VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Resilient Musician: Positive Psychology and String Players Studying at the Graduate Level
Keywords: graduate-level
music
performance
positive psychology
resilience
strings

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how theories in positive psychology manifest in the lived experience of graduate-level students majoring in a stringed instrument (violin, viola, cello, or double bass). Research was conducted using narrative inquiry, a qualitative methodology that analyzes the human experience, understood through a participant’s own telling of their lived experience. An exploratory survey was used to identify individuals for the narrative study and three participants (two violinists and a violist) were chosen for the narrative study. Their unique stories revealed a number of common themes, reflecting on the influence of early childhood experiences, teachers, the role of hard work, music performance anxiety (MPA), enjoyment, individuality, and finding balance. Future studies that include a larger participant pool may result in more widespread implications for the community of graduate-level string majors.
Resettled Syrian Refugee Children in Canada: Oral Language, Literacy and Well-being
Keywords: ADHD
Arabic first language
English second language
Literacy skills
Morphological awareness
Refugees

The Canadian government has resettled over 57,000 Syrian refugees since 2015. This influx of migrants has offered a chance to evaluate the language development and overall well- being of such a unique group. The primary goals of this dissertation were to examine the extent to which morphological awareness skill predicted Arabic reading skills, as well as to investigate the role of child-specific and family-related predictors of English reading in school-aged Syrian refugee children resettled in Canada.The first study investigated the concurrent and longitudinal role(s) of morphological awareness in Arabic word reading and reading comprehension. A total of eighty-three native Arabic Syrian refugee children aged 6-13 years resettled in Canada were administered measures of nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, word reading and reading comprehension at two points in time. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that morphological awareness was related to word reading and reading comprehension concurrently and longitudinally, after controlling for age, cognitive abilities, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. Interestingly, these relations remained statistically significant even with the addition of autoregressive controls. The second study was designed to examine the extent to which children’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms, as reported by their parents, predict English word reading, in a sample of one-hundred and thirty-three Syrian refugee children 6-13 years. Using multilevel modeling, child’s ADHD score was a strong predictor of English word reading accuracy, above key cognitive variables. Family time spent in refugee camps significantly moderated the association between ADHD symptoms and English word reading. The findings of the study showed that children with higher ADHD scores performed lower on word reading task after controlling for key cognitive variables. Children who spent more time in refugee camps before resettling in Canada showed higher ADHD symptoms and lower word reading performance compared to children who spent less/no time in refugee camps. Overall, the findings of this dissertation support the relevance of cognitive variables in the development of literacy skills in refugee children who are Arabic native speakers relocated in an English dominant country. Furthermore, the findings highlight the importance of overall well- being and pre-migration factors on children’s learning.
Investigating Mechanisms of Nuclear mRNA Export
Keywords: mRNA
mRNA export
Nucleocytoplasmic transport
RNA biology
RNA decay
RNA quality control

In eukaryotes, the segregation of the RNA synthesis/processing in the nucleus from the translation machinery in the cytoplasm has important implications for nuclear export and retention of mRNAs. This division ensures that only correctly processed mRNAs are exported to the cytoplasm to be translated into proteins, while misprocessed and aberrant transcripts are retained in the nucleus to be degraded by various nuclear surveillance mechanisms. In the first half of this work, I show that mature mRNAs containing the 5’ splice site (5’SS) motif are retained in the nucleus. Although a fraction of 5’SS motif containing mRNAs are rapidly degraded, those that escape decay are targeted to nuclear speckles. We show that ZFC3H1, a component of the nuclear exosome associated PolyAdenylation Exosome Targeting (PAXT) complex, is required for the nuclear retention and degradation of such transcripts. Similarly, we demonstrate that U1 snRNP, a component of the spliceosome that recognizes and binds to the 5’SS motif, mediates the nuclear retention of these aberrant mRNAs. We show that ZFC3H1 and U1-70K are not required for targeting 5’SS motif containing mRNAs to nuclear speckles, and these mRNAs phase-separate into this sub-nuclear compartment by some unknown process. Next, I perform RNA Frac-Seq and demonstrate that ZFC3H1 is required for the decay and nuclear retention of intronic polyadenylated transcripts, which naturally contain intact 5’SS motifs. In the second half of this thesis, I characterize the role of TPR, a nuclear pore basket protein, in mediating nuclear retention and export of mRNAs. While splicing has been shown to enhance nuclear mRNA export, it remains unclear whether RNAs generated from intronless genes use specific machinery for their export. We show that TPR is required for promoting the efficient export of intronless or intron-poor mRNAs and lncRNAs. Furthermore, we observe a strong correlation between transcripts generated from short pre-processed RNAs and TPR mediated nuclear export. My observations suggest that TPR acts in a late step of mRNA export and is most likely required for the mRNA docking with the nuclear pore. In summary, I show that mRNA export/nuclear retention processes are ‘two sides of the same coin’ and collectively mediates the export of bona fide mRNAs while simultaneously promotes the nuclear retention/degradation of misprocessed transcripts. Furthermore, the export of certain subtypes of RNAs (as exemplified by intronless genes) requires additional factors for their nuclear export, demonstrating that this process is more complex than previously envisioned.
A Proximity Biotinylation Map of a Human Cell
Keywords: BioID
Compartment
Human
Map
Mass spectrometry
Organelle

