VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The development of transformational leaders, the journeys of female and male secondary school principals, alike or different?

The first task of this study was to select principals considered to be transformational leaders for the further study. This was done by administering a survey to the teachers asking about the transformational practices (Podsakoff et al., 1990; Leithwood et al., 1990/1991) of their principals. Results showed that the five female and five male secondary school principals, initially identified as effective leaders by district administrators, were perceived to be exercising at least a moderate degree of transformational leadership. The qualitative part of the study was directed, firstly, at discovering how their transformational practices developed and, secondly, at determining whether there were gender based differences in the socialization of these principals. Van Gennep's (1909/1960) conceptual framework of the three phases of separation, transition and incorporation was used. A pre-separation phase was added. Areas where gender based differences in the socialization of principals were found during the pre-separation phase were: career options; struggles encountered at university; discrimination in schools; work obstacles; stress around the demands of family and career; scope of leadership; amount of support, encouragement and opportunity to develop skills and confidence in their ability. Areas where gender based differences were found during the separation phase were: effect of family on careers; organizational barriers encountered; change in perception of the administrative role; availability of sponsors; ease of separation from the role of teacher. Areas where gender based differences were found during the transition phase reaction to discipline responsibilities of vice principals; visions or philosophies of the principals who were role models; stress associated with multiple roles; variety of preparatory experiences for administration; experiences as graduate students; experiences while going through the formal process for becoming an administrator. Areas in which gender made a difference to the type of leadership developed by principals that were shown during the incorporation phase were: visions of principals; support systems; impact of parental role on administrative role; sense of humour; enthusiasm for administrative role. Becker et al.'s (1961) concept of perspective was used to explain the way in which the women and men dealt with the problematic situations they encountered during their careers. They defined perspective as a coordinated set of ideas and actions a person uses in dealing with some of the problematic situations they encounter in new environments. The women and men in this study coped with situations which were so difficult that new understandings and actions were necessary.
Sensorless Flux Vector Control for a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine with cylindrical rotor under severe starting conditions

This thesis is concerned with determining a sensorless, method for the closed-loop, controlled torque start-up of a cylindrical Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (cylindrical PMSM). This work will concentrate on the study of sensorless operation of a cylindrical PMSM, assuming a typical design with surface mounted Ne-Fe-B permanent magnets. Sensorless operation at low speed and start-up against high torque presents several problems which have to be solved for an operational drive. The position at standstill has to be identified. This is required to start-up with optimal torque at a minimum motor current, thereby minimizing the inverter current rating. A method to identify the standstill position for cylindrical PMSM machines assuming ideal cylindrical behavior (Xd = Xq) is proposed. Furthermore, closed-loop controlled torque start-up is proposed using a structured adaptive flux observer, which allows the start-up with the optimal high torque in severe starting conditions with the least possible motor current. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
Capital structure in the law and regulation

Chapter one provides the reader an introduction to the thesis. Some basic background information on the theory of capital structure is presented. Finally the reader is appraised of where the thesis will go and how it will fit into the theory of capital structure. Chapter two investigates the properties of various legal regimes when there is the opportunity for bankruptcy. The key result is that strict liability always yields less than the socially optimal level of care, while negligence will never do any worse than strict liability. The paper characterizes the behavior of the firm in terms of the possible values the liability may take. The chapter investigates both the case of a single tortfeasor and joint tortfeasors. The joint tort regimes were ranked based on which regime induced the optimal level of care from the tortfeasors. The advantage of the paper over previous papers is that it conditions the rankings on the level of liability and not the solvency of the firm, which is endogenized in this chapter. Chapter three provides a theory of regulatory finance that accounts for the full cost of capital. Regulated firms have their prices and capital structure set by the regulator. The price allowed is a transfer from consumers to the firm and is increasing in the bargaining power of the firm, costs and uncertainty, while the debt equity ratio is increasing the firm's bargaining power and decreasing in costs and uncertainty. States in which the firms have large bargaining power will also slower in moving towards deregulation. The model provides a framework for estimating the bargaining power of consumers. These estimates can be used to make various inferences about the states' regulatory policies. In addition, these measures can explain the pace of deregulation in the electricity industry.
The role of the C-terminus in the cellular physiology of cystic fibrosis transmembrane-conductance regulator (CTFR)

