title: “If You Don't Have Community, You Fucking Drown In It:” The Governing Logics of Sex Work and Community in Northeastern Ontario

abstract: In this dissertation I explore the complex relationship between the symbols and practices of community and sex work in Northeastern Ontario (NEO). Moving beyond a dichotomous understanding of communities as entirely sites of repression or resistance I instead focus on how two governing logics, settler colonialism and late liberalism, frame sex workers' relationship with, labour within, and struggles against the rationalities of community in NEO. Drawing on the work of settler colonial theorists (Rifkin 2013; Simpson 2016), community studies (Joseph 2002; Defillipis et al 2006), feminist literature (Federici 2010; McKee 2011; Roy 2017; Nunn 2019), and sex work studies (Hunt 2016; Kaye 2017; Mac and Smith 2018; Pratt 2015) I examine the complex web that sex working subjects are produced within, resist, and mediate for their own survival in NEO. While at its face, this dissertation explores the relationship between communities and sex working subjects in Northeastern Ontario, a series of broader questions underlie the study: How are the logics and practices of settler colonialism and late liberalism produced and reproduced in the everyday interactions of subjects in colonial spaces? What are the tensions around community "inclusion" and "exclusion," and what dangers do both control strategies create for oppressed subjects? What does resistance look like if subjects are 'governed through, not in spite of," their freedom (Rose 2000)? How can we understand resistance, and the symbols and practices of community, outside of the dichotomy of cooptation or liberation? Through an exploration of these underlying questions, I argue against theories of governmentality and settler colonialism that adopt "totalizing views of power." Instead I work to make visible how sex working participants in NEO perform alternatives through the performance of responsibilization, acts of space reclamation, and informal community networks (McKee 2011, 1; see also Nunn 2019; Rifkin 2013; Roy 2017). In doing so, I aim to show the "disorderliness of governing" by exploring how sex workers in NEO experience their subjection and the processes of governance (Love, Wilton, and DeVerteiul 2012) and attend to the counter-hegemonic ways through which sex working participants are able to "think and act otherwise" (McKee 2011, 1).


title: Quadcopter Behaviour Identification

abstract: Commercial drones have become much popular in recent years. Their low cost and high capabilities have rendered drones feasible for different applications. These include weather observations, traffic monitoring, inspection of buildings, fire detection, delivery of goods, agriculture and security. However, the abuse of the advancements of drone capabilities can lead to security and public safety issues. Such abuses include the transfer of illegal or dangerous goods, assaults and terrorizing actions, espionage or spying. In such a context, can the behavior of a quadcopter be determined from observations? Can those observed behaviours be utilized for training a machine learning model for classifying future comportment? In this work, we look at three pieces of information that we can predict about a quadcopter or a group of quadcopters, leveraging behavior observations. First, we try to predict the formation a group of drones intend to make while in transition by training a machine learning model, based on Softmax regression, on navigational data collected for this purpose. Second, we train an Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network on Mel Frequncy CepstralCoefficients (MFCCs), which are audio features extracted from an acoustic signal, to predict the weight of the payload of a quadcopter. Furthermore, in our third task, we identify whether a drone pilot is a human or an autopilot using a deep neural network trained on features processed from collected navigational data. In each of the three tasks, we evaluate features extracted from the data, then build and evaluate different models. The best-performing models in each of the three tasks are then compared to three different dummy classifiers. This comparison is made by performing statistical significance tests demonstrating that the difference in performance is not just a result of a statistical fluke. The three dummy classifiers do not learn any patterns. However, they are based on different classifying strategies, such as always using the most frequent label, generates predictions by respecting the training set's class distribution, or generates predictions uniformly at random.


title: Revisiting the Politics of Asylum in Africa: Explaining Kenya's Sub-National Policy Variation

abstract: The politics of asylum in Africa are changing. In recent years countries in Africa have taken increasingly different approaches from one another in the development, interpretation, and implementation of asylum policy. However, the advent of such variation is not just occurring between sovereign states, but also within them. It is no longer possible to refer to a generalized 'politics of asylum in Africa,' nor is it possible to omit discussions of sub-national politics from our analyses - as I contend that they play a valuable role in determining policy outcomes. To understand these changes, I ask what explains contemporary sub-national variation in the politics of asylum in Africa's major refugee hosting states? This dissertation uses Kenya to conduct a within-case comparison that examines the interpretation and implementation of Kenya's national asylum policy in its three major refugee hosting regions: the Dadaab refugee camps in Garissa County, the Kakuma refugee camps and the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement in Turkana County, and the urban refugee population in Kenya's Capital City, Nairobi. This dissertation argues that sub-national variation in Kenya has been facilitated, at least in part, by the introduction of the 2010 Constitution and the introduction of devolved governance to the country. Replacing Kenya's previously highly centralized political structure with democratically accountable county governments is expected to influence the political calculus of local elites, creating space for more diverse policy options in these contexts. As the scope of what is politically possible widens, so too does the potential for mutually beneficial outcomes that support both the refugee and local host populations. The politics of devolution in Kenya, while a key facilitating factor, is not the sole influence on the outcomes observed in each major refugee hosting region. I further argue that additional contextual factors unique to each major refugee hosting area such as the level of involvement from the central government, refugee population demographics, and local political opportunity structures work to shape and condition the limits of political possibilities at the sub-national level.


title: A New Approximation for Multiserver Waiting Time, for Layered Queueing Systems

abstract: Performance models must solve quickly even for large systems, to be useful in searching for changes that might give improvements. Thus, efficient solution is important, and is stressed in the Layered Queueing Network Solver (LQNS). This thesis introduces two approximations that approximate the queue states by binomial probabilities, to estimate the waiting time for multiservers (such as multi-threaded tasks or multi-core CPUs). Accuracy and speed of convergence were evaluated for one and for multiple classes of customers. The binomial approximations are compared with the "Rolia-Franks" approximation which is a relatively fast approximation that is currently used in the LQNS model-solving tool. One of the approximations (called the "Arrival-Theorem Binomial", or AB) is better, with smaller error in most cases. A novel approach for dealing with multiple classes is also evaluated, and a case study is included in which the AB approximation is combined with an LQNS solution.


title: Re-Tooling the Sisterhood: Conceptualizing 'Meaningful Making' through Maker Culture, Makerspace Politics, and Feminist 'little m' making-as-activism

abstract: Hacktivism! Craftivism! DIY Feminism! The Maker Movement! In this dissertation, I unpack how certain Do-It-Yourself (DIY) practices have transformed from simple personal pastimes to meaningful sites for activism. To do so, I analyze three overlapping discursive terrains that I contend imbue DIY practices with a sense of 'meaningfulness'—which I term embodied materialism, critical making, and making as communication. I contend that all three of these terrains co-constitute making-as-activism identities, 'real-world' maker activist communities (makerspaces), and the wider making-as-activism network (Maker Culture). However, this blending of 'meaningful making' discourses is not evenly distributed, nor is it without contradictory logics and practices. Therefore, in this dissertation I analyze both mainstream (hegemonic) and counter-cultural (non-hegemonic) narratives of Maker Culture, makerspaces, maker identities, and making-as-activism. Through this multi-sided and multi-sited approach, I discovered that both hegemonic and non-hegemonic discourses co-produce the definitional boundary-work around 'what counts' as making-as-activism. Furthermore, I also contend that in using 'success narratives' and 'passionate work', the work/labour involved in producing Maker Culture are entangled in neoliberal logics—like empowerment and entrepreneurialism—which reproduces invisible structures of privilege within makerspaces. I also analyze how DIY politics and makerspace community-building have been adapted by Canadian feminist makers. Using interview data and my own experiences, I argue that feminist makers are building a non-hegemonic representation of Maker Culture by broadening what making-as-activism looks like, who does it, and how it intersects with holistic critical pedagogies. However, despite using a more reflective critical maker approach, I also discovered that feminist making and makerspaces can also re-produce many of the same contradictory logics that are found in mainstream, hegemonic Maker Culture. In concluding this work, I re-evaluate making-as-activism practices, identities, and communities within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. I conclude that collective care approaches are vital for building healthy communities—including makerspaces—and that joint responsibility can untangle some of the contradictory messiness that comes with leading an activist life in this contemporary moment.


title: Implementation of Machine Learning Techniques in the Search for Emerging Jets Using the ATLAS Run II Dataset

abstract: A search for the novel experimental signature known as 'emerging jets' in the ATLAS Run II dataset is presented. The emerging jets model assumes a QCD-like dark sector in which jets of dark particles can shower and hadronize. These dark hadrons eventually decay back to Standard Model particles and produce jets at various displacements from the interaction point. These jets 'emerge' into the detectors, producing a unique signature at collider experiments. Introducing a boosted decision tree into this analysis enables sensitivity to several emerging jets models which cover a wide parameter space, allowing for the possibility of discovery, or alternatively excluding the current theoretical cross-sections. This is shown via a complete Monte-Carlo study, including a thorough evaluation of systematic uncertainties, which corresponds to proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV, and the full ATLAS Run II integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1.


