VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Centripetal Representation
Keywords: democracy
representation

Growing political complexity is one of the defining features of contemporary rich post-industrial society. Patterns of electoral, administrative, and societal representation have become more complex over the past fifty years as organizations and policymaking processes have stretched across borders, as relatively stable patterns of post-war party competition have broken down, and as more dynamic and ad-hoc governance networks have sprung up alongside older bureaucratic hierarchies. While populist leaders have capitalized on voters’ desire to “take back control” of institutions whose opacity they find alienating, deliberative democratic and constructivist theorists of representation tend to express substantial enthusiasm for more complex representative systems. They show why pluralizing processes of representation can promote wiser, more inclusive, more dynamic, and, ultimately, more democratically legitimate processes of self-rule. However, the fragmentation of processes of political representation can pose a serious threat to democratic legitimacy and should be countered by a specific kind of democratic simplification. Complexity exacerbates information asymmetries between representatives and constituents that afflict the resource-poor worse than others, biasing the representative system against them. Simplifying systems of political representation can help ordinary people understand and engage with their representatives and push back against gridlock, collusion, capture, and shirking. Broad inclusion of pluralistic claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery of the representative system should therefore be combined with substantial democratic simplicity at its core, with networked responsiveness in between. I use the metaphor of centripetal motion to captures the idea that pressure and influence should flow “inwards” from a heterogeneous assemblage of claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery to a relatively small and organized group at the centre. The theory of centripetal representation can help political theorists, social scientists, and political practitioners think about how to manage complexity and shape our evolving systems of representation in ways that promote democratic legitimacy by helping ordinary people to be seen and heard, rather than allowing the powerful to hide.
Implementation of Outcomes-based Education in an Interdisciplinary Design Course and Curriculum: An Action Research Study
Keywords: Action Research
Interdisciplinary Design Course and Curriculum
Outcomes- Based Education

This is a case study that focuses on the challenges that I, as the action researcher and design educator at the post-secondary level face in the integration of an outcomes-based curriculum model that has been adopted in recent years by the higher education sector in Ontario in order to ensure quality, transparency and compatibility among the credentials. In this thesis, I studied the implementation of the outcomes-based education curriculum in a design program through investigative cycles of action-reflection of my own teaching practice as well as that of my colleagues in the Art and Design Foundation Program at the School of Design, George Brown College. The selection of action research as my strategy of inquiry is my response to the qualitative and critical nature of the challenges that educators are facing in their efforts to integrate learner - centered principles in their teaching practice. My research has been completed in two phases: Phase A – Critical Dialogue with Self and Phase B – Critical Dialogue with the Institution. The participants of my study are my students in Foundation Design II: Colour Theory and Practice, one Critical Expert from the Teaching and Learning Exchange, one Interested Observer (graduate of the program), Art and Design Foundation faculty and a Critical Administrator at the College. These are the synthesis of the insights I gained: Phase A – Critical Dialogue with Self: • A holistic approach to teaching and learning of the foundation of art and design. • Proactivity and reflexivity in my teaching practice with the goal of self-improvement and growth based on personal beliefs and social values. • A flexible learning - centered approach in course planning. • Sense of care towards student learning. • Mentality of success in teaching and learning: we are a team and we are working together to succeed. Phase B – Critical Dialogue with the Institution • A holistic learning - centered approach in the art and design foundation curriculum planning. • Use of new strategies to engage faculty in curriculum development. • Use of design thinking tools in curriculum design. • Empowering students and faculty by giving voice to their individual beliefs and values in art and design education.
Investigating the Role of the Ventral Hippocampus in Decision-Making under Approach-Avoidance Conflict
Keywords: Active avoidance
Approach-avoidance conflict
Decision-making
Timing
Ventral Hippocampus

