VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Persistence of procoagulant surface expression by activated platelets

Expression of procoagulant phosphatidylserine (PS) on activated platelets catalyzes thrombin generation. Prolonged PS expression on platelets in vivo would be undesirable as it may propagate thrombosis. We determined that PS expression on platelets stimulated with the physiological agonists thrombin, collagen, or thrombin+collagen, or Ca2+-ionophore A23187, persists in vitro for at least 4 hr. Unexpectedly, aminophospholipid translocase (APLT) activity was increased in platelets stimulated with the physiological agonists, but was decreased in A23187-stimulated platelets; only the latter result would explain PS persistence. PS expression was associated with collapsed mitochondrial inner membrane potential (Δψm); since both are hallmarks of apoptosis in nucleated cells, apoptosic-like processes in platelets may regulate PS expression. Inhibition of calpain, a protease suggested to modulate PS expression and inhibit APLT activity, using calpeptin, indicated that calpain may function in control and stimulated platelets in a protective capacity against PS exposure and Δψm collapse, possibly by increasing APLT activity.
Motion compensation in MRI using variable density spiral trajectories

A novel technique is presented to compensate for motion artefacts in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using a variable density spiral (VDS) trajectory. In this thesis, a technique is shown to register each of the VDS interleaves prior to reconstruction. The technique is demonstrated in motion phantoms as well as human volunteers. Evaluation of the registration accuracy of the technique shows good agreement with an external monitoring device. Furthermore, it is shown that motion artefacts can be significantly reduced when compared to VDS trajectory acquisitions without compensation. An evaluation of the trajectory parameters is also presented and an optimal trajectory for compensating for respiratory motion is proposed.
Breaking linear history for Southern Song blue-and-white porcelain

This study on the origins of blue-and-white wares in China is inspired by Adam Kessler's research, in which he boldly re-attributes five blue-and white porcelain wares as belonging to the Southern Song dynasty rather than the Yuan dynasty to which they are traditionally attributed. Kessler provides a convincing argument for reattribution while asking the scholarly community to accept that all early blue-and-white pieces that are stylistically similar to the David vases may not be from the Yuan dynasty. However, this has been met with great skepticism from the Chinese porcelain scholarly community. Using blue-and-whites as the vehicle, I hope to show that it is not a lack of evidence that has kept the redating of blue-and-whites out of the imagination of scholars, but it is the method scholars used to write and understand history that has led to the current scholarly opinion.
Do children with Gender Identity Disorder have an in-group or an out-group gender-based bias?

Gender-based intergroup bias was examined in 29 children (18 boys and 11 girls), ages 5-12 years, with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in comparison to 27 children (15 boys and 12 girls) referred for other clinical concerns and 20 normal control children (11 boys and 9 girls). Using a sorting task, participants judged whether positive and negative traits described boys, girls, both genders, or nobody. Contrary to the normal boys, the clinical control boys and the GID boys combined displayed an out-group bias for positive traits. All boys attributed significantly more negative traits to their own sex. All girls displayed an in-group bias for positive traits and assigned more negative traits to boys. A positive evaluation of the opposite sex was associated with more parent-rated cross-gender behavior and child-reported gender confusion. The findings contributed to understanding the impact of atypical gender development on gender-based in-group bias.
The influence of proprioception on speech in adults and children

Recent models of speech production have emphasized the role of proprioception in the control and acquisition of speech movements. Unfortunately, systematic research in this area is scarce. The present study addressed these questions with a detailed analysis of lip movements and their coordination at different speech rates while manipulating proprioception via tendon vibration in participants of different ages. Clear trends emerged for effects of tendon vibration on movement duration in adults and two of the three children for slow and/or normal rates. Despite these kinematic changes, tendon vibration did not influence the nature of the lip coupling in any of the participants. In general, rate changes were limited to lower lip data. In agreement with claims from other studies, the data were interpreted as suggesting differences in speech motor control strategies between adults and children.
Genetic analysis of Notch receptor activation in mammary gland development

