identifier: Toffanin, Melissa  (2012) Three Essays in Corporate Finance.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

title: Three Essays in Corporate Finance

abstract:
This thesis examines two issues in corporate finance. The first two essays examine the influence of ownership structure on the relationship between ownership and firm value. The third essay examines the influence of an IPO on a firm’s lending arrangements.

In the first essay, we examine the influence of the presence of multiple blockholders on ownership-firm value relationship. Additional blockholders can either form a coalition with or monitor the largest individual blockholder. We hypothesize that both of these alternatives will influence the shape of the observed ownership-firm value relationship and the choice will be influenced by blockholder identity. We find that while individual blockholders tend to form a coalition, corporate blockholders tend to monitor. We also find that the coalition formation effect is more pronounced in non-founder firms. Our results suggest that the relationship between the ownership of the largest individual blockholder and firm value critically depends on both the presence and identity of additional blockholders.

In the second essay, we examine the influence of ownership structure on the observed relationship between inside ownership and firm value. We document the predominant type of this relationship for different types of ownership structures. Samples of firms with predominately individual blockholders tend to generate a convex relationship, while those with corporate presence generate a concave one. Thus, we find a much wider spectrum of inside ownership-firm value relationships than reported in prior studies. We show that much of the disagreement regarding the aforementioned relationship can be attributed to differing ownership structures of sample firms.

In the third essay, we examine changes in covenants and yields of bank loans around IPO and link them to the changes in the extent of loan syndication. We document significant changes in lending arrangements around IPO and show there are significant reductions in both covenant intensity and yields around a firm’s IPO. The decline in yields is driven primarily by firms that switch to syndicated loans after IPO. Our results suggest that, by allowing more firms to access the syndicated loan market, IPOs are influential in determining the covenants and yields on post-IPO bank loans.


identifier: Mohiuddin, Mohammad  (2012) Effect of Pressure and Temperature on Electrical Conductivity of CNT-PEEK Composites.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

abstract:
This thesis investigates the effect of pressure and temperature on electrical conductivity of CNT-PEEK composites. The nanocomposites were manufactured using a co-rotating intermeshing twin screw extruder and the samples of required size and shape were fabricated by compression molding. Electrical properties of the nanocomposite samples were measured by Dielectric Analyzer (DEA) and a detailed analysis is presented in the framework of percolation theory. It was identified that nanotube contact resistance due to the formation of a thin insulating polymer layer around carbon nanotubes plays an important role in determining the overall conductivity of the samples. Detailed analysis of this contact resistance is presented based on experimental results in combination with theoretical models.

To investigate the effect of temperature and pressure on electrical conductivity, highly conductive samples with three different nanotube weight concentrations (8%, 9% and 10%) were selected. Metallic coatings (gold/silver epoxy) are conventionally used as electrodes to measure electrical conductivity at ordinary temperature and pressure. To measure electrical conductivity of these samples at elevated pressure and temperature, a new technique was developed to measure DC electrical conductivity by introducing a conductive copper mesh. Change of electrical conductivity of the samples was investigated under application of high compression, high temperature and a combination of both. Conduction mechanisms for both pressure and temperature were discussed on the basis of experimental findings. It was found that electrical conductivity increases up to a certain level due to application of both pressure and temperature. The effect was more significant at lower pressure and temperature. In the case of repeated loading-unloading and heating-cooling cycles, hysteresis and electrical set were observed. The pressure always acts favorably in increasing electrical conductivity while the effect of temperature was found to be complex, controlled by parameters that counteract each other, especially when it was heated above the glass transition temperature and the nanotube content was high. Two possible mechanisms, namely, ‘conduction by electron transport (nanotube contact)’ and ‘conduction by electron tunneling’ were identified to explain such contradicting behavior. Sensitivity of the samples was also checked for possible application as sensor.


identifier: Sheppard, Patricia  (2012) Lady Caroline Bucknall Estcourt’s Album: Revealing the Expressive Discourse Concealed within a Victorian Cultural Artifact.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Albums, defined when new by their barrenness, have long served as welcoming repositories for words, pictures and keepsakes. They are cultural artifacts that leave behind traces of a rhetorical impulse to express oneself in a wide range of topics including family, social, political and economic concerns. It is only recently, however, that scholars have begun to recognize their potential as a source for academic research.
Lady Bucknall Estcourt, a British aristocratic military wife, worked on such an album for nearly forty years (1837-1875), five of which were spent accompanying her husband during two military postings in Canada. Despite the lack of overtly personal content and the initial impression of randomness conveyed by the materials within the album, a detailed analysis reveals the presence of a coherent, vital, and very personal narrative. What is intriguing is that this has been accomplished as much through the absence as through the presence of its creator. Using a variety of coding techniques, she memorialized important events of her life. She engaged with the important discourses of her era by making her husband’s military career and, by extension, Great Britain’s much larger imperial project important subjects of her album. Through my work of decoding, this thesis sheds new light on how one aristocratic Victorian woman used the material and visual culture at her disposal to express her own identity. By understanding the how, it has been possible to gain insight into the what, the impact of the broader concerns of an era on one woman, and thus to provide a uniquely feminine perspective.


identifier: Rowghanian, Pooya  (2012) Improvement of Temperature Distribution across Thick Thermoset Composites Using Carbon Nanotubes.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The effect of adding carbon nanotubes (CNT) into epoxy on the temperature gradient in thick thermoset composites was studied and presented. Addition of CNT increases the thermal diffusivity of the resin and reduces the curing reaction speed. The latter slows down the rate of energy liberation, while the former helps to dissipate faster the released heat in the exothermic reaction. The results showed that the addition of up to 1 wt% CNT can reduce the difference between temperatures at the center and at the surface of 1.5-inch thick column of epoxy by 41%. Measured variations of heat capacity and thermal diffusivity by changes in both temperature and carbon nanotube contents as well as the empirically-evaluated cure kinetics of epoxy were used in a transient one-dimensional heat transfer finite difference model to determine the temperature distribution across thickness during the cure. Good agreement was obtained between calculated and experimental trends.


identifier: Cann, Stacey E.  (2012) The Identity of the Curator and Educator: A phenomenological analysis of the curation of Postcards From Home.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis explores the hybrid pedagogical identities of curator and educator, specifically where they overlap, converge, and conflict in the curation of an art exhibition. In this study, I curated an exhibition locating my identity and enacting the hybrid identity of educator, artist, and curator.  I constructed a phenomenological text as an account of the connections and disconnections between the role of the educator and curator. The tension between inclusivity and exclusivity in the arts is discussed as a major tension between these roles, as well as didactic versus open-ended pedagogical strategies.
The phenomenological account of the curation of the exhibition Postcards From Home at Ste. Emilie Skillshare in Montreal, Quebec was used as the data for this study, as well as interviews with audience members and participating artists.


identifier: Boisvert, Michel  (2011) Strategies for Untargeted Biomarker Discovery in Biological Fluids.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The health status of an organism modulates the dynamic and complex interplay of biochemical species that make-up the body and fluids of the organism.  As such, these biological fluids are routinely used for diagnostic testing, yet they are often not used to their full potential. For instance, amniotic fluid (AF), the fluid that surrounds the fetus during gestation, is collected primarily for genetic testing from women with identified risk factors. The AF proteome and/or metabolome are seldom considered and represent a largely untapped wealth of relevant clinical information. Extensive, multi-analyte data can be collected from biological samples with modern analytical instrumentation. However, sophisticated data preprocessing and analysis (i.e. chemometrics) are required to reveal the relationships between the biochemical signals and the health status. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that untargeted biomarker discovery strategies can be efficiently applied to the task of finding novel biomarkers and complement the traditional hypothesis driven approaches.
In the work underlying this thesis, a chemometric data analysis strategy was developed to search for biomarkers in capillary electrophoresis (CE) separations data. The absorbance data from amniotic fluid samples (n=107) collected at 15 weeks gestation, at 195 +/- 4 nm, was normalized, time aligned with Correlation Optimized Warping and reduced to a smaller number of variables by Haar transformation. The reduced data was then classified into normal or abnormal health classes by using a Bayes classifier algorithm.
The chemometric data analysis was first employed to find biomarkers of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and revealed that human serum albumin (HSA) could predict the early onset of disease. The same approach was successfully used to identify cases of large-for-gestational age (LGA) with the same AF CE-UV data. It was also employed for the classification of embryos with high and low reproductive potential using in vitro fertilization (IVF) culture media analyzed by CE-UV.
Overall, a chemometric method was developed to perform untargeted biomarker discovery in biological samples and provide new means to detect GDM pregnancies, LGA neonates and viable embryos in IVF. The method was successful at identifying biomarkers of interest and showed high flexibility and transferability to other biological fluids.


identifier: Elmasri, Mohamad  (2012) A Skew-Normal Copula-Driven Generalized Linear Mixed Model for Longitudinal Data.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Using the advancements of Arellano-Valle et al. [2005], which characterize the likelihood function of a linear mixed model (LMM) under a skew-normal distribution for the random effects, this thesis attempt to construct a copula-driven generalized linear mixed model (GLMM). Assuming a  multivariate distribution from the exponential family for the response variable and a skew-normal copula, we drive a  complete characterization of the general likelihood function. For estimation, we apply a Monte Carlo expectation maximization (MC-EM) algorithm. Some special cases are discussed, in particular, the exponential and gamma distributions. Simulations with multiple link functions are shown alongside a real data example from the Framingham Heart
Study.


identifier: Honari, Sina  (2012) Under Uncertainty Trust Estimation in Multi-Valued Settings.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Social networking sites have developed considerably during the past couple of years. However, few websites exploit the potentials of combining the social networking sites with online markets. This, in turn, would help users to distinguish and engage into interaction with other unknown, yet trustworthy, users in the market. In this thesis, we develop a model to estimate the trust of unknown agents in a multi-agent system where agents engage into business-oriented interactions with each other. The proposed trust model estimates the degree of trustworthiness of an unknown target agent through the information acquired from a group of advisor agents, who had direct interactions with the target agent. This problem is addressed when: (1) the trust of both advisor and target agents is subject to some uncertainty; (2) the advisor agents are self-interested and provide misleading accounts of their past experiences with the target agents; and (3) the outcome of each interaction between the agents is multi-valued.

