VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The influence of stress/strain on the biodegradation of polyurethanes by macrophages

The factors involved in Environmental Stress Cracking (ESC) include surface oxidation, residual stress, soft segment chemistry, molecular morphology, the presence of MDMs and foreign body giant cells, and an unknown biological element. This study investigates the link between the internal molecular phase structure of polycarbonate urethanes (PCNUs), their mechanical strain and cell-induced biodegradation. PCNUs with varying chemical compositions were synthesized and their bulk and surface properties were characterized using GPC, contact angle analysis, XPS and ATR-FTIR. The macrophage response to the different polymers under different strain levels was tested by a DNA assay, an esterase test and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The biodegradation of 14C-labelled PCNUs monitored by radiolabel release showed a strong dependence on polymer structure and H-bonding as well as the different strain levels.
Defining, modeling, and solving a real university course timetabling problem

The central thesis of this dissertation is that the problem definition stage of solving real world problems should be directly studied and that problems must be studied in their entirety to create useful solutions. The problem definition stage has been identified as important yet is not directly studied in operations research (OR). This work is an introduction of such research to OR. Timetabling has received much attention from researchers and this work is a continuation of such effort. We conduct an analysis of the timetabling problem at the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto (APSC), showing how difficult it would be to create a definition for a mathematical model. We also create evaluation criteria for APSC and show that quality measures in an objective function cannot accurately represent the desired metrics. Finally, we apply mathematical programming and decomposition techniques to some benchmark timetabling problems.
Building a bridge between animal studies and human randomized trials

Animal experiments are widely used in biomedical research to develop new therapies for human disease. Such experiments are conducted under the assumption that animal models mirror human disease with a high degree of fidelity and that findings of efficacy in animal models will generally translate into effective human interventions. Yet experience shows that many agents which prevent or treat disease in animal models fail to replicate when the results are tested in subsequent human clinical trials. The problem is evident in many domains but is especially apparent in cardiovascular medicine. This dissertation formulates a comprehensive strategy based on health services research to evaluate the results of animal studies before clinical trials are undertaken. The strategy is applied to address three areas in vascular medicine where promising animal data support therapeutic efficacy. The results suggest this approach yields a number of advantages over the current pathway of taking animal data directly into clinical trials. First, by imposing an intermediate phase between animal experimentation and randomized trials, health services research can be used to vet animal findings for human applicability and relevance; such work can act as a stage of sober, second thought. Second, health services studies can generate information on effect size and other vital variables for planning successful clinical trials. Third, health services studies can shed light on many elements not often seen in animal data, such as toxicity, cost-effectiveness, the impact of comorbidity, and evaluation of class effects and non-compliance. Fourth, the approach can be adapted to translating animal evidence on etiology and pathogenesis to human beings. Ultimately, the most significant implication of this approach is to enhance the process by which animal data is transformed into advances in the prevention and treatment of human disease.
Beyond "wonderful": authentic interaction in the art classroom

This case study is an exploration of the teaching and assessment methods involved in promoting and supporting students' artwork in elementary school. The primary aim of this study is to discuss the methodologies of a capable, experienced visual arts teacher, and to acknowledge how similar expertise and professional pedagogy involved in classroom interaction can encourage students to progress with their artistic and creative abilities in art education. My study explores current theoretical and practical discussions with regard to art teaching and assessment, analyzes the participant teacher's instruction and interaction during periods of artwork, and provides an art teaching schema based on the results of the data. Data were collected through my classroom observations and from interviews with an experienced art teacher. These included my field notes, relevant research documents, as well as my personal written reflections. The teacher's interactions with students during their art activities, as well as her interview comments, were analyzed in order to interpret her methods for implementing the teaching strategies. Detailed information was also gathered relevant to the teacher's personal and educational background, as well as her professional experiences, to help support the hypothesis that the teacher's personal and educational experiences have played a pivotal role in determining her interventions concerning student needs in the art classroom. My analysis has also included the teacher's comments dealing with her responses to students' artwork when providing them with assistance and assessment. This study describes a teaching schema for supporting teacher/student interactions in art education, and for exploring appropriate methods for promoting growth through visual arts experiences. The schema discusses teaching categories pertaining to preparing for art activities, offering encouragement to students, suggesting ideas or directions, giving task-oriented instruction, managing the classroom activity, promoting aesthetic awareness, and providing artistic feedback. Moreover, based on the teaching schema, this study identifies a variety of forms and behaviours that are used as part of art making, art communication and art interpretation.

