VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A hybrid object recognition system for planetary exploration robots
Keywords: Computer vision
Optical pattern recognition
Image processing, Digital techniques
Roving vehicles (Astronautics)

One of the most useful tools for mobile robotics is vision. A proposed hybrid recognition system that combines the outputs of two different recognition algorithms is presented. The combined outputs include identified objects as well as confidence measures. The system is evaluated on a series of real world unstructured scene images of the Argo class rover network. The hybrid system is able to effectively integrate these modules and successfully utilize their respective strengths to improve robustness and identification capability. Its architecture presents many advantages over traditional object recognition systems with regards to environment versatility as well as decentralized fault tolerance and communications for network robotics.
Deconstructing habeas corpus: a tale of sovereignty, governance and the non-citizen subject
Keywords: Habeas corpus, United States
Deportation, United States
Aliens, United States

This thesis takes as its starting point the enactment of the 2005 REAL ID Act in the United States. It explores the theoretical implications of its foreclosure of habeas corpus to non-citizen subjects challenging their removal from the United States. The thesis initially theorizes the curtailment of habeas corpus as a legal measure deployed to manage the perception of crisis. In order to justify and sustain this legal maneuver, the State manufactures a social narrative, depicting the alien subject as a threat to the administration of law, as well as to the safety of the dominant population. The thesis then posits that by excluding a subpopulation from the field of habeas corpus, the State metaphorically re-conceptualizes its sovereign boundaries around access to an adjudicative site. In doing so, the adjustments to habeas jurisdiction purportedly operate to exclude a subpopulation; manage crisis; construct a desired order, and correct the biopolitical governance of the population.
The peer relationships and victimization of children with anxiety disorders
Keywords: Anxiety in children, Social aspects
Interpersonal relations in children
Bullying
Friendship in children
Social skills in children

Objectives. This thesis includes two studies that investigated the peer relationships and peer victimization of children with anxiety disorders. Study 1 examined whether children with anxiety disorders report poorer social skills, fewer friends, lower friendship quality, and more peer victimization than non-anxious comparison children. Study 2 investigated whether anxiety and social functioning (social skills and friendship quality) interact in their prediction of peer victimization. A structural equation model linking anxiety, social skills, and friendship quality to victimization was tested separately for children with anxiety disorders and normal comparison children to explore whether the processes involved in victimization differ for these groups. Method. Participants in the anxiety group were 34 boys and 21 girls with a diagnosed anxiety disorder. Children in the 'normal' comparison group were 37 boys and 48 girls recruited from a Catholic school. Children and their parents completed questionnaires measuring social functioning and peer victimization. Results. Study 1 found that children with anxiety disorders reported weaker social skills, lower friendship quality, more frequent rates of being bullied, and more relational peer victimization than comparison children. Anxious children were two to three times more likely than comparisons to be bullied at least twice a week. Parents also rated children with anxiety disorders to have poorer social skills and fewer friends than children in the comparison group. Study 2 found, for both anxious and non-anxious children, that there are two independent pathways to victimization: (a) anxiety independently predicted being victimized; and (b) poor social skills predicted lower friendship quality, which in turn, placed a child at risk for victimization. Conclusions. Social difficulties and peer victimization may contribute to both the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. In addition, anxiety and social difficulties place children at risk for peer victimization. Thus, children with anxiety disorders may benefit from social skills training and/or school-wide anti-bullying interventions.
Globalization, federalism and Canadian private international law
Keywords: Globalization
Federal government, Canada
Conflict of laws, Canada

The implications of globalization on the principles of private international law are explored through the lens of Canadian federalism. After a century of English law, conflicts of law rules in Canada have abandoned their substantive and procedural parochialism. What is emerging from the Supreme Court of Canada on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments is an internationalist approach, accentuating the significance of the connection between federalism and changing international realities. As the negotiations surrounding the draft Hague Convention on Judgments continue, this paper examines what is at stake for member states. This thesis attempts to add to the broad debate on how the Canadian federal state will adapt to the consequences of globalization. It is argued that our internal political structure must be reappraised in order to address the emerging international issues which are impacting provincial powers, and ultimately the scope of the POGG clause must be expanded.
Beyond provision: a comparative analysis of two long-term refugee education systems (India, Lebanon)
Keywords: Refugees, Tibetan, Education
Refugees, Tibetan, India
Refugees, Palestinian Arab, Education
Comparative education

