VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Will to Conserve? Environmentality, Translation, and Politics of Conservation in Southern Belize

Over the last 20 years, community-based conservation (CBC) emerged as a dominant global regime of natural resource management, promoted as a means of reconciling diverse interests around a shared goal of biodiversity conservation. In recent years, however, there has been a backlash against CBC, with some calling for a return to more exclusionary and protectionist forms of conservation. This dissertation explores the rise and fall of community-based conservation. It does this through a detailed analysis of the co-management of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (STNP) in southern Belize. Despite being unilaterally imposed on surrounding indigenous communities in 1994, the STNP was later recognized as one of the most participatory, innovative and effectively managed protected areas in Belize and promoted internationally as a model for balancing the goals of biodiversity conservation with the interests of indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, in 2008 the Government of Belize terminated the management regime governing the park amidst growing conflict with surrounding communities over oil exploration and indigenous land rights. The key question addressed by this dissertation is not whether community-based conservation succeeds or fails, but how the success and failure of CBC is produced. In doing this, this dissertation examines how diverse actors and groups are enrolled in the project of CBC; how the rationality of CBC (the will to conserve) is translated into specific projects and technologies of government; and how variously positioned social actors and organizations experience, interpret and respond to CBCâ s effects. The central argument of this dissertation is the following: Community-based conservation does not work by reconciling the interests of diverse actors around a shared â will to conserveâ ; nor does it operate as by simply displacing or concealing politics through the promotion of technical and bureaucratic interventions. Rather, community-based conservation is assembled through political acts of translation, processes of representation and interpretation through which actors construct meaningful linkages between their own individual or collective interests and the rationality of particular projects. As a result, projects do not fail when they do not meet their stated objectives, but when practices of translation fail to produce interpretations that engender political support.

Keywords: Belize
Co-Management
Conservation
Environmentality
Indigenous People
Maya
Advisor: Bamford, Sandra
INVESTIGATION OF THE PUTATIVE BIOLOGICAL SUBSTRATES FOR HUMAN KALLIKREIN-RELATED PEPTIDASE 7

Kallikrein-related peptidases (KLKs) are a group of serine proteases widely expressed in various tissues and involved in a wide range of physiological and pathophysiological processes. KLK7, known as stratum corneum chymotryptic enzyme, has been associated to several skin (patho)physiological conditions, with little existing knowledge regarding its substrates and potential functional roles. Therefore, a degradomics approach was employed to systemically investigate the endogenous substrates of KLK7, in an effort to understand the molecular pathways underlying its action in human skin. We identified several previously known as well as novel KLK7 substrates. Our most promising candidates were validated using targeted quantitative proteomics (selected reaction monitoring assays, known as SRM assays) and in vitro recombinant protein digestion assays. Our study revealed midkine, CYR61 and tenascin-C as novel endogenous substrates for KLK7. Interestingly, some of these substrates (e.g. midkine) were prone to proteolytic cleavage only by KLK7 (and not by other skin-associated KLKs), whereas others (e.g. CYR61 and tenascin-C) could be digested by several KLKs. Furthermore, using melanoma cell lines, we showed that KLK7-mediated cleavage of midkine results in an overall reduction in the pro-proliferative and pro-migratory effect of this growth factor. Next, in order to further validate those putative KLK7 substrates identified by degradomics, we performed sweat proteomics and peptidomics to explore the skin endogenous proteins and peptides. We identified 1,928 unique sweat proteins (861 from the proteomic study and 1,651 from the peptidomic study) and 32,818 endogenous sweat peptides. Several skin proteases and endogenous protease inhibitors were identified in human sweat reflecting the intense proteolytic activity of human skin. The presence of several antimicrobial peptides supports the functional roles of sweat in host defense and innate immunity. More importantly, putative KLK7 substrate peptides (i.e CTGF and Annexin-2) were identified in sweat peptidomics, which further corroborated our degradomics data. In summary, our degradomics approach revealed many novel endogenous substrates for KLK7, which may shed more light on the pathobiological roles of KLK7 in human skin. Similar systematic substrate screening approaches could be applied to discover the biological substrates of other human proteases.

