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Multi-criteria decision making with consistency-driven pairwise comparisons method
No full textMulti-criteria decision-making is a sub-discipline of operations research. It
explicitly evaluates multiple con icting criteria in decision making. The
consistency-driven pairwise comparisons method is a valuable tool for solving
multi-criteria decision-making problems. It is also a powerful technique for
the inference that could be used for knowledge acquisition for the knowledge
management system. In fact, pairwise comparisons are basics for practically
all science disciplines and have been used in many critical national projects.
This thesis describes an application's implementation based on the consistencydriven pairwise comparisons method using an R package, Shiny. Shiny o ers
an elegant and powerful web framework for building interactive web applications straight from R. This application, RConcluder, is a standalone system
and could be used as a supplement to any expert or knowledge management
systemMaster of Science (MSc) in Computational Science
Re-establishing innate connection to nature: an application of Indigenous ancestral practice in a new land-based learning centre on the French River
No full textThe common society is coming to the
realization that the earth can no longer sustain the
human race if we continue to expropriate it in the
manner and velocity that we currently are. Unethical
mining, fracking, mono-forestry, and factory farming
are all symptoms of a greater problem; the blatant
disregard for the other living beings that accompany
us on the planet. The question then becomes, how
can we as human beings re-discover our innate
connection to the natural world and therefore heal
our relationship to the planet and ourselves?
In response, we need to alter our relationship
with ourselves and nature in order to prevent the
continued exploitation of the world. We must
go back to the ancestral knowledge carriers: the
Indigenous peoples of the earth, in particular the
Indigenous peoples of North America, since it is their
land in which we now live. We all at one point in
our history had a connection to The Land through
intergenerational knowledge passed down in place
through our ancestors. It is now our responsibility to
re-establish that connection to the land if we are to
have any hope in saving it.
A return to the land is the answer to the
fundamental change that we as human beings need
to take in order to effectively take our place as the
instruments of great good for the ecosystems around
us. Educational environments that focus on living
with the land need to be implemented at a greater
rate and scale, and that is precisely what this thesis
seeks to accomplish with the formation of a landbased learning centre. The centre will be placed along
a remote corridor of the French River and serve
as a junction between the old world and the new,
accessible through modes of transportation such as
canoe or car. It will sit on park land currently claimed
by Parks Canada, juxtaposed with Dokis First Nation
across the river, while also being on the boundary
lines of three city districts. The programs will consist
of the collaborative efforts of the local Indigenous
peoples from Dokis First Nation, the Maamwazing
Research Institute as the academic presence, and
the Ministry of Natural Resources as the Provincial
Governmental group. It will serve as a potential
model for how local Indigenous groups, Academics,
and Provincial Governments can co-operate and comanage together
Fall risk factors in long-term care facilities in Ontario
No full textThis research was the first large study in Ontario seeking to assess the fall risk factors of longterm care (LTC) residents. Ontario-wide LTC data were provided by the Canadian Institute of
Health Information for the period April 2019 through March 2020. Guided by a positivist
philosophical orientation, this thesis consolidated existing fall risk factor research using a
literature review; developed a concept analysis on the relationship between homeostasis and falls
in older adults; and conducted a cross-sectional, retrospective research study on falls in Ontario’s
LTC facilities. The main research question was: What are the factors associated with falls among
residents living in Ontario’s LTC facilities? Results showed a significant relationship between
variables such as age, sex, diuretic use, visual impairment, dependency in activities of daily
living, and cognitive and physical impairments with falls within the previous 30 days. Research
results will contribute to the development of more effective falls prevention strategies.Master of Science (MSc) in Nursin
Political analytics on election candidates and their parties in context of the US Presidential elections 2020
No full textThe availability of internet services in the United States and rest of the world in general in the
modern past has contributed to more traction in the social network platforms like Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and much more. This has made it possible for individuals to freely
speak and express their sentiments and emotions towards the society. Social media has also made
it possible for bringing people closer by making the world a global village. There are influencers
who promote products on social media platforms and politicians run their campaigns online for
broader reach. Social media has become the fuel for globalization. In 2020, the United State
Presidential Elections saw around 1.5 million tweets on Twitter specifically for the Democratic
and Republican party, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump, respectively. The tweets involve people’s
sentiments and opinions towards the two political leaders (Joe Biden and Donald Trump) and
their parties. The computational study of beliefs, sentiments, evaluations, perceptions, views, and
feelings conveyed in text is known as sentiment analysis. The political parties have used this
technique to run their campaigns and understand the opinions of the public. It has also enabled
the modification of their campaigns accordingly. In this thesis, during the voting time for the
United States Elections in 2020, we conducted text mining on approximately 1.5 million tweets
received between 15th October and 8th November that address the two mainstream political
parties in the United States. We aimed at how Twitter users perceived for both political parties
and their candidates in the United States (Democratic Party and Republican Party) using VADER
(Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner) a sentiment analysis tool that is tailored to
discover the social media emotions, with a lexicon and rule-based sentiment analysis. The results
of the research were the Democratic Party’s Joe Biden regardless of the sentiments and opinions
in the in Twitter showing Donald Trump could win
Ground work: revitalizing Hamilton through urban agriculture
No full textThe landscapes of cities around the Great Lakes Region grapple with the far-reaching
consequences of intense industrial exploitation. The environment’s capacity to sustain
life and contribute to all species health and well-being is damaged. In addition to
intense environmental pollution, the industrial manufacturing boom and bust cycles
engendered waves of job loss, which plunged already disadvantaged workers into
poverty. Neighbourhoods filling the spaces in-between factories once home to workers
face greater risks of disease and poverty as they sit in this undesired landscape.
