VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
An Investigation into Factors that Differentiate Reading Comprehension Skill Profiles of Young Adolescent Students
Keywords: assessment
cognitive diagnostic modeling
English as a second language
learning disabilities
reading comprehension
struggling readers

Provincial literacy scores in Ontario provide results of academic achievement but little is known about achievement gaps between groups of students. This study focused on better understanding studentsâ reading comprehension skill profiles based on whether they met the provincial standard or not using data from a provincial reading achievement assessment. The study examined the differences in reading skill mastery among Grade 6 students, using Cognitive Diagnostic Modeling (CDM) that provided a much finer grained representation of studentsâ reading comprehension skills than traditional aggregated-test scoring (Jang, 2009). The responses of 122,269 Grade 6 Ontario students who wrote the 2012 English version of the provincially mandated reading achievement test developed by EQAO in 2012 were considered. This study examined differences in reading profiles among struggling adolescent readers based on their status of either Learning Disability (LD), participation within an English as a Second Language/English Literacy Development (ESL/ELD) program, as well as having both an LD and participation in a ESL/ELD program. Based on the findings, this study discusses how achievement groups show different patterns of mastery. Students who met or exceeded the provincial standard showed a strength in implicit understanding of text whereas struggling readers, that is, those who did not meet the provincial standard, most often mastered vocabulary, explicit understanding, and inference making over implicit understanding and making inferences. Overall, students most often mastered the skills of understanding vocabulary, explicit understanding, and making inferences over implicit understanding and textual organization. However, when studentsâ skill mastery profiles were considered according to LD, ESL/ELD, and a combined LD-ESL/ELD status, distinctive patterns of mastery were not evident as had been hypothesized. Put together, students achieving a Level 1 and Level 2 and students achieving a Level 3 and Level 4 showed similar skill master profiles, regardless of their status. The study further discusses how intervention focusing on building implicit understanding of text may help struggling readers increase their reading comprehension.
Spaces in Between: A Swing-Informed Approach to Performing Jazz- and Blues-Influenced Western Art Music for Violin
Keywords: Blues
Groove
Jazz
Performance
Swing
Violin

This dissertation explores issues related to performing art music for the violin that references jazz and blues. Because western notation cannot convey many subtleties of rhythm, typical scores provide imprecise instructions for creating swing, which is for many a defining feature of jazz and the blues. Moreover, since swing is not one sound or rhythmic sense, scores convey little about how a composer understands it. My aim is to help performers better realize a composer’s conceptualization of swing. Following an overview of scholarship on swing, I analyze the “Blues” movement from Ravel’s Violin Sonata No.2, Copland’s Nocturne and Ukulele Serenade, and the “Socrates: Alcibiades” movement from Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium.” To understand how each composer conceptualized and notated swing, I explore jazz and blues recordings that are representative of their respective time periods. My analysis of each composer’s notion and notation of swing is supplemented by interviews with expert jazz musicians, who assessed several recorded versions of the pieces. Their comments helped me pinpoint and analyze key factors that contributed to their preferences. Although certain subtle processes emerged as fundamental to a swing-informed approach, it became clear that a strict “how-to” guide to performing swing was problematic. I also found that less rhythmic alteration can actually be the best strategy for creating swing. To further explore how classically trained violinists can convey swing, I explore five playing techniques. They are not far removed from accepted classical methods and do not require radical reworking of playing mechanics or the music. However, as I argue, they do clarify jazz violin practices and provide possibilities for expressing swing’s sensibilities. While the swing-informed approach provided is a general guideline to performing swing-influenced pieces for violin, it is my hope that the methodology will be a blueprint for performers of any instrument who wish to make informed choices that facilitate the realization of composers’ “high-level” intentions.
Nonmusical Correlates of Musical Ability
Keywords: domain specificity
gene-environment interaction
musical aptitude
music training
plasticity
transfer

