identifier: Movahedinia, Reza  (2018) Low-Cost Beam Steerable Antennas Using Parasitic Elements.  PhD thesis, concordai University.

abstract:
Beam steerable antennas are considered as a possible solution for meeting challenges in military and civilian systems such as satellite communication networks, automotive collision avoidance radar, base stations and biomedical applications. Phased array antennas are a natural choice as the foundation for many steerable antenna platform due to its exibility and gain scalability. The implementation of a phased array requires a large number of electronic components, tending to drive the cost of phased arrays and limit their usage to military applications. The electrically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) has been introduced as an antenna which is capable of adaptively controlling its beam pattern using parasitic elements loaded with varactors. ESPAR has attracted the attention of researchers from the desire for electrically scanned beams with inexpensive fabrication and has found as a suitable candidate for communication systems applications, including advanced radars, cellular base stations and space communications.
The ultimate goal of this research is to design and propose state of the art designs in the �eld of ESPAR that can satisfy the requirements of today's advanced communication systems, which should be cost-e�ective and can compete with other rival technologies. Considering the potentials of ESPAR, it can be proved that it is a good candidate for modern wireless communications. The thesis presents several contributions related to the design and analysis of ESPAR technology using dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) as the main radiator element. First, the thesis presents solutions to alleviate the problems associated in implementing a large ESPAR. The large array is useful in many applications since some required recon�gurable radiation characteristics may not be achievable with a single ESPAR element. The proposed structure consists of 240 perforated DRAs, whichare uniformly excited by a parallel-series feeding network. By employing the perforation technique, the need for aligning and bonding individual DRA is eliminated. The subarrays are placed in an interleaved arrangement to suppress the grating lobes. The proposed large ESPAR can incredibly reduce the number of phase shifter by 80% in comparison with the conventional phased array, which makes it inexpensive. Second, the thesis investigates potentials of ESPAR for massive multi-input multiple output (MIMO) communication. Massive MIMO technology has attracted tremendous interest due to its capabilities in enhancing the data transmission capacity, increasing the reliability, and reducing the multipath fading. However, in this technology for feeding each individual antenna, one radio frequency chain is required that can increase the power consumption and complexity of the structure. Moreover, to obtain decorrelated channels and to reduce mutual coupling, the antenna should be spaced suffciently far from each other that imposes increased physical dimensions. In contrast to the conventional MIMO structures, in ESPAR only one RF chain is needed and the small size constraint turns to be an advantage as the mutual coupling is exploited to form the desired signals. Furthermore, by controlling the tunable loads at each parasitic antenna element, different radiation patterns can be formed which can signi�cantly improve the performance of a MIMO antenna system operating in a changing environment. Thus, by using the advantages of ESPAR, a design approach to address the size and cost issues is proposed through this work. The proposed design is validated by simulation and measurement of a prototype, and results include the antenna and MIMO �gure of merits such as radiation patterns, efficiency, S-parameters, signal correlations, total active reection coeffcient (TARC), and channel capacity. These results have demonstrated that the proposed ESPAR design can be successfully implemented for a massive MIMO structure.
Finally, the thesis presents an effective method to design a ESPAR with a circularly polarized (CP) beam-scanning feature. Circular polarization is an ideal polarization due to its advantages in signal propagation properties, which can address the di�culties associated with mobility, inclement weather conditions, and immunity to multi path distortion.
In this work, the CP beam steering is achieved by adopting a sequential rotation approach for placing the parasitic antennas that are loaded with tunable varactors. The proposed CP-ESPAR technique eliminates the need of expensive phase shifters, which signi�cantly reduces cost and fabrication complexity. For performance evaluation, a prototype of the proposed antenna is designed, fabricated, and measured. It is observed that the proposed antenna has a monotonic CP beam scanning from { 22 to 22 operating at 10.5 GHz.


identifier: Wadhawan, Neha ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6994-9359 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6994-9359>  (2018) Comparison of different weight growth models in a sample of children from 6 to 15 years.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract: Human growth is a complex, natural developmental phenomenon comprised of prenatal (fetal) and postnatal (infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood) growth. Weight is an eco-sensitive growth measurement that responds more rapidly to illness and loss of appetite than height. Modelling postnatal growth in children’s weight is of particular interest in order to identify those at greatest risk for serious health outcomes later in adult life such as obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Traditionally, the most commonly used parametric growth models (Jenss-Bayley, Reed 1st order and Reed 2nd order) have been recommended for children from birth to 6 years of age but the literature on their performance in an older age range of children is limited. The Adapted Jenss-Bayley was developed to extend the models from birth to puberty. In contrast, the recently developed SITAR (SuperImposition by Translation And Rotation) model has no age range constraints, and has been shown to be superior to the previous models (Jenss-Bayley and  Reed 1st order) for modeling weight from birth to four years of age. No study has yet assessed the comparison and performance of these models in an older age range of children. This present study aims to extend the previous work by comparing these models (Jenss-Bayley, Reed 1st order, Reed 2nd order, Adapted Jenss-Bayley, and SITAR) within the mixed effect framework to model longitudinal weight in an age range of children that starts from middle childhood and includes puberty (6 to 15 years) in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD) cohort (n = 2, 120). Results demonstrate that the SITAR model outperformed the other four models but should be reassessed in additional studies with longer follow-up.


identifier: Gutierrez, Ronaldo  (2018) A Requirement Ontology To Guide The Analysis Of System Life Cycle Processes.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Economies prosper by designing, manufacturing, and servicing a variety of innovative products, for example airplanes, healthcare services, infrastructure development, and information technologies. Having the right competency (aka information processing skills) for designing, manufacturing, and servicing these products is necessary for economies to exploit new opportunities. These products have become more complex to design, manufacture and serve involving people with different education, language, and possibly globally distributed. In order to create these products, information processing skills have been put to the limits causing competitiveness problems. Detailed analysis has associated these problems to requirements. Requirements involve to process different kinds of information (e.g., texts, presentations, sketches, graphs, tables, drawings, engineering analysis, and managerial analysis) during system life cycle processes (i.e., from idea generation to retirement of a product); where at each stage, information has different content (e.g., aspect, medium, and format). Therefore, a root cause associated to requirements can be attributed to a lack of a common vocabulary to communicate this variety of information in the context of system life cycle processes. Theories and models have been employed as solution to solve this communication problem; however, current practice results suggest that a more effective solution is needed. As a result, this thesis employs an ontology as a means to solve the problem which is also an alternative and complement to theories and models. In general, a requirement ontology for system life cycle processes defines the core concepts and their relationships which combined define a common vocabulary in the context of requirements for system life cycle processes. A common vocabulary enables better communication and understanding among people as a core tool to support information processing skills. Hence, an ontology as a common vocabulary is the foundation to increase competitiveness to design, manufacture, and serve a variety of innovative products; which may lead to economies prosperity.
More specifically, this thesis proposes a requirement ontology for system life cycle processes as a tool to be used to guide the analysis of these processes. Based on the fact that the ontology refers to the knowledge domain of design, guidance from a design theory (i.e., Environment-Based Design) was adopted to create the proposed ontology. Four related ontologies were created based on frequency analysis in this thesis, but the proposed core ontology contains a vocabulary of 50+2 concepts and 24 types of relationships. The proposed core ontology has been validated from different perspectives: 1) design theory (i.e., Environment-Based Design) compliance, 2) creation and evaluation from international standards (ISO 15288:2015 and ISO 29148:2011) and three European research efforts, and 3) retrospection from three case studies: a) Total Quality Management System Guideline Development Using Environment-Based Design for Area Development Planning, b) Designing the Right Framework for Healthcare Decision Support, and c) Integrating learning through design methodologies in aircraft design. This type of validation enables to speculate that the ontology can be generalized to the scope of requirements for different engineering endeavours.
At the current stage of research, the proposed ontology is an information technology product that contributes to the actual knowledge base two major aspects: 1) a common vocabulary in the context of requirements for system lifecycle processes, and 2) a replicable ontology design process that can be extended to other domains of knowledge. The current stage of the proposed ontology shall be moved forward as future research. Two major venues for future research can be considered. First, expose the proposed ontology to potential users to improve the current stage of development of the ontology. Second, use the ontology as a tool to guide the analysis of system life cycle processes (e.g., ilities or specialty engineering). The current stage of the proposed ontology and future research venues shall improve communication and understanding among people as a core tool to support information processing skills for designing, manufacturing, and servicing a variety of innovative products.


