VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Understanding Treatment Effectiveness for Aggressive Youth: The Importance of Regulation in Parent-child Interactions

Reviews summarizing hundreds of studies cite Parent Management Training (PMT) and Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy (CBT) as some of the most effective interventions for aggressive youth (e.g., Brestan and Eyberg, 1998). However, variability in outcomes persists, and we have yet to understand why certain interventions only produce behaviour change in some children. Using a clinical sample of 57 children (53 boys, 4 girls) and their mothers enrolled in a combined PMT/CBT program, the current study examined the relation between changes in real-time parent-child interactions, and children’s externalizing outcomes from pre- to post-treatment. Results showed that dyads who were regulated in their interactions over time reported greater reductions in externalizing symptoms from pre- to post-treatment compared to dysregulated dyads. Changes in mean levels of affective content (e.g., negativity) were not associated with aggressive outcomes. Findings suggest that dyadic regulation may be an important process associated with treatment success for aggressive youth.

Keywords: childhood aggression
parent-child interactions
treatment
regulation
real-time interactions
Advisor: Granic, Isabela
Why Bullying Victims are Not Believed: Differentiating Between Children’s True and Fabricated Reports of Stressful and Non-stressful Events

To date, limited research has been conducted to identify differences in children’s truthful and deceptive statements concerning stressful events. The present study uses automated linguistic software to detect linguistic patterns and objectively differentiate between the true and false stressful reports of bullying and non-stressful reports of sports events 7- to 14-year-olds. Results revealed that children displayed different linguistic patterns when reporting true and false stories, and between stressful and non-stressful stories. A discriminant analysis reliably differentiated between true and false stressful and non-stressful stories, though the veracity of non-stressful stories was more accurately classified than stressful stories. Experiment 2 revealed that adults were below chance levels in accurately identifying children’s true and false reports of stressful events (bullying), with confidence ratings and experience with children failing to improve accuracy scores. Taken together, results reveal that children are able to fabricate emotional and stressful stories that closely replicate their true reports.

Keywords: Deception
Children
Advisor: Lee, Kang
Talwar, Victoria
Working Memory and Academic Achievement in Children With Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

This study used pre-existing data to examine whether children with ADHD, with and without working memory (WM) deficits, differ in their academic achievement and clinical profiles. 73 children (26% female), aged 6-12 years, with a confirmed diagnosis of ADHD had completed standardized achievement tests of reading, mathematics, and written language. Six WM measures and three parent and teacher questionnaires probing behaviour and executive functioning were administered. Of the sample, only 26% met the criteria for a WM deficit. Children with WM impairments were found to perform significantly worse than those without WM impairment on all achievement clusters, with no clinical profile differences. Poor WM is not universal in ADHD, but its presence is associated with lower academic achievement scores. Clinicians and educators should consider that underlying impairments in WM may be the contributing factors to academic difficulties in children with ADHD. Interventions targeting WM skills need to be implemented.

Keywords: ADHD
working memory
academic achievement
Advisor: Tannock, Rosemary
Reading Racism: Race and Privilege in Young Adult Fiction

The novel Bifocal, a fictional young adult novel that examines the racist backlash that occurs at a high school after a male Muslim student is arrested on terrorism charges, was published in 2007 and has received wide critical acclaim for its portrayal of issues of racism. Working from an anti-racist framework, this research interviews two teachers who have used the novel in their classrooms, and considers the value and limitations of the book as an anti-racist teaching tool. Through discussions about specific themes in the novel and its overall presentation of racism, I argue that, while Bifocal presents some useful interventions, it also reflects a simplistic and individualistic perspective on racism and how racism can be addressed. I also examine the ways that Bifocal – and young adult literature in general – can be read in order to encourage more critical discussions about systems of racism and privilege.

