VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Elementary School Office Managers' Positive Extra-role Behaviours
Keywords: extra role behaviour
motivation
non-teaching staff
office manager
principal
public service motivation

Elementary School Office Managers represent a workforce of over 5000 individuals within the province of Ontario. While their impact on the school is known to the principals, teachers, students, and parents with whom they interact on a regular basis, their contributions have scarcely attracted the attention of educational scholars. Through the lens of Public Service Motivation theory and Extra-Role Behaviour theory, this research sought to identify the personal and work environment influences that impact Elementary Office Managers' Positive Extra-Role Behaviours in Ontario's elementary schools. Through face-to-face interviews with retired elementary office managers, this research found that principal/leader supportiveness, job satisfaction, and individual characteristics were key influences on research participants' positive extra-role behaviour. Possible implications of this research for school districts include: giving consideration to office manger applicants' pre-employment experiences; targeted training for principals on how to nurture office managers' extra-role behavior; the role of the union as detractor to extra-role behaviour, and rethinking the office manager's job description.
Advancing the COACH Automated Prompting System toward an Unsupervised, Real-world Deployment
Keywords: Ambient Intelligence
Assistive Technology
Automated task completion
Context-aware sensing
Decision support systems
Smart homes

The COACH is a prototype automated prompting system designed to encourage independent participation in daily tasks by older adults with dementia. Supervised, clinical trials with the COACH were promising, yet little was known about the capabilities of the system in an unsupervised, real-world environment or the needs of the system's users in such a deployment. To continue development of the COACH toward an unsupervised, real-world in-home deployment I employed an informed approach. First, the needs of the users of the system were identified through a national questionnaire completed by family caregivers of older adults with dementia and validated using a follow-up focus group. Participants indicated that the COACH should provide unobtrusive support of private or personal tasks by leveraging the remaining abilities of the older adults with dementia using the system, promoting independent task completion. Next, the performance of the COACH was evaluated in an unsupervised, real-world clinical deployment. One of the COACH modules responsible for tracking the interactions between the system users and objects in the environment was implicated as the cause of the majority of the failures, successfully identifying only 46.9% of the task steps completed by the trial participants. The technical factors limiting system performance in the real-world clinical deployment were synthesized with the needs of the users to develop technical design criteria which were used to guide the development of an improved COACH prototype. The performance of the new COACH prototype was evaluated in a second supervised deployment, resulting in the successful identification of 93.7% of the task steps completed by trial participants. Encouraged by these results, the COACH system is again ready for evaluation in an unsupervised, real-world environment.
Alluvial Floodplain Classification and Organization in Low-relief Glacially Conditioned River Catchments
Keywords: Alluvial floodplain
Fluvial geomorphology
Glacial legacy
Great Lakes
River classification
Stream power

The imprint of late Pleistocene glaciation on river systems is an essential theme in Canadian geomorphology. Existing ideas about glacial legacy effects tend to focus on mountainous environments, which are different from the low-relief physiography of the Laurentian Great Lakes region. This study investigates river landforms in southern Ontario to develop an improved conceptual fluvial landscape model, reflecting glacial legacy and post-glacial fluvial processes. The analysis is based on an original dataset, including basic channel observations from over 500 field sites, alluvial floodplain properties from 109 sites, and published physiographic mapping from digital sources.Glacial signatures are evident in river profiles extracted from a digital elevation model (DEM) for 22 river catchments in southern Ontario. Stream power and slope-area analysis stratify river slopes by glacial landform types and demonstrate significant differences between rivers incised into glacial moraines versus plains. A stream length-gradient index provides a relative measure of how river profiles are oversteepened or understeepened by glacial landforms relative to a theoretical graded profile.Four first-order alluvial floodplain classifications are presented using k-means clustering analysis. Predictive variables are explored using PCA and discriminant analysis, producing two principal components: (1) stream power-resistance and (2) floodplain sedimentology (or floodplain sand equivalent,
Teacher Training in a Proactive Classroom Management Approach for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorders
Challenging behaviour
Classroom management
Paraprofessional training
School intervention
Teacher training