Keywords: Kallikrein
Protease
Proteolysis
Proteomics
Substrate specificity
Sweat
Advisor: Diamandis, Eleftherios P
"I wait for me": Visualizing the Absence of the Haitian Revolution in Cinematic Text

In this thesis I explore the memory of the Haitian Revolution in film. I expose the colonialist traditions of selective memory, the ones that determine which histories deserve the attention of professional historians, philosophers, novelists, artists and filmmakers. In addition to their capacity to comfort and entertain, films also serve to inform, shape and influence public consciousness. Central to the thesis, therefore, is an analysis of contemporary filmic representations and denials of Haiti and the Haitian Revolution. I employ a research design that examines the relationship between depictions of Haiti and the countryâ s colonial experience, as well as the revolution that reshaped that experience. I address two main questions related to the revolution and its connection to the age of modernity. The first concerns an examination of how Haiti has contributed to the production of modernity while the second investigates what it means to remove Haiti from this production of modernity. I aim to unsettle the hegemonic understanding of modernity as the sole creation of the West. The thrust of my argument is that the Haitian Revolution created the space where a re-articulation of the human could be possible. I submit that the relegation of Haiti in the cinematic world should be seen as an active response by the apologists of European universalism to the ways in which the revolution undermined claims to Western superiority. Such relegation is a process through which modern Euro-American societies reproduce and sustain their own understanding of the human, an understanding that dates back to the colonial era. I argue, therefore, that the struggle for memory with respect to the Haitian Revolution requires an anticolonial conception of humanness that explicitly repudiates slavery and colonization. For the filmmaker, this entails a cinematic practice that challenges the forces of imperialism and its consequences for postcolonial subjects while providing a revised visual conception of what it means to be human.

Keywords: Absence
Cinema
Haiti
Memory
Representation
Revolution
Advisor: Dehli, Kari
Early Twentieth Century Infectious Diseases in the Colonial Mediterranean

Disease during adulthood can shape the quality of life at both the personal and familial level, interfere with economic productivity, reproductive success and ultimately one’s survival. The objective of this research has been to explore the 20th century health of small-scale populations (Malta, Gozo and Gibraltar) in the context of infectious disease using traditional statistical, anthropological, demographic and epidemiologic methods. This thesis brings us closer to a deeper comprehension of how disease and humans interact. With respect to the differential undulant experience between Malta and Gibraltar, tradition, non-compliancy, along with the scale effect contributed to the persistence of undulant fever in Malta throughout the study period. Other factors were: Gibraltar’s effective health-directed policies that dealt with herding and milk consumption, its greater enforcement of policies and higher levels of intra-group compliancy. Gozo’s heightened and unique 1918/19 influenza disease experience compared to its sister island of Malta, was shaped by limited exposure to influenza as a consequence of isolation and rurality, along with a community interconnectedness because of the small-scale society, and limited social distancing measures. There were significantly higher rates of influenza morbidity in reproductively aged women (15 to 44 years) compared to men (z-score=5.28; p

Keywords: 1918 influenza
economics
gender roles/sex differences
tuberculosis
undulant fever
unpastuerized milk
Advisor: Sawchuk, Lawrence A
Methylmercury in Managed Wetlands

Methylmercury (MeHg), a bioaccumulative neurotoxin, is microbially produced in anoxic wetland environments. The direct or indirect management of wetlands is pervasive, but many questions remain regarding the impact of wetland management on MeHg biogeochemistry. To address this, I investigated the extent, drivers, and consequences of MeHg production in important types of managed wetlands, as well as the response of MeHg to specific management interventions. In a field study which simulated industrial increases and legislated decreases in sulfate deposition to peatlands, I found evidence that MeHg production in peatlands is quantitatively related to sulfate-mediated changes in the community structure of the Deltaproteobacteria, rather than simple metabolic stimulation of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), one in the best studied groups of mercury methylators. Furthermore, the structure of the bacterial community, as well as MeHg accumulation, was resilient to the end of sulfate amendments, demonstrating the value of this management intervention. In a series of observational biogeochemical field studies in artificial wetlands, I found similar evidence that the wetland microflora was resilient to the disturbance of wetland dredging, which only temporarily reduced MeHg production and concentrations. Methylmercury production in stormwater wetlands was carried out by SRB, with their activity modulated by availability of inorganic mercury, labile and total organic carbon, and competition with nitrate reducers. MeHg production in stormwater wetlands was overall dampened in comparison to those managed for habitat provision. Finally, I used a controlled greenhouse experiment to study the source of MeHg and IHg to paddy grown rice, a staple food recently shown to be a significant dietary source of MeHg to some populations. I confirmed the soil origin of MeHg to rice grains, and identified a window of elevated MeHg uptake during vegetated growth. Inorganic mercury, by contrast, appears to derive from the atmosphere alone, presenting challenges in controlling its concentrations in rice.

