identifier: Ghoniemy, Tarek  (2017) tracker independent drift detection and correction using segmented objects and features.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Object tracking has been an active research topic in the field of video processing. However, automated object tracking, under uncontrolled environments, is still difficult to achieve and encounters various challenges that cause the tracker to drift away from the target object. %Object tracking methods with fixed models, that are predefined prior to the tracking task, normally fail because of the inevitable appearance changes that can be either object or environment-related.
To effectively handle object or environment tracking challenges, recent powerful tracking approaches are learning-based, meaning they learn object appearance changes while tracking online. The output of such trackers is, however, limited to a bounding box representation, the center of which is considered as the estimated object location. Such bounding box may not provide accurate foreground/background discrimination and may not handle highly non-rigid objects. Moreover, the bounding box may not surround the object completely, or it may not be centered around it, which affects the accuracy of the overall tracking process. Our main objective in this work is to reduce drifts of state-of-the-art tracking algorithms (trackers) using object segmentation so to produce more accurate bounding box.

To enhance the quality of state-of-the-art trackers, this work investigates two main venues: first tracker-independent drift detection and correction using object features and second, selection of best performing parameters of Graph Cut object segmentation and of support vector machines using artificial immune system. In addition, this work proposes a framework for the evaluation and ranking of different trackers using easily interpretable performance measures, in a way to account for the presence of outliers.

For tracker-independent drift detection, we use saliency features or objectness using saliency, the ratio of the salient region corresponding to the target object with respect to the estimated bounding box is used to indicate the occurrence of tracking drift with no prior information about the target model.
With objectness measures, we use both relative area and score of the detected candidate boxes according to the objectness measure to indicate the occurrenece of the tracking drift. For drift correction, we investigate the application of object segmentation on the estimated bounding box to re-locate it around the target object. Due to its ability to  lead to a global near optimal solution, we use the Graph Cut object segmentation method. We modify the Graph Cut model to incorporate an automatic seed selection module based on interest points, in addition to a template mask, to automatically initialize the segmentation across frames. However, the integration of segmentation in the tracking loop has its computational burden. In addition, the segmentation quality might be affected by tracking challenges, such as motion blur and occlusion. Accordingly, object segmentation is applied only when a drift is detected. Simulation results show that the proposed approach improves the tracking quality of five recent trackers.

Researchers often use long and tedious trial and error approaches for determining the best performing parameter configuration of a video-processing algorithm, particularly with the diverse nature of video sequences. However, such configuration does not guarantee the best performance. A little research attention has been given to study the algorithm's sensitivity to its parameters. Artificial immune system is an emergent biologically motivated computing paradigm that has the ability to reach optimal or near-optimal solutions through mutation and cloning. This work proposes the use of artificial immune system for the selection of best performing parameters of two video processing algorithms: support vector machines for object tracking and Graph Cut based object segmentation.

An increasing number of trackers are being developed and when introducing a new tracker, it is important to facilitate its evaluation and ranking in relation to others, using easy to interpret performance measures. Recent studies have shown that some measures are correlated and cannot reflect the different aspects of tracking performance when used individually. In addition, they do not incorporate robust statistics to account for the presence of outliers that might lead to insignificant results. This work proposes a framework for effective scoring and ranking of different trackers by using less correlated quality metrics, coupled with a robust estimator against dispersion. In addition, a unified performance index is proposed to facilitate the evaluation process.


identifier: Naffi, Nadia  (2017) Learning About Oneself: An Essential Process to Confront Social Media Propaganda Against the Resettlement of Syrian Refugees.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract:
Research Problem:
Public reaction to the 2015-2016 resettlement of Syrian refugees to Canada ranged from strong support to active resentment. This study explored some of those reactions: those of host society youth. It examined the process of this youth learning about themselves in the context of the social media propaganda about the resettlement of Syrian refugees, and investigated how the public opinion about the refugee resettlement affected their perception of their roles in the integration and inclusion of these newcomers.
Research questions:
1.How do youth construe online interactions about the Syrian refugee crisis?
2.How do youth construe their role in the integration and the inclusion of refugees in a context where the image of refugees is deeply influenced by social media?
3.What knowledge and skills do youth develop when they engage in analyzing their thoughts and behaviours in regards to sensitive and controversial issues such as the refugee crisis and resettlement?
4.How could this knowledge and these skills facilitate their engagement in civic online reasoning and participatory politics?
Methodology:
The researcher conducted more than 160 hours of qualitative in-depth interviews with 42 host society youth between 18 and 24 years old from North America, Europe and the Middle East. For the purpose of this thesis, only data collected from the Canadian participants was analyzed and shared. The participants were recruited through a snowball sampling. They were active on social media, supportive of the Syrian refugee resettlement in Canada, but deliberately acting as passive bystanders whenever they encountered online posts and interactions about the Syrian refugee crisis. Adapting four techniques from George Kelly’s Personal Construct Psychology (Kelly’s self-characterization technique, Procter’s Perceiver Element Grid, Kelly’s Repertory Grid Test and Hinkle’s laddering technique), data collection included three to four interviews with each participant.  The interviews provided the participants with opportunities to delve into their own construct systems and to reflect on the genesis of their constructs.
Results and Conclusions:
By reflecting on their own behaviours online, participants realized that they could control how social media influenced them, and shape the online image of the Syrian refugees in host countries. While their empathy towards refugees increased, participants identified factors that could lead to Islamophobia, racism and fear, and developed strategies to counterbalance them online. The process of learning about themselves was key to transform the participants from passive bystanders into active agents of change, ready to confront digital propaganda.
Civic educators, social workers, curriculum developers, policy makers and parents concerned with the takeover of social media by hate speech proponents can apply these findings and help youth withstand manipulation and fight racism, hate speech, radicalization, and cyberbullying through the Get Ready to Act Against Social Media Propaganda model generated by this study. The model includes five iterative stages: Question, analyze, design, prepare and evaluate.


identifier: Mujahid, Suhaib ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2738-1387 <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2738-1387>  (2018) Determining and Detecting Permission Issues of Wearable Apps.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Wearable apps are becoming increasingly popular. Nevertheless, to date, very few studies have examined the issues that wearable apps face. Prior studies showed that user reviews contain a plethora of insights that can be used to understand quality issues and help developers build better quality mobile apps.

Therefore, in this thesis,  we start by empirically studying user reviews to understand the user complaints about wearable apps. We manually sample and categorize 2,667 reviews from 19 Android wearable apps. Additionally, we examine the replies posted by developers in response to user complaints. This study allows us to determine the type of complaints that developers care about the most and to identify problems that, despite being important to users, do not receive a proper response from developers.

We find that the most frequent complaints are related to Functional Errors, Cost, and Lack of Functionality, whereas the most negatively impacting complaints are related to Installation Problems, Device Compatibility, and Privacy & Ethical Issues. We find that developers mostly reply to complaints related to Privacy & Ethical Issues, Performance Issues, and notification-related issues. Furthermore, we observe that when developers reply, they tend to provide a solution, request more details, or let the user know that they are working on a solution. Our results highlight the issues that users face the most, and the issues to which developers should pay additional attention to due to their negative impact.

Based on these results from the first empirical study, we investigate the most negatively impactful complaints. We observe that mainly two permission problems are a common factor to raise issues that cause these complaints -namely the permission mismatch problem and the problem of superfluous features.
As a result, we propose a technique to detect permission problems in wearable app. To operationalize our technique we developed a tool, called Permlyzer, that automatically detects these two problems from Android APKs. We then perform an empirical study on of 2,724 free wearable apps. Our findings show that the permission mismatches exist in 6.1% of released apps on the app store.  Moreover, we find that 19.2% of studded wearable apps contain superfluous features.


identifier: Basak, Sanjoy  (2017) Mixed-Signal Implementation of Low-Density Parity-Check Decoder.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The receiver side of many communication systems incorporates an error-correction decoder to achieve good bit-error rate (BER) performance. While good BER is a metric of reliable communication, high throughput and energy-efficiency are also desired. Low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoders are able to perform well in term of these metrics. In this thesis, the Modified Differential Decoding Binary Message Passing (MDD-BMP) algorithm of LDPC codes has been chosen to implement in mixed-signal domain. The goal of this research is to achieve energy-efficiency in LDPC decoding while maintaining high-throughput in an implemented design of reasonable effective area.
          The re-design of some digital parts of the LDPC decoder in analog domain is expected to offer energy-efficiency and high throughput. However, these benefits come at a cost of analog impairments, such as, different random mismatch between similar inverters arising from process variation during fabrication. The comparative contribution of these impairments on the BER performance of the decoder has been investigated. During the design of the decoder, an on-chip calibration scheme has been arranged and global routing of the tuning signals has been maintained to address these random mismatches. Furthermore, modulation of the decoding speed by off-chip tuning has been made possible. For the purpose of high-speed testing of the decoding process, enough on-chip memory has been placed to store 10 codewords and feed them to the decoder through a binary-weighted capacitor-based digital to analog converter. Design and placement of analog MUXes enable us to debug sensitive analog nodes inside the decoder from off-chip. Finally, the full process of the physical design of the decoder in TSMC 65nm has been almost fully automated in Cadence SKILL code. Over 100 simulations including parasitic capacitance of long wires in physical design yield an average decoding speed of approximately 2.04 ns in moderate speed mode, therefore, providing a high throughput of 134 Gb/s. Taking into account the average current drawn by the circuits during both the pre-charge phase and the decoding phase, the calculated average energy per bit consumed by the decoder is 1.267 pJ/bit.


