VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Role of N-cadherin and beta-catenin signaling during transendothelial migration of melanoma cells

Cancer metastasis is a multi-step process involving many types of cell-cell interactions, but little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying extravasation of cancer cells. To investigate transendothelial migration (TEM) of cancer cells, our laboratory has developed an in vitro co-culture assay, in which melanoma cells are seeded on top of a monolayer of lung microvascular endothelial cells. N-cadherin was recruited to the heterotypic contact between transmigrating melanoma cells and neighboring endothelial cells, whereas beta-catenin was found to dissociate from N-cadherin and redistribute to the nucleus of melanoma cells to activate gene transcription. TEM of melanoma cells was inhibited when N-cadherin expression or beta-catenin signaling was repressed in melanoma cells, indicating a key role played by N-cadherin and beta-catenin signaling. Further studies indicate that Src was activated at the heterotypic contact, and this led to tyrosine phosphorylation of N-cadherin at Tyr860, which disrupted beta-catenin binding. Src also activated the MAPK-ERK pathway to stabilize the dissociated beta-catenin, thereby leading to the activation of beta-catenin signaling. Finally, I found that N-cadherin became associated with lipid rafts/caveolae during TEM of melanoma cells. This is a prerequisite for tyrosine phosphorylation of N-cadherin by Src, which may also provide a potential mechanism whereby the N-cadherin adhesion complex is stabilized in the absence of beta-catenin-mediated cytoskeletal connection. Taken together, these results elucidate a novel mechanists for N-cadherin-mediated adhesion and signaling events that promote TEM of melanoma cells.
Role of K-ras oncogene in human pancreatic duct carcinogenesis

Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease. Mutations of K-ras gene occur early in the pancreatic ductal precursor lesions, accumulate with disease progression, and have been identified in over 90% of infiltrating pancreatic cancers. However, the pathogenic role of K-ras mutation in the conversion of normal pancreatic duct epithelial cells to tumorigenic cells remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate that the HPV-16E6E7 -immortalized human pancreatic ductal epithelial (HPDE6c7) cells transduced with mutated K-ras (G12V) formed tumors when implanted into SCID mice subcutaneously and orthotopically. Gene expression profiling using an oligonucleotide microarray platform indicates that the transcription of numerous genes was altered by K-ras oncogene transduction. The low tumorigenicity conferred by K-ras oncogene suggests a critical role for K-ras mutation in the early steps of human pancreatic ductal carcinogenesis. This established in vitro cell model can be further employed to dissect other genetic lesions associated with the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancers.
Language switching in the thinking processes underlying second-language composing task performance among mandarin-english bilinguals in the context of computer studies

The dialectical relationship between language and thought has been closely scrutinized from various perspectives in philosophy and psychology. The present dissertation examines this relationship in the context of bilingualism. Numerous studies have shown that bilinguals frequently switch between their two languages in the process of composing tasks in a second language. However, little is known about when and why bilingual people switch languages in these situations, and how language switching relates to their thought processes as well as to their success in second-language tasks. I examined, within a theoretical framework of language of and for thought, the qualities of bilingual thinking demonstrated by bilingual students during their verbal reports on the performance of their second language tasks with a view to identifying the nature of language switching in their cognitive processing. 20 Mandarin/English bilinguals with different levels of second language (English) proficiency studying at a college in Ontario produced concurrent verbal reports while composing two types of second-language tasks in the context of their computer science studies. A retrospective verbal report was also elicited from each participant during a follow-up interview. Their written texts were evaluated by independent college course instructors based on a task-relevant scale. The think-aloud protocols were analyzed in terms of idea units and language switching. I analyzed the thinking contexts and propositional structures underlying specific types of thought, and participants' perceptions of these, using two-way repeated ANOVA and correlations, to assess differences and commonalities. Different qualities of thinking prompted different uses of first and second languages. The extent of the first language use correlated positively to success in the second language tasks. The findings further suggest that language switching in composing during second-language task performance relates to levels of cognitive demands associated with specific categories of thought. These findings challenge certain theoretical assumptions about the factors influencing language switching and provide important implications for theories, research, and pedagogical practices vis-a-vis bilingual cognition and second-language education in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Keywords: Bilingualism
Code switching (Linguistics)
Interference (Linguistics)
English language, Study and teaching
Performance analysis of the Maclean Avenue detention tank, city of Toronto

