VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Pedagogy of the global: knowledge, empire and internationalization in the university

This study is a critical examination of three universities in the Pacific Northwest of the United States looking at the pedagogy and knowledge production practices of teaching the global as well as the promotion of internationalization in higher education. This research has primarily two objectives: (1) to examine the effects of globalization and internationalization on the modern university, and (2) to understand how the global is understood and taught by faculty. In a neoliberal global economy the need and desire to internationalize institutions, knowledge and ultimately citizens urges us to be competitive, yet magnanimous; cosmopolitan, yet protective. As socializing institutions universities respond to these imperatives by conflating the needs of society with what students learn in ways that produce certain kinds of global citizens. This citizenship is situated within a historical foundation of US exceptionalism, of particular notions of "self" and "other" and a neocolonial legacy too soon forgotten. How students learn the global is also framed through a Western lens-a practically focused, comparative approach to "here" and "there" This thesis argues that through the connections and disconnections with the dominant globalization discourse the pedagogy of the global represents entrenched understandings of "Americanness" simultaneously with contradictory desires about how the local and global fit together. This conceptualization of the global re-introduces hidden castings of Empire embedded in a latent colonialist consciousness which at the same time prohiematizes understandings of equity. This study reveals that global discursive and pedagogical practices continue to shape and reshape our contemporary imaginings of a diverse world. Lastly, it articulates hope in opening spaces for new modes of resistance and change in the education of responsible global citizens. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
After the people: the demise of self-determination, a new constitutional theory and the tradeoffs of peoplehood

Through a new lens -- polity-formation -- this thesis explores the concept of 'the people' in three bodies of thought: international law, constitutional theory, and political theory. It writes off self-determination, recasts constituent power of 'the people', and illuminates the tradeoffs involved in the invocation of peoplehood. In Chapter 1, I argue that 'self-determination of peoples' is disappearing from the discourse of powerful decision-makers after the end of the Cold War, replaced by a set of moral and prudential principles that I explore in detail. That demise of self-determination in turn demands the reconsideration of the role of 'the people' in constitutional theory. I uncover the formation of a polity not as the work of a sovereign people or its constituent power, but rather as a phenomenon that involves actors on both sides of the tentative boundary between inside and outside of a new polity. In Chapter 2, I articulate and name that phenomenon enlarged constituent power building on engagements with the work of Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes and Cari Schmitt. In Chapter 3, I identify important rhetorical and normative benefits that flow from the concept of 'the people', including the fostering of political participation and territorial solidarity. In addition, 'the people' serves as the source of ultimate political authority, and provides a yardstick for judging a polity's legitimacy. Complementing this theoretical re-description, Chapter 3 offers an alternative way of looking at those issues by engagements with the works of Hannah Arendt, Hans Kelsen, Allen Buchanan and Will Kymlicka. Finally, in Chapter 4, I argue that three theoretical characters will rise to prominence if we abandon the vocabulary of 'the people': an imperial republican, a civic ethnonationalist and a sensible radical. Together, these characters outline the possibilities for political action in contemporary geopolitical realities
Alberta women in the field: geoscientists in the resource industry, government research, and academia, 1914-1999

This dissertation takes a threefold approach in examining the changing nature of the entry experiences, career opportunities, and professional identities of Alberta women geoscientists working in the resource industry, government research, and academia between 1914 and 1999. First, it explores the literature related to women in science, women's entry to universities and graduate schools, women in academia and the professions, and women and the resource frontier. Second, it engages in the recovery and analysis of the careers of three early women geoscientists. Third, it undertakes an empirical study based on interviews of thirty-four contemporary women geoscientists in Alberta. The review of the literature on women in science shows British women were in the vanguard of education for women in the geosciences, the cross-fertilization of scientific knowledge across international boundaries, and the impact of the transition from the amateur naturalist tradition to institutionalized and academic settings, which resulted in loss of visibility for the early contributions of women in science. The diversity of the careers of Grace Anne Stewart, Helen Belyea, and Mary Turner illustrates the three different possibilities in terms of career path for women geoscientists: university teaching, research and field work in government service, and work in private industry and the oil patch. Stewart and Belyea fit the category of high achievers who concentrated on their careers, while Turner had a shortlived career in geology, married, and later resumed her teaching career. The interview-based study shows that while career opportunities for women in the booming Alberta resource industry are very positive, social attitudes are the slowest part of the job equation to change. While women are gaining senior technical and management positions, lingering social stereotypes and outdated exclusionary practices continue to exist, and women continue to have to work to overcome them. Despite these challenges, a majority of women geoscientists interviewed in the study are experiencing or have experienced fulfilling and financially rewarding careers.

