VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Identification keys and the natural method: The development of text-based information management tools in botany in the long 18th century
Keywords: Plants, History
Botany, History

Botany was undergoing an information overload crisis in the late 17th century. By the beginnings of the 18th century, there were over 18,000 described kinds of plants---far too many for anyone to memorize. Botanists coped by shifting to text-based ways of organizing information about plants called "systems" or "methods."Initially, botanists produced arrangements of plants meant to be simultaneously as congruent with nature as possible and as easy to use for plant identification. Over time, they saw that it would be more efficient to switch to using separate schemes optimized to perform each of these functions. These schemes grew into the natural method, reflective of plants' relationships, and identification keys, which are easier to use. Proponents of the two technologies split into rival camps. A mismatch between theory and practice in the 18th century hampered meaningful discussion about classification until the turn of the 19th century. At that time, when botanical instruction in France surged in the wake of the French Revolution, botany teachers combined the natural method and identification keys with alphabetical indexes to create the format of the modern field guide. This innovation was not accepted in Great Britain for another generation due to cultural and political factors. During the long 18th century, botanists had to overcome many technological and psychological obstacles, including the high cost of illustrating texts, difficulties in obtaining complete specimens, a lack of terminological and other standards, and prejudices against textual features that enhance readers' ability to search for information. Stumbling blocks preventing a balanced historical evaluation of the origin of botanical classifications, such as the reading back of disciplinary boundaries into the past, misunderstandings of terminology, and philosophical prejudices about what is important in history, are also examined. The work ends with a discussion of the multiple invention of a classificatory technology and its implications for the history of science.
Instruction as service or commodity: the outsourcing of education
Keywords: Education, Aims and objectives
Education, North America
School choice, North America
Education, Economic aspects
Education, North America
Education and state, North America

The education system has traditionally provided instruction as a public service. But increasingly, instruction is treated as a commodity in the continuum of educational goods and services such as textbooks, bussing, and speech pathology. This work identifies changes in societal beliefs that impact the educational system, examines the expanding Education Industry---particularly in relation to two companies, Sylvan and Berlitz, and reports on findings (regarding benefits and problems for students, schools and administrators) that emerge from interviews the author conducted with 18 administrators from schools using the services of these companies. Inquiry in this field has been limited. This dissertation presents an extensive agenda for future scholarship including the critical question of the purpose of a public education system in modern society.
The marvelous in stories and the magic of the mind: the role of the imagination in learning and knowing
Keywords: Imagination
Marvelous, The
Marvelous, The, in literature
Learning

Across diverse literary genres, from fairy tales to magic realism, there exists a collection of stories infused with the marvelous, here called marvelous stories. In an unfolding of texts and images, this work recreates an arts-based, postmodern self-study of marvelous stories and their intimate connection with the human mind. The reader will encounter quotes from marvelous stories the author has read, the author's own creative writing and photography, journal entries, and academic speculations. These texts combine to present the author's experience: Freedom from the rules of reality provoked a freedom in her thinking, releasing her intuitive knowledge through the marvelous. An examination of concepts such as intuition, imagination, meaning, metaphor, and language locate this study amidst the philosophies of literary criticism, postmodernism, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and epistemology. Gradually, an argument evolves for the marvelous story as an arts-based education tool that retrains us to think with the whole self.
Development of an oral health-related quality of life measure for the Malaysian adults population: cross-cultural adaptation of the Oral Health Impact Profile
Keywords: Mouth, Care and hygiene
Mouth, Malaysia
Mouth, Care and hygiene
Mouth, Canada
Dental care
Dental care, Canada
Quality of life, Malaysia
Quality of life, Canada

The main aim of this project was to develop an OHRQoL measure for the Malaysian adult population aged 18 and above by adapting the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP). It also aimed to compare two methods (frequency and regression) of developing a short form of the measure, to provide preliminary data on the impact of oral conditions on the quality of life of the adult population in Malaysia, and to compare these impacts between Malaysian and Canadian population aged 50 and above. The adaptation of this measure was based on the framework proposed by Herdman et al (1998). The OHIP was translated into the Malay language using a forward-backward translation technique. Thirty-six patients were interviewed to assess the conceptual equivalence and relevancy of each item. The adapted OHIP---L-OHIP(M)---contains 45 items. This questionnaire was pre-tested on 20 patients. A total of 171 respondents completed the short form [S-OHIP(M)] to assess the response format. The five-point frequency Likert scale could be used for Malaysian population. The preliminary results revealed that a substantial proportion of the sample included in this study experienced frequent psychological impacts associated with their oral conditions. The Malaysian population aged 50 and above had slightly higher impacts than Canadian population. However, the pattern of impacts was similar, where physical consequences were most affected and social aspects were the least affected. Both short forms (frequency and regression) performed equally well when tested for discriminative validity. However, the responsiveness of these measures was not tested in this present study. This could be one of the future research areas to determine which version will be superior in terms of detecting change. Field-testing was conducted in order to assess the suitability of two modes of administration (mail and interview) and to establish the psychometric properties of both the L-OHIP(M) and the S-OHIP(M). Both versions [L-OHIP(M) and S-OHIP(M)] were found to be valid and reliable. However, this study only provides initial evidence for the reliability and validity of these measures. Further study is recommended to collect more evidence to support the validity and reliability of these measures.
Design of an electrochemical cognitive system: A study and application of emergent spatio-temporal patterns in far from equilibrium nonlinear systems
Keywords: Chemistry, Analytic
Chemistry, Physical and theoretical

