VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Let the learner learn, a qualitative insight into the birth and growth of the cross-cultural learner centre concept

An 'individualized' learning experiment promoting "intercultural competence" through 'functional cultural literacy' started in London, Ontario, and it is this cross-cultural learner concept I investigated. The 'purpose' of my investigation was to find answers to: "How did this concept evolve and spread and what sustained it?" The phenomenon was investigated from the Adult Education perspective because of the acknowledged centrality of the learner. Qualitative/naturalistic and grounded theory methodologies were used and, in the process, a gap was detected and named 'thematic sampling'. Sampling was the non-probability/purposive type. For instrumentation, documentary and "qualitative interviewing" were used. Theoretical sampling guided my interviews. Content analysis, and inductive, strategies helped analyse the data. Illumination/re-illumination strategies enhanced the explanations. Since this investigation was partly historical I used the 'selective anonymity ' device to reveal some names. It emerged that this concept was influenced by a convergence of ideas thus the suggested 'Principle of Conceptual Convergence'. Also, the temporal and locus contexts significantly influenced this concept. The change factor of 'cultural bi-directionality' was evident, with specific reference to some of the principal personages. Another finding was the "educational alternative" aspect--the inspired 'Personalized System of Learning' ('PSL'). This approach was aided by a computer system to access the multi-media materials collected. It also emerged that the concept's spread highlighted its 'flexibility ' and 'uniqueness'. There were also circumstantial merging and splitting tendencies within the movement. The links between the local and the global were also highlighted--the 'linkage phenomenon '--thus the Development/Global Education framework. A redefinition of these educational perspectives has been proposed. Other findings were 'intimations of dissonance' and ' mortality'. The former is traceable to the communization of the concept; the circumscribed "Third World" perspective; the persistent financial dilemma; and the latter, traceable to the 'politics' of ' funding'. Both formal, non-formal education, and library/information science could benefit from this study. By extension, any setting where there is an existing plurality of views--which need bridging for general understanding, tolerance, and accommodation--can also benefit. Also, the 'embedded categories ' strategy could be used in qualitative analysis.
Chaotic transmembrane voltage behaviour in hippocampal neurons

A novel approach, based on nonlinear system analysis and chaos theory, was used to investigate the complex oscillatory activity in the brain. The coupled Mapped Clock Oscillator model, with intrinsic parameters obtained from experimental recordings from hippocampal neurons, was used for the study of oscillatory behaviour in this region of the brain. Emphasis was placed on the investigation of synaptic coupling and self-feedback mechanisms between the oscillators. It was found that the chemical synaptic coupling and self-feedback mechanisms between the neurons greatly increases the functionally chaotic region in the topological coupling map of the hippocampal neurons. In addition, the region of non-oscillatory behaviour and oscillator death is greatly decreased. It is believed that synaptic coupling and self-feedback mechanisms offer great flexibility to the system and provide for a more robust operation in the chaotic region, without experiencing oscillatory mode transitions that may lead to different pathological states.
Essays in petroleum futures market, convenience yield, and long memory

This thesis is a collection of three essays which address some empirical applications of long memory processes with specific interest in financial economics of energy futures market. The first essay 'Evidence of Long Memory in the Petroleum Market' studies evidence of long memory in the energy market using daily and weekly futures data. This essay concentrates on the question of interdependence between crude oil futures and the corresponding products. The empirical results provide strong support for long memory in the energy futures market. The cointegrating relations between crude oil and heating oil futures as well as crude oil and unleaded gasoline futures exhibit long memory, whereas the individual series are unit-root. The second essay ''Convenience Yield, Mean Reversion and Long Memory in the Petroleum Market'' analyzes convenience yields in the petroleum market. The focus of this essay is the behavior of the spot and futures prices over the long run. The implied convenience yield for petroleum and petroleum products is found to be driven by a nonstationary and mean reverting long memory process. The theoretical implication of this finding is established. It is discussed that this might be attributed to the fact that the market is expecting mean reversion in the spot prices. Furthermore, the volatility process and its relation with the mean process and the corresponding direction of causality have been studied in detail. The third essay ''Long Memory and Conditional Heteroskedasticity, A Monte Carlo Investigation'', unlike the first two, looks at the econometrics of the estimators of the long memory process. It evaluates performance of three methods of estimating the parameter of fractionally integrated noise: the exact maximum likelihood estimator ('MLE'), the quasi maximum likelihood estimator ('QMLE'), and the 'GPH' under different realizations for variance.
A qualitative analysis of classroom play for upper elementary schoolchildren

