VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
An evaluation of the biophysical effects of ultrafast lasers on osseous tissues

Laser ablation of tissues for surgical purposes has been under investigation for decades. Hard biological tissues, such as bone, possess an inherent molecular complexity that lead to a broad absorption spectrum, and current lasers are inefficient and cause thermal damage that delays healing. Recently, amplified femtosecond laser systems have demonstrated ablation of materials with little thermal damage. The goal of this thesis was to better characterize the damage in bone following femtosecond laser irradiation using both in vitro and in vivo models as well as evaluating the healing outcomes in order to determine if a fs laser system has the potential to be used in a surgical operating room. Using calcified bone samples we determined that the ablation rates of a fs laser system would be at best comparable to current mechanical instruments. We were the first to report on healing of wounds created by femtosecond lasers. Evaluation of the healing of mice calvaria demonstrated that femtosecond laser cutting displays unsurpassed precision when compared to mechanical instruments. Healing was similar among wounding techniques, albeit a trend in lesser bone formation was observed in the laser group. We accelerated the healing using bone morphogenetic protein-7 and showed that the laser cutting does not negatively influence wound closure when compared to mechanical instruments. Tissue damage was assessed in vitro using freshly excised mice calvaria with fluorescence-based tissue staining techniques to monitor the extracellular and intracellular enzymatic activity. We demonstrated that the fs laser produces a damage zone of only 14 +/- 5mum from the cut boundary, the smallest measure reported following laser ablation of viable tissues. Further, we used transgenic VEGF-luc mice to compare inflammation and neovascularization in wounds created by mechanical instruments or fs laser and the results suggested that more trauma is created with mechanical instruments. Finally, we performed preliminary bone ablation experiments using two novel laser sources irradiating at 1560nm (fs range) and 3mum (ps range) and found evidence of photomechanical effects in bone. Our studies have shown that fs lasers could be used in a clinical setting although major technological advances are required before implementation is recommended.
The influence of continuous positive airway pressure on cardiac autonomic regulation and ventricular repolarization in patients with congestive heart failure and obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and congestive heart failure (CHF) are conditions characterized by derangements of repolarization and autonomic cardiovascular regulation. Typically, there is an augmentation in sympathetic activity and vagal activity is depressed. OSA often coexists with CHF but it is not clear whether it has additional effects on the neural control of heart rate and repolarization. It was found that CPAP increased high frequency heart rate variability an indicator of vagal modulation of heart rate and improved ventricular repolarization, as manifested by a decrease in the QT variability index. Sleep is accompanied by increases in vagal activity and reductions in sympathetic tone. However, periodic apneas can reverse this and can have lasting effects into wakefulness. We performed a randomized controlled trial involving CHF patients with OSA to test the hypothesis that treatment of OSA by continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) would improve vagal heart rate modulation and ventricular repolarization.
Effects of caffeine on exercise performance and subsequent target detection and rifle marksmanship under simulated combat conditions

Twelve reservists ingested 5.0 mg/kg of caffeine (C) or placebo (P) one hour before beginning a 2.5 h loaded march and 1.0 h sandbag wall construction task. Following exercise, participants were given a redose of 2.5 mg/kg of C or P. One hour postingestion, participants commenced a 2.5 h shooting session on a small arms trainer, which included friend-foe (FF) and vigilance (VIG) tasks. In total, four counterbalanced dose-redose experimental trials were conducted: PP, PC, CP, and CC. Performance measures during the shooting session included the number of shots taken (NS), engagement time (ET), and marksmanship. Results indicated that C did not affect exercise or shooting performance during the FF task. NS and ET improved with CC during the VIG task. In conclusion, C improves target detection and engagement speed during vigilance situations, but is not effective during more complex operations requiring dual task proficiency.
Effect of electrode size on electrocatalytic activity

