VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Voices of Urban Aboriginal Peoples with Diabetes

This art based research study is situated within an Indigenous research methodology. The goal of the research was to first, document the voices of Urban Aboriginal people with Type 2 diabetes and secondly, to bring together these voices into an updated oral format using the medium of radio. Four principles that grounded this research were Indigenous research paradigm, drawing from Indigenous scholars, critiquing the Euro-Western biomedical worldview of health, and reciprocity. Using an Indigenous research paradigm meant situating who I am as a Nahayowak (Cree) woman who used prayer, medicines and talking with Elders to carry out the research. Second, I ensured the bulk of the reference sources were Indigenous writers. Third, the research was undertaken knowing that health is situated in a colonial Euro-Western biomedical worldview and if the health of Indigenous people is to improve I must assert Indigenous ways of doing research; and finally, any work I do must have a component of reciprocity where knowledge and pragmatic tools, podcast of radio documentary, must be given back to not only the academy but to students and Indigenous community members. Reciprocity must be seen as the ‘gold standard’ in any work that Indigenous scholars do when working to change the situation of Indigenous peoples. The theoretical underpinnings of this research are four aspects of self, visually represented in the Nahayowak Medicine Model by Ghostkeeper as the mind, body, emotions and spirit. I was motivated to do this research when I found out 50% of my relatives had diabetes and when the Canadian Diabetes Association in 2002, and again in 2015, stated there is still a stigma associated with diabetes that prevents Aboriginal people from disclosing their diabetes. For this study there were seven Indigenous people who agreed to participate because they also wanted to create a space for other Aboriginal people to be able to talk about diabetes without shame or guilt. They hope their story will allow others to share their diabetes story. The interviews became a radio documentary that ensured views were broadcasted about Indigenous people living with diabetes from an Indigenous perspective that was directed toward other Indigenous people.

Keywords: Indigenous Health
Indigenous Studies
Multi-Media Communications
Nutrition
Advisor: Restoule, Jean-Paul
Performance Approach in the Recorded History of Alban Berg's Piano Sonata, Op. 1

Growing discomfort with musicology’s ease in viewing the score as synonymous with act has propelled recent work in performance studies. Preoccupation with urtexts has encouraged the singularity of composer’s intent while discouraging inquiry into the mosaic of interpretative approach where performance practice and musicality can be essayed. Research into recordings that reveals performers’ agencies allows problematic assignment of composer’s intent to be eroded, demystifies artists’ aesthetics, underscores the plurality of musical approach, and details the systems used to bring the score into sound. My thesis considers the recording history of Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1. Chapter 1 examines fifteen performers’ approach to the first twelve measures, enabling their categorization according to temporal shape, structural articulation, and score fidelity. Descriptive analysis was joined with empirical data on rubato, facilitated by the application Sonic Visualiser. The resulting classifications reveal performance practice, tradition, and aesthetic. Chapter 2 investigates Glenn Gould’s longtime relationship with the work. Timing, manual asynchrony, and temporal shape are discussed in his eight performances encapsulated on various media; and Gould’s changing aesthetic through three separate decades is analyzed. Chapter 3 explores the intersection of music theory and performance. Music theorists’ motivic, harmonic, and formal analyses are reviewed and juxtaposed against performers’ articulation of motivic and formal structure. The results demonstrate that performers’ and theorists’ segmentation of themes and form often align, with divergences encouraging further points of discussion. My thesis reveals that performing is itself a practice, in constant flux and governed by interpretative methodologies resulting in deviation from the literal execution of the score. If practice evolves, so too must the pieces these systems realize. That works are not fixed entities emphasizes the social construction of musical taste. Ultimately, it is hoped that this research will undermine problematic assignment of composer’s intent and assist in the ontology of practice and musicality.

Keywords: Alban Berg
Glenn Gould
Performance Studies
Performance Theory
Recordings
Second Viennese School
Advisor: McClelland, Ryan
The Influence of Viruses on the Growth and Mortality of Phytoplankton

