VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Influence of the Aquatic Environment on Quasi-Static and Dynamic Domains of Posture: Towards Applications for Spinal Cord Injury Aquatic Rehabilitation
Keywords: Aquatic Environment
Dynamic Posture
Postural control
Quasi-Static Posture
Spinal Cord Injury

The objective of this thesis was to investigate the direct effects of the aquatic environment on quasi-static and dynamic domains of posture in able-bodied individuals and individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI). The first and third studies (Chapter 2 and 4) investigated the influence of water immersion on postural sway during quiet standing of able-bodied participants. Time-domain measures of the center of pressure (COP), i.e. COP amplitude, velocity and area, revealed that individuals swayed more in water than on land. The frequency-domain parameters showed a predominance of low frequency sway in water. Further, a different postural strategy to maintain balance in water was detected: (i) individuals leaned more forward, (ii) mediolateral upper trunk instability was increased, and (iii) eyes closed in water led to increased mean velocity and sway area. The second and fourth studies (Chapters 3 and 5) demonstrated the effects of the aquatic environment on gait initiation among able-bodied participants. COP trajectories during anticipatory postural adjustments and execution of the first step were longer in length and time to execute in water than on land. Individuals adjusted their posture more rapidly in water prior to step execution, but the execution of the first step in water was slower than on land. Absolute and body-weight-normalized impulses demonstrated increased anteroposterior impulses showing a clear influence of water resistance, and decreased vertical impulses demonstrating the effect of the water buoyant force. The upper to lower trunk acceleration ratio in anteroposterior direction also increased under the effect of the immersion in water demonstrating the influence of water resistance on the lower body. The last two studies (Chapters 6 and 7) revealed that COP sway was larger when individuals with iSCI stood quietly in water, and that gait initiation performance was similar to the able-bodied participants, especially in individuals with high-functioning balance performance. The aquatic environment appeared to have challenged but also supported quasi-static standing and gait initiation in both able-bodied individuals and individuals with iSCI. Overall, individuals with iSCI felt safer performing standing and gait initiation in water than on land, with the exception of one participant with extensive sensory deficits.
TOWARD A CONCEPTUALIZATION OF TRANSNATIONAL DISABILITY THEORY AND PRAXIS: ENTRY POINT, IRAQI CHEMICAL ATTACK ON IRAN
Keywords: disabling violence
imperialism
Iran-Iraq War
Kurdish
third world
transnational disability studies

This thesis examines the capitalist, imperialist, and nationalist social relations that produce and sustain disability, organized within the global context of war, so as to trace these relations by engaging the dialectics of global politics. It uses the global context of class and ideology enfolded within the capitalist economy and the imperialist politics of the U.S. and Europe in the Middle East to understand how disabled bodies are generated through armed conflicts sustained by imperialist and nationalist social relations (always gendered, raced, and classed). This thesis has three main foci: a) bearing witness to injured/disabled war survivors ; b) developing the conversation further in Disability Studies (DS) about the creation of disability by war in the “third world” by the “first world”; and c) the formulation of a Transnational Disability Model (TDM) via the case study of Iranian chemical warfare victims in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. This study contributes to the field by engaging the dialectics of geopolitics, examining them in the context of the war, and proposing a new model for DS from a war-survivor Middle Eastern feminist woman’s standpoint. The theoretical framework that has been used to conduct this project has been dialectical and historical materialism (DHM), and the data collection and analysis methods have been case study and building a theory from that case study. Carrying out this project, my research axiology or my political/ethical commitment involved striving for conducting an emancipatory research through reflexive/relational thinking and acting. I developed my proposed model for a revolutionary understanding of disability, contextualized within transnational, non-ideological, and anti-imperialist class-consciousness and activism.
Bodies Withdrawn: The Ethics of Abstraction in Contemporary Post-Minimal Art
Keywords: Doris Salcedo
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Latin American Art
Santiago Sierra
Teresa Margolles