Compartmentalization is an essential characteristic of eukaryotic cells, ensuring that cellular processes are partitioned to defined subcellular locations. High throughput microscopy and biochemical fractionation coupled with mass spectrometry have helped to define the proteomes of multiple organelles and macromolecular structures. However, many compartments have remained refractory to such methods, partly due to lysis and purification artefacts and poor subcompartment resolution. Recently developed proximity-dependent biotinylation approaches such as BioID and APEX provide an alternative avenue for defining the composition of cellular compartments in living cells. Here I report an extensive BioID-based proximity map of a human cell, comprising 192 markers from 32 different compartments that identifies 35,902 unique high-confidence proximity interactions and localizes 4,145 proteins expressed in HEK293 cells. The recall of our localization predictions is on par with or better than previous large-scale mass spectrometry and microscopy approaches, but with higher localization specificity. In addition to assigning compartment and subcompartment localization for many previously unlocalized proteins, our data contain fine-grained localization information that, for example, allowed us to identify proteins with novel roles in mitochondrial dynamics. As a community resource, my work enabled the creation of the humancellmap.org, a website that allows exploration of our data in detail, and aids with the analysis of BioID experiments.
Geometric Behaviour of Solutions to Equations of Ginzburg-Landau type on Riemannian Manifolds
Keywords: Ginzburg-Landau
Partial Differential Equations

In this thesis, we demonstrate the existence of complex-valued solutions to the Ginzburg-Landau equation –Δu + (1/ε2)u(|u|2 – 1) = 0 on M, for ε ≪ 1, where M is a three dimensional compact manifold without boundary, that have interesting geometric properties. Specifically, we argue the existence of solutions whose vorticity concentrates about an arbitrary closed nondegenerate geodesic on M. In doing this, we extend the work of Jerrard and Sternberg (2009) and Mesaric (2009) who showed that there are solutions whose energy converges, after rescaling, to the arclength of a geodesic as above. An important ingredient in the proof is a heat flow argument, which requires detailed information about limiting behaviour of solutions of the parabolic Ginzburg-Landau equation. Providing the necessary limiting behaviour is the other contribution of this thesis. In fact, more is achieved. Provided that N ≥ 3, we give a structural description of the limiting behaviour of solutions to the parabolic Ginzburg-Landau equation on an N-dimensional compact manifold without boundary (M, g). More specifically, we are able to show that the limit of the renormalized energy measure orthogonally decomposes into a diffuse part, absolutely continuous with respect to the volume measure on M induced by g, and a concentrated vortex part, supported on a codimension 2 surface contained in M. Moreover, the diffuse part of the limiting energy has its time evolution governed by the heat equation while the concentrated part evolves in time according to a measure theoretic version of mean curvature flow. This extends the work of Bethuel, et al. (2006) who proved this for N-dimensional Euclidean space provided that N ≥ 2.
Faculty Perceptions on Contextual Factors as Affordances or Constraints to Innovative Teaching and Learning in Polytechnic Institutions
Keywords: College
Human-tech Framework
Innovative pedagogy
Polytechnic Institutions
Teaching and Learning
Technology

