VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Global Economic Management in “Embryo”: The IMF, the US, China, and the Indebted World, 1963-1976
Keywords: Asia
China
IMF
Special Drawing Right
United States
U.S. dollar

Alternatives to the US dollar, the existing international order, and nationalism as a leading organizing principle were all germinated between 1963 and 1976. This dissertation argues that the creation of the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the Sino-American rapprochement, and Asian regional impulses converged to incubate an embryonic “world interest.” This development was predicated on a more negotiable yet nervous nationalism, which occasionally conceptualized national interest as separate and above national sovereignty, defined more by achieving global outcomes than autonomy. A “world interest,” residing in Washington figures (exemplified, for example, by Treasury Secretary George Shultz), who had an interest in “global management” possibilities, helped construct alternatives to nationalism and the dollar-driven order. The vigour of enthusiasm of national independence, the patchwork nature of the international order (evidenced by China’s alienation from the global mainstream, e.g.), and the absence of a catastrophic crisis explain why nationalism endured—although new vulnerabilities surfaced. The 1st and 2nd Amendments to the IMF’s Articles of Agreement in 1969 and 1978 respectively each concerning the SDR, the supranational impulse of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the rise of sovereign debt all weakened nationalism and represented possible future disruptive factors for nationalism and US pre-eminence. The search for an alternative to nationalism and the dollar yielded six “new world order” visions. The first vision was inherent in the US goal of encouraging greater global management to lessen pressure on the dollar, US responsibilities in Asia, and to tackle global challenges while preserving US superpower status. The second vision was the IMF’s objective of evolving into a world central bank, capable of issuing a global currency—the SDR. The third vision was Singapore’s and ASEAN’s call for an Asian Common Market. The fourth vision was China’s move toward superpower status. The United Nations served as a venue for the final two visions: one was radically aimed at creating a more equitable economic order, led by the global south; the other was characterized by a strengthened UN, inclusive of China, able to better manage global challenges—led by environmental destruction and monetary stability.
An Exploration of Support Needs of Family Caregivers of Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury: A Qualitative Study
Keywords: family caregiving
health services research
qualitative
spinal cord injury

There is a gap in evidence with respect to the specific support needs of family caregivers of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). The objectives of this thesis include determining: 1) the perceived facilitators and barriers to undertaking and sustaining the caregiving role; 2) the types of support needed by individuals with SCI, and the factors related to the need for more support; 3) the skills needed by SCI family caregivers to enhance competency in caregiving; and 4) how caregivers and care recipients negotiate changes within the relationship post-SCI. This research used a qualitative descriptive approach with an exploratory design. Thirty-four interviews (19 individuals with SCI, 15 family caregivers) were conducted. In the first paper, the following four facilitators to caregiving were identified: access to community support services, positive coping in relationship, social support, and mastery of caregiving roles. Conversely, the following six barriers to caregiving were identified: lack of access to community resources, lack of knowledge about resources and formal training, fragmented continuity of care, negative coping in relationship, role strain, and caregiver injury or illness. In the second paper, the following types of support needed by individuals with SCI were identified: practical, emotional and advocacy. The following factors associated with the need for more support were also identified: a higher level of injury, greater frequency of secondary health conditions and age of the care recipient. In the third paper, twenty-nine SCI family caregiving skills were identified and grouped into six caregiving processes signifying the multiple dimensions of the SCI caregiving role. In the final paper, the following four factors that challenged relationship stability were identified: protective behaviours, asymmetrical dependency, loss of sex and intimacy, and difficulty adapting. Also, the following four strategies used by care recipients and caregivers to maintain/re-build their relationships were identified: interdependence, shifting commonalities, adding creativity into routine, and creating a new normal. These findings could serve to facilitate prospective planning of sustainable support for family caregivers as well as improve the health outcomes of individuals with SCI.
The Development of a New and Improved Hurricane Scale for the North Atlantic
Keywords: climate
hurricane
hurricane scale
meteorology
north atlantic
tropical cyclone