This dissertation examines the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Doris Salcedo, Teresa Margolles, and Santiago Sierra, artists that redeploy the aesthetics of 1960s minimalism in relation to contemporary political crises. I argue that these artists make an important case for the political and ethical relevance of aesthetic abstraction, insofar as their work imagines forms of co-existence that resist the sovereign organization of human bodies. In each chapter, I discuss a selection of major works by an individual artist, emphasizing theoretical analyses that privilege deconstruction, bio- and necropolitical theory, and continental philosophy. I situate artistic practices in relation to their social and political contexts to consider how Gonzalez-Torres, Salcedo, Margolles, and Sierra respond to issues such as the AIDS crisis, state violence, and socio-economic subjugation. Specifically, I consider how they use minimalist formal strategies to convey the socio-political abstraction of human life and, further, to address the conditions in which certain bodies fail to appear. These artists demonstrate how the body’s disappearance produces an abstraction: not the sign of a body but the index of its withdrawal from appearance (to invoke the etymological meaning of abstrahere). By portraying the material traces of the figure’s negation, they account for the aesthetic and political challenge of presenting anonymous bodies and beings. Their work thereby inverts minimalism’s concern with the relation of objective forms to embodied viewers, in that it reveals art’s contradictory relation to inaccessible bodies. This approach carries important aesthetico-ethical ramifications: it exposes viewers to unknowable and imperceptible beings, challenging dominant ethical models based on the inter-subjective relation of autonomous individuals; hence, it illustrates an ethics of co-existence that is irreducible to subject-object binaries and to the subjectivization of embodied life.
Scholastic Publics: Sanskrit Textual Practices in Gujarat, 1800-Present
Keywords: Gujarat
Modernity
Print Culture
Sanskrit
Swaminarayan
Vedanta

This dissertation addresses the complex negotiations of “tradition” in colonial and postcolonial modernity through a study of the Swaminarayan sampradāy, a rapidly growing transnational community founded in Gujarat at the turn of the nineteenth century. It argues that the community produced Sanskrit texts partly to engage its “scholastic publics”—imaginative and interpretive sites of debate and contestation—to consolidate, strengthen, legitimize, and even divide the sampradāy over its 200-year history. In doing so, members of the sampradāy maintain a concerted privileging of classical Sanskrit knowledge systems, long after the purported demise of these systems. Chapter 1 outlines the Swaminarayan sampradāy’s perceived interlocutors through an analysis of a nineteenth-century text chronicling the sampradāy’s public debates. These debates provide the sampradāy with a template for a scripturally-based rationale for its code of conduct, its system of Vedānta, and its very notion of sampradāy. Chapter 2 extends the historical discussion into the early twentieth century, when the sampradāy makes use of a burgeoning print culture to vocally criticize powerful opponents, democratize the scholastic through Gujarati translations and monthly magazines, and legitimate apocryphal texts. The Swaminarayan scholastic commitment remains to sampradāy: safeguarding the community at large, nourishing the community from within, and mitigating nascent sectarianism. The second half of the dissertation addresses the questions of scholasticism and sampradāy through a connected lens: Vedānta commentaries. It traces the hermeneutical and exegetical patterns that characterize three separate moments of commentarial production in the sampradāy. These patterns demonstrate a shifting commitment to the more established school of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta over two centuries in the articulation of Swaminarayan Vedānta. In the wake of the sectarian division of the sampradāy, these very technical Vedāntic debates are used to authorize one particular Swaminarayan interpretation as the Swaminarayan interpretation, within a Vedānta scholastic public.
The H3K4-specific Methyltransferase MLL3 Regulates Cell Proliferation and Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition in Pancreatic Cancer
Keywords: cell migration
epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition
MLL3
pancreatic cancer
TGF-beta 2 signalling pathway
transcriptome

Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of cancer-related death in Canada. A major reason for the disease’s extremely high overall mortality-to-incidence ratio (0.98) is that most (60%) pancreatic cancer patients present with aggressive metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, yet mechanistic understanding of tumourigenesis process is incomplete. Intrigued by the relatively high frequency of MLL3 somatic cancer mutations in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, I undertook a series of experiments to understand the molecular and phenotypic impact of MLL3 knockdown in pancreatic cancer cell lines. My results showed that MLL3 regulates cell proliferation in a bi-directional fashion. I also demonstrated that MLL3 knockdown resulted in precocious epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in cell culture. Analysis of gene expression profiles indicates that MLL3 knockdown likely acts through up-regulation of TGF-2 and BMP4 signalling pathways, which converge on transcription factors ZEB1 and SNAI2, two master regulators of EMT, associatced with altered morphology and migratory capability. To examine the pathophysiological relevance of my results, I exploited the availability of genomic and transcriptomic sequencing datasets from the International Cancer Genome Consortium. I undertook a systematic survey of genetic alterations in MLL3-associated interacting protein components (ASCOM complex) and further compared the transcriptome patterns of tumour samples with mutant and wild-type ASCOM genes in various cancer types. Strikingly, I found that while genetic alterations were generally infrequent in ASCOM genes, with 14% of 2583 cancer samples carrying non-synonymous mutations and 7.6% bearing nonsense or frameshift mutations, the distribution of function-damaging mutations was highly skewed in terms of both cancer type (ranging from 60% to 0%) and ASCOM genes (over 90% found in MLL3, MLL4 and KDM6A). Notably, immunoglobulin production and complement activation pathways were also down-regulated in pancreatic cancer samples carrying function-damaging mutations in ASCOM genes, implicating TGF- signalling pathway. Taken together, my results establish an unexpected role for MLL3 in the malignant transformation within the pancreatic tumour microenvironment that facilitates tumour progression and metastasis. Given that genetic alterations in MLL3 and other ASCOM genes are frequently found in several other cancers, my results have implications in other tumor contexts, opening up promising new mechanistic avenues for cancer research.
User Perceptions of Security Risks in Multiple Authentications
Keywords: authentication
commodification
confidentiality
human-computer interaction
privacy
usable security