identifier: Blondin, Aryann  (2017) Examining Children's Use of Different Types of Concrete Representations in a Novel Numeration System.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Examining Children’s Use of Different Types of Concrete Representations in a Novel Numeration System
By Aryann Blondin
Concrete materials, also called manipulatives, are used in the elementary classroom (e.g., Blondin, Tomaszewski, & Osana, 2017; Moyer, 2001) to illustrate a wide variety of abstract mathematical notions, yet little is known about how the differences in the materials affect the mathematical learning (Belenky & Schalk, 2014). This study examined the differences between concrete proportional and non-proportional models in the context of base-four problems. The aim was to examine the effects of the manipulatives’ proportionality on learning and transfer measures, and to see if there were any effects of prior knowledge of numeracy and place value. Following prior knowledge assessment, 52 second-graders were randomly assigned to either the proportional condition (n = 26) or the non-proportional condition (n = 26). Students in the proportional condition used base-four blocks for the instructional intervention and the testing. Students in the non-proportional condition used colored chips. Next, students received an instructional intervention with the manipulatives and completed learning and transfer measures. No condition effects were found. Prior knowledge accounted for a significant portion of the variance on two of the learning measures and one of the transfer measures, but no interaction effects were found. The present study reminds teachers that prior knowledge is important to consider when choosing appropriate tools in the classroom to meet their students’ needs. Additionally, the present study reminds researchers that assessing prior knowledge is an important factor when examining the effects of manipulatives.  The results of this study contribute to the literature on external knowledge representations.


identifier: Raymond, Krystina  (2018) English or French? How Second Language Learners Discriminate Languages with a Shared Alphabet.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The purpose of the study was to examine French language learners' (FLL) and English language learners' (ELL) knowledge of orthographic patterns in English and French, the relationship of orthographic knowledge to word reading, and the strategies participants used to distinguish the patterns. I hypothesized that FLL would score higher than ELL on a measure of orthographic knowledge of French and English (combined), but that orthographic knowledge would predict word reading in both groups. The analysis of strategy use was exploratory, given the lack of research in this area.
Forty-eight first and second graders (31 FLL, 17 ELL) were asked to (a) complete measures of word reading; (b) classify pseudowords as French or English to assess orthographic pattern knowledge; and (c) identify their strategies for classifying pseudowords. Children's responses were then coded as phonological, orthographic, or no strategy. Their use of analogies was also examined.
As expected, the FLL group scored significantly higher than the ELL group on the task of orthographic knowledge, t(46) 2.23, p < .03. Orthographic processing predicted word reading in both languages for FLL, and in English for ELL. For strategy types (n = 48), both groups used orthographic strategies more frequently than phonological strategies, but FLL used significantly fewer phonological strategies than ELL. The results suggest that orthographic processing contributes to English and French word reading. The study also provides insight into the types of strategies L2 children use to discriminate languages with a shared alphabet.


identifier: Dionne, Justin  (2017) Exploring the effects of rhythmic afferent alpha and gamma range electrical stimulation on processing mechanisms in a tone discrimination dual-task paradigm.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Neural oscillations are the changes in the action potentials and the local field potentials (LFPs) of the central nervous system (CNS). Synchrony is when cell populations in different parts of the brain are activated together to achieve a task. The synchrony of brain oscillatory activity could modulate information processing. Synchrony of different oscillatory frequencies can have effects on cognition, motor skills and behaviour. Faster reaction times are correlated with neural oscillations in the alpha (8-12 Hz) or gamma (30-80 Hz) ranges. Rhythmic afferent electrical stimulation in these ranges could influence neural oscillators for speed of processing or task organization. Our aim is to identify how rhythmic electrical stimulation influences performance in a dual-task paradigm using postural and reaction time tasks. Twelve subjects had a transcutaneous nerve stimulation (TENS) protocol applied to their median nerve, in 5 frequency conditions while discerning between two auditory stimuli and maintaining stable balance. Center of pressure (CoP) data were collected under 3 postural conditions. Reaction times, response correctness, CoP excursion and range were measured. There was a main effect of TENS frequency on reaction time; reaction times were longer during a 10 Hz TENS condition. There was a main effect of postural condition; the eyes closed, sway referenced condition had larger excursion and range. Alpha-range TENS lengthened reaction times and had an effect on postural dual-task performance. Further research could identify how afferent rhythmic stimulation affects processing mechanisms.


identifier: Rose-Antoinette, Ronald  (2017) Se faisant: contre l'image du retour au meme.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Through a careful study of contemporary filmmakers such as Claire Denis, Lars von Trier and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, I analyze how cinema may resort to (syn)aesthetic strategies to critically perceive the experience of sociality in a manner that breaks from film theory’s subjectivist resuppositions. I propose that as films move beyond the confines of the
individual (a carceral definition of identity) and enter into social practices they can produce alternate ways of living. Shifting their focus from the particular (instant) onto the field of (meta)physical entanglement, these filmmakers offer an aesthetic proposition of non-egoistic experience which unsettles many of film theory’s assumptions about the status of the image.
Instead of asking how moving images stand in for an idea or a concept, my work confronts the question: How does cinema create ways of life that inspire us to imagine, think and feel sociality otherwise? I explore how film studies and affect theory converge to condition the end of the
world as we know (and image) it.
In this dissertation, I draw on film theory, affect theory as well as black studies to explore contemporary cinemas through what I call « trans-apparition. » Unlike relational aesthetics or participatory art, trans-apparition is not a category of art practice, but rather a conceptual tool that engages the interstices between body-images, the knot or tangle of differences. Breaking with traditional forms of perceptual experience, I focus on films that
initiate sociality and fugitivity. For example, in chapter three, I analyze the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul in terms of the clamor that agitates his images without any goal but to dissolve the beating of time. Weerasethakul creates an atmosphere that cuts through his films particularistic tendencies. He does so by unsettling our habits of perception and by using a cut-up technique that foregrounds the nonlocality of differences.
The filmmakers I examine in Whereas use different approaches to elemental
entanglement, building on techniques of interdisciplinary practice to announce and make felt other ways of living, thinking and doing.


identifier: Guertin, Étienne  (2017) Modelling wildfire in an intermediate complexity earth system climate model - exploring the importance of timestep and weather variability.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Fire is an integral part of the Earth system, interacting in complex ways with humans, vegetation
and climate. Global fire activity is an important driver of the carbon cycle and could have important
feedback effects on climate in a climate change context. Despite its potential importance, fire
modelling as an integral part of global vegetation-climate models has only been developed in the
past two decades, following the availability of global fire activity satellite products. This research
aims to parameterize wildfire in an intermediate complexity earth system climate model coupled to
a dynamic global vegetation model. I used a mechanistic fire model which simulates a burned area
per grid cell based on a number of fires and the average burned area per fire. The fire
parametrization was originally designed and calibrated for more realistic weather with more
variability. Due to the simplicity of the atmosphere module of the climate model used, I explored
the effect smaller modelling timesteps as well as prescribing natural variability to the simulated
climatology. The simulations show no effect of timestep, while adding natural variability to the
simulated climatology improves the global spatial correlation (R) of burnt fraction with
observations. The best model (R=0,36; global burned area underestimated by 63%), however, does
not capture the crucial difference of fire regime between the highly burning tropical savannas and
the unburnt rainforests. This research shows the essential role of simulated weather variability
rather than modelling timestep in generating realistic fire patterns in the context of this earth system
climate model of intermediate complexity. Additional calibration could potentially improve the
simulated fire and would allow the simulation of potential feedbacks within the fire-climatevegetation system in a climate change context.


identifier: Vasilyeva, Natalia  (2018) How do students know they are right and how does one research it?  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Although standards of rigor in mathematics are subject to debate among philosophers, mathematicians and educators, proof remains fundamental to mathematics and distinguishes mathematics from other sciences. There is no doubt that the ability to appreciate, understand and construct proofs is necessary for students at all levels, in particular for students in advanced undergraduate and graduate mathematics courses. However, studies show that learning and teaching proof may be problematic and students experience difficulties in mathematical reasoning and proving.
This thesis is influenced by Lakatos’ (1976) view of mathematics as a ‘quasi-empirical’ science and the role of experimentation in mathematicians’ practice. The purpose of this thesis was to gain insight into undergraduate students’ ways of validating the results of their mathematical thinking. How do they know that they are right? While working on my research, I also faced methodological difficulties. In the thesis, I included my earliest experiences as a novice researcher in mathematics education and described the process of choosing, testing and adapting a theoretical framework for analyzing a set of MAST 217 (Introduction to Mathematical Thinking) students’ solutions of a problem involving investigation. The adjusted CPiMI (Cognitive Processes in Mathematical Investigation, Yeo, 2017) model allowed me to analyze students’ solutions and draw conclusions about the ways they solve the problem and justify their results. Also I placed the result of this study in the context of previous research.