identifier: Leach, Jamie A.  (2018) Connectedness in Sibling and Friend Play during Early and Middle Childhood.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The relationships that children form and maintain with other children are identified as crucial contexts for their social, cognitive, and emotional development (Carpendale & Lewis, 2015; Dunn, 2002; Howe, Ross, & Recchia, 2011; Piaget, 1962; Vygotsky, 1976).  Through interactions with others, children construct an understanding of their social and cultural worlds (Piaget, 1962; Vygotsky, 1976).  Children spend much of their time engaged in social play, which requires children to establish and maintain connectedness; meaning, they need to coordinate their ongoing social interactions and communicate and share ideas effectively to establish a shared understanding of the pretend scenario (Ensor & Hughes, 2008; Garvey, 1990; Howe et al., 2005).  To this end, the three manuscripts examined children’s connectedness during play with a sibling and friend from early to middle childhood.  The first manuscript investigated children’s connectedness in communication across relationship and time, the second manuscript examined features of connected sequences (e.g., emotional tone, length of sequence) based on the coding conducted in Study 1, and the third manuscript conducted a fine-grained analysis of children’s communication strategies that were used to initiate, sustain, and end connectedness.  Data consisted of previously collected naturalistic observations of semi-structured play sessions (DeHart, 1999).  Video and transcripts were used when coding the connectedness of children’s speech, the emotional tone and length of connected sequences, children’s interaction quality, and communication strategies.  Results are discussed in light of previous theoretical and empirical research on children’s relationships and social interactions with a focus on the novel findings of each investigation.  Overall, the findings provide new insights into children’s connectedness in child-child relationships and across development (i.e., from early to middle childhood).  Specifically, Study 1 demonstrated that children made more failed attempts at establishing connectedness with their sibling than friend and sustained connectedness more often with their friend than sibling.  In Study 2, the emotional tone of siblings’ and friends’ connected sequences were more likely to be positive than negative; however, siblings’ sequences were more likely to be short than long and friends’ sequences were more likely to be long than short.  In Study 3, children engaged in more prosocial behavior and employed a play voice when initiating connectedness with their friend than sibling and more clarifications when sustaining connectedness with their sibling than friend.  Implications for parents and professionals and future research recommendations are discussed in each study and the general discussion.


identifier: Alkhathami, Mesfer  (2018) Modeling of a Dielectric Elastomer.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Modeling of a Dielectric Elastomer

abstract:
Dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) is a key element for the soft robots, which has received increasing attention. However, the main difficulties in modeling soft actuators such as dielectric elastomer actuators are time-dependent viscoelasticity and their material nonlinearity. It is important
to consider the viscoelasticity of the dielectric elastomer (DE) to fully understand its mechanical behavior. However, so far only a few works have been presented considering the viscoelasticity of the DE material together with the effect of temperature and deformation.
In this thesis, a dynamic electromechanical-coupled model for a rectangle dielectric elastomer a commonly used material (the acrylic elastomer VHB 4910) has been proposed, with taking into consideration of the influence of temperature, voltage, and frequency on the DE. The proposed model is based on the free energy physical-based principle, where the general Kelvin-Voigt model is applied
to describe the viscoelasticity of the DE, and the Maxwell force together with the Electrostrictive force are considered. The influence of temperature and deformation on the DE is included in this model. The model in this study is a dynamic electromechanical model of a DE actuator, and can
effectively describe the dynamic characteristics of the DE.
By using the Differential Evolution, the model parameters were identified. The model was implemented and simulated in MATLAB, and the simulation and the actual experiment agrees to a great extent. The experimental test conducted in this study matches with the simulations results, which means that the proposed model can be practical to predict and describe DEAs electromechanical and viscoelastic behavior. Predicting the electromechanical and viscoelastic behavior of the DE is extremely useful for controlling a viscoelastic DEA and paving the way to improve the control performance, and also develops applications in soft robotics.


identifier: Zeinaly Fashtali, Ghazaale  (2018) Design and Development of a New Innovative Transcatheter Mitral Valve.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Mitral regurgitation is the most common valvular insufficiency, affecting more than 10% of people older than 75 years old in the United States. This translates into approximately 4 million people suffering from significant mitral regurgitation and 250,000 new cases of severe mitral regurgitation every year. The objective of this thesis is to design and test a novel transcatheter mitral valve with in-stent artificial chordae tendineae that better reproduces the native mitral complex as well as studying the cruciality of the role of chordae tendineae as a part of mitral valve apparatus.
For this purpose, numerous valves were designed and tested under physiological conditions before the optimal design was obtained. In order to study vorticity fields, viscous energy dissipation, and mitral regurgitation, the data collected from PIV measurements containing velocity fields were post processed. Particle trajectory was also performed to trace the particles inside the ventricle, during systole.
Findings of this study show that addition of the artificial chordae leads to a better performance of the mitral valve in terms of leaflet coaptations. In addition to what has been said, presence of the artificial chordae leads to significant improvements in terms of flow patterns, vortex formation, viscous energy dissipation and mitral valve regurgitation compared to the case in which the chordae were removed.


identifier: Chauvirey, Théo  (2018) Matériaux à base de mycélium en guise de substitut au plastique dans le design d'intérieur des véhicules de transport en commun : vers un métro inspiré par la nature.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Matériaux à base de mycélium en guise de substitut au plastique dans le design d'intérieur des véhicules de transport en commun : vers un métro inspiré par la nature.
Théo Chauvirey
Cette recherche permet de mettre en valeur l'absence actuelle de standards écologiques liés à la conception des véhicules ferroviaires de types rames de métro, ainsi que l'impact environnemental relatif au cycle de vie du matériel roulant et enfin leur taux de recyclabilité et de récupération.
À la lumière des résultats récoltés, une approche biomimétique basée sur le modèle d'économie circulaire est proposée afin d'explorer notamment le potentiel des biomatériaux à base de mycélium (racine de champignon) en guise d'alternative aux matériaux composites renforcés de fibres de verre utilisés dans le design d'intérieur des rames de métros.
En guise de démonstration concrète de l'utilisation du mycélium dans le domaine du transport en commun, ce mémoire synthétise aussi le travail de recherche expérimentale menant à la création d'une maquette à échelle réelle d'une section de wagon de métro.


identifier: Sahyoun, Najib  (2018) Voluntary Disclosures in the Audit Committee Report.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the voluntary disclosures in the audit committee report by different stakeholders such as corporate governance organizations and institutional investors. Based on the different requests for enhanced audit committee disclosures, the SEC issued a concept release during 2015 proposing several enhancements and requesting public comment (Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 2015).
In this dissertation, we investigate the voluntary disclosures in the audit committee report. The purpose of our study is twofold: 1) to analyze the comment letters to understand "investors' needs" in the context of the audit committee disclosures, 2) to investigate the association between voluntary disclosures in the audit committee report and earnings management, and the voluntary disclosures impact on the external environment. The first essay analyzes the comment letters by using a framing analysis. We aim to understand how each respondent category defines the current audit committee disclosure requirements in fulfilling "investors' needs." We compare and contrast the respondents’ frames and analyze their discourse. The second essay is composed of two studies and considers the top US Bank Holding Companies (BHC). We study the association between the voluntary disclosures in the audit committee reports and banks' earnings quality. Also, in this study, we analyze the impact of the voluntary disclosures in the audit committee report on the implied cost of equity and financial analysts' forecasting properties.
The results reveal that there is a wide variation among respondents in defining “investors’ needs” and how they argue to convince the SEC to adopt their point of view. Also, the discourse analysis reveals several issues at the corporate governance level that require the SEC attention. As for the second essay, the results show that there is a positive association between voluntary disclosures and earnings management. In our view, it implies that audit committees are engaged in impression management. Also, the results suggest that there is a positive relationship between the voluntary disclosures and cost of equity. It implies that the investors are able to know that the voluntary disclosures do not reveal strong performance by the audit committees and as a consequence, they will require a higher rate of return. Finally, for the financial analysts’ forecasting properties, it seems that they have learned that these voluntary disclosures are impression management. They are able to make better forecasting as the results suggest a negative relationship between voluntary disclosures and forecasting errors and forecasting dispersion.
Overall, our results have practical implications for the regulator and policy-makers. The framing analysis of the comment letters provides evidence about the need to have a common understanding of the “investors’ needs” in the audit committee disclosure context. The qualitative study is focusing on “investors’ needs” which is a critical concern for the SEC. Also, one of the regulator’s goal is to ensure that investors maintain confidence in financial markets. Our results show that audit committees engage in impression management. This practice can have bad consequences on investors’ confidence and require the SEC intervention.


identifier: Naaman, Christine  (2018) Three Essays on Credit Unions.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

