VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Buller men and batty bwoys, hidden men in Toronto and Halifax Black communities

This thesis was born of my desire to put forward a critical analysis of racialized heterosexism within Black diasporic communities. Central to this project is an elaboration of how such heterosexism is manifest as a form of bio-nationalism that is fundamental to many contemporary discourses of Black identity. The dual starting points of this analysis are the recent scholarly work theorizing the politics and socially transformative possibilities of Black same-sex practices [particularly in the work of Lorde, Mercer and Riggs] and my own experience growing up in Trinidad and living in Canada as a "buller man", one who is communally identified [and publicly embraces this identification] as participating in male same-sex practices. With a framework developed on this double basis, I then present a detailed study of 19 Black men who participate in same-sex practices on a variety of terms and with various degrees of family and community awareness of their desires and experiences. These interviews provide a unique perspective on an until now, hidden dimension of Black communal life in Canada. Stressed in the analysis of these interviews is how these men negotiate the structure of heterosexist and homophobic domination that define the circumstances of their lives in the Black communities of Toronto and Halifax. This domination is also traced to the discourses of Black nationalism and the Black church. I argue that this dominance enacts a regressive form of "bio-nationalism" which legitimates a regulatory politic that effectively excludes Black same-sexed men from membership in Black diasporic communities. I conclude with a consideration of the transformative vision for a Black communal consciousness that would embrace all its members. The findings in this dissertation highlight several educational, communicative and pedagogic issues for the contemporary educator to articulate a broader definition of Black nationalism, Black history and Black consciousness in Euro-Canadian/American contexts.
The study of defects in low misfit GE-SI strained layer heterostructures

In order to study the defect structures in strained layer superlattices, a series of Ge$\rm\sb{x}Si\rm\sb{1-x}$/Si (100) ($0.09 < \times < 0.13$) heterostructures were grown by ultrahigh vacuum chemical vapour deposition (UHV-CVD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) methods. Activation energies were determined to be consistent with the widely accepted values ($\rm Q\sb{n} = 2.5 \pm 0.5$ eV and $\rm Q\sb{r} = 4.2 \pm 0.5$ eV for nucleation of misfit dislocations and overall strain relaxation, respectively). The low-temperature MBE growths yielded $\rm Q\rm\sb{n} = 0.5 \pm 0.05$ eV and $\rm Q\sb{r} = 2.0 \pm 0.5$ eV for nucleation and overall strain relaxation, respectively. Samples implanted with Si ions displayed significant decreases in nucleation rate and misfit dislocation densities. Based on the quantitative study conducted on Ge$\rm\sb{x}Si\rm\sb{1-x}$/Si heterostructures, it has been demonstrated that the onset of strain relaxation via misfit dislocations can be controlled by point defect injection via ion implantation.
Factors that influence variability in nursing workload in a post-anaesthetic care setting

This exploratory study was conducted to examine the environmental factors that cause shifts in nurse resource use in an acute care PACU setting. The goal of the study was to determine the degree to which environment-specific factors influenced variability in nursing workload and length of stay. A descriptive, correlational design was used. Qualitative data was collected on full-time and part-time nurses for a period of thirteen days. Quantitative data was collected on 2031 post surgical, anaesthetic care patients over a period of 60 day and evening shifts. Results indicated that environmental factors were moderately to extremely important in influencing the perceived day to day variability in nursing resource use. A moderate association between unit factor categories and direct care workload was found. Overall 34% of the observed variation in total hours of daily direct nursing workload, and 11% of the observed variation in LOS was explained by the model. This suggests that a significant amount of the variability in nursing resource intensity can be explained by environmental complexity.
Bootstrap for dual scaling of rankings

The purpose of this study is to implement bootstrap procedures to estimate confidence intervals for the inertias and optimal weights obtained from dual scaling of rank order data, and to study the performance of the bootstrap procedure through a Monte Carlo experiment. The implementation part focuses on three problems: the geometrical explanation of the dual scaling of rank order data, the indeterminacy of the dual scaling results, and the outlying bootstrap cases. In the experiment, data were generated by Xu's multi-stage ranking model. There were three populations, each consisting of 3,000 rankings, with varying degrees of rank correlation. For each population, three groups of random samples were drawn, each consisting of 30 equal sized samples, using sample size 100, 200, and 300, respectively, thus generating nine experimental cells of the crossed design. For each sample, two methods, the percentile method and the bias-corrected percentile method, were used to estimate confidence intervals. The design of the study, therefore, contains three factors: ranking correlation (3 levels), sample size (3 levels) and the confidence interval method (2 levels). The experimental result shows that the coverage and the size of the confidence interval are acceptable; the rank correlation and the sample size show the expected effect; and the difference between the two confidence interval methods is not significant. The implications of these findings were discussed and a real example of the GRE rank order data was used to show useful aspects of the bootstrap procedure.
Solemn commitments, fiduciary obligations, treaty relationships and the foundational principles of crown-native relations in Canada