identifier: Guan, Tian Lai  (2018) A LC-MS/MS-Based Approach to Studying the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cca1 Protein.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The enzyme ATP (CTP): tRNA-specific tRNA nucleotidyltransferase (tRNA-NT) is an essential enzyme in eukaryotes and some prokaryotes and plays a critical role in tRNA maturation. This enzyme is responsible for the addition of AMP and CMP residues to the 3’-ends of tRNA molecules to allow for their aminoacylation and subsequent use in protein synthesis. The tRNA-NT (Cca1) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast), although encoded by a single nuclear gene (CCA1), functions in multiple cellular compartments (cytosol, nucleus, and mitochondrion). Here we used mass spectrometry to explore both cis- and trans-acting factors that could provide clues to the importance of the function and localization of this enzyme in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We characterized post-translational modifications on the native enzyme and analyzed the proteomes of native and temperature-sensitive (ts) yeast strains at permissive (20oC and 30oC) and quasi-restrictive (33oC) temperatures.
Our experiments identified amino acids cysteine 307, lysine 312 and tyrosine 317 in one α-helix as sites of post-translational modifications in early log phase showing acetylation, acetylation and phosphorylation, respectively. As these modifications were present, this may suggest that these post-translational modifications play a role in protein function or localization.
As we have identified a mutation in the gene coding for tRNA-NT that leads to a temperature-sensitive phenotype, we set out to do a comparison of the proteome profiles of this strain and the native yeast strain from which it was derived. This study revealed specific differences between the native and ts strains and between the different temperatures tested. Levels of stress-response proteins (Ctt1, Ddp1, Gad1, Prx1, Sod2, Tdh1, Uga1, and Uga2) were increased in the variant but not the native strain at 33°C but not in either the native or the variant at any other temperature tested (20°C or 30°C). This suggests that in the ts strain, the stress response is induced to combat the loss of activity associated with the variant tRNA-NT. In addition, a number of mitochondrial or ribosomal proteins such as Aim24, Atp20, Cox2, Cox5A, Mhr1, Nuc1, Rip1, Drs1, Edc3, Hca4, Nog2, Nsa2, Rlp7, Sod1, Sof1, Tsr4, Utp23 whose levels differ in the native and variant proteomes were identified, suggesting pathways to be explored to explain the ts phenotype.


identifier: Caruso, Katrina  (2018) Listening to Her Pictures: The Vision and Visibility of Jean Sutherland Boggs at the National Gallery of Canada.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis explores how Dr. Jean Sutherland Boggs (1922-2014) navigated her position of power as the first woman to direct the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). Boggs worked as director from 1966 to 1976. She returned to Ottawa in 1982 to lead the Canada Museums Construction Corporation, formed to oversee the construction of a new building for the NGC and the Museum of Man (now the Canadian Museum of History). This study looks at Boggs’s tenure as NGC director as a case study on gender and power in Canadian art institutions. Photographs of Boggs, alongside archival material, are analyzed to explore her accomplishments during her tenure. These photographs are a method to denote the different ways in which Boggs has been represented and how she presented herself. This thesis will examine Boggs’s significant contributions to the NGC, including reinvigorating the NGC’s public image, hiring new staff, expanding the collection, and ultimately, helping to construct its permanent home. Her vision for the NGC has left an imprint on the building and institution that she helped to build. Drawing on feminist and historiographical theories, alongside the contexts of the changing museum in contemporary society, and women’s entrance into the labour force in the 1960s, this thesis situates a turning point in the NGC’s history.


identifier: Shaw, Emory ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4099-7365 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4099-7365>  (2017) Parsing Perceptions of Place: Locative and Textual Representations of Place Émilie-Gamelin on Twitter.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: We increasingly engage in geographies mediated by social media, which is changing how we experience and produce places. This raises questions about how ‘place’ is conceived and received in networked virtual spaces. Place has remained difficult to grasp in both geography and communications studies that utilize social media data. To attend to this, I first develop a conceptual framework that bridges the phenomenology of spatiality with the communication of place. I then present a case study of Place Émilie-Gamelin in Montreal: a plaza located atop the city’s busiest transit hub. Despite its geographic centrality, it is a liminal space appropriated by marginalized groups and contentious political movements. Since 2015, it has been subject to a city-led revitalization program with intentions of attracting party-goers and tourists. Using a communications geography framework, I collected a year’s worth of tweets, first, employing a filter to capture georeferenced tweets in and around the study site, and second, using the site’s toponyms to retrieve tweets through textual queries. To understand these representations, I coded them by relevance, theme and communicative function. Results showed a place evolving in scope, name and meaning, reflecting diverging flows and uses. I found that there were more textual connotations of the study site than there were geotweets, and that the former were more diverse in their representation of place. The thesis demonstrates how promotional content on Twitter should be more critically analyzed in concert with expressive and descriptive tweets and geotweets, and that this implies spatial ontologies and data collection methods that consider a place on social media as a discursive construction. This is especially so since Twitter has become increasingly ‘platial’ through internal changes and its entwinement with other social media platforms: changes which require consideration in all Twitter-based spatial and textual analyses. The study provides an updated perspective on Twitter’s use in the spatial humanities, GIScience and geography and contributes to those interested in applying more nuanced cartographies of places.


identifier: Rahman, Mohammed Samiur  (2017) Biophysical and biochemical characterization of yeast tRNA nucleotidyltransferase variants.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The enzyme ATP(CTP):tRNA-specific tRNA nucleotidyltransferase adds cytidine-cytidine-adenosine (CCA) to the 3’ end of eukaryotic tRNAs during their maturation. This CCA sequence plays a vital role in aminoacylation and hence in protein synthesis. In yeast, this enzyme is defined as a Class II tRNA nucleotidyltransferase due to the presence of five conserved N-terminal motifs (A to E). Based on the available crystal structures of related tRNA nucleotidyltransferases, specific functions have been assigned to each of these motifs. We previously have shown that mutations in motif C that reduce enzyme activity can be overcome by a mutation in motif A that restores this activity. Here we explore the roles of two acidic residues (glutamate 189 and aspartate 190) found within motif C and one residue (arginine 64) found in motif A to understand better the role of motif C and the potential interactions between motifs A and C.

Site-directed mutagenesis was used to change arginine 64 (to tryptophan), or glutamate 189 (to glutamine, lysine, alanine or phenylalanine) or aspartate 190 (to alanine or phenylalanine) alone, or in combination with the arginine 64 tryptophan substitution and the effects of these amino acid alterations on enzyme structure and function were studied. Biophysical analyses (circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy and thermal denaturation experiments) suggest no major changes in structure in almost all of the variants tested. Kinetic analysis revealed no alterations in substrate binding (Km), but a large drop in turnover number (kcat) for the 189 and 190 variants (but not the arginine 64 variant). The reduced activity in the 189 and 190 variants is alleviated when accompanied by the change of arginine 64 to tryptophan, which also suppresses the temperature-sensitive phenotype. Taken together these data suggest that arginine 64 is not required for enzyme activity unlike glutamate 189 and aspartate 190. Moreover, they suggest an interaction between motifs A and C, and that motif C plays a role in accommodating and orienting the substrates to promote catalysis involving motif A.


identifier: Stokvis-Hauer, Alyssa  (2018) Paved with Good Intentions: The Development of German and American Holocaust-era Looted Art Restitution Institutions.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Abstract
Paved with Good Intentions: The Development of German and American
Holocaust-era Looted Art Restitution Institutions

Alyssa Stokvis-Hauer

This thesis presents insights into how conceptualizing and pursuing Nazi-looted art and cultural heritage restitution has changed since 1945 in the United States and Germany. The text presents historical and institutional analyses of the two major restitution institutions in these countries; the New York Financial Service Department’s Holocaust Claims Processing Office (HCPO), and the Magdeburg-based federal institution known widely as the German Lost Art Foundation, or more correctly as the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste, formerly the Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste located first in Bremen and then Magdeburg.

