VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Agenda Setting in Global Policy Development: The Case of the International Labour Organization Decent Work Agenda
Keywords: decent work
discourse
global governance
health equity
policy

Structural inequality, employment insecurity, and unhealthy working conditions continue to rise. Confronted by these challenges, global institutions such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) are providing policy advice to protect and promote the health and well-being of workers. This dissertation focuses on agenda setting - how health and social problems get and stay on policy agendas and how agendas are set and produced through the political interactions of social actors -to better understand why global progress in improving poor working conditions through policy may be stalled. I conducted a qualitative study using data from interviews and publicly accessible archival policy texts about the Decent Work Agenda (DWA) and related texts. Interviews with 16 participants from the ILO, World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank (WB) helped to further understand what role the DWA has played in setting these institutions' work policy agendas. A critical discourse analysis of 10 policy texts surfaced different health, economic, and social conceptualizations of `decent work' in the work policy agendas of these institutions. My findings indicate that the DWA has not been fully embraced by the WHO and WB, although there is evidence of policy coherence within the UN multi-lateral system. I found evidence of resistance to "ILO language" by the WB and shift in ILO language from decent work to job over time (1999-2012). I observed a drift towards privileging macro-economic measures to foster job creation particularly in WB texts but also evidence of strategic appeals to economic interests in WHO texts. Deeply-held beliefs of neoliberalism that are embedded in global policy enabled pro-market and pro-economic discourses in the case of all three institutions I found that catalytic events such as the 2008-09 economic crisis and policy precedents contributed positively to attention to and use of the Decent Work Agenda as a policy instrument. I also found differences in the implicit and explicit use of terms such as decent work, health, health equity and economics within and across policy texts. How these concepts come to be interpreted differently in policy texts and contested globally in the face of vested institutional interests partially explains why efforts to improve global working conditions have been stalled.
Infrared Emission Measurements of Radiation and Trace Gas Variability in the High Arctic
Keywords: Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer
Cloud Radiative Forcing
Emission Spectroscopy
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
Total Column Trace Gas Measurements
Trace Gas Retrieval Theory

The objective of this Ph.D. is to investigate the atmospheric radiative budget and composition in the high Arctic using a new (prototype) interferometer. The Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change has equipped the Polar Atmospheric Environment Research Laboratory (PEARL) at Eureka, Nunavut (80ยบN, 86ยบW) with an Extended-range Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (E-AERI), which was installed in October 2008 at the PEARL Ridge Lab (610 m a.s.l.). The E-AERI measures the infrared (IR) thermal emission of the atmosphere in the 400-3000 cm-1 (3.3-25 μm) spectral region. An older AERI, the Polar AERI (P-AERI), was stationed in Eureka from 2006-2009 and was located at sea level. The impact of clouds and ice crystals on the radiative budget were investigated from two altitudes using these two AERIs. The increased radiance due to the presence of clouds was found to be larger at Eureka than at the Southern Great Plains (SGP), indicating that cloud cover plays an important role in the Arctic's radiative budget. This thesis presents the first measurements of the two surface cooling-to-space windows (at 10 and 20 μm) in the high (> 75o N) Arctic. Distributions of brightness temperatures were filtered based on cloud cover and do not vary in the summer, indicating that the 20 μm window is closed when water vapour is a maximum. Trends in downwelling radiance were found in several spectral microregions corresponding to these cooling-to-space windows and meteorological conditions (temperature, water vapour, cloud cover). Trends at 10 μm during the winter were positive, in the opposite direction, and significantly larger (factor > 3) than any of the seasonal trends detected at the SGP, indicating that changes in the downwelling radiance are accelerated in the high Arctic compared to lower latitudes. Spectra recorded by the E-AERI were also used to retrieve total column concentrations of O3, CO, CH4, and N2O year-round to fill a gap in the PEARL data series, providing the first continuous ground-based trace gas measurements throughout polar night at Eureka. This work involved the implementation of the SFIT2 retrieval algorithm modified for emission spectra. E-AERI trace gas retrievals were characterized and comparisons to other spectrometers at Eureka are within uncertainties (1-9% differences). An investigation of the diurnal and seasonal cycle of CO was performed to highlight the usefulness of continuous, year-round measurements at Eureka.
Pound Seizure: Legislation and Policy Debate in American Newspapers 1994 - 2005
Keywords: Content Analysis
Pound Seizure