Keywords: Women earth scientists, History
Women earth scientists, Alberta
Spectroscopic investigations of heme proteins

Using several novel spectroscopic techniques, we investigate the dynamics of heme proteins over the full range of time scales relevant to their function. With ∼10 femtosecond time resolution we use ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy to gain insight into the earliest dynamics initiated by the photodissociation of the carbon monoxide ligand from myoglobin. Coherent oscillations that are driven by the bond-breaking event reveal several vibrational modes of the heme that provide the driving force for the initial motions along the pathway to protein function. Much later along this pathway we address the question of ligand escape from myoglobin. With this purpose we develop heterodyne-detected diffractive-optics-based phase-grating spectroscopy, which provides more than 2 orders of magnitude increase in sensitivity for the measurement of volume changes and energetics. The improved sensitivity allows us to directly observe the ligand escape, which occurs via a number of discrete routes through the protein. Following the escape process, we observe the full cycle of dynamics that is complete when the carbon monoxide ligand rebinds to the protein. Using a resonant probe we re-examine the dynamics of ligand escape from myoglobin using transient absorption and transient-grating spectroscopy. This study confirms the findings of the previous off-resonant work, and allows us to explore the relationship between the observables in the phase-grating experiment and other resonant spectroscopies. The various dynamical processes of myoglobin provide a basis for understanding the structure/function relationship at the single protein level. This lays the foundation for a description of protein-protein interactions such as cooperativity in hemoglobin.
Place and identity in auto-topographic metanarrative

The study opens with a look at the intersection of themes and critical discourses these works bring into play. Bruce Chatwin's deliberate blurring of fact and fiction in The Songlines provides the initiating moment for a consideration of how these works exceed the bounds of travel writing. The genre fusion of Aritha van Herk's Places Far from Ellesmere and Kristjana Gunnars's The Substance of Forgetting and The Rose Garden READING MARCEL PROUST critique cartography and imperialism, in the world and in writing, from radical feminist perspectives that subvert traditional autobiographical practice. V.S. Naipaul's A Way in the World and Dionne Brand's A Map to the Door of No Return also appropriate cartography and narrative discourse, reclaiming the postcolonial periphery as a multiplicity of centers to speak from. The conclusion surveys other examples of this genre, attending to the diversity of unique positions expressed in auto-topographic metanarratives. This study examines the emergence of a new genre that I am provisionally calling "auto-topographic metanarrative." Examples of this genre have been variously categorized as either postmodern autobiography or postmodern travel writing, yet, the works considered here share a consistent concern with the close relationship of place and identity. Central for the authors of this genre is the issue of being "out-of-place" because of race, culture, ethnicity or gender, a sense that is accentuated in the act of travel. This predicament is often explicitly affected by postcolonial tensions. Presented through a reflexive autobiographical discourse by authors who are often self-described as existing in multiple cultures simultaneously, each of these works asserts the value of the individual's testimony as it is created and documented in the text.
Karen perspectives on schooling in their communities: indigenous knowledge and western models of education

In its broadest sense, this thesis is an exploration of the potential for Indigenous people to decolonise their education systems in the process towards self-determination. The Karen are an Indigenous people of Burma, who have survived centuries of oppression at the hands of the Burman feudal system. For the past fifty-five years they have been engaged in a struggle for self-determination against the Burmese military junta. This research examines the extent to which eurocentric knowledge and values continue to frame Karen education which is central to this nationalist project. Through an examination of the experiences and insights of Karen Elders, administrators, and teachers, the thesis raises questions about the relevance of schooling which fails to valorize Karen traditional knowledge and ways of knowing to the Karen struggle for self-determination.
Enhanced photoconductivity in thin-film semiconductors optically coupled to photonic crystals

The photoconductivity of a thin semiconductor film is enhanced by depositing a photonic crystal (PC) onto its backside. The greatest photoconductivity enhancement is achieved when the thickness of the film is such that a resonant state appears within the stop-gap of the PC. Specifically, the photoconductivity of a 96nm thick hydrogenated amorphous silicon film is increased by 60% by depositing an opaline PC onto the backside of this film. However, increasing the thickness of the film to 110nm causes a resonant state to appear within the stop-gap of the PC, and in this case the photoconductivity is enhanced by another 70%. Notably, the semiconductor film itself does not need to be periodically structured to exhibit enhanced photoconductivity, allowing the simple architecture of the film-PC construct to be readily applied to a variety of devices including resonant cavity enhanced photodiodes and more efficient photovoltaics.
Functional neuroanatomy of sustained attention: exogenous versus endogenous engagement