title: Ghrelin, Cannabinoids, and Motivation: Increased Food Motivation on Progressive Ratio Paradigm Through MAGL/FAAH Inhibition in a Rat Model

abstract: Both ghrelin and endogenous cannabinoids act in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to increase feeding behaviours, through their interaction is not understood. It is hypothesized that ghrelin influences this system by stimulating the release of endocannabinoids from dopamine cells through its receptor, via increased synthesis and accumulation of membrane bound cannabinoid enzymes. First, we used a progressive ratio paradigm to examine the behavioural effects of blocking cannabinoid catabolism on ghrelin induced motivated feeding by administering an intra-VTA infusion of cannabinoid degrading enzymes (MAGL/FAAH) inhibitors (MJN110/PF-00457845), followed by ghrelin. Next, we examined the protein level of cannabinoid related enzymes in the VTA following an injection of ghrelin using western blotting. Our results show a significant increase in motivated feeding behaviours in rats that received both the MAGL/FAAH inhibitor cocktail and ghrelin. Interestingly, western blot analyses showed an increase in degrading enzyme MAGL and a decrease in synthesizing enzyme DAGL-a.


title: Early Detection System for Water Quality Monitoring of Cyanobacteria and Hexavalent Chromium using UV-Vis Derivative Spectrophotometry and Improvement of Detection Limit by Changing Pathlength

abstract: This work explores the use of readily available spectrophotometry to detect and monitor cyanobacteria and hexavalent chromium (Cr (VI)) under different water matrices. Research has shown that these parameters have been increasing in frequency worldwide with growing anthropological activities and aggravating climate change, resulting in unwanted source water contamination. The aim was to evaluate the potential of derivative spectrophotometry with changing cuvette pathlength (10-, 50-, and 100-mm) to be used as an early warning system for sensitive determination of the aforementioned parameters. Initially, Microcystis aeruginosa (cyanobacteria) and Chlorella vulgaris (green algae) were inoculated in deionized (D.I.) water individually and mixed in an equal concentration setting, respectively. The effect of increasing cuvette pathlength was investigated and results indicated a 15-, and 13-fold improvement in sensitivity with absorbance and derivative of absorbance from 10 mm to 100 mm pathlength, respectively. The lowest method detection limit (MDL) was observed using 100 mm and the concentration was found to be 4,916 cells/mL (for cyanobacteria), which is well below the WHO guideline for low probability of adverse health effects (< 20,000 cells/mL). Additionally, the mixed culture test demonstrated the potentiality of spectrophotometry to be able to identify cyanobacteria in mixed setting indicating applicability. Further microalgal testing was performed using longer pathlengths (50- and 100-mm), to investigate robustness of the developed methodology in surface water and under varying water quality parameters (WQPs) aka salinity, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and turbidity, for realistic determination. 100 mm pathlength while employing derivative spectrophotometry were found to be most sensitive and concentration as low as 8,546 cells/mL could be detected. As expected, with increasing concentration of WQPs the sensitivity decreased, but overall, spectrophotometry was able to detect cyanobacteria in different water matrices. Lastly, similar methodology as before was exercised but it was applied for early detection of Cr (VI). Derivative spectrophotometry with longest pathlength was primarily utilized to investigate Cr (VI) response in D.I. water, pH water matrices, varying DOC, surface and tap water. Results indicated excellent MDLs as low as 2-, and 5-µg/L for tap and surface water, respectively, implicating practical viability.


title: A Cyberattack Impact Analysis Approach for Industrial Control Systems

abstract: Many of today's critical infrastructures, including Industrial Control Systems (ICSs), are evolving with the integration of numerous connected cyber components with legacy systems. This evolution has exposed ICS to a wide range of security vulnerabilities, requiring different cybersecurity considerations. Understanding how severely cyberattacks can exploit such system vulnerabilities to disrupt or delay system operations is paramount for developing targeted and effective defenses. In this thesis, we present a four-stage impact analysis approach to observe and characterize the manifold impact of cyberattacks on ICS operations. Representative tampering and spoofing attacks demonstrated on a timed automata model of a manufacturing cell control system show how classical and statistical model checking, respectively, are effective at identifying and quantifying the severity of cyberattack impact on ICS mission objectives. Furthermore, the impact analysis results provide extensive insight into the varying impact caused by different attackers and how systems with defenses can mitigate such impacts.


title: New Derivatization Strategies for Installation of Fixed, Permanent Charges onto Analytes of Biological and Environmental Concern

abstract: Mass spectrometry (MS) is a highly sensitive analytical technique that can be used to identify thousands of analytes from a single biological matrix. Chemical derivatization (CD) reagents can enhance analyte detection and quantification by adding a specific functional group that enhances ionization efficiency and stability. The goal of this project is to design a new CD reagent by synthesizing a Meldrum's acid derivative containing a fixed permanent charge (MAD+) to be used as a stable ketene precursor. Synthesis of a MAD+ was explored via alkylation and Knoevenagel condensation reactions but proved unfruitful. However, C-alkylation with 6-bromohexanoic acid via carbodiimide coupling, reduction and amine alkylation produced a MAD+ in generous yields. The reaction of this MAD+ with 3,5-di-tert-butylphenol demonstrated its ability to induce its fixed permanent charge onto analytes, allowing its detection in MS. Purification of the final MAD+ remained an issue and should be investigated and optimized in future works.


title: Prediction of Fatigue in Lower Extremity using EMG Sensor and Machine Learning

abstract: Predicting fatigue in lower extremity significantly improves the stroke patient's recovery by increasing the duration of exercise while encouraging the patients to participate in the rehabilitation. Prediction of fatigue onset, and even quantifying the fatigue level could be utilized in assistive controllers in rehabilitation robots to elongate the sessions. In this research, the fatigue onset prediction and fatigue level recognition were studied on healthy subjects performing squat motions while using an exergame. Different analysis methods where investigated based on the collected data in a developed procedure. The phasing analysis method was developed by analyzing each squat phase. The appropriate muscle activity values were extracted from the data and combined for further classification and regression analysis. The classification analysis goal was to create a model for detecting the onset of fatigue, whereas the regression analysis would predict the fatigue level. Random forest performed best in both analyses.


title: Beyond Crown Sovereignty: A doctrinal and critical comparison of Canadian and Anishinaabe political ontologies

abstract: In employing a doctrinal analysis of foundational cases that define Aboriginal and treaty rights under s.35 of the Canadian constitution, this thesis illustrates how the Canadian judiciary disregards the legal properties within Indigenous oral traditions to uphold the legal fictions of Crown sovereignty in what I label a 'juridical logic of elimination'. This leads to the question: why are the narratives that inform the concept of sovereignty within the common law tradition taken as a legitimate source of law whereas Indigenous peoples' stories are not? One answer is found in elucidating the secularized elements of theological absolutism and universality embedded in Eurocentric political discourses that conceptualized sovereignty as the only condition of possibility and intelligibility. However, a critical comparison of European and Anishinaabe political ontologies shows that political power need not follow the same trajectory as the 'modern state' but can be developed through alternative modes of knowing and being.


title: Convivencia: Belonging, Agency, and Access along Sao Paulo's Minhocao

abstract: The Minhocão, an elevated highway cutting through the city of São Paulo, has been challenged since its construction for its allocation to cars in the city. The megacity is in need of more designated public space where inhabitants can lead connective social lives. Where public spaces already exist, they are either highly controlled or have been occupied informally by homeless groups. The lack of equitable public space increases the ever-growing tension for who has the right to public space. This thesis proposes to increase the access and occupation of the Minhocão for its local homeless population, through architectural interventions. A renewed coexistence along the Minhocão will serve to strengthen the ongoing claim to public space in the city's existing interstitial spaces. The proposal looks to the Minhocão's current uses and other precedents to build a shared sense of agency and belonging.


title: "As Long as It's Healthy...": Prenatal Health, Disability and Biopower

abstract: The past thirty years have seen widespread adoption of prenatal testing technologies used to detect potential disabilities in fetuses (Lupton, 2011; Rapp, 2011; Tremain, 2006; Weir, 1996). The increased routinization of prenatal testing and the discourse of responsible motherhood coupled with discourses which portray disabled lives as burdensome and full of suffering and pain have increased anxiety in pregnancy. In this dissertation, I employ a Foucauldian feminist analysis and an affirmation/social model of disability (Oliver, 1996; Shakespeare, 2006; Swain & French, 2000) to consider how prenatal testing technologies have bolstered and reinforced medical power and authority; I explore how these factors in tandem with a pervasive language of "risk" have had a profound effect on pregnant people's experiences. As Critical Disability scholars have argued (Gibson, 2015; Meehan, 2009), prenatal testing mirrors the official, state-sanctioned historical eugenics programs deployed against disabled people in countries such as Canada and the United States. This dissertation argues prenatal testing techniques constitute a biopolitical tool which operates through widespread and pervasive ableist discourses to eradicate certain disabilities (Fritsch, 2015; Gibson, 2015; Goodley & Runswick-Cole, 2016; Mitchell & Snyder, 2003). This reproduces many of the difficulties associated with disability, in terms of both stigmatizing attitudes and failure to adequately support and meaningfully include disabled people. It also significantly affects pregnant people's experiences, fostering anxiety due to internalized fears of producing a baby that does not conform to norms of ability and "health." This dissertation employed semi-structured interviews with recently pregnant people in Ottawa, ON, and Foucauldian discourse analysis of online pregnancy forums and Twitter. It sought to understand how experiences of pregnancy have been affected by prenatal testing, and how discourses of disability as "abnormal," and of mothers as primarily responsible for parenthood have impacted their decisions around testing and termination. This research found a continued framing by medical professionals of disability as tragic, and a lack of adequate supports for parents of disabled children leading to further ableism and fear around having disabled children; moreover, participants expressed a profound sense of anxiety related to testing results and a lack of agency in opting out.


