VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Mexican Students’ Experiences in Study Abroad Programs: Analyzing the Link between Experiences and Learning Outcomes
Keywords: Experiences
Higher Education
Internationalization
Learning Outcomes
Mexican Students
Study Abroad Programs

There is very little research on Mexican students’ experiences and learning in study abroad programs. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to describe the experiences that Mexican students have while studying abroad; illustrate how learning takes place; identify major changes in Mexican students’ learning outcomes; and analyze links between study abroad experiences and learning outcomes. Guided by Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and the classification of learning outcomes by Varela (2017), this mixed-methods study draws on experiences of 96 Mexican students enrolled at Tecnológico de Monterrey, a non-profit private university, who participated in a study abroad program in the Fall 2021. Two sets of surveys (N = 96) and three sessions of interviews (N = 14) were conducted. Three statistical analyses (Paired t-test, Multiple Linear Regression, and ANCOVA) were performed on the survey data, and the inductive qualitative coding examined key themes from students’ interviews. Quantitative analyses showed that after studying abroad there was a statistically significant increase in participants’ scores on various indices, including: proficiency in the host country’s language, knowledge of the host country, openness to diversity, and flexibility. However, there was a statistically significant decrease in their disposition for social interaction with local people. The quantitative analyses also demonstrated that the students who got meaningfully involved in new experiences abroad showed significantly higher post-scores on key learning outcomes. The qualitative analysis described diverse experiences and highlighted numerous challenges, including adapting to a new country, communicating in a different language, making social connections with the local and international students, and adjusting to different academic environments. Nonetheless, many of the participants expressed a sense of personal growth, development of self-confidence, independence, autonomy, tolerance, adaptability, and patience after studying abroad. Finally, the qualitative analysis indicated that various factors, including willingness to take initiative, financial resources, and free time are the main factors that facilitated or impeded meaningful study abroad experiences. The key contributions of the thesis are to shed light how study abroad experiences contribute to different types of learning outcomes and to highlight the distinctive experiences and outcomes that Mexican students in particular have while studying abroad.
Scale-phobic and Extractant Impregnated Surfaces for Critical Materials (Scandium and Rare earth Elements) Separation and Purification
Keywords: antiscaling
extractant impregnated surfaces
rare earth elements
scandium recovery
supported liquid extraction
surface energy

This dissertation focuses on the development of innovative materials that contribute to sustainable, efficient, and environmentally friendly processes for the separation and purification of critical materials. In this dissertation, the scale-phobicity of rare earth oxides (REOs) ceramics is investigated. The weight gain due to gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O) scale accumulation on the REO surfaces shows a 55% and 77% reduction in comparison with bare borosilicate glass and stainless steel 304 surfaces. It is shown that the polar component of surface energy is the main contributor to scale deposition; hence, REOs with a minimal polar component (0.1 mJ m-2) show scale repellency. The adhesion forces between gypsum salt and test materials showed a strong positive correlation with the total surface energy and the polar component of surface energy. The focus of this dissertation is expanded to the development of supported-liquid extraction systems, and the extractant impregnated surfaces (EIS) are developed to tackle the challenges associated with separating scandium from bauxite residue slag leachate. Compared with traditional solvent extraction, the EIS requires significantly less volume of extractant and no agitation. About 95% of scandium is separated from the complex feedstock prepared from industrial waste bauxite residue using bis(2,4,4-trimethyl pentyl) phosphinic acid loaded EIS, and the selectivity of scandium is more than 200 times higher than that of aluminum. The fundamentals of developing EIS systems are demonstrated, and systematic investigations are conducted to elucidate the scandium adsorption mechanism. Moreover, it is confirmed the EIS scheme and its underlying principles can be applied to sandblasted polytetrafluoroethylene substrates, which proves the potential of using EIS design at larger scales. The applicability of EIS is expanded to the separation of rare earth elements (REEs). The EIS impregnated with 2-ethylhexyl phosphonic acid-mono-2-ethylhexyl ester (PC88A) is developed to separate praseodymium (Pr) and neodymium (Nd) from a mixture of heavy rare earth elements (HREEs). A 92% purity of Pr+Nd with 96% yield and a separation factor of 171 are achieved. Fundamental investigations provide mechanistic insight into the selectivity of Pr and Nd over HREEs, and the reaction pathway of adsorption to PC88A-EIS substrates.
Policing and Police Reform in Turkey since 1980: Regime Transitions and Policing Transformations
Keywords: AKP
Authoritarianism
Policing
Political Transitions
Turkey
Turkish National Police