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (SSHS) was developed in 1969 by Herbert Saffir and Bob Simpson and introduced to the public in 1973. Saffir developed the initial scale when he realized there was no simple scale for describing the effects of hurricanes. He devised a 1-5 scale based on the wind speeds of a storm and the expected damage to structures. Simpson collaborated and added on storm surge and pressure (NOAA, 2006a). The National Hurricane Center (NHC) eliminated the components of pressure and storm surge in 2009, transforming it into a pure wind scale known as the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS). According to the NHC dropping all requirements except wind was to “help reduce public confusion about the impacts associated with the various hurricane categories as well as to provide a more scientifically defensible scale” (Schott et al. 2012). The SSHS has been criticized for many years due to the fact that the scale does not take into consideration rain amounts, forward speed, and size of a tropical cyclone, to name a few critical missing parameters. Recent hurricanes such as Hurricane Harvey (2017) that stalled over the Texas and Louisiana coastlines for several days and contributed to historic flooding, damage, and significant loss of life, show that a change needs to be made in the SSHWS. Classifying a tropical cyclone’s strength solely on the maximum wind speeds does not give an accurate representation of the true intensity and threats associated with a storm. In order for a tropical cyclone to be classified more accurately a new hurricane scale is proposed. This thesis examines existing components found in the original SSHS (wind, barometric pressure, and storm surge) as well as new potential elements that will measure an approaching tropical cyclone: size, precipitation, forward speed, and extratropical transition. A new and improved hurricane scale known as the Masson – Gough Hurricane Scale is proposed and assessed, using past tropical cyclones as well as piloting it on a recent hurricane season, 2017. This research is needed for the purpose of more accurate forecasting and for the benefit of public awareness, safety, management, and preparedness.
Room-Temperature Bose-Einstein Condensation of Exciton-Polaritons in Photonic Crystal Architectures
Keywords: Bose-Einstein Condensation
Exciton-Polaritons
Photonic Band Gap
Photonic Crystals
Quantum Wells
Room-Temperature

Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is a remarkable manifestation of quantum mechani- cal behaviour where a macroscopic number of particles occupy a single particle ground state. Typical realizations of BEC occur at temperatures close to absolute zero. In this thesis, we propose a route towards full thermal equilibirum, room-temperature BEC of “half-light” - “half-matter” quasiparticles known as exciton-polaritons. Our proposed strategy uses three-dimensional photonic crystals to form the optical resonator; this leads to long lived confined optical modes. These long lived confined optical modes allow the condensates to reach full thermal equilibrium. Photonic crystal resonators ensure that the light-matter coupling strengths are significantly stronger than in conventional archi- tectures; this leads to BEC formation at higher temperatures. A central quantity in our work is the (lower) exciton-polariton dispersion depth. The dispersion depth is an energy scale that governs the limit on the critical temperature. Strategies for increasing the dispersion depth to facilitate room-temperature BEC will be discussed. We first examine exciton-polariton BEC in optical resonators composed of slanted pore photonic crystals. We consider InGaAs/InP quantum wells embedded in the res- onator to allow for light emission at a wavelength of approximately 1300 nm. In esti- mating the critical temperature, we ensure the use of modest exciton-polariton densities to avoid the saturation of the exciton resonance. Using three quantum wells, our study reveals that exciton-polariton BEC occurs for temperatures above 300 K and that our results are robust to both photonic and electronic disorder. Next, we investigate exciton-polariton BEC in optical resonators composed of wood- pile photonic crystals. We treat GaAs/AlAs quantum wells embedded in resonator to allow for the emission of light with a wavelength of approximately 750 nm. Due to the x-y symmetry of the woodpile photonic crystal, the exciton-polariton ground state exhibits a two-fold polarization degeneracy. We show that symmetry breaking lifts the degeneracy of the ground state and results in larger critical temperatures and higher condensate fractions, in comparison to a symmetrical woodpile structure. Our results show that for three quantum wells and a moderate exciton-polariton density that a BEC can be obtained at temperatures over 300 K; this condensate is robust to disorder.
A Critique of School Board Selection Practices and the Under-representation of Racialized Educators in the Principalship
Keywords: educational leadership
principal selection
racism
school leadership
whiteness

