VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Subversion, seduction, and the culture of consumption, the American gothic revisited in the work of Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Anne Rice

This study revisits the American gothic through an examination of the work of Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Anne Rice. My analysis engages the underlying currents that define American culture as one of consumption, currents brought to the surface in Morrison's, Oates's, and Rice's revisioning of canonical works within and outside the gothic genre. The direction of this inquiry attempts to historicize a genre whose socio-economic implications have been dressed/repressed in the form of gothic décor. Drawing upon the work of Jacques Lacan and Jean Baudrillard, this investigation traces a history of social and cultural experience conducted at the level of the commodity-form wherein subjectivity has emerged as contingent on commodity signs: through the historical ownership of plantation and slaves, through dispossession as a consequence of race and gender, through a subversion of relationships into an economics of reproduction, and finally, through a subversion of ontological certainty that destabilizes the concept of subjectivity itself. Revisioning and repositioning the texts of Hawthorne, Poe, James, and Faulkner through the prism of the contemporary gothic is simultaneously subversive and complicit. The subversive tendencies of Morrison, Oates, and Rice grow from a preoccupation with the seductive, on one level out of step in the context of a frontier psyche where the productive and quantifiable are the guarantors of survival and success. However, within modern capitalism, the co-optation of the seductive is aligned with the gratification that marks material consumption. The seductive in the contemporary gothic underscores the uncertainty and dislocation of the self, the true terror of existence manifested in the touchstones of a commodified culture. In essence, this study situates the American gothic within an economic context in which the genre paradoxically both reproduces and resists the ideology in which it is inscribed.
Science and social context, the regulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) in the United States and Canada, 1982-1998

This dissertation explores the relationship between science and public policy in the case of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), a genetically-engineered drug which increases milk yield in cows. The product was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 1993; it has not been approved in Canada. In both countries, the debate over the product's safety has been intensely controversial. The dissertation argues that problems in the relationship between science and policy arise at the point when judgements are made about the scientific evidence. Although there was agreement about the scientific evidence across institutions, the interpretation of that evidence diverged depending on the context from which it was viewed. The dissertation uses Helen Longino's concept of contextual empiricism to explain the varying outcomes in different settings. Scientists' conception of the kind of evidence required to make a judgement about product safety, and their interpretation of that evidence, was guided by the background assumptions they brought to it. These assumptions were context-dependent, however, with the result that policy responses differed between the U.S. and Canada, and the assumptions themselves were the subject of conflict in both countries. The difference in the U.S./Canadian response is the most obvious example of a contrast in the assessment of the drug's introduction. The dissertation also examines differing interpretations between the academic, corporate, and regulatory settings in order to elucidate the science and policy relationship. The dissertation contributes to the literature on science and public policy by examining the process by which scientists make sense of empirical evidence. It argues for the relevance of the concept of contextual empiricism for understanding the science-policy relationship. It has attempted a theoretical synthesis, drawing on concepts from the history and philosophy of science and political economy to better understand this relationship. The concept of contextual empiricism accounts for both the degree of consensus about the evidence, and the degree of divergence in its interpretation, between institutions and jurisdictions.

Keywords: Recombinant bovine somatotropin
Government policy
Recombinant bovine somatotropin
Government policy
Science and state
Case studies
Science and state
Case studies
Somatotrophine bovine recombinante
Politique gouvernementale
Somatotrophine bovine recombinante
Politique gouvernmentale
Politique scientifique et technique
Cas, Études de
Politique scientifique et technique
Cas, Études de
The quadrilateral relation and line tension measurements in liquid-liquid-fluid systems

The concept of line tension arises as a natural and necessary extension of the requirements of a fundamental equation when applied to systems with multiphase boundary curves. Despite being a well-defined thermodynamic quantity, line tension had not been quantified satisfactorily. The major problems associated with previous experiments are: (i) the chosen three-phase contact line systems in which necessary contact angles can be readily measured are often complicated, leading to difficulties in experimental control; (ii) the theoretical models used in data analysis are not straightforward, resulting in significant errors in line tension calculation. In view of these difficulties study of the simplest possible configuration of three-phase contact line systems, i.e., a liquid lens, was chosen. To find a straightforward correlation between line tension and measurable quantities, the contact line Quadrilateral Relation was first developed, which is a generalization of the classical Neumann triangle relation including line tension effects. The Relation is derived using the minimum free energy principle, and the result is graphically represented by a quadrilateral whose four sides are three surface tensions and a line tension term. From this graphical representation, it is easy to derive various forms of the Quadrilateral Relation and to evaluate which form(s) would be appropriate for a particular experimental situation. For liquid lens systems, the line tension can be expressed as a function of three surface tensions, diameter of the lens, and two angles at the contact line. The experimental procedure developed consists of (i) image acquisition (to obtain the cross-sectional image of liquid lenses), (ii) image analysis (to perform edge detection and extract the coordinates of the lens profile), and (iii) numerical analysis (to compute experimental data and generate line tension values according to the properly formulated theoretical expression). For four alkane-water-air systems (hexadecane, tetradecane, dodecane, and decane), the line tension is found to be negative and of the order of 10 -6 J/m. This result is confirmed by both static and dynamic measurements. Furthermore, the absolute value of the line tension is found to increase with increasing hydrocarbon chain-length.
A continuous field of projectionless C*-algebras

