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Development of Natural Gas Reforming Systems for Industrial Decarbonization Using Advanced Electrification Technologies
No full textReduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the chemical industry is essential to achieve sustainable industrial development. Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) is a promising approach for CO2 mitigation while producing valuable chemicals. However, to make CCU a viable option for industrial decarbonization, energy efficiency, economic feasibility, and environmental sustainability issues must be addressed.
In this Ph.D. research, the focus is on designing and numerical simulation of novel CO2 conversion reactors with an emphasis on electrification technologies for methanol production, in the Canadian context. First, an electrified combined reforming (E-CRM) process is simulated and designed in Aspen Plus. The results show that electrification enhances process efficiency, making CO2 utilization more feasible for industrial applications.
An eco-techno-economic and lifecycle analysis (e-TEA/LCA) is conducted to evaluate the feasibility of different CO2 conversion pathways. The results indicate that under low-carbon electricity, electrified pathways have lower GHG mitigation credit than the CCS-based pathway. This highlights the importance of electricity grid emissions in CCU effectiveness and provides direction for the optimal pathway.
Next, numerical modeling using COMSOL Multiphysics is conducted to study the fluid, heat, and mass transport phenomena in reactors utilizing induction heating. As a clean alternative to fossil-fuel-based heating, induction heating provides rapid, localized, and energy-efficient thermal input with zero direct CO2 emissions. The model provides insights into reactor optimization, like temperature distribution, reaction kinetics, and energy efficiency improvements.
Additionally, a plasma-assisted methane decomposition system is integrated with CO2-utilizing pathways for hydrogen and carbon black. This route shows significant CO2 emission reductions, leveraging electrification for clean syngas generation and enhanced process sustainability.
By reactor design optimization, process efficiency improvement, and evaluation of economic and environmental impacts, this research advances the development of CCU technologies and offers a roadmap for the sustainable and cost-effective utilization of CO2 playing a role in the shift towards a low-carbon chemical industry. The outcomes contribute to the broader transition toward a low-carbon chemical industry
Oye mi canto: Valuable Journalism as a Tool to Tell the Stories of a Diaspora
No full textValuable journalism—a concept that aims to enhance civic engagement and news consumption by making journalism a more enjoyable and meaningful experience—offers a potential response to the contemporary challenges faced by journalism as an institution. This research-creation project explores how this approach can be applied through the production of a podcast that tells stories from the Latin American music scene in Montréal.
Rooted in the personal experiences of Hispanic musicians, the podcast navigates themes of immigration, identity, cultural clashes, and adaptation, while highlighting these artists’ contributions to Montréal’s cultural life. This project highlights lifestyle journalism’s political significance and relevance. It responds to the lack of media coverage of Hispanic musicians in the city and examines how music journalism can amplify the voices and traditions of the diaspora in a way that is both informative and entertaining. It also explores how, through the use of engaging storytelling, music journalism can educate a non-Hispanic audience about Latin American music, its instruments, its cultural significance, and the lived experiences of the people who create it. This project demonstrates how entertainment and information can coexist to create journalistic pieces with social and political impact—promoting empathy and appreciation for the Hispanic community in a context where anti-immigration discourse, particularly against Latin American people, is spreading rapidly
The Impact of Financial Development on Economic Growth in Emerging Market Countries
No full textUnderstanding the dynamics between financial development and economic growth has long been a cornerstone of economic research and policy discourse. This paper builds on the econometric growth model by Masoud and Hardaker (2012), following the endogenous growth model of Lucas (1988), Romer (1986), Rebelo (1991), Barro (1991), and Pagano (1993), to analyze the impact of financial development on economic growth in 13 developing countries from 2000 to 2019. Utilizing a two-way fixed effects panel regression, this study examines the impact of stock market development, the banking sector, and the ratio of broad money supply to gross domestic product on economic growth. The findings show that while development in financial depth and the banking sector has no significant effect, stock market liquidity relative to the size of the economy, measured by the value traded as a percentage of gross domestic product, establishes a robust and positive impact on economic growth. These results underscore the importance of liquid and efficient stock markets in fostering economic development across emerging economies
Impact of interpolation and data distribution on deep latent representaion learning in lunar surface temperature profiles
No full textThe lunar south pole is a high-priority region for robotic exploration in support of goals to establish a sustained presence. However, the thermal and solar environment poses challenges for rover design, mission planning, and trafficability. Accurate thermal modeling in these regions has the potential to improve predictions of regolith properties, such as compaction, that affect mobility.
