VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Facilitating Pathways Out of Crime: The Role of Strengths in Risk Assessment and Rehabilitation among Justice-Involved Youth
Keywords: Forensic psychology
Rehabilitation
Risk Assessment
Risk-Need-Responsivity
Strengths

This dissertation consists of two papers examining the role of strengths in the youth justice context. Paper 1 examined the psychometric properties of a strengths measure, the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for Violence Risk – Youth Version (SAPROF-YV). In a sample of 305 youth, exploratory factor analysis suggested the removal of four items and the resulting revised scale demonstrated good internal consistency and strong convergent validity. There was additionally evidence for a promotive effect, with the total score inversely predicting reoffending in the 3-year follow-up period. Strength factors did not provide incremental predictive validity over risk factors. A significant moderation effect revealed that strengths are protective among lower risk youths but amplify the impact of risk on recidivism among higher risk youths. Paper 2 focused on the relationship between strengths and service provision and sought to evaluate whether strengths function as specific responsivity factors as proposed by the Risk-Need- Responsivity model. Findings from a sample of 261 youth indicated that as the proportion of identified criminogenic needs met via probation-provided and -coordinated services increased, youths’ odds of reoffending decreased, for both males and females. Importantly, having more identified strengths was associated with having a higher proportion of criminogenic needs addressed during probation, lending some support to the hypothesis that strengths function as specific responsivity factors; the relationship between service-to-needs matching and reoffending was not moderated by strengths. These studies provide preliminary support for the validity and reliability of the SAPROF-YV. Given the controversial moderation findings, the use of the SAPROF-YV for enhancing recidivism risk prediction is not currently recommended; however, the findings do suggest that youth strength profiles are associated with the quality and quantity of services received over the course of probation and further research into how strengths can guide and improve services for justice-involved youth is warranted.
EvacuSafe: A Smart Evacuation Management System for Buildings
Keywords: BIM
Building
Evacuation
Fire Dynamics Simulation
IFC
Path Planning

Tall buildings and their occupants are highly sensitive to emergencies. Decision-making in these situations is complicated due to high population densities residing in these dwellings, complexity of emergency management strategies, significance of quick response in these cases, and unknown reactions of occupants under stress. This research develops an evacuation management system (EMS), named EvacuSafe, to support decision-making and crowd handling during evacuations. EvacuSafe supports a fully automated process of detecting the fire, simulating the growth pattern of the hazard, generating multiple strategies of evacuation, evaluating the strategies based on the risk to evacuees, and finally guiding evacuees along their egress route. EvacuSafe’s architecture consists of the three main modules of fire dynamics simulation, agent-based crowd simulation, and graph search path-planning. EvacuSafe is model-centric, and the entire data storage and data transfer between its three modules are based on Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). By integrating BIM, agent-based crowd simulation, and fire simulation, EvacuSafe enables a performance-based evaluation of building evacuations for different building designs. In real-time mode, EvacuSafe converts BIM to a Geometric Network Graph (GNG) and performs path-planning and guidance during emergencies. In addition, the guidance system in EvacuSafe is based on the application of Adaptive Dynamic Signage System (ADSS). This research aims for a smart emergency management system that will be less restricted by human factors and more efficient in saving the lives of occupants in emergencies.
The World Bank and Inclusive Policymaking Practices [1980-2014]. A Theory of Change and Stability Through Collective Learning
Keywords: International Development
International Organisations
Learning
Practices
Social Theory
World Bank

This dissertation presents a theory of change and stability of the World Bank based on collective learning processes and communities of practice. It is broadly divided into two parts. First, I aim to demonstrate how the Bank changed its policymaking practices between 1980 and 2014 in terms of [1] consultation with NGOs, [2] participation of citizens in design and implementation of projects, and [3] ownership by borrowing governments. This change, I argue, is due to three processes of collective learning: the interactions at the boundaries of communities of practice; and the constant contestation of practices. In the second part of the dissertation, I argue that in the end, this evolution of practice reinforced the Bank technocratic and neoliberal political rationality, thus promoting overall stability in its modus operandi. Building on French philosophers Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, I seek to explain how change in an international organization (even if meaningful in many ways) can promote stability in its employees’ political rationality. Methodologically, this dissertation is based on a historical process-tracing of the period 1980-2014, using 41 first-hand interpretive interviews with World Bank employees and officials, 80 open source in-depth interviews with senior Bank managers, as well as an archive analysis.
Towards Overcoming Limitations on MRI-guided Focused Ultrasound Hyperthermia-mediated Drug Delivery using Thermosensitive Liposomes
Keywords: cancer therapy
doxorubicin
focused ultrasound
hyperthermia
microbubbles
MRI thermometry

