VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
"Caring" Global Policy? Sex Trafficking and Feminist International Ethics

Current approaches to sex trafficking appear to be neither very successful in stopping sex trafficking nor, more importantly, very effective in helping those women for whom it is intended. Rather, the overwhelming focus on the issue of prostitution obscures the more fundamental issue of providing relevant assistant to trafficked women. The theoretical debates among academics and feminist activists do not delve sufficiently deep enough into this issue, while the policy discussions and the resulting international policy reflect the moral positions of abolitionist activists and policy-makers regarding the unacceptability of prostitution as a legitimate income-generating activity— a debate that is distinct from the issue of sex trafficking. I will argue that existing national anti-sex trafficking policies in India and Nepal, the regional policy for the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, and the United Nations Trafficking Protocol are ineffective because they reflect an association of sex trafficking with prostitution. A more effective policy would dissociate sex trafficking from moral judgments about prostitution. This can be accomplished by applying a feminist ethic of care as a methodology and as a political practice. Trafficked women emerge from a context of complex life histories and decision-making processes. Anti-sex trafficking governance structures are meant to provide care for trafficked women. As a methodology, an ethic of care would employ a critical moral ethnography to distill the experiences and articulated needs of trafficked women in order to show whether this is being accomplished and, if not, why. As a political practice, it can use the information that its methodology necessitates to provide guidance on how these governance structures might best be designed to provide care for trafficked women.

Keywords: ethic of care
feminist ethics
sex trafficking
global governance
Advisor: Nedelsky, Jennifer
Special Cycles on Shimura Curves and the Shimura Lift

The main results of this thesis describe a relationship between two families of arithmetic divisors on an integral model of a Shimura curve. The first family, studied by Kudla, Rapoport and Yang, parametrizes abelian surfaces with specified endomorphism structure. The second family is comprised of pullbacks of arithmetic cycles on integral models of Shimura varieties associated to unitary groups of signature (1,1). In the thesis, we construct these families of cycles, and describe their relationship, which is expressed in terms of the ``Shimura lift", a classical tool in the theory of modular forms of half-integral weight. This relations can be viewed as further evidence for the modularity of generating series of arithmetic "special cycles" for U(1,1), and fits broadly into Kudla's programme for unitary groups.

Keywords: Number theory
Arithmetic geometry
Modular forms
Kudla programme
Advisor: Kudla, Stephen S.
The Role of Language in the Development of Epistemic Concepts

This thesis examines the effects of linguistic input on the development of children’s epistemic concepts. It draws upon two fundamental questions in the field of cognitive development: (a) whether distinctions between automatic and controlled forms of cognitive processing are indicative of underlying conceptual differences, and (b) whether language is critical to the process of concept development. To establish the background of the current research, a summary of how these theoretical questions have been addressed in other fields of cognitive psychology is first provided (Chapter 1). These questions are then re- examined within the specific domain of epistemic concept development (Chapter 2). Changes in false-belief processing that occur between infancy and the early preschool years are discussed in relation to two competing theories of false-belief development. A framework to explain how language promotes children’s transition between automatic and controlled forms of processing is then provided. It is suggested that language facilitates change by both reducing the cognitive demands associated with controlled response tasks as well as assisting with the formation of robust epistemic representations. An empirical study that was designed to examine the effects of epistemic language (i.e., verbs and syntax) on children’s automatic and controlled processing of belief is then described (Chapters 3 to 5). Eighty-four children (Mage = 3;5 years), who initially failed elicited measures of false-belief, were trained with visual contexts of true- and false-belief. The critical manipulation across three conditions was the linguistic input presented in conjunction with these contexts. Children heard narrations that contained either (a) the description of an agent’s actions without an epistemic verb, (b) a familiar epistemic verb (thinks) across both contexts, or (c) the familiar epistemic verb in contexts of true-belief and a novel epistemic verb (gorps) in contexts of false-belief. Results demonstrated a significant advantage for children who were trained with epistemic verbs on spontaneous measures of false-belief (i.e., anticipatory gaze). Significant effects of epistemic verb exposure were also demonstrated in novel contexts of belief induction. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to theories that make distinct predictions about the role of language in epistemic concept development (Chapter 6).

