VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Neuroimaging of the Dopaminergic System in Healthy Controls and Parkinson’s Disease with REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative movement disorder where patients suffer from tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia. One of the primary driving forces of PD pathophysiology involves neuronal loss within the dopaminergic pathways including the nigrostriatal, mesocortical, and mesolimbic pathways. Neurons within these pathways contain two dopamine D2 receptor isoforms—D2 long and D2 short. The genotype of the DRD2 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs2283265 (C>A), modulate the degree of expression for these isoforms. This SNP is clinically important because PD patients with the CC genotype showed the most clinical improvement in motor and mental functioning to certain drugs that modulates the dopaminergic system, compared to the minor A allele carriers. However, it is unclear how this SNP affects the distribution of D2 receptors in vivo within the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system at a foundational level in healthy controls. Furthermore, given the role of the dopaminergic system on sleep disturbances in PD patients, it is critical to elucidate the dopaminergic dysfunction in PD patients with REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). RBD impacts nearly half of PD patients and is characterized by the lack of normal skeletal muscle atonia during REM sleep resulting in dream enactment behaviours. Therefore, the general aims of this thesis were to use positron emission tomography (PET) to determine in vivo striatal D2 receptor distribution and availability as a function of DRD2 SNP genotype in healthy controls; to investigate the extent of extra-striatal D2 receptor availability and striatal dopaminergic innervation in PD patients with and without RBD. The findings from this thesis revealed that 1) DRD2 SNP influences either the quantity and/or high affinity state of D2 receptors within the ventral striatum in healthy controls; 2) extra-striatal dopaminergic system may play a role in more advanced PD patients with RBD; and 3) PD patients with and without RBD had similar striatal denervation. The significances of these results are: DRD2 SNP modulates the D2 receptor distribution in the ventral striatum in healthy controls; and the dopaminergic dysfunction in extra-striatal regions may play a stronger role in RBD pathophysiology in PD patients relative to striatal dopaminergic denervation.

Keywords: Dopamine
Healthy Controls
Parkinson's disease
PET Imaging
REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder
Single Nucleotide Polymorphism
Advisor: Strafella, Antonio
My Sister, My Bride: The Liturgical Rites of Monastic Profession and Consecration of Virgins in the Usage of Monastic Women from the Tenth to the Thirteenth Century

This thesis investigates the liturgical rites used by women in England and Germany for initiation into the monastic life from the tenth to the thirteenth century. Two rites were used: monastic profession and the consecration of virgins. The contents of each rite are presented from a variety of liturgical sources, facilitating their comparison. The sources are divided geographically (England and the Continent) and according to type (pontificals are treated in chapters 2 and 3 and monastic sources in chapter 4). In some contexts, the consecration of virgins was used as the female version of monastic profession. In other places, monastic women used both rites, either in two different moments or in a hybrid rite. Initially, when women used profession rites, they were identical to those used by monks. The emergence of a new type of rite, monastic profession compiled specifically for women, is documented beginning in the thirteenth century. These new rites have the nuptial character of the consecration of virgins without the requirement that they be celebrated by a bishop. These new profession rites best reflect the ecclesial role of consecrated women as spouses of Christ.

Keywords: consecrated life
consecration of virgins
liturgy
monastic profession
nuns
Advisor: Ginther, James R.
Developing and Supporting the Dual Professionalism of CAAT Faculty Members

This qualitative, exploratory study is focused on how teachers in Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) are prepared to teach. Using focus groups and semi-structured interviews, I sought the perspectives of front-line staff within academic development units and academic leaders to create a detailed depiction of how teacher preparation and development currently happen in CAATS. In this study I worked collaboratively with the experts on teaching and learning and teacher training to develop a shared understanding of the present state of CAAT teacher training and gain insight into their perspectives on where CAAT teacher training should go next. The specific research questions I sought to answer through this study were: 1. How do CAATs, through the mechanism of their institutional academic development units, support the development of their faculty members as dual professionals to be both subject-matter experts and excellent teachers, with the goal of improved learning for students through more effective teaching? 2. What are the perceptions of academic development unit staff of current teacher training at CAATs? 3. How can the system of teacher development at CAATs be strengthened? Using Activity Theory as my main theoretical framework as well as the structure for my interview protocol, I worked with participants in this study to collaboratively map the activity system of teacher preparation both at individual institutions and across the CAAT system as a whole. Overall, CAATs provide basic teacher training—on planning and conducting lessons, designing course materials, and setting up courses on Learning Management Systems (LMS)—for faculty members, but lack resources to support faculty members’ subject-matter expertise. CAATs can work together, under the direction of senior leadership, to develop better support both for educational developers and CAAT faculty members. CAAT academic development units can collaborate to create a provincial CAAT teacher training curriculum or credential that can be implemented at the institutional level to ensure consistency as well as the necessary level of institutional focus for faculty development.

