VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A study of aerodynamics in rotary kilns with two burners

The aerodynamics inside rotary kilns with two burners was investigated isothermally using acid-alkali visualization, hotwire anemometry and numerical simulation methods. A new universal scaling parameter, the combined Craya-Curtet number (Ct'), was defined and used to correlate the flame characteristics in the kiln. A new methodology was developed to simulate the flame characteristics as a function of Ct' and excess air, using acid-alkali visualization. The methodology was supported by numerical simulation and measurements conducted with hotwire anemometry in a wind tunnel specially constructed for this study. The results imply that Ct' and excess air are the most dominant parameters affecting the flame length, and hence the flame shape and temperature. The flame length increases with an increase in Ct' and a decrease in excess air. The presence of a noncondensable gas (NCG) burner reduces the flame length as it enhances the mixing between the flame and combustion air. However, the orientation of the NCG burner may have an insignificant effect on the flame length. An empirical formula was developed to predict the flame length based on these parameters. The experiments conducted in the wind tunnel using hotwire anemometry were used to validate the standard ?â€“? model for simulating the aerodynamics in the kiln with two burners. The model showed a good performance compared to the experimental results. Numerical simulation was then used to support the acid-alkali results and to investigate the effect of Ct' on different kiln characteristics, such as recirculation and decay of axial velocity.

Keywords: Chemical engineering
Interaction between two non-parallel jets in a confined circular duct

Cold Flow Modeling was used to study mixing and interaction between two nonparallel jets confined in a cylindrical duct using flow visualization techniques. This study has direct relevance to time kilns where Non-Condensable Gases (NCG) are burned in a separate burner. Craya-Curtet number (Ct), Reynolds number (Re) and angle of the NCG nozzle with respect to the duct axis (alpha) were used to characterize the effect of a separate NCG burner on flame patterns in time kilns. Of the three parameters considered, alpha is the most dominant in determining the mixing and interaction between the two jets. The lateral expansion rate of the jets decreased with either an increase in Ct or an increase in their respective Reynolds numbers. The two jets were found to have longer recirculation zones than corresponding single jets. Re, Ct and alpha are expected to be important parameters in determining flame shape and temperature.
Roles for nuclear RNA in the early Drosophila embryo

The phenomenon of subcellular RNA localization during Drosophila development is well documented. Although this localization is known or likely to have biological relevance, it has been assumed to occur only for a small number of RNAs. In order to investigate the overall prevalence and relevance of subcellular localization of RNA we have performed a genome-wide screen for subcellularly localized RNAs in Drosophila embryos. As a follow up to this large-scale screen, I have pursued the significance of RNAs that are confined to the nucleus. Two categories were identified: One group is localized to chromosomes while the other is enriched in the nucleoplasm. The first group represents repeat associated small interfering RNAs (rasiRNAs). These appear to be transcribed very early, during a time when the transcriptional machinery is thought to be inactive. The second group appears to consist of RNAs that are sequestered in the nucleus to block their translation.
Features of parent-adolescent conflict in Asian-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian families

Asian-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian adolescents were interviewed about disagreements between themselves and their mothers in order to examine cultural differences in features of parent-adolescent conflict. Adolescents' goals during these disagreements were assessed using a coding scheme developed by Lundell et al. (2003). Asian-Canadian adolescents reported more autonomy goals and fewer dominance goals than Anglo-Canadian adolescents. Maternal perspective-taking and three forms of maternal monitoring behaviors were also assessed from the perspective of the adolescent. Asian-Canadian adolescents reported more parental control, a form of monitoring, than Anglo-Canadian adolescents. For Anglo-Canadian adolescents, there was a positive correlation between maternal perspective-taking and both parental solicitation and child disclosure (two forms of monitoring). For Asian-Canadian adolescents, parental solicitation was positively correlated with dominance goals and negatively with emotional support goals. These findings provide insight into the ways cultural values influence mothers' and adolescents' perceptions and behaviors during conflict interactions.
Federalism, diplomacy and education: Canada's role in education-related international activities, 1960-1984

