VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Building Conditional Safety "Brick by Brick": Conceptualizing Safety among Women who Experience Intimate Partner Violence
Keywords: help-seeking
intimate partner violence
resistance
safety
survivor-informed practice

Empirical evidence and practice wisdom indicates women simultaneously endure and resist intimate partner violence (IPV) in an effort to protect themselves - to be safe. But what does it mean to be safe? Contemporary discourses and interventions often position physical safety, and reducing the threat of future harm, to be the primary goal of women's help-seeking behaviour, and by extension, the primary feature of what it means to be safe. However, there is no evidence indicating the elimination or minimization of direct physical harm is the primary feature of feeling safe. The purpose of this study was to examine 1) women's conceptualizations of safety and 2) how safety was achieved, in order to theorize about the broader construct of safety. Underpinned by intersectional and feminist theories, and guided by grounded theory methodology, 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who self-identified as experiencing IPV. Analysis revealed women who experience IPV conceptualized safety in complicated, complex, and conditional ways. A key finding of this study revealed the notion of safety goes beyond the direct, embodied harms inherent in many abusive relationships. A broader formulation of safety emerged suggesting the concept spans economic, physical, emotional, psychological, and social domains. Building conditional safety across these various domains contributed to a variety of possible safety dispositions ranging from provisional safety to considerable safety. Data suggested women feel safest when they have power to make decisions; access to information about IPV; time and space to heal; housing and economic self-sufficiency; access to unconditional support; and most importantly no ongoing experience of IPV. While working to eliminate the impacts and consequences of IPV should certainly remain at the core of social work prevention and intervention strategies, the dynamic and ever-changing sense of safety women experience over the course of an abusive relationship must be more fully considered in future practice with survivors.
A Defense of Reductive Physicalism
Keywords: Mental properties
Non-reductive physicalism
Phenomenal properties
Reductive physicalism
Strong emergentism
Type-identity physicalism

In this dissertation, I defend reductive physicalism, according to which (in particular) mental properties are type-identical to physical properties. I use a burden of proof strategy to defend the position, established by appealing to scientific practice, methodological considerations, and analogies between higher-level properties and paradigm cases of reduction. This strategy allows various non-reductive and anti-physicalist positions to be explored in the context of arguments presented in their favour.Non-reductive physicalists argue that some higher-level properties are not type-identical to any physical properties. Perhaps the principal argument along these lines is the Multiple Realizability Argument, while a common reductivist reply appeals to the Disjunctive Strategy. I establish a framework for understanding this dialectic that reveals the logical space available to non-reductive physicalists, allowing me to make comprehensive rejoinders to the best available responses to the Disjunctive Strategy. For example, according to a recent, powers-based response, a higher-level property instance has a proper subset of the causal powers of its realizer on the occasion, making the higher-level property instance ontologically distinct and causally autonomous from its realizer. Using my framework, I argue that the higher-level property is not token-distinct from its realizer. Furthermore, even if it were, its supposed causal autonomy is just a special case of the counterfactual stability of disjunctions.Anti-physicalists argue that some propertiesspecifically phenomenal propertiesare over and above physical properties, as per some strong form of property dualism. The main anti-physicalist arguments are the Knowledge and Conceivability Arguments. I argue that, perhaps surprisingly, these arguments actually exclude popular versions of strong emergentism (those according to which phenomenal properties are lawfully, downwardly causal), or at least render them less plausible than physicalist counterparts.Strong emergentism therefore relies mostly on its bare empirical possibility for support, which makes it resistant to
Enhanced Vertical Fuel Continuity in Forests Defoliated by Spruce Budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.) Promotes the Transition of a Surface Fire into a Crown Fire
Keywords: crown fire
defoliation
forest fire
spruce budworm
surface fire
vertical fuel continuity

