VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Understanding External Policy Influences in Pakistani Higher Education
Keywords: External
Higher Education in Pakistan
Multilateral Agencies
Policy Community
Policy Influences

Pakistan, the sixth most populous nation in the world, faces complex and multifaceted challenges as it seeks to achieve middle-income country status in the 21st century. To achieve this objective, Pakistan must address the quality, access and governance issues facing its higher education (HE) sector. With barely 1 in 10 Pakistanis being able to access tertiary-level studies, external agencies have stepped in to assist the Pakistani HE sector meets its development needs. Despite several decades of involvement, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent by international donors and aid agencies, little has been achieved. This dissertation examines the nature and extent of participation by international actors in Pakistan’s HE sector. The study explores the underlying dynamics between the external and the internal in the context of the sector, and seeks to identify points of convergence and divergence in terms of a preferred future. The central research question motivating the study is: How have external actors influenced Pakistan’s HE system, and in particular, its governance? To answer this question, 43 qualitative research interviews were conducted over 5 months in 3 large urban centres in Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad) with senior governors active in the Pakistani HE sector including representatives of Pakistani government agencies, international organizations and HE institutional leaders. The data reveals the extent of external influences in the system by type (e.g., foreign aid, policy borrowing), and by actor (e.g., the World Bank, USAID, British Council). The findings suggest that Pakistan’s HE sector is affected by external policy influences in a multitude of ways, and that endogenous and exogenous actors do not always see eye-to-eye, resulting in a mismatch of policy prescriptions at times. Above all, the findings suggest that the lack of an indigenous policy community has resulted in a sector that is outward-facing and looking for solutions from without, rather than from within, thereby resulting in an externally-oriented path dependency. Such external policy pressures will likely continue to exercise an out-sized influence on the Pakistani higher education sector unless tools for effective self-governance and self-regulation are developed.
Repertoires of Political Action: Examining the Role of National Context and Culture
Keywords: Activism
Cross-national
Culture
Political action

This dissertation addresses the need for a more nuanced understanding of political engagement. It argues for greater attention to variation in the meaning of diverse forms of political participation cross-nationally. It also draws attention to the relationship between culture and activism. Key aspects of the literature on political participation are tested and revised. In Chapter 2, I investigate and disaggregate the broad category of non-institutional engagement. I show that, far from being a unified category of action, non-institutional engagement is made up of three distinct repertoires of activism: communicative, individualised and collective. I challenge claims that non-institutional activism is more inclusive than traditional forms of participation by measuring the relative effects of typical predictors (resources, values and contextual measures) on different repertoires of non-institutional engagement. Important distinctions emerge, pointing to the need for more nuanced definitions of political engagement and greater attention to the relationship between activism, context and individual-level social location. The relationship between engagement and national context is investigated further in Chapter 3 where I test Castells’ theory of global social movement development across a variety of countries. Castells’ theory is emblematic of broader trends in the literature that seek to identify universal pathways to mobilisation. While lending support to parts of his theory regarding online technologies, the findings suggest that national context moderates the way citizens’ dissatisfaction gets translated into engagement. Cultural factors, at the individual and contextual level, also influence the form that political participation takes. Chapter 4 advocates for a practice theory approach to the study of political behaviour. I show that distinct forms of political participation gain meaning from their location within broader repertoires of political action and from their relationship to individuals’ cultural dispositions and political preferences. In sum, political engagement is shaped by the national, political and cultural climate in which it occurs. Political practices do not have inherent, universally transposable characteristics that can be used to construct generalising typologies of engagement. To understand how people in diverse settings interact with politics, political sociologists should adopt a more nuanced understanding of political engagement as contextually and socially conditioned cultural practice.
Integration of Services in Child and Youth Mental Health: A Case Study
Keywords: child and youth
cross sector collaboration
integration
mental health services