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) hyperthermia is a completely non-invasive thermal procedure that involves slightly heating up a localised region of the body to between 41°C and 45°C. MRgFUS hyperthermia can trigger the local release of chemotherapy from thermosensitive liposomal drug carriers in high concentrations within heated tumours. These temperature elevations have synergistic effects with chemotherapy and radiotherapy when maintained for tens of minutes up to several hours. Presently, limitations including bone shielding, respiratory motion and large blood vessel cooling make heating of many anatomical locations difficult to maintain for long durations. These limitations prevent MRgFUS hyperthermia from being achieved in the kidney, liver or the head and neck. By developing new treatment strategies and sophisticated MRI-compatible FUS delivery systems that can overcome these limitations, MRgFUS hyperthermia with thermosensitive liposomal chemotherapy can be used to treat a more broad spectrum of tumour types. This thesis describes standalone FUS and microbubble-mediated strategies to overcome the limitations of MRgFUS hyperthermia. First, the incorporation of contrast agent microbubbles was investigated with MRgFUS hyperthermia in rabbit thigh muscle and experimental rabbit Vx2 tumours to reduce the applied power to maintain the temperature elevation. Second, a FUS hyperthermia system compatible with in vivo two-photon microscopy was developed as a platform for studies of controlled hyperthermia and drug delivery in mouse tumours. Practically simple short duration (~30s) temperature elevations to 42°C were shown to release substantial amounts of chemotherapy doxorubicin from thermosensitive liposomes. Third, the therapeutic efficacy of short duration temperature elevations to 42°C was evaluated in rabbit thigh Vx2 tumours. Considerable tumour growth inhibition and survival prolongation was observed with the short duration heating approach, demonstrating the potential for overcoming limitations on clinical MRgFUS hyperthermia with thermosensitive liposomal chemotherapy. The results of this thesis demonstrate that through the incorporation of microbubbles, as well as short duration heating strategies, the practical limitations of clinical MRgFUS hyperthermia can be alleviated. The clinical investigation of these heating strategies is warranted in order to provide cancer patients with a non-invasive treatment option that can both improve their response to therapy and reduce treatment-associated side effects.
Governance of Child Health Policy: The Canadian Context for Developmental Screening
Keywords: Child health
Governance
Health policy
Population health
Screening

Child health policymaking is complex, necessitating collaboration among various sectors and actors. This is particularly evident in “developmental screening.” The potential to routinely assess development in early childhood— to ‘screen’ for developmental problems— holds a potent if contested promise to optimize child health. Clinical evidence supporting systematic population-level interventions is insufficient, yet many health-professional associations have endorsed the practice and several developmental-screening initiatives have been implemented internationally, including in Ontario— the only Canadian province to implement developmental screening (the Enhanced Well-Baby Visit). The controversies surrounding developmental screening suggests that the ‘problem’ is not solely technical: it reflects political contests over the intervention’s aims, the justifications that warrant action, and the arrangements of actors who debate and authorize policy change. In brief, it reflects the policy challenges of agenda-setting and governance. This research describes approaches to the governance of child health, and explores relationships between governance arrangements and decision-making, particularly the impacts on agenda-setting and evidence use. Using a comparative case study design involving interpretive qualitative methods, I analyzed policy documents and conducted interviews (n=40) with child-health policy experts in Ontario and Manitoba. I found jurisdictional differences in policy attention and governance, specifically in the structure of institutions, the organization of interests, and the ideas of stakeholders as they apply to screening programs. The study reveals how framing impacts agenda-setting and how governance arrangements influence the design and delivery of policy. Presented as three manuscripts, key findings include: (1) developmental screening is framed, and understood, as three distinct agendas (medical, social, political) for child health; (2) comparing Manitoba and Ontario’s efforts for ‘joined-up’ governance reveals that perceptions of policy success depends on whether collaboration or action is prioritized; and (3) Ontario’s implementation experience for the 18-mos visit illustrates that the choice of primary care as the venue for delivery shapes how interventions are defined and delivered. Overall, this work highlights the complexity of child health policy, illuminates challenges in screening for social risk, and contributes to current debates about how professionals intervene in early child health.
The Politics of Exclusion and Retribution in the Hungarian Film Industry, 1929-1947
Keywords: anti-Jewish laws
Certification committees for actors
Film Arts Chamber
Film industry in Hungary
interwar and postwar Hungary
postwar certification committees