As the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) increases, more children with ASD present for services in public school classrooms. Due to the unique social and communication difficulties that characterize this population, these children often exhibit challenging behaviours such as non-compliance, verbal and physical aggression and high levels of off-task responses. Compounding these concerns, teachers and classroom support staff are typically inadequately trained in evidence-based behavioural intervention strategies for such children, particularly those suited for class-wide intervention that are easy to implement and fit within a school setting.The current study addressed these concerns by examining the effectiveness of Errorless Classroom Management (ECM), a proactive classroom management teacher training package, in three self-contained classrooms and a total of 7 students ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 8. In a multiple baseline across classrooms design, teachers and classroom support staff were taught a range of proactive skills that included use of moderating support strategies, reinforcement of prosocial student behaviours, and systematic fading of supports and reinforcement. Teachers and classroom support staff were also trained in how to use these classroom management strategies to build four core student skills: compliance, acquiescence, on-task behaviour, and communication skills. After training, classroom staff showed increased use of proactive classroom management strategies and reduction in use of reactive disciplinary strategies. Results also indicated moderate improvements in student compliance, on-task skills and prosocial behaviours, as well as covariant reductions in challenging behaviours. Improvements in staff and student behaviour were maintained at the 5 month follow-up. Most staff members indicated satisfaction with the training and showed an overall moderate reduction in stress levels related to classroom management. The outcomes of the current study are encouraging and suggest that ECM is suitable as a proactive classroom management approach for self-contained ASD special education classrooms and may fit well as a curriculum within a school wide positive behaviour support framework. The in-service training was completely non-aversive, inexpensive, and brief, making it a positive and cost-efficient approach to classroom management. Teacher training in ECM could potentially decrease the number of students with ASD who require intensive supports in the school system.
Governing by Networks: the Policy Implications of Civil Society Participation in Decision Making
Keywords: deliberative democracy
governance networks
homelessness
network governance
policy coordination
policy innovation

Why has Vancouver developed and implemented more effective homelessness policy in the last 20 years than Toronto, despite sharing similar homelessness challenges? Finding that none of the traditional theories for policy divergence--such as executive and council leadership, local political institutions or ideational paradigms--adequately explain the policy variation, this dissertation identifies one key difference in the two cities: the properties and dynamics of homelessness governance networks--where state and civil society actors jointly craft policy. Through empirical analysis involving archival research, interviews, extended participant observation, and quantitative decision making data, the study finds that highly institutionalized and inclusive governance networks in Vancouver are largely responsible for the superior policy innovation and coordination over the past twenty years. The research then breaks new theoretical terrain by specifying and modeling the causal mechanisms that link network governance to public policy outputs, establishing that `brokerage' and `persuasion' are the key emergent dynamics from governance networks as deliberative systems of policymaking. The theory-building bridges the metagovernance, network governance, and deliberative democracy bodies of literature to construct a generalized and falsifiable model linking network governance to policy outputs that can be applied across a number of policy domains.
Behavioural Modelling of Urban Freight Transportation: Activity and Inter-arrival Duration Models Estimated Using GPS Data
Keywords: Activity Duration
GPS Data
Inter-Arrival Duration
Logistics
Microsimulation
Urban freight transportation

This dissertation details the development of two behavioural models of urban commercial (freight and services) transportation: activity duration and inter-arrival duration models. These models were designed to comprise two components within the proposed FRELODE (FREight LOgistics DEcisions) modelling framework; FRELODE accepts a list of shipments or service trips by carrier and models how carriers execute urban shipments, creating a series of resulting vehicle movements (trips and tours). My Ph.D. research produced significant progress in four areas. First, the activity and inter-arrival duration models were estimated using a three-month passively-collected GPS dataset from truck-mounted GPS-equipped engine-on-board recorders. To the author's knowledge, this research represents the first attempt in the literature to estimate components of a commercial-vehicle travel demand model using passively-collected GPS data as the primary data source. Exploring new data sources, such as GPS, is important because little data describing urban commercial vehicle movements are currently available. New data processing techniques were developed to convert the longitudinal GPS data into a travel diary suitable for transportation model estimation. Second, two hazard models of commercial activity duration were estimated. Third, models of inter-arrival duration were estimated using the longitudinal GPS dataset to model the number of days between repeated visits to the same destination. To the author's knowledge, these represent the first estimated models of inter-arrival duration for commercial transportation. The fourth area of significant process described in this dissertation is the development of the FRELODE modelling framework. FRELODE considers a multiple day time period as commercial establishments do not necessarily operate using consistent schedules, and also accounts for carriers delivering multiple shipments in a single tour. In conclusion, passively-collected GPS data were found to hold promise as a complement to existing data sources of commercial vehicle travel. Also, it is expected that these estimated models, included within the FRELODE framework, will form components within a larger proposed agent-based microsimulation commercial vehicle modelling framework that is currently under development.
Organic Anion Transporting Polypeptides: A Novel Molecular Target for Hormone Dependent Breast Cancers
Keywords: Breast Cancer
Drug Transporters
Estrone Sulphate
Organic Anion Transporting Polypeptides

