VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The work of salvation, civic piety in the Misericordia Maggiore of Bergamo, 1265--1365

In the late Middle Ages, ordinary men and women throughout Europe displayed their commitment to Christian principles through their participation in confraternities. A case study of one medieval Italian confraternity, the Misericordia Maggiore of Bergamo, demonstrates the social and pious effects of confraternities on cities and their inhabitants. Furthermore, the structure and activities of the Misericordia denote the medieval laity's interest in civic piety, that is, the belief that individuals could achieve salvation through their involvement in secular life. Parts One and Two of the dissertation document the close relationship between sacred and secular concerns which shaped the structure and role of confraternities in the civic community. Part One comprises a study of the Misericordia's relations with confraternity members, officials, and citizens of Bergamo. The individual chapters demonstrate that although social distinctions played a role in determining who governed the confraternity, all individuals, regardless of social rank or gender, participated in the Misericordia's devotional activities. Moreover, all citizens of Bergamo sought the confraternity's assistance in achieving physical and financial security and salvation for their souls. On the basis of these findings, the second part of the dissertation studies the role of confraternities on the civic stage. I examine the Misericordia's position as the city's preeminent charitable association, its relationship of mutual assistance with the local government, and its connection to the local Church and other pious organizations in the city and region. These chapters reveal that the confraternity not only functioned as the charitable arm of the civic government, but it also mediated disputes between rival clans. Furthermore, during the fourteenth century, the Misericordia became the protector of smaller confraternities and pious associations in the city and surrounding region. By serving as the city's chief almoner and providing stability during a period of political chaos, the Misericordia, like other medieval confraternities, satisfied citizens' needs for earthly security and the promise of salvation.
Harold Pinter's play with form, a cross-media analysis of his texts

Harold Pinter has taken fourteen of his twenty-eight dramatic texts through some process of formal adaptation across media: narrative fiction to radio and television; radio to stage and television; television to stage; or stage to film and television. This thesis examines Pinter's perpetual manipulation of form and content and the media through which they are expressed. Moving through a detailed analysis of thirteen of his works and their adaptations, this study examines Pinter's methodology in this process in a more focused and comprehensive manner than has been attempted in Pinter scholarship to this date. Pinter's work is of particular interest in a study of cross-media adaptation, for the self-consciousness of his preoccupation with his own modes of expression combined with his thematic concerns about the control and expression of meaning tie the form and content of his work and the medium through which they are expressed in a very explicit way. Since the medium is so bound to Pinter's meaning, when the medium changes the play's thematics are often significantly altered. This study is organized into chapter headings according to the originally intended medium: narrative fiction, radio, television, and the stage. Each chapter first considers the original texts, focusing particularly on how meaning has been shaped and influenced by the intended mode of expression. I then turn to examine Pinter's manipulation of form and content through adaptation, in the process of which the meaning of the texts will be reconsidered in light of the new medium. In some of the thirteen cases, the meaning of the work is so intimately tied to its original form that the change of medium seems to preclude satisfactory thematic translation. We see this in the stage adaptations of the radio plays ' The Dwarfs' and 'Slight Ache' and also in the television version of 'Old Times'. In most cases, however, Pinter embraces the new medium--recognizing its potentials and limitations--and manipulates the text from within to rework the perspectives of the original. In these cases, the playwright's adaptations of his original works stand as aesthetically realized and independent works of art.
Simulation of measles epidemics, behaviour of parameter estimates for different models of vaccine action

Using epidemic simulations in randomly mixing and stratified populations under different models of vaccine action, the best estimator of vaccine efficacy for each model is identified. For the type I and general vaccine models, vaccine efficacy is best calculated from incidence density rates or transmission rates. In large epidemics, these estimates may underestimate the true vaccine efficacy. For the type II model, estimates based on relative attack rates are preferable. Assuming an incorrect model of vaccine action will result in estimates which decrease or increase over time. Individuals who are immune from having previously contracted the disease should be excluded from the study if the vaccine is a type I or general vaccine, whereas they should not be excluded if the vaccine is a type II vaccine. Some of the complicating issues encountered in real outbreak situations are discussed using data from a measles outbreak in Muyinga, Burundi.
Bridging the ocean, thematic aspects of Italian literature of migration to Canada

