VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
En/countering resistance to gender equity policy in educational organizations

This study explores the phenomenon of resistance to gender equity policy in the implementation process as it is experienced by gender equity agents within three Ontario boards of education. Using a critical hermeneutic conceptual framework, which is informed by feminist post-structural policy analysis, I draw connections between "ideologies, everyday practices, and official policies" (Reynolds, 1995, pp. 13-14) in the lived experience of three employment equity agents who work for boards of education in Ontario. First, three cumulative interviews were conducted with each equity agent as well as follow-up interviews with school board personnel who were identified by the equity workers as having a strong influence on the implementation process of gender equity employment policy. Second, an analysis of policy statements and minutes of stakeholder meetings that focused on the development and implementation of gender equity policy was conducted for each of the school boards. Third, after all the data were collected and themes for analysis were identified, a focus group was conducted with the equity workers in order to provide a collective forum for discussing experiences of resistance to gender equity that they had en/countered. During the data gathering for and writing of this dissertation, the formal responsibilities of each equity agent underwent considerable change as education policy in general and employment equity policy in particular was altered by changing political ideologies. The tapestry of discourses that emerges is woven by the movement of official and unofficial resistance and counter-resistance at locations of power between and among social actors in the governance structures of educational organizations in Ontario. The resulting narrative provides a re/presentation of the ways in which both individual and systemic resistance to gender equity employment policy may be expressed and the ways in which those who are seeking social change may en/counter resistance.
Transcriptional regulation of the endothelin A receptor, possible developmental and pathophysiological implications

Our laboratory has described two regulatory elements in the ETA promoter. Gel shift analysis revealed that a component of P19 cell nuclear extract binds to an ETA promoter fragment containing a putative AP-2 binding site. Using a firefly luciferase reporter gene system I have shown that AP-2 upregulates ETA promoter activity in a concentration-dependent manner. Decoy transfection of ETA (+86 [right arrow] +215) into A10 cells led to a 5-fold decrease in ETA mRNA expression. I also found that angiotensin II (AII) treatment of A10 cells led to a 1.9-fold increase in ETA mRNA expression. Furthermore, All treatment of A10 cells transfected with several ETA-firefly luciferase constructs led to a 1.3-1.8-fold increase in luciferase activity. These experiments demonstrate that both AP-2 and AII are able to upregulate ETA mRNA levels by activating one or several ETA regulatory elements.
Effect of harvesting time on the physical, chemical and pulping properties of hemp, Cannabis sativa L.

Excessive overuse of forests has led to environmental degradation, which deserves urgent attention, by switching to non-forest fiber resources where possible. Hemp, a non-woody plant, has long been considered as a potential fiber source substitute for the pulp and paper industry. The primary aim of this study is to assess the physical, chemical and pulping properties of hemp with respect to the harvesting time, in order to determine the optimal growth point for harvesting. Hemp stems were harvested in the field at the end of 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and 120 days, and analysis conducted using standard TAPPI procedures to measure their properties. The hemp fibers were seen to exhibit similar properties as woody fibers. The optimum time to harvest the crop was found to be between 60-90 days, in order to achieve low lignin concentration and high pulp yield, resulting in optimal mechanical properties of the paper produced.
Entamoeba histolytica and Entamoeba dispar, mechanisms of adherence and implications for virulence

In 1925, Emile Brumpt had proposed the existence of two morphologically identical species, 'Entamoeba histolytica' (a human pathogen) and 'Entamoeba dispar' (a non-pathogenic human commensal). Recent molecular and genetic evidence has supported the two-species concept. The pathogen relies on the galactose/'N'-Acetyl-D-galactosamine lectin for adherence that leads to contact-dependent cytolysis of host target cells, a key step in amebic virulence. Work presented here explores the structure, function, and expression of the lectin from 'E. histolytica' and 'E. dispar'. We hypothesized that molecular differences between the pathogenic and non-pathogenic lectin homologues would be instructive in understanding the differential role of each in colonization ('E. dispar') versus invasion ('E. histolytica'). To achieve this, a gene encoding the lectin in 'E. dispar' ('dhgl2 ') was cloned and sequenced. Homologous lectin message and protein levels in 'E. histolytica' and 'E. dispar' under axenic culture conditions were compared. A heterologous expression system (in COS 7 cells) was constructed to test anti-lectin monoclonal antibody reactivity for 'E. histolytica' and 'E. dispar' lectin homologues. Lectin protein, which was generated in COS7 cells, was used for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays in which antisera from patients infected with pathogen or non-pathogen were tested. Further experiments were also performed in order to localize the carbohydrate recognition domain(s) of the amebic lectin using a newly developed 'in vitro' assay. Taken together, evidence is presented supporting the view that 'E. histolytica' and 'E. dispar' possess highly conserved lectin molecules that are differentially expressed in pathogen versus non-pathogen. Additional experiments were performed to isolate and characterize a ß2 integrin-like molecule expressed on the amebic surface. Data supporting the identification of a distinct ß2 integrin on the surface of 'E. histolytica' is presented. A putative role for this molecule in amebic virulence is discussed. Finally, epidemiological questions regarding 'E. histolytica' and ' E. dispar' infections were revisited, now relying on stool antigen immunoassays. These immunoassays, which are able to distinguish 'E. histolytica' from 'E. dispar', demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of infections in a non-endemic setting are caused by the non-pathogen. These results have broad clinical implications since specific molecular diagnosis would obviate the need for unnecessary chemotherapy of ' E. dispar', infections, with its attendant costs, risk of side effects, and danger of drug resistance.
Nonlinear finite element analysis of transverse shear and torsional problems in reinforced concrete shells

