VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Uprooting national narratives: representations of the forest industry in Port Alberni, British Columbia

This work is an analysis of three representations of the forest industry in Port Alberni, British Columbia. I contend that these different representations—a radio broadcast, a museum and a site of heritage tourism—rely upon a dominant national narrative of Canada as a white settler space, a narrative that is racialized and gendered, but which often passes as the ‘truth’ about the nation. Through a discursive analysis of the three sites, I aim to reveal how this process occurs. The white settler narrative, I argue, is problematic from an environmental, anti-racist and anti-oppressive perspective, because of its embedded celebration of colonialism and forest devastation, its racism and its sexism. The project of unpacking the white settler narrative and revealing its oppressive nature helps to disrupt the notion that it is a ‘true’ story about Canada, and creates space for alternative narratives to emerge.

Keywords: Indigenous peoples, British Columbia
Indigenous peoples, Legal status, laws, etc
Indigenous peoples, Canada
Whites, Race identity
Whites, British Columbia
Multiculturalism, History
Multiculturalism, Canada
Forest policy, Canada
Indians of North America, Cultural assimilation
Indians of North America, British Columbia
Accuracy of metacognitive monitoring and learning of texts

The discrepancy-reduction model of learning holds that accuracy of metacognitive monitoring affects learning through its influence on self-regulated study. Thiede, Anderson, Therriault (2003) have underscored the importance of efforts to improve monitoring accuracy by showing that more accurate monitoring can result in increased learning. In their study, a group who summarized texts after a delay had better monitoring accuracy, regulated their study better, and learned texts better than groups who either didn't summarize texts or who did so immediately after reading. This effect was partially replicated in the current investigation. In addition, this study shows that working memory capacity affects learning, but has no effect on monitoring accuracy or self-regulated study. Those with large working memory spans learned texts better than those with smaller spans, but were no better at monitoring their learning or at regulating their study.
Investigating French immersion teacher needs and collegial support through online collaboration: A case study

This study documents the use of online collaboration as a support tool for ten French immersion teachers. Surveys completed by the participants provided comprehensive information on their backgrounds. Included in this were descriptions of some of the linguistic, pedagogic, social, and emotional challenges these teachers face in their everyday work settings, as well as ways in which they were receiving support. Participants then engaged in three months of online collaboration with each other using an online virtual community as a form of support. A post-collaborative survey was completed which provided feedback on the project. The benefits of online collaboration were clear, and many participants suggested it continue in an enlarged, more permanent form. While findings from this small sample cannot be generalized to the larger population, I would strongly recommend that school boards consider similar forms of online collaboration as an effective way to support French immersion teachers.

Keywords: French language, Study and teaching
French language, Canada
French teachers, Canada
Computer conferencing in education, Canada
French teachers, Social networks
French teachers, Canada
Smart sensor array: Spot assessment of DNA microarrays in real time

DNA microarray technology provides tools for measuring the expression of tens of thousands of genes simultaneously. This high throughput technology is a multi-step process requiring strict quality control at every stage to provide reliable analysis. This thesis specifically addresses non-destructive quality assessment of DNA spots on the cDNA microarray slides. An innovative micro-sensor architecture was proposed to detect and quantify errors in DNA spot quality. An original structure for the development and analytical tools for the design of the sensor were evolved. These analytical tools were validated using conventional numerical techniques. This established a high level of confidence for their application in the theoretical estimation of the sensor performance. These tools were then employed to successfully demonstrate the capability and performance of the sensor. Having achieved the proposed requirements through the theoretical estimation, physical realization of the sensor was pursued through conventional fabrication techniques.
Development of a novel canal preparation technique using the torsional fatigue profile of the ProTaper(TM) F2 rotary instrument

The torsional fatigue profile of the ProTaper(TM) F2 instrument was determined using a reversible geared motor assembled according to the ANSI/ADA Specification No. 28. Ten instruments were tested at various deflection angles (DA). The mean number of cycles to fracture and standard deviation were determined for each DA. Based on the fatigue profile and a pilot study, the F2 was used with a reciprocating movement at 144° and 162° clockwise and 90° counterclockwise and compared to a standard ProTaper(TM) technique (SPT) via preparation of canals in resin blocks. The number of deformed and fractured instruments was recorded. Instruments cycled at larger DA demonstrated fewer cycles to fracture than those cycled at smaller DA (p
Delusions of grandeur: French global ambitions and the problem of the revival of military power, 1950--1954