Keywords: implicit false belief
language
theory of mind
epistemic concepts
preschool
Advisor: Astington, Janet
An Examination of the Population Health Implications of Voluntary Food Fortification and Nutrition-related Marketing Practices in Canada.

The 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) revealed many indicators of poor diet quality in Canada which, together with the high rates of obesity and diet-related chronic disease, suggest that shifts in dietary patterns are urgently needed. Given the widespread promotion of foods on the basis of nutrition and health, the aim of this work was to explore the population health implications of voluntary food fortification and nutrition-related marketing in Canada. Using the CCHS, the potential impact of a proposed discretionary food fortification policy on nutrient inadequacies and excesses was examined, in addition to the relationship between consumption of foods eligible to be fortified under this policy and indicators of dietary quality. To better understand the potential risk associated with liberal fortification practices, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-08) was used to examine potential for risk of excess associated with voluntarily fortified food consumption in the US, where these practices have long been permitted. The results suggest that proposed changes to voluntary fortification may reduce inadequacy and increase excess, and may reinforce poor diet patterns. Excessive nutrient intakes were also found to be associated with consumption of voluntarily fortified foods in the US, particularly among children. Therefore, there appears to be real potential for risk associated with voluntary fortification practices in Canada. The extent, nature, and population health implications of nutrition marketing in Canada was examined, using a survey of front-of-package nutrition-related marketing on foods within three large grocery stores in Toronto. Nutrition-related marketing was found on 41% of all foods surveyed, and was widely found on highly processed, often fortified foods. References to nutrients of public health concern (e.g. sodium, vitamin D) were infrequently found. Overall, this practice provides limited nutritional guidance. Current directions in nutrition policy in Canada should be re-evaluated, to ensure that they support healthy diet patterns.

Keywords: Nutrition Marketing
Nutrition Labelling
Food Fortification
Discretionary Fortification
Tolerable Upper Intake Level
Nutrition Policy
Vitamins
Minerals
Canada
Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS)
NHANES
Advisor: Tarasuk, Valerie
Disulfide Bond Formation: Identifying Roles of PDI Family Thiol Oxidoreductases and ER Oxidant Pathways

Protein disulfide isomerases (PDIs) catalyze the oxidation and isomerization of disulfide bonds in proteins passing through the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Although as many as 20 enzymes are classified as PDI family members, their relative contributions to protein folding have remained an open question. Additionally, Ero1 has been characterized as the ER oxidase that transfers oxidizing equivalents from oxygen to PDI enzymes. However, knockout mice lacking the mammalian Ero1 isoforms, Ero1Lα and Ero1Lβ, are viable, and the role of other potential ER oxidases in maintaining an oxidative ER environment is now an important issue. By systematic depletion of ER PDI family members and potential ER oxidases and assessment of disulfide bond formation of secreted endogenous substrates, I have outlined the functional relationships among some of these enzymes. PDI family member depletion revealed that PDI, although not essential for complete disulfide bond formation in client proteins, is the most significant catalyst of oxidative folding. In comparison, ERp57 acts preferentially on glycosylated substrates, ERp72 functions in a more supplementary capacity, and P5 has no detectable role in formation of disulfide bonds for the substrates assayed. Initially, no impact of depletion of Ero1 was observed under steady state conditions, suggesting that other oxidase systems are working in parallel to support normal disulfide bond formation. Subsequent experiments incorporating a reductive challenge revealed that Ero1 depletion produces the strongest delay in re-oxidation of the ER and oxidation of substrate. Depletion of two other potential ER oxidases, peroxiredoxin 4 (PRDX4) and Vitamin K epoxide reductase (VKOR), showed more modest effects. Upon co-depletion of Ero1 and other oxidases, additive effects were observed, culminating in cell death following combined removal of Ero1, PRDX4, and VKOR activities. These studies affirm the predominant roles of Ero1 in ER oxidation processes and, for the first time, establish VKOR as a significant contributor to disulfide bond formation.