title: Three Essays on Credit Unions

abstract:
This dissertation is comprised of three essays on issues related to the financial reporting practices of credit unions in the United States. The first essay relies on an agency theory perspective to examine the extent of earnings management in U.S. credit unions through loan loss provisions (LLP). The context of member-owned credit unions provides a different set of financial reporting incentives than the one typically found in shareholder-owned banks, thus providing an opportunity to extend earnings management research. The sample comprises U.S. credit unions above $50 million in total assets, between 2003 and 2016. Results show that credit union managers engage in income smoothing through the discretionary use of LLP to avoid earnings declines. Results also show that larger and better-capitalized credit unions engage in more earnings management, as do credit unions with a federal charter. Moreover, credit unions are driven by the incentive of merging to engage in earnings management. The findings are economically significant, and thus, relevant to policymakers contemplating new regulations since these managerial activities may place the cooperative principle at risk.
The second essay examines how competition affects risk-taking of a matched sample (by size and county) of banks and credit unions, and whether it affects differently credit unions and banks. Several measures of risk-taking are used in the study. The period of the study is from 2010 till 2017. First, univariate analyses are conducted to compare the risk-taking of the two types of institutions. We find that the means of the risk-taking measures do not differ significantly between banks and credit unions. Second, examining the difference in the risk-taking of credit unions and banks in a multivariate analysis, we find that banks’ managers engage in riskier activities. Third, we examine the effect of competition on the risk-taking. We find that increased competition induces managers of credit unions and banks to take more risk; this finding supports the competition-fragility hypothesis. We also find that credit unions’ managers take more risk than banks’ managers in the presence of competition. Finally, by including the quadratic term of competition, we find that there is a non-linear relationship between competition and risk-taking. This study has public policy implications: the American Banking Association argues that public policy toward credit unions and banks should be similar due to their similarities; whereas, credit unions express their difference to protect their privilege of tax exemption.
The third essay attempts to identify certain traits of the target credit unions in comparison to acquiring and non-merging credit unions. The analysis is performed both qualitatively and quantitatively. First, the paper presents a clinical analysis of three cases of mergers of credit unions. Each case is analyzed from the perspective of agency theory to determine the reason for merger. The three cases illustrate how the executives and directors are seeking their own utilities at the expense of the members. Second, we aim to identify certain characteristics of target credit unions empirically by comparing a sample of acquired credit unions to a matched sample of non-merging credit unions and the acquiring credit unions. The sample comprises U.S. credit unions above $10 million in total assets that merged to expand their services between 2011 and 2017. We identified a list of ratios that are used by the NCUA for credit union assessment, a univariate analysis of variance tests for differences between the means of these ratios among the three groups (targets, acquiring, and non-merging credit unions); the means of the ratios of the three groups are statistically different. Then, factor analysis is performed to classify the major factors that explain the majority of variance. Growth, capital adequacy, asset quality, and earnings are the major ratios that differentiate between the target, acquiring, and non-merging credit unions. The paper has public policy implications; it provides the NCUA with the necessary information for the amendment of the voluntary mergers proposed rule on May 25, 2017.

Keywords: Earnings management; Credit unions; Loan loss provision; Agency theory; Banks; Risk-taking; Competition; Lerner Index; Mergers; Target; Voluntary merger; Acquisition; Agency hypothesis.


identifier: Zhu, Lin  (2018) Waiting to Take the First Step? Procrastination Behaviors in the Role Transition from Worker to Manager.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The purpose of this research was to explore predictors of employees’ procrastination behaviors when approaching the transition from worker to manager. I drew on the Extended Model of Action Phases and Temporal Motivation Theory to argue that both personal and situational factors are related to career procrastination behaviors. Specifically, I hypothesized that trait passive procrastination, trait active procrastination, and work constraints are positively related to transition procrastination behaviors, whereas trait proactivity and work resources are negatively related to transition procrastination behaviors. I further hypothesized that career self-efficacy and subjective temporal proximity are two mechanisms through which these effects occur. These hypotheses were tested in a correlational study with two on-line surveys separated by one month. Data were gathered from a sample of employees working in various organizations and industries in Canada (N = 282). Consistent with the hypotheses, I found that trait passive procrastination, trait active procrastination, and constraints were positively related to transition procrastination behaviors, whereas resources were negatively related to transition procrastination behaviors. In contrast to my prediction, trait proactivity was not related to transition procrastination behaviors. As expected, career self-efficacy mediated relations between traits (passive procrastination, proactivity), environmental factors (resources and constraints) and transition procrastination behaviors. Subjective temporal proximity mediated relations between traits (passive procrastination, proactivity) and transition procrastination behaviors, but only in cross-sectional and not in time-lagged tests. Based on these findings, companies can reduce employees’ career procrastination behaviors by providing more career development resources and mitigating potential organizational constraints, which can build employees’ self-efficacy and encourage developmental behaviors.


identifier: Bakalis, Georgios  (2018) Numerical Modelling of Detonation Initiation via Shock Interaction with Multiple Flames.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Detonation in gaseous mixtures is a phenomenon of great importance for explosion safety assessment in hydrogen economy and for the development of advanced detonation-based propulsion systems. In practical applications, a detonation is generally caused by a deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) since a smaller amount of energy is required compared to a direct initiation. The key issue of DDT is finding the appropriate mechanisms to rapidly generate the detonation waves with a relatively weak ignition source. The objective of this work is to study numerically the possibility of DDT resulting from shock-multiple cylindrical flames interaction. The numerical setup aims to mimic an array of laminar flames ignited at different spark times, artificially inducing chemical activity to stimulate the coupling between the gasdynamics and the chemical energy release for the transition of deflagration-to-detonation. Using numerical simulations, a number of physical parameters are varied to determine their effect on the run-up distance as well as the time until the onset of detonation occurs, and to explore any scaling relationship among different them. The two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations with one-step Arrhenius chemistry including the effects of viscosity, thermal conduction and molecular diffusion are used for the simulations. For comparison, simulations with Euler equations are also performed. The finite-volume operator splitting scheme used is based on the 2nd order Godunov-type, Weighted Average Flux (WAF) method with an approximate HLLC Riemann Solver. An Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) technique is used to increase the resolution in areas of interest.  The simulation results show that the interaction of the weak shock with the first cylindrical flame demonstrates very good agreement with the results in the literature and that a single weak shock–flame interaction was not enough to cause prompt DDT.  However, a high degree of Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities induced by repeated shock-flame interactions along with shock-boundary interactions generate turbulence that accelerates the flame brush, until eventually a hot spot ignition in the unreacted material develops into a multi-headed detonation wave. The simulation results also show that DDT is sensitive to the simulation method and that certain simulation parameters significantly affect the DDT phenomenon.


identifier: Soltanian, Abbas  (2018) Architectures and Algorithms for Cloud-Based Multimedia Conferencing.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Multimedia conferencing is the real-time exchange of multimedia content between multiple parties. It is the basis of several applications, such as distance learning, online meetings, and massively multiplayer online games. Cloud-based provisioning of multimedia conferencing has several benefits, like resource efficiency, elasticity, and scalability. However, it remains very challenging. A challenge, for instance, is the lack of holistic architectures which cover both the infrastructure and the platform layers of cloud-based multimedia conferencing applications. Another challenge is the lack of appropriate algorithms for resource allocation in the conferencing cloud to accommodate the fluctuating number of participants, while meeting the required quality of services (QoS). Yet another example is the lack of suitable algorithms for scaling the multimedia conferencing applications in the cloud while meeting both QoS requirements and cost efficiency objective. Unfortunately, the solutions proposed so far do not address these challenges.
This thesis focuses on the architectural and algorithmic challenges of cloud-based multimedia conferencing. It proposes architectural components and interfaces for multimedia conferencing application provisioning, covering both the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) layers. The proposed interfaces simplify multimedia conference service provisioning for a wide range of application providers. On the algorithmic side, it proposes resource allocation mechanisms that support scalability in terms of the number of participants while meeting the QoS. These mechanisms allocate the actual resources (e.g., CPU, RAM, and storage) in an optimal manner. Besides these mechanisms, it proposes the scalability approaches for cloud-based multimedia conferencing applications. To ensure cost efficiency, these proposed solutions enable fine-grained scalability of the applications with respect to the number of participants while considering the QoS requirements. All algorithmic problems in this thesis are formulated using the Integer Linear Programming (ILP) and heuristics have been designed and validated to solve them.


identifier: Bigaila, Edvinas  (2018) Modeling and Simulation of a Solar Air-Based Façade-Integrated Decentralized System for Retrofits.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
There is a significant amount of research on air-based photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) solar collectors. However, the installed area of all air-based solar thermal systems is only 1% compared to all solar thermal systems installed.
With open-loop mechanically ventilated air-based building integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) collectors, the silicon based photovoltaic panels can be operated at close to optimal power production levels all year long, without overheating in summer. In efficient, highly insulated and airtight buildings, requirements for fresh air are higher, thus solar air collectors integrated with high efficient envelopes and HVAC systems are an important part of a highly efficient building.
This thesis is focused on development of a BIPV design methodology for solar façade applications in building envelope retrofit projects with BIPV, BIPV/T, STPV (semitransparent photovoltaics), BIPV shading devices and double skin façades with BIPV glazing. A BIPV/T assisted heat pump system and a radiant panel with short term phase change thermal storage with PCM (RPCMP) is also studied as a potential retrofit system.
The retrofit methodology is applied to a case study office building, demonstrating that the solar façade application can contribute to energy consumption reduction in perimeter zones by up to 84%. Cases with the most promising techno-economic results demonstrate the possibility to reach energy consumption reductions by up to 56%. The most promising case selection was done using the proposed methodology employing the Net Present Value/Investment ratio over the energy savings cost ratio. Different design options are shown to be feasible for different climatic regions of Canada.
A model with Simulink/Matlab was developed for design, optimization and operational performance studies of a novel concept for a prefabricated façade module, which consists of an air-based building integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) solar collector assisting a small scale decentralized exhaust heat pump integrated in or linked to façade in which heating of a perimeter zone in an office building is supplied through a radiant panel. Fresh air could be supplied by an air-based BIPV/T system in a displacement ventilation mode and extracted through central exhaust or decentralized heat recovery ventilator. With the developed model annual simulations for Prairies climate, show that there is a potential to reach net-zero energy targets for the perimeter zone with this solution. The model for the perimeter zone studies was incorporated into the existing Simulink toolbox CARNOT (2017) for future work on the system and control optimization.