Keywords: Children's literature
Young adult literature
Racism
Anti-racist education
Advisor: Nestel, Sheryl
Multiculturalism and the De-politicization of Blackness in Canada: the case of FLOW 93.5 FM

This thesis presents a case study of Canada’s first Black owned radio station, FLOW 93.5 FM, to demonstrate how official multiculturalism, in its formulation and implementation, negates Canada’s history of slavery and racial inequality. As a response to diversity, multiculturalism shifts the focus away from racial inequality to cultural difference. Consequently, Black self-determination is unauthorized. By investigating FLOW’s radio license applications, programming and advertisements, this thesis reveals just how the vision of a Black focus radio station dissolved in order to fit the practical and ideological framework of multiculturalism so that Blackness could be easily commodified. This thesis concludes that FLOW is not a Black radio station but instead is a multicultural radio station – one that specifically markets a de-politicized Blackness. As a result, multiculturalism poses serious consequences for imagining and engaging with Blackness as a politics that may address the needs of Black communities in Canada.

Keywords: Canada
Black
identity
multiculturalism
radio
broadcasting
advertising
consumerism
music
Toronto
Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission
FLOW 93.5 FM
Milestone Radio
Broadcasting Act
African Canadians
government policy
communications
sociology
popular culture
capitalism
urban
CRTC
Canadian Broadcasting Company
CBC
history
new media
Facebook
Toronto District School Board
TDSB
Black History
Multiculturalism Act
hip hop
Black Canadians
Black community
law
radio license
systematic racism
critical discourse analysis
racist discourse
Denham Jolly
Milestone
Kanye West
nationalism
diversity
disc jockey
Black music
urban music
pop music
programming
Advisor: Razack, Sherene
Re-addressing Emotional Anguish: Critical Analysis of a University's Mental Health Services

This thesis works from a disability studies perspective to explore the meaning of ‘mental health and illness’ in a university setting. I use the concept of ‘emotional anguish’ as a way to shift the meaning of pain from its taken-for-granted understanding as a medical issue to a more open conception of pain as a category that is always-already an issue of and for interpretation. I use interpretive sociology to show how all conceptions, including conceptions of health, illness, and disability, are socio-historical phenomena, reflecting the culture from which these concepts arise. I use the work of Michel Foucault to discuss the limits of conceiving of emotional anguish as a 'medical problem.' I draw on Sara Ahmed as her work orients to emotions as social phenomena. I conclude by discussing how we might begin to think about emotional anguish as more than a ‘medical problem.’

Advisor: Titchkosky, Tanya
Multiracial Men in Toronto: Identities, Masculinities and Multiculturalism

This thesis draws from ten semi-structured interviews with multiracial men in Toronto, Canada. It is an exploratory study that examines how participants experience race, masculinities and identities. Multiracial identities challenge popular notions of racial categories and expose social processes of racialization and the shifting nature of social identities. I explore how gender impacts participants’ experiences of multiple, fluid or shifting racial identities, and the importance of context in determining how they identify themselves. Participants also discussed the impact of multiculturalism and their understandings of racism in Canada. There were differences in the experiences of Black multiracial men and non-Black multiracial men in terms of how gender and race impact their lives. These differences imply that the colour line in Canada is shifting and that categories like ‘whiteness’ are being redefined. Analyses of these topics are taken up from an anti-racist and critical mixed race studies perspective.

Keywords: multiracial
men
toronto
mixed race
multiculturalism
identity
identities
racialization
race
masculinity
Advisor: Mahtani, Minelle
My Journey, Our Journey, Their Journey: The ‘Say-Walahi’ Generation

The aim of the study is to look at the social formative processes of the Somali-Canadian youths, known as the ‘say-wallahi’ generation, go through. My research primarily focuses on how I learned to survive as a racialized person in the White Canadian nation space by holding onto my Somali identity, and how my journey diverges and converges with Somali-Canadian youth. First, I examine how the media socially constructed the Somali identity through a colonial gaze in a Toronto Life article. Secondly, I narrate some of my own schooling experiences for they speak to the deep psychological and spiritual scars that I embody as a racialized Somali. Especially, my interest is to show how instrumental Somali dhaqan was to my survival of the colonial/racializing gaze. Finally, I stress the importance of and the need for Somali youth to engage in de-colonizing/ de-racialization processes that encompasses their re-discovery of their indigenous Somaliness.

