VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
English Academic Writing and Affordances for Writing Support: Perspectives and Experiences of Plurilingual International Course-based Master of Education Students in a Canadian University

Many international students are pursuing graduate education in Canada using languages other than English. The Master of Education degree has been particularly attractive as it offers significant cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) in return for a relatively short period of study. However, there is an implicit expectation that because these students have met admission standards, they should be performing at the same level as their peers who use standard English. Should these international students face challenges with their written English proficiency, they experience discourses of deficit that negatively affect their experience in the academy. Using a multiple case study design, I conducted a three-part series of semi-structured interviews with plurilingual international course-based Master of Education (PIM) students at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) to examine their perspectives on and experiences with English academic writing and academic writing support. To learn about the affordances for academic writing support for these students, I collected data from a variety of sources, including a demographic questionnaire, participant observations, document analysis, focus group with students, and interviews with support providers. I examined the resulting data using Framework Analysis (Spencer et al., 2014) and the theoretical lenses of Academic Literacies (Lea & Street, 1998, 2006) and ecological perspectives (Bronfenbrenner, 1997; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Van Lier, 2000, 2004). The PIM students in this study reported challenges with English academic writing at the graduate level that left them feeling anxious and inadequate. To resist being marginalized by an English-dominant ideology that adopts a deficit view rather than values the diverse assets afforded by plurilingualism, these students demonstrated agency by engaging with an array of affordances that served to build English writing skills, to socialize students into the discourse practices of their disciplinary communities, and to develop identities as novice English scholarly writers. This study builds upon the literature that views academic writing support as integral to all students’ development as academic writers while recognizing the unique needs of plurilingual international graduate students. Implications from this study suggest a need for culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy, and policies that help students leverage their plurilingual repertoire.

Keywords: academic writing support
English academic writing
international graduate students
plurilingualism
Advisor: Gagné, Antoinette
Suboptimal Oral Health and Cardiovascular Disease: Towards an Organized Research Field and Informed Preventive Strategies

Examining associations between suboptimal oral health (SOH) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) has formed a broad and heterogenous epidemiological field with unclear implications and persistent methodological gaps. The objectives of this dissertation are to: (1) systematically map clinical heterogeneity and selected methodological gaps in the existing literature, (2) assess the relevance of SOH to the risk of CVD when defined within overarching concepts, (3) understand the associations between SOH and three competing CVD outcomes (ischemic heart disease (IHD), stroke, revascularization), and (4) simultaneously assess the association between SOH and CVD and competing death (CD). To address the first objective, a mapping review of longitudinal studies in this area was conducted. To address the remaining objectives, three 9.6-year-median follow-up data linkage studies that included 36,176 Ontario residents aged 40 years were completed. The main oral indicator was self-rated oral health (SROH), which was assessed as excellent, very good, good, fair, poor, with SROH being defined with respect to self-rated health (SRH) to address the second objective. Participants were followed until they experienced the event of interest, loss of eligibility to healthcare, death, or end of study (December 31st, 2016). Multivariable survival models were adjusted for socioeconomic characteristics, behavioural factors, and intermediate health outcomes. The mapping review showed a severe form of clinical heterogeneity and underutilization of the examined methodological approaches, including the use of randomized controlled trials, time-varying exposures, propensity methods, mediation analysis, and competing risks analysis. The three data linkage studies indicated that: SROH may capture additional information about the risk of CVD when considered within the overarching concept of SRH; the associations between SROH and IHD and revascularization are largely explained by confounders, but not with stroke; and the association between SROH and CD is more pronounced than its association with CVD. In conclusion, this work indicates the need for: an interdisciplinary approach to refine the conceptualization of SOH in relation to CVD, closing critical methodological gaps, and mitigating the risk of CVD associated with SOH in the broader context of health promotion.

Keywords: cardiovascular disease
heart disease
periodontal disease
tooth loss
Advisor: Quiñonez, Carlos R
Learning to Live with the Atom: US Public Opinion and International Control of Atomic Energy, 1945-1950

The advent of the atomic age at the end of the Second World War raised debates over how to protect the world from the dangers of the atomic bomb while promoting the peaceful uses of atomic energy. This could be achieved, scientists argued, only through the international control of atomic energy, which would secure nuclear technology and material under an international body. The devastation caused by a future nuclear war meant the problem affected everyone, everywhere, but as guardians of this unprecedented new weapon, Americans bore special responsibility for its future. Learning to Live with the Atom: US Public Opinion and International Control of Atomic Energy, 1945-1950 examines the two-way relationship between the American public and policymakers during the first years of the atomic age. By examining American diplomacy on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission alongside domestic public relations initiatives to engage the American people on nuclear issues, it tells a comprehensive story about how Americans tried to make sense of the fundamentally new world in which they lived and slowly came to terms with the emerging Cold War.