Sustained attention is mediated by right frontal, parietal, and thalamic brain regions. This blocked-fMRI study elicited the neural substrates of sustained attention using a task that is less susceptible to time-on-task declines in arousal than traditional vigilance tasks: the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART). The effect of random alerting tones on the sustained attention network was also examined. As predicted, performance of the SART produced significant activations in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobe, and thalamus. Alerting tones diminished this right frontal-parietal-thalamic network. However, during a control task with low demands on endogenous engagement of sustained attention, key regions of this same network were activated. Alerting tones may stimulate the maintenance of the goal-state, reducing reliance on the top-down control of prefrontal cortex, but this effect appears to be dependent on the level of endogenous engagement of the baseline task.
Personal images in second language teacher development: Exploration of a reflective teaching tool

The participants, who are teachers of adult ESL, were invited to explore a creative and collaborative reflective teaching tool. After raising our awareness to our personal images and implicit beliefs about teaching and learning, each participant was invited to state a concern that was applicable to a professional issue. Together, we addressed each concern and created actions plans by exploring the reflective tool under investigation. This qualitative study illustrates the temporal nature of professional development within an embedded narrative framework that embodies the experienced knowledge of second language teachers. Responses from two participants were collected at four workshops and two interviews and each of their responses correspond to one or more dimensions in the narrative framework. From a holistic perspective, these texts locate the participants and their experiences with this study at a particular place and time, while also exhibiting the multi-faceted nature of reflective teaching.

Keywords: English language, Study and teaching
Teachers, Training of
Reflective teaching, Study and teaching
Corporate governance and investment incentives of Japanese firms

This thesis studies the vertical governance structure employed by large Japanese manufacturing firms that creates transaction relations that are different from arms-length relations. Chapter 2 describes the regulatory environments of post-war Japan that fostered the bank-centred financial system and then analyses the manufacturer-supplier relationships today. The findings suggest that equity participation by a large manufacturer may have been motivated by its need for expanded suppliers and by their suppliers' borrowing constraints. Chapter 3 formalizes this proposition and examines the effects of the manufacturer's equity holding on the supplier's investment incentives when a large manufacturer has access to a lower cost of capital than the supplier. I assume that the supplier can make either general or specific investment. Specific investment is more profitable than general investment but requires the supplier's effort for its successful implementation. With this set-up, I obtain a unique equilibrium in which the manufacturer holds minority equity interest, and the supplier invests more in physical assets and exerts more effort than the case when the manufacturer holds no equity. Chapter 4 evaluates the theory developed in Chapter 3 empirically, using unique data on Japanese trading relationship in which the actual good traded between the parties is used to infer the nature of investment (general or specific) involved in the relationship. The empirical results indicate that the supplier's investment decision and the manufacturer's equity holding decision are influenced by the supplier's borrowing constraints and their trading relationships. Hence, they provide empirical support for the incentive effects of the manufacturer's equity holding. Chapter 5 considers a strategic value of having a director on the supplier's board when a downstream firm faces Cournot competition in a final good market. Under the assumption that an outside director collects private information about the supplier, I show that the expected profit of the downstream firm increases with the amount of information it has. The largest gain from having a director on the supplier's board is obtained when both downstream firms have their directors on a common supplier's board because of the improved coordination of the production decisions by the downstream firms.
Design and synthesis of peptidomimetics containing the -CHFS- moiety

Proteases have become drug targets in the treatment of disease conditions linked to their aberrant over- or under-expression. For serine proteases, although numerous potent irreversible and reversible inhibitors have been developed, the area of transition-state analogues with isosteres of tetrahedral geometry has been explored less frequently. Fluorinated peptide analogues containing a tetrahedral alpha-fluoroarylthioether functionality that were designed and synthesized as inhibitors of alpha-chymotrypsin displayed limited stability in aqueous media, and were obtained as inseparable diastereomeric mixtures. Here, the synthesis of more stable compounds containing strongly electron-withdrawing thiophenyl groups is outlined. The overall yields of the compounds were improved by the discovery and application of an in-situ DAST fluorination of thiohemiacetals obtained via the corresponding aldehydes. Compounds containing para trifluoromethylthiophenyl displayed improved aqueous stability and afforded a separation of the diastereomers.
User adaptation in price-based priority services: the single-link case

