VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Health-related Quality of Life in Children with Drug Resistant Epilepsy: A Focus on Risk Factors, Measurement, and Surgical Outcomes
Keywords: Epilepsy
Measurement
Pediatric
Quality of life
Risk factors
Surgery

Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is recognized as the most important outcome of any chronic health condition. Despite growing empirical interest in HRQOL outcomes, important knowledge gaps undermine the burgeoning literature, compromising the translation of findings to clinical care for children with drug resistant epilepsy. In response, this dissertation presents a comprehensive investigation of HRQOL in children with drug resistant epilepsy through three integrated objectives: (1) fine-tune the existing arsenal of HRQOL measures in pediatric epilepsy; (2) identify risk factors for HRQOL in children with drug resistant epilepsy; and (3) examine the influence of low intellectual ability on post-surgical change in HRQOL. Studies 1 and 2 examined HRQOL assessment in children with drug resistant epilepsy across research and clinical settings. Study 1 extended the validity of the Quality of Life in Childhood Epilepsy Questionnaire (QOLCE-55) to children with drug resistant epilepsy, including confirmation of the higher order factor structure; the findings contribute to the robust psychometric profile of the QOLCE-55 as a reliable and valid measure. Study 2 demonstrated promising evidence regarding the psychometric properties of a global measure of quality of life (QOL), a potentially useful tool that can be used by clinicians to evaluate the impact of treatment outcomes in children with drug resistant epilepsy. Study 3 investigated correlates of HRQOL in children with drug resistant epilepsy, finding that lower child IQ, fewer resources available to aid families and caregiver unemployment were uniquely associated with diminished HRQOL. These results highlight the dominant effect of psychosocial factors on child HRQOL, relative to epilepsy-related variables. Lastly, Study 4 assessed change in HRQOL after epilepsy surgery, with a focus on the role of intellectual ability. Our results suggest that children with low intellectual ability can expect to achieve similar post-operative improvements in HRQOL compared to those with normal intelligence. In sum, the four studies included in this dissertation address and overcome many gaps in the literature on pediatric epilepsy and HRQOL. This body of work provides necessary and novel evidence with the potential to improve prognostication, inform presurgical counselling, and identify targets for therapeutic interventions in children with drug resistant epilepsy.
Semi-parametric Methods to Aid in the Detection and Characterization of Distant Worlds around Small Stars
Keywords: exoplanets
Gaussian processes
low mass stars
statistical models
stellar activity
terrestrial planets

Statistical studies of the exoplanet population have provided key insights into their formation histories and evolution. Developing an understanding of the planet formation process requires both accurate and precise measurements of fundamental planetary parameters such as their masses, radii, and orbital characteristics. Planetary systems orbiting low mass stars represent superlative opportunities to characterize exoplanets in detail as they are plentiful within the solar neighbourhood and they are known to commonly host multi-planet systems of terrestrial to Neptune-sized planets that are more easily detectable than similar planets around Sun-like stars. One major deterrent to the characterization of such planets is stellar activity and its manifestation in radial velocity (RV) measurements that can mask and even mimic planetary signals. In this thesis, I develop and implement a formalism aimed at enabling the detection and precise and accurate characterization of planetary systems around low mass stars. This formalism is based around semi-parametric Gaussian process (GP) regression models that are used to simultaneously model planets, in both RV and transit light curve observations, and the temporal covariance structure arising from stellar activity produced by magnetically active regions on the stellar surface. The GP formalism is applied to synthetic RV datasets emulating the upcoming planet detection survey using the near-infrared spectropolarimeter SPIRou and to synthetic optical and near-infrared measurements of the expected population of transiting planets discovered with TESS. I also apply the GP formalism to activity modelling in the K2-18 planetary system from which an accurate and precise planetary mass of its transiting temperate sub-Neptune is inferred along with the presence of an additional planet in the system using RV measurements from HARPS and CARMENES. Lastly, I extend the GP formalism to the treatment of stellar photometric variability and systematic effects in TESS light curves and uncover a number of candidate transiting planets around low mass stars in the first two TESS sectors. Applications of GPs for the detection and characterization of exoplanets will prove to be a crucial tool for developing a global understanding of planet formation and in revealing how common the conditions for life like our own are within our galaxy.
Sharing Responsibility for Social Welfare Provision between Companies and the State: A Comparison of Brazil and India
Keywords: Brazil
corporate social responsibility
development
India
non-state welfare
welfare state

