VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Dynamics of water in the hillslopes of a subtropical montane forest in the Sierra Madre Oriental, Nuevo Leon, Mexico

The state of Nuevo Leon, in northeastern Mexico, is situated in a semiarid region. The Sierra Madre Oriental (SMO) is a mountain range that traverses the state and plays an important role in its hydrological regime. All the rivers in the state originate within the SMO and run through the plains where the water is used for agriculture and urban consumption. However, very little is known about the dynamics of water on the slopes of the SMO. The objectives of this study were: (i) to define water pathways and fluxes within the soils of some typical sites of the SMO; (ii) to identify the factors that control water motion; and (iii) to assess the influence that vegetation type has on water pathways. Five representative sites (plots) were selected based on slope aspect, soil characteristics, and vegetation type. On each plot throughfall, overland flow, subsurface flow, and soil water content change were measured. Two approaches were used: natural rainfall and irrigation. Additional geological, soil, and vegetation variables were measured. There are no statistically significant differences in throughfall percentage among plots. Overland flow only occurred in plot 1 located on a south-facing slope; no overland flow was observed at the slope scale at this site. Subsurface flow was absent or small in the forested plots (north-facing slopes). The dominant process on these slopes is water infiltration which, coupled with a rapid percolation of water through macropores into a highly fractured bedrock, assured a rapid transmission of water to the bedrock.
Intergenerational programming: Examining the role of physical activity

While there is ample research which examines intergenerational programming, very little scholarly research has assessed intergenerational physical activity (IGPA) programming, which according to a recent systematic review, may facilitate positive health and attitudinal changes among participants. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study explored the experiences of 12 young people and 16 older adults to outline the potential benefits of IGPA for both young people and older adults, and to identify potential barriers to, and facilitators of these benefits. Interpretative data analysis of the interviews revealed that participants were more physically active, experienced improved quality of life, and reported improved generational attitudes following IGPA programming. Further, factors such as age-salience, music, class size, availability of space, language and communication, and knowledge of other generations were identified as barriers to, and facilitators of these benefits. Mechanisms for such benefits are suggested and recommendations for policy and practice are provided.
The evolution of sexual dichromatism in the avian genus Icterus

This thesis examines the ecology and evolution of species of New World orioles (genus Icterus). The goal of the research has been to develop an understanding of how sexual dichromatism---differences in the plumages of males and females---has arisen and evolved in this group of birds. New data are presented on the behaviour and ecology of three oriole species, two of which are tropical (Icterus graduacauda and I. gularis) and one which breeds in the temperate zone (I. parisorum). Several lines of evidence suggest that the occurrence of monochromatism among tropical orioles is related to the central role that females of these species play year-round in territorial defence and maintenance. Dichromatism in the temperate breeding species is consistent with a loss by females of the bright colours typical of males. Evidence also suggests that a cryptic female plumage facilitates rapid pair formation and permits females to conserve energy otherwise required to obtain foods needed to synthesize carotenoid-based pigments. A hypothesis that links dichromatic plumages with migratory behaviour is developed and tested in a comparative analysis of 29 species. Phylogenetic analyses strongly support a linkage between the degree of dichromatism and migratory behaviour and generate new questions about the ancestral taxa that gave rise to the genus as it exists today.
Physiological aging in a natural population of northern red-backed voles (Clethrionomys rutilus)

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is critical for successful adaptation to stressors. However, life-long exposure to stressors has been proposed to cause deterioration of the HPA axis, and to have negative effects on physiological condition and survival. My objective was to determine if life-long exposure to stressors caused the HPA axis of free-ranging male northern red-backed voles (Clethrionomys rutilus) to become dysfunctional, and had a negative effect on survival. I examined the changes in the HPA axis that occurred in response to manipulated and natural levels of stressors. Life-long exposure to stressors had a negative effect on physiological condition and survival; however, it did not lead to deterioration of the HPA axis. In conclusion, my findings indicate that voles experience age-related physiological deterioration; however, they most likely do not live long enough to experience dysfunction of the HPA axis because they are exposed to high levels of extrinsic mortality.
Parental involvement in child care centers: The role of informal parent-staff communication

