VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Preparing Pharmacists for Practice Change - The RETAE Framework
Keywords: continuing education
continuing professional development
knowledge translation
pharmacists
practice change
scope of practice

The profession of pharmacy in Canada is in a state of rapid evolution. Various jurisdictions, including Ontario, are preparing for an expanded scope of practice for pharmacists that will involve a paradigm shift from supplying drug products to providing clinical services. The objective of this thesis is to explore and evaluate models of Continuing Education (CE), Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Knowledge Translation (KT) for their impact on pharmacists' knowledge, confidence and skills in their expanded roles in patient care. The thesis uses as learning examples, two studies of pharmacy education that have utilized some of the principles of CPD and KT that are described in the literature. The lessons learned from the literature reviews and the two studies described in this thesis have been used to inform the RETAE (Reflection, Education, Transformation, Application and Evaluation) model which is proposed as a framework for preparing pharmacists for an expanded scope of practice. "Reflection" identifies evidence-care gaps in practice and learning needs. "Education" is foundational in building knowledge, skills and confidence to promote change. "Transformation" is necessary both personally and professionally. It challenges pharmacists to self-reflect, develop new perspectives and explore new roles. "Application" represents implementation of change in the context of the social and political environment of the healthcare system. Finally, "Evaluation" encourages assessment of the impact of educational strategies on pharmacist satisfaction, application to practice and healthcare outcomes. The RETAE model can be used in the design and evaluation of continuing professional development programs for practicing pharmacists. This model has application not only in pharmacy but also in other professions preparing for micro, meso and macro-level change, that is, change at the level of the practitioner, the practice environment and the profession.
The Efficient Production of Law. The Political Economy of the Sources of Law
Keywords: Adjudication
Bureaucracy
Customs
Efficiency
Lawmaking
Legislatures

Law and economics scholarship has been predominantly concerned with the content of legal rules rather than the process by which rules are created. The analytical separation of law by its formative process has resulted in an almost exclusive focus on the allocative efficiency of legal entitlements. According to this view, legal rights are treated as "commodities" that people (absent transaction costs and wealth effects) can freely buy and sell, such that the rights are allocated to their highest valued use. In this thesis, I maintain that this conventional approach needs to be integrated with a complementary, process-oriented analysis, capable of accounting for the causal relationship between the efficiency of legal rules and the efficiency of the lawmaking process. The central hypothesis of the present research is that the efficiency of the law-making process is not neutral with respect to the efficiency of the rules: the more efficient the process is in dealing with the pervasive information and public choice problems inherent in the production of legal rules, the better the outcome will be from an efficiency standpoint.Once this logic is recognized, the problem of legal efficiency becomes one of identifying the comparative advantages and disadvantages of alternative sources of law. Based on these premises, this thesis has two ambitious purposes: (i) to develop a methodology for the analysis of alternative lawmaking institutions, based on the idea of "process efficiency" and a unified taxonomy of lawmaking costs, and (ii) to provide a comparative analysis of alternative lawmaking processes (i.e., politics, bureaucracy, adjudication and spontaneous lawmaking), with the purpose of identifying their relative advantages and disadvantages in various regulated environments. The ultimate goal is to advance the understanding of the relationship between lawmaking mechanisms and the efficiency properties of legal rules and, hence, to offer a more refined toolbox for identifying efficiency improvements in the organization of the sources of law.
Architecture-aware Packing and CAD Infrastructure for Field-Programmable Gate Arrays
Keywords: Adders
CAD
Carry Chain
Clustering
FPGA
Packing

As technology scaling, human creativity, and other factors open new markets for FPGAs, the architectures of such chips must continue to evolve to meet changing demands. However, public domain software tools available to explore future FPGA architectures have not kept pace with advances in the field. Furthermore, these tools often have strong architectural assumptions embedded within the source code itself. Thus, short of major software rewriting, this limits the use of these tools to simple variations of particular architectures. In this thesis, we describe contributions to a large open-source collaborative project, called Verilog-to-Routing (VTR), that relaxes such limitations by providing an extensive software infrastructure for FPGA architecture exploration and CAD research. This infrastructure includes modern benchmarks, sample architecture description files, and a CAD flow that can target a broad space of architectures. We then describe new techniques in the packing stage of the CAD flow, which allow the packer to both target FPGAs with modern architectural features, as well as adjust computational effort based on architectural complexity. Finally, we conduct an architecture experiment on hard adders and carry chains to show the new capabilities of the software infrastructure and to quantitatively answer questions about the actual effectiveness of these classical architectural features.
Global Competence: Essential characteristics as perceived by Faculty and Program Heads in International Business Programs at Ontario's five Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning.
Keywords: Global competence
Global competencies
International Business Programs
Internationalization
Internationalization of curriculum