Cystic fibrosis is the most prevalent autosomal genetic disease in the Caucasian population. It is caused by the impaired function or cell surface accumulation of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane-conductance regulator (CFTR), a cAMP-activated chloride channel. The cytosolic carboxyl (C)-terminus of CFTR appears to have an indispensable role in the stability of CFTR at the cell surface, since naturally occurring mutations leading to premature truncations accelerate the degradation of the mature CFTR by more than five-fold. The objective of my study was to elucidate the role of the C-terminus in the stabilization of CFTR. Two tentative mechanisms were examined. Firstly, I have searched for potential interacting proteins with the C-terminus of CFTR. Affinity purification combining with mass spectrometry analyses identified COPI Ã- and ß'-subunits as interacting polypeptides and these interactions were verified 'in vivo' as well. Since COPI has been implicated in sorting and recycling functions of endosomes, these results suggest that COPI may target the internalized CFTR for, recycling, thereby maintaining the cell surface density of CFTR. Secondly, the possibility that the C-terminus is engaged in intramolecular interaction was investigated. The intramolecular interaction of the C-terminus was demonstrated by biochemical and functional complementation of the truncated CFTR phenotypes with the expression of the C-terminus 'in trans'. Pulse-chase analyses provide direct evidence that the C-terminus is able to inhibit the accelerated turn-over of the truncated CFTR. 'In vitro' pull-down and coimmunoprecipitation results show that the C-terminus physically interacts with the cytosolic domain(s) of CFTR. These experiments not only reveal the possible role of the C-terminus in the physiology of CFTR, but also help to better understand the molecular mechanisms of cystic fibrosis in patients with truncated CFTR.
Congenital abnormalities and childhood cancer, a record-linkage cohort study, Ontario, Canada

The natural history of many cancers likely involves interactions of genetic and non-genetic pathogenic factors. Knowledge that genetic alteration causes cancer has led to the concept of "cancer predisposition". In the last two decades, collaboration between laboratory scientists and epidemiologists has led to the identification of cancer-susceptibility genes for many type of cancers. In this regard, congenital abnormalities could provide essential information in mapping the predisposing lesions in cancers. Study of the occurrence of cancer in children with congenital abnormalities has been considered as one of the sources that can provide essential information. Most of the reported associations between congenital anomalies and childhood cancers were first recognized through clinical series. The current study is one of the largest population-based cohort studies in which this association was examined. In this study two cohorts of children with and without birth defects were followed for the occurrence of cancer and death. Through this study, risk of the developing cancer by age at diagnosis, effects of birth characteristics on the cancer risk, survival rates, and effect of cancer diagnosis on the survival status were compared between the two cohorts. Results of the current study indicate: (1) the risk of developing cancer during the first year of life was 5.8 times higher in children with congenital anomalies (RR = 5.8, 95% CI = 3.7-9.1); (2) children with congenital anomalies had a 13-fold higher mortality rate, especially during the first year of life (RR = 13.8, 95% CI = 12.9-14.6); (3) cancer cases with or without congenital anomalies had similar survival rates. The high relative risks found in this study provide some evidence of links between the presence of congenital abnormalities and the development of cancer. Some 'cancer-prone' congenital abnormalities have been identified in this and previous studies. Such congenital anomalies may be markers of other exposures or processes that increase the risk of childhood cancer. Continued pursuit of the understanding of how the risk of cancer, prescribed by our genetic blueprint, and how the environmental factors may influence it, will bring us closer to an understanding of the etiology of many important public health concerns of children, including congenital abnormalities and childhood cancer.
The role of the economic analysis in the decision making process at the Drug Quality and Therapeutics Committee of Ontario

This thesis examines the role of the economic analysis in the decision making process at the Drug Quality and Therapeutics Committee of Ontario. This committee reviews data submitted by pharmaceutical manufacturers who are requesting listing of products on the provincial formulary. A case study approach was taken; nine meetings were observed and seven committee members were interviewed. This thesis found that the role of the economic analysis in the decision making process was important but limited by various factors. The product's clinical merit and the quality of the submission were dominant factors in the decision making process. Interestingly, the type of drug discussed was another key factor that determined the usefulness of the economic analysis. The committee's membership also shaped the discussions; only one member had extensive training in health economics. Finally, the economic analysis was limited by the context in which it was applied, that of resource allocation.
The impact of work characteristics and technological change on the adoption of workplace practices in government workplaces