For over 50 years, there have been Tibetans and Palestinians living in countries they do not call home; they are the dispersed, the dislocated, and the exiled. This study focuses on these two refugee groups. It addresses these two refugee populations in two of their hosting nations: Tibetan refugees in India, and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The aim is to gaze beyond the initial emergency phase and into the realities of such refugee camp 'education systems' and the outcomes of such systems vis-a-vis host nation and international aid community response to the long-term nature of these camps. This paper is an assessment of the quality and effectiveness of the education systems of the Tibetan and Palestinian refugees in their respective host countries of India and Lebanon. In bringing attention to these two refugee situations, the intent is to shed light on an often-overlooked aspect of the refugee education experience: the long-term nature of many refugee situations.
Women's experiences of loss of voice and sense of self
Keywords: Self-esteem in women
Expression
Identity (Philosophical concept)
Self-realization in women

A qualitative, life history approach was taken to explore women's experiences of loss of voice and silence, and the effects of these experiences on psychological health and well-being. Eight women between the ages of 22--46 who identified with loss of voice and silence as being a central theme in their lives participated in in-depth interviews. A qualitative theme analysis revealed that the experience of loss of voice and silence in the lives of these women was associated with four overarching silencing contexts. These were contexts that involved experiences related to gender inequity, experiences of trauma and abuse, experiences of not "fitting in", and experiences in which individuals were treated as not being worthy of power and agency within their own lives. With respect to the effects on psychological health and well-being, another set of four overarching themes emerged which included living with a devalued sense of self, living with a disrupted sense of self, ongoing experiences of self-silencing in relationships, and non-verbal modes of expression such as eating disturbances and depression. In addition to these findings, a few participants shared experiences related to the recovery of voice. In this regard, three overarching themes emerged which are described as a connection to one's experiences of loss of voice and silence, motivation and action taken in the pursuit of voice and connection to self, and supportive contexts and actions that help encourage recovery of, connection to, and expression of voice. The results of this study suggest the importance of examining the impact of multiple social contexts on the development of voice and the relationship of voice to well-being. The results can also guide the development of facilitative contexts to the development of voice.
Evaluation of a cultural competence educational intervention
Keywords: Nursing, Education
Education, Bilingual
Multicultural education

This thesis presents the results of an intervention evaluation study in which 76 registered nurses (RNs) who worked in Public Health Nursing, participated in a cultural competence educational intervention to increase their level of cultural competence. In this study, Campinha-Bacote's model of cultural competence (1998, 2002) guided the design of the educational intervention. The model was comprised of five constructs: Cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, cultural encounter and cultural desire, which constituted the components of the intervention. ...
Understanding the labyrinth as transformative site, symbol, and technology: an arts-informed inquiry
Keywords: Labyrinths
Labyrinths, Religious aspects

This research project focuses on understandings drawn from existing literature on the historical, mythological, and mathematical labyrinth, the accounts of individual seekers and practitioners, and the author's personal experience from five years as labyrinth "keeper" in an urban parish church in Canada. Three personal essays document this involvement with the labyrinth from the dramatic first encounter, through intellectual quest and personal pilgrimage, to responsibility for installation and maintenance as public sacred art in a host community. The inquiry includes an extensive literature review of the historical site and the many avenues of approach to understanding the interaction between place, identity, and learning that occurs in the labyrinth. Grounded in hermeneutic aesthetics and the methods of auto-ethnography, phenomenology and arts-based research, the inquiry investigates the connection between this ancient, mathematically significant site, the experience of reflective engagement with it, and contemporary interpretations of pilgrimage conceptualised as intentional seeking in the developmental process of self. Implications for education lie both in the labyrinth's symbolic function as a public art form demarcating and validating ritual space for care of the self, and in its capacity to activate the incubation of individual and collective imagination, bring about shifts in perception, restore personal equilibrium and perspective, and access tacit knowledge and inner wisdom. The medieval designers intended that users experience the characteristic sense of integrated consciousness and heightened imaginative function, a heritage that is to be welcomed at this historical juncture. The unicursal labyrinth was first inlayed in the pavement of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres in France in 1200 CE, coincident with the flowering of the School of Chartres, where the Ars Liberales curriculum formalised dialectic inquiry, technologies of the imagination, and recursive spiritual development. Reclaimed in recent years for walking meditation, the labyrinth functions, in the context of post-structural, holistic and aesthetic education, as a site of experiential learning and a technology for guiding the imagination into transformative patterns of thought. Its image symbolizes the order-versus-confusion binary characteristic of the integrative processes of personal development.
Helping hands, wounding words: an analysis of the negative construction of women who self-injure
Keywords: Self-mutilation
Medical personnel, Attitudes
Medical personnel and patient
Women, Diseases