The past views of guilt, justice, and restitution as a moral imperative in the years immediately following World War II vary substantially from the contemporary ethos that characterizes the restitution of Holocaust-era spoliated cultural objects. Through the 1940s and 1950s German suffering shaped post-war German imperatives, while the American approach was heavily influenced by media coverage which highlighted American heroism and virtue, alongside a reluctant custodianship balanced with efforts to engage in effective restitution prerogatives. As such, the ascendancy of moral purpose and a politics of memory and regret in the 1990s is a significant shift. Filling a gap in World War II era spoliated art restitution research, this text uses institutional and cultural comparisons to bring to the fore patterns and changes within national self-narration or identification that influence institutional organization or practices. Drawing from archival documents, interviews, and secondary literature, this shift is approached and analyzed through a framework of discursive institutionalism, collective memory, and national identity construction.


identifier: Chouinard, Alain  (2017) From Fan Videos to Crowdsourcing: The Political Economy of User-Driven Online Media Platforms and Practices.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Following its rise to popularity from 2004 onwards, an increasingly idealistic and dominant conception of platforms, practices, and projects shaped by the Web 2.0  paradigm or the Social Web would emerge and rehabilitate past utopian assertions about the democratizing, participatory, and collaborative potential of the Internet, so as to attractively characterize them as enabling radically empowering forms of online participation by average citizens. In this dissertation, the core features of the affectively charged discourse surrounding this growing media environment are critically examined in order to understand their misleading character and  supportive function within the communicative economy of contemporary neoliberal capitalism and the media apparatus of flexible control strategies that sustains it. Moreover, with the help of critical-theoretical, political-economic, and autonomist theories, this dissertation analyzes a set of representative online media practices driven by users and embodying the individualistic and collective incarnations of the Social Web — such as YouTube-based gameplay commentary videos and fanvid parodies of animated media from Japan along with key examples of media crowdsourcing like the Life in a Day documentary and the Star Wars Uncut remake project. Its analysis of these case studies exposes how the above media apparatus of strategies and decisions increasingly shaping this digital media ecosystem, while encouraging the creative agency of online users, often results in its flexible control by corporate interests and the formation of new forms of power relations, inequality, and exploitation.


identifier: Nyberg, Lars  (2018) Teachers Valuing Teachers: A new professional development initiative.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The aim of this study is to examine the effects of three years’ worth of purposeful interactions between colleagues in the mathematics department at a Montreal area High School as a form of ‘grass roots’ professional development.  Recognizing the lack of meaningful avenues for self-improvement within the teaching community, this group started meeting formally and regularly to discuss improving their practice. Over the course of the three years they met there was the strong feeling that there had been an overall improvement in the quality of the instruction within a student centered learning approach. The experience was described as empowering and led to a greater degree of accountability as well as a stronger sense of camaraderie for each of the ten participants. Each member described how they felt that they had improved their craft in some way and how much more connected they felt to each other.
In a School Board that primarily relies on periodic mass workshops to provide professional development to its workforce, this professional learning community appears to offer an interesting alternative instead. Parker J. Palmer (1998) provides the backdrop throughout by suggesting that teachers tap into their individual strengths and create communities that are conducive to teaching and learning.  The main questions to be answered in this paper, through dissection of  some of the existing literature and in interviews with the participants, are whether this sort of group dynamic meets the criteria of PD and if it is a viable alternative to what is currently being offered?


identifier: Boodhoo, Katie  (2018) The Effects of Parental Dialogic Reading and Elaborative Reminiscing on Children’s Narratives and Vocabulary.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Seven mothers were taught the same language support strategies, in one of two conditions: dialogic reading or elaborative reminiscing with their child. They were also supported in using these strategies over a 6-week period.

The frequency, distribution, and diversity of mothers' strategies were examined before and after the intervention, in two tasks: reading a storybook and reminiscing about a past event. Mothers were also interviewed about their experience and perceptions of dialogic reading or elaborative reminiscing. Additionally, children’s narrative and vocabulary skills were examined.

Mothers in the dialogic reading condition used strategies more frequently than those in the elaborative reminiscing condition on the storybook and reminiscing tasks, as revealed by descriptive statistics. Surprisingly, mothers in the reminiscing condition used fewer strategies in the reminiscing task at posttest than at pretest. Descriptively, mothers also showed changes at posttest in their distribution of strategy types, notably greater use of WH questions during both the storybook and reminiscing tasks. All mothers increased their diversity of strategy types on the reminiscing task.

Following the intervention, the children showed improvements in fictional and personal storytelling and receptive vocabulary. Expressive vocabulary and story comprehension did not show an effect. The findings suggest that dialogic reading or elaborative reminiscing, implemented by mothers, has positive effects on certain aspects of children's narrative and vocabulary skills. Nuances in mothers' strategy use across conditions and their impact on children’s language skills merit further investigation.


identifier: zhang, bo  (2017) Three Essays on Financial Information Disclosure.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis is comprised of three essays on informational issues that revolve around financial reporting, governance, and disclosure. The first essay focuses on how International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption by the Canadian fund industry impacts the funds’ reported performance and managers’ behavior. When Canada implemented IFRS for publicly accountable enterprises (PAEs) in 2011, it received much attention from international researchers, professionals, and regulators mainly for three reasons: (1) IFRS were more mature when adopted in Canada as nine amendments had been made from 2005 through 2010, and issues and uncertainties faced by earlier adopters such as firms from EU members may or may not exist in Canada; (2) pre-IFRS Canadian accounting standards were very close to that of the US, and thus, the Canadian experience has strong implication to the largest capital market which has not accepted IFRS as primary standards yet; (3) Canadian accounting and financial regulations have been shown to be more effective in controlling risks during the 2008 financial crisis compared to those of other major economies; how IFRS can strengthen such a tight system is to be examined and is important to IFRS proponents and standard setters. In 2014, Canada took the lead by being the first common law jurisdiction mandating IFRS for investment funds while most other countries hold up IFRS adoption in this particular industry due to various complications. This paper shows that IFRS adoption does affect the funds’ outcomes and managers’ behavior in Canadian closed-end investment funds, and voluntary disclosure of cash flows also strongly affects fund managers’ return and valuation discretion. The implication is that if a country is not ready to fully implement IFRS in the fund industry because of complications at the accounting and financial levels, mandatory disclosure of cash flows could lead to better accounting quality as well, since one major difference between IFRS and GAAP is the disclosure of cash flows which constrains manager’s discretion on asset appraisals.
The second essay studies the implications from outside directors’ turnover. Outside directors have been extensively studied as a governance factor, but their behaviors are not well documented in the literature, partly because most agency theory-based research concentrates on the behavior of managers, not that of directors. While the majority of studies in the governance literature analyze characteristics of directors in a static way, I look at this question in a dynamic way which considers directors’ behaviors. This paper studies S&P 500 companies that have boardroom turnovers due to outside directors’ unexpected departures. The departures of these non-executive directors usually do not trigger investors’ concerns. However, our results show that when they do not provide concrete reasons, the firms from which they resigned experience underperformance afterward. This result suggests that directors may have resigned ahead of sub performance because of information they became privy to. The implication is strong to both regulators and investors. While governance regulations require a certain proportion of outside directors on compensation and audit committees with the intention of achieving efficient governance and releasing timely and reliable information, such mechanisms are substantially affected if outside directors do not fulfill their responsibilities when firms face challenges. Investors who take long positions should be alerted about outside directors’ unexplained departure, and investors who take short positions may find opportunities when a company has boardroom turnover.
The third essay examines a financial question around mergers and acquisitions announcements. In a tender offer, the bidder contacts shareholders of a target firm directly by announcing a public offer to tender their shares. The risk arises because the acquisition may or may not go through. Insiders typically have a better appreciation of the likelihood of a successful acquisition than outsiders, who have very limited access to strategic and private information. As a result, outsiders are at the disadvantageous position during mergers and acquisitions. This paper documents that besides official and public releases, outsiders can also rely on stock returns around announcements to infer private information to reduce information asymmetry. While current regulations and reporting standards do not have effective ways to minimize information asymmetry during mergers and acquisitions, this study highlights an avenue that indirectly mitigates outsiders’ information disadvantage.


identifier: Varela, Wynnpaul  (2017) Age-Related Differences in Musical Self-Regulation Among Canadian Music Learners.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis examined age-related differences in the self-regulation of Canadian music learners based on extensive secondary analyses of survey data collected in 2014. Respondents involved 3,920 music students from across Canada, with stated ages of 7 to 78 years old. First, MANOVA analyses were conducted to determine the presence of age-related differences in musical self-regulation, with dependent variables comprising 18 factors previously derived from responses to the survey's closed-ended questions. Next, to better understand how the seven age groups differed, Discriminant Function Analyses (DFA) were performed, yielding weighted linear combinations of those factors which might best predict age groups. Finally, to shed further light on age-related differences, 1,184 responses to the survey's open-ended question were thematically coded. Findings from the quantitative data confirmed hypothesised age-related differences, with improvements across age groups for planning strategies, persistence in practising, intrinsic motivation to learn music and to practise, reflecting on progress, and motivation to practise. However, physical and mental reactions to performance, the perception of aural abilities, and the use of aural skills were found to deteriorate across age groups. The DFA yielded two functions accounting for 95% of the variance between age groups, but with moderate-to-weak effect sizes. The first of these held greater explanatory power and revealed that what best predicted membership in younger age groups was a combination of extrinsic motivation to practise, enjoying performing for others, a strong perception of aural skills, and a low tendency to reflect on practice strategies. The second function suggested that while extrinsic motivation continued to be one of the predictive factors, lack of enjoyment of music learning, poor motivation to practise well, and an avoidance of technical work and exam skills may also be critical. However, the model's overall classification rate (44.8%) suggested both functions should be interpreted with caution. Findings from the qualitative data further highlighted age-related differences and showed that the most frequently mentioned theme among the open-ended comments was self-regulation. Also notable were music learning, co-regulation, survey-related comments, socio-contextual factors, and comments about the conservatory system. The dissertation closes with a discussion of implications for education and further research.


