VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Pressure effects on DNA helix-coil transition kinetics

Three pressure related techniques have been used in this work as approaches to the understanding of DNA helix-coil transition kinetics. The kinetics of DNA helix-coil transitions is important in many biological processes and in rational design of antisense/antigene molecules. The denaturation/renaturation thermal hysteresis method was used to investigate the kinetics of the helix-coil equilibrium of one 22-base pair triplex and four 22-base pair duplexes with GC base pair fractions ranging from 0.14 to 0.5, at pressures up to 200 Mpa (0.1 MPa = 1 bar = 0.987 atm). The rate of formation of the triplex from the duplex + single strand is accelerated by pressure. At the midpoint of the helix-coil transition (32.5°C), the activation volume for helix formation, <math> <f> <g>D</g>V<sup> In experiments on duplex formation kinetics, we found that as the fractional GC content ('f'GC) increases from 0.14 to 0.5, the rate constant for helix formation, k1, increased by a factor of 210, and the reverse rate constant, k-1, decreased by a factor of 420. The activation energies for formation of the duplexes were negative and relatively insensitive to 'f'GC. The pressure-induced change in the rate constants is related to the activation volume of the reaction step. Pressure causes k1 to become larger and the magnitude of the change in k1 with pressure increases the lower the ' f'GCvalue. Pressure-jump relaxation technique was employed to verify the kinetic model used in previous method using the same triplex oilgonucleotide. The relaxations were monoexponential and the inverse relaxation time varied linearly with the concentration of reactants. To enable us to interpret our kinetic and equilibrium data in terms of structural changes, pressure effects on the DNA duplex, poly(dA)poly(dT), and its component single strands, poly(dA) and poly(dT) in solution have been studied by high-pressure infrared spectroscopy. The B-form helix conformation of three polymers is conserved at pressures up to 1200 MPa. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
Cytochrome P450 2D6, genetic polymorphism in subjects abusing cocaine

The debrisoquine-4-hydroxylase polymorphism is a genetic variation in oxidative drug metabolism characterized by two phenotypes, extensive metabolizers (EM) and the poor metabolizers (PM). Five to 10% of the Caucasian populations of Europe and North America are of the PM phenotype and are unable to metabolize debrisoquine, dextromethorphan and numerous other drugs. The impaired drug metabolism in PMs is due to the absence of the cytochrome P450 2D6 (CYP2D6) protein. The dextromethorphan metabolizer phenotype in 59 current and former (within the past two years) regular cocaine users (meeting DSM-IV criteria for psychoactive substance abuse or dependence for cocaine) was determined after oral administration of a 30 mg dose. In eight hours-post dose urine samples the log O-demethylation ratio was determined by HPLC and all 59 subjects were identified as EMs. Genotyping results by PCR were consistent with the EM phenotype for all 59 subjects. Hair samples taken from the subjects were analysed for a metabolite of cocaine to confirm self-reported drug use history. The phenotyping results of the cocaine dependent population were compared to a non-cocaine dependent control population (n = 210). The EM frequency in the control group was found to be 93% and the PM frequency was 7%. Using Chi square analysis, a significant difference was found between the EM and PM genotypes of the cocaine dependent population and the control groups (p $<$ 0.05). The homogeneity of the EM phenotype among a sample of cocaine users, and the complete absence of PMs, suggests that individuals with the PM phenotype may be protected against the risk of development of cocaine use/dependence.
The musicography of the Manuscrit du roi