Researchers frequently examine whether training and competence in music is associated with nonmusical factors, often with the aim of identifying whether musical ability overlaps with other abilities (especially language), and whether music lessons have consequences that extend beyond musical ability. Correlational designs preclude conclusions of causation because preexisting differences in personality, general cognition, music aptitude, and demographics could determine natural musical abilities and the decision to take music lessons for long durations. Here, we measured preexisting factors that are theoretically relevant, as well as music training, which allowed for better interpretation of correlational data. The first four studies recruited samples of undergraduates. Study 1 examined music perception as a function of music training and nonmusical factors (demographics, general cognitive ability, and personality). We then examined associations of musical expertise with intelligence (Study 2), speech perception (Study 3), and higher-order language (i.e., reading, Study 4), asking whether such associations are better attributable to training effects or preexisting musical aptitude. The final study measured personality, general cognition, speech, and high-order language (grammar) ability in a sample of children for a developmental comparison. Overall, results were generally consistent across age groups with ample evidence for associations of musical skills with personality, general cognition, and language that are independent of music training. Musical and language abilities â except for reading ability in adults â were associated irrespective of demographics and general cognitive abilities, a finding that is consistent with the proposal of special overlap between the two domains. By contrast, evidence for training effects was limited. For musical skills, nonmusical factors were just as important as music training, although music training may mediate these associations. For children, music training was associated with intelligence but not with language skills. Considered as a whole, associations between musical and nonmusical abilities appear to be more reflective of preexisting factors than of training effects.
Related Party Transactions
Keywords: Compensation
Financial Dislcosure
Implied Cost of Capital
Regulation
Related Party Transactions

Related party transactions (hereafter RPTs) are common business practices. If misused, however, they can result in significant losses for investors. This study attempts to examine empirical issues pertaining to RPTs. Specifically, the paper has two goals. The main goal is related to a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation mandating public firms to disclose their governance policies on RPTs. I intend to investigate whether firms change their RPT behaviors in response to this mandated RPT governance disclosure and whether investors update the implied cost of capital on these RPT behaviors accordingly. Employing hand-collected RPT data for S 1500 firms, I find the initiation of RPT governance disclosure significantly reduces the occurrence of RPTs, suggesting an ex-post improvement in RPT governance. This reduction is more pronounced on firms with higher agency costs. I also find the types of RPTs and the identities of related parties play a role in the detected disclosure effect, suggesting certain types of RPTS could be more likely to be used as expropriation. Furthermore, I document that the disclosure of RPT governance reduces the implied costs of capital premium (ICC) associated with RPTs. Taken together, this analysis provides initial evidence about the effects of the SEC’s 2006 regulation on RPT governance disclosures, and shows how the disclosures on RPT governance can enhance firms’ governance on RPT activities and whether investors could recognize the firm behavior change by reducing firms’ implied cost of capital. The second goal is to assess whether independent directors’ compensation is associated with the occurrence of RPTs. Studying independent directors attracts my interest because they are responsible for reviewing and approving RPTs in most companies. By decomposing independent directors’ compensation into the market-level component and the over-compensated component, I show that firms with over-compensated directors or with a lower portion of equity-based compensation in contrast to cash-based compensation incur more RPTs. These results suggest that independent directors’ overcompensation reduce directors’ independence and equity-based compensation aligns directors’ interests with those of shareholders, consistent with the private benefit theory. This study provides novel evidence that appropriate directors’ compensation design can better control RPT behaviors.
A Mixed Methods Cross-Cultural Investigation of Conversational Turn Taking in Families of Children with Hearing Loss
Keywords: Child Language
Hearing Loss
LENA System
Mixed Methods
Vietnamese

This study compares the communicative interactions of families of children with and without hearing loss in Vietnam to those used in Canada as an example of how language socialization practices influence parent-child communication in order for speech-language pathologists to create more culturally appropriate intervention techniques. Taking a mixed methods approach, quantitative data was collected using the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) System conversational turn count (CTC). A protocol to validate the CTC with Vietnamese speakers was conducted as part of this project. Qualitative interviews focused on language were conducted with the childrenâ s parents. CTC for Vietnamese families was found to be valid for use (rs(18)=.70, p
Canadian Contract Law Teaching and the Failure to Operationalize: Theory Practice, Realism Formalism, and Aspiration Reality in Contemporary Legal Education
Keywords: Casebooks
Contract Law
Legal Consciousness
Legal Education
Legal History
Legal Thought

