VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The linguistic ecology of education

This work explores the implications of linguistic diversity for the organization of schooling, by developing and applying an original, critical-realist theory of language based on ecological psychology. Rather than carrying around in their heads comprehensive maps of the world or entire linguistic systems, individuals are portrayed as adapting their awareness and actions to different natural and linguistic environments, modifying those environments in the process. The particular importance of linguistic adaptation is shown to lie in its co-ordering effects on imaginative awareness: metaphoric and metonymic schemata that enable us to grasp forms of order that elude direct perception, but also frequently seduce us into mistaking ideas for reality. In the linguistic ecology of modern societies, knowledge and ideas are typically produced at sites distant from schools. It is shown that many of the imaginative skills cultivated in the linguistic traditions of the middle classes have in fact co-evolved with the formal education system and with the norm-governed use of texts as representations of reality. As a consequence, members of other cultural communities, whether they differ in terms of class, ethnicity, or other characteristics, encounter a linguistic order in schools that is integrated and co-evolving with a complex hierarchical system of social relations. Administrative and policy decisions which reinforce or modify this ecology of language have important constraining and enabling effects on school achievement. In particular, policies which exclude vernacular languages from schools not only confer unequal privileges but reinforce two contrasting tendencies in cultural negotiation: dynamic sublimation (whereby individuals come to see themselves and others in collective terms) and dynamic reduction (whereby individuals lose awareness of historical, social and ecological context). In order to limit such potentially dangerous effects, schools need to be founded upon the extended cultivation of a critical awareness of place, in which cultural and linguistic diversity are treated as carefully and systematically as natural diversity. The indigenous concept of the cyclic renewal of relationship is recommended as a model for learning, together with the use of critical ethnography to generate and share knowledge about and among such projects. It is argued that this would simultaneously provide the foundation for an emancipatory, research-based science of language and education.
The effects of fibroblast growth factor 2 on the early stages on in vitro endothelial wound repair

When the endothelium experiences injury or dysfunction leading to focal endothelial denudation, changes occur very quickly to endothelial cells adjacent to the wound. These changes regulate the spreading and migration of the endothelial cells to rapidly repair the wound even before cell proliferation occurs. The delay of rapid, efficient re-endothelialization of wounds in arteries has been suggested as an early event in the pathogenesis of at least some atherosclerotic plaques. The actin cytoskeleton is important in cell migration. Actin microfilaments undergo well-defined sequential changes characterized by an initial random distribution followed by a parallel orientation and then a perpendicular orientation of microfilaments with respect to the wound edge. The latter is associated with subsequent cell migration. We tested two hypotheses, the first that fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2) can enhance the early stages of wound repair and the second that FGF-2 enhancement of wound repair is associated with changes in the actin endothelial cytoskeleton. My studies show that FGF-2 has a very early effect on wound repair, similar to that reported on microtubules, and that the enhanced repair may be due to FGF-2 effects on the actin cytoskeleton. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
Innovations in science education: Reconceptualizing teaching roles in a self-directed program

This is a qualitative case study intended to identify and explore new and emerging roles adopted by three science teachers when the context of teaching and learning science is drastically changed. The study was conducted in a non-traditional school, which adheres to a philosophy of student-centered, self-paced learning. In this particular setting: (1) traditional classrooms have been replaced by subject-specific resource areas and seminar rooms; and, (2) students do not follow a fixed daily schedule, instead, they plan their own school day and move freely between resource areas at self directed, often irregular intervals according to daily and weekly goals. The study explores new and emerging teaching roles in order to determine: (i) how teachers perceive their roles in different contexts; and, (ii) the implications of these 'new' roles for teaching and learning science. The changes in teaching roles are illustrated through interviews, classroom observation and personal journals. In similar studies involving the introduction of individualized learning, self-directed learning, self-paced learning, and the extensive use multimedia technology into the teaching and learning context, teacher (as well as student) roles were transformed. This study explores teacher transformation and the reconceptualization of teaching roles in an innovative science program.
Pesticide and pharmaceutical photolysis, fate of the halogens