identifier: Zamanlooy, Behnoosh  (2018) Global Hedging using Options.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: Global Hedging using Options

abstract: The classical global hedging approach presented in the literature (see Schweizer [1995]) involves using only the underlying asset to hedge a given contingent claim. The current thesis extends this approach by allowing for the use of a portfolio comprised of the underlying as well as other options written on that same underlying to be used as hedging instruments. Classical quadratic global hedging results such as the dynamic programming solution approach are adapted to this framework and are used to solve the global hedging problem presented here. The performance of this methodology is then investigated and benchmarked against the classical global hedging, as well as the traditional delta and delta-gamma hedging approaches. Various numerical analyses of the hedging errors, turnover and the shapes of quantities involved in dynamic programming solution approach are performed. It is found that option-based global hedging, where options are used as hedging instruments, outperforms other methodologies by yielding the lowest quadratic hedging error as expected. Situations where option-based global hedging has the most significant advantage over the other hedging methodologies are identified and discussed.


identifier: La Richelière, Frédérique ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6613-842X <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6613-842X>, Abouheif, Ehab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7651-1737 <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7651-1737> and Lessard, Jean-Philippe ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7236-436X <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7236-436X>  (2018) Desert and tropical ecosystems of the world harbour the most complex ant societies.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

creator:
La Richelière, Frédérique
Abouheif, Ehab
Lessard, Jean-Philippe

abstract: Morphological diversity in the worker caste is present in ants, wasps, termites and thrips, but is particularly striking in ants, as they can produce distinct or continuous worker subcastes. This is referred to as worker caste polymorphism, which has enabled efficient division of labour and consequently, ecological dominance. Previous research shows that nutrition and colony demography during larval development are important determinants of worker polymorphism, which in turn can be mediated by the abiotic environment. However, little is known about the influence of environmental gradients on the geographic distribution of worker caste polymorphism. Here, I developed and tested three hypotheses explaining the global distribution of worker polymorphism: (1) The Tropical Polymorphism Hypothesis, (2) The Desert Polymorphism Hypothesis and (3) The Extreme Climate Hypothesis. I therefore investigated the influence of geographic variation in temperature and precipitation on the distribution of worker polymorphism worldwide using 680 000 ant occurrences and identifying each occurrence point as polymorphic or not. Previous estimates suggested that 13% of ant species are polymorphic whereas my results show this number to be as high as 29%. Moreover, I found that the occurrence of polymorphism was highest in the most arid and tropical ecosystems, suggesting that it may be an adaptation to regions with extremely scarce or diverse resources. Additionally, warm climate is a pre-requisite for the evolution of worker caste polymorphism. Taken together, my work sheds light on the factors promoting complex social lifestyle in insects, and reveals that it is more common in ants than previously believed.


identifier: Malkawi, Ahmad  (2018) Single and Dual DC Buses Nanogrids with Decentralized Control.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The existing power system is based on a centralized approach. Large power plants produce AC electricity that is transmitted over long distances for distribution to the consumers. To meet a higher load demand, the entire system has to be upgraded, which is costly and acquiring rights of way can take decades. Another approach, called distributed generation, is the deployment of smaller generation units closer to the users. This can be based on renewable energy sources (RESs) that mitigate the environmental impact of power generation. However, the stochastic nature of RESs can lead to power quality issues in the distribution system. This can be addressed with the addition of energy storage units and controlling the system as a cluster or a microgrid.
This concept can be extended for small buildings and residences, called nanogrids, offering a means for the realization of net-zero energy homes (NZEHs).  These can be AC or DC, but the latter looks more promising since most RESs suitable for NZEHs provide a DC output and DC-DC interfaces tend to present a higher efficiency than their DC-AC counterparts. DC nanogrids also favor the integration of electric vehicles (EVs) and are compatible with modern, electronically controlled, appliances. To date, there are no standards concerning the number of buses and voltage levels of DC nanogrids. The control structure of DC micro and nanogrids, can be based on a hierarchical approach where the primary control level relies on locally measured quantities. This allows a decentralized operation of interfaces using the DC bus voltage as a communication means and V vs. I curves, with specific parameters, for coordination of operation, a method known as DC bus signaling (DBS).
There are several aspects of DC nanogrids for NZEHs that deserve further investigation and are addressed in this thesis. These include a means for a smooth transition of the modes of operation of RESs, such as photovoltaic (PV), which employ V vs. I curves with three regions. This can minimize the DC bus voltage variations as the system adjusts to variations in load demand and power generation due to varying solar irradiances. The use of supercapacitors (SCs) along with batteries in hybrid energy storage systems (HESSs) can mitigate the impact of high and fast current variations on the losses and lifetime of the battery units. However, by controlling the HESS as a single unit, one forfeits the potential contribution of the SC and its high power capabilities to dynamically improve voltage regulation in a DC nanogrid. This can be achieved by controlling the SC and battery independently without sacrificing the support the battery receives from the SC. Finally, although dual DC bus nanogrids have been advocated by industry associations, they are conceived to have power sources and storage units only in the high voltage (HV) bus. The low voltage (LV) bus is fed through a unidirectional converter, making it vulnerable to a fault in a single element. This thesis proposes the deployment of generation and storage in both buses, with a bidirectional interface for optimizing power balance in both buses. The techniques proposed in this thesis are verified by means of simulation or experimental results.


identifier: Heppa, Matthias  (2018) The impact of direct digital manufacturing on supply chain operations, cost and environmental performance in an aerospace application.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Industry 4.0 concepts, such as direct digital manufacturing (DDM), are expected to change the world, the society and the industry within the coming decades. This study explores the potential implications of DDM on supply chain operations by performing a case study. It assesses the impact of distributed production capabilities enabled by additive manufacturing (AM) on the life cycle cost and environmental impact in an aerospace application. It builds on a previous life cycle assessment (LCA) conducted by GE to compare the environmental impacts of using fuels nozzles produced via additive and conventional manufacturing over a future period of 30 years. Here, simulation models are developed to represent the aftermarket of the LEAP engine based on current and forecasted airline fleets for US and Canadian airline operators. Three supply chain operation scenarios are considered: (1) conventional manufactured at a central GE manufacturing plant at a high volume; (2) additive manufactured, high-volume at the same plant; and (3) de-centralized, low-volume, additive manufactured at 7 identified demand locations. 648 experiments were run to capture all relevant combinations of service levels, electricity mix, carbon pricing, and electric truck adoption. Production, distribution, and energy consumption were simulated based on information from publicly available sources. Environmental impacts on resource availability, climate change, human health and ecosystem quality were assessed using an integrated hybrid LCA model developed by the United States (US) Department of Defense (DOD). Data-envelopment analysis was used to benchmark the supply chain operation systems based on their cost, environmental and supply chain performance.
Both additive production systems show stronger efficiencies than the traditional manufacturing system. The de-centralized system benefits from its flexibility and locations that already contain high amounts of renewable energy highlighting the significance of the site selection process. The centralized system requires inventory to be competitive but shows benefits due to economies of scale and strategic investments that would not be justified for smaller facilities.
The applied methodology has shown plausible results over all experiments and can therefore be recommended for decision makers from private and public sectors for benchmarking their alternatives when considering cost and environmental criteria.


identifier: Collard, L  (2018) Fingerprinting Vulnerabilities in Intelligent Electronic Device Firmware.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Modern smart grid deployments heavily rely on the advanced capabilities that Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) provide. Furthermore, these devices firmware often contain critical vulnerabilities that if exploited could cause large impacts on national economic security, and national safety. As such, a scalable domain specific approach is required in order to assess the security of IED firmware. In order to resolve this lack of an appropriate methodology, we present a scalable vulnerable function identification framework. It is specifically designed to analyze IED firmware and binaries that employ the ARM CPU architecture. Its core functionality revolves around a multi-stage detection methodology that is specifically designed to resolve the lack of specialization that limits other general-purpose approaches. This is achieved by compiling an extensive database of IED specific vulnerabilities and domain specific firmware that is evaluated. Its analysis approach is composed of three stages that leverage function syntactic, semantic, structural and statistical features in order to identify vulnerabilities. As such it (i) first filters out dissimilar functions based on a group of heterogeneous features, (ii) it then further filters out dissimilar functions based on their execution paths, and (iii) it finally identifies candidate functions based on fuzzy graph matching . In order to validate our methodologies capabilities, it is implemented as a binary analysis framework entitled BinArm. The resulting algorithm is then put through a rigorous set of evaluations that demonstrate its capabilities. These include the capability to identify vulnerabilities within a given IED firmware image with a total accuracy of 0.92.


identifier: Hossen, Md Zakir  (2018) On Understanding Permission Usage Contextuality of Android Apps.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In the runtime permission model, the context in which a permission is requested/used the first time may change later without the user's knowledge. Prior research identifies user dissatisfaction on varying contexts of permission use in the install-time permission model. However, the contextual use of permissions by the apps that are developed/adapted for the runtime permission model has not been studied. Our goal is to understand how permissions are requested and used in different contexts in the runtime permission model, and compare them to identify potential abuse. We present ContextDroid, a static analysis tool to identify the contexts of permission request and use. Using this tool, we analyze 38,838 apps (from a set of 62,340 apps) from the Google Play Store. We devise a mechanism following the best practices and permission policy enforcement by Google to flag apps for using permissions in potentially unexpected contexts. We flag 30.20\% of the 38,838 apps for using permissions in multiple and dissimilar contexts. Comparison with VirusTotal shows that non-contextual use of permissions can be linked to unwanted/malicious behaviour: 34.72\% of the 11,728 flagged apps are also detected by VirusTotal (i.e., 64.70\% of the 6,295 VirusTotal detected apps in our dataset). We find that most apps don't show any rationale if the user previously denied a permission. Furthermore, 13\% (from the 22,567 apps with identified request contexts) apps show behaviour similar to the install-time permission model by requesting all dangerous permissions when the app is first launched. We hope this thesis will bring attention to non-contextual permission usage in the runtime model, and may spur research into finer-grained permission control.


identifier: Zaidi, Myriam  (2018) Women organizing against austerity in Quebec: Feminist popular education in practice.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The project on which this thesis is based examined the way that women who are part of marginalized groups, those who are often excluded from social movement leadership, engage with policy, and take political action with the support of community-based feminist organisations providing popular education in Quebec.  Many of these organisations have challenged neoliberal governmental policies in the province through various forms of political actions. This examination has taken the form of a qualitative study based on interviews with five key informants from four feminist community-based organizations in Montreal that: 1) practice feminist popular education 2) are part of the Quebec social movement against austerity 3) offer services to women who are from marginalized groups. The data collected illustrate the way these feminist popular education groups support the inclusion of women in a mass social movement against neoliberal policies through strategies adapted to the nature of the women who participate in them and use their services.

