VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Bridging Education and Licensure of International Medical Doctors in Ontario: A Call for Commitment, Consistency, and Transparency

The widely acknowledged doctor shortage in Canada has recently motivated a more critical look at the licensure rates of International Medical Doctors (IMDs), also known as International Medical Graduates (IMGs). However, very little research has been conducted on the experiences of IMDs before they enter the Canadian medical system. This qualitative study collected interview data from 15 diverse IMDs seeking licensure in Ontario, Canada. The participants varied with respect to age, country of origin, English language proficiency on arrival, and time in Canada. In addition, two bridging support programs were observed, and interviews were conducted with three educators from the programs. The interviews were analysed using thematic content analysis (Boyatzis, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994). An analysis of metaphors used by the IMDs to describe their experiences during the licensing process supported the use of poetic representation for key findings, resulting in three poems that are interspersed in the body of the thesis (Ellingson, 2011; Glesne, 1997; Richardson, 2002; Richardson & Adams St. Pierre, 2005). The theoretical framework of the research was informed by Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory, which views learning as inseparable from social interaction and context (Vygotsky, 1987). Third-generation Activity Theory (AT), which has descended from Vygotsky’s work, was applied to highlight the higher-level systemic issues related to medical licensing. Results of this study indicate that IMDs with lower English proficiency face substantial difficulties on arrival, with limited access to the type of medically-relevant language instruction needed to support them. In fact, all pre-licensure IMDs struggle to access the interactional learning opportunities (i.e., Vygotskian “mediational means”) to support their entry into the system. Licensing challenges include limited exam preparation resources that support acquisition of Canadian cultural content; unequal access to clinical observerships; and a selection process which lacks transparency and emphasizes a screening tool unfamiliar to IMDs, the residency interview. Implications of this study include the revisiting of immigration policy; increasing the transparency and effectiveness of the selection process/residency interview; reviewing the role of clinical observerships in the selection process and exploring the potential of observerships to function as a licensure portfolio assessment.

Keywords: international medical doctors
international medical graduates
IMGs
immigrant
bridging education
personnel selection: methods
interviews as topic
certification
education
Canada
licensure
internationally educated professionals
poetry
poetic representation
communication
residency interview
foreign medical graduates
qualitative research
physicians
english language proficiency
Vygotskian sociocultural theory
L. Vygotsky
activity theory
Advisor: Julie, Kerekes
Dissolution of Valuable Metals from Nickel Smelter Slags by Means of High Pressure Oxidative Acid Leaching

In the production of base metals by smelting of sulphide ore concentrates, large amounts of iron are rejected with iron silicate slags. These slags contain Ni, Cu and Co in concentrations up to several percent units. Extraction of the entrapped base metals using high pressure oxidative acid leaching (HPOXAL) was investigated in this work. Crystalline slags containing fayalite (Fe2SiO4), magnetite (Fe3O4), silica (SiO2) and matte (MeSn<1) were found to be highly amenable to leaching at 250°C, 90 psi (6.2 bar) O2 partial pressure and 70 g/L initial H2SO4. Extractions of Ni, Co and Cu exceeded 90% within 15-20 min and arrived at 95-97% after 45 min. The residues of leaching were identified as aggregates of crystalline hematite (Fe2O3) and amorphous silica. Dissolution of fayalite and magnetite was shown to be acid driven. Since HPOXAL operates with substoichiometric additions of sulphuric acid (10-20% of the stoichiometric requirement), acid regeneration facilitated by iron oxidation and hydrolysis is crucial to high rates of leaching. Low acidities (<10 g/L) were shown to cause precipitation of ferrous sulphate, slowing acid regeneration and slag dissolution. Elevated acidities (>70 g/L) result in excessive concentrations of Fe(III) in the leach solution, complicating downstream processing. The use of pyrrhotite tailings, an environmentally hazardous waste, as a substitute of sulphuric acid in slag leaching was investigated. Oxidative co-leaching of pyrrhotite tailings with naturally cooled converter slag at 250°C, 90 psi (6.2 bar) O2, 68 g/L equivalent H2SO4 was shown to have kinetics comparable to adding sulphuric acid with final extractions reaching 95-97% in 45 min. Granulation of slag melt can produce an amorphous solid solution of SiO2 and metal oxides. Amorphous slag is not amenable to HPOXAL due to the formation of a passive layer of silica. Leaching of amorphous slag at low temperatures was shown to proceed nearly to completion. The difference in the leachability of amorphous slag at high and low temperatures is explained in terms of the rate of silicic acid re-polymerization leading to closure of pores in the leached layer.

