VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Ethics and Politics in the Thought of Martin Buber and Albert Camus
Keywords: Albert Camus
Martin Buber

The dissertation provides a discussion and comparison of the ideas of Martin Buber and Albert Camus regarding human connectedness and solidarity, ethics and politics. The aim of the dissertation is to examine the ways in which these thinkers dealt with the possible tension between human solidarity and connectedness on the one hand, and the need for ethical restraints on the other. The dissertation begins with a presentation and comparison of certain aspects of Buber’s and Camus’ respective biographies. It then examines and compares the thinkers’ views regarding human relationship, especially given the loss of the traditional existential and moral anchors in the wake of modernity. At the centre of the comparison stands the difference between Buber, a believer who understood connectedness and dialogue between human beings and with God to be a primordial and inherent need that could and should be fulfilled; and Camus, who was secular in his personal beliefs, and discussed a concept of solidarity which is largely based on rebellion against oppression and shared human experience in the face of the absurd – the bold acknowledgement of human beings’ inability to fully achieve harmony and meaning. The second part of the dissertation discusses the conceptual ethical mechanisms the two thinkers developed in order to prevent connectedness or solidarity from devolving into destructive social and political behaviour. It presents the possible ethical problems that arise from Buber’s account of spontaneous, unmediated connectedness, and critically discusses the solutions that he offers to address these problems. Buber’s views are then compared with those of Camus, who confronts the potential problem of destructive solidarity most of all by placing ethical considerations at the basis of his concept of solidarity. The final chapter discusses the two thinkers’ different positions regarding political phenomena and events of their time, positions which reflect their respective calls for connectedness and solidarity on the one hand, and the need to restrain collective political action on the other. In particular, the chapter presents the thinkers’ views on political efforts to achieve redemption and utopia, and Buber and Camus’ respective approaches toward the Jewish-Arab conflict and the conflict in Algeria.
Elucidating Tim-3 Function and Regulation in Human CD8+ T cells
Keywords: HIV/AIDS
T cell exhaustion
Tim-3

Chronic HIV infection results in a loss of HIV-specific CD8+ T cell effector function, termed "exhaustion", which contributes to loss of viral control and progression to AIDS. This exhaustion is driven, in part, by membrane co-inhibitory receptors, including PD-1 and Tim-3, which act to dampen T cell effector function. These receptors are active targets for therapeutic blockade to rescue T cell responses in the context of HIV and cancer. Unlike PD-1, the mechanisms responsible for Tim-3-mediated inhibition of T cell responses are poorly defined, and evidence suggests that Tim-3 can act as a co-stimulatory molecule. My thesis work evaluated the role of Tim-3 at the immunological synapse, confirmed binding to the proximal signaling molecule Lck, and receptor phosphatase CD45 via the Tim-3 ligand, galectin-9. The nature of CD45-mediated regulation of Lck function suggests differential association with CD45 as a possible mechanism to explain Tim-3's opposing functions. Indeed, despite Tim-3 expression on CD45RA+ and CD45RA- T cells, Tim-3 expression on functional T cells was exclusive to the CD45RA- subset. Further, engaging Tim-3 on CD45RA- T cells resulted in co-stimulation. Finally, Tim-3 is shed from the surface of antigen-responsive T cells by matrix metalloproteinase, ADAM10, and shedding is associated with the functional capacity of T cells after TCR engagement. These results suggest that Tim-3 function is dependent on T cell phenotype, and that CD45 isoforms may differentially regulate Tim-3 function via Lck. Further, the fact that functional T cells shed Tim-3 suggests that Tim-3 does not block proximal TCR signaling. I propose that during states of chronic antigenic stimulation Tim-3 may prevent exhaustion by acting as a co-stimulator on activated CD45RA- virus-specific CD8+ T cells, however, during late differentiation, Tim-3 may enhance the negative effects of CD45RA on TCR signaling and contribute to the exhausted phenotype.
Among Friends: Cicero and the Epicureans
Keywords: Ancient Philosophy
Cicero
Epicurus
Intellectual History
Late Republic
Letters