Keywords: managed wetland
mercury methylation
methylmercury
microbial ecology
rice
stormwater
Advisor: Mitchell, Carl P.J.
The Roles of Atrophin and CG14598 in Drosophila melanogaster Developmental Signaling and Patterning

Atrophin is a little studied transcriptional corepressor that is essential during development. Mutations in the human homolog of Atrophin, Atrophin1, cause dentaorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, a neurodegenerative disease. Drosophila Atrophin (Atro) mutants cause diverse phenotypes, including neurodegeneration, segmentation, patterning, and planar polarity defects. Although mutations of Atro cause a wide range of phenotypes, little is known about the binding partners and the downstream targets of Atro. This thesis presents the first genome wide analysis of Atro using chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing to identify direct transcriptional targets of Atro. I found 1300 unique potential targets of Atro and showed Atro is required for the regulation of engrailed expression and the regulation of Decapentaplegic and Notch signaling pathways during larval development. Using bioinformatics and biochemical approaches, we showed that Atro functions with the Drosophila GAGA factor, Trithorax-like, to moderate gene expression. In addition to analyzing Atro function, the role of JAK/STAT signaling in planar polarity was investigated and I found CG14598, a secreted protein and a potential target of JAK/STAT signaling, plays a role in planar polarity.

Keywords: Atrophin
CG14598
Dpp
Notch
JAK/STAT signaling
engrailed
Planar cell polarity
Trithorax-like / GAGA Factor
Advisor: McNeill, Helen
Development of Transgenic and Allograft Mouse Models of Ependymoma

Despite brain tumours being the leading cause of cancer death in children and ependymoma being the third most common pediatric brain tumour, its pathogenesis remains poorly understood and treatment options are limited to surgical resection with adjunct radiation. Ependymoma research has been severely hampered by the lack of in vitro and in vivo models. Using both transgenic and allograft approaches, this research aimed to establish mouse model(s) of this disease by applying putative ependymoma-initiating genetic events onto RGCs that are recognized as its cells of origin. We observed that transgenic mice with constitutive Notch signaling in their RGCs showed predisposition to ependymoma through development of SVZ hyperplasia in their lateral ventricles. We further promoted tumourigenesis by activating the SB transposon-based insertional mutagenesis system, which resulted in higher incidence of more aggressive ependymoma-like SVZ hyperplasia. However, early mortality due to hydrocephalus prevented further tumourigenesis in vivo and therefore must be overcome in future modeling endeavours. Despite this, we pioneered the application of the SB mutagenesis system for establishing a functional genomics mouse model of ependymoma with which specific genetic events driving ependymoma tumourigenesis may be uncovered by analyzing resultant tumours for SB insertions. Next, we attempted to develop an allograft mouse model of CIMP-positive PFA ependymoma by over-activating EZH2 in embryonic hindbrain RGCs followed by intracranial implantation into NSG mice. EZH2 over-activation did not lead to higher tumour incidence but its inhibition caused significant reduction in tumour cell self-renewal. The tumours appeared highly malignant and undifferentiated but did not fit with the diagnosis of ependymoma or any other known human brain tumour. Future modeling therefore requires better understanding of the tumourigenic mechanism along with more precise identification and isolation of its cells of origin in order to more accurately recapitulate this disease.

Keywords: allograft
brain tumour
ependymoma
mouse model
mutagenesis
transgenic
Advisor: Taylor, Michael D
Judging the Guise of the Good by Its Fruit

I defend the view that to have a desire or intention, or other practical attitude, entails that the agent takes the content of that attitude to be good. This view is known as the Guise of the Good view. Existing arguments for the Guise of the Good have largely been defensive, trying to show how the thesis can overcome various counter-examples and challenges. While important, this strategy is incomplete. In my thesis I present a positive argument for the Guise of the Good thesis by showing it to be theoretically fruitful. I defend a version of the Guise of the Good view that I call the Attitude View, and show that the view can clarify our understanding of issues in the study of practical reason, normative ethics, metaethics, and the philosophy of action. According to the Attitude View, the judgment that an intention is good is not part of the content of any mental state. Instead, it is a matter of how an intention presents its content. Intending to φ is to represent φing in a “regarding-good” way. I argue that the relation between “good” and intention is parallel to the relation between “true” and belief. Believing that P entails taking P to be true. But “true” is not part of the content of the belief. Instead, believing that P is relating to the proposition that P in a “regarding-true” way, and intending to φ involves relating to φing in a “regarding-good” way. The Attitude View thus allows us to see theoretical and practical thought as common exercises of human rationality, directed towards different “formal objects”—the true and the good. I then show how this view can be applied to shed light on philosophical questions in a variety of areas. I use the Attitude View to address issues in practical reasoning, the philosophy of action, normative ethics, and metaethics. The fact that the Attitude View can aid our understanding of these diverse topics is evidence for its theoretical fruitfulness, and thus offers a positive argument for adopting it as our theory of practical thought.

