VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Estrogen Deprivation on the Cellular Stress Response following Muscle Damage
Keywords: Estrogen
Heat Shock Proteins
Skeletal Muscle

TA muscles from ovary-intact (OVI; n=12) and ovariectomized (OVX; n=12) female Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to either 20 or 40 LCs. No differences in any muscle contractile properties were observed in TA muscles between OVI and OVX animals. Skeletal muscle fibre changes following ovariectomy included increased (P
Equitable University Access for Under-represented and Diverse Groups of Students: A Critical Analysis of the Discourse in Mission Statements and Strategic Mandate Agreements
Keywords: Critical discourse analysis
Differentiation
Mission statement
Ontario
Policy analysis
Social inclusion

Ontarioâ s post-secondary education sector has sought to address access of under-represented groups since the 1980â s. This study investigated whether and how these efforts are reflected in university mission statements (MSs), and the more recent Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMAs), which indicate how and why the institutions are differentiated. Key term searches and critical discourse analysis (CDA) found few mentions of access or diversity in either the MSs or the differentiation sections of the SMAs across the 20 provincially-funded Ontario universities that were included in this study. The universities emphasized geographic location and national and international partnerships. These emphases can be read as less welcoming to members of some under-represented groups than to others. Implications for universities as they create public statements of their priorities and values are discussed.
Exploring the Role of Centre of Mass Variability in Reactive Balance Control
Keywords: balance control
center of mass
healthy young adults
margin of stability
reactive stepping
standing

Increased variability of movement is related to increased risk for falls. The objective of the current work was to better understand the role of variability in balance control. It was hypothesized that high centre of mass (COM) variability (position and velocity) while standing would induce a stepping response after a balance perturbation compared to low COM variability. It was also hypothesized that a low margin of stability (MOS) at perturbation onset would induce stepping response after a platform perturbation. Fourteen young adults (20-35 years old) were recruited. Participants experienced postural perturbations when standing using surface translations. COM variability and MOS did not differ between stepping and feet in place responses. The current results suggest that transient changes in movement variability may not influence reactive balance control. Instead, increased movement variability may be a sign of aging or motor impairment.
Autism and Social Justice Education: Toward an Inclusive Education System in Uganda
Keywords: Autism
Inclusive education
Pedagogy
Social justice

Autism and Social Justice Education: Toward an Inclusive Education System in Uganda Master of Arts Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) The University of Toronto 2017 Lwanga G. Musisi Abstract This thesis draws from a critical disability studies framework to examine the extent to which students with autism are excluded from the educational system. Using secondary sources and in-depth review of the literature, it investigates three related questions. a) How does the Ugandan education system perceive social justice education? b) What is the status of autistic children within this system? c) What are the gaps and challenges faced by learners and educationists in as far as autism is concerned in Uganda? I argue that while Uganda has some progressive legislation regarding the provision of education to persons with disabilities, and subscribes to the international idioms of human rights, human capital and social justice; Uganda continues to privilege the medical model of disability over the social model of disability. Consequently, Uganda has been slow to provide a truly inclusive learning environment that promotes social justice education for all students.
Madly Off in Different Directions or, Interprofessional Decision Making in Hypertonicity Management
Keywords: decision making
health care professionals
hypertonicity
interprofessional
patient management

Collaborative decision making is key to interprofessional health care practice. This qualitative study explored the decision making process in the interprofessional management of hypertonicity. Eleven nurses, occupational therapists, physiatrists and physical therapists were interviewed. Data were analyzed using grounded theory method. A provisional theory and model of Interprofessional Decision Making in the Management of Hypertonicity emerged. Effective interprofessional decision making is built on a foundation of a level playing field. The process involves gathering and sharing information, developing a shared understanding of the functional goal, discussing back and forth, and recognizing that a decision evolves with new information. Understanding the interprofessional decision making process assists health care providers to create shared, integrated rehabilitation plans more efficiently. Findings may guide aspects of interprofessional collaborative care, i.e., patient care outcomes, service delivery, education, and clinical or organizational policy. Further exploration of the role of team psychological safety and professional humility is warranted.
Brand Promotion for Educational Leadership Program in Canadian Universities: Its Impact on Students’ Choice in Ontario’s Graduate School
Keywords: Brand Promotional Strategies
Educational Leadership
Educational Marketing
Graduate Program
Marketing Strategies
Recruiting Strategies