Abstract School leaders are “ultimately responsible for how well students are doing and the extent to which achievement is improving” (Ontario. Ministry of Education, 2012b, p. 2). With changing demographics leading to an increased population of racialized stakeholders, schools must be responsive to the diverse needs of students and ensure equity of outcomes. This qualitative study identified factors contributing to continued under-representation of racialized educators in formal school leadership roles. Interview data collected from senior level personnel of three Greater Toronto Area (GTA) school boards was used to consider the question: How might current school board selection, identification, and subsequent hiring practices contribute to the under-representation of racialized school principals? This research utilizes anti-racism and critical race theories and Whiteness studies as conceptual frames for analysis. The twelve participants who were identified by their respective school board and/or colleagues, articulated their understanding of their district’s recruitment, identification and selection process for school leadership. Participants also shared their perceptions regarding the outcomes and/or patterns of under-represented racialized educators promoted into the principalship for their board. An analysis of the responses and an in-depth review of the literature uncovered prevailing dominant conceptualizations of leadership, derived from mainstream educational leadership scholarship. Problematically, the unique knowledges, perspectives, and lived experiences of racialized educators are siloed in the educational leadership scholarship and excluded from the mainstream literature used to identify and select school leaders. These findings have significant implications for who and how school leaders are selected, given that leaders who demonstrate Equity-based leadership models have particular competencies and skills that include identifying and removing barriers for marginalized students. Understanding the relationship between hiring and the under-representation of racialized educators in the cadre of school leaders is imperative, given Ministry mandates to close achievement gaps. This research contributes to greater understanding of the ways social identities can be determinants of advancement within systems of education that reflect an absence of marginalized identities within the ranks of school leadership.
Spatializing Modernity: Colonial Contexts of Urban Space in Modern Japanese Literature
Keywords: Colonial Space
Japanese Literature
Japanese Modernity
National Identity
Urban Sapce

This dissertation examines representations of modern urban space in the literary works of Meiji and Taishō writers such as Natsume Sōseki, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. This project took its initial inspiration from Karatani Kōjin’s and Komori Yōichi’s historically grounded approach to literary criticism; it is thus similarly historical in its uncovering of prose fiction, travelogues, and essays. Drawing on the work of Seiji Lippit, which links the spatial narrative to the construction of Japan’s imperial subject, the present study investigates how these texts not only represent urban space as symbolic of Japan’s ‘colonial modernity,’ but actively construct and legitimize it. This dissertation contributes to a recent surge in scholarship connecting Japanese colonialism and modernity, and seeks to contextualize the formation of Japan’s modern urban space within its colonial history. In each of the four chapters, a different kind of spatial power relation will be read against its formative historical backdrop, beginning with the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and concluding with Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Chapter 1 and 2 respectively examine the implications of power in constructs of metropole/colony and urban/rural. Chapter 3 analyzes the train as a space in which various power relations are condensed and compacted, and Chapter 4 engages in a discussion on the discursive space of modern hygiene. By revealing how these particular spatial power relations construct and reinscribe a singular Eurocentric narrative, and by exploring how the heterogeneity of spaces represented in these texts overthrows such homogenizing concepts, I will denaturalize and destabilize seemingly self-evident ideas that gave rise to the spatial power structures which undergird the formation of a homogeneous (Western/Japanese) modernity.
Understanding the Link between Dairy Foods and Type 2 Diabetes: An Investigation Using Dairy Fatty Acid Biomarkers
Keywords: cohort
dairy
fatty acids
nutrition
saturated fat
trans fat

Increasing evidence points to an inverse association between dairy intake and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) risk, however results from studies relying on self-reported questionnaires to assess dairy intake have been inconsistent and few have looked at dairy’s effect on T2DM’s underlying disorders, namely insulin sensitivity and β-cell dysfunction. Dairy (non low-fat options) contains high amounts of saturated (SFA) and naturally occurring trans fatty acids (TFA), yet recent studies suggest that different types of SFA and TFA have different metabolic effects, with dairy-derived fatty acids potentially being protective. Nonetheless, there are limited data on dairy fatty acids’ impact on the underlying pathophysiology of T2DM. In my doctoral research I (1) measured baseline dairy fatty acids 15:0, t16:1n9, c9,t11 CLA, and t18:1n11 in the 4 serum FA pools [phospholipid (PL), cholesteryl ester (CE), triglyceride (TG), and non-esterified (NEFA)], and identified factors that modify their distribution across serum pools; (2) evaluated longitudinal associations of dairy fatty acids with insulin sensitivity and β-cell function over 6 years; and (3) applied statistical methods for combining biomarker and self-reported dietary intake data to evaluate associations of dairy intake on 6yr incident dysglycemia prediction. Data from 444 adults at high risk for T2DM were analyzed. Insulin sensitivity and β-cell dysfunction were calculated from 75g oral glucose tolerance tests. Study 1 showed that proportions of dairy fatty acids differ by pool. Dairy intake was associated with PL and CE fatty acids, while higher circulating TG fatty acids were markers of dysmetabolism. In study 2, PL and CE fatty acids were positively associated insulin sensitivity and β-cell dysfunction longitudinally, while TG fatty acids were negatively associated. Study 3 demonstrated that in models with multiple biomarkers, principal components analysis combining dietary and biomarkers discriminated dysglycemia status better than individual measures alone. Overall, these results highlight the complex distribution of dairy fatty acids in serum and the heterogeneity of their associations with T2DM pathogenesis.
Resolving Pulsar Emission with Cosmic Microscopes
Keywords: ISM
Pulsars
Radio Astronomy
VLBI