Finite element formulations for reinforced concrete shell structures were improved and corroborated for transverse shear and torsional problems. A nonlinear finite element program for shells and plates, allowing for out-of-plane shear deformation, is based on the use of layered, isoparametric finite elements. The constitutive model for concrete compression response accounts for reductions in strength and stiffness due to presence of transverse cracks. The model used for concrete in tension represents the tension stiffening effects for reinforced areas, and tension softening effects for unreinforced or slightly reinforced areas. The tension softening model uses an average stress-strain approach based on the fracture energy. Three different series of tests an examined to verify the program: simple beans subjected to transverse shear, hollow beams subjected to torsion; and a scale model of offshore structures subjected to hydrostatic pressure. Excellent agreements were found between predicted and observed response for all three series of tests.
Epithelial-mesenchymal interactions and the Notch pathway in mammalian lung development

Interactions between the pulmonary epithelium and its surrounding mesenchyme are critical for regulating developmental processes during early lung development. However, less is known about the importance of these tissue interactions during late lung development. In this study we employed a novel cell recombination model to examine the role of epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in both lung epithelial morphogenesis and cellular differentiation during late fetal gestation. Results suggest that at late fetal gestation, lung epithelial cells are not fully committed to a specific phenotype and still have the plasticity to respond to various signals originating from the surrounding mesenchyme. We have also begun to investigate a potential role for the Notch signaling pathway in mammalian lung development. The Notch pathway is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism for regulating cell differentiation in populations of equipotent cells. Since there must be mechanisms which control the specification of lung epithelial cell fate during lung development, we analyzed the spatial and temporal mRNA expression patterns of some of the Notch receptors, ligands and various pathway mediators, by non-radioactive 'in situ' hybridization. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
Changes in the balance of excitation and inhibition in the human motor cortex with voluntary movements

The balance between excitation and inhibition of corticospinal neurons in the human motor cortex during voluntary movements was tested by conditioning the motor evoked potentials (MEP) evoked in forearm muscles by transcranial magnetic stimulation, with a preceding subthreshold stimulus through the same coil. When subjects (n = 9) made a tonic wrist extension, inhibition of the forearm extensor MEP became less. When these subjects made a tonic wrist flexion, inhibition of the forearm flexor MEP diminished. When subjects (n = 10) made a phasic wrist extension, inhibition of the extensor MEP began to decline about 95 ms before the onset of the agonist electromyography (EMG). The changes in balance of excitation and inhibition of corticospinal neurons precede voluntary movement and are focused on the corticospinal neurons projecting to the agonist motoneurons. These changes in balance may, therefore, help to select the pattern of cortical activity that leads to a discrete voluntary movement.
Folding constraints on the amino terminal domain of metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 4

L-glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system. This amino acid elicits its actions through ionotropic glutamate receptors and G-protein coupled metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs). mGluR4, one of the eight cloned mGluRs, is localized presynaptically where it inhibits the release of glutamate. This inhibitory regulation has important neuroprotective benefits making this receptor an important therapeutic drug target for the treatment of neurological diseases associated with excitotoxicity. In this study, we have examined the ligand binding ability of various amino terminal domain (ATD) truncated mGluR4 receptors. Our results indicate that part of the ATD's cysteine-rich region is essential for the proper folding of this extracellular domain. Certain ATD conserved-cysteines may also impair ligand binding and reduce the level of secretion of ATD-truncated receptors from transfected heterologous cells. Studying the limitations for optimal secretion and ligand binding in truncated mGluR4 receptors will facilitate future crystallographic studies on mGluRs.
Estrogen and progesterone alter glucose metabolism in L6 skeletal muscle myotubes while testosterone has no direct effect

