VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Improving the photoluminescence quantum efficiency of size-tunable, solution-processed lead-sulfide quantum dots in film

This work shows that reducing the concentration of nanocrystals in polymer significantly improves the PLQE of polymer/nanocrystal films. It shows that forming films in the presence of an abundance of passivating organic molecules also results in a high PLQE. This work improves the PLQE of nanocrystals in film from less than 1% to above 10%. Lead-sulfide (PbS) nanocrystals have high photoluminescence quantum efficiency (PLQE) when synthesized in solution (30%). When those same nanocrystals are made into a film, the PLQE drops significantly. Since practical nanocrystal devices will employ nanocrystals in film, it is essential to improve their PLQE. It is also important to understand what factors influence the PLQE of nanocrystals in films. This thesis also explores the effect of solvent, passivating ligand, pump intensity, and constant illumination on the PLQE of nanocrystals in film and solution.
The effect of oxygen tension on 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (11betaHSD-2) expression and activity in primary and explant cultures of the human placenta

11betaHSD-2 is localized to the placental syncytiotrophoblast and serves as a barrier by protecting the fetus from high levels of maternal GCs. Oxygen plays a central role in placental development and studies have shown that 11betaHSD-2 may be responsive to changes in oxygen tension. Three studies have looked at this relationship and found contradictory results. This study was conducted to resolve this controversy and find plausible explanations for these discrepancies. We hypothesized that in reduced oxygen tensions, 11betaHSD-2 expression and activity would be decreased in term trophoblast cells and first trimester villous explants and this effect would be mediated by HIF-1. 11betaHSD-2 protein, mRNA and activity were reduced in both in vitro models in lowered oxygen tensions and this effect was dependent on high cell density. 20% O2 explants treated with DMOG showed a trend towards a decrease in 11betaHSD-2 mRNA expression, suggesting this effect may be mediated by HIF-1.
Deploying white/Western privilege in accompaniment, observer, and human shield transnational solidarity activism: a critical race, feminist analysis

Though fairy tales appear consistently in modernist literature, there have been few explorations of their significance. Fairy tales are not just stories from the folk but part of the fabric of modernity; part of academic discourses, children's literature, and commodity culture. In works from the 1920s and 1930s, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Djuna Barnes use fairy tales as a system of reference that bridges high and low art, and that involves readers in the act of interpretation. Allusions to Continental fairy tales inform characters' approximations of cultural norms based on class and gender, and signal the possibilities and limitations of negotiating the demands of consumer societies. The transmission and reception of fairy tales from the court of the Sun King to the London of T. S. Eliot indicate the layers of readings and retellings that accrue to the texts. The result is that fairy tales are not stable points of reference, but instead indicate interpretative possibilities, as signaled by the image of the Wolf-as-Grandmother from Nightwood. This history allows for resistant readings of previous encodings of the stories, as well as narrative experimentation. In Ulysses, Joyce reacts against the Celtic Revival's depictions of the folk and their lore, using Wilde's cracked looking-glass and versions of “Cinderella” to signify the gap between ideals and their enactments in the contexts of nationalism and consumerism. Woolf responds to gender norms of Victorian variants, especially those of her aunt, Lady Ritchie. While Woolf adapts stories from Perrault, she resists the inherited ideologies, capitalizing instead upon the disruptive aspects of pantomime versions of the tales. Barnes indicates the power structures that enable and restrict the stories' uses, refiguring her Grandmother's authority through several different fairy tale allusions. She associates the palimpsestic tales with cross-dressed bodies, suggesting that the texts' excessive meanings make writerly and readerly control of narrative provisional at best. The approach to intertextuality signaled by Joyce, Woolf, and Barnes acknowledges and requires the active participation—the resistance as well as the compliance—of the reader, who negotiates the fairy tale and the modernist text as he or she would negotiate modernity itself.
ADjoint: an approach for the rapid development of discrete Adjoint solvers

The ADjoint is a hybrid sensitivity analysis method that takes advantage of the best aspects of both Automatic Differentiation (AD) and the semi-analytic adjoint method. The key feature of the ADjoint method is that it selectively uses AD to calculate the required partial derivative terms in the discrete adjoint sensitivity equations. This selective use of AD significantly reduces the computational cost and memory overhead of using AD. Further, because of the use of AD, the method can provide exactly consistent derivatives for arbitrarily complex governing equations and boundary conditions. In the following work, the ADjoint method is applied to two three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solvers. The implementation in the first solver is simply a proof of concept, while the implementation for the second solver is complete and provides all the derivatives required for aerodynamic shape optimization. The resulting ADjoint sensitivities are compared with complex-step derivatives to establish their accuracy.
2-Vinyloxiranes as synthetic equivalents to [beta, gamma]-unsaturated aldehydes: applications and the total synthesis of cryptophycin analogues via a scaffold approach