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the spontaneous play of children in upper elementary school. Although play has been given a major role in preschool education and although it has been credited with providing a number of essential contributions to a child's upbringing, it has never gained a foothold in elementary school. The reasons for its absence as well as a definition of play are. among the subjects of the first chapter. The vast bulk of the data was collected in a large, multi-ethnic school in North York, Ontario from September of 1995 to June of 1996. In order to conduct this research, I adopted a qualitative methodology since I not only wanted to gain an understanding of the program but I also wanted to see how the participants, namely the students, felt about their play. One of the major values of this study, in fact, lies with the role of the children who themselves contributed to the data collection by providing written documentation of their participation in the play episodes. In this respect this research study is unique since it not only chronicles the role of play within an elementary school classroom but, as well, it does so in large measure through the eyes of the children rather than just an adult observer. Through the constant comparison method I was able to discern thirteen themes some of which discuss the effects of play upon E.S.L. children, students with learning difficulties, and the classroom climate. In an effort to contextualize the data I chose a holistic education framework since I found that its philosophy and practices could embrace play into the curriculum. I conclude my thesis with a discussion of the significance of the study and I present arguments outlining why play should be included in the elementary school curriculum. Lastly, I allow myself some personal reflections which relate the effects of this study on myself as both a researcher and teacher.
The rhetorical parsing, summarization, and generation of natural language texts

This thesis is an inquiry into the nature of the high-level, rhetorical structure of unrestricted natural language texts, computational means to enable its derivation, and two applications (in automatic summarization and natural language generation) that follow from the ability to build such structures automatically. The thesis proposes a first-order formalization of the high-level, rhetorical structure of text. The formalization assumes that text can be sequenced into elementary units; that discourse relations hold between textual units of various sizes; that some textual units are more important to the writer's purpose than others; and that trees are a good approximation of the abstract structure of text. The formalization also introduces a linguistically motivated compositionality criterion, which is shown to hold for the text structures that are valid. The thesis proposes, analyzes theoretically, and compares empirically four algorithms for determining the valid text structures of a sequence of units among which some rhetorical relations hold. Two algorithms apply model-theoretic techniques; the other two apply proof-theoretic techniques. The formalization and the algorithms mentioned so far correspond to the theoretical facet of the thesis. An exploratory corpus analysis of cue phrases provides the means for applying the formalization to unrestricted natural language texts. A set of empirically motivated algorithms were designed in order to determine the elementary textual units of a text, to hypothesize rhetorical relations that hold among these units, and eventually, to derive the discourse structure of that text. The process that finds the discourse structure of unrestricted natural language texts is called rhetorical parsing. The thesis explores two possible applications of the text theory that it proposes. The first application concerns a discourse-based summarization system, which is shown to significantly outperform both a baseline algorithm and a commercial system. An empirical psycholinguistic experiment not only provides an objective evaluation of the summarization system, but also confirms the adequacy of using the text theory proposed here in order to determine the most important units in a text. The second application concerns a set of text planning algorithms that can be used by natural language generation systems in order to construct text plans in the cases in which the high-level communicative goal is to map an entire knowledge pool into text.
Hamiltonian properties of claw-free graphs