After more than one hundred years of scholarship on the music of the troubadours and trouvéres, as yet little work has been done on how their melodies were copied down. Fundamental questions remain unanswered: What were the musical sources for the extant manuscripts and how were the latter assembled and copied? In what basic ways did musical scribes' writing styles differ and what various note shapes were used? This study, the first of its kind, provides foundational insights into these questions by examining the famous thirteenth-century "Manuscrit du Roi" (Paris, B.N. F. f. fr. 844) and related manuscripts. The musicography of 844 is the graphic study of its musical signs and the tools and movements which produced them. I first discuss various possible exemplars and their influence on the organization and layout of the lyric chansonniers. I then outline different categories of medieval square-note shapes based on quill-nib size and angle of writing, and place 844's twenty-eight different hands in a musicographic context. Finally, I return to the question of how the 'notator' treated his exemplars by examining the morphology of the 'plica' and fifty instances of scribal erasure in 844.
Aggressive Behavior in Children with Tourette's Syndrome and Associated Disorders

Aggressive behavior has been reported in approximately 33% of Tourette's Syndrome (TS) patients (Spencer, T., Biederman, J., Harding, M., et al., 1995). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and /or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) have been reported in 50-70% of TS patients (Schuerholz, L. J., et al., 1996). It was unknown whether aggressive behavior was associated with TS directly or found primarily in TS with comorbid ADHD and/or OCD. This study examined aggressive behavior in 25 non-medicated patients with TS (ages 6 to 14) and 5 controls (ages 7 to 12). The analysis revealed that teacher reported aggressive behavior using the Teacher Report Form (TRF; Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C.,1983) was significantly higher in participants with TS and comorbidity (x = 1.00, sd $\pm$ 0.00), F(12,9) = 23.172, p $<$ 0.05). These results suggest that the presence of comorbid ADHD and/or OCD increases the risk of aggressive behavior in TS children.
The relative effectiveness of facilitator, peer, and self-appraisals for improving the performance of MBA students

The present study investigated the relative effectiveness of facilitator, peer, and self appraisals for increasing the effective performance of 30 MBA students as defined by behaviour and grade point average (GPA). Behaviour was measured using a behavioural observation scale (BOS) derived from a job analysis. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed a main effect for source of appraisal on BOS and appraisal source credibility. Planned comparisons indicated that facilitator appraisals resulted in a higher BOS score than peer appraisals, and a marginally higher BOS score than self appraisals. Facilitators had higher credibility than peer or self appraisers. Appraisal source credibility, self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, and outcome valence, however, did not mediate the appraisal - performance relationship. There were no significant differences among the appraisal conditions on GPA.
A high-speed CMOS A/D converter employing variable nonuniform quantization

In the receiver of a digital communication system, the use of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) allows many useful functions be implemented digitally. As the speeds of digital communication systems rise, so does the speed associated with the corresponding ADC. The quantization noise introduced by the ADC is dependent on the number of bits of the ADC and needs to be kept within system specifications. However, every additional bit added to a high-speed ADC complicates its design and increases its power, area and input capacitance. In this thesis, nonuniform quantization is investigated to try to lower the quantization noise introduced. An ADC employing variable nonuniform quantization has been implemented in a 0.5 $\mu$m digital CMOS process.
Social skills and adaptive behavior of Iranian preschoolers, teachers' and parents' ratings

