VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Are brand-name and generic warfarin interchangeable?: a pharmacological and behavioural investigation

Background. With Canada's approval in 2000 of two generic warfarin products, the need exists to address whether these brands can be safely interchanged with Coumadin and to determine physician and patient acceptance of generic warfarin. Methods. Multiple-crossover, N-of-1 trials switched patients between generic warfarin and Coumadin, with regular INR testing. Questionnaires on generic warfarin were developed; patient questionnaires were distributed at a Hamilton Anticoagulation Clinic, and physician questionnaires were mailed to 375 random Ontario physicians. Results. After five crossovers each, the three study patients did not have a significant difference in mean INR, dosage adjustments or INR variability between warfarin brands. Patient and physician questionnaires indicated neutral opinions overall, though statistically significant differences occurred based on responder demographic factors. Conclusions. Patients can safely and effectively switch between generic warfarin and Coumadin. While patients and physicians do not have extreme views on generic warfarin overall, a minority do have clear concerns.
The validation of the patient oriented symptoms index for measuring patient side effects in rheumatology clinical trials

Patient side effect measurement in rheumatology clinical trials is not standardized. The POSI was examined for sensibility, reliability, and validity. A sensibility review for toxicity was developed and used in 30 case report forms, 4 rheumatology instruments, and 8 non rheumatology instruments. Test-retest reliability was examined in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Construct validity was assessed in a trial of anti-inflammatory drugs. The POSI had a high sensibility rating, the CRFs were significantly lower, and the non-rheumatology instruments were intermediate. The POSI was reliable (ICC = 0.68). The POSI uncovered more side effects than the CRF. Conversely 50% of side effects on the CRF were not on the POSI. It discriminated 2 drugs in a predictable way on logistic regression.
Development of process-based quality indicators for non-pharmacological care of knee and hip osteoarthritis

Objective. To develop process-based quality indicators for non-pharmacological care of knee and hip osteoarthritis (OA). Methods. The measures were designed for primary care physicians' management of OA. We reviewed clinical practice guidelines for processes of care. Proposed quality indicators were drafted in an IF-THEN-BECAUSE structure. Three practicing clinicians critically appraised the indicators. Systematic literature reviews established the strength of a process-outcome link for each indicator. The quality indicators were piloted using a patient survey dataset. Results. Eight quality indicators were proposed: exercise (2), patient education/self-management (2), assistive devices (2), weight loss (1), physical therapy modalities (1). Systematic literature reviews revealed little research to support a process-outcome link for most of the indicators. Piloting of the indicators showed that 5%–60% of patient received these non-pharmacological treatments. Conclusion. We have proposed eight non-pharmacological quality indicators for patients with knee or hip OA. There is little good evidence to support wide spread use of these indicators.
Influence of forest management on soil carbon dioxide efflux in temperate forests of Ontario, Canada

Forests play an important role in the global carbon (C) cycle, storing a large amount of C in biomass (trunks, branches, leaves, and roots) and soils, and exchanging C with the atmosphere through photosynthesis and respiration. Global forest policy initiatives, such as those under the Kyoto protocol, currently aim to extend forest cover and wisely manage forest ecosystems to sequester more C from the atmosphere for mitigating climate change. CO 2 flux from soils is second in magnitude only to photosynthesis in most forest ecosystems, amounting to 60–90% of total ecosystem respiration. Forest management practices, such as harvesting, thinning, vegetation control, and fertilization influence soil CO2 efflux (FCO2) as a result of changes in microclimatic conditions, soil properties, root dynamics, and microbial community structure. This thesis investigates the influence of forest management practises, including the uneven-aged selection harvesting silviculture system, thinning, fertilization, liming, and litter removal, on soil FCO2 in temperate forest ecosystems in Ontario, Canada. Field measurements show that soil FCO 2 changes greatly with time since harvest and thinning, showing an initial peak related to soil disturbance and root decomposition, followed by a reduction driven by declines in fine root production. Phosphorus (P) plus potassium (K) fertilization and liming in the forest soil also significantly affect soil FCO2. P+K fertilization had a significant negative effect on soil FCO2, fine root production, and microbial respiration (MR) in sugar maple stands. Liming resulted in increased FCO2 when coupled with thinning, whereas litter removal suppressed soil FCO2 in red pine plantations. In both study systems soil FCO2 was strongly positively affected by temperature, soil water content, depth to bedrock, but soil pH and soil organic matter (SOM) had no detectable effects on soil FCO2. Results suggest that forest management practices involving partial harvests, either in the form of uneven-aged selection harvesting or thinning, and strategic additions of phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium mineral nutrients, may reduce C losses from forest soil, and thereby enhance C sequestration in managed forests.
Critique et fiction chez Maurice Blanchot: (Re)lire la limite