This thesis examines the sources of variation in the adoption of workplace practices in government. It focuses on how the nature of work carried out by work units specifically, whether work is carried out in production-mode and work complexity influence the utilization of certain workplace practices. It also investigates the interaction between two key groups of factors hypothesized to determine the adoption of workplace practices: work characteristics, i.e., type of work carried out by the unit, and environmental pressures, focusing on technological change. The workplace practices studied include four sets of practices: work design, employee involvement, performance management, and training. The analysis, based on a survey of government managers in five Canadian jurisdictions, focuses on workplace practices at the micro-level. Results indicate that the characteristics of work carried out by government workplaces have a limited effect on workplace practices adopted. Of the fourteen hypotheses tested three received strong support, one received weak support, four were partially supported, and six received no support. These results suggest that there is a need to look to factors other than the nature of work to fully explain which workplace practices would be adopted. The differential impact of technological change on work units based on the type of work carried out by the unit was substantiated for work design practices and self-directed work teams. The incidence of performance management practices was associated with production type of work performed by the work unit. The relationship between work complexity and the adoption of self-directed work teams received weak support. Carrying out work in production-mode increased the probability of adoption of work design practices in two provinces, while it led to increased utilization of employee involvement practices in another province. Work complexity was a significant correlate of employee involvement practices and training activities in the "periphery", but not in "core" government. The major conclusion of this research is that neither work characteristics nor external pressures are consistently strong predictors of the adoption of workplace practices in government. Further, the determinants of innovative workplace practices in the private and government sectors appear to be different.
A paleolimnological assessment of the diatom communities of Lake Opeongo, Ontario, Canada

Lake Opeongo is an oligotrophic lake in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada (45°42' N, 78°22' W). Limnological conditions over the past 300 years were tracked using diatoms preserved in the sediments and applying diatom-based transfer functions to infer total phosphorus (TP). Before European settlement, Lake Opeongo was highly oligotrophic, with the diatom community consisting of 'Cyclotella stelligera' complex with subdominants ' Tabellaria flocculosa' IIIp and 'Aulacoseira distans'. No changes occurred until ca. 1956 when the diatom community shifted to the current mesotrophic assemblage consisting of 'Asterionella formosa ' with lesser amounts of 'Cyclotella bodanica' var ' lemanica, C. stelligera' complex, 'Fragilaria crotonensis' and 'T. flocculosa' IIIp. This shift could have occurred due to increased direct human impacts on the watershed; increased post-war fertilizer use; global warming, including changes in the thermal conditions of the lake; and trophic level changes caused by human manipulation of the fish community of the lake.
Systemic and discriminatory disciplinary practices and a teacher's struggle for a more socially just and equitable education system

This thesis looks at how I became a teacher. I write about my experiences of, and implications in, different disciplinary practices of supply teaching and in various teaching positions I have held. Despite my resistance, I learned that to teach in a mass schooling system that some forms of discipline were necessary. I began to see the relation of teaching within the larger political and social context and to explore some of the discriminatory features of the education system called schooling and the limits that teachers function within. Racism, anti-racism and homophobia are some of the systemic relations of power that I look into. Streaming is another major systemic problem that I take up. What I wish to make central are the possibility and difficulties that a teacher struggles with to make teaching more socially just and inclusive in the face of the systemic, discriminatory disciplinary practices of the institution of schooling.
Stereo matching of perspective distorted features using an affine transformation model

Three dimensional reconstruction from a stereo pair is possible if the correspondence problem is solved--every point in the first image needs to be matched to its pairing point in the second image with the least ambiguity. This procedure yields an estimate for the disparity of a given feature, which is directly proportional to its depth in 3D space. For points that have not undergone perspective distortion during image capture, stereo matching can be carried out with no difficulty. However more generally, features do have some level of distortion brought about by perspective projection. A strategy to address feature distortion in stereo images while computing a sum-of-squared deviations error match has been studied. Following Shi and Tomasi's work on feature tracking, an affine transformation has been placed inside the error equation. In this way, perspective distortion has been addressed explicitly within the local neighbourhood of the matching windows. It has been found that this approach works well, and that more accurate disparity maps can be obtained.
The effects of vitamin D and its receptor in normal subjects and kidney stone formers