Three interesting themes have emerged for further research and examination:  first, the role of organisational structure in the application of feminist popular education; second, the issues of accessibility of popular social movements and third, the role of informal spaces for social movement learning and popular education.


identifier: Islam, Amjad  (2018) Characterizing Genes Of Candida albicans Involved In Invasiveness, Mating And Genotoxic Stress Response.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In the life cycle of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, the formation of filamentous cells is a differentiation process that is critically involved in host tissue invasion and in adaptation to host cell and environmental stresses. Here we have used the GRACETM library to identify genes controlling invasiveness and filamentation; conditional repression of the library revealed 69 mutants that triggered these processes. Intriguingly, the genes encoding the SUMO E3 ligase Mms21 and all other tested members of the sumoylation pathway were both non-essential and capable of triggering filamentation upon repression, suggesting an important role for sumoylation in controlling filamentation in C. albicans. Both Mms21 nulls (mms21Δ/Δ) and SP domain (SUMO E3 ligase domain) deleted mutants displayed filamentation and abnormal nuclear segregation. Transcriptional analysis of mms21Δ/Δ showed an increase in expression from 2 to 8 fold above WT for hyphal specific genes (HSGs) including ECE1, PGA13, PGA26, HWP1, ALS1, ALS3, SOD4, SOD5, UME6 and HGC1. The Mms21 deleted mutants were unable to recover from DNA damaging agents like methyl methane sulfonate (MMS), hydroxyurea, hydrogen peroxide and UV radiation, suggesting that the protein is important for genotoxic stress responses.
	Mating in C. albicans requires switching from mating sterile white form to mating competent opaque form and this is only achieved in mating type-like (MTL) homozygous strain. In a heterozygous MTL (MTLa/α), protein heterodimer of a1-α2 will bind and repress Wor1, a master regulator of white-opaque switching. We have screened the GRACE library for genes that can be involved in MTL a/α mating and found 10 mating positive strains but half of them had become homozygous at MTL. Among the heterozygous mating positive mutants, Mms21 was identified which upon deletion in other strain background did mate with 3315αα testers. By performing phenotypic and genetic analysis, we have found that Mms21 deleted mutants, due to increased cellular and genotoxic stress, have increased homozygosis at MTLaa followed by increased white-opaque switching and subsequent mating. This analysis provides a direction of how natural Candida MTL a/α cells inside a stressful host environment can achieve mating.
	We have performed a large scale GRACE library screen for MMS sensitivity and have identified 56 genes sensitive to MMS upon tetracycline shut off. About half of those sensitive mutants were involved in DNA replication, DNA damage and cytokinesis. Among the cytokinesis sensitive mutants was Hof1. Deletion of CaHof1 renders cells sensitive to MMS and generates genome instability that partially activates checkpoint kinase CaRad53. CaRad53 down-regulates CaHof1 in response to MMS. Genetic interaction analysis shows that CaHof1 is involved in the CaRad53 pathway and epistatic to nuclear excision repair pathway. Our data suggests a novel function of Hof1 in DNA damage response.


identifier: Hariri, Bashar  (2018) Resonance of Cable-Stayed Bridges Subjected to Delayed Time-Histories Using Multi-Support Excitation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The requirement for the seismic analysis of cable-stayed bridges under spatially varying loads is not well defined in the bridge design codes around the world. The Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code briefly stipulates that it is the responsibility of the designer to check the effect of the spatially varying loads while no details are provided. Given this, the objective of this study is to evaluate the seismic performance of cable-stayed bridges using multi-support excitation. For the purpose of the study, Quincy Bayview Bridge located in Illinois, USA is selected for the analysis. Ten ground motion acceleration time-histories obtained from earthquakes in the US, Japan, and Taiwan are used as initial seismic excitation to be applied on the bridge. They are then converted to displacement time-histories and applied at each support by considering the phase delay of the wave traveling from one support to another. The seismic analysis using multi-support excitation shows that significant vertical deck displacement is produced, which is generally ignored in the analysis of cable-stayed bridges under uniform excitation. The response curve for the vertical deck displacement vs wave velocity demonstrates that a resonance-like condition is triggered at relatively low velocity. A mathematical formula is developed to account for the potential of resonance for the displacement of the deck in the vertical direction. Furthermore, a time delay factor of 0.72 is proposed to estimate the critical seismic wave velocity that would trigger the resonance. In addition, the results from this study indicate that attention is required for
the bridge response in the direction orthogonal (e.g., vertical direction) to the direction of the seismic loading (e.g., horizontal direction), while multi-support excitation should be considered for this purpose.


identifier: Parajuli, Anubhuti  (2018) Responsive Contingency Planning for Supply Chain Disruption Risk Mitigation.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Contingent sourcing from a backup resource is an effective risk mitigation strategy under major disruptions. The production volumes and speeds of the backup resource are important protection design considerations, as they affect recovery. The objective of this dissertation is to show that cost-effective protection of existing supply networks from major disruptions result from planning appropriate volume and response speeds of a backup production facility prior to the disruptive event by considering operational aspects such as congestion that may occur at facilities. Contingency strategy are more responsive and disruption recovery periods can be shortened through such prior planning.
The dissertation focuses on disruption risk arising from intelligent or pre-meditated attacks on supply facilities. An intelligent attacker has the capability to create worst case loss depending on the protection strategy of a given network. Since the attacker seeks the maximum loss and the designer tries to identify the protection scheme which minimizes this maximum loss, there exists an interdependence between attack and protection decisions. Ignoring this characteristic leads to suboptimal mitigation solutions under such disruptions. We therefore develop a mathematical model which utilizes a game theoretic framework of attack and defense involving nested optimization problems. The model is used to decide optimal selection of backup production volume and the response speeds, the facilities to build such capability within the available budget.
The reallocation of demands from a disrupted facility to an undisrupted facility in a contingency strategy leads to congestion of the undisrupted facility, which may result in longer lead times and reduced throughput during disruption periods, thereby limiting the effectiveness of a contingency strategy. In the second part of the dissertation, we therefore analyze congestion effects in responsive contingency planning. The congestion cost function is modeled and integrated into the mathematical model of responsive contingency planning developed in the first part of the dissertation.
The main contribution of this dissertation is that a decision tool has been developed to plan protection of an existing supply networks considering backup sourcing through gradual capacity acquisition. The solution methodology involving recursive search tree has been implemented which allows exploring protection solutions under a given budget of protection and multiple combinations of response speeds and production capacities of a backup facility. The results and analysis demonstrate the value of planning for responsive contingency in supply chains subject to risks of major disruptions and provide insights to aid managerial decision making.


identifier: Tremblay-Sher, Myriam  (2018) Storied Streams of History: A Documentary Navigation along the St. Lawrence River.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The St. Lawrence River forms one of the most important inland waterways on the planet. It also has had a determining impact on history and the peoples along its shores. The river carries memories, attachments, and legacies flowed over centuries. This research-creation―in the form of a written thesis and an accompanying multilinear web documentary―explores the significance of place in shaping relations to history as inspired by the St. Lawrence River. The thesis combines theorizations of place from socio-geographic and philosophic study, as elaborated principally by Doreen Massey and Edward S. Casey, with theoretical and practical advancements of interactive web documentary and of the essay film from film studies. It then builds on these theories of place as event―as an agent of shifting relations through time and space―and of documentary representation by applying them to the St. Lawrence River. In so doing, it elaborates the conceptual frames of place, boundary, and navigation. These frameworks are broadened in the filming, editing, and presentation of a documentary that features the voices and insights of an artist, an adventurer, an environmentalist, a writer, a teacher and an historian who have all encountered the river and have also been shaped by it. The thesis concludes that the theories of place developed by Massey, Casey, and others can creatively blend with storytelling by the river, deepening understandings of history and ways of engaging the place-event known as the St. Lawrence.


