VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The (Im)possibility of Detective Fiction in Sicily: Sciascia, Camilleri and Piazzese

Abstract This thesis examines the detective fiction of the Sicilian writers Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989), Andrea Camilleri (1925-) and Santo Piazzese (1941-). All of the works discussed are detective novels set the south-western part of Sicily. The authors chosen for analysis use a traditional, formulaic and popular template of the detective story, or some variation thereof, and their novels all contain the figure of the detective as a protagonist and organizing narrative device. The contemporary Sicilian detective novel, as demonstrated by the works of the three selected writers, reveal the importance of place. This thesis compares and contrasts the manner in which the Sicilian locale or setting is depicted, related to, constructed, invented and contextualized by each author. The idea of Sicily as a simulacrum is also discussed. As each author recreates his settings in novel form, these simulacra go on to form connections with, overlap or negate other literary spaces, not all of them located in Sicily or even Italy. The places of the novels are examined with reference to real cities, towns and communities. Furthermore, the emphasis is on how these fictional representations are created or fit into relationships with other texts and genres. There is also the relationship between the detective and the city or community in which he operates. Familiar tropes and connections between writing and walking, and interpretation and pursuit that compare the detective to the reader are also examined. The novels are read as investigations of Sicily, in addition to the investigations of specific murders or cases outlined in each mystery, and the detectives illuminate their readings and observations of the place and the people who inhabit it, as much as they solve crime. Finally, I consider the familiar lineage of investigative forefathers and literary predecessors, not necessarily Sicilian or Italian, featured in the novels of all three authors. The manner in which each author uses and struggles against the detective genre and these traditions is another of the main topics of this investigation.

Keywords: crime
detectives
genre
mystery
postmodern
Sicilian
Advisor: Somigli, Luca
Mexican Migrant Farmworker Women Organizing Love and Work Across Rural Canada and Mexico

This is a transnational ethnographic study focusing on Mexican women in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), a temporary visa arrangement that annually employs an average of 40,000 Mexican and Caribbean migrant farmworkers. Migrant women defy patriarchal norms by migrating across borders to work, assuming the role of principal breadwinners in their families, and working in a masculinized labour force. I situate their intimate practices of love, sexuality, and carework in conjunction with the roles of states, the global economy and Canadian agriculture in a practice I term transnational storytelling to complicate the one-dimensional and masculinized lens of migrant labour in the literature and logics of the SAWP. I claim that migrant women not only work in Canadian agriculture but in the management of transnational family economies involving care and emotional labour. Similarly, as migrant domestic workers, Mexican migrant women form part of the global care chain organizing themselves with their non-migrating kin for household survival. This study is rooted in community-engaged scholarship of several years in my role as a community-labour organizer and co-founder of the collective, Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW). Additionally, I used qualitative research methods, primarily convivir, or accompaniment of migrant workers and their families throughout rural Mexico and Canada, to understand their lives. Fundamental to this study is the importance of activist research that assigns critical value to knowledges of not only migrant workers and their non-migrating kin but also of community organizers and community-engaged scholarship in order to collectively build social justice projects that offset transnational casualties experienced through this labour migration. I detail how community-labour organizing is emotional labour as well, involving heartbreak, disempowerment but also resistance. Principally, this study seeks to make visible Mexican women beyond their work in Canadian farms and transnationally in relation to their families in transnational labour chains. It concludes with proposals for directions in organizing and research.

Keywords: Canada
farmwork
Mexico
migration
Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program
transnationalism
Advisor: Chun, Jennifer Jihye
Women Directors of Education: Policy Consequences, Gender Perspectives and Leadership Strategies