title: A Functional Genomics Approach to Identifying Potential Candidates Underlying the E7 Maturity Locus in Soybean (Glycine max)

abstract: Soybean (Glycine max) is a valuable crop, with benefits attributed to its high protein and oil content, in addition to its nitrogen fixating capabilities. To expand production across Canada, breeding programs will need the availability of markers attributed to desired traits, including time of flowering and maturity. The E7 locus is among the 11 maturity loci identified in this pathway, whose underlying gene remains unknown. Using functional genomics resources, and a computational approach utilizing PIPE (Protein-protein Interaction Prediction Engine), this region was narrowed to a short-list of candidates, including 3 promising candidates: Glyma.06G200400, Glyma.06G200800, and Glyma.06G220000. From the expression analysis performed to date, Glyma.06G199800 and Glyma.06G233300 were found to have a significant change in expression between the E7/e7 lines in contrasting flowering stages during long-day (LD) photoperiod. However, additional expression analysis on the remaining candidates, along with further experimentation needs to be performed to reveal the underlying gene for E7.


title: Investigation of the Feasibility of Deploying Electro-rheological Dampers in a Drop Tower to Replicate the Impact Profiles of High Speed Craft

abstract: High-speed craft (HSC) occupants are subjected to a harsh environment due to repeated shock loading which results in serious potential for injury to the occupants. In order to study the shock mitigating effectiveness of developed HSC suspension seats, it is important that these seats be studied and characterized in the laboratory by reproducing the HSC impact profiles. Simulations were performed to understand the effect of system parameters of the drop tower to obtain the HSC impact profiles. Next, the ER dampers were characterized at high velocities which involved dynamic testing using a drop tower apparatus and identifying the parameters of a Bingham plastic model to represent the characteristics of the damper. The characterization results were analyzed in order to assess the potential of using the ER dampers to replicate impact profiles of HSC.


title: Assessing Security in the Multi-Stakeholder Premise of 5G: A Survey and an Adapted Security Metrics Approach

abstract: The fifth-generation (5G) mobile telecom network has been a focal point of research amongst the community in recent times. New threats have also emerged. Security metrics provide a pathway to quantitatively measure the security posture of an environment. We need to analyze if and how existing security metrics can be applied to a 5G environment. This thesis aims to do a state-of-the-art survey to explore the diverse set of security metrics in literature, understand the process of deriving security metrics. With this knowledge, we investigate the factors that hinder the usage of existing security metrics in a 5G environment, identify solutions from existing literature on how to address those factors, propose an adapted security metrics approach to address the multi-ownership nature of 5G, and discuss the design and analysis of Argus-5, a tool designed to verify the feasibility of the adapted security metrics approach and simulate various scenarios.


title: Undue Hardship: A Scholarly Personal Narrative about Working with Invisible Disability in an Ableist Daily Newsroom Culture

abstract: I worked as a journalist for twenty-five years with an invisible disability, systemic lupus erythematous, until I left my difficult but successful career after failing to win doctor-recommended accommodations. I share my journey using a Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) format informed by interviews with thirty-seven current and former journalists with disabilities, as well as twenty-one union officials, newsroom managers, and media executives. Using my experiences at three daily news organizations as the through line, I uncover previously untold stories from other journalists with invisible disabilities to explore the prevailing fear of disclosure within a macho, competitive news culture; workarounds and side deals that erase disability as a workplace issue; the habitual denial of accommodations; and how those exiled from daily news organizations write about their stories — as I have — outside the mainstream. This SPN has implications for both journalism education, the journalism profession, and critical disability studies.


title: An Analysis of Guidelines for Persuasive Interfaces on Mobile Applications

abstract: Persuasive technologies in mobile applications have become more prevalent with the development of smartphones. The user being prompted to take on certain actions and behaviours as reminders that doctors, family members or friends would give is not often associated with mobile devices. The ability for this effort to succeed in some measure by applications depends on the effectiveness of the design elements on the interface of persuasive applications. What are a reliable set of design principles that make persuasive applications, persuasive? After realizing the gap in previous research on guidelines for persuasive interfaces, Alexandra Nemery and Eric Brangier propose a set of criteria that list the essential design elements for a persuasive interface: credibility, privacy, personalization, attactiveness, solicitation, priming, commitment, and ascendency, and divide them into two sets of criteria: static and dynamic. (cont. in paper)


title: Northern Social Workers’ Experiences with Reflective Practice: Analyzing Power in International Development Work

abstract: Colonial histories, processes and experiences created conditions of inequality that continue to exist between the Global North and South and established a power dynamic that plagues international development work. Social workers who work in the international development sector are implicated in reproducing these unequal power relations through the operation and facilitation of this work. As such, they have been criticized for imposing their influence and knowledge in Southern contexts, while at the same time failing to critique the effects of Northern imposition on individuals and communities. Drawing on anti-oppressive social work practice, this project explores whether social workers' engagement with reflective practices impacts their understanding of their own positioning, power, practice strategies and negotiation with their managerial workplaces. Data was collected with the use of semi-structured interviews with Northern-trained social workers who work (or recently worked) for governments, international aid organizations, or as consultants across the Global South in the Middle East, Caribbean, Oceania, East Asia, Europe, and Africa. Participants revealed that powerful neoliberal ideas in the workplace and location-specific challenges constrained reflective practice activity. This research provides important insight and understanding into how Northern social workers working in the Global South grapple with their roles, responsibilities, identities, and positions. This study contributes research on the different possibilities for reflective practice within an anti-oppressive international social work practice framework and within international development work. These possibilities include a critical analysis of power as well as how such practices narrowed the gap between critical analysis of power and workers' practice orientation.


title: Educating for Meaningful Citizenship: A Critical Corpus Analysis of Public Education Policy in Canada

abstract: Public education is tasked not only with educating, but also with instilling values, knowledge and skill building, and preparation for citizenship (Lemke, 2008; Noddings, 2016; Westheimer, 2015). In Canada, education is provincially mandated, but there have been growing pressures and efforts to standardize policy, curricula, and practice across the country under the banner of inclusion, testing and assessment, and accountability within a globalized neoliberal society (Polster & Newson, 2015; Stack, 2016; Westheimer, 2015). Of particular concern is how these pressures are manifested within education policy and how they may in turn affect the way students and citizenship are invoked and talked about. This study critically investigates the discursive construction of particular actors (students and citizens) within policy-level education discourse (PLED). Informed by Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), I combine the discourse-historical approach (Reisigl & Wodak, 2016) and corpus-assisted discourse studies (Mautner, 2007, 2016) to analyze the discursive construction of and agency afforded (or not) to students and citizens. A total of 22 policy texts collected from the Ministries/Departments of Education across the provinces and territories between 2018-19 formed the basis of the small reference corpus, from which six provinces—British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Québec, Nova Scotia—were selected for deeper critical analysis. The findings reveal that although there are interesting nuances within and across the provinces, they generally construct the ideal student-to-be-citizen as a passive, complacent, and a lifelong receiver of knowledge, skills, and characteristics which are beneficial to the local, national, and global economy. Furthermore, citizenship is hyper-individualized and constructed in alignment with personal responsibility (Westheimer, 2015). Overall, a technologically advanced factory model of education seems to emerge, wherein educational metaphors blend to forward the student/citizen as automaton. These constructions are legitimized through emerging themes including a quiet moral panic paired with inter and con -textual silences regarding systemic issues and barriers. I conclude that in order for education to shed its oppressive attributes for a more socially just future, more must be done to resist neoliberal framings of education which focus narrowly on testing, standardization, closing performance gaps, and the economic return on educating students.


title: The Effects of 2-D Bedrock Profile on Site Specific Seismic Amplifications in Leda Clay

abstract: The primary objective of the research is to understand the significance of the effect of bedrock profile on the seismic amplifications in soft soil deposits. Inclined soil-bedrock interfaces lead to simultaneous p- and s- wave loading on soils, and whether ignoring them may lead to design deficiencies. The response of a site in Orleans with a deep Leda clay deposit at the center, but with a concaved bedrock profile, is evaluated using 2-D numerical analysis. The seismic response of Leda clay on a hypothetical horizontal bedrock (representing conventional practice), and two different natural bedrock basins has been studied. The NBCC-2015 design spectra compatible earthquake shaking was considered. The comparisons between the conventional practice and the response of the 2-D basin demonstrate that assessment of the cyclic loading intensity is significantly affected by the basin shape. This indicates that ignoring basin geometry effects might lead to unsafe liquefaction susceptibility assessments.


title: Essays on Social Interactions and Network Economics

abstract: This thesis is composed of three self-contained chapters which all revolve around social interactions and their effect on market stability and economic outcomes. The first chapter investigates the stochastic stability of the long-run equilibrium networks formed when the agents of a bipartite economy dynamically construct their network, caring first and foremost about connecting with an optimal number of individuals of the other type. We show that only in a model with agent errors are stochastically stable networks always efficient, in that their cardinality (total number of links) equals the highest number of connections which can be formed. We illustrate our findings using social platforms and individuals as our bipartite economy. The second chapter examines the effects of network size on the coffee production of Fair Trade certified farmers in Peru. Using a unique dataset, we find that the overall impact of network size on production is not significant. For individuals who possess a pest control system, we find that a unit increase in network size leads to a 1.5% increase in coffee production. In contrast, the network size impact is significantly negative for producers who report not being satisfied with the overall status of their life. Our study is the first to rigorously investigate network size effects within a Fairtrade environment where cooperative membership has been shown to play a significant role. The third chapter aims to investigate and quantify the neighbourhood effects in the demand for financial advice. Using data from the 2009 iteration of the Canadian Financial Capability Survey (CFCS), we also attempt to estimate this endogenous effect on the propensity to consult with a financial advisor. We find significant social effects on the individual likelihood of making use of financial advice. The propensity to seek advice from a professional is less impacted by neighbourhood behavior. The paper also explores the presence of heterogeneous impacts, partitioning survey respondents not only by location, but also based on an additional personal characteristic such as gender, age, education, or immigration status. Results leave no doubt about the importance of homophily in understanding social interactions in the demand for financial advice.


