VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A Study on Biogas-fueled SI Engines: Effects of Fuel Composition on Emissions and Catalyst Performance
Keywords: spark ignition engine biogas emissions catalyst catalytic converter

Biogas as a fuel is attractive from a greenhouse standpoint, since biogas is carbon neutral. To be used as such, increasingly stringent emission standards must be met. Current low-emission technologies meet said standards by precisely controlling the air-fuel ratio. Biogas composition can vary substantially, making air-fuel ratio control difficult. This research was conducted as part of a larger project to develop a sensor that accurately measures biogas composition. Biogas was simulated by fuel mixtures consisting of natural gas and CO2; the effects that fuel composition has on emissions and catalyst performance were investigated. Engine-out THC and NOx increased and decreased, respectively, with increasing CO2 in the fuel mixture. Doubling the catalyst residence time doubled the conversion of THC and CO emissions. The effectiveness of the catalyst at converting THC emissions was found to be dependent on the relative proportions of engine-out THC, NOx and CO emissions.
Diasporic Contradictions: Indian (Hindu) Women Negotiating Canadian Higher Education
Keywords: Diaspora
Women
India
Education
Tradition
Hindu
Culture
Canada

Tradition and modernity are often viewed as strong yet opposing influences on the lives of Indian women living in Canada. In particular, the customs and religion of the homeland are assumed to conflict with the modern aspirations of these women. This study utilizes standpoint theory as a framework to question and push against this popular portrayal, and examines how Indian (Hindu) values influence, challenge and contribute to the educational and professional advancement of diasporic women. By analyzing qualitative interviews conducted with recently immigrated and second-generation Indian (Hindu) women, this study reveals that these women take on the role of an ideal amalgamation of Eastern and Western practices and navigate through their educational and professional choices in a manner that accommodates both. Traditional values and modernity are not always mutually exclusive, as evidenced by my participants who mobilize both in order to achieve particular sites of classed and ethnic empowerment.
Solitude and Solidarity:Understanding Public Pedagogy through Queer Discourses on YouTube
Keywords: LGBT
Queer
Research-informed Theatre
YouTube
Representation
Participatory Media
Video
Creation
LGBTQ
Theatre
Embodied Knowing
Queer Theory
Cultural Studies
Public Pedagogy
Media
Popular Culture
Anti-oppression Education
Anti-homophobia Education
Personal Narrative
Collective Creation
Heteronormativity
Homonormativity
Queer Resistence
Participatory Action Research
Arts-based Research

Working alongside five queer-identified theatre artists, using critical arts-based participatory action research, this research project worked through a creative process in which the research team identified, deconstructed, and disrupted normative queer discourses on the video-sharing website YouTube. Using notions from queer theory, cultural studies, and anti-oppression education, along with embodied analysis as a deconstructive strategy, the research team used collective theorizing and performance to facilitate an analysis of the online videos. In this thesis, I discuss embodied knowing by analyzing performative moments in the creative workshop undertaken by the research team. I then provide a thematic analysis of the online videos, followed by an analysis of how the research team used collective creation and personal narrative to produce a counter-hegemonic response video. Finally, I conclude with a discussion on how to engage video creation as a form of anti-oppression education that queers public pedagogy.
Creating Borderlands using a Multi-genre Approach: A Reflexive Ethnography
Keywords: Ethnography
Borderlands

The Creating Borderlands using a Multicultural Approach: a reflective ethnography focuses on an exploration into the psychological landscapes of junior-level students, whose minds have been riddled with stereotypes, single-stories, and images of Nazi Germany and of the Jewish people. The research navigates these young minds through a sea of images and preconceptions of the German and Jewish cultures and attempts to break down barriers, and reconstruct a borderland and a geography of renewed/reshaped understanding. The research intends to explore issues of social justice through a multimodal, multi-literacy unit within the context of the Holocaust. Through the qualitative paradigm of ethnography the research uncovers a mosaic of preconceptions and stereotypes, a tapestry of emotions, and a puzzle of renewed cultural awareness. Key terms: Border Crossing, Social Scaffolding, Multimodal Literacy, Reflexive Ethnography, Narrative Inquiry, Cultural Awareness, Polyvocality, Autobiographical Narrative, Qualitative Paradigm, Bricolage, Reflexivity, Multicultural Education
Pebbles for Peace: The Impact of Holocaust Education
Keywords: Holocaust Education
Pebbles for Peace