A direct effect of the sex steroids on muscle has not been established, nor have signaling relationships been elucidated due to limitations of the in vivo model. This study investigated the direct effect of each sex hormone on basal (BGU) and insulin-mediated glucose uptake (IMGU), and on glycogen synthesis (GS) in L6 myotubes. Myotubes were incubated for 2, 24, and 48 hours with E2, P, or T and stimulated with insulin (0.1-10000nM) for the last 30min. E2 (200[mu]M, 100[mu]M, 0.5nM and 0.01nM) decreased IMGU P (30 and 20ng/ml) decreased IMGU initially. P (1 and 0.5ng/ml) increased IMGU after 48 hours. T (0.005ng/ml-3ng/ml) did not alter glucose uptake. GS was increased with E2 (100uM) and P (20ng/ml) but was unaffected by T (3, 0.05, 0.005ng/ml). In conclusion, E2 has a diabetogenic effect and P has a bimodal effect, while T does not have a direct effect on glucose metabolism in muscle.
Power, freedom, ideology and explanation, a Marxian view

The purpose of this dissertation is to show that Marxian theory is an essential part of a critical understanding of modern society. There are many strands in our intellectual life that have contributed to a devaluation of Marxian analysis in recent times. One of the recent intellectual trends that has done so is 'postmodernism'. Though postmodernists tend not to reject the very idea of critically reflecting on modern norms, practices, and institutions, typically they reject the idea that Marxian theory, or any theory, provides a privileged perspective from which to criticize or understand society. They typically favour a 'decentred' understanding of political life over a systemic analysis that focuses on class structure, the economic system, and the state. While I discuss postmodern conceptions of politics only in chapter 4, section 1, in all the chapters, I examine the views on politics and power of Michel Foucault. Many of the various strands of postmodernism have a basis in his work. His work is richly suggestive, however, lending itself to various uses. In this dissertation I offer a particular Marxian reading of Foucault. I try to show that Foucault's views on power, social theory, and ideology, can and should be seen as being supportive of, and complementary to, Marxian theory. This runs contrary to the usual interpretations of Foucault, including, perhaps, his self-interpretations. Nevertheless, I believe my reading of Foucault does two things: (1) it renders Foucault's critique of modern social life more coherent and forceful than it would otherwise be, and (2) it renders Marxian theory more compelling than it would otherwise be. And through this discussion of Focaultian and Marxian social analysis, I hope I can show, indirectly. something about what is worth preserving and discarding in postmodernism. The dissertation, as a whole, tries to show that Foucault and Marxism are compatible in a number of ways--on issues relating to power, freedom, ideology, methodological individualism, and functional explanation. In trying to combine two perspectives on social life that are often treated as if they were close to being irreconcilable, I wish to suggest that with Foucault and Marx in combination we will have a broader, more critical understanding of the social world than if we just stick with one of them or if we did not use either. That is the point of combining them.
Adult Age Differences in Memory, the Roles of Facilitation and Interference

Five experiments examined whether age differences in a memory task were greater when successful responding was opposed by prior learning (i.e., interference) than when it was consistent with prior learning (i.e., facilitation). Older and younger adults' performance under facilitation and interference conditions was examined in a direct memory test (Experiments 1 and 2), as well as an indirect memory test (Experiments 3, 4, and 5). The experimental results were used to distinguish between two alternative accounts of aging and memory: impaired recollection, versus impaired inhibition. Experiments 1 and 2 employed a variant of Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure, in which participants studied sentence completions that had been either the dominant or the non-dominant completion for that sentence in a prior learning phase. Both experiments revealed age declines in recollection of repeated targets and in inhibition of repeated distractors; however, these age decrements were reliable only in Experiment 2. Supportive conditions in the first two experiments (i.e., reinstatement of perceptual context and of prior knowledge) did not reliably reduce age differences in recall. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 employed Reingold's (1995) letter deletion task to examine age differences in facilitation and interference priming. Facilitation priming appeared age-invariant when absolute reaction time (RT) differences were considered, but showed age declines when proportionate RT differences were considered (Experiment 4). Interference priming was age-invariant in one experiment (Experiment 3), but showed age-related increases in two other experiments employing greater numbers of trials (Experiments 4 and 5). These latter two experiments employed manipulations (i.e., presentation frequency and working memory load) that were expected to differentially increase interference for older adults. However, the latter two experiments revealed an age-related increase in interference across 'all' conditions that reflected an increased number of very long RTs in older adults. In summary, the five experiments provided evidence for age declines in both recollection and inhibition. These results support the view that age differences in memory are due to general failures of cognitive control, rather than a specific inhibitory failure. However, the form and degree of age-related deficits appear to depend on task and subject parameters.
Public voices, private closets, and naked truth, the pamphlet wars, 1640-1660