We use possibility distributions to model trust with respect to its uncertainties thanks to its potential capability of modeling uncertainty arisen from both variability and ignorance. Moreover, we propose trust estimation models to approximate the degree of trustworthiness of an unknown target agent in the two following problems: (1) in the first problem, the advisor agents are assumed to be unknown and have an unknown level of trustworthiness; and (2) in the second problem, however, some interactions are carried out with the advisor agents and their trust distributions are modeled. In addition, a certainty metric is proposed in the possibilistic domain, measuring the
confidence of an agent in the reports of its advisors which considers the consistency in the advisors’ reported information and the advisors’ degree of trustworthiness. Finally, we validate the proposed approaches through extensive experiments in various settings.


identifier: Salah, Ahmad  (2012) Fuzzy Set-Based Contingency Estimating And Management.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Contingency estimating and management are critical and necessary functions for successful delivery of construction projects. Considering such importance, academics and industry professionals proposed a wide range of methods for risk quantification and accordingly for contingency estimating. Considerably less work was directed to contingency management including its depletion to mitigate risk over project durations. Generally, there are two types of risks; 1) known risks which can be identified, evaluated, planned and budgeted for and 2) unknown risks which may occurred. These two categories of risks required a cost and time contingency, even if they weren’t planned for, in order to mitigate their impact in an orderly manner. In this respect, the importance of contingency management become critical in view of increasing project complexity and difficulty of estimating and/or allocating sufficient contingencies to mitigate risks encountered during project execution. This thesis focuses on the contingency management from two perspectives; estimating and depletion of contingency over project durations. A new method is developed using fuzzy sets theory, along with a set of measures, indices, and ratios to model the uncertainty inherent in this process and estimate cost contingencies. The uncertainties are expressed in the developed model using a set of measures and indicators including possibility measure, agreement index, fussiness measure, ambiguity measure, quality fuzzy number index, fuzziness expected value ratio, and ambiguity expected value ratio. These measures, indices, and ratios provide not only the possibility of having adequate contingency but also address issues of precision and vagueness associated with the uncertainty involved in a generic computational platform. The thesis, also, presents a comparison between fuzzy existing methods, Monte Carlo Simulation, PERT, and a proposed direct fuzzy set-based method. As to depletion, the thesis presents a management procedure focusing on depletion of the contingency. The developed procedure makes use of policies and procedures followed by leading construction organizations and owners of major constructed facilities. The developed method and its computational platform were coded using VB.net Programming. Two project examples drawn from the literature are analysed to demonstrate the use of developed method and to illustrate its capabilities beyond those of traditional Methods.


identifier: Moosavi, Seyed Farzad  (2012) Assessment and Evaluation of Detailed Schedules in Building Construction.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Detailed schedules are essential in development of useful “project baselines”; needed for tracking and progress reporting as well as for the administration of construction disputes. Thus, it is necessary to insure the goodness of these schedules. Detailed construction schedules are frequently developed by contractors upon the award of contracts. Owners and engineers need to assess these schedules based on numerous considerations. However, many of these considerations are disregarded in the schedule review methods currently in practice.
This research provides a comprehensive study of criteria and methods used for evaluating the goodness of generated detailed schedules. As well, it presents a structured method to assist owners in performing an effective schedule assessment and evaluation based on a set of criteria extracted from literature. A composite index is proposed for assessment of the level of schedule goodness taking into account the relative level of importance of each criterion used in the developed index. A web-based questionnaire survey was conducted in order to collect feedback from industry professionals regarding the level of importance of each criterion. Furthermore, an empirical method for job logic assessment of institutional buildings is developed based on historical data and schedule analyses of successful projects. The developed method was automated in a developed software application. The software, called SAE (Schedule Assessment and Evaluation), was designed using object oriented modeling utilizing an application of Microsoft Visual Basic. The developed software encompasses three tiers of assessment: assessment against industry recommended practices and benchmarks; job logic review; and productivity assessment and crew size evaluation. The developed framework is flexible and can be used in different domains of construction. Nevertheless, the thresholds defined for the job logic review and evaluation of productivity and crew sizes are applicable to construction of buildings for educational institutions. Four case examples, including three of actual projects, were analysed to demonstrate the essential features of the developed method and to highlight its capabilities.


identifier: Mehrabadi, Houman  (2011) Simultaneous Hierarchical Clustering for Cell Formation Problems.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: A cellular manufacturing system consists of several work cells in which parts are processed under machines. Identification of parts and machines in each work cell, known as cell formation, is a major step in design of a cellular manufacturing system. This thesis presents a method for cell formation. The method uses clustering approach to identify work cells in three steps. First, production information represented in an incidence matrix is evaluated for finding the coupling relationships between parts and machines. In second step the gathered coupling information in the first step is used to reorder the incidence matrix rows and columns, and create a tree diagram. Using the tree diagram, work cells and parts and machines in each work cell are identified in the third step. Performance of the method is evaluated by solving two types of cell formation problem.  The results indicate that the method can produce solutions as good as other methodologies. In comparison to clustering cell formation methodologies, the method has a flexible solution procedure that simultaneously groups parts and machines, and it does not need predetermined production information for executing cell formation.


identifier: Luo, Jun  (2012) ECTree: An Extended Tree Index Structure for Attributed Subgraph Queries.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Graphs are popular data structures for modeling complex data types, especially graphs with attributes for gene sequences, protein structures, chemical compounds, protein interaction networks, social networks, etc. There is a need for managing such graph data and providing efficient querying tools. In the graph mining realm, the problem lies in indexing a large number of graphs for fast retrieval. Indexing attributed graphs and using attributed queries can provide faster response time and more refined results.

This thesis focuses on extending an existing index to support attributed graph indexing and providing subgraph querying access to the extended index. The aim is
to find a way such that the labels of the graphs as well as the attributes of the graphs are indexed at the same time. A query format is provided to query the extended index on the attributes with flexibility which allows intervals to be used. In addition, regular expressions and label groups are used as query labels so that multiple queries that have similar structures can be combined as a single query. This also benefits in that a query graph does not have to use fixed labels. We also introduce a vertex degree-attribute based vector to capture both the features of a data graph and a query graph. A novel pruning method is proposed and implemented so that the pruning based on the degree-attribute vectors can still be adopted even when it is not clear how to define a histogram pruning for the query graphs that use non-fixed labels. All the techniques presented in our work are validated through experiments on both real and synthetic datasets.


identifier: Nahar, Kamrun  (2012) Classifying tablet PC models based on user preferences from online reviews.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Online review sites are a good source of information for the manufacturers to understand the product market. Those sites allow users of the product to express their opinions about products which provide valuable information to other people. As these reviews are easily available and contain important information about the product and users, product designers can utilize those reviews for their new product design analysis. To be competitive the designer should consider the users preferences at the time of product designing and should offer product differentiation while offering a new product. Tablet PC is currently considered
as a new class of product which needs to be well classified for the users. The history of portable computer tells that at first when portable computer arrived in the market it was
also not well classified for different users. At first, almost all manufacturers had one line of portable computer in market which resembles the current time of tablet product. Motivated by the available online reviews by tablet users and the need of the tablet designers, we propose a method to extract interesting patterns from online reviews of tablet users. These extracted patterns can help the designers to understand the new product market of tablet PC to classify its model for different categories of users. We applied association rule mining technique on the online reviews to reveal interesting patterns between users and their preferred tablet features. For identifying this pattern we considered three categories of users:
personal, business and student users. To examine the approach, the online reviews posted between April, 2010 and May, 2011 were collected. Then the resultant association rules between the users and tablet features are compared with the existing tablets in the market which supports this study.