The photolysis of a variety of fluorinated and chlorinated compounds was investigated under actinic radiation. Chloroacetanilide herbicides were irradiated with the intent of identifying the extent of monochloroacetic acid (MCA) production. Conversion of metolachlor to MCA as a result of photolysis increased from 5% during direct photolysis to near 30% conversion during indirect photolysis in a synthetic field water matrix. The photodegradation of alachlor, butachlor and a model chloroacetanilide, 2-chloro-'N'-methylacetanilide in SFW was also investigated. An investigation involving fluoroanilines (FAs) was conducted with the intent of identifying monofluoroacetic acid (MFA) as a photoproduct. Direct and indirect photolysis revealed the photoproduction of fluoride from 2-FA, 3-FA, 2,4-FA and 2,6-FA, aminophenol from 3-FA and fluoronitrobenzene isomers for each of 2-FA, 4-FA, 2,4-FA and 2,6-FA. Conversion to photoproducts varied with direct vs. indirect photolysis. MFA was not identified as a photoproduct of the fluoroanilines. The photodegradation of flumetsulam, flamprop-methyl and ciprofloxacin were also investigated.
Osteoclast heterogeneity, the importance of cell size and phase of activity

Osteoclasts are multinucleated cells that resorb bone. Their activity is required for normal bone remodeling, but excessive bone resorption is also caused by osteoclastic activity. The ultimate goal is to be able to interfere in bone disease processes such as to maintain enough osteoclastic activity for normal bone remodeling while eliminating the excessive resorption. The present study was undertaken to identify the most active osteoclasts and to determine how they differ, in order to lay the groundwork for future targeted inhibition of the most active osteoclasts. Since macrophage colony stimulating factor (MCSF) is abundantly present in inflammatory diseases associated with increased bone loss, we wished to determine what effect this cytokine had on osteoclasts. MCSF stimulated osteoclastic bone resorption in osteoclast-containing cultures obtained from rabbit long bones and cultured on bone slices. This effect was paralleled by an increase in the number of larger osteoclasts (as determined by the number of nuclei per cell) without changing the total number of cells. In addition, populations of large osteoclasts resorbed more per nucleus than populations of small osteoclasts, suggesting large osteoclasts are more effective resorbers than small osteoclasts. Next, due to the importance of proton extrusion in resorption and in order to determine how resorptive efficiency differs in osteoclasts, we investigated whether the activity of the bafilomycin A1-sensitive V-ATPase and amiloride-sensitive Na +/H+ exchanger differed between large and small osteoclasts. The basal pHi of a large (>=10 nuclei) osteoclasts cultured on glass coverslips was much higher than that of small (2-5 nuclei) osteoclasts. After acid-loading, a subpopulation of large osteoclasts (40%) recovered by V-ATPase activity alone, while all small osteoclasts recovered by Na +/H+ exchanger activity. Interestingly, in 60% of the large osteoclasts, pHi recovery was mediated by both the Na +/H+ exchanger and V-ATPase activity. We postulated that this heterogeneity in large osteoclasts may be a function of the state of activity of the cells (resorbing vs. non-resorbing) and showed this to be true by studying pH regulatory mechanisms in osteoclasts cultured on collagen/hydroxyapatite-coated coverslips. The resorbing osteoclasts represented one category while nonresorbing represented the other. In addition, all resorbing osteoclasts (small and large) had higher basal pHi than their nonresorbing counterparts. We re-examined resorptive efficiency on a per cell basis and found that while resorption per nucleus did not differ between individual large and small osteoclasts, large osteoclasts did resorb more per cell and a much greater proportion of large cells were resorbing, thus resulting in greater overall resorption by populations of large osteoclasts. The fact that only 5% of small osteoclasts were actively resorbing versus 40% of large ones suggests different activation mechanisms of these cells, which could be essential in finding a means of selectively inhibiting the most active osteoclasts.
Fashioning selves and identities, contested narratives, disputed subjects

In this thesis, I examine narratives by working class women and men employed at Job Brothers fish plant, in St. John's, Newfoundland, between 1930 and 1967. The workers produce stories of their experiences in, and competing discourses about, work and their domestic lives. A rich and complex picture is drawn of the material and social organization of women lives, in the plant and in the communities around them. Multiple physical geographies--of the plant, work, and St. John's--operate as social markers and organizing features in narrators' stories. Work on fish and blueberry processing is detailed, as are stories of harmony, negotiation, and resistance on the plant floor. I suggest that processing lines and jobs are sites of historically contingent constitutions of workers' identities. Contested stories of the formation of the Ladies' Cold Storage Workers Union in 1948 are explored, and I show how public history of Job's, work and unionization is partial and incomplete. Who was/is authorized to speak, and about what subjects, remain disputed questions. I demonstrate how the narrators actively fashion their identities through the stories they tell. Through nuanced readings I suggest that while the narrators seek to produce themselves as 'whole' and 'complete' subjects, their accounts display an ongoing production of contested, negotiated, and shifting subject positionings cut by axes of difference--gender, race, class, age, marital status, geographic location. Fragmentary discourses of femininity, masculinity, and class are emergent in narrators' stories, while relations of race are more muted, and embedded and naturalized through what I call a "discourse of niceness." I develop the notion of "narrative constellation" to explore dimensions of the constitution of identities, memories and forgetting, and speculate that these are embodied and social acts. I argue that the narrators' stories subvert the possibility of a single interpretation of women's paid work, domestic lives, and unionization. My work builds on, draws from, and contributes to existing studies of women's paid labour and fish plant work in Newfoundland and Labrador. I contribute new insights about the material and social organization of women's work, production and management techniques. Importantly, through my layered readings of the narratives, history is seen as a fragmentary, dynamic construction, by and of subjects, identities, events and memories, rather than as a coherent, unitary "Truth."
Automatically generating text to accompany information graphics