This thesis examines the literature that contributes to the knowledge-base and thinking of professionals regarding self-injury and those who self-injure. It highlights the lack of research into the attitudes and perceptions of First Contact Professionals towards self-injury, as well as the negative reactions to women who self-injure, as a gap in the current literature. Texts based in the medical model were compared to texts from other perspectives, with a view to ways in which the portrayal of woman who self-injure may be negatively constructed. In addition, five First Contact Professionals were interviewed about their perceptions of self-injury. Connections between themes in the literature analysis and the interviews, such as the lack of adequate training, the absence of constructive settings in which to discuss issues concerning self-injury, and the association of guilt with the act of self-injury, were discussed.
Creative movement: a powerful strategy to teach science
Keywords: Science, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Play
Alternative education
Drama in education
Teaching

Creative movement as a strategy that may be useful for teaching science to middle school students is examined in depth. The literature background is investigated in several areas that relate to creative movement including drama, active learning, kinesthetic learning, semiotics, learning through play, social interaction, creative movement, and physical education. A qualitative study is undertaken in which six grade seven students were taught two units surrounding the particle theory through movement. Results indicated two major outcomes for teaching science through movement. (1) Learning of science knowledge was increased and (2) student attitudes towards science were improved. Results suggested that creative movement was an effective strategy for teaching science to middle school students. Possible reasons that were revealed include: active learning, higher levels of engagement, social interaction, problem solving, effective group work, positive effects of movement on the brain, movement highlighting relevance, and accessing the affective domain through fun while learning.
Reading images: visual and critical literary strategies as methods of meaning construction
Keywords: Visual literacy, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Critical thinking, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Pictures as information resources
Reading comprehension

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two visual and critical literacy strategies in helping students in the junior grades (grades 4, 5 and 6) develop their comprehension of visuals. Teacher knowledge and use of visual and critical literacy strategies in the classroom was examined as a starting point in developing a teacher training in-service that focused on developing students' visual and critical literacy skills. Seven teachers from Grade 4 to Grade 6 participated in the study. Through the use of qualitative research methods the impact of the study was assessed on teacher responses in interviews and logbook entries as well as analysis of student work samples. The results revealed limited knowledge and use of visual and critical literacy strategies in the classroom at the beginning of the study. The results also suggest that once the strategies were taught to students, their understanding and use of the strategies in their written and oral responses improved. However, the change was not uniform with both strategies. Recommendations are made for implementing the strategies in the future.
Some properties of the Cuntz semigroup and an isomorphism theorem for a certain class of non-simple C*-algebras
Keywords: Mathematics

This work contributes to Elliott's classification program for non-simple nuclear C*-algebras. We consider the C*-algebras which are inductive limits of full matrix algebras over certain one-dimensional contractible spaces, and show that for this class of C*-algebras the Cuntz semigroup together with a distinguished element of this semigroup constitutes a complete invariant. We also investigate some properties of the Cuntz semigroup and discuss several applications for non-simple C*-algebras.
The role of portfolios in teachers' professional growth and development: a knowledge building analysis
Keywords: Portfolios in education
Teachers, Training of
Teachers, Rating of
Educational evaluation

This study contributes to understanding the role of portfolios in promoting the growth of individual inservice teachers' professional knowledge. It involves six teachers of various backgrounds and experience who have used portfolios for at least a year. This study theorizes teachers' growth and development of professional knowledge within a framework of Popper's model (1979) of the growth of scientific knowledge, and Wolf and Dietz's (1998) model of teaching portfolios. I examine to what extent portfolio evidence supports the occurrence of growth and development of teachers' professional knowledge and the extent to which the use of portfolios contributes to that knowledge development. I question portfolio development as a useful form of professional growth and whether the reflective aspect of portfolio construction is fundamental to the professional growth and development of these six teachers. Reflective teaching and why reflection is essential to the portfolio process is addressed within the theoretical question of how to incorporate a view of reflection into the knowledge building framework. I provide an outline of strategies used to determine the role of teaching portfolios in promoting teacher professional knowledge and discuss methods employed in gathering and analyzing this information. For the majority of participants, the portfolio is useful because it helps them organize their thinking about their classroom work by providing a framework for piecing together the vast amount of information that bombards teachers. The portfolio as a framework allows information, perspectives, and changing practice to be reviewed so participants can examine their progress towards meeting particular goals. An overview of literature on teachers' professional knowledge suggests that teachers' professional knowledge is a fluid concept. Teachers' portfolios provide teachers with opportunities to explore and extend their tentative theories through discussions and feedback from colleagues and students, as well as to reflect on their own learning. Portfolio usage should be presented as an option for teachers to choose among other alternative modes of inservice education.
Regulation of expression of CD200 in vitro
Keywords: Molecular biology
Genetics
Immunology

