Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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ADHD Symptomatology Across Adulthood
Objective: To improve on several methodological issues and research gaps regarding current literature investigating the stability of ADHD symptomatology across adulthood and relationships between the two core ADHD symptom dimensions (i.e., inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity) and multiple life outcomes in adults. Method: A large sample of postsecondary students were initially assessed for ADHD symptomatology using the Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scale (CAARS). Six years later, academic success was assessed using students’ official academic records (e.g., final GPAs and degree completion status), and fifteen years later, participants were re-assessed using the CAARS and several measures of life success (e.g., relationship satisfaction, career satisfaction, and stress levels). Results: Inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms showed strong stability across the 15-year period. Additionally, greater inattention symptoms during emerging adulthood and early middle adulthood were consistently associated with poorer life success (e.g., lower GPAs, poorer relationship and career satisfaction), particularly for men. Associations for hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms were less consistent. Conclusion: ADHD symptomatology can be conceptualized as a stable, dimensional trait across adulthood, with robust associations with measures of life success. Author Keywords: academic success, ADHD, adults, job satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, stability
Academic Efficiency
Universities produce a significant and increasing share of basic research that is later commercialized by firms. We argue that the university's prominence as a producer of basic research is the result of a differential efficiency in research production that cannot be replicated by firms or individual agents - teaching. By using research accomplishments to signal knowledge and attract tuition-paying students, universities are uniquely positioned to undertake certain types of research projects. However, in a market for innovation without patent rights, a significant and increasing number of basic research projects, that are social welfare improving, cannot be initiated by firms or universities. The extension of patent rights to university-generated research elegantly redresses this issue and leaves us to ponder important questions about the future of our innovation-driven economies. Author Keywords: Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, Research, Science Technology and Innovation Policy
Agro-Ecological Zoning (AEZ) of Southern Ontario and the Projected Shifts Caused by Climate Change in the Long-term Future
This thesis proposes an agro-ecological zoning (AEZ) methodology of southern Ontario for the characterization and mapping of agro-ecological zones during the historical term (1981-2010), and their shifts into the long-term (2041-2070) projected climate period. Agro-ecological zones are homogenous areas with a unique combination of climate, soil, and landscape features that are important for crop growth. Future climate variables were derived from Earth System Models (EMSs) using a high emission climate forcing scenario from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report. The spatiotemporal shifts in agro-ecological zones with projected climate change are analyzed using the changes to the length of growing period (LGP) and crop heat units (CHU), and their manifestation in agro-climatic zones (ACZ). There are significant increases to the LGP and CHU into the long-term future. Two historical ACZs exist in the long-term future, and have decreased in area and shifted northward from their historical locations. Author Keywords: Agro-climatic Zones, Agro-ecological Zones, Agro-ecological Zoning, Climate Change, Crop Heat Units, Length of Growing Period
An Application of the Sinc-Collocation Method in Oceanography
In this thesis, we explore the application of the Sinc-Collocation method to an oceanography model. The model of interest describes a wind-driven current with depth-dependent eddy viscosity and is formulated in two different systems; a complex-velocity system and a real-value coupled system. In general, the Sinc-based methods excel over other traditional numerical methods due to their exponentially decaying errors, rapid convergence and handling problems in the presence of singularities at end-points. In addition, the Sinc-Collocation approach that we utilize exploits first derivative interpolation, whose integration is less sensitive to numerical errors. We present several model problems to demonstrate the accuracy, and stability of the method. We compare the approximate solutions determined by the Sinc-Collocation technique with exact solutions and also with those obtained by the Sinc-Galerkin approach in earlier studies. Our findings indicate that the method we utilized outperforms those used in past studies. Author Keywords: Boundary Value Problems, Eddy Viscosity, Oceanography, Sinc Numerical Methods, Wind-Driven Currents
An Emprirical Investigation into the Relationship Between Education and Health
Health literature has long noted a positive correlation between health and levels of education. Two competing theories have been advanced to explain this phenomenon: (1) education "causes" health by allowing individuals to process complex information and act on it; and, (2) education and health are merely correlated through some third underlying characteristic. Determining which of these two theories is correct is of importance to public policy. But that task is empirically difficult because, from the standard, static perspective, the theories are observationally equivalent. We exploit a way in which the two theories have different implications regarding the sort of behaviour we should observe over time. We use smoking as a measure of health behaviour and find that smoking rates between "high" and "low" educated individuals expand when information is hard to process, and then contract as it becomes more easily processable. This approach is then repeated using physical activity as a measure of health-related behaviour to address limitations of the smoking model. Our novel approach to estimating the differences in the behavioural responses to changes in the processability of health-related information, across education groups, provides strong evidence in support of the view that education and health are causally linked. Author Keywords: applied statistics, education, health economics, public health, public policy, smoking