Amongst Western nations Canada has had the rather unique distinction of not having a centralized Ministry of Education. The division of powers in the Canadian constitution assigned education to the provincial governments while constitutional responsibility for foreign affairs was assigned to the federal government. As a result of this separation of powers, there has been an ongoing and unsatisfactory effort on the part of both federal and provincial governments to address the difficult issue of who represents Canada in the field of education abroad. In the period following the end of the Second World War, indifference towards the question gave way to ad hoc treatment of the issue by the federal government. The provinces and federal government tried to insulate themselves from divisive issues by delegating them to pan-national educational organizations. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) is the closest equivalent to a national, ministerial-level education organization in modern day Canada. During the 1960s, the constitutional differences could not be regulated between the two levels of government. Instead, the continued unsatisfactory relationship combined with incipient nationalism led to conflict. The government of Quebec declared that the provinces were institutionally capable of representing their own interests in diplomacy in education. The federal response in the 1960s can be traced from Mitchell Sharp's publication of the pamphlet Federalism and International Conferences on Education in the spring of 1968, at the height of the crisis with Quebec. This publication was as much a response to contemporary events, as it was the portent of a broader, more hands-on approach to the issue by the federal government. While the 1960s were punctuated by the broadsides from Ottawa and Quebec as the issue became tied to Quebec nationalism, the 1970s and early 1980s were characterized by uncomfortable compromise over the question. The changing international system, the OECD Review, and the ongoing federal-provincial jockeying combined with the new presence of the CMEC, did not help in the regularization of this relationship. Since there has never been closure over this issue, diplomacy in education continues to be ad hoc and an important test of Canadian federalism.

Keywords: Education and state, Canada
Education and state, Québec (Province)
Education, International cooperation
Prediction of transcription factor DNA sequence specificity and its determinants

I analyzed DNA-binding specificity data derived using protein-binding microarrays on members of the homeodomain family of transcription factors (TFs) and assessed a variety of computational methods to project this data to uncharacterized homeodomains, to group homeodomains with related sequence specificities based on protein sequence, and to predict specificity-determining amino acid positions within the homeodomain family. A nearest-neighbour (NN) approach emerged as the most effective method to infer DNA sequence specificity, while using hierarchical clustering to cluster protein sequences was able to identify distinct homeodomain DNA sequence specificity groups accurately. I also analyzed a strategy to calculate the correlation between binding site and amino acid positions in order to predict amino acid positions responsible for changes in sequence specificity. This strategy ranked half of the positions known to make direct contact with DNA in the Engrailed homeodomain crystal structure among the 15 top-ranked amino acids.
Groucho-related proteins in normal and malignant development

Mice overexpressing Grg1 and Grg5 were engineered using a novel Cre-conditional transgenic system. Grg1 overexpression contributes to transformation in both in vitro assays and in transgenic mice, which develop mucinous lung adenocarcinomas. Molecular changes induced by Grg1 include alterations in levels of the ErbB1 and ErbB2 receptor tyrosine kinases, deregulation of the Mdm2/p53 pathway and lowered levels of overexpression. Lung tumors in Grg transgenic mice are sensitive to subtle alterations in Wnt/beta-catenin signaling. Grg1 overexpressing mice carrying the APCmin allele had a substantially reduced lung tumor burden. Conversely, Grg1 reduced the growth of APCmin/+-associated intestinal polyps. Thus, Grg1 overexpression and aberrations of the Wnt signaling pathway contribute to malignancy in a tissue specific and opposing manner. The data suggest a novel function for Grg proteins in the regulation of tumor-associated pathways. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Groucho-related proteins are corepressors that are recruited to gene regulatory elements by numerous DNA-binding factors. They have no intrinsic DNA-binding activity of their own but are components of multiprotein complexes that deacetylate histone molecules and mediate long-range transcriptional repression. Differential splicing produces multiple Groucho protein isoforms. Short isoforms lack the ability to directly bind HDAC molecules and may represent dominant negative forms of Groucho.
A vindication of the minds of brutes

This thesis is about animal minds: which have them, and how we can know that. There are two phases in my approach. I first consider attitudinal states, especially beliefs, before turning to phenomenal consciousness. In my view, these topics are deeply related. Consciousness is best understood as the use of sensory information in cognition. There is nothing that it is like to be an animal which is not capable of a certain kind of belief. In order to keep this work manageable I decided at a very early stage to embrace “chimpophobia” (cf. Beck 1982), for the most part setting aside consideration of the minds of higher primates. It seems to me that the primates raise issues which, while important, add a further dimension of complexity which would lead away from a discussion of simple perceptual attitudes. As such the role of communication, “theory of mind” issues, including deception, and social cognition in general, as well as disputes about primate culture, and especially the ape language controversy, are largely ignored here. Chapter one criticizes excessively permissive views about ascribing attitudes to animals. The second chapter explores the themes of adaptive versatility and parsimony, especially in the form of Morgan's canon. There I also address sceptical worries about the possibility of animal belief. Chapter three assesses the unique contributions of Dennett, and uses his work as a springboard into a discussion of animal consciousness. Recent sceptical arguments he offers about bats and snakes are also answered. The final chapter is exclusively devoted to a discussion of consciousness. I argue that the phenomenon of blindsight suggests a number of heretofore unnoticed, but important, revisions in our thinking about phenomenal subjectivity: (1) Higher-order representational theories of consciousness are poorly motivated, (2) Lower-order theories are in need of an important refinement, (3) some, but not all, animals are a kind of natural zombie. 1The title of this work is derived from a parody of Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women usually attributed to Thomas Taylor. It will soon become apparent to the reader that I wish to turn the tables on Taylor.
Conceptual art magazine projects and their precedents