title: Performance Analysis for Supporting Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications in Advanced Wireless Networks

abstract: A new approach that combines physical and link layers is introduced to estimate the performance of wireless systems that support ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC). Motivated by ultra-dense deployment in next-generation networks, the effects of spatial diversity of multiple base stations are investigated with analytical expressions for evaluating signal-to-noise-and-interference-ratio (SINR) coverage probability at physical layers and the average blocking probabilitiy at link layers. The impact of network densification on the blocking probability, which is of practical interest to carriers, is studied with numerical results. Specifically, considering the second cell to exploit the spatial diversity of multiple cells offers an order of magnitude improvement in the average blocking probability. Numerical results also show that SINR coverage and average blocking probabilities achieve optimal values at different cell sizes at either the first station or two stations. The proposed approach can be generalized to utilizing more than two cells through a recursive process.


title: Numerical Modelling of Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Dynamics in Pure and Multi-Species Fluids

abstract: Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuators have been shown to influence several features of surrounding flow fields. This work models DBD plasma generation and movement in quiescent fluids. The work is restricted to plasma dynamics and does not consider the impact on the bulk flow field. A model is developed for an asymmetrically oriented DBD at 1200 V, in atmospheric conditions, operating within pure gases of N2, H2, CO2, CO, and H2O, along with various mixtures including a simplified post-combustion environment. Charged particle densities are dependent on rates of ionization and recombination, and simulations show ion densities between 10^19 m^−3 and 10^21 m^−3 . Plasma velocity is dominated by ion mobility, with averages between 3.90 mm µs^−1 and 11.59 mm µs^−1 . Plasma in mixtures is found to exhibit certain qualities of each constituent species, but is generally governed by the major components of the mixture.


title: An Evolutionary Framework for Multi-Objective Trajectory Design and Robust Model Predictive Control in Long-Range Rendezvous Missions

abstract: This thesis presents an optimization architecture for on-orbit servicing mission design in the long-range rendezvous phase. We develop a methodology to generate Pareto Optimal trajectories for long-range rendezvous of a servicing satellite with a moving target. The methodology employs a multi-impulse shape-based trajectory planning algorithm for in-plane orbit transfer, based on the two-body problem. The Pareto Optimal trajectories from this set are then obtained using a constrained multi-objective optimization algorithm developed based on the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). To robustly follow the generated reference trajectories in a J2-perturbed orbital environment, we propose a Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) scheme. The control signals are velocity increments at the time of applying each impulse, and the variable horizon is considered to be the time difference between every two impulses in the reference trajectory. To solve the optimization problem that is defined in the controller, the genetic algorithm is implemented.


title: Wideband Tunable Transmission-line N-path Filter on CMOS 130 nm

abstract: This research aims to increase the bandwidth of a transmission-line N-path filter around the clock frequency. The proposed filter consists of two four-path parallel stages with series inductors. The filter solves the trade-off between in-band insertion loss and out-of-band rejection of the original N-path filter. A high-frequency 4-phase non-overlapping clock generator with a 25% duty cycle is designed to drive the proposed filter. The proposed filter has a die area of 1.5 mm2 and was fabricated with CMOS 130-nm technology. The post-layout simulation results show that the filter is tunable from 0.1 to 1GHz, the bandwidth of 80 MHz can be achieved at 1 GHz and the noise figure of the filter is less than 3.2 dB over the frequency range. Unfortunately, the clock generator is not working properly,which is why measurement results show discrepancies from the simulated results. Several hypotheses are explored to explain the cause of these differences.


title: Experimental Wind Tunnel Testing and Numerical Optimization Studies for Airfoil Trailing Edge Noise Reduction

abstract: Aircraft noise is an important topic of research, as researchers have been seeking ways to reduce it. The current thesis aims to advance the state of the art of airfoil trailing edge (TE) noise reduction, by experimentally testing numerically optimized TE designs studied by the author, and obtained from semi-empirical models prediction. Deferent configurations of a non-flat plate, NACA-0012 airfoil, and flat-plate trailing-edge serrations are investigated. A wind tunnel test section that provides the required environment is designed and created. The test section walls have been acoustically treated to simulate an acoustically far-field environment with forwarding flight. The two sides of the wind tunnel test section are fitted with anechoic chambers and lined with acoustic transparency tensioned cloth screens which act as an interface between the test section and the anechoic chambers to provide a smooth flow surface while eliminating the need for a jet catcher and reducing interference effects. Its aeroacoustic performance is measured. Results show that background noise is comparable with other aeroacoustic wind tunnels worldwide. A straight TE airfoil and flat plate were tested as a benchmark, and then compared with serrated trailing-edge geometries. Results show that the serration geometry is effective in reducing noise and that noise radiated from the TE is at least 6 dB higher than the background noise, satisfying the requirements for aeroacoustic measurements. The ability of the trailing-edge serrations to reduce TE noise is examined through numerical optimization study. Three different serration geometries are optimized for the overall noise from 0.1 kHz to 10 kHz. The noise spectra was initially modeled using semi-empirical models by Howe, for a semi-infinite flat plate, at zero angle of attack and at low Mach numbers. The single-size sawtooth optimization study found the optimum performing TE sawtooth geometry (in terms of noise reduction), which was confirmed experimentally. The measurements confirmed that numerical optimization predicted a much larger noise reduction compared to measured values. Comparison of single-size sawtooth, slit and sinusoidal TE designs show that, while the three geometries reduced noise from a straight TE, sawtooth serrations result in larger noise reduction than single-size slit and sinusoidal………….


title: The Influence of Warmer Temperatures Brought on by Climate Change on the Mobility of Arsenic from Lake Sediments

abstract: Legacy arsenic contamination from past mining operations remains an environmental concern in lakes of Yellowknife (NWT) due to its post-depositional mobility. Warmer temperatures associated with climate change may impact arsenic diffusion from lake sediments either by direct effect on diffusion rate or indirect effects on microbial metabolism and sediment redox conditions. This thesis assessed the influence of warmer temperatures on arsenic diffusion from contaminated sediment of two lakes using an experimental incubation approach. Yellowknife Bay sediments (clay, 10 % organic matter, and arsenic = 1700 µg/g) differed from sediments of Lower Martin Lake (~70 % organic matter and arsenic = 822 µg/g). Duplicate sediment batches from each lake were incubated for four weekly temperature treatments (5 ℃ to 20 ℃ at 5 ℃ intervals) under oxygenated conditions and regularly sampled for water chemistry. Temperature had no influence on arsenic flux from either sediment type, other factors must be considered.


title: A Story Worth Remembering: Literature's Role in Simone de Beauvoir's Philosophy

abstract: This thesis explores the relationship between philosophical content and literary form in Anglo-American political theory. The Anglo-American tradition is dominated by analytical approaches to philosophical objects that cannot adequately conceptualize ambiguous elements of lived experience. To do so, the study of political theory should include means of philosophizing that embrace ambiguity, such as Simone de Beauvoir's literature. This thesis takes Beauvoir's essay The Ethics of Ambiguity and novel All Men Are Mortal as case studies in how to theorize about ambiguous concepts. It applies a combined literary and phenomenological approach to reveal how her literary devices simulate our experience of ambiguity and freedom. It contributes to discourses on ethics and the relationship between form and content while serving as a model for research in political theory interested in alternatives to analytical approaches and the pursuit of experiential truths.


title: Advanced Neural Network Modeling and Electromagnetic Optimization Approaches for Microwave Passive Components

abstract: Microwave modeling and optimization play important roles in electromagnetic (EM)-based microwave component design. This thesis first proposes a new deep neural network technique to solve high-dimensional microwave modeling. A smooth rectified linear unit (ReLU) is proposed for the new deep neural network. The proposed deep neural network employs both sigmoid functions and smooth ReLUs as activation functions. An advanced three-stage deep learning algorithm is proposed to train the new deep neural network. This algorithm can determine the number of hidden layers with sigmoid functions and those with smooth ReLUs in the training process. It can also overcome the vanishing gradient problem for training the deep neural network. The proposed deep neural network technique can solve microwave modeling problems in higher dimension than previous shallow neural networks. This thesis further proposes an advanced cognition-driven EM optimization incorporating transfer function-based feature surrogate for EM geometry optimization of microwave filters. The proposed technique addresses situations where the response at the starting point is substantially misaligned with design specifications. We propose to extract transfer function-based feature parameters to address the challenge that features cannot be clearly identified from the filter response. Multiple transfer function-based feature parameters are extracted and used to develop the feature surrogate for the proposed cognition-driven optimization. Furthermore, we derive new objective functions directly in the feature space. The proposed cognition-driven optimization method can achieve faster convergence than existing feature-assisted EM optimization methods. Moreover, this thesis further proposes an efficient EM topology optimization technique for microwave component design. The proposed technique utilizes the finite element method (FEM) for EM simulation. We propose a new method to integrate Matrix Pade via Lanczos and Householder formula so that the effort of solving large FEM matrix equations at many frequencies is reduced to the effort of solving only a small matrix problem at a single frequency point, thereby speeding up the topology optimization process. We further propose a new method to reduce the small matrix problem into an even smaller one by exploiting the inheritance pattern of genetic algorithm. Using the proposed technique, the EM topology optimization process can be greatly accelerated.