This dissertation analyses the role which military power played in France's bid for renewed international status as both a European and an Asian power in the years 1950 to 1954. Based on multi-archival research and the first systematic use of the papers of the French military's Chiefs' of Staff Committee, it is argued that from 1950 to the end of 1953, France's leaders were the prisoners of the self-imposed delusion that they could resurrect their nation as both a European and Asian power by means of the creation of a Vietnamese national army, American aid, and a supranational European Army. This strategy fatally underestimated the ability of these measures to compensate for the troop shortages which limiting national service to eighteen months and only sending career soldiers to Indochina imposed upon the French Armed Forces. As a result of this error, France was increasingly torn between Europe and Indochina, incapable of realising its ambitions in either region. By the fall of 1953, this tension had become too great to be ignored any longer. The delusion of renewed global power was finally shattered by the realisation that the war was unwinnable and that to continue it would dangerously jeopardise France's position in the projected European Defence Community. The government of Joseph Laniel consequently chose Europe and began to seek a way out of Indochina. Analysing the military dimension of France's bid to restore its position in the international community shows that any positive reassessment of the merits of the Fourth Republic must be seriously qualified by taking into account this delusionary quest for simultaneous European and Asian power. It also demonstrates the importance of examining the impact of countries' other than the superpowers upon the course and conduct of the Cold War and decolonisation. It illuminates, moreover, the extent to which early initiatives in European integration were guided by concerns for the preservation of national advantage. Finally, the study offers a new lens through which to examine the dilemmas faced by modern states in attempting to wage limited war in the post-World War II era.
Delineation of the lectin site of the molecular chaperone calreticulin

In this thesis, the lectin site of the molecular chaperone calreticulin is characterized by analyzing key residues required for oligosaccharide binding. Knowledge of the lectin site of calreticulin's homolog calnexin allowed for the identification of six corresponding calreticulin residues that were then individually mutated. Mutations at four residues completely abolished oligosaccharide binding, suggesting that calreticulin's lectin site is largely similar to calnexin's lectin site. Comparison of oligosaccharide-binding deficient mutants to wild type calreticulin with respect to resistance to protease digestion and ability to bind the thiol oxidoreductase ERp57 showed that the mutants were structurally similar to wild type calreticulin. Only oligosaccharide binding was disrupted by the mutations. In vitro aggregation assays determined that the mutants suppressed the aggregation of a non-glycosylated substrate like wild type calreticulin, but were substantially impaired in aggregation suppression of a glycosylated substrate, thus illustrating the importance of the lectin site for interacting with glycosylated substrates.
Connection maps: A new way to visualize similarity relationships

Hinton diagrams a visualization tool that has proven helpful for visualizing the patterns of connection strengths in artificial neural networks. This thesis explores whether a tool derived from Hinton diagrams could be helpful for visualizing similarity relationships. A connection map diagram arranges the elements in a data set on a 2-dimensional grid such that similar elements are near each other. Each element is represented by its 'connection map', which is an icon composed of colored squares indicating the pairwise similarity relationships of that element to all the other elements. Each colored square in a connection map is a pointer to the element at that position on the grid. Largely similar maps can be located and compared using the relative positions of differently colored squares and the overall position of this colored pattern within the connection map, a task to which our visual systems appear to be very well adapted.
An empirical analysis of oil gas futures and options

This thesis investigates the pricing performance of option pricing models derived from the options' underlying asset(s)' empirical time-series for a sample of oil gas futures options and a sample of crack spread options traded at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) in 2004 and 2005. In Chapter 2, we study the univariate time-series properties of the light sweet crude oil, New York Harbor no. 2 heating oil, New York Harbor unleaded gasoline, and Henry Hub natural gas futures contracts using price, trading volume and open interest data for the contracts expiring between 1995 and 2005. We show that the futures returns can be modeled with a nonlinear asymmetric GARCH (NGARCH) process augmented with two types of maturity effects, the Samuelson effect and contract switching effects related to hedging rollover. We use this augmented GARCH time-series process to build our GARCH option pricing model, which can be solved for prices using primal Monte Carlo simulation techniques, and find that it yields lower pricing errors than both a GARCH option pricing model without maturity effects and a constant volatility model. In Chapter 3, we examine the joint time-series dynamics of the two pairs of futures prices underlying the NYMEX crack spread options, that is the New York Harbor no. 2 heating oil/light sweet crude oil and New York Harbor unleaded gasoline/light sweet crude oil pairs. We show that these pairs of commodities are co-integrated and have time-varying volatility that can be modeled as a bivariate NGARCH process with maturity effects as identified for each asset's univariate time-series process in Chapter 2. We build our pricing model, which can also be solved for option prices using primal Monte Carlo simulation techniques, from the empirical co-integrated bivariate GARCH time-series process of these pairs of assets and find evidence in support of the inclusion of maturity effects and co-integration for pricing. Our simulation study of the bivariate GARCH option pricing model with and without co-integration shows that the co-integrated bivariate LARCH model with maturity effects is less sensitive to input and parameter values than the corresponding bivariate GARCH model without co-integration.