Beta, gamma-Unsaturated aldehydes have rarely been used as building blocks in synthetic organic chemistry, presumably due to their very low stability with respect to olefin isomerization. We have found that treatment of 2-vinyloxiranes with an appropriate Lewis acid in the presence of a variety of nucleophiles affords a diverse array of products which are difficult to produce by other means. To date, protocols have been developed for the racemic and asymmetric allylation, crotylation, and propargylation of the in situ generated electrophiles. Similar chemistry has been developed with alkynyloxiranes that affords a second route to products with clearly differentiated pi-systems. The products of the rearrangement/trapping sequence are useful in a variety of contexts. For instance, the application of Prins-type reaction conditions upon various bishomoallylic alcohols affords interesting pyran products, a common structural motif in natural products. Alternatively, we have shown that selective homologation of the terminal olefin via cross-metathesis is possible and yields a key fragment of a pharmacologically active (anti-cancer) class of natural products known collectively as the cryptophycins. This aspect of the project has evolved to the concise synthesis of a library of cryptophycin analogues through a scaffold approach. In addition, subjection of homoallylic homopropargylic alcohol to enyne metathesis affords interesting carbocyclic dienes. These products are suitable substrates for further reaction in Diels-Alder processes with potential application to natural products such as (+)-lepicidin A, a potent insecticide. Other tangentially related projects have been explored, and include our efforts to prepare both (+)-compactin and oxy-compactin utilizing ring-opening of an oxabicycle, crotylation, and ring-closing metathesis as key steps. This project remains ongoing, and has generated additional chemistry such as the preparation and utility of cyclic enol carbonates for the synthesis of stereochemically defined silyl enol ethers and vinyl triflates.
The impact of attachment style and the physician-patient relationship on adherence to medication treatment in HIV disease

Conclusions. Given study limitations, the research question deserves further attention. Background. Nonadherence to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) can result in viral breakthrough, and poorer disease outcomes (Paterson, Swindells, Mohr, Brester, 2000; Wahl Nowak, 2000). Methods. Adherence to HAART was assessed an average of 11 times over 9 months, in 82 patients, using the Individual Medication Monitor. The Revised Adult Attachment Scale, a Physician-Patient Relationship Inventory, socio-demographic, and clinical questionnaires and scales were administered at baseline. Multivariate statistics were applied. Objectives. To determine if attachment style or the patients' perceptions of their relationship with their physician predicts HAART adherence, and to determine if the relationship between attachment style and adherence to HAART medications is mediated by the patients' perceptions of their relationship with their physician. Results. The relationship between attachment, the physician-patient relationship, and HAART adherence was not found to be significant. A significant relationship was identified between attachment and the physician-patient relationship.
Interaction of chlorinated polyolefin (CPO) with components of thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO)

The surface and interface (interphase) of CPO-coated TPO substrate were also characterized. Solvent wiping of the TPO substrates increased the roughness of the TPO surface, while CPO-solution-coating followed by baking had a much larger effect on the roughness of the CPO-TPO interface. In CPO-coated TPO, a diffuse interface was found between the CPO and EBR component. This thesis examines the interaction of a chlorinated polyolefin (CPO) sample (Superchlon 872S) with components of a thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) composed of 75 wt% polypropylene (PP 1042) and 25 wt% ethylene-butene rubber (EBR9). At first, a fluorescent dye (HY-6-NH2) was covalently incorporated onto polymer backbone. Using dye-labeled polymer as a tracer we investigated the morphology of CPO/TPO blends by laser scanning confocal fluorescence microscope (LSCFM). Results of CPO/TPO blends revealed that CPO is more miscible with EBR9 than with PP1042.
Performance montoring and visualization of object-oriented operating systems