This thesis examines a fundamentally new form of information processing, one inspired by the brain and materialized through electrochemistry. The study was concerned with the electrodissolution dynamics of nickel in sulfuric acid electrolyte, where the anodic current responds to three dimensional changes in the electrolyte and surface conditions, giving rise to a multitude of spatio-temporal patterns. We were able to observe distinct changes in the evolution of dynamics with particular perturbation, and relate these patterns as a cognitive response to the inputs provided to the system. The thesis also aimed at clarifying what is meant by information processing by drawing on formalization used in computer science and information theory. By exploring the emerging theoretical field of pattern formation in nonlinear dynamical systems, we have demonstrated how transient dynamics and attractors in physical systems have all the necessary components to realize the formalization of information processing.
Autism as illness, autism as hope: two narratives
Keywords: Autistic children, Treatment
Autism in children, Behavior modification

This study compares the current biomedical narrative on autism as debilitating and incurable to an alternative optimistic narrative constructed by the Son-Rise program. Parents of children with autism who accept the medical narrative experience significant stress, while Son-Rise families claim to experience a high level of subjective well-being. The disconnect between the medical model's mechanistic account and the Son-Rise's phenomenological account is explored from an historical perspective that situates the current medical model within the context of scientific thought and the history of psychology. Empirical evidence from five Son-Rise families, including an interview with Son-Rise parents, explores their ability to actively and explicitly construct their own hopeful narrative in defiance of the standard medical account. This study illustrates how narratives that generate optimism have the power to effect real change in children with special needs.
Keeping the faith: the Jewish response to compulsory religious education in Ontario's public schools, 1944-1990
Keywords: Religious education, Law and legislation
Religious education, Ontario
Religion in the public schools, Law and legislation
Religion in the public schools, Ontario
Religious education, History
Religious education, Ontario
Religion in the public schools, History
Religion in the public schools, Ontario
Jews, Attitudes
Jews, Ontario
Religious minorities, Ontario

In 1944 Ontario Premier George Drew's minority Conservative government introduced compulsory religious education into the Province's public schools. The enabling legislation, the “Drew Regulation,” prescribed two one-half hour periods of religious instruction per week. A response to world-wide godlessness symbolized by Nazi Germany's crimes, remarkably, the Drew Regulation remained in place in Ontario for forty-six years. The wholesale implementation of the Drew Regulation throughout Ontario's public school system went beyond the need to balance the evil of war with the goodness of faith. Over time it became clear that the Regulation's benign terms which prescribed no specific religious preference was being used for decidedly doctrinal Protestant purposes. When predominantly Protestant Ontario issued little protest, by default, the task of opposing the Drew Regulation fell to the Jewish community. There was no realistic alternative. Other minority faith groups were small in number. Human rights organizations were only just beginning to appear. Moreover, after some initial anxiety, the general community's concern about the discriminatory aspects of the Drew Regulation rapidly dissipated. Emerging from an erstwhile immigrant persona, only a vigilant Jewish community was sensitive to the abuses visited on Jewish and other minority children by this Regulation. At times, hamstrung by its reticence to assume a high public profile, especially when this meant clashing with deeply-felt convictions of the general community, the Jewish community stayed the course. Finally, unable to balance its opposition to the Drew Regulation with increasing internal demands for Provincial funding of Jewish Day Schools, the Jewish community gratefully relinquished responsibility for determining the place of religious education in the public schools to the judicial system.
Fas-mediated apoptosis in prostate cancer: Gene therapy and synergism with chemotherapy
Keywords: Molecular biology
Medicine