This thesis investigates the influence of viruses on the growth and mortality of phytoplankton. Several studies are described in which the modified dilution approach was used along with taxon-specific quantitative polymerase chain reaction assays to estimate growth rates and virus- and grazing-induced mortality rates for entire phytoplankton communities as well as several distinct phytoplankton populations. The sources and amounts of mortality observed for individual phytoplankton populations were found to frequently differ from those of the whole community, as well as from each other, and moreover, varied through the year. Therefore, these results demonstrate that individual phytoplankton taxa can have dynamic roles in aquatic food webs and that whole community-based assessments of mortality can overlook valuable information about carbon flow in aquatic environments. In several instances, the activity of viruses appeared to counteract the effects of grazing mortality and stimulate phytoplankton growth. Similar results were also observed when dilution methodology was applied in conjunction with a series of standard bacterial and size-fractionated primary productivity assays. Taken together, the results of these studies contribute to the notion that viruses are frequently essential components of aquatic food webs that, as agents of microbial mortality, can drive the flow of energy in aquatic systems and even stimulate growth for uninfected populations. Finally, a review of studies incorporating the modified dilution approach is described along with a meta-analysis based on rates of growth and virus- and grazer-mediated mortality extracted from these studies. This review highlights methodological differences in the literature, and demonstrates that most virus-mediated mortality rates are between -0.1 and 0.1 d-1. Interestingly, a significant positive correlation was observed between virus-mediated mortality (d-1) and instantaneous growth (d-1) rates, suggesting that virally mediated mortality is intimately linked to host growth. Ultimately, this thesis emphasizes the many and varied roles that viruses play in aquatic ecosystems.

Advisor: Short, Steven M
Stress Systems and Brain Maturation During Adolescence

Adolescence is a transitional period that involves a number of biological (including sexual maturation) and social changes (e.g., conflicts with peers and adults) that may contribute to brain maturation. Studying the factors that influence changes in the adolescent brain can help us understand brain-behaviour relationships. In this thesis, I focused on how the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis (i.e., the “stress system”) influences brain maturation (namely, pituitary volume and cortical thickness) during adolescence. I used novel techniques to examine the relationship between HPA axis regulation and activity on brain development during adolescence, as well as how the hypothalamic pituitary gonadal (HPG) axis interacts with the HPA axis in the context of brain development during adolescence. I examined these relationships in a community sample of adolescents (n = 1019, ages 12-18) from the Saguenay Youth Study. In Chapter 2, I validated a segmentation algorithm that estimates the volume of the pituitary gland. Using this segmentation algorithm, I found that age, puberty status, testosterone, and estradiol were positively associated with pituitary volumes in adolescents. In Chapter 3, I calculated a polygenic score based on a panel of genetic variants that were related to the activation of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) for each participant. With the GR-related polygenic scores, I found that it was positively associated with cortisol levels and pituitary volumes in adolescents. In Chapter 4, I used the expression profiles of genes from the Human Brain Atlas to examine its relationship with age-related cortical thinning across the brain in adolescents. I found a positive relationship between inter-regional variations of NR3C1 and AR mRNA expression and age-related cortical thinning across the brain. In this thesis, I combined the field of genetics, endocrinology, and developmental neuroscience to understand the stress-system and brain maturation during adolescence.

Keywords: brain maturation
development
gene expression
hormones
puberty
stress
Advisor: Paus, Tomas
"Thank goodness you are a man!": Troubling Gender and Principal Leadership in Elementary Schools

This study identifies and critically examines gendered discourses of leadership amongst elementary school principals. Interviews with 15 female and male elementary school principals in the Greater Toronto Area were carried out as a means of discovering and revealing these gendered discourses. A discourse analysis of their responses is conducted. A feminist post- structuralist approach to analysis gives rise to a series of gendered discourses of principal leadership, revealing the manner in which these discourses act upon elementary principals. These discourses are divided into three areas: discourses of female principal leadership, discourses of male principal leadership and finally, discourses of reluctance and denial. The work of Michel Foucault is used to understand how dominant discourses work upon the subject through disciplinary power and governmentality. The revelation of these discourses provides opportunities to challenge them. This study illustrates the way these discourses work to both limit and, in some cases, legitimize the elementary principal depending on each principal’s gender. A process by which principals deny the influence of gender on their leadership, then accept and recognize its influence, is analyzed. Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence is used to explore the workings of masculine domination upon both men and women, revealing the suffering experienced by principals as a result of this domination. The wider implications of these gendered discourses on the role of elementary principal are discussed. Moments of resistance to the dominant discourses and agency are also discussed when they are revealed through dialogue with the principals. The work of Judith Butler is used to explore the presence of agency amongst these principals and the implications it has for principals as they navigate these gendered discourses. This study positions principalship as a place where resistance and agency can be explored and realized. Implications for theory and further research are considered.