Approach-avoidance (AP-AV) conflict occurs when an organism encounters a stimulus that has both attractive and aversive properties and optimal resolution of this conflict is vital for survival. Existing theories of anxiety and defensive behaviours such as Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory and Imminence Continuum Theory consider long spatio-temporal distance under AP-AV conflict inducing situations to be sufficient to engage the ventral hippocampus (VH) and produce anxiety-like behaviors. Accordingly, VH engagement has been supported by studies employing the use of ethological anxiety tests and cue-based maze tasks that induce a state of AP-AV conflict. However, the role of the VH in more discrete/choice-based decision-making tasks with AP-AV conflict remains unclear. In this thesis I investigated whether discrete choices under AP-AV conflict are sensitive to VH disruption and whether the temporal distance of the conflict-inducing event affects this sensitivity. First, rats were tested in an active avoidance (AA) task with and without safety signal, and their responses in both reinforced and extinction conditions were evaluated. Inactivation of VH decreased AA responses but only in the presence of safety signal, and under extinction condition. These results indicated that AA is not dependent on VH activity, and the presence of ‘temporal distance’ alone (impending shock) is not sufficient to make behavior susceptible to VH disruption. A second experiment investigated the role of the VH in temporal decision-making under conflict. This work revealed that chemogenetic inhibition of VH did not have an effect that was specific to the conflict-inducing conditions. Instead, VH inhibition reduced timing uncertainty regardless of the presence of AP-AV conflict. Finally, animals were tested in a discrete choice task in which they had to make decisions between a high reward option with varying degrees of shock intensity and a low reward option which enabled the quantification of the point of subjective equality (PSE). Here again, inhibition of the VH did not play a role in AP-AV conflict with reinforcement but increased the preference for the low reward option and PSE in extinction. Together, these results reveal that either the omission of reinforcement or ambiguity, rather than AP-AV conflict and/or temporal distance engage the VH.
Characterizing the Mechanical Behaviour of the Human Pelvis Through Finite Element Analysis
Keywords: Finite Element Analysis
Mesh morphing/mapping
Patient-specific modeling
Pelvic biomechanics
Shape modeling
Strain patterns

In the human musculoskeletal system, the pelvis functions as a crucial transfer point for upper body loads to the lower extremities. Existing treatments in the field of pelvic reconstructive surgery do not account for versatile structural differences in pelvic geometries and variations in pelvic bone properties. This thesis aims to develop a novel approach to facilitate and automate the creation of multiple specimen-specific finite element (FE) models of the pelvis and to utilize these models to characterize mechanical behavior of the pelvis, under healthy and pathologic conditions. Robust generation of pelvic FE models is necessary to understand variations in mechanical behaviour resulting from differences in gender, aging, disease, and injury. A new semi-automated landmark-based FE morphing and mapping approach was developed for pelvic FE model generation without the need for segmentation. A cohort of specimen-specific pelvic FE models was generated using the new approach and the models were validated against experimental data in double leg stance configuration. The validated cohort of specimen-specific pelvic FE models was utilized to examine pelvic strains at different phases of the gait cycle (double leg stance, heel-strike/heel-off and midstance/midswing). The FE models revealed that the strain patterns throughout the pelvic structure between the double leg stance and heel-strike/heel-off configurations are not significantly different, whereas a significant difference was found in the midstance/midswing configuration. The morphing methodology was further extended to generate pelvic FE models of different shapes and to analyze their biomechanical behaviour. A significant difference was found in the strain patterns between the android (classic male shape) and gynecoid (classic female shape) pelvises. Finally, a specimen-specific pelvic FE model of an open book fracture was developed and validated against experimental data. The strain patterns identified in the fractured model aligned with the clinical understanding of open book fracture pathology. Overall, the findings of this thesis provide new understandings into the complex biomechanical behaviour of the human pelvis. This work creates a platform for more complex future FE modeling investigations to continue to study the behaviour of this multifaceted skeletal structure.
Object Stories: Tracing South Asian Colonial Histories of Displacement through Affective Archives
Keywords: Affect Theory
Alternative Epistemologies
India's Partition
Object Theory
Postcolonial Studies
South Asian Diaspora

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study into unheard narratives of the 1947 Partition of India as they inform legacies of trauma, violence, and displacement for South Asian diasporic communities. In exploring the limitations of official state accounts of Partition, I turn to alternative epistemological sites in archives of the personal, in my own familial story of Partition, as a point of analysis. These sites take up the form of what I call “affective objects”: sites, things, heirlooms, and artefacts that, because they are intimately linked to familial and community histories, are laden with in-articulatable feelings. I argue that affective objects can be space- and knowledge-making for unheard intergenerational narratives of displacement as they ruminate in realms of undefinition and nonverbal modes of communication. The familial stories about Partition that are produced from these affective spaces, which are not dependant on state- sanctioned narratives, are reparative in how they allow South Asian diasporic communities to work through inherited intergenerational traumas of Partition. I bring together affective theories, object studies, and colonial and postcolonial histories of India to uncover a method to speak about the unspeakable—to explore how nonverbal meaning, through the form of physical objects, comes through the work of affect. My methodology in this project is storytelling. That is, I take my own familial stories of Partition that have been attached to various affective objects as analysis. This is a move away from discourses that have been constructed by the colonial powers that incited trauma and violence on communities affected by Partition. I question the denial in contemporary colonial systems’ romanticized readings of the past and diminished understandings of current social realities of oppression, which render the victims of these histories silent. I include the personal in this conversation not only to connect and position myself within the narrative of Partition but also to make sense of larger socio-historical colonial processes that continue to unfold from and about Partition. The turn towards the affective object, archives of the personal, and the sharing of familial stories creates spaces of possibility and potential for knowing Partition and its legacies of violence differently.
Al-Ghazālī’s Moral Psychology: From Self-control to Self-surrender
Keywords: al-Ghazālī
Islam
Islamic Philosophy
Sufism

