VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
When Global Ideas Meet Local Contexts: The Case of Girls' Education in Urban Pakistan
Keywords: Bourdieu’s field theory and habitus
Girls’ education
Global education policy
Institutional logics
Isomorphism and loose coupling
Legitimacy

Global commitments to achieve gender equality in education are promoting a convergence of educational aims, policies and practices across nation-states, including those in the developing world. This study attempts to understand ways that global-level concepts related to girls’ education are interpreted in local contexts. Its overarching question is: how are global policy scripts that promote girls’ education interpreted or “refracted” by a diverse group of urban actors and elites in a developing nation-state? Specifically, this dissertation examines how three global concepts related to girls’ education – “equality and inclusion”, “value and purpose” and “empowerment” are re-interpreted by local actors. Its conceptual framework has two components: one for understanding converging meanings, and one for diverging meanings. It draws on several theoretical frameworks: institutional pillars, institutional logics, World Society theory, concerted cultivation and Bourdieu’s concepts of field theory and habitus. Data were collected through participant observations and 26 semi-structured interviews with urban parents, non-governmental organizations and policy actors. Two Pakistani cities were chosen to conduct interviews because they are key sites for observing dialectical relations between urban families and institutions and global policy prescriptions.Findings suggest that the refraction of global policies for educating girls into local understandings are guided by the parameters set by institutions of family, religion and state, each of which has its own logic that, when combined, creates a contested terrain for attaining gender equality through education. Parents aspire to cultivate a set of legitimized schooling, professional, and behavioural goals in their daughters. Policy actors recognize that standard global prescriptions may not fit well in local contexts but collaborate with partner institutions to attain legitimacy. As a result, policy actors focus more on gender parity than girls’ actual educational experiences. The study advances understandings of the issues of ‘what works’ in comparative girls’ education without neglecting ‘how it works and for whom.’ It highlights the roles of cultural- cognitive institutions and overlapping institutional identities of actors when they enact global education policy at local levels. By focusing on gendered dimensions of class reproduction processes, it extends theories of cultural capital and concerted cultivation by applying them to non-western settings.
International Students' Social-emotional Experiences in Ontario Elite Boarding Schools
Keywords: Critical Democracy
Culture
Elite Boarding School
International Students
Social Justice Education
Social-Emotional Experiences

The current Westernized definition and approaches to understanding social-emotional experiences are insensitive to cultural differences, and individuals from diverse backgrounds—including international students—are undergoing processes of marginalization, stereotyping, identity crisis, and various forms of racism as a consequence (Castro-Olivo & Merrell, 2012; Graves et al., 2017; Khalifa, Gooden & Davis, 2016; Khawaja & Stallman, 2011; Lee & Opio, 2011; Lee & Rice, 2007; Marginson, 2012; Rodriguez-Izquierdo, 2018; Slaten et al., 2016; Smock, 2013). Thus, this critical phenomenological research aims to address the evident gap in the literature by acknowledging the complex phenomenon of international students’ social-emotional experiences within a particular context of elite institutions while creating an opportunity for the students to talk about such experiences through their own voices. As a qualitative study, the main research question asks, How do international students in Ontario elite boarding schools understand/interpret their social-emotional experiences in such schools with particular emphasis on issues of “culture” (race, ethnicity, language, values, and beliefs)? Fifteen participants who have attended and graduated from Ontario elite boarding schools as international students were interviewed and the data collected have been analyzed from a critical democratic education perspective interpreted from a social justice lens. This research is significant, as it provides a different contextualization through a newly developed ‘Holistic Model,’ which captures a comprehensive picture of international students’ experiences through three chronological phases beginning from their entry into elite boarding schools to exit and examines the correlation between the three dimensions constituting students’ social-emotional experiences: multiculturalism and diversity, relationship building, and sense of belonging. Findings demonstrate that social-emotional experiences are fluid constructs that occur amongst the intersection of two or more dimensions and that “cultural cliques” is the most important determinant leading to positive experiences. Those students who had such a support network were able to develop a bicultural identity while the others without suffered from a cultural identity crisis and went through assimilation, internalization, and/or double marginalization. Furthermore, this study analyzes the role of capitalism and neoliberalism in students’ experiences, especially regarding the commodification of education and concealment of racism, justification of categorization, and hierarchical teacher-student relationship.
Persuasive Strategies for Social Robots Engaged in Human-Robot Interaction
Keywords: Adaptive Learning
Human-Robot Interaction
Persuasion
Persuasive Strategies
Robotics
Social Robots