Keywords: Moral Psychology
Philosophy of Action
Advisor: Tenenbaum, Sergio
East Asian Canadian Graduated Students, Silent but Engaged: A Dialectical Exploration of Classroom Learner Speech in Competing Educational Models

This research is offered to those interested in the phenomenon of the relatively silent Confucian learner and particularly in his transition from his Confucian influenced educational origins to the Freirean-influenced, more learner speech orientated environment of Canadian graduate schools. Starting with the Analects of Confucius and continuing through the intervening period to present modern research, various possible factors contributing to the Confucian relatively learner-silent model were examined. The research phenomenologically examined the lived experiences of 18 Confucian background graduate students regarding learner speech in Canadian graduate schools. Viewing the participants as situated at the intersection of two different educational models regarding learner speech, the research created ideal types of their earlier Confucian educational model as well as of their Canadian graduate model. Thereafter, their learner speech perceptions were examined using the framework of Hegelâ s dialectical pattern. The research suggests that the responses of the participants indicate movement toward a new, synthesis model in terms of attitudinal movement toward the ideal type of Freirean-influenced, graduate Canadian education regarding (1) increased confidence that the Canadian model can be successfully mastered largely through learner activities that substitute for learner speech, (2) by development of appreciation for independent critical thought, and (3) by preference for the greater equality found in teacher-learner relations of the Canadian model as well as 4) actual participation in the Canadian model learner speech practices. The research concluded that a synthesis of the Confucian and Canadian educational models may produce future critical thinking, talkative Confucian classrooms led by increasingly friendly, informal teachers but that the focus of its critical thinking and learner speech may be directed more toward the socially harmonious external reference point of the Confucian Dao than toward Freirean focused speaking of individual learner realities as the basis upon which to move toward revolutionary restructuring of social class oppression in favor of greater social justice.

Keywords: Chinese learner
Confucian learner
East Asian graduate students
Educational models
Freire and learner speech
Learner classroom speech
Advisor: Wane, Njoki
Low-Temperature-Processed Hybrid Nanomaterials for Semiconductor Devices

Due to their excellent electrical and optical properties, inorganic single-crystal semiconductors see application in high-efficiency solar cells, photodetectors, and lasers. Unfortunately, they require complex high-temperature fabrication processes that have limited capability in scale-up manufacturing. There remains an unmet need for new high-performance semiconductors that can be deposited using inexpensive and scalable manufacturing techniques. In this thesis, I demonstrate the fabrication, characterization, and device integration of an emerging semiconductor material: hybrid organic-inorganic trihalide perovskites. I show that this material can be formed with low-cost, large-area-compatible fabrication techniques, including solution-processing and atomic layer deposition. I first show that solution-processed perovskites are a promising material for low-cost photodetectors. I demonstrate the fast and sensitive detection of light enabled by the interface engineering of a new dark-current-reducing composite bilayer. This photodetector exhibited a peak specific detectivity exceeding 1E12 Jones, approaching that of commercial large-area silicon photodiodes, and was stable throughout the detection of over 1 billion transient light pulses over a 24-hour period. Utilizing the strong nonlinear absorption in these perovskites, I then demonstrate for the first time that this material can be used for two-photon photodetection. I deploy this photodetector to measure accurately the pulse width of an ultrafast laser. I next show that organic-inorganic trihalide perovskites are excellent materials for photonic sources. I report for the first time the optical gain coefficient of this material: 3200 Âą 830 cm-1. This critical parameter for optoelectronic devices is comparable to that of GaAs, a leading high-performance single-crystal material. To achieve the first perovskite spherical resonator laser, I developed a new fabrication strategy, which I termed perovskite-ALD, that enabled conformal and uniform layers of perovskites to be deposited onto spherical substrates, enabling lasing. I conclude with a discussion of the impact of my research on the expanding field of perovskite devices and an evaluation of the prospects of perovskite diodes as photonic sources. I show that perovskites are already demonstrating progress as high-brightness light-emitting-diodes and analyze new avenues forward. I lastly discuss the key ingredients needed for the realization of the first solution-cast electrically-driven laser and assess the promise of perovskites for this important application.

Advisor: Sargent, Edward H