VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
AN INTEGRATED GEOCHRONOLOGICAL, PETROLOGICAL, GEOCHEMICAL AND PALEOMAGNETIC STUDY OF PALEOPROTEROZOIC AND MESOPROTEROZOIC MAFIC DYKE SWARMS IN THE NAIN CRATON, LABRADOR
Keywords: Geochemistry
Geochronology
Labrador
Mafic Dyke Swarms
North Atlantic Craton
Paleomagnetism

The Nain craton comprises the western, Labrador segment of the larger North Atlantic craton (NAC) which exposes Early through Late Archean gneisses. The NAC is bounded on all sides by Paleoproterozoic collisional orogens that involved either considerable structural reworking (Torngat-Nagssugtoqidian-Lewisian) or the accretion of juvenile arc magmas (Ketilidian-Makkovik). The NAC remains poorly understood compared to other Archean crustal blocks now dispersed globally. Compounding this problem is a lack of reliable paleomagnetic poles for NAC units that predate its assembly into the supercontinent Laurentia by ca. 1800 Ma, which could be used to test neighboring relationships with other cratonic fragments. In order to understand the history of the NAC as part of a possible, larger supercontinent, the record of mafic dyke swarms affecting the craton, particularly those that postdate the Late Archean terrane assembly, were examined in this study. Diabase or gabbroic dyke swarms are invaluable in such studies because their geometries offer possible locus points, they often have a punctuated emplacement and precisely datable crystallization histories, and they have cooling histories and oxide mineralogy amenable to recovering robust paleopoles. Coastal Labrador exposes a number of mafic dykes, some of which are demonstrably Paleoproterozoic (e.g. 2235 Ma Kikkertavak dykes; 2121 Ma Tikkigatsiagak dykes) or Mesoproterozoic (e.g. 1280-1270 Ma Nain and Harp dykes) in age (U-Pb; baddeleyite or zircon). The southern half of the Nain craton (Hopedale block) in particular preserves a rich array of mafic dykes. Dyke cross-cutting relationships are numerous and relatively well exposed, permitting multiple opportunities for paleomagnetic field tests (e.g. baked contact). The results presented here allow understanding of the tectonic evolution of the NAC with implications for strengthened Labrador-Greenland correlations, and testing possible Paleoproterozoic supercontinent reconstructions.
Nanostructured Microelectrodes for High-Activity Electrochemistry in Biosensing and CO2 Recycling
Keywords: Biosensing
CO2 Electroreduction
Electrochemistry
Lab-on-chip
Microfabrication
Nanostructured Microelectrodes

Electrochemical biosensors are promising candidates for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics, since they require neither costly instrumentation nor expert operators. However, for them to become widely used in a clinical setting, biosensors must be enhanced in sensitivity without increasing costs or compromising the speed of detection. The goal of this thesis is to realize this vision by promoting high-activity redox reactions via rational design of the size, shape and structure of electrodes. Incorporating nanostructures on the surface of microelectrodes greatly increases their surface area and reaction rates, while maintaining efficient diffusion of analytes to electrode surfaces. Here, by coupling optimized electrode morphology with an enzyme-based assay, I report on a new class of ultra-sensitive biosensors. I showcase the applicability of these sensors for POC diagnostics by incorporating them on a platform designed to isolate rare cells in biological samples. The integrated device is the first example of an electrochemical sensing platform capable of detecting cancer cells with clinically-relevant sensitivity and specificity. Decreasing the cost of POC diagnostic devices is vitally important for their adoption in low-resource settings. To that end, I advance a strategy to decrease the costs associated with the fabrication of nanostructured microelectrodes (NMEs). I present an image-reversal soft lithography (IRSL) technique based on an elastomeric stamping protocol, eliminating the need for costly photolithographic fabrication steps. The distinct morphology of the sensors made by IRSL improves access to the surface of the electrodes leading to enhanced performance in the detection of biomolecules. Overall, the strategies presented in this thesis can guide the development of low-cost, sensitive, and rapid diagnostic systems. Outside of biosensing, NMEs have potentially important applications in CO2 recycling. Realizing efficient CO2 conversion to chemical fuels is an important step towards reducing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and decreasing the carbon footprint of energy. Recently, our group reported highly-efficient electroreduction of CO2 to CO using nano-sharp Au structures. Here, I improve upon the performance of these structures by increasing the density of honed needle-like features on the surface of NMEs and demonstrate a 15-fold improvement in the reaction rates relative to the previously reported best results.
Maternal Effort, Food Quality, and Cortisol Variation During Lactation in Propithecus coquereli in Northwestern Madagascar
Keywords: Lactation
Lemurs
Life history
Madagascar
Maternal care
Nutritional ecology

