VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Acoustic Wave Sensors for Aroma Components Using Conducting Polymer Films

Eight organic conducting polymers of pyrrole and its derivatives have been synthesized by electrochemical polymerization. These films have been characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Polymeric coatings prepared on the surface of a thickness-shear mode (TSM) acoustic wave sensor have been used to examine response selectivity and sensitivity to a number of gas phase probe molecules such as hexane, toluene, methanol, triethylamine, acetonitrile, butanal and water vapour. These responses of sensors coated with polypyrrole derivatives are compared with that of the sensor coated with parent polypyrrole (PPY) and rationalized in terms of the molecular interaction between probes and polymer films. It has been demonstrated that the hydrogen bonding, dipole-dipole, $\pi$-$\pi$ and base-acid interactions play a dominant role in the sensitivity of the response depending on the structure of both probe molecules and films. For example, the polar cyano functionality enhances interactions with analytes such as acetonitrile while hydroxyl or carboxyl groups can interact with alcohols through the hydrogen bonding. The sensors coated with these eight conducting polymer films have also been employed to detect the aroma components including volatile alcohols and carbonyl compounds, which are typical of early degradation of fresh fish. The exposure of the coated sensors to 1-penten-3-ol, 1-octen-3-ol, 3,6-nonadien-1-ol, 2,6-nonadien-al and water vapour have been investigated. The linear relationship between the frequency and concentration of vapours is found. The sensor response is also found to be proportional to the film thickness. The response patterns obtained by grouping the data from the individual sensors are characteristic for each aroma molecule and were investigated using both cluster and principal components analysis. The results demonstrate the feasibility of fish freshness determination through the use of a TSM sensor array combined with pattern recognition techniques. Different redox states of PPY and poly N-(2-cyanoethyl)pyrrole (PCPY) films have also been prepared on the surface of TSM sensor by electropolymerization and subsequent oxidation or reduction. The characterization of these films by CV, impedance spectroscopy (IS), SEM and XPS illustrates the difference between the oxidized and neutral forms of the corresponding polymers. The responses of the TSM sensors coated with these polymers with various redox states to organic vapours consisting of 9-carbon chains with different functionalities have been studied. The observed responses were dependent on both film redox state and organic vapour properties. All films showed high sensitivity to 3,6-nonadien-1-ol. Principal components analysis allow all five analytes to be distinguished in the discriminant plane using different redox state PCPY films.
Facilitating learning through the feedback of conceptual clusters in free-formed student databases

Computer conferencing provides student learning through group interaction under the guidance of a knowledgeable facilitator. But because of the sequential organization of entries, related information can become scattered across the database. Current information linking and retrieval methods, including keywords, text string matching, or hypertextual links, presuppose that users are able to specify appropriate links. But users moving from relative novice to more expert states may not be able to identify appropriate links or anticipate the potential language diversity involved in conceptual definition. An alternative, complementary method is needed which anticipates language diversity and functions as a natural language query-response system. Automated information retrieval methods based upon full text parsing are used with preexisting databases, but have not been adapted to developing databases, particularly those created by students in the process of learning. They have not been used as student controlled query-response systems. This dissertation addresses the following questions: (1) Can an automated information retrieval system provide conceptual clustering in developing student-generated, free-formed databases? (2) Can an automated information retrieval system function successfully as a query-response system in developing databases? (3) Will an automatic information retrieval system, when learners use natural language to specify their knowledge needs, make a positive contribution to learning? and (4) Will students find this a useful and acceptable addition to their learning experience? This dissertation documents the development and application of an algorithmic information retrieval system which involved controlling the vocabulary of student notes in computer conferencing, and used this vocabulary as the computational variables for principal component analysis. Initial investigations indicated that the procedure works as a conceptual clustering mechanism which focused around student-generated natural language queries. A fuller study, involving a small group of adult, community college students suggests that the procedure has a neutral or positive effect on learning and that students found the query-response system to be a useful addition to their learning experience. Further development of this procedure holds promise for education on the information highway since it can filter diverse types of information into conceptual clusters that can be accessed by student defined information needs.
Aspects of handedness, cognitive and affective variables