This study presents a qualitative analysis exploring how women Directors of Education in Ontario (English) public school boards manage the pressures of leadership. Alongside this analysis is a concurrent exploration of the effects the Ontario government’s 1993 PPM 102: Affirmative Action/Employment Equity for Women Employees policy had on women Directors of Education in Ontario (English) public school boards. Data collection includes 12 interviews of women Directors of Education in Ontario (English) public school boards. The study revealed a complex relationship between women Directors of Education in Ontario (English) public school boards and their discrimination experiences. Participants denied experiencing discrimination, despite describing instances of clear discrimination. Dropping out of the study or altering their original interviews silenced some women. Gender microaggressions were also apparent throughout the interviews. Additionally, participants denied ever experiencing pressures associated with their gender. Strategies for coping with the pressures of leadership are designed to deal with pressures associated with the board of trustees, board staff, the public and church clergy. Strategies Directors of Education used to manage these pressures were categorized into three groups: strategies for personal success; micropolitical strategies in the workplace and strategies for managing home life and professional life. Fifty percent of participants described formal/informal hindrances in managing the pressures of leadership, while 100% of participants described formal/informal supports, which aided their management of the pressures of leadership.The study also revealed that most participants identified either an indirect effect or a direct effect of PPM 102 on their career; seven noted an indirect effect, and 1 a direct effect. Four noted no effect at all on their career.

Keywords: Education
Educational Leadership
Gender
Leadership
Policy
Women
Advisor: Ryan, James
Raced and Gendered Subjectivities in the Diasporas: Exploring the Role of Generationally Transferred Local ‘Subjugated’ Knowledges in the Education of Canadian Ismaili Women of Indian East African Heritage

Ugandan Canadian Ismaili Muslim women are often subsumed within the larger immigrant ‘South Asian’ (Brown) women collective and pathologized as passive or docile victims of oppressive systems rather than actors who express a feminist commitment. This thesis is an inquiry that transforms this stereotypical image by examining the local forms of agency exhibited by fifteen twice/thrice immigrant East African Ismaili women who trace their roots to the Indian subcontinent. Through life narratives of five triads of three generations of women from the same families – Grandmothers, Mothers and Daughters – I historicize the experiences of the women of the first two generations in two different geographical locations, East Africa and Canada, to demonstrate how the encounter between a) traditional gender role expectations, b) the modernizing policies and gender reform strategized by the third and fourth Aga Khans, and c) newer influences in the places of settlement cause these women to experience contradictions in their multiple subject positions in their intersectional locations of gender, race/colour, class and religion. As a result, these Ismaili women create, utilize and transmit local knowledges, based on a local ideology, to subsequent generations of women that enables them to negotiate cultural patriarchy and White hegemony to establish home and belonging in places of settlement. This local ideology teaches them to be mindful; to practice ethics of hard work, diplomacy, and resourcefulness; to make investments in family and community and not physical places or material things; and to attain self-sufficiency through formal education and financial independence. Through the locally constructed covert and overt resistance technologies women create and utilize, these Ismaili women demonstrate that their agency is endemic to their diaspora history, taking subtle and ambivalent forms as the women negotiate at the margins of power, at times constrained but also resisting and undermining power relations to survive and even thrive in diaspora space.

Keywords: diaspora
intergenerational
Ismaili Muslim
patriarchy
racism
women
Advisor: Razack, Sherene
Heart rate variability and concussion: Exploring neurophysiological variation in youth athletes

Sport participation makes a significant contribution to youth development, but place youth at an increased risk for sustaining a concussion. Neurocognitive testing and the monitoring of self-reported concussion symptoms have been the anchor in making return-to-activity decisions. While these methods have been purported to add clinical value, their trajectory may not overlap with the physiological mechanisms at play following concussion. Multi-modal assessments corroborate objective physiological measures with traditional subjective symptom reporting. Heart rate variability is a non-invasive physiological indicator of the autonomic nervous system, capturing the reciprocal interplay between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The first study examines the relationship between heart rate variability and subjective symptom reporting in a healthy population of youth; a significant relationship between daily reported cognitive symptoms and a decrease in HRV was found, while considering age and sex. The second study is a longitudinal, matched control study that explores the physiological trajectory of heart rate variability across days post concussion; the relationship between concussion symptoms and HRV was found to vary across days post injury, when considering symptom status and a comparison to controls. The third and final study is a pilot and feasibility study that aims to bridge physiological and functional outcomes by exploring the role of mindfulness-based yoga in youth with persistent concussion symptoms; here, preliminary trends of increased self-efficacy and physical activity mirrored increases in HRV. The thesis concludes with a novel conceptual model, highlighting the various person, occupation and environment factors which influence concussion recovery, irrespective of the pathophysiological characteristics of the injury. Taken together, this doctoral work identified significant trends in a novel, physiological measure which traversed, healthy, concussed and persistent concussion samples. This thesis provides a foundation for the study of physiological stress responses in concussion - a non-specific, complex injury, which is experienced at high rates by an understudied population.