Keywords: Atomic energy
Early Cold War
Nuclear history
Public opinion
United Nations
Advisor: Bothwell, Robert
Pandemonium of Hope: Oil, Aspiration, and the Good Life in Alberta

For people living in Alberta, Canada’s largest oil producing province, oil is a key symbolic element in imagining what a good life is. A Pandemonium of Hope explores how oil companies, government agencies, and community organizations in Alberta use oil to describe a specific set of morals and values. In Alberta, labour, land, and aspiration are bound by a world in which religious meaning making and ideas of the good life are entangled with oil. Oil culture shapes how both the past and the future of Alberta are imagined. This dissertation discusses how oil and the good life are bound through the four case studies: Imperial Oil’s description of its own virtue in its public relations, narratively aligning itself with the Christian colonial project of settlement in western Canada; spaces that the Alberta government calls “Energy Heritage” sites and how they have used historical narratives of extraction to articulate Albertan values; the corporate culture of Calgary and its philosophies about energy; and The Calgary Stampede rodeo as a culminating spectacle in which the goodness associated with oil labour, extractive land use, and assertive aspiration is articulated as specifically ‘western.’

Keywords: Alberta
aspiration
good life
oil
secularism
spirituality
Advisor: Klassen, Pamela
Advances in Multilevel Regression and Poststratification for Non-representative Data Modeling

A growing methodology that can produce stable estimates based on non-representative survey data is Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP). MRP is a two-step regression framework, where the first step uses Bayesian modeling to produce efficient estimates at a fine granularity, and the second step poststratifies such estimates to adjust for selection bias arising in the survey. The final output of MRP is an estimate of the target population-level quantity. The overarching goal of this thesis is to extend MRP in multiple directions, in hopes that the methodological contributions will help individuals who frequently encounter non-representative surveys. This thesis consists of three parts. The first part proposes an interpretable Bayesian modeling extension to MRP. This proposed extension, known as the structured priors framework, uses local shrinkage priors in MRP. The benefits of structured priors are studied in extensive simulations and in a data application that models a non-representative phone survey conducted in 2009. Structured priors were shown to produce estimates with lower mean-squared error and lower posterior interval width, when compared to the classic specification of priors in MRP. The second part of this thesis extends MRP to causal inference in small areas. MRP-style estimators are compared to Bayesian nonparametric methods and regression adjustment through simulation studies. Treatment effects are calculated based on a large-scale randomized control trial with a complex sampling design, with the population having some degree of treatment effect heterogeneity. MRP-style estimates, compared to other causal inference methods, were shown to have lower bias and variance for small areas. The third part of this thesis analyzes cell collapsing in MRP, under the presence of estimated poststratification information. In practice, poststratification information is assumed to be known without error, even though it's estimated from an auxillary data source. The first contribution from this part of the thesis are derivations of MRP variance estimates that take into account the uncertainty in estimating poststratification information. The second contribution from this part of the thesis provides multiple mathematical and empirical examples which show the complexities of cell collapsing in MRP, under estimated poststratification information.

Advisor: Simpson, Daniel
Kennedy, Lauren
Atmosphere and Ocean Components of the Sahel Climate Response to Aerosol Forcing