In my dissertation I explain Cicero's philosophical works through an analysis of his epistolary interactions and literary rivalries with Roman Epicureans. I argue that this historical and intellectual context reveals how Cicero's overt and consistent anti-Epicurean polemics constitute a fundamental organizing principle of his philosophical works; Epicureanism is the philosophical Other against which the dialogues define themselves. The first two chapters of my thesis reconstruct Cicero's social and friendship networks of Roman Epicureans and literary rivals; to that end I offer a series of prosopographical charts designed to replace the now dated Prosopography of Roman Epicureans by Catherine Castner. The second half of my thesis uses this background to explain the development and recurring polemical goals of Cicero's philosophical works. More specifically, the third chapter begins to build my larger claim that his epistolary interactions with Epicureans over the course of twenty years offered him the opportunity to hone his argumentative technique and experiment with various translations into Latin of Greek philosophical ideas. In my final two chapters I offer the first comprehensive reading of Cicero's exchange with Cassius in 46-45 BCE (Ad Fam. 15.16-19) and argue that these letters allow us to trace the development of individual arguments and polemical strategies in the dialogues of later that year, especially De Finibus I-II. My dissertation therefore stands at the intersection of literary, philosophical, and historical scholarship. I engage with and enrich recent work in Republican epistolary practice, the cultural politics of Ciceronian prefaces, the influence of Epicurean ideas on Latin poetry, and the renewed interest in Philodemus, Hellenistic philosophy, Roman Epicureanism, and Cicero as a philosopher.
The Effect of Articulatory Constraints and Auditory Information on Patterns of Intrusions and Reductions.
Keywords: Articulatory Phonology
Auditory information
Intrusions
Reductions
Speech errors
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.
A Witness to Fitness: Contextualising Processes in Exercise Physiology
Keywords: Exercise Physiology
Jacques Ellul
Laboratory Ethnography
Norbert Elias
Sociology of Science
Technique

Sport and physical cultural practices have long been shaped by knowledge as to how the human body responds to physical (in)activity. The study of such mechanisms and responses at a physiological level is the preserve of exercise physiologists. However, relative to its impact on sport and physical culture exercise physiology has received only limited direct, sustained analysis from sociological researchers. As such, this study is based on 15 months of participant observation research in an exercise physiology laboratory as well as interviews with 53 people involved with exercise physiology research. In doing so it has worked to explicate and theorise the connection between our unlearned physiological functioning and the learned processes of both scientific research and physical cultural practices. It is important to emphasize that this study does not focus on the reliability or validity of exercise physiology knowledge or methodology. Instead, by drawing on a range of sociological concepts in dialogue with Elias' (1986) notion of the hinge and Ellul's (1964, 1980, 1990) theorising of technique, this research seeks to link the questions, answers, and styles of thought in exercise physiology to historical events as well as social and physiological processes. In doing so, this study demonstrates that contrary to critical analyses of scientific research, which charge "hard sciences" with producing de-contextualised knowledge, exercise physiology is thoroughly contextualised, albeit in specific and nuanced ways. In order to explicate how exercise physiology knowledge is contextualised an exploratory model of inscription, description, and prescription is presented. The analysis of exercise physiology praxis through inscription, description, and prescription processes draws attention to how and why exercise physiology produces particular and particularised contexts for the development and application of its knowledge.
Early Development of Dietary Supplements for Preventing Postpartum Depression
Keywords: Dietary Supplement
Monoamine Oxidase-A
Postpartum Depression
Prevention

Background: Postpartum depression (PPD) is the most common complication of childbearing with 13% prevalence. A dietary prevention strategy countering elevated monoamine oxidase-A (MAO-A) in early postpartum might be effective, since MAO-A is elevated by 43% early in postpartum, during healthy ranges of postpartum blues (PPB). Since greater severity of PPB increases risk for PPD, the aim of this thesis was to develop a widespread intervention based on tryptophan, tyrosine and blueberry extract. First we proposed to assess the effect of different components upon breast milk. Subsequently we aimed to develop a method to optimally quantify severity of PPB using the depressed mood induction procedure (MIP). At last, the ability of optimal doses of tryptophan, tyrosine and blueberry extract was investigated in reducing the intensity of PPB. Methods: 24 healthy breastfeeding women were randomly assigned to 2g, 5g, 10g tyrosine or no supplement, and 30 were randomly assigned to 2g, 4g tryptophan, 20g, 40g alpha-lactalbumin or no supplement. Four breast milk and seven blood samples were collected. For PPB quantification, 45 healthy women were recruited (23 vulnerable to sad mood and 22 non-vulnerable) and mood measures were completed before and after MIP. Finally, 26 healthy day-5 women were recruited into 2 groups: receiving dietary supplement (10g tyrosine, 2g tryptophan and blueberry extract/juice) or no supplement. Severity of PPB was measured before and after MIP. Results: Oral tyrosine, tryptophan and alpha-lactalbumin did not increase total tyrosine or tryptophan contents of breast milk (p=0.074 (trend to decrease), p=0.232 respectively) and plasma levels rose significantly (p
Performing Queer Diasporas: Pelau MasQUEERade in the Toronto Pride Parade
Keywords: black queer diaspora
Caribbean
citizenship and belonging
gender and sexuality
performance and space
Pride parades and Canadian Nationalism