identifier: Hope, Robyn  (2017) Play, Performance, and Participation: Boundary Negotiation and Critical Role.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Critical Role is a livestreamed spectacle of play, in which eight professional voice actors come together once a week for a session of the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. This show first launched in 2015, and, after one hundred and fifteen episodes spanning nearly four hundred and fifty hours of content, reached the conclusion of its first major narrative arc in October 2017. In this time, the show has attracted a dedicated fanbase of thousands. These fans, known as “Critters”, not only produce creative fanworks, but also undertake massive projects of archiving, timekeeping, transcribing and curating Critical Role. The main project of this thesis is to argue that Critical Role facilitates an ecosystem of ideas, where ideas change hands quickly and fluidly – and, in doing so, it has caused familiar boundaries between author and audience to blur or even collapse. In some cases, this blurring allows for incredible collaborations between fans and performers; at its most challenging, the collapse of familiar author-audience dynamics creates unfamiliar conflicts with no obvious solution. Using Erving Goffman’s model of interactional frame analysis, this thesis will isolate different areas of challenge, collapse, and change. First, it will demonstrate how the dynamics of traditional tabletop roleplaying transform when the roleplayers are put before an audience. The Critical Role cast must negotiate double identities as both players and performers. This thesis will then transition to the behaviour of the audience. The act of watching Critical Role requires a keen understanding of the different frames at work inside the show, and fans have done a considerable amount of work to help each other understand these frames. Finally, this thesis will establish the concept of the fan frame. Both Critters and cast members consider themselves fans in some way. While familiarity with fan culture helps these two groups understand each other, it also creates conflict when the values of fans do not line up with the demands of online content production.


identifier: Raymond, Michael  (2018) Brand Publics and Online Video Game Streaming.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Live streaming is becoming a large industry where the consumption of entertainment in a group setting is becoming more and more popular. As streaming is a new phenomenon, little research has been done into uncovering how the process comes together as a whole. While some research exists into streaming, little has been done into the motivations of the viewers as well as how streamers attract and maintain viewers, two important keys that are essential for the maintenance of a streaming website. A video game streaming website named twitch.tv was examined for this research. Field notes were taken from the website itself and interviews were conducted with both viewers and streamers. Streamers form personal brands in order to attract viewers. The viewers themselves form brand communities and brand publics form over time. Understanding how streams are consumed will give the entertainment industry and streamers information on how to maintain and better serve viewers.


identifier: El-Eter, Katia  (2017) Storytelling as a Cultural Treatment Intervention with Syrian Refugee Children.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Since the current war in Syria began in 2011, millions of people have been internally and externally displaced.  This has greatly contributed to the increase in refugee numbers throughout the world (UNHCR, 2017).  Women and children are more vulnerable because, under certain regimes, they do not have the same agency as adult men (Vieira ,2014).  Of further relevance, while adult refugees deal with their own survival, their children may experience physical and/or emotional neglect (Rutter, 2006).  Canada is one of the countries currently receiving Syrian refugees (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2017).  This heuristic research paper argues that storytelling is a particularly powerful tool that can greatly benefit refugee children and respond to their specific needs.  This is especially true for Syrian children and children of other cultures who have grown up with rich storytelling traditions.  I will explore and justify the use of storytelling as a dramatic therapeutic intervention for Syrian refugee children, arguing that it can be beneficial in treating children refugees who have experienced war trauma.  I will also explore why this intervention has been so meaningful to my immigration story and my own journey to wellness.


identifier: Kaplan, Uma  (2017) Three Essays on Collusion in English Auctions: Theory and Application.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis is composed of three chapters that examine topics related to collusion in English auctions. In the first chapter, we develop a fully nonparametric identification framework and a test of collusion in ascending bid auctions. Assuming efficient collusion, we show that the underlying distributions of values can be identified despite collusive behavior when there is at least one known competitive bidder. We propose a nonparametric estimation procedure for the distributions of values and a bootstrap test of the null hypothesis of competitive behavior against the alternative of collusion. In the second chapter, we adopt a copula-based approach to identification. We succeed in showing that joint distribution function of private valuations is identifiable under certain conditions. Finally, we propose a semiparametric strategy, based on Archimedean copulas, to identify and estimate the model primitives and analyze the dependence relation between bids in English auctions. One advantage this approach has is that it allows us to separate the estimation of the marginal distribution from the estimation of the joint distribution of underlying bidder values. The third chapter is an empirical study of the municipal GIC auctions, motivated by the theoretical frameworks developed in the first two chapters.


identifier: Damen, Hassan  (2018) Identification of a Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase Phosphatase Controlling Stomatal Development in Arabidopsis thaliana.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Identification of a Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase Phosphatase Controlling Stomatal Development in Arabidopsis thaliana
Hassan Damen, M.Sc.
Stomata are tiny openings on all above ground plant epidermis except for petals and stamen filaments. They regulate gas exchange and control water loss, which enables plants to adapt to environmental changes and facilitates photosynthesis. In Arabidopsis, stomata are formed through a series of differentiation events according to positional cues mediated by cell-to-cell signalling that contains mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade components, an YDA (MAPKKK), MKK4/MKK5 (MAPKKs), MPK3/MPK6 (MAPKs). Although much is known about the upstream kinases and biological role of MAPKs (MPK3 and MPK6) during stomatal development, the process by which they are inactivated remains unclear. In mammals, some members of the dual-specificity phosphatases (DSPs), which dephosphorylate both phosphoserine/threonine and phosphotyrosine residues of their substrates, have been recognized as key players in deactivating MAPKs. Five DSP-type phosphatases with described or predicted MAPK phosphatase (MKP) function are encoded in the genome of Arabidopsis, but their role in stomatal patterning and differentiation has not yet been investigated.
Here, I report the identification of MKP1, one of the five Arabidopsis MKPs, as a key regulator promoting stomatal cell fate differentiation. A loss-of-function mkp1 mutation occasionally developed clusters of small cells that failed to differentiate into stomata. I determined the phosphatase activity of MKP1 is essential and required for totally normal stomatal development. A genetic analysis showed that the redundantly functioning kinases, MPK3 and MPK6, are epistatic to MKP1, consistent with the predicted function of MKP1 as a MAPK phosphatase. Furthermore, our cell type-specific rescue experiments using the promoters of the genes encoding the stomatal basic-helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors revealed that early stomatal cell-specific expression of MKP1 is sufficient for proper stomatal development. This data implies that MKP1 controls a MAPK cascade in the first out of three division and/or differentiation “steps” of stomatal development. Taken together, these findings help determine the role of phosphatase in controlling MAPK signaling specificity in stomatal development, and thus providing further insights into the cell fate regulation by this intracellular signalling cascade.


identifier: Alimohammadifar, Amir  (2018) Verifying Network Topology in Software Defined Networks Using Stealthy Probing-based Verification (SPV).  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Since a key advantage of Software Defined Networks (SDN) is providing a logically centralized view of the network topology, the correctness of such a view becomes critical for SDN applications to make the right management decisions. However, recently discovered vulnerabilities in OpenFlow Discovery Protocol (OFDP) show that malicious hosts and switches can poison the network view of the SDN controller and consequently lead to more severe security attacks, such as man-in-the-middle or denial of service. Several solutions have been proposed to address such topology poisoning attacks, but their scope is mostly limited to malicious hosts injecting or relaying fake Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) packets. In this work, we propose Stealthy Probing-based Verification (SPV), a novel stealthy probing-based approach, to significantly extend the scope of existing solutions. Specifically, SPV incrementally verifies legitimate links and detects fake links by sending probing packets. Such packets are sent in a stealthy manner to deceive malicious hosts or switches who may be trying to identify the probing attempts among normal traffic. To illustrate the feasibility of our approach, we implement SPV in an emulated SDN environment using Mininet and OpenDaylight. We further evaluate the applicability and the performance of SPV in a real SDN/cloud topology. We show that SPV can achieve a very low verification time (i.e., less than 120 milliseconds) in both real and emulated environments which makes SPV a scalable solution for large SDN networks.


