VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Emergence, Development and Survival of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives

Lesbian and gay archives, particularly those established within the context of the homophile, gay liberation, and lesbian feminist movements, serve as social movement organizations (SMOs). That is, they are organizational and administrative members of activist communities that acquire, manage, and share resources for the purpose of collective action for social change. Archives are nevertheless absent from literature on social movements and social movement theory. This project was designed to expand on current research in the fields of archival studies, social movement studies, and sexuality studies to better understand the experiences of lesbian and gay archives. A multiple case study was conducted at four community grown archives: The Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, and the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Site visits took place over six months in 2013 and 2014, during which time interviews were conducted with 33 community archivists, volunteers, and community partners. In addition, more than 20,000 pages of organizational records related to the founding and development of these archives were reviewed. By tracing the emergence, development, and resource struggles of four lesbian and gay archives, this dissertation shows how these organizations have been shaped by broader movement goals, local geographies, socio-political structures, and the particular interests and energies of those who have nurtured their collections over the years. I examine how these archives have sustained themselves over time. Discussions with community archivists, volunteers, and community partners have generally confirmed that the four archives that inform this study are SMOs, but have also raised important questions about the sustainability of archives established by and for social movements. The dissertation tells a history of each archives and comments on the common challenges that they have faced over the past forty-plus years. Engagements between these archives and their local academic institutions are also explored, as are their continuing relationships with the communities they serve. By tracing the emergence and development of these organizations, this project uncovers representational politics, institutional pluralism, generational divides, shifting national politics, interpersonal relations, and challenges with sustainability, both financial and otherwise.

Keywords: archival studies
community archives
gay rights movement
lesbian feminism
LGBTQ history
social movement theory
Advisor: Keilty, Patrick
Microbial Iron Geochemistry of a Pristine Glaciofluvial Groundwater System

The biogeochemical cycling of iron by microorganisms has a strong impact on groundwater resources due to their influence on aqueous geochemistry, including contaminant mobility. This thesis expands on knowledge of groundwater-surface transitions through the characterization of an iron cycling biofilm dominated groundwater spring, and presents the first in situ investigation of microbial iron cycling in a pristine, glaciofluvial aquifer that has not been used as a groundwater resource, anthropogenically contaminated, or stimulated to enhance microbial activity. Metagenomic evidence from the groundwater spring with a sharp reduction-oxidation gradient demonstrated the presence of iron biofilm forming microbes in the groundwater system being studied, as well as showing a diversity of nitrogen and sulfur cycling microorganisms. Changes in redox potential along the length of the stream corresponded with pronounced shifts in the relative abundance of bacteria known to mediate the biogeochemical cycling of iron, sulfur, and nitrogen. Five years of geochemical surveying showed a spatiotemporally persistent zone of elevated iron concentrations in an aquifer which had previously been shown to have potential for microbial iron cycling through genomic characterization. Based on the analysis of terminal electron acceptor concentrations in the groundwater, the aquifer was found to be graded into zones of O2 reduction, NO3- reduction, Fe3+ reduction, oxygen-dependent Fe2+ oxidation, and nitrate-dependent Fe2+ oxidation. Hydrogeological and geophysical evidence suggested that groundwater flow conditions differed in the vicinity of the elevated iron zone, which may have contributed to conditions conducive to the growth of a subsurface microbial community. Environmental electron scanning microscopy showed bacterial morphologies similar to known iron cycling bacteria were present in the elevated iron zone, but not outside of it. The findings of this thesis are broadly applicable to other aquifers of glacial and glaciofluvial origin, where reducing conditions will arise through non-aerobic forms of microbial respiration, and observed patterns of redox zonation will be affected by the mixing of groundwater along three dimensional flow paths. Taken together, this thesis underscores the importance of iterative interdisciplinary collaboration, including hydrogeology, geochemistry, near-surface geophysics, and microbiology, as a means of building the most complete possible representations of groundwater resources.