“Studying the Shoah (Holocaust) forces students to consider what it means to be human and humane by examining the full continuum of individual behavior, from ultimate evil to ultimate good” (Lindquist, 2011, p. 26). The Pebbles for Peace project was created with the intention to explore these character extremes and to provide tangible examples of choices that can be made in life. This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration of the Pebbles for Peace project that will include the researcher’s narrative reflection on her personal journey through education, specifically Holocaust education, as well as observations of the impact on classroom participation in the project.
Development and Cross-language Transfer of Oral Reading Fluency using Longitudinal and Concurrent Predictors among Canadian French Immersion Primary-level Children
Keywords: Oral reading fluency
Cross-language transfer
French Immersion

This thesis investigates development and transfer of oral reading fluency among early French immersion students. Using a longitudinal design, students were assessed on phonological awareness, rapid naming, word-level fluency and text-level fluency in English and in French in Grade 2 and Grade 3. In three related studies, this thesis examines transfer both within levels of fluency individually (word-level and text-level) and between levels of fluency (from word-level to text-level). The results indicated that word-level fluency significantly improved over the one-year period in both English and in French. Language status comparing English-as-first-language students (EL1) and English-language-learners (ELLs) did not influence fluency performance in either language. Further, results showed bidirectional transfer of fluency at the word-level and the text-level independently, and unidirectional transfer from word to text fluency from French to English only. These findings provide evidence supporting cross-language transfer of oral reading fluency both within and between levels of the construct.
Accessibility of Tests in Higher Education Online Learning Environments: Perspectives and Practices of U.K. Expert Practitioners
Keywords: accessibility
online test
higher education
technology

This study is an investigation of the perspectives and practices of U.K. expert practitioners regarding the accessibility of tests in higher education online learning environments. As a growing area of concern in the higher education field, the accessibility of online tests is a particularly complex and challenging topic. To explore this topic further, twelve U.K. higher education expert practitioners were consulted. Five major themes that were identified by the participants included: 1. Requirement for balance between academic integrity and accessibility; 2. Need for inclusive design to better support the creation and delivery of accessible online tests; 3. Issues related to the mainstreaming of accessible online tests and testing processes; 4. Resources required to support the design and delivery of accessible online tests; and 5. Technology issues and approaches. The participants shared their research findings, experiences, and reflections regarding their work related to different types of online tests and accessibility.
Pre-service Teacher Education and Classroom Management: An Evaluation of EDU5572
Keywords: classroom management
pre-service teacher
proactive strategies
teacher education
teaching style
teaching attitudes
teaching self-efficacy

Childhood emotional, behavioural and learning problems are prevalent in elementary classroom settings. It is therefore imperative to evaluate pre-service teacher training in classroom management. Two studies were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a proactive behavioural management course taught at a Canadian teacher’s college. The first study examined a sample of 69 pre-service teachers at the start and completion of this course. Using random assignment, the second study compared 50 pre-service teachers who completed the course to 32 pre-service teachers who did not take the course. Participants completed questionnaires assessing their self-efficacy, teaching style, and teaching attitudes and partook in simulated classroom scenarios. Significant findings highlight the positive influence of this course on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy, teaching style, emotions and reactions towards children, and their use of classroom management strategies. This research may further the development of pre-service teacher training in classroom management.
Loan Word Facilitation in the Acquisition of English Lexis by Speakers of Japanese
Keywords: Japanese
English
Loanword
Lexis
Acquisition

Japanese contains many words borrowed from English, which differ from the source word both phonologically and/or semantically. This study examined how short classroom interventions can facilitate recognizing (i) the spoken forms of these words in English, and (ii) semantic differences between loanwords and their English counterparts. Thirty participants were divided into 3 groups: an English-only treatment group, a Japanese English treatment group, and a control group. Each group completed a pretest requiring them to (i) identify loan words pronounced in English, and (ii) provide the meanings of these words. Thereafter the first group was given the correct English pronunciation and meanings of these words without reference to their Japanese counterparts. The second group was explicitly taught the difference between the English and Japanese versions. To assess the efficacy of the 2 treatments, the groups were given a posttest. Results confirmed that the contrastive method is the most effective.
Navigating Surveillance Discourse: Virtual Space, Childhood, and Contrasting Representations of Online Safety
Keywords: Surveillance Discourse
Social Network
Sociology of Childhood
Communication

This project looked at two different sets of data to further understand the relationship between surveillance discourse and the Internet, how surveillance discourse around navigating the Internet has developed, and how children use social technology and digital media for positive communication as well as an alternative space for social engagement. This project argues that there is a disconnect between the way children use social technology, and the approach authoritative websites take in aiming to educate parents, educators, and children on using the Internet safely. This study performs a thematic content analysis on websites that aim to educate on Internet Safety. Additionally, this qualitative study focuses on semi-structured interviews with grade 4-6 students in a French language school in Western Ontario and their reaction to the question, “how do you use technology”. This project is a stepping-stone into many conversations around the possibilities present for the Internet, children, and communication.
Telling Our Truths: Exploring Issues of Immigration, Identity, and Literacy with Adult Language Learners
Keywords: Adult Language Learners
English as a Second Language
Critical Pedagogy
New Literacies Studies
Practitioner Research
Identity
Immigration
Poetry