The purpose of this study was to understand how global competence was defined by study participants and to identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that were perceived as essential to its development as a student learning outcome of International Business Programs. This study focused on faculty teaching in the International Business Programs and the heads who oversee those programs at Ontario's five Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning (ITALs). This was an exploratory descriptive case study with quantitative and qualitative data collected concurrently from three perspectives: faculty, program heads and relevant documents. The response rate (n=8 of approximately 57 invited) of faculty teaching in these programs, and only one of the five program heads, was disappointingly low. However, the in-depth analysis of a total of 25 course outlines (five of the required courses of each of the five programs), provided a rich source of information on the knowledge, skills and attitudes integral to global competence.Consistent with the literature, I did not find a common definition of global competence, but the term `culture' recurred throughout the definitions presented. The competencies found to be essential to global competence included: discussing/explaining, examining and/or analyzing culture, communication and/or negotiation, describing, assessing and/or analyzing the external environment (political, economic, legal and/or social), developing and evaluating strategies, describing, examining and/or analyzing international trade, comparing, examining and/or evaluating the Canadian perspective, and discussing and describing human rights, ethics and social responsibility, all within the global context. Celebrating diversity was included at the program and institutional level. Three main teaching/learning strategies were employed in the classroom to support the development of global competence: case studies, developing a business and/or marketing plan, and simulations and games. At the program level, study abroad options in various countries were available. Mandatory foreign language study was proposed.Although the findings of this case study are not generalizable, global competence is an area that is of interest to institutions of higher education, and this study may be informative for other colleges and universities interested in exploring global competence as a student learning outcome of internationalization.
Incomplete Acquisition in the Nominal Domain of Korean by Heritage Language Speakers
Keywords: Case
comitative Case
heritage language
Korean
nominal domain
plural

In this study, I examined heritage language speakers' acquisition of the nominal domain of Korean to see how these speakers' age of onset of exposure to English, their frequency of exposure to Korean, and their usage of Korean could help account for their performance. Fifteen adult simultaneous bilinguals and eighteen adult sequential bilinguals participated in the study. Their responses were compared to that of eight Korean-dominant bilinguals comprised of a subset of the mothers of the participants (and other similar speakers), who formed the control group, to represent the baseline (i.e., the input that heritage language speakers actually receive). The participants completed language history questionnaires, which were used to create composite usage and exposure scores for Korean. General measures of the speakers' ability in Korean were compiled based on self-rated ability scores and an analysis of their accuracy and productivity on two of the tasks in this study. In order to examine the heritage language speakers' grammars with respect to the nominal domain of Korean, the participants completed three tasks: 1) a preference task designed to test their sensitivity to various combinations of Case drop and their preferences for structures with or without plural marking and comitative Case markers; 2) an elicited imitation task designed to test their ability to recognize and produce Case markers; and 3) an elicited narration task designed to elicit production of Case markers, the plural marker, and quantificational structures. The results of mixed effects logistic regression models suggest that, with respect to aspects of the Korean nominal domain that are sensitive to differing levels of acceptability, the heritage language speakers showed awareness of these levels overall; different aspects of their language experiences were useful in accounting for differences between speakers. The results from the control group also suggest that the input that heritage language speakers receive is not "faulty".
Mindfulness, Empathy, and Embodied Experience: A Qualitative Study of Practitioner Experience in the Client/Therapist Dyad
Keywords: Buddhism
Embodiment
Mindfulness
Psychotherapy
Shenpa