Keywords: Education
Elementary Principal
Gender
Leadership
Advisor: Farmer, Diane
Right Hemisphere Functions of Spatial Attention and Visual Awareness

Spatial attention and visual awareness are more associated with the right hemisphere because patients with right-brain damage show spatial neglect, an inability to perceive and respond to stimuli on the left; and because neurologically healthy people exhibit the opposite, a small but consistent preference for the left side of space, called pseudoneglect. However, the mechanisms underlying pseudoneglect (and thus neglect) remain unclear. Novel insight into this “black box” comes from the strange phenomenon that pseudoneglect increases with visual pixel noise superimposed onto test stimuli. Focusing on a recently proposed Grating-Scales Task (GST), in my dissertation, I used noise to modulate the input into the right-brain attentional mechanisms to answer five questions: (1) in a given task, is pseudoneglect governed by a single or multiple biasing mechanisms? (2) Are some of the biasing mechanisms due to participants pursuing different task strategies? (3) Is the noise effect conveyed through basic visual processes or through higher-level cognitive functions? (4) Do different measures of pseudoneglect share a common mechanism? (5) What is the functional anatomy of perceptual pseudoneglect? My results suggest that pseudoneglect is governed by at least two biasing mechanisms (Exp. 1); task strategies cannot explain these mechanisms (Exp. 2); noise has a bottom-up perceptual effect on pseudoneglect (Exp. 3); perceptual (but not visuo-motor) forms of pseudoneglect are sensitive to noise, thus establishing convergent and discriminant validity (Exp. 4); and pseudoneglect is controlled by bilateral dorsal areas as well as right lateralized areas in the ventral attentional network (Exp. 5). These findings have theoretical significance because they help us to better understand the right-brain functions of spatial attention and visual awareness, as well as clinical significance as they also help us to better understand special populations with right brain dysfunctions (e.g., stroke patients) or individuals with developmental challenges (e.g., ADHD).

Advisor: Niemeier, Matthias
The Molecular Evolution of Cetacean Dim-Light Vision: In Vitro Studies of Rhodopsin Over a Macroevolutionary Transition

Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) are fully aquatic mammals that have captured the imagination of biologists due to their iconic evolutionary transformation from terrestrial ancestors. Nevertheless, much about how this extreme macroevolutionary transition occurred at the molecular level remains unknown. The vertebrate visual system is ideal for studying molecular adaptation due to the reliance organisms place on it for fitness-related behaviours, and because key molecular components of the visual transduction cascade in photoreceptors are relatively well understood. Light activation of the dim-light pigment, rhodopsin, is the first step of the visual transduction cascade, and is thought to have been the target of selection across a wide variety of vertebrate lineages. Cetaceans, due to their rich evolutionary history, are model organisms for understanding how changing environments put selective pressure on sensory processes. In this dissertation, I investigate the molecular basis for adaptive evolution in cetacean rhodopsin using a combination of in vitro expression experiments and computational analyses. First, I evaluate evidence for adaptation in cetacean rhodopsin through characterization of its spectral properties in the killer whale (Orcinus orca), and a statistical assessment of selection patterns in a representative dataset of cetacean rhodopsin genes. Next, I focus on the evolutionary significance of key amino acid substitutions in killer whale rhodopsin that confer both spectral and non-spectral (kinetic) functional shifts, specifically through comparison with rhodopsin pigments from two outgroup species (bovine and hippopotamus). Finally, I use an ancestral sequence reconstruction and protein resurrection approach to establish functional and corresponding molecular shifts across the terrestrial-aquatic transition at the root of Cetacea. Together, these projects provide a more complete investigation of cetacean rhodopsin, not only addressing questions regarding dim-light (aquatic) adaptation in cetaceans, but also generating new hypotheses about how the ecology of living and ancient cetaceans has shaped the visual system.

Keywords: adaptive evolution
codon models
protein evolution
site-directed mutagenesis
visual ecology
visual pigments
Advisor: Chang, Belinda S.W.
Cellulose Biosynthesis has Extensive Impacts on Overall Plant Metabolism Potentially Mediated, in part, by Peptide Signals

As sessile organisms, plants must continually adapt to their environment. In order to allocate resources appropriately, plants have elaborate pathways in place for detecting and responding to changes in their environment and the integrity of their cells, particularly the cell wall. Cellulose is the major component of plant cell walls and a major sink for carbon in the plant body. Cellulose is central to plant structure and function, imparting sufficient strength and resilience to withstand turgor pressure, negative pressure, and gravity. It was therefore hypothesized that plants have broad, far-reaching metabolic responses to cellulose disruption. To uncover the response to cellulose perturbation at the metabolic level, Comprehensive Multiphase-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (CMP-NMR) was used in combination with a mutant analysis and pharmacological experimentation. This approach revealed several metabolic impacts of cellulose perturbation that were previously unknown, including decreased metabolism of seed lipid stores during germination, increased production of methanol and ethanol in seedlings, and the presence of pentaglycine in seedlings. Another line of investigation revealed that a compound or compounds present in the cellulose synthase mutant eli1 was able to increase lignin content of wild-type seedlings. Pentaglycine had a similar effect on WT seedlings. Taken together with the increased abundance of pentaglycine in eli1 seedlings, the results suggest that pentaglycine is in part responsible for the increased lignin content that characterizes cellulose synthase mutants. A model is presented that integrates these components into a signaling pathway to monitor and respond to perturbation in the cellulosic component of cell wall integrity.