Analytical probabilistic urban stormwater models can be viewed as powerful applications of derived probability distribution theory in urban stormwater management practice. Simplified rainfall-runoff transformation functions provide computational efficiency and closed-form expressions make facile system optimization and sensitivity analyses. These merits make analytical models efficient tools for planning and screening level analyses in urban stormwater management. The value of analytical models is adequately demonstrated in this thesis through a practical, engineering example, the Maclean Avenue detention tank study, from the flexibility of the model derivation to the parameter testing and sensitivity analysis, to the system optimization and performance prediction. The consistency between the model prediction and observed data strengthens the reliability of the implementation of analytical models in practice.
Structural and functional characterization of the small GTPase Rheb and its complex with the GTPase activating protein TSC2-GAP

Rheb proteins represent a novel and unique family of the Ras GTPase superfamily in both their primary and tertiary structural features. Unlike other GAPs (GTPase Activating Proteins), TSC2-GAP does not have the "arginine finger", which was thought to be crucial for GAP catalysis. In order to elucidate the potentially unique GTP hydrolysis mechanism employed by the Rheb-TSC2-GAP system, Rheb and TSC2-GAP are purified from E. coli and subjected to biochemical and structural characterization. Fluorescent kinetic analysis of Rheb reveals a high nucleotide binding affinity. Far-UV circular dichroism spectroscopy indicates that the folded TSC2-GAP constructs are alpha-helical proteins. Crystals of one TSC2-GAP construct diffracted to 8 A at room temperature. Although one of the purified TSC2-GAP constructs co-eluted with purified Rheb on a size exclusion column, the interaction seems to be non-specific.
Canonical equivalence relations

The main contribution of this thesis is a solution of a basis problem for equivalence relations defined on finite powers of rationals. More precisely, we show that for each positive integer n there is a finite list [special characters omitted] of equivalence relations on [special characters omitted] with the property that for every other equivalence relation [special characters omitted] on [special characters omitted] there is a subset X of [special characters omitted] of order type equal to the order type of [special characters omitted] and a relation [special characters omitted] from our list such that [special characters omitted] is isomorphic to [special characters omitted]. We also give a presentation of similar result for [special characters omitted] and [special characters omitted].
A study of the US digital-camera market

This dissertation provides empirical evidence on the competition of manufacturers and on the nature of consumer behavior in the US digital-camera market. The first chapter examines the rapid diffusion of digital as opposed to film cameras in the period 2001-2004. This chapter investigates those factors contributing to the displacement of film cameras by digital cameras by estimating demand equations for digital cameras as well as for two kinds of film cameras. The estimation results show that Windows XP adoption and PC household ownership as well as rapidly dropping prices of digital cameras have played significant roles in the market penetration of digital cameras. Chapter three examines the model launch and withdrawal decisions of the major digital-camera makers over the period 1996-1999. These manufacturers are heterogeneous with respect to the quality of their products as well as their participation in the film-camera sector. I study how these differences in quality and the experience in the film-camera market impact the model launch decisions of the top manufacturers in the digital-camera sector. The empirical findings suggest that the product launch decisions of all manufacturers are most sensitive to competition from low-quality models. However, conditional on the type of manufacturers, high-quality models are easier to launch. The second chapter examines the characteristics attributed to the success of digital cameras by studying both the demand and the supply sides of the digital-camera market. A discrete choice model is employed to investigate consumer preferences over digital camera characteristics during the period 1996-1998. The empirical findings reveal that Sony's easy-to-use storage system contributed significantly to Sony's demand advantage and profitability. The implication of these results is that, in the consumer electronics market, easy-to-use attributes have a significantly positive effect on demand and profit.
Neuroleptic dysphoria: Biological and applied aspects of subjective responses to antipsychotic drugs

Conclusions. Drug-induced alterations in dopamine function are largely responsible for the occurrence of dysphoria associated with neuroleptic treatment; and the degree of vulnerability to dysphoria could be linked to the variations in endogenous dopaminergic activity. Altering the characteristics of dopaminergic blockade, or dopamine's interactions with other neurotransmitters (eg., serotonin and norepinephrine) seem to modify the nature of subjective responses, expanding the scope for developing novel therapeutic agents. Results. In the first study, catecholamine depletion was associated with emergence of dysphoric responses among all the subjects; and dysphoria was identified as an uneasy awareness of a loss of ability to experience pleasure, along with changes in arousal, mood, thinking, and motivation. The onset and severity of dysphoria were inversely related to striatal D 2 binding ratio [r = -0.82, p
Development of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale for Athletes