Conceptual art magazine projects (like their earlier twentieth-century predecessors and later related tendencies) are designed to function as art or art-like occurrences in printed magazines. Magazine projects are not reproductions of artworks that were constructed for other purposes but are, rather, artworks in reproduction. The projects that I deal with involve deliberate employment and/or disruptions of the conventions of magazine publications; they were designed to alter and reconfigure the readers' experience of the magazine as a form of communication as well as challenge their expectations of art and its possible manifestations. The publications studied include small-run, self-produced journals designed as complete clustered or interrelated artworks through to mass-market art magazines for which the artists were invited to contribute one or more pages, and where the pages were understood to function as either alternative exhibition spaces or as discussion forums for ideas about art. I examine the origins of magazine projects during the early years of the century in European Expressionist, Futurist, Dadaist, International Constructivist, and Surrealist periodicals of the teens to the late 1940s. I also discuss later precedents for Conceptual art in Fluxus and experimental writing of the 1960s. Subsequent chapters are studies of one of several distinguishable means that were employed for using the magazine format to produce and distribute artwork. Examples of the use of each generalized approach are then analysed in detail to support this typology. To conclude the dissertation, I examine the relation between Conceptual art and aesthetics because it is frequently proposed that it somehow managed to avoid aesthetics altogether. I consider the aesthetic role of obstacles to sensibility in Conceptual art and the encounter with art being a kind of learning-like activity that expands both understanding and general awareness. With Conceptual art, the pre-given knowledge and circumstantial evidence surrounding an artwork become part of the work in extension. Context, history, and interpretation are externally embedded as fluctuating components of the work. I reach this conclusion by the theorizing of a lateral extension of artwork and artist functions.
On improving the optical quality of colloidal photonic crystals

This work advances the understanding of the impact of lattice disorder on the optical properties of colloidal photonic crystals. It also demonstrates and quantifies improvements in the structural and optical quality of the crystals through refinements of the fabrication techniques. Arrays of colloidal particles were grown on substrates covered with holographic relief gratings realized in photoresist films. When the grating pitch was commensurate with the particle size, a uniform lattice orientation was imposed in the crystals. The enhancement in crystal order was visible for thicknesses as large as 40 layers. The impact of lattice disorder on the optical properties of colloidal photonic crystals was investigated numerically. The greatest impact on the optical properties came from size non-uniformity of colloidal particles. A novel algorithm, based on simulated annealing, was used to generate densely packed arrays of spheres with a given size distribution. When the size standard deviation was larger than 3%, a transition from ordered to random-packed arrangements was observed, along with large and sudden changes in optical properties, in the form of increased scattering and reduced contrast associated with the 111 stopband in transmittance spectra. The abruptness of this transition increased with decreasing index contrast. The numerical results agreed well with experimental results. The enhancement of long-range order was further demonstrated and quantified by optical techniques. The diffraction patterns produced when a collimated laser beam illuminated colloidal crystals were shown to be capable of revealing whether the crystals were mono- or poly-crystalline. Quantitative information about internal ordering was also extracted from diffraction spectra: the photon mean free path in the crystal was estimated to be in the range of 3 to 58 lattice constants, depending on the crystal growth conditions.
Formation of a cartilage-biomaterial biphasic construct with a calcified cartilage zone

This study describes the development of a biphasic construct in which the hyaline cartilage has calcified cartilage close to the tissue-substrate interface. The mineral that formed in vitro was identified as hydroxyapatite and was similar to that found in vivo. The inclusion of mineralized cartilage within the extracellular matrix significantly improved the load-bearing capacity, tissue stiffness and attachment to the underlying substrate when compared to cartilage lacking a mineralized component. Understanding the mechanical properties of the cartilage-bone interface will provide valuable insight into the necessary conditions for forming suitable biphasic constructs in vitro that can be used to successfully resurface osteochondral defects.
Is there a common antipsychotic pathway for neuronal gene expression in vitro?