Based on extensive naturalistic observations, this study examines the quality of parent-staff communication in child care centers. Predictors of that communication and its relations with other aspects of quality are also explored. The sample consisted of staff and parents in 122 classrooms serving preschool-aged children from 83 child care centers in Toronto and Colorado. Through a series of 20-second time-sampled observations, informal parent-staff communication was captured for 1087 parents as they dropped their child off at their child care center. In general, communication between parents and staff was limited with staff providing child-related information to less than 9% of parents. Hierarchical linear models revealed that parent-staff communication is an individual rather than classroom or center characteristic. Informal communication occurring at drop-off was generally not related to other parent involvement measures or to other measures of process quality. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: Day care centers, Employees
Parents
Interpersonal communications
Analysis of the regulation of murine B lymphopoiesis by interleukin-7 and the pre-B cell receptor

Generation of the B lymphocyte lineage involves the development of early non-committed hematopoietic stem cells to mature, Ig-producing B cells. Cell-intrinsic regulatory signals combine with signals provided by the surrounding microenvironment to mediate selection checkpoints throughout the developmental process. In this thesis I examine the roles played by the pre-B cell receptor and the interleukin-7 (IL-7) receptor during a major developmental checkpoint. The transition from the pro-B to pre-B cell stage requires the formation of the pre-B cell receptor, and the signaling complexes that arise following its membrane insertion. Prior to the acquisition of the pre-B cell receptor, B cell precursors require exposure to IL-7, a growth factor produced by surrounding stromal cells. I demonstrate a connection between these two intrinsic and extrinsic signals: in the presence of the pre-B cell receptor, pre-B cells experience a reduced threshold for proliferation in response to IL-7. I establish that a signal transmitted by the pre-B cell receptor complex is sufficient to allow proliferation in response to low concentrations of IL-7. Further experiments indicate that activation of the ERK/MAP kinase pathway occurs in response to combined stimulation of the pre-B cell receptor and the IL-7 receptor, and that cells expressing the pre-B cell receptor exhibit increased levels of activated ERK even in the absence of receptor cross-linking. I propose a model for the ERK-dependent selection of pre-B cells in the presence of low concentrations of IL-7. Experimental results reveal that ERK phosphorylation is pivotal in the induction of proliferation, but not maturation or survival of cells undergoing the pro-B to pre-B transition, providing support for my hypothesis. A similar requirement for protein kinase A activity is also indicated. In summary, pre-B cells experience a pre-B cell receptor-dependent growth advantage over more immature cells in an environment that provides limited amounts of interleukin-7, a situation that may exist in the murine bone marrow. The data presented in this thesis constitute a model for the specific selection of pre-B cells that have completed a crucial developmental task, and highlight the regulatory role played by the environmental context in which cells mature.
A data envelopment analysis approach for measuring the efficiency of Canadian acute care hospitals

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a methodology particularly well-suited to measuring the efficiency of hospitals because it is able to accommodate multiple heterogeneous inputs and outputs in order to model the complex relationships that exist within them. This thesis uses DEA to develop two hospital efficiency models in collaboration with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The first model measures the clinical efficiency of Canadian acute care hospitals in the treatment of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The model uses inputs measuring the intensity and duration of clinical resource utilization and includes survival rate as the key output. The second model measures the overall production efficiency of acute care hospitals and uses labour and capital inputs together with outputs measuring inpatient and outpatient activity. Both models include non-discretionary variables adjusting for case mix variations among the hospitals.
Evolutionary genetics of behaviour in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster

Understanding of the origin, maintenance, and importance of variation in genes provides a framework for evolutionary genetic analyses. I attempt to broaden our understanding of the evolutionary genetics of behaviour by studying the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Allelic variation in foraging (for) underlies a larval foraging behaviour polymorphism. Since the foraging gene has been recently shown to affect similar behaviours in honey bees and nematodes, I explored the possibility of a widespread link between this gene and behaviour. Molecular phylogenies, constructed from the amino acid sequences of protein encoded by for (PKG) from an array of species, suggest that the link may extend into vertebrates. This type of conserved gene function can provide a source of candidate genes since the genes affecting behaviour in one species likely influence similar behaviours in additional species. I outline a candidate gene approach (CGA) in an attempt to motivate the integration of modern genetics with behavioural ecology. I describe how candidate genes can be useful for predicting behaviour, manipulating traits, and providing a basis for comparative analyses. I use quantitative trait locus mapping and the CGA to identify a second naturally varying gene, in addition to for, that affects foraging behaviour. I find that wings up A (wupA) is a negative modifier of for that suppresses one of the natural for alleles (forR, rover) but does not affect the other (forS, sitter). This appears to be accomplished by post-translational interactions between the proteins encoded by for and wupA. I show that negative frequency-dependent selection acting on for can maintain the rover/sitter polymorphism. Under food limitation, I find that the fitness of either of the variants is highest when they are rare in the population. By analyzing the D. melanogaster genome, I challenge the long-standing prediction of sex linkage in the genes affecting sexual selection. I find that the genes are distributed throughout the genome and I suggest that the high prevalence of pleiotropic effects (multiple phenotypes of a gene) may account for the lack of predominant sex linkage. Collectively, my thesis examines several of the fundamental issues in evolutionary genetics through analyses of animal behaviour.
Making visible: photography, witnessing and the nuclear era

