VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Partial least squares modeling of keratinocyte differentiation through the integration of gene expression profiles and flow cytometry analysis

The use of keratinocytes in wound dressings for the treatment of chronic wounds is a viable treatment option, although limitations of this application arise when keratinocytes differentiate during initial expansion. This work involved the generation of partial least squares and multi-way partial least squares models to investigate gene expression events associated with keratinocyte differentiation. A heterogeneous keratinocyte population was characterized using multi-parameter flow cytometry and enriched using Percoll gradient separation. The two modeling approaches were used to took at gene expression events over time in conjunction with flow cytometry measurements of differentiation. Multi-way models were able to simplify analysis and provide a robust way to capture time course events. The models were able to focus on a set of common genes positively and negatively associated with differentiation, including members of the Notch signaling pathway. This study established models of differentiation and provided a basis for future model development.
Le refus du mariage dans la littérature féminine française (XVIIe et XViiie siècles)

Dans cette étude, nous suivrons le développement du topos du refus du mariage dans le roman français au cours de deux cents ans (1600–1800). Quoique nous cernions principalement la littérature féminine, nous amorçons également une étude comparative des écrits masculins et féminins afin de souligner leurs différences et leurs similitudes dans le traitement du topos du refus. Nous avons sélectionné des œuvres dans lesquelles le refus du mariage peut être considéré comme un geste politique qui contribue à la formation d'une conscience féministe. Le topos, particulièrement récurrent dans la Préciosité, est étudié principalement en fonction de la clôture narrative; les dénouements traditionnels du mariage (euphorie) et de la mort (dysphorie) sont souvent subvertis, évincés de la diégèse et supplantés par un refus du mariage. Ainsi, le refus du mariage conteste non seulement le système matrimonial, mais aussi les conventions littéraires inflexibles qui s'imposent à l'héroïne romanesque. Dans la littérature masculine, la protagoniste féminine qui refuse le mariage tend à s'assimiler à un mythe, figure archétypique (vierge ou femme mortifère) qui perd ses qualités humaines. Chez l'auteur féminin, la protagoniste qui refuse le mariage dévie souvent des codes genrés et opte d'écrire sa propre «conclusion» romanesque. Nous avons donc l'intention d'analyser la construction des genres sexuels et les discours prescriptifs qui imprègnent ces œuvres. Notre étude analyse également le rapport complexe entre le refus du mariage et son médium stylistique, notamment les modes de représentation précieux, merveilleux et exotique. Le topos du refus est en effet intimement lié à «l'extravagance» de ces styles littéraires.
A qualitative investigation of the impact of weight cycling on women's well-being

Past research exploring women's experiences with weight cycling has produced inconsistent results with some studies linking weight cycling to reduced physical and psychological well-being while other studies have failed to attain such results. The current study aimed to expand our understanding of women's experiences living with weight cycling using qualitative, feminist methods. Participants were 10 women who had experienced at least two weight cycles of at least 11 pounds. Participants engaged in in-depth interviews which were analyzed according to the pattern coding model. Results indicate that there are negative aspects to women's experiences with weight cycling including decreased self-esteem, increased body dissatisfaction and dissociation, and increased feelings of anxiety, depression, shame and anger. Family, peers, and partners had an important influence on women's weight cycling experiences and body esteem.
Linguistic identity of the dialect of Fiume

The main object of the thesis is to demonstrate linguistic kinship between an Italian dialect spoken in the Croatian city of Rijeka/Fiume and the Venetian and neo-Venetian dialects. Secondary purpose of the thesis is to record, and in this method preserve the present form of the Human dialect which is slowly, but inevitably dying out. The Thesis is composed of four chapters, a summary and an appendix. The introductory chapter, which is divided into two parts, contains sections related to the methodology used in the research of the Fiuman dialect as well as the information on the manner in which a Venetian speech form became a widely accepted medium of communication in a city that was never a de facto part of the Venetian Republic. Second part is intent to familiarize the reader with the historical aspects of the city itself, as well as with the historical and existing conditions of the dialect. The second chapter, focused upon phonology of the Fiuman dialect examines the historical development of the Fiuman vowel and consonantal system, as well as the present status and forms. This chapter also contains the relevant etymological data. Information related to the historical and current morphological facts of the Fiuman dialect, and the socio-linguistic consequences of the centuries old symbiosis between the Croatian čakavian and the Fiuman dialect is presented in the chapter that follows. Basic characteristics of the Fiuman syntax, and the use of the specific grammatical categories are the subject of the last chapter of the thesis. The results of the research, which contain the information on the basic characteristics of the Human dialect as well as the confirmation of its colonial Venetian linguistic heritage, are summed up in an abridgement at the end of the main corpus of the thesis. Results of the questionnaire, including the samplings of the prose texts, poetry and Fiuman proverbs are organized in the appendix. The part of the appendix entitled “Lexicon” contains a glossary of characteristically Fiuman words, together with the pertinent etymological and comparative information. The thesis also contains number of maps and illustrations.
The creation of a psychometric instrument to measure the religious Jewish construct trust in God: a first step towards researching the relationship between religious Jewish beliefs and psychological variables