identifier: Ghafouri, M. Mehdi  (2012) Value-based Characterization of Cultural Landscapes: The Cases of Villa Thompson and Villa Sparrow, Mont-Royal, Montreal.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis is a cultural study of the cultural landscape of Villa Thompson and Villa Sparrow located on Mont Royal, a Natural and Historic District in Montreal, Canada. Mont Royal has in time gained a high level of notoriety and authority for informing the cultural history of Montreal, Quebec and Canada, and this site is read using value-based theory and methodology, a practice first applied to historic buildings and monuments analysis in the early 20th century. In response to the expansion of the notion of heritage and the need for better tools to analyze and understand historic territories, “characterization” as field of inquiry and methodology was put forward in the early 1990s, offering new ideas for understanding cultural landscapes. This study argues that a value-based characterization provides a useful understanding of this territory, and one which contributes to a better understanding of all territories through a more lucid knowledge-based cultural landscapes strategy. Defining a secure knowledge-base thusly paves the way to bring cultural landscapes into meaningful recognition and conservation. Mont Royal, including the Thompson and Sparrow Villas, has been recognized as a National Historic Site by the Government of Canada, a Natural and Historic District, Arrondissment Historique, by the Government of Quebec and as a Heritage Site by the City of Montreal. Furthermore, the cultural landscape of the Thompson and Sparrow Villas is recognized and designated as Historic Site, or Site Historique, by the Government of Quebec. These recognitions are, by and large, based on the symbolic and emblematic values placed on Mont Royal and these buildings, and Montrealers' sentimental attachments to and appropriation of the space, as well as the urgent need for its protection. This study argues that the site of Thompson and Sparrow Villas, as a cultural landscape, is a valid cultural document, and therefore requires understanding through cultural study within the field of inquiry and methodology of characterization. From its role as a crossroads for aboriginal peoples for thousands of years, to its first European occupation by French settlers, to its exploitation as agricultural land, to its appropriation for leisure, and finally to its occupation by English merchants and their luxurious villas, this cultural landscape and Mont Royal as a whole are considered worthy texts for reading, analyzing and understanding the cultural values, world views and history of their successive occupants.


identifier: Lewis, Cyrus  (2012) Alternative Media: Commodification and the Vexing Coordinates of Alterity.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The deleterious effects of commodification on media content, particularly of an oppositional or politically committed nature, that is, media often classified under the rubric “alternative,” is well documented. This thesis attempts to wrestle with this puzzle and to unpack some of alternative media’s more curious attributes; i.e., the frustrating truth that alterity is a relational phenomenon, more sensitive to the vagaries and caprices of the market than its desire for autonomy would indicate; the profound fact that it is not so “alternative” as it seems to presuppose, as evidenced in its periodic reinvigoration of the markets of “popular culture;” and the intriguing point that its aspirations, more often than not, appear to cohere with mass culture’s lionization of individuality. At the heart of this paradox is a yearning for that nebulous characteristic of “authenticity.” That narratives of authenticity attend most instantiations of alterity and alternative media is no accident. But authenticity itself is as bound up with the ascension of capitalist modernity and the liberal public sphere as are notions of alterity. By examining alterity, with an eye on its cognate of authenticity, it is possible to highlight some of alternative media’s immanent contradictions.


identifier: Chagnon, Marie-Eve  (2012) Nationalisme et internationalisme dans les sciences au XXe siècle : l’exemple des scientifiques et des humanistes français et allemands dans la communauté scientifique internationale (1890-1933).  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Cette thèse traite de la progression de la communauté scientifique internationale à la lumière des exemples français et allemands pour la période s’échelonnant du tournant du siècle à 1933. Si l’historiographie dépeint l’évolution d’une communauté savante cantonnée dans une chronologie rigide allant de sa naissance, son éclatement avec la Première Guerre mondiale et sa réconciliation à partir de 1926, nous avons démontré que sa progression fut plus complexe et que les acteurs français et allemands influencèrent son cheminement au cours de la période. Notre parcours archivistique dans les papiers personnels des savants à l’étude et de leurs institutions académique et universitaire nous a permis de démontrer que la rivalité que les scientifiques et les humanistes français entretenaient à l’égard de leurs homologues allemands eut des retombées importantes sur le système international, surtout au cours et au lendemain de la guerre. Si l’interprétation traditionnelle voit dans la guerre le point de rupture de la communauté scientifique internationale, nous avons en revanche démontré que les relations internationales étaient déjà empreintes de tensions et de rivalités vives que le déclenchement de la guerre ne fit qu’exacerber. La rupture ne fut pas brutale, mais les relations furent suspendues pour toute la période, l’éclatement réel ne se produisant qu’au lendemain de la guerre, avec l’exclusion des savants allemands de la communauté internationale. Des tentatives apparurent ensuite lentement, par le biais des Neutres, pour la reprise des échanges scientifiques. En jetant un regard sur les contextes nationaux en France et en Allemagne, nous avons mis en lumière une image légèrement différente de ces acteurs. Si les savants français formèrent un groupe uni et près des instances gouvernementales, les savants allemands n’arrivèrent jamais à atteindre un tel degré de cohésion et agirent le plus souvent en marge des activités du pouvoir. Cette interprétation se fonde sur une analyse qui propose de mettre en parallèle les parcours des scientifiques et des humanistes en France et en Allemagne.


identifier: Mukhaimer, Rana  (2012) The Relations between Initial Training with Autonomous Motivation, Thriving and Turnover Intentions of Recruiters in the Staffing Industry.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The high turnover rate in the staffing industry has received a lot of attention in the business world. However, initial training may be positively related to a recruiter’s autonomous motivation as well as their thriving and job retention. This research study aims to explore, in the staffing industry, the relation between the initial training provided to recruiters and their autonomous motivation. In addition, the study will explore the relation between autonomous motivation and the recruiters’ thriving at work and their turnover intentions. One hundred recruiters in 22 staffing agencies participated in the study by completing a paper-based questionnaire. The findings from the study revealed support for the seven hypotheses. This study measured initial training in five different ways. Initial training was positively related to autonomous motivation and thriving at work, and negatively related to turnover intentions. In addition, autonomous motivation mediated the relationship between initial training and turnover intentions, as well as initial training and thriving at work. The only measure of training that did not yield expected results was that the number of initial training days had no effect on the dependent variables. The small sample size, a threat to external validity, and history effect are some of the limitations in the study. Future research could expand this study to other industries, increase the sample size, as well as examine if pay structure or type of recruitment influence the results.
Keywords: autonomous motivation, training, thriving, turnover intentions


identifier: Dere, Jessica  (2011) The cultural shaping of alexithymia: Chinese values, ‘Western’ values, and externally oriented thinking.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The fundamental role that cultural context plays in shaping our emotional lives has been demonstrated in a growing number of cultural psychology studies (e.g., Mesquita & Leu, 2007). Despite the direct implications that such research holds for the study of psychopathology, mainstream clinical research largely ignores cultural context. As a result, the danger arises of pathologizing emotion-related norms and values that differ from those found in the ‘Western’ contexts that have predominantly shaped the clinical literature. These issues are particularly well captured in the construct of alexithymia, which ties lower levels of attention to emotion with emotional processing deficits. Lacking recognition of the importance of cultural context, much alexithymia research risks confounding cultural variation in the importance given to emotional experience with emotional deficits. Countering this trend, the current research critically examines alexithymia from a cultural perspective. Two studies examined the proposal that one component of alexithymia – externally oriented thinking (EOT) – is promoted within certain cultural contexts, while two other components – difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) and difficulty describing feelings (DDF) – are not.
Study 1 tested the associations between cultural values and the components of alexithymia among Euro-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian students. As expected, ‘Western’ values negatively predicted EOT in both groups, while DIF and DDF were unrelated to values. Furthermore, cultural values mediated the effect of group membership on levels of EOT. Study 2 extended this work to a Chinese clinical sample. Again, EOT was negatively predicted by ‘Western’ values, while DIF and DDF were not associated with values. The results of both studies support a model of alexithymia whereby cultural scripts that de-emphasize the importance of inner emotional experience drive levels of EOT in certain contexts, while in other cultural contexts EOT is more likely to be associated with emotional deficits. In turn, this work provides a non-pathological explanation for cultural variations in alexithymia, countering historical stereotypes regarding emotional restraint in Chinese contexts and offering a theory-driven reconceptualization of alexithymia.


identifier: Al Salem, Aqeel Asaad  (2012) An Integrated Model for Supplier Quality Evaluation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
An Integrated Model for Supplier Quality Evaluation
Aqeel Asaad Al Salem
Supplier quality evaluation is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem that involves multiple, heterogeneous criteria of different weights. The literature addresses quality, delivery, technology, value and service as the five most common criteria used for supplier quality evaluation. In this thesis, we have considered the most important criteria for evaluating the quality of suppliers based on a review of the literature and observation in practice. They include both qualitative and quantitative criteria to reflect the real attributes of the supplier in question, and are applied in a supplier quality evaluation performed for a large data set.
We propose a three-stage model for performing supplier quality evaluation. In the first stage, we identify the evaluation criteria and assign a weight to each criterion. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique is used in this stage. In the second stage, we address the large size of suppliers’ datasets and present a cluster-analysis-based approach to obtain manageable supplier datasets for evaluation purposes. In the third stage, we apply the VIKOR method to evaluate supplier quality in the clusters obtained from the previous stage. A numerical application is provided to demonstrate the proposed approach.
The strength of the proposed model lies in the integrated application of the three techniques, in which each technique is best suited for its respective problem. The model’s other chief advantage
is its ability to deal efficiently with the challenge of evaluating large numbers of suppliers and the data pertaining to their attributes.