identifier: Taher, Sahar  (2018) Favourable Narcissistic Traits in CEOs across Cultures.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis focuses on the interplay between narcissistic traits of CEOs, culture and organizational outcomes. More specifically, this thesis will study the cultural selection of narcissistic traits in CEOs as well as its effects on perceived organizational outcomes, all from a follower’s perspective. Narcissistic individuals who occupy leadership positions have specific ways of impacting organizational outcomes, be it in negative ways through the “darker” traits such as Arrogance and Machiavellianism or positive ways through “brighter traits” of Charisma and Intellectual Prowess. Cultures, however, differ in their conceptualization of power and their interpretation of those specific traits. In order to explore the relationships between the variables, the study uses an intuitive method based on Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping. The study will help in the understanding of how cultures appraise specific traits as well as how followers respond to those traits in organizational settings across cultures.


identifier: Otayek, Elie  (2016) Integrated Decision Support System for Bridge Type Selection at Conceptual Design Stage.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Selecting a new bridge type at the conceptual design phase is subject to many weaknesses in the processes conducted. Given that the engineers’ decisions are based on their subjectivity, it is worthwhile to establish a Decision Support System (DSS) to effectively address different problems of consistency in decisions. In designing a new bridge, many factors, such as the cost and aesthetic appearance of the bridge, have to be considered due to their ability to affect the final decision. Generally, decision-makers will base their final design decisions on those factors as well as on human subjectivity.
The objective of this research is to propose a methodology to develop systematic procedures that can help decision-makers select the most appropriate bridge type with its diverse components and to forecast its Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) and other characteristics such as the level of public satisfaction and the environmental sustainability of the selected bridge type. The proposed methodology integrates a decision support system with a relevant data structure within an artificial intelligence (AI) environment and bridge information management tools in order to reduce the impact of human subjectivity on the decisions taken during the conceptual design stage of a bridge’s life. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with its back-propagation algorithm is adopted in order to identify the appropriate solution by setting up its engine guidelines. Elements of the ANN layers (Engine model) which include: input, hidden and output layers, have to be described based on a systematic and standardized process. The proposed methodology has the potential to be used at lower levels to determine other bridge components such as vertical structures, foundations, and connection types. The objectives of the proposed methodology are as follows: (a) Highlighting the influence of human subjectivity on the decision-making process; (b) Listing and ranking the potential alternatives in term of their performance criteria; (c) Ensuring equivalent and fair consideration for selected factors affecting the decision, and especially reducing the possibility of missing or overlooking the impact of some factors that could be ignored while proceeding with making the right decision by using conventional decision-making approaches; and (d) Developing a systematic methodology that can be considered as a guideline for further use within any decision-making environment, based on a relevant historical database and experts’ input.
For public benefit, governmental and private agencies may use this DSS in order to provide a suitable solution abiding by different opinions in a systematic way taking into consideration the factors that have most influence.
A case study has been conducted with appropriate questionnaires to collect the needed data from experts, the public and previous project sites. This case study has shown the influence of decision maker subjectivity and how it could be controlled by inducing expert opinions through questionnaires to collect valuable data that have influence on the final decision. Also, data related to existing similar projects in the same area have been collected and used in order to show their influence on the results. Data were manipulated in order to analyze them and to show their accuracy and influence on the results. For that, a sensitivity analysis has been conducted in order to determine how the final decision could be affected by a fluctuation in the decision maker opinions contained in the input data for the proposed method.


identifier: Zhang, Dan  (2018) Earnings Management Surrounding Takeover Rumours.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: I investigate whether firms manage earnings in proximity to initially published rumours of their impending takeover. Utilizing a unique sample of 1,831 takeover rumours, I find that rumoured target firms inflate their earnings prior to the rumour's publication. Rumours which are more likely to be anticipated by the target firm (rumours initiated by targets, rumours concerning financial distress, and rumours concerning the hiring of a financial advisor) provide stronger associations with earnings management than do other rumour types. I interpret results as consistent with rumored target firms attempting to benefit from higher takeover valuations if takeover bids are indeed forthcoming


identifier: Macias Lipskaia, Alexandra  (2018) Becoming a Russian Doll: Interrogating Representations of the Russian Mail Order Bride.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

format: text video

abstract:
Becoming a Russian Doll: Interrogating Representations of
the Russian Mail Order Bride

By Alexandra Macias Lipskaia

In the contemporary media landscape, the increasing emphasis on visual and virtual
communication and narrative techniques has contributed to a heightened contestation regarding
representations of foreign female bodies in the West. How is the figure of the Russian woman
created and perpetuated by media technologies employed by the Russian Mail Order Bride
industry? How is Western popular culture appropriating these representations in ways that
reinforce the “otherness” and potential danger of the Russian Mail Order Bride? In conducting a
textual analysis of visual media, academic texts and first-person experiences of women in
contemporary Russia, I present a performative storytelling project focusing on modern Russian
women’s representations in the media, and their relationship to the Russian Mail Order Bride
phenomenon. I draw on the situated knowledges of women in visual media in creating a
performance-based video project that develops the visual discourse of the representation of
female bodies both on screen and on the page.
Keywords: Media, virtual worlds, female representation, Russian women, objectification,
agency, performance, regimes of power, discourse.


identifier: Caio, Fernanda  (2017) Study of the Influence of Substrate Shape and Roughness on Coating Microstructure in Suspension Plasma Spray.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Sprayed coatings produced with submicron particles have unique properties when compared to 10-100 micron particles. Suspension Plasma Spray (SPS) is used to deposit coatings from submicron particles. This process, which is a modification of the atmospheric plasma spray (APS) process, uses a liquid carrier to inject the fine particles into the plasma jet. However, this technique is still subject of extensive research efforts due to the complexity of the phenomena related to the liquid stream and the submicron particles in contact with the plasma jet. There is a wide range of parameters that affect the properties and microstructure of the coatings sprayed using SPS.
In this study, the influence of the substrate shape on the resulting coating microstructure is investigated. For this purpose, an yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) suspension was sprayed on flat and curved stainless steel substrates by SPS. The suspension was composed of 20 wt.% YSZ particles in ethanol. After spraying, the morphology of the coatings has been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the substrate shape influences the amount of coating material deposited and column growth. The amount of coating material deposited was seen to decrease as the radius of curvature decreased. Finally, roughness influences the formation of columnar structure.


identifier: Ghasemi Amidabadi, Mohamad  (2018) Accuracy Assessment of Time Delay Estimation in Ultrasound Elastography.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The accuracy of time-delay estimation (TDE) in ultrasound elastography is usually measured by calculating the value of the normalized cross correlation (NCC) at the estimated displacement. NCC value is usually high if the TDE is correct. However, it could be very high at a displacement estimate with large error, a well-known problem in TDE referred to as peak-hopping. Furthermore, NCC value could suffer from jitter error, which is due to electric noise and signal decorrelation.	 In this thesis, we propose a novel  method to assess the accuracy of TDE by investigating the NCC profile around the estimated time-delay in a supervised approach. First, we extract seven features from the NCC profile, and utilize a linear support vector machine (SVM) to classify the peak-hopping and jitter error. The results on simulation, phantom and in-vivo data show the significant improvement in the classification accuracy realizing from  the proposed algorithm compared to the obtained form the state of the art techniques.  Second,   we build on our model  by utilizing the continuity features in the axial and lateral directions as a prior knowledge. We show that these features also improve the sensitivity and specificity  of the classifier. After extracting the continuity features in addition to the seven features,  we show the performance improvement of the proposed model on the available data sets. Furthermore, we show that our proposed model could be trained by other  elastography methods in future,  since we use a new elastography algorithm to train the model.  Third, we compare the performance of the  method developed using well-known  classifiers in the literature and then study the   importance of the proposed features using the mean decrease impurity method of the random forest classifier.


identifier: Ablorh, Sowah  (2018) Deliverance Practice In Contemporary Ghanaian Neo-Prophetic Churches.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Exorcism in particular and deliverance in general are known phenomena in many cultures especially in Africa. Exorcism is the attempt to control and cast out or expel evil spirits or demons from a habitat, person, place or item. Deliverance, which is wider in scope than exorcism, is a process of being saved or set free. This is the process of liberating, rescuing or setting free a person, a place, an object from demonic or negative force domination. Because of The African Christian experience in general and the Akan worldview in particular which shall be discussed later in this work, the concept of exorcism becomes relevant as part of an understanding of deliverance within the neo-prophetic churches, hence the attention given to it in this work. This thesis is a study of the practice of deliverance in the church, an examination of The African Christian experience and understanding deliverance in people’s real-life situation, and to make a case for The African Christian claim for the need for and the efficacy of deliverance with reference to the neo-prophetic churches in Ghana. The researcher adopted a phenomenological and a historical approach in data collection and analysis. Data were collected from both leaders and patrons of selected neo-prophetic churches in Ghana. This work concludes among others that the neo-prophetic ministries affirm strongly the importance of the ministry of deliverance in the whole ministry of the Christian church.