Evidence exists for a link between spruce budworm defoliation and large-scale forest fires. However, the underlying mechanisms of the spruce budworm-wildfire interaction have yet to be adequately explained. A driving factor for the occurrence of crown fires is the vertical distribution of fuels. Therefore I first describe the vertical fuel restructuring that took place during sustained, aerially-mapped spruce budworm defoliation in boreal mixedwood forest of northern Ontario and then investigate stand breakdown and surface fuel accumulation during and after a period of defoliation. Forest structural data were then modeled using Van Wagner's (1977) conditions for the start and spread of crown fire and the Fire Behaviour Prediction (FBP) system as well as in the Crown Fire Initiation and Spread (CFIS) simulator to develop an estimate of the associated changes in the probability of a surface fire crowning (PSC) after different lengths of defoliation. Vertical fuel continuity increased with years of continuous defoliation, with the highest measured occurring after sixteen years. The PSC due to stand breakdown and surface fuel accumulation increased with successive years of defoliation, and in the years following the end of defoliation, as mapped by the Forest Insect and Disease Survey (FIDS). Likewise, in the simulator, higher continuity and surface fuel loads were associated with increased PSC. This investigation unites past research into the interaction between spruce budworm and fire and provides a common framework for future study. Once refined for the range of variations in climate and forest characteristics in Ontario, it may provide a useful tool for the assessment of fire hazard from the FIDS defoliation maps. This in turn could ultimately lead to improved organization and deployment of fire detection and initial attack resources and a more effective management of large fires.
Ritual Poetics in the Plays of Sophocles
Keywords: Athens
Ritual
Ritual Poetics
Sophocles
Theatre
Tragedy

This dissertation seeks to analyze the ritual content of the Sophoclean corpus using ritual poetics, which offers an approach to the interpretation of poetic texts based on the predictable structure and communicative properties that ritual and poetry share. In particular, drawing on the ritual theories of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, as well as the dramatic theory of Aristotle, I suggest that ritual and dramatic narrative function in an analogous way in Sophocles because both advance according to a predictable progression that facilitates a change of status expressed through community membership. Due to this analogy, any deviations from the expected on the level of ritual have implications for the way in which the audience experience the plot. Sophocles, relying on his audience's ritual competence, incorporates three kinds of discernable ritual mistakes in his plays: problems of ritual conflation, ritual repetition and ritual status. On the basis of the analogy between ritual and narrative, these ritual mistakes influence the audience's dramatic perceptions and expectations.In the Ajax, I explore ritual conflation, showing how scenes that confuse two distinct rituals contribute to the ambivalent characterization of the protagonist, while the conflation of rituals across the play generates competing expectations about the progression of the plot. The Electra illustrates Sophocles' use of ritual repetition. In this play, the normal repetitious nature of ritual is skewed as corruptions of the ritual process consistently demand further rituals, rendering the sequence of ritual and dramatic action potentially infinite. The Philoctetes demonstrates that, even when a ritual is performed correctly, problems with the status of ritual participants can invalidate the rite, creating a productive dissonance between the failed ritual effect of the action and its nonetheless powerful dramatic effect. Finally, the Oedipus at Colonus, through the unifying motif of supplication, incorporates all three kinds of ritual mistakes to both describe and effect Oedipus' movement toward and ultimate acceptance among the Eumenides. My investigation sheds new light on Sophocles' dramatic technique and, especially, offers a new way of approaching the problem of dramatic closure in the ambiguous endings of his plays.
Evaluation of Drug-Induced Liver Injury in an In Vitro Oxidative Stress Inflammation System
Keywords: Drug-induced liver injury
Inflammation
In vitro toxicology
Oxidative stress