identifier: Buchanan, Linda  (2012) Rejection of the King by the Prophet: A Man After God’s Own Heart.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The rejection of the first king of Israel, Saul, has been understood in many different and even contradictory ways. Linda D. Buchanan offers a new translation using a Macro Syntactical Analysis as elaborated by Alvierro Niccacci, to offer insight on the question of Saul’s fault in 1 Samuel 13. Through Source and Redaction criticism she argues for 3 tiered work; beginning with the oldest literary stratum which includes the conflict between the Israelites and the Philistines. The first redactional layer belongs to the work of a northern prophetic agenda and includes the rejection account of Saul. The final pieces were added by the Deuteronomistic Historiographer, and include Saul’s regnal formula and the inclusion of his son Jonathan. The combination of Source Criticism and a Macro Syntactic reading bring to light the problem of suggesting David as the man after God’s heart, instead Buchanan argues that this is not meant as a title and should be viewed within the ideology of the prophetic work. ‘A man after [God’s] own heart’ is the one who listens to God’s commands, as given by his prophet. The methodologies used are Historical Critical in order to better understand the reason for Saul’s rejection from kingship, by the prophet in 1 Samuel 13.


identifier: Hajiaboli, Mohammad Reza  (2012) Edge Preservation in Nonlinear Diffusion Filtering.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Edge Preservation in Nonlinear Diffusion Filtering

Mohammad Reza Hajiaboli, Ph.D.
Concordia University, 2012

Image denoising techniques, in which the process of noise diffusion is modeled as a nonlinear partial differential equation, are well known for providing low-complexity solutions to the denoising problem with a minimal amount of image artifacts. In discrete settings of these nonlinear models, the objective of providing a good noise removal while preserving the image edges is heavily dependent on the kernels, diffusion functions and the associated contrast parameters employed by these nonlinear diffusion techniques. This thesis makes an in-depth study of the roles of the kernels and contrast parameters with a view to providing an effective solution to the problem of denoising of the images contaminated with stationary and signal-dependent noise.

Within the above unified theme, this thesis has two major parts. In the first part of this study, the impact of anisotropic behavior of the Laplacian operator on the capabilities of nonlinear diffusion filters in preserving the image edges in different orientations is investigated. Based on this study, an analytical scheme is devised to obtain a spatially-varying kernel that adapt itself to the diffusivity function. The proposed edge-adaptive Laplacian kernel is then incorporated into various nonlinear diffusion filters for denoising of images contaminated by additive white Gaussian noise.

The performance optimality of the the existing nonlinear diffusion techniques is generally based on the assumption that the noise and signal are uncorrelated. However, in many applications, such as in medical imaging systems and in remote sensing where the images are degraded by Poisson noise, this assumption is not valid. As such, in the second part of the thesis, a study is undertaken for denoising of images contaminated by Poisson noise within the framework of the Perona-Malik nonlinear diffusion filter. Specifically, starting from a Skellam distribution model of the gradient of the Poisson-noise corrupted images and following the diffusion mechanism of the nonlinear filter, a spatially and temporally varying contrast parameter is designed. It is shown that the nonlinear diffusion filters employing the new Laplacian kernel supports the extremum principle and that the proposed contrast parameter satisfies the sufficient conditions for observance of the scale-space properties.

Extensive experiments are performed throughout the thesis to demonstrate the effectiveness and validity of the various schemes and techniques developed in this investigation. The simulation results of applying the new Laplacian kernel to a number of nonlinear diffusion filters show its distinctive advantages over the conventional Rosenfeld and Kak kernel, in terms of the filters' noise reduction and edge preservation capabilities for images corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise. The simulation results of incorporating the proposed spatially- and temporally-varying contrast parameter into the Perona-Malik nonlinear diffusion filter demonstrate a performance much superior to that provided by some of the other state-of-the-art techniques in denoising images corrupted by Poisson noise.


identifier: Yuryev, Yury  (2011) Nucleation and crystallization of poly(lactic acid).  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Poly(lactic acid) is one of the most promising “green” polymers, having huge potential for use as a packaging and construction material. The lack of knowledge about polylactide-specific crystallization behaviour is one of the barriers to widespread industrial use.
In the present thesis, different aspects of one of the most important phenomena in polylactide crystallization were studied. In the series of articles included in this thesis, parameters of quiescent and field-induced crystallization were investigated. Significant attention was paid to the spherulitic morphology, growth rates, and stereocomplexation phenomenon that are intrinsic to polylactide, due its optical activity. A novel technique for growth rate measurements based on ultrafast heating and cooling of cast films, was suggested and validated.
	Melt crystallization of polylactide was studied using rheological methods. A new advanced model allowing the relation of complex viscosity to melt crystallinity was proposed and verified. The physical cross-linking phenomenon was introduced and quantified in the frame of the proposed model. Also, a new technique allowing the determination of the induction time of crystallization was presented and successfully validated. A proposed technique allowed dramatically improved precision of the measurement of induction time for both quiescent and field-induced crystallization.
The phenomena of surface crystallization that had previously gone unexamined by the research community were investigated in detail. A theoretical model was suggested and its predictions were supported by extensive computer simulations. The simulation program used for research was developed during this study. It was found that surface crystallization can have an immense effect on crystallization kinetics and dramatically distort the observed thermal analysis results. Custom-designed experiments allowed the application of these results to polylactide crystallization.
	Extensive studies of shear-induced crystallization were done in this work. The novel techniques developed in the research allowed for a better understanding of the field-induced phenomenon. New techniques allowing the implementation of rheological measurements to discover and quantitatively assess electric field-induced polylactide crystallization were investigated in this study as well. It was shown that a DC electric field significantly promotes homogeneous nucleation of polylactide and enhances crystallization. An explanation to this observation based on the dipole moments of repeat units in the polylactide chain was offered and validated.


identifier: Barhoush, Malek  (2011) Persistent Protection in Multicast Content Delivery.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Computer networks make it easy to distribute digital media at low cost.  Digital rights management (DRM) systems are designed to limit the access that paying subscribers (and non-paying intruders) have to these digital media.  However, current DRM systems are tied to unicast delivery mechanisms, which do not scale well to very large groups.  In addition, the protection provided by DRM systems is in most cases not persistent, i.e., it does not prevent the legitimate subscriber from re-distributing the digital media after reception.

We have collected the requirements for digital rights management from various sources, and presented them as a set of eleven requirements, associated with five categories.  Several examples of commercial DRM systems are briefly explained and the requirements that they meet are presented in tabular format.  None of the example systems meet all the requirements that we have listed.  The security threats that are faced by DRM systems are briefly discussed.  We have discussed approaches for adapting DRM systems to multicast data transmission.

We have explored and evaluated the security protocols of a unicast distribution model, published by Grimen, et al.\, that provides ``persistent protection''.  We have found two security attacks and have provided the solution to overcome the discovered attacks.  Then we have proposed a more scalable architecture based on the modified model.  We call the resulting architecture persistent protection in multicast content delivery.  We present and formally validate the protocol for control and data exchange among the interacting parties of our proposal.


identifier: Vavassis, Angela  (2012) The influence of reward on early information processing along the “visual perception-overt behaviour” continuum.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Past research has reliably established that rewards exert an influence on overt/observable behaviours (e.g., explicit choices, limb/body movements, eye- movements). Oftentimes, a reward may be acquired by performing a specific behaviour in response to a visual target. Under such circumstances, research has demonstrated that the reward covertly influences the late neural stages of information processing along the “visual perception-overt behaviour” continuum (e.g., the motor processing immediately preceding the performance of the overt behaviour needed to acquire the reward associated with the perceived visual target).
Only recently has research also begun to investigate whether reward covertly influences the earlier neural stages of information processing along the “visual perception-overt behaviour” continuum (i.e., the visual perception of the target stimulus). Such research has suggested that reward does indeed influence even the earliest form of visual perception (i.e., feature perception). This conclusion has been drawn form the handful of documented effects of reward on certain behavioural measures of performance during feature singleton visual search (e.g. the observation of slower key-press responses for targets associated with low than with high monetary reward). However, since the key- press response is a motor response, such results may entirely or partially reflect reward influences on the motor (i.e, late) as opposed to the perceptual (i.e, early) information processing stage. Other evidence, suggestive of the effects of reward on feature visual perception, stems from the documented effect of reward on attention (i.e., the N2pc, a reliable marker of attentional selection of visual targets, appears later and is weaker for low than for high reward targets), given attention’s independently documented effects on feature visual perception.
The aim of the current study was to provide a more thorough behavioural assessment of reward influences on visual perception in feature singleton visual search (within the magnitude and probability dimensions). A measure of sensitivity (d’), reflective of perceptual rather than motor processing, was added to the behavioural measures used in past studies and was shown to be poorer for low than high reward targets. This finding suggested that low reward targets are visually perceived later than high reward targets are. Sensitivity was correlated with accuracy and inverse efficiency, suggesting that the observed variations in those measures as a function of target reward value reflected the same or similar underlying process as sensitivity did. Furthermore, shortening display duration across visual search trials was more detrimental to such behavioural performance for low than high reward targets, further suggesting that low reward targets are visually perceived later than high reward targets are (either via direct channels, via attention or both). In summary, this more thorough behavioural assessment of reward influences on visual feature perception corroborated the conclusions drawn in the existing literature.