The issue of whether differences exist between right-handed and left-handed people in cognition and emotion was addressed in two studies. Study 1 was conducted with 974 right-handed and 108 left-handed Israeli schoolchildren aged 8 to 11 years. The test battery included cognitive and affective measures. Cognition was evaluated by The MEM Questionnaire, The Coloured Progressive Matrices and The Standard Progressive Matrices. Affective ability was assessed by The Self Concept Scale, The Anxiety Scale, The Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire, and the Intrinsic-Extrinsic Motivational Questionnaire. Data on school achievement and teachers' evaluation of children's mental, emotional and social skills were also collected. Results demonstrated no significant differences between right- and left-handed children on any performance tasks in either domain. Left-handed children showed similar capabilities on higher order verbal and non-verbal thinking and resembled the right-handed groups in the affective domain. They showed the same levels of anxiety, and obtained the same scores on self concept, motivation and locus of control. The findings also suggested the existence of stronger associations between Syllogism and Categorization and non-verbal cognitive processing, and between cognition and emotion in the left- as compared to the right-handed children. Teachers evaluated the left-handed children as having significantly lower social skills. Study 2 focused on perception of emotion on chimeric faces (faces with a half sad half happy configuration). The sample consisted of 48 university students and computer workers; 21 right-handers, 21 left-handers and 6 switched-handed subjects. Data were collected on manual activity, and subjects were presented with booklets with pictures of chimeric faces and their mirror images. They were asked to judge which of the faces seem to be happier. Findings showed significant differences between right- and left-handed subjects in their perceptual biases: right-handed subjects judged the left-positive configuration as happier and the left-handed subjects judged the right-positive configuration as the happier one. The sum of the results seem to indicate that differences in self organization might exist between right- and left-handed individuals. Further research is needed to substantiate these findings.
The poetics of theatrical dance in early eighteenth-century Italy

Dance has always played a significant role in social celebrations, religious rituals, and theatrical representations; yet it has unjustly received far less critical attention than the other liberal arts. The main purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the theory, criticism, and practice of theatrical dance during a period of Italian history--the age of the Arcadian academy during the presidency of Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (1690-1728)--hitherto altogether neglected or cursorily treated by most theatre historians and scholars of the dance. In fact, during this period dance played a fundamental role in the development of early eighteenth-century Italian theatre. As a dramatic form, or as a component of it, dance proved to be a truly unique type of physical expression vital to the most popular theatrical genres of the time. The first chapter of this thesis provides both a theoretical introduction to and the historical background necessary for a thorough understanding of the poetics of theatrical dance in the age of Arcadia. The second chapter deals with the role of dance in the literary and critical works of Arcadia, where dance was entrusted by Pier Jacopo Martello with the ideological function of representing current Arcadian aspirations for an Italian national theatre. The third chapter analyses the role of the comic dance master Gregorio Lambranzi, who, in the finest commedia dell'arte tradition, regarded theatrical dance as a dynamic gestural language vital to the complex process of improvisational performance. The fourth and final chapter surveys representative Italian opera librettos published from 1690 to 1728 in order to conduct a systematic study of early eighteenth-century Arcadian operatic balletti, with the aim of arriving at a structural description of the genre in the context of the dramatic and literary theories of the time.
Two authorial rhetorics of Li Yu's, 1611-1680, works, inversion and auto-communication

The prologue explores Li Yu's mode of innovation. A comparison is drawn between Tao Qian's giving birth to Chinese autobiography and Li Yu's decisive impact on shaping subjective and self-reflexive mode of writing in both fiction and drama. Li Yu's mode of innovation is described as establishing a dialectical relationship with the tradition, by rejecting it and at the same time renewing it. The first chapter examines Li Yu's view on literary creativity. Li Yu's literary principle is characterized as "to create but not transmit"--a reversal of the Confucian creed "to transmit but not create." The significance of this principle is addressed and its historical perspective is probed. Li Yu's theory of creativity is reconstructed from three aspects: his understanding of creative personality, his discussion of the process of literary creation, and the self-conscious authorial voice he projected in his works. The second chapter conducts a concrete literary analysis of the thematic inversions (or fan'an wenzhang) appearing in both Li Yu's fictional and dramatic writings. The concept of fan'an wenzhang is defined in Chinese cultural context and is compared to the Western notion of parody. Li Yu's thematic fan'an is found in three major staples of Chinese literature: love, morality, and retribution. Metamorphosis, role switching, and duplicity in characterization are identified as the literary devices that produce these thematic inversions. The third chapter deals with the issue of auto-communication. The concept of metafiction is brought up in discussing Chen Chen's Shuihu houzhuan, Dong Yue's Xiyou bu and Jin Shengtan's version of Xixiang ji. The integration of narrative text and critical text, the interaction between the two, and the dual role of author-cum-critic played by the writer in these three literary pieces are found even more prominently pronounced in all three genres of Li Yu's literary writing. The epilogue looks into the impact of Li Yu's innovation. In light of Western modern and post-modern theories of parody, Li Yu's works are considered instrumental in moving Chinese narrative toward a metanarrative art.
El conocimiento como metáfora, aproximación a la narrativa de Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

