VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Parent functioning after divorce: Exploring the relationship to attachment and conflict

Differences in parenting functioning are a result of highly complex interactions, particularly at times of stress such as separation or divorce. Information is required by parents to help them adjust to these changes, reduce their levels of conflict, and to maintain or improve parenting functioning in order to protect their children from potential maladjustment. To explore the intricacy of parenting functioning after separation, parents were recruited from a mandatory family information program designed to provide education to litigants at the early onset of the family court process. 253 separated or divorced parents, 158 mothers and 95 fathers, completed the survey intended to explore attachment styles, levels of conflict and parents' feelings of competency and satisfaction. Results show that parents with the highest level of confidence, feeling of effectiveness and satisfaction with their parenting were more likely to report secure adult attachment styles and the lowest levels of interparental conflict. The parents' sense of competence was not linked to gender or to the frequency of parent-child contact unless parents had less than weekly access with the children. The results also show that parents had higher levels of parent functioning when they were attentive to their feelings, aware of their emotional responses and able to regulate their feelings. In addition, the level of satisfaction reported by the parents did not distinguish between factors that impede or facilitate positive parent functioning post separation or divorce. Implications for working with parents post separation or divorce are explored in light of these findings. The results promote a differential assessment and response to interparental conflict. The findings also provide evidence that creating an attachment-based intervention to improve parenting competency may safeguard children and parents against the negative consequences of interparental conflict. From a policy and research perspective, the rich knowledge base of new strategies to reduce conflict and increase parenting functioning is a progressive step forward to improve the health and well-being of children and parents caught in conflictual disputes.
A passive infrared sensor for combustion efficiency and process control

Monitoring industrial furnace gases for temperature, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide can be paired with process control to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fuel costs, energy use, and material loss. Currently, the steel-making industry has no viable method to obtain such data. The furnace environment provides a unique measurement challenge with its high temperatures, vibrations, and dust loading. A new passive infrared sensor has been designed specifically for these applications. It consists of light collecting optics, a mechanical chopper, a grating spectrometer and a 64-pixel pyroelectric array. This thesis describes the experiments used to calibrate the raw signal into units of radiance (+/- 2.5%) vs. wavelength (+/- 5nm), derive gas and background brightness temperatures (+/- 0.2%), and demonstrate sensitivity to concentrations of both carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Lab results show that correlation techniques may be used for retrieving relative gas concentrations, and industry results are promising.
Behaviour and modelling of reinforced concrete structures subjected to impact loads

The analysis and design of reinforced concrete (RC) structures against extreme loads, such as earthquakes, blasts, and impacts, has been an objective of many researchers and designers. As a result of recently elevated terror threat levels in the world, demand for the impact resistant design of buildings has increased. Numerous studies have been conducted to-date toward understanding and developing methodologies predicting the behaviour of RC structures under impact loads. However, the lack of a complete understanding of shear behaviour under high dynamic conditions hindered the efforts for accurate prediction of impact behaviour, since severe shear mechanisms may dominate the behaviour of RC structures when subjected to impact loads. This current study aimed to apply one of the more successful methods of static reinforced concrete shear analysis, the Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT), to the analysis of dynamic loads, and thus, develop an efficient and reliable tool for impact analysis of RC structures. A two-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis program for reinforced concrete, VecTor2, developed previously at the University of Toronto for static loads, was modified to include the consideration of dynamic loads, including impacts. VecTor2 uses the MCFT for its computational methodology, along with a wide array of material and behavioural models for reinforced concrete. To verify the performance of VecTor2 and its computational methodology under impact loads, an experimental program was also undertaken to provide data for corroboration. Eight reinforced concrete beam specimens, four pairs, were tested under free falling drop-weights, impacting the specimens at the mid-span. All specimens had identical longitudinal reinforcement, but varying shear reinforcement ratio, intended to investigate the effects of shear capacity on the impact behaviour. A total of 20 tests were conducted, including multiple tests on each specimen. The test results showed that the shear characteristics of the specimens played an important role in their overall behaviour. All specimens, regardless of their shear capacity, developed severe diagonal shear cracks, forming a shear-plug under the impact point. The VecTor2 analyses of the test specimens were satisfactory in predicting damage levels, and maximum and residual displacements. The methodology employed by VecTor2, based on the MCFT, proved to be successful in predicting the shear-dominant behaviour of the specimens under impact.
Exceptional states: National esteem and nonconformity in international relations