Children's social competence has received much attention from professionals in the fields of psychology and education. However, this topic has not been investigated in a major way by professionals in non-western countries. In this study modified forms of the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) and the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (VABS) were used to explore adaptive behaviours and the social skills of Iranian preschoolers. Both teachers' and parents' ratings on the SSRS and the VABS were obtained from 207 children aged 3 to 5 years, differing in gender and SES. When parents and teachers rated the importance of social skills on the SSRS, results showed that parents and teachers of Iranian preschoolers each value different social skills. Comparison of means for the importance ratings revealed that across all subscales a larger number of the SSRS items were judged either "Important" or "Critical" by parents than by teachers. Frequency ratings of children's use of social and adaptive behaviors also indicated that Iranian parents and teachers of preschoolers have different perceptions of children's social functioning. This was evidenced by low to moderately low correlations between their ratings on the SSRS subscales and the VABS subdomains. Correlations between parents' ratings of preschoolers' social skills and adaptive behaviors across all subscales were lower than correlations between teachers' ratings of preschoolers' social skills and adaptive behaviors. In many domains significant effects of demographic factors were evident. On the SSRS: (a) Iranian junior preschoolers were found to be less cooperative and less internalized than senior preschoolers, (b) females were more cooperative and less externalized than males, and (c) children of less educated families were rated significantly lower on Assertion, Cooperation, and Responsibility and higher on Internalizing than children of families with more education. On the VABS: (a) junior preschoolers demonstrated lower adaptive skills on all domains as rated by parents and on the Daily Living and Motor Skills as rated by teachers, (b) gender differences were not significant, and (c) children of less educated families scored lower than children of families with more education on all adaptive behavior domains. Overall, the results of this study are more consistent with previous research supporting the situational specificity of the social competence than those supporting the stability of behaviours across situations. Social skills are more situationally specific than adaptive behaviours.
NMR study of the pseudogap in Pb¦2Sr¦2(Y,Ca)Cu¦3O¦8¦+¦delta crystals

In this thesis, we report Cu NMR/NQR studies of the high temperature superconductor Pb2Sr2(Y,Ca)Cu3O8 (<math> <f> T<inf>c</inf>=</f> </math> 80 K) using slightly underdoped crystals. The structure of Pb 2Sr2(Y,Ca)Cu3O8 contains two different Cu sites: Cu(2) in the CuO2 plane and an oxygen-free Cu(1) layer. The quadrupolar frequencies, 31.957 MHz and 29.88 MHz for 63Cu(1) and 63Cu (2) sites, respectively, have been obtained from the NQR spectrum. The Cu(1) line is narrow with a linewidth of 0.44 MHz, whereas the Cu(2) line is broad with a linewidth of 1.81 MHz, due to the inhomogeneity of electric field gradients (EFG) from the Ca+2/Y+3 layers. We have obtained Cu(1) and Cu(2) NMR spectra. From the analysis of the field-dependent measurements, we found that the tilting of the EFG principal axis with respect to c-axis at the Cu(1) site is more than that at the Cu(2) site. The EFGs from the two nearest oxygen ions above and below Cu(1) are responsible for this extra tilting. The spin-lattice relaxation time obtained at 'T' = 85 K for Cu(1) and Cu(2) are 15.5 sec and 520 [mu]s respectively. The much longer relaxation time in Cu(1) is consistent with band structure calculations indicating that Cu(1) makes an extremely small contribution to the density of states at the Fermi surface. The temperature dependence of the Knight shift and the spin-lattice relaxation rate for both Cu(1) and Cu(2) sites has been measured. Our analysis shows that the relaxation for Cu(1) is due to a quadrupolar-phonon coupling mechanism. We have observed a pseudogap in the Cu(2) Knight shift and spin-lattice relaxation rate. In contrast to other underdoped compounds, the pseudogap observed in the Knight shift is weak and occurs at a significantly lower temperature. On the other hand, the effect that the pseudogap has on spin-lattice relaxation is quite similar to the observed behaviour in other compounds. The manifestation of the pseudogap, at q=0 is different than that at q= Q. The evidence and some qualitative theories of the pseudogap are reviewed and discussed in terms of experimental data, with emphasis on our NMR data. The spin-lattice relaxation rate anisotropy measurements at Cu(2) sites reveal that the hyperfine coupling constants are temperature independent and the hybridization between Cu(3d)-O(2p)-Cu(4s) orbits in PSYCCO are stronger than in Y-compounds.
Becoming an intersubjective self, teacher knowing through Chinese women immigrants' knotting of language, poetry, and culture