The aim of this thesis is to present an examination of texts forming the Italian literature of migration to Canada, a corpus of writings which comprehends narrative works by writers of Italian background, and in Italian language, but have never been analyzed as a self-contained body. All the authors came to Canada at least for a period in their lives, and have left a varied written record of their experiences in Canada, for the most part either in an autobiographical work or in texts of a more creative nature. Thanks to these texts we were able to observe in literary form the evolution of the Italian migration process to Canada from the l7th-century up to the present-time. Among the authors dealt with are Bressani, Moroni Parken, Duliani, Randaccio, Ardizzi, Rimanelli and Grohovaz. The investigation highlights those thematic aspects which most distinguish this production, showing both the continuity of inspiration and motifs as well as the diversity of approaches and genres. These narrative works can provide an important contribution to the comprehension of the mental, emotional and more intimate dimensions of the immigrant experience, and hence complement the store of historical and socio-scientific studies now readily at hand. The fundamental motif underlining this literature is the impossibility for the immigrant of disregarding the impact the discovery of the new world and of the 'other' had on one's psyche and the need to span the ocean of his or her inquietude by the act of writing. On the individual level, each of these works contributes to the immigrant writer's creation of a personal bridge which can join and unite the two shores of his or her experience, thus relieving angst and coherently merging old and new worlds, past and present, Italian background and Canadian experience. In the representation of the life of Italians in Canada these texts also acquire an important cultural function at the collective level, because they allow Italian-Canadians of all generations to recognize the continuity between their cultural past and their present life in Canada, as well as further a knowledge of the immigrant experience "from the inside."

Keywords: Emigration and immigration in literature
Italian literature
History and criticism
Canada dans la littérature
Émigration et immigration dans la littérature
Littérature italienne
Histoire et critique
Binocular detection of masked signals in young and old observers

A visual signal embedded in noise is detected appreciably better when the stimulus complex contains interocular cues (dichoptic condition) than when such cues am absent (binoptic condition). In a recent study, Speranza, Moraglia, & Schneider (1995) have shown that the relative difference between binoptic and dichoptic thresholds does not change with age, indicating that the contribution of the binocular system to the detection of signals in noise does not change in the elderly. However, older adults showed higher binoptic and dichoptic thresholds, suggesting a specific age-related difficulty with degraded stimulation. In this work, I have first replicated the original findings by measuring binoptic and dichoptic thresholds in a group of young adults (mean age = 24.27 years, SD = 4.32, range = 19-35) and in a group of older adults (mean age = 67.36 years, SD = 3.86, range = 61-74). The same groups of participants were also used to investigate whether age-related changes in processing efficiency, additive internal noise, and filter bandwidth could account, separately or concurrently, for the elevated threshold in noise exhibited by the elderly. To this purpose, binoptic detection thresholds were measured as a function of the spectral density and spatial frequency bandwidth of the Gaussian noise. Results indicated that the age difference does not result from changes in the level of additive internal noise nor from changes in the bandwidth of the spatial frequency channels; rather these results point to a decrease in processing efficiency with age.
Interaction mechanics of embedded single-ended optical fibre sensors using novel in-situ measurement techniques

This thesis presents an investigation of the mechanics of axial strain transfer and interfacial failure for optical fibre strain sensors embedded within a host material. This study focuses on single-ended embedded optical fibre sensors: In this configuration, the optical fibre is terminated within the host material and the region near the embedded end is an area where large interfacial radial and shear stresses are present. Our investigation is both theoretical and experimental. For the theory, finite element as well as analytical models are used. In particular, a fracture-mechanics-based model of the debonding of the embedded optical fibre is proposed. Experimentally, two new techniques are developed to study the sensor/host interaction. Both involve using an optical fibre to make measurements of its own interaction with the host material in which it is embedded. In the first approach, the Fabry-Pérot gap measurement technique, the displacement of the embedded optical fibre end is measured as a function of applied load. Information concerning the sensor/host interaction is gained from its analysis. In the second approach, the Bragg distributed strain sensing technique, the strain profile along the optical fibre from its tip to a distance 2 to 6 mm further along the optical fibre is obtained by the analysis of the full reflection spectrum of the grating. Several types of samples are tested. The results obtained show that the silica/epoxy and polyimide/epoxy interfaces are stronger than the silica/polyimide interface. Yielding of materials (plastic failure) is observed as an important failure mode and it is also observed that debonding of the silica/polyimide interface strongly depends on the state of residual radial stress in the optical fibre. This crucial effect of radial stress on the failure mechanism is also a key result of the theoretical modeling.
Ultrafast all-optical switching using low-temperature-grown gallium arsenide