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a major concern in clinical studies as well as in post-marketing surveillance of drugs. Previous evidence suggests that drug exposure during periods of inflammation can increase an individual's susceptibility to toxicity. Inflammation caused by infections or endotoxins markedly activates NADPH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) oxidase that generates superoxide radicals by transferring electrons from NADPH. In the phagosome, superoxide radicals spontaneously form hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and other reactive oxygen species (ROS). Neutrophils or Kupffer cells also release myeloperoxidase on activation. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an in vitro oxidative stress inflammation model to identify compounds that may increase hepatotoxicity during inflammation. Toxic pathways were also investigated using the "Accelerated Cytotoxicity Mechanism Screening" techniques. When a non-toxic H2O2 generating system (glucose/glucose oxidase) with peroxidase or Iron(II) [Fe(II)] (to simulate in vivo inflammation) was added to freshly isolated rat hepatocytes prior to the addition of the investigated drug, drug-induced cytotoxicity and ROS formation were increased. This was reversed by 6-N-propyl-2-thiouracil (a peroxidase inhibitor) or desferoxamine (an Fe(II) chelator), respectively. Flutamide, nilutamide, nimesulide, methotrexate, and 6-mercaptopurine were found to form pro-oxidant radicals leading to oxidative stress and mitochondrial injury whereas azathioprine did not form any radicals with this inflammation system. Electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrometry spin trapping studies of 6-mercaptopurine metabolism by HRP (horseradish peroxidase)/H2O2 was also investigated. Two radicals were trapped using DMPO (5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline-N-oxide) which were previously reported as purine-6-thiyl and superoxide radicals. This oxidative stress inflammation system mimics the respiratory burst (release of H2O2) and release of myeloperoxidase by neutrophils or other immune cells (using horseradish peroxidase) or mimics the Fenton reaction, which could occur in vivo as immune cells also release Fe(II) during inflammation. TEMPOL (4-hydroxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-oxyl), a known ROS scavenger and a superoxide dismutase mimetic, and several antioxidants, including DPPD (N,N'-diphenyl-p-phenylenediamine), mesna (2-mercaptoethanesulfonate), Trolox (6-hydroxy-2,5,7,8-tetramethylchroman-2-carboxylic acid), and resveratrol (3,5,4'-trihydroxy-trans-stilbene) were also tested to determine their effect on drug-induced oxidative stress with or without the inflammation system. This system may provide a more robust in vitro pre-clinical tool for screening of drugs for potential hepatotoxicity associated with inflammation.
The Effect of Articulatory Constraints and Auditory Information on Patterns of Intrusions and Reductions
Keywords: Articulatory Phonology
Auditory information
Coarticulation
Intrusions
Reductions
Task Dynamics

This dissertation seeks to answer the question whether articulatory constraints and auditory information affect intrusion and reduction errors. These intrusions and reductions of articulatory movement result from a general tendency to stabilize movement coordination. Stabilisation of speech movement coordination is an autonomous self-organizing process. This process, however, can be affected by factors related to articulatory properties and auditory information. To assess how these factors affect movement coordination, three studies were performed. The first study examined differences in articulatory variability in the onsets of word pairs such as cop top and top top. To this end, different phonetic contexts and speaking rate were manipulated. As word pairs like top top are frequently used as control stimuli and word pairs like cop top as experimental stimuli, this study investigated how these two word pairs differ in movement control. The second study examined how constraints on individual articulators, manipulated by phonetic context, and speaking rate affected the number of intrusions and reductions. The third study investigated how these intrusions and reductions were influenced by the presence or absence of auditory information. Movements of the tongue tip, tongue dorsum and lower lip were recorded with electromagnetic articulography. The first study revealed that word pairs with alternating and identical onset consonants differ to such an extent that using identical onset word pairs as control stimuli is not recommended for future error studies. The second study revealed that articulatory constraints resulted in asymmetrical patterns of intrusions: compared to a high back vowel context, a low vowel context resulted in more intrusions in general. In addition, in a front vowel context, the tongue dorsum intruded more frequently than the tongue tip and lower lip. The third study showed that speakers made fewer intrusions without auditory information available than with auditory information available. The results, which are explained within the framework of Articulatory Phonology and Task Dynamics, support the notion that articulatory constraints and auditory information influence coupling strength and movement coordination as reflected in intrusion and reduction patterns.
Identifying Mediators of Androgen-independent Prostate Cancer Using Mass Spectrometry-based Proteomics
Keywords: Androgen-independence
Ketogenic Pathway
Prostate Cancer
Protein S
Proteomics