As the scope of robotic applications in our world continues to grow, the integration of robots into everyday tasks requires not only functional, but also social intelligence around human behaviours such as persuasion. This ever-present behaviour is a critical component of human interactions yet has seen minimal research in human-robot interaction (HRI). The objective of this thesis is to understand how people respond to and are influenced by a social robot’s use of a variety of persuasive strategies commonly used in human interactions. This thesis achieves this through a combination of social HRI studies designed to uncover insight about people’s interactions with persuasive robots and through the application of this knowledge into the development of an adaptive learning architecture for robot persuasion. Several studies describe the investigation of a robot’s use of common persuasive dimensions such as rationale for compliance, communication explicitness, sanction use, and authoritative locus of control. These studies highlight the efficacy of emotional persuasive strategies, the importance of less direct persuasive communication, the value of using rewards to encourage compliance, and the challenge of a persuasive robot acting authoritatively. Building upon these studies, this thesis also describes the development of a hierarchical learning architecture for adaptive persuasion in HRI. This architecture is based upon a well-established psychological framework for how people process persuasive attempts and allows for a robot to adapt its persuasive behaviour to both the static and dynamic factors of a person. The architecture uniquely separates these factors into a hierarchical learning structure, using a contextual bandit approach to optimize a top-level policy for selecting abstract actions that align to static cognitive biases and a Q-learning approach to optimize for the selection of lower-level primitive actions based on a person’s dynamic affective state. Simulated experiments show the improved learning speed and robustness of this architecture over a non-hierarchical benchmark. Between this architecture and the HRI studies performed, this thesis builds an understanding about what makes a robot persuasive and strives to create a more effective adaptive learning approach for use in persuasive HRI, allowing robots to be more effective in real-world, social interactions.
Characterization of the RavA-ViaA Chaperone Complex and its Association with the Fumarate Reductase Respiratory Complex
Keywords: antibiotic persistence
ATPase
chaperone
co-evolution
respiration
VWA domain

Regulatory ATPase variant A (RavA) is a prokaryotic ATPase chaperone that plays a role in two important cellular pathways. In the model bacterium E. coli, it is linked to acid stress response and cellular respiration. However, details regarding its cellular function and mechanism of action remain elusive. RavA forms a two-gene operon which also encodes for the protein ViaA (VWA-interacting with AAA+ ATPase). ViaA contains a Von-Willebrand factor A (VWA) domain. Here, an evolutionary and functional insight into the RavA and ViaA relationship was sought. Phylogenetic analyses were used to contextualize the partnership between RavA and ViaA. The species spread for RavA and ViaA was defined using genomic data. These two proteins were shown to evolve together, across a subgroup of the Gram-negative Gammaproteobacteria. Experimentally, the E. coli proteins were used to infer the roles of RavA and ViaA. A mutational analysis was used to map the direct association between RavA and ViaA. The middle domain of ViaA was shown to enhance the ATPase activity of RavA. In searching for substrates of RavA-ViaA, the two proteins were discovered to interact with a subunit of the fumarate reductase (Frd). Frd is an enzyme of the bacterial respiratory complex that catalyzes the reduction of fumarate to succinate. The characterization for the interaction of RavA-ViaA with Frd is described. ViaA was found to act as an adaptor to mediate the association between RavA and the FrdA subunit of fumarate reductase. The VWA domain of ViaA was required for its association with FrdA. Interestingly, the enzymatic activity of Frd was inhibited in the presence of RavA-ViaA. Moreover, this RavA-ViaA-Frd association was linked to bacterial persistence under antibiotic stress. In select kanamycin treated media, the presence of the fumarate reductase enzyme was associated with increased persistence to the antibiotic. The survival was mitigated by the presence of RavA-ViaA. The novel interaction established with FrdA, and the associated antibiotic-survival phenotype, suggest that the RavA-ViaA proteins are modulators of respiratory enzymes. The discoveries made here provide an exciting insight into the functional aspects for RavA-ViaA chaperone complex.
The King’s Sick Body: The Spiritual and Social Implications of Arnau of Vilanova’s Regimen Sanitatis
Keywords: Arnau of Villanova
Blanca of Anjou
Jaume II
Medieval medicine
Regimen sanitatis

