VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Liberalism and the public interest in art

This thesis defends a liberal account of the public interest in art. Philosophical debates about public support for the arts often focus on funding to produce new works of art, but in fact such prospective funding is only one aspect of the state's involvement in the arts. States routinely regulate the ways in which existing cultural objects can be used by private owners of such objects. These regulations include prohibitions on the destruction or alteration of art objects and even the imposition of duties of preservation. The philosophically interesting thing about these forms of state activity is that they limit property rights in distinctive ways. This raises the question of what could justify such limitations. Additionally, many modern states have established public museums and have assumed the task of designating cultural artifacts as especially valuable and worthy of preservation. Although the value of preserving the masterpieces of world art has long been recognized, we must still ask whether and why the state in particular should be involved in this task. In developing an account of arts policy, liberal political theory may appear to be at a special disadvantage. Liberal political theory conceives of the task of the state as that of providing the conditions of freedom and equality. If the role of the state is to provide the conditions of coexistence for citizens considered as free and equal, it may seem that liberalism is unable to justify the state's activities with respect to the arts. In order to respond to these criticisms a liberal account of the public interest in art is required. This thesis argues that a liberal account of the public interest in art can be grounded in the enlightenment concept of the republic of letters. It develops an egalitarian re-interpretation of the republic of letters and shows that there is a public interest in the communicative activity of this republic of letters. It argues that artworks are contributions to this communicative activity. This account can justify the distinctive limits on private interests in works of art and grounds a distinctively liberal approach to cultural policy.
Our televisions, our selves: popular (in)visiblity, marginalized identities and the politics of Queer as folk

What happens when groups who have been marginalized within popular culture become privileged enough to gain complex televisual representation? The U.S. cable television show Queer As Folk (QAF) aired in Canada from 2000 to 2005 depicting a White, middle-class community of gays and lesbians. The show's popularity makes it a promising site to study gay men's emergence into complex televisual representation. First, I outline a brief history of gay and lesbian representation on television and explore tensions that arise when popular visibility of marginalized identities is entangled in commodity culture---when communities of resistance become "niche markets." I then conduct a critical textual analysis, using Hall's notion of the preferred reading, to argue that QAF offered a depiction of White, middle-class gay men that transgressed against the ideal sexual citizen, while couching its transgressions within White supremacy, the superiority of the middle and upper-classes, and male privilege. Finally, to counter this relatively closed reading of the series, I offer an audience reception study of forty avid QAF viewers who participated in this study through an email-circulated survey, focus groups and personal interviews. I explore how viewers "use" QAF outside the time-space of viewing to build their personal identities as gays, lesbians, queers and gay-positive straights, to participate in "conversational communities," and as a source of knowledge about communities or practices they do not have personal experience with. I trace the negotiations viewers make as they view the show as simultaneously "over-the-top, unreal entertainment" and "a real depiction of queer life" that acts as a valid source of information about "gay culture." Additionally, I highlight how viewers read "critically" in rather different ways, and interpret the same QAF image as hegemonic or counter-hegemonic depending on the intertextual comparisons they make and the "real world" knowledge they bring to bear on the representation. This dissertation explores the political economy of "gay TV" in the early 2000s, offers a critical and qualitative textual analysis of QAF, and details viewers' readings of the series that exceed and complicate the binaries of oppositional and dominant, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic, demanding a more complex frame for analysis.
A retrospective analysis of referral patterns for oral radiologic consultation

Objectives. To determine the types of practitioners who most commonly refer and the film type and diagnostic entities that are most frequently submitted for oral radiologic consultation. Methods. 430 referral letters and responses from two Ontario oral radiologists were analyzed. Data collected included: the specialty and graduation year of the referring practitioner, the film type(s) submitted, the radiographic density of the entity of interest and the interpretation by the radiologist. Results. General practitioners (58.9%) and oral surgeons (21.5%) were the most frequently referring practitioner types, representing 1.2% and 17.1% respectively of each group practicing in Ontario. Also, 18.2% of oral pathologists referred. Panoramic radiographs (79.5%) were included in referrals more often than intraoral radiographs (46.0%). 37.0% of entities were radiopacities, 27.4% radiolucencies and 13.5% mixed radiopaque-radiolucent density. In 22.1% of cases the density was not relevant. The radiologists interpreted normal features (55.6%) most often.
Indices of training responses in Ironman triathletes