identifier: Maika, Kathleen  (2012) Teacher Self - Efficacy and Successful Inclusion: Profiles and Narratives of Eight Teachers.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
ABSTRACT

Teacher Self - Efficacy And Successful Inclusion: Profiles and Narratives of Eight Teachers
Kathleen Maika

The purpose of this research is to better understand the relationship between teacher self - efficacy as defined by Albert Bandura and general education elementary school teachers’ ability to create inclusive classrooms for Students with Learning Disabilities (SWLDs).
Seven general classroom teachers and one education consultant from some elementary schools participated in this study. All seven general classroom teachers were women and the one consultant was male. The study is based on two journals generated by each of the seven participating teachers, using questions prepared by the researcher, followed by a one-on-one interview. The aim was to gain a better understanding of their access to resources, feelings of preparedness, stressors and knowledge of Learning Disabilities (LDs) and inclusive practices in regular classrooms. Each teacher had at least one LD student in their classroom. The teacher narratives do illustrate the links between teachers’ levels of self-efficacy and inclusive practices. They also support the literature indicating that the higher levels of self-efficacy result in higher levels of inclusive practices by the teachers but there are also many mitigating factors


identifier: Ma, LinLin  (2012) Taxonomy-Based Pruning in Generalized Frequent Itemsets Mining.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The original purpose of data mining is for analysis of supermarket transaction data. Now with the rapid development in business, industry and science, data mining is used in lots of domains, so mining interesting information from large database becomes more important. Data mining includes two main parts: frequent itemsets mining and association rules mining. And frequent itemsets mining plays an essential role between them.
Our thesis is focused on frequent itemsets mining. Previous studies on frequent itemsets mining is at single or multiple concept level, however, mining frequent itemsets at flexible multiple concept level may help finding more specific and useful information from huge data. In this thesis, four methods are introduced for mining frequent itemsets at flexible multiple level by extension of Apriori and Eclat algorithms. We also implement two algorithms for frequent pairs mining. We draw some conclusions about which method is suitable for which distributions of data.


identifier: Cho, Dongwook  (2012) Mathematical Approaches for Image Enhancement Problems.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis develops novel techniques that can solve some image enhancement problems using theoretically and technically proven and very useful mathematical tools to image processing such as wavelet transforms, partial differential equations, and variational models. Three subtopics are mainly covered.  First, color image denoising framework is introduced to achieve high quality denoising results by considering correlations between color components while existing denoising approaches can be plugged in flexibly. Second, a new and efficient framework for image contrast and color enhancement in the compressed wavelet domain is proposed. The proposed approach is capable of enhancing both global and local contrast and brightness as well as preserving color consistency. The framework does not require inverse transform for image enhancement since linear scale factors are directly applied to both scaling and wavelet coefficients in the compressed domain, which results in high computational efficiency. Also contaminated noise in the image can be efficiently reduced by introducing wavelet shrinkage terms adaptively in different scales. The proposed method is able to enhance a wavelet-coded image computationally efficiently with high image quality and less noise or other artifact. The experimental results show that the proposed method produces encouraging results both visually and numerically compared to some existing approaches. Finally, image inpainting problem is discussed. Literature review, psychological analysis, and challenges on image inpainting problem and related topics are described. An inpainting algorithm using energy minimization and texture mapping is proposed. Mumford-Shah energy minimization model detects and preserves edges in the inpainting domain by detecting both the main structure and the detailed edges. This approach utilizes faster hierarchical level set method and guarantees convergence independent of initial conditions. The estimated segmentation results in the inpainting domain are stored in segmentation map, which is referred by a texture mapping algorithm for filling textured regions. We also propose an inpainting algorithm using wavelet transform that can expect better global structure estimation of the unknown region in addition to shape and texture properties since wavelet transforms have been used for various image analysis problems due to its nice multi-resolution properties and decoupling characteristics.


identifier: Thanda, Haidee K  (2012) Teachers Narratives and Coping with Stress: The Role of Mindfulness.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Formal mindfulness-based wellness education (MBWE) and related practices are being increasingly used in a variety of human services as interventions for individuals and groups susceptible to stress related problems and burnout. A growing body of research literature supports the use of MBWE training programs and practices in the field of education. This qualitative study focuses on the value of MBWE in pre-service education programs as a tool for emotional regulation, stress management and achievement of educational goals. Data is drawn from narratives provided by eight University of Toronto teacher trainees, four of whom had received formal mindfulness- based wellness education. Journal entries and interview-generated narratives document teacher perceptions about the potential of mindfulness training and practice in facilitating professional and personal goals. Interview responses and journals provide narratives which give voice to pre-service teachers’ concerns about stress management related to teaching, and professional roles, as well as interpersonal skills with colleagues, students, parents, and administrators. This paper suggests that for teachers who are seeking strategies for coping with stress, mindfulness may have a role to play in increasing teachers’ resilience by promoting internal resources to buffer the emotional aspects of their work. These narratives provide evidence that mindfulness training can be used as a
coping mechanism. Participants who had enrolled in “Stress and Burnout: Teacher and Student Applications” expressed a readiness and openness to learn more about stress,  as well as strategies to reduce it. Insights are provided for curriculum planning for teacher education programs. Narratives and teacher journaling are recommended for further inquiries into factors for support of introduction and implementation of mindfulness- based wellness education programs for teachers, as well as for offering similar strategies for use by students in the classroom.

Key words: Self-efficacy, Wellness, Stress, Resilience, Interpersonal Skills


identifier: Soowamber, Madhav Laichand  (2011) Development of Cadmium bioassays using the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Toxic trace metals are major environmental pollutants due to their high toxicity at low concentrations, non-biodegradability, and accumulation in the food chain. Metals are important pollutants from metal mining, a major industry in Canada. Therefore, effective means of toxic trace metal quantification in natural water and soils are required for environmental risk assessment. Although analytical chemistry provides highly accurate and precise methods for quantifying metals, complete environmental risk assessment requires a determination of whether or not a metal is bioavailable, i.e. present in toxic or benign species. Of these toxic trace metals, our focus was on Cd as it is considered to be one of the most toxic heavy metals at sublethal concentrations. The absolute Cd concentration in natural waters does not necessarily reflect the concentration of a metal that is bioavailable. Therefore, analytical methods need to be complemented with bioassays (organisms that report the presence of bioavailable metal. This thesis contributes to the development of two types of cadmium (Cd) bioassays using the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. These bioassays are intended to detect trace amounts of the bioavailable species of cadmium (Cd). Previous global transcriptome studies by Simon et al. identified 10 Cd genes that are
IV
induced by Cd2+exposure at concentrations in micromolar range. We focused on a gene encoding a predicted amino acid transporter (AOT4) because it had the highest level of induction at low [Cd2+] (1.2 μM). Reporter genes were constructed using the promoter region of this gene. Validation of the promoter region was based on Northern blot experiments. Another method used the technology of Panomics Inc. that allowed for direct quantitation of AOT4 mRNA levels. I established 2 Panomics assays and optimized them so that they could be used with C. reinhardtii. The goal of these bioassays is to make them specific and respond to environmentally relevant Cd concentrations and allow use of sensitive, simple, portable equipment for in situ Cd measurements


identifier: Afghari, Amir Pooyan  (2012) Incorporation of Road Safety into Road Management Systems.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Road collisions negatively affect the lives of hundreds of Canadians per year. Unfortunately, safety has been typically neglected from management systems. It is common to find that a great deal of effort has been devoted to develop and implement systems capable of achieving and sustaining good levels of condition. It is relatively recent that road safety has become an important objective. Managing a network of roads is not an easy task; it requires long, medium and short term plans to maintain, rehabilitate and upgrade aging assets, reduce and mitigate accident exposure, likelihood and severity. This thesis presents a basis for incorporating road safety into road management systems; two case studies were developed; one limited by available data and another from sufficient information. A long term analysis was used to allocate improvements for condition and safety of roads and bridges, at the network level. It was confirmed that a safety index could be used to obtain a first cut model; meanwhile potential for improvement which is a difference between observed and predicted number of accidents was capable of capturing the degree of safety of individual segments. It was found that the completeness of the system resulted in savings because of the economies obtained from trade-off optimization. It was observed that safety improvements were allocated at the beginning of the analysis in order to reduce the extent of issues, which translated into a systematic reduction of potential for improvement up to a point of near constant levels, which were hypothesized to relate to those unavoidable collisions from human error or vehicle failure.


