VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Social Effects of Gestational Diabetes in "High-risk Ethnic Groups"

This ethnographically-informed doctoral study examines the social effects of gestational diabetes (GD) in "high-risk ethnic groups" in order to elucidate how contested categories of disease, risk, and race cross-articulate in authoritative texts, clinical practice, and everyday realities of women of colour. The questions that guide this dissertation study are organized around truth discourses, strategies of intervention, and modes of subjectification: What kinds of discourses are employed to constitute knowledge about GD, risk, and race/ethnicity? What types of subjects are constructed through discourses on GD in "high-risk ethnic groups?" How are race-based risk discourses accomplished locally in the clinical setting? How do women respond to, engage with, and resist race-based risk discourses and practices pertaining to GD? And how do such discourses and practices shape women's subjectivities from diagnosis to post-partum? Study methods include discourse analysis of three authoritative texts, participant observation in two diabetes education centres in Southern Ontario, and interviews conducted with twelve women of colour in a three time sequence (after diagnosis, before delivery and post-partum). Data generated from these multiple sources were analyzed and interpreted through Foucauldian theoretical concepts of biopower, governmentality, and subjectification. The findings reveal that discourses are neither neutral nor value-free but infused with racial and moral assumptions. Race-based risk discourses are accomplished in the clinical setting through a variety of strategies that reproduce racial logics by rendering power relations invisible. However, women in this study engaged with and resisted disciplinary practices in enabling and constraining ways that contributed to the formation of an emergent type of racialized subject. I argue that discourses and disciplinary practices participate in the processes of racialization and subjectification which may paradoxically produce unintended effects of contributing to the problem of diabetes. I conclude by calling for greater reflexivity beyond racialization and medicalization.

Keywords: Ethnography
Foucault
Gestational Diabetes
High-Risk Ethnic Groups
Pregnancy
Advisor: Sioban, Nelson
Earthenware: Intersections between Place and Pottery in the Lives of Newfoundland and Southern New Zealand Ceramic Artists

Diverse experiences and expressions of place are explored through life stories and craft works of sixteen ceramic artists living in Newfoundland and Southern New Zealand. This arts-informed research suggests, in its form, a method of representing what is often ephemeral knowledge: knowledge about the intersections between our lives and the places we live. Structurally, I borrow the concept of a terroir dossier used in making decisions regarding heritage food labeling in France, which necessitates producers document the history of their food product in detail in order to receive designation as a heritage food product. I expand on this structure to include stories about a potters’ processes of inspirations, learning, making, making a living, and preserving. I tell these stories borrowing document conventions typically used in museum exhibition catalogues, such as the use of photos and short panel texts. I am inspired by place-based exhibitions in this work and as a response have created a catalogue for an imagined exhibition about ceramics in Newfoundland and New Zealand.

Keywords: Ceramics
Craft
Curator
Newfoundland
New Zealand
Pottery
Advisor: Knowles, Gary J.
Environmental Risk Assessment and Adaptive Management Implementation in Lake Simcoe, Ontario

Addressing the problems of low deep-water oxygen concentrations and impairment of cold-water fish habitats in Lake Simcoe as a case study of a dimictic mesotrophic lake requires reduction of external phosphorus (P) loading. However, the efficiency of restoration efforts can be hindered by persistent internal P loading. This thesis develops a series of ecological and biogeochemical models, aiming at advancing our understanding of internal P recycling mechanisms in mesotrophic dimictic lakes. Special emphasis is given to sediment diagenesis processes and their interplay with the water column, macrophyte-mediated P retention, and the nutrient nearshore shunt induced by dreissenids. First, a continuous Bayesian network is presented to investigate the cause-effect relationships among physical conditions, ambient nutrient concentrations, and plankton dynamics. P sediment internal loading is subsequently quantified with a reactive-transport simulation model of the transformation of P binding forms. Sediment dynamics are then assessed under conditions of varying organic matter sedimentation and hypolimnetic oxygen levels. Finally, an integrated P mass-balance model is used to elucidate the internal P fluxes stemming from sediments, macrophytes and dreissenids. The model predicts that P diffusive fluxes from the sediments account for less than 30-35% of the exogenous P loading in Lake Simcoe. In the post-dreissenid invasion era, the limited decrease of the ice-free TP concentrations is indicative of the presence of active nutrient recycling pathways, potentially magnified by the particular morphological features and hydrodynamic patterns of Lake Simcoe, which counterbalance the direct effects of dreissenid filtration.