Training for an Ironman triathlon requires a commitment of several months. To help triathletes avoid overtraining, and race successfully, adaptations to changes in training load should be monitored. This study observed the relationships between pre-season, in-season and post-season modifications in training load and physiological, psychological and performance indices. Twelve male and female triathletes maintained a daily feedback log and were tested monthly over eight months. Weekly training load significantly increased from pre-season to in-season and decreased from in-season to post-season. Morning resting heart rate and body mass index decreased significantly from pre-season to in-season. There were no significant differences for heart rate variability, sum of skin-folds, Profile of Mood States (POMS) scores, or swim and run time trial performance across the three seasons. However, POMS scores were significantly related to experiencing stressful life events. Results highlight the importance of individualization of training prescription, monitoring, and feedback reporting.
F-spondin: Its role in intraretinal axon guidance

Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axon extension towards the visual centers of the brain is partially due to inhibitory proteins in the outer retinal layers. F-spondin, an extracellular protein, is expressed in the outer retina during development and its TSo and TSR1-4 domains have been implicated as repulsive guidance cues. I hypothesize that F-spondin diffusion from the outer retina acts to repel RGC axons from the outer retinal layers, forcing them to turn towards the inner part of the retina. This repellent activity is mediated by growth cone collapse. In this study, RGC axonal outgrowth on substrates of laminin + (TSo or TSR1-4) was significantly less than controls. In the stripe assay, laminin + (TSo or TSR1-4) exhibited repulsive guidance activity. However, this repulsion was not mediated by growth cone collapse. These findings suggest that F-spondin plays a role in chick retinal development by inhibiting and guiding RGC axon outgrowth.
Differential modulation of intracellular calcium responses in B lymphoblasts by mood stabilizers: Relevance to the molecular therapeutics of bipolar disorder

Chronic ex vivo treatment with lithium and valproate attenuates stimulated intracellular calcium (Ca2+) responses in B lymphoblast cell lines (BLCLs) from BD-I patients and healthy controls (13Cs). The main objective of this study was to determine whether modification of intracellular Ca2+ abnormalities is a common target of other clinically efficacious mood stabilizers, in particular, lamotrigine. To address this question, the effects of acute and chronic ex vivo treatment of BLCLs from BD-I patients and HCs with therapeutically relevant concentrations of lithium, lamotrigine, or respective vehicles on G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-operated (lysophosphatidic acid [LPA]-stimulated) and capacitance-mediated (thapsigargin [TG]-induced) Ca2+ mobilization were examined. Chronic treatment with lithium modulated receptor-operated Ca2+ flux in BLCLs. In contrast, neither acute nor chronic treatment with lamotrigine affected Ca2+ responses in this cell model. The differential effects of lithium as compared with lamotrigine on Ca2+ homeostasis may reflect the distinctive clinical profiles of these mood stabilizers.
Beyond the bunkhouse: exploring the learning of Frontier College labourer-teachers

This thesis investigates the informal/incidental learning of Frontier College volunteer labourer- teachers through an analysis of data collected from qualitative interviews conducted with 7 former Frontier College volunteers. The thesis explores the intersection between dialogue, reflection, volunteering, and informal learning within the context of Canada's oldest literacy program. Even though present-day labourer-teachers are instructed in how to foster dialogue in their pedagogical work, the focus of the program is solely on dialogue as a method of teaching, essentially disregarding the effect of mutual learning and the capacity of the labourer-teacher to learn as a result of employing a dialogical methodology. This thesis reveals that Frontier College supports a pedagogy rooted in dialogue that has the potential to bring about not only technical knowledge but also practical and emancipatory knowledge for its volunteers and thus could provide an important model for other learning organizations, advocacy groups, and international development agencies.

Keywords: Migrant labor, Education
Migrant labor, Canada
Teachers, Canada
Agricultural laborers, Canada
Education, Political aspects
Transformative learning
GL*: a propositional proof system for logspace

In recent years, there has been considerable research exploring connections between propositional proof systems, theories of bounded arithmetic, and complexity classes. We know that NC1 corresponds to G*0 and that P corresponds to G*1, but no proof system corresponding to a complexity class between NC1 and P has been defined. In this work, we construct a proof system GL*, which corresponds to L. Connections to the theory VL (Zambella's Sp0 - rec) are also considered. GL* is defined by restricting cuts in the system G*1 . The first restriction is syntactic: the cut formulas have to be Sigma CNF(2), which is a new class of formulas. Unfortunately that is not enough; the free variables in cut formulas must be restricted to parameter variables. We prove that GL* corresponds to VL by translating theorems of VL into tautologies with small GL* proof.
Enhancing English vocabulary knowledge through instruction on Ukrainian-English cognates in a Ukrainian undergraduate programme