Performing Queer Diasporas documents and critically examines the public performance of "Pelau MasQUEERade," an organized self-identified Caribbean queer diasporic group that includes non-Caribbean queers. Pelau MasQUEERade draws on the cultural and historical aesthetic of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival and the Toronto Caribbean Carnival Parade, and brings its performance to the largely "white" queer space of the Toronto Pride Parade. I situate Pelau MasQUEERade in relation to the Toronto Pride Parade to investigate processes of racialization in queer spaces. My study challenges normative queer narratives about the Toronto Pride Parade that construct sexuality, citizenship and belonging as fundamentally de-racialized processes. I argue that the Toronto Pride Parade serves as an ostensible marker for white queer inclusion and belonging to the Canadian nation-state, placing queers of colour outside of the boundaries of belonging. I bring queer into conversation with diaspora to disrupt seemingly fixed boundaries of race and sexuality and to disturb the whiteness of the Toronto Pride Parade. My study utilizes an interdisciplinary framework. I draw on Caribbean, black/feminist queer diaspora scholarship to demonstrate how Pelau MasQUEERade emerges from a black diasporic tradition but simultaneously establishes itself as a queer of colour group. I further draw on theories of space and performance to illuminate how Pelau MasQUEERade offers alternative ways to re-imagine freedom, desire, and pleasure as a mode of survival. My study draws upon twenty semi-structured interviews with Pelau MasQUEERade participants and Toronto Pride organizers; two summers of ethnographic fieldwork; and an analysis of Internet, magazine and newspaper documents. There are three central aspects to my study: First, I examine how whiteness becomes normalized in Pride through the conflation of white with queer. This conflation enables queer claims for citizenship and belonging but excludes queers diasporics of colour. Second, I explore how Pelau MasQUEERade disturbs the whiteness of Pride by creating a mobile "queer diaspora" space. Third, I illustrate how queer diasporics of colour use performative practices to address exclusion and to create transformative spaces of belonging. Overall, my study illuminates how complex practices of belonging are imagined, spatially negotiated, embodied and articulated through Pelau MasQUEERade's performance.
Advancing Comparative Effectiveness Research: Filling in the Gaps for Bisphosphonates
Keywords: Bisphosphonates
Comparative Effectiveness
Health Outcomes
Medications
Pharmacoepidemiology
Pharmacy

Drug approval regulations for market-entry often only require that medications be proven efficacious compared to placebo. This drug approval policy creates a gap in information for clinicians and policy makers to make informed decisions between treatment options. Comparative effectiveness research seeks to address these knowledge gaps, primarily through the use of administrative data and network meta-analysis (NMA). The use of bisphosphonates for the treatment of osteoporosis is representative of this problem. In Canada, there are currently four approved bisphosphonates indicated for the treatment of osteoporosis. This thesis is comprised of three unique projects contributing to comparative effectiveness research of bisphosphonate therapy. The projects address methodological gaps in the development and uses of the disease risk score (DRS), a confounder summary score, and clinical gaps in the comparative safety of bisphosphonates leveraging NMA methodology. The methodological findings of the thesis raise caution towards the standard practice of applying the DRS in situations where policy-induced bias is present, suggest the need for more consistent nomenclature for the DRS, and points to future areas for development of the DRS. The clinical findings of the thesis demonstrate little difference in serious adverse events between oral bisphosphonates. Future research should address questions related to the impact of comparative safety and adherence of bisphosphonates. Overall, this dissertation addresses important gaps in utilization and applications of the DRS, implications of policy-induced selection bias, and comparative safety and adherence of bisphosphonate therapy.
The Timing of Modifiable Environmental Exposures during Childhood Affects the Age of Asthma Development
Keywords: asthma
child
deprivation
incident
second-hand smoke
walkability

