e-motion of light and cinema, as well as the capacity of a reflective surface to retain the memories of its surrounding space. I incorporate time and entropy into the analysis through the work of Fernandes Galiano on the role of entropy in the production and maintenance of architecture, while The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli will help explain how reflection in glass atmospheres can make us experience alternative temporalities.
In Part III “A Typology of Glass Reflection”, I examine different forms of glass reflection through different architectural examples, field work observations, experiments, and the fundamental physics that produces the phenomena. To round out the last part, I incorporate two interviews to give insight into the potentialities of glass atmospheres and reflection both in arts and architecture. First, distinguished architect Alberto Campo Baeza discusses some of the ways glass reflection has played an important role in his work, and how this phenomenon has been incorporated into Moorish and Renaissance architecture. Second, Pedro Lash discusses his artistic work based on prehispanic mythology, Dark Mirror, which employs reflection as a perceptual and conceptual mechanism for the decolonization of space.


identifier: Moyes, Samantha  (2022) Dis-Trusting Human Rights: The UN Trusteeship in Late Colonial Tanganyika (Tanzania).  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
After World War Two a new internationalism was fuelled by human rights discourses and increasing anticolonial agitation in Africa and beyond. As part of this, the newly established United Nations implemented the Trusteeship Council, tasked with preparing trusteeship territories for self-determination and implementing fundamental human rights and freedoms. Moreover, inhabitants of trusteeship territories had the unique and exclusive right to petition the United Nations directly. In 1948, Tanganyika (Tanzania) received the designation of trusteeship status with the British acting as the administering authority. Tanganyikans of disparate ethnic, racial, class and professional backgrounds seized this opportunity to write to the Trusteeship Council.

The trusteeship petitions provide an access point for shifting the focus of scholarship on international institutions to everyday actors. These diverse actors show a political consciousness of the significance of race, development, and internationalism as vehicles for making claims to rights and control over their personal and political lives. With the promise of decolonization that trusteeship status conferred, inhabitants actively engaged in imagining and negotiating their position within a decolonizing Tanganyika.

My dissertation explores the different scales and experiences of liminality embedded within the trusteeship system as envisioned by petitioners who wrote to the UNTC. I examine grassroots responses on an individual and community level. These responses were steeped in critiques of trusteeship authority and universalism. Many expressed an acute awareness of how the language of human rights and trusteeship with its claims to universalism were intimately tied to racial hierarchies of governance.

This provides a different kind of snapshot of this moment where avenues for justice lay in a nebulous landscape between empire and nation-state. It is a snapshot of a form that is liminal and in-between, where the meaning of racial categories was debated. I look more carefully at specific forms political demands took that were contained within neither empire nor the nation-state. This form allowed for powerful critiques of empire, universalism, and internationalism, yet also allowed for inhabitants – African communities facing land dispossession, Asian communities anxious about their position as minorities, interracial couples, and domestic workers unions – to engage and use a diverse array of prevailing political languages to describe the struggles they faced in their everyday lives and demand social rights such as the ability to own land, secure employment, fall in love, and more.


identifier: Liu, Yang  (2022) A Family of Algorithms for Patient Similarity Based on Electronic Health Records.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Patient similarity is an emerging field of study facilitating health care analytic of big data pertaining to patients. Its major goal is to rank or cluster patients so that each cluster exhibits one aspect of tightly related patient characteristic. These characteristics include diseases, drugs take, risk factors, life styles, habits and ethical aspects. The rapid adaption of Electronic Health Record (EHR) in hospitals and other governmental heath care organizations to store such a variety of patient information provides a comprehensive source for efficient health care delivery, for data-based analytic of patient-centric individualized perspective prediction, and decision making. It is in this context that the thesis is making contributions on structuring an EHR as a vector of multifaceted components, where each component may be an aggregation of sub-components and each sub-component has a strict type. The operations on each sub-component are part of the typing scheme, and permits semantic-based similarity assessment on each component. The suggested EHR structure is both generic and extendable. The scoring functions that measure the similarity between pairs of components are rigorously defined with respect to domain semantics and user semantics. The weighted average of the scores of components, where the weights are part of user semantics, calculates the similarity between records under analysis. Several examples are shown to comprehensively explain the behaviour of functions. Drug-Drug similarity, and patient-patient similarity analysis based on it are discussed. Experimental results are given and their merits are explained.