In the field of second language (L2) acquisition, there are no definitive answers on how vocabulary can best be learned or taught. One approach to teaching vocabulary is by tapping into learners' first language (L1) lexical knowledge by highlighting L1-L2 cognates. These are phonetically and semantically related lexical items in genetically similar languages. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of this approach among Ukrainian university-level English language learners (n = 39). In particular, the role of instruction in promoting the recognizability and retention of cognates was examined through: (i) "intentional" learning, based on focused instruction on cognates encountered in readings, and (ii) "incidental" learning through reading without any specific vocabulary instruction. The results indicated that the group which received focused instruction significantly improved in recognizing and comprehending English-Ukrainian cognates. The results were further interpreted taking into account students' ideas about vocabulary instruction obtained via a questionnaire.
Articulation and mysticism in the thought of William James

Issues of articulation are reflected in the philosophy of William James (1842--1910) by a tension between attempts to put ideas or feelings into words and the intimate and inarticulate aspects of life that resist such attempts. Mystical language is one such radical example of an articulate encounter with vagueness, bearing in mind that I intend to use the term 'vagueness' generally to refer to the qualities of feelings, experiences, or ideas that avoid complete articulation and the terms 'mystical' or 'mysticism' to denote experiences of or relations with such vagueness. Mystical language achieves a linguistic intimacy between thinking and feeling as well as a communicative intimacy between the experiences of individuals. James believes an attempt to articulate intimacy is a form of intimate experience itself, therefore there is no absolute breach or separation between articulation and the vague. The articulation of experience is a valuable part of James's philosophical "return to life." Understood as a focussed turn toward a more immediate and intuitive method of philosophical investigation, the "return to life" takes a cautious but optimistic attitude toward attempts at articulating the experiential foundations of life. The "return to life" suggests a mystical method of widening the range of articulation and becoming more intimate with life. If the mystical method includes the articulation of the vague and inarticulate, then it is a constituent of the "return to life" and the mystical method is therefore implicated in James's philosophy as a whole: his epistemology, understanding of language, theory of experience, and finally, his pluralistic, pantheistic ontology.
Wyndham Lewis and the vortex of Modernity

Wyndham Lewis's multi-disciplinary response to Modernity comes as a series of questions that work to challenge and transform modernism's apparent privileging of temporality and interiority by calling for a more spatialized, exterior conception of subjectivity and the body. This vigorous interrogation has been misunderstood as conservative, unpsychological, even fascistic by many readers and, more regrettably, by non-readers of Lewis's works. However, the task that Lewis sets before us is more complex than such readings would otherwise allow. He asks us to reconsider not only the psychological and political richness of space, but also to examine the ways in which externalized concepts of aesthetics, subjectivity and gender function as “symptoms,” as traumatic kernels of resistance in Modernity. Indeed, Lewis's relative exclusion from the modernist canon reflects more about some of the unchallenged assumptions within our ideas of culture than it does the centrality of his contribution to modernism itself. His unflinching and problematic commitment to “naming the game” in the vortex of crises surrounding art, gender, sexuality, and politics must be re-evaluated.
A multidisciplinary optimization framework for flight dynamics and control integration in aircraft design

The emerging fly-by-wire and fly-by-light technologies increase the possibility of producing aircraft with excellent handling qualities and increased performance across the flight envelope. As a result, flight dynamics and control have become an important discipline in the design of air vehicles; where it is desired to take into account the dynamic characteristics and automatic control capabilities at the earliest stages of design. Traditionally, very limited considerations have been made at the early conceptual stage regarding this discipline. Some simplified methodologies used to size the control surfaces (i.e. horizontal and vertical tail surfaces) result in sub-optimal designs due to their inability to capture the interactions among the sizing of control surfaces, their control effectors (i.e. elevator and rudder) and it systems, and their effect on the general dynamic behaviour of the aircraft. Such designs have great limitations on control and handling, which lead to costly design modifications at the later stages of design. This research presents a methodology that enables flight dynamics and control integration at the conceptual design stage using multidisciplinary design optimization. It finds feasible aircraft configurations which meet specified mission requirements concurrently with the stability, control, and handling quality requirements at multiple flight conditions within the flight envelope. Furthermore, the proposed methodology exploits two different control integration strategies. The first one allows for individualized control system design at each flight phase, while the second one focuses on simultaneous stabilization and optimization using one single controller. The application of the methodology leads to designs that exploit active control interactions and have better performance and flying characteristics than the traditional sizing process over a broad range of aircraft sizes.
Anticonvulsant actions of deoxycorticosterone in infant rats