In the Global South non-state actors sometimes provide more collectively desirable goods than the state. This includes the engagement of companies through corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects, but an unexplored question remains: under conditions of limited state capacity, how do state and business actors interact in the evolution of systems of social welfare provision? To answer this question, I consider Brazil and India. While existing literature on the relationship between business and the state has found the two to be similar cases, research reveals divergent trends in both how these states promote corporate engagement in social welfare provision, and in how companies take on such roles. I show that Brazil supports social welfare largely through the expansion and universalization of state programs, and promotes CSR through taxation, lending policies and legal arbitration mechanisms. India includes business actors in socioeconomic development to a greater degree and has passed legislation that requires companies to spend a portion of profits on community development in the form of CSR projects. I show that this empirical variation can be explained with reference to three factors: state capacity, prevailing ideas about which actors hold responsibility for social welfare provision, and the historical institutionalization of CSR. State capacity is a permissive condition. Under conditions of limited state capacity, the interplay of prevailing notions of citizenship and ideas about how business and the state should interact combine to shape differing notions of responsibility. In India, the norm that responsibility should be shared between state and corporate actors exists, while in Brazil the state has come to be seen as holding primary responsibility for social welfare. These ideas have subsequently shaped both state policies towards CSR, and companies’ willingness to engage in socioeconomic development. I argue that the Indian state is developing a liberal CSR regime that promotes company engagement in CSR, while also granting companies leeway over their engagement. Companies have responded by expanding their role in delivering collectively desirable goods. The Brazilian state, on the other hand, is developing a statist CSR regime under which the state seeks to maintain control over company involvement in socioeconomic development.
Cannabis Use Through a Developmental Lens: Perceptions of Cannabis Use in Emerging Adulthood
Keywords: Cannabis
Clinical Psychology
Developmental
Emerging Adulthood
Qualitative
Quantitative

Rates of cannabis use are highest during emerging adulthood (EA) relative to other age groups, and researchers have found that involvement with substances influences EAs’ perceptions of this time of life. However, there is limited empirical research on how the experience of EA influences perceptions of cannabis use. Using a mixed methods approach, this research examined perceptions of cannabis use in EA and the relationship between cannabis use and critical tasks associated with this developmental period. In Study One, 182 EAs completed an online survey that examined relationships between the developmental context and cannabis use. Results of multivariate analyses indicated that certain core features of EA were associated with cannabis use problems, but not frequency of cannabis use. Specifically, viewing EA as a time of instability and cannabis use as related to this instability was associated with greater cannabis problems. Non-daily to daily use of cannabis was associated with viewing EA as a time to focus on others – a feature not typically associated with EA. In Study Two, 20 semi-structured interviews were completed in which EAs with current, lived experience using cannabis were interviewed about their conceptualizations of cannabis use and connections between their cannabis use and EA. Cannabis use was described according to whether problems were experienced, reasons for using cannabis, social context, frequency and quantity, and use in combination with other substances. The majority of the sample related their cannabis use to the developmental features of EA; however, they spoke about Arnett’s (2005) features in overlapping ways, rather than as mutually exclusive categories. Participants believed the conditions of EA were conducive to cannabis use, and used cannabis to regulate their EA experience and facilitate self-reflective practices. They also recognized ways in which cannabis use could interfere with their development. Conclusions. In this research, EAs described a breadth of cannabis use experiences, and most viewed their cannabis use as connected in some way to the developmental period of EA. The theoretical implications of these current findings for Arnett’s framework and the clinical implications for assessment, referral, and treatment of cannabis use are discussed.
Acetazolamide potentiates the anti-tumor efficacy of sulforaphane and HDAC inhibitor, MS-275, on bronchial carcinoids and neuroblastoma
Keywords: acetazolamide
bronchial carcinoids
carbonic anhydrase
MS-275
neuroblastoma
sulforaphane

Bronchial carcinoids (BC) and neuroblastoma (NB) are subgroups of neuroendocrine tumors of the lung and peripheral nervous system, respectively. BC present mainly in adults, and NB in children. BC accounts for 1–5% of all invasive lung malignancies and the atypical variant has a poor prognosis. NB accounts for 7-8% of all childhood cancers portending
Big Boys, Physical Education, and the Ethics of Bodily Difference: A Poststructural Analysis
Keywords: Bodies
Boys
Ethics
Fat
Gender
Physical education