The current global context and the ongoing disruptive nature of technological advancements continue to shape the narrative surrounding the relevance of traditional models of higher education. Although innovation in teaching has been identified as a priority for most institutions of higher education, there is limited research on the perception of innovative teaching directly from the innovators themselves – faculty members. Furthermore, there is a lack of empirical research on the institutional conditions conducive to innovative teaching practices in a polytechnic model of education in Ontario, Canada. Using an adaptation of Cognitive Work Analysis and the Human-tech Framework (Vicente, 2006), the purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of innovation from the perspective of college faculty members and to explore the contextual factors that enable or constrain the development and use of innovative teaching approaches. This inquiry utilized extreme case sampling to investigate the perceptions of five faculty members in Ontario Colleges offering a polytechnic model of education. Using Seidman’s (2013) three-series interview process, and an analysis of teaching artifacts and publicly available institutional documents, a detailed picture of the participants’ teaching experience and professional identities in the context of their institutions has been painted. Key affordances and constraints related to their innovative teaching practice are identified. The major findings emerging from the study are, first, a social justice identity was found to be a key factor in shaping the participants’ innovative teaching practice, as was their induction into the profession. Second, the participants identified that organizational culture factors, including negative relationships with peers and leadership, misaligned institutional priorities, and staffing models, were impacting their ability to innovate. Last, the participants highlighted the design of the higher-education system as a barrier to the progression of innovative teaching. That includes constraints associated with the evolution of Ontario colleges to polytechnic institutions. The results of this study contributes knowledge and provide insights into the contextual factors that impact the development and use of innovative teaching practices in polytechnic institutions. This information will be of interest to educational developers, policy makers and administrators interested in advancing innovative teaching practices at their institutions.
Evaluating Kidney Transplantation for Adults with End-stage Renal Disease
Keywords: End-stage renal disease
Health economics
Kidney donor
Kidney transplantation
Machine learning
Renal transplantation

Kidney transplantation is widely accepted as the optimal treatment for most adult patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Due to the rising scarcity of donor kidneys and the ageing of the patient population, performance of kidney transplantation warrants careful clinical and economic considerations. This dissertation comprised three projects to examine kidney transplantation for treating adult ESRD patients in the contemporary era, including (1) the role of pre-existing psychosocial conditions on the survival of deceased-donor kidney transplant (DDKT) recipients; (2) the economic consequences of i) receiving a DDKT as an adult ESRD patient and ii) donating a kidney as an adult living donor; and (3) machine-learning-based algorithms for managing older adults who have received a DDKT at age beyond 60 years by predicting i) their risk of posttransplant mortality, ii) their status of being a high-cost user of publicly funded health care during the year of transplantation, and iii) their total health care expenditures over the first posttransplant year. Person-level linked administrative data of all cases of DDKT performed in Ontario, Canada between April 1, 2002 and March 31, 2013 were used in projects (1) and (3). The results of this dissertation confirmed psychosocial conditions being diagnosed at 1-year prior to entering dialysis to be a strong and independent risk factor of posttransplant mortality. The systematic review and meta-analysis suggested that while DDKT was generally cost-effective over dialysis, the benefits diminished for patients over the age of 60 years and might further decrease for those older patients with diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease and long wait times. For living kidney donors, they incurred costs between $900 to $19,900 (US dollar in 2019 values) from pre-donation evaluation to the first postoperative year. The machine learning studies implied the feasibility of incorporating data mining techniques to support the decision-making and care planning of older DDKT recipients. Jointly, these findings have implications for an array of clinical and resource allocation policies to optimize ESRD management and highlight the potential utility of novel statistical methods in transplant outcomes research.
Sermones magistri Petri Comestoris: Re-evaluating Peter Comestor’s Preaching with a Critical Edition of Four Sermons
Keywords: Codicology
Notre-Dame de Paris
Palaeography
Peter Comestor
Sermon studies
Textual criticism