Using content-analysis methodology, this study looks at the practice of pound seizure, a little-known phenomenon whereby community animal pounds and shelters sell lost, stolen, and no-longer-wanted companion animals to research facilities, where they are then used in scientific experiments. Specifically, it analyzes one-hundred United States-based newspapers from 1994 to 2005 with a view to determining whether a relationship exists between the extent and type of coverage about pound seizure, on the one hand, and the presence of "moral shock," on the other hand. Moral shock is a term coined by James M. Jasper, who defines it as "a visceral, bodily feeling, on a par with vertigo or nausea" that results from "an unexpected event or piece of information [that] raises such a sense of outrage in a person that she becomes inclined toward political action." After identifying instances of moral shock within the examined newspapers, the study traces possible connections between them and policy and legislative changes relating to pound seizure in the United States.
Embodiment and Subjectivity -- The Origins of Bodily Self-awareness
Keywords: Bodily Awareness
Consciousness
Interoception
Phenomenology
Proprioception

What is the role of the body in our conscious mental life? How does the body shape our sense of self? In what follows, I explore how our sense of self involves a sense of bodily self. I explore how we are aware of our bodies in our everyday being in the world, and I frame my approach using a phenomenological distinction between the body as subject and the body as object. I consider the sensory modalities by which we are aware of our body as the subject of experience - proprioception (the sensory modality responsible for providing information about body posture, limb location, and movement) and interoception (the sensory modality responsible for providing afferent information about visceral organs, bodily temperature, pain, body chemistry, etc.) - and I develop a model of how to understand these senses in relation to our typical bodily self-awareness. In doing so, I argue for the need to enrich our account of perception to include a particular form of bodily perception - bodily-self perception. I close by looking at the consequences of my view for understanding a specific, and much studied form of bodily experience: the sense of body-ownership. I argue that our current interpretations of cases such as the rubber hand illusion and virtual whole body illusions fail to take into account the distinction between our awareness of the body as subject and our awareness of the body as object. As a result of this failure, these illusions have been taken to show that our sense of self as bodily might not be entirely reliant on our own body. I show how this interpretation is false, and why a consideration of our interoceptive awareness of the body as subject is crucial for properly understanding just what these cases really show in regards to our sense of self as bodily.
Mechanisms by which Nicotine Enhances Pavlovian Approach Behavior and Responding for a Conditioned Reinforcer
Keywords: Conditioned Reinforcement
Nicotine
Nucleus Accumbens
Pavlovian Conditioning

Tobacco dependence is among the leading causes of preventable deaths in North America. The main psychoactive ingredient contributing to the addictive properties of tobacco is nicotine. Nicotine use may be reinforced, in part, by an effect of nicotine to enhance the motivating properties of reward-associated stimuli. This effect can be measured in animals by first pairing a discrete stimulus with primary reinforcement in a Pavlovian conditioning procedure, making the cue a conditioned stimulus (CS). To assess the motivating properties of that CS, a second step is employed to assess the ability of the CS to serve as a conditioned reinforcer and support a novel, operant response. The number of responses performed for presentations of the CS as a conditioned reinforcer is enhanced by psychostimulant drugs, such as nicotine. In this thesis, I found that the administration of nicotine during Pavlovian conditioning enhances approach behavior towards the reward delivery receptacle when the CS indicates reward availability. This phenomenon occurred in two different Pavlovian conditioning procedures. In the second step, those animals that received nicotine injections during the Pavlovian conditioning phase displayed enhanced responding for the Pavlovian CS as a conditioned reinforcer under the influence of an acute nicotine injection. To further characterize this effect of nicotine on the reinforcing properties of CSs, I identified the specific nicotinic receptor subtypes involved in this effect, examined the longevity of responding for conditioned reinforcement, and assessed the ability of nicotine and the cues to reinvigorate this operant response after extinguishing such behavior. Furthermore, I found that drugs that act on dopamine (DA) or serotonin (5-HT) receptors modify the effect of nicotine to enhance motivated responding for conditioned reinforcement. Finally, I assessed the impact of administering varenicline, bupropion, lorcaserin, and naltrexone on nicotine-enhanced responding for a conditioned reinforcer. Together, these data substantiate a role for nicotine in enhancing the motivating properties of CSs, and identify several pharmacological targets that influence this property of nicotine reinforcement.
An Ultrasound and Acoustic Study of Turkish Rounded/Unrounded Vowel Pairs
Keywords: Loanwords
Phonetics
Serbian
Turkish
Vowels