Keywords: Protein Disulfide Isomerase
Endoplasmic reticulum
biogenesis & biodegradation
protein folding
chaperone
disulfide bonds
Advisor: Williams, David
Leukocyte Structural Adaptations in Response to Hemodynamic Forces: Tension Transmitted Through VLA-4 Activates Upstream Rap1, PI3K, and Rac-Dependent Actin Polymerization

During inflammation, leukocytes modulate α4β1(VLA-4) integrin avidity in order to rapidly stabilize nascent adhesive contacts to VCAM-1-expressing endothelial cells and resist detachment forces imparted by the flowing blood. Linkage to the actin cytoskeleton is critical for integrin function, yet the exact role of the actin cytoskeleton in leukocyte adhesion stabilization under conditions of fluid flow remains poorly understood. We modeled leukocyte (U937 cell, mouse lymphocyte and human monocyte) arrest and adhesion stabilization through the use of a parallel plate flow chamber and visualized cells by phase contrast or fluorescent confocal microscopy. Live cell imaging with Lifeact-transfected U937 cells revealed that mechanical forces imparted by fluid flow induced formation of upstream tension-bearing anchors attached to the VCAM-1-coated surface. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed that flow-induced mechanical force culminates in the formation of structures that anchor monocyte adhesion. These structures are critical for adhesion stabilization, since disruption of actin polymerization dramatically inhibited VLA-4-dependent resistance to detachment, but did not affect VLA-4 expression, affinity modulation, and clustering or constitutive linkage to F-actin. Transfection of dominant-negative constructs and inhibition of kinase function or expression revealed key signaling steps required for upstream actin polymerization and adhesion stabilization. Rap1 was shown to be critical for resistance to flow-induced detachment and accumulated in its GTP form at the sites of anchor formation. A key mediator of force-induced Rac activation and actin polymerization is PI3K. Live cell imaging revealed accumulation of PIP3 within tension-bearing anchors and blockade of PI3K or deficiency of PI3Kγ isoform reproduced the adhesion defect produced by inhibition of actin polymerization. Thus, rapid signaling and structural adaptations enable leukocytes to stabilize adhesion and resist detachment forces; these included activation of Rap1, phosphoinositide 3-kinase γ-isoform and Rac, but not Cdc42.

Keywords: leukocyte
shear stress
actin polymerization
adhesion
Advisor: Cybulsky, Myron
Unprotected Aziridine Aldehydes in Isocyanide-based Multicomponent Reactions

While unprotected amino aldehydes are typically not isolable due to imine formation and consequent polymerization, stable unprotected aziridine aldehydes are useful and available reagents. Moreover, reversible hemiacetal and hemiaminal formation enable these compounds to reveal both their electrophilic and nucleophilic functional groups. This exceptional arrangement allows for aziridine aldehyde dimers to participate in and disrupt the mechanisms of an array of well-known organic reactions, including isocyanide-based multicomponent reactions. The scope and selectivity patterns of aziridine aldehyde induced amino acid or peptide macrocyclization have been investigated. A small library of constrained tri-, tetra-, and penta-peptide macrocycles – representing the most difficult cyclic peptides to synthesize – has been prepared. The scope of aziridine aldehyde participation in multicomponent reactions was also expanded to Ugi and Passerini reactions that do not employ tethered amine and acid functional groups. In order to facilitate cellular imaging of peptide macrocycles a fluorescent isocyanide reagent was prepared and applied to prepare mitochondrial targeting macrocycles. Thioester isocyanide reagents were synthesized to enable rapid assembly of cycle-tail peptides through ligation technology.

