VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Big Boys, Physical Education, and the Ethics of Bodily Difference: A Poststructural Analysis

The purpose of this thesis was to explore: 1) body, health, and movement discourses – particularly those advanced by the physical education and biomedical health communities – that shaped the embodied movement experiences of boys, with a focus on bigger boys; 2) how boys negotiated accusations of fatness, discourses of health, and what I have termed physical education-through-sport; and, 3) how we might move forward ethically in the conceptualization of embodiment and encounters with bodily difference. Making selective use of authors and theories in the process of plugging in (Jackson Mazzei, 2012), I used a theoretical framework informed by poststructuralist theory and a philosophy of the limit (Cornell, 1992; Pronger, 2002). Working with six boys ages 12 to 14 years old, I employed semi-structured interviews, participant observation sessions (developed as part of a physical activity program specific to this study), and focus groups to theorize a shift from fatness to bigness that redeemed oversized bodies as intelligible in gendered constructions of masculinity. For the boys in this study, constructions of health and physical activity were more strongly connected to mental health concerns and maintaining positive social relations than to disease prevention and ill-health. These understandings opened up a space to conceptualize ethical encounters with bodily difference that challenged dominant constructions of the individual, separate, independent, sovereign self. Drawing on a philosophy of the limit (Cornell, 1992), a conceptualization of the connected, self-in-relation was proposed in terms of the ethic of alterity (Cornell, 1992; Pronger, 2002). This is an ethic of compassionate openness that endorses encounters with ‘difference’ without fear of otherness. In this view, this ethic of alterity confronts the territorialisation of difference present in discourses of (systemic) inclusion by conceptualizing an already interrelated and interdependent self as a condition of subjectivity.

Keywords: Bodies
Boys
Ethics
Fat
Gender
Physical education
Advisor: Sykes, Heather
Highly Electrophilic Phosphorus(V) Cations as Robust Lewis Acids in Catalysis and Frustrated Lewis Pair Chemistry

Catalysts are critical to the production of desirable chemicals and materials that are used to manufacture goods which are essential to our modern economy. Efforts to decrease our reliance on precious metal catalysts has led to the proliferation of main group species and the development of the chemistry of frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs). While the literature is dominated with reports of strong Lewis acids based on Group 13 elements (e.g. Al, B), Group 15, namely phosphorus-based Lewis acids, are emerging as viable alternatives. The graduate work presented in this thesis expands the scope of phosphorus-based Lewis acids to encompass more robust, yet reactive species for applications in catalysis and FLP chemistry, allowing access to unprecedented reactivity for electrophilic phosphorous cations (EPCs). The first chapter of this thesis details the exploration of fluoro pyridiniumphosphonium mono- and dications as efficient Lewis acid catalysts for a range of Lewis acid-catalyzed organic transformations. Following is the second chapter, which explores the synthesis of more robust EPCs and their applications in catalysis and as initiators for the Mukaiyama-Aldol condensation reaction. In the third chapter, P3-trimethylated tricationic species, accessed from the well-known triphos ligands, are synthesized and their catalytic capabilities are explored in reductive amination reactions. As well, preliminary results are presented wherein C-F bond activation and functionalization are also realized with these robust EPCs. The application of phosphorus(V)-based Lewis acids is then expanded to encompass FLP chemistry, wherein the last chapter discloses the synthesis and reactivity of rare all-phosphorus based FLPs. The reactivity of these FLPs has been exploited in E-H (E = Si, B, C, H) bond activation reactions. Initial attempts to develop related N/P FLPs have also been discussed.

Advisor: Stephan, Douglas
Extinction, Fixation, and Invasion in an Ecological Niche

The competitive exclusion principle postulates that due to abiotic constraints, resource usage, inter-species interactions, and other factors, ecosystems can be divided into ecological niches, with each niche supporting only one species in steady state. Seemingly in conflict with this principle, remarkable biodiversity exists in biomes such as the human microbiome, the ocean surface, and every speck of soil. Despite their importance in human health and conservation biology, the long term dynamics, diversity, and stability of communities of multiple interacting species that occupy similar niches are still not fully understood. Biodiversity decreases as species go extinct and increases as new species establish themselves, and both extinction and invasion are moderated by interactions with other species. Classically, the theory of niches describes biodiversity, as relatively static. More recently popular, neutral theory models biodiversity as a balance of successive extinctions and invasions. Stochastic fluctuations allow mathematical models, like the neutral Moran model, to exhibit extinction. Stochasticity also connects neutral and niche theories, with Moran dynamics being one limit of a Lotka-Volterra model. The extinction times in the neutral and niche limits are qualitatively different, indicative respectively of exclusion and coexistence of two species, yet the transition between these limits has not been fully investigated. I identify the nature of the transition by calculating the mean extinction time with an arbitrarily accurate technique, discovering that competing species can coexist unless their ecological niches entirely overlap, which implies that extinction and loss of biodiversity is less common than predicted by neutral models. Biodiversity is also maintained by new species entering the system, a process I represent with a single invader in the Lotka-Volterra model and repeated immigrants into the Moran model. I demonstrate that greater niche overlap leads to longer invasion times, and less likelihood of success of an invasion attempt. With the Moran model I find the critical immigration rate at which immigrants are likely to maintain their presence in the system.