The Diviner Radiometer Experiment aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has generated terabytes of surface temperature brightness data since 2009. Deep learning offers a path to extract insight from datasets of this scale. Building on prior reference work in the literature that trained a Variational Autoencoder to learn latent representations of the thermophysical model from Diviner data, this thesis identifies gaps in the original procedure, particularly the lack of detail around data selection and characterization needed to achieve ≤ 10 K reconstruction loss and robust learning of all latent variables.
Two Gaussian Process Regression interpolation methods are compared: one uninformed (Profiles-v1) and one enforcing expected lunar temperature shapes (Profiles-v2). Profiles are generated from Diviner data collected between July 2009 and September 2023 across 47 areas of interest. Two sampling strategies, sample by metric and Principal Component Analysis sampling, are used to improve data diversity. Density plots are used to visualize dataset distributions. Across both interpolation and sampling strategies, reconstruction loss remains around 50 K. Results are consistent when evaluated against a third-party Variational Autoencoder implementation, suggesting the original reference work omits critical methodological details. This thesis contributes insights into how data selection and interpolation influence deep learning performance on lunar thermal data
Rising Education, Declining Homeownership? Human Capital and Housing Market Disparities in Canada
No full textThis study investigates the relationship between educational attainment and homeownership in Canada, assessing whether gains in human capital have translated into
higher ownership rates amid rising housing costs. Using microdata from the 2001 and 2021 Canadian Census Public Use Microdata Files (PUMFs), the analysis combines a pseudo-panel framework with survey-weighted regression models, Oaxaca–Blinder decompositions, and a control function approach to account for unobserved earnings-
related factors. The results show that higher education is consistently associated with a greater probability of homeownership, with the relationship strengthening over time.
Counterfactual predictions suggest that, under 2001 structural conditions (that is, applying coefficients from 2001 regressions to 2021 covariates), 2021 homeownership rates would have been lower than observed, indicating an increased effect of returns to education in the housing market. Decomposition results reveal that most of the education-based gap in homeownership is structural rather than compositional, implying that differences in the returns to characteristics drive disparities. These findings underscore the need for housing affordability policies that complement human capital development to ensure education-driven income gains are not undermined by structural market constraints for Canadians
Cultivating Human-Plant Relationships and Embodied Knowledges: An Ethnography of Herbalism in Quebec
No full textThis thesis examines how knowledge about health and wellbeing is produced through embodied, sensory, and relational practices in Quebec. Based on multi-sited fieldwork—including in-depth interviews, apprenticeship-based participant observation, and travel across herbal landscapes—my immersive ethnographic research traces how clinical herbalists learn to care, come to know and collaborate with medicinal plants. Informed by interdisciplinary scholarship in medical anthropology, ethnobotany, multispecies and sensory studies, I engage with posthumanist critiques of anthropocentrism to explore how human-plant relationships are expressed, experienced, and generate healing knowledge that challenges dominant biomedical epistemologies. Across four chapters, I discuss the practices of herbalism in different social, cultural, and political contexts, trace practitioners’ diverse pathways into the field, and examine the affective and interdependent dynamics of human-plant relationships. By centering herbalists’ lived experiences and narratives, this research reveals how medicinal plants are engaged not merely as ingredients for remedies but as living, responsive beings who participate in the co-creation of health. By foregrounding the sentience and agency of medicinal plants, I explore clinical herbalism as both a form of care and a mode of knowing that contributes to broader conversations on multispecies entanglements, relational healing practices, and the sensory dimensions of care. This ethnography aims to understand how health emerges as an intricate weave of love, reciprocity, interdependence, and transformation—where humans and plants cocreate experiences of wellbeing through shared attentiveness and presence
Gaza and the Grotesque: Affective Solidarities in the Age of Mediated Violence
No full textThis thesis articulates a novel analytical framework called grotesque visuality to interrogate the spread of violent imagery in digital networks. Vis-a-vis the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip (2023—), I look into modern networked structures of communication to explore how the grotesque body functions within the co-constitutive relationship between state control and political protest. Specifically, I focus on its embodied, or haptic, sensibilities and argue that the visual violations of the body can elicit political solidarity through a collective visceral response.