Sustainable rehabilitation of the post-industrial landscape and its remaining architectural
fragments must be pursued carefully to mend the trauma of industrial manufacturing
that contaminated deep into the soil and outward into the bodies of the community. This
condition creates social and spatial inequalities that literally and metaphorically grow out
of the damaged ground. This thesis project takes the position that architecture and urban
design have essential roles in combating socio-economic and spatial inequalities and
adopts a “ground-up” methodology, which is construed and mobilized in various ways.
Focusing on Hamilton, Ontario, which sits at one of the most contaminated points along
Lake Ontario yet whose urban centre sits atop the once fertile extension of the Niagara
fruit basket, this thesis project explores how permaculture could resuscitate the valuable
soil that lies deep in the ground and support the surrounding community. Advancing a
holistic vision for environmentally and culturally sustainable design, the remediation of
the land to support sustainable food production is at the heart of a design approach to
tackling industrial contamination and its many long-lasting effects. Following the first stages of rebuilding the ground, the design intervention in the Kieth neighbourhood
adjacent to Hamilton’s industrial port comprises a hybrid program that includes an urban
agriculture hub with a market, stores for locally fabricated goods, and a restaurant - cafe
to showcase the produce grown on-site. These commercial operations will be linked to a
cohousing neighbourhood development centred around communal spaces, surrounded
by a landscape remediated through phases of planting to be used for food production, all
of which work together to cultivate the well-being of residents. This thesis project aims to
heal former industrial lands in Hamilton to address food (in)security by transforming a toxic
landscape into an accessible neighbourhood within a productive, habitable environment
Secretion and interaction of the heat-stable enterotoxin b (STb) with the gut hormone secreting STC-1 Cells
No full textEnterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) employs a number of secretion systems for efficient
translocation of a number of virulence factors during infection. Studies of the relationship
between substrates and specific secretion pathways suggested that secretion substrates are
identified and are targeted to their proper secretion pathway via inherent amino acid sequences,
or secretion signals, within each substrate. ETEC utilizes the Sec-dependent pathway of the type
two secretion system (T2SS) to secrete the Heat-Stable Enterotoxin B (STb), in addition to
several other toxins, to the extracellular milieu. In this work, the nature of the nucleotide
sequence of STb’s mRNA, rather than the amino acid sequence of its signal sequence, was
investigated for its effect on STb secretion. Additionally, the interaction of STb with the gut
hormone secreting cells (STC-1 cells) was investigated to elucidate the nature and consequences
of such interaction. In the first study, the N-terminal signal sequence of premature STb (at the
mRNA level) was subjected to various mutations (a number of accumulative silent mutations and
a number of non-silent point mutations) to test whether or not its mRNA secondary structure
affects its targeting for secretion. In the second study, the two main key secretion factors of Secdependant pathway, ffh and secb, were separately knocked out and overexpressed to uncover
their potential involvement in pro-STb targeting and secretion processes. In the final study, an in
vitro approach was devised to identify and characterize the STb cell surface receptor on STC-1
cells (mouse intestinal enteroendocrine cell line). The results indicated that the nucleotide
sequence of the STb mRNA (within the N-terminal amino acid signal sequence of the toxin) can
affect toxin secretion. Reducing the AU richness within the 5′ end of the STb mRNA (without
altering the translated amino acid sequence of this region) significantly reduced toxin secretion.
From the second study, deletion of FFh, the protein component of the signal recognition particle in E. coli, resulted in significant effects on targeting and translocation of pro-STb and STb to the
cytoplasmic membrane and the extracellular milieu more so than SecB deletion. Overexpression
of FFh, not SecB, was shown to enhance STb synthesis and secretion. Finally, the results of the
third study confirm a direct disruption to the tight junction of STC-1 cells. The results strongly
suggest that STb interaction with these cells is mediated, at least in part, by the tight junction
associated protein occludin. This interaction ultimately led to Caspase 3-mediated apoptosis.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Biomolecular Science
Exploration targeting for gold deposits using spatial data analytics, machine learning and deep transfer learning in the Swayze and Matheson greenstone belts, Ontario, Canada
No full textThe rate of mineral deposit discovery has declined in the past decade despite increasing efforts
from mining and government. The low rate of deposit discovery and the massive historical data
available from brownfield exploration sites has prompted geoscientists to apply scale-integrated,
empirical, and conceptual targeting approaches to exploration targeting. Applications of the
mineral systems approach as a conceptual targeting method together with mineral prospectivity
mapping has become the focus of predictive modelling for mineral exploration targeting.