identifier: Cherry, Tristan  (2012) Missing the Bus: An assessment of service improvements to metro-bus transfers in Bangkok, Thailand.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Bangkok’s mass transportation systems lack coordination to complement overall quality of service. The relatively new MRT rail rapid transit or “metro” has been built at considerable expense yet operates without any integration for transfers (fare or physical) with the existing and extensive public bus services. Minimizing the burdens of transferring from one vehicle to another is a strategy that many transit agencies in North America and Europe have implemented to retain or attract ridership, but has not been attempted in Bangkok. This thesis identifies specific actions which could improve out-of-vehicle connections between metros and buses in Bangkok, Thailand. The assessment is based on 310 surveys that asked metro passengers to rate importance and satisfaction with specific attributes related to metro-bus transfers. The survey data was used to calibrate Importance/Satisfaction analysis and ordinal regression models to produce a concise list of improvements to service attributes at metro-bus transfers. The study finds that most passengers are unsatisfied with the conditions of intermodal connections. The improvements that would have the greatest impact on transfer experience are increased safety and security from crime and changing the location of bus stops relative to metro exits. Smaller improvements to passenger comfort and amenities are considerably less important to metro users. The findings could be applied to improve intermodal integration between two highly mismatched services to increase public bus ridership.


identifier: Liu, Xingfei  (2012) Three Essays on Educational Decisions and Labor Market Outcomes of Youths: An Empirical Analysis of Second Generation Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
This thesis investigates human capital accumulation process for second generation immigrants and ethnic minority groups in both Canada and the U.S. A dynamic structural model is developed to respect the dynamic nature of the educational process. The model is then augmented to account for specific characteristics of different surveys used in the three essays.

The first essay focuses on educational attainment of children of immigrants to the U.S. using two cohorts of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97). It shows that family background characteristics together with cognitive ability are important to children’s schooling attendance. It suggests that over the decades, children of immigrants as a group experienced a more significant improvement in educational attainment than children of natives. Preferences and endowments play different roles in explaining the improvements across ethnic groups. This essay also shows additional evidence of positive selection in immigrants similar to the ones discussed in Caponi (2011). Furthermore, educational support programs appear to have larger impacts on educational attainment, especially for Hispanics.

The second essay looks both educational attainment and outcomes in labor market. Specifically, it explains differences in education and wages between whites and ethnicity minorities in the U.S. using the recent cohort of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). This essay reveals significant differences in how labor market rewards education and working experience based on ethnic origins. Furthermore, the decompositions of the observed differentials between whites and minorities show that the differences in educational attainment can largely be explained by differences in endowments, while behavioural differences play a more important role in explaining the ethnic wage gaps.

The third essay focuses on white children of immigrants in both Canada and the U.S. Using 1997 cohort of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from the U.S. and the 2000 cohort of Youth in Transition Survey from Canada, I find that family background is closely related to educational attainment of white children of immigrants in both countries. Results from counter-factual simulations suggest that incentive-based educational reforms are effective in increasing overall educational attainment for both children of natives and children of immigrants. Furthermore, the desired dollar amount of these educational subsidies are smaller in Canada than in the U.S.


identifier: Cobbler, Melissa A.  (2012) Uncomfortable Silences:Narratives of four educators teaching about HIV/AIDS in a High School near Montréal.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
In 2005, the Québec Ministry of Education cut what was five (5) hours of sex education (STIs, HIV/AIDS, gender, sexual diversity, etc.) per year from the secondary school curriculum. Consequently, in the context of the education reform, teachers holding specializations in English and Language Arts, Science & Technology or Moral and Religious Education were charged to integrate sexual health education into their course. High schools, being highly sexualized sites, act as a channel for sexual initiation and exploration. Thus, teachers can be catalysts to providing valuable and life-altering information around HIV/AIDS to their students. Through word of mouth, four teachers
agreed to participate voluntarily in this study and signed consent forms. Their narratives were collected to identify their classroom strategies, their awareness of HIV/AIDS, and
the challenges they encountered when discussing the subject in their classroom. The collection of these narratives was an essential factor in uncovering the subtle, yet,
uncomfortable silences related to the process of teaching about HIV/AIDS in classroom situations. A minimal understanding of HIV/AIDS, and a lack of consistent training and access to accurate resources underlined how teachers understood and evaluated HIV/AIDS information. These dynamics, in turn, influenced the way their students
comprehended the virus and viewed the marginalized communities most affected. Theoretical frameworks connected to Paulo Freire’s Engaged Pedagogy and Nel Noddings’s Pedagogy of Care, were considered as tools for empowering teachers when imparting knowledge on HIV/AIDS.


identifier: MacDonald, Cheryl  (2012) “That’s just what people think of a hockey player, right?”: Manifestations of Masculinity among Major Junior Ice Hockey Players.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Ice hockey at the Major Junior level is particularly significant in Canada as the players are simultaneously coming of age and beginning to take on a full-time career in the sport. This stage of life raises questions about masculinity on the public agenda in terms of the problematic nature of hypermasculinity in sport, stereotypical images of athletes, and questions of social responsibility as both men and athletes. This dissertation outlines a study conducted to address the relationship between masculinity and ice hockey. In particular, it concentrates on hypermasculinity (also referred to as hegemonic masculinity) as it relates to Major Junior Ice Hockey and the experience of being a player at that level. Surveys and interviews were conducted with an entire Canadian Major Junior ice hockey team as part of a research project with the overarching objective of comprehending how the players’ understandings of manhood influence their perceptions of and attitudes toward their lifestyles and environment. With this in thought, the players were asked a range of questions, most of which focused on the following themes: how their time is spent, their priorities, their social environment, how to be successful, and what it means to be a man. This dissertation will offer an overview of the data and findings along with the challenges that work of this nature presents. It will conclude by suggesting key issues that have been identified over the course of the research and areas requiring further investigation.


identifier: Sateli, Bahar  (2012) A General Architecture to Enhance Wiki Systems with Natural Language Processing Techniques.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Wikis are web-based software applications that allow users to collaboratively create and edit web page content, through a Web browser using a simplified syntax. The ease-of-use and “open” philosophy of wikis has brought them to the attention of organizations and online communities, leading to a wide-spread adoption as a simple and “quick” way of collaborative knowledge management. However, these characteristics of wiki systems can act as a double-edged sword: When wiki content is not properly structured, it can turn into a “tangle of links”, making navigation, organization and content retrieval difficult for their end-users.
Since wiki content is mostly written in unstructured natural language, we believe that existing state-of-the-art techniques from the Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Semantic Computing domains can help mitigating these common problems when using wikis and improve their users’ experience by introducing new features. The challenge, however, is to find a solution for integrating novel semantic analysis algorithms into the multitude of existing wiki systems, without the need for modifying their engines. In this research work, we present a general architecture that allows wiki systems to benefit from NLP services made available through the Semantic Assistants framework – a service-oriented architecture for brokering NLP pipelines as web services. Our main contributions in this thesis include an analysis of wiki engines, the development of collaboration patterns be- tween wikis and NLP, and the design of a cohesive integration architecture. As a concrete application, we deployed our integration to MediaWiki – the powerful wiki engine behind Wikipedia – to prove its practicability. Finally, we evaluate the usability and efficiency of our integration through a number of user studies we performed in real-world projects from various domains, including cultural heritage data management, software requirements engineering, and biomedical literature curation.


identifier: Ilievski, Bilyana  (2012) The First Generation.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

title: The First Generation

abstract: The First Generation is a fictionalized autobiography set somewhat in the Midwest. It is an exploration of the space between fiction and nonfiction that plays out over a multi-generational study of domestic life. The protagonist opens the collection, only to be quickly discarded and recycled through the machinery of the later pieces.


identifier: Cook, Kristina J.  (2012) Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Mass Transfer in Passive Scaled-up Micromixers.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Micromixers are vital components in micro-total analysis systems (μ-TAS) and Lab-on-Chip (LOC) devices, with applications in drug delivery, medical diagnostics, and chemical analyses, amongst others.  Traditional macroscale mixing techniques may not be applied at the microscale, where viscous forces become important compared to inertial forces.  As such, it remains a challenge to effectively and thoroughly mix liquid species in small characteristic dimensions.
	The present work aims to analyze flow phenomena and mass transfer in three novel scaled-up micromixers, which make use of variations in channel geometry to induce mixing.  Designs based on multi-lamination inlets, obstruction filled channels, Dean vortex inducing curved channels, and helical flow inducing grooves are investigated.  Flow visualization is used as a qualitative tool, providing valuable information regarding flow patterns and mixing.  Induced fluorescence is applied to assess whole field concentration distribution, and provide quantitative species distribution data.  Complex three dimensional flows are analyzed using numerical simulations, which show good agreement with experimental work.
 	The mixers are evaluated over Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.5 to 100, corresponding to Péclet numbers ranging from 1.25 × 103 to 1.25 × 105.  Results show a decreasing-increasing trend in the degree of mixing with increasing Reynolds number, as the dominant mixing mechanism changes from mass diffusion to mass advection.  Up to 90% mixing is reported.  To allow for reasonable mixing performance comparison with published work, an equivalent length parameter is proposed.  The present devices offer good mixing in shorter lengths over a wide range of Reynolds numbers compared to numerous published devices.