Keywords: Somali Youth
Somali dhaqan
Advisor: Njoki, Wane
Loaded Words: Race, Ethnicity, Language and Culture in the Construction in Chinese-Canadian Identity

This thesis presents an ethnographic study based in the city of Toronto on how ethnic Chinese negotiate their ambivalence towards the category “Chinese-Canadian”, particularly in relation to discourses about race, ethnicity and language. It is the finding of this study that second generation, economically privileged ethnic Chinese women are likely to feel most comfortable with the aforementioned category, in relation to their counterparts. This is because they are most likely to be able to speak Chinese and English, as well as seek out a vocabulary that allows them to make sense of their experience. They are also likely to be most comfortable because, as Chinese is a feminized category, they more easily fit into the mold of what a Chinese person is “supposed” to be like. Ethnic Chinese men, however, are less comfortable with the category and assert their masculinity by engaging in humour driven in racial and ethnic stereotypes.

Keywords: Chinese, Canadian, Race, Ethnicity, Language
Advisor: Heller, Monica
"A Clinic for the World": Race, Biomedical Citizenship, and Gendered National Subject Formation in Canada

On October 21st , 2005 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that immigration officials “can no longer assess potential immigrants to be ‘medically inadmissible’ to Canada solely on the basis of a person’s disability” and their likelihood to make “excessive demands on Canadian social services” (Chadha 2005, 1). In this thesis I will explore this ruling using a methodological approach that engages practices of: self-reflexivity; tracing historical and political genealogies; and case study analysis. What I am interested in thinking about is how this moment gestures to the necessity of conceptualizing the nation, nationalism, and citizenship as highly medicalized terrains. Through an engagement with transnational and black feminist theorizing, anticolonial studies, and disability studies, I will suggest that “medical inadmissibility” is one of many regulatory mechanisms that work to fashion the Canadian nation-state as white, healthy, fit, and productive.

Keywords: medicine
biopower
citizenship
race
Advisor: Nestel, Sheryl
Alexander, M. Jacqui
Ghanaian Indigenous Health Practices: The Use of Herbs

Herbal medicines remain integral part of indigenous health care system in Ghana. Most conventional health medicines are directly or indirectly derived from plants or herbs. Despite its significant role in modern medicine indigenous herbal practices has been on the low light for some time due to perceived antagonistic relationship that exists between practitioners of herbal medicine and their counterpart in the conventional system. Using an indigenous knowledge discursive framework, the thesis examined the relevance of herbal medicine to the contemporary Ghanaian society. The thesis also examined the tension between the indigenous herbal practitioners and their orthodox counterparts. The thesis noted that for health care system in Ghana to be effective, there is a need for collaborate relations between these two practitioners. Also, it was noted that for health care system to be effective in Ghana, spirituality has to be central in the works of the herbal practitioners.

Keywords: Ghana
Herbal Medicine
Herbal Healing
Indigenous medicine
Traditional medicine
Indigenous health practices
Alternative medicine
African medicine
orthodox and traditional medicine
spirituality
Ghanaian Indigenous spirituality
Traditional healing
Mampong center for scientific research into plant medicine
Plant healing
Advisor: Wane, Njoki
Food Democracy and The Construction of Risk in The Canadian and U.K. Media

Using a critical discourse analysis (CDA), this thesis examines how risks and food security, in relation to Genetically Modified (GM) foods, are constructed within the media context. The project analyzes news articles that appeared in two Canadian newspapers, The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, and two British newspapers, The London Times and the Guardian, during three particular time periods between 1997 and 2005. I evaluate whether or not the selected articles contribute to the public’s understanding of science, and how journalism constructs risk and uncertainty. I also evaluate the use of expert knowledge by journalists. Using the theory of Risk Society, as proposed by sociologist Ulrich Beck, the project explores the connections between political, social, and economic issues connected to globalization. This thesis concludes that journalism in both Canada and Britain does not appear to adequately inform their citizens on matters of food security and the risks of GMOs.