This dissertation grew out of a phonology course paper on the adaption of Turkish words in Serbian. The focus of the paper was on the Turkish vowels /ɯ y oe/. Noticeably, in contrast to vowels /y oe/, the back vowel /ɯ/ showed variable patterns of adaptation. The conclusion drawn from the paper was that the vowel /ɯ/ was different from other vowels. Interestingly, the Turkish vowel inventory is a crowded vowel system with three rounded/unrounded vowel pairs, two front vowel pairs (/i y/ and /e oe/), and one back vowel pair (/ɯ u/). And, while phonetic research has largely focused on front vowel pairs in other languages, I emphasize on the importance of the back vowel pair. The dissertation examines the phonetics of Turkish vowels to determine acoustic and articulatory properties of vowels produced in different contexts. Four experiments were done, two describing vowels in isolation and two describing vowels in four different consonantal contexts, based on place of articulation. First, I discuss the theory behind acoustics and articulation, by outlining theories of coarticulation and describing how the vowel /ɯ/ differs from other vowels. Then, I present methodology used in the dissertation. Chapters 4 and 5 present results of articulation and acoustic experiments on vowels in isolation, while Chapter 6 and 7 present results of the articulation and acoustic experiments on vowels in consonantal contexts. Chapter 8 discusses the main findings. The study discovered that the three rounded/unrounded vowel pairs are true pairs, as they do not articulatorily differ much in tongue height and frontness. Since they differ most consistently in F2, this confirms the non-linear relationship between articulation and acoustics. Both high back vowels /ɯ u/ are more prone to coarticulation in F2 than other vowels. Context variability, short duration, and absence of visual cues can explain why /ɯ/ behaves like no other vowel in loanword adaptations. The dissertation enriches phonetic research by investigating the back vowel pair, by examining front rounded/unrounded vowel pairs in contexts, and by using quantitative ultrasound methodology. Also, it contributes to loanword research by accounting for loanword adaption of the back unrounded vowel /ɯ/.
Activity Induced Plasticity in AMPAR Composition at the developing Calyx of Held / MNTB Synapse
Keywords: activity
AMPAR
development
ion channel
MNTB