identifier: Pichette, Amanda  (2012) Representations of Muslim Women in the Quebec News Print Media.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Between 2006-2007 in Quebec the passage of a controversial code of conduct in the rural municipality of Hérouxville cast the debate over Reasonable Accommodation into the media spotlight. The question of integrating minorities and immigrants into pluralistic Quebec society has provoked discussions over the fragility of Quebec identity. A social crisis has been linked to the delicate majority status that Quebecois now enjoy in the province. Some Quebecois conceive that Muslim beliefs and practices threaten the social cohesion of their society based on fundamental values such as gender equality, secularism and tolerance. This social discourse effectively reinforces their identity of a tolerant superior group vis-à-vis the “Other” which must be either tolerated or “civilized” in order to accept and learn the contemporary way of life in Quebec society. Taken together, Quebec is engaging in a deep soul-searching as claims of racism, xenophobia and intolerance rise to the surface of the ongoing debate over the accommodation of difference.
The role of the media was central in turning the Reasonable Accommodation debate into a social crisis.  The strategies and framing employed by the print media along with the selective coverage of certain issues caused polarization between minority and majority groups  My inquiry asks: does a critical textual analysis of the news print media’s representations of Muslim women reveal a subtle racialized discourse? I invoke an Orientalist lens to show how racializing discourses manifest in a guarded subtext over the preservation of Quebec identity which effectually reinforces hierarchical relations between a dominant group and subordinate group. My methodology employs a critical textual analysis of 12 Gazette and La Presse news print articles in order to uncover the deeper and more nuanced implied meaning of negative dichotomization (Us-Them), inferiorization and demonization of the Other, the desire to expel the Other, along with feeling of victimization and generalization about an entire group. Identified as discursive mechanisms, this research situates and anchors the implied meaning of the representations of Muslim women in the particular historical experience of Quebecois and their distinct language and culture. My analysis reveals instances of a subtle, hidden, new form of racism which is less explicit than traditional forms of racism once were. Some of the media processes and framing which are identified allowed the reasonable accommodation debates to degenerate into a state of “moral panic” .  I demonstrate that Muslim women are marginalized and discriminated against on the basis of their race, gender and cultural identity. Essentially, the news print media creates damaging portrayals of Muslim women in an effort to insulate a protectionist nature in Quebec that buttresses a conviction that these representations are universal which are in fact stereotypical and mythical.
 In order to counter these negative portrayals students must be taught how to think critically about the media and develop the appropriate media literacy tools so that they can understand what social equity means among varying ethnocultural groups. In an effort to decentre the dominant, white identity, developing a critical pedagogy within an anti-racism framework enables students to recognize stereotypical imagery and discrimination and at the same time it educates students about the normativity of whiteness and its powerful entrenchment in schools.


identifier: Rauthu, Subhash Rao  (2011) Design of selective ligands for conjugate drug targeting to human serum albumin (HSA) through cysteine-34 and β-D-galactopyranoside inhibitors towards galectins.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Galectins are a large family of 15 structurally related β-D-galactopyranoside recognizing proteins. In mammals, they play a crucial role in the control of cell differentiation, proliferation, activation, metastasis and apoptosis of immune cells. Moreover, galectins have recently shown their role in HIV-1 biology by stabilizing the viral adhesion and augmentation in virus replication. Consequently, access to potent and selective inhibitors of galectins is highly desirable as tools for detailed evaluation of galectin function and activities at the cellular level and they would constitute lead compounds for the development of galectin blocking drugs. Natural ligands have low affinities and being too polar would not pass through the cell membrane. To circumvent the above issues we have logically designed and synthesized stable C-galactoside triazole derivatives. Some of these compounds exhibit IC50 values of 2.5 mM against Galectin-3. To further improve their efficacy, we have designed and synthesized S-galactosides, C-lactosides, S-lactosides and LacNAc derivatives with a hydrophobic pharmacophoric part i.e. substituted triazole moiety through a peptide link at the anomeric position that can balance the partition coefficient to cross cell membranes and increase the in vivo stability. Biological evaluations of these compounds are in progress.
Peptides are well known for recognizing and activating specific receptors. Peptidase quickly intercepts and cleaves to transform them in to biologically inactive fragments that are further cleared by the kidneys. As a consequence peptides have a short half-life and brief duration of activity, such issues preclude them from being developed in to commercialized drugs. To overcome such issues taking advantage of the characteristic nature of HSA to accumulate in tumour tissues is exploited for transport and to increase the bioavailability. We have designed and synthesized hetero trifunctional linkers (maleimido, vinylsulphonamide and acrylamide) with a Michael acceptor on one side to conjugate with the HSA through cysteine-34, and a carboxylic acid and alkyne functionality on the other side to couple peptide based drugs and to install a better triazole derivative functionality to fit the linker in the hydrophobic binding pocket of cysteine-34. The relative reactivities of these linkers were evaluated using cysteine under physiological conditions with time, the maleimido derivative found to be the fastest reacting Michael acceptor (less than 10 min) and the vinyl sulfonamide which reacts completely within 45 min.  The acrylamide functionality did not react at all under physiological conditions, requiring the pH to be raised to 8.5 for reaction to occur. Theses three linkers are under further evaluation to react with HSA under physiological conditions using HPLC and MS-FAB characterization.


identifier: Goldstein, Erin Shauna  (2012) Everybody's Doing It, Are We Doing Enough About It? Reflections by five young adult women on their formal and informal sexual health education.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: The thesis is based on the recollections of sexual health education received by five women, between 23 and 29 years of age, in school and out of school contexts in Quebec.  Through an open ended questionnaire containing six questions the women were asked to discuss their past sexual health education and comment on whether it prepared them for healthy sexuality in their lived experience. The following themes emerged from the data:  technical information was given but was mainly with intent to discourage sexual behavior; the school context as well as discussions with parents created discomfort; the main problem identified was lack of emotional components in the curriculum, books and magazines, information received from friends and relatives, television as well as medical professionals.  One source of information that was not identified by the participants but is prominent in the recent literature is the internet.   Based on these results the thesis makes recommendations for improving sexual health education in schools as well as recommendations for more in depth research on this topic in the Quebec context.


identifier: Terekhov, Vitaly  (2011) Three essays on investor protection.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

title: Three essays on investor protection

abstract:
This dissertation examines the main question of corporate finance: how shareholders of public companies elect and control directors. How do shareholders, being suppliers of capital and legal owners of public companies, ensure themselves that directors and managers do not waste or steal the capital? To investigate this question, we focus on corporate elections. In the first chapter, we analyze specific voting rules, straight and cumulative voting, and examine which type of voting would result in the
social optimum. We model the election as a game in which dissatisfied shareholders form a coalition that challenges the incumbent directors and attempts to gain representation on the board. We show that corporate elections may bring about socially suboptimal outcomes when ineffient shareholders take over corporate boards and
the main cause of such outcomes is private benefits of control. Thus, in order to improve outcomes of corporate elections, we call for policies that would limit powers of
boards of directors and make them more accountable to shareholders. We also show that straight voting is superior to cumulative. In the second chapter, we ask why shareholders have different rights in different countries. We attempt to explain this phenomenon using asymmetric information when one side has informational advantage over the other: corporate directors are supposed to act in the best interests of shareholders but shareholders do not witness directors efforts and cannot make sure
that directors are serving their interests. This problem, known in the literature as the agency problem, is resolved by investor protection that gives shareholders the power
to oust directors when firms results are unsuccessful. The third chapter extends our analysis of investor protection and brings new insights. We find that investor protection serves two main objectives. First, it motivates directors to exert greater efforts. Second, it allows shareholders to save on directors compensation. This feature of investor protection may encourage shareholders to fire directors more often than they would if they did not save on directors' compensation. The third chapter strengthens
asymmetric information as the main cause of investor protection.


identifier: McClintock, Brenna N  (2011) Understanding Narrative Texts: Inferences Made During Reading by Children With and Without Language Impairments.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Successful reading comprehension relies on a number of abilities, including decoding and using linguistic and world knowledge to link text propositions.  While
difficulties with reading comprehension are well documented for children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), only a handful of studies have investigated the inferences
children with SLI make as they read.  The present study examines the inferences made by children with SLI during and after reading, with particular attention to causal inferences, considered critical to good comprehension.  The common procedure for assessing inferences - asking comprehension questions after reading - was combined with the more novel approach of eliciting children's thoughts about the text as they read ("think-aloud").
Twelve children with SLI (M age = 10;2) were compared to 12 age-matched peers with typical language development (TLD). The SLI group had lower scores than the TLD group on literal comprehension questions, and inferential questions requiring informational and causal inferences.  The think-aloud data were consistent with these findings, and additionally showed that the causal inferences of the SLI group were less accurate than in the TLD group.  Nevertheless, both groups had higher scores on
comprehension questions after engaging in the think-aloud, with the improvement in the SLI group driven by a significant improvement in causal comprehension.  The results are examined in light of children's performance on measures of oral language and working memory, and discussed in terms of reading comprehension theories.  Practical
applications of the think-aloud procedure are also considered.