Advisor: Wheelahan, Leesa
Essays on Managing the Consumption and Creation of Digital Media

Online platforms of digitized media content face different challenges on managing the consumer demand and creator production compared to the traditional media industry. This work utilizes data from a major online book platform in China to investigate these issues and provides insights on platform management regarding content releases and creator incentives. The first essay studies the impact of the digital platform’s product release strategy of serialized media content on its consumption and the ensuing profits made by the platform. Specifically, should a platform release all chapters of a book simultaneously, sequentially over time, or with a hybrid strategy where it releases a fraction simultaneously and the rest sequentially? I show that the release speed of chapters impacts consumption through two opposite forces: binge consumption and product exploration. A slower release, while limiting binge consumption, leads to an increased exploration of other books through two mechanisms - consumers visit the platform more often and explore other books due to the constrained availability. The counterfactuals show that the platform will be worse-off under a simultaneous release strategy but better-off under an optimized hybrid release strategy. The second essay focuses on how the platform should design a monetary contract to incentivize content creators to produce higher quantity and higher quality works. The platform switched from a uniform commission rate to a quantity-based plan offering higher commission rates if a writer's production meets higher quantity brackets. Theoretical analysis indicates that a quantity-based commission plan can enhance the quantity-quality complementarity: the creators who reach a higher bracket of quantity should also produce a higher quality. This theoretical result is confirmed in multiple empirical tests. First, for a given book, the chapters published in the months when writers reached higher brackets of quantity had higher quality measured by chapter-to-chapter customer retention rates. Such a positive correlation is not significant in books published when the platform offered a uniform commission plan. Second, when writers produced higher quantity early on in a month but failed later, there was a greater quality drop under the quantity-based commission plan than under the uniform commission plan.

Keywords: Demand estimation
Digital media
Incentive contract
Platform design
Release strategy
Advisor: Mehta, Nitin
Osborne, Matthew
An Examination of Changes in Therapist Expressed Empathy and Therapist-client Interpersonal Patterns during and After Alliance Rupture, and their Contributions to Outcome in the Treatment of Depression

The primary objective of the current study was to examine changes in therapist expressed empathy and therapist-client interpersonal patterns in order to uncover the processes through which alliance ruptures and resolutions occur, as well as their contributions to post-rupture session working alliance and post-treatment outcome. The data included 20 clients who received 16-weeks of treatment for depression and 11 therapists who provided either cognitive-behavioural or process-experiential/emotion-focused therapy. The Working Alliance Inventory was used to identify pre-rupture, rupture, and post-rupture sessions for each client. The selected sessions were then coded on the Measure of Expressed Empathy and the Structural Analysis of Social Behaviour. Results revealed that therapist empathy and therapist-client positive interpersonal patterns significantly declined from pre-rupture session to rupture session, whereas negative and mixed interpersonal patterns significantly increased. Results further showed that clients often deferred to the therapist during rupture, while therapists most commonly pursued their own agenda or controlled the therapy process by adhering to psychoeducation or technique. Therapists also contributed to rupture by listening passively, merely following the client without offering any guidance, not heeding the client’s expressed emotions or needs, illogically initiating a new topic of discussion, or (less frequently) blaming or criticizing the client. The post-rupture session for clients who reported rupture resolution showed a significant increase in therapist empathy and therapist-client positive interpersonal patterns and a significant decrease in negative and mixed interpersonal patterns. Specifically, therapists attempted to respond to the client in more empathic and nurturing ways and were less neglectful. Clients also appeared more connected to and trusting of the therapist at post-rupture and less frequently deferred, withdrew, or asserted and separated. In contrast, negative interpersonal patterns, including therapist controlling behaviours and client protesting and distancing behaviours, remained at a significantly higher level at post-rupture for clients who did not report immediate rupture resolution. Contrary to the study hypotheses, no significant relationship was found between the process variables and post-treatment outcome. However, changes in therapist empathy as well as therapist-client positive and negative interpersonal patterns strongly predicted post-rupture session working alliance. Implications for clinical practice and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Advisor: Watson, Jeanne
Asemaa Nitam (Sacred Tobacco First): Indigenous Healing Practices within the Ojibwe Tradition