In this paper we shall use the fact that a certain family of crossed products of the Cuntz algebra by the reals form a continuous field, along with a careful analysis of some of the fibres, to show that many of the other members that are difficult to analyse directly are inductive limits of pullbacks of finite direct sums of matrix algebras over the continuous functions on the unit interval by finite dimensional 'C'*-algebras.
Population divergence in European chaffinches

Sequences from the 5' end of the control region of 190 chaffinches in 19 population samples from north Africa and Europe have a coalescence time of 670,000 ybp which is also the age of the oldest population in the Tunisian locality of Nefza. About 360,000 ybp an expansion of the Tunisian stock occurred and established populations in Morocco and in regions of southern Europe bordering the northern coast of the Mediterranean. Northern Europe was colonized by chaffinches from populations in all of these refugial areas in southern Europe and north Africa (except Tunisia) in the last 20,000 years. Analysis of the distributions of culturally transmitted memes in songs supported the above conclusion that northern Europe was colonized by birds from source populations in Iberia, Italy and Greece. Longer memes suggest that migration between populations in northern and southern Europe is low, also supporting inferences from the DNA sequences.
The discharge information needs of adults with incisions healing by secondary intention

A descriptive correlational design was used to assess the discharge information needs of 10 female and 11 male subjects with open postoperative incisions, 48 hours prior to hospital discharge. In addition, the relationship between discharge information needs and postoperative fatigue was examined. Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) theory of stress, appraisal and coping provided the framework for the study. Discharge information needs were measured using The Patient Learning Needs Scale (PLNS) and fatigue by the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI). The findings indicated that discharge information needs were high and females had significantly higher information needs than males. Specific information about complications and symptoms was rated by subjects as most important to know before hospital discharge. No relationship was found between discharge information needs and fatigue. Implications for nursing practice, theory and research were examined.
A Chaucerian narratology, Storie and tale in Chaucer's narrative practice

Taking as its starting point Wittgenstein's dictum "the meaning of a word is its use in the language," this thesis contains an examination of the use of 'storie' and 'tale' in the whole corpus of Chaucer's works, what these words mean in that corpus and what working theory of narrative may arise from his use of these words. Using TACT (' Text Analysis Computing Tools') in a computer-aided text analysis, I look primarily at the context of words within which 'storie' and 'tale' occur, i.e. their. collocations, and what these collocations tell us about their meaning. An extensive appendix contains tables and figures showing the collocations of 'storie' and 'tale.' I adapted these tables and figures from data generated by 'TACT'. In this thesis I show that Chaucer uses 'storie' and 'tale' quite differently. 'Storie' tends to attract time words and names pointing either to existents within its diegetic world or to the past. 'Tale' tends to attract those pointing both to the external world of the narrator and to the present. 'Storie' is the agent of verbs of discourse as often as it is their patient. 'Tale' is never the agent of such verbs. In the case of 'tellen,' stories tell more often than they are told; tales are always told. When 'storie' occurs in phrases with a possessive pronoun, the pronoun is always in the objective genitive. When 'tale' is in similar circumstances, the pronoun is always in the subjective genitive. In the former case the antecedent of the pronoun is 'storied,' in the latter it 'tales.' 'Storie' tends to rhyme with words recalling the courtly and clerkly; 'tale' tends to rhyme with those recalling the common and quotidian. 'Storie' occurs in contexts foregrounding public memory, authority and the forces of history, 'tale' in those foregrounding private subjectivity and the assertions of the individual. These suggest that while readers of Chaucer should resist the temptation to regard 'storie' and 'tale' as being in all cases strictly analogous to "story" and "discourse" in the narratological sense, they may do well to prefer these senses to traditional, genre-based senses.
Lessons learned, change initiatives in two Canadian universities