An Ethical Analysis of Bell's Targeted Ad Prorgram
Online behavioural advertising (OBA) is an advertising technique which relies on collected customer information and online activity to serve people with more relevant ads. On November 16th, 2013, Bell Canada launched their first OBA program via Bell Mobility: the Bell Targeted Ads Program, or BTAP. My thesis provides an ethical analysis of BTAP and shows that Bell undermined and violated customer privacy, stifled customer autonomy, and harmed customer identity. Relevant moral problems include typification, a disrespecting of customer autonomy, and identity commodification. I show that BTAP was unethical by grounding my arguments within the moral framework of Information Ethics (IE). IE is an ethical system which focuses on the role of information in the ethical dilemmas. IE also justifies the self-constitutive theory of privacy (SCP) which argues that our information and privacy are entangled with our identities. This gives us strong reason to defend our privacy/identity within BTAP. After making several arguments which demonstrate that BTAP was unethical, I will then turn my attention to showing how it is possible to rectify and mitigate many of BTAP’s ethical problems by installing a two-stage opt-in (TSOI) which provides customers with a greater deal of autonomy, and the ability to remove themselves from BTAP. Author Keywords: Bell Canada, Ethics, Identity, Online Behavioural Advertising, Privacy, Targeted Advertising
Application of Data Science to Paramedic Data
Paramedic data has significant potential for research. Paramedics see many patients every year and collect a wide variety of crucial data at each encounter. This data is rarely used for good reason: it’s messy and hard to work with. But like theunderdog character in a classic movie, with a little bit of work and a lot of understanding, paramedic data has significant potential to change the world of medical research. Paramedics throughout the world are involved in research every day, but most of this research uses purpose-built data structures and never takes advantage of the existing data that paramedics create as part of their everyday work. Through a project-based approach grounded in developing a better understanding of the opioid crisis, this thesis will examine the quantity and structure of the existing paramedic data, the complexities of its current design, the steps necessary to access it, and the processes necessary to clean existing data to a point where it can be easily modelled. Once we have our dataset, we will explore the challenges of choosing key metrics by examining the effectiveness of metrics currently employed to monitor the opioid crisis and the influences public health programs and changing policies have had on these metrics. Next, we will explore the temporal distributions of opioid and other intoxicant use with an eye to providing data to support public health in their harm reduction efforts. And lastly, we will look at the effect of fixed- and floating-point temporal influences on intoxicant-related calls with an eye to how these temporal points can affect call volumes. By using this exploration of the opioid crisis, this thesis will show that with a more thorough understanding of what paramedic data is, what data points are available, and the processes needed to transform it, paramedic data has the potential to greatly expand the limits of health care data science into a more precise and more all-encompassing discipline. Author Keywords: Ambulance, Data Science, Opioid, Overdose, Paramedic, Pre-hospital
Application of One-factor Models for Prices of Crops and Option Pricing Process
This thesis is intended to support dependent-on-crops farmers to hedge the price risks of their crops. Firstly, we applied one-factor model, which incorporated a deterministic function and a stochastic process, to predict the future prices of crops (soybean). A discrete form was employed for one-month-ahead prediction. For general prediction, de-trending and de-cyclicality were used to remove the deterministic function. Three candidate stochastic differential equations (SDEs) were chosen to simulate the stochastic process; they are mean-reverting Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process, OU process with zero mean, and Brownian motion with a drift. Least squares methods and maximum likelihood were used to estimate the parameters. Results indicated that one-factor model worked well for soybean prices. Meanwhile, we provided a two-factor model as an alternative model and it also performed well in this case. In the second main part, a zero-cost option package was introduced and we theoretically analyzed the process of hedging. In the last part, option premiums obtained based on one-factor model could be compared to those obtained from Black-Scholes model, thus we could see the differences and similarities which suggested that the deterministic function especially the cyclicality played an essential role for the soybean price, thus the one-factor model in this case was more suitable than Black-Scholes model for the underlying asset. Author Keywords: Brownian motion, Least Squares Method, Maximum Likelihood Method, One-factor Model, Option Pricing, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Process
Assessing factors associated with wealth and health of Ontario workers after permanent work injury