Background: Although approximately one in five children and youth in Canada deal with mental health issues, only a third access specialized care. Difficulties accessing and navigating the health care system are commonly reported. Integration holds promise as a mechanism to address care access and system navigation issues. Objectives: This dissertation aims to explore integration in child and youth mental health care by: identifying components of integration that improve outcomes for children and youth; describing how mental health services for children and youth are integrated and identifying factors that influence integration in Ontario, Canada; and refining an integration framework that can function as a guide for integration in child and youth mental health care settings. Methods: A multi-methods framework was utilized. A scoping review methodology was used to examine the international literature to identify components of integration. A case study methodology was used to examine integration in child and youth mental health care settings in Ontario, Canada. The case study included interviews with 33 key informants from the child and youth services, education and health sectors as well as a review of relevant government documents. A comparative mapping methodology was used to assess congruence of an integration framework with the international literature and the case study results. Results: Several common structural, infrastructure, and operational components were reported in the integration literature. While many of these components aligned with shared mental models (SSMs) of integration, SMMs were not commonly acknowledged in the literature. Additionally, the language describing integration in the child and youth literature differs from the health care literature. Numerous facilitators and barriers influence the integration of child and youth mental health care in Ontario, however two critical features: the absence of guidance in government policies and poor system-level planning are of importance as they demonstrate the lack of a system level shared mental model of integration. Conclusions: The absence of consistent system-level planning and inadequate guidance from policy documents are obstacles that need to be addressed to optimize integration planning and implementation. Addressing these issues may also influence the development of a system level SMM of integration.
The Career Profiles and Educational Activities of Ten Canadian String Quartets
Keywords: Canada
Education
Music
Quartet
String

This paper provides a focused look at the career profiles and educational activities of ten Canadian string quartets, concentrating on how they divide their time between performing, teaching, recording, outreach and personal projects. It examines the collaboration between string quartets and larger organisations such as orchestras or educational institutions, and explores what is contracted work and what is self-initiated by the quartets. This paper asks and answers the question, what do Canadian string quartets do besides classical music concerts, and why is it important. Ten groups, five established and five emerging, are examined through the process of interviews and surveys to delve into these issues. This paper begins with a detailed look at the outreach and educational undertakings of many important historical Canadian quartets in the twentieth century. In addition, it introduces the ten Canadian string quartets, providing biographical information about their performing career, notable recordings, and educational posts. Three other sections follow, the first detailing the emerging string quartets singularly, then a comparison of their pursuits. Secondly, a detailed look at the established string quartets one-by-one, and a section which contrasts them. Finally, both emerging and established are examined for connections and similarities as well as distinctions and differences.
Synthetic Routes to Well-defined Biodegradable Polymers using Organoboron Catalysts
Keywords: carbohydrate
catalysis
polyester

Borinic acid catalysis is used as a tool for the synthesis of carbohydrate-derived polymers of biomedical interest. Polyols possessing 3 or 4 hydroxyl groups are subjected to site-selective polymerization without protecting group manipulations. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction describing common biomedical polymers and our approach to their synthesis. In Chapter 2, the synthesis of well-defined linear polyesters derived from glycerol is described as a proof-ofconcept for the translation of borinic acid-catalyzed polyol derivatizations to macromolecular synthesis. In Chapter 3, linear polyesters derived from anomerically protected pyranosides are described, highlighting the scope of the borinic acid-promoted polycondensation. In Chapter 4, structure–property relationships among polyesters derived from monomers with diverse anomeric side-chains are uncovered, demonstrating the versatility of this new monomer class in modulating thermal, physical and degradation behaviours. Finally, concluding remarks are made in Chapter 5, along with a summary of related research directions, including the implementation of borinic acids as a tool for methacrylate monomer synthesis as well as their use in promoting the synthesis of glycerol- and pyranoside-derived polyurethanes.
Guided Self-assembly of Human-pluripotent-Stem-cell-derived-lung-progenitors into Simplified Developmentally Relevant Architecture
Keywords: Biophysical forces
Lung differentiation
Stem cell differentiation
Tissue Engineering