In 1640, George A. Thomason, perceiving that he lived in interesting times, attempted to collect every pamphlet which the presses produced. Censorship collapsed the following year. In an unprecedented print-culture revolution, women and men from a wide range of social backgrounds and ideological perspectives entered into a war of words. As this pamphlet warfare is fundamentally dialogic, my thesis investigates a wide range of printed ephemera with emphasis on texts which occasioned an extended series of responses. To its participants, the levelling of the press engendered anarchy and babble. In Bakhtinian terms, this pamphlet warfare constitutes heteroglossia. The tendency of respondents to utilize each other's rhetoric, however, created a dependency on shared tropes and images, with the human body, often feminized or transgendered, being a common figure for the times. I argue that the body becomes the dominant literary 'topos' of this factioned state. My Introduction notes that the pamphlet wars are frequently dismissed as a literary aberration, and reconsiders the value of the aberrant. Chapter 1 addresses the perception that civil war pamphlets are antiliterary products of a unified 'Puritan' agenda, and acknowledges the critical repositioning of civil war literature within this past decade. This chapter outlines some rhetorical innovations of the pamphlet wars, discussing figurations of the body in the pamphlet genre. Chapter 2 focuses on images of the transgendered body, and traces the politicization of gendering from Jacobean fashion debates through to interregnum satires. Chapter 3 investigates the politics of early modern cooking manuals. Using the titular conceit of a 'closet opened' or 'cabinet unlocked,' cookbooks promise to expose the female body and its private space to the public gaze. Chapter 4, by contrast, discusses vying masculinities. In debates regarding monarchy versus constitutional government, the body politic becomes an allegory featuring a (male) ruling head and its (female) governed body. In Chapter 5, I argue that Milton's Presbyterian detractors equate his divorce tracts with a 'domestic violence' which creates faction and schism in the body politic. Under the aegis of Cromwell's tolerationism, Utopian socialists levelled the body politic, refusing to subordinate to any head that was determined either by gender or estate. My Conclusion points to Restoration imperatives to re-embody masculine, monarchical authority, and reinvent the boundaries of female space.
Quadratic spline collocation methods for systems of elliptic PDEs

We consider Quadratic Spline Collocation (QSC) methods for solving systems of two linear second-order PDEs in two dimensions. Optimal order approximation to the solution is obtained, in the sense that the convergence order of the QSC approximation is the same as the order of the quadratic spline interpolant. We study the matrix properties of the linear system arising from the discretization of systems of two PDEs by QSC. We give sufficient conditions under which the QSC linear system is uniquely solvable and the optimal order of convergence for the QSC approximation is guaranteed. We develop fast direct solvers based on Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) and iterative methods using multigrid or FFT preconditioners for solving the above linear system. Numerical results demonstrate that the QSC methods are fourth order locally on certain points and third order globally, and that the computational complexity of the linear solvers developed is almost asymptotically optimal. The QSC methods are compared to conventional second order discretization methods and are shown to produce smaller approximation errors in the same computation time, while they achieve the same accuracy in less time.
Design limitations to potential leaf area in urban forests

Sample plots (90) were located in 10 different land use types in the pre-amalgamated City of Toronto. The potential leaf area densities (PLAD) were calculated for each of these plots under four different buffer width scenarios: control (no buffers), minimum buffers, average buffers, and maximum buffers. The feature composition of each of the land use types and the impact of each feature's buffer on the loss of soft surface was also determined. There were significant differences in PLAD between the ten different land use types and between the four different buffer scenarios. Potential leaf area densities fell into three main categories: low (11-26m2 /1000m) (Low, Medium, and High Intensity Commercial), medium (648-1000m 2/1000m) (in Residential Medium and High Densities, Industrial, Institutional, and Transportation), and high (1629-2083m2/1000m 2) (in Residential Low Density and Exhibition Lands). Finally, alternative locations for planting trees in cities were dismissed.