For low-temperature-grown GaAs (LT-GaAs) the temperature in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth is reduced from the standard 550-650°C range to substrate temperatures between 200°C and 300°C. LT-GaAs is a high quality single crystal with as much as 1-2% excess arsenic incorporation, which gives the material its unique properties. We show that LT-GaAs is a promising material for all-optical switching devices due to its outstanding optical characteristics. We formulate a phenomenological rate equation model to describe the dynamics of the carriers in LT-GaAs. A series of experiments are performed to measure the constants for the model and to optically characterize the material. Our model is very successful in accurately predicting the carrier dynamics over a wide range of time frames, optical intensities and wavelengths. We anticipate that by making minor modifications to the model, we can apply it to similar materials in the telecommunications regime around 1.55 [mu]m. The control of growth and annealing temperatures can be used to tailor the different material constants to fulfill the requirements for different all-optical devices. We investigate the influence of the excitation pulse width on the different dynamics in LT-GaAs. We also use the rate equation model to optimize the material for all-optical switching. By using LT-GaAs one can overcome most of the problems inherent with other materials for all-optical switching. In this thesis we thoroughly examine the use of LT-GaAs as the active layer in a compact and polarization independent asymmetric Fabry-Pérot (AFP) device operating at a center wavelength [lambda] = 850 nm. The device shows some attractive characteristics such as fast switching speed (3ps), large bandwidth (40 nm), low insertion loss (2.8 dB) and high contrast ratio (15 dB) using low average energy flux (200 fJ/[mu]m2). Possible applications of this device are in optical logic gates for ultrafast all-optical time division multiplexing with extremely wide bandwidth and high contrast ratio.
Biochemical and molecular studies of the cartilaginous endoskeleton of adult lampreys and hagfish

Earlier morphological and biochemical data on the cartilaginous endoskeletons of the lamprey, 'Petromyzon marinus', and the hagfish, ' Myxine glutinosa' revealed that these structures were non-collagenous and displayed similarities to vertebrate elastins. This finding was unusual in two respects, firstly other vertebrate cartilage is generally type II collagen-based, and secondly the phylogenetic distribution of elastin was thought not to extend into the jawless vertebrates. Recently we have cloned the cDNAs encoding lamprin, the major matrix protein of lamprey annular cartilage. This study revealed interesting similarities to avian and mammalian elastins as well as to some insect structural proteins. Here I extend the biochemical and molecular investigation into these agnathan endoskeletal structures to further our understanding of the basic biology of these tissues, as well as to understand the relationships between lamprin, elastin, and the insect structural proteins. In both the lamprey and hagfish I show that there are at least two types of non-collagenous cartilage matrix proteins. Although all four of these matrices show some similarities with each other, suggesting a 'family' of cartilaginous proteins, it is clear that the major matrix proteins of each are different. Molecular characterization of lamprin was extended to include its genomic organization. There are three lampfin genes in 'P. marinus', each containing 6 protein-coding exons, one of which is alternatively spliced in all three genes. 5'-upstream sequence and transcription start site determination indicate that the lamprin genes contain theoretical TATA box and CAP signal sequences. Characterization of lamprin genes from a second species of lamprey, 'Lampetra richardsoni', reveals that at least some of the lamprin genes in this species appear in tandem in a head-to-tail orientation separated by no more than 7 kb of sequence. Finally, the lack of sequence conservation of the lamprin-like sequences within the elastin and chorion genes, and the fact that no lamprin-like sequences are apparent within the hagfish cartilaginous matrix proteins, strongly suggest that the sequence similarities between lamprin, elastin, and the insect structural proteins are a result of a process of convergent evolution.
Body experiences of women survivors of child sexual abuse, implications for therapeutic intervention