Advisor: Ferris, Grant
Three Essays on Legal Issues Impacting the Employment Relationship in Canada

The first of three papers helps resolve the substantial debate about the impact of Honda v. Keays, a 2008 Supreme Court of Canada decision modifying the principles for compensating employees for improper employer conduct during dismissal (called “moral damages”). I performed content analysis on all relevant Canadian cases in the four years after Honda and an equivalent period before Honda and then used a tobit model to test legal scholars’ and lawyers’ predictions. I find that moral damages are less probable after Honda. Furthermore, the size of awards is smaller in those cases where moral damages are granted, partly because certain levels of employer misconduct now produce lower damages. However, I also find that, since Honda, high levels of mental distress are compensated more richly. The second paper is motivated by the absence of recent studies that investigate delay in grievance arbitration, despite increasing concerns being voiced about the issue. I performed content analysis on a random sample of about 400 Ontario arbitration awards, and then used a proportional hazards model to examine the extent of delay and its determinants. Consistent with common perception, the results suggest that delay has become a worse problem over the past two decades. I find that certain legalistic factors and the expanded jurisdiction of arbitrators over specific types of issues are associated with delay. The results also show that certain dispute resolution procedures are related to decreased delay, and this suggests some practical solutions. Prompted by a recent series of Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decisions on freedom of association (FOA) in the labour context, the third paper critically examines the Canadian jurisprudence. The state of this law in Canada has been roundly criticized by various prominent labour law academics. This paper relies on Sheldon Leader’s theory of FOA to argue that the SCC should have interpreted s. 2(d) of the Charter as protecting collective bargaining and striking as independent rights, rather than as rights necessary for the realization of the FOA. Having done so would have yielded jurisprudence that was more consistent and coherent.

Keywords: bad faith dismissals or terminations
content analysis
empirical legal studies
freedom of association
grievance arbitration
labour and employment law
Advisor: Verma, Anil
Prodigals in Love: Narrating Gay Identity and Collectivity on the Early Internet in China

This dissertation concerns itself with the eruption of a large number of gay narratives on the Chinese internet in its first decade. There are two central arguments. First, the composing and sharing of narratives online played the role of a social movement that led to the formation of gay identity and collectivity in a society where open challenges to the authorities were minimal. Four factors, 1) the primacy of the internet, 2) the vernacular as an avenue of creativity and interpretation, 3) the transitional experience of the generation of the internet, and 4) the evolution of gay narratives, catalyzed by the internet, enhanced, amplified, and interacted with each other in a highly complicated and accelerated dynamic, engendered a virtual gay social movement. Second, many online gay narratives fall into what I term "prodigal romance," which depicts gay love as parent-obligated sons in love with each other, weaving in violent conflicts between desire and duty in its indigenous context. The prodigal part of this model invokes the archetype of the Chinese prodigal, who can only return home having excelled and with the triumph of his journey. The romantic part imbues love between men with the power of shaping and transforming the self and the weight of anchoring an identity. The result is often the parting of the two lovers, with one returning home a good son to his duty and another continuing as a gay orphan, wandering in pursuit of his desire. The latter is a new desiring subject who chooses to integrate his desire as a core of his identity; and he is the figure bearing the purpose of the movement.

Keywords: China
formation
homosexuality
identity
internet
literature
Advisor: Guisso, Richard
Living Inventions: Genetically Modified Organisms and the Canadian Patent System, 1976-2004

Living Inventions: Genetically Modified Organisms and the Canadian Patent System, 1976-2004 Rebecca Moore Doctor of Philosophy Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology University of Toronto 2015 Abstract This dissertation tells the history of the interaction between the Canadian patent system and conceptions of the organism. Although organisms have been modified by humans for millennia, their entry into the patent system demanded they be understood as human inventions in accordance with the requirements of the Patent Act. It was not enough for an organism to simply be modified by humans; instead, the modified organism had to be seen as designed and controlled by a human inventor. I explore how the organism became conceived as a living invention during the patent process. The result is a contemporary history that sheds light on Canada's current, convoluted approach to the patenting of organisms, where "lower" organisms are patentable in their entirety and "higher" organisms are not, yet patents on pieces of "higher" organisms (i.e., patents on genes contained within an organism) give the inventor control over the whole organism. This dissertation is organized around two questions: 1) How was the organism described in the Canadian patent system? 2) Why was the organism described in this way? These questions are explored through a close analysis of four key patent applications filed with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, beginning in 1976, and their subsequent journey through the Canadian judicial system. I argue that in order to answer these questions, these cases must be understood in the context of the nexus between the molecularization of biology, government and corporate investment in biotechnology, and the nature of legal protection provided by the state. It is only at this nexus that one can explain why whole, modified organisms found their way into the patent system in the first place while also illuminating how - as a consequence of their entry into the patent system - organisms were described.

