VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Through the Social Web: Citizen-led Participation in Ontario Policy-making
Keywords: social media
internet
policy
Canada
science and technology studies
information

In the mid to late 1990s, many states developed eGovernment programs that included the use of consultation technologies. More recently, the social characteristics of the web have emerged as offering an alternative means for citizen participation, promising more openness and inclusion. In this dissertation I draw upon studies of the policy-making process and media design, to examine the implications of citizen-led production of infrastructures for public participation in policy-making through the social web and within the context of open government discourse. My research methods for this research project were ethnographically informed. I participated in the design and use of social web infrastructures for participation in policy-making as a contributor to open government communities in Ontario, Canada. I also analyzed Hansard records as well as the popular press, and interviewed 15 citizen designers who created social web based infrastructures for public participation in the policy-making of four bills in Ontario. In my research, I develop and use the term citizen designer drawing on the more common phrase of citizen journalist. Both terms suggest that citizens can engage in creative practices to encourage institutions such as government or the mass media to become more participatory. The citizen designers in my project were found to act as policy entrepreneurs, sometimes for particular bills, but more generally for the broader ideal of open government that includes citizen participation. The major finding of this work is that citizens are using an integrated mix of social web tools across multiple policy windows to promote openness and participation. This work contributes to the policy, information and the internet studies literatures on the roles and experiences of internet-savvy policy entrepreneurs who are situated in civil society networks, which are not always tied to formal organizations. This work also expands our understandings of citizenship to include the design and use of the social web in everyday political life.
Building Trust in a Private School: Formal and Informal Practices of Principals
Keywords: Trust
Secondary Private Schools
Principals

Today’s contemporary challenges of educating students place responsibility on school principals that may be unmatched by any other generation. Principals in their early years of the portfolio face an even greater task as they become comfortable with the portfolio and the school community which they lead. Drawing from the leadership literature that emphasized the importance of trust for effective school leadership and improvement, this qualitative study examines the formal and informal leadership practices of seven principals/ headmasters with less than eight years of experience in private high schools in Ontario. The study focuses on the practices that these leaders identify as being crucial to building trust. Their responses reveal that trust building includes personal and professional honesty, transparency and clear communication and a sharing of decision-making powers which all help to minimize the micropolitics that arise in a school, engenders better relationships with faculty members, increases capacity of faculty members more effectively, and ultimately provides support for the principal and decreases personal stress. This study contributes to the Canadian literature on school leadership and the literature on private school leadership and concludes with recommendations for both research and practice.
The Joint Use of Formal and Informal Job Search Methods in China: Institutional Constraints, Working Mechanisms, and Advantages
Keywords: state
individual
job search behaviors
employment policies
certifiable qualifications
uncertifiable qualifications
joint use
formal job search channels
informal job search channel
self selection

Using data drawn from in-depth interviews collected in three Chinese cities and the countrywide China General Social Survey, this dissertation examined how people found jobs during the historic period of China’s employment system change. This dissertation is written in the format of three publishable papers. The first paper revisited China’s employment system change, by focusing on individual reactions towards the changing employment policies. Perceiving the persistent political authority, individuals pursued higher education, accumulated political advantages, and mobilized network resources, to get state-assigned jobs. Individual job-seeking strategies, in turn, boosted the state’s hiring criteria, as well as facilitated the growth of the market principle. Consequently, state power and market strength have been co-developed in this process. Following my analysis of institutional constraints, in the second paper, I addressed the question of how individual job seekers and job positions are matched together. I examined how contact use matches individual qualifications to the employer’s hiring expectations, from an innovative perspective of the certifiability of job requirements. I demonstrated that informal methods facilitate job-person matching success when used in combination with formal methods, rather than being used alone. My third dissertation paper provides strong empirical evidence of the advantages of the joint use of formal and informal methods. I found that individuals who used formal and informal job search methods jointly tend to obtain more job information and thus apply for more positions. They are also more likely to exit job search successfully within a three-month time period. Using the Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model, I found that the joint channel itself is more likely to lead one to late-stage career success, as indicated by one’s recent income. Above all, my dissertation systematically investigated the use of contacts in the labor market of post-socialist China, regarding its institutional constraints, working mechanisms, and advantages.
Photodynamically Activated Multifunctional Chitosan Nanoparticles to Disinfect and Improve Structural Stability of Dentin
Keywords: Nanoparticles
Bacteria
Biofilm
Collagen
Chitosan
Dentin
Photodynamic
Crosslinking