Keywords: multicomponent reaction
isocyanide
aziridine aldehyde
cyclic peptide
fluorescence
ligation
Advisor: Yudin, Andrei
The Effect of Ion Energy and Substrate Temperature on Deuterium Trapping in Tungsten

Tungsten is a candidate plasma facing material for next generation magnetic fusion devices such as ITER and there are major operational and safety issues associated with hydrogen (tritium) retention in plasma facing components. An ion gun was used to simulate plasmamaterial interactions under various conditions in order to study hydrogen retention characteristics of tungsten thus enabling better predictions of hydrogen retention in ITER. Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy (TDS) was used to measure deuterium retention from ion irradiation while modelling of TDS spectra with the Tritium Migration Analysis Program (TMAP) was used to provide information about the trapping mechanisms involved in deuterium retention in tungsten. X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) were used to determine the depth resolved composition of specimens used for irradiation experiments. Carbon and oxygen atoms will be among the most common contaminants within ITER. C and O contamination in polycrystalline tungsten (PCW) specimens even at low levels (~0.1%) was shown to reduce deuterium retention by preventing diffusion of deuterium into the bulk of the specimen. This diffusion barrier was also responsible for the inhibition of blister formation during irradiations at 500 K. These observations may provide possible mitigation techniques for iii problems associated with tritium retention and mechanical damage to plasma facing components caused by hydrogen implantation. Deuterium trapping in PCW and single crystal tungsten (SCW) was studied as a function of ion energy and substrate temperature. Deuterium retention was shown to decrease with decreasing ion energy below 100 eV/D+. Irradiation of tungsten specimens with 10 eV/D+ ions was shown to retain up to an order of magnitude less deuterium than irradiation with 500 eV/D+ ions. Furthermore, the retention mechanism for deuterium was shown to be consistent across the entire energy range studied (10-500 eV) with the shallow penetration depth of low energy ions being the major factor in the reduction in retention. A change in retention mechanism was observed as tungsten temperature during irradiation was increased from 300 to 500 K. Modelling of deuterium retention in 300 and 500 K SCW specimens revealed that two traps, 1.0 and 1.3 eV, are involved in retention for irradiations performed at 300K while a single 2.1 eV trap is present for 500 K irradiations. Experiments suggest that the 2.1 eV trap is created during irradiation of tungsten at 500 K and this process also involves the annihilation of the 1.3 and 1.0 eV traps.

Keywords: Deuterium Retention
Plasma Materials Interactions
Advisor: Haasz, Anthony A.
Davis, James W.
Meeting Women’s Health Needs in the Community: Assessment of the Physical Activity and Health Promotion Practices, Preferences and Priorities of Older Women Living with Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among Canadian women, and accounts for up to 30% of deaths among women worldwide. Women with CVD are typically older than their male counterparts, experience worse functional status, are more likely to experience non-CVD health conditions such as diabetes or arthritis, and will live with these health conditions for more years than men. Physical activity (PA) and cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participation is lower among women compared to men, but little is known about the PA and health promotion experiences, priorities and practices of older women living with CVD. Guided by a socioenvironmental approach to health promotion, a mixed method design involving a mail survey (N=127) and qualitative interviews (N=15) was employed to describe and explore the PA and health promotion practices, preferences and priorities of older women (≥65 years) living with CVD in the Champlain health region of Ontario. Nearly 60% of survey respondents were referred to CR. Logistic regression analysis revealed urban residence as a predictor of CR referral (p<0.01, OR=3.24; 95% CI: 1.44-7.30). Nearly 55% of respondents attended CR, which was predicted by CR referral (p<0.01, OR=32.26; 95% CI: 9.26-111.11), availability of transportation (p<0.05, OR=9.96; 95% CI: 1.22-81.41), and a history of structured PA (p<0.05, OR=3.64; 95% CI: 1.16-11.36). Respondents were more active than their peers, but received little support from their physician for PA. Older women’s incidental PA (walking six or more hours/week for transportation) was predicted by their sense of community belonging (p<0.05, OR=2.6; 95% CI: 1.05-6.29) and having energy for PA (p<0.05, OR=5.8; 95% CI: 1.21-27.92). Interview participants (including four who had attended CR) described health as a resource that enables them to lead busy, active lives. Most participants attributed CVD to genetics or stress, but still engaged in health-promoting activities, including structured and incidental PA. Participants engaged in ‘incidental’ activities such as walking, gardening, and housekeeping tasks purposefully, with the intention of maintaining or improving their health. This research can inform public health initiatives and health care services (including CR) to better meet the needs and preferences of the growing population of older women with CVD.