title: Deep Reinforcement Learning, LSTMs & Pointers for DL Scheduling in LTE

abstract: Downlink scheduling in LTE is an open problem for which several heuristic solutions exist. Recently, there has been an increase in interest in applying machine learning to networking problems, including downlink scheduling. Improvements in Physical Layer capabilities have generated new resource-intensive use cases and continuously modifying existing heuristic solutions could result in the development of systems too complex to maintain. We propose a LSTM/Pointer Network-based downlink scheduler which aims to improve upon the current models which utilize feed forward neural networks. Our scheduler flexibly handles changing numbers of UEs via a recurrent neural network. We integrate the channel quality indicator and the buffer size of each UE as the observation of a MDP and solve it using a Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithm. Our experiments demonstrate that our approach results in a scheduler which generalised across changing number of UEs and resource blocks and performed within the range of traditional schedulers.


title: Increased Capacity in WDM & MDM Networks Via Subwavelength Grating Engineering

abstract: As global internet coverage continues to expand, our communication networks must continually evolve to supply the necessary traffic. To meet these demands we must develop novel ways to further multiplex optical signals into the same waveguide, through schemes such as wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) and mode-division-multiplexing (MDM). Subwavelength gratings (SWGs) have become a popular avenue of research in silicon photonics, with a variety of applications that include filtering and index engineering. We first investigate a robust form of highly narrowband SWG Bragg gratings that can be used to design arbitrary transmission spectra with a fine degree of precision, which has the potential to improve the channel-density of WDM networks. Additionally, we have developed a novel fully-etched multimode bend using radially bridged SWG strips. Multimode photonic bends are one of the critical building-blocks of MDM networks, and a high-capacity bend with a small footprint is essential for further enhancing network density.


title: Essays on Structural Changes, US Business Cycles and Monetary Policy

abstract: In this thesis I study a major structural change in the US economy, namely, the consequences of the Great Moderation on the US economy and the operation of monetary policy. My first chapter explores a variety of empirical relationships on lead-lag properties of the US business cycle and how these relationships have changed since the onset of the Great Moderation. We emphasize four major changes in lead-lag properties. Since these relationships serve as a benchmark for many models of the business cycle, we examine if a variety of models can account for these changes. We find that they cannot. My second chapter provides an explanation for the first property in my first chapter, that the real interest rate switched from negatively leading the US business cycle to positively lagging. The explanation rests on the fact that uncertainty about the current state of the economy has become less severe since the onset of the Great Moderation. This allows policymakers to set monetary policy closer to their rule-based policy prescription under no uncertainty and reduce unintended monetary induced fluctuations. My third chapter explores business cycle asymmetry prior to and after the Great Moderation. I show that the business cycle has become more asymmetric since the onset of the Great Moderation with booms becoming smaller and busts staying relatively the same. I highlight that this type of asymmetry is consistent with a class of models which feature occasionally binding collateral constraints. My fourth chapter is a contribution to New Keynesian (NK) models. In a standard NK model, monetary policy operates through the real interest rate channel. This channel has recently drawn some criticism when the model is extended to include capital accumulation. In this setting it is possible for the real interest rate to fall in response to a positive monetary policy shock, contradicting the intuition of the real interest rate channel. We show that result vanishes when frictions on the flow of investment are present, as in modern NK models. Under this framework the response of the real interest rate is always the same as the monetary policy shock.


title: Farmers’ Preferences for Agri-Environmental Incentive Programs, Learning from Experiences in Ontario

abstract: Based on a literature review, an international benchmark, and a case study in Ontario, the dissertation explores farmers' preferences for agri-environmental incentive programs. We use literature in agricultural, environmental and behavioural economics, and social psychology to propose an original analytical framework of farmers' preferences. This framework is tested in Ontario and helps understand farmers' motivations to participate or not to participate in environmental incentive programs. We then review the evolution of agri-environmental programs in Ontario since the 1930s. We develop original frameworks to compare programs fostering either collaboration or competition among farmers and use these frameworks to compare Ontario programs with contrasting programs in other provinces and OECD countries. Based on program design analysis and semi-structured interviews, we identify program characteristics that matter to Ontario farmers. Through a choice experiment, we then test which characteristics matter most in farmers' decisions and segment Ontario farmers into groups of heterogeneous preferences. The dissertation decisively adopts a mixed-methodology approach. Qualitative research is used to design the choice experiment (exploratory sequential design). Open-ended questions in the experiment link farmer choice-profiles with qualitative results, thus confirming, illustrating or nuancing choice experiment findings (convergent design). Finally, the participation of informal field advisors all along the research process allows for a research design targeted on current policy questions and continuous verification of intermediate findings. We find that programs designed to be the most competitive are not necessarily the most cost-efficient because medium and long-term dimensions are not considered. We identify five farmer profiles with different preferences and attitudinal traits. While 'Business Farmers' and 'Busy Farmers' have a strong preference for high incentive levels, other types of farmers either value technical assistance above the monetary incentive, are only willing to participate if their contact point is a fellow farmer, or are largely unwilling to participate. Several farmer profiles would prefer collective approaches. We also find that preferences are endogenous. They evolve as information emerges, applications succeed or fail, engagement takes place, and farmers discuss approaches and their impacts. The concluding chapter presents, on this basis, a series of research-grounded recommendations for agri-environmental policy design in Ontario.


title: Flexi-Compression: A Flexible Model Compression Method for Autonomous Driving

abstract: Beneﬁting from the rapid development of convolutional neural networks, computer vision-based autonomous driving technologies are gradually being deployed in vehicles. However, these neural networks typically have a large number of parameters and extremely high computational costs, making them diﬃcult to deploy in autonomous vehicles with limited storage and computational power. In this paper, we propose an innovative model compression approach to compress convolutional neural networks in autonomous driving algorithms, which we call Flexi-Compression. Flexi-Compression ﬁrst modiﬁes the model structure by replacing the traditional convolutional layers with our proposed Flexi-CP module, thus reducing the computation of the convolutional layers. Then, we leverage knowledge distillation to enable the compressed model to quickly acquire the knowledge of the original model. In addition, we use a Flexi-Batch Normalization layer to prune the model and ﬁnally further reduce the model size by model quantization. We compress an autonomous driving algorithm and achieve excellent performance.


title: Learning State-Based Behavior Using Deep Neural Networks

abstract: Imitation learning is a supervised learning problem that involves training a model to perform a task in a given environment using demonstrations of an expert. In this thesis, we propose 5 metrics to evaluate the performance of imitation learning agents. We compare state-of-the-art imitation learning models to deep neural networks at imitating state-based and reactive behavior. To compare the imitation learning techniques, we use two partially observable domains: the continuous RoboCup domain and the discrete Vacuum Cleaner domain. We show how our proposed metrics provide us with more qualitative information about the performance of imitation learners when imitating state-based behavior compared to state-of-the-art metrics. In addition, we show how our testing methodology provides results that resemble the eye-test that current testing methodologies fail to provide. We also show how Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks outperform state-of-the-art models at imitating state-based behavior in the RoboCup soccer domain.


title: The South African Information Service and English-Canadian Journalism, 1949-1960

abstract: The Nationalist Government of South Africa, from its first days in office in 1948, was obsessed with its poor image on the world stage. Blaming the foreign press, the Nationalists established a program of propaganda aimed at addressing the issue. Canada was one of nine countries targeted by South Africa's Information Service from 1949. This thesis illustrates the efforts of the Service, operating under the South African Department of Foreign Affairs, to change the narrative of Canadian newspapers about South Africa, and the reaction of the Canadian journalists to those efforts. It examines how the Service, from its inception until the events following Sharpeville in 1960, confronted journalists at Canada's progressive English language newspapers, and moved against Norman Phillips, a Canadian foreign correspondent reporting from South Africa.


title: Seismic Analysis of Unreinforced Masonry Structures with Plan Irregularities

abstract: Unreinforced masonry (URM) is inherently vulnerable to seismic forces due to its minimal ability to resist tensile forces. Typical structural design features in URM buildings such as torsional irregularities and re-entrant corners increase this vulnerability. This thesis seeks to address the seismic vulnerability of URM structures due to plan irregularities and to contribute to the structural engineering knowledge required to lessen the need for new construction by supporting the reuse, rehabilitation, and ongoing maintenance of existing buildings. A comparative analysis based on the results of nonlinear static and incremental dynamic analyses was carried out on numerical models representing URM structures with plan irregularities typical in Ottawa, Canada. The results from these analyses determined that damages to the structure and the probability of collapse of the structure were reduced overall with the minimization of torsion and full lateral support of the re-entrant corners in the modelled structures.


title: Methyl Epigenetic Mechanisms in the Freeze-Tolerance Response of Rana Sylvatica Nervous Tissue

abstract: Wood frog freeze tolerance is a classic example of metabolic rate depression (MRD), which facilitates reprioritization of minimal anaerobic resources to pro-survival pathways. Global gene expression is consequentially suppressed due, in part, to transcriptional controls, yet specific mechanisms have received little attention. Methylation of DNA and histone lysine residues are common epigenetic mechanisms associated with control of transcription and thus are implicated in MRD. However, preliminary findings appear tissue- and species-specific while research into nervous tissues is lacking. This thesis tracks the expression/activity of key methyl epigenetic modifiers and selected targets across the wood frog freeze-thaw cycle and associated sub-stresses. This thesis provides strong evidence for H3K9 and DNA hypomethylation during brain freeze recovery, largely correlated with expression of catalyzing enzymes. Non-histone roles are also suggested. Alleviation of repressive epigenetic controls likely contribute to a resumed permissive transcriptional state and may induce the activity of essential repair pathways during thawing.