The anticonvulsant actions of deoxycorticosterone (DOC) are well known, however, DOC's mechanism of action is not clear. The present study investigated DOC's anticonvulsant actions in fifteen-day-old rats. DOC's anticonvulsant effects were studied in different seizure models, and in the presence and absence of enzyme inhibitors (finasteride [FIN, blocks 5α-reductase], indomethancin [INDO, blocks 3α-HOR]). The actions of DOC's metabolites, Dehydro-deoxycorticostereone (DHDOC) and Tetrahydro-deoxycorticosterone (THDOC) were also tested. DOC displayed anticonvulsant actions that were blocked by FIN, but not by INDO. DOC's metabolites were also strong anticonvulsants, and their effects were unaffected by INDO. DOC was anticonvulsant in adults as well as infants rats. These data suggest that DOC's anticonvulsant actions in infant rats are primarily mediated by its first metabolite DHDOC.
The distribution of fishes across stream landscapes: analytical approaches and ecological patterns

The study of patterns in species distributions across landscapes has been a central focus in ecological studies. The identification of patterns is often the first step when identifying possible processes underlying community structure, relying heavily on detecting statistically significant patterns in species distribution data. This dissertation has two broad aims. The first one focuses on examining multivariate analytical procedures routinely applied in analyzing patterns in community data. I conduct a variety of simulation and empirical work in order to examine and evaluate the robustness of multivariate analytical procedures commonly applied when investigating patterns in species distribution in landscapes. The tools investigated cover the description and testing of patterns concerning variation within multivariate data sets (principal component analysis), covariation between multivariate data sets (The Mantel test and a Procrustean superimposition approach), and in species co-occurrences (null models). The second goal of my dissertation is to assess and partition the potential roles of a number of abiotic and biotic agents in structuring fish communities in stream landscapes. I conducted surveys on habitat characteristics and species composition in two eastern Brazilian watersheds to tackle three main questions: (1) do environmental factors influence stream-fish community structure once spatial autocorrelation is partitioned out? (2) does site isolation better predict community composition than site suitability? and, (3) are patterns in species co-occurrences more consistent with their differences in habitat use, morphological features, and phylogenetic constraints or with species interactions? The statistical tools investigated previously were used to tackle these questions, and my main conclusion was that patterns in composition of communities along the studied streams were more consistent with processes resulting from isolation than due to local environmental factors or species interactions. This dissertation serves as a basis to guide ecologists in assessing the robustness of other multivariate procedures that are perhaps more appropriate to their specific questions; and it should prove useful to other ecologists for comparing the roles of species-level traits such as morphology and environment, with those of isolation and species interactions in shaping community structure.
The continentalist movement in the politics of Canada and the United States, 1887--1894

In the late nineteenth century an improbable political movement emerged in favour of the economic or political union of Canada and the United States. Its chances of success were slim, given the devotion of most Canadians to the "British connection," the fact that most Americans knew little and cared less about Canada, and the unfriendly state of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The movement itself was hopelessly split, with most Canadian supporters hoping for economic union, and American supporters promoting the annexation of Canada to the United States. Yet, seemingly against all odds, this movement turned continentalism into a live issue in American and especially Canadian politics between 1887 and 1894. After its unofficial leaders---Erastus Wiman, Goidwin Smith, Edward Faner, Samuel Ritchie, and Wharton Barker---launched an ambitious promotional campaign for "commercial union" in 1887, the Liberal Party of Canada adopted "unrestricted reciprocity" and set up a confrontation with the protectionist "National Policy" of Sir John A. Macdonald and his Conservative government. In the election of 1891 Macdonald wrapped himself in the Union Jack and accused the Liberal Party of committing "veiled treason." This was enough to pull out a narrow electoral victory, and to tarnish the credibility of legitimate economic unionists. The continentalist movement lost its momentum; three years later it had passed quietly into obscurity. Historians have tended to regard this as an ephemeral episode in the histories of Canada and the United States, but the continentalist movement had an important influence on the politics of its times. Furthermore, those Canadians who supported economic union were not traitors, but advocates of a unique brand of nationalism---'confident continentalism'---which held that Canada could benefit from free trade with the United States and retain its economic and political independence. This was a prescient vision, one that has obvious relevance today, and these continentalists are certainly deserving of their first full-length scholarly investigation.