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Recent Submissions

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    A Biologically Plausible, Dynamics-based Model of Memory Using Neurosymbolic Methods
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-08-27) Chouinard, Jakeb
    This thesis presents a novel model of memory that addresses previous gaps in working memory modelling. Traditionally, models of memory treat memory as an atemporal process; they present a vector or trace of a memory that only changes with item presentations. We instead provide a dynamics-based model of short-term memory using vector projection, and we further characterize its capacity and forgetting mechanisms using temporal decay and neural saturation. We also provide an auto-associative memory that uses bundles of high-dimensional vectors to implicitly associate items to each other, enabling bundle reconstruction from single components. Lastly, we modify the parameters of the short-term memory to create a primacy-biased integrator of task-contextual embeddings. We validate our model and demonstrate its ability to generalize across domains by implementing it in a spiking neural network and simulating semantic and spatial memory tasks with minimal parameter changes between simulations. For each simulation, we represent stimuli (e.g., list items or spatial landmarks) and task embeddings (e.g., temporal position in a list or spatial position within a room) as Spatial Semantic Pointers, and we compare our model's results to human experimental results. Across the serial recall, free recall, and positional recall experiments, our model consistently demonstrates human-like performance, demonstrating no statistically significant difference for 72.5% of compared data-points and negligible-to-small effect sizes for 91.2% of compared data points. Across all data points, we find mean and median absolute effect sizes in the ranges of (0.125,0.203) and (0.082,0.189) respectively, suggesting significant coherence between model and experimental task results.
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    Towards Room Temperature Quantum Sensing of Strain in Hexagonal Boron Nitride
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-08-27) Misic, Aleksandar
    Solid-state quantum emitters offer promising pathways for high-resolution, localized sensing of strain, temperature, magnetic, and electric fields. Over the past two decades, research has focused heavily on 3D bulk materials like silicon carbide and diamond Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers; however, these platforms present limitations with respect to optical output and photonic device integration. Recently, 2D materials like Transition Metal Dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been found to produce quantum emission; however, their operation is limited to cryogenic temperatures. Hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN) has emerged as a suitable candidate which offers high tunability due to its wide bandgap of ∼6 eV in its intrinsic state, high strength and flexibility with a Young’s modulus of 800 GPa, resilience to harsh thermal and chemical environments, and 2D van der Waals (vdW) structure allowing for facile integration with other materials regardless of lattice mismatch. Since the discovery of quantum emitting properties of defective hBN samples in 2016, literature focusing on sensing applications using hBN is limited, particularly in the context of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). This thesis demonstrates the design, simulation, and experimental implementation of an electrostatically actuated MEMS cantilever platform for modulating the optical emission wavelength of the zero-phonon line (ZPL) in defective hBN flakes. Finite element analysis (FEA) was performed to identify high strain regions of the cantilever and micro-transfer techniques were developed to deposit the flakes on those regions. Experimental characterization of nonlinear cantilever excitation revealed a bifurcation point at ∼315 kHz and photoluminescent excitation of hBN defect centers confirm a ZPL peak at ∼597 nm. These results lay the foundation for a scalable, highly sensitive strain-sensing platform capable of optical readout across a wide range of environmental conditions, including room temperature.
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    Aging Better Through Intergenerational Relationships: Fostering Visibility and Belonging in Later Life
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-08-27) Wategire, Samuel
    Growing older in the contemporary city is increasingly a solitary experience. Aging is too often framed through decline and dependency, like a final withdrawal from productive life rather than a continued stage of participation, contribution, and belonging. This societal narrative has influenced not only how older adults see themselves, but how the environments designed for them have taken form, quietly withdrawing them from the social and generational life of the city around them. As the proportion of older adults continues to grow, with seniors projected to comprise between 21% and 23% of Canada’s population by 2030, the question of how to house them well has become one of the most urgent spatial challenges of our time. The result is a growing crisis of loneliness and diminished visibility that no amount of clinical care has been able to adequately address. This thesis argues that the problem is in part spatial, and that architecture has a meaningful role to play in responding to it. Through the lens of intergenerational relationships and shared practices that occur between people of different generations, it proposes a reimagining of independent and assisted living as a model of community life rather than residential provision. The design proposal is situated in Flemingdon Park, Toronto, a dense and culturally rich neighbourhood on the edge of significant urban transformation, where the need for affordable, inclusive, and socially connected senior housing is both urgent and timely. At its core this thesis is about expanding the definition of what senior housing can be. It is about designing environments where older adults are not managed but seen and genuinely included in the life of the city and the generations that share it with them.
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    Aliasing-Free Maximum Velocity Estimation using Multi-angle Plane Wave Vector Flow Imaging
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-08-27) Dong, Eric
    Maximum velocity indices such as peak systolic velocity (PSV), end-diastolic velocity (EDV), and pulsatility index (PI) are important biomarkers used within clinics to determine the degree of stenosis within arteries including the internal carotid artery and femoral arteries. These indices are also used within cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health research. Currently, maximum velocity indices within clinics and research are typically measured using conventional spectral doppler ultrasound, which requires the operator to manually move a small sample volume to the relevant area and manually adjust a doppler angle. As a result, maximum velocity biomarkers can only be measured within a small portion of the ultrasound region at one time. Further, operator errors and using a single doppler angle throughout the cardiac cycle is a known source of error. High-frame rate ultrasound (HIFRUS) is a novel imaging modality that insonifies the entire ultrasound region simultaneously and is capable of capture flow velocities at thousands of frames per second. Instead of a small sample volume that measures maximum velocity biomarkers within a limited region, HIFRUS allows simultaneous derivation of velocity estimates across the entire ultrasound region. The objective of this thesis is to develop a novel framework that obtains angle-independent maximum vector velocity estimates across the entire ultrasound region with sub-millisecond resolution. This framework incorporates an inexpensive IPS-based maximum velocity estimator and de-aliasing techniques with plane-wave imaging principles to obtain accurate maximum velocity estimates. To validate and evaluate this framework, three different phantom experiments are conducted. Maximum velocity estimates obtained within phantoms are quantitatively compared with values obtained within a clinical scanner. To evaluate the feasibility of this framework in-vivo, two datasets of the carotid and femoral bifurcation are imaged and evaluated. By obtaining angle-independent vector velocity estimates throughout the entire ultrasound region at thousands of frames per second, our framework seeks to solve many issues that exist within conventional ultrasound scanners.
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    The Human Limbal Shape and Scleral Lens Limbal Designs
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-08-27) Qiu, Sharon Xuemeng
    scleral lens scleral lens fitting limbus empirical fitting corneoscleral topography