Chemical and mechanical cues are known to guide the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) towards specific cell-types; a process known as directed differentiation. Typically, directed differentiation protocols to guide PSCs to specific cell types have focused on chemical cues. For example, lung epithelial directed differentiation protocols mimic the chemical cues observed in lung organogenesis. The products of current directed differentiation protocols are typically unorganized cellular aggregates that are often limited by their inability to generate specific cell types reliably. This suggests further improvements to these protocols are necessary for reliable cell manufacturing. Introducing developmentally relevant mechanical signals offers a potentially novel strategy to improve the predictability and reduce the heterogeneity of current directed differentiation protocols. To assess the feasibility of this concept we use polymeric substrates to guide the self-assembly of human PSC-derived lung progenitors into developmentally relevant sized tubes and assess the impact of defined architecture on differentiation. Specifically, day 17 ventralized lung progenitors, dual positive for proximal and distal lung markers SOX2 and SOX9, respectively, were cultured in polymeric tubes with diameters of 100µm and allowed to self-assemble into cellular tubes. Cells cultured in tubes were observed to become primarily SOX9+ as compared to cells in flat cultures that remained dual positive. Cells from tube cultures were retrieved and exposed to proximal or distal airway inducing conditions. Our data show that cells from flat culture are capable of expressing proximal and distal markers under proximal and distal conditions, respectively. However, cells retrieved from tubes were able to express distal markers under distal conditions but not proximal markers under proximal conditions. Our results suggest that modulation of tension in the presence of canonical WNT signaling by culturing the dual positive cells in the 100µm tubes resulted in loss of SOX2 expression. Overall, this thesis suggests that the use of a bioinspired mechanical microenvironment to organize and control the differentiation of developing lung epithelial populations during directed differentiation is a tractable strategy to control cellular differentiation in vitro.
The Human Alpha Female: Social and Biological Perspectives
Keywords: 2D:4D ratio
hormones
leadership
masculine traits
social construction of female identity
the human alpha female

Today, in the popular and academic literature, women in the West who exhibit dominance-seeking behaviors to attain or maintain higher positions in social and professional networks are often referred to as “alpha females” or “alpha women”. Within this context, the term “alpha female” has become synonymous with the term leadership. Much of the research on the human alpha female takes its cues predominantly from the nonhuman primate literature on the social and biological factors that may predispose an individual to be an “alpha”, in particular, an “alpha male”. What are considered traditionally masculine traits in the West, such as aggression, leadership, and dominance, are often used to describe the alpha female. More recently, traits such as collaboration, teamwork, coalition building, and affiliative behavior, considered typical “feminine” traits in the West, have also been used to describe the alpha female. To date however, whether women socially occupy and/or biologically express this identity has not been researched.. The purpose of this thesis is to address the gaps in the literature and following what has been studied in the nonhuman primate literature, to investigate whether women who identify as alpha female are distinguishable from other women. For the present study, I examined the associations between alpha female status with the expression of specific alpha female related traits, hormone concentrations in hair, as well as differences in finger lengths, or the 2D:4D ratio, a prenatal biomarker of testosterone exposure. For the women in this study, the results suggest, that though specific masculine traits were found to be predictors of alpha female status, neither the specific hormones evaluated in the present study nor the 2D:4D ratio were associated with the expression of the alpha female identity. These results challenge present assumptions about what it means to be an alpha woman, as well as challenge what is known about the alpha female nonhuman primate as being representative of the human alpha female.
Environmental Policy and Discourse: An Exploration of the Toronto Green Standard
Keywords: discourse analysis
environmental discourse
environmental policy
Foucault
green buildings
municipal policy