The mammary gland is a specialized cutaneous organ required for nourishing young mammals. Much of the development of this tissue occurs post-natally. Through intricately coordinated cell-cell communication in response to systemic and local factors, a network of ducts and alveoli make up the key component of this tissue. All four Notch receptors are expressed in the developing mammary gland. Although mutationally activated Notch alleles have been shown to alter mammary development, very little is known about when, where and why they are normally activated in this tissue. This thesis is a compilation of studies into the expression and function of mammalian Notch ligands and Fringe proteins (modulators of Notch receptor activation) during mammary gland development. My expression analyses have revealed that Notch ligands, Jagged2 and Delta-like1 (Dll1), are expressed in mammary myoepithelial cells. Analysis of the Jagged2 syndactylism (sm) mutant mice suggests that Jagged2 regulates alveolar organization, cell structure and lactogenic differentiation. Interestingly, transgenic mice expressing a dominant negative form of Dll1 show precocious differentiation of alveolar epithelial cells. Thus, Jagged and Dll ligands control different aspects of the lactogenic program in pregnant mammals. Manic Fringe is expressed in the mammary epithelium as determined by Northern analysis and in situ hybridization. Analysis of transgenic mice targeting the expression of Manic Fringe from the MMTV promoter did not reveal any developmental defects. However, multiparous MMTV-Manic Fringe trangenic mice developed mammary tumors at a 20% frequency with a latency period between 8 months to a year. These data indicate that Notch receptor activation regulates mammary gland development and tumorigenesis.
The relationship between bilateral investment treaty arbitration and the wider corpus of international law: The ICSID approach

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how bilateral investment treaties ("BITs") and the system of BIT arbitration are situated within the framework of public international law, and how conflicts between investment treaty obligations and international law should be resolved. BITs form part of public international law because they are international treaties that bind States and create public international law. BITs are public law because they limit state conduct. BITs also create private obligations owed by States to individuals within their territories. Thus, BITs straddle the divide between public and private law. The tension between the public and private obligations embodied in BITs means that any conflict between a host-State's BIT obligations and its other international law obligations cannot simply be resolved by declaring public international law triumphant. Rather, a fine balancing must occur between the rights of the investor and that of the host-State and international community at large.

Keywords: Investments, Foreign, Law and legislation
Arbitration and award
International law
Unsettling concepts: critical conceptual literacy and the development of Canadian subjects in the humanities

This thesis works to reveal and disrupt continuities in the re/production of normative national Canadian subjects through a development of "critical conceptual literacy". Chapter II considers how the concept of "reasonable accommodation" in debates around multiculturalism figures people into the production of racialized, national and moral subjects. Chapter III explores "homonationalism" where certain gay citizen-subjects collude through gay rights discourse with the production of normative Canadian national subjects in larger discourses of "cultural and civic integration." Chapter IV proposes and contextualizes a CEGEP Humanities' course outline following this thesis's framework and methodology. By defining and exploring the practice of developing a "critical conceptual literacy" in the Humanities, this thesis asks: What are concepts like "citizenship" already saying about us? How are other concepts shaping "citizenship" as a worldview? And how do these concepts constitute us as subjects in the Humanities?

Keywords: Critical pedagogy, Canada
Citizenship, Canada
Critical thinking, Canada
Humanities, Canada
Gay rights, Canada
Human rights, Canada
Racism, Canada
Postcolonialism, Canada
Social influence on eating: anormative approach

This study explored the degree to which people adhered to one of two possible norms for "appropriate" eating behaviour: the norm to avoid eating excessively (AEE), and its variant, the norm to eat minimally (EM). Participants ate cookies after being exposed to the behaviour of remote confederates eating at three levels (minimal, excessive and intermediate). It was predicted that participants' eating scores would be bimodally distributed with the modes at or just below the two amounts chosen to represent minimal and excessive eating. Instead, the modal amount eaten was greater than the maximum limit set for avoiding excessive eating. Results are discussed in the context of the conformity literature, which has shown that in the presence of a non-unanimous majority, conformity to group norms drops dramatically. The possibility that the large variability in past amounts eaten disinhibited eating by obliterating any perceived consistency in the confederates' intake is considered.
Proof, practice, and progress