Computer systems are becoming more complex every year, making it exceedingly difficult to understand how well a running system is performing. Various tools have been developed to aid in systems analysis. Some of them can be used to monitor performance and help identify performance bottlenecks. However, they all have limitations, and the scope of their monitoring capabilities is usually limited. This dissertation presents a new monitoring system called the Kernel Object Viewer (KOV) that makes three primary contributions. First, it can dynamically track important performance metrics using Hardware Performance Counters: (1) at object instance-level granularity; (2) requiring no changes to the code; (3) adding no overhead when monitoring is not required; and (4) allowing monitoring overhead to be varied by dynamically changing the sampling frequency. Second, it implements a system-wide scanning facility which extracts all live processes and their objects. Finally, it implements a novel mechanism to dynamically track lock acquisitions and lock contention.
Addressing gender stereotyping under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Womenthe case of Ciudad Juárez

This Paper argues that combating gender stereotyping is inseparable from the larger project of ensuring women's substantive equality under the ' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. ' This Paper argues that in order to achieve this goal, we must develop a methodology capable of effectively identifying and challenging gender stereotyping. This Paper aims to develop such a methodology. In order to demonstrate how adherence to a robust methodology might help to combat gender stereotyping, this Paper then applies the proposed methodology to the inquiry into abduction, rape, and murder of women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico--the first inquiry completed under the 'Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.' This Paper then considers the reasons why the 'Optional Protocol' inquiry procedure provides a promising legal tool for applying the proposed methodology to combat gender stereotyping. (p. II).

Keywords: Sex discrimination against women, Law and legislation
Equality before the law
Abduction, Mexico
Rape, Mexico
Murder, Mexico
The “banality” of deterministic thought: A philosophical/cultural critique

Questions about the theoretical problems of determinism have long been posed. In this thesis, I will join this body of work by critiquing particular elements of deterministic thought as they arise in the field of philosophy. I focus specifically upon the problems of rationality and substantialism as they are expressed in deterministic thought. What I hope to achieve is a more complete description of novel concepts which serve to set the conditions for an epistemological break with rationality as an ideal for a contemporary philosophy of education. Drawing upon the thought of different philosophers and social/cultural theorists, such as Hannah Arendt and Raymond Williams, I hope to identify and make visible a set of conditions that are necessary in challenging elements of deterministic thought. I argue these conditions enable a more ethically-oriented non-deterministic position in the field of philosophy and lay the groundwork for thinking differently about culture, society and education.

Keywords: Determinism (Philosophy)
Free will and determinism
An activity theory analysis of three instructors' knowledge about teaching writing in a pre-university English-for-Academic-Purposes course: Teacher mind as mediated action

I examined three experienced teachers' instructional practices, knowledge and beliefs about English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing instruction in the same pre-university academic preparation course. The research shows how each teacher's explicit knowledge about writing instruction was mediated or shaped by her participation in various personal and professional activities that were the sources of her teacher's knowledge (Cole, 1999; Lantolf Thorne, 2006; Wertsch, 1991, 1998).I retrospectively traced the development of each teacher's knowledge about EAP writing instruction, drawing on multiple sources of data. Using the analytical framework of activity theory, I identified each teacher's self-explained principles of practice as the conceptual resources which mediated between her actual teaching practices and her teacher knowledge. These principles of practice were traced to her personal and professional activities. I found that six activities or contexts were the sources of each teacher's knowledge (TASKs). These TASKs illustrate how each teacher's knowledge was socially constructed via her participation in her specific, personal and professional activities and the cultural resources therein. Sample instructional routines taught by each instructor were also analyzed according to activity theory. These analyses show how each instructor uniquely acted as an agent of her teacher's knowledge about EAP writing instruction while fulfilling the goals of the same EAP curriculum (Lantolf Thorne, 2006; Wertsch, 1991). I compared and contrasted each teacher's self-explained principles of practice which guided her instruction to locate her teacher knowledge in her personal and professional activities, as well as in the teachers' joint collaboration in developing the EAP course. These activity theory analyses of teachers' practice and knowledge link theory and practice by focusing on teachers' knowledge in the context of teaching (Freeman Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 2006). What teachers know is linked to what teachers do through the examination of each teacher's knowledge in action in her classroom in relation to her self-explained principles of practice. Teacher knowledge is thus shown to be action mediated by the conceptual resources of teachers' knowledge and beliefs---that is, "teacher mind as mediated action" (Wertsch, 1991).
Ties that bind: farming, agrarian ideals, and life in Ontario, 1890-1930