Keywords: media
journalism
food democracy
Genetically Modified Organisms
genetically engineered foods
risk
agribusiness
sociology
critical discourse analysis
Advisor: Simon, Roger I.
Boler, Megan
Walking Through a Wavering With-itness: An Exploration of Disability Pride and Shame

This is a thesis about disability pride and shame. Here, I explore how these two characters appear in theoretical texts, personal stories and my experience of disability on the streets as an identity which connects me to others and the world as an interpretative being. This project begins by demonstrating how the popular imagination of disability pride describes the prideful person as one who relates to their embodiment with constant satisfaction. I trouble this version of pride, a version that requires one to turn away from shame, for being exclusive of disabled people who, like me, experience their disability through a wavering bodily relation. I conclude by crafting out a pride that remains with us in troubling times rather than in the abandonment of shame. This pride is accessible to us all and the never-steady stories of disability we tell.

Keywords: disability
identity
Advisor: Titchkosky, Tanya
Constructing Whiteness: Regulating Aboriginal Identity

Curricula in classrooms facilitate a national amnesia of colonialism that renders inconceivable the possibility of Aboriginal heritage or mixed-blood presence in national subjects. This thesis examines my own family history alongside the Indian Act and discourses of multiculturalism. I provide a personal account for the ways in which Aboriginal identities are regulated in Canada. I examine how glorified white settler narratives - reproduced through both formal and informal schooling - work to displace Aboriginal peoples as the original inhabitants of the land. I argue that this facilitates ongoing Canadian colonialism that continues to circumvent the possibility of particular mixed-blood Aboriginal identities within the confines of national belonging. Citizenship education in the Toronto District School Board is situated as a mechanism of formal schooling that continues to negate the ongoing colonization of Aboriginal people so that mixed-race Aboriginal students may continue to assume themselves as white subjects within the nation.

Keywords: education
aboriginality
Advisor: Cannon, Martin
Whose Education? Whose Nation? Exploring the Role of Government Primary School Textbooks of Bangladesh in Colonialist Forms of Marginalization and Exclusion of Poor and Ethnic Minority Children

Through an analysis of Social Studies textbooks of the government primary school curriculum of Bangladesh, this thesis highlights the role of the education system in pushing poor and ethnic minority children out of school. The texts and graphics are analyzed in order to examine the ways in which they oppress and exclude these children by perpetuating dominant ideologies of nationhood, constructing a notion of the “ideal citizen,” and criminalizing those who do not fit this category. Using an anti-colonial and post-colonial theoretical framework, the study situates the education system of Bangladesh within its histories of colonial domination and argues that the discourses present in these textbooks reflect colonial forms of racism and oppression, and reproduce class and ethnic hierarchies characteristic of the larger Bangladeshi society. Most importantly, this study advocates the need for a just and equitable education system that respects all children of Bangladesh as citizens of the country.

Keywords: Sociology of Education
Ethnic and Racial Studies
Bilingual and Multicultural education
Advisor: Nestel, Sheryl
The Impact of E-Health Adoption and Investment on Health Outcomes: A Study using Secondary Analysis

The overall goal of this research study is to determine if there is a correlation between electronic health (e-Health) adoption, e-Health investment and better health outcomes in a hospital setting. To carry out this research, data with respect to e-Health spending, e-Health adoption and relevant health outcome indicator results for Ontario hospitals were analyzed to determine if there is a correlation between the variables. There were significant positive correlations between e-Health adoption and investment variables; indicating that higher e-Health investment is associated with greater e-Health adoption. There were significant correlations between variables related to e-Health adoption, investment and certain health outcomes. For example, increased e-Health adoption was significantly and negatively correlated with variables related to Length of Stay (LOS), which suggests that increased e-Health adoption is associated with lower LOS. This study attempts to create a foundation upon which Return On Investment (ROI) may be calculated for e-Health technology.