The Sahel region of Africa experienced a severe drought in the 1980s, and understanding the causes of this drought are crucial for anticipating future climate changes in the region. Large ensembles (LEs) of coupled global climate model simulations of the historical period show that anthropogenic aerosol (AER) forcing causes a drying, then wetting in the Sahel with roughly coincident timing to the observed drought. To illuminate how AER forcing causes these changes, we use the ocean model hierarchy to ascertain the role of different atmosphere and ocean mechanisms. Using prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) experiments, we separate the fast direct-atmospheric (DA) effect, due to rapid atmospheric adjustments and land surface responses, and slow ocean-mediated effect (OM), due to atmospheric responses to SST changes. Then, using slab ocean model (SOM) experiments we separate the direct-atmospheric effect plus ocean mixed layer temperature change effect (DA+OT) from effect of changing ocean circulation (OC). Crucially, for both cases we derive boundary conditions from the coupled model LE so that we can perform a detailed, model-consistent assessment of these mechanisms. From the 1950s to 1970s, AER emission increase causes Sahel drying. We find this is a DA effect caused by North American emission increases. The OM effect weakly increases rainfall, due to offsetting drying effects from Atlantic cooling, which causes Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) shifting, and wetting effects from Pacific cooling, which causes a "reduced-ante" response. OC changes damp the AER forcing cooling in the North Atlantic, reducing the drying signal. From the 1970s to 2000s, the shift of AER emissions from Europe and North America to Asia cause Sahel wetting. We find this is an OM effect due to complementary wetting effects of Atlantic warming and tropical Pacific cooling, which appears to be largely due to OC changes. The DA effect of local African emissions cause drying in the West Sahel and remote Asian emissions cause drying in coastal West Africa via Walker circulation adjustments. Thus, we find that the Sahel response to AER forcing is the result of a complex combination of different mechanisms that shift as AER emission patterns change.

Keywords: Aerosol Forcing
African Climate
Atmosphere-Ocean Interactions
Global Climate Modeling
Monsoon Climate Change
Advisor: Kushner, Paul J
The Association between Maternal Oral Inflammation and the Composition of Breast Milk: A Cohort Study

Introduction: Maternal health conditions such as diabetes and obesity have been shown to be associated with altered breast milk composition. Periodontal diseases are among the common oral health conditions affecting mothers during pregnancy and postpartum. However, it is not known whether periodontal diseases affect breast milk composition (including immune cells, fatty acids, cytokines, etc.). Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the impact of maternal oral inflammatory load (OIL) on breast milk composition including neutrophil counts and activation state, and fatty acids concentrations. This study also aimed to identify the impact of maternal OIL on the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) and the dietary intakes and quality of postpartum women. The association between maternal OIL and infant outcomes at birth were also investigated. Methods: This is a prospective cohort study where fifty breastfeeding mothers were recruited from St. Michael’s hospital and followed up from 2-4 weeks until 4-months postpartum. Oral rinse and breast milk samples were collected from the participants. Participants also completed an OHRQoL and 24-hr dietary recall questionnaires as part of the study. OIL, as expressed by the absolute oral neutrophil counts was used to assess the periodontal and oral inflammatory status of mothers. Mothers’ oral health state was categorized into “Healthy”, “Moderate” and “Severe” groups based on the oral neutrophil counts. Results: Mothers with moderate to severe OIL had a statistically significant decrease in the expression of activation biomarkers on breast milk neutrophils and decrease in the poly-unsaturated fatty acids at follow-up compared to baseline (p<0.01). Our study also showed a positive correlation between the maternal dietary inflammatory potential and OIL at follow-up. Infants of mothers with severe OIL had significantly lower birthweight z-scores compared to infants of mothers with moderate OIL (p=0.04). Conclusion: This study suggests that maternal OIL can affect breast milk composition. Future studies are needed to investigate the impact of the alterations in breast milk composition on infant health outcomes on the short and long term. This study represents a starting point for a new line of research aiming at filling the gap in the literature regarding this possible and clinically important association.

Keywords: Breast milk
Breastfeeding
Maternal health
Oral health
Oral inflammatory load
Periodontitis
Advisor: Azarpazhooh, Amir AA
The Cold War on Cancer: Inuit and the Canadian Epidemiological Imagination

From the early twentieth century to the present day, health professionals have commented on the exceptional nature of Inuit cancer patterns. Over the past hundred years, Inuit have been thought to possess a unique distribution of disease characterized, at different points, by higher than-average rates of lung, cervical and salivary gland cancer, lower than average rates of breast cancer, and substantial and growing rates of the disease overall. This thesis explores why Inuit cancer patterns have been characterized in this way and discusses their contemporary implications for Inuit health. This project argues that past and current representations of Inuit cancer incidence evolved in tandem with geographic pathology—a branch of cancer research (and predecessor of cancer epidemiology) that posited that examining the cancer rates of colonial populations could help shed light on the disease’s underlying causes. I examine how rising scientific internationalism, increased Arctic militarization, hierarchical discourses of civilization and human development, and settler policies of protectionism, segregation, assimilation, and experimentation not only allowed geographic pathology to take hold in Canada, but also transformed Inuit Nunangat into an important site in the national fight against the disease. Over the course of six-case studies, I show how Inuit served as central nodes and excluded margins of cancer knowledge production. Canadian researchers used Inuit as resources for generating etiological hypotheses and developing new diagnostic imaging devices and screening techniques. However, most of these medical insights and interventions were exported to southern Canadian urban centres—leaving Inuit to contend with the still-unfolding aftermaths of geographic pathology and its relationship to colonial rule's historical construction, and attempted elimination, of otherness. To assess the evolution and ramifications of Arctic cancer epidemiology, this thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach, juxtaposing archival materials with contemporary accounts centered on Indigenous social actors. Oscillating between different methods, sources, and temporalities reveals how historical events resurface within contemporary conditions. It also contributes to growing scholarly interest in how cancer is understood and managed in the context of colonial and post-colonial relations of power and allows us to reflect on how settler-colonial structures produce and continue to pervade cancer service delivery in northern settings.