By analyzing three videos that have circulated on social media platforms—each a vivid depiction of violence from the genocide—I provide some insight into how grotesque media objects serve as a sites of contestation for competing goals and ideologies. However, this thesis focuses on their regenerative capabilities, how they can bridge disparate populations together through the negotiation of attention and representation.
Analyzed for their digital circulation, audience engagement and role in the broader political landscape, my exploration of the case studies in this thesis unravels the layers of the grotesque visual framework that make up this modality of representing and seeing embodied violence while painting a multidirectional image of the power relations that undergird its visibility. Through an interdisciplinary approach that draws from media studies, discourse analysis, and grassroots activism, my thesis further contextualizes our relationship to political violence and the affective solidarities they may elicit
3D PRINTING WITH SOUND WAVES: DIRECT SOUND PRINTING (DSP) AND PROXIMAL SOUND PRINTING (PSP)
No full textThis doctoral research introduces two novel 3D printing technologies, Direct Sound Printing (DSP) and Proximal Sound Printing (PSP), which use focused ultrasound to cure heat-setting thermoset polymers without light, heat, or chemical modification. These sound-based methods form a new class of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, addressing a major limitation in conventional 3D printing: the inability to process unmodified thermosets, despite their excellent mechanical and thermal properties. Unlike traditional AM processes that rely on photopolymerization or heat, this research uses ultrasound as an alternative energy source. Through acoustic cavitation, ultrasound produces microscopic bubbles that rapidly collapse, generating intense, localized heat and pressure. These conditions trigger fast chemical reactions, known as sonochemistry, allowing precise, spatially controlled polymerization while preserving the surrounding material. This approach unlocks previously inaccessible reaction conditions and expands the capabilities of AM.
The first technique, DSP, uses focused ultrasound to initiate polymerization deep within resin volumes, enabling the fabrication of complex structures with fine features (down to 280 μm) in materials like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) that cannot be printed by conventional methods. DSP was characterized using high-speed imaging, sonochemiluminescence, and process analysis. Building on this, PSP improves resolution and reliability by triggering polymerization near the acoustic aperture. It reduces power consumption fourfold and minimizes acoustic streaming by 1600 times, enabling multi-material printing and precise control over feature size, ideal for microsystems and microfluidic applications. A major outcome of this research is the concept of Remote Distance Printing (RDP), which extends DSP to print through barriers like soft tissue, opening new possibilities for noninvasive, in-body fabrication of medical structures.
Two custom systems were developed: a modular DSP platform and a compact PSP setup. By tuning parameters like power, frequency, and resin formulation, stable and high-resolution printing was achieved across a broad size range (∼200 μm to 50 mm). The printed parts demonstrated strong mechanical properties and biocompatibility.