The contemporary Spanish novelist Gonzalo Torrente Ballester (1910-) has been extraordinarily prolific not only in his creative practice but also in his wide-ranging critical commentary, and within his creative works metanovelistic preoccupations abound. Pervading in the expanse of all this writing is a fundamental unifying theme that has eluded those of his critics who have elucidated such valid topics as the theme of power, the relationship between myth and history in his work, his use of fantastic literature, and aspects of his aesthetics. The present thesis proposes that the fundamental philosophical principle underlying Torrente Ballester's work is his view of language as the fragile and protean basis on which knowledge and opinion are acquired and communicated. In his works he points repeatedly to the inadequacy of humankind's cognitive powers, to our inability to know the world objectively; hence the necessity to construct a view of the world (rather than reflect or reproduce it) based on our interaction with it. In the transmission of this relative and vague experience, metaphor comes to hold a crucial place in human discourse; and Torrente's frequent use of niebla as metaphor suggests that it epitomizes the obscure process by which the imagination approximates and divulges the act of knowing. Useful in studying his system is the distinction between living and dead metaphor. The latter has lost the creative capacity that the living metaphor enjoys. This capacity of the living metaphor enables the presentation of knowledge that is constantly in flux, of a dynamic restlessness of impressions. Torrente Ballester encapsulates this process in his phrase "la revolucion permanente" and it is possible to see in it the epistemological impulse for his remarkable productivity. His enthusiasm for "la revolucion permanente" certainly explains his frequent targeting of the non-dialectical, dogmatic discourse typical of the Franco regime, as well as his illustrative use of his lively imagination to invent living metaphors and to channel them through devices of fantasy, parody, irony and humor toward the subversion of such a discourse.
Effects of dietary potassium depletion in salt-dependent hypertension, the kidney, electrolyte balance, and sympathetic nervous system in Dahl rats

Studies described in this thesis were designed to test my general hypothesis, i.e. Reduction of dietary potassium exacerbates salt-dependent hypertension by promoting urinary excretion of divalent cations, by altering vascular morphology, and/or by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system. To test the hypothesis, weanling Dahl salt-sensitive (S) and Dahl salt-resistant (R) rats which were fed with a high salt diet (8% NaCl) containing either high (4%-HSHK) or low (0.2%-HSLK) potassium for one month. Results demonstrated that prolonged potassium restriction on a high salt diet exacerbated hypertension in the S rats. It also raised blood pressure in the R rats. The hypertension was not related to water and sodium retention, rather, it was correlated with excess excretion of calcium and magnesium in the kidney. The hypertension was also associated with renal vascular remodeling which were characterized by reduced lumen diameter, enlarged wall thickness to lumen ratio with or without changing cross-sectional wall area of renal vessels. To differentiate renal functional changes from a renal perfusion pressure effect, vasoconstrictors (angiotensin II, arginine vasopressin, phenylephrine) were used to raise systemic blood pressure acutely in Sprague-Dawley rats fed on normal rat chow. A customized cuff was placed around the aorta of anesthetized animal between two renal arteries to prevent rise of renal perfusion pressure in only one of the two kidneys. Results demonstrated that hypercalciuria and hypermagnesiuria occurred only in the kidney in which renal perfusion pressure was allowed to rise, therefore, they were renal perfusion pressure-dependent. In the chronic state, chemical sympathectomy with 6-hydroxydopamine was used to prevent systemic blood pressure from increasing in both S and R rats during a two month HSLK feeding. Results demonstrated that chemical sympathectomy abolished hypertension in R rats. It delayed and reduced hypertension development in S rats. In addition, S rats had reduced intestinal absorption, and increased urinary excretion of calcium and magnesium. It is concluded that in R rats, an activated sympathetic nervous system fully explains the rise of pressure, possibly operating via direct vascular influences. In S rats, an additional mechanism is an inherent defect in intestinal and renal (re)absorption of divalent cations, leading to exacerbation of hypertension.
Investment in developing countries, explorations in capital flows, productivity and microadjustment