title: The effect of victim race on jurors’ perceptions of lethal use of force

abstract: In recent years, a number of highly-publicized lethal police use of force (UoF) encounters have occurred in both Canada and the United States, sparking several social movements and causing public debate about officer accountability. The primary aim of this project is to increase our understanding of jurors' legal decision-making in trials involving police UoF by exploring what jurors discuss during deliberations in simulated trials and evaluating whether the race of the victim affects individual verdicts and deliberation content. Canadian jury eligible participants (N = 78) watched and listened to a fictional trial involving a police officer charged with manslaughter. The victim's race was manipulated to be either White or Indigenous. After rendering individual pre-deliberation verdicts, participants took part in a 60-minute deliberation session, then rendered individual post-deliberation verdicts. Study 1 investigated the relationship between victim race, jurors' perceived police legitimacy, and individual verdict decisions. Although victim race did not have a statistically significant effect on pre-deliberation verdicts, the odds of jurors rendering a guilty post-deliberation verdict was more than 16 times higher when the victim was White as opposed to Indigenous. Study 2 investigated how victim race and police legitimacy relate to the deliberation content of the juries. Analyses indicated that both of these variables play a significant role in jury deliberations. Specifically, jurors were significantly more likely to provide "anti-defendant" and "pro-prosecution" utterances when the victim was White, as compared to Indigenous. Additionally, jurors with negative perceptions of police were significantly more likely to utter "anti-defendant" statements. Overall, this study suggests that, contrary to the assumption of the Canadian legal system, victim race influences legal decision-making in trials involving officer UoF.


title: The End of Respectability Politics:  The United States Civil Rights Movement, Liberalism and The Vietnam War

abstract: This thesis explores the interplay between the US Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War and Liberalism. It examines the positions civil rights leaders and the most significant civil rights organizations of the 1960s took on the Vietnam conflict, and tries to make sense of their connection to the liberal project. By charting the long history of African Americans' engagement in the US wars and exploring how they were influenced by anti-colonialist/anti-imperialist leaders and movements around the world, I seek to understand what ultimately informed the stances that the most prominent civil rights actors of the era assumed during the Vietnam conflict and why the war proved to be such a seminal moment for African Americans and their relationship with the state.


title: On Applying the Critical Thermal Maxima Method to Investigate Ecologically-Relevant Questions in Wild Fishes

abstract: The role of temperature in mediating the behaviour and physiology of fishes is becoming more apparent, as climate change exacerbates the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Among the many methods used to estimate upper thermal limits, the Critical Thermal Maxima method has been the dominant approach partially due to its relative simplicity in experimental design. However, several concerns have been raised about the ecological relevance of this method, particularly due to the use of rapid rates of thermal ramping. In this thesis, I begin by reviewing the ecological relevance of CTmax. I discuss methodological concerns and limitations, while outlining opportunities to address these concerns and apply CTmax in an ecologically-relevant way. I then provide an example of a field-based study that evaluates the role of CTmax estimates in accounting for variation in life-history traits and fitness in a semi-anadromous population of juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta).


title: "Divided Kingdom, 561" A Case Study: Communicating Historical Narratives Through Board Games

abstract: This thesis explores the potential of communicating complex ideas about the past through board games. The thesis will start with exploring and defining its theoretical understanding of historical narratives and procedural rhetoric. Then, the thesis will continue with how other scholars have discussed the role of and potential that games have in the imparting of historical knowledge. Using this established methodology and theory of game-based learning, this thesis will analyze three historical board games for their ability to impart historical understanding. After the analysis of the three case studies this thesis will showcase an annotated version of the rules for the historical board game: Divided Kingdom, 561 which was created for this thesis. In the annotated rulebook, and design journal that follows it, the author elaborates on the game's intention as a pedagogical tool and how it is designed to communicate historical understanding of sixth century Frankish Gaul.


title: Improving the Fire-Resistance Rating of Concrete Masonry Walls Through the Use of Insulations : An Experimental and Numerical Study

abstract: For non-loadbearing applications, the 15 cm blocks are usually used. They are lightweight, easy to install, and are cost-effective. The fire-resistance rating of the 15 cm block is about 1 h, while that of a 20 cm block is about 2 h. This reduced fire-resistance rating is due to smaller cells which leads to more convective and radiative heat transfer inside of the block cells, as well as the reduced face cells that cause the blocks to heat up quicker. With the use of lightweight insulation materials as cell fillers, an improvement in the fire-resistance rating was achieved for the 15 cm block. These materials were able to reduce the convective and radiative heat transfer in the cells. For the experimental and numerical analysis carried out, vermiculite, and gypsum were able to improve the fire ratings by at least 1h.


title: Investigating a Link Between Cold Stress and Bacterial Leak from the Gut of Locusta Migratoria

abstract: Following prolonged low temperature exposure, chill-susceptible insects can incur chilling injuries that manifest as motor deficits and tissue damage. This is thought to be a driven by a loss of ion and water homeostasis partly resulting from gut leak of solutes. The insect gut, however, also houses an abundant microbial community. Recent studies have reported immune activation following cold stress in insects, which has yet to be fully explained. Here, I hypothesize that prolonged cold stress results in immune activation as a result of bacterial leakage across the gut and into the surrounding fluid of locusts, using fluorescent bacteria as a marker to test it. Surprisingly, no leakage of the fluorescent bacteria was observed regardless of cold exposure duration. My research suggests that gut barrier integrity is maintained after cold stresses, and this open up other possible explanations as to why cold-induced immune activation occurs in insects.


title: "Your Most Affectionate Good Sister": Rhetoric, Diplomacy and Self-Presentation in the Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots

abstract: This research essay examines letters of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, showing her as an accomplished rhetorician. Mary's letters have gone largely unexamined by scholars, despite the new interest in the writing of women in the early modern period. On her letters she used appeals to kinship, emphasis on rank, calls to shared religion and expressions of emotion in order to support specific objectives for her letters. The flexibility and variety of the rhetoric contained within the letters from across her life show Mary to be an accomplished and competent rhetorician. The epistolary exchanges examined in this thesis were essential in maintaining Mary's diplomatic networks both during her reign and after her abdication. The letters examined in this thesis come from both published collections of Mary's letters from the nineteenth century and from original transcriptions of archival material of letters than have not been previously published or examined.


title: An Investigation Of Weak Amenability Of Hyperbolic Groups

abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to prove that countable finitely-generated hyperbolic groups are weakly amenable. Precisely, the definition of weak amenability is as follows: Let \Gamma be a countable discrete group. We say \Gamma is weakly amenable with constant C if there exist a sequence of finitely supported functions from \Gamma to the complex numbers which converge pointwise to 1, and the CB-norms are uniformly bounded above by C. We interpret weak amenability as there exists an approximate identity whose CB-norm is uniformly bounded by C. The proof of the statement actually draws on many areas of mathematics. In this thesis, we give a quick treatment of the necessary background information before moving onto the associated propositions, lemmas, and theorems used in the proof.


title: Validation of a Novel General Cavity Theory Formalism

abstract: For many years cavity ionization chambers have been the preferred detectors for measuring absorbed dose from ionizing radiation. Cavity theory formalisms relate the detector signal to a dose in the surrounding medium. Common cavity theories are straightforward to calculate but make limiting assumptions about charged particle fluences in the chamber and the medium. The choices that make them accurate are conceptually ambiguous and unrelated to physics fifirst principles. This prohibits their general application across a wide range of physical conditions. A novel general cavity theory is introduced which addresses some of the previous limiting assumptions of existing formalisms by explicitly determining the perturbation of charged particles in the medium due to the chamber cavity. This cavity theory removes the ambiguity and derives from fifirst principles at the expense of increased complexity. The formalism converges to the Spencer-Attix cavity theory in the limit of Bragg-Gray conditions and to the ratio of mass-energy absorption coeffcients in the large cavity limit. The EGSnrc Monte Carlo simulation software is used to determine the expected dose ratios from full chamber dose calculations and to generate the input quantities to the novel formalism with regard to the air kerma formalism under Fano conditions. For 1.25 MeV incident photons the formalism is within 0.1% of full chamber calculated dose ratios for materials with atomic numbers 4 < Z < 29, between 0.2-0.7% at 300 keV, and between 0.8-5.3% at 50 keV. Formalism dose ratios calculated from cobalt-60, and 120 kVp x-ray, spectra showed similar agreement with full chamber calculated dose ratios as the mono-energetic cases. This new cavity theory is shown to be fifive times more accurate, on average, than Spencer-Attix for cavity heights of 1.39 mm, and 2.3 times more accurate, on average, for cavity heights of 0.15 mm in 24 comparisons. Over all materials and incident energies investigated the new cavity theory tracks the trend of dose ratios as cavity size changes from 0.1 mm to 10 mm in height. Restrictions imposed by previous cavity theories are removed by this novel formalism derivation and it shows promise as a confirmation of modern Monte Carlo dose calculation methods.