This dissertation explores the role of esteem motivations in promoting nonconformist state behaviour. It argues that states may violate widely accepted international norms---in spite of various material costs and widespread international criticism---in order to maintain or enhance national pride. This argument challenges received wisdom in the study of compliance, which suggests that considerations of national esteem generally promote pro-norm behaviour. The thesis draws a distinction between the social (external) and self (internal) esteem of states and demonstrates that political leaders often care more about internal than external assessments of national image and status. The study explores three cases of state nonconformity: Japanese whaling since the introduction of a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1985, French nuclear testing in the 1990s, and the U.S. campaign against the International Criminal Court during the administration of George W. Bush. After discounting material explanations, the analysis traces the significant role of esteem motivations in promoting the nonconformist policies under review. Through comparison of the central dynamics and enabling factors in the three case studies, the thesis develops a theoretical framework to explain how and why esteem-driven nonconformity occurs. It stresses three sets of environmental conditions that together promote this phenomenon. The first concerns the nature of the international norm in question. Weak domestic resonance of the norm, combined with domestic perceptions of its external imposition, create the potential for a defiant response. The realization of this potential, however, depends upon a second set of factors relating to domestic political conditions. Nationalist entrepreneurs play a critical role in amplifying domestic perceptions of the ideational dissonance between the international norm and core national values and beliefs, and mobilizing political support for a nonconformist policy response. Their ability to prevail depends upon successful framing strategies and a favourable political opportunity structure. The third factor concerns recent experiences of national humiliation or a loss of international status, which serve to foreground the esteem considerations in the specific policy area. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on compliance, international socialization, and the role of emotions in global politics.
Sustainability development: a review of Canadian foreign aid

This thesis is a study of Canada's foreign aid policy and an examination of the government agency responsible for its delivery, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This work focuses on the influence of both the Sustainable Development (SD) paradigm and a management review of CIDA, the SECOR Report, have had upon foreign aid policy. A detailed discussion and analysis of culture is presented in order to outline and define a cultural dimension which could be incorporated into a sustainable paradigm as well as into the extant aid policy. The purpose of this discussion is to explore the limits of Canadian foreign aid given the bias of the neo-classical economic development paradigm. A secondary consideration is the investigation into the possibility of expanding or changing the economic and political motivations for aid into priorizing a humanitarian approach towards development.

Keywords: Economic assistance, Canadian
Sustainable development
PEG ratios and stock returns

The thesis examines the explanatory power of the PEG ratio in the cross section of stock returns. The PEG ratio is defined as the P/E multiple of a stock divided by its expected long-term earnings growth rate. It is postulated that the PEG ratio to a large extent captures investors' expectational errors embedded in stock prices. The conventional wisdom is that stocks with very low (high) PEG ratios are underpriced (overpriced), so PEG ratios are negatively related to stock returns. The evidence of regression analysis for individual firms supports this claim. However, the relation between PEG ratios and returns on PEG portfolios is not monotonically decreasing--the regression analysis provides insufficient account for observations with extremely low PEG ratios. Both low- and high-PEG stocks earn lower average returns than stocks with medium PEG. The pricing errors associated with stocks of extreme-valued PEG cannot be eliminated by traditional risk-adjustment procedures. The large pricing errors on low- and high-PEG stocks are attributed to unusually large biases in analysts' forecasts. Analysts and hence investors are overly optimistic in interpreting prior earnings information. This results in larger-than-average earnings disappointments, and consequently lower-than-average returns, on stocks with low or high PEG ratios.
Influence of nanofillers on bond strength and toughness

In this thesis, the influence of nano-reinforcement in adhesively bonded joints on tensile and shear properties, and fracture toughness is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The theoretical investigations employ a novel multiscale technique that couples coarse-grain molecular dynamics with continuum mechanics. In this approach, the molecular dynamics subdomain and the finite element subdomain are overlapped in a handshaking subdomain, where the Hamiltonian is taken to be a combination of the molecular and continuum Hamiltonians. The implementation of coarse-grain molecular dynamics radically reduces the number of particles in the molecular region as well as the degrees-of-freedom in the finite element subdomain without sacrificing accuracy. An explicit algorithm for the coupling of the two methodologies was used to determine the tensile strength, shear strength and strain energy release rate in adhesively bonded composite joints with varying amounts of nanofillers in the adhesive layer. Experimental investigations examined the tensile, shear and fracture toughness properties of adhesive joints reinforced by homogeneously dispersed carbon nanotubes and alumina nanopowder. The composite adherends used are made of carbon/glass fibre reinforced epoxy laminates and aluminium alloy. The results reveal that varying the weight percentage of the nanofillers into the epoxy matrix adhesive favourably influences the debonding, shear and fracture characteristics of the adhesive layers. It is also found that increasing the amount of the nanofillers beyond a certain weight fraction of the adhesive reduces the bond strength and toughness. The predicted values of the strength and toughness of adhesively bonded layers determined from the multiscale model are compared with the experimental findings and are found to be in good overall agreement. Both the accuracy of the prediction of the multiscale model and the mechanism of the influence of the nanofillers within the epoxy adhesive layers are evaluated and discussed.
Structural, mutational and kinetic analyses of Aquifex aeolicus prephenate dehydrogenase: Elucidation of the catalytic mechanism