The duration and quality of the infant care mothers provide is paramount to investigating life history theory. Maternal care is the principal determinant of infant survival and future reproductive success. Lactation is the most energetically expensive activity for mammals, in turn causing lactating females to compensate for drastically greater energy requirements. Lemur reproduction occurs under strict seasonal parameters to cope with harsh climatic conditions. I evaluated maternal behavioral care-giving effort towards infants over 26 postnatal weeks in Coquerelâ s sifaka (Propithecus coquereli) (n=10 infants, n=10 lactating females). Secondly, I evaluated the nutritional quality of foods consumed exclusively by lactating females (n=10). Lastly, I examined stress responses across sex and reproductive classes in earlier (weeks 1-12) versus later lactation (weeks 13-24) (n=10 lactating females, n=19 adult males, n=8 non-lactating adult females). I conducted fieldwork over two consecutive birth seasons (2010 and 2011) in Ankarafantsika National Park located in northwestern Madagascar. Earlier lactation occurs during the austral winter, and coincides with the seasonally driest time of the year. I quantified maternal care-giving by measuring infant transport position, carrier identity, and bodily contact. Nutritional food quality was measured by protein, fiber, energy (n=123), and mineral content (n=119). I quantified stress responses to determine how sex and reproductive classes respond to seasonal pressures and lactation by measuring cortisol variation in two lactation stages in lactating females (n=180), adult males, (n=133), and non-lactating adult females (n=62). Infants were more altricial relative to other lemurs of similar body size. Allomaternal care was documented, although mothers were the primary infant transporters. Lactating females most frequently selected foods high in non-protein energy, and regularly selected foods high in available protein and fiber. Lactating females had lower cortisol relative to adult males that approached statistical significance, and significantly lower cortisol than non-lactating adult females. Adult males had significantly higher cortisol during the earlier lactation stage in comparison to the later stage. Understanding the behavioral, nutritional, and endocrinological responses of lactating females provides a comprehensive view of how maternal energetics, infant care, and infant development are dynamically performing during the most energetically constraining time of year in a stochastic environment.
Founding Speech: Aristotle's Rhetoric as Political Philosophy
Keywords: Aristotle
Rhetoric

There is notoriously little agreement in the literature on Aristotle’s Rhetoric. While disputes about most every aspect of Aristotle’s argument abound, most scholars tend to agree on one general point. That is, most read the work as an attempt at discovering and describing the nature of rhetorical persuasion. The present study takes a different view: it maintains that the Rhetoric is better understood as an attempt at replacing the existing teaching and practice of rhetoric with one that is better suited for use within the deliberative institutions of political society. The Rhetoric, on this reading, is a work with a political project. This dissertation contributes to the literature in three distinct ways. First, it attempts to show that there is a significant rhetorical component to some of Aristotle’s most prominent arguments. It argues, among other things, that the first chapter of the work and the taxonomy of rhetoric presented in chapters two and three should not be taken at face value. Second, this study illustrates the extent to which concerns about legislation figure into Aristotle’s attempts at articulating an art of speech. Most readings conceptualize the problem of rhetoric as consisting in the relationship between rhetoric and collective judgment, taking the view that Aristotle’s solution lies in liberating judgment from a rhetorical practice that enmeshes it in some incongruous or inappropriate way. This study suggests that preserving the rule of law, protecting a state’s legislative institutions, and cultivating civic virtue, are among Aristotle’s chief concerns. Third, the present work also locates, what it considers to be, Aristotle’s non-rhetorical teaching about the nature of rhetorical persuasion.
The Dynamic Interplay of Epigenetics and Genetics in Selected DNA Mismatch Repair and Wnt Signaling Pathway Genes in Colorectal Cancer
Keywords: Colorectal Cancer
Epigenetics
Methylation
Mismatch repair
Single nucleotide polymorphisms