This dissertation examines the attitudes, pedagogical practices, and teaching materials of Canadian contract law professors to better understand the relationship between theory and practice in legal education. Professors express a widespread aspiration to translate theory into practice – to incorporate theoretical and critical perspectives as a means of producing “better lawyers.” However, an analysis of the substantive theoretical attitudes about law reveals that this aspiration is imperfectly realized. When professors describe their beliefs about law, they overwhelmingly express strong commitments to realist and critical ideas, drawn largely from American legal thought, that emphasize law’s contingency and indeterminacy, and that construe considerations of policy, context, and politics as central to an understanding of law. However, the attitudes about law reflected in key manifestations of “practice” reveal an apparently contradictory set of commitments. Professors describe and conceive of legal reasoning, which can be considered a foundational practice shared by legal professionals, in a way that foregrounds formalist attitudes of law. These conceptions treat judicial reasoning seriously, privilege the importance of doctrine, and emphasize the determination of relevance with reference to an internally coherent set of rules – all of which effectively marginalizes considerations of policy, politics, and context. Moreover, the way professors teach, how they formulate their learning objectives, the decisions they make about substance, and the materials they use all put into practice these formalist ideas, rather than the realist and critical attitudes to which professors are purportedly committed. A similar tension arises as between critical introductory statements in Canadian contract law casebooks and the casebooks’ more conventional presentation of substance, as viewed through the remedies chapters. These observations imply that Canadian legal thought may be characterized by theoretical eclecticism co-existing with methodological homogeneity, a failure to operationalize theoretical commitments. Moreover, the dynamics reveal a complex interplay between structure and agency in legal education in which professors participate affirmatively in reproducing the structures that condition them. This complex interplay partially accounts for the tenacity of conventional categories, concepts, and pedagogical formulae, and is a crucial factor to understand in the pursuit of any transformative vision for legal education.
Design and Development of Glass-Fibre-Reinforced Polymer and Ultra-High-Performance Fibre-Reinforced Concrete Guideway Girders
Keywords: Bridge Engineering
Fatigue
GFRP
Rail Guideway
Structural Dynamics
UHPFRC

An innovative design for prefabricated rail guideway girders is developed and validated. The proposed concept uses compositely acting glass-fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) and ultra-high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC), achieving a girder that is 30% lighter than state-of-the-art prestressed concrete designs. Questions regarding the structural behaviour of compositely acting GFRP–UHPFRC are addressed through prototyping and experimental studies. A robust structural connector for GFRP–UHPFRC, which can be fabricated during the same vacuum infusion process that produces the GFRP shell, is developed and tested. The tensile fatigue behaviour of UHPFRC is characterized through a series of direct tension cyclic tests, showing that for peak cyclic tensile stress below 7.5MPa, there is no progressive damage to the UHPFRC. The intrinsic damping of UHPFRC is investigated through a series of free-vibration tests, demonstrating that a loss factor of η = 0.04 is typical for UHPFRC under tensile cyclic loading, with higher values possible under reversed cyclic and short-duration loading. The unprecedented lightness of the proposed guideway, together with the high strength of GFRP, means that serviceability and fatigue limit states govern the dimensioning of the girders. This calls for a rational means of assessing the vibration response of the guideway system, from the points of view of passenger comfort and girder fatigue life. A frequency-domain method for the analysis of train-girder interaction dynamics is developed and presented. Relative to existing analysis methods, this approach eliminates the need for Monte Carlo simulation of random track irregularities, and allows for rapid assessment of the effects of long-term deformations.
Posttraumatic Symptoms in Therapists Following the Suicide of a Client
Keywords: client suicide
postraumatic symptoms
relational cultural theory

Research has shown that client suicide can be an alienating, isolating and frightening experience for therapists, whether it occurs at the beginning of their career or well after they have established themselves as professionals. Previous research has failed to examine the therapistâ s experiencing of posttraumatic symptoms in response to client suicide and the factors that affect this, particularly the history of prior trauma, the presence of prior psychological problems, number of previous client suicides, gender, education, working alliance, and perceived support following the client suicide. Ninety-one clinicians who live in North America who experienced a client suicide in the past five years completed measures assessing trauma history (stressful life experiences), prior client suicide, demographics, working alliance, training preparedness, and posttraumatic adjustment. Furthermore, clinician survivors were given the opportunity to reflect on what they found most and least helpful following the suicide of a client, and what advice they would give to another clinician who is experiencing the suicide of a client for the first time. The results of this study indicate that overall clinicians experience posttraumatic distress following a client suicide and that this decreases for most clinicians over time. When a number of factors were examined (e.g., working alliance, setting, gender, multiple client suicides, prior graduate training in client suicide, prior stressful life events, and perceived social supports), it was found that previous graduate school training in client suicide and perceived social support were associated with lower levels of posttraumatic distress, both immediately and several months following a client suicide. In addition, multiple client suicides was associated with higher levels of distress immediately post suicide but prior stressful life events and gender (i.e., women) were associated with higher levels of impact six months following the suicide of a client The type of social support that was recommended to be most useful following the suicide of a client was collegial and supervisorial support. Furthermore, prior graduate training in client suicide was correlated with lower levels of distress, both at seven days and six months post client suicide.
Disability (and) Care in Late-Capitalist Struggle: A Dialectical Analysis of Toronto-based Disability (and) Care Activism
Keywords: activism
care
community
disability
historical materialism
social movements