Vitamin D exists in two major forms, as the D$\sb2$ and D$\sb3$ form. It is accepted that vitamin D$\sb2$ and vitamin D$\sb3$ exert different biological effects in all animal species tested. Yet in humans, vitamin D$\sb2$ and D$\sb3$ are presumed to have equivalent biological effects. To test this assumption in humans, I compared the ability of equimolar quantities of ingested vitamin D$\sb2$ or D$\sb3$ to increase serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), the clinical measure of vitamin D nutrition. Vitamin D may also play an important role in hypercalciuric calcium stone formation because calcitriol, the hormonal form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)$\sb2$D), controls calcium homeostasis. Available data support the hypothesis that disordered 1,25(OH)$\sb2$D production is one cause of idiopathic hypercalciuria (IH). I tested the hypothesis that patients with idiopathic hypercalciuria may have an exaggerated inverse relationship between serum 1,25(OH)$\sb2$D and 25(OH)D in the physiologic range. IH patients challenged with a vitamin D supplement should therefore exhibit a larger fall in serum 1,25(OH)$\sb2$D than controls. For 1,25(OH)$\sb2$D to exert its effects, it must bind to the vitamin D receptor (VDR). Genetic VDR polymorphisms have been reported to predict bone mass. Since vitamin D plays an important role in calcium metabolism, I investigated whether these VDR polymorphisms are associated with hypercalciuria. The results showed that vitamin D$\sb3$ is more potent than vitamin D$\sb2$ at elevating serum 25(OH)D. Thus, the assumption of D$\sb3$ and D$\sb2$ equivalence may be erroneous and should be reconsidered. In addition, only a small sub-group of IH stone formers have an inverse relationship between serum 25(OH)D and 1,25(OH)$\sb2$D. Finally, I found no association between VDR polymorphism and stone formers in comparison to controls. However, there was an association between VDR polymorphism and urinary calcium excretion, suggesting that VDR may exert a weak effect on renal calcium metabolism.
Discrimination of motor and sensory processing in human EEG by power and synchronization analysis

Do EEG-based measures show the same sustained changes throughout different motor behaviors or conditions of sensory stimulation as observed in fMRI studies? EEG was recorded as subjects performed a variety of motor and auditory tasks. Power and mean cross-correlation values analyzed over a "large time window" were calculated in the high alpha (10.5-13Hz), mid beta (18-24Hz), and gamma (30-40Hz) frequency bands. Intrasubject comparisons (one way ANOVA) of power values, and to a lesser extent of cross-correlation (0 phase-delay) values, distinguished neuronal activity associated with some behavioral states compared to others. Generally however, patterns for both "regional" power and synchronization did not uniquely identify specific behavioral conditions. Also, intersubject analysis (pooled data) showed no significant differences (one way ANOVA) in power or synchronization values among experimental paradigms, but did reveal basic trends inherent in cortical activity and EEG based measures.
Cisplatin chemotherapy plus adenoviral p53 gene therapy in EBV-positive and -negative nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a malignant disease of the head/neck region that is endemic to South East Asia, and is associated with the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV). Given that current treatments for NPC yield a 5-year survival rate of only 65%, our laboratory was interested in exploring the potential of adenoviral-mediated 'p53' gene therapy as a novel treatment that might improve outcome. This work examined the effects of exposure to the combination of cisplatin chemotherapy and 'p53' gene therapy in human NPC cell lines. p53 protein expression was induced only following 'p53' gene therapy, but both treatments induced apoptosis. Overall, the combination of the two modalities appeared to act in an additive manner with respect to decreasing the cells' clonogenic survival and/or viability. This work also showed that ' p53' gene therapy remains a potential therapeutic treatment despite the presence of EBV in the tumor cells. Future studies will determine the effect of tumor hypoxia on the efficacy of 'p53' gene therapy.
Changes in the chemoreflex response and performance measures with training in competitive swimmers

Breathing during swimming performance is entrained to the stroke rate, suggesting that there may be an interaction between training, performance, and the control of breathing. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to evaluate the effect of training on the chemoreflex response to carbon dioxide, and to evaluate these changes in light of alterations in swimming performance measures. Subjects were 21 competitive swimmers (mean age 17 ± 2 years) and 14 non-athletes (mean age 18 ± 2.5 years). The hypoxic rebreathing test results showed that, after training, the chemoreflex threshold increased significantly ('p' = 0.01) and chemoreflex sensitivity decreased ('p' = 0.05). There was a non-significant decrease in the frequency sensitivity ('p' = 0.06). There were no significant changes in the rebreathing test measures for the athletes in hyperoxia. The swimming tests indicated that measures of both critical velocity ('p' <= 0.001) and peak swimming velocity ('p' <= 0.001) were increased after training. Improvement in swimming economy variables were detected, although the results were not significant. Distance per breath on the peak swimming velocity test was significantly improved ('p' = 0.01). There were no significant changes in the non-athlete group over the training period. The results of this study suggest that swim training acts to attenuate the hypoxic chemoreflex response, an adaptive response that may allow the swimmers to swim at faster velocities through improvements in technical efficiency.