identifier: Nunes Dantas, Monica ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2134-6380 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2134-6380>  (2022) Pursuing Sustainability in Food Systems through Womanism and Community Development: Family Farmers Cooperative in Northeast Brazil.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This manuscript-format thesis examines the sustainability of local food systems and the potential for community development in Brazil’s the Rio Grande do Norte (RN) State. Participatory action research (PAR) methodology was adopted to map the conditions, issues, and possibilities within family farming and the social solidarity economy initiative, the Xique-Xique Network (RXX). Primary data from participant observation and semi-structured interviews complement the indicator-based assessment grounded on the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) indicators. The first manuscript shows how family farming suffers from systemic problems, such as insufficient support from public institutions, conditions imposed by the influence of agribusiness biases, lack of basic infrastructure, discouraging regulations, lack of capital, limited access to credit, environmental problems, the negative image associated with family farming and difficulty accessing modern technologies. The second manuscript highlights the ways academic documentation and communication could positively contribute. The third manuscript investigates the conceptualization of food using a semiotic analysis to understand the notion of food in mainstream media, including an analysis of “Google Images.” The study found that mainstream media’s portrayal or suggested meaning influences food conceptualization. Also, there was a discrepancy between the portrayed images and their respective concepts, such as the idealized agribusiness notion of a thriving food system. The oversimplified views of different food systems influence food choices by either promoting or obstructing the development of food systems. The fourth manuscript concentrates on integrating sustainability aspects into gender and social norms. The findings show how social norms permeate sustainability practices. It also suggests that the farmer’s approaches regarding education and their vision for societal transformation were a reflex to their experience with the landless workers’ movement. The study further identifies several gaps to address and boost the involvement of farming women. However, the narrative analysis revealed that the RXX praxis actively promotes positive gender dynamics in multidimensional ways. Women are in positions of leadership and prioritize childcare to warrant their inclusion. The last manuscript proposes a sustainable food systems model that emerged from the integrated praxis of womanism, agroecology, and solidarity. This model is centred on a joined view of sustainability, local social norms, and gender dynamics. It presents unique drivers and distinctive ways to express the usually disjoining aspects of sustainability in food systems.


identifier: Jalilvand, Vahid  (2022) Thermal Spray Coating Development of Inert Anode for Aluminum Electrolysis Process.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The primary aluminum industry is an important producer of greenhouse gases (GHGs) due to the use of carbon anodes that are consumed during the Al electrolysis process to form CO2. The most effective solution would be to replace consumable carbon anodes with so-called inert anodes that emit O2 rather than CO2. Among the numerous materials studied so far, Cu-Ni-Fe-based alloys appear to be the most promising metallic anode materials, due to their ability to produce a protective nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) layer during Al electrolysis. However, this protective layer needs time to form at the surface of these alloys, during which fluorination can occur, causing premature degradation of the electrode. The main objective of this work is to develop a thermal spray coating of (Co,Ni)O on the Cu-Ni-Fe anodes to slow down the attack of the electrolyte and allow the formation of NiFe2O4 surface scale to occur.
In this thesis, a novel approach in the preparation of thick, dense, homogenous and single phase (Co,Ni)O coatings using suspension plasma spray (SPS) and high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) was studied. The effects of spraying variables on the composition and microstructure of the coatings were investigated. The coatings deposited by HVOF were single phase, while reduction of NiO to Ni was observed in the coatings prepared by SPS. The possible causes for the formation of Ni during spraying of (Co,Ni)O by SPS are discussed. Substrate temperature was identified as the most critical parameter affecting SPS coating composition. In-flight particles and splats were collected to study the melting and mixing behavior of CoO and NiO during spraying. Plasma power input was found to play a major role in determining the shape and number of the generated splats.
The influence of the HVOF sprayed coating and substrate compositions on their behavior was studied at 1000 °C under argon and air. On Cu-rich alloy, CoxNi1-xO coatings with higher nickel content slow down oxygen diffusion to the substrate, as well as copper diffusion to the sample surface. On Ni-rich alloy, the formation of a NiFe2O4 scale is observed, whose thickness decreases as the Ni content of the CoxNi1-xO coatings increases. The results demonstrated that (Co,Ni)O coatings decrease the oxidation rate of the underlying Cu-Ni-Fe alloy. However, the diffusion of alloying elements from substrates to the coatings and formation of new oxide layers in the coatings were observed after 20 h of heat treatment in air. Therefore, Ni–20Cr and CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy (HEA) were used as bond coat materials to completely prevent the oxidation as well as the inter-diffusion of alloying elements between substrate and (Co,Ni)O protective coating. The effect of HVOF-sprayed bond coat layers on the oxidation resistance of coated samples was investigated at 1000 °C in the presence of oxygen. The formation of a dense thin layer of Cr2O3 on both bond coats inhibits oxygen diffusion to the substrates. No diffusion of elements is observed from NiCr to (Co,Ni)O, while Mn atoms diffuse from HEA into the top coat layer during the oxidation process.