Authentication is an everyday practice in the information economy. When people use Facebook, Google, or Twitter to log in a third-party app they perform tertiary authentications. Authentication is often the only protection users have for personal information held by platforms and third parties. This personal information and the metadata produced by people has an exchange value for platform operators. This dissertation explores people's perceptions of security and confidentiality as they perform tertiary authentications and how platform operators benefit from data generated in the process. The research design consisted of a 20-participants experiment and a policy analysis reviewing privacy and security policies of Facebook, Google, and Twitter answered these questions. What is the extent of the interplay between security and usability for platform operators that are commodifying from users' personal data through tertiary authentication; how are people managing and controlling their security and confidentiality as they perform tertiary authentications and what are the implications of those actions for users’ perception of identity and privacy, and; which conditions and variables create a perception of false security in users performing tertiary authentications, and what factors of tertiary authentication affect users’ sense of security? Through diagrammatic representations of their mental models and a questionnaire, the experiment measured how the test and control groups rated the value of their personal information after reviewing platform policies and how they managed their data when offered the chance to adjust their security and privacy settings before performing tertiary authentications. Results show that while participants tried to secure their data, they were not as aware of commodification processes. Guided by the transactional token framework used to theorize the process of commodification of people's personal information when performing authentication, the policy analysis explains how platform operators commodify users’ data. This framework is a dialectic model that analyzes at once authentication and the monetization of attention while focusing on tertiary authentication. It unearths strategies used by platforms operators to collect users’ information through their interaction with gamified security and privacy settings. It is argued that tertiary authentication which protects users’ personal information sacrifices security for usability’s sake. Security becomes a feature which people unknowingly interact with to provide more data to platform operators.
Interactive E-book Experiences in a Children’s Museum: Discovery of Family Interactions
Keywords: children's museum
e-book
joint media engagement
parents
scaffolding
shared reading experience

The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover main patterns of parent/caregiver-child interactions around e-books in the context of a Florida children’s museum exhibit. Employing a joint media engagement theoretical framework, the intent of the study was to understand approaches of parents/caregivers around children’s e-book applications, provision of scaffolding techniques by parents/caregivers, and the children’s museum exhibit environment as it supports and inhibits parent/caregiver interactions during shared e-book experiences. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, data was collected from 197 participant observations, 31 audio recordings and observations of shared e-book experiences between parents/caregivers and children, as well as 48 interviews with parents/caregivers. The study found three main categories of parent/caregiver interaction: reading convergent parents/caregivers, task divergent parents/caregivers, and physically absent parents/caregivers. Two main areas of scaffolding emerged from the data: scaffolding related e-book content and scaffolding connected to technical navigation. Scaffolds utilized by parents/caregivers during shared e-book reading included: asking questions, labeling objects, providing hints, explanations, praise and encouragement, as well as drawing connections to real life experiences. The children’s museum context both supported and inhibited parents/caregivers in shared experiences of e-books. E-reading in the exhibit setting was supported by the parent/caregiver’s ability to: focus on engagement with their child more than at home, connect e-book content to a hands-on learning environment, and explore unique learning experiences together. Inhibits to e-reading were based on environmental factors related to visitor traffic, noise, and sharing amongst children, as well as parent/caregiver perceptions. Although the findings of this study were not generalizable beyond the particular institutional context of the study, joint media engagement is an area of significance to children’s museums and libraries and this study may be informative for other children’s museums interested in incorporating e-books into exhibits or better understanding and supporting the interactions of families around digital media.
Shadows And Light - A Fantasy For Violin And Orchestra
Keywords: Orchestra
Spectralism
Violin

