VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Young children as 'other': discourses within the Ontario child care system, 1850-1940

This thesis examines the construction of young children as `Others' within the child care system in Ontario covering the period of approximately 1850 to 1940. The study utilizes poststructuralist strategies for textual analysis that consider issues of power, knowledge, and governmentality. Specifically, this thesis explores the marginalized position of young children within the child care system, and consequently their perceived need of intervention, regulation and administration. The research examines the construction of young children in Ontario during the nineteenth century in relation to the educational system. It explores how young children became important sites of discussion at a time of social and economic change. It also considers the exclusion of young children from the Ontario elementary school system and the implementation of the kindergarten idea as part of the morality and disciplinary projects of the century. In addition, this thesis shows how young children's exclusion from the elementary school system and their positioning within the kindergarten movement allowed the creation of day nurseries. The construction of young children within discourses of medicine and social work, particularly within the context of the demographic and social changes of the early twentieth century in Ontario, is also examined. The discourse of infant mortality is presented and discussed in relation to how medical discourses strove for the regulation of young children and their families. The role of social work discourses are discussed in connection to the administration of young children and their families through day nurseries, thereby allowing the construction of the otherness of young children. Finally, the study considers the role of psychological discourses in the creation of young children as ‘Others’ within the child care system. It discusses how psychological discourses associated with young children made the administration and control of young children and their families possible, and how such regulation allowed the construction of the otherness of young children within the child care system. In general, the thesis argues that the otherness of young children within the child care system is part of governmentality, rather than a part of repressive practices.

Keywords: Child care, History
Child care, Ontario
Child care, History
Child care, Ontario
Early childhood education, Ontario
Marginality, Social, Ontario
Current out-group, future in-group: the content of older possible-selves and their impact on age-based bias

For the young and middle-aged, older adults represent not only an out-group, but also a future in-group. The current study demonstrated that young adults incorporate age stereotypes into conceptions of themselves as older and that these possible-selves can reduce age-based bias. Participants wrote short narrative essays about themselves at 70, a close older other (perspective-taking) or themselves in a year's time, before completing measures of bias. Essays about older possible-selves were more positive, but no less stereotypic than essays about close older others. The possible-self manipulation reduced subsequent age-based bias on measures assessing perceived similarity of young and old and resource allocation, although results were similar for the perspective-taking condition. The manipulations had somewhat different effects on males and females, such that men in the possible-self condition engaged in a self-protective denial of ageism. The implications of these results both for aging research and for transitory group memberships are discussed.
Forced evictions, neoliberalism and Phnom Penh's redevelopment

A combination of recent economic growth, free market reforms and growing authoritarianism have created a situation in which private companies are given free reign over large portions of Phnom Penh's urban landscape. Informal settlements, public institutions and land are being sold off in secretive land deals. State mechanisms, such as the justice system, police and military are being used to forcibly relocate well established communities to distant resettlement sites. The thesis focuses on the evictions of the Sambok Chap and Monivong AB settlements, which took place between May and July of 2006. Both settlements were forcibly evicted to make way for the construction of shopping centers and were enforced with state violence. This thesis, based on empirical work in Phnom Penh, argues that the city's deepening class based segregation is a result of neoliberal processes and the consolidation of power by the Hun Sen regime.
Becoming attached: the emerging attachment relationship between newly adopted previously institutionalized Chinese infant girls and their adoptive mothers

The findings indicate that children adopted from China begin to show signs of forming an attachment with their adoptive mothers from early on in the relationship. Initially, Chinese adoptees exhibit few attachment concerns and do not significantly differ from comparison children with respect to attachment security, behaviours related to disturbances of attachment, displays of insecure attachment behaviours or activation of the attachment behavioural system during times of distress. However, subtle qualitative differences were found. Specially, some Chinese adoptees do not actively seek comfort from parents, do not react to pain when hurt, exhibit more extreme behaviours in response to distress, and exhibit high levels of attachment behaviour in non-stressful situations. Over the first 6 months, Chinese adoptees exhibit an increase in attachment security and display more secure attachment behaviour during times of distress. While a handful of Chinese adoptees show subtle signs of atypical attachment behaviours initially, for the most part, these dissipate by 6 months postadoption. In particular, they actively seek comfort from parents, react to pain when hurt, exhibit developmentally appropriate clingy behaviour with mothers, and are better able to regulate emotions. This study explored how a new, and possibly first, attachment relationship between adoptive mothers and their Chinese daughters develops over the first 6 months following institutional care. Thirty-three, 14-month-old infants adopted from China were matched with 33 nonadopted Canadian comparison infants. The process of the emerging attachment relationship and short-term outcomes of attachment development were examined using parent reports and direct observation of attachment behaviours. Attachment security, behaviours related to disturbances of attachment, attachment behaviours in response to everyday attachment-related situations (i.e., when the child is hurt, frightened or separated), and behavioural systems evoked during times of distress were explored over time. In general, the increased risk for attachment concerns, often associated with internationally adopted children, is not characteristic of most Chinese adoptees. The moderate emotional deprivation experienced by children adopted from Chinese institutions does not appear to hinder their ability to readily form a mother-child attachment relationship. Attachment appears open to rapid change, even after an age when attachment relationships have typically been established.