Historians have rightly regarded the period from 1890 to 1930 as the time when Ontario emerged as an urban and industrial province. But their acceptance of the idea that this development was accompanied by a crisis of “rural depopulation” in the countryside has led them to dismiss the life of the farm, and ideas about that life, as anachronistic. The prevailing assumption of rural decline in the face of steady urbanization has also meant that little attention has been paid to the interaction between the country and the city, save perhaps to present urban areas as the final destinations of migrating farmers. This study contends that there was no crisis in Ontario's farming communities in this period. The adult farming population remained stable and relatively prosperous. Farm children left home because of the lack of available land in their neighbourhoods, not out of any widespread rejection of their parents' occupation. Their departures were neither sudden nor disruptive, but rather undertaken in stages and negotiated in the context of the family farm economy. The existence of prosperous fanning districts and a large urban population with roots in the countryside ensured that farming and conceptions of farming played a central role in the province's society and culture even as towns and cities expanded and the proportion of people engaged in agriculture declined. Public defences of farming were creative and vibrant, and rooted in contemporary ideas about history, racial decline, science, gender, art, and literature. The thesis presents an overview of these agrarian ideas, and then traces their influence over individual lives, educational institutions, and the home front in the First World War. A final chapter details the first challenge to the idealization of farming in Ontario, at the hands of sociologists and public health officials in the 1910s and 1920s. Through an examination of census material, personal papers, the farm press, and government records, this work argues that the history of Ontario from the 1890s through to the Depression should not be seen primarily as an era of urban triumph, but rather one of the complicated intermingling of rural and urban worlds.
High sustained +Gz and the diastolic heart: a finite element analysis

Current and future fighter aircraft are capable of high sustained gravitational accelerations (HSG) upwards of nine times the force of gravity. This increase in acceleration magnitude greatly exceeds the natural adaption capabilities of the human body. Thus pilots who fly these aircraft require additional tools in order to operate effectively in this environment. The present study is concerned with the displacement and stress generated on the diastolic human heart under HSG like those produced in fighter aircraft. FEA was conducted at 4, 7 and 9 +Gz with and without the presence of an anti-G suit (AGS) and anti-G straining manoeuver (AGSM). The results show conclusively that without the use of AGS/AGSM, the heart undergoes significant displacement in the thorax, which results in a larger heart to head distance. This however is alleviated with an AGS/AGSM. Heart stresses during diastole were found to be within physiological norms both with and without the presence of an AGS/AGSM.
History and fiction in the early modern Spanish siege play: Cervantes' "La Numancia", Lope's "El asalto de Mastrique", and Calderon's "El sitio de Breda."

The siege play is studied here in relation to the literary and historical contexts of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spain. Taking the distinction between history and fiction in Neo-Aristotelian literary theory as a point of departure, this study explores the intellectual and historical conditions that affect the ways in which dramatists interpret historical events according to their own literary and ideological purposes. All three works deal with military themes that engage controversial issues of Spain's imperial rule and destiny. The model of classical epic is taken into consideration to elucidate how the theme of siege is treated on the early modern stage. The use of comic elements such as the gracioso is also examined, especially in the comedia nueva. In the context of actions based on epic models, the interpolation of fictional characters reveals dissenting perspectives on the themes of heroism and warfare. Through humour and conflict the fictional episodes represent individualized reactions to historical events and illustrate one of the key generic differences between historical chronicles and early modern drama. This study also examines generic features of romance in the fictional episodes of the siege plays. It is suggested that the three playwrights recognized the extent to which romance could be used either to question or to reinforce the civilizing rhetoric of empire. The interplay of history and fiction in the siege play demonstrates the uses and discontents of legitimizing fiction in early modern representations of imperialism. Parallel themes and contexts in Cervantes' La Numancia, Lope's El asalto de Mastrique, and Calderon's El sitio de Breda invite a comparative analysis. Although there are clear distinctions between Cervantes' siege play and the later comedia nueva of Lope and Calderon, the three texts present certain similarities, particularly in the conventions that shape the dramatization of historical material in the early modern period and the ideological uses of such material.
Enhancing research utilization capacity in occupational therapy

There is a pressing need for healthcare professionals to provide research-based practices, yet there is little understanding of the specific strategies individual practitioners can use to integrate research evidence into their clinical practices. Using grounded theory method, the research utilization strategies of a sample of eleven elite occupational therapists (OTs) practicing in adult stroke rehabilitation were examined. Results of this study build upon the existing theoretical concepts and processes of research utilization and provide a theory proposing how OTs can enhance their research utilization capacity. The strategies used to integrate research evidence into clinical practice include structured reflection, case application and peer consultation. Skills necessary to perform these strategies that promote research utilization can be gained through professional development activities. To become a research-based practitioner, OTs may consider gaining clinical experience and skill development as a service providers, as researchers, as mentors and as a life-long learners.