Organic Anion Transporting Polypeptides (OATP) are a family of membrane associated uptake transporters that are expressed in various hormone dependent cancers, including breast cancers. OATP transporters are ubiquitously expressed and transport bile salts, thyroid hormones, steroid hormones and their conjugates, linear and cyclic peptides and xenobiotics. Estrone-3-sulphate (E3S), the predominant source of tumour estrogen for post-menopausal hormone dependent breast cancer patients, is an OATP substrate. There is limited understanding of the role of OATPs in tumour cell uptake of E3S and the potential of these transporters as a novel molecular target. Hence the objectives of this thesis were to determine: i. the differential expression and function of OATP in hormone dependent and independent breast cancers cells, ii. potential of E3S as a targeting ligand for hormone dependent breast tumours and, iii. the clinical expression of OATP in human breast tumour tissues. Expression of OATPs was found to be either exclusive or higher in cancer cells compared to immortalized breast epithelial cells. 10 times greater E3S transport efficiency was observed in hormone dependent breast cancer cells. The in vivo studies conducted in hormone dependent (MCF-7) and independent (MDA-MB-231) xenograft models demonstrated significantly higher (p
The Adaptor Protein p66SHC: Roles in Cell Signaling, Metabolism and Growth
Keywords: Cancer
Cell Signaling
Diabetes
Metabolism

Adaptor proteins link surface receptors to intracellular signaling pathways and potentially control the way cells respond to nutrient availability. Mice deficient in p66Shc, the most recently evolved isoform of the Shc1 adaptor proteins and a mediator of receptor tyrosine kinase signaling, display resistance to diabetes and obesity. Using quantitative mass spectrometry, I found that p66Shc inhibited glucose metabolism. Depletion of p66Shc enhanced glycolysis and increased the allocation of glucose-derived carbon into anabolic metabolism, characteristics of a metabolic shift called the Warburg effect. This change in metabolism was mediated by the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) as inhibition of mTOR partly reversed the glycolytic phenotype caused by p66Shc deficiency. Thus, unlike the other isoforms of Shc1, p66Shc appears to antagonize insulin and mTOR signaling, which limits glucose uptake and metabolism. This study identifies a critical inhibitory role for p66Shc in anabolic metabolism and insulin-mTOR signaling.
The Evolution of Gene Function in Caenorhabditis spp.
Keywords: Computational Biology
Evolution
Genetics
Genomics

The sequence of the genome gradually evolves, and such changes can affect the function of the genes encoded within. Here I try to understand the causes and consequences of changes in gene function between related species, particularly in Caenorhabditis nematodes. The goal of the first section of my thesis is to compare biological gene function of 1-1 orthologs by using loss of function phenotypes in C. elegans and C. briggsae. I did this by constructing and screening an RNA interference (RNAi) library in C. briggsae and comparing these RNAi phenotypes to those in C. elegans. This approach found 91 examples of orthologs with different in vivo functions, around 7% of the genes screened. For one of these examples, sac-1, I was able to explain the different biological function by a difference in molecular function, in this case by a difference in gene expression. Given the extremely high phenotypic similarity of these two species I hypothesize that many of these examples of different RNAi phenotypes likely represent cases of changes in gene function which have preserved the developmental phenotypes of the animal due to high levels of stabilizing selection, a model known as Developmental System Drift. In support of this, I found several cases where a phenotype is not present in the C. briggsae copy of an ortholog, but it is present in another related family member, suggesting that this related gene has taken over the function of the original gene in C. briggsae.I also found that recently evolved genes are enriched for having different RNAi phenotypes, which led me to consider what could explain their rapid rate of evolution of in vivo function. By measuring the co-expression of novel genes to genes in different molecular pathways, I was able to construct a series of features which could accurately predict which novel genes become essential. An analysis of this model showed that co-expressions to ancient, essential pathways is highly predictive of a novel gene acquiring an essential function. These results supported a picture of how novel genes become integrated into cellular networks, and subsequently are preserved by evolutionary forces.
Wielding a Double-edged Sword: Public Moral Advocates are Derogated Yet Influential
Keywords: evaluations
group change
group wrongdoing
moral advocates
social image concerns