This dissertation examines recent theories of documentary photography and the tensions that exist between historical contextualization and acts of remembrance in documentary artworks. This critical investigation considers the work of the Atomic Photographers Guild, which is an international collective of photographers dedicated to making visible aspects of the cultural, traumatic and historical legacies of the nuclear era. Considering the cultural invisibility of nuclearism as an organizing thread, my research theorizes the conditions for an art of â€˜post-documentationâ€™ that moves beyond the ocularcentric discourse of evidence insisting instead on a mode of attention much closer to that of testimony and witness. The dissertation begins and concludes with a consideration of photographic interventions into commemorative sites of the atomic bomb. This frames a detailed examination of three documentary projects that construct differing forms of historic witness in book format: Robert Del Tredici's At Work in the Fields of the Bomb (1987), Carole Gallagher's American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War (1993) and Hiromi Tsuchida's Hiroshima (1985) and Hiroshima Monument II (1995). Responding to the broadly based pedagogical mandates of documentary photography, I argue that these works utilize the informal educational settings of galleries, museums and bookworks to develop an informed nuclear citizenship in ways that are potentially transformative. This potential for developing transformative viewing subjectivities constitutes an ethical and critical witnessing practice for documentary art.

Keywords: Education, Curricula
Chronophotography
Art and society
Art and photography
Aboriginal educators' stories: rekindling aboriginal worldviews

Tansi N'tootemak, Ke nunaskamitin ni m'untoom ka kuskytayan ooma masinahikan e masinaman. (Cree to English: Greetings my friends, I thank Creator that I am able to write this thesis.) The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences and the meanings attached to the experiences of the Aboriginal Teachers' Circle (ATC) members who worked within mainstream education systems. Conducted in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the study focused on Atchanookewina (the stories), experiences and events, of the ATC members' practices as educators and the meanings of those experiences. Data gathering occurred (during 1994â€“1998) through the following ways: I documented pre-study emerging themes and issues in the lives of ATC members; Participants completed a biographic questionnaire (including a personal/career inventory of their activities); I conducted taped sharing circles and one-on-one interviews of participant experiences. Finally, I drew from selected literature in the field (highlighting Aboriginal scholars' works) and various ATC recorded documents to make meaning of the themes and issues. The participants of this study produced a rich array of data that reflected their backgrounds, perceptions and knowings, which were sorted into main themes then analyzed. These themes included: a biographic profile of their backgrounds; uneasy relations due to differences; career paths; cultural/heritage identities and developing Aboriginal perspectives into their professions; and finally asserting Aboriginal education through core Aboriginal knowings and processes. Through my writing up of the thesis (1998â€“2001) and â€˜storyingâ€™ and analysis of their words, the participants in this research highlighted the importance of several â€˜truthsâ€™ about the complex situation of being Aboriginal and an educator working in mainstream education: Understanding and grounding Aboriginal education in decolonizing processes and core values of Aboriginal knowings and processes. The understanding and navigating of the various tensions were evident in their stories. They indicated the importance of challenging oppressive assimilative forces while developing positive identification and connections with Aboriginal heritage. Finally their understanding of the depth and complexity of an Aboriginal educator's work and the value of children in the educational process was evident. Ah ho, Ki nunaskamitinawaw N'totemak. (I thank you, my friends.)