Keywords: Genetically Modified Organisms
History of Biotechnology
History of Patents -- Canada
Science Policy
Advisor: Vicedo, Marga
Living Thoughts, Breathing Worlds: Afterlives of Romanticism in Postcolonial Writing

This thesis explores the relationship between postcolonial writing and Romanticism. It understands Romanticism as an institution of aesthetics with a colonial history, as a collection of texts disseminated within but not exhausted by that history, and as a period metaphor for an aesthetic orientation developed, transformed, and contested within postcolonial representation. My study pairs readings of texts that exploit Romanticism as a compositional resource with what I call countervoices, which speak back to the uses made of Romanticism by each dominant voice. My first chapter reads Derek Walcott's "sense of history" in the light of the relationship that his

Advisor: Quayson, Ato
American Architecture and the Promise of Modernization in Postwar Turkey

This dissertation examines the Turkish reception of American architectural culture in the post-World War II period, with particular focus on the manner and geographical scope of the transfer of American architecture overseas in the wake of the Marshall Plan. I analyze the vehicles for the transmission of American architecture, including professional publications, exhibitions, technical assistance missions, scholarly exchanges, and projects constructed with US funds. In order to account for the circulation of American architectural ideals in postwar Turkey, I also draw on new research on popular culture and examine films, women's and family magazines, travelogues, and newly-emerging consumption habits that were effective in transmitting and disseminating ideas about the American way of life. My main concern is to show how in the context of Turkey's modernization efforts during the 1950s Turkish architecture looked to, reinterpreted, and even contested American architecture, planning ideals and building technologies. To this end, this dissertation delineates three different instances of cultural interaction between Turkey and the United States, which highlight the diffusion of American architectural ideals to Turkish architectural scene: the construction of the Istanbul Hilton Hotel as the centerpiece for Turkey's attempt to increase its share of the growing international travel market; the US contribution to the Izmir International Trade Fair where American domestic design and consumer goods were put on display; and the establishment of a school of architecture and planning in the Turkish capital Ankara with the assistance of American experts. I argue that American architecture cannot simply be viewed as serving to advance US political and economic interests in Turkey. American buildings, planning ideals, and notions of domestic modernity helped channel Turkey's pursuit of modernization and progress which was concentrated in three major areas: the development of international tourism, the creation of a consumer economy and the establishment of institutions of higher education.

Keywords: Americanization
Cold War
Cultural Transfer
Domestic Architecture
Post-War Turkish Architecture
Technical Assistance
Advisor: Anderson, Christy
Scrivano, Paolo
Lung microenvironment plays a key role on the protective vs. detrimental effects of mesenchymal stromal cell therapy in acute lung injury

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a complex disorder with high mortality. Most ARDS non-survivors present complications of pulmonary fibrosis. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) are considered good candidates for therapy due to their ability to home into injury sites and help in recovery. However, MSC are sensitive to stimulations from their surroundings and some evidence suggests that MSCs can contribute to fibrosis. Thus it is important to understand how MSCs behave in various lung injury conditions. We used mouse models of acute lung injury to investigate the effects of the injured lung microenvironment in modulating the outcome of MSC administration. Three types of acute lung injury models were used; 1) Hydrochloric acid instillation, as a model for direct chemical injury; 2) Mechanical ventilation, as a model for biophysical injury; 3) Combination of HCl and ventilation in a two hit model. Mouse bone marrow-derived MSCs were separately delivered at different phases of injury in these models. MSC delivery at the onset of mechanical ventilation was able to supress lung injury and fibrosis, while MSC delivery at the proliferative phase of HCl and the two-hit models aggravated injury and fibrosis. MSC delivery at stable reparative phase of injury in these models tended to favour recovery. Analysis of lung microenvironment profiles at the time of MSC delivery indicated that inflammatory and fibrotic mediator upregulation with simultaneous depletion in protective antioxidants correlated with the observed detrimental effects of MSC. Correction of the HCl injured microenvironment by overexpression of antioxidant enzyme before MSC delivery resulted in suppression of lung injury and pulmonary fibrosis after MSC delivery. Modification of MSCs to overexpress antinflammatory and antifibrotic factors reduced inflammatory and fibrotic mediators in the microenvironment and suppressed lung injury and fibrosis in the HCl model. These results indicate a correlation between microenvironment mediator profiles and the outcome of MSC delivery. Furthermore, plasma samples from ARDS patients suggest these microenvironment profiles may also exist within patient cohorts. Thus it is essential to understand microenviroment and MSC interactions and access mediator profiles before MSC delivery in clinical setting.