Extant scholarship examining how political transitions affect policing have suggested that police forces in transitional states continue to be characterized by repressive and predatory practices, and have primarily investigated the causes of such continuities. Drawing on a case study of the endurance of authoritarian police practices following the transition from military to civilian rule in Turkey in 1983, I argue that the scholarly literature has largely neglected the role of mixed regimes and incomplete transitions in influencing the course of police reform in democratic transitions. The dissertation also analyzes how Turkish policing has responded to successive political transformations, including the end of tutelary democracy (accompanied by emerging competitive authoritarianism), and over the last decade the consolidating authoritarian rule of the AKP (Justice and Development Party).This study brings to light how the police, an institution that is generally treated as subordinated to regime leaders, can pursue an independent policy agenda that can sometimes include a reformist element. Thus, in Turkey, reform-minded officials within the police pursued substantive democratic transformations in policing in exchange for their cooperation with the AKP government’s attempts to delegitimize the political role of the military, even in the face of the AKP’s ‘authoritarian turn’ after 2006. This experience demonstrates how the police themselves can be instruments of democratic change in policing through their degree of independence from political leaders due to their control over coercion or can sometimes exhibit greater loyalty to democratic principles than the governments they serve. My findings also demonstrate how the police can shape regime transitions, a question that neither policing scholars nor political scientists have fully explored, by revealing how policing has catalyzed Turkey’s authoritarian transformation over the last 15 years. My analysis of the AKP’s reassessment of the source of threats to its survival and its response to that changed assessment resulting in different changes to policing during the authoritarian transformation in the country also represents a contribution to the (mostly criminology) policing literature by applying insights from the political science scholarship on coercive institutions in autocracies, which theorizes how authoritarian leaders organize their coercive institutions to remain in power.
Acid-treated Biochar as Heterogeneous Catalyst for the Visible-light Driven Wet-peroxide Valorization of Biomass into Dicarboxylic Acids
Keywords: Advanced oxidation processes
Biochar
Biomass
Fenton
Photocatalysis
Water treatment

The depolymerization of biomass into dicarboxylic acids (DCAs) presents a promising green pathway to reduce reliance on fossil fuel feedstocks. However, large-scale implementation faces challenges due to costly noble metal catalysts and harsh reaction conditions. This research investigates the use of sulfuric acid-modified pyrolysis carbons (SBC) loaded with TiO2 nanoparticles as catalysts for visible-light-driven, photo-Fenton activation of H2O2 to depolymerize biomass into DCAs under circumneutral pH conditions.We evaluate the physicochemical properties of SBCs by studying the photo-Fenton-like degradation of methyl orange (MO) as a surrogate. Two applications of SBCs are explored: depolymerization of alkali lignin and oxidation of glucose into DCAs. Factors such as pyrolysis temperature, surface acidity, and persistent free radical (PFR) concentration influence the catalytic activity of SBCs. SBCs prepared at 500°C exhibit excellent performance in MO removal and total organic carbon (TOC) reduction under photo-Fenton conditions. However, the presence of PO_4^3- inhibits MO removal by poisoning the Lewis acid sites on SBC. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) studies reveal key transient species involved in the degradation process, including •OH, •O_2^-, and 1O_2. For lignin depolymerization, SBC catalysts prepared from rice straw biomass show enhanced catalytic performance in activating H2O2 under Fe-free conditions. Oxygenated surface functional groups and PFRs enable SBC to activate H2O2 and dissolved O2, generating •OH and 1O_2. The addition of the NaN3 scavenger enhances cumulative DCA yields, confirming 1O_2 as the primary reactive oxygen species. The SBC catalysts demonstrate stability and recyclability over multiple cycles, with slight decreases in lignin conversion and DCA yields. Similarly, with glucose, the SBC catalysts produce mesaconic acid, an unsaturated C4-DCA in aqueous solutions via hole-mediated oxidation. Overall, this research lays the foundation for sustainable strategies to valorize biomass. By utilizing a portion of the biomass feedstock to produce durable catalysts, the remaining biomass can be efficiently converted into industrially relevant platform chemicals. These findings advance green chemistry and offer promising avenues for the eco-friendly utilization of biomass resources.
Persistent Place-Making in the Ancestral Wabanaki Homeland: Washademoak Multi-coloured Chert and the Belyeas Cove Quarry
Keywords: Hunter-fisher-gatherer
Lithic quarries
Maritime Peninsula
Persistent places
Place-making
Wabanaki

