VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Religion on the Internet: A sociological inquiry into participation and community online

This thesis explores the impact of Internet communications on religious practice in the contemporary culture. The study presents a detailed examination of the historical development of religion on the Internet. This includes religion on the early Usenet networks, BBS systems and Ecunet communications network. These early manifestations of online religion are then viewed in relation to the development of the World Wide Web. An accurate assessment of the number of religious websites available and the denominational and religious tradition representation is presented and analyzed for a three-year period beginning in August of 2001 and concluding August of 2003. By examining the three largest represented religious traditions on the Internet, case studies demonstrate that this correlation may be accurate. The case studies also demonstrate that not all religious organizations encourage the creation of online virtual community environments. This appears to limit the level of online religious practice occurring within certain traditions. Current theoretical frameworks used for the assessment and evaluation of religion on the Internet are reviewed and critiqued, demonstrating the inapplicability of certain theoretical paradigms in the study of religious community formation on the Internet. An original framework is then developed for evaluating varying levels of online religious participation and activity. This framework is combined with a method for assessing levels of virtual community formation and used to evaluate the relationship between varying levels of online community structure and varying levels of online religious participation. It is my hypothesis that virtual religious communities allow for and encourage high levels of online religious practice.
The influence of sources, source regions, and fate and transport processes on the occurrence of polychlorinated naphthalenes and coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls in urban and arctic environments

Polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs) are a class of persistent organic pollutants (POPS) used prior to and in similar applications to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCNs have a planar structure like non-/mono-ortho PCBs and chlorinated dioxins (PCDDs) resulting in similar biomagnification properties and modes of toxicity. PCNs are proposed additions to the list of restricted and banned substances under the UNECE-Long-Range Transboundary Atmospheric Pollutants (LRTAP)-POPs Protocol. Research conducted as part of this thesis has improved our knowledge of the environmental occurrence and behaviour of PCNs and non-/mono- ortho PCBs from an atmospheric perspective in the Great Lakes and Arctic regions of North America. Analytical methods were improved by using a cyclodextrin-based GC column to resolve coeluting penta- and hexaCNs which have varying degrees of toxicity and which bioaccumulate. Elevated PCN levels were observed in air of urban areas relative to over the Great Lakes and in the Arctic. Current combustion sources contributed up to 55% of the PCNs in air in north Toronto while evaporative emissions were the predominant source in the downtown. Over-lake PCN concentrations were highest for L. Ontario compared to L. Huron, L. Superior, and the upper St. Lawrence River and estimates of air-water gas exchange showed triCNs volatilize from L. Ontario while tetraCNs are near equilibrium. PCNs in air collected at arctic monitoring stations at Alert, NU, Tagish, YK, and Dunai, Russia, varied seasonally with higher levels in winter coinciding with transport of air masses from Eurasia and were correlated with anthropogenic sulfate concentrations. At Resolute, NU, PCN and non-/mono-ortho PCB concentrations were temperature-dependent, suggesting regional or local sources influence levels. PCNs contributed as much or more dioxin toxic equivalents than non-/mono-ortho PCBs in urban and arctic air. PCNs were higher in beluga whale than ringed seal blubber collected near Baffin Island. The occurrence of PCNs in arctic marine mammals demonstrates their persistence and ability to accumulate through the food web. These results strengthen the argument for the addition of PCNs to the UNECE POPS Protocol by providing monitoring data from remote regions and by illustrating the contributions due current sources in addition to past-use evaporative sources.
Phonetic distinctiveness as a sociolinguistic variable

