VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Class Advantage in White-collar Organizations: An Investigation of Parental Income, Work Resources, and Job Success

Substantial research shows that people with lower-income parents face difficulties entering professional, white-collar organizations, finding that employers are less likely to hire them even when their qualifications are equal to their counterparts with higher-income parents. Still, many overcome their economic disadvantages and get employed, but little research has examined whether and how economic backgrounds continue to shape work experiences and outcomes after entry. This study investigates a theoretical model that merges two different literatures: one demonstrating that people reliably signal their social class background to others, and another demonstrating that supervisors provide more important work resources to subordinates that they like, trust, and think are competent. I propose that growing up with higher-income parents leads employees to develop higher social class reputations—observers’ collective perceptions of a person’s social class. Class reputations are then positively associated with two important work resources: perceived supervisor support and job autonomy. Finally, I propose that employees who perceive more supervisor support and job autonomy are more satisfied and productive at work. I tested this model in the field among 124 business school interns in similar jobs using a multisource, time-lagged survey. Results indicated that interns with higher-income parents were perceived as higher class. Contrary to my predictions, class reputations were unrelated to any work outcomes. Exploratory analyses focused on (a) associations with parental education and (b) two alternative mediators: social class signals (behaviors that provide information about a person’s class background) and social class anxiety (apprehension or worry about one’s class rank). Results tentatively suggest that parental education predicted supervisor support, autonomy, and job satisfaction, but not job performance. Further exploratory mediation analyses tentatively suggest that class signals explained why interns with more educated parents perceived more supervisor support, and in turn experienced higher job satisfaction. Finally, combining income and education into a composite tentatively suggested a dual-path model whereby interns with upper-class parents experience higher job satisfaction because they (a) send upper-class signals and in turn, perceive more supervisor support and (b) are less anxious about their class rank. New insights into class advantages in white-collar organizations are discussed.

Keywords: Job Satisfaction
Social Class
Supervisor Support
Advisor: Côté, Stéphane
Connelly, Brian
Pedestrianized Streets – From Shopping to Public Space: The History and Evolution of Pedestrianization In North America From Modernism to Contemporary

This dissertation addresses the evolution of pedestrianization, specifically examining the pedestrian mall concept, which originated from modernist planning and design ideas in the early 20th century. The pedestrianization of Times Square in New York City in 2009 has heightened contemporary interest in pedestrianization for public space purposes. Only a few decades ago however, post-war pedestrian malls were dismissed as a failure that devastated retail districts in downtowns across North America. Given this history, how did pedestrianization in North America experience a rise, fall and reinvention in only a few decades? This research specifically examines how pedestrianization and the pedestrian mall concept evolved as a planning idea, a design strategy, and planning policy from modernism to the contemporary planning era in North America. To address this overall question, this dissertation is divided into three articles. The first article questions how pedestrianization was conceptualized as a modernist idea and transferred between North America and Europe during the 20th century and identifies Architect Victor Gruen as a primary figure in the post-war idea exchange. The second article outlines how the pedestrian mall was established and widely replicated as an urban renewal strategy in the American post-war. The third article demonstrates how the post-war pedestrian mall concept failed and was subsequently abandoned in North America. The final and concluding chapter synthesizes the research and suggests evolutionary phases of pedestrianization ranging from the early experimental ideas that were prominent before and during World War II, to the contemporary rise in experimentation with pedestrianization ideas. I conclude in arguing that there is a clear link and recycling of ideas that were only recently rejected and that a similar process of replicating ideas is still occurring.

Keywords: pedestrianization
pedestrian mall
post-war planning history
urban renewal
Victor Gruen
Advisor: Hess, Paul
Studies in Clinical High-risk for Psychosis: Treatment, Stress, and Personality

This dissertation consists of seven chapters, where each chapter is composed of a self-contained study examining vulnerabilities and risk factors for those identified at Clinical High-Risk state for psychosis. In chapter 1, we review the literature on the CHR state for psychosis, discussing risk and resilience factors as the core focus for treatment and early intervention. In chapter 2, we propose manual adaptations to an existing intervention fundamentally rooted in positive psychology as an adjunct to current treatments for those at CHR for conversion to psychosis. In chapter 3, we propose a complete randomized controlled trial (RCT) protocol to examine PPT for CHR youth using manual adaptations proposed in Chapter 2. Chapters 4 through 7, we examine both pathological and normal-range personality traits as potential risk factors for the CHR state. The overall objective of these series of self-contained studies being to elucidate underlying risk factors of pathological and normal-range personality traits in a highly vulnerable group of individuals identified at CHR for conversion to psychosis from those who do not. In outlining personality trait elevations which distinguish those CHR classified at higher-risk versus comparatively lower-risk for conversion to psychosis, may provide the scientific community with greater insight into early identification, treatment recommendations and early interventions focused on developing effective coping behaviors and self- regulatory exercises to manage negative emotions and stress.