The manipulation of the Fas apoptotic pathway presents a potential therapeutic approach for cancer. Many cancers, including those of the prostate, are known to express the Fas receptor and may be susceptible to killing through this pathway. This study investigates the feasibility of Fas-based therapeutic strategies for prostate cancer. Previous studies implementing FasL against prostate cancer used immortalized, metastasis-derived cell lines and, as such, may not predict the clinical response of prostate cancers to Fas-based therapies. To first measure the potential for human tumours to be killed by FasL, the apoptotic response of primary prostate cancer cell lines was assessed. These patient-derived cell lines were all found to express high levels of Fas receptor, and despite the presence of known inhibitors of apoptosis, underwent Fas-mediated cytotoxicity. Furthermore, these cells could be sensitized to killing by pre-treatment with the chemotherapeutic drugs mitoxantrone and docetaxel. While both drugs enhanced Fas expression on the prostate cell lines, improved cytotoxic response to FasL following docetaxel treatment was limited to Bcl-2-expressing cells. Only mitoxantrone was able to improve the cytotoxic response of all tested cell lines. As Fas up-regulation was likely not the only mechanism sensitizing cells to FasL, a further investigation was conducted into the perturbations induced by mitoxantrone at the protein level. A high-throughput shotgun proteomics study investigating the effects of mitoxantrone-treatment on primary prostate cancer cell lines revealed significant changes in expression of 136 proteins involved in diverse functions, including ceramide production, tumour suppression, and oxidative reduction. Data generated in this study also contribute to the definition of the human prostate cancer proteome. To develop the use of FasL as a treatment for prostate cancer, a gene therapy-based strategy was designed and tested. T lymphocytes were transduced with oncoretroviruses to express high levels of FasL or non-cleavable FasL and were shown to induce cytotoxicity in the murine prostate cancer cell line RM-1. Overall, the studies presented here show for the first time in primary prostate cancer models that Fas-based approaches may be feasible for the treatment of this disease. Combining Fas-based therapies with chemotherapeutic agents may add further efficacy to this approach.
Pin-on-flat sliding friction of aluminum on polytetrafluoroethylene coated aluminum
Keywords: Friction
Polytef
Aluminum

The sliding kinetic friction coefficient of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coated aluminum was investigated under varying conditions of applied load, sliding velocity, specimen temperature and chamber pressure. The measured frictional force was linearly dependent on applied load resulting in the friction coefficient being independent of applied load. The friction coefficient increased with increasing velocity from 0.027 at 1 mm/s to 0.047 at 8 mm/s. At low loads, no clear trend was established for the friction coefficient with respect to specimen temperature between 5 and 75°C. However, at higher loads, the friction coefficient decreased with increasing specimen temperature. The friction coefficient was independent of pressure resulting in values of 0.024 at 740 torr and 0.028 at 10−6 torr. Using several surface diagnostics, the specimen coating was found to comprise three layers containing PTFE, titanium, chromium, silicon and sulphur. Optical microscopy provided information on the types of friction and wear that occurred during testing.
Toward a feminist ethics of identity in technoscience
Keywords: Feminist ethics
Feminism
Sex differences
Gender identity
Science, Social aspects
Technology, Social aspects

In this thesis I explore the ways in which gender and identity are represented by various feminist critiques of technoscience. In so doing, I trouble how the rational political subject has appeared in scientific thinking over time. I outline, in preliminary fashion, a feminist ethics of identity in technoscience which brings together the intersubjective turn of ethics in Hannah Arendt's work with feminist theories of socially located gender identity. I review the work of feminist theorists of science (e.g. Helen Longino and Evelyn Fox Keller), and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, to explore gendered forms of social exclusion in technoscience. I argue that a feminist praxis of technoscience must involve intersubjective engagement between scientists and lay actors, responding to the need for both scientific and social justification. Keeping pedagogy in mind throughout, I posit a feminist ethical praxis in technoscience that could trouble current considerations of useful knowledge and influence how scientific decisions are made, through a model of intersubjective action informed by the work of feminist philosophers and political theorists.
Learning to be a teacher: a life history exploration
Keywords: Teachers, Training of
Teaching

This life history study explores how individuals learn to be teachers. Specifically, the investigation examines how two novice practitioners learned to be teachers before, during, and after their teacher education programs. It does this by analyzing four domains of teacher learning, that is, the participants' respective autobiographical foundations, teacher education programs, field practica and early inservice experiences. These four domains portray the significant events and individuals that shaped the two participants' teacher knowledge and beliefs. The study, therefore, argues that learning to be a teacher is both a temporal and contextual process that encompasses knowledge gleaned from childhood to the day one leaves the profession. The study's findings imply that there are several means to augment teacher learning such as: a thorough investigation of the contextual, personal, and practical aspects of teacher learning as well as the promotion of collegial and theme-directed learning.
Seeking the rule of law: constitutions. amnesties and truth commissions in Chile, South Africa and Ghana
Keywords: Rule of law
Constitutional law, Chile
Truth commissions, Chile
Constitutional law, South Africa
Truth commissions, South Africa
Constitutional law, Ghana
Truth commissions, Ghana