Abstract Objective: This study investigated the brand promotion for educational leadership program in Canadian universities: its impact on students’ choice in Ontario’s graduate school, with the purpose to explore and compare brand promotion strategies that PSEIs apply to entice prospective students to their school of choice. Theoretical framework and related literature were reviewed as a preliminary response to the research questions. Method: A qualitative research, the participants were purposefully sampled, based on the five avowed Ontario universities that offer the mentioned program. Instruments for data collection and analysis were: interviews of five public relations officers, transcribed by Voice base software and questionnaire for twenty students constructed and analysed with survey monkey software. Results: The participants’ responses presented different educational brand promotional strategies and reasons for students’ school of choice. Conclusion: The data suggests that brand promotion strategies lure students to their school of choice and sustain the institution’s legitimacy. Abstract Objective: This study investigated the brand promotion for educational leadership program in Canadian universities: its impact on students’ choice in Ontario’s graduate school, with the purpose to explore and compare brand promotion strategies that PSEIs apply to entice prospective students to their school of choice. Theoretical framework and related literature were reviewed as a preliminary response to the research questions. Method: A qualitative research, the participants were purposefully sampled, based on the five avowed Ontario universities that offer the mentioned program. Instruments for data collection and analysis were: interviews of five public relations officers, transcribed by Voice base software and questionnaire for twenty students constructed and analysed with survey monkey software. Results: The participants’ responses presented different educational brand promotional strategies and reasons for students’ school of choice. Conclusion: The data suggests that brand promotion strategies lure students to their school of choice and sustain the institution’s legitimacy.
Catalytic Production of Renewable Diesel in High-temperature Water and Potential Integration with a Protein Isolation Process
Keywords: Catalytic
Decarbonylation
Decarboxylation
Green Diesel
Hydrothermal
Renewable Diesel

Nickel catalysts with a Ni loading of 20 wt.% were synthesized and tested for activity towards the production of hydrocarbons from an aqueous emulsion of canola oil (20 wt.%). This oil loading was chosen to simulate the composition of the typical extract from the aqueous extraction of oil seeds currently being explored as an alternative to the conventional solvent extraction in the edible oil industry. Moderate yield (>50%) and selectivity (~70%) of hydrocarbons within the diesel range were obtained within 12h of reaction at 315 o C under an initial hydrogen headspace pressure at 1.95MPa. It was also shown that a prolonged experimental run at 305 o C can result in near-complete conversion of triglyceride oil into diesel-range hydrocarbons (70%) and oxygenates (9%) with selectivity ~80%. The disappearance of stearic acid obeyed first order behavior and an activation energy of 305 kJ/mole was calculated.
An Experimental Study of the Sub-critical Flow Past a Circular Cylinder Fitted with a Single Start Helical Surface Wire
Keywords: Flow past cylinder
Helical wire
Passive flow control
Sub-critical Reynolds number
Vortex-induced vibrations
Vortex shedding

This study experimentally investigates the structure of the flow past a circular cylinder fitted with a helical wire perturbation using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Hydrogen Bubble Flow Visualization (HBFV). Dual shear layers having the same sign of vorticity are observed when the helical wire passes from angular locations between 35 deg. and 55 deg. with respect to the forward stagnation point. Such shear layers have been recorded in the literature for the three-start helical wire type protrusions, and have been attributed to interactions induced by the presence of multiple wires. This work shows, however, that a single wire is sufficient to produce this behavior. HBFV images and the divergence of the 2-D velocity field measured using PIV show that a portion of the incoming flow arriving at the wire is diverted along the length of the wire, which later is observed to intermittently turn and flow over the wire, thus influencing the flow downstream of the cylinder. Finally, the swirling vortices induce streamwise vortical patterns and disrupt the Karman vortex tube.
Exploring the Experiences of Youth and Young Adults with ABI as They Transition Towards Work-related Roles
Keywords: Brain Injury
Qualitative
Work-related roles
Young Adults
Youth

