VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Coming home: healing and renewal as transformative learning, a healing narrative for practitioners in helping professions and social and environmental justice

The thesis COMING HOME relates the author's personal story of healing and renewal as a helping professional, during which she formulated a framework of transformative learning that focuses on the inner dimension of the human being, developed from her own experiential processes. The framework's four-fold framework includes: (1) psychology, using the methodology of psychosynthesis (a spiritual psychology originated by Roberto Assagioli); (2) mythology, with a focus on the descent to the goddess/hero's journey and archetypes; (3) spirituality, premised on the notion of the existence of the soul; and (4) physiology, with a focus on chakras, in viewing human life as an energetic phenomenon. The impetus of the journey resided in the author's own existential crisis to find meaning in her personal and professional life, precipitated by a breakdown in health. The premise of the thesis is that woundedness of the soul is a common yet little known phenomenon in the human being. The author, however, more specifically focuses on how the wounded soul among helping practitioners can inhibit their own healing work with students, clients, patients, and marginalized groups of people. The thesis, therefore, describes healing as a transformative learning through time, that shifts the human consciousness to deeper and more expansive levels through practices that draw upon various modes of consciousness or ways of knowing that signify our wholistic human potential. Although the author suggests that the human consciousness is an energetic microcosm of a larger energetic macrocosm which embodies all forms of planetary and cosmological life, the primary subject of this thesis is the inner journey to wholeness in the human person and the challenge to heal disconnectedness within oneself that, in turn, requires an experiential appreciation of the spirit and the earth.

Keywords: Healing
Life change events
Social justice
Holism
Psychosynthesis
Regenerative medicine and the developing world

Background. Despite a high prevalence of conditions for which regenerative medicine is potentially applicable, there has been no attempt to systematically understand how regenerative medicine could contribute to improving health in the developing world. Methods. A consensus-building method was used with an international panel of experts to identify and prioritize the most promising applications of regenerative medicine for improving health in developing countries. Thematic analysis was used to identify the criteria that informed the decision-making of the panellists. Conclusions. This study indicates that regenerative medicine could potentially be relevant to developing countries, and is the first to systematically identify and prioritize applications of regenerative medicine that are the most promising for improving health in developing countries. Results. Participants ranked the ten most promising regenerative medicine applications. The top-ranked application was novel methods of insulin replacement and pancreatic islet cell regeneration for diabetes. Six decision-making criteria were identified: burden, impact, feasibility, affordability, acceptability, and indirect benefits.
News, political culture, and public debate in interregnum Britain: The politics of anti-popery

This study focuses upon British news and political culture in the 1650s and concludes that we cannot understand contemporary political, military, and religious policies and the public debates surrounding their development and implementation without understanding the role anti-popery played in determining their shape and scope. Anti-popery formed a central component of political and religious culture in the decades preceding the outbreak of civil war, and during the interregnum politicians, pamphleteers, and the news media continued to employ it to interpret, justify, critique, and debate the foreign, domestic, and imperial policies of successive regimes. Anti-popery was a principal means of asserting religious and political orthodoxy, and it provided a rhetorical platform of consensus upon which all Protestants theoretically could build. In the 1650s, however, the parameters of godliness and 'right government' were bitterly contested. In these debates anti-popery was a powerful polemical tool, one which politicians, journalists, and pamphleteers viewed as uniquely capable of swaying public opinion and reaching a broad cross-section of society. While the significance of anti-popery in pre-war and post-Restoration political culture has been the subject of sustained scholarly interest, its importance in the interregnum has received comparatively little examination. A series of case studies form the core of this analysis: the establishment of the English republic; the Cromwellian invasion and conquest of Scotland; the Anglo-Spanish war and the conquest of Jamaica; and the Protector's Protestant foreign policy, which took shape in relation to widely publicized religious tensions and conflicts on the continent, including the 1655 massacre of Protestants at Piedmont. Politicians, pamphleteers, and the news media placed each of these actions and policies within the framework of the ongoing battle between the Protestant and Catholic churches. What lent the struggle against popery, to which was allied the strengthening of Protestantism, its analytical and polemical strength was its ability to accommodate, complement, and reinforce a wide range of interpretive models and policy objectives including republican theory, imperial ideology, providentialism, apocalypticism, national security, and the protection and expansion of trade. By the 1650s, anti-popery had become part of the language of practical politics as well as public debate.
Cysteine rich amino terminus of the voltage-gated chloride channel ClC-2 is involved in oxidation-dependent channel activation