identifier: Campbell, Margaret S  (2012) Perspectives on Pornography and Erotica: Nudes, Prudes and Attitudes.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
The study of the multi-billion dollar industries of pornography and erotica, known in the academy as ‘Porn Studies’, has recently been revised with contributions from authors such as Linda Williams, Debbie Nathan, Gail Dines, Pamela Paul, Harry Brod, Bernard Arcand, and Joseph Slade. Previous to this paradigm shift in theorizing about pornography and erotica, arguments made by authors such as Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon, Robin Morgan, Susan Brownmiller, and others traditionally discussed pornography in terms of a pro-censorship anti-pornography dualist framework.
The last three decades have witnessed a paradigm shift as feminists and gender theorists have reexamined pornography and erotica and anti-porn proponents such as Susan Brownmiller began to question their earlier positions and even validated pornography with a cost-benefit equation on the individuals. This thesis reviews the more traditional perspectives as well as the influx of new perspectives on pornography and erotica.
This research project is not solely about pornography and erotica. This project examines the history of sexual representation and the changing cultural and technological landscape of values, relationships, sex, our bodies, and the wider ‘pornification’ of society as proposed by author Pamela Paul. This work provides a detailed literature review of relevant sources and a historical examination of representations of sex in ‘restricted’ or taboo genres such as pornography and erotica, as well as mainstream media and classical art. The nature of this research is not evaluative and does not rely on participant interviews. However interviews with a convenient sample indicate a range of reactions to pornography. While most of this thesis explores the debates about pornography, and erotica, I did informal, interviews with seven individuals — whose take on Internet pornography added some value to the “expert” testimony and a range of values and perspectives. This research provides readers with comprehensive information on pornography and erotica, so that they may make a decision about how to deal with pornography and the so-called ‘pornification’ of society.


identifier: Dargahi, Shayan  (2012) Gallium-Nitride-Based Power Electronic Converter Design, Prototyping and Testing for Automotive Power Management and Renewable Energy Applications.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: Wide band-gap semiconductors, such as GaN have shown promising characteristics for use in the future power electronic applications. Compared to the mainstream Si technology, GaN-based devices can function at higher temperatures, offer higher breakdown voltages up to 500 times higher than Si, and have lower on-resistance,approximately 10 times lower than the respective value in a Si switch. In this thesis, improved device figure of merit (FOM) RonQsw resulted from GaN’s fast switching speed and low on-resistance is utilized to enhance the power conversion FOM: Efficiency density/cost. To prove this idea, two half-bridge DC-DC converters with the same ratings and elements using GaN and Si switches are designed and the superior performance of GaN-based converter in terms of efficiency and size is confirmed through simulation and experiment. Simulation is based on the Spice models of commercial GaN and Si switches. Finally, design of GaN-based high electron mobility transistor for power applications is reported. According to the literature review and analytical calculations expected values in terms of switch breakdown voltage, on-resistance, and current capacity are predicted, followed by designing a mask set according to a typical fabrication process of AlGaN/GaN HFET.


identifier: Javed, Khalid  (2011) Behavior of Sensitive Clay Subjected to Static and Cyclic Loading.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
Sensitive clay is the type of clay, which loses its shear strength when it is subjected to cyclic loading. High-rise buildings, towers, bridges etc., founded on sensitive clays and subjected to overturning moment are usually suffer from a steady reduction of the bearing capacity of their foundations and accordingly the safety factor. Cyclic loading of foundation on sensitive clay during the undrained period may lead to quick clay condition and catastrophic failure of the structure.
In the literature, governing parameters are listed as: cyclic deviator stress, pore water pressure, axial strain, pre-consolidation pressure, confining stress, initial degree of saturation, water content, liquidity index and the number of cycles. The present study has introduced the governing parameters in two categories; namely physical and mechanical as a function of sensitivity number of the clay material. A well planned experimental investigation was conducted to examine the effect of these governing parameters during the undrained and the drained periods of sensitive clay subjected to static or cyclic loadings. The soil samples, known as “Champlain clay” were obtained from the city of Rigaud, Quebec (Canada). Consolidation tests, static and cyclic undrained and drained triaxial tests were performed on representative samples of this clay.
Tests were conducted to identify the role of the key parameters governing this complex behavior during the drained and the undrained periods. The study examined individually the effect of cyclic loading, deviator stress, frequency, pre-consolidation pressure/OCR, and the confining pressure during the drained and undrained conditions. Absence or presence of the matric suction in fully saturated or partially saturated clay, effect of sensitivity number and liquidity index were also examined.
Based on the results of the present experimental investigation, a hypothetical model was introduced to explain the process of shear strength reduction for the case of static and cyclic loading of sensitive clay subjected to cycling loading.  The model was capable to define the term remolding agent or degree of remolding, the reduction in shear strength due to remolding. The increase in the water content is identified as the most critical or intrinsic shear strength for sensitive clay.
The present study used the “Modified Cam Clay Model” to predict the factor of safety for a foundation on sensitive clay subjected to cyclic loading as function of the physical and mechanical parameters. A design procedure is developed to determine the safe zone for the undrained and drained responses, within which a combination of the cyclic deviator stress and the number of cycles for a given soil/loading/site conditions can achieve a quasi-elastic resilient state without reaching failure. The proposed design procedure is applicable to all regions around the world, where sensitive clays can be found. Furthermore, this procedure can be adopted to examine the conditions of existing foundations built on sensitive clay at any time during its lifespan.


identifier: Salehi, Pejman  (2012) A Model Based Framework for Service Availability Management.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.

abstract:
High availability of services is an important requirement in several domains, including mission critical systems. The Service Availability Forum (SA Forum) is a consortium of telecommunications and computing companies that defines standard middleware solutions for high availability. Availability Management Framework (AMF) manages the high availability of services by coordinating their application components according to redundancy models. To protect these services, AMF requires a configuration, i.e. a representation of the organization of the logical entities composing an application under its control. AMF configuration design is error-prone and tedious if done manually, due to the complexity of the AMF domain. This PhD thesis explores the effective design and analysis of AMF configurations, proposing a model-based management framework that facilitates this process. We propose a domain-specific modeling language that captures AMF domain concepts, relationships, and constraints, facilitating the management of AMF configurations. We define this language by extending UML through its profiling mechanism, capturing the concepts of AMF configurations and the description of the software for which the configuration will be generated.
We introduce a new approach for the automatic generation of AMF configurations based on our UML profile using model transformation techniques. This approach consists of a set of transformations from the software description entities into AMF configurations while satisfying the requirements of the services to be provided as well as the constraints of the deployment infrastructure.
We also propose a third-party AMF configuration validation approach consisting of syntactical and semantic validations. Syntactical validation checks the well-formedness of third-party configurations by validating them against AMF standard specification requirements captured in our UML profile. Semantic validation focuses on ensuring the runtime protection of services at configuration time (the SI-Protection problem). SI-Protection has combinatorial aspects and results in an NP-hard problem for most redundancy models, which we have tackled by devising a heuristic-based method, overcoming its complexity.
We present proofs of concepts by using different available technologies: IBM Rational Software Architect (RSA) for implementing our UML profiles, Eclipse environment for developing a prototype tool for validating third-party configurations, and Atlas Transformation Language (ATL) for developing a prototype implementation of our model-based configuration generation approach.


identifier: Mancini, Bianca  (2012) Pedagogies of Movement with the City- performance, collaboration and the urban.  PhD thesis, Concordia University.


identifier: Nessrallah, Michael  (2011) Symbolic Brand Transgression: A Source of Cognitive DIssonance.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: This thesis begins by reviewing extant literature on the self-concept in consumption, and then extends to the formation of a relationship between one’s self-concept and a given brand (self-brand relationships). The paper subsequently addresses the shortcomings of the literature with regards to how these relationships might be affected by symbolic brand transgressions. More precisely, the author examines the self-brand relationship through the theory of cognitive dissonance, where undesirable dissonance arises as a result of symbolic brand failure.  Based on Festinger’s (1957) dissonance reducing strategies, three consumer strategies are proposed: coping, defending, and abandoning. Through the manipulation of three transgression variables, this research does not find empirical support for the hypothesized relationships between different transgressions and these three consumer strategies, aside from that related to defense and relationship strength.


identifier: Acevedo, Andres  (2012) Production Planning with Raw Material Shelf-Life Considerations by Mixed Integer Programming.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.


identifier: Schmid, Michael  (2012) Computer-Aided Writeprint Modelling for Cybercrime Investigations.  Masters thesis, Concordia University.

abstract: E-mail has become the most common way to communicate on the Internet, but e-mail security and privacy mechanisms are still lacking. This has proven to be a very valuable characteristic for criminals, who can easily take advantage of e-mail’s various weaknesses to remain anonymous. Consequently, cybercrime investigators need to rely on computer-aided writeprint modelling methods and tools to identify the real author of malicious e- mails with transformed semantic content. In this paper, we propose a customized version of associative classification, a well-known data mining method, as well as a Support Count method, to address the authorship attribution problem. Experimental results on real-life data suggest that our proposed algorithms can achieve good classification accuracy on the e-mail author attribution problem through the use of writeprint modelling.