Background: Understanding the experiences of youth and young adults with acquired brain injury (ABI) as they transition towards work-related roles is important because it provides insight into what resources, supports, and coping strategies are necessary to ensure a successful transition. Objective: Explore the experiences of youth and young adults as they transition towards work- related roles. Methods: A descriptive qualitative design, including semi-structured interviews of 14 participants (6 male; 8 female) was used. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Lent, Brown, and Hackettâ s (1994) Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) informed data analysis and data interpretation. Findings: Three themes emerged: (1) Getting to know the new me; (2) Navigating support systems; and (3) Taking control of my experience. Conclusion: These findings suggest further investigation is needed to understand the varying levels of support that are involved during their transition, future supports needed, and how to acquire and maintain a strong identity.
Investigating the Roles of the Putative Splicing Factor EMB-4 in Small RNA Pathways in Caenorhabditis elegans
Keywords: Argonaute
C. elegans
RNA processing
small RNA
splicing factor

Small RNA pathways are essential for germline gene expression and maintenance of germline genome integrity. In C. elegans, two Argonautes function antagonistically to promote proper germline gene expression and development, CSR-1 and WAGO-9/HRDE-1. WAGO-9/HRDE-1 acts downstream of the piRNA pathway to silence deleterious nucleic acids, while CSR-1 functions to protect germline genes from piRNA-mediated silencing. The two interact with an array of co-factors to elicit changes in gene expression in the nucleus, although their mechanisms are not fully understood. This study identifies one such co-factor, the putative splicing factor EMB-4. Using integrated cell and molecular biology and genomic approaches, I show that loss of emb-4 significantly perturbs CSR-1 and WAGO-9/HRDE-1 small RNA and mRNA transcriptomes. Moreover, I find that EMB-4 interacts with target transcripts of the two pathways differentially. These data implicate EMB-4 in small RNA biogenesis, potentially in relation to its role in the nuclear export of it targets.
Encoding of Physical and Relational Information in the Lateral Entorhinal Cortex
Keywords: Associative memory
Context
Ensemble decoding
Episodic memory
Hippocampus
Single-unit activity

Stimuli are processed more quickly when they are presented within their original context. This phenomenon may depend on neural representations of situational context associated with the history of stimuli encountered in a particular environment. Here we report evidence that cells in the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) stably represent the current situation, regardless of moment-to-moment changes in the environment. Ensemble activity in the LEC drastically differentiated six blocks of Pavlovian conditioning, where each block differed in conditioning environment, conditioned stimulus, or the association between a conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. Despite high selectivity for stimulus features, firing rates of most cells were relatively stable throughout the entire conditioning block and marginally changed at stimulus onset. With learning, selectivity for the stimulus relationship improved, while selectivity for other features did not. The stable LEC ensemble code for the current situation may provide the basis for the formation and retrieval of accurate, context-rich memories.
Robust Differentiation of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells to Skeletal Muscle Progenitors
Keywords: Biotechnology
Pluripotent
Skeletal Muscle
Stem Cells

Studies into muscle diseases have focussed more on the pathologies presented in mature skeletal muscle than on how this affects myogenic progenitors. Embryonic myogenesis and disease studies also rely on animal models, because of difficulty in obtaining human tissue samples. This study tested whether a step-wise approach mimicking myogenesis could derive embryonic skeletal muscle progenitors from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC), which in other studies was limited by poor purity and disruptive genetic modification. hPSCs were differentiated to express paraxial mesoderm markers, and modulating myogenic signalling pathways enriched for cells expressing early myogenic marker Pax3. However, further myogenic differentiation in this protocol was absent. Using a recently published protocol instead for skeletal muscle derivation from hPSCs generated considerable numbers of myogenic progenitors and myocytes. However, final differentiation purity was impeded by contamination arising at the start of differentiation. This approach highlighted challenges still faced in robustly recapitulating myogenesis in vitro.
Quasi-2D Liquid State at Metal-Organic Interface and Adsorption State Manipulation
Keywords: 2d liquid
entropic order
interface
metal organic
organic
semiconductor