Through reducing the size of a catalyst, the subsequent increase in the surface area to volume ratio of the catalyst leads to greater electrocatalytic performance. This concept has driven catalyst research into the nanoscale. With this decrease in catalyst size, it has been observed that the electrocatalytic activity only increases down to a minimum catalyst size; below which the electrocatalytic performance begins to deviate from that of the bulk. Three structure-sensitive relationships have been reported in the literature; an increase in performance below a critical nanoparticle size, a decrease in performance, or an increase until the catalyst surface area is optimized followed by a decrease. Several conflicting theories, from electron binding energies to microstructural and structural effects, have been proposed to account for these observed trends. This work aims to develop an overall understanding of what is occurring at the nanoscale. For this work, Au and Ni-base nanowire arrays ranging in size from 8 nm to 8000 nm were used as model systems to investigate the relationship between electrode size and electrocatalytic activity. The electrocatalytic activity for each electrode was compared on the basis of electrocatalytically active surface area using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Cyclic voltammetry was used to identify the potential range for the reactions of interest, and chronoamperometry was used to determine the catalytic performance. To develop a clearer understanding of this structure-sensitive relationship, and to relate these findings to the proposed theories, several different electrochemical reactions were tested. Specifically, work was done on the hydrogen evolution reaction, the hydrogen oxidation reaction, and the Fe2+ /Fe3+ oxidation reaction. Through studying these different electrochemical systems, none of the current structure-sensitivity theories could adequately account for the trends observed within this work. Two new factors were investigated with respect to their impact; namely electrolyte effects and reactant size effects. Comparing acids versus bases, electrolyte temperature, and reactant concentrations, there was no change in the size range in which the structure-sensitivity was exhibited. With an increase in reactant size, there was an increase in the critical size at which the structure-sensitivity occurred. These findings led to the development of a geometric hypothesis which could account for the observed increase in electrocatalytic activity found for the systems studied in this work.
Modelling the spatiotemporal pattern of synaptic inputs in hippocampal neurons during population rhythms

In this study, I developed techniques to characterize rhythmic neuronal output, linked these new characteristics to a specific detailed neuronal model, and then used the novel constraints on the model to discover specific patterns of input which generate physiologically realistic output. Rhythms in the brain, and particularly the hippocampus, have important physiological relevance to behaviour, learning, and diseases such as epilepsy. These brain rhythms arise from the interactions of networks of neurons, which can be studied in experimental preparations and computer simulations based upon those experimental preparations. The experimental data for this study consists of recordings from an in vitro intact hippocampal isolate preparation in which spontaneous rhythmic potentials occur in the 3 Hz range unlike traditional slice preparations which do not have consistent population neuronal activity. Compartmental models of neurons use parameters derived from experiments and attempt to generate physiologically realistic output, thereby providing a clear, although hypothetical, view of the process between input and output, allowing for new insights and suggesting new experiments. In this study, I developed an implicit network of synaptic inputs for a computational model of a hippocampal neuron, in this case, a preexisting complete compartmental model of a CA1 hippocampal neuron developed by Poirazi et al. The methods used in producing realistic output allowed for a novel link between model rhythmic activity in the brain and detailed neuronal models. Specifically, I was able to obtain constraints on the temporal profile of synaptic inputs to a compartmental model using criteria obtained directly from the experimental data analyses, the first such to be achieved in the field. I found that excitatory input plays a greater role with greater distance from the soma in tuning neuronal output to physiologically accurate temporal and frequency characteristics. Inhibitory input played a greater role in tuning output near to the soma. This allows a physiologically realistic model of not only a neuron's activity, but also its inputs from other neurons---thus the model is a link to the network level of organization, as is the data from which the model is generated.
Neuropsychology of remote and recent autobiographical memory

The central question addressed by the present work concerned the roles of the hippocampus and related medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures during retrieval of remote and recent autobiographical memories. Consolidation theories suggest that all memories become independent of the MTL as they age, while Multiple Trace Theory (MTT) proposes that this is true only of semantic memories, and that episodic memories remain MTL-dependent for as long as they exist. Neuroimaging of healthy persons revealed hippocampal activations during retrieval of remote and recent memories and that the extent of activation is dependent on the extent of subjective re-experiencing. Additionally, remote memories were associated with more distributed activations along the rostrocaudal axis of the hippocampus, which may be related to the observation that partial damage of the hippocampus causes greater loss of recent memories. Converging evidence for the role of MTL structures in retrieval of remote episodic memories was obtained through neuroimaging of patients with unilateral temporal excisions due to temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The extent of retrograde memory loss in these patients was associated with the extent of excision and with activation of the remaining MTL tissue. Patients with intact remote autobiographical memory activated their remaining MTL tissue to the same extent as normal controls, whereas patients who were unable to recall context-rich personal memories showed no MTL activation or activations limited to the parahippocampal cortex. Finally, behavioural studies of patients with MTL lesions demonstrated dissociations between semantic/generic and episodic autobiographical memory. Patients with lesions restricted to the MTL were able to retrieve personal semantic/generic details from the past but showed severe deficits in retrieval of episodic details. This was true of free recall, cued recall and detail-recognition. When extensive loss of other MTL structures was present, recognition of generic and semantic personal details was also affected. Collectively, the present series of experiments supports the assertion that the hippocampal complex is involved in retrieval of context-rich memories for as long as they exist, as proposed by MTT. It also provides insight into the possible roles of extra-hippocampal structures within and outside of the MTL in supporting generic vs. episodic remote memories.
"My substitutes I send ye": allegory and the matter of representation in Paradise Lost