I begin with a distinction between engendered variation, that is, sex-based phonetic-level variation that shows consistent patterns across communities, and nongendered variation. Much of engendered variation is anatomically-determined, but there is also an important behaviourally-determined component. One example of behaviourally-determined engendered variation is that women speak more clearly, as reflected in their more-dispersed vowel space. I argue that this sex-based difference applies to all types of phonological contrasts, not just vowels, so that the temporal and acoustic correlates of phonological constituents produced by women are differentiated typically more than those produced by men. Furthermore, I demonstrate that "phonetic distinctiveness" indexes other social categories such as social gender and social class, i.e., is a sociolinguistic variable. I corroborate the indexing of social categories in two major applications. First, I compare phonetic correlates in the speech of eight male radio DJs from a range of music genres with ratings of how macho-sounding each DJ is. For each DJ, I examine durational differences between contextual and inherent long and short vowels. As expected, social gender significantly correlates with the vowel duration distinctiveness so that the more macho-sounding DJs produce less distinct vowel length contrasts. Second, I examine dispersion of front and back vowels in the speech of 439 speakers from the Atlas of North American English (Labov et al. 2006). Vowel dispersion is shown to correlate with both sex and social class. That men typically produce less distinct contrasts than women leads to predictions about the role of sex in phonetic-level sound change. Specifically, if the innovative form results in the loss of phonetic distinctiveness (such as two vowels merging), then we predict that men lead the change. An investigation of vowel mergers among the Atlas of North American English speakers reveals that men do lead mergers, and that speakers with a less dispersed vowel system show more instances of mergers, regardless of sex. Thus phonetic distinctiveness as an explanation of sound change accounts for why men lead sound changes that result in loss of phonetic distinctiveness, while women lead sound changes that maintain phonetic distinctiveness.
Mechanical and fatigue properties of resistance spot-welded AA 5182 sheets

Although aluminum materials have proven to be a possible weight saving solution, the strength of Al joints remains a challenge in auto industry. Improving the mechanical properties of resistance spot welding, as a major joining method, has been the subject of numerous studies. However, the effects of forging on the mechanical properties of Al spot-welded joints had not been yet determined. Systematic tensile/fatigue tests and microstructural characterization were conducted on three sets of aluminum DC single-phase spot-welds. The results showed an enhancement in the fatigue life as the result of forging. Crack initiation occurred out of the weld pool in the heat affected zone at the end of the notch, where the stress concentration is highest. No correlation was detected between fatigue life and weld pool microstructure. Residual stress analysis on the weld pool and its vicinity is recommended to clarify if forging impacts the residual stress relieving mechanism.
Learning structured prediction models for image labeling

Many fundamental tasks in computational vision can be formulated as predicting unknown properties of a scene from a static image. If the scene property is described by a set of discrete values in each image, then the corresponding vision task is an image labeling problem. A key issue in image labeling concerns how to exploit the context information in images, as local evidence is often insufficient to determine the label value. This thesis takes a statistical learning approach to the labeling problem, focusing on two main issues in incorporating context into the labeling process: (1) what are the efficient representations of contexts for labeling? and (2) how do we learn the context representations for a labeling task from data?We discuss two learning situations based on different degrees of data availability. In the first case, enough fully-labeled data are available for learning. So we develop a discriminative labeling framework based on a Conditional Random Field (CRF), in which multiscale feature functions are proposed to capture the image/label contexts at several spatial scales. Those feature functions affect the labeling from local to global levels: some aspects of the contexts concern co-occurrence of objects in the image, while other aspects concern the geometric relationships between objects. To extend the range of object classes and image database size that the system can handle, we also propose a modular CRF model that integrates the bottom-up image cues and top-down categorical information. The second case has a less strict requirement on the training data, including not only a small number of fully-labeled data, but also a large number of coarsely-labeled ones. We present a hybrid unsupervised-supervised approach that combines a generative topic model with discriminative label classifiers. The topic model is used to model the co-occurring image features for representing image context, and it is extended such that the topics are not only applied to image features but also to labels. We examine the performance of our models on several real-world image databases, and compare our systems to baseline methods.
Education for all: a historical analysis of Ontario's Bill 82 and its impact in one board, 1973--1990

This thesis examines special education policies and programs before and after special education became mandatory through the Education Amendment Act, 1980, otherwise known as Bill 82, in the province of Ontario. The study will focus on developments within the Ministry of Education and the role of parents, politicians, and professional organizations in the push towards mandatory special education legislation. Furthermore, this study will examine the polices and programs one board in Ontario had in place before Bill 82 and the impact of Bill 82 on this board's programs and policies will be examined. The focus of this study will be limited to the years between 1973 and 1990.