This dissertation constructs an alternative framework for the resolution of aboriginal and treaty rights issues in Canadian aboriginal rights jurisprudence. It argues that judicial analyses of aboriginal and treaty rights are premised upon incorrect assumptions about the nature of Crown-Native relations. These incorrect assumptions have resulted in the improper compartmentalisation of aboriginal and treaty rights and, in turn, led to their marginalisation. The primary goal of the dissertation is to foster a more reasoned and integrated method of analysis by regarding aboriginal and treaty rights in a suitable, culturally-appropriate context. This entails accounting for the unique, or 'sui generis', nature of those rights and integrating individual rights with each other and the larger context of Crown-aboriginal relations. Many of the principles that underlie the basis of contemporary aboriginal rights jurisprudence will also be examined. It will been maintained that the parties' interaction during the formative years of their relationship was guided by the foundational principles of peace, friendship, and respect. These principles were enshrined in the first formal treaty between the groups. Although Crown-Native relations have changed in many ways since that time, this work contends that these principles should continue to inform contemporary Crown-Native relations and the legal implications that stem therefrom. These foundational principles serve as the basis for the unified, contextual, and culturally-appropriate understanding of aboriginal and treaty rights suggested. The dissertation is divided into four parts. Part I examines the formative years of Crown-aboriginal relations in North America, from the time of initial contact between Britain and the aboriginal peoples until the period shortly after the conquest of New France. Part II concentrates on the Crown-Native fiduciary relationship that was created during these formative years and the implications of those relations for the parties involved. The third Part of the dissertation is concerned with Crown-Native treaty relations. The concluding Part discusses the nexus between Crown-Native fiduciary and treaty relations to illustrate the inter relatedness of aboriginal and treaty rights issues underlying the theory proposed.
Nurse practitioners' role satisfaction

The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative survey research was to investigate the perceptions of nurse practitioners (NPs) in relation to role satisfaction and the supports they perceive as required for future role development. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten subjects drawn from the mailing list of the Nurse Practitioners' Association of Ontario (NPAO). The works of Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman (1959) and Herzberg (1966) were employed as the theoretical framework for this study. The current findings support, in general, their findings although some contrasts were noted. Factors which the NPs find as currently satisfying with the NP role are: challenge of the role; autonomy/independence/flexibility of the role; client satisfaction/patient acceptance; variety of clientele and clinical situations; collaborative practice/collegial relationship with physicians; physician respect for and acceptance of the NP role; being a NP is their number one career choice; advanced scope of practice/advanced knowledge and decision-making; working within a team/multidisciplinary team environment; community support during emergencies in isolated geographical areas; supportive management and nursing staff; holistic approach to client care; being mentored by a NP; minimal shift work and working with ethnically diverse populations. Factors which the NPs identified as currently dissatisying dissatisfying with the NP role are: lack of employment opportunities/job security; lack of legislation to support the NP role; lack of physician understanding of and support of the NP role; lack of public understanding of the role; lack of titling/consistency in titling/titling protection; role dissention between NPs and other nurses; isolation/burnout/personal adjustments/lack of support related to employment in remote communities; salary; lack of collegial relationship with physicians; physician availability influencing NP utilization; lack of time to complete special work-related projects and the physical setting of the work environment. Areas which the NPs perceive as requirements to support future role development are: public, physician, other health care professionals and nursing education around the NP role; legislation to support the NP role; employment opportunities; reciprocity of the NP role across Canada; need for a funding/billing mechanism to support NPs; need for standardization around titling and entry to practice/protection of the NP title; NPs need continuing education support, pension plans and benefit plans; review proposed legislation in the future for different NP roles and future scope of practice of NPs; need for visitation rights to see clients in hospitals/access to client records and the need for malpractice insurance. Additional findings not related to the research questions were also found.
Recombinant immunotargeting antigen, antibody fusions in vaccine design