Lithic quarries are significant places for hunter-fisher-gatherers; they are persistent places which offer critical tools for survival, and their archaeology often speaks to millennia of human engagements with past landscapes. Despite this, much of quarry research has been framed through a positivist lens which de-emphasizes the ways in which stone mediates both social and economic relationships and plays important roles in the ritual lives of many groups. This thesis explores how lithic resources, and the bedrock sources for those resources, offer a space for understanding Ancestral Wabanaki place-making and how groups interacted with, and constructed their past landscapes. I focus on the known bedrock source for Washademoak Multi-coloured Chert (WMCC) at Belyeas Cove, Washademoak Lake, in the Lower Wolastoq region, New Brunswick, Canada. Using a dataset of 148 archaeological sites spanning from the Palaeoindian period through to the 18th century, I argue the procurement, preparation, distribution, and use—the circulation—of Washademoak Chert maps Ancestral Wabanaki relationships within the Maritime Peninsula and beyond. These data document trade patterns, ritual, domestic life, and the ways Wabanaki participated in and reconfigured wide-ranging cultural phenomena, particularly so during the Maritime Woodland period (3000–500 cal BP). Persistent place-making is built through mutually constituted relationships between people, their landscapes, and the things they create. The circulation of those things builds connections to, and between, places and can be thought of as a type of portable place-making. By tracking the distribution of WMCC through time and space, this research explores the relationship between past peoples and their landscapes—natural and social—how those relationships were mediated through materials like stone, and how actions like quarrying, preparing, and circulating or exchanging stone were part of persistent place-making at the Belyeas Cove quarry.
The SO(4) Verlinde Formula Using Real Polarization
Keywords: Geometric quantization
Goldman flow
Real polarization
Symplectic geometry
Toric manifold
Verlinde Formula

We adapt the construction of Jeffrey and Weitsman to interpret the SO(4)Verlinde formula through a real polarization. To accomplish this objective, our study focuses on the moduli space of flat G connections on a compact, oriented two-manifold of genus g denoted as $\Sigma^g$. We explore this space for various Lie groups G and establish their relationship through a double covering map. By utilizing the Goldman flow, we identify the Hamiltonian flows with a period of 1. These period 1 Hamiltonian flows then allow us to determine the Bohr-Sommerfeld fibres. Through this process, we establish a one-to-one correspondence between the number of Bohr-Sommerfeld fibres and integer labellings of a trivalent graph derived from the pants decomposition of $\Sigma^g$ under certain conditions. The count of such labelling provides the precise dimension of the Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$, which emerges from the geometric quantization of the moduli space.
Characterization and Visualization of Most Abundant Microbes in a Methanogenic Benzene Degrading Culture
Keywords: Biomass Recycling
Candidate Phyla Radiation
Electron Microscopy
Fluorescence in situ hybridization
Genome-resolved Metagenomics
Methanogenic Benzene Degradation

A methanogenic benzene degrading enrichment culture in our laboratory harbours two poorly characterized organisms, Desulfobacterota (ORM2) and Ca. Nealsonbacteria. This enrichment culture therefore provided a valuable opportunity to study these poorly understood microbes in a stable culture. ORM2 has previously been established as the main benzene fermenter in the culture, however had never been visualized microscopically. Ca. Nealsonbacteria is a member of the Candidate Phyla Radiation with almost no cultivated representatives. The thesis aimed to visualize these two uncultivated microbes and uncover Ca. Nealsonbacteria’s role in the methanogenic benzene-degrading enrichment culture, using combinations of various microscopic techniques and genome-enabled technologies. A specific fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) probe was developed for ORM2 to observe its behavior during growth. FISH analyses showed ORM2 cells as variable-length rod shapes that often associated with other cells, particularly methanogens. Microscopic and genomic analyses suggested that ORM2 may produce extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) that likely contribute to cell aggregation. EPS production might consume substantial energy, possibly explaining the lag time before the onset of ORM2 growth upon fresh medium inoculation. We observed that cell aggregation seemed to be related to benzene concentration, disappearing at higher benzene concentrations of 90-120 mg/L. Furthermore, through several enrichment assays with various substrates, we assigned a role to Ca. Nealsonbacteria as a biomass recycler in the methanogenic benzene degrading culture. Microscopic images revealed that tiny Ca. Nealsonbacteria cells were attached to archaeal Methanothrix cell filaments, suggesting an epibiont lifestyle. Metabolic predictions based on a manually curated complete genome also supported this finding. In summary, this study provided the first visualization of cells from a novel clade within the Desulfobacterota (ORM2) and a member of the Candidate Phyla Radiation (Ca. Nealsonbacteria) in methanogenic benzene degrading culture, revealing their microbial spatial organization. These results provide insights into improving the growth rate and cell density of ORM2 to aid in remediation of sites contaminated with benzene and other hydrocarbons. This study also identified a rare example of a bacterial-archaeal episymbiosis, which may be a common feature of many other Ca. Nealsonbacteria that are found in abundance in anoxic environments.
Spatial Patterns of the Amygdala Engram
Keywords: amygdala
cluster
engram