title: Development From Within: An In-Service Public Transit Narrative

abstract: We identify some of the underlying processes that support decision-making activities undertaken by three public transit stakeholders in Ottawa, and evaluate perceived usability of the proposed technological component of a novel public transit decision-making information system: a database query and results visualization tool (i.e., a cybercartographic atlas prototype). We highlight significant vulnerabilities in existing public transit decision-making processes, including the presence of common biases and heuristics, wherever human judgment is exercised. Our prototype is designed to handle the collection, organization, and visualization of public sentiment (i.e., Twitter data), and [theoretically] uses the Nunaliit Cybercartographic Atlas Framework as the underlying database. In remote usability-testing sessions, we diagnose two system-wide user interface issues that require immediate design solutions and report a mean system usability score of 90.4 with five participants. We discuss the notions of choice architecture and nudging as important design considerations that can improve precision in predictive judgments.


title: The Right to the City, The New Municipalism and the Feminist Politics of the Commons: Contributions and Challenges from Mexico City, Barcelona and Beyond

abstract: As contested spaces, urban settings express the complex dynamics of exploitation, oppression, and emancipation. Building on long-standing struggles, the right to the city and the new municipalist movements have been creating new imaginaries and material realities that foster the commons and confront privatization, gentrification, and exclusion. From Mexico City to Barcelona and beyond, this thesis analyzes the transformative agendas that multi-sectorial and multi-scalar alliances are putting forward as part of pedagogical-political processes of articulation and differentiation. Within a framework that combines the rights in the city, the rights of the city and the right to the city, I propose to conceptualize the right to (transform) the city as a tridimensional narrative-in-practice. Explicit feminist and decolonial lenses help me to identify some of the most salient limitations and potentials of these initiatives, opening up questions and paths for further dialogue and collaboration across academic fields and social action.


title: Why Different Powers Behave Similarly: A Neoclassical Realist Approach to American and Canadian Engagements in Afghanistan 2001-14

abstract: Over twenty years passed since American and Canadian forces arrived in Afghanistan to start the War on Terrorism as a response to 9/11, and during this period, there has been an enormous controversy about the nature and the scope of the Afghanistan intervention. Amidst this controversy, this dissertation aims to unravel a strategic puzzle: why and how the United States and Canada adopted similar engagement levels, especially similar counterinsurgency (COIN) strategies between 2005/2006 and 2011. During this time, the United States and Canada fought against insurgent groups, sought to maintain stabilized areas by mentoring Afghan forces, and invested in infrastructure and governance. These goals, which corresponded to the 'clear,' 'hold,' and 'build' COIN components, entailed sending troops and civilian officials to a war zone and committing financial resources. According to structural realism as a dominant IR theory, the similarity of American and Canadian engagements constitutes a puzzle because this theory would expect that countries with different relative standings in the international system are meant to adopt different foreign and security policies. To unravel this puzzle, this dissertation uses neoclassical realism. Like a realist theory, it examines the effects of relative material capabilities on foreign policy, which is an essential factor in comparing American and Canadian foreign and security policies. Yet, unlike structural realism, it considers dimensions other than states' relative standing, such as perceptions and domestic politics, which, along with the relative standing, help to unpack the puzzle above. Based on this theory, the central argument of this dissertation is that the similarity of American and Canadian engagements resulted from similar systemic stimuli from the post-9/11 strategic environment, foreign policy executives' (FPE) similar strategic beliefs, and comparable abilities to mobilize domestic resources. By showing the occurrence of factors on both American and Canadian sides bringing about the outcome above, this dissertation seeks to undermine the ideas of the "Americanization" of Canadian foreign and security policy and the syndrome of "parochialism" of the United States regarding its Northern neighbour.


title: Dyadic Associations between Body Mass Index, Stress and Type 2 Diabetes Complications

abstract: Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) can result in complications, including kidney problems or cardiovascular disease. Intrapersonal risk factors such as body mass index (BMI) and stress have been associated with increased odds of developing T2DM complications. However, little is known about interpersonal risk factors. The present study aimed to test associations among partner's BMI, partner's stress and T2DM complications development among married couples in which one partner has diabetes and if negative marital quality moderates these associations. Data (n=274) came from the Health and Retirement Study. BMI, stress, diabetes status and complications were self-reported at baseline (2006). Complications were assessed every two years from 2008-2016. Data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Unadjusted and adjusted models revealed no associations among partner BMI, partner stress, and incident T2DM complications, p>0.05. Furthermore, marital quality did not moderate these associations, p>0.05. Future research should consider other interpersonal risk factors onto intrapersonal health outcomes.


title: Susceptibility Modelling of Space-Time Modulated Metasurfaces

abstract: Electromagnetic metasurfaces (MSs) present a challenge for modelling and numerical simulations, as they are inherently "multi-scale". Thus, equivalent models—namely zero-thickness sheets described by surface susceptibilities—are usually employed for numerical simulations. At the same time, space-time varying media have received interest in the past years due to the exciting phenomena they facilitate (e.g. non-reciprocity). This thesis primarily considers the intersection of these two research directions: the modelling of MSs with periodic variation in space and/or time, allowing a Floquet expansion to be used to calculate scattered fields in an efficient way. This thesis also presents susceptibility extractions for some canonical structures, including a ground plane with a dielectric cover layer. Finally, experimental results are shown for MSs which were fabricated, operating in the Ka-band, as a demonstration of the developed Floquet method. These were measured using a near-field (NF) system developed at Carleton University, as a contribution of this thesis.


title: sEMG-Based Lower Limb Intention Detection using Artificial Intelligence and its Impact on Assistive Human-Robot Interaction

abstract: People with mobility-related disabilities can observe improvements in their quality of life by incorporating rehabilitation and assistive devices. To be compliant to users' needs, such robots should be intelligent to the users' intention to be able to adapt to their needs. A surface Electromyography (sEMG)-based lower limb intention-detection model is studied to augment human-robot interaction by detecting subjects' walking direction prior-to or during walking. Ten Classical Machine Learning-based models with Subject-Exclusive/Generalized strategies and a Deep Learning-based Convolutional Neural Network with an advanced transfer learning methodology (Subject-Adaptive), are employed to detect direction intentions and evaluate inter-subject robustness in one knee/foot-gesture and three walking-related scenarios. In each, sEMG signals are collected from eight muscles of nine subjects during five trials of at least nine distinct gestures/activities. The proper augmentation method of the model in an HRI controller is studied in a computer-simulated environment with IMU and sEMG data collected from subjects.


title: Dynamic Aeroelastic Performance Optimization of Adaptive Aerospace Structures Employing Structural Geometric Nonlinearities

abstract: This thesis proposes a framework for the design optimization of geometric nonlinearities developed by active elements embedded in truss-like aerospace structures for the purpose of attenuating their dynamic aeroelastic response under turbulent aerodynamic gust conditions. Dynamic aeroelastic responses are analyzed considering random Power Spectral Density (PSD) and Tuned Discrete Gust (TDG) excitation profiles. MSC NASTRAN is employed for the development of the dynamic aeroelastic models where the random PSD gust with a continuous Davenport spectrum (DS) and the TDG with a One-minus cosine (OMC) wind excitation profiles are developed. A multi-objective genetic optimization algorithm (MOGA) is utilized to determine optimal prestress values through active element actuations for the purpose of tuning the geometric stiffness and therefore modal response of the structure when exposed to gust excitations. Two case studies are presented to minimize the pointing error of both a simplified and high-fidelity Earth-based very-long baseline interferometry antenna structure.


title: Pathways from the Semi-Periphery: The Cases of Japan (1853-1905) and Tonga (1770-1900) in the Modern World System

abstract: This dissertation examines the issue of societal change due to semi-peripheral action, and asks why it is that some societies managed to avoid colonization at the hand of the western powers during the colonial period. The issues at hand include the question of how to bound world-systems in order to determine when a society fully enters the modern world-system which Immanuel Wallerstein describes as a bounded entity that constitutes a social system based on capitalism. In addition, the issues include the question of core/periphery structure - that is the position of a given society in the modern world-system, and the question of agency that a given society is able to exercise when being incorporated into the modern world-system. This dissertation uses the empirical case studies of Japan and Tonga in order to propose an explanatory framework of semi-peripheral change that explains why some societies were colonized and others were not. This dissertation argues that each society was semi-peripheral at the point in which they were incorporated into the modern system, and because adaptability is a key feature of semi-peripheral action, these two societies were able to avoid colonization. This dissertation argues that societies that transform their dominant mode of production by creating a developmental state while also transforming their political systems in order to conform to Westphalian notions of the nation-state were able to adapt to the modern world-system, and were able to not only avoid colonization, but were able to set themselves on the path to eventual core status. Those societies that only opted for political change but did not transform their mode of production avoided colonization, but were relegated to the extreme periphery of the modern world-system. Societies that did neither were colonized and became peripheralized. This dissertation aims to be a contribution to world-systems theory that examines change in the world-system.