L'attente l'oubli, texte de fiction et ouvrage fragmentaire, de Maurice Blanchot (1907-2001), ecrivain, critique et philosophe francais du vingtieme siecle, sera l'objet d'etude central de ce travail qui se veut une lecture du mot a mot du texte et de ses ramifications dans le corpus blanchotien, comme chez d'autres auteurs; la methodologie est celle d'une analyse pointue du texte, semiotique, pragmatique, psychanalytique et hermeneutique. Ensuite, c'est la subjectivite elle-meme que Blanchot deconstruit en montrant sa non-continuite et sa presence toujours seconde dans le langage n'exprimant que lui-meme. De la, l'epuisement du sens des mots desir, desirant sans objet, attente, sans attendu, et oubli, ce qui precede meme la memoire. L'oeuvre de Maurice Blanchot suit un parcours de questionnement de la pensee occidentale, principalement de ses limites et de son rapport a ce qui l'excede: que Blanchot nomme le neutre. Le premier chapitre porte sur la premiere phrase de L'attente L'oubli: Ici et sur cette phrase qui lui etait peut-etre aussi destinee ... Sa position dans l'oeuvre et les diverses interpretations qui en decoulent, revelent l'opacite du langage et son incapacite intrinseque a dire le reel; ceci par la donnee premiere du lieu, intenable, de l'enonciation. Enfin, je terminerai par un rapprochement avec le philosophe Martin Heidegger, que le texte de L'attente l'oubli impose, autour d'une pensee que nous ne pensons pas encore, experience-limite chez Blanchot d'un present hors temporalite, hors conscience et ordre divin, pensee cependant toujours excedante au dire. La pensee que nous pratiquons doit se tourner vers le neutre, limite du dire, que Blanchot s'approprie peutetre, pour designer continuellement l'innommable exteriorite. C'est ensuite l'omnipotence de la conscience que Blanchot confronte. Dans L'attente l'oubli comme chez Lautreamont, par une main, signe du cri plus ancien que la voix, agissant hors de la volonte, Maurice Blanchot s'approche de l'inconscient freudien, pour le depasser vers un aconscient inalienable a la conscience. Il y aurait donc hors soi en soi qui serait aussi excedant a l'ordre du divin comme limite definissant la raison et la pensee telle que nous la pratiquons.
Mapping, mobility, and selfhood in nineteenth-century narrative: Sir Richard F. Burton, Herman Melville, and Charles Dickens

This thesis examines how cartographic discourse shapes interactions between the subject and space in representative nineteenth-century American and British narratives. In this period, mapping became a material expression of the project of Empire and an integral part of the process by which “new” geographies were defined and possessed. The map also became an objective correlative for order and rationality. Richard F. Burton, Herman Melville, and Charles Dickens use maps and other cartographic orderings in their narratives to accomplish various imaginary acts of self-location, in the process drawing upon and interrogating the objectivity associated with cartographic discourse. In their narrative negotiations with different kinds of space, Burton, Melville and Dickens express individual and general anxieties about the shifting social and cultural milieus that they occupied. All three writers were made to approach normative bourgeois life from a marginalized social position; each experienced remarkable successes and failures resulting in crises regarding his sense of place. Social uncertainty affected each author differently, but with similar consequences: all three formulated narratives that can be seen as making private experiences publicly coherent and as fixing a place inside the dominant culture that might mitigate his perceived status as an outsider. In the narratives considered here, maps and geographical overviews chart alternative routes through and around potentially antagonistic systems in response to some personal sense of alienation or disillusionment. To elucidate these issues, a brief history of cartography and its role in the construction of modern forms of subjectivity are outlined. An examination of the ways in which mapping articulates particular cultural and subjective impulses in specific narratives follows. Chapter 1 investigates Burton's attempts to map Western Arabia in A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah, focusing on how his cartographic engagements reinforce cultural conceptions of Middle-Eastern space and contribute to the narrative construction of self. In Chapter 2, the ambiguous mapping imagery used in Melville's Moby Dick and The Confidence Man reveals cartography's accommodation of different subjective, social, and geographical ends. Chapter 3 considers Dickens' use of the map image to mediate between idealism, disillusionment and material reality in Martin Chuzzlewit .
Perceptions of coordination of rehabilitation services by patients receiving primary total hip or total knee arthroplasty

The primary objective of this thesis was to describe patients' perceptions of the quality of the coordination of services in an acute care hospital setting, in the transfer to a rehabilitation hospital as well as home, and in their follow-up care following a primary total joint arthroplasty (TJA). Between April 2001 and March 2002, patients who had TJA surgery at St. Michael's Hospital (Toronto, Canada), and were discharged to an inpatient rehabilitation hospital, completed a questionnaire on their perceptions of the quality of coordination of rehabilitation services. Overall, the 153 patients indicated that they had a positive perception of the coordination of care, but identified areas for improvement. These areas included providing information about patients' rehabilitation and transfer processes and improving preparations for the actual transfer from the acute care hospital to rehabilitation as well as home. Improvements in these areas may advance the overall coordination of rehabilitation services.
Engineering the embryonic stem cell niche to control cell fate