Advisor: Zhang, Haibo
The Arf GAP Asap regulates cleavage furrow biosynthesis in the early Drosophila embryo

Plasma membrane (PM) growth is a common feature of eukaryotic cells. For cells to grow and divide newly synthesized membrane needs to be inserted into their existing PM. Failure to do so may lead to developmental disorders and disease in animals. In the early Drosophila embryo, ingression of cleavage furrows during syncytial divisions is fueled by the insertion of new membrane into the apical domain via the biosynthetic secretory pathway. The highly conserved small G protein Arf1 regulates biosynthetic trafficking at the Golgi. Arf1 activity is regulated by Arf guanine nucleotide exchange factors and GTPase activating proteins (GAPs). However, the essential roles of Arf GAPs during development remain unclear. Here I demonstrate that the Arf GAP Asap is required for cleavage furrow ingression in the early Drosophila embryo. Asap primarily promotes Arf1 function at the Golgi. Asap is required and sufficient for Arf1 accumulation at the Golgi, and a conserved Arf1-Asap binding site is required for Golgi organization and output. Interestingly, Asap shifts localization during the cell cycle, and relocalizes to the nuclear region at metaphase. This shift coincides with a mild reorganization of the Golgi, and a natural phase of furrow regression. Together these data reveal an Asap-Arf1 regulatory pathway required for Golgi-dependent cleavage furrow biosynthesis. Asap may recycle Arf1 to the Golgi from post-Golgi membranes, providing optimal Golgi output for specific stages of the cell cycle. The results of this study may further our understanding of Asap function in cancer and other diseases.

Advisor: Harris, Tony J.C.
MRI-compatibility enhancements to USM performance for interventional devices in MR environments

The safe performance of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided robot-assisted interventions requires full control and high precision of assistive devices and tools. Because many currently available tools are not MRI-compatible, the characterization of existing tools and development of new ones are necessary. The behaviour of an ultrasonic motor (USM), the most common MRI-safe actuator, in a high-field (3T) MRI scanner was investigated. To characterize the axial force generated by the USM, a generic MRI-compatible force sensor (MCFS) was developed. USM effects on MCFS performance were examined under various sensor load and motion states while the scanner was on and off. The effects of the USM on MR images were investigated. The shift in the resonance frequency of water protons induced by the USM was measured. Image artifacts caused by the USM were classified. Geometric distortions on images and degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio were assessed. Compensation methods to reduce image artifacts were developed. To ascertain the potential risks of USM and the degree of MRI compatibility, the displacement force and deflection torque generated by the scanner on the USM were characterized. The effect of temperature increase caused by the scanner was also evaluated. Temperature increase causing degradation of USM output characteristics, can be reduced by the use of the developed USM case. In conclusion, the MCFS can precisely operate in the vicinity of USMs and in a high-field scanner. This research shows that it is not necessary to keep the USMs at a distance from the MR scanner to address compatibility issues. Furthermore, this thesis demonstrates that the use of compensation methods to reduce image artifacts and the recommended use of silicon carbide to reduce temperature increase due the magnetic field enhance the USMâ s compatibility and lead to safe, accurate, and reliable operation of the USM in high field MRI.

Keywords: Force Sensor
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
MRI Compatible
MRI Safe
Surgical Robotics
Ultrasonic Motor
Advisor: Goldenberg, Andrew A
Drake, James M