Colorectal cancers (CRC) undergo distinct genetic and epigenetic alterations, contributing towards chromosomal instability (CIN), microsatellite instability (MSI), and/or epigenetic instability (CpG island methylator phenotype). Two major pathways disrupted in CRC include upregulation of Wnt signaling and deficiency in DNA mismatch repair (MMR). MLH1, a MMR gene that corrects DNA replication errors, is frequently lost in CRC due to promoter CpG island hypermethylation leading to the MSI phenotype. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, rs1800734) in the MLH1 promoter is associated with MLH1 CpG island hypermethylation, decreased expression, and MSI in tumours. In this thesis, a novel association was discovered between variant SNP genotype and MLH1 CpG shore hypomethylation in normal tissues of CRC cases and control individuals, specifically in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and normal colon. Interestingly, no SNP-associated differences in methylation were observed in tumour DNA at the MLH1 shore. Chromatin immunoprecipitation studies of histone modifications in CRC cell lines revealed that the MLH1 shore may be a poised enhancer. The transcription factor AP4 was shown to bind only at the MLH1 promoter in wildtype and heterozygous cell lines but not in homozygous variant carriers of rs1800734, demonstrating a functional consequence of this polymorphism. To further explore epigenetic events between CRC subtypes the methylation status of two genes involved in Wnt signaling were assessed. Methylation of ITF2, a Wnt target gene, and APC, which inhibits Wnt signaling and is frequently mutated in CRC, was measured in two CRC patient populations. Both genes incurred tumour-specific methylation, with APC methylation occurring equally across CRC subtypes while ITF2 methylation was associated with MSI tumours. This thesis has investigated the functional epigenetic regulation occurring at key genes involved in DNA MMR and Wnt signaling, two pathways often dysregulated in CRC. This work provides insight into the regulation of CpG shores, how DNA variants play a role in epigenetics, and the contributions of DNA methylation to CRC subtypes and cancer susceptibility.
Image-based localization for mobile and vehicular applications
Keywords: Computer vision
Image
Indoor mobile applications
Localization
Signal processing
Vehicular application

We study the image-based localization problem in mobile and vehicular applications. The problem can be stated as `given a query image at an unknown location with some side information available regarding the camera and environment, how can one estimate the camera location with respect to a reference coordinates frame?'. The side information could be the query (or database) camera parameters, database of location-tagged images and/or measurements of some 3D dimensions. The problem has been well investigated in a number of literature works proposing methods for indoor and outdoor applications. We focus on the localization accuracy and complexity in this thesis and propose methods to improve them. Some of the proposed methods increase the location recognition rate, while others improve the (fine) localization accuracy. We also propose a robust and accurate method for outdoor scenarios. The majority of the image-based localization methods can be classified into two categories, i.e. landmark-based (e.g. logo-based) and image retrieval-based methods. We propose a semi-supervised formulation for the logo-based problem, which results in a considerable decrease in the median and variance of the localization error compared to the state-of-the-art, at the cost of adding controllable computational complexity. For the image retrieval-based approach, we propose an Epipolar geometry-based method to refine the localization estimate. The proposed method demonstrates greater accuracy, higher robustness to database locations sparsity as well as demonstrating extrapolation capability. For the indoor scenarios with no textured landmarks and/or repeated scenery, where both category of methods fail to localize the user accurately, we propose two localization methods utilizing OCR, called OCRAPOSE I and OCRAPOSE II. The proposed methods improve the localization accuracy, provide simplified training (i.e. side information acquisition) and lower localization complexity. For outdoor applications, we propose a two-dimensional robust localization method using the Google street view database, called 2DTriPnP. 2DTriPnP simplifies the complicated full 3D pose estimation by converting it to a 2D practical one and proposing a fast robust estimation method. It will be demonstrated in experiments that 2DTriPnP provides the great accuracy required in a number of outdoor scenarios such as safety in vehicular networks. Furthermore, it outperforms the 3D version in terms of the localization accuracy and complexity.
Influence of Maternal High Fat Diet, Stress and Cocaine on Neural Mechanisms of Reward and Anxiety in Rat Offspring
Keywords: anxiety
gene expression
hpa stress axis
maternal overnutrition
psychomotor activity