Keywords: Special education, History
Special education, Ontario
School boards, Ontario
Nursing across cultures: the communicative needs of internationally educated nurses working with older adults

In Canada and elsewhere, internationally educated nurses (IENs) provide valuable resources to address existing and predicted nurse shortages concurrent with the needs of aging and growing multicultural populations (Buchan, 2002a; Canadian Nurses Association [CNA] and Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions [CFNU], 2004; Epp, et al., 2002). Research indicates that limited language proficiency hinders some IENs entering or staying in the workforce (L. Munro, 2003) or leads others to take employment below their skill level. This study aimed to explore the communication skills required of Registered Nurses and Registered Practical Nurses working with older adults in Ontario. The specific research questions were: (1) what sociolinguistic and sociocultural needs do IENs experience in their work with older adults? and (2) what do IENs see as the strengths and weaknesses in the educational opportunities they have had in terms of meeting the sociolinguistic and sociocultural needs of working with older adults? Using interviews and questionnaires, data were collected over 9 months from 19 IEN and 9 non-IEN participants. Within a theoretical framework of Sociocultural Theory, which recognises language as an important cultural artifact and mediational tool (Daniels, 2001), and the concept of Legitimate Peripheral Participation, which provides a way of understanding learning as a social practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), overt and underlying themes within and across participants were identified. Findings support those of Epp et al., (2002), Bauman et al., (2006) and Jeans et al., (2005), indicating that IENs may experience significant barriers including but not limited to language proficiency, pragmatic flexibility and most specifically sociocultural competence when coming to work in Ontario. In many cases, educational supports to address these issues are inconsistent and inadequate, leaving many IENs unable to confidently function at the required entry level of nursing, despite having passed the required courses, language and nursing exams for entry into practice

Keywords: Older people, Hospital care
Older people, Ontario
Vocational qualifications, Ontario
Nurses, Foreign, Social conditions
Nurses, Foreign, Ontario
Nurses, Foreign, Language
Nurses, Foreign, Ontario
Linguistic minorities, Social conditions
Linguistic minorities, Ontario
Exploration of cell polarity and essential gene function in saccharomyces cerevisiae

The precise molecular and genetic functions of many conserved eukaryotic proteins that regulate fundamental cellular processes, such as polarized cell growth and actin cytoskeleton organization, are poorly understood. The high degree of conservation of cell cycle and cell polarity regulators among eukaryotic cells makes the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a useful model system for studying conserved cellular processes, such as cell cycle control and polarized cell growth. In this thesis, I describe the role of binding activity for an actin cytoskeleton regulator, Abp1p, which mediates multiple contacts with other proteins involved in actin cytoskeleton and polarized cell growth through a conserved protein-protein interaction module, the SH3 domain. I show that the impact of reductions in binding affinity of the Abp1p SH3 domain varies depending on the biological context and that considerable reductions in binding affinity can be tolerated by the cell, with little or no discernable effects on cell growth, suggesting a threshold at which growth defects begin. Functional genomics approaches have been developed in yeast to systematically analyze gene function on a genome-wide scale. Within the last ten years, a very large amount of diverse functional genomics and interaction data has been generated, including mRNA expression, protein-protein interaction, protein localization, and genetic interaction data. The integration of functional genomics and interaction data sets is of key importance for making confident predictions regarding gene function that can be followed-up by experimental verification. In this thesis, I describe the use of titratable promoter-replacement alleles to study essential gene function in yeast and the generation of multiple functional genomics and genetic interaction data sets for essential genes. I also describe my contributions to the discovery of novel functions for essential genes involved in a variety of different conserved cellular processes, which was facilitated by integrating the data from multiple functional genomics experiments.
How women's studies students conceptualize interlocking systems of privilege and oppression

Women's studies students' accounts of their experiences in women's studies classrooms, their relationship to feminist theory, and their understandings of how oppressions interlock are all investigated in this thesis. Central to my work is the students' understanding of how privilege is situated within systems of oppression. I utilize feminist methodologies to highlight women's personal experiences. I invoke anti-racist theories to examine how racism, classism, and homophobia structures how women experience sexism. Employing a document analysis of the students' accounts, I explore how privilege and subordination are being accounted for among women's studies students. I illustrate how gender is only one aspect of the interlocking nature of oppressions, and that as women we can and do participate in systems of domination as subordinates and perpetrators.