Keywords: slag leaching
fayalite dissolution
pyrrhotite oxidation
ressure oxidative leaching
free acid measurements
conductivity measurements
dissolution of silicates
autoclave leaching
Advisor: Papangelakis, Vladimiros G.
Characterization of TCP genes in Arabidopsis thaliana

TCP genes comprise a large family of genes that have been implicated in a diverse range of plant developmental pathways ranging from lateral branching (Doebley et al, 1997) to organ symmetry (Luo et al, 1999) and leaf curvature (Nath et al, 2003; Palatnik et al, 2003). I studied three closely related Arabidopsis TCP genes, one of which was recovered in an enhancer trap screen to identify downstream targets of the regulator of inflorescence architecture, BREVIPEDICELLUS (Douglas and Riggs, 2005). The enhancer trap marker line served as a reporter for TCP15 expression. Data mining has revealed a possible link between TCP15 and the hormone auxin. Using the DR5::GUS molecular reporter for auxin accumulation I found that TCP15 and the related TCP14 genes limit auxin maxima in seedling and reproductive tissues and that auxin transport is necessary for correct TCP15 expression. The closely related TCP8 gene was found to regulate leaf shape as demonstrated by decreased leaf index values. The rounder leaves of tcp8 plants also exhibited increased adaxial trichome and stomatal densities resulting in significantly decreased spacing between adjacent cells. tcp8 leaves showed increased serration density suggesting that TCP8 limits marginal outgrowth. Vein patterning was also perturbed in the mutants. Vein loops were rounder and smaller, and decreased loop subdivision indicated that vein patterning is retarded in the mutant. TCP8 evokes organ-specific effects on vascular patterning as mutant rosette leaves showed increased vascular complexity, whereas mutant cauline leaves showed decreased vein complexity. These results suggest that TCP8 is necessary for correct leaf development. The Arabidopsis genome contains 24 TCP genes, many of which have not been characterized. Studies of these genes will lead to the identification of additional factors necessary to control plant architecture and enable us to optimize plant growth and yield using genetic engineering.

Keywords: Arabidopsis
TCP genes
Advisor: Riggs, C. Daniel
Structural Results on Optimal Transportation Plans

In this thesis we prove several results on the structure of solutions to optimal transportation problems. The second chapter represents joint work with Robert McCann and Micah Warren; the main result is that, under a non-degeneracy condition on the cost function, the optimal is concentrated on a n-dimensional Lipschitz submanifold of the product space. As a consequence, we provide a simple, new proof that the optimal map satisfies a Jacobian equation almost everywhere. In the third chapter, we prove an analogous result for the multi-marginal optimal transportation problem; in this context, the dimension of the support of the solution depends on the signatures of a 2m -1 vertex convex polytope of semi-Riemannian metrics on the product space, induce by the cost function. In the fourth chapter, we identify sufficient conditions under which the solution to the multi-marginal problem is concentrated on the graph of a function over one of the marginals. In the fifth chapter, we investigate the regularity of the optimal map when the dimensions of the two spaces fail to coincide. We prove that a regularity theory can be developed only for very special cost functions, in which case a quotient construction can be used to reduce the problem to an optimal transport problem between spaces of equal dimension. The final chapter applies the results of chapter 5 to the principal-agent problem in mathematical economics when the space of types and the space of available goods differ. When the dimension of the space of types exceeds the dimension of the space of goods, we show if the problem can be formulated as a maximization over a convex set, a quotient procedure can reduce the problem to one where the two dimensions coincide. Analogous conditions are investigated when the dimension of the space of goods exceeds that of the space of types.

Keywords: optimal transportation
Monge-Kantorovich problem
calculus of variations
mathematical economics
Lipschitz submanifolds
rectifiability
principal-agent problem
multiple marginals
regularity of optimal maps
time-like submanifolds
semi-Riemannian metric
Advisor: McCann, Robert
Evaluating the Harm of Drugs in the Post-marketing Environment using Observational Research Methods

Our knowledge of a drug’s potential for harm is incomplete at the time of drug licensing leaving residual questions about the long-term safety and effectiveness of drugs in the ‘real world’. Pharmacoepidemiologic research can contribute to the study of the unintended effects of drugs. The central aims of this dissertation were to create new knowledge about drug-related harm in the postmarketing environment using pharmacoepidemiologic methods and larged linked databases, and understand how various types of design and analytic strategies can be applied to reduce bias and threats to internal validity when studying drug harm. The aims of the thesis were achieved by performing three studies. The first study examined elderly individuals hospitalized with bradycardia and identified an association with recent initiation of cholinesterase inhibitor therapy (adjusted odds-ratio 2.13, 95% confidence interval 1.29 to 3.51). The second study examined the measurement properties of administrative diagnostic codes for subtrochanteric and femoral shaft fractures and found the positive predictive value and sensitivity of the codes to be reasonably good (90% and 81%, respectively). This study was linked to the third study which explored the association between long-term bisphosphonate use and subtrochanteric or femoral shaft fractures in postmenopausal women and found an increased risk of these unusual fractures in women with greater than 5 years of bisphosphonate use. The research performed as part of this thesis provides an example of the types of new knowledge about drug-related harm that can be generated using pharmacoepidemiologic designs and analytic strategies. The pharmacoepidemiologic studies will play an important and dynamic role in the larger evolving focus on post-marketing drug safety and effectiveness as new data sources become increasingly available and and the methods within the pharmacoepidemiologic discipline become more sophisticated and refined.