identifier: Robbins, Papagena  (2017) City-Symphonies-in-Reverse: Urban Historical Consciousness through the Baroque Moving Image Archive.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: In this dissertation, I argue that twenty-first century urban archival montage films eschew the dominant historiographical strategies of documentary film and encourage the development of a historically conscious spectatorship. The thesis examines three North American city-symphonies-in-reverse, Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2003), the Lost Landscapes film programs (Rick Prelinger, 2006-2017), and My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007). Each film takes as its explicit subject a North American city significant to its author—Detroit, Winnipeg, San Francisco, and Los Angeles—as seen through specific types of archival material. These particular cities have had geographically unique film cultures, and the archival material related to those film cultures shows the importance of investing in and recognizing local film cultures and histories. These films demonstrate that we have been alienated from our local histories in North America, and they provide key strategies to create historical consciousnesses. Each film in this corpus aims to persuade audiences to deal with local pasts themselves without the aid of an infallible historian to create a narrative that assembles and motivates moving image fragments to cohere with other documents into a coherent, plausible, and complete narrative. City-symphonies-in-reverse use the baroque critical methodologies of essay, anamorphosis, and reflective nostalgia to combat the effects of the abstraction of time and space. Such abstractions began to disrupt social structures and subjectivity in Western cultures some 500 years ago with central perspective and the standardization of time. I argue that these critical methodologies help to us to reconsider relationships to time and space within dominant historiographical discourse in documentary by emphasizing subjective embodied experiences of the archive. The films under analysis in this dissertation articulate valuable ways of addressing current crises in historiography, the urban imaginary, and the moving image archive, precisely through their strategic engagement with archival materials.


identifier: Mo, Jiaying  (2017) Media Framing of China, Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Canadians.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The question of representation of immigrants in mass media has been widely debated in the fields of journalism studies and sociology; in particular, the media construction of immigrant collective identity has been a key academic issue. However, there has been little academic attention given to the media construction of the diaspora identities of Hong Kong Canadians. In order to partially fill this existing gap, this research examined how a newspaper aimed at the Hong Kong Canadian community promoted a specific understanding of identity. In particular, this thesis examines the frames promoted and core messages about identities conveyed in the Sing Tao Daily as it reported on significant events leading up to Hong Kong’s Handover in 1997. Furthermore, it interprets these findings from the perspective of the media construction of identities, concluding that the Sing Tao Daily served assimilative and pluralistic functions, helping the community to assimilate into mainstream Canadian society and at the same time maintain multi-faceted identities with ties to Hong Kong and China.


identifier: Mansouri, Mohammad Matin  (2018) Detection of Rename Local Variable Refactoring Instances in Commit History.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Detecting refactoring instances occurred in successive revisions of software systems can provide wealthy information for several purposes, e.g., to facilitate the code review process, to devise more accurate code merging techniques, to help the developers of API clients to ease their adaptation to API changes, and to enable more accurate empirical studies on the refactoring practice. In the literature there are several techniques proposed for refactoring detection, supporting a wide variety of refactoring types. Yet, almost all of them have missed an extensively-applied refactoring type, i.e., Rename Local Variable refactoring. In addition, all these techniques rely on similarity thresholds (which are difficult to tune), or need the systems under analysis to be fully built (which is usually a daunting task), or depend on specific IDEs (which drastically limits their effectiveness and usability).
In this thesis, we extend the state-of-the-art refactoring detection tool, RefactoringMiner, by defining necessary rules and extending its core algorithms to tailor it for accurately detecting Rename Local Variable refactoring instances. We have evaluated the proposed technique on two large-scale open-source systems, namely dnsjava and Tomcat. Our comparison with REPENT, the state-of-the-art tool in detecting Rename Local Variable refactoring instances, shows that our approach is superior in terms of precision and recall. Moreover, to automatically create a reference corpus of refactoring instances which is required for the evaluation, we have built a fully-automated infrastructure (called RefBenchmark) that is able to invoke several refactoring detection tools and find the agreements/disagreements between their results.


identifier: Gowanlock, Jordan  (2017) Simulation FX: Cinema and the R&D Complex.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This study looks at the ongoing development of tools and practices used to animate nonlinear physical phenomena, such as the crash of ocean waves or the movement of human hair, in the visual effect and animation industries. These tools and practices are developed in a nexus between public funding, research universities, the film industry, and various other sectors, such as aerospace and meteorology. This study investigates how technological development became integrated with film production, and in turn how epistemic paradigms were shared between the film industry, scientific research institutions and other industries.

At the heart of these animation tools and practices, and the networks of institutions that developed them, is a way of thinking that seeks to make use of unpredictable nonlinear complexity by shaping it toward specific applications. I observe this in the way animation and visual effect studios seek the realistic appearance of nonlinear natural movement through simulation, while also implementing technologies and practices to direct the look of these simulations. I also observe this in a variety of related examples, from the way the concept of research and development unites science and application, to the way management science promotes hands off approaches that preserve the unpredictable nature of creative work. My methods consist of charting the circulation of ideas, technologies, moving images and people through contact zones such as the computer science special interest group ACM SIGGRAPH, using archival research of trade communications, scholarly publications and conference proceedings, as well as interviews with industry workers.


identifier: Eimanlou, Mehran  (2018) Investigation of the effect of process parameters on bond strength of thermoplastic composite rings manufactured using fiber laser.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The competitive advantage of an automated, true out-of-autoclave composite
manufacturing process is realized. Decades of research has been directed toward enhancing
technologies and processes such as the automated fiber placement AFP of carbon fiber
reinforced thermoplastic CFRTP composite materials. One of the latest technological
advancement in the AFP process is the introduction of continuous-wave high power fiber lasers.
Together with the development of thermoplastic material systems, it is now possible to in-situ
consolidate parts at efficient rates with promising quality. A ring manufacturing setup capable of
in-situ consolidation of thermoplastic composite tape is developed for the following study. A set
of collimating focusing and beam shaping lens are used to transform a Gaussian beam of a high
power continuous-wave fiber laser to a square, top-hatted beam, with uniform intensity profile at
the desired working distance. 20-Ply CFRTP PEEK rings, 152 mm in diameter, are manufactured
for the experimental studies. Design of Experiments using Taguchi approach is employed to
investigate the effect of major process parameters on the mechanical properties of the rings.
Effect of placement rate, laser power, and compaction force is evaluated against ILSS of samples.
Influence of parameters and a near-optimum point within the processing window is obtained.
Compaction force beyond a certain limit is deemed to have the least impact amongst others on
ILSS. An optimum set of parameters are then used to produce rings at a 50% higher placement
rate compared to those made using hot-gas-torch process. To investigate further increase in
placement rates variation of ILSS with laser power is studied for up to 152 mm/s. A decline in
ILSS is observed with the increase in placement rate as the degree of intimate contact
diminutions. The use of a conformable roller, with transparent to NIR light material, sufficient
hardness, and internal cooling is necessary to maintain the degree of intimate contact at higher
placement rates. To enhance the degree of autohesion a larger rectangular spot size could be used.
However, it is shown that the thermal efficiency decreases as the spot size widens away from the
nip point. Finally, the measurement of temperature at nip point suggests that the bonding of up to
two preceding layers may be affected at each pass and that to keep a constant nip point
temperature for the winding-like manufacturing process the laser power shall vary.


identifier: Rahman, Md Tajmilur  (2017) Investigating Modern Release Engineering Practices.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Modern release engineering has moved from longer release cycles and separate development and release teams to a continuous and integrated process. However, release engineering practices include not only integration, build and test execution but also a better management of features. The goal of this research is to investigate the modern release engineering practices which cover four milestones in the field of release engineering, i. understanding rapid release by measuring the time and effort involved in release cycles, ii. feature management based on feature toggles iii. the impact of toggles on the system architecture, and iv. the quality of builds that contain ignored failing and flaky tests. This thesis is organized as a “manuscript” thesis whereby each milestone constitutes an accepted or submitted paper.
First, we investigate the rapid release model for two major open source software projects. We quantify the time and effort which is involved in both the development and stabilization phases of a release cycle where, we found that despite using the rapid release process, both the Chrome Browser and the Linux Kernel have a period where developers rush changes to catch the current release.
Second, we examine feature management based on feature toggles which is a widely used technique in software companies to manage features by turning them on/off during development as well as release periods. Developers typically isolate unrelated/unreleased changes on branches. However, large companies, such as Google and Facebook do their development on single branch. They isolate unfinished features using feature toggles that allow them to disable unstable code. Third, feature toggles provide not only a better management of features but also keep modules isolated and feature oriented which makes the architecture underneath the source code readable and iiieasily extractable. As the project grows, modules keep accepting features and features cross-cut into the modules. We found that the architecture can be easily extracted based on feature toggles and provides a different view compared to the traditional modular representations of software architecture.
Fourth, we investigate the impact of failing tests on the quality of builds where we consider browser-crash as a quality factor. In this study we found that ignoring failing and flaky tests leads to dramatically more crashes than builds with all tests passing.