Analysis of the primary sequence of ClC-2 revealed the presence of a cluster of cysteine residues within the amino terminus. The functional role of these residues is unknown. We hypothesize that these cysteines act as a redox sensing domain within this protein. Results. Xenopus Oocytes were injected with 50 ng water, Wild type or mutant rClC-2, incubated in ND96 solution (osm. 200; pH 7.6) for 2-3 days at 15 oC; two electrode voltage clamp experiments ( -140 mV - +20 mV) were performed on all constructs. Treatment solutions: ND96 (control), oxidant (tert-Butylhydroperoxide 1mM). Wt rClC-2 oocytes (n= 11) in ND96 solution, had a slow time dependent activation with basal currents of sim;1.0 muA, upon oxidation current ( sim;2 muA) and channel conductance increased. Oocytes injected with mutant rClC-2 (n= 10) maintained a slow activation profile (basal current sim;1.0 muA), however were insensitive to oxidant. Treatments had no effect on water injected oocytes. A new regulatory role for the amino terminus is proposed.
Socioemotional functioning and language impairment in children with prenatal alcohol exposure: a comparison with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

These findings substantiate the need for early screening and intervention efforts in children with PAE specifically targeting the areas of language, social cognition, and emotion processing. Further, this study has identified some of the unique characteristics of PAE, which may help to distinguish them from other clinical populations including ADHD. Prenatal exposure to alcohol is the leading cause of intellectual impairment in the western world. Arguably some of the most debilitating repercussions of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) are the impairments in social, emotional, and behavioural functioning and the increased risk for severe psychopathology. The study included 97 children, 33 with PAE, 30 non-exposed with ADHD, and 34 normal controls. Groups were compared on standardized measures of intellectual, language, and socioemotional functioning. Experimental measures assessing aspects of social cognition and emotion processing were also used to compare groups. This study aimed to determine whether children with PAE, who present with language and attention problems, show a different pattern of socioemotional disturbance than non-exposed children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Another aim was to determine whether there is a significant relationship between the severity of language impairment and severity of socioemotional problems in these children. Results indicated that the PAE group was impaired on many of the measures in the study. The ADHD and normal control groups performed within normal limits on all intellectual and language measures. While the PAE and ADHD groups were similar in caregiver/teacher ratings of social skills problems, differences were found in the severity of their emotional and behavioural profiles. Severity of language impairment was significantly related to severity of socioemotional problems in the children sampled. Performance on experimental measures of social cognition and emotion processing was distinct, with the PAE group performing below average on specific tasks and the ADHD group performing comparably, for the most part, to normal controls.

Keywords: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
Social skills in children
Children of prenatal alcohol abuse
Emotions in children
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Attention-deficit-disordered children
Language disorders in children
The estrogen receptor pathway in rhabdomyosarcoma: A role for estrogen receptor-beta in proliferation and response to the antiestrogen 4'hydroxide-tamoxifen

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft tissue childhood sarcoma. Highly malignant, RMS frequently fails to respond to conventional, aggressive multimodal treatment. To identify new targets for RMS therapy, we investigated the previously uncharacterized estrogen receptor (ER) pathway in RMS. Our experiments demonstrated ER isoform beta (ERbeta), but not isoform alpha, mRNA and protein in RMS cell lines and primary tumour samples. RMS cell growth was dramatically inhibited in steroid-free conditions, and growth was rescued through estrogen supplementation. RMS cells treated with an antiestrogen (4OHT) exhibited decreased viability and activation of the apoptotic pathway. This effect increased exponentially in steroid-deprived conditions, but was rescued by estrogen supplementation. Changes in subcellular ERbeta localization were observed in response to 4OHT. These data suggest that the ERbeta signalling pathway in RMS may induce cell growth and survival, and that these cells are sensitive to antiestrogens, providing a potentially effective strategy for RMS treatment.
Local safety cultures of risk and regulation: Workplace safety, individual responsibility, and near miss accidents