Individuals who publicly challenge a group's wrongdoing (e.g., whistleblowers, group critics, and individuals who receive authorization to declassify group information) are frequently reviled by group members. Past research suggests that these moral advocates are derogated because they implicitly reproach group members or make them feel immoral. Because moral advocates who take a public stand against wrongdoing expose or highlight a group's problematic practices, however, group members may instead derogate these advocates because the advocates make the group look immoral in the eyes of others. I examined this directly. I also examined whether threatening the group's social image may allow moral advocates to succeed in promoting change within the group, despite being derogated. Moral advocates who publicly challenged group wrongdoing were derogated by group members but were nevertheless successful in raising concern about the need for group change. Moral advocates who challenged wrongdoing privately and therefore posed less of a threat to the group's social image evaded derogation but were also unsuccessful in promoting change. Social image concerns rather than moral reproach or moral integrity concerns mediated these effects. Thus, public moral advocates wield a double-edged sword: Publicly threatening the group's social image leads moral advocates to be derogated, but it also enables them to promote group change.
‘Uno tiene que cuidar también de sí mismo’: Guatemalan Family Planning Decisions in the Context of Social Cognitive Theory and a Political Economy Approach
Keywords: Elicitation interviews
Family planning
Indigenous
Inter-cultural
Political Economy
Social Cognitive Theory

Understanding the persistent inequalities in family planning rates between indigenous and non-indigenous women in Guatemala requires localized explorations of the specific barriers faced by indigenous women. This thesis presents, across three papers, a novel framework for simultaneously considering proximal, intermediate and distal factors affecting family planning.Based on Social Cognitive Theory, elicitation interviews were carried out with 16 young women, aged 20 to 24, married or in union, from rural districts of Patzun, Chimaltenango in Guatemala. Content analysis was carried out using the constant-comparison method to identify the major themes raised by participants in terms of barriers to accessing and using family planning. Barriers not directly mentioned by participants were distinguished through the application of a political economy approach. The first paper presents this augmented elicitation interview methodology and the resulting family planning self-efficacy scale.In the second paper, a political economy approach contextualizes structural issues that affect current family planning decisions, including: social exclusion and repression of indigenous people dating back to colonial times and exacerbated by the recent civil war; gender inequity; the influence of the Catholic Church at the state level, and on individual beliefs; and the evolution of population politics at the global and national levels.The third, methodological, paper draws on this inter-cultural research to highlight recommendations for: early involvement of a local team in preparing research instruments, recruitment and conducting interviews; multilingual interviewing, transcription and team analysis; and inclusive reporting and dissemination.The combination of theoretical approaches extends the application of either perspective in isolation: Social Cognitive Theory incorporates more structural influences on individual decisions about family planning and the political economy perspective links impacts and interactions at the individual level. This approach may be useful for a more complete understanding of health issues both within and outside the realm of reproductive health.
The Implementation of Suspension and Expulsion Programs in Two Ontario School Boards
Keywords: expulsion programs
policy implementation factors
Safe Schools
suspension programs

In 2008, the Ontario Ministry of Education made it mandatory that school boards in the province institute programs to serve suspended and expelled youth. These programs have now been in place for five years. Limited information has been collected as to how effective they are in addressing the needs of these students and little is known about the factors that have had an effect on the implementation of these policies. This study provides a description of the programs and focuses on the factors that have impacted policy implementation in this area. Research has shown that several factors impact policy implementation in general. Among the main influential factors are the impact of policy actors, the conditions that exist, supports that are available and the level and type of central control that is in place. Through one-on-one interviews involving thirteen school and board personnel in two Ontario school boards, this research explored how these four factors had an impact on the policy implementation process as it relates to the suspension and expulsion programs. The study participants believed that the relationships within and between these four factors and the creativity and flexibility this allowed were important in their ability to implement the new policies. Collaborative relationships between school board personnel and their community partners were highlighted in both participating boards as encouraging policy implementation. Strong relationships between staff, the students, and their families were important in finding program solutions for the particular conditions that existed, especially in the rural board that participated in the study. The importance of strong relationships between board personnel and community partners was also stressed, especially in the board that had a combined urban and rural make-up. Two-way communication between board and Ministry personnel allowed for the provision of appropriate supports in order to keep the programs viable. I conclude that when it comes to implementing new policies, central control from the Ministry should demonstrate an understanding of the distinct situations that exist in each board, the importance of key relationships, and the need for flexibility in allowing for creative responses to the needs that exist.