Androgen-deprivation remains the principal therapy for advanced and metastatic prostate cancers. However, some cancer cells are able to survive this treatment and transform themselves to a more aggressive androgen-independent prostate cancer (AIPC). An understanding of the molecular alterations that occur during the progression to androgen-independence is of utmost importance in order to generate effective targeted therapies. Using two different in vitro approaches coupled to high through-put mass spectrometry, we were able to identify numerous potential mediators of AIPC and aggressive prostate cancer. Our first approach using an in vitro cell line model of androgen-independence allowed us to identify enzymes of the ketogenic pathway as elevated in cases of aggressive prostate cancer. Specifically, ACAT1, an enzyme in this pathway, was further validated and shown to be substantially elevated in clinical cases of castration-resistant metastatic prostate cancer. In addition, ACAT1 was found to be an independent tissue-based prognostic marker of biochemical recurrence-free survival. In our second approach we compared the secreted proteomes of androgen independent cell lines (PC3, DU145, PPC1, LNCaP-SF, 22Rv1) to androgen-dependent (LNCaP, VCaP) and normal prostate epithelial (RWPE) cell lines. Of the over 3000 proteins identified in the secretomes, we found more than 100 proteins that were differentially secreted in the androgen independent cell lines. Of these, Protein S (PROS1) was elevated in the secretomes of all the AIPC cell lines and was not detected in the normal or androgen-dependent prostate cancer cell lines. Next, using RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry, we observed significantly higher tissue expression levels of PROS1 in localized high-grade and castrate-resistant metastatic prostate cancer samples compared to normal and low-grade prostate cancer, further indicating its importance in prostate cancer progression. Finally, functional validation revealed that PROS1 increases cell proliferation, migration and viability and thus may play a direct role on prostate cancer biology.Taken together, the results of this research will help in not only increasing the understanding of key molecular alterations and mechanisms by which prostate cancer cells can utilize to gain androgen-independence, and more importantly, aid in the development of new targeted therapies by potentially focusing on blocking or altering specific critical signalling cascades.
Characterization of Neuronal Anillin and Borg Protein Localization and Function
Keywords: borgs
central nervous system
mitosis
phagocytosis
primary cilium
septins

Septins are filament-forming proteins that scaffold a host of proteins to their sites offunction. One such protein is anillin, that along with septins, mediates cytokinesis duringcell division. Research to date has focused on characterizing the role of anillin duringcytokinesis. Interestingly, anillin is most highly expressed in the central nervous system,which is in part composed of terminally differentiated, post-mitotic cells, such asneurons. Anillin has been characterized as a mitotic marker in neuronal cells, but perhapsits high expression in the poorly mitotic brain could indicate another, novel role ofanillin. Here we show that not only is anillin present in multiple primary central nervoussystem cells, it is also a smaller isoform of anillin, having an N-terminal truncation. Thetruncated anillin, localizes differently than the better characterized somatic cell anillin,being present in the cytoplasm and largely excluded from the nucleus. In addition, thiscytoplasmic truncated anillin localizes to the phagocytic cup, where it is involved inmediating phagocytosis. Interestingly, brain anillin still localizes to the cleavage furrowdespite its N-terminal truncation, and perhaps its function as an anchor for theactomyosin contractile ring to the cortex, is supplemented by other actin-binding proteincomplexes like the cadherin-catenin complex.The assembly of septin filaments is poorly understood. One of the best candidates forregulating septin filaments are the poorly understood Borg family of proteins that caninduce septin filament polymerization when overexpressed. Here we show that Borgproteins localize to multiple septin-containing structures and are involved in regulatingseptin polymerization into rings. Borg depletion studies also link them to multiple mitoticprocesses, which largely mirrors septin-depletion phenotypes. We also link Borgs toseptin recruitment at the primary cilia. In short, our results show that a novel form ofanillin exists in the brain, and is involved in phagocytosis. In addition, our Borg studiesfurther characterize their roles in septin-dependent phenotypes, as they are required fornormal mitosis progression, and septin recruitment to the ciliary axoneme.
A Generalized Arousal Model of Political Orientation
Keywords: conservatism
EEG
ERP
political neuroscience
Political Psychology
social neuroscience