Maternal obesity has important health consequences for the mother and her offspring. Experiments presented in this dissertation explored the role of maternal overnutrition with a high fat diet (HFD) on several aspects of offspring phenotype: reward- and stress-related behaviours, the endocrine stress response, and associated neural gene expression. First, I examined maternal HFD effects on offspring phenotype in stress-related brain regions. Maternal HFD was associated with altered expression of stress-related genes, a heightened endocrine stress response and increased anxiety behaviour in adult offspring. Genes central to stress and drug addiction (TH and CRF) were upregulated in HFD offspring, suggesting that maternal HFD alters neural systems underlying related processes. Second, I investigated the role of maternal HFD on offspring phenotype following chronic cocaine exposure. Maternal HFD increased anxiety in saline-treated control females, reduced anxiety in cocaine-treated females, but did not interact with cocaine-primed locomotor activity or neural gene expression. These findings suggest that maternal HFD modulates offspring anxiety behavior with chronic cocaine exposure. Third, I investigated the role of maternal HFD and maternal stress on offspring phenotype given acute cocaine exposure. Maternal HFD did not interact with cocaine at the level of behavior or gene expression. However, there was an increase in locomotor activity in males exposed to maternal HFD, and with maternal stress at a high dose of cocaine. These findings suggest that, overall, maternal HFD and stress increase cocaine-induced locomotor activity in offspring through common but not identical neural mechanisms. Finally, in parallel I investigated the role of pre-gestational cocaine on offspring phenotype, and demonstrated an effect on the locomotor activating effects of cocaine in adult male offspring, as well as dopamine receptor 1 expression in the medial prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest increased sensitivity to cocaine in the male offspring of mothers given pre-gestational cocaine. The collective findings are discussed within a framework of maternal influences on cocaine sensitivity in offspring, wherein maternal HFD and pre-gestational cocaine confer increased sensitivity of stress- and reward-related responses in offspring.
Troubling Suicide: Law, Medicine and Hijra Suicides in India
Keywords: Death
Hijra
India
Law
Suicide
Transgender

Attempting suicide is a criminal offense in India, although in the recent past there have been many public and legal discussions considering decriminalizing suicide attempts. How is suicide conceptualized within criminal law? What are the knowledges that inform the complex and shifting views, claims, and legal decisions that constitute the legal regulation of suicide, in India today? Informed by Foucauldian works on governmentality and biopolitics, postcolonial studies, sociolegal scholarship, and queer theory, this dissertation attempts to answer these questions by tracing the discourses that inform the regulation of suicide in India and showing how they are put together (or kept apart) in various legal and governance networks. In addition to a systematic, original study of how suicide appears in criminal court decisions, law reform documents, and proposed laws, this dissertation also studies the framing of suicide within psychiatric and psychosocial public mental health programming. Along with studying the framing and the governance of suicide within law and medical systems, I also study a kind of suicide that exists at the edges of both medical and legal rights systems: hijra suicides. “Hijra” is a gender/sexual identity specific to the South Asian region that does not necessarily fit well under the label of ‘transgender’ (a label that has come into prominence in Indian rights law in recent years). Based on my fieldwork in Bangalore, I study hijra suicides to demonstrate that these experiences exist at the edges of both public health programs and rights/legal discourses. In existing at the fringes of all current forms of governmentality, I demonstrate that hijras continue to exert their personhood through expressing their experiences with suicide, which makes the more general point that sociolegal studies of medical-legal assemblages should not be reduced to studies of successful governmentalization.
Mental health professionals' practice of reintegration therapy for parent-child contact disputes post-separation: A phenomenological study
Keywords: Alienation
Child Custody
Divorce
Parent-Child Contact Problems
Reintegration Therapy
Therapeutic Interventions