Bacteria have been confirmed as the main etiological factor for root canal infection as well as for root canal treatment failure. Thus the success of endodontic treatment depends on the complete elimination of bacteria and prevention of bacterial recolonization in the root canal system. The major challenge for conventional root canal disinfection strategies is the ability of bacteria to persist as biofilms within the anatomical complexities of the root canal system. In addition, the alterations in the ultrastructure of dentin tissue results in compromised structural integrity of root dentin leading to higher risk of fracture in root-filled teeth. The objectives of this study are twofold: 1) develop and test functionalized nanoparticles to eliminate biofilm bacteria and, 2) to stabilize and strengthen the dentin organic matrix by crosslinking collagen fibrils in the presence of biopolymeric nanoparticles. A bioactive polymeric nanoparticle functionalized with a photosensitizer may present as a single step treatment to achieve both the objectives. Chitosan a bioactive polymer was used owing to their inherent antibacterial and biocompatible characteristics. Chitosan micro-/nanoparticles were synthesized as well as functionalized with photosensitizer (rose bengal) for photodynamic activation. Bioactive chitosan nanoparticle functionalized with a rose bengal is expected to combine the properties of chitosan i.e., polycationic with higher affinity to bacterial cell wall and alter membrane integrity; that of a photosensitizer i.e., to generate singlet oxygen when photoactivated; and the nano-form further potentiate these specific properties. These photodynamically activable chitosan nanoparticles showed the distinct characteristics of chitosan and rose bengal. The synergistic effect of the chitosan conjugated nanoparticles was able to eliminate monospecies and multi-species bacterial biofilms with complete disruption of the biofilm structure. The singlet oxygen generated during photoactivation produced photochemical crosslinking of dentin collagen and infiltration of chitosan nanoparticles. Following crosslinking the dentin collagen showed significantly improved mechanical properties (ultimate tensile strength and toughness) and improved resistance to degradation by bacterial collagenase. In conclusion, this study presents a potential photosensitizer functionalized chitosan nanoparticles based treatment strategy to improve the success of endodontic treatment to achieve complete disinfection of the root canal system and enhanced the mechanical/ structural integrity of the root-filled teeth.
Accountability in the Home and Community Care Sector in Ontario
Keywords: health policy
home and community care
accountability
organizational behaviour

This research seeks to identify what accountability frameworks were in place for the home and community care sector in the Canadian province of Ontario, how home and community care agencies in Ontario responded to accountability demands attached to government service funding (specifically through Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) contracts and Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) Multi-Service Accountability Agreements (MSAAs) and what, if any, effect accountability frameworks had on service delivery. This study uses a multi-phase parallel mixed methods approach. First, an environmental scan and document analysis was conducted to identify accountability frameworks and identify key characteristics of accountability demands. Next, 114 home and community care agencies in Ontario were surveyed and 20 key informant interviews were conducted with executives from 13 home and community care agencies, two CCACs and two LHINs. Data from these different methods were combined in the analysis phase. Home and community care agencies face multiple accountability requirements from a variety of stakeholders. We found that government agencies relied most heavily on regulatory and expenditure policy instruments to hold home and community care organizations to account. Organizational size and financial dependence were significantly related to organizational compliance to accountability demands attached to CCAC contracts and MSAAs. In addition to the theorized potential organizational responses to external demands (compliance, compromise, avoidance and defiance), this study found that organizations engaged in internal modification where internal practices are changed to meet accountability requirements. Smaller, more poorly resourced organizations that were highly dependent on LHINs or CCACs were more likely to internally modify organizational practice to meet accountability demands. Although MSAAs and CCAC contracts supported a quality culture amongst organizations, internal organizational changes, such as redirecting time towards reporting requirements and away from care, and cutting innovative practices and programs, were reported to have a negative impact on the quality of service delivery. Government reliance on contract-based accountability for funded home and community care services, while politically advantageous, has the potential to seriously and negatively affect the quality of home and community services delivered. Policy makers need to carefully consider the potential impact on quality of service delivery when developing and implementing accountability policy.
Child Participation in the Philippines: Reconstructing the Legal Discourse of Children and Childhood
Keywords: Children
Children's Rights
Child Participation
Childhood Studies
Children and the Law
Childhood in the Philippines