Developing central synapses exhibit robust plasticity and undergo marked experience-dependent remodeling. This is particularly evident in sensory systems such as auditory brainstem circuits where synapses mature rapidly to achieve high-fidelity neurotransmission. This depends on a developmental switch in AMPAR composition from slow-gating GluA1 dominant too fast-gating GluA4 dominant known to occur within the first 2 weeks of postnatal development, but the mechanisms underlying this switch remain unknown. We hypothesize that patterned stimuli mimicking spontaneous or sound evoked activity drives the GluA gating switch. We examined activity-dependent changes in evoked and miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (eEPSCs and mEPSCs) at the calyx of Held synapse by rupturing the postsynaptic membrane at different time points following 2 minutes of theta burst stimulation (TBS) to afferents in mouse brainstem slices. We found the decay time course of eEPSCs accelerated, manifested as decreases in fast and slow time constants (τf and τs, by exponential fits), but these changes were not apparent until >30 min after TBS. Histogram analyses of the decay time course of mEPSCs for naive and tetanized synapses revealed two τ populations being 0.4 and 0.8 ms, respectively, but the relative weight of the τ0.4 population over the τ0.7 population increased significantly in tetanized synapses. Such changes are blocked by NMDAR or mGluR1/5 antagonists or inhibitors of CaMKII, PKC and protein synthesis, and more importantly precluded in GluA4-/- synapses, suggesting GluA4 is the substrate underlying the acceleration. Interference of an interaction between the immediate early gene product, Neuronal Activity Regulated Pentraxin (Narp), and AMPARs, blocks this switch, substantiating a role for Narp in excitatory synapse remodeling. These results demonstrate a novel form of plasticity working through coincident NMDAR and mGluR activation to trigger a gating switch of synaptic AMPARs with a temporally delayed expression onset, ultimately enhancing development of high-fidelity neurotransmission at an ultra-fast synapse.
A Ternary Brain-computer Interface based on Single-trial Readiness Potentials of Self-initiated Fine Movements
Keywords: brain-computer interface
EEG
human machine inteface
readiness potential
spatio-temporal filtering
voluntary movement

This thesis investigates the feasibility of a ternary brain-computer interface (BCI) using the single-trial readiness potential (RP) of self-initiated fine movements. The BCI classified among an idle state and fine motor movements in the left and right hands. Three studies were conducted, each investigating a step towards this ternary BCI. The first study presented a novel technique of feature fusion from an optimal number of electrodes, for the prediction of a self-initiated fine movement from an idle state in single-trials. This technique achieved significantly lower classification error than the best single classifier and some conventional classifier fusion methods. The first study also confirmed the detection of the self-initiated fine movements on a single-trial basis, at above-chance levels, starting 396 ms before their motoric realization. The highest detection accuracy was 82.21% at 250 ms before movement. The second study formulated a novel pipeline of spatio-temporal filtering (PSTF) feature extraction method for laterality classification of self-initiated fine movements. The PSTF achieved significantly higher average classification accuracy (74.99%) than two conventional methods. This second study achieved a significant improvement in single-trial fine movement laterality prediction from RP features alone. The final study investigated a ternary BCI based on a single-trial RP of self-initiated fine movements. The study extended the PSTF for feature extraction in the ternary case, and proposed a diversified classification algorithm for multiclass binary decomposition. The proposed approach achieved significantly higher average classification accuracy (96.24% for idle class; 77.79% for left class; 72.37% for right class) than the conventional multiclass classifier and popular binary decomposition methods. This thesis demonstrates the potential of a ternary BCI based exclusively on RP features. It supports further study of RP-based BCI for intuitive asynchronous control of the environment, such as in augmentative communication or wheelchair navigation.
Genome Evolution of Smittium and Allies (Harpellales)
Keywords: DNA
Fungi
Genomics
Insect
Mycology
Symbiosis

The Harpellales (Kickxellomycotina) is an early-diverging fungal lineage associated with the digestive tracts of aquatic arthropod hosts (lower Diptera). Smittium, with 94 reported species, is the largest genus of the Harpellales and has served as a model to help advance our understanding of insect gut-associated fungi, from aspects of biodiversity, immunology, physiology, and symbiosis. Comparative genomics is shedding new light in all fields of biology. However, little is known about the genomics and natural history of Smittium and allies. The goals of this dissertation are: 1) to place Smittium and allies in a temporal dimension in the Tree of Life and test whether or not these fungi have co-evolved with their lower Diptera hosts; 2) to produce the first whole genome sequences of Smittium and allies and characterize fundamental aspects of their genome features; and 3) to conduct comparative analyses to infer their genomic diversity and reveal unique genetic elements that could be responsible for insect-fungus symbiosis. Chapter 2 shows that the divergence time of the Smittium clade was around 243 Ma, which corresponds to that of their Diptera hosts. However, no strong co-phylogenetic congruence was detected between the symbiotic pairs. Chapter 3 describes the genome features of four Harpellales taxa (three Smittium and one ally) and reports a horizontally transferred ubiquitin gene from a mosquito host to its gut fungal symbiontâ Zancudomyces culisetae. Chapter 4 reveals that Smittium and allies are diploid; suggests that ancient genome duplications have occurred more than once among Smittium and allies; and identifies a ten-gene toolbox that could be responsible for the fungus-insect symbiosis. This work offers insights into the genome evolution of a group of early-diverging fungi and places Smittium and allies into the broader context of fields of molecular biology and comparative genomics.
Tet1 Deficiency Leads to Aberrant Maintenance of Stemness in Normal and Neoplastic Brain Cells
Keywords: glioblastoma
glioma
neural development
neurogenesis
Tet1

