VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Participatory research with tenants in public housing, working together for change

This study is a four year participatory research project in which the writer collaborates with tenants in the Longview Tenant Association. Longview is a public housing community in London, Ontario providing subsidized housing for 170 families. Frustrated with the lack of success when formal adult educational initiatives were offered to the working poor or to people living on social assistance, the researcher introduces backdoor learning. A type of informal learning, it occurs spontaneously and unpredictably. Backdoor learning emerges as tenants organize their community and interact with other community leaders in the larger London community. Direct evidence from tenants, collected during the three stages of the growth of the association, shows that tenants have different perspectives related to community organizing and to the function of their association in their community. Their ideas suggest new directions for practitioners wishing to act in solidarity with oppressed people. The framework for the evidence uses Park's (1993) instrumental, interactive and critical knowledge and relates it to three stages in the development of the association. Tenants offer guidelines for practising solidarity and illustrate how language acquired from reading this thesis, through backdoor learning, assisted a tenant to articulate community concerns. The researcher talks critically of her own privilege and how that can be used to prioritize tenants' self definitions of the way in which they have been regulated by workers outside their community. Tenants initiate and implement community strategies to improve their quality of life.
Dual scaling of sorting data, effects of limiting categorization on quantification results

In this study, our purpose is to investigate the effects of controlling stimulus sorting task on quantification results by the dual scaling (DS) method, and whether such effects, if any, may be related to the level of education of the subjects. The sample size for this study was a total of 194 subjects. Out of this total, 69 subjects were asked to sort 52 animal names freely, 73 subjects were instructed to sort them into four piles, and the remaining 52 subjects sorted these animal names into seven piles. Each group consisted of subjects sampled from three levels of education, namely, elementary school, secondary school and university. These data sets were first analyzed separately by the ordinary DS to determine the animal weights and subject-total correlations, among other quantification measures. Results of the animal configurations, in a multidimensional space, show that foraging and predatory characteristics, habitation, and the body size and shape were among the dominant zoological classificatory criteria used. Any significant differences in the categorization of the animals among the subjects was first, due to the type of sorting the participants were engaged and second, due to their education level. Qualitative analysis shows that the university group used advanced scientific terminologies to describe their categories, especially under the free sorting situation, whereas the elementary school group provided descriptions that were more general. In the second set of analysis, an ideal subject was augmented to the data sets and then, forced classification analysis (FCA) of DS was carried out. The subject-criterion correlations derived by FCA were then subjected to multivariate analysis of variance. On the whole, the results show that the number of dimensions can be reduced from eight to three linear discriminant functions that accounted for most of the variability in the data structure. These functions are interpreted as showing the classification of primates, carnivores, herbivores and "the whale" category". In comparison to the ideal classification scheme, we found that those participants who were at the university level and were left to freely sort the animal names to be closest to the ideal sorter. More importantly, this study shows that where the correct categorization scheme is known, FCA is an interesting way to evaluate the accuracy of the subjects from different groups. The study also outlines a number of topics for further research, like the need for further triangulation of evidence through a multi-sort method.
Postmodern pirates, metaphoric experiments in the novels of Donald Barthelme, Thomas Pynchon, and Kathy Acker

The main thesis is that the often-noted resistance to interpretation by the experimental novels of Donald Barthelme, Thomas Pynchon, and Kathy Acker has to do with the radical functioning of metaphor in the texts. These are metaphoric narratives that employ strategies of piracy to eschew narrative closure. In the first chapter, I link the sub-genre of metaphoric fiction to the Romance tradition in American literature, and I discuss contemporary debates about metaphor and narrative. My starting point for thinking about experimental fiction in the ensuing chapters is to be Donald Davidson's post-structuralist notion of metaphor, with its explicit rejection of the reigning cognitivist model. The second chapter, drawing on further theoretical materials, places Donald Barthelme's novels in the literary contexts of modernism and postmodernism, as represented respectively by Samuel Beckett and Jorge Luis Borges. Moreover, through textual interpretation, I show that Barthelme's work is best understood in the light of Borges', metaphoric labyrinth. The third chapter examines the novels of Thomas Pynchon, on the basis of my extended development of the concept of "piracy." I propose that this particular term will shed light on the nature of the intertexts created by all three experimental writers. In the fourth chapter, on the work of Kathy Acker, I take a close look at one particular strategy of piracy: literary plagiarism. I conclude my argument by situating the metaphoric narrative in relation to what I see as the two main competing paradigms of postmodernist fiction.
Average case computational complexity theory