Keywords: women
cardiovascular disease
health
physical activity
exercise
cardiac rehabilitation
Advisor: Thomas, Scott
Yoshida, Karen
Maximal-in-time Behavior of Deterministic and Stochastic Dispersive Partial Differential Equations

This thesis contributes towards the maximal-in-time well-posedness theory of three nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations (PDEs). We are interested in questions that extend beyond the usual well-posedness theory: what is the ultimate fate of solutions? How does Hamiltonian structure influence PDE dynamics? How does randomness, within the PDE or the initial data, interact with well-posedness of the Cauchy problem? The first topic of this thesis is the analysis of blow-up solutions to the elliptic-elliptic Davey-Stewartson system, which appears in the description of surface water waves. We prove a mass concentration property for H^1-solutions, analogous to the one known for the L^2-critical nonlinear Schrodinger equation. We also prove a mass concentration result for L^2-solutions. The second topic of this thesis is the invariance of the Gibbs measure for the (gauge transformed) periodic quartic KdV equation. The Gibbs measure is a probability measure supported on H^s for s<1/2, and local solutions to the quartic KdV cannot be obtained below H^{1/2} by using the standard fixed point method. We exhibit nonlinear smoothing when the initial data are randomized, and establish almost sure local well-posedness for the (gauge transformed) quartic KdV below H^{1/2}. Then, using the invariance of the Gibbs measure for the finite-dimensional system of ODEs given by projection onto the first N>0 modes of the trigonometric basis, we extend the local solutions of the (gauge transformed) quartic KdV to global solutions, and prove the invariance of the Gibbs measure under the flow. Inverting the gauge, we establish almost sure global well-posedness of the (ungauged) periodic quartic KdV below H^{1/2}. The third topic of this thesis is well-posedness of the stochastic KdV-Burgers equation. This equation is studied as a toy model for the stochastic Burgers equation, which appears in the description of a randomly growing interface. We are interested in rigorously proving the invariance of white noise for the stochastic KdV-Burgers equation. This thesis provides a result in this direction: after smoothing the additive noise (by a fractional derivative), we establish (almost sure) local well-posedness of the stochastic KdV-Burgers equation with white noise as initial data. We also prove a global well-posedness result under an additional smoothing of the noise.

Keywords: dispersive partial differential equations
blow-up solutions
invariant measures
stochastic partial differential equations
Advisor: Colliander, James
Iterative Reconstruction Algorithms for Polyenergetic X-ray Computerized Tomography

A reconstruction algorithm in computerized tomography is a procedure for reconstructing the attenuation coefficientscient, a real-valued function associated with the object of interest, from the measured projection data. Generally speaking, reconstruction algorithms in CT fall into two categories: direct, e.g., filtered back-projection (FBP), or iterative. In this thesis, we discuss a new fast matrix-free iterative reconstruction method based on a polyenergetic model. While most modern x-ray CT scanners rely on the well-known filtered back-projection algorithm, the corresponding reconstructions can be corrupted by beam hardening artifacts. These artifacts arise from the unrealistic physical assumption of monoenergetic x-ray beams. In this thesis, to compensate, we use an alternative model that accounts for differential absorption of polyenergetic x-ray photons and discretize it directly. We do not assume any prior knowledge about the physical properties of the scanned object. We study and implement different solvers and nonlinear unconstrained optimization methods, such as a Newton-like method and an extension of the Levenberg-Marquardt-Fletcher algorithm. We explain how we can use the structure of the Radon matrix and the properties of FBP to make our method matrix-free and fast. Finally, we discuss how we regularize our problem by applying different regularization methods, such as Tikhonov and regularization in the 1-norm. We present numerical reconstructions based on the associated nonlinear discrete formulation incorporating various iterative optimization methods.

Keywords: Polyenergetic Iterative Reconstruction Algorithms
X-Ray Computerized Tomography (CT)
Beam hardening
Levenberg-Marquardt-Fletcher method
Advisor: Jackson, Kenneth
Aruliah, Dhavide A.