VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Examining organizational culture in a systemic business-education partnership

Over the past two decades, 'Partnerships' involving public education and business have proliferated across North America. While this phenomenon has become the subject of considerable examination, discussion and debate, there remains a significant gap in our understanding about organizational culture in these linkages. To address that gap, this dissertation has sought to determine how to study organizational culture in such a complex interorganizational relationship, and what characteristics and conceptions of organizational culture can be revealed through such an examination. The locus of this five year investigation was The Toronto Learning Partnership (TLP), an interorganizational network connecting seventeen area school boards and hundreds of Canadian companies. The lived, inter-cultural experience of TLP participants was uncovered through extensive fieldwork and a variety of data-gathering techniques. Employing a 'cultural relativist' viewpoint, the particular nature of TLP was ethnographically represented in the form of a case study that sequentially chronicled its personalities, development and operation. In addition, through the application of a 'cultural rationalist' approach, observed and perceived cultural manifestations were juxtaposed in tables under fourteen categories of working life. By means of constant comparison within and between these two 'modes of knowing', grounded theory was developed to both describe and explain culture 'of' and 'in' this partnership. The Learning Partnership proved to be a window through which six distinct conceptions of culture could be witnessed, including: the distinct and different ' organizational cultures' of TLP, business and education; distinct and different 'organizational sub-cultures' within TLP, business and education; the similar 'trans-organizational sub-culture' of management across business and education; 'cultural ambiguity' with respect to roles in TLP, business and education; and a 'cultural mosaic' reflecting and explaining all of the aforementioned cultural forms. This dissertation also discusses some implications of its cultural findings relative to the literature on organizational culture, to the act of research and to The Learning Partnership. The work represents a new means by which different organizational cultures can be studied, simultaneously.
Development and characterization of fibrin and hyaluronan coated biodegradable polyurethane films

A new family of biodegradable elastomeric polyurethane blends was created. These novel materials were coated with thin layers of fibrin (and hyaluronan (HA)). The effects of varying blend composition on the morphology, mechanical properties and degradation rate were assessed. The polyurethane blends, which degrade on the order of months to years, were found to have mechanical properties similar to those of a commercially available polyurethane wound dressing. Both fibrin and fibrin/HA coatings were achieved on the blends. The surface topology of the polyurethane surfaces appeared to affect coating cohesiveness. This was particularly true for the fibrin coatings, which demonstrated a less uniform appearance than the fibrin/HA coatings. The bi-laminar wound dressings developed in this work could be particularly applicable for skin graft donor site applications, where speed and quality of heating are extremely important factors.
Towards modelling of reinforced concrete members with externally-bonded fibre reinforced polymer, FRP, composites

Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have been increasingly studied for their application in the flexural or shear strengthening of reinforced concrete members. Although substantial increases in strength have been achieved, reductions in ductility have also been reported, as a result of debonding failures near the concrete-FRP interface. The debonding phenomenon has been the subject of numerous investigations, including the experimental program described herein, which involved the strengthening of shear-critical beams using carbon FRP strips. It has been determined that the bond-slip behaviour at the bond interface must be considered in the numerical modelling of externally-reinforced members. Essential to analyses utilizing a finite element program are the formulation of bond elements and their constitutive relations. The implementation of link and contact elements, along with linear elastic and elastic-plastic bond laws, has produced accurate predictions of member response.
Nondestructive evaluation of inhomogeneous cylindrical components by resonance acoustic spectroscopy

This thesis investigates the potential application of a technique called Material Characterization by Resonance Acoustic Spectroscopy (MCRAS) for the purpose of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and on-line monitoring of inhomogeneous non-isotropic copper rods produced by the Ohno Continuous Casting (OCC) process. Experimental measurements of the scattered pressure fields are performed on copper samples with different levels of inhomogeneity by using the short-pulse Method of Isolation and Identification of Resonances (MIIR). Two distinct types of resonances have been observed from the experimental results. These resonances are proved to be useful in estimating the average material properties and grain sizes of the copper rods. It is concluded that MCRAS is a potentially powerful technique for non-destructive evaluation and on-line monitoring of inhomogeneous non-isotropic copper rods.
Flow characteristics of a direct current stirring device

Electromagnetic stirring is employed to improve the quality of continuously cast steel product. This thesis proposes a device that may form the basis for the development of a direct current stirring system. An analytical model describing the magnetic flux density and magnetic body force was developed. A numerical model was constructed to describe the conduction, electromagnetic, and fluid flow characteristics of the system. This model was used to explore the influence of coil separation, coil radius, the magnitude of the current in the system, and the direction of current flow in the coils on the fluid flow profile. An experimental model was built and tested. The results show that it is feasible to stir liquid metal using the device proposed. The flow pattern created is rotational, though not unidirectional. It is recommended that the coil configuration which would generate a unidirectional flow profile throughout the fluid, and reduce the stirring velocity at the surface to zero, be determined.
La corrélation essentielle des rapports spatio-temporels, la validité heuristique du chronotope de Bakhtine