The hardest problems in the complexity class NP are called NP-complete. However, not all NP-complete problems are equally hard to solve from the average point of view. For example, the Hamiltonian circuit problem has been shown to be solvable deterministically in polynomial time on the average, whereas the bounded tiling problem still remains hard to solve even on the average. We therefore need a thorough analysis of the average behavior of algorithms. In response to this need, L. Levin initiated in 1984 a theory of average-case NP-completeness. Levin's theory deals with average-case NP-complete problems using polynomial-time many-one reductions. The reducibility is a method by which we can classify the distributional NP problems. In this thesis, we develop a more general theory of average-case complexity to determine the relative complexity of all natural average-case intractable problems. We investigate structure of reducibilities, including a bounded-error probabilistic truth-table reducibility. We introduce a variety of relativizations of fundamental average-case complexity classes of distributional decision problems. These relativizations are essential when we attempt to expand our notion of average polynomial-time computability to develop a hierarchy above average NP problems. Average-case analyses are very sensitive to the choice of probability distributions. We have observed that if the input probability distribution decays exponentially with size, for instance, all NP-complete problems are solved "fast" on the average. This phenomenon does not reflect a significant feature of average-case analysis. This thesis includes a thorough analysis of structural properties of feasibly computable distributions and feasibly samplable distributions. In addition, one may ask how we can extract the essential average behavior of algorithms independent of the choice of probability distributions. To answer this question, this thesis introduces the new notion of quintessential computability, which expands the boundary of worst-case feasible computability (such as polynomial-time computability), and asserts the invariance of average-case complexity of algorithms regardless of which feasibly computable distributions are chosen. This thesis examines the hardness of this real computability and its structural properties.
Making sense of the appropriate in Plato's Timaeus

Plato seems to have taken the concept of appropriateness, as expressed by the two word-families to prepon and to prosekon, to be of considerable value in cosmological speculation, judging from a number of passages in the Timaeus. The same language was used by Xenophanes (B26, in Diels-Kranz' Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker) and possibly by Anaximander (A26, D-K). A fresh examination of these words in their contexts shows that the accounts of prepein and prosekein in Liddell, Scott, and Jones' Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed., 1996) are incomplete. An epistemic interpretation of these verbs, when they are used impersonally, e.g. "it makes sense," "it is plausible," "it stands to reason," or "it is likely," is sometimes an important aspect of their composite sense and sometimes makes better sense of the text than does its main rivals. Those rivals are a moral one, on one hand, e.g. "it is right," "it is necessary," or "it is obligatory," and a generally normative or "quasi-moral" one, on the other, e.g. "it is fitting," "it is suitable," or "it is appropriate." In chapter one I present a case against the adequacy of moral or quasi-moral interpretations of this language in a sample of cosmological texts in the Timaeus. Chapter two illustrates, from a number of passages in non-Platonic authors, that the epistemic sense of this language was available to Plato. Chapter three shows that Plato himself used this language epistemically in a number of texts other than the Timaeus. In chapter four I make use of the results of chapters two and three to illuminate Plato's meaning in Timaeus 29b, and 29d, regarding methodological discourse; 38a, 38b, 48b, 50d, and 62d, regarding meta-cosmological discourse; and 33b, 35b, 51a, 52c, 54c, and 55d, regarding cosmological discourse. I conclude this chapter with an estimate of how this study affects our overall interpretation of the Timaeus. In chapter five I argue that since Plato stands in a tradition of using language of this kind in this way to speculate in matters strictly speaking beyond verification, there is good reason to interpret both Xenophanes B26 and Anaximander A26 epistemically as well.
Moving out, gender, emotions, knowledge and change; an exploratory study of the social construction of marital separation