Keywords: eutrophication
internal phosphorus loading
Lake Simcoe
limnology
water surface modeling
Advisor: George, B. Arhonditsis
Dynamics of a Unitary Fermi Gas

This thesis investigates the dynamics of a degenerate Fermi gas in the unitary limit of strong interactions, in particular, the dynamics of a transversely magnetized unitary Fermi gas in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. Short-range interactions between ultracold fermionic potassium atoms are tuned to their quantum mechanical limit by employing a Feshbach resonance. Spin-echo measurements of magnetization dynamics show that demagnetization is caused by diffusive spin transport with a diffusion constant that saturates at low temperatures to the conjectured quantum-mechanical lower bound ~/m, where m is the particle mass. A prediction for the increase in temperature due to demagnetization based on universal thermodynamics is compared to measured momentum distributions. The development of pair correlations is observed by time-resolved radiofrequency spectroscopy of Tan's contact parameter.

Advisor: Joseph, H Thywissen
Interplay of Sequence and Environment in Membrane Protein Folding

Membrane proteins act as the gates, outposts and switches of cellular activity, performing numerous functions required for survival. These hydrophobic macromolecules insert into the complex environment of the lipid bilayer by adopting two types of fold: alpha-helical bundles and beta-barrels. In both structures, hydrophobic segments span the membrane and are separated by loop regions facing the water-head group-hydrophobic core interface - a chemically heterogenous environment. Membrane protein sequence must not only dictate the protein fold, but must also match the anisotropic environment of cellular membranes. Indeed, this solvent can also respond to the presence of a membrane protein, potentially affecting its fold. In order to evaluate the interplay between sequence and environment in membrane protein folding, systematic mutations in the environment-ambiguous loop region were used to probe the sequence of two membrane protein model transmembrane (TM) hairpins: TM 3 and 4 of CFTR, and the subunit c of the FoF1-ATP synthase. These helix-loop-helix constructs were used as minimal tertiary folding models in an array of biophysical and biochemical methods. First, the connection between the solvent and sequence changes was investigated in CFTR TM3/4 hairpins, with the finding that certain environments can be exquisitely sensitive to sequence changes upon solubilization of membrane proteins. Then, a sequence-dependent change from alpha-helix to beta-sheet in the membrane protein fold irrespective of the environment is described, where short-turn inducing sequence changes switch the secondary structure of CFTR TM3/4. Finally, this discovery was extended to the ancient membrane protein subunit c hairpins, hinting at a possible alpha-helical-to-beta-sheet conversion as a potential evolutionary impetus for the divergence of alpha-helical bundles to beta-barrel membrane proteins. The overall findings define a membrane protein folding paradigm in which both sequence and environment tailor the final fold of a membrane protein, whether alpha-helical or beta-sheet.

Keywords: Cystic fibrosis
Detergents
Membrane proteins
Molecular evolution
Mutations
Protein folding
Advisor: Charles, M Deber
Evaluation of Transplacental Pharmacology and Toxicology from Bench to Bedside

Many women require pharmacologic treatment during pregnancy. Clinical studies of drug safety in human pregnancy are often limited because of ethical considerations and thus a theoretical framework to evaluate drug safety in pregnancy is needed. Dual perfusion of a single placental lobule is the only experimental model to study human placental transfer of substances in organized placental tissue. The objectives of this thesis were to systematically evaluate the perfusion model in predicting placental drug transfer and to develop a model to account for non-placental pharmacokinetic parameters in the perfusion results. In general, the fetal-to-maternal drug concentration ratios matched well between placental perfusion experiments and in vivo samples taken at the time of delivery. After modeling for differences in maternal and fetal/neonatal protein binding and blood pH, the perfusion results were able to accurately predict in vivo transfer at steady state (R2 = 0.85, P

Keywords: drug safety
pharmacokinetics
placenta
pregnancy
teratogen
Advisor: Gideon, Koren
Ethical Analysis in Public Health Practice

Background: Despite a burgeoning public health ethics literature, there are few empirical studies of public health practitioners' ethical perspectives, and how they identify and resolve ethical dilemmas they encounter in their work. There is no dominant, comprehensive public health ethics framework for use in research, education and practice. Methods: This project used a sequential mixed-model approach with mixed-method studies. A comprehensive literature review and a series of interviews using convenience-within-frame sampling were used to develop a framework and guide subsequent studies. Using an integrated knowledge translation approach, two formative and three core studies used web-based and paper-based surveys to gather quasi-representative data from public health practitioners (PHPs), including public health physicians, nurses, inspectors, policy-makers and trainees as part of conferences and educational workshops. The surveys solicited responses to questions regarding PHPs perspectives on ethical aspects of public health practice and dilemmas they encountered, as well as responses to several scenarios. Qualitative data were coded into open themes. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS 21. Data between groups were compared when appropriate and significant differences were noted. Results: The Public Health Ethical Reflection Matrix (PHERM) Framework was developed and data were collected from 8 interviews and surveys of 16 Canadian Public Health Physician trainees, 70 Public health ethics conference attendees, 76 Canadian Public Health Physicians, 52 Public Health nurses and 456 Public Health Inspectors. There were areas of similarity and of remarkable heterogeneity of responses within and between professional groups regarding prioritization of values and meta-ethical justification of ethical norms. Specifically, respondents were divided with regards to prioritization of overarching goals and specific values, the relative importance of different value types, respecting the law, and treatment of marginalized and vulnerable populations. Ethical dilemmas encountered by participants and approaches to dilemma resolution also varied considerably. Conclusions: Ethical dilemmas were prevalent in public health practice with public health practitioners holding a variety of disparate views regarding ethics in public health across PHERM domains. Explicit acknowledgement and exploration of these views may improve ethical decision-making in practice. The PHERM Framework appears to be an effective way of approaching complex public health ethical dilemmas. Further applied research is necessary to confirm the PHERM Tool utility in practice.