Keywords: Art, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Teacher-student relationships
Sample timing control in analog front-ends

The Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) is the key component of the analog front-end block in digital communication receivers. Control of the sampling time of the ADC for the purpose of symbol timing recovery is already an essential process in digital communication systems. Moreover, since any mismatch in sampling times among different channels of a time-interleaved ADC introduces a substantial level of unwanted noise, sampling time control in this type of ADC, used in digital communication systems, becomes a critical issue. In this thesis, we study these two aspects of sampling time control in analog front-ends. The interpolation filter is the important part of a fully-digital symbol timing recovery, which has the advantage of replacing some complex analog circuits with simpler circuits. We review the traditional interpolation filters and present an efficient realization of an interpolation filter based on cubic spline function. This filter is slightly more complex than the traditional interpolation filters, while it has greater interpolation accuracy, especially at a low oversampling ratio. A sample-time error compensation technique for time-interleaved ADCs is also proposed. The sample-time error compensation technique comprises a sample-time error detection and an error correction method. The low-complexity background sample-time error detection method uses random data to detect sample-time error between each two channels of a time-interleaved ADC. To correct the sample-time error, a Digitally-Controlled Delay Element (DCDE) is used. The circuitry required for sample-time error compensation is designed and implemented in 0.18-microm CMOS technology. A prototype time-interleaved ADC system with a sampling rate of 800 MSamples/s is implemented in order to verify the performance of the sample-time error compensation technique. Experimental results show that the four-channel ADC system can achieve a Spurious-Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) of 76 dB at low frequencies and 58 dB at high frequencies. After sample-time error compensation, the ADC system has an Effective Number of Bits (ENOB) of 9.6 bits at low frequencies and 8 bits at high frequencies.
Are homes falling out of range for new Canadians? Explaining the decline in immigrant homeownership rates in Canada's largest Census Metropolitan Areas, 1971--2001

This dissertation tests a set of plausible hypotheses about the reasons behind recent immigrant homeownership declines in Canada's largest Census Metropolitan Areas. It assesses how changes in demographic composition, immigrant recency, socioeconomic status (chapter 2), skin colour (chapter 3), and homeownership-relevant group characteristics (chapter 4), have altered immigrant homeownership rates over the past 30 years. Although each chapter shares a similar focus, each employs a distinct methodology and addresses a unique set of research questions. The majority of the immigrant decline of recent years remains unexplained, suggesting that changes in age, income, education, family type, skin color, and the proportion of group members in homeownership-relevant industries are not responsible.
Assessment of root surface damage produced by avulsion, severe intrusion and extraction of human incisors

The objectives of this investigation were to review the scientific literature and to quantify and characterize the adherent root surface periodontal ligament (PDL) among avulsed, severely intruded and extracted human teeth and to compare topographical and histological techniques as methods for evaluation of retained PDL on traumatized teeth. Topographical and histologic root surface analysis revealed that approximately half the root surfaces of avulsed and severely intruded incisors were denuded of PDL and between half and two thirds of the root surfaces of extracted teeth were denuded of PDL. Avulsed and extracted teeth presented with torn and folded PDL whereas severely intruded incisors demonstrated remaining root surface PDL that was crushed and torn. Topographical and histologic techniques were consistent in quantifying retained PDL of injured teeth.
Infinity plus one: "The Thousand and One Nights" as a model for infinite narrative in Borges, Calvino, Barth and Rushdie

This study is a comparative analysis of four contemporary authors who have claimed The Thousand and One Nights as their favorite text: Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, John Barth, and Salman Rushdie. These authors also share an interest in the process of narrativity and concern for the future of the novel that have led them to adopt the narrative model of the Nights in their own fiction in order to suggest the possibility of infinite storytelling. Chapter one discusses Jorge Luis Borges' engagement with the Nights and the concept of infinity in relation to his interests in philosophy and science. His short story collections El jardin de senderos que se bifurcan and El Aleph demonstrate his definition of the infinite in narrative as that which surpasses textual boundaries. Chapter two looks at the structural aspects of Italo Calvino's Le citta invisibili and Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore, which point towards an infinite space for story creation while reclaiming the crucial role of the storyteller in seducing the reader and perpetuating the narrative. Chapter three examines Barth's later novels, all of which refer either directly or indirectly to the Nights, to show how his narrators defy both the death of the story and the death of the teller. The fourth chapter discusses Salman Rushdie's exploitation of the Nights as a metaphor for infinity in his novels and analyzes Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses and Haroun and the Sea of Stories as proponents of narrative multiplicity and regeneration. In conclusion, I argue that these authors refute Frank Kermode's "sense of an ending" in favor of stories that point to the "plus one" of narrative demonstrated by Shahrazad's regenerative narrative arabesque. The introduction to this study provides an overview of the potentially infinite narrative model presented in The Thousand and One Nights. I argue that Shahrazad's basic techniques for her never-ending storytelling, rather than following the design of the "frame tale," more closely resemble the structure of the arabesque. The notion of an arabesque narrative that continually generates stories is also central to my analyses of Borges, Calvino, Barth and Rushdie.
The effects of different curing regimes on chloride ingress