CD200 is a type I membrane glycoprotein and belongs to the immunoglobulin supergene family. CD200 delivers immunoregulatory signals through interaction with its receptors. Expression levels of the molecule regulate graft survival, susceptibility to autoimmune diseases, fetal loss, inflammation/infection and tumor rejection. Thus, exploration of the mechanism(s) controlling CD200 expression may provide insight into novel strategies for treatment of clinical disorders.
Virulence mechanisms of mycobacteria - New insights from studies of BCG vaccine strains and cell wall biosynthesis
Keywords: Genetics
Microbiology
Biochemistry

Virulence mechanisms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis remain largely unknown. Currently, only two well-established virulence determinants have been identified: the RD1 protein secretion system and the cell wall lipids. Studies of RD1 secretion system originated from the observation that the RD1 locus is deleted in all strains of Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette--Guerin (BCG), an attenuated, live vaccine that has been used in humans since 1920s. However, reintroduction of RD1 into BCG does not restore full virulence to BCG; therefore other mechanisms exist to fully account for the attenuation of BCG. The mycobacterial cell wall is a unique and complex structure that distinguishes mycobacteria from other bacteria. Although not fully understood, there is increasing evidence that the complex cell wall plays a major role in the virulence and pathogenesis of M. tuberculosis. However, the genetic and biochemical pathways leading to the biosynthesis of individual cell wall lipids remain incompletely understood. My thesis consists of two parts. In the first part, I describe the metabolic deficiency of BCG vaccine strains. I show that BCG exhibits dysregulation of glutamine synthetase, a key enzyme in nitrogen metabolism. This defect, together with mutations that affect the production (e.g., alanine dehydrogenase) or the expression (e.g., serine deaminase) of catabolic enzymes renders BCG with deficient growth under nitrogen-limited conditions in vitro, which may also contribute to the attenuation of BCG in vivo. These findings shed new light into the mechanisms of attenuation of BCG. The second part of my thesis deals with cell wall biosynthesis. I observed that some BCG strains cannot synthesize the virulence lipids phthiocerol dimycocerosates and phenolic glycolipids, providing an explanation for heterogeneity in residual BCG virulence and reactogenicity. I have also identified Lsr2, a previously uncharacterized protein found in all mycobacteria, as a novel regulator of lipid biosynthesis. Characterization of the Lsr2 protein revealed DNA-bridging properties functionally analogous to H-NS, a bacterial nucleoid associated protein. And like H-NS, Lsr2 likely functions as a global repressor for a number of genes including those involved in virulence. This finding opens new avenues for identifying novel virulence genes in M. tuberculosis.
Technologies of remembrance: literary criticism and Duncan Campbell Scott's "Indian poems"
Keywords: Canadian poetry, History and criticism
Indians in literature
Indigenous peoples in literature
Indians of North America, Canada
Whites, Attitudes
Whites, Canada

This thesis conceptualizes literary criticism as a “technology of remembrance.” It works with the theory of “remembrance/pedagogy” which proposes that all remembrance acts are inherently pedagogical. This thesis argues that Canadian literary criticism engages various public remembrance/pedagogies of the history of First Nations-Canadian relations, as those relations have been produced historically through colonial domination. This thesis examines literary criticism, spanning from 1914 to 1996, of Duncan Campbell Scott's canonized “Indian poems.” It also examines Scott's role in the department of Indian Affairs, especially from 1913 to 1932. It reads the literary readings of Scott and asks what is being remembered and forgotten about the colonial history of Canada in the remembrances of Scott? The thesis identifies and critiques three evaluative discourses in Scott literary criticism in terms of what they erase. It suggests two alternative evaluative discourses which are grounded in a counter-hegemonic view of the history of First Nations-Canadian relations.