The study was undertaken to determine how two Canadian universities are responding to the internal and external environmental conditions driving change in organizational governance and planning. Case studies were conducted at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The University of Calgary's transformational activities are shown to be consistent with the values and principles of continuous quality improvement (Deming, 1986). in particular the activities of strategic quality (Juran, 1989). McMaster University's change initiatives are consistent with traditional strategic planning activities. Lessons learned concerning institution-wide change initiatives in these two Canadian university settings are outlined and discussed within the following areas: creating the case for change, using a common language, working from a theoretical framework, developing plans and strategies, instituting teamwork, encouraging organization-wide learning, restructuring the university as a cultural democracy, and engaging in principle-centered leadership. Suggested areas for future research are outlined.
On supporting quality of service over the Internet

The emergence of real-time applications has underscored the need to provide some forms of service quality in the Internet. Current discussions on quality of services (QoS), however, embrace different approaches and lack a unified definition. Until now, it is still questionable whether ubiquitous end-to-end QoS is possible in the Internet as its decentralised nature does not lend itself easily to implement homogeneous mechanisms for traffic differentiation. This thesis presents methods of delivering QoS in the Internet. It focuses on two main rudiments of QoS recently proposed by the IETF community: Integrated Services (Int-Serv) and Differentiated Services (Diff-Serv). In addition, it addresses several important issues which arise from supporting these QoS models over the Internet. For the Int-Serv model, the thesis proposes a fusion model that efficiently integrates the Int- Serv and RSVP into ATM. The architectural design, prototype implementation and experimental evaluation on the system performance are discussed. The results demonstrate an operational environment that efficiently facilitate the delivery of video over RTP/UDP/Int-Serv-IP/ATM. Furthermore, the thesis discusses a number of problems in supporting QoS given two unique characteristics of IP multicast: heterogeneity and any-point-to-any-point connectivity. Novel mechanisms, such as token forwarding and VC-merge capable scheduling, are developed. These mechanisms complement the design of a common ATM switch in the support of both multicast and scalability. Performance analysis of these mechanisms is also presented. For Diff-Serv, the thesis proposes a general feedback control extension to the current Diff-Serv framework. Based on this extension, an intra-domain flow control algorithm tailored for the network layer is developed. Our simulation analysis shows that the overall feedback controlled Diff-Serv can offer a significant improvement in resource sharing and utilisation. To justify the importance of this mechanism, the thesis also reviews the performance results and the trade-offs in terms of protocol overhead and complexity of the mechanism. While this thesis has addressed some of the important issues and provided several solutions, delivering QoS in the Internet involves many aspects of network design. The results presented in this thesis will serve as an important step towards better understanding of issues related to the support QoS over the Internet.
La dualité dans l'oeuvre de Jacques Poulin

Ancrée sur le concept de la dualité, cette étude a pour objectif de mettre en lumière les divers mécanismes textuels des romans de Jacques Poulin qui remettent en cause le binarisme cognitif et établissent une structure des deux dans l'un. La dualité poulinienne se présente sous diverses formes, la principale étant celle de l'androgénéité des personnages. Cette caractéristique sert donc comme point de départ pour l'étude de l'oeuvre. Après une mise au point de l'androgénéité, une analyse synchronique et diachronique des romans trace l'évolution de ce phénomène et démontre comment les personnages pouliniens dépassent l'antithèse essentielle du masculin/féminin. L'étude des autres romans révèle que la dualité déborde le niveau des personnages pour s'inscrire dans d'autres lieux signifiants. À partir des travaux de Ricoeur et de Jakobson, certaines métaphores filées des quatre premiers romans de Poulin (' Mon cheval pour un royaume', 'Le coeur de la baleine bleue ', 'Jimmy' et 'Faites de beaux rêves') sont considérées comme lieux de dialectique (symbiotique, synthétique ou conflictuelle) entre l' "être" et le "ne pas être" Ensuite, les quatre derniers romans sont analysés dans des chapitres individuels. Dans 'Les grandes marées', la traduction (interlinguale et intralinguale) se prête comme structure de rencontre entre deux langues ou deux langages. L'étude de 'Volkswagen blues' combine les théories de Lotman sur l'espace avec des perspectives sociocritiques de Languirand et de Ricard pour démontrer comment le voyage américain constitue une ouverture à l'Autre et une perte de l'homogénéité culturelle des personnages québécois. Dans 'Le vieux Chagrin', la dualité se manifeste par le truchement du brouillage, dans un premier temps sur le plan de l'identité des personnages et, dans un deuxième temps, à travers le dépassement de frontières diégétiques. Et enfin, dans 'La tournée d'automne', les intertextes et les intratextes sont considérés en tant que structures dialectiques. La conclusion aborde de nouveau le concept de la dualité, et surtout son évolution dans les romans de Poulin. Est discutée aussi la pertinence de cette dualité dans une oeuvre marquée par certains mouvements esthétiques et sociaux contemporains tels que le féminisme, le postmodernisme et les changements culturels de la révolution tranquille au Québec.