This thesis explores the allegory of Sin and Death in Paradise Lost as an expression of Milton's ambivalence towards poetic representation, indeed, towards the figural as such. I argue that Sin and Death's representation of their concepts, to wit, sin and death, is mediated by their mimesis of representation. Satan's infernal progeny arrive at their concepts indirectly, substituting their own genealogy as figures for the actual genealogy—the genealogy of evil—which they figure. Milton's fable of evil, in other words, doubles as a fable of the fictions which mediate its production and interpretation. Although the subject has not been addressed directly in the criticism on Paradise Lost the affiliation of Sin and Death with a general problematic of representation is unmistakable. Milton's personifications are introduced in Book Two as “shape[s]” (2.649), that is, as forms or figures. This emphasis on shape is followed by a densely layered series of references to the figural composition of Sin and Death which culminates in Death's identification as a “Phantasm” (2.743) and in Sin's autobiographical reflection on her transformation from “Sign” (2.760) to “image” (2.764). Sin's autobiography combines this reflexive interest in the “Sign” with a stirring adaptation of the Narcissus myth, that exemplary fable of the imaginary. My first chapter locates Milton's allegory within a literary and critical spectrum that ranges from the “poetics” of Plato to the eighteenth century reception of Paradise Lost. I examine the allegory of “Pecché” and “Mort” in John Gower's fourteenth century poem the Mirour de l'omme and the allegorical poetics of Spenser's The Faerie Queene. My second and third chapters address the division in Milton's allegory—posited, most famously, by Samuel Johnson—of the material and the spiritual. In my final chapter I investigate an exchange between the poetics and the politics of representation. Satan's deployment of Sin and Death in Book Ten as “Substitutes” (10.402), I argue, points to a figural impasse at the heart of Early Modern discourses of political representation. My treatment of this problem focuses on George Wither's 1645 poem Vox Pacifica and on Milton's Eikonoklastes.
The analysis of antisemitism in the theological, historical and sociological criticism of James Parkes

The Rev. James William Parkes, M.A., D.Phil., Hon. D.H.L., D.Litt., was born in 1896 on the Island of Guernsey. After serving as an officer in the British Army during World War I, he graduated in theology from Oxford, later being ordained in The Church of England. His social and political concerns led him to accept a position with the Student Christian Movement and, later, the International Student Service in Geneva, where he became aware of the prevalence of antisemitism among European university students. He determined to devote his career to understanding and eradicating this social malignancy, so he returned to Oxford, where he received his doctorate in 1934; his dissertation was published under the title: The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue. The thesis of the present work is that Parkes is unique as a Christian scholar who has studied antisemitism in such a way as to provide a systematized analysis of its various aspects as a means of counteracting its influence. This analysis includes its history, a substantive definition, a formal distinction between antisemitism and the Jewish problem, the division of antisemitism into three (strictly speaking four) elements on an historical continuum: religious, economic, political/racial. Each of these categories provides a basis from which the actual causes of antisemitism can be determined and thus be eliminated. In this analysis his major premise is that the socio/political circumstances of Jews are not the result of innate characteristics but the result of their abnormal history. This study will critically examine all these categories in order to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses in Parkes' approach to the subject. Included in this examination will be a summary of his programme aimed at effecting a change in the attitude of Christianity towards Jews and Judaism as one of the major agents in instigating and fostering antisemitism over the ages.