Background: Childhood asthma is a multifactorial condition influenced by hereditary and modifiable environmental traits. Objective: I investigated longitudinal associations between childhood asthma development and three modifiable environmental exposures: maternal second-hand smoke exposure in pregnancy, neighborhood walkability, which captures community features that promote walking, and material deprivation, a comprehensive measure of socioeconomic status. Methods: In a population-based cohort of 5619 seven-year-old Toronto children, parents reported age of physician-diagnosed asthma development and maternal active and passive smoking in pregnancy. Administrative data housed at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences described the 1997-2003 Toronto birth cohorts (326 383 children). Home neighborhood walkability and deprivation quintiles were reported in validated indices and incident asthma was defined by time of entry into the validated Ontario Asthma Surveillance Information System (OASIS) database. The associations between incident asthma and the exposures were measured using Cox proportional and discrete-time hazard survival analysis. The associations between asthma visits and walkability or deprivation in each year of life were measured using Generalized Estimating Equations and generalized linear mixed models. Results: In the population-based cohort, 15.5% of children developed asthma. Children of non-smoking mothers with home second-hand smoke exposure during pregnancy were more likely to develop asthma (HR 1.34; 95% CI, 1.01-1.76). In the administrative data cohort, OASIS asthma criteria were met for 21% of children. Low birth neighborhood walkability (HR 1.11; 95% CI, 1.08-1.14) and high birth neighborhood deprivation (HR 1.11; 95% CI, 1.09-1.13) were associated with increased risk of incident asthma. These trends persisted for currently-symptomatic incident asthma, lifetime exposure to low walkability or high deprivation and healthcare visits for asthma in each year of life. Conclusions: Home second-hand smoke exposure for non-smoking mothers during pregnancy is associated with incident childhood asthma. Children living in neighborhoods with low walkability or high deprivation are also at increased risk of asthma.
Glucose-responsive Implantable Polymeric Microdevices for “Smart” Insulin Therapy of Diabetes
Keywords: diabetes
glucose-responsive
insulin
microdevice
nanotechnology

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic illness manifested by improper blood glucose management, affecting over 350 million worldwide. As a result, all type 1 patients and roughly 20% of type 2 patients require exogenous insulin therapy to survive. Typically, daily multiple injections are taken to maintain normal glucose levels in response glucose spikes from meals. However, patient compliance and dosing accuracy can fluctuate with variation in meals, exercise, glucose metabolism or stress, leading to poor clinical outcomes. A `smart', closed-loop insulin delivery system providing on-demand release kinetics responding to circulating glucose levels would be a boon for diabetes patients, replacing constant self monitoring and insulin. This thesis focuses on the development of a novel, `smart' insulin microdevice that can provide on-demand insulin release in response to blood glucose levels. In the early stage, the feasibility of integrating a composite membrane with pH-responsive nanoparticles embedded in ethylcellulose membrane to provide pH-responsive in vitro release was examined and confirmed using a model drug, vitamin B12. In the second microdevice, glucose oxidase for generating pH signals from glucose oxidation, catalase and manganese dioxide nanoparticles, as peroxide scavengers, were used in a bioinorganic, albumin-based membrane cross-linked with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) grid-microdevice system. This prototype device demonstrated insulin release in response to glucose levels in vitro and regulating plasma glucose in type 1 diabetic rats when implanted intraperitoneally. Advancement allowing for subcutaneous implantation and improved biocompatibility was achieved with surface modification of PDMS microdevices grafted with activated 20 kDa polyethylene glycol (PEG) chains, dramatically reducing immune response and local inflammation. When implanted subcutaneously in diabetic rats, glucose-responsive insulin delivery microdevices showed short and long-term efficacy up to an 18 day period. Finally, to improve insulin stability within microdevice reservoirs, an in situ gelling zinc-insulin formulation was designed. High concentration insulin gel complexed with zinc provided physical and chemical stability against thermal denaturation over a 30 day period. Long-term stability of the zinc-insulin gel formulation shows potential for sustained release application, providing low-level, basal insulin release. These combined technologies present significant progress towards the goal of an `artificial pancreas' to combat diabetes through `smart' insulin therapy.