Keywords: Drug Safety
Pharmacoepidemiology
Advisor: Laupacis, Andreas
Hierarchical Bayesian Models of Verb Learning in Children

The productivity of language lies in the ability to generalize linguistic knowledge to new situations. To understand how children can learn to use language in novel, productive ways, we must investigate how children can find the right abstractions over their input, and how these abstractions can actually guide generalization. In this thesis, I present a series of hierarchical Bayesian models that provide an explicit computational account of how children can acquire and generalize highly abstract knowledge of the verb lexicon from the language around them. By applying the models to large, naturalistic corpora of child-directed speech, I show that these models capture key behaviours in child language development. These models offer the power to investigate developmental phenomena with a degree of breadth and realism unavailable in existing computational accounts of verb learning. By most accounts, children rely on strong regularities between form and meaning to help them acquire abstract verb knowledge. Using a token-level clustering model, I show that by attending to simple syntactic features of potential verb arguments in the input, children can acquire abstract representations of verb argument structure that can reasonably distinguish the senses of a highly polysemous verb. I develop a novel hierarchical model that acquires probabilistic representations of verb argument structure, while also acquiring classes of verbs with similar overall patterns of usage. In a simulation of verb learning within a broad, naturalistic context, I show how this abstract, probabilistic knowledge of alternations can be generalized to new verbs to support learning. I augment this verb class model to acquire associations between form and meaning in verb argument structure, and to generalize this knowledge appropriately via the syntactic and semantic aspects of verb alternations. The model captures children's ability to use the alternation pattern of a novel verb to infer aspects of the verb's meaning, and to use the meaning of a novel verb to predict the range of syntactic forms in which the verb may participate. These simulations also provide new predictions of children's linguistic development, emphasizing the value of this model as a useful framework to investigate verb learning in a complex linguistic environment.

Keywords: Computational linguistics
Language acquisition
Bayesian models
Advisor: Stevenson, Suzanne
Cultural Influences on Help-seeking, Treatment and Support for Mental Health Problems - A Comparative Study using a Gender Perspective

This qualitative research used the Long Interview method to study cultural and gender influences on mental health, health beliefs, health behaviour, help-seeking and treatment expectations for mental health problems in newcomers to Canada who are members of an ethnocultural, visible minority population - the Sri Lankan Tamils. The study employed a comparative design and analyzed data from interviews with Tamil men (N=8) and Tamil women (N=8) who self-identified as having been diagnosed with depression, and service providers (N=8) who provide frontline mental health and related services to the Sri Lankan Tamil community. The objectives were to a) understand cultural and gender factors inherent in the Sri Lankan Tamil community; b) investigate how these cultural and gender factors impact mental health and influence the trajectory of help-seeking and treatment for depression in the Sri Lankan Tamil community; c) explore the intersection of culture and gender as it relates to health behaviour; and d) explore service providers’ perceptions of the influence of culture and gender in relation to help-seeking for mental health problems and the application of this understanding to service delivery. The study found that the respondents equated social function with health and that this concept informed help-seeking and treatment expectations. Socially appropriate functioning was seen as an indicator of health, and this differed by gender. Gender-differentiated social stressors contributed to depression. Women played a role as enablers of care, both for family members and acquaintances. Men were more resistant to help-seeking and tended to disengage from care. There was a distinct preference for service providers who understood the culture and spoke Tamil. Religious groups served a social support function. Family physicians and Tamil service providers in the social service sectors were identified as key players in the pathways to care. Service providers did not appear to understand the community’s holistic view of health; however, they did use their knowledge of the community to make adaptations to practice. Recommendations that result from these findings include health promotion and prevention strategies beyond the traditional health care system, targeted culture and gender-informed interventions, and the need for multisectoral collaborations.