Generally, when quantitative information is to be presented, some form of graphical presentation is used, often with a textual caption to ensure that the audience notices particular aspects of the data. This thesis presents the principles that should be followed by a system aiming to produce such captions automatically. The process of caption generation is examined in the context of the standard tasks in text generation. Most previous systems in this area produce textual summaries intended to stand alone; the issues involved in producing a caption differ, as the text must be coordinated with the graphic it is to accompany. The thesis also presents CAPUT, a prototype caption-generation system which follows these principles to generate single-sentence captions for information graphics of the type that might appear in a newspaper article. Finally, extensions to CAPUT that would bring it from a prototype to a full-fledged caption generation system are proposed.
The effect of weekday/weekend variations in tropospheric ozone concentrations on the air temperature of the Greater Toronto Area

Due to the variation of rush-hour traffic, tropospheric ozone concentrations have been shown to vary between weekdays and weekends. As ozone is a greenhouse gas, both ozone and temperature data were examined to determine whether weekday/weekend variations in ozone concentrations resulted in weekday/weekend temperature variations in the Greater Toronto Area. Two methodologies were used to isolate the effects of tropospheric ozone variations on temperature. Weekday/weekend ozone variations and associated temperature perturbations in both summer and winter months and in exceedence and non-exceedence weeks were examined. Exceedence weeks represented periods in which uncharacteristically high ozone concentrations were observed. Variations in ozone concentrations encountered in both summer and winter months were not of sufficient magnitude to result in a noticeable thermal effect. When periods of uncharacteristically high ozone concentrations were isolated, the resulting weekday/ weekend temperature variations were shown to be statistically significant at all three Greater Toronto Area measurement sites.
VH-gene replacement and the generation of diversity in the quasi-monoclonal mouse

VH-gene replacement is a novel diversity-generating mechanism which occurs when a rearranged VDJ of a B cell is "edited" by the replacement of the VH gene segment with another upstream germline gene segment. Although this event has been demonstrated in various model systems, the role of VH-gene replacement in the generation of Ig diversity has not been elucidated. Using the quasi-monoclonal (QM) mouse as a model, I have examined whether VH-gene replacement can generate new specificities and contribute to an immune response. QM mice possess a functional VDJH rearrangement inserted into one heavy (H) chain allele; the other H chain allele is not functional due to a targeted deletion of all JH segments. The [kappa] locus is also knocked-out. A heavy chain encoded by this VDJH, when paired with any [lambda] light chain, is specific for the hapten (4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl) acetyl (NP). I have immunized QM mice and generated hybridomas to analyze the changes in the B cell receptor. The results described here demonstrate that the B cell receptor was altered by VH-gene replacement. Analysis of the hybridomas also demonstrates that VH-gene replacement occurs before B cell activation and that other mechanisms can be used by the QM mouse to diversify its repertoire. This is the first evidence that VH-gene replacement can be used as a method to diversify a B cell receptor and generate a new VDJH gene segment that encodes a functional IgH chain.
Administrator Views of, and Strategies for Dealing with, Conflicts Involving New Canadians