This dissertation examines how the interwar and postwar governments in Hungary politicized and shaped the film industry to do their bidding and how filmmakers, actors and actresses reacted to those political pressures. The interwar conservative government of Miklós Horthy set out to mold the film industry to suit its ideals and ideas, while, at the same time, seeking to limit the number of Jews in the professions. This dissertation investigates the resulting conflicted political forces that brought about the creation of the Theatre and Film Arts Chamber. It examines the impact of the chamber, specifically how those working in the film industry were affected by these laws and new measures. The archival files of the postwar certification committees provide significant historical insight into the leadership and antisemitic narrative of the entertainment industry during the interwar era. In particular, these files illuminate the motivations of the individuals leading the Theatre and Film Arts Chamber. The certification committees established to investigate the wartime activities of those involved in the film industry played a significant role in creating a positive postwar identity. In 1945, this identity grew out of the belief that Hungary had been a victim of Nazi aggression. The postwar system of retribution sought to smooth the transition, and to salvage the once thriving film industry. After the Communist Party consolidated its hold on the government in May 1949, the regime recruited and rehabilitated famous Hungarian actors from the interwar era. The alleged crimes of these actors and actresses and their subsequent postwar convictions were no longer an issue of importance. The political trials that unfolded in the late 1940s served the position and power of the new elites more than anything else. By the early 1950s, the Cold War took precedence over retribution following the Second World War and the outcome of these trials seemed irrelevant. This dissertation notably adds to the research and discussion of how to shape, and for what purpose, a nation’s memory of the war and postwar years. This question is still being formed and framed in Hungary today, as it is in many European countries.
The Economic Relationship between Patron and Freedman in Italy in the Early Roman Empire
Keywords: economic
freedmen
occupation
patron
Rome
slave

The Economic Relationship between Patron and Freedman in Italy in the Early Roman Empire explores how economic and productive relationships between patrons and freedmen continued after manumission in Roman Italy during the early Principate. This dissertation surveys a range of ancient sources, including inscriptions, literary sources, alimenta tables, and wax tablets, to show how Roman patrons deployed different social and legal mechanisms to continue to draw on the productive capacities of their former slaves in a range of economic sectors. The techniques employed varied depending on productive context. Freedpersons who had been slaves in domestic familiae were redeployed as agents, not just associated with the urban households from which they originated, but also as agricultural procuratores overseeing the legal administration of rural properties. This indicates a recognition that unique skills and personal connections to their former masters could continue to be exploited after manumission for a variety of purposes. That mid-level domestic slaves were preferred for such posts instead of other, ostensibly better-suited skilled slaves, such as urban dispensatores or rural vilici, indicates a deliberate and concerted organization of both enslaved and freed workforces alongside each other. This suggests that practical economic considerations played a role both in the direction of freed labour and in manumission itself. The procuratio, a form of agricultural agency, was also used in Roman banking firms to facilitate flexible representation by freedmen, as evidenced by its repeated use by the Sulpicii from Puteoli. Efforts at patronal control were not necessarily to the detriment of the freed slaves involved, however, and sometimes could provide economic benefits and incentives to the latter. In urban manufacturing, the clustering of freedpersons in productive units enabled patrons to draw on services owed after manumission more efficiently, but also facilitated cost-sharing among skilled liberti and greater flexibility in the day-to-day management of their own businesses. In short, Roman patrons drew from a toolkit of strategies, including operae, personal links, forms of agency particularly suited to the freedman-patron relationship, and other social and legal mechanisms, to continue to draw on the productive capacity of their former slaves.
Mammary Lineage-dependent Homologous Recombination Repair and PARP Inhibitor Vulnerability
Keywords: BRCA1/2
Breast cancer
DNA damage response
Homologous recombination repair
Mammary stem/progenitor cells
PARP inhibitors

Deleterious germline mutations in the key homologous recombination (HR) repair genes, such as BRCA1/2, strikingly increase the lifetime risk for breast cancer, underscoring the importance of faithful double-strand break (DSB) repair in maintaining the genome integrity of mammary epithelial cells. It has long been assumed that all normal cells have the same capacity to engage high-fidelity HR and error-prone non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) to repair DSBs, and that the choice between these two DSB repair pathways are determined by the cell cycle. Here, we show that the two major mammary epithelial lineages, basal and luminal, are not equally equipped to resolve DSBs. Global proteomic analyses of primary mouse mammary epithelial subpopulations and enumeration of their DSB repair activities have revealed that HR is predominantly restricted to the luminal lineage, while NHEJ operates in all mammary epithelial cells. This intrinsic differential HR repair translates into a divergent sensitivity to poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi), selectively reducing basal clonogenicity while sparing luminal progenitors, in both the mouse and human, irrespective of BRCA mutation status. Furthermore, we generated proteome-defined lineage-specific signatures, referred to as basal or luminal progenitor identification (ID), that correlate to the PAM50 breast cancer subtypes and predict the PARPi response of triple-negative human breast cancer xenografts. Thus, mammary epithelial cell types underpin a new strategy for identifying PARPi responders. We further sought to potentiate the efficacy of PARPi by concurrently blocking progesterone receptor given its pro-tumorigenic role in the BRCA1/2-mutated carriers. This novel PARPi combination with a selective progesterone receptor modulator, ulipristal acetate (UA), abrogated clonogenicity of both lineages from primary, high-risk breast tissue specimens. Altogether, we demonstrate that mammary cell lineage is an unprecedented determinant of DSB repair pathway choice, and understanding cell lineage-restricted vulnerabilities can be leveraged to enhance intervention strategies for improved therapeutic outcomes in high-risk women.
Shaping Nonlinear Laser Interactions Inside Thin Film and Bulk Glass
Keywords: Laser material processing
Nanochannel
Nonlinear optical interactions
Optical waveguides
Spatial Light Modulator (SLM)
Three-dimensional micro- and nano-structuring