Keywords: e-Health
Return on Investment
health outcomes
CPOE
Advisor: Leonard, Kevin
Synthesis of Fluorine-18 Labelled Radiotracers for Positron Emission Tomography

This work improved the radiosynthesis of a known M2 muscarinic receptor imaging agent, [18F]FP-TZTP, and subsequent syntheses and in vitro evaluation of several novel TZTP derivatives highlighted a lead compound which exhibited M4 potency and selectivity, the thioether fluoro-polyethyleneglycol, which was then adapted for radiolabelling (23% radiochemical yield (uncorrected), >99% radiochemical purity, reaction time of 37 minutes). The present study also seeked to utilize aziridines as intermediates in [18F]-radiolabelling chemistry for the facile radiosynthesis of [18F]-labelled beta-blockers. Novel [18F]-labelled amines were synthesized via ring-opening and deprotection to yield the [18F]-1-fluoro-2-propanamine moiety (85%) favourably over the regioisomer [18F]-2-fluoro-1-propanamine (15%). Subsequent attempts to use these amine synthons in the synthesis of the beta-blocker [18F]Exaprolol resulted in poor radiochemical yields (1-3%). The chemistry of aziridine ring-opening with 19F-fluoride sources was thoroughly explored in order to understand the fundamentals of this chemistry, and the 1-fluoro-2-propanamine moiety was characterized by X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy.

Keywords: Fluorine-18
PET
Neuroimaging
Muscarinic Receptors
TZTP
Aziridines
Ring-opening
Advisor: Vasdev, Neil
Yudin, Andrei
Subwavelength Focusing via Holographic Metallic Screens

In this work we investigated a new class of subwavelength focusing device, termed the holographic metallic screen. We first proposed a generalized procedure which takes a holographic record of a subwavelength electromagnetic field distribution. Subsequently we synthesized this record using two types of holographic metallic screen – the slot antenna hologram (SAH) and the resonant slot antenna hologram (RSAH). We designed both holograms and evaluated their performances through full-wave simulations, and experimentally demonstrated subwavelength focusing for the RSAH. Simulations and experiments illustrated various attractive properties of the subwavelength focusing RSAH, which included (a) a tighter focal width than a single subwavelength aperture; (b) a focal field amplitude surpassing the incident field amplitude; and (c) a simple design scalable to a wide range of frequencies from microwave to optical. These properties should serve to motivate further development on the holographic metallic screen towards potential applications such as sensing, imaging and lithography.

Keywords: Electromagnetics
Antenna
Focusing
Holography
Advisor: Eleftheriades, George V.
BTB Domain Dimerization:Development of a Protein-protein Interaction Assay

In the human genome, 43 BTB (Bric-à-brac, Tramtrack, and Broad Complex) containing BTB-Zinc Finger proteins have been identified, many of which are transcription factors involved in cancer and development. These BTB domains have been shown to form homodimers and heterodimers which raise DNA binding affinity and specificity for transcription factors. This project was to develop an efficient assay to systematically identify interactions between BTB domains. It combined a co-expression system, fluorescent protein tagging and Ni-NTA plate retention. It was concluded that fourteen analyzed BTB domains formed homodimers, but only certain BTB pairs formed heterodimers, such as BCL6 with Miz1 and Miz1 with RP58. To further understand the specificity of BTB domain interactions, more structural and sequence information is still needed. In conclusion, this assay provided a comprehensive detection method for BTB domain interaction mapping. The information generated provides candidates for further functional and structural studies.

Keywords: BTB domain
protein-protein interaction
domain dimerziation
assay development
fluorescent protein
high throughput assay
Advisor: Prive, Gilbert