In 1305, the physician Arnau of Vilanova composed the Regimen sanitatis ad inclytum Regem Aragonum (“Regimen of health for the sick King of Aragon”) for Jaume II, king of Aragon, who was suffering a bout of discrasia (imbalanced complexion). Arnau’s work would be rapidly translated into Catalan and become an enduring classic of the regimen sanitatis literature. In this dissertation, I aim to contextualize the composition, translation, and dissemination of Arnau’s Regimen. First, I place Arnau in the context of thirteenth-century Iberian medicine, noting his many contributions to the development of university-based medicine. I go on to discuss Arnau’s spiritual concerns, and read the Regimen sanitatis in the light of Arnau’s apocalyptic preoccupations and the theory of The King’s Two Bodies, the medieval political and legal theory which posited that the king had both a private and a public body. I then move on to discuss the important role played by Blanca of Anjou, wife of Jaume II and Queen of Aragon, who commissioned the first Catalan translation of the Regimen, in the dissemination of the text, while locating Blanca in the context of Aragonese queenship and female readership/patronage of scholarly medical texts. Finally, I discuss two Catalan translations of the Regimen, with a specific focus on what was preserved and what was lost in translation, as well as the influence of the Catalan translations on later Hebrew translations of the text. This discussion of the composition, translation, and dissemination of Arnau’s Regimen provides us with insights into the relationship between medical texts and their readers, as well as how university-based scholarly medical texts made their way to non-Latinate readers.
Entangled Photon Pair Sources based on Periodically Poled Silica Fiber
Keywords: Entangled photons
Quantum entanglement

Entangled photons are a fundamental resource in quantum applications. Broadband entangled photon sources have been used in applications such as high-resolution quantum sensing and wavelength-multiplexed quantum communication. In particular, in fiber-based quantum applications such as long-distance quantum clock synchronization and quantum key distribution in deployed fiber networks, a practical entangled source that is robust and compatible with silica fiber is highly sought after. Periodically poled silica fiber (PPSF) has been demonstrated to be a promising resource of entangled photon-pairs. PPSF uses the induced second-order nonlinearity in poled fiber to generate polarization-entangled photon pairs based on type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The negligible group birefringence of the PPSF ensures high-quality and broadband polarization entanglement without compensation, making it particularly suitable for these quantum applications. The PPSF-based source has a lot of potentials to be tapped because of its high entanglement quality, broadband emission bandwidth, simple structure, and its compatibility with the existing fiber infrastructure. In this thesis, I focus on the development of the PPSF-based entangled photon sources. I first investigate the design and the manufacturing process of the PPSF where I try to produce PPSF with improved performance and innovative properties. Next, I study the compensation-free nature of the PPSF-based polarization entanglement source and discuss the interplay between dispersion, birefringence, emission bandwidth, and polarization entanglement. Based on the theory, a commercial PPSF-based photon-pair source prototype is developed and patented. It has to my knowledge the simplest design of all polarization-entangled sources reported so far in the literature. Furthermore, I broaden the biphoton bandwidth by building a PPSF photon-pair source that emits biphotons at telecom O-band. With more than 24THz bandwidth, the biphotons generated in this source are the broadest of all O-band polarization-entangled photon sources reported to my knowledge. I also propose and experimentally demonstrate a polarization-frequency hyperentangled photon source using PPSF, which provides higher dimensionality by making use of entanglement in multiple degrees of freedom. Overall, this thesis contributes to the development of PPSF technology for practical quantum applications. I anticipate that the PPSF-based photon-pair source will play an important role in the era of quantum technology.
Neurobiological and Computational Approaches to Behavioural Flexibility
Keywords: Behavioural Flexibility
Learning
Memory
Reinforcement Learning
Systems Consolidation