Keywords: Clinical High-Risk
Coping
Personality
Psychosis
Stress
Treatment
Advisor: Bagby, R. Michael
Adapting and Piloting a Combined Gender, Livelihoods, and HIV Prevention Intervention with Street-connected Young People in Eldoret, Kenya

Despite being highly vulnerable to acquiring human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), no effective evidence-based interventions exist for street-connected young people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In Kenya, street-connected young people have a heightened HIV prevalence, engage in sexual practices that elevate their exposure to HIV, and experience structural drivers of HIV acquisition, such as gender inequities and economic marginalization. Therefore, the overall objective of this doctoral thesis was to adapt and pilot a combined gender, livelihoods, and HIV prevention with street-connected young people in Eldoret, Kenya using a multi-stage mixed methods study design. In the first stage, the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures interventions and a matched-savings programme were adapted using a modified ADAPT-ITT model. During adaptation, we used community-based research methods informed by a rights-based approach, with four Peer Facilitators and 24 street-connected young people aged 16 to 24 years. Numerous adaptations came forth to the programme content and delivery. This adaptation process resulted in producing a comprehensive intervention entitled ‘Stepping Stones ya Mshefa na Kujijenga Kimaisha’. In the second stage, we piloted the adapted intervention with 80 street-connected young people using a pre- and post-intervention convergent mixed methods design. The primary outcomes of interest were HIV knowledge and gender equitable attitudes. Secondary outcomes included condom-use self-efficacy, sexual practices, economic resources, and livelihoods. Participants had significant increases in HIV knowledge and gender equitable attitudes from pre- to post-intervention. Attendance level at the intervention was a significant predictor of HIV knowledge and gender equitable attitudes change scores. Intervention participants reported encouraging changes in condom use knowledge, condom use self-efficacy, health-seeking practices, daily earnings, housing, livelihood activities, and street-involvement. Overall, this research demonstrated that it was feasible to adapt an evidence-based intervention with street-connected young people and provides a model for other researchers and organizations in LMICs to use, which may assist in addressing the knowledge gap in effective interventions for street-connected young people. The pilot findings support the potential for further testing with a rigorous study design to investigate how best to tailor the intervention, particularly accounting for gender differences, and increase the overall effectiveness of the programme.

Keywords: Adaptation
Gender
HIV
Kenya
Livelihoods
Street children
Advisor: Braitstein, Paula
Kaul, Rupert
A Global Analysis of Molecular Fluctuations Associated with Cell Cycle Progression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Gene and protein expression, turnover, and localization are imperative for cell cycle progression. However, there has been no systematic study of multi-level regulatory events throughout the cell cycle in eukaryotes. To address this void, I developed a pipeline for quantifying changes in protein concentration and localization over the course of the budding yeast cell cycle. This pipeline combines Synthetic Genetic Array technology, high-throughput fluorescence microscopy of a collection of strains expressing Open Reading Frame-Green Fluorescent Protein fusions, and sophisticated deep learning techniques to generate and analyze cell cycle-specific image data for ~75% of the proteome. In developing this pipeline, I demonstrated that the application of deep learning to biological image data can overcome pitfalls associated with conventional machine learning classifiers, including improved performance at classifying subcellular protein localization as well as transferability to diverse image-sets with minimal tuning and training. I used this optimized pipeline to acquire and analyze >123,000 images of ~20 million live cells. I used a neural network (CycleNET) to classify single cell images by cell cycle position, and a second neural network (DeepLoc) to quantify the localization of proteins in 22 unique localization classes. I optimized statistical scoring metrics to identify 825 proteins with fluctuating levels during cell cycle progression, and 405 proteins that change in localization. Different cell cycle stages featured significant movement of proteins between subcellular compartments, including cell cycle-specific turnover of ribosomal subunits and their regulators at the vacuole in early mitosis, a novel observation that may reflect a new mechanism for ensuring the presence of high quality translational machinery during cell cycle progression. I combined these proteomics datasets with new cell cycle-specific gene expression and translational efficiency data, generated by RNA sequencing and ribosome profiling, respectively. Integrating these datasets allowed me to identify new control mechanisms for known cell cycle regulators, implicate new genes in the control of cell cycle progression, and reveal broad trends about how cells leverage different levels of regulation for different groups of genes. Finally, I demonstrated that the integration of my four cell cycle-specific datasets affords power in predicting cell cycle-related functions of uncharacterized and unannotated genes.