identifier: Yang, Tianqi  (2022) Tracking Control of Autonomous Vehicles.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Tracking Control of Autonomous Vehicles

abstract:
This thesis intends to design new tracking schemes to enhance the performance and stability of general autonomous vehicles (AVs). Three main types of controllers used for tracking control are investigated.

The geometric controller cannot meet high tracking requirements, and control parameters significantly affect its performance. Therefore, an observer-based nonlinear control combined with a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is developed for low-speed vehicles to track the pre-determined trajectory accurately. A control law featured with self-tuning gains is designed using the backstepping control technique, for which global asymptotic stability is validated. The PSO evaluates tracking performance through the proposed fitness function and generates optimized tuning parameters with fewer iterations, reducing tuning efforts. Velocity and steering tracking could also be rapidly realized by modifying the error weights of the performance evaluation criterion. Based on the proposed yaw error observer (YEO), the problem of the angle measurements being temporarily inaccurate or unavailable is tackled effectively with the given information.

Further, existing methods can suffer from complex control algorithms and a lack of tracking stability at high speed. The vehicle's motion is decoupled by considering the Frenet frame. A lateral control law based on the linear-quadratic-regulator (LQR) imposes the tracking errors to converge to zero stably and quickly, providing the optimal solution in real-time due to adaptive gains. Regarding the steady-state errors, they are eliminated through the correction of the feedforward term. Besides, the designed double proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller realizes not only the longitudinal control but also the velocity tracking.


identifier: Vu, Anh Kien  (2022) Synthesis and Application of Iron/Copper Nanoparticles and Biosurfactants for Remediation of Oil-contaminated Soil.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Oil (or petroleum), consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons, can leak from oil exploration, production, and use. Due to their complex mixture and interaction with the subsurface soil and water, they are hard to treat and can become a significant environmental concern. Rhamnolipid and sophorolipid biosurfactants, biologically produced surfactants, can be used to remove petroleum hydrocarbons. Nanoparticles have gained attention as promising materials for soil remediation. In many studies, nanoparticles have shown their effective degradation of oil pollutants in the soil, both at bench and field scales. However, the combination of biosurfactants and nanoparticles to treat oil-contaminated soil has not been thoroughly researched. In this study, suspension of iron/copper (Fe/Cu) nanoparticle and biosurfactant and mixture of biosurfactant foam and Fe/Cu nanoparticle were investigated for remediation of oil-contaminated soil. The results showed that Fe/Cu bimetallic nanoparticles were successfully produced with an average diameter of less than 20 nm, while Fe content was higher than Cu. The appearance of iron oxide and copper oxide was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis.
The biosurfactant/nanoparticle suspension displayed a high oil removal rate from contaminated soil, followed the first-order reaction. For batch experiments, the oil remediation efficiency was up to 84%, based on the experimental conditions. Optimum conditions to achieve the highest oil remediation performance included a rhamnolipid biosurfactant: nanoparticle ratio of 10:1 (wt%: wt%), pH 7, room temperature, and shaking speed of 60 rpm for 60 minutes. The remediation rate was improved by higher temperature and lower ionic strength. In the presence and absence of nanoparticles, rhamnolipid biosurfactant demonstrated a higher remediation efficiency than sophorolipid biosurfactant and ultraplex surfactant. The presence of other surfactants decreased the treatment productivity by 9-14% compared to using only rhamnolipid biosurfactant. After three cycles, nanoparticles were reused with a remediation efficiency of 59% by rhamnolipid biosurfactant.
In column experiments, biosurfactant foam/nanoparticle and biosurfactant/nanoparticle mixtures were effectively used to remediate the actual oil-contaminated soil (fine sandy soil with the original oil content of 3722 mg/kg), whereas the highest treatment efficiency was 67%, 59%, and 52% for rhamnolipid biosurfactant foam/nanoparticle, rhamnolipid biosurfactant/nanoparticle, and only rhamnolipid biosurfactant, respectively. The oil removal productivity decreased with the increase of flowrate due to the shorter contact time between the foam mixture and oil droplets. The breakthrough curves of oil pollutants in the soil column also suggested that the foam mixture's maximum oil treatment efficiency was higher than biosurfactant/nanoparticle suspension and only biosurfactant.
These results suggested that biosurfactant/nanoparticle and biosurfactant foam/nanoparticle suspension can be effectively used to remediate oil from contaminated soil. This work will significantly benefit the soil remediation field by providing an environmentally friendly and economical method for the remediation of oil-contaminated soil. Future studies will evaluate the effect of other factors, such as biosurfactant concentration, nanoparticle dosage, pH, on column experiments. In addition, oil remediation effectiveness by suspension of biosurfactant or biosurfactant foam with other nanoparticles, such as Fe/Ni or Fe/Pd, in batch and column experiments should be evaluated.