This thesis explores the participation of children within legal discourse by looking at how laws and policies engage or disengage children. The basic premise is that to understand children’s participation is to confront the discourse of children and childhood where we uncover underlying assumptions, interests and agendas that inform our conception of who the child is and what the experience of childhood entails. Specifically, the thesis examines child participation within the Philippine legal framework by looking at the status, conditions and circumstances of children in four contexts: family, educational system, work environment and youth justice system. It argues that our conceptions of children and childhood are not only produced from a particular discourse but in turn are productive of a particular construction and practices reflected in the legal system. In its examination, the thesis reveals a complex Philippine legal framework shaped by competing paradigms of children and childhood that both give meaning to and respond to children’s engagements. On the one hand, there is a dominant discourse based on universal patterns of development and socialization that views children as objects of adult control and influence. But at the same time, there is some concrete attraction to an emerging paradigm influenced by childhood studies and the child rights movement that opens up opportunities for children’s participation. In advocating for broader acceptance of the emerging paradigm, the thesis identifies distinctive understandings of this paradigm in the Philippine context. A central argument is that in reconstructing the legal discourse of children and childhood, children’s participation grounded on the emerging paradigm does not necessarily introduce “new” understandings of children and childhood in the Philippines but, in fact, confirms existing beliefs and practices that articulate deeply held indigenous relational values. Within this contextualized understanding of the emerging paradigm, the thesis articulates children’s participation as: recognition of children as rights-bearers; acknowledgment of children’s realities as lived and experienced by them; and respect for the meaningful and constitutive relationships that children establish. Consequently, the intrinsic quality and meaning of actions of the child and towards the child take on a significant legal, social and moral value.
"Sometimes children can be smarter than grown-ups": Re/constructing identities with plurilingual students in English-medium classrooms
Keywords: multilingual education
literacy
English as a Second Language (ESL)
bilingualism
language education
language learning

Monolingual, monocultural approaches to education in Canada overlook the tremendous cultural and linguistic resources present in our classrooms and communities. Connecting language teaching and learning with a politics of global location and broader social issues relating to migration and diversity, this dissertation explores how dichotomous understandings of ‘native’/’nonnative’ students neglect these interlocking and intersecting dimensions of experience. The dissertation employed Lather’s (2007) critical praxis methodology to generate data from a collaborative research project involving teachers, students, and university-based researchers. The purpose of this project was to explore the educational significance of engaging students in authentic forms of cultural production that drew upon their cultural and linguistic resources, diverse histories, and multiple modes of representation in classroom-based learning. While endeavouring to contribute to positive change in education practice, the dissertation directs a critical gaze toward the dominant and marginalizing practices and discourses that materialized during this work. Drawing upon ethnographic data gathered over the course of the project, including classroom observations, interviews with students and teachers, multimodal artifacts of student work, and researcher field notes, the dissertation maps moments of ‘otherness’ that marked nonnative ‘others’. Located where sameness and difference meet, these pedagogical pivot points became sites for negotiating understandings of cultural difference. The discoveries arising from the study are presented as two stories, offering what Lather (2007) calls a “double(d) reading” of the empirical work of the project. The first story articulates a critical analysis of the research, based on efforts to incorporate plurilingualism in education and meet the needs of students as plurilingual social actors. The second story deconstructs these aims, examining the desires of liberatory educators to create contexts of empowerment for immigrant students. The significance of the study is its contribution to expanding conversations about how educators and researchers interested in language learning might talk about difference and the social subject in education, adding greater complexity to address the multiple dimensions of students’ experiences in globalized educational contexts.
Hippocampal Neurogenesis in the Kindling Model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Keywords: learning
memory
neuroplasticity
seizure