Transforming knowledge means transforming the research process. Through the lens of emotions and feelings, in this study, I explored how the process of marital separation, while experienced as unique and quite personal, is fundamentally shaped by the way our society is organized socially. I located this study within a feminist critique of the sociology of knowledge and I merged a sociology of knowledge approach with feminist methodology. I used the theorized life history to study social structures, collectives, institutional change and their dynamics as they impinge on or are reconstituted in our personal lives. I conducted intensive and extensive interviews with an opportunity sample of 20 women and 10 men, some of whom were partners of a separating couple, about their experience of marital separation. I focused on the major themes of the interviews which included the process of moving out, ideologies and realities of the legal process and practice, violence as socially organized, and issues and concerns about parents and their children. I considered, reflected upon and analyzed what the participants said and the ways in which they said what they said--with considerable emotion and feeling. I considered how it was different than what was known or represented in the mainstream literature on marital separation and divorce. I then considered some of the implications of this new knowing. If we consider emotion in relation to the sociology of knowledge, then the potential for generating new knowledge becomes visible. This knowledge challenges a Western epistemology that has tended to dichotomize emotions and reason. When we examine the social context in which women and men feel their emotions and investigate the personal and social meanings given to these experiences, we can see that emotions can vary by gender as well as other variables. We can also see that emotions and feelings are integral to knowledge, to the process of knowing, and to dimensions of political possibilities and change. The emerging themes, evolving theory, implications for policy and practice, and recommendations for future research are outlined.
Tritium dynamics in the amorphous silicon semiconductor

For the first time, Tritium has been bonded into a semiconductor. The Decay of tritium in the amorphous silicon network is a unique source of disorder. Infrared spectroscopy of this semiconductor identifies the various bonding sites of tritium in the amorphous silicon matrix. Tritium behaves as a heavy hydrogen atom. Raman and optical absorption analysis indicate that tritium decay does not lead to enhanced structural disorder of the amorphous network. Inelastic collisions of $\beta$ particles, produced as a result of the tritium decay, with the amorphous silicon network results in the generation of electron-hole pairs. Radiative recombination of these carriers is observed. The bonded tritium that undergoes nuclear decay, creates a dangling bond defect at its bonding site. This defect behaves as a non-radiative recombination center. Tritium decay is used to probe the effect of dangling bond concentration on luminescence, thus, providing further understanding of disorder in amorphous silicon.
Wood fiber/polyvinyl chloride composites and their microcellular foams

This thesis presents a fundamental study of the adhesion between chemically modified wood-fibers and PVC to develop PVC/wood-fiber composites with satisfactory performance. Wood-fibers were treated with $\gamma$-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, dichlorodiethylsilane, phthalic anhydride, and maleated polypropylene for surface modifications. The effectiveness of chemical modifications made on the surface of wood-fibers was then characterized using various complementary surface analytical techniques: X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and surface tension measurements. Inverse gas chromatography (IGC) was used to describe the electron acceptor/donor (acid/base) characteristics of the wood-fiber surface and PVC, and also to estimate the specific pair interaction parameters for PVC/wood-fiber systems. Single-lap joint shear test, tensile test, notched Izod impact test, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were employed to evaluate the adhesion between the wood-fibers and the PVC matrix. Amino-silane has been identified as a good adhesion promoter for PVC/wood-fiber composites while other coupling agents did not promote adhesion between PVC and wood-fibers. This implied that the well known claim of the interfacial tension matching of the two phases by converting the hydrophilic surface of wood-fiber to hydrophobic one is not sufficient condition for a good adhesion between PVC and wood-fiber. The experimental results revealed that the amino-silane treated wood-fibers react chemically with PVC. The resulting chemical bond between treated-wood-fibers and PVC accounts for the effectiveness of amino-silane when compared with other coupling agents. The concept of creating cellular structures in the composite to reduce its density and to improve the impact property has also been investigated. Microcellular structures were produced in the PVC/wood-fiber composites by first saturating the composites with CO$\sb2$ under high pressure followed by rapidly decreasing the solubility of gas in the composites. The critical processing parameters that affect the cell morphology and mechanical properties of foamed PVC and PVC/wood-fiber composites have been identified. These include the concentration of plasticizer, the surface treatment of wood-fibers, the foaming time, and the foaming temperature. By tailoring these process parameters, the desired cell morphology was achieved. The tensile and impact properties of microcellular foamed PVC/wood-fiber composites have also been characterized in terms of the cell morphology and the surface modification of fibers. The deteriorated impact strength of PVC/wood-fiber composites was improved by microcellular foaming.
Art, even after Auschwitz, Adorno's critical theory of art, religion and ideology