Keywords: Attachment behavior in infants
Adopted children, Psychology
Inmates of institutions, Psychology
Inmates of institutions, China
Intercountry adoption, Psychological aspects
Mother and infant
Flame surface density of turbulent premixed flames at medium to high turbulence intensities

Flame speed evaluations in turbulent premixed flame models often use the flamelet assumption. The principal aspect of the flamelet description for turbulent premixed flames is that the effect of turbulence is to wrinkle the flame front causing an enhancement in flame speed and local burning rate. One approach to find the local burning rate is to use the flame surface density to evaluate local burning rate. A 2-D method was used in this thesis to find the flame surface density from premixed propane/air flame front images, obtained previously on a Bunsen type burner. The results show that the integrated flame surface density and the maximum flame surface density do not show any significant variation with increasing turbulence intensity at higher turbulence intensities, which is contrary to what is expected. The assumption that flame geometry alone is responsible for flame speed enhancement for higher levels of turbulence has to be re-evaluated.

Keywords: Turbulence
Flame
On formal methods of multidimensional databases

In order to extend the expressive power of the query language to relational completeness which is beyond that of the structured sets, we defined a typed functional query language. The OLAP data objects and query constructs are uniformly represented by functional symbols typed by a polymorphic record-based type system. In order to model the OLAP-specific query constructs, our type system differs in several ways from the existing type systems. We studied the type checking and type inference problem of our type system. The algebraic properties of the functions in the functional OLAP query language can be described as equations. We show that the OLAP related equations can be oriented into an infinite but finitely representable term rewrite system which is both terminating and confluent. The term rewrite system forms the basis of a complete algorithmic decision procedure for query equivalence with respect to the OLAP equational theory. We further show that this rewrite system can be used to solve an equational-theoretic version of the OLAP summarizability problem. Our solution to the OLAP summarizability problem covers cases which have not been dealt with by other work in summarizability. This thesis focuses on the formal aspects of Online Analytic Processing (OLAP) databases and the underlying data model, known as the multidimensional data model. We begin by studying the hierarchical and multidimensional structures of OLAP databases from a set-theoretic approach. We define structured sets to be sets equipped with alphabets which are interpreted to nested subsets. We demonstrate that structured sets can be used to model hierarchical dimensions and multidimensional data cubes. Moreover, OLAP selection queries of the data cubes can be seen as descriptions of subsets of structured sets. We define the minimal length description (MDL) problem of the structured sets, and study its computational complexity, tractability and the algorithmic solutions. The solution to the MDL problem is applied to OLAP selection query optimization and OLAP query results summarization.
Analysis of exocytotic protein localization in presynaptic terminals at crayfish neuromuscular junctions

Normalized data showed that whole phasic boutons contained more syntaxin-1 than whole tonic boutons. However, local syntaxin-1 clusters found within the boutons showed no overall difference in the amount of syntaxin-1 between phasic and tonic boutons. Therefore, the global expression of syntaxin-1 might be associated with synaptic differentiation. At neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) of the crayfish leg extensor muscle, I used quantitative immunohistochemistry to determine whether the expression of different exocytotic proteins was different between the phasic and tonic synapses. I tested several proteins, but focused on uncoordinated-13 (unc-13) and syntaxin-1. Various unc-13 antibodies, including one I designed, did not recognize unc-13 in nerve terminals at the crayfish and Drosophila NMJs. However, syntaxin-1 staining was recognized in nerve terminals in both crayfish and Drosophila. Therefore, I quantified the relative amount of syntaxin-1 between the crayfish phasic and tonic boutons.
The mythology of war: how the Canadian daily newspaper depicted the great war

