VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Topsy-turvy teacher-student relationships: an examination of digital multimedia teaching and learning

This qualitative study is about changing social power relationships between teachers and students in multimedia technology classrooms at the high school level. My research is about relationships between learners and teachers in arts based classrooms and how changing power dynamics affect the teaching-learning process. The thesis is an instrumental, comparative case study of teachers and students at two high schools: one of these is a public and the other a private school. Data collection is through informal interviews of twelve teachers and sixteen students. Furthermore, data is collected through participant observation, field notes, and an examination of documents. The analysis is comprised of four parts: portrait summaries; composite fictional stories based on real life experiences of teachers and students; a personalized account of my own teaching experiences; and a traditional cross-case analysis. Prior to the data collection, I presumed a version of technological determinism, where technologies would change teachers' style of teaching to a much more learner-centred one. I found that, in fact, technology does not change the way a teacher teaches. Educators' styles of teaching are dependent on several factors. These are (1) school philosophies, (2) mandates of special programmes within schools, (3) financial supports, and (4) individual educators' natural way of teaching. Several areas are examined: disadvantages and advantages of technology; teacher training; issues of knowledge; and untraditional roles of co-learning, collaboration, and new topsy-turvy relationships. Topsy-turvy relationships are described as ones in which teachers become learners and students teach their teachers, I discuss notions of gender, access and privilege, bartering and favours. I conclude that traditional positions of power people hold are being affected: by those who possess power and those controlled by it. Hierarchical boundaries and institutional barriers are being reformed as possession of knowledge reshape positions of status between people within the educational institutions but also those from outside. The acquisition of, and shifts in, power should be viewed in a positive light for improving our understanding of changes in schools and within our society at large.

Keywords: Educational technology, Social aspects
Teacher-student relationships
Classroom management, Social aspects
Classroom environment, Psychological aspects
College students' perceptions of responsibility for learning

The purpose of this study is to relate Project Adventure Inc's Adventure in the Classroom (AITC) instructional model (Henton, 1996) to post-graduate college students' perceptions of responsibility for learning. The same four student volunteers were interviewed once per month for seven consecutive months from October 2001 to April 2002. Interviews collected students' perceptions about responsibility for learning as it related to two of their mandatory classes that were taught using the AITC model. Participants in the study also completed a pre and post questionnaire which used questions based on West's (1994) measurable indicators of responsible learning. Literature on the institutional context and student characteristics that influence college students' responsibility for learning and the qualities of adventure based learning was reviewed. Based on this research, recommendations were made for the implementation of student and faculty forums to bridge perceptions related to responsibility for learning and instructional process.

Keywords: Students, Attitudes
Learning, Psychology of
Learning
Responsibility, Study and teaching
College students, Conduct of life
Moral education
Nutrient composition of hindmilk produced by mothers of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants born

Mothers of VLBW infants fractionated their milk into foremilk (first 3 minutes of pumping) and hindmilk (remainder of milk collected) over 24h on postpartum day 24 (21--30). Study objectives were to: (a) compare concentrations of vitamins A and E, fatty acids, energy and nitrogen between fractions, (b) relate milk vitamins to milk fat and energy concentrations and to maternal vitamin intake. Hindmilk contained significantly higher concentrations of retinol (50%), alpha-tocopherol (80%), gamma-tocopherol (70%), total fatty acids (70%), energy (30%) and nitrogen (3%) than foremilk. Concentrations of milk retinol, alpha-tocopherol, and gamma-tocopherol were positively associated (p
Trends in unintentional injury mortality in Canadian children: influence of socioeconomic status

Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death and disability among children and youth in Canada. Unintentional injury mortality rates have been shown to vary by socioeconomic status. The objective of this thesis was to determine the influence of socioeconomic status on temporal trends in unintentional injury mortality rates in Canadian children. Results show that over time, children 0 to 14 years of age living in low socioeconomic status areas were at increased risk of unintentional injury mortality, compared to children living in high socioeconomic status areas (RR = 1.12; 95% CI: 1.07, 1.18). The socioeconomic status gradient in unintentional injury mortality rates did not significantly widen over time. There was a significant narrowing of the socioeconomic status gradient for deaths due to fires and deaths due to drownings (p
The role of autophagy in innate immunity to intracellular bacterial pathogens