Countries in transition may choose to review their past with a truth commission and to frame their future with a constitution. Both truth commissions and constitutions are means to achieve or enhance the rule of law, but the relationship between the two mechanisms can be complicated when amnesty for human rights abusers is part of the transitional justice equation. Amnesties represent a tension in the attempt by transitional justice mechanisms such as truth commissions to achieve the rule of law in a given polity. This thesis explores the interplay between truth commissions and constitutions in Chile, South Africa and Ghana. It reviews the seeming contradiction of upholding a constitutional framework that contains a bar to accountability and suggests that the effect that transitional justice mechanisms have on one another must be taken into account in order to successfully re-entrench the rule of law in emerging democracies.
Mainstreaming indigenous peoples and indigenous knowledges into the public school system: A case study of Tubo Tubo Elementary School in Bataan, Philippines
Keywords: Aeta (Philippine people), Education (Elementary)
Aeta (Phillippine people), Science
Aeta (Phillippine people), Attitudes
Ethnoscience, Phillippines
Public schools, Phillippines

This study is about a Filipino indigenous tribe called the Aetas and their experience of coping and survival in the public education system that is a product of over four hundred years of colonization of the Philippines. Amidst the loud cry by other indigenous groups in the Philippines for a culture-based education or the recognition and implementation of the indigenous education system, the Aetas in Bataan, oblivious to these efforts, have no other choice but to integrate into the mainstream system of education. In the process, they are faced with various factors that enable or disable their participation, performance and survival in the said system. These factors range from the students themselves, to the teacher, their parents, school and supporters. Culture proved to be an insignificant factor to the Aetas' education, however, the majority of the Filipino IPs think otherwise.
Truth and hue: critical inquiry into the discourse of blackness
Keywords: Racism
Racism in language
Black race, Color
Blacks, Race identity

This thesis queries the complexity of hue in order to understand how racism when internalized, brings a form of self-regulation onto the accorded black body. The inquiry seeks to ascertain ways in which hue is interpreted as the 'Truth' and imputes the ethic of colonialism onto the body. The study is meant as a response to the question submitted by Frantz Fanon, "How do we extricate ourselves?" The thesis utilizes an anti-racism discursive framework and Michel Foucault's work on discourse, power and the subject to examine Frantz Fanon's Black Skin White Mask and Toni Morrison's Sula. The thesis is intended to inform anti-racism methodology, and also to imbue a sense of critical discernment on how hue and gender constitute the way in which social relations are experienced.
Children in the spotlight: emotional correlates of cooperative performance in early adolescence
Keywords: Group work in education
Performance, Psychological aspects
Performing arts, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Performing arts, Study and teaching (Secondary)
Performing arts and youth
Emotions in adolescence

It is generally recognized that emotions play a part in the adjustment of children to school. Less is known, however, about the relationship between emotions and cooperative performance, a crucial issue with today's greater emphasis on cooperative learning in the classroom. Participants for this comparative study were recruited from schools for the performing arts, a regular school's music programme, and a precision skating team, thereby sampling a range of commitment and expertise. During the week of stage production, adolescents (52 boys, 140 girls, ages 11-15) kept structured emotion diaries (Oatley & Duncan, 1994) which they filled out both before and after a final rehearsal, as well as before and after the actual performance. Proportions of positive versus negative emotions were significantly different as a function of performance condition, Q = 50.87, df = 3, p < .0001. Negative emotions in rehearsal were due to fatigue, boredom, fear of appearing foolish in front of peers, frustration with technical mishaps, or anger with authority figures for unreasonable directives or unfair criticism. Positive emotions after rehearsal or performance were, of course, contingent upon successful outcome. Prior to performance, adolescents were susceptible to anticipatory anxiety--highest for the most expert performers. For the performance process as a whole, however, happiness was by far the most frequently experienced emotion. This phenomenon is in accordance with Csikszentmihalyi & Larson's (1984) finding that arts and sports were the most intrinsically rewarding activities for teenagers. Performance groups differed significantly, not in pre-performance anticipation, but in post-event evaluation, chi2 (4, N = 178) = 52.85 and 70.88, respectively, ps < .0001. These results support Oatley's (1992) emphasis on cognitive evaluation in emotion and Gordon's (1990) distinction between factive and epistemic emotions. Performers were not overwhelmed by their emotions. On the contrary, they demonstrated a rational focus on issues central to their performance task. This finding is consistent with a goal-based theoretical position (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1996). Diaries reflected a pattern of progression from rehearsal to final production: Emotions appeared to be playing a functional role in the process of preparation, evaluation, and management of cooperative performance.