A central difficultly when reading al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) is understanding why he attempts to bring together seemingly disconnected aspects of ethical theory. He inclines toward a more philosophical influence of virtue ethics in his earlier book, The Scale of Action (Mizān al-‘amal), while in his vast encyclopedic work, The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn), his conception of religious practice was greatly informed by the emerging Sufism of his time. These two works, in particular, lay the foundation for understanding his program for Islamic practice and his unique balance of reason and revelation. Al-Ghazālī’s ethical writings are not easily explained by the existing categories and demarcations found in contemporary ethical discourse, so it becomes essential to present what was at the centre of his pedagogy. This dissertation argues that the thread connecting each method of expression is al-Ghazālī’s dramatic and explicit emphasis on self-control as the path to felicity. It demonstrates that the underlying substrate of al-Ghazālī’s ethics is his constant focus on restraining and redirecting the body, emotions, and thought. The study first examines the destructive vices, specifically in relation to eating, sexual desire, anger, and speech. It is then followed by looking at al-Ghazālī’s early work, The Scale of Action which explains his views on controlling the body and achieving moderation through the process of habituation. It then turns to investigate al-Ghazālī’s views on controlling the emotions and how he understands thought and its role in unification of the fragmented self. It is only in the final chapter, entitled self-surrender, that the study attempts to answer the question of why, for al-Ghazālī, the subject of self-control takes such great importance. His directions for self-control are not without purpose and are designed to culminate in a unique form of knowledge. Although the aim of acquiring knowledge is initially for the purpose of inducing proper action, the final result, according to al-Ghazālī, must culminate in a recognition and love of God. For these reasons, the study naturally concludes by answering the question of why these techniques of restraint were of such great significance to al-Ghazālī.
The Neural Basis of a Circadian Oscillator Underlying Time Memory
Keywords: Behavior
Circadian Rhythms
Learning and Memory

Mice anticipate the time of day that important conditions or events are likely to occur based on their previous experiences with those conditions. They can learn to expect positive (rewarding) or negative (aversive) events. The ability to predict the coming of specific events in its environment (time memory) is crucial for its survival. Current evidence has led to three hypotheses: 1) The clock(s) underlying time memory are located in the dopamine target regions, 2) The hippocampus is a site of cells that register the time of day, and 3) Subpopulations of hippocampal cells that are activated during spatial learning are also responsible for time of day learning. If the same cells that are involved in the formation of spatial memories are also oscillators, then the cells most closely involved in context learning should be the ones most readily phase shifted by a learning experience. Therefore we should be able to distinguish cells linked to specific memories by recording the phase of their circadian rhythms. Using qRT-PCR and ISH, I found that several tissues as a whole do not exhibit shifts of their clocks, particularly, the hippocampus. Instead, behavioral conditioning induced a phase shift in the circadian clock protein PERIOD 2 expression, specifically in the shell region of the nucleus accumbens (NAS) and the dorsal striatum (DS). Next, using the Tetracycline Transactivator Controlled Genetic Tagging of Active Neural Circuits (TetTag) system and ICC, my data suggests that only a few cells in the hippocampus participated in the conditioning. The hippocampal cells whose rhythms were set at the time of conditioning may be critical to the expression of craving. In human health, this research will provide a new perspective on the regulation of craving and as such, will contribute to the development of treatments for drug/substance abuse.
The Impact of Malaria in Pregnancy on Fetal Outcomes and Neurodevelopment
Keywords: Fetal development
Malaria
Neurodevelopment
Placental vasculature
Pregnancy