This thesis explores the issues of immigration and identity that inform the experiences of adult English language learners and which can be addressed within a classroom context. Using practitioner research and an explicitly critical approach to literacy and learning, I conducted a six week workshop at a community English language school in New York City, working with eleven adult learners to discuss their lives in their native countries, decisions to move to the United States, and experiences living in a new country and learning English in an attempt to understand how those factors shape their learning and could be incorporated into the curriculum. This workshop used poetry as a means for students’ self-expression and demonstrated the importance of inviting adult immigrant students into collaborative, co-constructive learning environments where their lived experiences are at the core of their language learning process in order to allow for an inclusive negotiation of identity.
The Impact of Burnout, Vicarious Trauma and Secondary Traumatic Stress on Job Satisfaction in Nurses: A Comparison of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) and Emergency Nurses
Keywords: Occupational Stress
nursing
Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners
Emergency Nurses
Burnout
Vicarious trauma
Secondary Traumatic Stress
Job Satisfaction

Occupational stress is a major concern in Canadian society, and nurses have been identified as a high-risk population. In this study, levels of occupational stress (vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout) were examined in Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) and Emergency nurses. Our objectives were: 1) to compare levels of occupational stress between groups, 2) examine the relationship between occupational stress and job satisfaction, and 3) examine the relationship between job satisfaction, intention to leave, and absenteeism. Results showed no significant group differences on vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress, but significantly higher levels of burnout in Emergency nurses, and intention to leave one’s job significantly predicted job satisfaction in Emergency nurses. Although SANEs did not experience greater occupational stress, open-ended data indicated negative consequences to this work. However, both groups also spoke to the positive rewards of helping those in need. Implications for nursing practice are also discussed.
Air versus Land Vehicle Decisions for Interfacility Air Medical Transport
Keywords: Air ambulance
emergency medical services
decision support systems
emergency treatment

In emergency medical transport, “time to definite care” is very important. Emergency medical services and transport medicine agencies have several possible vehicle options for interfacility transfers. Use of a land vehicle, helicopter, or fixed wing aircraft will be dependent on patient condition, distance between sending and receiving hospitals, crew configuration and capabilities, and other factors such as weather and road conditions. This thesis lays out the complex process of patient transfers and highlights the challenges in decision making under time pressure; it then describes the behaviour of human operators in estimating time to definite care. To support the operators in choosing a transportation mode, a decision support tool was built, which provides relevant time estimates for interfacility transfers based on historical dispatch and call data. The goal is to enable operators to make evidence-based decisions on vehicle allocation. A prototype interface was generated and was evaluated through a usability study.
Co-purification of Nuclear Receptor Ligand(s) and Interacting Proteins from Zebrafish Embryos
Keywords: Protein purification
Zebrafish
Small molecules
ligand(s)
Nuclear receptor
PPAR gamma
Mass spectrometry
Rosiglitazone
Idebenone
Capsaicin
Ibuprofen

The main focus of this project was to optimize a protocol for small molecule ligand co-purification from an in-vivo tissue source. For this purpose, I employed a transgenic zebrafish line called the pLT-gypsy, which expresses a fusion protein containing a tagged-NR LBD (Tiefenbach et al., 2010). The particular line I used to optimize the ligand identification protocol is the pLT-PPARγ zebrafish line, which expresses the tagged-PPARγ receptor's LBD (also called PPARγ-fusion protein). By using rosiglitazone (a known PPARγ ligand) as a positive control, I managed to optimize a protocol to purify the PPARγ-fusion protein and identify the co-purified ligand by mass spectrometry. This protocol can be used to identify the physiological/endogenous ligand for the PPARγ receptor as well as other orphan NRs. Compared to previous methods of ligand identification, this method allows for the identification of the ligand from the tissues where it is functional.
Multi-dimensional Nitric Oxide Emissions Predictor for Preliminary Gas Turbine Combustor Design Optimization
Keywords: Emissions
NOx
Modeling
Combustor
Combustion
ICAO
Reactor
Network