identifier: Mouradian, Carla ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9506-8918 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9506-8918>  (2018) Softwarization of Large-Scale IoT-based Disasters Management Systems.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The Internet of Things (IoT) enables objects to interact and cooperate with each other for reaching common objectives. It is very useful in large-scale disaster management systems where humans are likely to fail when they attempt to perform search and rescue operations in high-risk sites. IoT can indeed play a critical role in all phases of large-scale disasters (i.e. preparedness, relief, and recovery). Network softwarization aims at designing, architecting, deploying, and managing network components primarily based on software programmability properties. It relies on key technologies, such as cloud computing, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), and Software Defined Networking (SDN). The key benefits are agility and cost efficiency.  This thesis proposes softwarization approaches to tackle the key challenges related to large-scale IoT based disaster management systems.
A first challenge faced by large-scale IoT disaster management systems is the dynamic formation of an optimal coalition of IoT devices for the tasks at hand.  Meeting this challenge is critical for cost efficiency.  A second challenge is an interoperability. IoT environments remain highly heterogeneous. However, the IoT devices need to interact. Yet another challenge is Quality of Service (QoS). Disaster management applications are known to be very QoS sensitive, especially when it comes to delay.
To tackle the first challenge, we propose a cloud-based architecture that enables the formation of efficient coalitions of IoT devices for search and rescue tasks. The proposed architecture enables the publication and discovery of IoT devices belonging to different cloud providers. It also comes with a coalition formation algorithm.  For the second challenge, we propose an NFV and SDN based - architecture for on-the-fly IoT gateway provisioning. The gateway functions are provisioned as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that are chained on-the-fly in the IoT domain using SDN. When it comes to the third challenge, we rely on fog computing to meet the QoS and propose algorithms that provision IoT applications components in hybrid NFV based - cloud/fogs.  Both stationary and mobile fog nodes are considered. In the case of mobile fog nodes, a Tabu Search-based heuristic is proposed. It finds a near-optimal solution and we numerically show that it is faster than the Integer Linear Programming (ILP) solution by several orders of magnitude.


identifier: Dyer, Kester  (2018) Otherworldly Storytellers: The Supernatural, Orality and Postcolonial Melancholia in Non-Indigenous and Indigenous Films in Québec.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: To this day, Québec cinema bears the reputation of a national corpus that shuns the supernatural as means of narrative and formal expression. Indeed, documentary and realist models have long dominated this film tradition. However, surprising incursions of the supernatural have occurred with increasing frequency in Québec films since the late 20th century. While these occurrences might be understood to mirror the continued collective malaise linked to Québec’s failure at achieving nation-statehood, more nuanced accounts can be gained from an approach that juxtaposes individual film texts authored by both non-Indigenous and Indigenous filmmakers. The current doctoral dissertation, as a collection of case studies drawn from previous publications and conference papers, uncovers textual and contextual explanations for the shift in emphasis that saw a more frequent foregrounding of the supernatural in Québec cinema since the 1990s. It also seeks to explicate the pronounced stress placed on interculturality as a theme associated with supernatural motifs. At the same time as it explores such stylistic change, the group of readings gathered here also considers reasons for the persistence of melancholia as sentiment that pervades much of Québec cinema. As such, this study asks whether the supernatural works subversively within this geopolitical context and, if so, against which dominant interests? Likewise, it asks whether orality, a storytelling framework that has been said to characterize Québec cinema throughout its history, can also offer oppositional potential. When these two traditionally compatible ideas, orality and the supernatural, combine in contemporary Québec cinema, how do their alleged resistant capacities trigger alternative understandings of Québec society and nationhood? Through observations of cinematic frameworks for intercultural fantasies, gendered intergenerational religious traditions, encounters between radical Québec filmmaking and Indigenous practices, and the haunting provocations of Indigenous Cinema as an emergent means of contestation, this study seeks to understand the underlying colonial histories and structures that underpin manifestations of the supernatural and melancholia in Québec. Thus, this study helps to delineate an underexamined mode in Québec film studies, and re-inserts it into considerations of longstanding narrative devices. In addition, the project critiques Québec’s underplayed colonial past, as well as its anxieties concerning immigration and propensity for identity appropriation, while nevertheless investigating Québec’s potential for alliance with Indigenous efforts at decolonization and challenges to the nation-state paradigm.


identifier: Murugesan, Ezhil Shakti  (2018) Conceptual Design Analysis for an Aircraft Auxiliary Photovoltaic System.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
At present, a priority for the aviation industry is to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions from air transport. One
of the axes to reduce aviation emission is the development of novel technologies for aircraft systems.
The presented research contributes to the development of a photovoltaic (PV) system for aircraft
that converts the available solar energy into electrical energy without producing emissions. Today,
there is limited research made to implement photovoltaics in the commercial aviation industry. This
thesis develops an analysis capability for the conceptual design of aircraft featuring a PV system.
Three research questions are addressed: (1) which are the best aircraft surfaces for the installation of
solar panels? (2) which aircraft conﬁgurations suit best the implementation of a PV system?
and (3) how much power yield is achievable, considering geometrical constraints and shading on
complex surfaces? The methodology consists of three steps. First, a parametric model is developed
to estimate usable surfaces on aircraft wing, tail and fuselage to install PV panels, using empirical
aircraft geometry analysis, including design constraints such as control surfaces, windows, wing
position and other. Secondly, a commercial software tool Ecotect® is used to analyze the shading
on complex surfaces. The resulting data is used to obtain a more realistic power yield estimation of
PV panels and to develop additional guidelines for the optimal placement of PV panels on aircraft
surfaces. In a third step, the available solar radiation for various categories of aircraft is determined,
leading to the identiﬁcation of most promising aircraft types for PV panel installation. Finally, a
case study is performed to evaluate the potential fuel savings for an aircraft equipped with a PV
panel system within a Multidisciplinary Aircraft Design (MAD) environment. The results show
that regional aircraft, medium-sized business jets, and general aviation aircraft are the most suitable
platforms for the implementation of PV system. The study concludes that the use of a PV system as a
supplemental power source to the aircraft systems can have viable results from the standpoint of fuel
savings and operational costs. The developed parametric photovoltaic system sizing tool provides
insight to solar panel manufacturers and the aviation industry for how to bring the innovative concept
to an application and to support future, sustainable aviation.


identifier: Rosadiuk, John Adam  (2018) A Framework for an Eco-Philosophical Hermeneutics of Cinema.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Through long-form interpretations of four films all released in the early 2010s—CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (Werner Herzog, 2011), HUGO (Martin Scorsese, 2011), UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010), and MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier, 2011)—this dissertation takes up the challenge of thinking non-anthropocentrically. Treated as neither theoretical illustrations nor as case studies, I engage with these films as examples of an evolving cinematic medium and use my interpretations to develop a unique framework for both analyzing filmic texts and for understanding mediation itself as an important eco-philosophical and eco-ethical concern.

As expounded by the pioneering eco-philosopher Hans Jonas (1903-1993), a self-aware Anthropocene requires a new “image of the human” suited to the emergence of an “integral monism” that can reconcile what Jonas argues is our unsustainable contemporary dualism. The foundation of this new eco-ethics is a bold philosophical project to extend metaphysics to all living things. While Jonas’ diagnosis and proposed treatment for humanity’s anti-ecological tendencies is precise, his interest in what he characterizes as the fundamental biological phenomenon of mediation reveals the difficult and recursive thinking inherent to this kind of metaphysics. This dissertation contends that film studies is well suited to exactly this kind of self-reflexive ontological analysis, and draws inspiration from how thinkers like Siegfried Kracauer and Stanley Cavell understand the cinematic medium as both material and metaphysical.

The ontological and methodological problems of ‘exploring’ and ‘understanding’ a medium like cinema are rejuvenated by Jonas' eco-ethical provocation. Using the hermeneutic philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Stanley Cavell's “cinematic circle” as precedents, this study crosses interdisciplinary boundaries to uncover a set of eco-ontological themes that join aesthetic mediation and the phenomenon of life in a mutually illuminating hermeneutic circle.


identifier: Tahghigh Jahromi, Narjes ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2732-0624 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2732-0624>  (2018) Towards the Softwarization of Content Delivery Networks for Component and Service Provisioning.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are common systems nowadays to deliver content (e.g. Web pages, videos) to geographically distributed end-users over the Internet. Leveraging geographically distributed replica servers, CDNs can easily help to meet the required Quality of Service (QoS) in terms of content quality and delivery time. Recently, the dominating surge in demand for rich and premium content has encouraged CDN providers to provision value-added services (VAS) in addition to the basic services. While video streaming is an example of basic CDN services, VASs cover more advanced services such as media management.
Network softwarization relies on programmability properties to facilitate the deployment and management of network functionalities. It brings about several benefits such as scalability, adaptability, and flexibility in the provisioning of network components and services.  Technologies, such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) are its key enablers.
There are several challenges related to the component and service provisioning in CDNs.
 On the architectural front, a first challenge is the extension of the CDN coverage by on-the-fly deployment of components in new locations and another challenge is the upgrade of CDN components in a timely manner, because traditionally, they are deployed statically as physical building blocks. Yet, another architectural challenge is the dynamic composition of required middle-boxes for CDN VAS provisioning, because existing SDN frameworks lack features to support the dynamic chaining of the application-level middle-boxes that are essential building blocks of CDN VASs. On the algorithmic front, a challenge is the optimal placement of CDN VAS middle-boxes in a dynamic manner as CDN VASs have an unknown end-point prior to placement.
This thesis relies on network softwarization to address key architectural and algorithmic challenges related to component and service provisioning in CDNs.  To tackle the first challenge, we propose an architecture based on NFV and microservices for an on-the-fly CDN component provisioning including deployment and upgrading. In order to address the second challenge, we propose an architecture for on-the-fly provisioning of VASs in CDNs using NFV and SDN technologies. The proposed architecture reduces the content delivery time by introducing features for in-network caching. For the algorithmic challenge, we study and model the problem of dynamic placement and chaining of middle-boxes (implemented as Virtual Network Function (VNF)) for CDN VASs as an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem with the objective of minimizing the cost while respecting the QoS. To increase the problem tractability, we propose and validate some heuristics.


identifier: Zetina, Carlos ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5502-3232 <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5502-3232>  (2018) Network design under uncertainty and demand elasticity.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Network design covers a large class of fundamental problems ubiquitous in the fields of transportation and communication. These problems are modelled mathematically using directed graphs and capture the trade-off between initial investment in infrastructure and operational costs.  This thesis presents the use of mixed integer programming theory and algorithms to solve network design problems and their extensions. We focus on two types of network design problems, the first is a hub location problem in which the initial investments are in the form of fixed costs for installing infrastructure at nodes for them to be equipped for the transhipment of commodities. The second is a fixed-charge multicommodity network design problem in which investments are in the form of installing infrastructure on arcs so that they may be used to transport commodities.