In vivo, stem cells reside in specialized microenvironments called 'niches' that consist of soluble cytokines, cell-cell interactions, and cell-extra-cellular matrix (ECM) interactions. These niches enable cell survival and guide self-renewal or differentiation. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are an ideal source for cells in regenerative medicine for their remarkable ability to self-renew as well as to differentiate into mature cell types. However, before hESCs can be exploited greater control over cell fate must be achieved. Here, we investigated the mechanisms by which micro-patterning technologies can be used to establish homogeneous artificial niches to more precisely regulate hESC fate. In our initial study, we demonstrated that the activation of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)/growth differentiation factor (GDF3) pathway within the hESC niche was a balance of two factors: niche-composition and niche-size. By restricting hESC colony diameter to 200-800μm, spatial control over self-renewal and differentiation was achieved. In a second study, we demonstrated that hESC differentiation into ExE (small colonies) or neural pre-cursors (large colonies) was highly efficient (>80%) within micro-fabricated niches, exceeding efficiencies obtained by current differentiation protocols. In a third study, a mathematical model was developed to provide mechanistic insight into how niche-size regulates endogenous signaling by estimating how the trapping of soluble ligands changes with alterations to the spatial arrangement of cell cultures. This model was validated by predicting and measuring endogenous signalling activity of the gp130-Janus kinase—signal transducer and activator of transcription (gp130-Jak-STAT) pathway in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) in non-patterned and micro-patterned cultures. Overall, these studies highlight the opportunity of using micro-patterning to create homogenous niches capable of regulating endogenous signalling and hESC fate. This approach provides a novel method to regulate hESC differentiation into clinically revelant cell types that can be used in future regenerative medicine applications.

Keywords: Cytology
Biomedical engineering
Chemical engineering
Post-separation parental conflict and children's attitude toward visiting the non-custodial parent

The primary objective of this study was to investigate factors contributing to children's attitude toward visiting their non-custodial parent. In this study, mothers were the custodial parent and fathers were the non-custodial parent. Interviews were conducted with 35 children (21 girls, 14 boys), aged 7–12 years (mean = 9.6 years). Children were asked to report on their attitude toward visitation; the level of parental conflict; and, the quality of relationship with each parent. Children's attitude toward visitation was measured along two dimensions: amount of time they wished to spend with father and how they felt while visiting father. Mothers completed measures rating the level of parental conflict; the quality of relationship with their child; and, their attitude toward the child visiting father. As the quality of the father-child relationship improved, children wished for more time with father and reported more positive feelings during visits. As the level of parental conflict increased, children wished for more time with father. As mother's attitude about the child visiting father improved, the child felt better during visits. As the frequency of using the child as a messenger increased, the child felt worse during visits. In families with high post-separation parental conflict, boys rated the quality of relationship with father significantly lower in comparison to girls. Mothers of boys in this study rated the quality of relationship with sons lower than the mothers of girls rated the quality of relationship with daughters. The findings are discussed within a Family Systems framework. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Keywords: Children of divorced parents, Psychological aspects
Custody of children
Visitation rights (Domestic relations)
Divorced parents, Family relationships
Children of divorced parents, Family relationships
King's College purpose and accountability in higher education: the dilemma of King's College, 1827-1853

The first university in Upper Canada to receive a royal charter was King's College at York. Although petitions for a university in the colony are recorded in the late eighteenth century, it was not until 1827 that a charter was actually acquired and it was only in 1843 that the university opened its doors to students for the first time. In the meantime, three other universities had opened in the province: Victoria, sponsored by the Methodists, in Cobourg (1842); Queen's sponsored by the Church of Scotland (1842) and Regiopolis by the Roman Catholics (1837) both in Kingston. The story of King's College has been told in part and in varying ways by a number of writers and historians. W. J. Alexander and Stewart Wallace have provided brief, objective, chronological outlines of the major developments in their histories of the University of Toronto in 1906 and 1915 respectively. More recently, historians such as John Moir, Gerald Craig, William Westfall, and Brian McKillop have dealt with the history of King's College in connection with denominational history, the economic, social and political development of Upper Canada, and the transition from constitutional to responsible government. No one, however, has written a full book or dissertation with a primary focus on the history of King's College. This paper is presented in an attempt to provide an account of the founding of King's College and the quandary surrounding its development and ultimate transformation into the University of Toronto. The chronicle is focussed primarily on the political and denominational context and on legislative attempts to resolve the university dilemma. It also examines the roles played by leading political, religious and provincial administrators touching on the university question. The paper traces the history of King's College through the adoption of three university models: John Strachan's pedagogical model, Robert Baldwin's political model and Francis Hincks' compromise model. The discussion encompasses the rationale for the adoption of each and the rejection of the Strachan and Baldwin options.