Mikhaïl Bakhtine présente le chronotope, concept cernant "la corrélation essentielle des rapports spatio temporels," comme un nouvel outil dans l'étude historique du roman, outil qu'il emploie pour tracer une typologie du genre. La première partie de notre thèse traite du statut du chronotope dans la pensée bakhtinienne. Dans le premier chapitre, nous examinons les origines philosophiques et scientifiques du concept. Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous traitons du rapport entre le chronotope et d'autres concepts bakhtiniens tels le dialogisme et le carnaval. Le troisième chapitre est consacré à la portée méthodologique du chronotope: dans quel sens Bakhtine propose-t-il une nouvelle théorie de la temporalité narrative? quel est le rôle relatif qu'il y accorde à l'espace? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous comparons l'étude "Formes du temps et du chronotope dans le roman" à 'Temps et Récit ', l'oeuvre de Paul Ricoeur sur la temporalité narrative. Ce chapitre se termine par une discussion du chronotope en tant que principe d'interprétation, notre enquête nous ayant conduit du domaine de la philosophie, à travers celui de la science, vers celui de la littérature, pour aboutir à celui de l'herméneutique littéraire. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, nous entreprenons des analyses chronotopiques de trois romans français du vingtième siècle. Nous étudions 'Mémoires d'Hadrien' de Marguerite Yourcenar dans le quatrième chapitre afin de voir s'entrelacer plusieurs chronotopes au sein d'un seul texte, créant un processus 'd'interaction générique' qui peut rendre compte de diverses interprétations du roman. Ensuite, nous considérons 'La Nausée' de Jean-Paul Sartre, reprenant notre discussion du rapport entre le chronotope et le carnaval pour examiner comment la déformation de chronotopes traditionnels produit une 'parodie' des genres. Enfin, nous analysons 'La Jalousie' d'Alain Robbe-Grillet pour aborder la question de 'l'expérimentation générique' et pour voir si le chronotope peut s'appliquer à un texte dépourvu de cadre spatio temporel fixe. Dans la conclusion, nous situons notre discussion à un niveau méta-critique, commentant l'approche chronotopique qui s'est développée au fil de nos analyses textuelles afin de préciser comment elle diffère de la façon dont Bakhtine lui-même emploie le concept.
Coping style and attributional style as mediators of alcohol use and depression among young adults

The phenomenon of gender differences in alcohol consumption and depressive symptomatology has been well documented. Depression and alcohol consumption pose significant problems for society in the form of psychological, emotional, and financial costs. Nonetheless, such pathology is common in North American society. The present study approaches the etiology of depressive symptoms and alcohol consumption from a cognitive-behavioral perspective. Attributional style and negative life events were hypothesized predictors of depression and alcohol consumption. Coping styles were hypothesized to predict the specific outcome; rumination was hypothesized to be associated with depression, and distraction was hypothesized to be associated with alcohol consumption. A total of 108 (51 males, 57 females) undergraduate university students, ages 18-21, completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Khavari Alcohol Test, the Attributional. Style Questionnaire, the Response Style Questionnaire, and the Adolescent Perceived Events Scale. Descriptive analyses of the data indicated that the sample, as a whole, was characterized by mild levels of depressive symptoms, similar to comparable samples. In contrast, there were relatively low levels of alcohol consumption. Correlation analyses showed that higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with negative events and rumination among both males and females. Among females, pessimism and wine consumption were also correlated with depression. Importantly, the gender difference in depression was not significant. With respect to alcohol, males consumed significantly more than females. Distraction was found to be negatively associated with alcohol consumption among women. Possible clinical implications are discussed, including the potential use of the study measures as screens for risk-profiling. Future directions are also discussed, and include replication of the present findings in a large, multi-cultural sample.
A study of composition of kraft recovery boiler carryover particles using an Entrained Flow Reactor

Carryover (unburned black liquor, char or smelt particles entrained in the flue gas during black liquor combustion) adheres to the heat transfer tube surfaces and forms deposits in kraft recovery boilers. Carryover deposition depends greatly on its liquid content, which, in turn, is a function of composition. Understanding the carryover composition and the parameters affecting the composition is important for optimizing recovery boiler performance. This work examined the effects of black liquor particle size, gas oxygen concentration, and the chloride and sulfur contents of black liquor on carryover composition. Carryover particles were produced using an Entrained Flow Reactor. The results show that the char, chloride, potassium and sulfide contents of carryover increased while the sulfate content decreased with an increase in black liquor particle size, and with a decrease in gas oxygen concentration. Chloride and potassium contents in carryover particles were less than those in the black liquor.
Molecular studies of pituitary hormones during the life cycle of the lamprey