We first present an extension of the hub location problem where both demand and transportation cost uncertainty are considered. We propose mixed integer linear programming formulations and a branch-and-cut algorithm to solve robust counterparts for this problem. Comparing the proposed models' solutions to those obtained from a commensurate stochastic counterpart, we note that their performance is similar in the risk-neutral setting while solutions from the robust counterparts are significantly superior in the risk-averse setting.

We next present exact algorithms based on Benders decomposition capable of solving large-scale instances of the classic uncapacitated fixed-charge multicommodity network design problem. The method combines the use of matheuristics, general mixed integer valid inequalities, and a cut-and-solve enumeration scheme.  Computational experiments show the proposed approaches to be up to three orders of magnitude faster than the state-of-the-art general purpose mixed integer programming solver.

Finally, we extend the classic fixed-charge multicommodity network design problem to a profit-oriented variant that accounts for demand elasticity, commodity selection, and service commitment. An arc-based and a path-based formulation are proposed. The former is a mixed integer non-convex problem solved with a general purpose global optimization solver while the latter is an integer linear formulation with exponentially many variables solved with a hybrid matheuristic. Further analysis shows the impact of considering demand elasticity to be significant in strategic network design.


identifier: Benoit, Miranda  (2018) The Interplay between the Circadian and Stress Systems: How does Early Environmental Impoverishment Impact Circadian Phenotype and Clock Gene Expression?  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The circadian system and the stress system each impact an organism’s ability to adapt to environmental challenges (Weibel, Maccari, Van Reeth, 2002). Within the field of circadian studies, much research has been conducted examining the way in which stressors affect clock gene regulation and circadian phenotype. Despite this, very few studies, if any, have looked at the role of early social and environmental impoverishment on circadian phenotype and clock gene expression. As a result, the present study explored whether there was a difference in circadian phenotype and clock gene expression between two groups of rats, one of which had experienced typical early social and physical enrichment, and the other that had been raised in a socially and physically impoverished environment. It was hypothesized that animals that had been raised in an impoverished environment would have a less robust circadian rhythm and be more prone to negative perturbations to both the circadian and stress systems following an acute stressor. Though there was a trend towards significant differences between treatment groups for wheel running behaviours in experiment 1, the only treatment effects found were those of PER1 expression in the amygdala and hippocampus. In experiment 2 a novelty-induced locomotor test was administered to see if the treatment had been effective, and there was a significant main effect of treatment condition. Furthermore, a significant difference between treatment conditions was seen again in the hippocampus. Beyond these treatment effects, there were multiple significant main effects of both sex and ZT for nearly all tests carried out in both experiments.


identifier: Ozugergin, Imge  (2018) Studying the role of Ran-GTP in cytokinesis in C. elegans embryos.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Cytokinesis is a well-conserved process where one cell divides into two daughters, and must be tightly regulated to prevent aneuploidy and fate changes. The mitotic spindle regulates the assembly and ingression of an actomyosin ring that pinches in the cortex. Though less understood, microtubule-independent mechanisms also regulate cytokinesis and their requirement may vary depending on cell type. Our lab discovered that a novel chromatin pathway signals through Ran-GTP to regulate cytokinesis in human cells, and my thesis explored the biological relevance of this pathway in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. Our model is that importin-alpha or beta forms an inverse gradient to Ran-GTP and facilitates the recruitment and/or activation of contractile regulators. To test this model, I explored the requirement of the Ran pathway in regulating cytokinesis of P0 (one-celled zygote), AB (anterior daughter) and P1 (posterior daughter fated to be germline) cells. I found that each cell has unique ingression kinetics, and reducing Ran-GTP by partial RNAi of RCC-1 (Ran-GEF) increased their rate of ingression. Through co-depletion experiments, I found that the Ran pathway regulates ANI-1 (anillin) in P0 and AB cells, but not in P1 cells. Anillin is a scaffold that coordinates cytokinesis and is directly regulated by importin in human cells. I also found that regulators of contractility, such as ECT-2 (RhoA GEF) and LET-502 (Rho binding kinase) are in the Ran pathway in P0, AB and P1 cells. Thus, the Ran pathway regulates cytokinesis in all cell types, but the molecular effectors vary depending on cell type.


identifier: Kakon, Gabriel  (2018) Edmonton Obesity Staging System for Pediatrics, Quality of Life, Fitness, Adherence to Exercise in Adolescents with Obesity.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Background: The Edmonton Obesity Staging System-pediatrics (EOSS-p) is based on the EOSS for adults, which has shown better predictive value for mortality than BMI. To our knowledge, no study has examined the EOSS-p in relation to health and wellbeing outcomes in a pediatric sample with obesity. The purpose of this study was to compare the associations of EOSS-p and BMI percentile with quality of life (QOL), cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), muscular strength, and adherence to an exercise intervention in adolescents with obesity.
Methods: Participants were enrolled in the Healthy Eating Aerobics Resistance Training in Youth trial (N= 299). QOL, CRF (peak oxygen uptake, VO2peak) and muscular strength were assessed by the Pediatric QOL Inventory (PedsQL), indirect calorimetry during a maximal treadmill test, and 8-RM bench and leg press tests respectively. QOL, CRF, and muscular strength were assessed at baseline and 6-months after the intervention. Adherence was determined as a percentage of attended exercise sessions. Participants were staged from 0 to 3 (absent to severe health risk) according to EOSS-p. The association of EOSS-p and BMI percentile with outcomes were assessed using general linear models adjusting for age and sex.
Results: Baseline QOL decreased with increasing EOSS-p stages (p<0.001). QOL was 75.7 +/- 11.4 in stage 0/1, 69.1 +/- 13.1 in stage 2, and 55.4 +/- 13.0 in stage 3. Stage 3 showed smaller improvements with 6-month CRF than stage 0/1 and 2 (p=0.001, B=-3.882 mlO2/kg/min). BMI percentile was associated with baseline VO2peak (p<0.001, B=-1.044 mlO2/kg/min), bench press (p=0.029, B=0.832 kg) and leg press (p=0.003, B=3.992 kg). Similar associations were observed between BMI percentile and 6-month outcomes.
Conclusion: As EOSS-p stages increase, QOL decreases.  EOSS-p stage 3 had lower 6-month CRF, which suggests stage 3 may require a longer, more intensive or different intervention to achieve similar CRF improvements. BMI percentile showed contradicting health associations with cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength.


identifier: Nehme, Celine  (2018) Social Networks in the Internationalization Process of firms in Developing Countries.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
How can your social network be your catalyst to success? How can “who you know” lead to a faster and more successful internationalization into developing countries? The literature suggests that entrepreneurs of SMEs can highly benefit from their social networks when going abroad. Several studies have been developed around different characteristics of the networks, but not many present empirical evidence describing their changes with time.
This study builds on the extant literature to examine the importance of social networks for the internationalization of SMEs in developing and emerging countries. It specifically focuses on two characteristics of networks: strength of ties and density, both with respect to time.
Ten successful entrepreneurs and managers, each pertaining to a specific industry, were interviewed to support the main arguments of this study. The analysis of their success stories allowed for the understanding of the dynamics of social networks throughout the stages of their internationalization process.
Findings suggest that social networks are not more relevant than a market study for SMEs in the earlier stages of going abroad. It is nevertheless very important to utilize and benefit from networks, especially in early stages, in order to boost the process. Results show that, initially, having strong ties is very important, but that they should decrease in strength with time. However, they unexpectedly do not suggest that the same effect happens to the density of networks.