Keywords: Education, Higher, Aims and objectives
Education, Higher, Ontario
Educational accountability, Ontario
Effect of gestational diet on offspring macronutrient choice and regulation by the serotonergic system in the Wistar rat

The hypothesis that the gestational diet alters macronutrient and food intake, and development of the serotonergic system of intake regulation in the offspring was investigated. Offspring born to dams provided the AIN-93G diet containing a high multivitamin content (HV), or soy as the protein source (S), were compared to those born of dams fed the control AIN-93G diet (RV/C). Macronutrient choice and regulation by the serotonergic system was assessed by measuring long-term macronutrient selection, short-term macronutrient selection following tryptophan and mCPP injections, and hypothalamic serotonin receptor gene expression. HV offspring were hypophagic, selected less protein, were less responsive to tryptophan and mCPP, and had lowered serotonin receptor gene expression. S offspring were hyperphagic and had more adipose tissue. We conclude that the HV diet during gestation affects offspring macronutrient and food intake through development of the serotonergic system, while the S diet affects alternate food intake regulatory systems.
A critique of language and literacy in educational policy: Hawaii and Canada

The purpose of this research is to provide a critical analysis of educational policy in both Hawaii and Canada. Policy development requires an understanding of social, political and historical issues of language and current curriculum development. This research gives institutional policy makers a lens through which to view educational policy and a more comprehensive framework to identify areas that require consideration and revision. This research is important as it identifies the need for change in policy development and makes recommendations in areas of instruction, evaluation, and cultural and linguistic inclusion in the curriculum. The analysis shows that current policy, particularly with regard to language, is not meeting the needs of a multicultural and multilingual society. The outcome of the research also indicates that there is more evidence needed to support multilingual education, and therefore this is an area from which the field can benefit from further research.

Keywords: Language and languages
Literacy, Hawaii
Literacy, Canada
Indigenous peoples, Languages
Indigenous peoples, Canada
Hawaiians, Language
Commodification and medicalization of menopause: women's experiences with hormone replacement therapy

My research investigates the power relations involved in the medicalization and commodification of menopause and the many interests at stake beyond the health of women. My historical analysis of the construction of menopause through a postcolonial lens includes a historical review of menopause that contextualizes women's experiences of menopause within social relations of gender, race and class and political, economical and socio-cultural structures. I trace the historical processes by which White Eurocentric knowledge gained dominance in Canada and the privileging of White Eurocentric biomedical knowledge that leaves unrepresented those who do not belong to the dominant group. Biomedical knowledge can then be seen as an expression of power relations. I document how biomedical discourse presented as the view of menopause suppresses other forms of menopause knowledge as well as how women's bodies can become sites for the operation of colonial power through dominant knowledge. An analysis of my interviews with currently practicing biomedical physicians discloses how their approaches to menopause both reproduce and challenge a medicalized understanding as they work within the confines of biomedicine and the health care system. My analysis of interviews with 20 women offers a way in to discuss: (1) how women engage with dominant menopause discourses---the ambiguities, concerns, challenges, and the rejecting, buying into and modifying of these discourses; (2) how power relations of race, class and gender organize the conditions for women's menopause constructions; and (3) the everyday details of the exploitation of women's menopausal bodies through commodification for profit. I advocate for state health care changes to conceptualize menopause as normality rather than as abnormality. Individual women themselves cannot make all the changes by accepting lifestyle and personal health responsibility discourses. I discuss the dismantling of the hegemony of biomedical knowledge through multiple approaches to menopause, acknowledging the challenges of dealing with the power and interests of the pharmaceutical industry and the biomedical communities. I propose research investigating women's embodiment of menopause through and with their bodies, exploring why certain menopause discourses are more important to some women than others, and inquiring into the silence around the difference of women's menopause experiences.
Strict scrutiny for denominational preferences: Larson in retrospect

This Thesis analyzes the meaning of the Larson denominational preferences test and discusses its current place in Establishment Clause jurisprudence through several methods: an examination of the Larson decision itself, a chronological analysis of how the test has been applied in subsequent case law by the Supreme Court; a comparison of the test with the Lemon test, the Equal Protection Clauses, and the Free Exercise Clause; and an examination of how the test is used by lower courts. In Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228 (1982), the United States Supreme Court articulated a new test for determining whether laws that prefer some religious denominations over other religious denominations violates the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. The Court departed from the standard tripartite Lemon test and held that denominational preferences are subject to strict scrutiny.

Keywords: Sects, Legal status, laws, etc
Sects, United States
Equality before the law, United States
Church and state, United States
Constitutional law, United States