This dissertation is comprised of an historical examination of Peter Comestor’s preaching with critical editions of four sermons. In particular, this dissertation builds on the research presented in Peter H. Tibber's often overlooked thesis, “The Origins of the Scholastic Sermon, c. 1130 - c. 1210,” which identifies and documents the Collection, a grouping of forty-eight sermons by Comestor that is copied across thirty-two manuscripts throughout the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The four sermons edited in this dissertation are part of the Collection and are demonstrative of how Comestor’s sermons served as models for scholastic preaching as well as how those sermons circulated within the medieval scholastic community of Western Europe. Following Tibber’s extensive cataloguing of the manuscript tradition behind Comestor’s preaching, I selected thirteen manuscripts that represent the geographic and chronological breadth of witnesses the Collection. Prior to the critical editions are five chapters of prefatory material that contextualize the historical and intellectual significance of Comestor’s preaching. Chapter One is a survey of the research related to Comestor’s sermons; it compiles four centuries of scholarship and addresses persistent problems concerning attribution, outdated catalogues, and neglected primary source material. Chapter Two traces Comestor’s education and career to properly situate his preaching in relation to his theological writings and professional activities. Chapter Three expands on the manner in which Comestor crafted his sermons for a scholarly audience, touching on his preferred topics, techniques, and source materials; as opposed to previous scholarship, I have limited my analysis of the content and style of Comestor’s preaching strictly to the sermons of the Collection. Chapter Four presents an in-depth study of the four sermons edited for this dissertation, highlighting and discussing specific instances in which Comestor employs the subjects and methods discussed in Chapter Three. Finally, Chapter Five presents the codicology and provenance of the witnesses used for the critical editions together with new insights into the relationships between those manuscripts that are subsequently illustrated by a tentative stemma codicum.
History’s Wages – State Formation and Labour Policy in Argentina and Uruguay
Keywords: Argentina
Democracy
Institutions
Labour
State formation
Uruguay

In the mid-2000s, left-of-centre governments in Argentina and Uruguay enacted pro-labour reforms, including sector-level collective bargaining. In the following decade, labour incomes rose rapidly and unions regained a central place in politics. Despite this, the labour institutions that structured collective bargaining (corporatism) were contested politically and legally in Argentina, while they became more stable in Uruguay with reforms to strengthen its institutional resilience. This dissertation explores why labour relations in the two countries diverged despite policy convergence. Although both countries instituted innovative policies to address poverty and inequality in the 2000s, they opted to reinstate corporatist labour laws designed in the 1940s: Argentina’s corporatist labour laws allow the state to determine which unions could represent workers during collective bargaining (monopoly representation); in Uruguay, monopoly representation is recognized by the state owing to the democratic will of the workers. I argue that the divergent outcomes in the evolution of labour relations in Argentina and Uruguay in the 2000s is due to differences in the institutional design of corporatism: Argentina’s state corporatism violates the norms of liberal democracy as it limits freedom of association, while Uruguay’s democratic corporatism respects and promotes freedom of association. Why did Argentina and Uruguay design their corporatist institutions so differently in the 1940s? I posit that the variation in the institutional design of corporatism can be traced back to state formation during the nineteenth century. Argentina’s state formation was led predominantly by military elites whose hierarchical worldview filtered into exclusionary political institutions that created an anti-pluralist political culture that by the 1940s had created the conditions for state corporatism. State formation in Uruguay was led by political parties whose elites created inclusive political institutions that cemented a pluralist political culture and that by the 1940s led to the creation of a democratic corporatist framework. The dissertation contributes to the study of how historical processes, like state formation, leave important institutional and cultural legacies that influence choices by policy makers far into the future.
AN EXPLORATION OF SCHOOL LEADERSHIP IN PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS IN KUWAIT: NAVIGATING COMPLEXITY, DIVERSITY AND MARKET INFLUENCES
Keywords: challenges
international schools
school governance
school leadership
sensemaking
transition

AN EXPLORATION OF SCHOOL LEADERSHIP IN PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS IN KUWAIT: NAVIGATING COMPLEXITY, DIVERSITY AND MARKET INFLUENCES Doctor of Education 2021 Mary Ellen Kelly Leadership, Higher and Adult Education University of Toronto Abstract The rapid and global growth of the private international school sector has raised demand for qualified school administrators to lead schools in that sector. Many school administrators hired into private international schools enter from national public school systems in other countries. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gather data on the experiences of school leaders working in private international schools in Kuwait. It probed ways those leaders transitioned from their original national education systems to teaching and leadership positions in the private international sector. Semi- structured interviews were conducted with 17 international school leaders (Vice Principals, Principals, School Heads and Superintendent) of private, international schools in Kuwait. These interviews explored how their previous experiences informed their transitions and the challenges they faced when navigating their leadership roles, and their strategic adaptations and sensemaking. Three key challenges for leaders emerged in the interviews: (1) the need to navigate highly ambiguous and uncertain roles; (2) being governed by new bureaucratic and institutional norms in highly transient and transnational spaces; and (3) reconciling their roles as educators with new marketing and business dictates. These challenges echo findings from other studies of leadership in international schools. This dissertation ends with suggestions for further research on the development of support and training for school leaders who transition into private international schools.