The primary purpose of this research was to determine how high school administrators view conflicts involving new Canadian students, i.e., students in Canada for five years or less. I wanted to discover what types of conflicts administrators were experiencing, who were involved in these conflicts, the issues around which the conflicts revolve, and what strategies were being used in conflict resolution. Fifteen administrators participated in this research: Principals, Vice-Principals, and Heads of E.S.L. Departments. I met with each one for an hour or more, in a semi-formal, taped interview at their schools. We had telephone conversations to clarify the intent of this study, and possible usefulness to the schools. Participants were very co-operative, and data collection was concluded in September, 1998. The data reflect a number of issues. All schools involved in the study have an increasing number of students from different ethnic and language backgrounds. Administrators maintain that the diversity is great, and many students experience many conflicts, especially during the transition phase, when old and new cultures meet and struggle to find compatibility. Some students are often not prepared for the new majority culture, and the home culture is often inflexible, leading to conflicts. Administrators, teachers, students, and parents are involved in conflicts from time to time, but mainly conflicts are between students and their peers. Administrators report that they use various strategies to deal with conflicts. These include proactive measures such as orientation sessions to increase the students' awareness of the school culture and environment. Administrators also indicate that they encourage ethnic clubs for same language interaction, and international clubs to foster respect for all cultures. International concerts, food fairs, and fashion shows display the many talents of the students and are also believed to foster respect and cultural understanding. Reportedly, when conflicts occur, strategies such as arbitration, consensus decision-making, and mediation are used. Peer mediation is the strategy that administrators believe is most useful, especially with new Canadian students who need advice and understanding rather than punishment. The system of punishment is used with much restraint to allow the students time to gain a foothold in the system and come to terms with their bicultural existence. The findings in this study on conflicts mirror the types of conflicts suggested in the literature by researchers such as Gay (1981), Ghuman (1994), Phelan et al. (1993), Ryan and Wignall (1994), among others. Conflict resolution strategies by researchers such as Schrump (1997) and Margolis and Tewell (1998), reflect some similarities with those being used in the schools involved in the study. Strategies by Follet (1993) and Fris (1992), while not being very useful for peer mediators, can be used by adults with some measure of effectiveness.
Development of a predictive model of the rate of disease progression to end-stage renal disease in patients with idiopathic IgA nephropathy

'Purpose'. To improve the ability of determining outcome in IgAN patients near presentation. 'Methods'. 298 IgAN patients were selected from the Toronto Glomerulonephritis Registry. Rate of decline in renal function was our outcome variable. Age, gender, creatinine clearance, blood pressure, proteinuria and the Lee, Haas and Lajoie histological classifications were parameters tested using univariate and multivariate linear regression. ' Results'. At presentation mean age was 36 years and the gender distribution was 3:2. Mean length of observation was 70 months. In total, 23% reached ESRD. The 5-year renal survival was 80%. The mean rate of renal decline was 0.4 ml/min/month. Baseline proteinuria, mean arterial pressure during follow-up, proteinuria during follow-up and degree of chronic tubulo-interstitial damage were negatively associated with outcome. Only mean arterial pressure and proteinuria during follow-up were independently associated with outcome. 'Conclusion '. We did not find any variables that would independently predict the rate of disease progression at presentation.
Manipulation of apoptosis using the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor, lovastatin

Apoptosis, programmed cell death, is triggered by abrogation of cell survival signals, anticancer drugs, and radiation. The HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor, lovastatin can induce apoptosis in a variety of tumor cell lines. This thesis examines the modulation of apoptosis by lovastatin as part of a larger program to develop apoptosis modulation as an effective cancer therapy. It consists of the development and clinical use of a HPLC method for detection of lovastatin, and examines the combination of lovastatin with cytotoxic agents in pancreatic cancer cell lines. The pharmacokinetic studies use a developed HPLC assay, and reveal a large individual variation of Css of lovastatin between patients. Flow cytometry, which measures cell cycling, was used to monitor apoptosis. Lovastatin growth inhibition assay was assessed in vitro, showing a time- and dose-dependency cytotoxicity. Combination experiments of clonogenic assay with lovastatin and gemcitabine yield increased cell kill over that seen with the standard chemotherapy alone.
Frequency estimation of endometrial cancer associated with microsatellite instability and mismatch repair gene defects

Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common gynecological malignancy in North America. While most EC is sporadic, it represents the most common extracolonic cancer in the hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer syndrome (HNPCC). Mutations in mismatch repair genes (MMR), of which ' hMLH1' and 'hMSH2' are the most commonly mutated, are known to cause HNPCC, resulting in microsatellite instability. However, the proportion of EC associated with microsatellite instability and mismatch repair gene defects remains unknown. We found 18% of women with double primary cancers of the colorectum and endometrium, to harbour germline 'hMLH1' and 'hMSH2' mutations. As well, 21% of apparently sporadic endometrial cancers, diagnosed in women less than 50 years of age, showed microsatellite instability and of those, 30% lack expression of hMSH2. Therefore, women diagnosed with multiple primary cancers of the colorectum and endometrium or diagnosed with EC before 55 years of age, are prime candidates for diagnosis of HNPCC.