Responsibility in workplace safety is being reconfigured in a similar fashion to other neo-liberal shifts in regulation. The current discourse and interpretation of regulation under neo-liberalism is that governments must encourage, if not demand, that workers take individual responsibility for their own safety while at work. However, the ways in which safety rights and regulations are used are continually evolving through their local application across the broad spectrum of workplace sites. The mechanisms of safety regulations are not fixed; they only appear to be from their written and discursive form. In order to understand the practices of workplace safety rights and regulation we must examine how employees negotiate everyday risk within their local cultures of safety. In this dissertation, I provide an analysis of this evolving nature of individual responsibility within current debates on health and safety compliance. I draw on primary data collected during a five-month ethnographic study of large Canadian industrial factory, a follow-up survey of the same workplace, and analyses of legal schedules containing lists of fines for health and safety violations from the Ontario Court of Justice. A primary finding is that the shift in the labour process to participatory rights has resulted in a diffusion of responsibility over workplace risks and a blurring of responsibility between employers and employees over who is responsible for unsafe conditions found inside the workplace. It was also observed that near miss accidents were ignored in regulatory enforcement. In turn, this lack of attention paid to near misses contributed to a cumulative effect in the normalization of risk surrounding near misses within the local safety cultures across the factory. The findings, in turn, pointed to an alternative theory on why new and young workers are injured at higher rates and the need to further research the development of habitual action when new workers are inserted for the first time into a local safety culture. By studying the process of safety risk and regulation, this dissertation makes visible the mechanisms of regulation and what is normally taken-for-granted in everyday health and safety decision-making.
(How) do connectionist networks model cognition?

Over the past two decades connectionist computational models of cognitive processes have come to predominate over traditional symbolic computational models. Whereas, however, it was relatively clear what aspects the parts of the symbolic models mapped on to in the cognitive domain (e.g., concepts, beliefs, desires), it has never been completely clear what the components of connectionist networks (e.g., units, connections) map on to in either the cognitive domain or some other "nearby" domain. Connectionist frequently speak of the "neural inspiration" and "biological plausibility" of the networks, they rarely concede that they are literally engaged in a process of directly modeling the neural organization that is thought to underlie cognition. In this dissertation I attempt to discover exactly what, if anything, connectionist models of cognition model. After briefly surveying the early history of connectionism in chapter l, I go on, in chapter 2, to closely examine the words of connectionists themselves on the issue of what the networks correspond to in the cognitive, neurological, (or other?) domain. Finding no clear answer there, in Chapter 3 I turn to the philosophical literature having to do with scientific explanation and scientific models to see if connectionist practices can be understood in those terms. Although I find some possible parallels in the work of semantic and post-semantic philosophers of science, a coherent account of connectionism does not emerge. Finally, in Chapter 4, I explore directly the claim that connectionist networks are idealized models of the neural structure that underpins cognition. I run several original connectionist simulations, attempting to "add back" neurological details that performance, however, it makes it considerable worse and the adding of extra computational resources do not seem to be able to resolve the new problems. Chapter 5 summarizes the complete argument of the dissertation and identifies the crucial dilemma that I believe to be facing connectionist cognitive science at this point in time.
Isolation and characterization of canine side population cells

A novel method for the isolation of candidate hematopoietic stem cells exploits their differential Hoechst-33342 efflux property to identify a rare population of cells called side population or SP cells in a number of species. Repopulation studies have suggested that murine SP cells are enriched in hematopoietic stem cell activity. We have optimized Hoechst-staining conditions for canine bone marrow and showed that SP cells represent approximately 0.08% of canine bone marrow mononuclear cells. We determined SP cell frequencies in young dogs to be three-fold greater than that observed in older dogs. Little within sample variability was observed among older dogs, while younger dogs showed greater variability. Canine SP cells were predominantly negative for the CD34 cell surface antigen. With the exception of the CD4 antigen, SP cells expressed little or no lineage commitment markers. Future studies will determine the utility of canine SP cells in pre-clinical cell and gene therapies.
Getting it together: relational learning in a jazz performance context