In summary, this thesis establishes ultrasound as a novel energy source for 3D printing methods of DSP and PSP, and also introduces the concept of RDP that can significantly expand the range of printable materials and applications, particularly in advanced manufacturing and biomedical fields
Rational Design, Synthesis and Degradation of Acidic pH-Responsive Block Copolymer Nanoassemblies for Controlled Drug Delivery
No full textAcidic pH-responsive degradable block copolymer-based nanoassemblies that degrade through the cleavage of acid-labile linkages have gained significant attention due to their biological relevance, particularly in tumor tissues, having acidic environments (pH 4.2-6.9) due to irregular vasculatures of endothelial cells. Although they hold great potential for achieving controlled and enhanced drug release, developing a systematic understanding of the structural factors that influence their pH sensitivity remains a challenge—especially in designing effective acid-degradable, shell-sheddable nanoassemblies. This is particular for acetals and ketals, where their acid-catalyzed hydrolysis could be adjusted with the substituents attached to oxygen atoms as well as central carbon atom in acetal/ketal moieties. The relationship between the location of cleavable linkages and the drug release performance of polymeric micelles is critical in modulating their therapeutic behavior. This not only improves the biodistribution of anticancer drugs but also ensures minimal dosage, enhancing drug efficacy while reducing undesired cytotoxicity to normal tissues.
My PhD research aims at designing and synthesizing single location and dual location acid-degradable block copolymers and their nanoassemblies for controlled drug delivery. My first project (Chapter 3) evaluates single location strategy on acid-degradable shell-sheddable nanoassemblies, where the acid-labile linkage for the block junction was examined by the hydrolysis behaviour at different pH levels relevant to biological environments. The suitable candidate demonstrated that under acidic conditions, the nanoassemblies tend to form large aggregates as a result loosening the core structures, causing destabilization. My second project (Chapter 4) expands my scope of single location strategy to focus on dual location acid-responsive degradation strategy. The dual location nanoassemblies were extensively examined by assessing by the encapsulation of an anticancer drug (Curcumin) and evaluating the controlled drug release, as well as in vitro (cell) studies. My third project (Chapter 5) investigates the relationship of sensitivity to acid and stability to radical polymerizations for acetals and ketals.
Overall, my PhD thesis work provides important design principles for the synthesis of well-defined acid-degradable amphiphilic block copolymers (ABPs) with respect to acid-catalyzed hydrolysis rate and stability of acid-labile acetal/ketal, thus eventually, release rate of encapsulated drug molecules from their nanoassemblies in acidic environment
Language Power-levellers: Analysing the Strategies Employed by Self-regulated Learners in the Digital Wilds
No full textThis study explored the language learning strategies utilized by successful autonomous English learners in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), with particular attention given to the intersection of player identity and second language communication practices. Drawing on six semi-structured interviews with MMORPG players from varied linguistic and cultural backgrounds, this research acts as an exploratory study of how learners navigate the digital wilds to develop their language proficiency outside of traditional classroom contexts.
Using a hybrid approach integrating thematic coding of self-regulation to describe participant learning approaches and a modified Critical Discourse Analysis to address interplay of identity, this study identifies two categories of learning strategies and two categories of learner identity types. The categories of strategies are those involving learning by oneself (e.g., solo research, use of translation tools, online resources) and those involving learning with others communicatively (e.g., peer feedback, Reddit discussion, and collaborative play). These strategies were then examined through the lens of identity performance in relation to avatar customization choices, role or job selection in game, and communication preferences in game and out.
Findings indicate that participants strategically position themselves in digital communities, generally preferring support roles and text-based interactions to manage linguistic risk and reduce chances of miscommunication. Some learners, classified as conscious strategists, exhibited high self-awareness in adapting communication strategies to social contexts. The learners classified as immersive learners were more focused on interaction without any specific focus on their language beyond its use as a vehicle to accomplish goals in game or for talking with friends. Learners from both groups additionally reported a perceived decline in public patience toward non-native English speakers, as well as toward new players in online spaces more generally, a shift that was not present in earlier gaming communities.
This research contributes to our understanding of informal, socially embedded language learning in online gaming environments. It highlights how learner autonomy is enacted through identity-driven strategy use, and how communities in the digital wilds (specifically MMORPG communities) serve as complex, multimodal ecosystems for language development. The implications extend to digital language pedagogy, encouraging educators to draw on game-based identities to foster authentic language use. This is particularly valuable for learners motivated by community belonging, self-expression, and interaction, or otherwise not well served by traditional language learning approaches in schools