Radio emission from many pulsars exhibits scintillation - an interference pattern in frequency and time, caused by light travelling through the ionized interstellar medium via multiple paths, separated by tens of astronomical units. If one were able to trace back these paths, one would effectively be able to observe the pulsar from slightly different angles, thus forming a very high angular resolution image of the pulsar. The resolution increases as the scattering region is located closer to the source, similar to a microscope. In this thesis, I aim to measure the emission using two such “microscopes”: the Black Widow pulsar, whose binary companion has an ionized outflow, and the Crab pulsar, which is embedded in a young supernova remnant. I develop a new way to directly measure the impulse response function of a scattering screen, through bright, impulsive pulses. This is used to coherently remove the effects of scintillation in the Black Widow pulsar, revealing intrinsic emission two orders of magnitude shorter than the scattering time. I study the interstellar scattering screen of the Black Widow using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), revealing the scintillation to be governed by a single, highly anisotropic screen. The same VLBI data is used to study the radio eclipse of the black widow pulsar, as it is occulted by its companion’s outflow. At 327 MHz, the pulsar is eclipsed in continuum, lending further evidence that the eclipse is caused by absorption, and not through time smearing of pulses. Near the radio eclipse, I discovered highly magnified pulses, boosted by factors of up to 70 at specific frequencies. The eclipsing material from the companion is acting like a lens, and the strongest events clearly resolve the emission regions, affecting the narrow main pulse and parts of the wider interpulse differently. Finally, I study the scintillation of giant pulses in the Crab pulsar. The dominant scattering screen is within the Crab nebula itself, resulting in spatial resolution of order the size of the light cylinder. The spectra of giant pulses correlate at ∼ 5%, implying the giant pulse emission region is resolved, and there is tentative evidence that the scintillation patterns of the main pulse and interpulse are offset in time, which would imply a physical separation of order the light cylinder radius.
Growing Land, Growing Law: Race, Urban Politics, and the Governance of Vacant Land in Boston from 1950
Keywords: Race
Urban governance
Vacant land management

Drawing on archival research, document analysis, stakeholder interviews, and ethnographic work, this study takes an historical approach to analyze the governance of vacant land in the era of neoliberal urban governance in Boston. Previous academic and bureaucratic scholarship has established a well-worn narrative about vacant land as a critical urban problem and the importance of municipal interventions to return it to its “highest and best use.” This study investigates the physical production and ideological construction of vacant land located primarily in several historically low income racialized neighbourhoods in Boston, as well as two programmatic fixes designed by the municipality to address it: community gardening in the 1970s, and urban farming beginning around 2010. In this thesis, I contend that the identification of land as vacant is a social and administrative process that signals vacancy as an object of governance constructed alongside ideologies of the “waste” of racialized populations and their spaces. Vacancy extends the power of “blight” used to justify eminent domain takings of racialized neighbourhoods under urban renewal, while simultaneously fitting the conditions of urban development under neoliberalism and seeming, like other tools of urban planning, impartial to race. I argue that constructing vacant land in racialized neighbourhoods as an urban problem actuates particular kinds of neoliberal governance assemblages designed to yield its “highest and best use,” and to govern racialized populations via the rollout of seemingly community-friendly programmatic fixes. By analyzing the role of vacant land in racialized neighbourhoods as a tool used to ensure the productive capacity of land in the capitalist city, this study offers significant insights into the relationship between race and uneven urban development. This study also contributes to knowledge about urban governance by analyzing the workings of an important tool through which the heavy-handed power of the municipality, derided under neoliberalism, is both constructed and justified.