This study explores the experience of eight psychotherapists, each with a substantial personal practice of mindfulness meditation. The purpose of the study was to investigate the nature, effects, and specific contributions of mindfulness to the participants' experience of empathy. Semi-structured interviews were used as the method of data collection and a qualitative, phenomenological analysis provides the framework within which the lived experience of study participants is richly described, categorized, organized thematically, and reviewed in the context of current literature. The study identifies four experiential categories, each containing secondary themes that offer refinement and differentiation of the data. In the subsequent discussion, the elucidation of participant experience is furthered by the identification of: receptivity as an underlying and unifying intention; and three core themes, each describing an aspect of receptivity found within the data set. The discussion includes an exploration of these core themes, and their relationship to relevant literature. Drawing on the field of affective neuroscience, and a neurobiological account of intersubjectivity, a tentative conceptualization is presented in which study findings are combined with mirror neuron theory and the Buddhist teaching on shenpa. Embodied simulation, and a shared intersubjective field are theorized to create the opportunity for a therapeutic intervention that combines shared affect with the attitudinal stance of `shenpa work.' Characterized by the essential features of mindfulness and capacities developed through a therapist's personal practice of meditation, shenpa work in the bi-personal field is proposed as a viable model of intersubjective, affective, therapeutic exchange. Though this conceptualization bears some similarity to other formulations of psychotherapeutic process, including some found within traditional psychoanalytic theory, it is differentiated from these by its faithfulness to the essential elements of mindfulness including unconditional receptivity, the absence of an interpretive framework, and an intentional stance that maintains an independent consciousness and a compassionate resolve to `turn toward' discomfort. Concluding with a consideration of research strengths, limitations, clinical implications, and possibilities for future research, the study lends support to the growing body of theoretical and empirically based arguments in favour of the inclusion of mindfulness training as a component in the formal education of candidates preparing for clinical practice.
Evaluating Peer Instruction in First-year University Computer Science Courses
Keywords: CS1
Computer Science 1
Peer Instruction
Computer Science Education

Computer Science 1 (CS1) is the first Computer Science (CS) course taken by those interested in post-secondary CS study. The research community has long lamented high failure rates that seem to be common across schools and countries. In addition, much research over the past several decades suggests that students are not learning what we hope for them to learn.In this thesis, I investigate Peer Instruction (PI) as a new pedagogical approach for teaching CS1. PI is an active learning pedagogy developed by physics education researchers where students discuss conceptual material in groups and respond to questions using clickers. PI has been taken up by CS educators in the past few years.I begin by identifying the components of PI and how they might be appropriated to a CS (rather than physics) context. I then offer a quasi-experiment of a PI class and a lecture class: a ``learning competition'' to determine which pedagogical approach wins. I use a variety of outcome measures, in addition to grade, to gain a deeper understanding into the effect that the pedagogical shift has on particular types of students. I find that students in the PI section score 4.4% higher on a common final exam than students in the lecture section. Though this is substantial in terms of grades, the non-significant statistical result means that we cannot infer that similar gains can be expected in other situations. In addition, PI increases students' self-efficacy (a construct known to be closely linked to performance accomplishment and persistence) and enjoyment. Further, using achievement goal theory, I show that PI increases interest for those students oriented toward interpersonal achievement but not for those oriented toward intrapersonal improvement. Taken together, my findings offer evidence for the utility of PI as a CS1 pedagogy that not only leads to better grades but also to enhanced sociocognitive and socioemotional investment.
Layered Reading Through Literary Narrative Structures
Keywords: Fiction
Literary Codes
Narrative Framework
Narrative Structures
Reading Comprehension
Relational Thinking

My research investigated how teachers could develop students' literary framework, and build on their experience of fiction by studying what is typical and enduring about reading. I outline an original narrative framework that was brought to bear on the study of literature and was easily and readily taught to primary students. This approach analyzes stories by means of the fictional literary codes (or narrative structures) we use to organize stories and convey meaning. To ensure that this approach was of practical use to educators, I conducted a formative experiment to address the following questions: 1) How do elementary students' interact with and respond to stories by means of these literary structures? 2) How can teachers work with children to analyze how a story is coded to convey meaning? I collaborated with five primary teachers to first analyze stories by means of their literary narrative structures and then to develop questions to be used to guide instruction and classroom reading discussions and interactions. The teachers and I planned instructional strategies and put these into action. Approximately once a week for the entire school year, I visited the grade 1 and 2 teachers and their students during their language instruction periods and then reflected on my observations with the teachers. To analyze how these students engaged with and responded to stories, I gathered qualitative data through observations, interviews and student writing samples. Results show that by using the literary structural framework, grade 1 and 2 students engaged in critical text analyses, demonstrated a deep comprehension of stories, transferred the structural framework to understand new texts, contributed meaningfully in dialogues about literature, related the content of stories to their structures, and engaged in processes associated with scientific and creative thinking. The conceptual narrative framework of this research was shown to be an effective way to deepen students literary comprehension and develop critical relational thinking.
Youth Participation in Internationally Supported Programs of the Post-Earthquake Haitian Reconstruction
Keywords: Democracy
Education
Haiti
NGOs
Participation
Youth