The amygdala is a key region for encoding and recall of associative memories. Neurons that are more active during fear learning form an engram which is later reactivated during recall of that event. Engram populations are essential for encoding and recalling salient experiences, but the location of these neurons within the amygdala is not well understood or characterized. To understand how endogenous engram populations are distributed in the amygdala, we imaged whole amygdala subregions in three-dimensions to capture the spatial properties of all active neurons during differently valenced events (aversive or neutral) and at different memory stages (encoding or recall). At a meso-spatial scale aversive encoding engram populations had greater ventral and posterior density in the LA, greater posterior density in the BA, and greater posterior density in the CeL. Density profiles of all subregions revealed that engram states were more similar to each other compared to baseline amygdala activity. Recall states, regardless of valence during encoding, were the most highly correlated. Spatial clustering of active neurons revealed micro-level spatial clusters in all conditions including baseline. The relative number of clusters increased during aversive and recall conditions in the LA and BA, and during aversive learning in the CeC. Network graphs were constructed from engram spatial distributions; these revealed that amygdala activity was highly clustered and assortative in all conditions. Assortativity was significantly increased in the CeC during aversive encoding, and hub node number was significantly increased in the LA during both aversive encoding and recall and in the CeC during aversive encoding. We have demonstrated that meso- and micro-level spatial patterns exist in the amygdala, and these patterns are modified during engram activation at encoding or recall. These changes may reflect modified neuron activity propagation that improves signal-to-noise for salient features.
Nation, Narrative and Archive: In Search of Queer Histories in Zimbabwe
Keywords: Archives
Queer African Studies
Zimbabwe

This dissertation argues for a new genealogy for telling the history of queerness in Zimbabwe. State-sponsored histories have created a narrow, nationalist narrative that relegates queerness to the margins. This is a project that resides in those margins. By sinking deep into the spaces that queer bodies create for themselves in those margins, I develop a reading practice that disrupts existing narratives through the analysis of archives as cultural formations and demonstrating how changing how we constitute these formations can lead to narratives that can lead to freedom. I argue that the state’s political homophobia has an outsize role in defining the discourse on homosexuality in Zimbabwe and that this results in trauma-centred narratives or what Keguro Macharia would term negating spaces. Even when scholars focus on counter-narratives, we are still allowing the state to shape the language of the discussion and therefore limit what we can imagine. By being attentive to the myriad of ways that LGBTI Zimbabweans engage in social negotiations of identity, and the stories they tell, I theorize how LGBTI people are defining non-normative sexualities in Zimbabwe. LGBTI people are already actively engaged in the work of articulating distinctively African queer subjectivities. They are already imagining a different story. Through narrative interventions in four moments of queer history in Zimbabwe, I develop a reading practice that draws from Queer African Studies, to allow for a different Queer Zimbabwean narrative, one that centers the freedom and liberation of the marginalized. This reading practice disrupts existing narratives through the analysis of archives as cultural formations and demonstrating how changing how we constitute these formations can lead to narratives that can lead to freedom. My methods are informed by my creative writing practice as I work with storytelling as method. I also draw from indigenous oral traditions and indigenous Shona frameworks of the power of story to develop my method.
Evaluating Continuing Health Professions Education as Health Policy for the Opioid Crisis
Keywords: Analgesics Opioid
Education Continuing
Health Policy
Opioid-Related Disorders
Pain
Population Health

Continuing health professions education (CHPE) has been considered an essential intervention for addressing the Canadian opioid crisis. CHPE programs are complex – they involve the actions of people and a complex chain of steps, are embedded in social systems shaped by context, and are open systems subject to change. Drawing on frameworks for evaluating complex interventions, the objectives of this thesis were to: 1) systematically assess all published evaluative reports of CHPE programs for their appropriateness as interventions to reduce opioid-related harms and improve population health; 2) conduct an implementation evaluation of the Safer Opioid Prescribing CHPE program; and 3) develop a conceptual model to support the design and evaluation of population health focused CHPE. Addressing opioid-related harms was a consistent justification for the development and delivery of the 32 opioid analgesic prescribing CHPE programs. Yet, evaluations of these programs rarely encompassed patient- or population-level outcomes, focusing primarily on self-reported performance outcomes. There was likewise little explicit use of educational or other theory reported in program development and evaluation. Implementation evaluations can support such interrogations of program theory. It was determined that the Safer Opioid Prescribing program was implemented as intended along the outcomes of reach, dose, fidelity, and participant responsiveness. This identified a promising model for using virtual continuing health professions education to reach a critical mass of prescribers to address large scale health problems. However, due to the complex and dynamic nature of the opioid crisis, scaling up of successfully implemented programs is no guarantee achieving beneficial population health outcomes. Drawing on the fields of clinical population medicine, the social determinants of health, health equity, and philosophies of population health, at least five ways of re-orienting CHPE programs towards population health were identified. These included: 1) scaling effective CME programs while evaluating at population health levels; 2) (re)interpreting evidence for program content from a population perspective; 3) incorporating social determinants of health into clinically-oriented CME activities; 4) explicitly building fluency in population health concepts and practices among health care providers and CME planners; and 5) attending to social inequity in every aspect of CME programs.