Synthetic peptide vaccines offer the potential to elicit epitope-specific immune responses to the desired pathogen, without the normally attendant risk of infection or toxic side-effects possible with attenuated or inactivated whole organism vaccines. It is possible to choose the epitopes included in a synthetic peptide vaccine such that the immune response is focused on neutralizing epitopes, and epitopes which are not highly variable between viral strains. Thus, synthetic peptide vaccines have distinct advantages over current vaccine design approaches. However, the successful development of synthetic peptide vaccines has been hampered by two problems: first, synthetic peptides are poorly immunogenic; second, antibodies directed against synthetic peptide antigens often do not cross-react with the intact protein from which the peptide was derived, due to poor conformational mimicry. Immunotargeting, in which a protein or peptide antigen is coupled to an antibody specific for cell surface molecules on professional antigen presenting cells, has been shown to be an effective way to induce adjuvant-independent antibody responses. In order to circumvent the shortcomings of synthetic peptide vaccine approaches, while taking advantage of their favourable characteristics, a new approach to vaccine design was investigated. Recombinant immunotargeting antibody immunogens were created, in which a viral peptide antigen was inserted into the antibody structure. Furthermore, the viral epitopes were in some instances inserted into loop regions of the antibody, in an attempt to retain the conformational characteristics of the viral epitope. Studies using the influenza virus hemagglutinin A-loop epitope, a conformationally restricted B cell epitope, showed that it is possible to elicit conformation-specific antibody responses by inserting the epitope into a loop region of the antibody. This conformational epitope insertion approach was subsequently extended to other epitopes from HIV-1. Recombinant antibodies containing these epitopes were shown to be capable of eliciting high-titre anti-envelope HIV-1 responses. Furthermore, the loop insertions were engineered into a VH framework region such that the immunotargeting capability of the recombinant antibody was preserved. In addition to the above constructs, recombinant immunotargeting antibodies were constructed which possessed the potential to mediate immunotargeting to MHC class II molecules in outbred populations of many different species, using a pan-specific anti-HLA-DR antibody called 44H10. HIV-1 combined T-B epitopes were fused onto the carboxy termini of the 44H10 heavy and light chains, and the resulting immunogens induced strong anti-HIV-1 gp160 responses in both rabbits and macaque monkeys. Thus, the recombinant immunotargeting antibody approach to adjuvant-free immunization holds considerable promise as a new vaccine design option. Implications of this work are discussed.
The effects of a short period of hypoxia on the ventilatory respone to carbon dioxide

In the present study, a modified rebreathing technique was used to charactenze the ventilatory response to carbon dioxide before and after exposure to either 20 minutes of room air or hypoxia. The parametsrs measured included basal ventilation (Vb); the peripheral chemoreflex CO$\sb2$ threshold (Sp); the sensitivity of the peripheral chemoreflex to CO$\sb2$ (Sp); the central chemoreflex CO$\sb2$ threshold (Tc); the sensitivity of the central chemoreflex to CO$\sb2$(Sc) and the rate of rise of CO$\sb2$ due to subject metabolism (M). After room air esposure, none of Vb; Tp; Sp; Tc; Sc or M were significantly different than before. After exposure to hypoxia, however, neither Vb; Tp; Sp; Tc nor Sc were statistically different, but M was significantly lower than before. It is being suggested that this depression in metabolic rate induced by hypoxia may play a rols in the manifestation of hypoxic ventilatory decline.
The efficient hybrid bootstrap estimator, exploiting unbiasedness of Monte Carlo and efficiency of symbolic computation

The bootstrap is a computational method of statistical inference. The efficient calculation of bootstrap estimates using both of symbolic computation and Monte Carlo estimation is discussed. The method is applied to M-estimators and smooth functions of these. These statistics can be approximated as power series in 'n' -1/2. These series expansions permit the symbolic calculation of bootstrap expectations. The finite approximation of the given M-estimator is used as a control function, and the bootstrap estimate associated with it is calculated analytically using symbolic computation. The remainder is estimated using the standard bootstrap Monte Carlo method. Typically, the variance of this hybrid estimator is much smaller than that of the conventional bootstrap Monte Carlo estimator. The method is applied to the bootstrap estimation of moments, cumulants, and tail areas. In particular, the analytic component of the tail area is computed using a saddlepoint approximation. Symbolic computation is the main tool for the computation of the series approximation of the statistic to any specific order and for the analytic bootstrap computation associated with it. This method generalizes the use of linear control functions in bootstrap variance estimation by Davison, Hinkley, and Schechtman [1986] and Efron [1990].
The lived experience of spirituality and healing among persons with life-threatening cancer, making it real

The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experience of spirituality and healing among five persons with life threatening cancer, who actively worked to develop their spiritual awareness in a group psychotherapy program. A hermeneutic phenomenological model of qualitative research was used to investigate the experience from the perspective of the participants. The objective was to capture a 'thick' description of the experience and the meaning the participants attributed to it. Each participant collaborated in the construction of a personal narrative reflecting his or her individual experience. The collective experience was described in a text based on a thematic analysis of the common and unique themes which emerged from two open ended interviews with each participant. For the five participants, spirituality meant opening up to their inner self and connecting with something larger. Healing was experienced as a letting go and an opening up process. Letting go meant relinquishing longstanding patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that stood in the way of spiritual growth and opening up referred to the sense of expansiveness and healing that was achieved through practising forgiveness, acceptance and trust and engaging in spiritual practices. The spiritual self felt different. Participants experienced greater comfort and easiness with themselves and with others and a new sense of peacefulness. A stronger sense of meaning and purpose emerged from self exploration, new clarity about what was important in life and a sense of connection with a higher power. Developing spiritually was described as hard work, requiring extensive personal investment and commitment to make it meaningful. Group participation offered the structure, direction and fellowship that fostered this kind of commitment. Critical to motivating and sustaining spiritual development was finding personal meaning or "feeling right" about the process. 'Making it real' referred to the way the participants lived, felt and personalized their spiritual awareness to make it meaningful and powerful for themselves.
Can computers do what humans do?, a comparison between artificial intelligence and human intelligence