Keywords: Androgynie dans la littérature
Androgyny in literature
Ethnic identity and self-esteem in Native adolescents

This study's purpose was to examine connections between ethnic identity and self-esteem in Native adolescents. A three-factor model of ethnic identity included (a) Native identification, a subjective sense of commitment to Native culture, (b) Anglo, identification, an analogous sense of belonging to the dominant culture, and (c) group-esteem, evaluative appraisals of one's heritage ethnic group. Self-esteem was operationalized with measures of global self-esteem, academic self-concept, and social self-concept. Participants were 164 Native and 150 Anglo grades 10 and 11 students attending a high school in the US Southwest. Confirmatory Factor Analyses and mixed ANOVAs assessed the cross-cultural applicability of study measures. Hierarchical regression was used to evaluate four specific hypotheses. Overall, Native youth had lower self-esteem than Anglo adolescents, but the difference depended on the facet of self-esteem. It was largest for academic self-concept. For global self-esteem the difference was close to statistical significance. No difference was apparent for social self-concept. Hypothesis 1, that Native youths' level of Native identification would be positively associated with self-esteem was not supported. The second hypothesis, that Native youths' level of Anglo identification would be positively associated with their self-esteem, was supported by positive associations between Anglo, identification and both academic and social self-concept. A third hypothesis that predicted a positive association between Native adolescents' group-esteem and self-esteem was supported by positive associations between group-esteem and each measure of self-esteem. The fourth hypothesis implied that association between group-esteem and self-esteem would grow stronger as Native identification increased, but results revealed that as Native identification increased, the association between group-esteem and self-esteem became weaker. The results are discussed considering three theoretical frameworks that inspired the hypotheses (i.e., identity theory; symbolic interactionism; and, a Jamesian account of self-esteem). None of the frameworks accounted for the overall pattern of associations between the three-factors of the model and self-esteem. An alternative interpretation is presented, emphasizing the importance of minority group status as an influence on Native young peoples' self-esteem. The limitations of the study are explored, along with their implications for future theorizing and research in this area. Implications for prevention programs aimed at Native youth are discussed.
Development of an in situ photopolymerizable fixative for a novel keratoprosthesis

For patients with opaque corneas that can not be treated with corneal transplants, keratoprostheses represent a moderately successful alternative. Current designs tend to fail after several months due to complications such as: poor mechanical strength, inadequate integration of the device with surrounding tissue, and poor nutrition of the anterior cornea due to compromised stromal permeability. This thesis presents initial development and evaluation of a covalently crosslinked keratoprosthesis fixative that is injected into the stroma and polymerized 'in situ'. A series of PEG-'co'-PVP crosslinked hydrogels, synthesized from solutions of varying composition, were characterized by their swelling behaviour, permeability, and mechanical strength. Crosslinked networks of this polymer, formed within bovine corneas, were investigated to determine their extent of interaction with stromal collagen and the mechanical properties of the resultant interpenetrating network. Histological examination of 'in situ' polymerized networks indicated moderate interdigitation between polymer and stromal collagen fibrils. Permeation trials demonstrated that the PEG-'co'-PVP hydrogel disks had adequate permeability for stromal implantation. Tensile testing of 'in situ' networks showed failure at relatively low stresses. Samples did not fail at the stroma-polymer interface, which is encouraging. The mechanical strength of this keratoprosthesis fixative model must be improved prior to implementation. This may require further characterization of hydrogels of different composition, or use of a bifunctional macromer of lower molecular weight.
Analysis of heart sounds and murmurs by digital signal manipulation

This thesis involves the development and preliminary testing of a device for the collection and analysis of heart sounds, with a specific focus on heart murmurs. The device was based on a PC and was programmed using the National Instruments LabVIEW programming language. Modularity and ease of development and distribution were facilitated through this choice of apparatus. The first instrument which was programmed was the Heart Sound Simulator. This was originally developed as a signal source for the testing of the subsequent modules of the program. However, the opportunity to use it as a teaching tool was also recognized, giving this instrument a dual purpose. The heart sound analysis routines begin with data acquisition, for which an existing module was adapted. A Selective Auscultation instrument was programmed to add flexibility to the standard physician's auscultation process. Frequency content estimation of heart sounds and murmurs was facilitated through a Spectral Analysis module. Finally, research into murmur sound isolation was made in the programming of the Signal Subtraction module. Program validation was done using the Heart Sound Simulator, normal, non-pathologic data and pathological data. Results were encouraging, especially with the data manipulation modules. Further developments may be done to improve the performance of the spectral analysis module. Finally, the murmur isolation routine gave some positive indications, but further work is necessary for producing a robust instrument.