Over 470,000 Canadians served overseas during the Great War. Still, for the bulk of Canada's wartime population, the conflict was an imagined event, depicted in letters, books, newspapers and theatres, but not experienced directly. Based on an intensive analysis of a wide array of texts sampled from a group of ten representative daily newspapers, this study examines how the press helped shape the public imagination of the Great War. Daily newspapers enjoyed enormous potential influence during the war, since they were the predominant purveyors of news, views, entertainment and advertising in most Canadian homes. Despite facing severe wartime economic challenges, the business elite which controlled these dailies remained determined to use this influence for patriotic ends. Most daily publishers and editors saw their newspapers as key instruments in the maintenance of the national will to fight. In an effort to reassure their readers, dailies advanced a series of traditional myths to explain the purposes of the war, the nature of military combat and death, the place of modern technology in battle, and the construction of class and gender in a society at war. Critics of these myths existed, but most were ignored, belittled or condemned in the daily press. Alone among Canadian dailies, Le Devoir remained a haven for those who rejected the dominant mythology, but even Le Devoir's split from the standard interpretations of war and Canadian society was far from complete. Such was the enduring power of the conventional mythology that even some would-be critics were unable to avoid accepting aspects of the very myths they sought to attack. In the end, Canadian dailies were more than simply effective wartime propagandists on behalf of the allied cause; they also ensured the continuing cultural hegemony of the dominant pre-war myths about warfare and about Canada itself. Without an appreciation of how this hegemonic mythology was sustained by Canadian dailies throughout the war, one cannot fully understand how mass support for the Great War was mobilized and maintained by power elites in Canada, or, indeed, elsewhere.
Wire-arc spraying system: Particle production, transport, and deposition

Protective coatings are important to metal working. Thermal spray is a rapidly growing market, and wire-arc spraying is gaining a significant share of this market because of its low operating/equipment costs and high material/energy efficiency. Although wire-arc spraying is widely used, many of its underlying processes are not yet fundamentally understood. This work examines and explains different aspects of a wire-arc system. Shortly after primary breakups, the detached particles break up into smaller particles (secondary atomization). The size and velocity of such particles were measured in-flight using a DPV-2000 system for a range of operating parameters. A technique was developed to identify and separate the size distributions of particles produced by atomization of molten metal at either the anode or cathode by assuming that both follow a log-normal distribution. (This assumption was also verified experimentally). It was shown that particles produced by the anode are almost two times larger than those originating from the cathode. Furthermore, effect of operating parameters on size distribution of anodic and cathodic particles was investigated. In wire-arc spraying, two consumable wires are continuously fed into the gun. An electric arc is struck between the tips of these two wires and continuously melts their material. A cross-flow gas removes the molten material from the wire-tips and accelerates them towards a substrate, over which the detached particles form a protective coating layer. Experiments were also conducted to study the effect of impact velocity and substrate temperature on the properties of individual wire-arc splats and coatings. Aluminum was sprayed onto polished stainless-steel coupons maintained at temperatures ranging from 25°C to 450°C. At low substrate temperature, droplets splashed, forming irregular splats; at higher temperatures there was no splashing and splats formed circular disks. The temperature at which the transition occurred decreased with increasing impact velocity. An imaging system was developed to take pictures of the arc, and determine its length and shape. Using the information extracted from such pictures, a computational fluid dynamic model of the wire-arc torch was developed to estimate the shear stresses on the wire-tips and also sizes of primary breakups from the two electrodes.
Reversible photo-control of peptide helix content: Adjusting thermal stability of the cis state

Photochemical switches can be used to control the secondary structure of peptides and proteins. For this purpose, we created and studied a series of azobenzene cross-linkers analogous to the Kumita compound (Kumita et al., 2000), a symmetrical reagent 4,4' -bis(iodoacetamide)azobenzene, but with a range of thermal stabilities. To increase the rate of thermal reversion, derivatives with enhanced delocalization of the lone pair electrons of the para amino were designed. High reactivity and selectivity toward Cys residues was achieved by introducing methanethiosulfonyl groups. These groups enable reversible attachment of the cross-linker to peptides and proteins via disulfide linkages. The effects of the cross-linkers on the conformation of a test peptide (FK*-11) were evaluated. Second, a series of "long" azobenzene cross-linkers, containing two Cys-reactive chloroacetamide- and iodoacetamide-diphenylethynyl moieties that are linked to the azobenzene chromophore was designed and synthesized.
Frequency domain analysis of the static synchronous series compensator