Perfectionism is “assumed to play a powerful and debilitating role in sport competition” (Frost & Henderson, 1991, p. 323). A recent suggestion that perfectionism is domain-specific highlights limitations of existing research that uses general measures of perfectionism with athletes (Haase, Owens, & Prapavessis, 2001). The purpose of this investigation was to develop a sport measure of perfectionism, the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale for Athletes (MPS-A). The MPS-A was developed over 2 phases. Phase one involved defining athletic perfectionism, item development, and assessing face and content validity; phase two assessed the factor structure of the MPS-A. Canadian varsity athletes completed the survey (n = 505). Exploratory factor analysis, using maximum likelihood factor extraction and promax rotation, suggested that 36 of the original 56 items be retained, representing 7 factors and accounting for 43% of the variance. Findings are discussed in the context of present research. Further refinement of the MPS-A is suggested.
Visual art: a road towards understanding the experience of embodiment

Visual Art: A Road Towards Understanding the Experience of Embodiment is an exploration of what it means to be embodied. This thesis is a self-study based on my own visual art aimed at understanding the experience of the body. My pursuit was to explore the body with a holistic approach that would allow me and possible readers to see the dimensions of our bodies in a more expanded way. This thesis comments on different notions of the body from contemporary and ancient sources, eastern and western. It also analyses the significance of art as a means for self-exploration, as well as its connection to spirituality. The fourth chapter analyses five drawings based on Rudolf Steiner and Wassily Kandinsky's work, as well as on anthropological and yogic writings. This also work includes a reflection on the possible application of this method of self-exploration in the context of adult education in Mexico.

Keywords: Art therapy
Art, Study and teaching
Art, Psychology
Anthroposophy
Educational anthropology
Anthroposophical therapy
Spiritual healing
Molecular and genetic analysis of the sex-determining proteins FEM-1 and FEM-3

FEM-3, a protein with no recognizable functional motifs, acts as a developmental switch in sex determination. FEM-3 activity is both necessary and limiting for male development. Previous work showed that FEM-3 physically interacts with FEM-2, a type 2C protein phosphatase, but did not establish the biological significance of the interaction. I tested the hypothesis that the FEM-3/FEM-2 interaction is required for male development. Using a modified version of the yeast 2-hybrid system I isolated FEM-3(D313N), a mutant that is specifically defective in its ability to bind to FEM-2. Low-copy fem-3 transgenes that direct expression of the D313N variant under the control of native fem-3 regulatory sequences show significantly lower masculinizing activity than otherwise identical wild-type transgenes. These data suggest that the ability of FEM-3 to bind to FEM-2 is required for the masculinizing activity of FEM-3. Male development in Caenorhabditis elegans depends on the activities of the proteins FEM-1, FEM-2 and FEM-3. Extensive genetic analysis indicates that in XO animals the FEMs inhibit the activity of the female-determining transcription factor TRA-1A to promote male somatic development. In the germline, the FEMs act on TRA-1A and additional targets to promote spermatogenesis. Little is known about the molecular and biochemical mechanisms through which the FEMs act, especially the ankyrin (ANK) repeat protein FEM-1. I molecularly and genetically characterized a collection of fem-1 loss-of-function alleles and found that the N-terminal ANK repeats of FEM-1 are critical for its sex-determining activity. ANK repeats are evolutionarily conserved protein-protein interaction motifs suggesting that a FEM-1-ANK repeat mediated protein interaction is required for male development. Observations of a dominant-negative version of FEM-1 that carries a missense mutation in the sixth ANK repeat support this hypothesis. FEM-1 is unusual among the sex-determining proteins in that it has been well conserved through evolution: orthologues exist in insects and vertebrates. Others have suggested that the conservation of FEM-1 may be due to a role in apoptosis. However, my work demonstrates that FEM-1 is not essential for programmed cell death in C. elegans other than through its characterized role as a regulator of TRA-1A activity.
Knowledge matters: the effect of maternal accuracy on children's coping, prosocial and empathic behaviour

The present study examined the role of maternal accuracy in predicting children's coping, empathy and prosocial behaviour. Mothers of 140 children 10 to 12 years of age were assessed for their accurate knowledge of the types of situations their children would find distressing and knowledge of parental interventions that would be comforting to their children. Results indicated a differential effect of accuracy, with knowledge of distressing situations predicting child empathy and for children with higher levels of anxiety, knowledge of effective comforting techniques predicting prosocial behaviour. Both types of accuracies predicted positive coping in children. Moreover, child anxiety was found to moderate the relation between knowledge of effective comforting and child positive coping and prosocial behaviour, with accuracy predicting positive child outcomes only in children with higher levels of anxiety. Overall, results indicate that mothers' accurate knowledge of children's thoughts, feelings and preferences has an impact on children's behaviour.
Beyond the "talking cure": narrative alternatives for telling trauma in Canadian fiction