Time-to-corrosion estimates typically do not account for variations of diffusion coefficients with depth into the concrete, which may be caused by imperfect curing. A method, which involved using specimens that were sliced perpendicular to the exposed surface of a concrete slab, was used to estimate diffusion coefficients with depth using the Rapid Migration test. Eight different concrete mixtures were used and were subjected to six different curing regimes, which include moist curing for 0 days, 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, and 28 days and a curing compound. The chloride diffusion coefficients at the surface generally decreased as moist curing increased for each concrete. There was also a depth at which the chloride diffusion coefficient remains constant and unaffected by external curing. Service life estimates using this constant chloride diffusion value, which was unaffected by external curing were higher than estimates using variable diffusion values and were not conservative.
The role of the instructor in creating curriculum in university theatre/drama programmes across Canada

The role of the instructor in creating curriculum for Canadian university theatre programmes is the focus of this study. The curriculum design for more than fifty full-time theatre faculty is examined and analyzed. As such, this research provides a comprehensive record of instructor practice: the struggles, assumptions and artistry involved in the process of conceptualizing theatre curricula. The thesis interweaves personal narrative and the development of a conceptual matrix for theory and practice. What emerges is a typology for examining the ontology of a theatre department; one which distinguishes between (a) curriculum design for individual courses (Personal Curriculum) and (b) theatre programmes as a whole (Projected Curriculum). Therefore, the document not only serves as a blueprint for locating one's own practice, but further, it acknowledges the necessity of creating community in the isolation of practice. The analysis explores seven issues vital to the development of curriculum design for tertiary theatre programmes, including: curricular objectives; the need for integration; teaching frames and metaphors; crises in identity: budgetary or political unrest; the notion of curricular change; and the relationship between artistry and academia. Throughout, the inquiry is framed to give voice to the issues of curriculum that the thesis addresses and, at once, to permit the consciousness of the theatre to be heard. Thus, the metaphoric frame of the research, “thesis as theatre”, was designed to make curricular issues accessible to the audience of theatre instructors and this structure pervades the whole of the study. Finally, given the extraordinary lack of material available for theatre practice in higher education, this national perspective highlights issues yet to be explored and investigated. Consequently, the study concludes by offering up an extensive and detailed series of reflective questions—entitled the Phoenix Questions—with which instructors, Chairs and programmes can begin to develop and/or review their post-secondary theatre curricula.
Statics and dynamics of liquid bridges

The purpose of this study was to understand the statics and dynamics of Newtonian liquid bridges and to relate the study to the breakup that creates a droplet. Static deformation of the liquid bridge is solved numerically. Parameters from the static analysis are used in a theory to compare with breaking length results. It was found that, for Newtonian fluids with viscosities less than 1 Pa-s, the theory well predicts the breaking length results. High-speed imaging was used to study dynamic liquid bridges of Newtonian fluids. The images show that increasing fluid viscosity tends to create longer filaments before breakup. The images also reveal that a liquid bridge does not break at the midpoint of the filament, but close to the top disk.
Double-stranded RNA function in innate immunity: Identification of HIF as a mediator of cellular responses against virus infection

Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), an intermediate of most virus replication cycles, is a potent inducer of cellular responses to virus infection. DsRNA treatment of RAW264.7 mouse macrophages protects the cells against encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) replication upon subsequent infection. A comprehensive set of dsRNA-regulated genes were identified by microarray. Candidate antiviral genes were selected and their expression patterns were validated by real-time semi-quantitative PCR (qPCR). Expression patterns determined by microarray and qPCR showed a high degree of concordance. HIF-1alpha, a central regulator of cellular responses to hypoxia, was identified as a possible antiviral gene. Primarily known for its role in oncogenesis, HIF-1alpha is a LPS-inducible gene that mediates antibacterial response. Interferons (IFNs) also upregulate the expression of HIF-1alpha, but their role in antiviral response has not been established. Our results using renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells devoid of VHL, or reconstituted with wild-type VHL or VHL mutants with varying abilities to negatively regulate HIF, demonstrate that HIF activity confers markedly enhanced resistance to vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-mediated cytotoxicity. Moreover, inhibition of HIF activity using a small-molecule inhibitor, chetomin, enhances cellular sensitivity to VSV, while treatment with a hypoxia mimetic CoCl2 promotes resistance. Expression profiling studies show that HIF enhances the induction of IFNbeta and other antiviral genes by VSV infection. In contrast to its effect on VSV, loss of VHL enhances cellular susceptibility to EMCV-replication and EMCV-induced cell death in a HIF-dependent manner. HIF's role in sensitizing cells to EMCV was confirmed by experiments showing that the hypoxia mimetic enhanced cellular sensitivity to EMCV and the HIF inhibitor decreased susceptibility to the virus. Accordingly, reduction of HIF-2a levels by RNA interference also diminished their susceptibility to EMCV. Together, the results identify a profile of dsRNA-responsive genes and highlight a novel role for HIF as a modulator of responses to virus infection---mediating divergent responses to VSV and EMCV. Whereas HIF enhances the induction of IFNbeta, increasing cellular resistance to VSV, it concomitantly sensitizes cells to EMCV. These findings are a basis for further investigation into possibly modulating HIF as an antiviral therapy or pursuing EMCV-based oncolytic-virus approaches to treating HIF expressing tumors.
Living through the pages: a narrative inquiry into the reading experience of four readers

In this dissertation, I invite my fellow readers to join me in an inquiry into the reading experience of four readers (participants), of whom I am one. The focus of this inquiry is on the stories that we tell of our reading lives, our reading process and our favourite books. I use narrative inquiry as my conceptual framework and methodology to capture and make sense of the experiences under study. Narrative inquiry is a road map that guides me all through this research. While reading the books of our own choice, we wrote down our responses in journals. As a researcher, I interviewed my participants individually and, when I was in the role of participant, another participant interviewed me. Through sharing our reading experience in these interviews, we gained a deeper insight into the significance of reading. We also explored what it means to understand life through reading. The stories we told are stories of self-knowledge and development. They form the basis of my inquiry. In self-exploration, each of us told her stories about her reading experience, reading process and reading topics. We are the narrator, central character and critic all rolled in one. We set our own study course, a life-long reading curriculum that encapsulates our life experience. I interlace, blend and contrast the stories of my participants and mine in dialogue form to preserve the multiplicity of voices. I delete certain sections from the transcripts and journals and put them together again after interlacing and juxtaposing them with literary texts. In this dissertation, I point out the significance of reading as an autobiographical reflective process. Reading is a personal experience in which readers are free to make choices. They choose books that are relevant to their quest for life meaning. When readers read they bring their own life stories into the text not only to make sense of the text, but also reflect on their lives. The readers' active engagement with texts is important for understanding what reading is, and for developing a curriculum in which teachers and students reflect on their reading experiences
The effect of conjugated linoleic acid on caveolae lipid composition and protein localization in breast cancer cells

Mechanisms by which conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) inhibits cancer cell growth are poorly understood. Caveolae are specialized plasma membrane structures involved in recruiting and regulating signaling proteins. The objective of this study was to determine if CLA incorporates into caveolae, thereby altering the expression of caveolae resident proteins in MCF-7 and MCF-7/Cav-1 human breast cancer cells. Cells were treated with either bovine serum albumin-vehicle, a mixture of CLA isomers, or LA (100 muM). CLA significantly incorporated into caveolae phospholipids. Delta9cis,11trans-18:2 was the major isomer found in caveolae phospholipids suggesting that this isomer is responsible for the reduction in caveolin protein expression. Incorporation of CLA reduced expression of caveolin-1 in MCF-7 caveolae, but had no effect on H-Ras expression. No effects were observed in MCF-7/Cav-1 cells on caveolin-1 and H-Ras expression. Overall, these findings suggest a potential mechanism by which CLA modulates cellular signaling in breast cancer cells.