Malaria infection during pregnancy is a major contributor to the global burden of adverse birth outcomes including fetal growth restriction, preterm birth, and fetal loss. Despite progress in preventing and treating Plasmodium falciparum malaria in pregnancy, the issue of malaria infection and its impact on maternal-fetal health remains a global health priority. This is in part due to a poor understanding of the pathophysiology of malaria as a driver of adverse birth outcomes. Here, in a large cohort of pregnant women in Malawi, we showed that malaria infection before 24 weeks gestation was associated with dysregulation of inflammatory and angiogenic mediators important for placental vascular development, and an increased risk of preterm birth. We used an experimental model of malaria in pregnancy to show that the angiopoietin-Tie2 pathway is mechanistically involved in placental vascular disruption and adverse birth outcomes. Furthermore, a growing body of evidence links maternal infection during pregnancy to neurocognitive deficits and neuropsychiatric disease in exposed offspring. Since congenital infection is not required for this effect, maternal immune activation is thought to be a critical determinant of neurological outcomes. However, the impact of exposure to malaria in pregnancy on neurodevelopment in children is not well understood. We provide the first clinical evidence in an observational cohort that malaria in pregnancy is associated with neurocognitive delays in children. Mechanistically, we show that malaria-induced inflammation is associated with lower language achievement in children up to two years of age. Collectively, these data suggest that scaling prevention efforts for malaria infection during pregnancy could be a far-reaching strategy to simultaneously reduce maternal-child morbidity and mortality and mitigate the burden of neurological injury in malaria-endemic regions.
The Influence of Outcomes-based Funding Models on Two Large Canadian Non-profit Organizations
Keywords: Case study methodology
Nonprofit Leadership
Nonprofit Organizations
Outcomes Measurement
Outcomes Measurement Processes
Outcomes-based Funding Models

Through a qualitative case study of two large non-profit organizations, the purpose of this research was to understand and explore how non-profit organizations are being influenced by outcomes-based funding models. During the last two decades, there has been increasing pressure on non-profit organizations to demonstrate the impact of their programs, often as a condition for receiving funding from the government and non-government funders. Traditionally, non-profit organizations have been delivering programs through staff and volunteers (inputs) and measuring success through the number of individuals participating in the programs (outputs). The mission and vision of non-profit organizations are often broad and to assess the organizations’ success by solely measuring the number of participants in a program has been questioned for some time thus leading to a shift towards outcomes measurement process. The outcomes measurement process is a type of evaluation that is focused on measuring how the programs impact the lives of participants lives rather than what the program does for the participants in terms of delivery of activities. More recently, both government and non-government funders have changed their funding models to be outcomes-based and requiring organizations to demonstrate short-term, medium-term or long-term impact of their programs on the participants. The findings of this research study indicate that there is a need for further collaboration and open communication between funders and the non-profit organizations to resolve the tensions between the purpose of outcomes-based funding models and the capacity needed to meet those funding requirements. The study also highlighted the need for different funders to collaborate with one another to support the non-profit organizations in their work on outcomes measurement for measuring short-term, medium-term or long-term impact of their programs. The organizations too need to take leadership on the outcomes-measurement work for their own organizational learning, strategic thinking and planning. While the findings of this study cannot be generalized, they are suggestive and have implications that will be of interest to anyone working in the non-profit sector and not only to funders and leaders of non-profit organizations.
The Time That Belongs to God: The Christian Prohibition on Usury in the 12th-13th Centuries and the Making of the Subject of Debt
Keywords: Christianity
Continental Philosophy
Political Theology
Scholastic Theology
Slavery
Usury

This dissertation traces the meaning of the idea that usurers sell time through 12th- and 13th-century Christian debates about the ethics of usury in the intellectual milieu of the University of Paris. According to a frequently recurring argument, the problem with usury is that the usurer is a ‘thief’ because he sells time, which cannot be bought or sold. The present study reconstructs the philosophical and theological conception of time implicit in this argument.The introductory chapter treats the scope and intervention of the study, as well as its methodological orientation, while the second discusses the intellectual precedents available to medieval writers for connecting time and debt. The core study of the dissertation occupies its third, fourth, and fifth chapters. Each chapter treats one or more of the key medieval texts selected as significant turning points in the idea that usurers sell time. Additionally, each pairs its medieval Christian text with a more contemporary philosophical text treating similar themes, and uses both the medieval and the contemporary text to illuminate the core concerns and impasses of the other. The third chapter reads Peter the Chanter’s Verbum abbreviatum together with Jacques Derrida; the fourth chapter reads Giles of Lessines’ De usuris in communi alongside Gilles Deleuze; the fifth chapter examines Peter Olivi’s rejection of the traditional framing of the argument in De contractibus alongside the work of Giorgio Agamben. The idea that usury is wrong because the usurer sells time, Olivi claims, conflates two times: common time, or the time that one ‘is;’ and proper time, or the time that one ‘has.’ What is at stake turns out to be an incapacity to distinguish between selling one’s time and selling one’s life—an incapacity that can only be bridged by means of a categorical distinction between debt and slavery. Thus, the concluding chapter suggests that it is the invention of race—understood as a difference between the capacity and the incapacity to relate autonomously to one’s own time—which underpins the difference between medieval and modern accounts of time and debt.