Keywords: Arabidopsis thaliana
cellulose
cell wall
CMP-NMR
glycine-rich peptides
glycine-rich proteins
Advisor: Campbell, Malcolm M
Group 16 Elements in Frustrated Lewis Pair Chemistry

Frustrated Lewis Pairs (FLPs) describe combinations of sterically encumbered Lewis acids and bases that do not form classical adducts. This unquenched reactivity has been shown to activate a wide plethora of small molecules, including H2, CO2, alkynes and ketones. While many different main group compounds have been applied in this context, studies of group 16 elements in FLP chemistry remain scarce. The main objective of this dissertation is to expand the scope of FLP chemistry to include group 16 elements, as they can function both as Lewis bases and as Lewis acids. The first portion of this dissertation focuses on the syntheses and reactivity studies of tellurium-boron heterocycles, wherein tellurium acts as a Lewis base. 1,1-carboboration of tellurium-substituted acetylides was shown to proceed smoothly at room temperature, leading to the formation of Te/B intramolecular FLP and 1,4-telluraborine. Several 1,4-telluraborines were found to have mild to high aromaticity as manifested by their unusual stability against oxygen and moisture. They can also undergo a number of unique reactions, including FLP-type alkyne exchange reactions and selective protonolysis of the exocyclic B–C bond. These findings allowed for the facile derivatization of this new class of compounds. Next, we explored the use of hypervalent sulfur and tellurium compounds as Lewis acids. Fluorosulfoxonium cations were successfully synthesized and shown to be Lewis acidic by both computational and experimental methods. On the other hand, although the syntheses of tellurium(IV)-based Lewis acids were achieved, their instability and fluxional solution state behaviour prevented detailed studies on their utility as Lewis acid catalysts. Lastly, in chapter 5, we re-visited the known 1,1-carboboration reaction of terminal alkynes by B(C6F5)3 and report a new method of E/Z isomerization using bulky Lewis bases. The mechanism of isomerization was shown computationally to proceed via a zwitterionic borataalkene intermediate.

Keywords: Carboboration
Frustrated Lewis Pair
Heterocycles
Main group
Tellurium
Advisor: Stephan, Douglas W
Applications of Nonstandard Analysis to Markov Processes and Statistical Decision Theory

We use nonstandard analysis to significantly generalize the well-known Markov chain ergodic theorem and establish a fundamentally new complete class theorem, making progress on two core problems in stochastic process theory and statistical decision theory, respectively. In the first part, we study the ergodicity of time-homogenous Markov processes. A time-homogeneous Markov process with stationary distribution $\pi$ is said to be ergodic if its transition probability converges to $\pi$ in total variation distance. In the most general setting of continuous-time Markov processes with general state spaces, there are few results characterizing the ergodicity of the underlying Markov processes. Using the method of nonstandard analysis, for every standard Markov process $\{X_t\}_{t\geq 0}$, we construct a nonstandard Markov process $\{X'_t\}_{t\in T}$ that inherits most of the key properties of $\{X_t\}_{t\geq 0}$ hence establishing the ergodicity without technical conditions, such as on drift or skeleton chains. In the second part, we study the relationship between frequentist and Bayesian optimality, extending the line of work initiated by Wald in the 1940's. Existing results are subject to technical conditions that rule out semi-parametric decision problems and generally rule out non-parametric ones. Using nonstandard analysis, we show that, among decision procedures with finite risk functions, a decision procedure is extended admissible if and only if its extension has infinitesimal excess Bayes risk. The result holds in complete generality, i.e, without regularity conditions or restrictions on the model or the loss function. This nonstandard characterization of extended admissibility also generates a purely standard theorem: when risk functions are continuous on a compact Hausdorff parameter space, a procedure is extended admissible if and only if it is Bayes.

Keywords: complete class theorem
Markov chain ergodic theorem
mathematical logic
nonstandard analysis
statistical decision theory
stochastic processes
Advisor: Rosenthal, Jeffrey S
Weiss, William A.R
Roy, Daniel