Behavioural flexibility is important in a changing environment. Prior experiences are stored as memories which can be utilized to make decisions in novel environments. These memories can promote or reduce behavioural flexibility in novel environments. The hippocampus is intimately involved with learning and memory and its engagement in this process depends on the age of the memory. Taking these ideas into consideration, I developed an automated Y-maze to test behavioural flexibility in response to a variety of changes in the environment. Mice were trained on a random shift paradigm to ensure that they could continuously explore the Y-maze and learn to poke at the end of the arms to receive rewards. Next, they were tested on a textural discrimination paradigm to ensure that they could learn texture-reward associations that were constantly shifting in the maze. In order to indirectly investigate hippocampal contributions to behavioural flexibility we tested how systems consolidation affects flexibility in response to: (1) value changes and (2)changes in the optimal sequence of actions. Mice were trained to obtain rewards in a Y-maze by switching nose pokes between three arms. During training, all arms were rewarded and mice simply had to switch arms in order to maximize rewards. Then, after a 1 or 28 day delay, we devalued one arm, or we reinforced a specific sequence of pokes. We found that after a 1 day delay mice adapted easily to the changes. In contrast, mice given a 28 day delay struggled to adapt, especially for changes to the optimal sequence of actions. Immediate early gene imaging suggested that the 28 day mice were less reliant on their hippocampus and more reliant on their medial prefrontal cortex. Lastly, I used reinforcement learning to understand the possible computations underlying the facilitation of behavioural flexibility seen in these tasks. Model-free and model-based algorithms were trained and tested in virtual environments that paralleled the setup of the Y-maze experiments. I found that model-based algorithms were able to adapt more efficiently to action devaluations and optimal sequence changes suggesting that the hippocampus may be performing model-based reinforcement learning to facilitate behavioural flexibility.
Database Representations of English Literature, 1789–99
Keywords: digital archives
digital humanities
digitization
eighteenth century

How are historic texts selected for digitization in mass digital archives? It can be surprisingly challenging to know what is in the databases which now implicitly structure nearly all literary research. These resources, therefore, may operate as “black boxes,” complex equipment whose operations are mysterious to users. Examining the specific institutional histories of four literary databases, I explore how the scholarly practice of historical recovery might adapt to the site of the database. I measure and historicize uneven digitization as it might affect women writers of the late eighteenth century, to shed light on broader processes of textual selection. Specifically, I examine the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), the Text Creation Partnership (TCP), and HathiTrust. I describe the development of these databases from the 1970s to the present. I then compare each database’s holdings of works published in England 1789–99, manually identifying how many works are attributed to women. I find that these databases in fact marginalize “authorless” works, namely, those which are unsigned, attributed to unidentified pseudonyms, or written by corporate authors. To bridge literary and archival understandings of textual value, I present a definition of value as a principle of selection, arguing that a site of textual selection is also a site of textual valuation.
Developing the Breast Utility Instrument to Assess Health-related Quality of Life and Preferences in Patients with Breast Cancer
Keywords: Breast cancer
Confirmatory factor analysis
Health utilities
Health-related quality of life
Rasch analysis
Scoping review

Breast cancer (BrC) is the most common cancer in women worldwide, however no BrC-specific preference-based instrument exists. BrC and its treatments can impact patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Understanding HRQoL in women with BrC is therefore important in guiding clinical decision-making, and health policy development. The overall objective of this research is to develop the Breast Utility Instrument (BUI), a BrC-specific preference-based instrument. In this thesis, I select the core items of the BUI derived from the psychometric instrument, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) quality of life core questionnaire (QLQ-C30) and breast cancer module (BR45), over three studies.The first study includes a scoping literature review of published condition-specific preference-based instruments (CSPBI) which use item response theory and Rasch analysis in their development. Through a comparison of this literature with established frameworks, I present a four phase, 17-step framework for CSPBI development. In the second study, I conduct confirmatory factor analysis on the responses of 408 patients with BrC to the QLQ-C30 and BR45, establishing a 10-dimension structure with good overall fit. In the third study, I first conduct Rasch analysis on each of the 10 dimensions evaluating global model fit, item fit, differential item functioning (age), and unidimensionality. For items that fit the Rasch model, one item was selected per dimension based on breadth of item thresholds, and high patient (n = 81) and clinician importance-ratings (n = 13), and clinical relevance. Based on a priori item selection criteria, I selected: 1) Physical functioning (Trouble taking a long walk), 2) Emotional functioning (Worry), 3) Social functioning (Interfering with social activities), 4) Pain (Having pain), 5) Fatigue (Tired), 6) Body image (Dissatisfied with your body), 7) Systemic therapy side effects (Hair loss), 8) Sexual functioning (Interest in sex), 9) Breast symptoms (Oversensitive breast), 10) Endocrine therapy symptoms (Problems with your joints). This thesis proposes 10-items for the BUI. Future research will estimate patient and community preference-weights and assess reliability and criterion validity of the BUI. The future BUI will improve health care decisions in BrC by incorporating both patient’s own and community preferences.