identifier: Bergen, Anna Hilary  (2022) Dancing Media: The Contagious Movement of Posthuman Bodies (or Towards A Posthuman Theory of Dance).  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
My dissertation seeks to define a posthuman theory of dance through a historical study of the dancer as an instrument or technology for exploring emergent visual media, and by positioning screendance as an experimental technique for animating posthuman relation and thought. Commonly understood as ephemeral, dance is produced by assemblages that include bodies but are not limited to them. In this way, dance exceeds the human body. There is a central tension in the practice of dance, between the persistent presumption of the dancing body as a channel for human expression, and dance as a technicity of the body—a discipline and a practice of repeated gesture—that calls into question categories of the human. A posthuman theory of dance invites examination of such tensions and interrogates traditional notions of authenticity, ownership and commodification, as well as the bounded, individual subject who can assess the surrounding world with precise clarity, certain of where the human begins and ends.

The guiding historical question for my dissertation is: if it is possible to describe both a modern form of posthuman dance (turn of the 19th-20th century), and a more recent form of posthuman dance (turn of the 20th-21st century), are they part of the same assemblage or are they constituted differently, and if so, how? Throughout my four chapters, I explore an array of case studies from early modernism to advanced capitalism, including Loie Fuller’s otherworldly stage dances; the scientific motion studies of Muybridge and Marey; Fritz Lang’s dancing maschinenmensch (or the first on-screen dancing machine) in the 1927 film Metropolis; the performances of singer-dancer hologram pop star, Hatsune Miku; and American engineering firm Boston Dynamics’ dancing military robots. The figure of the “dancing machine” (McCarren) is central to my project, especially given that dance has historically been used as a means of testing machines—from automata to robots to CGI images animated with MoCap—in their capacity to be lively or human-like. In each case, I am interested in how dance continues to be productive of some kind of subjectivity (or interiority, or “soul”), even in the absence of the human body, and how technique and gesture passes between bodies, both virtual and organic, dispersing agency often attributed to the human alone.

I propose that a posthuman theory of dance is a necessary intervention to the broad and contradictory field of posthumanism because dance returns us to questions about bodies that are often suspiciously ignored in theories of posthumanism, especially regarding race (and historically racist categories of non/inhumanity), thereby exposing many of posthumanism’s biases, appropriations, dispossessions and erasures. Throughout my dissertation, I look to dance as both a concrete example and as a method of thinking through the potentials and limitations of posthumanism.


identifier: Almuhajri, Mrouj  (2022) Shop Signboards Detection and Classification Framework (SSDCF) based on AI approach and Typeface Analysis.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence algorithms have sharpened the focus on street signs due to their prevalence. This research was driven by beneficial applications of end-to-end systems to humans, municipal agencies, and automobiles. However, the variation of materials, shapes, colors, and fonts in some signs, such as shop signboards, have presented complicated challenges to AI-based systems to detect and classify them. Previous studies built classification models by considering the whole storefront. Their classification results were negatively impacted by the inclusion of other components within the storefront. This research focuses on shop signboards as they are much more consistent.

The main objective of this research is to detect and classify shop signboards based on deep learning and machine learning techniques. To achieve that, data acquisition was necessary for models training purposes. Therefore, the Shop Signboard ShoS dataset was collected from Google street images. A total of 10k store signboards were captured within 7500 images. All the collected images were fully annotated and made available for the public for several research purposes.