Autophagy is a cytosolic degradation pathway responsible for delivering proteins and organelles to the lysosome for degradation. Recently, this pathway has been shown to be an important component of innate immunity. In this thesis, I study two intracellular pathogens with very different lifestyles and compare how they interact with autophagy. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a vacuole-adapted pathogen that replicates in the Salmonella -containing vacuole (SCV) in host cells. During in vitro infection of epithelial cells, a population of bacteria damages the SCV and replicates in the cytosol. I show here that bacteria in damaged SCVs are targeted by autophagy. This serves to protect the cytosol from bacterial colonization and restricts bacterial replication in this cell-type. Furthermore, damage to the SCV membrane appears to act as a signal to recruit autophagy. Listeria monocytogenes is a cytosol-adapted pathogen that lyses the phagosome and replicates in the cytosol. Listeriolysin O (LLO) and bacterial phospholipases C (PLCs) form pores in the phagosomal membrane to mediate this escape. Once in the cytosol, L. monocytogenes expresses ActA to mediate actin-based motility and intercellular spread. In macrophages, a significant population of bacteria is targeted by autophagy during phagosomal escape in an LLO-dependent manner. However, once in the cytosol, L. monocytogenes is able to evade autophagy. ActA is sufficient but not necessary for autophagy evasion. Accordingly, bacterial PLCs also play a role in autophagy evasion. During infection of macrophages, we observed that a small population of L. monocytogenes replicates in Spacious Listeria -containing Phagosomes (SLAPs). LLO is essential for SLAP formation and inhibits the maturation of these compartments by forming pores in the SLAP membrane. Furthermore, we found that impaired LLO expression allows slow bacterial replication in vacuoles in an autophagy-dependent manner. Therefore, SLAPs appear to represent a 'stalemate' between bacterial virulence (LLO activity) and host innate immunity (autophagy). SLAP-like structures were observed during persistent L. monocytogenes infection of immuno-deficient mice. This work provides insights into signals that target autophagy to intracellular pathogens and mechanisms by which pathogens have evolved to evade this innate immune mechanism. Furthermore, this research suggests a possible mechanism for the establishment of persistent infection.

Keywords: Cytology
Microbiology
Adolescent understanding of narrative-television: a hermeneutic phenomenological study

The context of this research is adolescent literacy: exploring how adolescents make meaning from the narratives they watch on the medium of television. The purposes of my research are to gain a deeper understanding of the lived-experience of adolescents watching their favorite narrative-television show; to offer "the possibility of plausible insights" (VanManen, 1990, p.9) into this literacy event in the interpretive world of some adolescent learners; and to suggest pedagogical ties to literacy curriculum. My approach to this inquiry is twofold: (a) to explore the interpretive skills which adolescents employ when watching narrative-television, and (b) to address the findings of this exploration as implications for educators for employing narrative as a bridge over the gap between school knowledge and adolescents' popular culture knowledge. Using theories of literacy, reading, narrative, reader response, television, and media reception to form the conceptual frame of this study, I apply the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology to the situation of adolescents watching narrative-television. Participants for this research are five teenagers, aged 15 and 16 years. I collected data by conducting a series of in-depth interviews and taking field notes from an hour's close observation of their television viewing, and I used phenomenological reflection and data reduction to analyze the data and determine the essential themes (essences, structure) of this lived experience. Findings indicate five essential themes inter-woven to essentialize this adolescent interpretive event. Implications are that the way adolescents use literacy to construct meaning from narrative on television may hold correspondence with their constructing of meaning from the narratives in school-required print texts.

Keywords: Adolescent psychology
Television and teenagers
Television programs, Plots, themes, etc
Wing anti-icing system control modelling and sensitivity analysis: a system identification based approach

Accretion of ice along the wing leading edge can pose a serious threat to aircraft safety. Thermal anti-icing systems are commonly used to prevent ice formation along the wings. University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies has initiated a research project in developing a generic wing anti-icing control and simulations system. As part of this research initiative this thesis presents the development of a dynamic model of an anti-icing system using a system identification based approach, and an investigation of the sensitivity of the system to changes in the control parameters and location of the temperature sensor. The results of this sensitivity analysis were used in tuning the controller and finding an optimum location for the feedback temperature sensor. This study indicates that the system identification approach is an effective tool for modeling dynamic systems based on test data for the purposes of controller sensitivity analysis and tuning.

Keywords: Aerodynamics, Mathematical models
Airplanes, Ice prevention
Airplanes, Wings
Heat, Transmission
Distributed query answering in peer-to-peer reasoning systems

Interest in distributed reasoning is gaining momentum due to the emergence of the Semantic Web. In this work, we address the problem of meaningfully answering queries to distributed propositional reasoners which may be mutually inconsistent. We define a peer-to-peer query answering framework in which peers may be prioritized. Our formal framework includes distributed entailment relations for both consistent and inconsistent systems. We develop decentralized algorithms for computing answers to a restricted class of queries according to distributed entailment and prove their soundness and completeness. A heuristic for more efficiently computing query answers from prioritized, inconsistent systems is also provided. We furthermore investigate global closed-world reasoning in our framework and show how our techniques can be used to achieve global closed-word query answering from local closed-world reasoners in a restricted class of distributed peer-to-peer query answering systems.
Informal learning and quality child care practice among regulated home child care providers in Toronto