Evaluating the essential ingredients that make up a mineral system at various scales with data
science machine learning tools could potentially help improve exploration discovery. This study
was aimed at mineral exploration targeting gold deposits in the Abitibi greenstone belt using
various spatial analysis, machine learning, and transfer learning methods. The multi-scale spatial
analysis of gold prospects in the Swayze greenstone belt revealed orogenic mineral systems
display fractal characteristics at regional and deposit scales, that gold prospects are clustered
within 2 -4 km distances, and that clustering within camps can be attributed to the occurrences of
lower-order fault densities or intrusive source rocks. Analyzing spatial correlations between
prospect distributions and geological features was instrumental in identifying the physical
controlling parameters at various scales, which were primarily D2 structures at regional scales
and 2nd and 3rd order structures and competency contrast at prospect scales. Furthermore, the
mineral prospectivity maps generated from the various machine learning methods such as
support vector machines, random forest, radial basis function neural networks, and deep neural
networks were not only beneficial in predicting prospective regions with > 80% accuracies but
were essential for emphasizing important geoscience predictor layers that correlate well with
mineral prospects. Deep transfer learning attempted for exploration targeting aimed at training a deep neural network model on the Swayze greenstone belt and using the learnt knowledge to
make predictions of prospectivity on the Matheson region resulted in over 70% prediction
accuracies. Deep transfer learning was valuable in showing that pre-trained models can be used
to generate prospectivity predictions in relatively greenfield exploration site where the
distributions of prospects are unknown. Overall, this study demonstrates that data integration and
applications of data science tools is effective for exploration targeting today
Multiple-order moments of the transient electromagnetic response of a one-dimensional earth with finite conductance – theory
No full textThe concept of moments of the electromagnetic response is useful in electromagnetic interpretation. Analytic formulae exist for low-order moments of a few conductivity models, enabling source parameters such as time constant, depth, conductance and conductivity to be estimated from the measured moments of the electromagnetic response. However, most models for which analytic formulae exist have conductivity varying abruptly as a function of depth or position. In this paper, we have derived a procedure that allows moments of any order to be calculated for a conductivity which has finite conductance but can otherwise vary arbitrarily with depth. The horizontal loop transient electromagnetic step response is computed as a sum of residues. Integration of the step response over time yields a mathematical expression for a moment of any order. We illustrate the procedure for a Gaussian conductivity function which varies smoothly with depth. The Gaussian model produces results that agree in specific limits with the thin sheet, thick sheet and half-space cases
Equestrian architecture: crafting a sustainable northern community for the wellness of the horse and human companion in Greater Sudbury, Ontario
No full textEquestrian Architecture will create a meaningful western
performance facility to improve the quality of life of an American
Quarter horse in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. The interactions and
connections between horses and humans, between horses alike, and
between horses and their environment will be studied to curate an
architecture to benefit all. The relationship between horse and human
has evolved overtime, however, the architecture around them has
not significantly changed. Since the 1800s, when horses were used
for agriculture, the barn has remained relative unchanged. Now that
these animals are used mainly for recreational purposes, a shift in the
architecture is necessary to cater to the wellness of the horse and rider.
Being around horses requires humans to exercise their
nonverbal communication. The experience of touch is the main way
humans communicate with these animals; it is very important that the
human is conscious of body language. For this reason, horseback riding
is not only a physical sport but also psychological sport, and so it is
beneficial to humans in many ways.
Some horses live their entire lives without ever leaving the
farm, that is the place where they experience all stages of life. It is very
important that the farm improves their quality of life. From Vitruvius to
Le Corbusier, architects have always studied the scale of the human;
this thesis needs to adapt to the scale of the horse to be able to build a
comfortable architecture for them. The domesticated horse is a sensitive
animal and requires care from humans to provide them food, water,
and shelter especially to keep them comfortable in the harsh northern
winters.
A site has been chosen in the southern side of Greater Sudbury
in the small community of Wanup, ON. Building an equestrian facility
in the north presents its challenges with it being such a large building
complex that needs to handle the snow and wind load. The site is
utilized to best handle the environmental conditions that occur in a
northern climate. The program is organized into five categories to assist with
the flow of movement through the facility; the House for the Horse,
the Private House for the Human, the Public House for the Human,
the Shared House, and the Back of House. The horizontal and vertical
relationships of these spaces to each other and the site have been
studied to better the care and comfort of the horses.
This thesis looks at innovative building opportunities to better
the wellness of the horse and human in the harsh Sudbury climate. The
structure reflects the strong and dynamic qualities of the structure of
the horse and the human. The facility re-introduces a high level of care
in the craft and materiality of the building, which over time has been
lost in equestrian facilities. The details in the building take influence
from the highly developed connections in the equipment, such as that
of the saddle and bridle. Daylighting and ventilation are maximized
throughout the facility to improve the wellness of its users. The building
systems work together to create an environment for the horses and
riders to thrive.
This thesis creates a facility to improve the wellness of horses
and humans in northern Ontario. The facility as a whole allows for the
best care possible for these animals and the human companion