The enhanced access of developing countries to the international financial market since the seventies has been characterized by boom-bust cycles of unfettered external borrowing followed by abrupt financial crises. The first chapter analyzes the macroeconomic effects of volatile capital flows to a developing country. The analysis shows that investment, consumption, and the current account deficit depend positively on the expected availability of external finance. If international investors may unexpectedly decide to reduce their exposure to financial assets issued by the country, the optimal cost of external borrowing should exceed the interest rate paid by domestic residents in the international financial market. In the absence of insurance markets for this type of risk, a tax on capital inflows can be optimal. Recent endogenous growth models characterize a firm's technology as a commodity which is both partly excludable and associated with some production inputs, such as human capital and equipment. The second chapter explores the nature of the link between equipment investment and technology at the plant level in a large sample of Colombian manufacturing establishments. The results support the endogenous growth model's notion that technology is associated with the production inputs. Larger plants that invest more in machinery and equipment and employ higher levels of human capital tend to be more efficient. Models of investment with non-convex costs of adjustment predict that microeconomic time series of investment may be characterized by infrequent investment spurts and prolonged periods of little or no investment. In the third chapter I study the pattern of investment at the plant level in different categories of capital goods. As in the U.S., plant-level investment in Colombia is lumpy, and the probability of observing a large investment episode depends positively on the time elapsed since the latest large investment episode. As a contribution to the literature, I propose and implement two alternative econometric methods for the estimation of a simple model of irreversible investment. The results show that increases in the real exchange rate (pesos per dollar) have a consistently negative effect on investment, regardless of the type of capital good.
A survey of asthma management, the physicians' perspective

"Asthma management" refers to the formulation and execution of treatment decisions and patient education strategies within the context of the physician-patient relationship. However, little is known about the physician's perspective on these elements of asthma management. This gap in knowledge is important, given the lack of unanimity regarding the optimal approach to asthma management, and the reported increases in asthma morbidity and mortality rates. The purpose of this study was threefold: (i) to examine treatment and education strategies of physicians who manage adult asthma patients; (ii) to determine if strategy differences exist between family physicians and specialists; and (iii) to examine the consistency between physicians' treatment recommendations and those advocated by existing guidelines. Using a mailed survey, data were collected from 163 randomly selected Ontario family physicians (n = 80; 78% response rate) and specialists (n = 83; 83% response rate) representing an overall response rate of 80%. The questionnaire sought self reports about treatment recommendations for 6 hypothetical asthma profiles, the provision of 9 asthma patient education activities, and patient involvement in management decisions. The profiles revealed particular areas of physician uncertainty regarding asthma treatment, for the group as a whole as well as within each physician subgroup. The education provision scores varied according to the level of disease severity (F = 205; p $<$ 0.01), and the specialists (70 $\pm$ 6.4) obtained higher mean scores for overall education provision than family physicians (66 $\pm$ 8.4; t = 2.9, p $<$ 0.01). The physicians indicated that they perceive that patients are less involved in managing asthma than they would prefer (z = 6.0, p $<$ 0.01). For the full study group, the mean overall scan far consistency with guidelines was 4.6 $\pm$ 1.2 (theoretical total score: 6), and the subgroup mean scores differed significantly (family physicians: 4.2 $\pm$ 1.2; specialists 5.1 $\pm$ 0.9; t = 5.46, p $<$ 0.01). These results imply that the provision of patient education and the consistency of treatment recommendations with published guidelines may interact with the disease severity and the physician's professional background. The descriptive patterns identified here form a comparison database for future comparative investigations of the patients' perspective regarding these elements of asthma management.
Nonverbal learning disabilities, an understanding of inferential competencies

Although subtle linguistic deficits have been postulated for children identified with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities (NLD) (e.g., Rourke & Tsatanis, 1996), there is little empirical evidence to support this contention. Two experimental language inferencing measures that have been demonstrated to be problematic for individuals with right hemisphere brain damage (RHBD) and one norm-referenced inferencing task (Test of Language Competency: Making Inferences subtest), were examined with three groups of children between the ages of 9-13: (1) children with NLD $(n=14),$ (2) children with verbal-impairments (VI) $(n=14),$ and (3) children without learning disabilities who served as controls (C) $(n=19).$ The NLD and VI groups did not differ from one another on any of the three measures, indicating a generalized language inferencing deficit in the NLD group. Relative to the C group, however, the NLD group experienced a unique pattern of difficulties with spatial and emotional inferencing capabilities. The implications of right hemisphere involvement in the NLD profile are examined in relation to the effects of working memory on inferential abilities.