While the past several years have seen a great increase in the number of psychological studies concerned with religion, there is still a great lack of psychological knowledge about Orthodox Jews. Of the available published research, there has yet to be an empirical analysis of the relationship between religious Jewish beliefs and psychological variables. Furthermore, the potential for research on Orthodox Jews is limited as there are few psychometric instruments that are suitable to use with this population. This thesis created the “Trust in G-d Index”, a statistically valid and reliable instrument to measure the religious Jewish construct Trust in God. It is hoped that the Trust in G-d Index will be used to increase the epistemic place of Orthodox Judaism within the rubric of psychological empirical inquiry, by expanding the potential for research to be conducted on Orthodox Jews.

Keywords: Knowledge, Theory of (Religion)
Judaism
Orthodox Judaism
Jewish ethics
Prejudices
Psychology, Religious
Gender and class in Athenian material and theater culture

This dissertation examines the social dimension of the representation of women in Athenian culture and drama. In moving beyond models of alterity, it argues that the representation of gender was part of a larger social discourse that had as much to do with class relations as with the sex/gender system in Athens. The increasing prominence of women in drama throughout the fifth century is related to growing class antagonism. Part I addresses a peculiarity in the history of Attic iconography. Archaic and Early Classical vase painting present a vast repertoire of elite activities centered on the Athenian male aristocrat. In the Classical period, however, there is a marked increase in the representation of women engaged in elite activities; funerary sculpture exhibits similarities in its use of female subjects. Against traditional stylistic and gender analyses, this part argues that images of women served as symbols with which to promote economic and civic distinctions between male citizens of different social classes. Part II explores the representation of women in Athenian drama and literature. Against more recent alterity models, this part proposes a displacement model, which integrates different and opposing views held by the heterogeneous theater audience. It examines tragic choruses and gynecocracy comedies as two examples of displacement. Disempowered female choruses in Euripides could critique the dangerous activities of the elite characters on account of their lack of political authority; Old Comedy similarly puts women to political and economic use. A survey of the rhetoric of gender in fifth-century Athenian sources demonstrates how the category of the feminine helped to define other social categories. Part III draws upon the discussion of gender in art, drama and literature in a study of scenes of human sacrifice in tragedy. Through a close analysis of the representation of human sacrifice, the victims are shown to offer an expression of class conflict in Athens through their simultaneous symbolization of the wealthy elite and the expendable lower classes. In the conclusion, a comparison between the rhetoric of sacrificial victims and Athenian liturgists further demonstrates the Attic tendency to displace class issues onto gender.
Socio-ethical Issues of Prenatal Counselling: A Qualitative Study of Women's Experiences with Prenatal Counselling in the Greater Toronto Area

This thesis focuses on the results of qualitative research surveying the verbal information pregnant women received from their family practitioners and obstetricians. It explored socio-ethical issues of prenatal counselling. The general results of this research suggest there is a marked absence of prenatal counselling surrounding all aspects of prenatal care, which ultimately affected labours and deliveries. The absence of counselling, in some cases, combined with breaches of guiding ethical principles, even led to trauma, by any accepted definition of “trauma” in the mental health context. These were the results found in a sample of “good outcomes” where no babies were stillborn, born with birth defects or congenital health problems, and no babies were kept in neonatal units due to complications. The trauma suffered by some women was so severe, it led to a postponement of second pregnancies as a means of avoiding further trauma at the hands of medical practitioners. This thesis suggests that not only are women being harmed by the accepted prenatal standard of care in Toronto hospitals (which, a thorough literature review suggests, has not substantially changed since the 1890s), but legal remedies for unnecessary pain and suffering ought to be made available to traumatized women, known as wrongful labour and delivery. “Wrongful labour and delivery” would define a labour and delivery that was unnecessarily traumatic, a labour that involved unnecessary pain and suffering, which could include fright due to the omission of pertinent information that could have easily prevented the trauma, or lessened the trauma.