A graph 'G' is called claw-free if it does not contain a copy of 'K'1,3 as an induced subgraph. There have been many results on hamiltonian properties in claw-free graphs. In this thesis, we generalize many previous results and show many results, including the following seven results: (1) Every 2-con nected claw-free graph 'G' &notin; ' J' on 'n' vertices contains a cycle of length at least min'n', 4[delta] - 2, and is hamiltonian if ' n' <= -5[delta] - 5, where J is a set of three classes of exceptional graphs and [delta] is the minimum degree of 'G'. (2) Every 3-connected claw-free graph 'G' on n vertices contains a cycle of length at least min'n', 5[delta] - 5. (3) Every 3-connected 'k'-regular claw-free graph 'G' on 'n' vertices contains a cycle of length at least min' n', 6'k' - 17. (4) Every 3-connected claw-free graph 'G' on at most 5[delta] - 8 vertices is hamiltonian connected. (5) Let 'G' be a 3-connected claw-free graph ' G' of order n such that the vertices of degree 1 of every induced bull have a common neighbor in 'G'. Then (i) Every vertex of 'G' is contained in a cycle of all possible lengths except possibly for four and five. (ii) 'G' is pancyclic. (iii) If ' G' does not contain particular induced subgraphs, then 'G' is vertex pancyclic. We say a subgraph H of a graph 'G' satisfies property [Phi]' H'('u, v') if 'u, v' &isin; ' V'('H') and ('N'('u') <math> <f> [intersection]</f> </math>'N'('v')) - 'V'(' H') [not equal] <math> <f> &empty;</f> </math>. That is, 'u', 'v' &isin; 'V '('H') and 'u' and 'v' have a common neighbor in 'G' outside of 'H'. (6) Let 'G' be a 2-connected claw-free graph on 'n' vertices with minimum degree at least three such that every induced ' Z'1 of G satisfies <math> <f> <g>F</g><inf>Z<inf>1</inf></inf><fen lp="par">a,<hsp sp="0.167"> b<inf>1</inf><rp post="par"></fen><hsp sp="0.212"><rm>or<hsp sp="0.212"> <g>F</g><inf><it>Z<inf><rm>1</rm></inf></it></inf><fen lp="par"> <it>a,<hsp sp="0.167">b<inf><rm>2</rm></inf></it><rp post="par"></fen>.</rm></f> </math> Then 'G' is vertex pancyclic. (7) Let 'G' be a 2-connected claw-free graph on 'n' vertices with minimum degree at least three such that every induced 'Z'2 of 'G' satisfies <math> <f> <g>F</g><inf>Z<inf>2</inf></inf><fen lp="par">a<inf>1</inf>,<hsp sp="0.167"> b<inf>1</inf><rp post="par"></fen><hsp sp="0.212"><rm>and<hsp sp="0.212"> <g>F</g><inf><it>Z<inf><rm>2</rm></inf></it></inf><fen lp="par"> <it>a<inf>1</inf>,<hsp sp="0.167">b<inf>2</inf></it><rp post="par"></fen>.</rm></f> </math> Then 'G' is vertex pancyclic.
Monolithic IGBT gate driver in a conventional low-voltage BiCMOS process

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a monolithic Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) gate driver in a 5V high-density (0.8$\mu$m) conventional BiCMOS process. High voltage capability is achieved, without additional masks, using extended drain MOS transistor. The use of this process allows the high voltage portions of the circuit to be implemented on the same chip as the low voltage high density controlling circuits. The IGBT gate driver performs as an interface between a low power microcontroller and the IGBT power switch. The total area of the IGBT gate driver chip including pads is 4.84 mm$\sp2.$ The total power dissipation in the gate driver is less than 500 mW. It provides enough voltage and current to drive a mid power IGBT (100A, 500V). The gate driver out-put voltage ranges from 15V to $-$10V. The output current slew rate is in the order of 1A/$\mu$s, and the switching frequency of the driver is in the order of 10KHz. The gate driver provides the IGBT with protection against unintentional turn-on and desaturation failure. The unintentional IGBT turn-on protection disables the gate driver if its rail-to-rail power supply voltage is not enough to turn on the IGBT efficiently. The desaturation failure protection turns off the IGBT if the device is 'on' and its output voltage rises beyond its predefined value.
Triadin is primarily confined to the junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum of mammalian cardiac myofibers