This thesis explores how youth participation was socially constructed and conceptualized during an internationally dominated reconstruction of Haiti following the earthquake of 2010. Grounded within critical, constructivist, and post-colonial theoretical perspectives, this research uses mixed methods to analyze youth programs and conceptualizations of participation within them. Among its frameworks is a theoretical lens of social spaces for participation that juxtaposes binary qualities such as international and local origins, market and social orientations, and invited and claimed spaces for participation.In the first phase this research uses conceptual mapping and cluster analysis techniques to survey and plot the landscape of youth programs operating in Haiti after the earthquake. Of the programs surveyed, a relatively equal distribution emerged between those with local and those with international origins. However, a comparatively large group of those programs with local origins also had a curriculum with a primary social orientation.In the second phase it draws on qualitative and ethnographic methods to examine social constructions of participation in three case study programs with activities ranging from rural farming and entrepreneurship, to democratic education and debate competitions, to human rights and radio broadcasting. The findings suggest that geography and language have a bearing on
Development of Expanded Thermoplastic Polyurethane Bead Foams and Their Sintering Mechanism
Keywords: Bead Foaming Technology
Crystallization
Heterogeneous Nucleation
Phase Separation
Steam-chest Molding Technology
Thermoplastic Polyurethane

Polymer bead foaming technology represents a breakthrough in the production of low density plastic foamed components that have a complex geometrical structure and has helped to expand the market for plastic foams by broadening their applications. In this research, the unique microstructure of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) consisting of phase-separated hard segment (HS) domains dispersed in the soft segment (SS) matrix has been utilized to develop expanded TPU (E-TPU) bead foam with microcellular morphologies and also to create inter-bead sintering into three dimensional products using steam-chest molding machine. The phase-separation and crystallization behavior of the HS chains in the TPU microstructure was systematically studied in the presence of dissolved gases and also by changing the microstructure of TPU by melt-processing and addition of nano-/micro-sized additives. It was observed that the presence of gas improved the phase separation (i.e. crystallization) of HSs and increased the overall crystallinity of the TPU. It was also shown that by utilizing the HS crystalline domains, the overall foaming behavior of TPU (i.e. cell nucleation and expansion ratio) can be significantly improved. Moreover, the HS crystalline domains can be effective for both sintering of the beads as well strengthening the individual beads to improve the property of the moulded part. It was also observed that unlike other polymer bead foaming technologies, the E-TPU bead foaming sintering does not require formation of double melting-peak. The original broad melting peak existing in the TPU microstructure due to the wide size distribution of HS crystallites can be effectively utilized for the purpose of sintering as well as maintenance of the overall dimensional stability of the moulded part.
Historicizing Liberal American Transnormativities: Media, Medicine, Activism, 1960-1990
Keywords: discrimination
liberalism
queen
rehabilitation
transgender
transsexual

Historicizing Liberal American Transnormativities: Medicine, Media, Activism, 1960-1990Nicholas MatteDoctor of PhilosophyGraduate Department of HistoryUniversity of Toronto2014AbstractHow did trans people emerge as a minority group in the United States between 1960 and 1990? Trans people and advocates have been articulating ways to improve the social lives of trans people throughout the second half of the twentieth century by drawing on discourses of American liberalism. "Historicizing Liberal American Transnormativities" provides insight into the norms, definitions, expectations and tactics developed by trans advocates in social and cultural conditions not of their choosing. It draws on trans-centric primary sources including conference proceedings, newsletters and magazines produced by, for, or about trans people, as well as mainstream media coverage of trans people and issues. These sources enrich existing accounts of pathologization, gay liberation, employment discrimination, sex activism, and other topics of broad concern.The first two chapters show that the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF) worked with trans advocates and "helping professionals" in fields such as medicine, law, religion, and social work to promote social acceptance on the basis of medicalized notions of transsexuality, gender dysphoria, and various diagnostic and treatment options. The third chapter looks at the worlds of female impersonators, transvestites, and the Queens Liberation Front to argue that trans people like Lee Brewster and Sandy Mesics developed their politics in the contexts of commercial and entertainment cultures, gay liberation, feminism, and pornography. The final chapter looks at a series of cases in which a number of white transsexuals, including Paula Grossman, Steve Dain, Joanna Clark, Karen Ulane, and Bobbie Lea Bennett, each fought against the discrimination they faced in employment and health care. They asked the courts to apply the Civil Rights Act and the Rehabilitation Act to their situations and they became galvanizing public figures in social debates about the nature of gendered participation in American economy and society. Overall, "Historicizing Liberal American Transnormativities" shows that American liberalism has been central to trans advocacy and the formation of trans people as a minority group in the United States between 1960 and 1990.