Keywords: Mental Health
Culture
Gender
Help-Seeking
Treatment
Support
Sri Lankan Tamil
Visible Minority
Ethno-cultural
Newcomer
Immigrant
Refugee
Depression
Health
Service Provider
Community
Advisor: Seeman, Mary
Structural Basis for Enzyme Promiscuity and Specificty - Insights from Human Cytosolic sulfotransferase (SULT) and Sirtuin (SIRT) Families

Understanding the structural basis of specificity and promiscuity of paralogous enzymes is important for deciphering molecular mechanisms and is a necessary step towards designing enzyme-specific modulators. The main objective of this thesis is to provide structural insights that relate protein local sequences to their observed binding and activity profiles through the study of two human protein families – cytosolic sulfotransferases (SULTs) and sirtuins (SIRTs). This was achieved by comparing the family-wide ligand binding fingerprints of these two enzyme families with the structural details of their corresponding enzyme-ligand co-crystal structures. The hSULT enzyme family was profiled against a focused library through binding and activity assays. This suggested a number of novel compounds that bind to the less well-characterized SULT members (SULT1C3 and SULT4A1), and revealed additional broad-spectrum hSULT inhibitors. Based on the profiling data, three enzyme/co-factor/ligand complex structures were solved using X-ray crystallography. The structure of SULT1C2•PAP(3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphate)•pentacholorphenol(PCP) provided a rationale for a novel SULTs inhibition mechanism that depends on substrate acidity. The SULT1B1•PAP•resveratrol structure suggested that the hydrogen-bonding coordination of the 5-OH group on resveratrol is the structural determinant for the observed substrate preference towards resveratrol. SULT2A1•PAP•lithocholic acid(LCA) ternary complex structure confirms that the specificity of SULT2A1 for lithocholic acid derives from its high hydrophobicity in the substrate binding pocket. The same approach was used to interrogate the interaction of the sirtuins with their peptide substrates. The binding and enzymatic assays for human sirtuins have suggested that SIRT1 and SIRT2 are generally less discriminate against substrates while class IV sirtuins - SIRT6 and SIRT7 might be highly specific enzymes. Three different biochemical and kinetic assays showed that SIRT6-dependent histone deacetylation is about 1,000 times slower than for other highly active sirtuins. To understand the molecular basis for the specificity and low activity of SIRT6, I determined the first set of crystal structures for SIRT6 in complex with ADPr (ADP ribose) and the non-hydrolyzable analog of OAADPr (2’-O-acetyl-ADP ribose) – NAADPr (2’-N-acetyl-ADP ribose). The structures revealed human SIRT6 has unique structural features including a splayed zinc-binding domain, lacks a helix bundle and the conserved, highly flexible, NAD(+)-binding loop, which contribute to its observed biochemical behavior.

Keywords: cytosolic sulfotransferases
sirtuins
Advisor: Edwards, Aled M.
Fabricating Fidelity: Nation-building, International Law, and the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange

This dissertation concerns a crucial episode in the international legal history of nation-building: the Greek-Turkish population exchange. Supported by Athens and Ankara, and implemented largely by the League of Nations, the population exchange showcased the new pragmatism of the post-1919 order, an increased willingness to adapt legal doctrine to local conditions. It also exemplified a new mode of non-military nation-building, one initially designed for sovereign but politico-economically weak states on the semi-periphery of the international legal order. The chief aim here, I argue, was not to organize plebiscites, channel self-determination claims, or install protective mechanisms for vulnerable minorities – all familiar features of the Allied Powers’ management of imperial disintegration in central and eastern Europe after the First World War. Nor was the objective to restructure a given economy and society from top to bottom, generating an entirely new legal order in the process; this had often been the case with colonialism in Asia and Africa, and would characterize much of the mandates system throughout the interwar years. Instead, the goal was to deploy a unique mechanism – not entirely in conformity with European practice, but also distinct from non-European governance regimes – to reshape the demographic composition of Greece and Turkey. I substantiate this argument by marshalling a range of material from international law, legal history, and historical sociology. I first examine minority protection’s development into an instrument of intra-European nation-building during the long nineteenth century, showing how population exchange emerged in the Near East in the 1910s as a radical alternative to minority protection. I then provide a close reading of the travaux préparatoires of the 1922-3 Conference of Lausanne, at which a peace settlement formalizing the exchange was concluded. Finally, I analyze the Permanent Court of International Justice’s 1925 opinion in Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, examining it from the standpoint of wide-ranging disputes concerning the place of religion and ethnicity in the exchange process. My aim throughout is to show that the Greek-Turkish exchange laid the groundwork for a mechanism of legal nation-building which would later come to be deployed in a variety of different contexts but whose precise status under international law would remain contested.

Keywords: nation-building
international law
population exchange
Greece
Turkey
Near East
minority protection
mandates system
humanitarian intervention
nationalism
Advisor: Brunnee, Jutta
Knop, Karen C.