Home child care in Ontario is regulated under the Day Nurseries Act, but there has never been a legislated educational requirement for providers. Research indicates that there is a relationship between provider education and quality child care provision. In urban areas such as Toronto, there are indications that the occupation has become the work of new immigrants and other women who experience barriers to employment in the public marketplace. This qualitative study explores informal learning among regulated providers who have no post-secondary education yet provide exemplary child care. This work is influenced by David Livingstone's (2004) research demonstrating that informal learning contributes to increased expertise in paid and unpaid work, which goes largely unrecognized. Using quality assessments, time diaries and interviews, the working conditions and learning strategies of five urban providers are examined to consider how home child care providers compensate for barriers to formal education by learning informally.

Keywords: Family day care, Ontario
Day care aides, Education
Day care aides, Ontario
Educational attainment, Ontario
Implications of subadult cohabitation for the mating system of redback spiders (Latrodectus hasselti)

Cohabitation (adult males living and guarding subadult females) is common in spiders, yet little is known about effects of cohabitation on sexual selection. This thesis explores effects of cohabitation on female choice and male competition in redback spiders (Latrodectus hasselti). In Chapter Two we investigate the effect of abundant cohabitating males on female choice. We show that females with male cohabitants are choosier, limiting some males to a single copulation through cryptic choice and affecting the mating plugs of males who achieve two copulations. In Chapter Three we examine a novel mating tactic: intrusive opportunistic copulation. Males using this tactic rip the exoskeleton covering the genitalia of subadult females to inseminate them. We demonstrate the novel tactic is results in comparable fitness to that obtained by individuals in regular adult matings. Our results show cohabitation is an important aspect of mating, affecting female choice and male tactics.
The syntax of clitics in idiomatic and other fixed expressions

In response to Modern Greek (MGr) and Romance languages' studies focusing primarily on argument-related clitic (doubling) constructions (Anagnostopoulou, 1997, 1999; Drachman, 1997; Kalluli, 2000; Terzi, 1999; and Heap and Roberge, 2001; Herschenson, 1980; Jaeggli, 1986; Motapanyane, 1992; Sportiche, 1996), this dissertation renews interest in clitics by investigating some over-looked data of MGr. On the whole, this data manifests three morphosemantically idiosyncratic functions of MGr clitics. Through an examination of syntactic analyses proposed for Romance languages and MGr, I first establish that only a base-generation analysis can be adopted for MGr clitics. After discussing the syntactic, morphological, and semantic roles argument-related clitics play in doubling as well as Clitic left dislocation constructions, I turn to the first case of morphosemantically, idiosyncratic functions of MGr clitics. This case involves idiomatic constructions with 3rd person accusative Case-bearing clitics having default morphological features, limited syntax, and no semantics whatsoever. Given these general properties, I refer to this type of MGr clitics by the term “deficient/expletive” clitics. Using Chomsky's (1995, 1998, 1999) Minimalist grammatical framework, I propose that such clitics are visible only in the Lexicon, as opposed to argument-related clitics, which are visible in the Lexicon, CC and PF components. I conclude this case by treating the deficient/expletive clitic and the verb as a (lexialized) syntactic unit. Before turning to the second and third cases of morphosemantically idiosyncratic functions of MGr clitics, I examine a number of constructions attested in Niuean, French, and Italian which involve idiosyncratically behaving clitic elements. Comparisons are drawn between these clitics and those used in MGr idiomatic and argument-related clitic constructions. The second and third cases of morphosemantically idiosyncratic functions of MGr clitics involve constructions employing what I term “affected” accusative and dative clitics. Both types of clitics have referential properties, are &thetas;-bearing elements, but cannot refer to a full lexical DP. I demonstrate that MGr affected dative clitics are licensed only in the context of monotransitive verbs. Regarding MGr affected accusative clitics, I show that when they are combined with verbs, which may have both a transitive and an intransitive use, they can partake in the formation of idiomatic constructions. This dissertation concludes by providing questions for further research into the functions of MGr clitics, and the implications that such research may have for linguistic theory and applied linguistics.
Learning processes inherent in building national consensus: selected South African perspectives