To inform my professional practice as a jazz educator and as a musician, I explore relational learning within a jazz performance context. Specifically, I document and reflect on my experiences of learning in a journal as I interact in performance activities within the Toronto jazz community over a six month time period. Themes that emerge in the reflexive journal writings are interpreted and represented through paintings, poetry, and jazz compositions, the latter of which are recorded on CD. The themes bring into question previously held beliefs and values about learning and music making—ideas which drew upon my understandings of constructivism as a philosophy for music education. The challenges that arise during collaborative music making experiences lead me to examine more closely the elements that optimally must be present for positive interaction. While frustrations I experienced during early collaborations could refute the value of learning within relational contexts, the writings of Kagan (1997) and Lambert (1995) alternatively suggest that individual accountability, positive interdependence, and reciprocity foster the potential for the co-creation of new understandings. In realizing that these elements are lacking in my own collaborative experiences, I pursue technical competence and creative confidence as fundamental to individual accountability. Chase (1988) and Werner (1996) demonstrate the mastery of these concepts within the context of music making—even in the practice room—supporting my earliest assumption of the value of learning in real life situations. In addition, I explore my role as a bandleader in creating music making contexts that foster the development of positive interdependence and reciprocity. The newfound understandings that have evolved through my exploration as a developing jazz musician provide insight about the subtleties of collaboration, enabling me to act more thoughtfully as a facilitator of such experiences both on the bandstand and in my classroom. My investigation has strengthened my belief in creating safe and trusting environments that emphasize mutuality and respect, provide positive feedback, and encourage creative problem solving.

Keywords: Jazz, Instruction and study
School music
Pedagogy (Music)
The process of fact-finding before international tribunals: a study of the WTO dispute settlement system

The Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (the "DSU") provides general guidance but few direct answers to specific questions regarding the process of fact-finding before World Trade Organization (WTO) panels. Therefore, in order to render the dispute settlement system effective, panels and the Appellate Body have had to provide answers to those questions as they arose in the cases. In the light of this, the main objectives of this dissertation are (i) to determine whether panels and the Appellate Body have set out optimal rules to govern the process of fact-finding and, to the extent that that is not the case, (ii) to make suggestions for improvement.

Keywords: Dispute resolution (Law)
Modulation of x-ray fluence patterns in cone-beam computed tomography

The targeting of tumours treated with external beam radiation therapy stands to be greatly improved by way of systems capable of imaging patients at the time of treatment. There remains a great deal of improvement to be made to cone-beam computed tomography systems to provide the ideal method for guiding treatments. One technique currently under investigation is the development of fluence modulating filters capable of greatly reducing both scattered radiation at the detector and patient dose. These filters may take the form of simple "bow-tie" filters that alter the fluence by the same degree in each projection image, or they may be designed to deliver intensity-modulated fluence patterns that change across a projection image as well as with different view angles. These filters bring about the possibility of obtaining prescribed images optimized for a specific imaging task and patient.
The influence of non-nitrogenous nutrient additions on growth and physiology of sugar maple and composition of understory vegetation in northern hardwoods of central Ontario

While it is widely assumed that most temperate forests are nitrogen limited, many stands located in areas affected by high N deposition exhibit signs of nitrogen excess. Symptoms include an increase in nitrate concentration and a decrease in the C:N ratio of both soil and foliage; thus affected ecosystems are expected to experience a significant reduction in their natural nitrogen limitation. This process is likely accompanied by changes in availability of phosphorus and basic cations. This work demonstrates that N-induced deficiency of P, K, Ca and Mg is evident in sugar maple dominated northern hardwoods of central Ontario. Research presented here also examines several interrelated aspects of forest responses to additions of non-N mineral nutrients, including their effects on forest floor and mineral soil, diameter increment of trees, canopy physiology and morphology, and diversity of understory vegetation. This thesis demonstrates that the addition of truly growth-limiting nutrients does increase tree growth even among slow-growing, tolerant species such as sugar maple. Furthermore, growth increase is evident among mature and young trees within a relatively short time if monitoring of tree canopy response is included in research. This work also shows that while liming and non-N nutrient additions help alleviate many negative effects of nitrate pollution, they also escalate the process of forest eutrophication, which influences diversity of understory vegetation.
Surgical management of locally advanced colorectal cancer: A population-based study

This study assessed the determinants and outcomes of multivisceral resection (MVR) in the treatment of patients with locally advanced colorectal cancer (LAACRC) in the United States from 1988 through 2002. Administrative database algorithms to detect tumour relapse and MVR were also developed and tested. Overall, 33.0% of LAACRC patients were treated with MVR with significant regional variation (2-fold variation for colon cancers, 10-fold variation for rectal cancers). Patient age, sex, nodal status, tumour location, case volumes and hospital characteristics were associated with MVR. MVR was associated with a significant overall survival benefit (adjusted hazard ratio for colon cancer: 0.89; rectal cancer: 0.79), with no increase in perioperative mortality. Administrative database algorithms were insufficient to detect tumour relapse and had the best performance characteristics for identifying MVR in rectal cancer patients. Further research is required to elucidate underlying processes of care to increase the performance of MVR in patients with LAACRC.