Keywords: Public Health Ethics
Advisor: Ross, EG Upshur
Archiving Memory: Explorer and Trader Accounts as Evidence in Aboriginal Rights and Title Litigation

This project examines the extensive use of explorer and trader narratives as evidence in aboriginal rights and title litigation. It is difficult to reconcile the conflicting--and often extreme--interpretations of these texts as mostly imaginative literature, a view increasingly held outside of the law, and as authoritative evidence, a position adopted in legal proceedings. Generally, my work reconsiders epistemic practices in aboriginal rights and title proceedings. Specifically, it turns to a literary framework to reflect on the empirical value of historical narratives. Additionally, by utilizing the concept of archive as a critical tool, my work also seeks to comprehend the law's continuing predilection for these texts. Ultimately, while evidential proceedings are generally regarded as oriented toward generating trial knowledge, I argue that in fact the substantive law has driven courts to the imperial texts and has, in effect, constructed the conditions of their necessity and reliability. Both the loosening of evidential rules--to create a story-telling space-- and the unique criteria-legal tests has contributed to their evidential hegemony, often at the expense of aboriginal histories, which are seen as anthropological curiosity. Significantly, this thesis does not suggest the imperial narratives have no empirical or evidential value. It does, however, urge trial actors to account for their limitations. And, by doing so, a broader objective may be served: a fresh examination of the current substantive criteria of aboriginal rights and title law, particularly as it impacts evidential parity between the aboriginal and imperial stories.

Keywords: Aboriginal Rights
Evidence
Law and Literature
Legal Theory
Advisor: Audrey, Macklin
Writing True Places in the Twilight of Empire and the Dawn of Revolution: The Buddhist Historiography of the Mongol Zawa Damdin Luwsandamdin (1867-1937)

This dissertation examines the life and historiography of the Khalkha Mongol polymath, Zawa Damdin Luwsandamdin (bLo bzang rta mgrin; bLo bzang rta dbyangs) (1867-1937); a Buddhist monk, abbot, pilgrim, and modernist discontent who wandered extensively through the shifting socio-political landscape of the Qing-socialist transition in Outer Mongolia. Focusing upon Zawa Damdin's autobiographical and historiographic works, previously unexamined outside of Mongolia, in the first place this study analyzes monastic literary constructs of the space and time of Mongolian Buddhism after the Qing imperial collapse in 1911, and before the purges of the late 1930s. Drawing upon Michel de Certeau's notion of the "historiographic operation" and Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the "chronotope," in the second place this dissertation explores the generative practices of monastic historiography with a focus on interpretative techniques and writing strategies. What emerges is Zawa Damdin's stark dystopian-utopian contrast between the degeneracy of the revolutionary-era and an embattled monasticism, and an idealized form of Buddhist authority most fully manifested during the Qing formation but long absent by the author's present. Zawa Damdin inscribed this binary firmly within a Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhist interpretative schema, but still drew upon newly available European scholarship on nationalism, science, Asia and Buddhism. This dissertation suggests that holistic analyses of Inner Asian Buddhist mediations of modernist trends in the late-and post-imperium could contribute to a dynamic, and much needed, cultural history of both Orientalism and Occidentalism.