This thesis presents an anti-realist account of mathematics as ‘recreational’, and argues that such a view can answer the central dilemma for the philosophy of mathematics as presented in Benacerraf's ‘Mathematical Truth’. I argue that we should only be satisfied with a naturalistic solution to this dilemma, where I understand ‘naturalism’ minimally as requiring natural scientific explanations of our mathematical knowledge. In Chapter 2 I thus discuss several broadly naturalist attempts to understand mathematical statements as having standard (referential) truth conditions while not referring to non-natural objects, and argue that these attempts to grasp the first horn of Benacerraf's dilemma have failed to satisfy a minimal adequacy condition of accounting for ordinary mathematical practices. In order to ensure that my own account takes seriously the actual practices of mathematicians, I discuss in Chapters 3–5 various stages of mathematical activity. These chapters include my own case study of mathematical proof, in which I present my observations from two semesters participating in a research seminar at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences in Toronto. Chapter 6 returns to the argument for anti-realism; showing that the standard Quinean realist arguments from indispensability leave too much standard mathematical practice unaccounted for. Chapter 7 makes explicit the commitments of the anti-realist alternative I have argued for, including an explanation of the various things that could be meant by ‘mathematical truth’. It is concluded that there is an important sense in which mathematical statements may be said to be true even though they are not true of any objects. However, if Benacerraf is right to insist that, for a predicate to be considered a genuine truth-predicate, its applicability conditions must be explained in terms of reference, then the radical conclusion of this thesis is that there is no such thing as mathematical truth.
The role of ethnicity in the career development of Chinese Canadian young adults

This study explored the career development of foreign-born Chinese Canadian young adults. Utilizing a qualitative design using the grounded theory approach, 13 participants who have completed post-secondary education in Canada and have been working full-time for less than five years were interviewed about their career experiences, with specific emphasis on the role of ethnicity throughout this process. Analyses revealed that Chinese Canadian young adults encountered a combination of influential experiences in their career development, including their education, previous work experience, advice from mentors, desperate circumstances, and coming to Canada. They make their career decision considering multiple factors, with their career interest as the most important one. The role of ethnicity is played out primarily in their work experience, in particular causing struggles in social interaction with co-workers. The implications for theories and practice in career counseling are discussed.
Assessing the efficacy of pre-processing choices in fMRI: Intensity normalization effects as a function of age and task

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a non-invasive imaging modality that enables scientists to study human brain function and how brain function may change with age or injury. fMRI data has a poor functional signal-to-noise ratio (fSNR), making it difficult to detect which regions of the brain become active as a result of some experiment. This thesis investigates the impact of intensity normalization, one pre-processing tool used to improve fSNR, on a diverse multi-task dataset with both young and old subjects. This research shows that pre-processing decisions can significantly affect analysis results, and furthermore, that the impact of specific preprocessing tools varies as a function of the data analysed. A better understanding of fMRI pre-processing tools may enable researchers to shorten experiment durations and develop tasks more sensitive to human brain function. This would potentially aid the development of fMRI as a clinical tool in neurological assessment and treatment.
Labor supply and family-planning policy in rural China

Economic reform has brought marry changes to China's rural economy in the past two decades, as reflected in a combination of rapid economic growth, rural industrialization, structural change, and sharp reductions in fertility. This dissertation evaluates the possible consequences of these changes on women's labor force participation. The first essay explores the impact of China's “one-child policy” on female work patterns through its possible effects on fertility. Early studies that took fertility behavior to be exogenous to female labor supply tended to find that fertility has a negative impact on female labor supply. This ignores a potential selection problem inherent in the estimation of the fertility-female labor supply relation, namely, that women who prefer to work may also desire fewer children. I use the instrumental variable method identifying variables that correlate with fertility but have no direct impact on labor supply to resolve this problem. Two instrumental variables, local family-planning rules and the sex of the first-born child, are identified. Using the sex of the first-born child as an instrument, I find that the negative correlation that exists between fertility and labor supply in the baseline OLS estimation disappears, suggesting that the negative correlation between fertility and female labor supply decisions is a product of sorting. Motivated by the observation that the implementation of the family-planning policy varied from one village to another, the second essay explores the determinants of family policy and its corollary; the optimal level of cash penalties. To achieve this, I use a panel dataset and implement estimation strategies to account for possible biases attributable to the unobserved differences in village characteristics. The main findings are that family-planning rules are correlated strongly with geographical locations, whereas the level of cash penalties is determined by local income variations. The third and final essay explores the economic role of women in a broader perspective. This I do by estimating the relationship between economic growth and the relative contributions of men and women to family labor supply and incomes. The main challenge in the empirical work is the measurement of individual earnings given that most earnings are reported at the household level. I find that while both men and women are moving out of agriculture, men move out at a much faster pace, and consequently, their relative contribution rises with the level of economic development. I find that agriculture remains an important relative and absolute source of income for women.
Investigation of the properties of a novel compliant air bearing