Over the last decade, family courts have seen an increase in the number of parent-child contact problems and allegations of alienation. Children resisting or refusing contact with a parent post-separation pose considerable challenges to the mental health professionals tasked to work with them. Reintegration therapy (RT) has recently evolved to help ameliorate parent-child contact issues and alienation. However, little is known about what consensus exists on RT, or how it is defined and delivered by mental health practitioners. Limited evidence exists on treatment models, or evaluations of RT, and no standards or practice guidelines are available for the treatment of parent-child contact issues. The purpose of this study was to: 1) Explore how RT is defined and practiced among experienced mental health professionals in Canada and the United States; 2) identify underlying theory informing practitionersâ understanding of the issues and on clinical practice in RT; and 3) use findings for practice recommendations to advance knowledge for clinical practice with this population. To this end a hermeneutic, phenomenological design was chosen to elicit thick descriptions for a phenomenological analysis and theme development. A purposive sample of fourteen (14) practitioners was obtained. Initial analysis revealed substantial variance among practitioners' training, underlying theoretical frameworks, clinical approaches and service delivery models utilized. Three distinct themes/subthemes emerged from in-depth analyses representing a measure of consensus among respondents. First, RT is generally viewed as a therapeutic process to help improve family relationships as a whole. Second, participants identified frequently used assessment criteria necessary for determining suitability for RT. Finally, agreement on overall treatment goals for families participating in RT was identified. These study findings illustrate the need for more and better-developed training in RT, integrated theory development, and the creation of best practice guidelines based on scientific and rigorous evaluation preferably using a longitudinal approach.
Outcomes and Costs of Post-Acute Care Pathways in Hip Fracture Patients: Implications of Trade-Offs in Resource Allocation
Keywords: Health System Performance
Hip Fractures
Rehabilitation

There is a gap in evidence with respect to the delivery of quality post-acute care for hip fracture patients. The primary objective of this thesis is to describe the post-acute care pathways of hip fracture patients and their associated outcomes (i.e., mortality and re-hospitalizations) and health system costs. The secondary objective is to explore the use of system dynamics modelling to determine the impact of trade-offs in resource allocation on patient outcomes and health system costs. Population-level administrative databases were used to capture older adults admitted to acute care for hip fracture between 2008 and 2012 in Ontario, Canada. Study one describes the variation in post-acute care pathways for hip fracture patients and concluded that four health regions discharge a relatively higher proportion of patients to inpatient rehabilitation (IPR) compared to the remaining 10 health regions. In study two, patients discharged directly from acute care to the community (i.e., community patients) were matched to patients discharged directly from acute care to IPR (i.e., IPR patients). A substantially higher proportion of community patients died or re-hospitalized and had substantially lower health system costs compared to their matched IPR counterparts. Results of study three suggest that only 60% of community patients receive post-acute rehabilitation, and of the community patients who do receive it, they have substantially lower rehabilitation intensity and specialistsâ visits compared to their matched IPR counterparts, regardless of health region. Study fourâ s system dynamics model predicts the increased health system costs required to increase the number of hours of home-based rehabilitation to attenuate these differences in re-hospitalizations. Taken together, results suggest that the variations in hip fracture post-acute delivery are pervasive in Ontario and that the impact of this variation on patient outcome may be attenuated through increased allocation of resources to home-based rehabilitation. Results can be used by policymakers, clinicians, and researchers to further improve and understand the post-acute quality of care delivered to hip fracture patients.