Keywords: Finance
Dissertations, Academic, Canada
Application of enhanced JETTY snoop filters to reducing bus traffic and snoop power in SMP and CMP systems

Symmetric multiprocessing systems using snoopy cache coherence protocols dissipate substantial power servicing coherence snoops. The JETTY mechanism was proposed to reduce power use by filtering snoops that the JETTY predicts will miss. This thesis evaluates several improved versions of the JETTY filter, and extends JETTY-style snoop filtering to chip multi-processing (CMP) systems that use snoopy coherence protocols. Practical filters remove 44.8% of snoops in simulated SMP test systems and 52.2% in CMP systems running the SPLASH-2 and TPC-C benchmarks. JETTY-style filters are also applied to eliminate unnecessary broadcast bus traffic. Filters identify memory accesses known to miss all other processors' caches. These are either marked as non-coherent or diverted directly to memory. Practical filters remove 21.4% of SMP and 41.4% of CMP broadcasts.
Legal and economic institutions for private sector growth in post-conflict economies

Modern technology has brought the benefits of rapid international flow of information, trade, capital and people, promising prosperity for the great majority. A by-product threatening this prosperity is the rapid spread of conflicts across the globe. Economic decline increases the risk of internal conflict. Many prosperous states have adopted relatively open markets and democratic systems of government. While the benefits of embracing a market economy are well recognized, countries devastated by civil war have often had little success in adopting market systems and establishing the rule of law necessary for democratic governments to function. This study examines the role of a country's legal and economic institutions in assisting private sector growth in post-conflict economies. Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda are taken as case studies to show that poverty reduction policies, good governance and the rule of law are key components for achieving economic prosperity and peace through private sector growth.

Keywords: Economic development
Civil war
Rule of law
Lymphocyte specificity in the rat model of nevirapine-induced skin rash

Nevirapine (NVP) causes idiosyncratic reactions: skin rash and hepatotoxicity. The lymphocyte transformation test is sometimes used to diagnosis what caused a specific immune-mediated adverse reaction, and it is assumed that what the T cells respond to is what induced the adverse reaction. A very important finding in this study is that lymphocytes cultured from animals rechallenged with NVP respond to NVP and the 4-chloro-analog with a minimal response to 12-OH-NVP. This is surprising because we now know that a product of the 12-hydroxy pathway, presumably the quinone methide, not the parent drug, causes the rash. Furthermore, lymphocytes from rats in which the rash was induced by treatment with 12-OH-NVP responded in the same manner as those from NVP-treated rats even though they had never previously been exposed to NVP. These results demonstrate that the agent that induces an immune response is not the same as the agent to which lymphocytes from affected rats respond, i.e. there is a disconnect to what the lymphocyte responds to and what induces the rash.
The impact of a tutoring program on teachers' development as literacy teachers

This is a qualitative inquiry concerning the impact of a tutoring program on student teachers' development as elementary school literacy teachers. Student teachers enrolled in a preservice education program tutored individual struggling literacy learners on a weekly basis as an extended fieldwork opportunity that differs from more traditional forms of practice teaching. A comprehensive review of the literature related to fieldwork sets the context for this particular type of experience. Prior to tutoring, the student teachers learned about current literacy theory on campus. Each student teacher then assessed, planned and taught an individual learner in an elementary school. Key research questions included: What did student teachers learn about becoming an effective literacy teacher through the tutoring experience? What were the student teachers' initial perceptions about literacy? In what ways were the knowledge and skills that were realized in the tutoring program different from those gained in the practicum setting? What were the benefits and challenges for the school/university partnership arising from involvement in the tutoring program? Using data such as in-depth interviews with six of the student teachers that participated in tutoring as well as artifacts such as assignments and reflection papers, it seems tutoring provides a valuable learning experience in helping student teachers forge theory/practice connections and move towards effective literacy teaching. Student teachers demonstrated learning in key areas such as assessment, reading and writing processes, meeting individual pupil needs, material selection, and literacy resources acquisition. They were able to implement a wide range of literacy strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of various strategies. A limitation of the study was the lack of opportunity for the tutors to engage in discussion with one another regarding issues such as planning instruction and meeting pupil needs.