Keywords: extinction rate
first passage time
Lotka-Volterra
niche overlap
rare event statistics
stochastic processes
Advisor: Zilman, Anton
Cervical Spine Dysfunction and Concussion: Exploring Assessment Methods, Prevalence, and Screening Protocols in Children with Persistent Post Concussion Symptoms

Although there have been studies that suggest a link between cervical spine injury and persistent post concussion symptoms in adults, the role of the cervical spine has not been thoroughly investigated in children suffering from persistent post concussion symptoms. The force required to the head or body, that can cause a concussion, can also cause a whiplash like injury due to the mechanism of injury. The head will move due to the external force, causing a concussion, and potentially causing injury to the cervical spine at the same time. The first study uses a systematic review to determine the psychometric properties of patient reported outcome measures for cervical spine dysfunction. This review found that no patient reported outcome measure was psychometrically sound in assessing cervical spine dysfunction in children with persistent post concussion symptoms. The second study used the Neck Disability Index to explore the prevalence of cervical spine dysfunction in children with symptoms post concussion; the majority of children reported mild to moderate dysfunction in their neck. The third study surveyed Ontario primary care physicians to explore if they screen for cervical spine dysfunction in children with concussion. The results from this study showed the majority did not screen for cervical spine dysfunction in children with concussion symptoms. Taken together, this doctoral work identified the need for further investigation into the assessment and management of the cervical spine in children with persistent post concussion symptoms. This thesis provides a foundation for further studies of cervical spine assessment and management in children with persistent post concussion symptoms.

Advisor: Reed, Nick
Technology-based Intervention in L2 Reading Comprehension: Toward Digital Scaffolding

Technology has created abundant resources and opportunities for language learners to enhance their reading comprehension competencies. Despite an increase in access to written input, reading comprehension has stayed challenging for many, including language learners. Digital scaffolding can contribute to improving reading comprehension skills for L2 learners. Motivated by such a premise, in this study, alternative implementations of digital scaffolding have been tested in an English as a Foreign language (EFL) context and their impacts assessed. Two digital scaffolding interventions were examined including contextual conversation (COC) and adjunct questions (AJQ). A total of 172 EFL students read two reading passages in three different conditions: COC, AJQ, and control. In COC, a conversation focused on the primary concepts of the text was included prior to reading the passages. In AJQ, six questions were inserted within each of the reading passages. The assessments included Pathfinder Network Scaling, multiple-choice questions, fill in the Blank test, familiarity question, and interest question. The results of the study provided evidence that both of the treatments were effective with statistically significant differences between the COC group and controls on most measures and statistically significant differences between the AJQ group and controls on some measures. Furthermore, Pathfinder scaling revealed both treatment groups displayed a better organization of the passage according to the graph representation. However, the COC group displayed fewer missing links than the AJQ group and the network properties of the COC were more similar to the network properties identified by experts for both passages. Additionally, the study measured the participants’ overall use of reading strategies using the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS). The findings suggested a medium use of reading strategies by the study participants. The overall findings suggest that although both interventions have potential, COC may be a more potent strategy than AJQ for EFL learners. In light of the fact that reading is a critical skill determining school success, the present study contributes to the evidence that digital scaffolding can successfully be implemented as an intervention to improve learners’ reading comprehension.