Keywords: blo bzang rta dbyangs/blo bzang rta mgrin
Buddhism and modernism
Buddhist historiography
historiographic operation
Mongolian Buddhism
Zawa Damdin
Advisor: Frances, Garrett
Comprehensive Integrated Genomic and Histopathological Analysis of Paediatric Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a devastating, inoperable paediatric brain neoplasm with no effective therapy and near 100% fatality. Diagnosis is based mainly on radiological findings and numerous clinical trials using adjuvant chemotherapy over the last four decades have not shown a survival benefit compared to radiation alone. Although the delicate location of these lesions is a contributing factor to the dismal outcomes seen in these children, most of these clinical trials were designed based on adult protocols, with assumptions that paediatric brainstem tumours, whose histology most often resembles high-grade supratentorial glioblastoma (GBM) of adults, would respond to similar therapies. By combining histological review, methylation profiling, whole-genome and whole-exome sequencing, gene expression profiling, and copy number analysis of a large cohort of DIPG, we describe differences to adult disease, uncover mutations in novel cancer drivers, histone H3 mutation in 78.5% and ACVR1 mutations in 21.25% of DIPG patients, respectively and discover that DIPGs are three molecularly distinct subgroups (H3-K27M, Silent and MYCN). The H3-K27M subgroup is highly p.Lys27Met histone H3 mutated and associated with additional hits including activating mutations in ACVR1, frequent RB1 and TP53 deletions, PVT-1/MYC or PDGFRA gains/amplifications, genomic instability and alternative lengthening of telomeres. Histone mutations confer a worse overall survival (p = 0.0026). The MYCN subgroup is not associated with histone mutations and is instead characterized by hypermethylation and chromothripsis of chromosome 2p with high-level amplifications of MYCN and ID2. The Silent subgroup affects younger children, has genomes with minimal genomic instability and fewer mutations. Histologically, DIPG represent a spectrum of grade II-IV disease with vast regional differences and frequent leptomeningeal dissemination.Our results show that this seemingly homogeneous entity in fact comprises three distinct subgroups with different genomic, molecular and histopathological features. This complexity needs to be considered when designing new therapeutic approaches in order to improve outcome for these children.

Keywords: ACVR1
DIPG
Glioma
H3.3
H3F3A
K27M
Advisor: Cynthia, Hawkins
The Social Organization of Secondary Stroke Prevention

The early writings of Dorothy Smith (1990) and the tools of institutional ethnography were used to explicate the social organization of stroke prevention care in Ontario, Canada. This study was undertaken to understand how social determinants of health that set the context for patients' lives and health are rendered invisible by the lens of health care professionals. This is despite the fact that there is substantial evidence that lower socioeconomic status is associated with higher incidence of stroke, stroke risk factors, and mortality after stroke. Data collection included observations of direct clinical care in a secondary stroke prevention clinic, interviews with patients, health care professionals, and extra-local informants, as well as the analysis of texts that were encountered in the setting. The entry point for data collection was through observations and interviews with patients who attended a secondary stroke prevention clinic. This local setting was connected through texts to the larger administrative and governing organizations, including the Ministry of Health and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Data analysis made visible a new interventionist paradigm in stroke care. This paradigm relies on a pharmaceutical innovation, provincial data circulation, as well as on visual imagery of vascular disease through brain scans. Secondary stroke prevention was found to be based on statistical risk formulas which act as a proxy for certainty. Rather than prevention, secondary stroke prevention constitutes last minute `damage minimization' in patients with serious vascular disease. A significant finding was that patients did not know what secondary prevention was, yet actively participated in the related work, seemingly driven by the fear of disability. Biomedical risk ideology locates disability and `risk factors' in the body, thus social determinants of health are invisible. The complexity of health warrants the application of social as well as biomedical knowledge.

Keywords: risk
Social organization
stroke
Advisor: Sioban, Nelson
Errors in Moral Forecasting: The Importance of Affect for the Relationship Between Moral Behaviours and Moral Forecasts

In recent years, the field of moral psychology has been heavily dominated by studies on moral judgment that have relied on hypothetical moral dilemmas. But how do individuals' responses to such dilemmas map on to real-life moral behaviour? The aim of this dissertation was to explore this association, as well as to explore the role that affective experience plays in the relationship between peoples' actual and forecasted moral behaviours. The results of five experiments suggest that people might act more morally than they would predict and that affective experience plays in important role in motivating moral behaviours, as well as accurate forecasts. In Studies 1 and 2, participants acted more morally than they predicted they would in a series of moral dilemmas including a one-shot Dictator Game (Study 1), as well as in a math task where they had the chance to cheat on a math test through either commission or omission (Study 2). In Study 3, participants who actually had the chance to cheat on this same math task displayed significantly more autonomic nervous system arousal than participants forecasting their behaviour in this same dilemma. Critically, the moral underestimation effect in this study was mediated by autonomic arousal. In Study 4, I found that inducing affective salience by providing false somatic feedback indicative of arousal increased forecasting accuracy among participants for the same math task dilemma. Finally, in Study 5, I found that individual differences in emotional awareness moderate moral forecasting accuracy in this same moral dilemma, such that individuals low in emotional awareness exhibit exacerbated forecasting errors. This research suggests that the affective arousal present during real-life moral dilemmas may not be fully engaged during moral forecasting, and that this may account for the moral forecasting errors that individuals make. Given that the majority of moral psychologists rely on hypothetical scenarios and self-report to study the nature of morality, I propose that investigating the way in which affective experience interacts with and shapes individuals' moral forecasts is an important and meaningful pursuit.

Keywords: affect
decision-making
emotion
moral forecasting
morality
Advisor: Michael, Inzlicht