This thesis experimentally investigates spatial beam shaping for two- and three-dimensional manipulation of laser interactions inside thin film and bulk glass. In thin film, the interferometric processing was tailored by spatial light modulator beam shaping to form a high aspect ratio nanochannel inside a silicon oxide film. Structuring nanochannels with only a single laser pulse opens up new opportunities for the fabrication of lab-in-thin film devices. In bulk glass, experiments explored the complex relationship of linear and nonlinear optical interactions in transparent glass, where self-focusing, plasma defocusing, and surface aberrations play different roles with increasing focal depth and pulse energy. The key contribution centres on manipulation of femtosecond laser interactions with beam shaping based on generating both concave and convex conical phase fronts. A comprehensive investigation was carried out over a broad domain of laser exposure conditions not previously investigated that sheds light on the competition between nonlinear and aberration effects. In this way, beam shaping enabled tuning of the modification zone to form long and uniform filament tracks over shallow to deep focusing conditions. In addition, the study expanded the laser processing zone for forming low loss optical waveguides or rapid-etching modification tracks from shallow to very deep positions (up to 2.8 mm) that were not previously feasible. As a result, the thesis sheds light on new beam shaping opportunities for steering the physics of light propagation and interactions with transparent materials, which are of central importance to the rapidly advancing field of femtosecond laser material processing. The present work dramatically extends the understanding and application of conical phase fronts, which have been rapidly transforming the field of laser processing based previously only on fixed angle axicons. This work introduces a facile means for tuning the conical angle, thus unlocking new physical insights and application directions. Alternative beams such as sheet-like shapes were further examined in shallow focusing depth of bulk glass. The technical advances will be of broad interest to the communities of optical material processing, nonlinear optical interaction physics, laser photonics manufacturing, and three-dimensional micro- and nano-structuring of transparent materials.
Evaluating the Metabolic and Anti-tumor Properties of CD8+ T Cell Lineages
Keywords: Cancer
CD8+ T cell
Immunotherapy
Metabolism
Tc subsets
Tc22

Harnessing the immune system to attack cancerous cells is an exciting treatment strategy that has shown great promise clinically. Many immune cell types are involved in mediating tumor rejection with CD8+ T cells playing an important role. Typically effector CD8+ T cells are regarded as being a homogenous population of cytotoxic cells that produce the cytokine interferon (IFN)-γ. However, this outlook does not fully encompass the diversity of the CD8+ T cell population as multiple subsets of CD8+ T cells (Tc subsets) have been identified each demonstrating distinct effector functions. As many of these Tc subsets are not well defined, the first part of this Thesis was aimed at defining and characterizing the different Tc lineages. I identified the polarizing conditions to induce an interleukin (IL)-22 producing CD8+ Tc22 subset, which we found to be dependent on IL-6 and the aryl hydrocarbon receptor transcription factor. Further characterization showed that this subset is highly cytolytic and expresses a distinct cytokine profile and transcriptome relative to other subsets. Moreover, Tc22 cells demonstrate robust anti-tumor properties that were attributed to increased mitochondrial metabolism. Given the potential role of T cell metabolism in mediating the Tc22 anti-tumor responses, the second part of the Thesis was aimed at understanding the metabolic pathways involved in Tc22 polarization. Here, I found that Tc22 were distinct from other Tc subsets in that Tc22s required oxidative phosphorylation for polarization. Moreover, I identified coenzyme a (CoA) as a reagent to induce Tc22 cells in the absence of polarizing cytokines. CoA-treated cells demonstrate robust anti-tumor properties in multiple mouse models. Importantly, I found the CoA precursor pantothenic acid to be a marker of complete response to anti-PD1 therapy in human melanoma patients. In summary, the findings presented in this Thesis identify Tc22 cells as a robust anti-tumor subset with potential therapeutic implications in the context of checkpoint blockade in addition to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T or T cell receptor (TCR) transduction based immunotherapies.