Keywords: Pregnant women
Prenatal care
Childbirth, Psychological aspects
Domains in Michif phonology

Michif is an under-described contact language spoken by a few hundred Metis people, mostly in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It has two principal source languages: Plains Cree and French and has generally been analyzed as having two co-phonologies: French phonology applying to the French-source lexical items and Cree phonology applying to the Cree-source lexical items (Rhodes 1986, Bakker 1997, Bakker Papen 1997, Papen 2003. This thesis serves a dual role in the study of Michif. First, it offers the first systematic description of phonological distribution and patterning including segmental inventories, stress assignment and syllabification, as well as a sketch of Michif morphology and morphological categories. Second, it argues that Michif need not be analyzed as stratifying its lexical components according to historical source. Lexicon stratification of this type, according to historical language source, has also been posited for languages such as Japanese (Ito Mester 1997, 2001, 2005) and English (Kiparsky 1982) to account for synchronic differences in patterning of different lexical items. However distributional differences in Michif are argued not to be sufficient for positing a stratified lexicon, and it is argued in this thesis that previously claimed synchronic patterning either relies on diachronic data as input to synchronic rules, or else the patterning itself is no longer productive in Michif, or different phonemicization accounts for patterning differences. Two case studies in Michif patterning, stress assignment and I-deletion, are shown to be predictable and systematic with no differences in patterning with regards to historical language source. Given these facts, I argue that lexicon stratification in Michif is unwarranted. Although historical source domains do not play a role in synchronic Michif, prosodic domains are shown to have different phonological inventories and to pattern differently with respect to phonological processes such as syllabification and stress assignment. Michif affixes and minor categories are shown pattern differently, but this is based on regular synchronic patterning of linguistic, rather than historical, criteria.
Program compliance in Ontario's remedial measures program for convicted drinking drivers

This study examined both rates and predictors of completion in a mandatory rehabilitation program for individuals convicted of a Driving Under the Influence (DUI) offence. Completion rate, in the sample of male DUI offenders (n = 5409), was determined to be extremely high at 97.3%. In multivariate analysis, non-completers, relative to completers, were found to be younger, to drink more frequently, to be less likely to own a home, to be more likely to live in urban centers, to have two or more lifetime impaired driving convictions and to have an income below $35,000. It was concluded that individuals who do not complete the requirements bear many similarities to individuals at high-risk for persistent drink-drive behavior and its associated negative health consequences. A model for understanding the determinants of non-completion and both the health and treatment implications of such behavior is presented and discussed.
Parental emotion processes, family risk status, and patterns of emotionality in children

The present study investigated relations amongst parental emotion processes, family risk status, and emotion biases in children. Participants included 94 mothers, 39 fathers, and their children between 3–6 years of age (41 girls, 53 boys; M age = 4 years, 4 months) from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. Eighty-three families were followed up one year later. Parental appraisal styles were assessed via a naturalistic story-reading and explanation method, and maternal anger response and emotion regulation were measured by semi-structured interview and self-report questionnaire, respectively. Children's Time 1 and Time 2 emotion biases included teacher and mother ratings of emotion, peer ratings of emotion, as well as classroom and playground observations of emotion. Mothers using a disproportionate number of hostile appraisals over prosocial appraisals when speaking with children was associated with children's sad/fearful biases at school. Responding angrily to their children's negative emotions was associated with both anger and sad/fearful biases at school. On bivariate correlation, paternal hostile appraisal styles were associated with children's sad/fearful biases at home. As predicted, mothers in high-risk families utilized fewer prosocial appraisals than low-risk mothers when explaining events to their children, and they tended to use a higher level of hostile appraisals than mothers in low-risk families. Similar patterns were found for fathers' hostile appraisals. Mothers in the high-risk group also demonstrated significantly more angry responses and less emotion regulation to their children's sadness than mothers in the low-risk group. Finally, longitudinal analyses showed a strong continuity of children emotion biases over a one year period, particularly with regard to anger biases. Maternal anger responses and emotion regulation at Time 1 had no predictive effect on a change in children's emotion biases over time; however, a hostile balance of maternal appraisals was found to predict change in children's anger biases in the home and school, with different effects in high- and low-risk families. These findings and future directions are discussed in the context of current theoretical, empirical, and clinical work.