Keywords: Adjunct question
Digital scaffolding
educational technology
L2 reading comprehension
Pathfinder Network Scaling
Technology-based interventions
Advisor: Cummins, Jim
Seeing Like a Farmer: Socioecological Complexity of Constructing and Maintaining Ecologically Integrated Smallholder Family Farms

This dissertation investigates the political-ecological conditions that led to the emergence and spread of ecological farming practices in Nepal’s Chitwan Valley. It takes a conjunctural approach to examine the spread of different ecological practices in different periods and the roles played by households, government institutions and others in this process of change. The dissertation draws upon data generated through an interdisciplinary qualitative research which utilized mixed-methods including a year-long ethnographic field research in Nepal, primary and secondary literature review, personal experiences, observation, and formal and informal interviews. This dissertation shows that the adoption of ecological farming practices resulted from different conjunctural changes within the farming households and beyond. The major factors within the households that pushed for the adoption of ecological practices were: the reduced availability of household labour as children spent increasing amount of time in schools and adults engaged in off-farm activities, the decline of formal and informal access to common pool resources such as grazing lands and forests, and the perceived and/or real biophysical shifts such as intractable pest damage of crops, beneficial effects of multi-cropping, and degradation of soil by the use of chemical fertilizers. These changes were also possible because of changes beyond the households: specific policies and programs adopted by national government agencies, international development agencies, and, after 1990s, non-governmental organizations. These policies included direct support such as through cash subsidies (for biogas) and free distribution of saplings, educational and training programs on ecological management of farms, and formal and informal exchanges of ideas and experiences of ecological practices among farmers. This dissertation also shows that Increased commodification of other aspects of households, such as the education of children, construction of modern homes, and health care, has created challenges for ecological farming. Differentiated capacity for diversification of resource generation such as through migration and off-farm income shapes the possibility for the maintenance of the ecological farms. This dissertationI has developed the rubric of ‘seeing like a farmer’ as a conceptual tool to critically assess and examine this phenomenon. This framework integrates 'society' and 'nature,' and expands the focus beyond 'agricultural sector'.

Keywords: Agrarian Change
Agrarian Studies
Ecological Farming
Nepal
Organic Farming
South Asia
Advisor: Rankin, Katharine N
Hunter, Mark
The Role of UNC-129 in Axon Guidance and Cell Migration During Caenorhabditis elegans Development

The UNC-6/netrin pathway plays an important role in cell migration and axon guidance. Ventral sources of UNC-6 guide axons from the ventral to dorsal surface by activating the repulsive UNC-5 receptor and UNC-40 co-receptor, and from dorsal to ventral by activating the attractive UNC-40 receptor. In C. elegans, UNC-129 is a TGF-beta family member expressed in dorsal body wall muscles and is thought to promote the interaction between UNC-5 and UNC-40 for long range repulsion away from ventral sources of UNC-6, while inhibiting UNC-5-alone function. The promotion of UNC-5+UNC-40 signaling could act to increase sensitivity where the UNC-6/netrin concentration is relatively low away from its source. unc-130 encodes a transcription factor that represses expression of unc-129 ventrally. In an unc-130(ev505) mutant, UNC-129 is ectopically expressed, effectively abolishing the gradient of UNC-129 causing migration and axon guidance defects. This project aims to provide better understanding of the UNC-129 pathway by 1) investigating potential UNC-129 receptors and 2) characterizing suppressors of ectopic UNC-129 function. PUR-7 is a candidate UNC-129 receptor discovered in silico that shares similarity to the extracellular domain of canonical TGF-beta receptors. A deletion of genomic DNA that deletes pur-7 and part of the neighbouring srd-4 gene enhances the distal tip cell migration and axon guidance defects of a hypomorphic unc-5 allele, and enhances the migration defects of the unc-130 mutant. Efforts to disentangle the genetic interaction of pur-7 from srd-4 were unfortunately not fruitful. The sup7-2 mutant suppresses distal tip cell migration defects in the unc-130(ev505) mutant, suggesting a role in the UNC-129 pathway. Using mapping and bioinformatical analysis, sup7-2 was located to a genomic region between 5-6 Mb on chromosome X. There are mutations in five candidate genes in this region: ifa-4, tbc-7, gakh-1, actl-1 and C03B1.1. RNAi knockdown of gakh-1 and tbc-7 have an effect on unc-130(ev505) DTC migration defects. Injection of fosmids containing tbc-7 rescue the suppression by sup7-2. Although tbc-7 is likely the sup-7-2 gene, both candidates have an effect on DTC migration and are of interest for future study.