Using the crystal structures as guides, active site residues were targeted for site-directed mutagenesis. Kinetic analyses of these variants combined with structural analyses indicate that Ser126 facilitates catalysis by coordinating the prephenate-His147-NAD+ interaction and hydrogen bonding to prephenate via the 4-hydroxyl group, while a gated mechanism consisting of Glu153-Arg250-Asp' modulates substrate access to the active site. Prephenate dehydrogenase, a member of the TyrA family, participates in tyrosine biosynthesis by catalyzing the oxidative decarboxylation of prephenate to 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate in the presence of NAD+. The current study attempts to elucidate the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme through structural and mutational approaches. Aquifex aeolicus prephenate dehydrogenase was co-crystallized with NAD+, NAD+ and tyrosine, and NAD + and 4-hydroxyphenylpropionate. These crystal structures provide positional information on known active site residues and reveal the interactions between enzyme and substrate. The results presented from this study provide a framework for understanding the mechanism of substrate discrimination within the TyrA family.
RF lateral bipolar junction transistor on silicon-on-insulator substrate

This thesis presents a novel RF lateral BJT built on SOI substrate for the realization of future RF and high speed mixed-signal IC technologies. As CMOS migrates onto SOI, integrating RF BJT on the same thin-film is critical and necessary for the implementation of mixed signal and RF systems on a single chip (SoC). However, vertical BJTs are not compatible with thin-film SOI-CMOS. To alleviate this problem, the solution is to build lateral BJT (LBJT) on CMOS compatible thin-film SOI substrate. LBJT on SOI potentially offers high frequency operation while consuming significantly less power. Also, with lithography resolution reaching scaling limit, LBJTs offer flexibility in device miniaturization that are not possible on vertical structures. In this thesis, a novel LBJT on SOI structure is proposed. This design uses polysiliconside-wall-spacer (PSWS) to form the base contact, and enables self-aligned base-emitter junction. It circumvents the integration problem associated with previously reported LBJTs. Only three masks are needed to realize the high-speed/high-voltage version of the transistor, with common-collector and common-emitter layout configurations. TCAD tools as well as numerical analysis based on delay time constant analysis (DTCA) were used to design and optimize the PSWS-LBJT. The fabricated PSWS-LBJT demonstrated greatly reduced base resistance (200 O bull;microm2) and base-collector capacitance (0.86 fF/microm2), which enable the device to operate at higher frequency. The Johnson's products ( fnof; tgr;x BVCEO) of the fabricated HS/HV LBJTs are 196 and 300 GHz bull;V, reaching the theoretical limit for silicon-based BJT. This FOM is in line with advanced SiGe-HBT device, and is 2 to 3 times higher compared to published data on lateral BJTs. The HS device achieves fnof; tgr; and fnof; max of 16/46 GHz, and 12/37 GHz for the HV device. The optimal fnof;max of 46 GHz is reached at collector current density of only 0.15 mA/microm2, 4 times lower than any existing RF BJT at the same frequency. The low cost, low power, and high performance LBJT demonstrated in this thesis is a promising candidate for the realization of SOI-BiCMOS technology for future RF and mixed signal SoC application.
Relationship of microglial-activation associated proteins with pain-related behaviours across 12 inbred mouse strains

A microglial-neuronal signaling pathway has been identified underlying neuropathic pain following peripheral nerve injury (PNI), involving activation of microglial P2X4 receptors (P2X4R). In the present study, I quantified expression of ionized calcium-binding adapter protein 1 (iba-1), a microglial-specific protein, across twelve mouse strains to investigate whether a correlation existed between exhibited pain behaviours and iba-1 expression. Six mice from each of the twelve isogenic strains underwent chronic constriction injury (CCI) and spared nerve injury (SNI). Iba-1 expression varied over 3.7-fold after CCI, and over 4-fold after SNI. The iba-1 expression after SNI was increased 10-fold per strain when compared to values obtained after CCI. A positive trend was observed between iba-1 expression and mechanical allodynia. Conversely, a negative relationship was seen between iba-1 expression and thermal hyperalgesia (r-squared: 0.34). The data suggest that genetic variability in microglial activation may underlie the variability and heritability of pain-related behaviours following PNI.
Characterization of the transcriptional and sequestration effects of the acute promyelocytic leukemia variant fusion protein NuMA-RARalpha using the hCG-NuMA-RARalpha transgenic mouse model