I drew on Bourdieu’s theory of capital and theorized that different forms of economic, cultural and social capital which injured workers possessed and/or acquire over their disability trajectory may affect certain outcomes of permanent impairments. Using data from a cross-sectional survey of 494 Ontario workers with permanent impairments, I measured workers’ different indicators of capital in temporal order. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test the unique association of workers’ individual characteristics, pre-injury capital, post-injury capital, and the outcomes of permanent impairments. The results show that factors related to individual characteristics, pre-injury and post-injury capital were associated with workers’ perceived health change, whereas pre-injury and post-injury capital were most relevant factors in explaining workers’ post-injury employment status and income recovery. When looking at the significance of individual predictors, post-injury variables were most relevant in understanding the outcomes of permanent impairment. The findings suggest that many workers faced economic and health disadvantages after permanent work injury. Author Keywords: Bourdieu, hierarchical regression, theory of capital, work-related disability, workers with permanent impairments
Assessing the Cost of Reproduction between Male and Female Sex Functions in Hermaphroditic Plants
The cost of reproduction refers to the use of resources for the production of offspring that decreases the availability of resources for future reproductive events and other biological processes. Models of sex-allocation provide insights into optimal patterns of resource investment in male and female sex functions and have been extended to include other components of the life history, enabling assessment of the costs of reproduction. These models have shown that, in general, costs of reproduction through female function should usually exceed costs through male function. However, those previous models only considered allocations from a single pool of shared resources. Recent studies have indicated that the type of resource currency can differ for female and male sex functions, and that this might affect costs of reproduction via effects on other components of the life history. Using multiple invasibility analysis, this study examined resource allocation to male and female sex functions, while simultaneously considering allocations to survival and growth. Allocation patterns were modelled using both shared and separate resource pools. Under shared resources, allocation patterns to male and female sex function followed the results of earlier models. When resource pools were separate, however, allocations to male function often exceeded allocations to female function, even if fitness gains increased less strongly with investment in male function than with investment in female function. These results demonstrate that the costs of reproduction are affected by (1) the types of resources needed for reproduction via female or male function and (2) via trade-offs with other components of the life history. Future studies of the costs of reproduction should examine whether allocations to reproduction via female versus male function usually entail the use of different types of resources. Author Keywords: Cost of Reproduction, Gain Curve, Life History, Resource Allocation Patterns, Resource Currencies
Automated Grading of UML Class Diagrams
Learning how to model the structural properties of a problem domain or an object-oriented design in form of a class diagram is an essential learning task in many software engineering courses. Since grading UML assignments is a cumbersome and time-consuming task, there is a need for an automated grading approach that can assist the instructors by speeding up the grading process, as well as ensuring consistency and fairness for large classrooms. This thesis presents an approach for automated grading of UML class diagrams. A metamodel is proposed to establish mappings between the instructor solution and all the solutions for a class, which allows the instructor to easily adjust the grading scheme. The approach uses a grading algorithm that uses syntactic, semantic and structural matching to match a student's solutions with the instructor's solution. The efficiency of this automated grading approach has been empirically evaluated when applied in two real world settings: a beginner undergraduate class of 103 students required to create a object-oriented design model, and an advanced undergraduate class of 89 students elaborating a domain model. The experiment result shows that the grading approach should be configurable so that the grading approach can adapt the grading strategy and strictness to the level of the students and the grading styles of the different instructors. Also it is important to considering multiple solution variants in the grading process. The grading algorithm and tool are proposed and validated experimentally. Author Keywords: automated grading, class diagrams, model comparison
Capital Ratios and Liquidity Creation
Using quarterly data from the six largest Canadian banks, we investigate the relationship between regulatory capital ratio and on-balance sheet liquidity created in the Canadian economy by “Big Six”. We find a significant positive relationship between Tier 1 capital ratio and on-balance sheet liquidity creation for Canadian big six banks, implying that large banks in Canada favor risks and rely on capital to fund illiquid assets. In contrast, for smaller banks, the relationship is significantly negative. Our results are robust to dynamic panel regression using 2-Step GMM, two exogenous shocks - COVID-19 crisis and the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2009), mergers & acquisitions activities in the banking industry, and core deposits financing. The COVID-19 pandemic and core deposits adversely impact the Tier 1 capital ratio’s relationship with on-balance-sheet liquidity creation, while the global financial crisis (2007-2009) effect on the association is insignificant. Author Keywords: Big Six, COVID -19, Deposits, Liquidity Creation, Tier 1 Capital Ratio,

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Graduate student theses produced at Trent University. You may also browse theses and dissertations by year, program, or author.

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