The SailRail air lubricated compliant bearing is a novel Canadian system based on the device originally developed in 1971. With only modest air consumption, this device can transport loads as high as 3000kg with an effective coefficient of sliding friction as low as 0.1%. Much of the previous development of this system has been based on trial and error. This report focuses on the use of Reynolds equations for compressible lubrication for fluid mechanics by using the commercial computational fluid dynamics software package, FLUENT, to obtain a better understanding of the flow in the seal region under the system's runner as well as using a previously developed flat plate model to study the effects of material properties on air-bearing performance. By modelling the gap profile in FLUENT, the question of where flow separation in the seal region occurs alonrf with validating several assumptions used for the original model for flow were examined. The results show that the assumption that the flow through the seal region is inertialess is valid. Several corrections to the original method for analysing data collected using the flat-surface model were implemented and more accurate results were obtained. It was confirmed that increasing the plies of tissue from 25 to 50 produced minimal performance enhancement. Comparing the tissue to foam showed that under uniform loading and applied longitudinal moments; the foam's air-bearing performance is comparable to that of the tissue.

Keywords: Freight and freightage
Pallets (Shipping, storage, etc.)
Air cushions
Random forests for multi-locus quantitative trait linkage analysis

The random forest is an ensemble of tree predictors with high predictive accuracy and a feature that measures the importance of covariates within a complex data structure. We developed a regression random forest for multi-locus quantitative trait linkage analysis that accounts for ambiguity in marker data by incorporating the posterior identical-by-descent (IBD) probabilities from EM Haseman-Elston (EMHE) regression as weights on each sib-pair in the tree predictors. We addressed drawbacks of the original definition of variable importance in linkage analysis and proposed two procedures, multi-marker partial permutation and smoothing, that each considers the correlation structure inherent in IBD linkage data, to improve the importance measures. We evaluated twelve variable importance indices, three of which were based on the definition of partial dependence, and compared their abilities to detect quantitative trait loci with the EMHE LOD score by simulation studies under several genetic models and conditions. The new random forest and hybrid variable importance indices showed promising results in identifying important markers influencing quantitative traits while addressing ambiguity in marker data and exploring complex interaction among all markers simultaneously. The proposed random forest and the original random forest were applied to the Framingham Heart Study genome scan data and a permutation test was applied for inference of the VI indices.
A computational model for biological motion perception

We have developed a computational model for biological motion detection based upon hidden Markov models. This model is inspired by the architecture found in the human visual processing system. The input to this model is the articulated motion of major body joints, represented by their locations at various times. The model was verified by simulating an experiment with the model. Simulation results were comparable to experimental results obtained from human subjects in the past. A characteristic behaviour was found whereby the amount of tolerable noise varies as a power law of the signal strength. The computational model proposed here may capture some salient features of the human ability to recognise coherent motion, and may find application in computer vision systems.
The relative efficacy and safety of tetracaine and morphine for the relief of pain from peripherally inserted central catheter placement in neonates

Purpose. To compare the efficacy and safety of tetracaine, morphine and the combination of tetracaine and morphine for peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) placement in neonates. Results. Ninety-three infants completed the study. No differences in pain response were measured. Tetracaine was associated with more local, transient erythema than placebo. An increase in ventilation rate occurred with morphine compared to placebo. Conclusions. There was no difference in analgesic efficacy among the three treatment groups. The use of morphine was associated with more systemic effects. Its routine use cannot be recommended over tetracaine. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).
Dopamine-induced Gbetagamma-mediated inhibitory pathways in vesicle release in an identified respiratory Lymnaea neuron

Exocytosis of presynaptic vesicles is an important step in synaptic transmission. GPCR activation can inhibit vesicle release via the G-protein subunit Gbetagamma, but the mechanisms involved are not fully understood. This study examined dopamine-induced Gbetagamma-mediated calcium channel dependent and independent inhibitory pathways on presynaptic vesicle release between synaptically paired identified Lymneaea stagnalis neurons. DA reduced depolarization evoked whole-cell calcium currents, intracellular [Ca2+]i, and FM1-43 stained vesicle release from the presynaptic VD4 cell. This was partially removed or attenuated by a depolarization pre-pulse or acute knockdown of Gbetagamma using double stranded RNA. To test the calcium channel independent pathway of Gbetagamma mediated inhibition, the ionophore ionomycin was used to permit calcium influx independent of calcium channels to study FM1-43 vesicle release. Again, DA inhibited FM1-43 release which was attenuated by Gbeta-dsRNA knockdown. Thus, Gbetagamma inhibits vesicle release via multiple mechanisms within the same cell upon dopamine receptor activation.