Keywords: concussion
heart rate variability
mTBI
recovery
symptoms
youth
Advisor: Reed, Nick
Principal as Performer: Crafting Public Personae

This study explored how principals craft various public personae as part of their principal leadership practice within elementary schools. Interviews of 15 elementary school principals across the province of Ontario generated data that indicated why principals perform for others in public. Follow-up telephone conversations and email messages also communicated how they craft personae in a variety of circumstances and the processes they use when employing theatrical techniques to accomplish these character manifestations. Study findings suggest principals assume different types of personae when interacting with members of the school community, and use common persona types to generate specific outcomes. Results also indicate that principals use specific theatrical techniques to navigate the many predictable and unpredictable circumstances in their daily work. Throughout the study, participants described how they use, or depend upon, voice and body—including reading body cues and voice cues from others—in their work, despite not having actively developed these techniques.

Keywords: Leadership
Persona
Principal
Role
Theatre techniques
Advisor: Ryan, James
Technical Performance and Patient Outcomes in Surgery: Another Piece of the Puzzle

Introduction: Patient outcomes depend on a variety of variables related to patients themselves, to disease or treatments. In surgery, operations are the mainstay of management and the operating room is a high-stakes, high-risk environment where the surgeon plays an invaluable role. Extensive literature demonstrates how the aforementioned variables affect patient outcomes, however when it comes to surgeon technical skills, the existing evidence is limited. Therefore the main goal of this thesis was to provide evidence and to emphasize the importance of technical skills and to strengthen the current literature. Material and Methods: Research designs contained within this dissertation include: (1) a systematic review to summarize the existing evidence, (2) a retrospective technical skills analysis, (3) a survey study to define the participants in the operating room and a (4) prospective observational study to determine the relationship between technical and non-technical intraoperative performances. Results: Four research studies were completed. The systematic review demonstrated that technical performance affects patient outcomes, however the quality of evidence is low. The retrospective skill analysis addressed the main methodology deficiencies identified in the review and confirmed that technical performance does affect patient outcomes in laparoscopic gastric cancer operations. The survey study identified that although technical skills have been shown to be important, trainees do not routinely perform the main steps of these operations. Finally, the prospective observational study demonstrated that technical and non-technical performances are related and both are important complements to each other. Conclusion: Technical performance affects patient outcomes. Technical and non-technical performances are related. Ongoing assessment and enhancement of these skills, using modern strategies such as structured feedback, deliberate practice, coaching etc., might improve patient outcomes. Future studies should perform a comprehensive assessment of the operating room and design educational interventions for all participants, regardless of their level of training or experience.

Keywords: Gastric cancer
Non-technical performance
Patient outcome
Surgery
Surgical skills
Technical performance
Advisor: Grantcharov, Teodor P
Using Electronic Medical Records to Examine Childhood Obesity Outcomes in Community-Based Primary Care

Childhood obesity has become a global public health priority. Obesity leads to increased risk of several co-morbid health conditions such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and mental health problems. Growth monitoring is the long-standing child health practice to identify children who fall outside healthy growth parameters. It has been proposed as a key activity for prevention of obesity in children. Growth data is now predominantly stored in primary care electronic medical records (EMRs). However concerns about data quality have limited its use for public health and research. Five inter-related studies were conducted to better understand the feasibility of using routinely collected anthropometric data from primary care EMRs for childhood obesity surveillance and outcomes. In our survey on current growth monitoring practices, only 21% of primary care providers reported using a length board to measure length in infants less than two years of age. Growth measurements were reported to be performed most often during scheduled well-baby/child visits, but rarely during sick visits. Encouragingly, intra- and inter-observer reliability of height/length, and weight was found to be acceptable when using appropriate equipment and measurement methods. Body mass index z-score data in EMRs was found to be 90% complete and 97% accurate. The main inaccuracies were due to recording measurements with inconsistent units and data entry errors. Using reliable data from EMRs, it was found that preschool-aged children (2 to