This project is a qualitative case study of the Toronto Green Standard (TGS), Toronto’s first ever green building policy, affecting all new developments in Toronto since 2010 (City of Toronto Planning and Development, 2018a). The research uses Foucault’s (1972, 1980) notions of discourse, and analyzes for various environmental policy discourses (Dryzek, 2005; Hajer, 1995; Robinson, 2004), in order to identify and question the discourses that are produced, and reproduced by the TGS. By assessing the dominant discourses, I also question what discourses are excluded, and the implications of these findings for who or what is served or excluded. Data was collected through document analysis, interviews, and the observation of TGS sites. Data was analyzed according to a six-step analytic method, which served to make discursive truths visible, and to denaturalize and destabilize the orders and hierarchies produced through discourse (Foucault, 1980; Graham, 2005; Hook, 2001). I found that the more radical, pro-environment discourses of sustainability and survivalism were present in the conception phases of the TGS. However, certain aspects of the institutional policy-making process meant the deprioritization of these discourses early on. Key moments were the Cost-benefit analysis, and stakeholder review and approvals. Through these processes, TGS discourse assumed a prioritization of development “as-is” almost from the get-go, creating a space for the production and dominance of economic development discourses. The result is that the economic-focused discourses of ecological modernization and economic rationalism are reproduced as dominant. These discourses serve Toronto’s leading, largest developer firms, such as through market transformation — the expansion of the green building sector — and through a process that I refer to as “urban environmental classism”. I argue that “urban environmental classism” is an outcome of ecological modernization, whereby being “green,” costs more, and excludes those who cannot afford it. I found that the TGS reproduces this phenomenon in the building sector. The dissertation discusses other implications of the economic-focused discourses, and concludes that in addition to economic factors, social factors should be considered during the creation of environmental policy, so that environmental policy does not exacerbate social and economic inequalities.
Mocking the Universe: Accurate Simulations in the Era of Large-survey Precision Cosmology
Keywords: Astrophysics
Cosmology

Efficient generation of accurate mock observations of the sky, tailored specifically to near-future large-scale structure and cosmic microwave background surveys, is a key technical challenge in cosmology. The increasing sensitivity and sky coverage of modern surveys probe unprecedentedly-large cosmological volumes, and when coupled with increases to angular resolution, demand simulations that are accurate to smaller scales, yet cover larger volumes, than ever before. The applications of such simulations are numerous, from performing cosmological parameter analysis, to optimizing survey designs and testing analysis pipelines, to making theoretical predictions, but to adequately perform these tasks requires state-of-the-art accuracy and computational efficiency. In this thesis we develop numerical simulations of cosmological structure formation to create synthetic observations, or mocks, of current and near-future cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure surveys. We first present our development and rigorous validation of the mass-Peak Patch method, a simulation technique to rapidly generate the large-scale structure of cosmological volumes for a fraction of the computational cost of alternative methods. Mass-Peak Patch is then used in union with a number of astrophysical sky models to produce the Websky extragalactic CMB simulations, a publicly released set of synthetic mocks of the extragalactic microwave to infrared sky. Next, we focus on the up-and-coming field of intensity mapping. We construct a suite of carbon monoxide line intensity maps, and use these to forecast the constraints on the CO luminosity function with near-future observations. Both the large data volumes and complicated statistical evaluations involved in standard cosmological analyses of survey data has recently led to the adoption of many machine learning methods throughout the field, and we finish this thesis with an investigation of machine learning methods in cosmology. We first overview machine learning in cosmology and discuss the viability and attractiveness of recently-popularized deep learning techniques, and then construct, train, and validate a convolutional neural network for the purpose of aiding cosmological simulations. Efficient simulation tools such as mass-Peak Patch, accurate mocks such as the Websky extragalactic maps, and machine learning techniques (when applied correctly), will enable precision analysis of the next generation of cosmological data sets.
Cross-linguistic Effects of Subjecthood, Case, and Transitivity in Syntax and Sentence Processing
Keywords: Linguistics
Niuean
Psycholinguistics
Syntax

The definition of a grammatical ‘subject’, and the properties an argument must have to be characterized as a subject is long debated (e.g., Comrie, 1975; Keenan, 1976). This thesis investigates the relationship between subjecthood, case marking, and transitivity, from both a typological perspective and from an in-depth study of the ergative Polynesian language Niuean. I present two original experimental studies of sentence processing in Niuean, which show that processing of long-distance dependencies and resolution of anaphoric pronouns is affected by agentivity, case marking of arguments, and predicate transitivity. Coupled with formal syntactic analysis, these findings support a view in which a subject is defined as the most agentive verbal argument present in a clause, and further reveal syntactic effects of the distribution of the case marking borne by each argument. Case distribution (known as ‘unmarkedness’ in syntactic literature) and subjecthood are argued to be two distinct factors which, together, influence how accessible an argument is in both syntactic operations and in sentence processing.