Amidst the devastation of World War II, Theodor Adorno, a German philosopher of Jewish descent, pronounced that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. He later revised this statement, for it became apparent to him that art was the last refuge of hope in a world where suffering had not come to an end. This study is, in general, an investigation of art as that voice of suffering. More specifically, this is an examination of the nature of the relationships between art, ideology, and religion, in the context of the later twentieth century Western Christian tradition. Key components of this enquiry are an ideology critique of religion, as well as an ideology critique of the manipulation of art by religious institutions for the purposes of religion. The argument guiding this critique is that to manipulate works of art in this way is to deny art its autonomy. The critical theory of the Frankfurt School, especially as developed by Adorno, provides the critical tools for this investigation. The groundwork is laid by establishing what is meant by both the terms ideology and religion, and what it means to carry out such an investigation within the academic study of religion. As well, examples from the art of theatre are given in order to concretize the investigation. In the end the question becomes: if, as members of the Frankfurt School maintain, religion has abdicated its prophetic role in its accommodation to the world around it, what would it mean to argue that religious art might still be possible?
The new Alexandrians, the modernist revival of hellenistic poetics in the poetry of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound

The thesis examines the modernist revival of a poetic revolution begun in Alexandria in third century B.C. by the Greek poet Callimachus and his circle, and revived in first century B.C. by the Roman poets Catullus, Ovid, Propertius, and Virgil. After examining Eliot's and Pound's knowledge of the Alexandrian poetic movement and the possible roads of influence, Chapter 1 focuses on the differences between Alexandrian and non-Alexandrian poetics in respect to their approach to allusion, obscurity, and genre. Chapter 2 concentrates on to question of genre: what is epic and what is its relationship to lyric? I examine Callimachus' Hecale, Ovid's Metamorphoses and Pound's Cantos as attempts to create a new form of epic which fuses the large-scale epic form with the small-scale lyric style. This new Alexandrian epic arises from the Hesiodic, as opposed to Homeric, tradition of epic. Each of these three poets was concerned with finding a viable alternative to traditional Homeric unity; each arrived at the same solution in the creation of overall associative unity by linking disjunctive elements one to the other. The means of doing this I call the "associative technique." The second half of the thesis examines the fusion of lyric with epic in the poetry books of Theocritus, Virgil, and Eliot. Chapter 3 begins by looking at the poetry book as genre: what is the difference between a poetry book and a poetry collection and what is the relation of the former to epic? While Theocritus' Idylls Virgil's Eclogues, and Eliot's Prufrock and Other Observations, on the formal level. present themselves generically as collections of individual poems, on the stylistic level, they enact also the generic codes of greater epic. Each of these three poets uses the associative technique to instil unity in the poetry book as a whole. This chapter discusses the relationship of the poetry back to the epic genre and the implications of that relationship for how these poetry books are to be read. Finally Chapter 4 provides an in-depth exegesis of how the associative technique works to create epic unity in the Idylls, the Eclogues and Prufrock and Other Observations.
Behaviours in organization, Chinese world views and perceptions of cross-cultural differences. a study of Hong Kong Chinese working in Canada

This study inquired into the lived experience of the Hong Kong Chinese in Canada and captured snapshots of their perceptions of cross-cultural differences in organizational behaviour. To provide a base for study, I examined literature on organizational behaviour from the cross-cultural and the Chinese dimensions. To conceptualise how people perceive the world, I reviewed literature on the personal-construct theory and the schema theory. The study used a qualitative mode of enquiry, with the researcher as an instrument to collect data through the in-depth interview and the repertory-grid methods. The participants, 8 men and 2 women, were either degree-holders or professionals with work experience in the service sectors in both Hong Kong and Canada. The study extracted their world views, which shape their interpretation of reality, from their narratives and work experience in both cultures. I identified 7 meta-narratives shaping the unique world view that differentiate them from Canadians at work; these meta-narratives dealt with: existence, achievement, work, conflict, power, relationship and communication. I also identified 4 major dimensions in modus operandi between these two cultures: planning, cooperation, leadership and controlling. I adopted the phenomenological-hermeneutic approach to analyse and thematise the data collected through interviews. I also explored through the repertory-grid method the participants' constructs of the role-holders in organizations between these two cultures. The grid data were computed by the Focus programme. These two sets of results were compared and triangulated to increase the study's academic rigour. The evidence shows that the Chinese perceived significant differences between themselves and Canadians in many dimensions of organizational behaviour. These differences obviously reflected these 2 cultures' underlining meta-narratives--the Chinese perceived Canadians as self-rather than organization-oriented, over-optimistic and carefree, uncommitted assertive, equalitarian, too frank and straightforward competitive in dealing with conflicts and intolerant to inequality. Clearly, their cultural perspective creates difficulty for Chinese working in Canada and Canadians or Western management specialists and educators attempting to work in Chinese societies. The study concludes with implications for practice for people who work across the cultural line with Chinese, with recommendations on ways to enhance cultural understanding, and with directions for further research.