Keywords: Indigenous peoples, Canada
Indians of North America, Canada
Indians of North America, Education
Indians of North America, Canada
Indians of North America, Study and teaching
Indians of North America, Canada
The reckoning: Improving the World Health Organization's tuberculosis control policy through practical knowledge

Is it possible on a global scale to improve the lives of our most vulnerable and impoverished citizens? One fundamental challenge is to create dynamic political institutions that learn incrementally from policy failures. This dissertation shows how international institutions can learn. It explores how the World Health Organization learned to create a more effective tuberculosis control policy. WHO's experience in defining TB management strategies demonstrates that international organizations can learn when they create networks of public and private organizations that improve their access to practical knowledge. Practical knowledge reflects the lessons and perspectives of those who receive and implement policy. International organizations may access this practical knowledge through knowledge entrepreneurs. WHO strengthened its ability to learn by more deeply and widely engaging with knowledge entrepreneurs through the Stop TB Partnership. WHO accessed practical knowledge through the presence and persistence of Partners in Health (PIH)---a highly critical and pragmatic private organization within their policy network. First, PIH gained practical knowledge because its commitment to human rights empowered it to see public health problems that WHO did not see and to partner with community activists to implement public health projects. Second, as multi-disciplinary scholars, PIH was able to analyze, act upon and communicate this practical knowledge persuasively and credibly to WHO. Third, PIH engaged strategically to develop and further accelerate policy changes in the UN system writ large and collaborated with NGOs and foundations sympathetic to their perspectives thus enabling and empowering their research and credibility at WHO. An enabling environment outside these policy relationships empowered critical voices at the table. Specifically, two external conditions were important: an ideational environment that complemented the agenda of critical partners and external critiques of the organization's responsiveness and effectiveness. International organizations, like the World Health Organization, can learn to improve their policies through trial and error policy development by learning incrementally through policy failures. NGOs with these dispositions and skills can contribute to developing and implementing effective global policy at international organizations. Such contributions strengthen transnational state-based institutions by improving their practical legitimacy amongst policy implementers and thus their capacity to govern.
Building power: Monumental architecture, place and social interaction in late Bronze Age Cyprus

In this study, I develop an integrative approach by which archaeologists can analyze the relationship between the built environment and human behaviour in ancient societies. I then apply it to an investigation of how elites employed monumental architecture as a means of advancing their sociopolitical power during the Late Cypriot (LC) Bronze Age (c. 1750-1050 BCE). The study begins by outlining a theoretical approach that emphasizes the role of buildings in controlling movement and encounter and in serving as the contexts for interactions through which sociopolitical structures are developed, maintained, transformed and reproduced. A review of previous studies of ancient Cypriot architecture, typically dominated by art-historical and functionalist interpretations, highlights the need for such an approach. To examine these issues, I introduce a series of analytical methods derived from architectural and environment-behaviour studies. While access analysis determines likely contexts for interaction based on the integration of individual spaces within a building's layout, a nonverbal communication approach, combined with visibility analysis, addresses how meanings are encoded in various elements of the built environment and how these meanings might engender particular behaviours among a building's inhabitants and visitors. I use this integrative approach to isolate likely contexts for public-inclusive and private-exclusive social occasions in a number of monumental buildings from the sites of Enkomi, Kalavasos, Maroni and Alassa. These buildings provided contexts well suited to social occasions, such as ceremonial feasting and religious rituals, that created social bonds or emphasized social distance as the sociopolitical objectives of interaction required. I argue the necessity of seeing these contexts not simply as spaces, but as socially-constructed places, imbued with identity and memory. This study highlights the importance of ashlar masonry, doorways and hearths in the definition of physical and social boundaries that were integral to the creation and negotiation of status and individual and group identities during social occasions. I conclude that during the LC IIC-IIIA period, ruling elites on Cyprus embarked on an ambitious strategy of monumental place-making that provided contexts for interactions that ultimately supported their power. In this way, monumental buildings became the primary arenas in which the sociopolitical dynamics of LC society were played out.
Characterization of a sucrose-responsive Arabidopsis thaliana mutant identified by early senescence of cotyledons

The early senescent cotyledon (esc1) mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana displays premature senescence of its cotyledons in an acropetal pattern, short stature, a "bushy" rosette, and small, epinastic true leaves. The soluble sugars sucrose, glucose and fructose have variable ameliorative effects on the morphological and early senescence phenotypes of esc1 . Mature rosette leaves exude decreased sucrose and increased glucose and fructose levels; they contain elevated cell wall and vacuolar invertase activities. Microarray data reveal significant changes in pathogen- and stress-response genes, and in carbohydrate hydrolases and transferases. Genetic analysis indicates the esc1 phenotype is due to two recessive mutations. Genetic linkage of the early senescence phenotype to the bottom arm of chromosome one has been established. A model is presented in which lesions in candidate genes involved in invertase regulation, cell wall chemistry, and/or pathogen response interact to produce the mutant phenotype.