The majority of psychological theories of political orientation are predicated on the assumption that negatively-valenced emotion enhances conservative belief. In support of this notion, exposure to fear-inducing and disgusting stimuli motivate conservative versus liberal shifts in political beliefs. However, we have recently suggested that research in this area has confounded valence with arousal, which may have led to the premature conclusion that negative valence, rather than arousal more generally, is associated with conservative political beliefs. In a series of 4 studies, we tested the hypothesis that arousal, rather than negative valence per se, promotes conservative orientation. In Studies 1 and 2, experimentally-induced positive as well as negative emotional arousal was associated with enhanced agreement with right-wing political speeches, controlling for baseline political orientation. Studies 3 and 4 used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine the relationship between political orientation and electrophysiological sensitivity to emotional stimuli. In Study 3, conservatism versus liberalism was associated with heightened feedback-related negativity -- an ERP component thought to index activity in neural regions associated with reward processing -- in response to positive feedback. In Study 4, conservatives, compared to liberals, demonstrated heightened amplitude of the late positive potential (an ERP component that covaries with the motivational salience of stimuli) in response to emotional stimuli, regardless of valence. Taken together, these investigations provide preliminary evidence to support an arousal model of political orientation, which may more accurately portray the psychological motivations underlying conservatism.
Regulation of ABCG2 Expression in the Lactating Mammary Gland
Keywords: ABCG2
BCRP
epigenetics
lactation
prolactin
Stat5

The Breast Cancer Resistance Protein (ABCG2) is a multidrug efflux transporter that is upregulated in certain drug-resistant cancer cells and in the mammary gland during lactation. It is unclear how ABCG2 is regulated in the lactating mammary gland. This thesis sought to understand the role of prolactin (PRL) and its downstream signalling cascades, and epigenetic mechanisms, in the regulation of ABCG2 expression in the mammary gland during lactation. Using T-47D human breast cancer cells, I showed that PRL upregulated ABCG2, in part, by inducing the recruitment of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription-5 (STAT5) to an interferon gamma activation sequence (GAS) motif in the human ABCG2 gene. Pharmacological inhibition of phosphoinositide 3-kinase and mitogen-activated protein kinase signalling further demonstrated the involvement of these pathways in the induction of ABCG2 by prolactin. To further investigate whether STAT5 regulates ABCG2 in vivo, I performed a series of experiments using mammary glands from non-lactating (virgin and forced involution) and lactating mice. These experiments revealed that the E1b alternative mouse Abcg2 mRNA isoform was predominantly expressed and induced in the mouse mammary gland during lactation. Using published STAT5 ChIP-seq datasets and ChIP-qPCR, I showed that STAT5 was bound to multiple regions along the mouse Abcg2 gene during lactation. In particular, one of these STAT5 binding regions, which contains a GAS motif, showed functional activity in luciferase reporter assays. I further investigated epigenetic mechanisms that may regulate Abcg2 in the mouse mammary gland. Despite the presence of a CpG island at the E1b promoter, which when hypermethylated in vitro dramatically reduced promoter activity, the E1b promoter was already hypomethylated in the virgin mammary gland and continued to be hypomethylated during lactation. Analysis of published ChIP-seq data revealed that the E1b promoter region in virgin mouse mammary epithelial cells was already enriched with the open chromatin histone mark H3K4me2 but that there was further accumulation of H3K4me2 during lactation. Collectively, these results suggest that ABCG2 is already poised for expression in the virgin mammary gland and that lactation-associated activation of STAT5, perhaps by prolactin, induces its expression.