The metal/organic interface between noble metal close-packed (111) surfaces and organic semiconducting molecules is studied using Scanning tunneling microscopy and Photoelectron Spectroscopy, supplemented by first principles density functional theory calculations and Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations. Copper Phthalocyanine molecules were shown to have dual adsorption states: a liquid state where intermolecular interactions were shown to be repulsive in nature and largely due to entropic effects, and a disordered immobilized state triggered by annealing or applying a tip-sample bias larger than a certain temperature or voltage respectively where intermolecular forces were demonstrated to be attractive. A methodology for altering molecular orientation on the aforementioned surfaces is also proposed through introduction of a Fullerene C60 buffer layer. Density functional theory calculations demonstrate orientation-switching of Copper Phthalocyanine molecules based on the amount of charges transferred to/from the substrate to the C60-CuPc layers; suggesting existence of critical substrate work functions that cause reorientation.
Assessment of Cardiovascular Adaptation, Organ Perfusion, and Tissue Hypoxia in an Antibody Mediated Model of Moderate Anemia
Keywords: Anemia
Cardiovascular
Organ Perfusion
Tissue Hypoxia

Anemia is associated with increased brain and kidney injury, and mortality in surgical patients by undefined mechanisms. We hypothesize that anemia-induced tissue hypoxia is a potential unifying mechanism. A transgenic mouse model(HIF-ODD Luciferase) was utilized to assess the impact of antibody-mediated anemia on adaptive cardiovascular responses, tissue PO2(PtO2), and hypoxia-inducible factor(HIF)-expression. Red blood cell(RBC)-specific antibody(TER119) induced anemia via intravascular hemolysis, and splenic and hepatic RBC sequestration. Anemia-induced cardiovascular adaptations included increased: 1)peripheral arterial oxygen saturation, 2)cardiac output, 3)internal carotid blood flow, and 4)cerebrovascular reactivity. These mechanisms contributed to maintain brain PtO2. By contrast, renal perfusion was not increased, leading to a reduced renal PtO2. Also, increased HIF-1Îą expression was observed in renal, hepatic, and gut regions. These findings demonstrate that anemia-induced tissue hypoxia occurs in an organ specific manner. These data support the hypothesis that renal and splanchnic hypoxia may contribute to increased organ injury and mortality in anemic patients.
Transduction of Human Alpha Synuclein in the Subcoeruleus Region causes Symptoms of REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder in Mice
Keywords: adeno-associated virus
alpha-synuclein
REM sleep
REM sleep behaviour disorder
synucleinopathy
twitches

During rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, dreams and wake-like cortical activity accompany muscle paralysis (atonia) interspersed with phasic twitches, motor characteristics controlled by the pontine subcoeruleus (SubC) region. REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is a disruption of motor control during REM sleep, manifesting as loss of atonia, increased twitches, and overt movements. Over 90% of RBD patients develop synucleinopathy, a neurodegenerative disorder associated with aggregates of the protein alpha-synuclein (αSyn). While brains of RBD patients show αsyn aggregates within the SubC region, there is currently no direct evidence of the effects SubC αSyn-related pathology will have on REM sleep. Using targeted overexpression of human αSyn in the SubC, I demonstrated αSyn-aggregation, excessive muscle twitches during REM sleep, and slowing of cortical activity in wild type mice. This project links RBD symptoms and αSyn in the SubC region, and has produced an RBD model that is clinically-relevant to the pathology of human synucleinopathy.
Cell-based IL-12 Immunotherapy In A Transgenic Murine Breast Cancer Model
Keywords: Breast Cancer
Immunotherapy
Interleukin 12
MMTV-PyMT
Transgenic