Then, the Shop Signboard Detection and Classification Framework SSDCF was designed and built to tackle most of the existing challenges. Three main components were fully implemented and evaluated: signboard detector, text extractor, and shop classifier to classify commercial stores based on the textual information. For signboard detector, two models were trained and tested utilizing the ShoS dataset. Findings surpassed the performance of YOLOv3 without any color preparation. For text extractor, the evaluation of Google Vision OCR showed better results even with the existence of influential factors, such as stylized fonts and skewed images. For shop classifier, out of the two trained and tested classifiers, SVM showed great performance even with classes that have some difficulty factors. The performance of the classifier had been enhanced by 4\% approximately after adding the augmented data which was generated by the Random Deletion method and a novel Thesauruses-inspired method named \textit{OCR-Thesauruses}. Each component has been trained and tested individually at first. Then, the full end-to-end framework was implemented and evaluated using the SVT public dataset, and the outcome reached an F1-score=89\%. The classification performance was also compared with human performance based on the texts extracted from the signs. Human subjects were provided with textual information only and were not exposed to shop sing images. The results showed that our classifier exceeded human performance by about 15\% due to the prior knowledge the classifier learned from all text data during training.

Finally, the results of the second component of our framework, the text extractor, were statistically analyzed to check the impact of typeface styles used in shop signboards on the recognition rates. The findings showed a significant association between the typeface style and the recognition rate. So, it is recommended to use ''Serif" and ''Sanserif" styles over ''Script" and ''Decorative" in designing shop signboards. If using stylized fonts is a must, it is advised to add keywords that distinguish a store class from another using a better typeface design, such as ''Serif" or ''Sanserif" styles.


identifier: Herrera, Juliana  (2022) Nucleus accumbens specific knockout of Bmal1 and Per2 regulates mood-like behaviors and alcohol consumption in male and female mice.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Disrupted clock gene expression, either in the central clockwork or in peripheral brain areas, is known to affect behavior. Given the comorbidity between affective disorders and alcohol use disorder in males and females, understanding the role of clock genes is necessary to improve drug treatments. The function of clock genes within striatal medium spiny neurons has gained attention for its region-specific associations with neuropsychiatric disorders. Until now, how core clock genes within specific subdivisions of the striatum affect mood and addiction disorders in male and female mice is not fully understood. We measured anxiety-like and depressive-like behaviors as well as ethanol consumption in male and female mice with nucleus accumbens deletion of Bmal1 or Per2. Whereas deletion of Bmal1 in the ventral striatum had minor effects on mood-related behavior, it had significant positive effects on ethanol drinking in both males and females, suggesting that Bmal1 in the nucleus accumbens normally suppresses alcohol consumption independent of sex. Deletion of Per2 augmented alcohol consumption in males, mimicking the effect of Bmal1 nucleus accumbens knockout. The same deletion had no effect in females, pointing to female-specific dissociation between the effect of nucleus accumbens Bmal1 and Per2 on alcohol intake. This study provides new insight into the role of clock genes in the nucleus accumbens in the control of alcohol drinking behavior in male and female mice. Furthermore, lack of effect of Bmal1 and Per2 deletion on mood related behaviors in these mice suggests that the effect on alcohol consumption is direct and not due to changes in mood state.


identifier: Supekar, Raunak ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5055-6264 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5055-6264>  (2022) Tribological response of thermally sprayed high entropy alloys for aerospace applications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Aerospace components operating in extreme environments commonly face severe degradation due to wear, corrosion, oxidation and fatigue. Conventional materials used for such components face limitations with such degradation issues and thus, there is a need to develop new alloy systems capable of operating effectively in extreme conditions. High entropy alloys (HEAs) have gained a lot of attention recently due to their outstanding mechanical properties and tribological behavior. These advance HEAs need to be deposited in the most effective way suitable for tribological applications. Thermal spraying techniques have proven to be one of the most efficient technologies for mitigating wear and corrosion damage that occurs due to harsh environmental conditions. The modularity of these techniques has made it possible to spray and/or repair intricate components in an effective manner.
The main purpose of this research is to evaluate the tribological performance of a novel AlCoCrFeMo HEA system deposited via cold spraying, flame spraying and HVOF spraying technologies and identify the most suitable thermal deposition technique. This thesis comprises of two research studies in which the first study focuses on tribological behavior of cold sprayed and flame sprayed HEA at room temperature under varying loads (5N and 10N) and the effect of polishing. The second study investigates the temperature response (room temperature and 450C) on tribological behavior of the HEA deposited via cold spraying, flame spraying and HVOF for the first time in scientific community.
In both the studies, the tribology tests were performed using ball-on-flat tribometer and the wear profiles were extracted using a laser confocal microscope. The ex-situ characterization of the coatings was done using scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), x-ray diffraction (XRD), image analysis, and Vickers micro-hardness testing. The HVOF sprayed HEA showed the least wear rates followed by flame sprayed HEA coating and cold sprayed HEA at both temperatures (room temperature and 450C). The research suggests that HVOF is the most suitable thermal spray deposition technique for high entropy alloy systems involving tribological applications.