Is there a distinction between knowledge humans can acquire and/or generate and knowledge computers can acquire and/or generate? Unless taken in a metaphorical sense, in any contention about computers' "intelligence" there is an underlying assumption that computers somehow have "mind". The question is: what is the mind? We have to know what the (nature of) mind is before attributing intelligence to computing machines. That is why I will briefly try to examine the (im)possibility of knowing the nature of mind. Furthermore I will attempt to answer the question of whether computers or any other artifact can acquire and/or generate knowledge the way(s) humans do. This will be done by comparing and contrasting human problem capabilities and those of computers. In the end, I will try to emphasize that social interaction plays a significant role in the formation of the mind and the development of intelligence.
Protein-protein interactions and protein phosphatase activity in Caenorhabditis elegans sex determination

Male sexual development in the nematode 'Caenorhabditis elegans ' requires the activities of the genes 'fem-1, fem-2' and 'fem-3'. Genetic and molecular analyses of sex determination suggest that the three 'fem' genes act to link a secreted, masculinizing signal to the regulation of transcription, but the mechanism by which they act is not yet understood. I report the sequence changes in several loss-of-function alleles of 'fem-1'. Interestingly, 4 temperature-sensitive 'fem-1' alleles carry missense mutations which affect the ANK repeats in FEM-1. ANK repeats are protein domains that have been implicated in specific protein-protein interactions in a number of regulatory pathways. My results suggest the ANK repeats in FEM-1 are required for its normal role in promoting male development. In an effort to identify genes that encode products that physically interact with FEM-1, I selected suppressors of 'fem-1'('e2003ts '). 'fem-1'('e2003ts') carries a missense mutation within the first ANK repeat of FEM-1. I identified a novel class of 'fem-3'('gf') allele, 'idDp1'. ' idDp1' is a duplication and insertional translocation of at least two copies of 'fem-3' onto chromosome V. Both copies have rearrangements in their 3' UTR which presumably account for the gain-of-function phenotype 'idDp1' confers. To isolate cDNAs that encode products that interact with FEM-3, I used FEM-3 as bait in a yeast two-hybrid screen and isolated cDNA clones that encode products of two 'C. elegans' sex-determining genes, ' tra-2' and 'fem-2'. I report that FEM-3 physically associates with FEM-2, a member of the Type 2C serine/threonine phosphatase family, 'in vitro' and I demonstrated that FEM-2 exhibits Mg 2+-dependent protein phosphatase activity 'in vitro'. Point mutations that abolish the phosphatase activity of FEM-2 do not interfere with its ability to bind FEM-3, but they severely impair its ability to promote male development. My results present the first evidence of a protein-protein interaction between the FEM proteins, the first demonstration of the biochemical activity of any of the FEM proteins, and the first proof that the regulation of protein phosphorylation is important for sex determination in ' C. elegans'.
Metal losses, emissions of hazardous gases, and impurities removal from aluminum by chlorine fluxing

Secondary aluminum contains much more impurities such as magnesium, sodium, calcium, lithium, etc., than primary aluminum so that a metal cleaning process is needed in order to recycle it. For this purpose, "chlorine fluxing" is the most frequently employed technique. Such in-line treatment has some qualitative problems such as metal loss due to the formation of Al and Al-Mg droplets in salt fluxes during gas injection, emissions of hazardous gas, and impurities removal from metal. Hence, these problems were studied in four separate parts to reduce the adverse effects and improve the efficiency of the process. In Part I, metal loss due to the formation of Al and Al-Mg droplets in salt fluxes during gas injection was examined by studying the effects of oxidation of metal surface and contents of chlorine in gas mixtures. In Part II, bubbling in aluminum and Al-Mg alloys were compared based on the results obtained by measuring bubble frequency and bubble residence time. In Part III, the efficiency of NaCl-KCl capturing AlCl$\sb3$ was studied to reduce the hazardous gas emissions. In Part IV, the effect of MgCl$\sb2$ top salt addition on Na and Ca removal from Al-Mg alloys was examined by varying the concentration of MgCl$\sb2$ in salts. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)