VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Global Rule of Law: Between a State of Nature and a World State

Based on the domestic model of law, many assume that the global rule of law requires a world government with a central law-making body, a hierarchical court system, and a supranational system of coercive enforcement. Since there are important problems with the practicality and desirability of a world government, I defend a decentralized conception of the global rule of law without a world government. I begin by examining Immanuel Kant’s theory since he argued that a supreme sovereign is required for a lawful condition within states while recognizing certain limitations with applying this idea to the international level. I argue that Kant proposed a voluntary league of states without coercive public law in part because a supreme coercive authority at the global level would conflict with the sovereignty of nation-states and undermine the civil condition within states. In Chapter Two, I argue that theories of dispersed or shared sovereignty can resolve this problem. However, since there are further problems with even a federal world government, I consider whether the rule of law can be developed without a world government. I argue that the most important feature for the global rule of law is the impartial determination, interpretation and application of international law by various authoritative adjudicative and administrative institutions. There are two important challenges to my view. First, many argue that international law is not really “law” unless it is effectively enforced through a central system of sanctions; without this, it can at most create moral obligations but not true legal obligations. To the extent that such arguments assume a coercion-based conception of law, my response draws on H.L.A. Hart’s rejection of the command theory of law. The second challenge concerns democratic legitimacy. I argue that global administrative law can partly address concerns with legitimacy by using rule of law principles to limit the arbitrary exercise of power by transnational institutions and increase their accountability.

Keywords: global rule of law
international law
Advisor: Heath, Joseph
Double Fictions and Double Visions of Japanese Modernity

At roughly the same historical conjuncture when it began to be articulated as a concept marking a return of the repressed within the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank, the doppelganger motif became the subject of a veritable explosion of literary attention in 1920s Japan. Several authors – including Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, Edogawa Rampo, Tanizaki Jun’ichirô, and others – repeatedly deployed the doppelganger motif in their fictions against the backdrop of rapid urbanization, imperial expansion, and the restructuring of all aspects of everyday life by a burgeoning commodity culture. Interestingly, as if enacting the very compulsion to repeat embodied by the doppelganger on a historical register as well, a repetition of this proliferation of doppelganger images is apparent in the contemporary conjuncture, in the works of authors like Abe Kôbô, Murakami Haruki, or Shimada Masahiko, as well as in the films of Tsukamoto Shinya or Kurosawa Kiyoshi. To date, much of the previous scholarship on the figure of the doppelganger tends to be preoccupied with the attempt to locate its origins, whether in mythic or psychical terms. In contrast to this concern with fixing the figure to an imagined essence, in my dissertation, I instead place emphasis on the doppelganger’s enactment of repetition itself through an examination at the figure through the prism of the problem of genre, in terms of how it has come to be discursively constituted as a genre itself, as well as its embodiment of the very logic of genre in its play on the positions of identity and difference. By historicizing its formation as a genre, it becomes possible to productively situate not only the proliferation of images of the doppelganger in 1920s Japan but also its repetitions, resignifications, and critical articulations in the present within the the shifting constellation of relations among various discourses and practices that organize colonial and global modernity – language and visuality, the space of empire and the construction of ethno-racial identities, libidinal and material economies – that structure (yet are nevertheless exceeded by) its constitution as a concept.

Keywords: Japan
Doppelganger
Literature
Cinema
Modernity
Repetition
Advisor: Sakaki, Atsuko
The social construction of gay male partner abuse: Power, discourse and lived experience

Recent research has found high rates of abuse in gay male relationships; however, little is known about their lived experience. This study aims to explore (1) the social construction of abuse in gay male relationships, (2) its discursive effects on clinical practice and (3) the lived experience of gay men involved in abusive relationships. This study included three sets of data. Using a discourse analysis, articles published in popular queer media and academic literature were analyzed to understand the social construction of partner abuse. Three focus groups, with 16 service providers, were conducted to examine the discursive effects of partner abuse on clinical practice. In-depth interviews with 21 gay men involved in partner abuse were conducted to understand their lived experience. Transcripts of the focus groups and interviews were reviewed in detail to highlight themes and concepts. Analysis revealed that gay male partner abuse is not a self-evident or natural category but, rather, socially constructed. Current discourse created two opposite categories (the victim who is powerless and helpless; the perpetrator powerful and evil) that both informed and limited the way in which service providers saw and, thus, worked with gay men involved in partner abuse. Yet, as shown in the analysis, the lived experience of partner abuse does not always fit neatly into the rigid victim and perpetrator roles. Instead, the roles are frequently unclear and contradictory. We social workers need to be aware of the discursive effects of gay male partner abuse and critically examine how they impose certain assumptions on us. Instead of seeking a “true” experience of partner abuse, we need to help these men search for meaning within the events that are relevant to them, regardless of how they fit into the normative discourse of gay male partner abuse.