Keywords: Cell Cycle
Machine Learning
Microscopy
Proteomics
Advisor: Andrews, Brenda J
Boone, Charles M
Passive Afterload Working Mode in Ex situ Heart Perfusion

Ex situ heart perfusion (ESHP) is an emerging technique that aims to combat the shortage of organs suitable for transplantation through the augmentation of both donor heart preservation and evaluation. The oldest and most common modality for ESHP is Langendorff mode (LM), where oxygenated perfusate is provided retrograde to the aorta. While this technique is used clinically to extend donor heart preservation time, contractile evaluation of hearts is precluded. This evaluation has been made possible during ESHP, however, by recent research focused on the instillation of different working modes: Pump Supported Working mode (PSWM), where afterload is instilled by a pump providing retrograde support to the aortic root, and Passive Afterload Working Mode (PAWM), where passive Windkessel elements are used to instill physiological afterload. In this thesis, the comparative effectiveness of these two working modes is examined. We first designed a novel ESHP system capable of perfusing hearts in all three main perfusion modes. While hearts remained in LM for the bulk of the perfusion period, contractile evaluation was successfully demonstrated in both PSWM and PAWM. An adjustable afterload module was then developed and tested in order to decouple aortic pressure from changes in ventricular contractility, enabling prolonged perfusion in PAWM. With our module, we were able to demonstrate perfusion in PAWM across 6 hours for 3 different hearts while maintaining physiological aortic pressures. With the functionality of our system thus confirmed, transplantation experiments were undertaken to compare the predictive power of PSWM and PAWM. 5 porcine hearts donated after brain death (DBD) and 5 hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD) were perfused for 4 hours in LM, evaluated in both PSWM and PAWM, and transplanted into recipient pigs before being evaluated again. Correlating contractile parameters measured during ESHP and post-transplantation, measurements taken in PAWM showed greater predictive power than their PSWM counterparts. This augmentation of predictive power coupled with the ability to perfuse hearts in PAWM across extended perfusion periods serves to demonstrate our multimodal perfusion system as a promising step towards the optimization of donor heart preservation and evaluation during ESHP.

Keywords: Ex Situ Heart Perfusion
Ex Vivo Heart Perfusion
Langendorff
Passive Afterload
Windkessel
Working Mode
Advisor: Simmons, Craig A
Negotiating Sound, Place, Ritual and Community: The Extended-length Concert Percussion Music of John Luther Adams

American composer John Luther Adams has been recognized as one of the most important and innovative composers of contemporary classical music. Adams is well-known for his musical connections to the natural environment, and for espousing the idea of “music as place”. These overarching themes, combined with composition techniques that take inspiration from natural phenomena and organic processes, have led to works that often have a formal structure at their core, but a combination of rhythms, harmonies and textures that is unlike any other mainstream composer working today. Through his associations with many notable contemporary percussionists, Adams has written compositions that have made a particularly strong impact in contemporary percussion music, especially through his affinity for writing for “non-pitched” instruments. He has also shown an affinity for compositions that are expansive in duration. Three compositions that share these characteristics are the main focus of this study: Strange and Sacred Noise, The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies and Ilimaq. I suggest that along with environment and place, ritual is a key component in Adams’ compositions, and that highlighting aspects of ritual may help lead to a greater feeling of community and/or Victor and Edith Turner’s concept of communitas between performers and audience. I frame these ideas inside of Small’s concept of “musicking” (that is, music as an activity), and also acknowledge ideas of ritual and performance from Schechner, Baranowski, Small and others. I discuss the origins, logistics and evolution of performance practice of all three pieces. I interview leading performers of Adams’ percussion music to gain insight into their performance practices and reactions to the music. Finally, I suggest a conceptual framework for approaching the performance of these works, to strive for a goal of communitas, and offer both some general and specific performance practice suggestions based on performer feedback and my own experience.