This research work explores my narrative in the making by a self-reflective study of teacher knowing in my cross-cultural experiences. The inquiry originated in my teacher self and led to my students who upheld the strongest knots in my web of relationships. In conjunction with an autobiographical study, conversations and interviews with five women immigrants (including four former ESL students and my mother) and journals and life- writings from them, were collected in three years that overlapped four years of analyzing, interpreting, and writing. Thus, the work combined autobiographical and biographical research methods. The women immigrants in my research were found to have experienced social and cultural vicissitudes in China and Canada from various perspectives. A value learned through such experiences is to persistently improvise a life worth living in the ever changing situations with whatever we were given. This threaded and gave ethical meaning to the thesis. One of my co-researchers, back in China, belonged to a social group which at times oppressed my social group. Nevertheless, our equal teacher-student relationship evolved into a reciprocal friendship and a way of learning and knowing. I called it intersubjective knowing and simulated it in the metonymy of splicing Chinese knotwork. Such knowing was to understand oneself as a center of experience, at the same time to respect and validate other's experience as one's own. Connections were made in a pattern of symmetrical turn-taking of leading and following. Splicing happened when our story-telling touched commonly experienced historical moments and/or interested topics. I traced the cultural epistemological roots for such intersubjective knowing back to ancient Chinese ideograms, syntax, and the Taoist philosophy. And the roots found a rich soil in Deweyian democracy of valuing common life experiences. Intersubjective knowing breached the horizons and enriched both parties. It is a Taoist interplay between teacher and student, researcher and participant, self and other, self and self, Western and Oriental, I and Thou, an inexhaustible multiplication of opposites and a transcending intersubjective WE.
Tolerating latency in software distributed shared memory systems through multithreading

Large communication latency is a key obstacle to achieving higher performance on software distributed shared memory (DSM) systems, which provide a shared memory abstraction on message passing hardware. Multithreading is one of the techniques that can tolerate the communication latency on software DSM. It tolerates the latency by overlapping communication and computation with multiple threads on each processor. We investigate the performance of multithreading on software DSMs empirically. Our results demonstrate that multithreading can improve the speedups of the applications by 3% to 84%, and we can further improve the performance of some applications by modifying the source codes or making threads switch context on synchronization only. This thesis also compares the performance of multithreading with that of prefetching and investigates their combined effects. The best overall approach to hiding latency depends on the predictability of memory access patterns and the extent to which lock stalls dominate synchronization time.
Integrated resource management: A review and evaluation of the Fraser River Estuary Management Program

This study provides an evaluation and review of the Fraser River Estuary Management Program (FREMP). The FREMP was established by the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia to facilitate integrated planning and resource management in the Fraser River estuary region. The emphasis of the program is on improving and maintaining water quality and habitat conservation, while accommodating economic activity. Two main objectives were addressed in this study. First, to provide a conceptual overview of the foundation and evolution of integrated approaches to resource management in North America, and obstacles to their application. Second, to complete an analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of a working model of integrated resource management. The study emphasizes the empirical research. The empirical model used in the research draws from the fields of policy and program implementation and evaluation, and integrated resource management. The program is evaluated from the perspective of achievements, its impact on process and the physical environment, and its representation of integrated resource management. The empirical portion of the study involved a survey of program stakeholders. The survey shows that the program enjoys the most support from government participants. The participation of non-government interests is weak. There are few formal and meaningful venues for such involvement. There are no consistent mechanisms for incorporating non-institutional interests into the decision making process. There are significant differences in how stakeholders view the FREMP's impact, what its role should be, and how integration can be achieved. These differences relate to participation, expectations, and different views of the role of government. The study affirms the importance of the statute in implementation success. The FREMP illustrates the dynamic nature of implementation. Categorization in terms of an administrative or bottom up approach is not always valid. By maintaining existing power structures the program has dealt with tractability issues, but has not integrated non-government stakeholders into the process. The study indicates that the program's main accomplishments are its facilitation of integrated planning, improvements in environmental data collection, and contribution to multiple use objectives. The FREMP's impact on environmental quality is indirect and has been achieved through existing jurisdictional arrangements. The program illustrates the potential for achieving success in environmental management with limited statutory and financial resources.
Silent voices, help-seeking patterns of recent immigrant chinese women from Hong Kong to Canada