Through these studies, we present a model whereby functional RXRalpha may be required for NuMA-RARalpha-mediated leukemogenesis; and where cooperating events may cooperate with X-RARalpha in disease progression. We further identify a potential role for the sequestration of cellular proteins away from their sites of action by NuMA-RARalpha. We demonstrated that NuMA-RARalpha caused the development of a murine myeloproliferative disease-like myeloid leukemia, with promyelocytic features, similar to the human disease. This disease was evident by 4.5 months of age. Mice with low transgene copy number exhibited a greater extent of gene deregulation and nuclear localization of NuMA-RARalpha, while mice with high copy number exhibited cytoplasmic localization of the fusion and a lesser extent of gene deregulation. We also found that NuMA-RARalpha deregulated the expression of a large set of non-retinoid signaling genes involved in transcriptional regulation, signal transduction, apoptosis and the cell cycle. These genes and pathways may thus function as NuMA-RARalpha-dependent cooperating events in APL. Upon investigating the involvement of retinoid X receptor alpha (RXRalpha) in APL, we found that functional RXRalpha was required for leukemia development in mice, and that RXRalpha was important in NuMA-RARalpha-mediated transcriptional repression. Finally, we observed that both the RXRalpha and nucleophosmin were delocalized in the presence of NuMA-RARalpha. With respect to NPM, this delocalization to the cytoplasm was evident in the presence of 4 APL fusion proteins, and suggests a universal role for the deregulation of NPM in APL, and that this leukemia may not be just a transcriptional disease. We also demonstrated that the tumour suppressor ARF, which physically interacts with NPM in the nucleolus and is involved in the DNA damage response, is also deregulated by X-RARalpha. We are currently investigating the consequences of this sequestration of NPM to the cytoplasm in the APL cell. Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a model system for elucidating the role of aberrant transcriptional regulation in cancer, and for the use of differentiation agents in cancer therapy. APL is associated with chromosomal translocations involving the retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARalpha) gene; the X-RARalpha translocation products encode abnormal transcriptional repressors, thought to block neutrophil differentiation and cause leukemia. Our group characterized the variant fusion NuMA-RARalpha, and is engaged in understanding the role each X-RARalpha has in APL pathogenesis. The goals of this project were to elucidate the phenotype of the hCG-NuMA-RARalpha transgenic mouse model, and to utilize this transgenic line in clarifying the need for cooperating events in APL, as well as for identifying downstream genetic targets of NuMA-RARalpha.
Distributed diagnosis for discrete-event systems

In this thesis we propose a general framework for distributed diagnosis. Each diagnosis instance consists of two phases: local estimation, and inter-component communication for consistency. For the latter phase we introduce the concepts of supremal global support (for global consistency) and supremal local support (for local consistency). We provide a computational procedure CPGC for achieving supremal global support, and CPLC for supremal local support. The two supremal supports lead to distinct distributed diagnosis problems. It turns out that supremal global support results in better quality of diagnosis in the sense that fewer fault candidates are reported in each diagnosis instance; but supremal local support results in a computational procedure that is better scalable as long as it can terminate. In practice the two supremal supports may be combined for a satisfactory tradeoff between quality of diagnosis and scalability of the diagnoser. To reduce time complexity of CPGC, we propose a hierarchical computational procedure, utilizing multi-resolution diagnosis. Although high-level abstract models for hierarchical computation need extra memory, our numerical results show that the overall space complexity as measured by memory usage in storing both the models and the intermediate computational results is no worse (and in some cases better) than the space complexity in our non-hierarchical approaches. Finally, we explain how to use probabilistic reasoning to reduce diagnostic ambiguity without inserting extra sensors.
Implementation of fast transient response digital controllers for high frequency switch-mode power supplies

The purpose of this thesis is to develop implementations of digital controllers for switch mode power supplies providing fast transient response, superior to that of existing solutions, both analog and digital. The targeted applications are Point-of-Load converters supplying modern digital circuits. An on-chip implementation of a previously described continuous-time algorithm is presented. The operation of this continuous-time digital controller (CT-DC) is verified through simulations and also through experimental testing of the fabricated integrated circuit. The CT-DC is then extended to include a novel auto-tuning algorithm, which is capable of extracting power stage parameters simply by observing the CT-DC's transient performance. The operation of this algorithm is verified through simulations. Finally, a novel modified converter topology for improving heavy-to-light load transient performance, where the CT-DC offers only marginal improvement compared to existing solutions, is presented and verified experimentally.