This investigation focused on identifying and sequencing pituitary prohormones from the sea lamprey ('Petromyzon marinus'). The evolutionary lineage of lampreys can be traced back approximately 350 million years. The expression of these prohormones gives insight into the regulation of key events during the lamprey life cycle such as metamorphosis and sexual maturation. During this study, the first pituitary prohormone in lampreys, proopiomelanocortin (POMC) was cloned from sea lampreys and it was shown that there is a divergence in the DNA sequence of this precursor compared to vertebrate POMC. In the sea lamprey, adrenocorticotropin or corticotropin (ACTH) and melanocyte-stimulating hormone or melanotropin (MSH) are encoded on distinct genes, eventually these genes were termed proopiocortin (POC) and proopiomelanotropin (POM), respectively. POC encodes nasohypophysial factor (NHF), ACTH, a MSH, and ß-endorphin while POM encodes MSH-A and -B peptides and a second form of ß-endorphin. Complete cDNAs of POC and POM were also cloned from the American brook lamprey, 'Lampetra appendix'. Examination of the variation in expression of these two genes, POC and POM, during the life cycle of a parasitic lamprey ('P. marinus') and a nonparasitic lamprey ('L. appendix') showed an earlier increase in expression of POC and POM in the nonparasitic species during metamorphosis. These results suggest that the prohormones likely play a substantial role in development and maturation events which ultimately are related to the adult life history. Preliminary work using differential display was conducted to analyze altered gene expression at the mRNA level in the pituitary between larvae and stage 4 metamorphosing lampreys. Two of the twenty genes selected that showed higher expression in the larvae showed strong similarity to lamprey cytochrome-c oxidase and some similarity to vertebrate pituitary prohormone gonadotropin-II ß. During this investigation it was difficult to identify the classical types of pituitary prohormones in lampreys using conventional molecular approaches. This difficulty may be due to the fact that the lamprey is ancient in lineage and the hormones do not contain conserved sequences found in other vertebrates. The result from differential display encourages further work to identify differentially expressed hormones that regulate the development of the lamprey.
Cycling safety, shifting from an individual to a social responsibility model

Two approaches to urban cycling safety were studied. In the individual responsibility model, the onus is on the individual for cycling safety. The social responsibility model takes a more collectivist approach as it argues for structurally enabling distributed responsibility. The framework was developed using principles from feminist theory which relies on a more complex understanding of equality than is currently found in most cycling literature. A survey administered to 188 people in downtown Toronto, Ontario tested attitudes toward these two approaches and gauged the barriers to cycling for different populations. Women and visible minorities expressed the greatest concerns about participating in urban cycling. Political orientation and cycling status (whether or not respondents were cyclists) were both found to predict the tendency toward a more social versus an individualistic approach to cycling safety. Nevertheless, the majority of respondents endorsed aspects of both approaches. Theoretically and empirically grounded policy conclusions are offered.
Development of a PC version for axisymmetric drop shape analysis (ADSA)

Many areas of research in surface phenomena require accurate measurements of interfacial properties. Axisymmetric drop shape analysis (ADSA) has been applied to measure contact angles and liquid-fluid interfacial tensions by fitting the Laplace equation of capillarity to the shape of the sessile and pendant drops. However, ADSA originally developed for a UNIX platform requires special training of personnel for working with the UNIX system, a fact which has limited wider use of ADSA. In addition, lacking peripheral software for the UNIX systems limits the effectiveness and usefulness of the ADSA program. This research develops a PC version of ADSA, a user-friendly program employing standard software controls. Additional features include: Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC), Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), and Multi-Document Interface (MDI), which are implemented using Visual C++, a highly enhanced programming environment. Finally, several experiments were conducted to verify the performance and accuracy of the ADSA PC-version.
Control of fire blight through systemically acquired resistance and intraspecies characterization of Erwinia amylovora