This study explored patterns of help-seeking behaviour of the Chinese women who immigrated within the past seven years from Hong Kong. Twelve women immigrants volunteered to participate in the study and were interviewed in Cantonese. Interviews were transcribed and analysed for emerging themes. Several major sources of mental stress were identified, including: coping with loss and loneliness, dealing with financial constraints, helping with children's adjustment concerns, searching for jobs, handling prejudice and discrimination, struggling with cultural and language differences, and negotiating necessary transportation. The results showed that these new immigrant women considered consulting a counsellor only when they were in acute crisis or their problems were getting out of hand, especially if their children had difficulties. Seeing from the Western perspective, this help-seeking behaviour is problematical because it is crisis management. However, when we consider these same patterns from the Chinese cultural viewpoint, we can see a guideline for assisting traditional Chinese to handle challenges. These participants were unable to handle these challenges due to the following barriers. These included: lack of knowledge and information on the Western concept of mental health, lack of knowledge of English, cultural differences, user fees, and accessibility of services. The findings also strongly indicated that these participants preferred empathic counsellors who could speak their language and were informed about their culture. These barriers occurred in Toronto also due to the lack of resourceful community leaders with whom to consult and make appropriate referral to available resources. Participants found it extremely hard to trust a total stranger and preferred to have personal references about a counsellor before approaching him or her. These results may have varied implications for the delivery of counselling services to immigrant women: education about mental health, mental stress and healthy coping strategies; information about available mental health services and their functions; communication in immigrants' native language; ethno-specific counselling services; funding under the universal health insurance plan, or through income-geared fees.
Turbulence structure and prediction of interfacial scalar transfer coefficients in wavy-stratified two-phase flow

The turbulence structure of the liquid phase in an open channel flow with no interfacial shear stress and both cocurrent and countercurrent stratified flows of gas and liquid with a sheared-wavy interface was experimentally investigated in a rectangular channel, 50 mm in height and 100 mm. in width. Hot-film anemometry was used to measure the velocity field in the liquid and a variable interval time averaging (VITA) technique was employed to calculate the frequency of the turbulent events in both wall and interface regions. Photochromic dye activation technique was also used for visualization of the turbulent events in the interface region from both Eulerian and Lagrangian frames of view. For open channel flows with no interfacial shear stress, the frequency of wall turbulent events was best scaled with the inner variables and positive slope events dominated the wall region. Results for cocurrent wavy flows showed that increasing the interfacial friction velocity ratio, R =<math> <f> <rm>u<sup>*</sup><inf><hsp sp="0.265">iL</inf>/u<sup>*</sup><inf> <hsp sp="0.265">iG</inf></rm></f> </math>, causes a positive shift in the velocity profiles scaled by the wall variables compared to the universal log-law. For high interfacial shear stresses a flat velocity profile was obtained in the liquid. Large scale cellular motions were also detected under the interfacial waves. The frequency of the interfacial turbulent events for moderately sheared interfaces (u*iG < 0.035 m/s) for both cocurrent and countercurrent flows was best scaled with the interfacial parameters and was proportional to the square of the interfacial gas friction velocity. For higher interfacial shear stresses, however, the frequency approached a constant value. Unlike in the wall region, where positive slope events dominate the turbulence structure, about 40% of the events detected had a negative slope in the streamwise velocity at the reference time for both cocurrent and countercurrent flows. Flow visualization experiments showed that longitudinal vortices are present in the interface region in open channel flows, and the leeward side of the interfacial waves is the active site for generation of the turbulent events. Flow reversal in the liquid was observed in countercurrent flows not only at the interface but also near the bottom of the channel. Finally, an eddy-cell model was used to successfully predict the interfacial scalar transfer coefficients across a wavy-sheared interface available in the literature using the interfacial turbulence characteristics obtained in the experiments.