Interleukin-12 (IL-12) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that plays a major role in immune responses. IL-12 causes increases in T and NK cell proliferation, interferon-Îł (IFN- Îł) production and leads to a TH1 differentiation bias and cell-mediated immunity. Due to the many potent pro-inflammatory effects, the use of IL-12 for cancer immunotherapy has been a constant topic of debate. A promising approach to cancer immunotherapy has been studied by our lab where a small number of transduced tumour cells expressing IL-12 are injected to initiate an immune response. Upon injection, these IL-12 transduced host tumour cells cause sustained rejection, even to challenges with the original parent tumour. The effectiveness of this model has thus far been demonstrated in murine leukaemias and various solid tumour models. In this thesis, I have developed a novel breast cancer cell line model derived from the MMTV-PyMT transgenic breast cancer model to expand the cell-based IL-12 cancer immunotherapy into a more clinically relevant solid tumour model.
Evaluating Sit-to-stand Across Various Armrest Configurations in Older Adults with Limited Mobility
Keywords: aging
armrest
mobility
sit-to-stand

This study investigated the differences in kinematics and kinetics of the lower limbs and load applications of the upper limbs across various armrest configurations. Configurations tested include nine combinations through three anterior-posterior (AP) positions (close, middle, far) and three height positions (low, middle, high). A linked-segment model was used to calculate kinetics and kinematics of the lower limbs using an inverse dynamic analysis. Forces were recorded from two force plates below the feet and two load cells embedded in the armrests. Farther armrest AP positions yielded higher pulling forces and were encountered with greater moments about the knees and hips. Higher armrest positions yielded greater pulling forces and were encountered with reduced moments about the hips and ankles. Stability was best in far and high positions. Potential applications for this research include an armrest design guideline for use by seating companies, rehab therapists, and for potential armrest products.
Don't Get Caught in the Cold, Warm-up Your JVM: Understand and Eliminate JVM Warm-up Overhead in Data-parallel Systems
Keywords: Big Data
Distributed Systems
Java Virtual Machine
Performance

Many widely used, latency sensitive, data-parallel distributed systems, such as HDFS, Hive, and Spark choose to use the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), despite debate on the overhead of doing so. This thesis analyzes the extent and causes of the JVM performance overhead in the above mentioned systems. Surprisingly, we find that the warm-up overhead is frequently the bottleneck, taking 33% of execution time for a 1GB HDFS read, and an average of 21 seconds for Spark queries. The findings on JVM warm-up overhead reveal a contradiction between the principle of parallelization, i.e., speeding up long running jobs by parallelizing them into short tasks, and amortizing JVM warm-up overhead through long tasks. We solve this problem by designing HotTub, a modified JVM that amortizes the warm-up overhead over the lifetime of a cluster node instead of over a single job.
Wholesale Broadband Access and Regulatory Appeals in the Canadian Telecommunications Industry: An Institutional Analysis
Keywords: Broadband
Communications
Institutional Economics
Internet Law
Regulatory Law
Telecommunications Policy

This thesis focuses on Canada’s federal regulatory appeal procedure, the “Petition to the Governor in Council” (GiC), and questions how it integrates with other institutional actors in the country’s telecommunications policymaking apparatus. The research applies the Institutional Analysis and Development framework methodology to a recent GiC appeal decision in favour of mandated wholesale broadband access to fibre-to-the-premises facilities. This appeal decision, the thesis suggests, helps to illustrate how Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the CRTC, has maintained its ability to shape the specifics of policy outcomes. Despite GiC jurisdiction over the direction to telecommunications regulation, as well as obstructions to CRTC policy development that can transpire as a byproduct of GiC appeal decisions, the findings show that the CRTC has nevertheless defended its status as the lead actor in the regime. The thesis also points to areas where the GiC procedure would benefit from improved transparency and strengthened conduits for regional representation.