This thesis pertains to development of preliminary combustor design tools for prediction of NOx emissions from aircraft gas turbine combustors. These tools are developed in the form of chemical reactor models and their objective is to predict the formation of NOx based on combustor geometry and engine input parameters such as inlet pressure, inlet temperature, fuel flow and air flow. The construction of the reactor networks follow from cold flow computational fluid dynamics results as it provides a way for allocating volumes to each reactor in the network. The ability of the model to predict NOx has been analysed by comparing predictions with measured data and theoretical trends. The model predictions for different combustors satisfy theoretical trends across various thrust levels in that the model correctly captures the effect of various input parameters on NOx formation and predicts most power conditions for various combustors within 15% of the measured value.
Application of Minimally-invasive Uterine Fluid Aspiration to Identify Candidate Biomarkers of Endometrial Receptivity through a Transcriptomic Approach
Keywords: Endometrial receptivity
Implantation
Microarray
Transcriptomics

The endometrium is receptive to the embryo during a restricted window in the mid-secretory phase. My objectives were to develop a minimally-invasive endometrial sampling method for gene expression profiling, and to identify genes differentially expressed in the receptive phase. Twenty-three normo-ovulatory women underwent uterine fluid aspiration during the pre-receptive (LH+2) and receptive (LH+7) phase of the same natural cycle. RNA was extracted, reverse transcribed, amplified and hybridized to whole-genome microarrays. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering revealed self-segregation of pre-receptive and receptive samples. Importantly, profiling by uterine fluid aspiration was representative of biopsy. An unpaired t-test with a false discovery rate of 0.05 and a Δ threshold of 4-fold identified 245 unique transcripts as differentially expressed in the receptive phase. NanoString analysis validated 96% of these genes. This approach will now allow us to correlate expression of these candidate biomarkers to implantation outcomes, towards the development of clinical assays predictive for endometrial receptivity.
In Search of Lost Time: Redefining Socialist Realism in Postwar North Korea
Keywords: North Korea
socialist realism
Chosŏnhwa
art

This project examines developments in the field of visual art in the post-Korean War period of national reconstruction in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1953-1960). In particular, I focus on the debates that arise within the emergent genre of Chosŏnhwa, a modernized mode of traditional painting in ink, that address the question of a North Korean mode of socialist realism. Based on editorial articles and round table discussion published in the art journal Chosŏn misul (1957–?) my project traces the dynamic positions held by artists, critics and historians on the relationship between the discourse of (socialist) realism and the role of Korea’s own aesthetic tradition within the development of a new mode of North Korean art in the socialist context. What transpires is a dynamic discourse on what constitutes or should constitute North Korean art in the contemporary era of socialism.
Debugging With Behavioral Watchpoints
Keywords: Watchpoints
Debuggers
Dynamic Instrumentation

Finding, understanding, and fixing bugs in software systems is challenging. Dynamic binary translation (DBT) systems provide a powerful facility for building program analysis and debugging tools. However, DBT abstractions are too low-level and provide limited contextual information to instrumentation tools, making it hard to implement such tools. In this theis, we introduce behavioral watchpoints, a new software-based watchpoint framework that simplifies the implementation of DBT-based program analysis and debugging tools. Behavioral watchpoints have two key features: 1) they provide contextual information at the instruction level which are directly available with watchpoints and 2) they enable specializing instruction-level instrumentation with individual data structures. We describe three applications that were easily developed using our watchpoint framework: detecting buffer overflows, detecting read-before-write and memory freeing bugs and detecting memory leaks. We implemented behavioral watchpoints using Granary, a DBT framework for instrumenting operating system kernels. We evaluated the overheads of watchpoints for analyzing and debugging operating system kernel modules and show that these overheads are reasonable.
Loss of DACH2 is an Early Event in Breast and Ovarian Carcinogenesis
Keywords: Senescence
Hormones

Mechanistic insights into how enduring menstrual cycle hormonal signaling promotes tumorigenesis are emerging. We performed a genome-wide screen in primary epithelial cells to identify hormonally-regulated candidates that initiate pro-tumorigenic phenotypes in normal cells. One candidate, DACH2, has been described as part of a network that regulates organogenesis during development. In vitro, we find that DACH2 expression is regulated by estrogen and progesterone in a dosage dependent manner. Lentiviral-mediated shRNA silencing of DACH2 in hormonally responsive tissues promotes expansion of cells with progenitor characteristics. Within gene expression profiles of fallopian tubes, DACH2 is a member of a minimal gene classifier that distinguishes follicular versus luteal phases. Decreased DACH2 is characteristic of luteal-phase tubal cells and the majority of ovarian serous carcinomas. These studies suggest that DACH2 may orchestrate a physiological program that, when deregulated, locks cells in a progenitor-state, induces uncontrolled proliferation, and predisposes cells for breast and ovarian carcinogenesis.