The purpose of this thesis was to explore: 1) body, health, and movement discourses – particularly those advanced by the physical education and biomedical health communities – that shaped the embodied movement experiences of boys, with a focus on bigger boys; 2) how boys negotiated accusations of fatness, discourses of health, and what I have termed physical education-through-sport; and, 3) how we might move forward ethically in the conceptualization of embodiment and encounters with bodily difference. Making selective use of authors and theories in the process of plugging in (Jackson Mazzei, 2012), I used a theoretical framework informed by poststructuralist theory and a philosophy of the limit (Cornell, 1992; Pronger, 2002). Working with six boys ages 12 to 14 years old, I employed semi-structured interviews, participant observation sessions (developed as part of a physical activity program specific to this study), and focus groups to theorize a shift from fatness to bigness that redeemed oversized bodies as intelligible in gendered constructions of masculinity. For the boys in this study, constructions of health and physical activity were more strongly connected to mental health concerns and maintaining positive social relations than to disease prevention and ill-health. These understandings opened up a space to conceptualize ethical encounters with bodily difference that challenged dominant constructions of the individual, separate, independent, sovereign self. Drawing on a philosophy of the limit (Cornell, 1992), a conceptualization of the connected, self-in-relation was proposed in terms of the ethic of alterity (Cornell, 1992; Pronger, 2002). This is an ethic of compassionate openness that endorses encounters with ‘difference’ without fear of otherness. In this view, this ethic of alterity confronts the territorialisation of difference present in discourses of (systemic) inclusion by conceptualizing an already interrelated and interdependent self as a condition of subjectivity.
Extinction, Fixation, and Invasion in an Ecological Niche
Keywords: extinction rate
first passage time
Lotka-Volterra
niche overlap
rare event statistics
stochastic processes

The competitive exclusion principle postulates that due to abiotic constraints, resource usage, inter-species interactions, and other factors, ecosystems can be divided into ecological niches, with each niche supporting only one species in steady state. Seemingly in conflict with this principle, remarkable biodiversity exists in biomes such as the human microbiome, the ocean surface, and every speck of soil. Despite their importance in human health and conservation biology, the long term dynamics, diversity, and stability of communities of multiple interacting species that occupy similar niches are still not fully understood. Biodiversity decreases as species go extinct and increases as new species establish themselves, and both extinction and invasion are moderated by interactions with other species. Classically, the theory of niches describes biodiversity, as relatively static. More recently popular, neutral theory models biodiversity as a balance of successive extinctions and invasions. Stochastic fluctuations allow mathematical models, like the neutral Moran model, to exhibit extinction. Stochasticity also connects neutral and niche theories, with Moran dynamics being one limit of a Lotka-Volterra model. The extinction times in the neutral and niche limits are qualitatively different, indicative respectively of exclusion and coexistence of two species, yet the transition between these limits has not been fully investigated. I identify the nature of the transition by calculating the mean extinction time with an arbitrarily accurate technique, discovering that competing species can coexist unless their ecological niches entirely overlap, which implies that extinction and loss of biodiversity is less common than predicted by neutral models. Biodiversity is also maintained by new species entering the system, a process I represent with a single invader in the Lotka-Volterra model and repeated immigrants into the Moran model. I demonstrate that greater niche overlap leads to longer invasion times, and less likelihood of success of an invasion attempt. With the Moran model I find the critical immigration rate at which immigrants are likely to maintain their presence in the system.
Technology-based Intervention in L2 Reading Comprehension: Toward Digital Scaffolding
Keywords: Adjunct question
Digital scaffolding
educational technology
L2 reading comprehension
Pathfinder Network Scaling
Technology-based interventions

Technology has created abundant resources and opportunities for language learners to enhance their reading comprehension competencies. Despite an increase in access to written input, reading comprehension has stayed challenging for many, including language learners. Digital scaffolding can contribute to improving reading comprehension skills for L2 learners. Motivated by such a premise, in this study, alternative implementations of digital scaffolding have been tested in an English as a Foreign language (EFL) context and their impacts assessed. Two digital scaffolding interventions were examined including contextual conversation (COC) and adjunct questions (AJQ). A total of 172 EFL students read two reading passages in three different conditions: COC, AJQ, and control. In COC, a conversation focused on the primary concepts of the text was included prior to reading the passages. In AJQ, six questions were inserted within each of the reading passages. The assessments included Pathfinder Network Scaling, multiple-choice questions, fill in the Blank test, familiarity question, and interest question. The results of the study provided evidence that both of the treatments were effective with statistically significant differences between the COC group and controls on most measures and statistically significant differences between the AJQ group and controls on some measures. Furthermore, Pathfinder scaling revealed both treatment groups displayed a better organization of the passage according to the graph representation. However, the COC group displayed fewer missing links than the AJQ group and the network properties of the COC were more similar to the network properties identified by experts for both passages. Additionally, the study measured the participants’ overall use of reading strategies using the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS). The findings suggested a medium use of reading strategies by the study participants. The overall findings suggest that although both interventions have potential, COC may be a more potent strategy than AJQ for EFL learners. In light of the fact that reading is a critical skill determining school success, the present study contributes to the evidence that digital scaffolding can successfully be implemented as an intervention to improve learners’ reading comprehension.
Seeing Like a Farmer: Socioecological Complexity of Constructing and Maintaining Ecologically Integrated Smallholder Family Farms
Keywords: Agrarian Change
Agrarian Studies
Ecological Farming
Nepal
Organic Farming
South Asia