title: Diasporic Experiences of Everyday Multiculturalism: Navigating Race and Space Through African Women's Beauty Practices

abstract: Abstract This thesis examines how everyday multiculturalism and the African diaspora mutually interact to shape racialization processes in multiple spaces, both public and private, through an exploration of African women's beauty practices. Five main social spaces relevant to African women's diasporic experiences of everyday multiculturalism are analysed throughout the thesis including the self, the home, the church, social media, and the workplace. Blending analytic categories of everyday multiculturalism with the African diaspora while incorporating concepts from critical race theory, the public-private dichotomy, the women-as-nation premise, and feminist insights on agency, this thesis makes three central arguments. Firstly, I argue the dynamic interplay between everyday multiculturalism and the African diaspora simultaneously reconstitutes social spaces by creating rich combinations of complex experiences that challenge and redefine what the "public" and "private" mean in various spaces through new meanings of race, beauty, class, pan-African nationalism, multiculturalism, sexuality, and gender. Secondly, I argue everyday multiculturalism and the African diaspora simultaneously structure racialization processes so that African women's racialized identities are layered, formed, and informed by a new African diaspora community within Canada, local nationalist and postcolonial racial formations, Canadian discourses of multiculturalism, and globalized meanings of Blackness. Furthermore, racialization processes are constantly shifting across social spaces so that women creatively juggle different racialized identities by creating hybrid iterations, of being African and Black, that are complex and multilayered. Lastly, I argue everyday multiculturalism and the African diaspora interact in paradoxical fashion to produce a conception of agency reflective of simultaneous articulations including accommodation and resistance. The ways women use their beauty practices to navigate race and space thus reveal the context dependent manifestations of different expressions of agency in the public and private. This complex dynamic makes it difficult to neatly generalize African women as either completely agentive or completely oppressed in any given space. Keywords: African Diaspora, Agency, Beauty, Canadian Society, Everyday Multiculturalism, Race, Social Spaces


title: Research and Development of Porting SYCL on QNX Operating System for High Parallelism

abstract: With the development of hardware technologies, computing devices are becoming increasingly varied and result in the heterogeneity of hardware, so SYCL has gained popularity on incorporating parallel computing frameworks. Although many computing frameworks, such as OpenCL and CUDA, can benefit to heterogeneous computing, they increase the complexity of cross-platform deployment and reduce productivity due to low portability. By comparison, SYCL allows programmers to write parallel applications in the standard C++ syntax across vendor-specific hardware. However, despite the popularity of SYCL on Windows and Linux, there is little research on porting SYCL to QNX, a real-time operating system (RTOS). Therefore, we choose two SYCL implementations in our experiments and also build a new path of calling OpenCL APIs in SYCL-GTX and significantly improve kernel compilation in SYCL-GTX. Although the overall performance of SYCL-GTX on QNX is evaluated on Linux, our experiments demonstrate that many possible optimizations can improve SYCL-GTX on QNX.


title: Associations between Positive Psychological Well-Being, Psychological Distress, and Physical Activity among Adults with Diabetes

abstract: Positive psychological well-being (PPWB) is associated with physical activity above and beyond psychological distress among adults. The purpose of this study was to determine if this association holds among people with diabetes. Data came from a subset of participants in the Whitehall 2 study who participated in an accelerometer sub-study and self reported having diabetes (n = 112). Baseline data (2007-2009) of PPWB, psychological distress, and diabetes status were self-reported; physical activity was directly measured via accelerometer at follow-up (2012-2013). In adjusted models, PPWB was not associated with physical activity among people with diabetes, β = 1.73, p = .098. Exploratory analyses indicated that diabetes status did not moderate associations between PPWB and physical activity. Results suggest that PPWB may not play a role in physical activity among adults with diabetes. Future research should test other positive psychological factors that are associated with physical activity among adults with diabetes.


title: Constructing a Career: An Investigation of the Career Construction Model of Adaptation in Recent Graduates

abstract: The transition from university to the workforce can be a daunting experience for many university graduates, due, at least in part, to an increasingly competitive, and often unstable labour market. Using a retrospective recall design, the current study tested some of the key theoretical assumptions of the career construction model of adaptation in the context of the school-to-work transition with a sample of 303 recent university graduates. The results showed that career adaptability resources mediated the relationship between adaptivity and adapting responses. Career adaptability was also positively related to perceived career success and person-job fit perceptions; this positive relationship was partially mediated by proactive career behaviours. Overall, these findings support the career construction model of adaptation and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of career construction theory and the school-to-work transition process. Keywords: Career construction model of adaptation; Career adaptability; Career construction theory; school-to-work transition.


title: Investigating the Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-entry’s (DRAOR) Ability to Operate as a Weighted Risk Prediction Instrument

abstract: Dynamic risk and protective factors refer to a collection of psychosocial variables that have been empirically linked to an increased or decreased likelihood of engaging in future criminal behaviour. Monitoring such factors is, therefore, a vital task in the post-incarceration community reintegration process. The current study examined whether weighting could augment the discrimination of the Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-entry (DRAOR; Serin, 2007, 2015, 2017), a promising case management instrument composed of dynamic risk and protective factors, in two samples of general justice involved individuals drawn from New Zealand (n = 3,648) and Iowa (n = 510). Two weighting approaches were investigated across subscales, outcomes, assessment periods, and samples. Although weighting did not significantly improve discrimination in either sample, the present research provides further support of the DRAOR's utility as a risk prediction and case management tool.


title: Essays on the Importance of Gender, Sectoral Assignment and Post-Migration Education for Earnings Dynamics

abstract: This thesis is comprised of three essays that examine factors influencing labour market experiences and the impact of diversity for firm performance. Chapter 1 explores whether corporate boardroom gender diversity deters opportunistic behaviour in financial reporting in periods of uncertainty. Earnings management arises because the accrual accounting method leads to earnings potentially being presented in a way which gives an excessively positive view of a firm's financial position. Using a firm fixed effects model, I find that having two female directors is associated with lower discretionary accruals and, thus, greater corporate income. Yet, gender diversity does not always deter opportunistic behaviour in financial reporting during periods of uncertainty when CEO / CFO wealth is tied to the value of a firm's shares. Chapter 2 contributes to the literature by using data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) to explore public-private sector wage differentials in Canada in the period from 1993 to 2010. I find strong evidence for the existence of a public sector wage premium and show that controlling for union coverage or firm size can reduce the estimated public sector wage premium. Additionally, the public sector pays some workers who are likely to experience discrimination based on their race or sex relatively more than they would have earned if they had worked in the private sector. Chapter 3 uses data from the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database (CEEDD) to analyze the earnings returns immigrants obtain from investments in post-secondary education (PSE) after their arrival in Canada. PSE enrollment is found to increase the annual earnings of both men and women. Earnings returns are larger for immigrants admitted in the Skilled Worker category relative to Family Class immigrants and Refugees and increase with the level of education at landing. Immigrants from non-traditional source countries generally have larger earnings returns than immigrants from English language source countries. Further, earnings returns are higher when immigrants build human capital through both PSE and work experience; returns from PSE rise with time since the most recent study period; and earnings growth from PSE is not biased by out-migration.


title: A Hybrid Learning Approach for Modelling and Analyzing Clickstream Data from Learning Management Systems

abstract: In this research, a hybrid approach combining a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) with a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network (RNN) is introduced to model real-time online feedback to students when completing academic activities using online Learning Management Systems (LMS). The solution provided is a Smart Classifier which unravels, and processes hidden patterns in the data to train appropriate metrics to raise flags indicating outlier student behavior based on historical data from previous and ongoing sessions. This work introduces an approach that facilitates modifications of the attention mechanism in Transformer models. Using this approach, the predictor module of the proposed solution is improved. The key element of this improvement is to use a Bayesian Graph Network (BGN) coupled to a Transformer. As a novelty, this method provides a systematic customization of the attention mechanism in Transformer models that can be applied to a range of problems involving clickstream data.


title: Evaluative Attitudes of Sexual Aggression Towards Women from Men Who Commit Sexually Aggressive Acts Towards Women

abstract: It is well-documented in theory and in research that evaluative attitudes predict subsequent behaviour, however the association of evaluative attitudes and sexually aggressive behaviour have been scarcely researched. The given research investigated the association of evaluative attitudes of sexual aggression towards women and the perpetration of sexual aggression towards women using a newer version of an evaluative attitudes of sexual aggression towards women measure (the EASAW). EASAW mean scores of those with a history of sexual violence towards women and those without a history of sexual violence towards women were compared, with no significant differences and small effect sizes found. Future research should continue to investigate this relationship that address shortcomings of this study, such as: more diverse samples and experimental manipulation.


title: An Inverse Model-based Approach to Estimate Air Infiltration in Commercial Buildings using Occupant-generated CO2 and Humidity

abstract: Monitoring air infiltration continuously is of great importance to detect building envelope degradation over time. However, environmental factors often make the accurate measurement of air infiltration challenging. Further, fan pressurization and tracer gas tests possess certain drawbacks limiting their applicability in commercial buildings. Thus, this research proposes a low-cost inverse model-based approach for estimating infiltration rates by using existing carbon dioxide (CO2) and humidity data. The laboratory tracer gas tests were carried out to explore the effectiveness of replacing sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) with CO2. A field study was conducted using both CO2 and water vapour. The historical CO2 and humidity data were also used to train the model. At last, air handling unit (AHU) return air CO2 concentration data were utilized to demonstrate this novel approach. The results indicated that the proposed method could conveniently lend itself to estimate air infiltration rates at a reasonable accuracy using existing sensor data.


title: The Stories We Tell: Making Sense of Gender, Transition, and the Centrality of Relationships

abstract: What does it mean to be trans? What brings some of us to medically transition? This thesis contributes to a better understanding of trans lives. More specifically, my work attends to how we situate ourselves within others' stories to determine validity and humanity. Motivated by my own experiences of making sense of gender and medically transitioning in my youth, my research considers how the dominant stories of gender inform how trans adults in North America make sense of their own genders and transition. These stories and orientations are enmeshed with relationships and relationships vary. This variation is not because of any one identifiable thing. These variations tell us things about the way we see and think about gender, as well as our orientations to it. This thesis is a call for research on transition to return to considering what gender means, starting from the perspective of trans lives and voices.