Glioblastoma is the deadliest adult malignant brain tumour, having a dismal prognosis even with the best therapeutic options available. Glioblastoma has been shown to be hierarchically organized with a stem-like cell at the apex, known as the cancer stem cell, having the ability to self-renew and give rise to more differentiated progeny that make up the bulk of the tumour tissue. Although its behavior atop a hierarchically structured tissue is reminiscent of the role of a neural stem cell in brain development, the functional processes that the cancer stem cell undergoes to produce tumour bulk are poorly understood. In this thesis, I strive to understand what the necessary genetic factors are for a cancer stem cell to switch from a self-renewing state to a more differentiated state. First, I use an unbiased screening approach in a collection of >1300 mouse embryonic stem cells to comprehensively investigate the effect of mono-allelic genetic loss across the genome, on neurogenesis in vitro. Second, I follow up on a screen hit region of mouse chromosome 10 by using CRISRP-Cas9 targeted mutant embryonic stem cells to confirm that the epigenetic modifier Tet1 is necessary for the consolidation of neuronal differentiation from neural stem cells. Lastly, I use this data as a model and apply it to glioblastoma biology in which TET1 is found hemizygous in >85% of patient tumours. Using CRISPR-Cas9 technology to create mono-allelic or bi-allelic loss of function of TET1, this time in patient-derived glioblastoma cells, I show that mono-allelic loss of TET1 is sufficient to bias cells towards self-renewal instead of differentiation, and decrease the survival of mice bearing tumours derived from these cells. Further, I suggest that treatment with methylase inhibitors may be an effective therapeutic option for tumours with elevated DNA methylation due to low TET1 expression.
Improved Approaches to Protein-Protein Coupling and the Efficient Formation of Hemoglobin bis-Tetramers
Keywords: bis-tetramer
hemoglobin
hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier
protein coupling
red blood cell substitute

My research focused on developing new methods for coupling proteins, with an emphasis on producing hemoglobin (Hb) bis-tetramers. These are predicted to be safe and effective alternatives to red cells in transfusions. Based on previous work, it was known that stabilized tetrameric Hb causes increases in blood pressure in circulation, presumably as the result of their extravasation, which leads to scavenging of nitric oxide, the signal for relaxation of the muscles that surround blood vessels. Our initial approach involved optimizing solubility-directed click chemistry based on the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC). To increase coupling specificity, we developed a double cross-linking approach in which reactive sites on the α-subunits are blocked with a fumaryl cross-linker and with azide installed on a linker specifically bridging the β-subunits. While this approach gives substantial success, the inefficiencies of the CuAAC process with our protein of interest motivated us to improve the process. Thus, strain-promoted alkyne-azide cycloaddition (SPAAC) was successfully adapted for coupling proteins. Using SPAAC, we also developed extended coupling to produce ‘Hb clusters’ with albumin. The resultant Hb-albumin cluster is a breakthrough product that can be scaled with minimal manipulation. We took the project in a new direction using biotin-avidin affinity as the basis for protein-protein coupling. The approach adds a biotin derivative to a cysteine thiol on each β-subunit of Hb. Avidin then scavenges the cysteine biotinylated Hbs by the high affinity biotin-avidin interaction to give the fully functional triple protein HbAvHb. We evaluated the physical and circulatory properties of the products developed here. These approaches not only apply to creating Hb assemblies but also provide a general route to coupling like proteins.