Triadin is an intrinsic sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) protein that interacts with calsequestrin (CSQ), the ryanodine receptor (RyR) and junctin and is believed to play a role in excitation-contraction (E-C) coupling. However, since interior junctional SR and corbular SR are both localized to the I-band of longitudinally cryosectioned myofibers, it is difficult to determine whether the triadin-positive foci correspond to the detection of triadin in junctional SR and/or corbular SR. Since previous immunolocalization studies have shown that it is possible to accurately determine whether junctional SR proteins (e.g. the RyR or junctin) are localized to junctional SR and/or corbular SR, if their subcellular distribution is also examined in the presence of a marker of the sarcolemma (SL) and the transverse (T) tubules of transversely cryosectioned myofibers, it should now be feasible to precisely determine the subcellular distribution of triadin. Thus, the objective of the present study was to reexamine the subcellular distribution of triadin in relation to that of either the RyR, phospholemman (PLM, a marker of the SL and T-tubules) or junctin, using indirect double immunofluorescence labeling of transversely and longitudinally sectioned canine cardiac myofibers, followed by laser scanning confocal microscopy. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
Management and history of fire in Wabakimi Provincial Park, northwestern Ontario

Ontario's Wabakimi Provincial Park was recently expanded to protect a portion of naturally functioning boreal forest. A fire management strategy reflecting the natural role of fire will soon be developed. Mitigation of negative impacts resulting from fire-reintroduction requires knowledge of ecosystem characteristics, fire processes, and associated historical human influences. Historical fire records provide insight into these issues in this century, and stand age-class distributions facilitate assessments over several centuries. Historical reports show area burned declined between 1930 and 1970, followed by dramatic increases in recent decades. A stand age-class distribution analysis based on the negative exponential model of fire history revealed statistically significantly different fire cycles before (37.0) and after (359.7) 1928. However, hazard rate estimates show an almost linear decline between 1858 and 1948, suggesting considerable natural temporal variation. This analysis shows that management for specific historical fire cycles in Wabakimi may not be justified ecologically, economically, or socially.
Development of a CH-124 Sea King helicopter deck landing simulation using a fiber optic helmet mounted display system

Landing helicopters on ship decks at sea is a dangerous endeavor. The difficulty of approaching a small moving platform, variable operational situations, and the likelihood of adverse environmental conditions make viable simulator research and development for Canadian Navy CH-124 Sea King helicopters and Canadian Patrol Frigates. A deck landing simulation has been designed at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies Flight Research Simulator Laboratory that models the low-speed and hover dynamics of the Sea King helicopter and creates detailed imagery of a Canadian Patrol Frigate at sea using a Fiber Optic Helmet Mounted Display. The simulation includes a virtual-reality cockpit environment with pilot controls, an electronic instrument panel, Sea King cockpit noise, and a six degree-of-freedom motion base. The system has been integrated under CAE SIMex-PLUS software control to execute the GenHel flight dynamic routines and employ an advanced MAXVUE image generation system. Modifications have been made to incorporate realistic ship motion for various sea states and wake effects behind the hangar. Simulator assessment has been undertaken with helicopter test pilots, and their evaluations have been used to make changes and recommendations for future experimental work at the simulator lab.
Constructing Antankaraña, history, ritual and identity in northern Madagascar

This dissertation is an historically informed study of a polity in contemporary northern Madagascar. By focusing on the intertwined interests of the polity's rulers (those influential figures of the past and present who have claimed and been recognized as having authority in the region), its constituents (those supporters who have legitimated these claim through forms of service that periodically reassert the primacy and sanctity of rulers), and those who recognize it (those powerful outsiders who are confronted with these claims) it proposes that this is a political system legitimated from within and without where subjection results less from the power of a few to impose it than from the willingness of many to accept it. This is especially apparent at an event--called ' Tsangantsainy'--at which polity constituents construct and erect a mast that is said to embody the 'sacredness of rulers'. Through the ' Tsangantsainy' they willingly re-establish their ruler's rule and in so doing symbolically guarantee the continuity of the political order he represents. Given that they are observed to do so by the many powerful outsiders (state officials, representatives of foreign governments, representatives of development and conservation organizations, etc.) who are invariably invited to attend, their participation also contributes to the symbolic capital which their ruler wields in his efforts at negotiating local interests.
The computational perception of scene dynamics