Keywords: Elementary school teachers, Training of
Literacy, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Tutors and tutoring
Modelling of metal fill in transmission lines

Modern processes use metal fill to satisfy strict metal density design rules, but this metal fill is often ignored in simulations due to the lack of a simple model. In this thesis, we show that the metal fill between a transmission line and the substrate effectively reduces the electrical distance between the two. The reduction in distance is equal to the cumulative thickness of all the metal fill between the device and the substrate. This equivalence allows us to present an electromagnetic model for software simulation which is not computationally intensive. We also propose a circuit model to represent transmission lines in the presence of fill. This model is capable of capturing the effects of fill using linear, constant value, passive elements, improving convergence and simulation times in circuit simulators such as SPICE. We fabricated microstrip and co-planar waveguide transmission lines in a 90-nm, digital CMOS process to verify the accuracy of our models.
Regulation of hepatic transporter expression by the pregnane X receptor

Hepatic transporters play a fundamental role in the disposition of drugs and endogenous compounds. Understanding how transporters are regulated is critical because changes in transporter expression and/or activity are linked to diseases and altered drug disposition. The pregnane X receptor (PXR) is a ligand-activated nuclear receptor that regulates numerous genes involved in drug transport and metabolism. We sought to further elucidate the role of PXR in transporter regulation and in the mechanisms behind changes in transporter expression during inflammation and cholestasis. In vitro experiments with human hepatoma cell lines and in vivo studies comparing wild-type (PXR+/+) and PXR-knockout mice (PXR -/- ) demonstrated that MDR1a, MRP2, MRP3, BSEP, OATP2 and CYP3A are induced in liver following treatment with various PXR activators, indicating PXR-dependent regulation. Conversely, most of these genes were down-regulated in endotoxin and interleukin (IL)-6 treated mice. Endotoxin and IL-6 also reduced hepatic PXR mRNA and protein expression. Endotoxin-mediated changes in the expression of most transporters were similar between PXR +/+ and PXR-/- mice, with the exception of MRP2 as the decrease in PXR-/- mice was significantly less-extensive than in PXR+/+ mice. On the other hand, the suppression of MRP2, BSEP and CYP3A11 by IL-6 was seen in PXR+/+ but not PXR -/- mice. These findings suggest an involvement of PXR in inflammation-mediated transporter down-regulation and suggest that IL-6 may be the principle inflammatory mediator involved. In a cholic acid (CA) model of cholestatic hepatotoxicity, we found a PXR-dependent induction of many bile acid transporters and CYP3A11. Co-administration of the PXR activator PCN to CA-fed PXR+/+ mice prevented induced liver injury and was associated with an increase in CYP3A11 and MRP3 expression. Unexpectedly, hepatotoxicity was much less severe in PXR-/- mice, which had higher basal expression of numerous efflux transporters and CYP3A11. These findings suggest that PXR activation can protect against bile acid hepatotoxicity by inducing metabolic detoxification and basolateral efflux, particularly by MRP3. Together, these studies illustrate that PXR is an important regulator of hepatic transporter expression under both normal and inflammatory conditions, and that targeting PXR may be a worthwhile strategy to treat transporter-related diseases.
The vascular effects of immunosuppression: Tacrolimus preserves vasomotor function and maintains vascular homeostasis

Post-transplant immunosuppression is associated with endothelial dysfunction and cardiac allograft vasculopathy. We previously demonstrated that cyclosporine impairs vasorelaxation and enhances sensitivity to vasospasm. This study examined the effect of another calcineurin inhibitor, tacrolimus (Tac), on vasomotor function and maintenance of vascular homeostasis. We hypothesized that, due to its improved cardiovascular side-effect profile, Tac is the optimal agent to reduce the severity of vascular injury by preserving nitric oxide (NO)/endothelin-1 (ET-1) homeostasis. To carry out these investigations, we employed a rodent model wherein animals were injected with Tac for two weeks. Aortic segments were harvested for vasomotor function experiments while blood, myocardium and aortic tissue were collected for biochemical assessment. In summary, we demonstrated that Tac treatment preserves vasomotor function, decreases sensitivity to vasospasm, and maintains NO/ET-1 equilibrium. Thus, our results support Tac use as targeted intervention for prevention of endothelial dysfunction and will hopefully improve the outcomes following cardiac transplantation.