This study explores narrative analeptics for trauma in contemporary English-Canadian fiction by Michael Ondaatje, Eden Robinson, Elyse Friedman, and Joy Kogawa. The introduction situates fictional works by these authors between two parallel yet contradictory narratives regarding the efficacy of the "talking cure": in current discourses of trauma, this speech act is designated as both a superior curative agent and an unsatisfactory remedy that is incapable of representing the traumatic event. My thesis primarily uses Canadian fiction to nuance assumptions inherent in both poles of these arguments, ultimately exploring the conceptual space between them. Chapter three investigates the ways in which the practical joke is adopted in lieu of the "talking cure" in both Elyse Friedman's Then Again and Eden Robinson's "Queen of the North," the closing story from her collection Traplines. This chapter primarily focuses on the status of the practical joke as a narrative paradigm and cultural artifact. In chapter four, my analysis of Joy Kogawa's Obasan considers poetry as an alternative to talk therapy. It discusses the ways Kogawa's poetic novel is a testimony that deviates from established aesthetics of the "talking cure." My conclusion suggests that we begin to approach the subject of trauma and cure with a different set of hermeneutic practices, so that rather than focusing on the intellectual complexities and aporias that surround psychopathology, we begin to consider narrative possibilities for telling trauma. The first chapter argues that in Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman's efforts to centralize the "talking cure" or "abreaction" as a panacea for trauma result in a delimited reading of the critics whom she cites to support her summations, omitting mention of their ambivalence regarding the efficacy of integrative abreaction. This elision encourages a reconsideration of the seemingly harmonious relationship presented in her work between the ethics of representation and imperative for effective personal treatment. Chapter two continues to question the efficacy of the "talking cure" through an analysis of Michael Ondaatje's novels In the Skin of a Lion and The English Patient. It explores Ondaatje's deviation from the therapeutic priorities of current discourses of trauma by tracing his developing disillusionment with story telling as a curative agency.
The role of VEGF in tumor angiogenesis induced by EGFR-type oncogenic tyrosine kinases

The epidermal growth factor receptor family of tyrosine kinases, particularly EGFR and HER-2, have been linked to cellular transformation and tumor progression. Traditionally their role was viewed as mainly promoting mitogenesis and cell survival. However, it is implicit that expansive growth and metastasis of cancer cells in vivo is also critically dependent on their ability to induce tumor angiogenesis. We hypothesized that both EGFR and HER-2 oncogenes contribute to the latter process directly by triggering an ‘angiogenic phenotype’ of cancer cells, a change in which a potent angiogenic cytokine—vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)—could likely be involved. Indeed, we found that tumor cells harbouring EGFR and HER-2 oncogenes are copious producers of VEGF and its expression is downregulated by EGFR- and HER-2-blocking antibodies. Interestingly, these agents (C225, hR3 and 4D5/herceptin) induce an apparent cytotoxic effect in vivo while being only mildly cytostatic under a variety of ex-vivo culture conditions. We reasoned that the latter is due to their anti-angiogenic effects, particularly downregulation of VEGF.
Matching court-ordered services with youths' clinically-identified treatment needs: predicting treatment success with young offenders

Under Canada's youth justice legislation, rehabilitation and reintegration of young offenders is an important principle. An empirically supported model of service delivery attending to the principles of risk level, criminogenic need, and responsivity provides direction in this regard. To date, research on this model has evaluated the principles broadly (i.e., at a group level) and has not incorporated youths' self-reported functioning. The current study evaluated the impact of matching youths with services according to their individual risk level, criminogenic needs, and responsivity factors on recidivism and subsequent self-reported functioning. The probation and clinical records of 122 youths who received comprehensive court-ordered assessments in a mental health facility in Ontario were reviewed to determine the percentage match between clinical recommendations, judges' orders, and services received via probation. Youths' criminal records were also reviewed to determine the time to their first re-offense and number of post-assessment conviction events. Difficulties associated with accurately capturing the duration and intensity of youths' services prevented risk matching; thus, youths' risk scores were controlled for in all analyses. Higher risk scores were associated with earlier and more frequent recidivism; however, lower percentage needs matching added to the predictive power of risk, and was associated with significantly earlier recidivism and a significantly greater number of new conviction events. Counter to expectation, responsivity matching did not contribute to re-offense prediction over and above the contribution of risk score and needs matching. A similar pattern of results was obtained during the self-report component of the study, for which 61 of the participants were located and completed a telephone interview regarding their functioning in criminogenic needs areas. Whereas youths' risk scores at the time of their assessments significantly predicted their self-reported functioning approximately three years later, greater percentage needs matching significantly contributed to the predictive power of the model while responsivity matching did not. The present findings have the potential to enhance collaborative efforts between the youth justice system and clinical service providers, and in turn, aid in the development of an effective and comprehensive means of responding to youths' offending behaviours. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)