This dissertation investigates the political-ecological conditions that led to the emergence and spread of ecological farming practices in Nepal’s Chitwan Valley. It takes a conjunctural approach to examine the spread of different ecological practices in different periods and the roles played by households, government institutions and others in this process of change. The dissertation draws upon data generated through an interdisciplinary qualitative research which utilized mixed-methods including a year-long ethnographic field research in Nepal, primary and secondary literature review, personal experiences, observation, and formal and informal interviews. This dissertation shows that the adoption of ecological farming practices resulted from different conjunctural changes within the farming households and beyond. The major factors within the households that pushed for the adoption of ecological practices were: the reduced availability of household labour as children spent increasing amount of time in schools and adults engaged in off-farm activities, the decline of formal and informal access to common pool resources such as grazing lands and forests, and the perceived and/or real biophysical shifts such as intractable pest damage of crops, beneficial effects of multi-cropping, and degradation of soil by the use of chemical fertilizers. These changes were also possible because of changes beyond the households: specific policies and programs adopted by national government agencies, international development agencies, and, after 1990s, non-governmental organizations. These policies included direct support such as through cash subsidies (for biogas) and free distribution of saplings, educational and training programs on ecological management of farms, and formal and informal exchanges of ideas and experiences of ecological practices among farmers. This dissertation also shows that Increased commodification of other aspects of households, such as the education of children, construction of modern homes, and health care, has created challenges for ecological farming. Differentiated capacity for diversification of resource generation such as through migration and off-farm income shapes the possibility for the maintenance of the ecological farms. This dissertationI has developed the rubric of ‘seeing like a farmer’ as a conceptual tool to critically assess and examine this phenomenon. This framework integrates 'society' and 'nature,' and expands the focus beyond 'agricultural sector'.
The Role of UNC-129 in Axon Guidance and Cell Migration During Caenorhabditis elegans Development
Keywords: Axon guidance
C. elegans
Cell migration
Netrin guidance
UNC-129
UNC-130

The UNC-6/netrin pathway plays an important role in cell migration and axon guidance. Ventral sources of UNC-6 guide axons from the ventral to dorsal surface by activating the repulsive UNC-5 receptor and UNC-40 co-receptor, and from dorsal to ventral by activating the attractive UNC-40 receptor. In C. elegans, UNC-129 is a TGF-beta family member expressed in dorsal body wall muscles and is thought to promote the interaction between UNC-5 and UNC-40 for long range repulsion away from ventral sources of UNC-6, while inhibiting UNC-5-alone function. The promotion of UNC-5+UNC-40 signaling could act to increase sensitivity where the UNC-6/netrin concentration is relatively low away from its source. unc-130 encodes a transcription factor that represses expression of unc-129 ventrally. In an unc-130(ev505) mutant, UNC-129 is ectopically expressed, effectively abolishing the gradient of UNC-129 causing migration and axon guidance defects. This project aims to provide better understanding of the UNC-129 pathway by 1) investigating potential UNC-129 receptors and 2) characterizing suppressors of ectopic UNC-129 function. PUR-7 is a candidate UNC-129 receptor discovered in silico that shares similarity to the extracellular domain of canonical TGF-beta receptors. A deletion of genomic DNA that deletes pur-7 and part of the neighbouring srd-4 gene enhances the distal tip cell migration and axon guidance defects of a hypomorphic unc-5 allele, and enhances the migration defects of the unc-130 mutant. Efforts to disentangle the genetic interaction of pur-7 from srd-4 were unfortunately not fruitful. The sup7-2 mutant suppresses distal tip cell migration defects in the unc-130(ev505) mutant, suggesting a role in the UNC-129 pathway. Using mapping and bioinformatical analysis, sup7-2 was located to a genomic region between 5-6 Mb on chromosome X. There are mutations in five candidate genes in this region: ifa-4, tbc-7, gakh-1, actl-1 and C03B1.1. RNAi knockdown of gakh-1 and tbc-7 have an effect on unc-130(ev505) DTC migration defects. Injection of fosmids containing tbc-7 rescue the suppression by sup7-2. Although tbc-7 is likely the sup-7-2 gene, both candidates have an effect on DTC migration and are of interest for future study.