Keywords: partner abuse
domestic violence
gay men
same-sex
relationships
discourse
Advisor: George, Usha
Classifiers and Determiner-less Languages: The Case of Thai

This thesis provides a syntactic and semantic analysis of bare arguments and classifiers in Thai as well as accounting for its nominal word order. Adopting the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998), it is argued that Thai nouns are names of kinds. Kinds are of type <s,e>, which are allowed to appear without overt determiners in argument position. For this reason, Thai nouns cannot directly combine with a quantifier without the help of a classifier. The study shows that Thai arguments behave like English bare arguments (bare plurals and mass nouns) in that they exhibit scopelessness and can be interpreted with different meanings such as weak indefinite, generic and kind interpretations. Unlike English bare arguments, the Thai counterparts may also have a definite interpretation. This is because Thai lacks an overt definite determiner. In addition, the thesis provides a unified analysis for the occurrence of Thai classifiers in different contexts. It is assumed that a classifier occurs in a quantified context to provide a portion of a kind (Krifka 1995, Chierchia 1998). The thesis further proposes that a classifier occurs in a non-quantified context where there is no overt numeral when the noun phrase is specific. A specific noun phrase includes those appearing with a demonstrative, the numeral ‘one’ or a modifier. As for the word order within the nominal domain, it is proposed that the noun, although merged at the bottom of the Specific Phrase underlyingly, always appears in the initial position to check an uninterpretable nominal feature in the Specific head.

Keywords: Classifier
Determiner
Thai nouns
Thai classifiers
Classifier languages
Syntax of classifiers
Semantics of classifiers
Bare arguments
Advisor: Massam, Diane
Making Sense of Medical Education: An Examination of Contraception Counselling, Unplanned Pregnancy Counselling, and Abortion Services Curricula in Ontario Medical Schools

Background: To date, little information exists about contraception counselling, unplanned pregnancy counselling, and abortion services curricula in Ontario medical schools. Identifying existing curricula, including influences on whether and how curricula are delivered, is an essential starting point for evaluative processes. Purpose and Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore contraception counselling, unplanned pregnancy counselling, and abortion services curricula in Ontario medical schools. The objectives were to 1) identify the existence of such curricula in undergraduate (preclinical, obstetrics and gynecology clerkship, and family medicine clerkship) and post-graduate (obstetrics and gynecology and family medicine) programs; and 2) explore factors influencing the existence and form of these curricula from the perspective of program directors. Design: An exploratory qualitative approach was used for this study whereby, Ontario program directors responsible for contraception counselling, unplanned pregnancy counselling, and abortion services curricula were interviewed. Results: Overall, the inclusion of routine curricula in contraception counselling, unplanned pregnancy counselling, and abortion services was limited and variable between schools, as well as within clerkship and post-graduate programs. Program directors were often uncertain about iii whether such routine curricula were present in their programs. Four factors were found to influence whether these curricula were included in a program: 1) program structure, 2) program resources, 3) the interests of residents/students, and 4) personal philosophy of the program director. A typology was developed to understand how program directors resolved uncertainty when asked about the existence of these curricula in their programs. The emergent sensemaking typology revealed strategies used by directors to either justify the current system of medical teaching (i.e., defending the status quo) or support change (i.e., responsive). Program directors were consistent across programs in terms of the factors they identified as influencing the curriculum offered. The perceived impact of these factors varied according to the sensemaking processes employed by each director. Conclusions: This study provides an outline of curriculum variability within and between medical school programs. Further, if offers a typology of the ways program directors explain their uncertainty regarding the inclusion of these curricula in their programs. In so doing, program director sensemaking as a key influence on the curriculum is revealed.