Keywords: Antisemitism, History
Christianity and antisemitism
Men with Duchenne muscular dystrophy: a Bourdieusian interpretation of identity and social positioning

Men with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) are part of a growing population of persons dependent on life support technologies and living in the community whose ongoing survival is the result of unprecedented medical and technological advancements. This study examined the daily lives and identities men with DMD through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's critical social theory. The primary objectives were to illuminate the men's experiences in the context of current socio-cultural and healthcare environments, and to make recommendations aimed at enhancing their lives and life circumstances. Ten ethnographic case studies of men with DMD between the ages of 22-36 living in a community urban setting were conducted. Each case study included (1) an initial semi-structured interview, (2) a participant-generated video diary, and (3) a second interview to review the video creation and content. The participants' accounts revealed that they were materially, socially and symbolically marginalized and excluded through the inaccessibility of the built environment, through social arrangements that limited their abilities to engage in community life, and through the multiple ways that their extraordinary bodies were negatively marked across social space. Furthermore their marginalization was embodied through processes of socialization and internalization of subordinate social positionings. The embodied marginalization of study participants was manifested in their interview and videotape accounts through expressions of resignation and low expectations. Policies, services, discourses, the built environment and symbolic representations of disabled people produce effects that not only limited the social participation of men with DMD, but also shaped personal identities and produced negative self-evaluations. While the men created personal spaces for recognition and success through various acts of resistance and distinction, what they could hope to achieve was so severely circumscribed that it suggests a need for profound social changes. Recommendations towards altering current social, material and symbolic arrangements that contribute to the social exclusion of men with DMD and related populations are offered.
Reflections in the glass: television and the elderly

One hundred and six individuals ranging from seventy to ninety-three years old were asked about the amount of television they watched per day as well as about their demographic characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, education level, family and community involvement and general state of health. The first part of this investigation painted a portrait of these individuals' television viewing behaviour in relation to these various demographic factors. The second part of this thesis explored two popular theories of emotional responding, a theory from the communication literature-Empathy theory proposed by Zillmann and a theory from the social psychology domain-Social Comparison theory proposed by Festinger. Zillmann's theory emphasizes empathetic matching of participant's responses with the bias of a television program's content. Zillmann therefore would predict for example that negatively biased programs should produce negative affects. Social Comparison theory suggests that negative messages can have positive effects if they allow individuals to make self-enhancing comparisons through downward social comparison. To assess the impact of TV on affect, the participants were divided into a Lonely group and a Less Lonely group, based on their responses to a loneliness measure. They then randomly viewed either a negatively biased video program depicting an unhappy, socially isolated, elderly man or a positively biased video program depicting the same man but this time as a happy, socially integrated, elderly man. The only differences between the two videos related to the audio component. Viewing the negative video had a powerful effect in creating a strong negative affect on all of the participants. The loneliness level however was not related to the degree of their emotional responses to the video. Overall, neither of the two theories received consistent support. The third component of the study was a qualitative analysis of the preference patterns for various program TV genres and TV program scenarios. Again the preferences were analyzed as a function of the various demographic characteristics of the participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Keywords: Television and older people
Older people on television
Ageism, Psychological aspects
Older people in mass media
Synapsis and meiotic nodules in the Lilium species-hybrid "Black Beauty" prepared using a novel plant chromosome spread technique for ultra-structural and immunocytochemical analyses

A method for spreading meiotic chromosomes was developed for examining synaptonemal complex (SC) formation and meiotic nodules (MN) in the Lilium species-hybrid Black Beauty. Preliminary studies suggest this technique has utility for EM immunocytochemical analyses. Black Beauty only completes 35.2% synapsis. The axial length in pachytene microsporocytes was 3699.5mum in Black Beauty and 4492.2mum in the control L. longiflorum cv. Nellie White. The number of potential synaptic initiations was estimated to be 528 for Black Beauty and 668 for Nellie White. The species-hybrid was estimated to successfully complete only 243 synaptic initiations. The synaptic defect is believed to result from an inability to convert axial associations into SC formation due to failed homology checks. Analysis of MN frequency on the chromosome axis found no difference between Black Beauty and Nellie White. MNs appeared at synaptic forks in higher than expected frequencies. The possible relationship of MNs to synapsis is discussed.
Data hiding for compressive applications and enhanced authentication

In addition, a data hiding technique for high-quality video is presented, where both the audio and chrominance information is hidden in the luminance video frames. Security and synchronization benefits are guaranteed, along with a 9:1 or higher bitrate reduction, for efficient data retrieval and reconstruction. Finally, with respect to the copyright protection issue of multimedia signals, an efficient detection scheme is proposed, where a fused correlation detection process is applied on noisy interpolated versions of the originally watermarked image. The overall detection performance is shown to be significantly enhanced, by a rate greater than 15%. Data hiding has lately emerged as an effective technology aimed at a wide range of applications, beyond conventional hiding of secret information for secure communications. In this thesis, a compressive data hiding technique for multimodal biometric recognition is introduced, for dealing with the constraints of the smartcard/mobile technology. Bitrate improvements of up to 22.5% were achieved.