Research over the last two decades has revealed that the process of neurogenesis continues in some brain regions throughout adulthood in mammals. The dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation displays adult neurogenesis and is known to be critical for some forms of learning and memory. Adult neurogenesis has been proposed to play an important role in hippocampal function. Seizures have been found to increase the rate of adult neurogenesis as well as alter the development of newborn neurons. Seizure-induced changes in neurogenesis have been proposed to underlie some of the cognitive impairments seen in epileptic patients. This thesis examines changes in neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus in the kindling model of temporal lobe epilepsy in rats, and explores the potential impact of these changes on hippocampal function. Progenitor cell proliferation and net neurogenesis were found to be increased in kindled rats, but increased proliferation was not sustained and returned to baseline by 8 days. This increase was greater in dorsal than ventral dentate gyrus but did not differ among the blades of the granule cell layer. Kindled seizures were found to enhance the survival of newborn neurons when presented during the second week of their development. These survived for at least 1 month after kindling (6 weeks after their birth). Electrical stimulation at current intensities below afterdischarge threshold failed to alter progenitor cell proliferation, while currents above threshold greatly increased it. There was no relationship found between stimulation current intensity and the rate of cell proliferation. Bilateral kindling of the perforant path failed to alter learning or long-term memory in a water maze test in spite of a large increase in neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus. Unkindled rats with more new neurons showed better learning performance, but had poorer long-term memory in the task. Kindled rats showed a disruption of these relationships. This thesis found that neurogenesis was greatly increased in the kindling epilepsy model, but that performance in a commonly used learning/memory task was unaltered. The impact of kindled seizures on water maze performance is questioned as well as the relevance of enhanced neurogenesis to cognitive impairments in epilepsy.
Connectivity and Convexity Properties of the Momentum Map for Group Actions on Hilbert Manifolds
Keywords: connectivity
group actions on HIlbert manifolds
convexity
momentum map

In the early 1980s a landmark result was obtained by Atiyah and independently Guillemin and Sternberg: the image of the momentum map for a torus action on a compact symplectic manifold is a convex polyhedron. Atiyah's proof makes use of the fact that level sets of the momentum map are connected. These proofs work in the setting of finite-dimensional compact symplectic manifolds. One can ask how these results generalize. A well-known example of an infinite-dimensional symplectic manifold with a finite-dimensional torus action is the based loop group. Atiyah and Pressley proved convexity for this example, but not connectedness of level sets. A proof of connectedness of level sets for the based loop group was provided by Harada, Holm, Jeffrey and Mare in 2006. In this thesis we study Hilbert manifolds equipped with a strong symplectic structure and a finite-dimensional group action preserving the strong symplectic structure. We prove connectedness of regular generic level sets of the momentum map. We use this to prove convexity of the image of the momentum map.
Investigation of the Involvement of Covalent Binding in Nevirapine-Induced Hepatic and Cutaneous Idiosyncratic Adverse Drug Reactions
Keywords: skin rash
sulfonation
nevirapine

Nevirapine (NVP) can cause serious idiosyncratic drug reactions (IDRs); specifically, skin rash and hepatotoxicity. Treatment of rats or mice with NVP led to covalent binding to hepatic proteins. Studies of this covalent binding including the use of a deuterated analog of NVP leading to a decrease in oxidation of the methyl group indicated that the metabolite responsible for covalent binding in the liver is a quinone methide. Covalent binding in NVP-treated rats was also observed in the epidermis but by a different pathway. Incubation of 12-OH-NVP sulfate with homogenized human and rat skin led to extensive covalent binding. Inhibition of sulfation in the liver significantly decreased 12-OH-NVP sulfate in the blood, but it did not prevent covalent binding in the skin or the rash. In contrast, topical application of a sulfotransferase inhibitor prevented covalent binding in the skin as well as the rash, but only where it was applied. In contrast to rats, treatment of mice with NVP did not result in covalent binding in the skin or skin rash. These findings provide compelling evidence that 12-OH-NVP sulfate formed in the skin is responsible for the skin rash. IL-1β and IL-18 production in the skin of rats treated with NVP were increased. An anti-IL-1ß antibody significantly decreased rash severity. These cytokines were also produced by incubation of human keratinocytes with 12-OH-NVP sulfate. These data indicate that 12-OH-NVP sulfate activates the NLRP3 inflammasome, a pathway known to be responsible for contact hypersensitivity rashes. In summary, NVP was found to produce two different reactive metabolites, a quinone methide species in the liver, and a benzylic sulfate in the skin. Significant liver injury did not occur, presumably due to immune tolerance. Although it is usually assumed that reactive metabolites are responsible for most IDRs, this is the first example to actually demonstrate that a specific reactive metabolite is responsible for an IDR. This is also the first study to show that sulfotransferase in the skin is responsible for bioactivation of a drug leading to a skin rash. It is likely that there are other drugs that cause skin rashes by a similar mechanism.