The Seven Stages of Life Teaching is an Ojibwe Traditional Healing Method and Pedagogy used to relieve psychological and physical trauma to promote and support a ‘Good Life.’ The main approach of the method/pedagogy is by reliving past experiences and trauma through participation in the Oral Tradition of Sacred Ceremony. This doctoral research project will share my personal experience of this Traditional Lifeway Teaching using heard stories, Sacred Instructions, Songs, and Dreams as the primary source of reference. My intention for sharing these teachings in this academic context is to provide a point of reference to otherAnishinaabe/Indigenous students so that they can begin their own personal research as I have done to maintain this path through colonization. I am doing this work to validate our Ojibwe Traditional Healing Methods and to promote and support confidence in the psychology of Indigenous Healing Ceremonies for Indigenous students as they move forward in a Good Way. In a very small way, my contributions through this doctoral research project will begin to address some of the issues in ‘decolonizing’ the academy for Indigenous students.

Keywords: Indigenous Healing
Indigenous Psychology
Ojibwe Oral Tradition
Social Justice
Traditional Knowledge
Truth and Reconciliation
Advisor: Tuck, Eve
The Longitudinal Association between Anxiety and Restricted/ Repetitive Behaviour in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects 1-2% of children. The core symptoms include (1) social communication deficits and (2) restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour. Autistic children experience high rates of co-occurring anxiety; anxiety disorders are estimated to affect 40%. Previous data suggest that restricted/repetitive behaviour severity correlates with anxiety levels in cross-sectional samples. The nature of the longitudinal relationship between anxiety and restricted/repetitive behaviour in ASD is unknown. Methods: In a cohort of autistic children followed between ages 3 and 11 years (n = 421), anxiety was measured longitudinally using a parent report measure (Childhood Behavior Checklist - anxiety problems subscale). Restricted/repetitive behaviour was measured using a standardized parent interview (Autism Diagnostic Interview - Revised) and a parent survey (Repetitive Behavior Scale - Revised). The longitudinal association between anxiety and restricted/ repetitive behaviour was explored using three different analytic approaches: (1) multivariable logistic regression (Study 1), (2) group-based trajectory modelling (Study 2), and (3) cross-lagged panel modelling (Study 3). Results: In study 1, preschool restricted/ repetitive behaviour severity was an independent predictor of clinically elevated anxiety symptoms in middle childhood. Sameness and restricted behaviour subtypes appeared to be the most predictive of future anxiety. In study 2, four anxiety trajectories and three insistence on sameness behaviour trajectories were identified, with mostly stable or increasing symptoms. Sameness and anxiety trajectories were similar in severity and direction for two-thirds of the sample. ‘High-peaking’ insistence on sameness trajectory membership was associated with clinically elevated anxiety trajectories. In study 3, cross-lagged panels supported a model where a rise in sameness behaviours precedes a rise in anxiety symptoms; within time associations also appeared to lessen with age. Conclusion: In ASD, restricted/repetitive behaviour and anxiety are related symptom domains, especially in early childhood. Elevated or increasing restricted/repetitive behaviour severity, especially level of insistence on sameness behaviour, is a predictor of future anxiety problems. Longitudinal anxiety symptoms and insistence on sameness behaviours often mirror each other and should be assessed concurrently. Therapeutic interventions including participants with high or increasing sameness behaviours in early to middle childhood may help reduce or prevent anxiety disorders in ASD.

Keywords: anxiety
autism
insistence on sameness
repetitive behaviour
Advisor: Vigod, Simone
Exploring Pathways from Growth to Wisdom: The Role of Coping Styles and Meaning-Making