Keywords: Emotions in children
Parent and child
Child psychology
ITrustPage: Pretty good phishing protection

Phishing is an Internet attack that manipulates people into divulging their sensitive information. This is accomplished by luring users to a fraudulent Web page that emulates the appearance of a corresponding legitimate page. This thesis presents iTrustPage, an anti-phishing tool that prevents users from filling out suspicious Web forms, and suggests the corresponding legitimate form. iTrustPage employs a user-driven approach augmented by automatic classifiers to determine whether a form is legitimate. When encountering an unvalidated form, iTrustPage asks the user to describe the page they intend to access, by entering keywords into a search engine. If the form is found in the top search results, the form is validated and the user can proceed. Otherwise, the user is presented with visual previews of the top search results matching the entered description. Users can either choose one of these more "established" Web pages or refine the search terms.
Unsolicited e-mail: taking technology to court, a comparative analysis between technology and law

E-mail has always suffered from some degree of abuse. Yet the gargantuan spam growth rates of the past few years have led governments and international organisations to engage in global efforts to fight the flood of unwanted messages. This thesis compares solutions provided by Technology and Law. First, a technological analysis examines the e-mail system and crystallises the shortcomings exploited by spammers. Second, anti-spam and anti-virus legislation in Canada, the U.S.A., Australia and the EU are scrutinized and compared with one another. Finally, the main comparison between Technology and Law suggests that neither Technology nor Law are suited, necessary or efficient for each anti-spam solution. While Technology focuses its solutions around the receiver and the e-mail network, the solutions of Law are distributed more evenly and range throughout the entire e-mail system from the sender to the receiver. Technology and Law need improved synchronising at more than one interface.
Kurdish nationalist movements: opportunity, mobiliation and identity

This dissertation examines three broad questions: when, how, and why are ethnic nationalist challenges to the state mounted? In a world rent by increasing instances of ethnicity-based civil conflict, such questions appear more pressing than ever. This treatment of the issue employs a case study of Kurdish nationalist movements. The choice of this case study stems from the hope that an analysis explaining the continuing emergence of ethnic nationalist challenges, in spite of immensely severe state repression, may shed light on the phenomenon in general. Primarily a theoretical treatment of the issue, the dissertation first analyzes Kurdish nationalist challenges to the Turkish state from the perspective of the three major existing social movement approaches. These three approaches proceed, respectively, from a focus on politico-social structures, resource mobilization strategies, and cultural identity. By applying each approach to the same case of Kurdish nationalist challenges in Turkey, this study isolates and illustrates the explanatory strengths and weakness of each theoretical approach. Because each of the approaches explains only limited facets of ethnic nationalist challenges to the state, the concluding chapter seeks to synthesize the three modes of analysis. This synthesis is then employed to compare Kurdish nationalist challenges in Iraq and Iran to those in Turkey. This analysis concludes that the suppression of Kurdish nationalist challengers has cost Turkey, Iraq and Iran a great deal, in both material and political terms. If these states are to aspire towards democracy, stable government and economic well-being for all their citizens (both Kurdish and non-Kurdish), they must allow for some measure of Kurdish autonomy, or at a minimum accommodate Kurdish group demands for recognition, basic civil and minority rights. Only by creating a more pluralist state framework can they truly hope for long-term domestic peace. Failing such democratization, more costly, though probably unsuccessful, Kurdish nationalist challenges seem likely to continue.
Metal-enhancement of semiconductor emission in a cadmium selenide-gold nanocomposite

The optical properties of gold capped nanoscale cadmium selenide (nCdSe-Au) are studied, and the emission found to be enhanced. The enhancement is due to plasmonic propagation of light through the metal. For plasmonic propagation, the metal's dielectric function must be zero at the frequency of interest. In that case field of the propagating light becomes very large. This 'very large' field propagates through the metal and is incident on the semiconductor, raising the semiconductor's emission intensity. In this work nCdSe-Au is synthesized and characterized by scanning transmission microscopy (STEM), optical absorption spectroscopy (OAS) and, photoluminescence spectroscopy (PLS). Confirmation of the enhanced field/plasmonic effect of nanoscale gold on nCdSe emission is made by the PLS observation of certain nCdSe diameters only if gold is present. Their appearance under the influence of gold and their unequal increase follows from phenomena as predicted by Shik and Ruda 1.1H. E. Ruda and A. Shik, Phys. Rev. B, 71, 245328, 2005.
Beyond barriers: Women living with disabilities and their participation in exercise programs

Exercise participation among women living with disabilities is often limited as a result of pain, decreased muscle strength and limited mobility, and this inactivity may increase their risk of developing secondary health conditions. More 'disabling' than these symptoms however, is a lack of accessible exercise facilities in women's communities. The purpose of this study was to explore how the material and social structures and functions existing and operating within community-based exercise programs affect the participation of women living with disabilities. Grounded theory was used to analyze interviews conducted with women living with disabilities involved in community-based exercise programs. Women discussed their reasons for exercise, experiences related to transportation, and exercise facilities' accessibility involving issues related to the built environment, exercise programs, equipment and staff members' disability-related knowledge and attitudes. Women's suggestions for program improvement, emphasizing the need for universal accessibility, appropriate staff training and community-based programs are also presented. Keywords: women, disability, exercise, health promotion, qualitative methods.