Keywords: Children
Electronic Medical Records
Health services
Obesity
Advisor: Parkin, Patricia C
Birken, Catherine S
Excitonics for Organic Electronics

Organic semiconductors have immense potential as replacements for traditional inorganic materials in optoelectronics applications, in particular for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). At the core of the device physics governing the stability and efficiency of OLEDs are tightly bound electron-hole pairs known as excitons. Here, the link between OLED excitonics and operational stability is studied in active OLEDs. First, the exciton distribution is investigated in active OLEDs with doped and undoped emissive layers. In both types of OLEDs, a surprisingly narrow exciton formation zone was measured given the bipolar nature of the materials used. Next, the influence of defects on exciton diffusion is investigated. The effective singlet exciton diffusion length is measured as a function of defect concentration and operational conditions and described in a unified model. Exciton-defect interactions are central to the efficiency and stability of OLEDs; consequently, quantifying these interactions under realistic operating conditions is a major step towards a comprehensive understanding of OLED excitonics. Finally, building on these results, a simple model for singlet exciton driven degradation in OLEDs in presented. This model accounts for the time and current density dependence of the host and defect emission in degrading OLEDs and is thoroughly validated using new experimental data, as well as literature data from leading academic and industrial research groups. Results of a first look at applying these conclusions to photovoltaic devices are also included. There exists an abundance of evidence in the literature suggesting singlet exciton driven degradation is a major degradation mechanism. Undoubtedly, providing mathematical tools to quantify this process will be invaluable.

Keywords: Degradation
Diffusion
Exciton
OLED
Organic Electronics
Advisor: Lu, Zheng-Hong
Gastrointestinal Symptoms in HIV Disease: Results from the Ontario HIV Treatment Network Cohort Study, 2007 to 2014

Patient-reported gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms (diarrhea, nausea/vomiting, bloating, loss of appetite, weight loss/wasting) were explored among 1826 people living with HIV enrolled in the Ontario HIV Treatment Network Cohort Study, from 2007 to 2014. At first annual questionnaire, participants had a median age of 45 years, 64% were men who have sex with men, 56% Caucasian, were diagnosed with HIV for 10 years, on average, with 82% on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), 78% undetectable viral load (

Keywords: Adherence
Gastrointestinal
Health related quality of life
HIV
Symptom
Viral load
Advisor: Burchell, Ann N.
Becoming a Principal in Chile: Learning the Role of School Improvement

This study is concerned with the ways in which newly appointed public school principals in Chile learn to understand and lead school improvement. Using a mixed methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative data sequentially, this study contributes to exploring the characteristics and perceptions of principals starting their careers, looking into their previous trajectories and work experiences before and after appointment, the actors and institutions supporting their learning about the role, as well as their understandings about leading school improvement. The design involved 12 qualitative interviews followed by the application of a survey (n=121). Findings suggest new principals enter the job with vast experience about the public school system, having occupied different leadership roles prior to appointment. In spite of previous trajectory and formal preparation, new principals still acknowledge the great difficulties and challenges confronted in the transition to the role, in five cases perceiving that ‘nothing really prepares you for the job’. In learning about leading school improvement, they value the supports of students and professionals in their personal networks, perceiving local authorities to have a less preponderant role, as they participate actively during selection processes, and less consistently after appointment. The study also explores the influence of principals’ individual characteristics and school context (i.e. gender, age, education, school size, urban context, SES) within the process of learning about their role. This study also illustrate how new principals understand and learn about their role in school improvement, and suggests that a great majority of them conceptualize school improvement as limited and influenced by the current education policy context and work experience, restricting their views to unidimensional notions related to students’ results. Finally, findings are discussed to provide comparison with the international socialization research of new principals, suggesting that Chileans novices share perceptions about a ‘shocking’ transition with principals in other countries and differ greatly in the importance given to local school authorities instead.

Keywords: Chile
Educational Leadership
Mixed Methods
Novice Principals
School Improvement
Socialization
Advisor: Anderson, Stephen