Understanding observations of image sequences requires one to reason about 'qualitative scene dynamics'. For example, on observing a hand lifting a cup, we may infer that an 'active' hand is applying an upwards force (by grasping) on a 'passive' cup. In order to perform such reasoning, we require an 'ontology' that describes object properties and the generation and transfer of forces in the scene. Such an ontology should include, for example: the presence of gravity, the presence of a ground plane, whether objects are 'active' or 'passive', whether objects are contacting and/or attached to other objects, and so on. In this work we make these ideas precise by presenting an implemented computational system that derives symbolic force-dynamic descriptions from video sequences. Our approach to scene dynamics is based on an analysis of the Newtonian mechanics of a simplified scene model. The critical requirement is that, given image sequences, we can obtain estimates for the shape and motion of the objects in the scene. To do this, we assume that the objects can be approximated by a two-dimensional 'layered' scene model. The input to our system consists of a set of polygonal outlines along with estimates for their velocities and accelerations, obtained from a view-based tracker. Given such input, we present a system that extracts force-dynamic descriptions for the image sequence. We provide computational examples to demonstrate that our ontology is sufficiently rich to describe a wide variety of image sequences. This work makes three central contributions. First, we provide an ontology suitable for describing object properties and the generation and transfer of forces in the scene. Second, we provide a computational procedure to test the feasibility of such interpretations by reducing the problem to a feasibility test in linear programming. Finally, we provide a theory of preference ordering between multiple interpretations along with an efficient computational procedure to determine maximal elements in such orderings.
Cloning and characterization of the rat bone sialoprotein (BSP) gene promoter

Bone sialoprotein (BSP), a phosphorylated and sulphated glycoprotein that is essentially specific to mineralized connective tissues, has been implicated in hydroxyapatite nucleation. The expression of BSP gene is developmentally regulated in accordance with tissue mineralization and is further modulated by osteotropic hormones such as 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, which suppresses its expression, and glucocorticoids, which stimulate its expression. To elucidate mechanisms of BSP gene regulation at the transcriptional level, the promoter of the rat BSP gene was cloned and shown to be functional in transient transfection assays. The rat BSP promoter, comprising ~3 kb of the 5'-flanking region of the gene, contains a unique inverted TATA box overlapped by a vitamin D3 response element (VDRE) sequence, a homeobox-binding site, a novel 18-nucleotide palindrome and a number of other consensus 'cis'-acting DNA elements that may contribute to tissue-specific and developmentally regulated transcription. Based on the highly conserved sequence of the proximal promoter between the rat and human BSP genes, a 370 bp sequence was designated the "BSP box". The inverted TATA box was found to drive downstream transcription and the TATA-binding protein (TBP) shown to be required for this function using DNase I footprinting, site- directed mutagenesis, and 'in vitro' transcription analyses. Thus the direction of transcription is not determined by the asymmetric nature of a TATA box. Gel shift analysis showed that the vitamin D3 receptor (VDR) binds specifically to the BSP VDRE with a strong preference for homodimer formation. However, a truncated VDR that includes the DNA binding domain of the VDR failed to interact with the BSP VDRE, suggesting that complete configuration of the receptor protein is required for DNA binding. That the putative VDRE overlaps the inverted TATA box indicates a novel mechanism for gene suppression by vitamin D3, whereby the VDR competes with the TBP for occupancy of the TATA/VDRE element and prevents the assembly of the pre-initiation complex which is required for the initiation of transcription. These studies were the first to clone and characterize a BSP promoter and have identified novel mechanisms of transcriptional regulation through a unique inverted TATA/VDRE element.