Keywords: community
Ilimaq
John Luther Adams
ritual
Strange and Sacred Noise
The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies
Advisor: Huang, Aiyun
Household Food Insecurity in Canada: Understanding the Economic Circumstances and Policy Options

Food insecurity is an important public health problem that affected 12.6% of households in 2012. There is no policy intervention explicitly designed to tackle food insecurity, but there are growing interests in identifying solutions to reduce the problem. To help inform the development of effective policy actions, this thesis focused on better understanding the household economic circumstances related to food insecurity and the potential of housing and food subsidy programs in mitigating it. Using the 2010 Survey of Household Spending, the description of spending patterns revealed that the budget of food-insecure households tends to prioritize more immediate, basic needs. The in-depth examination of the intersection between homeownership and food insecurity highlighted important food insecurity disparities between households with different homeownership status and housing asset level and suggested that housing policy may play a role in mitigating food insecurity by promoting homeownership and ensuring mortgage affordability. However, other policy actions are needed to build the economic resilience of lower-income renting households. Social housing is the primary approach to improve housing affordability among low-income renting households, but study findings indicated that those living in government-subsidized housing remained highly vulnerable to food insecurity and that improving housing affordability seemed insufficient to compensate for income inadequacy. Food subsidy programs have been a key policy tool to improve food access and affordability in remote, northern communities, but the evaluation conducted using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey raised serious concerns about its effectiveness and highlighted the need to develop effective initiatives to reduce the high rates of food insecurity in Canada’s North. Together, the findings suggest that existing housing and food subsidy programs have limited potential to mitigate food insecurity and that different policy actions working in tandem are required to build the economic resilience of all households and reduce food insecurity in Canada.

Keywords: Food subsidy
Homeownership status
Household food insecurity
Household spending
Housing subsidy
Public health
Advisor: Tarasuk, Valerie
Integrated Molecular Analysis for the Identification and Validation of Novel Biomarkers for Renal Cell Carcinoma and the Small Renal Mass

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) constitutes an array of morphologically and genetically distinct tumors with varying clinical behavior, prognosis and response to therapy. RCC is frequently diagnosed incidentally as an early-stage small renal mass (SRM; pT1a, ≤ 4 cm). Overtreatment of patients with benign or clinically indolent SRMs is increasingly common and has resulted in a recent shift in treatment recommendations. There are currently no available biomarkers that can accurately predict risk of clinical progression. Additionally, there are no biomarkers that can accurately classify RCC. To that end, we developed an integrated label-free LC-MS/MS proteomics and peptidomics approach and targeted parallel-reaction monitoring (PRM) to identify early non-invasive biomarkers of RCC progression. In addition, we performed qRT-PCR to identify prognostic (predict early RCC progression) and diagnostic (RCC subtype classification) miRNAs. We identified biomarkers which displayed differential expression in clear cell RCC-SRMs (ccRCC-SRMs) compared to healthy controls and renal oncocytoma (≤ 4 cm). Additionally, we identified biomarkers which displayed differential expression in progressive relative to non-progressive ccRCC-SRMs. A two-protein signature (EPS8L2 and CCT6A) showed significant discriminatory ability in distinguishing progressive from non-progressive ccRCC-SRMs. Moreover, patients with EPS8L2 and CCT6A mRNA alterations showed significantly shorter overall survival compared to patients with no alterations in an independent cohort of ccRCC (stage I-IV) patients. Peptide SHTSDSDVPSGVTEVVVKL showed significant discriminatory ability in distinguishing progressive from non-progressive tumors. Additionally, patients with elevated SHTSDSDVPSGVTEVVVKL expression had significantly shorter overall survival compared to patients with low expression. miR-328-3p displayed significantly down-regulated expression in progressive relative to non-progressive ccRCC-SRMs. Patients with elevated miR-328-3p expression had significantly longer overall survival compared to patients with low miR-328-3p expression. In addition, we demonstrated that miR-221 and miR-222 can distinguish clear cell and papillary subtypes from chromophobe tumors and renal oncocytoma. We also showed that miR-126 can discriminate clear cell from papillary RCC and miR-200b can discriminate chromophobe RCC from renal oncocytoma. In summary, the research presented here adds to our current understanding of the natural history of clinically localized RCC-SRMs, and identifies early markers of clinical progression, which could potentially help assign patients to appropriate management programs.

Advisor: Yousef, George M
Diamandis, Eleftherios P