'Ophiostoma ulmi' and 'Verticillium dahliae' elicitors were tested for efficacy against 'Erwinia amylovora', causal agent of fire blight, in apple and pear cultivars. Despite inconsistent disease control in apple seedlings with 'O. ulmi' elicitors, both elicitors provided significant protection against 'E. amylovora ' in 4 year-old apple and pear trees ('P' < 0.05). ' E. amylovora' intraspecies differences in extracellular protease production and PCR products of the 16S/23S rDNA intergenic transcribed spacer (ITS) region were also assessed for correlation with host species-specificity. Both ' Maloideae' and 'Rubus' isolates secreted an extracelluar protease of similar size and activity. The ITS PCR products of 'Maloideae ' and 'Rubus E. amylovora' isolates encoded for tRNA Ala and tRNAGlu, and shared significant homology. The smallest ITS PCR product of 'E. amylovora Rubus' isolate 1-97 was homologous with the ITS region of 'E. pyrifoliae', contradicting previous conclusions that 'E. amylovora' and 'E. pyrifoliae ' were not homologous in the ITS region.
Flavonoids and steroid hormone-dependent cancers

Steroid hormone-dependent cancers, including breast and prostate, are leading causes of cancer morbidity and mortality in North America. In Asian countries, these diseases are much less common. Nutritional and lifestyle factors are associated with differences in incidence, with an emphasis on consumption of plant foods, in particular soy. Flavonoids are one class of compounds present in these plant foods. With over 4000 identified members, these compounds have been hypothesized to have several important chemopreventive effects. The purpose of this project was to assess the steroid hormone activities of plant foods, with a reference to soy, in three forms: pure flavonoids, plant extract (nutracetical), and whole (functional) food. After developing an in vitro bioassay, soy isoflavones and other flavonoids were evaluated for steroid hormone activities, defined as their ability to induce or inhibit production of estrogen- (pS2) and androgen/progestin- (prostate-specific antigen, PSA) regulated proteins. Genistein and biochanin A demonstrated highest estrogenic activity of the compounds tested, which was dose-response down to 10 -8 M and 10-7 M, respectively. These soy isoflavones also demonstrated significant anti-androgen activity (76% and 98%, respectively at 10-5 M). Natural products and nutraceticals were then tested for steroid hormone activities. As with pure isoflavones, the commercial soy and red clover extracts had high estrogenic activity. Soy extract demonstrated 63% anti-androgen activity at the highest strength tested. Finally, we determined the steroid hormone potentials of one functional food, soy, in healthy subjects. By using biological fluids obtained from individuals in a soy feeding study, we found that short-term feeding did not increase agonist potentials. Moreover, non-significant reductions in estrogenic and androgenic activities in women and men, respectively, may indicate that long-term feeding of this functional food may reduce risk factors for steroid-hormone dependent cancers. These results indicate that soy isoflavones and other flavonoids have steroid hormone activities. These activities may act in vivo to modulate activities of potentially carcinogenic endogenous hormones. Further research is needed to determine the physiological importance of flavonoids in prevention and/or management of hormone-dependent cancers, and how to make best use of natural products, nutraceticals and functional foods in individuals at risk.
Integration of a free-space optical interconnect into the NUMAchine multiprocessor

The increasing speed of processing nodes in multiprocessors places increasing demands on the communication networks within these systems. Fundamental limits on the bandwidth that electrical interconnects can provide will soon begin to affect multiprocessor performance, a fact that has recently prompted researchers to consider optical technologies as alternatives. Photonic smart pixel array (SPA) technology promises interconnects with at least an order of magnitude improvement in raw bandwidth, while providing a convenient interface between the interconnect and the electronic components in the system. This work focuses on the construction of a proof-of-concept system to demonstrate that SPA technology can be used effectively in a general-purpose multiprocessing environment. Its primary contribution is the design and implementation of an interface for integrating a photonic backplane prototype, developed by researchers at McGill University, into the NUMAchine multiprocessor. The completed hybrid system is intended to serve as a research platform, so field-programmable devices are used extensively in the interface to facilitate experimentation with different protocols and topologies within the new interconnect. A secondary contribution of this work is a list of features that we believe should be incorporated into future interconnect designs to address a number of system-level issues that were encountered during the implementation process.
'Daddy's girls', 'degenerate daughters', tracing interconnected violences within women's 'survivor' narratives

This thesis considers the languages through which women articulate experiences of 'incest survival.' First, I trace the social and discursive conditions that women-survivors negotiate in nanrating 'incest,' noting how these conditions (re)produce normative narratives that elide differences among women. Then, I map how feminist theorists dispel 'mythologized' notions of women-survivors as abnormal and blameworthy by re-presenting 'incest' as essentialized gender domination. Next, I suggest that notions of 'respectability' and 'degeneracy' might underwrite the conditions that constrain 'survivor speech'. Considering narratives by Liza Potvin and Elly Danica, I trace how these women-survivors mobilize codes of race, class, sexuality, and disability to translate their experiences as 'incested' and 'recovered' subjects. I argue that while they appropriate experiences of 'others', these narratives also gesture towards interlocking forms of domination. I conclude by advocating for articulations of 'incest' and 'incest survival' that highlight interconnected violences and render explicit differences among women.