Previous research identifies the impact of child sexual abuse on a child's cognitive and emotional orientation to the world but has neglected to include its impact on the child's physical orientation to the world. Conventional psychotherapeutic practice has few if any techniques for including the physical dimension within verbal exploration and integration. Research, however, continues to show the necessity for a non-intellectual approach for accessing state-bound information for the purpose of traumatic memory retrieval and integration. The intention of this study was to explore the body experiences of women survivors within a verbal body-focused intervention that did not involve touch or movement therapy. This study demonstrates that the body is closely and inextricably involved when trauma is experienced, particularly in childhood sexual abuse. Five women survivors of child sexual abuse, all of whom were currently in psychotherapy, participated in one body-focused verbal experiential session. The session was followed by two interviews one week and one year later to discuss and evaluate their body-oriented experience and its relationship to their healing process. An internal focus on their body experience created a non-ordinary state in which the body could speak from its own perspective without the filter of the intellect. Following the sensation of a memory led the participants either to a memory of the abuse itself or to an unresolved related issue. The results indicate that a variety of kinaesthetic experiences are part of the memory of trauma, including the trauma of immobilization and the feeling of being physically trapped in terror, body disruptions that involve the mind "splitting" from the body, and the "splitting" of body areas that represent separated parts of self with differing perspectives on the trauma. Following the sensation of a memory and incorporating psyche-soma linking led the participants to a changed and more integrated relationship with their body. Body-oriented memory retrieval and integration, and the internalization of the process of dialogue with their body led these women to new opportunities for healing that would not have been available otherwise.
On the distinction between literal and non-literal language

My topic is the nature and scope of literal language. Broadly stated, my objective is to examine how philosophers in the Western tradition have made use of the concept of literal meaning, in particular, how they have treated the distinction between literal and non-literal language. My approach is historical. I trace how various philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Frege to Grice and Davidson, treat this distinction, arguing that it is not until the advent of analytic philosophy in general, and natural language semantics in particular, that it acquires genuine philosophical import. I argue further that although natural language semantics depends on the availability of a principled distinction, its attempt at an identification of literal meaning with context-independent meaning is problematic. Instead, drawing on Davidson's notion of ' first meaning', I argue that meaning 'qua' meaning is fundamentally intentional and originates with individual acts of communication whereas 'literal' meaning depends for its content on the standards of the linguistic community to which the speaker belongs.
Development of Hedonic prices indices for freehold properties in the Greater Toronto Area, application of spatial autoregressive techniques

Spatial autoregressive (SAR) models were estimated for freehold properties sold between 1987 and 1995 in the Greater Toronto Area. A large data set consisting of 325,000 sales records was used in the study. Results showed that SAR models offered better fit than non-spatial models. Moran's coefficient and directional variograms were applied to estimate the effects of spatial autocorrelation. Using GIS, certain key relationships were identified in a detailed Spatio-ternporal analysis of housing and census data. "Comparable sales" approach was used to calculate the spatial lag variable for every record. SAR models explained 80% variance in housing values, using a combination of structural attributes, neighbourhood characteristics, and spatial 4 terms as explanatory variables. The number of washrooms, parking capacity and the average household income, among others, were found to be significant determinants of housing values. Economic and locational variables returned insignificant coefficients and were excluded from the final model specification.
Balance dynamics and stability of vortical flows

This thesis reports results obtained in an effort to understand why the essentially inviscid atmospheric flow at the largest scales stays very nearly balanced, or in other words, is dominated by the vortical component of the dynamics. Many of these results have been made possible by the Hamiltonian structure present in most descriptions of inviscid fluid and by the associated conservation laws. In the first part of this work, it is shown in simple dynamical systems with separation of timescale how balanced behaviour can be explained by the slow drift of the fast action variable. This drift is likely the generic property of any model with more than two degrees of freedom, and the exponential scaling of the drift rate predicted by Nekhoroshev's theorem is confirmed numerically even for modest values of the timescale separation parameter. We also obtained numerical evidence for similar scaling (i) in the drift of the system from elliptic equilibria (of the fast variables) in cases where no fast action can be constructed due to resonances in the fast frequencies, and (ii) in the magnitudes of the smaller Lyapunov exponents which are subsequently identified with the weak chaos arising from the fast-slow coupling (the largest Lyapunov exponent, which is <math> <f> <sc>O</sc></f> </math>(1), is associated with the chaos in the slow dynamics). The second part of this work seeks to find how this behaviour generalises to fluid models with a large (typically infinite) number of degrees of freedom; this is done in the context of a weak-wave model and its Hamiltonian truncation. The exponential scaling was found to deteriorate quickly with increasing system size for arbitrary initial conditions. The infinite number of Casimir invariants in this system are generally ineffective to prevent thermalisation, and thus the breakdown of balance, with a notable exception being nonlinearly stable flows and those nearby. The identification of stable flow profiles is therefore important in the process of finding long-time balance; to this end, we report two theorems on nonlinear stability of non-divergent flows and discuss their consequences for the weak-wave model.