This thesis presents an analytical formulation of the frequency domain characteristic of the Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC). It mathematically proves that the SSSC has a frequency domain impedance characteristic similar to that of a capacitor. This thesis also investigates different controllers of the SSSC-Vq (Voltage as a reference) and Xq (Impedance as a reference) controllers. The results of the analysis show that the two controllers display significantly different frequency domain characteristics for the same amount of reactive compensation. The frequency domain characteristics of the Vq controlled SSSC is a function of the operating point only, whereas the frequency domain characteristics of the Xq controlled SSSC is a function of the operating point as well as controller parameters. Comparison of analytical and simulation results shows very close agreement. The analytical model derived herein may be used to model and design an SSSC and to study occurrence of subsynchronous resonance (SSR) in the SSSC.
What kinds of novel information are remembered well? The novelty effect and its neural mechanisms

The "novelty effect" describes the tendency of novel material to be remembered better than familiar material. Two experiments measured memory for proverbs to explore this effect. Participants studied proverbs that were familiar, novel in terms of a single detail, or entirely novel, then completed a recognition memory test. In the first experiment, stimuli were familiar due to in-lab pre-familiarization; in the second, due to previous experience. Participants performed better with novel proverbs when familiarization occurred in-lab, but not when familiarization relied upon prior knowledge. Next, an fMRI novelty-encoding dataset was reanalyzed using a PLS analysis with a seed planted in the left hippocampus. Correlations involving the left hippocampus and prefrontal cortex were found to be weak in familiar and syntactic novelty conditions, and negative for conditions involving semantic novelty. Together, these results indicate humans preferentially encode a specific type of novel information: episodes semantically distinct from recently encountered ones.
Applying low-pass filtering to enhance target detection in simulated ultrasound images

The objective of this thesis is to investigate the potential benefits of a novel image-processing filter, named PF2, to increase visual sensitivity for ultrasound-guided nerve block procedures. This study examined the effectiveness of the PF2 filter for multiple levels of target velocity and filter persistence using simulated ultrasound images. Subjects were asked to detect a covert target in twelve experimental conditions. Our experimental results show that the PF2 augments the targets' saliency and consequently contributes to an effective increase in visual sensitivity. In addition, the results show that the PF2 is most effective for mild target velocity combined with high levels of visual persistence. Consequently, this study concludes that the PF2 has the potential to improve the present use of ultrasound-guided nerve block and provides a number of recommendations to expand the current PF2 model in real-world settings.
Modeling pulsed magnetization transfer: An evaluation of principles and techniques

Modeling the effects of clinical MT scans, which generate contrast using short, shaped radiofrequency pulses (Pulsed MT), is complex and time consuming. As a result, the models which are currently used for Pulsed MT data analysis involve a variety of simplifying approximations. The objective of this work was to investigate the effects of such approximations on the accuracy of MT results. To address this objective, a Pulsed MT model was developed with minimal approximations. This model and three other, more approximate, techniques were then compared. The results of this comparison established the accuracy of these techniques, which continue to contribute to the current body of qMT research. Magnetization transfer (MT) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that generates contrast based on the exchange of magnetization between macromolecular and water protons. MT techniques have demonstrated sensitivity to the changes in tissue structure that occur in a variety of neurological disorders.
The effect of angiotensin II receptor blockade, prior to, during and after a myocardial infarction in rats with and without insulin resistance

Since diabetes and myocardial infarction (MI) are associated with an up-regulation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), we hypothesized that Angiotensin-II receptor blockers will be beneficial in the peri- and post-large-MI periods, in Wistar and insulin-resistant rats (ZFR). In Wistar rats, Losartan at a high-dose (30mg/kg/day) caused significant hypotension resulting in increased 24hour mortality. In the 24hour post-MI survivors, Losartan administered progressively (3mg/kg/day progressively increased to 30mg/kg/day), reduced mortality between day-1 and day-38, improved ventricular remodeling, hemodynamics and fetal-gene expression profiles. In ZFR, Losartan administered progressively reduced early ventricular arrhythmias resulting in improved survival. Chronically, Losartan reduced cardiac hypertrophy and fetal-gene re-expression, however it did not improve ventricular remodeling and hemodynamics. These results indicate that the peri- and post-MI blockade of the RAS reduces arrhythmias and improves peri-MI survival only in the ZFR, while the chronic treatment improved the 24hour-38day survival, ventricular function and remodeling, fetal-gene and GLUT-4 mRNA expression in normal animals.