Variations in cognition and coping play a key role in the maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), therefore it is important to know how individuals can successfully cope with trauma. Self-compassion (SC) and meaning may help an individual grow in a transformative manner following trauma. Moreover, recent research has shown a link between SC, posttraumatic growth (PTG), and emotion-focused coping strategies. Studies have also found evidence for the use of problem-focused strategies in predicting PTG. Therefore, this study had three main objectives: (1) investigate the association of negative cognitions (about the self, the world, and self-blame), coping, and their interactions with PTSD, (2) examine whether SC and meaning are associated with PTG in individuals with probable PTSD, and (3) investigate the association between SC, emotion- and problem-focused coping, and PTG. Participants were 111 emerging adults who participated in an online survey. First, a hierarchical multiple linear regression was conducted to test the hypothesis related to coping, negative cognitions, and PTSD. At step 1, self-distraction and substance use were associated with PTSD. At step 2, these coping styles and negative cognitions about the world were associated with PTSD. In step 3, no interactions were significant. Second, for the probable PTSD group, SC was associated with meaning and PTG, whereas SC and PTG were not correlated in the non-PTSD group. There was an indirect effect of SC on PTG via meaning in those with probable PTSD. Lastly, SC and PTG were correlated with active coping, instrumental support, and positive reframing. All three coping styles were associated with PTG over and above SC. Findings indicate that distracting oneself, using substances, and maintaining a negative view of the world significantly impacts PTSD. Trauma may require individuals to redefine negative beliefs to rebuild their shattered assumptive worlds. SC also involves a caring about one’s life that affords a greater opportunity for PTG. SC-based interventions could be beneficial in supporting growth after adversity. Problem-focused coping strategies are also influential in mediating the development of PTG from SC. Incorporating problem-focused coping into SC-based practices in trauma therapies may offer additional benefits by reducing self-criticism to promote recovery.

Keywords: Coping
Meaning
Trauma
Advisor: Ferrari, Michel
Wrongful Remand: Miscarriages of Justice in the Canadian Bail System

Some people detained pending trial are factually innocent. They committed no crime, as a matter of fact,but they spend weeks, months, or years in maximum security detention centers awaiting trial. Their cases have been largely overlooked in Canadian jurisprudence and legal scholarship. Consequently, little is known about how often these people are detained in custody or what features of the bail system permit or promote their detention. This dissertation presents previously unreported case studies, as revealed by transcripts and official court records, to explain how the bail system may treat the factually innocent. Building upon methodology and theory from wrongful conviction scholarship, the dissertation argues that pre-trial detention amounts to a miscarriage of justice (“wrongful remand”) when a person is detained for weeks, months, or years and the charges are stayed, withdrawn, or dismissed due to evidence tending to prove factual innocence. These miscarriages raise important questions about the theoretical and constitutional legitimacy of the current bail system. They reveal how the system may set the stage for a wrongful conviction, either at the guilty plea or trial phase. They display how the system may, in effect, devalue the trial process, by incarcerating and stigmatizing the wrongfully accused defendant before he or she can obtain access to justice at trial. And they reflect procedural and substantive bail principles that overemphasize law and order objectives while overlooking how detention may undermine the public interest. The dissertation also advocates a new approach to pre-trial release—an approach that would provide stronger protection for the factually innocent while promoting public safety and fair trials.

Keywords: Bail
Miscarriages of justice
primary ground
secondary ground
Tertiary ground
wrongful conviction
Advisor: Stewart, Hamish
Essays on Intergenerational Inequality

James UguccioniDoctor of Philosophy Department of Economics University of Toronto 2022 This thesis contains three papers examining the sources of, and policy remedies for, intergenerational inequality. In Chapter 1, I consider how children are affected by parental job loss. I provide the first empirical evidence of the long-run effects of parental unemployment on children exposed before age 10 (and as young as 2), a period thought to be critical for child development. Using administrative tax data covering children born in Canada between 1972 and 1985 and random forest proximity matching, I estimate the causal effects of parental job loss experienced at different points in childhood on a child's income attainment. I find that children exposed to parental unemployment at ages 2 to 10 experience losses of 3 to 4 rank points in average earnings attainment in adulthood (approximately $2,500 per year). In Chapter 2, I study how the emigration of millions of Black families from the South in the United States, known as the Great Migration, affected equality of opportunity. I am among the first to consider how Black emigrants affected their counties of origin in South. I focus on how the Great Migration affected racial inequality in educational attainment, building off of previous work showing that Black emigration limited discrimination from local governments. Using a shift-share instrument to isolate the effects of Black emigration, I find that higher emigration rates caused the Black-white gap in average educational attainment to shrink considerably. Finally, Chapter 3, based off of joint work with Shari Eli, Price Fishback, and Adriana Lleras-Muney, explores the emergence of the modern welfare system in the United States. We study the political economy of the first welfare program in the United States, the Mothers' Pension, which paid monthly pensions to widowed mothers. Despite being legislated in 46 states between 1911 and 1931, counties were left to administer, and often finance, these pensions themselves. Delegating the payment of pensions to counties led to irregular coverage and the pensions ultimately being replaced by Aid to Dependent Children. We collect new data and provide descriptive evidence that local demographics played an important role in the adoption and the payment of Mothers' Pensions.

Keywords: emigration
intergenerational
mobility
unemployment
Advisor: Eli, Shari
Kroft, Kory