Keywords: Contraception Counseling, Unplanned Pregnancy Counselling, Abortion Services, Medical Education, Family Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Routine, Training, Curricula, Program Directors
Advisor: Ferris, Lorraine E.
A Genealogy of Humanitarianism: Moral Obligation and Sovereignty in International Relations

This dissertation examines the history of humanitarianism in international relations by tracing the relationship between moral obligation and sovereignty from the 16th century to the present. Its main argument is that moral obligations and sovereignty are mutually constitutive, in contrast to a widely held assumption in international relations scholarship that they are opposed to each other. The dissertation’s main theoretical contribution is to develop a framework, using a genealogical method of inquiry, for understanding the relationship between sovereignty and the shifting boundaries of moral obligation during the Westphalian period. This approach makes it possible to identify both elements of continuity and change in the history of humanitarianism and practices of sovereignty. The first chapter demonstrates how the extant literature on sovereignty and humanitarianism fails to adequately account for how states have participated in the construction of new moral boundaries even as they have sought to assert their own sovereignty. Chapter two lays out the dissertation’s theoretical framework, first by outlining an identity-based understanding of sovereignty in relationship to moral obligation, and then discussing the genealogical method that is used in three case studies. The following three chapters contain the dissertation’s empirical contributions, which are three historical cases that represent pivotal moments in the history of moral obligation and sovereignty. Chapter three examines the assistance offered by Elizabeth I to Huguenot refugees from 1558-1603, and relates England’s moral obligations towards Huguenots to the emergence of a sovereign English confessional state. Chapter four examines the relationship between British abolitionist arguments against slavery in the 19th century, and justifications for the extension of empire. Chapter five examines the emergence and evolution of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine since 2001, whose advocates posit a modified conception of sovereignty that is explicitly tied to moral obligation. The concluding chapter discusses how the dissertation accounts for both the rise of humanitarianism and the persistence of sovereignty in international relations, as well as provides some reflections on areas for future research.

Keywords: Humanitarianism
Sovereignty
Moral obligation
Identity
Genealogy
Huguenots
Abolitionism
Responsibility to Protect
Humanitarian intervention
Advisor: Bernstein, Steven Franklin
Anti-diuresis in the Blood-gorging Bug, Rhodnius prolixus: The Role of CAPA Peptides

CAPA-related peptides belong to a family of neuropeptides localized to the central nervous system that can function in diverse roles in the regulation of water and salt homeostasis in insects. These peptides are known to stimulate fluid secretion by Malpighian tubules (MTs) in Dipteran species, thus serving a diuretic function. In contrast, this thesis demonstrates that members of this family of peptides in Rhodnius prolixus serve an anti-diuretic role and have multiple tissue targets, whereby they oppose the activity of diuretic hormones such as serotonin (5-Hydroxytryptamine hydrochloride; 5-HT). I have identified two genes each encoding three peptides in R. prolixus, suggesting this insect is capable of producing a greater number of CAPA-peptides compared to other insects that contain only a single CAPA gene. Interestingly, while the second peptide encoded in each R. prolixus gene (RhoprCAPA-α2/-β2) inhibits the stimulatory effects of serotonin on tissues such as the anterior midgut and Malpighian tubules, it appears the other CAPA-related and pyrokinin-related peptides do not play a major role in inhibiting the effects of serotonin on these tissues. More specifically, serotonin-stimulated fluid secretion by MTs and fluid absorption by the anterior midgut are reduced by the anti-diuretic peptide, RhoprCAPA-α2. In addition, I have also identified a G protein-coupled receptor which likely mediates the anti-diuretic effect associated with RhoprCAPA-α2 and have functionally characterized this receptor in Chinese hamster ovary cells. Spatial transcript expression analysis in fifth-instars reveals a wide distribution of the receptor in tissues associated with the rapid post-gorging diuresis. Thus, my findings suggest that numerous tissues are regulated by the CAPA peptides in R. prolixus. Gene structure and phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that this receptor is the orthologue of the D. melanogaster capa receptor (CG14575) with homologs in other insects. Taken together, my thesis demonstrates that the RhoprCAPA peptides play an integral role in the coordination and maintenance of anti-diuresis in R. prolixus. This mechanism is necessary following the rapid diuresis associated with blood-feeding by this medically-important insect.

Keywords: anti-diuresis
Rhodnius prolixus
Chagas' disease
CAPA
neuropeptide
neurohormone
diuresis
G protein coupled receptor
Advisor: Orchard, Ian
The Transnational Protection Regime and Democratic Breakthrough: A Comparative Study of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore

This dissertation explains why Taiwan and South Korea experienced democratic breakthrough in the late 1980s, when Singapore failed to do so. It explains this variation in democratic outcomes by specifying the causal mechanisms underpinning the international-domestic political interface of democratic development in these cases. New empirical evidence discovered in the course of this research has confirmed that transnational networks of nonstate and substate actors were an indisputable source of external pressures on the authoritarian governments of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore during the late 1970s and early 80s. Foreign human rights activists, Christian missionaries and ecumenical workers, members of overseas diaspora communities, journalists, academics and students, along with legislators in key democratic countries allied to the target governments, were found to have raised the international profile of political repression by flagging them as reprehensible human rights abuses. Within the context of an international normative environment where human rights was increasingly considered a legitimate international concern, these transnational actors generated a negative international opinion of the target governments. Such grassroots pressures had the potential to raise the cost of political repression for these target governments with the effect of curbing repressive state behavior, thereby protecting key domestic actors with the potential to effect democratic breakthrough. The extent to which these external pressures could effectively constrain repressive state behavior depended, however, on the immediate geopolitical circumstances of each case. Geopolitical circumstances were also important because they could affect the strength of the protection regime. Thus, the exposition of the transnational protection regime as the causal mechanism underpinning the international-domestic political interface of democratic development requires that we specify the exact role of agency within the international normative and geopolitical contexts in which they operate. This dissertation develops such an abstracted causal model for the purposes of application in other cases and for policy analysis.

Keywords: Democratization
human rights
Taiwan
Korea
Singapore
Asia
transnational activism
transnational networks
China
Myanmar
democracy promotion
foreign policy
Advisor: Pauly, Louis
Exploiting Coherence and Data-driven Models for Real-time Global Illumination

Realistic computer generated images are computed by combining geometric effects, reflectance models for several captured and phenomenological materials, and real-world lighting according to mathematical models of physical light transport. Several important lighting phenomena should be considered when targeting realistic image simulation. A combination of soft and hard shadows, which arise from the interaction of surface and light geometries, provide necessary shape perception cues for a viewer. A wide variety of realistic materials, from physically-captured reflectance datasets to empirically designed mathematical models, modulate the virtual surface appearances in a manner that can further dissuade a viewer from considering the possibility of computational image synthesis over that of reality. Lastly, in many important cases, light reflects off many different surfaces before entering the eye. These secondary effects can be critical in grounding the viewer in a virtual world, since the human visual system is adapted to the physical world, where such effects are constantly in play. Simulating each of these effects is challenging due to their individual underlying complexity. The net complexity is compounded when several effects are combined. This thesis will investigate real-time approaches for simulating these effects under stringent performance and memory constraints, and with varying degrees of interactivity. In order to make these computations tractable given these added constraints, I will use data and signal analysis techniques to identify predictable patterns in the different spatial and angular signals used during image synthesis. The results of this analysis will be exploited with several analytic and data-driven mathematical models that are both efficient, and yield accurate approximations with predictable and controllable error.

Keywords: Computer Graphics
Real-time Rendering
Advisor: Fiume, Eugene
Behind the Mask: Determinants of Nurses' Adherence to Recommended Use of Facial Protective Equipment to Prevent Occupational Transmission of Communicable Respiratory Illness in Acute Care Hospitals

Background - Communicable respiratory illness is a serious occupational threat to healthcare workers. A key reason for occupational transmission is failure to implement appropriate barrier precautions. Facial protective equipment, including surgical masks, respirators and eye/face protection, is the least adhered to type of personal protective equipment used by healthcare workers, yet it is an important barrier precaution against communicable respiratory illness. Objectives - To describe nurses’ adherence to recommended use of facial protective equipment and to identify the factors that influence adherence. Methods - A two-phased study was conducted. Phase 1 was a cross-sectional survey of nurses in selected units of six acute care hospitals in Toronto, Canada. Phase 2 was a direct observational study of critical care nurses. Results – Of the 1074 nurses who completed surveys (82% response rate), 44% reported adherence to recommended use of facial protective equipment. Multivariable analysis revealed four organizational predictors of adherence: ready availability of equipment, regular training and fit testing, organizational support for health and safety, and good communication. Following the survey, 112 observations in 14 intensive care units were conducted that showed a 44% competence rate with proper use of N95 respirators. Common gaps included failure to verify the seal and touching the face piece. Multivariable analysis revealed knowledge of recommended use of facial protective equipment as a significant predictor of competence. Discussion – Despite the SARS experience and the resulting investment in our public health system, nurses’ adherence to recommended use of facial protective equipment and competence in effective use of N95 respirators remains suboptimal. To improve adherence, organizational leaders should focus on equipment availability, training and fit testing, organizational support for health and safety, and positive communication. To improve competence in effective use of N95 respirators, strategies to increase knowledge should be implemented. These efforts should assist to reduce occupational transmission of communicable respiratory illness and foster a healthier and safer working environment for nurses.

Keywords: facial protective equipment
adherence
nurses
Advisor: Holness, Dorothy Linn