Shadows and Light is a twelve-minute work for solo violin and orchestra. The structure of this piece is governed through a novel approach to harmony and gesture passing through just-intoned sonic fields. The formal design of the piece has been organized into an arch structure whereby each section moves increasingly toward varying states of harmonicity and inharmonicity. The undulating spectra unfold within a continuum of rotating harmonies evoking a quasi-just-intoned atmosphere. This harmonic arena provides support for the fantasy-like treatment of the solo violin part. Further, through the approach to gesture, a series of vivid imagined pseudo-spaces have been rendered available for the imagination of the listeners. The impact of the musical gesture, and how it can imply a certain form of energy and drama emanating from a collection of sound fields, is of paramount concern for the thrust and forward motion of the musical material. A personal gestural palette combined with familiar modes of articulation have been used in order to broaden the listeners' perception of the sounds they are hearing. While Shadows and Light has clearly been influenced by spectral techniques, such as ring modulation and summation tones, this piece in no way belongs in the spectral repertoire. The generation of spectral-like harmonies is simply a way to provide an ethereal context in contrast to the decidedly tonal nature of the solo violin material. Because the accompaniment is mainly constructed through timbral design, and the solo part constructed through harmonic and melodic impetuses in the traditional sense, the result is of converging thresholds: timbre and harmony coalescing into unified sound matter whereby chords resonate as monoliths of partials, fusing the experience of what is sounded, and what is heard. The musical result provides divergent angles through which a listener may experience distinct sonic images in a variety of morphed states.
Recovery of a Potential from Boundary Data in Locally Conformally Transversally Anisotropic Geometries
Keywords: Analysis
Inverse Problems
Partial Differential Equations
Riemannian Geometry

Let (Ω3,g) be a compact smooth Riemannian manifold with smooth boundary and suppose that U is an open set in Ω such that g|U is the Euclidean metric. Let &Ggr; = U∩ ∂Ω be connected and suppose that U is the convex hull of Γ. We will study the uniqueness of an unknown potential for the Schrödinger operator − ▵g + q from the associated Dirichlet to Neumann map, Λq. Indeed, we will prove that if the potential q is a priori explicitly known in Uc then one can uniquely reconstruct q from Λq. We will also give a reconstruction algorithm for the potential. More generally we will also discuss the cases where Γ is not connected or g|U is conformally transversally anisotropic and derive the analogous result.
Investigating the occupational etiology of prostate cancer in Canadian men
Keywords: Canada
Epidemiology
Occupation
Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide and the etiology of prostate cancer is poorly understood. Aside from non-modifiable factors, there is limited understanding of modifiable risk factors for prostate cancer, including occupation. In epidemiological studies, job titles are generally classified into occupational or more broadly industry groupings. Previous studies have reported inconsistent findings between occupation, industry, and prostate cancer, with weak associations for farming and agriculture, rubber manufacturing, and transportation. In Canada, there have been very few large population studies that include a range of occupation and industry groups, prostate cancer outcomes, and information on non-occupational factors. The purpose of this thesis was to further investigate the occupational etiology of prostate cancer in Canadian men. By identifying occupations and industries using multiple large Canadian population based datasets, we aimed to identify consistent patterns of the multi-faceted prostate cancer – job-industry relationships. Three population based studies and one meta-analysis were conducted. Significant associations between natural resource based (agriculture, forestry, logging, wood, paper), administrative, protective services (firefighters, police, and armed forces), construction, transportation, and prostate cancer risk were observed in the three population studies. Consistent evidence for increased prostate cancer incidence and mortality among firefighting and police work was observed in the meta-analysis. Non-occupational factors including lifestyle factors and screening behaviours were also potential confounders in the relationship between occupation and prostate cancer. Overall, the results of this work provide strong evidence associating specific occupations to prostate cancer risk. Specific occupational exposures to be considered in the future are pesticides, diesel exhaust, whole body vibrations, wood dust, wood preservative chemicals, among other factors of shift work, stress, sedentary behaviour, screening patterns. These findings indicate the need for more focused studies with better exposure assessment methods and improved understanding of related non-occupational factors. Examining these factors together will inform prevention strategies for job-specific exposure and prostate cancer risk reduction. The evidence from this thesis and proposed future directions will improve knowledge on occupational risk factors related to the etiology of prostate cancer, ultimately informing policies and programs for reduction in prostate cancer risk.