We consider a price-based resource allocation scheme for computer networks implementing multiple priority classes. We suppose that the cost associated with the submission of a packet in a given priority class is fixed. We study the case where users try to predict the probabilities of transmission in each priority, values from which they determine the allocation that maximizes their own net benefit. We prove the convergence in the single-link case for users with elastic demand and provide simulations to show the convergence in the network case with more general demand functions. The simulations also highlight the relation between the number of priority classes and the max-min fairness of the allocation.
Consequences of mindfulness meditation for emotional flexibility and psychological well-being

Mindfulness has been defined as a quality of "enhanced attention to and awareness of current experience or present reality" (p. 822, Brown Ryan, 2003). Studies of mindfulness-based interventions have shown beneficial effects on well-being---both physical and psychological. However, few studies have addressed the mechanisms underlying these effects---using an experimental approach with conditions that control for nonspecific effects of mindfulness training (e.g., expectancy, relaxation). This thesis examined the possibility that mindfulness meditation may have important consequences for the ability to 'let go' of emotions (i.e., for emotional flexibility), which in turn affects cognitive resources available for decision making, and ultimately psychological well-being. In Study 1, meditation practitioners from the community completed a battery of behavioural measures assessing emotional flexibility. A dot probe task assessed initial orienting of attention to emotional stimuli. In an emotional interference task (EIT) participants viewed pleasant, unpleasant and neutral pictures while responding to the presentation of a tone. A longer history of meditation practice was significantly associated with better disengagement of attention from unpleasant stimuli and with higher scores on questionnaire measures of mindfulness and psychological well-being. There was no relation between initial orienting of attention and duration of meditation experience. In Study 2, using an experimental design, I compared the effects of 7 weeks of mindfulness meditation training to the effects of relaxation training and to performance in a waiting-list control group. Participants in the training conditions were tested before and after the 7-week course using a variety of measures including the EIT, ratings of intensity for pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures, and questionnaire measures of mindfulness and well-being. Only participants who received mindfulness meditation training showed improvements in the ability to disengage their attention from unpleasant stimuli, reduced ratings of feelings of intensity in response to unpleasant stimuli, and signs of reduced physiological arousal. Furthermore, the mindfulness meditation group showed increased scores on self-report measures of mindfulness, psychological well-being, and self-compassion. Together, these findings suggest mindfulness meditation may produce an increase in emotional flexibility, which may in turn account for improvements in well-being.
On-line trajectory resolution for the coordinated motion of a two-armed robotic sculpting system

The issue of low stiffness is addressed during off-line planning by minimizing the system compliance in order to produce stiffer trajectories. By choosing stiffer configurations the manipulators can better respond to high machining forces. In response to unmodeled disturbances a real-time trajectory re-planner utilizes a novel time-scaling method to reduce the tool speed, thereby, reducing the demand on the actuator torques. Alternate trajectories are determined such that high inertial torques are reduced and the manipulators continue to follow stiff trajectories. When alternate trajectories are generated, the redundancy is shared between conflicting performance functions. Robotic manipulators are utilized in a wide variety of manufacturing applications. While many industrial robots only have the minimum necessary degrees-of-freedom (dof) that are required for a given task, when working collaboratively on a task, systems of robots typically have more than the minimum required dof and provide an infinite number of joint configurations for a given task. This redundancy enables some aspect of the system performance to be optimized. A fundamental challenge with redundant systems, particularly multi-armed systems, is trajectory resolution, namely, the resolution of a single Cartesian trajectory into multiple joint trajectories. In this work, a framework for generating optimal coordinated-trajectories for redundant systems that addresses off-line and real-time trajectory resolution in the context of a machining operation is developed. The exemplar task for this work is robotic sculpting. One of the issues with serial link manipulators is that they have a low inherent stiffness due to the cantilever design of the links. Machining forces acting on the end-effectors can result in high bending moments about the joints. Combined with inaccurate models of the manipulators and the machining process, joint actuators can often saturate during operation. Once a joint is saturated, tool-path tracking may not be possible and the blank and/or tool may be damaged. Robotic sculpting is a machining operation utilizing coordinated manipulators as the machine tool. When two six-dof manipulators are used, one to move the tool and the other to move the workpiece, the overall system has a high degree of redundancy.