In 1994, South Africans exercised their newly acquired universal franchise and voted for a democratically elected government. This historic event marked an end to a 350-year history of race-based power relationships, conflict, and national discord. This relatively peaceful political transition and transfer of governance suggested learning on the part of the key decision-makers and leadership, which shifted the country from a path of dissensus and potential destruction to a path of consensus and national reconciliation. This qualitative study identifies learning processes inherent in building national consensus in South Africa viewed from the perspectives of a selected group of 'elite' South Africans considered influential, prominent, and well informed organizational or community representatives. The premise of this study purports that a learner's learning environment, that is the learner's daily experienced reality creates conditions conducive to the development of consensus or dissensus, peace or conflict. Interviewees included senior members of South Africa's National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC)---a quadripartite stakeholder consensus building partnership mandated and charged by Act of Parliament to institutionalise consensus building and formulate policy and development---parliamentarians, business and trades union representatives, and educators. The key themes and frameworks used in this study include: learning as a need directly linked to organic survival viewed in terms of specific objectives and outcomes; political analyses which provide an insight into the interplay between antagonistic and non-antagonistic tensions and contradictions in constant movement; the cultural context of learning; and interdependence in divided societies. The three main threads of thought, which have independent and collective importance to this study, include learning, consensus and democracy and, planning, national development and the role of education. This study identifies South African anomalies and scenarios of 'elite consensus and mass reality' learning including: a growing dissensus between the 'masses' and the new elite; South Africa as a social development role model; institutionalized consensus building exemplified by NEDLAC; and, conditions and experiences leading to accord, unifying goals, and consensus.

Keywords: Public opinion, South Africa
Apartheid, South Africa
Learning
Consensus (Social sciences), South Africa
South Africans, Attitudes
Emotional expression on a profile is a function of feature height

Changing the height of facial features on an elliptical face changes the apparent expression of the face. If the features are located at the top of the face, the face appears happy and at the bottom of the face, it appears sad. This expression-height effect could be due to (1) height of the features, Location (2) apparent head tilt, Posture, (3) the angles created by the features, Angle or (4) projection of curves from a 3-D shape, Projection. Observers were presented with shapes that varied in the above four factors in three experiments. In all three, participants rated profiles with features at the top as happiest and features at the bottom saddest. Location theory best explains the expression-height effect.
Preclinical investigation of MEK and mTOR inhibitors on human-derived Neurofibromatosis Type 1 malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours

Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours (MPNST) are the most common malignancy in Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) patients, with a 5 year survival of 21%. Systemic metastasis of MPNSTs are common and lethal, underscoring the need for effective systemic therapies such as chemotherapy or biological therapies, in addition to local therapies such as surgery and radiation. Although p21-ras is hyperactivated in NF1-associated MPNSTs (NF1-MPNSTs), strategies targeting p21-ras have demonstrated limited efficacy and therapeutic research has been expanded to focus on downstream p21-ras effector pathways, such as PI3K/Akt/mTOR and MEK/ERK. In this project, preclinical studies were conducted to determine the efficacy of a MEK (ARRY-509) and mTOR inhibitor (rapamycin) on human-derived NF1-MPNST NOD-Scid subcutaneous xenograft explants. Rapamycin significantly inhibited human NF1-MPNST growth at a dose of 1.0 mg/kg/day, and correlated with reduced proliferation and phospho-S6 levels. ARRY-509 significantly inhibited NF1-MPNST growth at a dose of 30 mg/kg/day and correlated with reduced proliferation and phospho-ERK levels. At these doses, toxicity to the mice was minimal. These studies contribute towards the clinical development of adjuvant biologically-based therapies to improve the prognosis for NF1 patients with MPNST.
Isolation and partial characterization of two factor I related cDNA clones from a mouse liver cDNA library

Factor I is a heterodimer (heavy and light chains) plasma proteinase, which regulates the activity of C3 convertase and the assembly of the terminal complement sequence. In this study, human Factor I cDNA (HI 1971) was used as a probe, to isolate two 1.7 Kbp clones (M13.2.5 & MI1657) from a mouse liver cDNA library. MI 1657 (custom sequenced by USB (Clonetech)) was found to overlap HI 1971 from exon II to XI with ∼75% homology. M13.2.5 has been partially sequenced. A 447 bp, 5′ end sequence contained segments homologous (∼75%) with exon III; exons V & VI. A 412 by 3′ end sequence, contained a 102 by segment homologous (∼75%) with exon X of HI 1971. MI3.2.5 and MI 1657 must therefore be related to mouse Factor I. They contain mostly the heavy chain subunit. They are probably pseudogenes, since all the homologous segments in MI3.2.5 (exons III, V, VI, & X) and part of exon II, III, & IV in MI inverted and contain several stop codons. In preliminary studies, 2.4 detected in mouse liver by Northern were decreased in mice treated with 1657 are and 2.1 Kb Factor I transcripts were analysis. The titres of both transcripts lipopolysaccharide.