identifier: Xu, Lu  (2018) Accent Your Brand or Not? The Effects of Accents and Languages on Consumers in Chinese Advertising Context.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The effect of accent is well researched in many areas. However, marketing and advertising research rarely paid attention to this topic, and most previous studies were conducted in English-speaking countries, thus we know very little about the effect of accent in other language contexts. Chinese advertising has made a major progress in the past few decades, and the advertising industry is becoming more diverse. Nowadays, there are mainly three types of Chinese advertisements in terms of language and accent: standard mandarin advertisement, standard foreign language advertisement (i.e. English, French, Korean, etc.), and foreign accented mandarin advertisement (i.e. mandarin spoken by foreign spokesperson). In this paper, based on the studies done by Krishna and Ahluwalia (2008) and Lin and Wang (2016), we investigate the effect of spoken languages and accents on consumers’ evaluation of TV advertisements. More specifically, we choose standard Mandarin, English, and English-accented Mandarin as our major focus, and study the impact of accent/language on advertisement evaluation, as well as Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards different accents/languages. In addition, we take product origin into consideration, and study whether the congruence between the accent/language and product country of origin can lead to more favorable advertisement evaluations among Chinese consumers. This study fills the knowledge gap and draws managerial implications for marketing practitioners in Chinese market. Besides, this study also contributes to the discussion of standardized campaigns outside English-speaking countries, as well as the country-of-origin effect of accents.


identifier: Zahedi, Seyed Ehsan  (2017) Towards Skill Transfer via Learning-Based Guidance in Human-Robot Interaction.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis presents learning-based guidance (LbG) approaches that aim to transfer skills from human to robot. The approaches capture the temporal and spatial information of human motions and teach robot to assist human in human-robot collaborative tasks. In such physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) environments, learning from demonstrations (LfD) enables this transferring skill. Demonstrations can be provided through kinesthetic teaching and/or teleoperation. In kinesthetic teaching, humans directly guide robot’s body to perform a task while in teleoperation, demonstrations can be done through motion/vision-based systems or haptic devices. In this work, the LbG approaches are developed through kinesthetic teaching and teleoperation in both virtual and physical environments.

First, this thesis compares and analyzes the capability of two types of statistical models, generative and discriminative, to generate haptic guidance (HG) forces as well as segment and recognize gestures for pHRI that can be used in virtual minimally invasive surgery (MIS) training. In this learning-based approach, the knowledge and experience of experts are modeled to improve the unpredictable motions of novice trainees. Two statistical models, hidden Markov model (HMM) and hidden Conditional Random Fields (HCRF), are used to learn gestures from demonstrations in a virtual MIS related task. The models are developed to automatically recognize and segment gestures as well as generate guidance forces. In practice phase, the guidance forces are adaptively calculated in real time regarding gesture similarities among user motion and the gesture models. Both statistical models can successfully capture the gestures of the user and provide adaptive HG, however, results show the superiority of HCRF, as a discriminative method, compared to HMM, as a generative method, in terms of user performance.

In addition, LbG approaches are developed for kinesthetic HRI simulations that aim to transfer the skills of expert surgeons to resident trainees. The discriminative nature of HCRF is incorporated into the approach to produce LbG forces and discriminate the skill levels of users. To experimentally evaluate this kinesthetic-based approach, a femur bone drilling simulation is developed in which residents are provided haptic feedback based on real computed tomography (CT) data that enable them to feel the variable stiffness of bone layers. Orthepaedic surgeons require to adjust drilling force since bone layers have different stiffness. In the learning phase, using the simulation, an expert HCRF model is trained from expert surgeons demonstration to learn the stiffness variations of different bone layers. A novice HCRF model is also developed from the demonstration of novice residents to discriminate the skill levels of a new trainee. During the practice phase, the learning-based approach, which encoded the stiffness variations, guides the trainees to perform training tasks similar to experts motions.

Finally, in contrast to other parts of the thesis, an LbG approach is developed through teleoperation in physical environment. The approach assists operators to navigate a teleoperated robot through a haptic steering wheel and a haptic gas pedal. A set of expert operator demonstrations are used to develop maneuvering skill model. The temporal and spatial variation of demonstrations are learned using HMM as the skill model. A modified Gaussian Mixture regression (GMR) in combination with the HMM is also developed to robustly produce the motion during reproduction. The GMR calculates outcome motions from a joint probability density function of data rather than directly model the regression function. In addition, the distance between the robot and obstacles is incorporated into the impedance control to generate guidance forces that also assist operators with avoiding obstacle collisions. Using different forms of variable impedance control, guidance forces are computed in real time with respect to the similarities between the maneuver of users and the skill model. This encourages users to navigate a robot similar to the expert operators. The results show that user performance is improved in terms of number of collisions, task completion time, and average closeness to obstacles.


identifier: Abdzadeh Ziabari, Hamed  (2017) Timing and Frequency Synchronization and Channel Estimation in OFDM-based Systems.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) due to its appealing features, such as robustness against frequency selective fading and simple channel equalization, is
adopted in communications systems such as WLAN, WiMAX and DVB. However, OFDM systems are sensitive to synchronization errors caused by timing and frequency offsets. Besides, the OFDM receiver has to perform channel estimation for coherent detection. The goal of this thesis is to investigate new methods for timing and frequency synchronization and channel estimation in OFDM-based systems.
First, we investigate new methods for preamble-aided coarse timing estimation in OFDM systems. Two novel timing metrics using high order statistics-based correlation and differential normalization functions are proposed. The performance of the new timing metrics is evaluated using different criteria including class-separability, robustness to the carrier frequency offset, and computational complexity. It is shown that the new timing metrics can considerably increase the class-separability due to their more distinct values at correct and wrong timing instants, and thus give a significantly better detection performance than the existing timing metrics do. Furthermore, a new method for coarse estimation of the start of the frame is proposed, which remarkably reduces the probability of inter-symbol interference (ISI). The improved performances of the new schemes in multipath fading channels are shown by the probabilities of false alarm, missed-detection and ISI obtained through computer simulations. Second, a novel pilot-aided algorithm
is proposed for the detection of integer frequency offset (IFO) in OFDM systems. By transforming the IFO into two new integer parameters, the proposed method can largely reduce the number of trial values for the true IFO. The two new integer parameters are detected using two different pilot sequences, a periodic pilot sequence and an aperiodic
pilot sequence. It is shown that the new scheme can significantly reduce the computational complexity while achieving almost the same performance as the previous methods do.
Third, we propose a method for joint timing and frequency synchronization and channel estimation for OFDM systems that operate in doubly selective channels. Basis expansion
modeling (BEM) that captures the time variations of the channel is used to reduce the number of unknown channel parameters. The BEM coefficients along with the timing
and frequency offsets are estimated by using a maximum likelihood (ML) approach. An efficient algorithm is then proposed for reducing the computational complexity of the
joint estimation. The complexity of the new method is assessed in terms of the number of multiplications. The mean square estimation error of the proposed method is evaluated in comparison with previous methods, indicating a remarkable performance improvement by the new method.
Fourth, we present a new scheme for joint estimation of CFO and doubly selective channel  in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems. In the proposed preamble-aided method, the time-varying channel is represented using BEM. CFO and BEM coefficients
are estimated using the principles of particle and Kalman filtering. The performance of the new method in multipath time-varying channels is investigated in comparison with
previous schemes. The simulation results indicate a remarkable performance improvement in terms of the mean square errors of CFO and channel estimates.
Fifth, a novel algorithm is proposed for timing and frequency synchronization and channel estimation in the uplink of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)
systems by considering high-mobility situations and the generalized subcarrier assignment.
By using BEM to represent a doubly selective channel, a maximum likelihood (ML) approach is proposed to jointly estimate the timing and frequency offsets of different users
as well as the BEM coefficients of the time-varying channels. A space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization algorithm is then employed to transform the maximization
problem for all users into several simpler maximization problems for each user. The computational complexity of the new timing and frequency offset estimator is analyzed and its performance in comparison with that of existing methods using the mean square error is evaluated .
Finally, two novel approaches for joint CFO and doubly selective channel estimation in the uplink of multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiple
access (MIMO-OFDMA) systems are presented. Considering high-mobility situations, where channels change within an OFDMA symbol interval, and the time varying nature
of CFOs, BEM is employed to represent the time variations of the channel. Two new approaches are then proposed based on Schmidt Kalman filtering (SKF). The first approach
utilizes Schmidt extended Kalman filtering for each user to estimate the CFO and BEM coefficients. The second approach uses Gaussian particle filter along with SKF to
estimate the CFO and BEM coefficients of each user. The Bayesian Cramer Rao bound is derived, and performance of the new schemes are evaluated using mean square error.
It is demonstrated that the new schemes can significantly improve the mean square error performance in comparison with that of the existing methods.