Antipsychotics are the primary medications for schizophrenia. It is hypothesized that all antipsychotics act through a common molecular pathway. To test this hypothesis, the effect on gene expression of two antipsychotics, haloperidol and aripiprazole, was investigated by DNA microarray technology using the NT2 cell fine in vitro. Eighty-one genes were identified to be upregulated in response to both haloperidol and aripiprazole, whereas 61 genes exhibited downregulation in the presence of these drugs. Interestingly, a subset of these genes included COMT and UBE2B, which localize to chromosome regions previously shown to be linked to schizophrenia. In addition, our studies indicate for the first time a number of novel genes, including AREG, KCTD16 and UPB1, that exhibit an altered expression in the presence of these antipsychotics. The discovery of novel genes implicated in the pathways of psychosis may serve as potential targets for the development of new antipsychotics.
Reckoning with culture: theories of compliance with international law

The thesis examines the treatment of cultural difference in theories of compliance with international law, and shows how diversity is often overlooked in the study of state behaviour. The study of norm compliance in both international law (IL) and international relations (IR) disciplines proceeds as an empirical project from which policy prescriptions are drawn, while many fundamental questions remain unexplored: What is the nature of the change that local cultures are undergoing in a globalized world and what role does (or should) international law play in this process? What is the feasible (and the desired) degree of social cohesion in a culturally diverse "global community"? What is the nature of the interaction between the social (both state and non-state) actors involved? The answers to these questions, while often not considered or contemplated, always underlie theories of compliance in both IL and IR literatures. The thesis explains why the answers to these questions are crucial for developing a coherent theory of compliance with international law, and begins to outline a conceptual roadmap for exploring them. The discussion begins by showing why views of cultures as either inescapably separate or manifestly converging are deeply problematic and advances a conception that appreciates the inevitable hybridity of cultural formations in the age of globalization. The thesis then provides a critical assessment of the empirical and the conceptual contributions to the compliance debate by excavating the assumptions regarding human action, community and culture underlying each. Special attention is given to the constructivist approach in IL and IR literatures. Constructivism's potential for a full engagement with cultural diversity is evident, but this potential has not yet been fully realized. The thesis highlights some of the directions in which a constructivist study of compliance with international law ought to proceed in order to fulfill its potential for a true reckoning with cultural diversity. It advances a discourse approach to the long term construction of a global community, complemented by an "interactional" theory of international lawmaking, and explores the crucial roles that civil society actors may play in the construction of such a community.
Roles of Iroquois in mouse development

Iroquois encode conserved transcriptional activators or repressors that are important for neurogenesis, patterning and brain development. In mice, six Irx genes show redundant expression pattern and single knock out mice are viable and fertile. In this study, knock out of Irx3 and Irx5 was used to decipher the functions of Iroquois in mouse development. Irx3/Irx5 double knock out mutants die at E14.5 with defects in various organs, such as limbs and diencephalon, confirming redundancy in Iroquois function. In addition, I generated novel mouse models such as EnR-Irx3 line, which can be used to conditionally overexpress the dominant repressor Irx3. I have shown that overexpression of EnR-Irx3 in neural progenitors lead to prenatal lethality. I have generated a knock in epitope-tagged Irx3 useful for biochemical studies of identifying Irx3 downstream targets and its protein partners. These mouse strains are useful for deciphering the function of Irx proteins in mouse development.
Computational optimum lightweight design of an instrument panel support structure

In this research, a computational methodology of the minimum weight design procedure of an Instrument Panel Support Structure, which is one of the largest interior structures of a vehicle, is presented. This procedure will be discussed with emphasis on the crucial role of the optimization technique as a part of today's design process. The structure of the Instrument Panel along with the most important criteria and properties of the model, which should be kept unchanged within the optimization, will be discussed. The first normal mode of vibration of the structure and its importance as a constraint for this specific problem is explained. Finite Element modeling of the Instrument Panel Support Structure, definition of the optimization problem including objective function and constraints are the other parts of this research. Finally, the modification of the initial optimization problem is achieved in order to have a functional optimum design.
Performance study of a combined heat and power Stirling engine fueled by diesel and biodiesel

This thesis examines the performance of a residential cogeneration system based on a Stirling engine fueled by diesel and biodiesel. An energy balance test is performed for each fuel and the energy, exergy, and marginal efficiencies are calculated. Particulate emissions are measured using a direct sampling device that enables collecting the particles on a filter for gravimetric analysis. The total unburned hydrocarbons are measured using a flame ionization detector. A Fourier transform infrared spectrometer is used to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, water, methane, acetylene, ethylene, formaldehyde, and acetaldehyde emissions in the exhaust. A comparison is made between the performance of this system and other residential cogeneration technologies such as internal combustion engines and fuel cells.