identifier: Yu, Jianhan  (2022) Contribution to the Exposure Assessment for the Evaluation of Wind Effects on Buildings.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Contribution to the Exposure Assessment for the Evaluation of Wind Effects on Buildings
Jianhan Yu, Ph.D.
Concordia University, 2022

The upstream exposure has a major influence on wind loading and on wind environmental conditions around buildings. However, exposure characterization is also a complex and difficult wind engineering problem. The present comprehensive investigation addresses the exposure assessment issue in terms of evaluating the exposure roughness length (zo) by using various computational approaches.

Countries specify exposure coefficients in wind load provisions to help designers evaluate wind loads on buildings. However, these specifications can include inconsistencies and discrepancies, leading to different results for similar cases while the wind characteristics do not change from country to country. This thesis examines the current wind load provisions of the American Society of Civil Engineers Standard (ASCE 7, 2022), the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC, 2020), the European Standard (EN 1991-1-4, 2005), the Australian/New Zealand Standard (AS/NZS 1170.2, 2021), and the National Standard of the People’s Republic of China (GB 50009, 2012) in terms of exposure, and results are compared and discussed. First, the wind load provisions of ASCE 7 (2022) are considered to illustrate the process that most of the provisions follow. For homogeneous exposure, the terrain roughness categories and the corresponding exposure factors are compared. Additionally, the suggested minimum upstream fetch length for different exposure types is discussed by comparing them with the latest research findings. For non-homogeneous exposure, equations to calculate small-scale roughness change in various provisions are assessed by comparing them with wind tunnel experimental data. The inconsistencies between different provisions are identified, and remedies are proposed to minimize or avoid various errors, which are sometimes subjective. Other approaches such as the internal boundary layer (IBL) theory-based method, the morphometric method, the anemometric method, and the geographic information system (GIS)-based method are reviewed. It was found that it is usually expensive or time-consuming to estimate the exposure coefficients through these methods, particularly in complex terrain. Therefore, an innovative approach to estimate the value of zo based on Google Earth Pro is proposed, and this approach is efficient and freely available. Two case studies, namely, London, UK and the Tampa International Airport, Florida, were adopted to verify the accuracy of the proposed method and yielded satisfactory results.

This thesis also investigates the effects of upstream exposure on environmental wind engineering problems by taking pedestrian-level wind (PLW) velocity cases as typical examples. The methodology of computational wind engineering (CWE), which works better on environmental challenges than on structural wind engineering problems, is adopted, and the expected discrepancies in the results for typical cases are established and assessed. The sensitivity of the PLW velocity factors to the upstream exposure fetch is documented and discussed. The research presented in the thesis demonstrates a great potential to contribute to further development of wind standards and codes of practice, as far as the characterization of the upstream exposure is concerned, at the national and international level (ISO).


identifier: Risi, Lydia  (2022) Rethinking the Criminalization of Sexual Violence: The Limits of the Criminal Justice Paradigm.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The domination of the criminal justice paradigm suggests that criminalization is the best paradigm to address violence and to provide public safety. Despite decades of criminal justice reforms, the stable rates of sexual crimes call for a discourse analysis on societal understanding of justice. This thesis is an analysis of the efficiency of the criminal justice paradigm’s operationalization to address sexual violence in the Canadian context. The analysis conducted centered on the four sentencing principles of the criminal justice paradigm: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation and demonstrated the inability of the Canadian criminal justice system to convict individuals who commit sexual harm. Furthermore, the power of the criminal justice system to institutionalize the social categorization of individuals within a binary, as victims and as offenders, further entrenches cycles of harm. The victim/offender binary erases the complexities and nuances of sexual harm limiting healing and transformation for both individuals involved in the harmful interaction. Thus, it is argued that the criminal justice system has failed to prevent and address sexual violence and to create more harm by creating disposable identities in with the victim/offender binary. A shift in justice paradigm towards transformative justice and carceral abolition is proposed here as a hopeful avenue to better address sexual violence in Canadian society. Abolition praxis encourages the experimenting of community-based transformative justice practices to both prevent and address sexual violence without the intervention of police and prisons.