Keywords: Axon guidance
C. elegans
Cell migration
Netrin guidance
UNC-129
UNC-130
Advisor: Culotti, Joseph
Self-gravity: Individuals Struggle to Change their Perceived Personality in a First Impression

People are motivated to change aspects of their personality traits and psychological research seems to document its regular occurrence. Nevertheless, most research has focused on whether people self-report that their personality traits have changed. Personality change is more than self-determined, however: People hope that changes to their personality are visible to others as well. Across seven studies, I therefore investigated whether people’s attempts to change their Big Five personality in a first impression are successful, focusing especially on extraversion. My work demonstrates that (i) individuals’ personality traits remain robustly visible in a first impression regardless of attempts to change, (ii) acting experience does not improve this ability, (iii) individuals’ traits can affect their evaluations more strongly than their attempts to change, and (iv) people attempting to change their personality in a first impression are largely unaware of how others truly judge them. This work therefore suggests that people struggle to control how their traits are perceived by others in a first impression.

Keywords: Accuracy
Big Five personality traits
Personality states
Person perception
Advisor: Rule, Nicholas O.
An Olfactory Memory Circuit

Episodic memory is defined simply as memory for what happened, when, and where. The hippocampus mediates episodic memory and represents contextual information using the parameters of space and time, including where an event unfolded and the sequential order of related events. Episodic recollections are characterized by rich multisensory details, yet the mechanisms underlying the reinstatement of these non-spatiotemporal aspects of experience are unknown. In this thesis, we identified direct, topographically organized hippocampal projections to a poorly understood ring-like structure known as the anterior olfactory nucleus (AON). We demonstrated that manipulation of the hippocampal-AON pathway can influence odour perception and odour-guided behaviours. Selective inhibition of hippocampal-AON projections impaired mice in their ability to recognize odours associated with the spatial and/or temporal aspects of their environment. We also revealed that AON activity is generated by coincident olfactory and contextual inputs arriving from the olfactory bulb and hippocampus, respectively. Thus, we hypothesized that the AON acts as the physical repository for populations of neurons representing previously encountered odours within the context in which they occurred. The precise pattern of activity produced by the AON therefore composes the olfactory memory trace, or “odour engram”. To this end, we used a tamoxifen-inducible Cre recombinase system to control the timing of gene expression in the AON. In combination with chemo- and optogenetic tools, we manipulated tagged AON neuronal populations in a carefully designed set of behavioural paradigms. We found that AON activity is necessary and sufficient for driving the behavioural expression of specific odour memories, thereby establishing the AON as the long-term storage site for contextually-based odour engrams. This thesis represents the first demonstration of the neural substrate of odour memory in vertebrates, satisfying all criteria used for defining an engram. The ease and suitability of using olfaction will undoubtedly position the hippocampal-AON pathway as an ideal circuit model for investigating fundamental mnemonic and cognitive principles. Indeed, this model can become particularly important in translational research that may yet lead to the development of therapeutic targets for disorders of memory, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Keywords: AON
Engram
Episodic
Hippocampus
Memory
Olfaction
Advisor: Kim, Junchul
Impacts of Autonomous Vehicles on Parking and Congestion

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are expected to improve mobility, safety, and parking accessibility. To capitalize on these benefits, all major car manufacturers are testing autonomous technology, and surveys show that people want to embrace autonomous features in their next vehicles. It is estimated that AVs will be available on the market in the next decade. Hence, this thesis investigates AVs impacts on congestion and parking, and provide insights that will help transportation planners/managers derive the greatest benefit from AVs. As car-parks are closed environments, they are among the first locations to expect influenced with AVs. AVs can be stacked in multiple rows like valet parking due to their self-parking capability. To release blocked vehicles, car-park operators relocate certain vehicles in driverless mode to create a clear pathway for cars that need to leave the facility. The problem of finding the optimal car-park layout design is investigated that minimizes relocations to fit a given number of vehicles in the car-park. Results show that autonomous vehicle parking facilities can decrease the need for parking space by an average of 62%. The operation of AV parking facilities is also investigated, and policies for choosing a parking spot for each vehicle are proposed based on the arrival and departure time information. The analyses show that parking in the spot with the lowest blockage probability can decrease the number of relocation movements. AVs will not only change the car-park facilities, but also where travellers park. AV users can exit from their vehicle and send their vehicle to park in a strategic location. AVs can park farther from destination in cheaper parking lots or cruise for the whole activity time. Results show that while the same parking price across all the locations would exacerbate the congestion by motivating more AVs to cruise, a toll for zero-occupant AVs would decrease the congestion. Since AVs adoption will be gradual, there would be a mix of human-driven and AVs on streets for a while. Results show that simple policies such as AV exclusive links can improve network performance in mixed traffic of AVs and human-driven vehicles.

Advisor: Roorda, Matthew J.