Disability organizing has proliferated across North America, particularly in the historic centres of disability organizing: San Francisco and Toronto. Similarly, attention to “care” in its multiple practices and formations has proliferated in community-based and radical activism. This proliferation is linked to the historical developments of austerity, neoliberalism, and imperialism as dominant material and ideological social relations. In this context, the meanings of disability (and) care are being reworked and reconceptualized by the state, grassroots organizers, and a variety of financial interests, proliferating disability identities. These social relations place care (and social reproduction) at the heart of radical and revolutionary organizing. Disability organizers and activists seeking to consciously intervene and change these conditions and social relations must grapple with the disability (and) care of the past as well as possibilities for the future in order to shape their projects from forms of resistance to prefigurative and strategic revolutionary struggle. Drawing on oral stories, zines and blogs of activists and organizers, I use a relational/reflexive method (Gorman 2005) to dialectically investigate how disability activists, anti-poverty organizers and political care workers develop “disability consciousness” as they mediate and politicize the contradictions of their disability care praxis. In my interviews with activists beyond the umbrella of disability politics proper, I broaden the historical and material dialectics of care to include disability consciousness around processes and stigmatized drug use in the context of gentrification and drug wars. By expanding these dialectics I can better attend to the social relations of race, imperialism and finance capitalism that remain marginal in disability politics. This thesis is an investigation of how disability activists, anti-poverty organizers and political care workers develop “revolutionary disability consciousness” through struggle. My analysis will develop dialectical methods for recognizing this struggle, while also charting a path towards a revolutionary future, which is not wistful, but realistic, necessary and already becoming.
Comparative and Evolutionary Genomics of Pseudomonas syringae
Keywords: Bioinformatics
Comparative genomics
Evolutionary genomics
Pathogens
Pseudomonas syringae
Recombination

The Pseudomonas syringae species complex comprises many genetically diverse strains ubiquitously found in both agricultural and non-agricultural environments. More popularly known as a plant pathogenic bacteria, P. syringae has a very broad host range. However, distinct strains show strong host specificity and are able to cause disease on limited crops. Multi-locus sequence typing studies have sub-divided the P. syringae complex into at least 13 different subgroups referred as phylogroups. Given such extensive genetic and ecological diversity within the species complex, there is an ongoing debate over the species definition of P. syringae strains. My research work investigated strains within the P. syringae species complex to determine if they belong to a single species population or if distinct phylogroups are in fact different species by performing whole-genome analysis of approximately 400 P. syringae strains using various comparative and evolutionary approaches. To overcome the computational challenges of large-scale comparative genome analysis, we designed a novel comparative genomic pipeline named DeNoGAP. The DeNoGAP pipeline provides a robust computational pipeline for performing various comparative genomics tasks, such as gene prediction, ortholog prediction, functional annotation, and analysis of a pan-genome. The comparative genome analysis of more than 400 strains shed insight into the P. syringae pan-genome. We found P. syringae pan-genome to be big and diverse, comprising of more than 77,000 gene families. Evolutionary analyses of gene families showed evidence of homologous recombination and positive selection across entire genomes of P. syringae strains. Although our analysis showed that phylogroups rarely exchange genes via homologous recombination, we found that inter-phylogroup homologous recombination occurs disproportinately among virulence-associated and positively-selected genes that are essential for ecological adaptation and evolution of P. syringae strains. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that P. syringae maintains genetic cohesion between its divergent strains due to an exchange of ecological and evolutionarily relevant genes. Together, my work provides a robust computational pipeline for large-scale comparative genomics projects and sheds insight into species definition of the P. syringae species complex based on strong evolutionary species concepts rather than molecular methods.