Keywords: Cancer
Epidemiology
Geographic Pathology
Health Metrics
Inuit
Risk
Advisor: Krementsov, Nikolai
On the Explanatory and Interpretative Functions of Mathematical Models in Evolutionary Biology

The thesis investigates the explanatory and interpretative functions of formal mathematical models in evolutionary biology. It is organized around three recent debates in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of science in general. The chapters are also responses to these debates.Chapters 2 and 3 examine the statisticalist-causalist debate over the right interpretation of modern evolutionary theory. I defend a middle-ground position between the two sides. Although the statisticalists’ construal of drift is largely reasonable, we should adopt a causal-form interpretation of natural selection. While some statistical explanations in population biology are nevertheless causal, at least two types of them— explanatory cases of non-representation and explanatory cases of misrepresentation— are indeed non-causal. They refute the Representationalism of mathematics. Chapter 4 inspects the debate over “genuinely mathematical explanations” (GMEs) and “distinctively mathematical explanations” (DMEs). I argue that existing objections to GMEs are unsound. To further justify GMEs, one could either presume a Pythagorean metaphysics or adopt some non-ontic conception of explanation. Moreover, Marc Lange, the primary advocate of DMEs, has conflated two kinds of presuppositions in an explanatory task: prerequisites of a why-question and auxiliary assumptions in an explanation. Nevertheless, the existence of DMEs is defensible. Focusing on the explanatory function of formal models, Chapters 2-4 constitute the first part of the dissertation. To justify the existence of non-causal statistical explanations and DMEs, I have developed a weak pragmatic account of explanatory (ir)relevance. Chapters 5 and 6 constitute the second part of the dissertation, which concerns the interpretative function of models. They examine the debate over the appropriate interpretation and assessment of Fisher’s “fundamental theorem of natural selection” (FTNS). I propose a new variant of the modern interpretation of the FTNS. I also argue that both the traditional and the modern interpretations are embedded in a bipartite “laws of nature—world” framework, which has hindered us from adequately appreciating the significance of the FTNS. Instead, a tripartite “theory—model—world” framework is preferable. Accordingly, we should consider the FTNS as a product of an ideal “interpretative model” rather than as a standalone law.

Keywords: Explanation
Fundamental theorem of natural selection
Interpretative models
mathematical models
Advisor: Walsh, Denis M.
The Voices and Stories of Two-Spirit People

This study documents the life histories of five Two-Spirit people and one Indigenous genderqueer gay person all coming from different Nations and communities (Saulteaux, Ojibwe, Cree, Mohawk). Using a life history methodology, I used semi-structured interviews to unearth key moments in the lives of my sisters and cousin (the term I use to describe these Two-Spirit individuals). After conducting interviews, I analyzed the stories through an Indigenous lens: the Biinskobiisin Bimaadsiiwin (The Circle of Life) Medicine Wheel. This Medicine Wheel has eight components: Nurturing Two-Spirits, Silences, Relearning Relationships for Change, Language as a Relational Process, Types of Truth, Seven Grandfather Teachings, Clans, and Gathering Together. Each of these components relates to different iterative stages in my sisters’ and cousin’s life; they each shape the life journeys of these individuals. These life histories are meant to challenge silences around Two-Spirit experiences within Indigenous and non- Indigenous communities. These stories represent the voices of people who do not always get to have their voices listened to. This sharing of stories is a form of healing in itself. These stories come alive after being shared and are looked upon as being precious and sacred.

Keywords: Family
Identity
Language
Residential Schools
Two-Spirt
Voices and Stories
Advisor: Gagné, Antoinette