Keywords: Women's studies
Racism
Women college students, Attitudes
Sexism
Relaxation based analysis of structures containing frame elements and walls

The core of this research is the RELAXATION program written in C++. This program performs linear analysis for structures subjected to static loads. These structures can be composed using frame elements and shear walls. The basic element for modelling shear walls is a triangular element. Linear analysis is performed by an incremental displacement method or joint relaxation technique. The explanations that show how to generate the stiffness matrix of a triangular element with six d.o.f. per node, are given. In addition, the validity of this triangular element is demonstrated. The use of an over-relaxation factor is shown to greatly improve performance. Using examples the following is explained: the impact of this over-relaxation factor on time execution; how to prepare the input file and how to read the output file. Analysis of complex structures using the RELAXATION program, show to be about twice as fast as traditional stiffness method calculations.
Inhibitory BMO signaling controls mammalian renal branching morphogenesis in vivo

In this thesis I investigated the role of the inhibitory Bmp signaling pathway during mouse kidney renal development using (i) genetic haploinsufficiency models to investigate the functions of Bmp2 and Gpc3-Bmp2 interactions during renal development in vivo and (ii) conditional Alk3 loss-of-function in the UB lineage to investigate the function of Alk3-dependent Bmp signaling during RBM in vivo. During embryonic development, the collecting duct system of the kidney arises through iterative growth and branching of the ureteric bud (UB) and daughter collecting ducts, a process termed renal branching morphogenesis (RBM). Previous work in our lab identified an inhibitory ALK3-dependent BMP signaling pathway that controls cellular and morphogenetic events during RBM in vitro and in transgenic over-expression mouse models. However, the early embryonic lethality of homozygous Bmp2-/- and Alk3-/- mice has precluded complementary conventional loss-of-function studies to define the role of Bmp signaling during renal development in vivo. Results from this thesis provide the first genetic evidence that an inhibitory Bmp2 signaling pathway controls UB cell proliferation and branching during RBM in vivo, and that Bmp2 signaling is genetically modulated by Gpc3. Further, these results demonstrate an essential requirement of ALK3-dependent Bmp signaling for normal kidney development in vivo, and identify a critical architectural role for ALK3 in establishing and maintaining the primary UB branching pattern.
Comparative performance of memory reclamation strategies for lock-free and concurrently-readable data structures

Using a common reclamation scheme, we fairly compare lock-free and concurrently-readable hash tables. Our evaluation shows that programmers can choose memory reclamation schemes mostly independently of the target algorithm. Despite their advantages, lock-free algorithms are often not adopted in practice, partly due to the perception that they perform poorly relative to lock-based alternatives in common situations when there is little contention for objects or the CPUs. We show that memory reclamation can be a dominant performance cost for lock-free algorithms; therefore, choosing the most efficient memory reclamation method is essential to having lock-free algorithms perform well. We compare the costs of three memory reclamation strategies: quiescent-state-based reclamation, epoch-based reclamation, and safe memory reclamation . Our experiments show that changing the workload or execution environment can change which of these schemes is the most efficient. We therefore demonstrate that there is, to date, no panacea for memory reclamation for lock-free algorithms.
On the use of data inference for energy conservation in wireless sensor networks

In this thesis, we propose two approaches to using data inference techniques to conserve energy in wireless sensor networks. First, we propose a novel approach for efficiently sensing a remote field by trading off reduced energy usage for reduced accuracy of the data recorded. Our approach, the infer algorithm, puts nodes into sleep mode for a given period of time and uses Bayesian inference to infer the missing data from the nodes in sleep mode. Simulations show that on average our algorithm produces energy savings of 59% while producing results that are accurate to within 7.9%. Second, we solve the problem of inferring per node loss rates using passive end-to-end measurements. We formulate the problem as a Maximum-Likelihood Estimation (MLE) problem and show how it can be efficiently solved using the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm. Finally, we validate our analysis through simulations.
Bioavailability of iron and folic acid: Traditional pregnancy supplement vs. new powdered supplement

The relative bioavailability (RBV) of iron and folic acid for a new powdered pregnancy supplement (SuppleFem containing 30mg of iron from micronized ferric pyrophosphate and 600mug folic acid) and a traditional pregnancy supplement (MaternaRTM containing 27 mg iron from ferrous fumerate and 1000mug folic acid) were compared using Area under the Curve (AUC). Eighteen healthy women between 24 to 32 weeks gestation with normal hemoglobin were randomized to receive both supplements in a crossover study. Diurnal variation for serum iron was accounted for in the analysis. The results show lower relative iron absorption for SuppleFem compared to Materna (p=0.045). There was no significant difference (p=0.6) between the relative absorption of folate for SuppleFem and Materna. These results suggest that the iron in SuppleFem has different absorption kinetics than the iron in Materna; but there is no difference in absorption between the two different doses of folate.