identifier: YOUSEF, YOUSEF ALI  (2018) Increasing the Capacity of Wireless Networks Using Beamforming.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Wireless mobile communications are growing in an exponential  manner, especially in terms of the number of users. Also, the  demand for high Quality of Service (QoS) has become essential. Nowadays, subscribers are using more applications such as the internet, video conferencing, and high quality TV. These  applications require high data rates. The Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) is the key element that can enable reusing of the
same channels among different users in the same cell to meet this demand. For the application of SDMA in an efficient way, it is required to identify the users’ positions and directions in the cell. The Direction of Arrival (DOA) algorithms can estimate
the incident angles of all the received signals impinging on the array antenna. These algorithms give the DOAs of all relevant signals of the user sources and interference sources. However, they are not capable of distinguishing and identifying which one is the direction of the desired user. In this thesis, we have proposed to use a Reference Signal (RFS) known by the transmitter and the receiver to identify which one of the estimated DOAs is the DOA of the desired user in the cell. Using a RFS and applying the correlation concept, we can distinguish the desired signal from the others. Moreover, we have considered the Affine Projection Algorithm (APA) to enhance the accuracy of the estimated direction and to form a beam towards the desired user and nulls towards the interferers. Our simulation results assure that, in the presence of the RFS, the DOA algorithms can identify the direction of the desired user with high accuracy and resolution. We have investigated this concept on different DOA algorithms such as MUltiple Signal Classification (MUSIC), ROOT MUSIC, and  Estimate the direction of arrival of Signals Parameters via Rotational Invariance Technique (ESPRIT) algorithms.
Moreover , we have introduced an approach for using the smart antennas (SA) to exploit the space diversity for the next generations of mobile communication systems. We have applied
a combination of the MUSIC and the Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithms. We have proposed the MUSIC algorithm for finding the directions of the users in the cell. In addition, we have considered the LMS algorithm for enhancing the accuracy of the DOA, performing the beam generation process, and keeping track of the users in the cell. Furthermore, we have proposed a scheduling algorithm that performs the scheduling in terms of the generated beams.
The space diversity, together with the time and frequency diversities of LTE (Long Term Evolution) results in a large capacity increase in the next generations of wireless mobile communication systems. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm called MUltiple
Signal Classification and Least Mean Squares (MLMS), has the capability to converge and completely follow the desired user signal with a very high resolution. The convergence and the accurate tracking of the desired signal user take place after 13 iterations while in the traditional LMS, the convergence needs 85 iterations to take place. This means an 84.7% improvement over the traditional LMS algorithm for the same number of calculations in each iteration. In contrast to the traditional LMS algorithm, the proposed algorithm can work in the presence of high level of interference. Furthermore, the proposed scheduling scheme based on beamforming shows a gain of 15% in the total aggregated throughput for each 10o decrease in the beam size. The proposed model provides an optimum, complete, and practical design for the next generations of the mobile communication systems. In this model, we have proposed a mechanism to find the direction of each user in the cell, enhance the accuracy of the obtained DOAs, and perform scheduling based on the generated beams. In addition, we have presented an approach for Frequency Reuse (FR) based on beamforming for 5G. We have implemented a synthesizer in order to smartly form the desired beam shape and make the nulls deeper. We have taken the advantage of the SAs, beamforming capabilities, and the radiation pattern (RP) synthesizing techniques to build up a FR scheme for 5G. Also, we have developed a formula for calculating the Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) in terms of the desired and the interferers directions. The objective is to maintain the SINR at the minimum acceptable levels required by the LTE while reducing the beam sizes, and hence increase the FR factor. The simulation results show that with a Uniform Linear Antenna (ULA) of 11 elements, we can achieve the desirable SINR levels using beams of 100 width, which improves the FR factor from 1 to 18, and subsequently increases the number of mobile users.


identifier: Barghi, Soudabeh  (2018) Predicting Computational Reproducibility of Data Analysis Pipelines in Large Population Studies Using Collaborative Filtering.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Evaluating the computational reproducibility of data analysis pipelines has become a critical issue. It is, however, a cumbersome process for analyses that involve data from large populations of subjects, due to their computational and storage requirements. We present a method to predict the computational reproducibility of data analysis pipelines in large population studies. We formulate the problem as a collaborative ﬁltering process, with constraints on the construction of the training set. We propose 6 different strategies to build the training set, which we evaluate on 2 datasets, a synthetic one modeling a population with a growing number of subject types, and a real one obtained with neuroinformatics pipelines. Results show that one sampling method, “Random File Numbers (Uniform)” is able to predict computational reproducibility with a good accuracy. We also analyse the relevance of including ﬁle and subject biases in the collaborative ﬁltering model. We conclude that the proposed method is able to speed-up reproducibility evaluations substantially, with a reduced accuracy loss.


identifier: Vu, Thuy  (2019) Cross-dock Scheduling with Known Shipment Unloading Order.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Cross-docking is a logistics strategy which is widely used these days in different industries. Cross-docking takes place in a distribution docking centre and consists of trucks and dock doors on inbound and outbound sides.Products from suppliers get unloaded at inbound doors from incoming trucks, consolidated, transferred and loaded into outgoing trucks at outbound doors, with little or no storing them in between. We study two scenarios of cross-docking scheduling problem: scheduling inbound side with fixed outbound side scheduling and scheduling both inbound and outbound sides. In the former scenario, we introduce five mixed integer programming models with enhanced pre-processing and extensions to minimize the total number of tardy products. In the later scenario, we proposed new linear mixed integer programming models where transportation time between dock doors are considered. The objective in the second case is to minimize the maximum lateness of outgoing trucks. In both scenarios, we integrate the unloading order of shipments in incoming trucks into our models. Computational results show that taking advantage of that information helps improving the truck scheduling and assessing much more accurately the number of tardy products and lateness.


identifier: Tohidi, Mohammad  (2018) Physicians Scheduling In Polyclinics.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

title: Physicians Scheduling In Polyclinics

abstract:
Physician scheduling is an important part of hospital operation management. Fatigue, nervousness, high levels of stress and depression are common negative effects of inappropriate work schedules on physicians. A robust and automated personnel scheduling system, which satisfies physicians' preferences, not only improves the quality of life for physicians but also helps to provide a better care for patients and potentially makes significant savings in time and cost for hospitals. Polyclinics reduce the burden on hospitals and help bridge the gap between primary and secondary care. They provide various hospital services such as X-rays, minor surgeries and out-patient treatment and gather several practices under one roof to cooperate, interact and share available resources. In addition, this structure provides an opportunity for physicians of different disciplines to work together and enables patients with chronic and complex conditions to visit multiple clinics at the same place during the same visit.  Our problem of interest is mainly motivated by an extension of physician scheduling problems arising in ambulatory polyclinics, where the interaction of clinics and its consequences in terms of sharing their scarce resources introduce new constraints and add complexity to the problem.
In the first part of this thesis, we present an integrated physician and clinic scheduling problem arising in ambulatory cancer treatment polyclinics, where patients may be assessed by multiple physicians from different clinics in a single visit. The problem focuses on assigning clinic sessions and their associated physicians to shifts in a finite planning horizon. The complexity of this problem stems from the fact that several interdisciplinary clinics need to be clustered together, sharing limited resources. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. Given the inherent complexity for optimally solving this problem with a standard optimization software, we develop a hybrid algorithm based on iterated local search and variable neighborhood descent methods to obtain high quality solutions.
In the second part we propose a comprehensive bi-level physicians planning framework for polyclinics under uncertainty. The first level focuses on clinic scheduling and capacity planning decisions, whereas the second level deals with physicians scheduling and operational adjustments decisions. In order to protect the generated schedules against demand uncertainty, the first level is modeled as an adjustable robust scheduling problem which is solved using an ad-hoc cutting plane algorithm. To cope with variability in patients' treatment times, we formulate the second level as a two-stage stochastic problem and use a sample average approximation scheme to obtain solutions with small optimality gaps. Moreover, we use a Monte-Carlo simulation algorithm to demonstrate the potential benefits of using our planning framework.
In the last part of this thesis we investigate on the impact of physicians work schedules on patient wait-time under uncertain arrival pattern and treatment time of patients. We provide a methodology that combines discrete-event simulation with an optimization search routine to minimize patient wait-time and physician overtime subject to several scheduling/resource restrictions. We indicate the significant impact of adopting the proposed simulation optimization framework for physician scheduling on reducing the aforementioned key performance measures.


identifier: Malo-Fletcher, Natalie  (2018) Envisioning Valuable Lives: Moral Imagining, Autonomy and Philosophy in Childhood.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis explores the question: How might moral imagining be conceived so as to support the cultivation of responsible autonomy in childhood? It argues that when conceived as a conscious, flexible process, moral imagining may contribute to children’s emerging agency by expanding and enriching their envisioned options for what they believe is worth valuing within their current and future circumstances, thereby helping to make their autonomy more responsible. More specifically, it proposes the conception of deliberate moral imagining, understood as the purposeful envisioning of a given context from multiple frames of reference in response to a real-world encounter, with the goal of bringing to light possibilities for what seems reasonable to value in order to broaden the moral lens through which lived experiences are approached and assessed. According to the argument advanced, deliberate moral imagining may assist children in confronting some important challenges to responsible autonomy that risk constricting their envisioning of the overarching contexts most influential in childhood: their relation to others (how they view and treat them), their relation to self (how they perceive and value themselves) and their relation to knowledge (how they learn and what they claim to know about the world). Indeed, in response to the respective challenges of narrow empathetic scope, conversion inhibition and inaccurate pseudoenvironments, deliberate moral imagining may help enrich children’s “mental landscape” by cultivating relational openness through three crucial autonomy supports, namely empathic engagement, self-efficacy and reasonableness. The thesis draws on three theoretical frameworks—neo-Aristotelian virtue theory, the Capabilities Approach and classical pragmatism—and includes a case study of the Philosophy for Children program as an illustrative example of deliberate moral imagining in action.