VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Marital status decisions and Canadian social assistance policy

This dissertation contributes to the literature assessing the relationship between marital status decisions and social assistance policies. In the first essay, I document the new demographic trends in Canadian family structure, which echo those observed in the rest of the industrialised world. Probably the most profound change has been the increased popularity of cohabitation. However, in spite of its increased prevalence, relatively little is known about this family state. Given the inexorable link between marital status, social policy and other legislation, I review the literature concerned with the policy-marital status relationship. Although legal and social policy have gradually equalised the rights of cohabiters and their married counterparts, they have not always been protected to the same extent. In particular, Canadian social assistance eligibility rules have historically treated married and cohabiting individuals quite differently. In this thesis, I focus on the rules which address the eligibility of unmarried individuals living together in Canada---the so-called "Spouse in the House" (SIH) rules. In Chapter 2, I examine the effect of tougher SIH eligibility rules on the decision to marry, cohabit or remain single. Using time-series cross-sectional data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), 1 I find that the implementation of tougher eligibility rules facing cohabiters in the province of Ontario render them less likely to cohabit and more likely to marry. While Chapter 2 reveals level effects of such legislation, it does not provide any insight as to the possible mechanisms at play. Using the associated longitudinal files from the SLID, I estimate dynamic models of marital status transitions in Chapter 3, using Cox proportional hazard methods. The more stringent welfare rules are found to encourage cohabiters to move on to the next stage of their relationship---marriage. Whether or not these findings are indicative of a transitory response or a new long run equilibrium cannot be ascertained.1 The paper is based upon data from the Master Files of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, made available by Statistics Canada at the Toronto Region Data Centre. While the research and analysis are based on data from Statistics Canada, the opinions expressed do not represent the views of Statistics Canada. All computations were prepared by the author and the responsibility for the use and interpretation of these data is entirely that of the author.
A quantum-classical treatment of condensed phase proton transfer

The study of quantum rate processes occurring in condensed phase environments is difficult because of the large number of degrees of freedom involved. Since a full quantum mechanical treatment is not computationally feasible, one is motivated to take a mixed quantum-classical approach. This approach is applicable when one can single out a few degrees of freedom to be treated quantum mechanically while treating the remainder classically. We describe a method that is based on the quantum-classical Liouville equation, which clearly prescribes the details of the coupling between the quantum and classical degrees of freedom. Starting from the reactive-flux correlation function expression for the quantum mechanical rate coefficient of a general reaction A rlhar2;B, we derive a quantum-classical rate formula which is amenable to the simulation of condensed phase quantum rate processes. This formula involves quantum equilibrium sampling and propagation of chemical species variables in time based on the solution of the quantum-classical Liouville equation. This nonadiabatic dynamics algorithm prescribes evolution on single adiabatic surfaces and on the mean of coherently coupled pairs of adiabatic surfaces. A more realistic model of a proton transfer reaction in a linear hydrogen-bonded complex dissolved in a polar solvent is also studied. The rate and mechanism of the reaction are investigated using both adiabatic and nonadiabatic dynamics and the role of the coherently coupled surfaces in the nonadiabatic dynamics is elucidated. This study constitutes the first application of quantum-classical Liouville dynamics and our quantum-classical rate theory to a realistic, large-scale system. Factors influencing the rates of quantum mechanical particle transfer reactions in many-body systems are investigated. The investigations are carried out on a simple proton transfer model that captures generic features seen in more realistic models. The model involves a bistable quantum oscillator coupled to a one-dimensional double-well reaction coordinate which is in turn coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators. Reaction rates are shown to be influenced significantly by both the quantum equilibrium structure and nonadiabatic dynamics. Nonadiabatic dynamcal effects are found to play the major role in determining the magnitude of the kinetic isotope effect for the model transfer reaction.
Culture versus diplomacy: Clemenceau and Anglo-American relations during the First World War

This dissertation examines the role of Georges Clemenceau toward the United States and Great Britain before and during the First World War. As a complex man who dealt with complex issues, there remain many aspects of Clemenceau's career which remain unexplored. Most previous studies have limited their analysis by situating him in the context of French national politics. Few have consulted archival sources beyond France's borders. Consequently, it is widely believed that Clemenceau was a narrow-minded French nationalist, when in fact he possessed broad cultural horizons. Taking advantage of new materials from French, British and American sources, this dissertation argues that Clemenceau was an international citizen who played a uniquely influential role in the conduct of inter-Allied diplomacy and military strategy. In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was not just a great French leader but a great Allied statesman. This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first examines the formation of his cultural attitudes prior to 1914, paying particular attention to his relationship with the eccentric Maxse family and the English maverick socialist Henry Hyndman. Chapter Two examines his role in inter-Allied strategy during his years of wartime political exile, including his presidency of the “Inter-Allied Parliament.” Chapters Three to Five examine his conduct of inter-Allied relations during his wartime premiership, with particular reference to his role in the conduct of unified command and French relations with the British and American armies. In the course of its analysis, this dissertation will shed new light on many other Allied leaders, including Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, General Henry Wilson, Field-Marshal Haig, Marshal Foch, General Pétain, and General Pershing. Throughout this comparative analysis, it will argue that France's international influence reached a peak under Clemenceau in the spring and summer of 1918 in spite of the many cultural and diplomatic obstacles with which he was confronted. This argument makes an original contribution not only to the literature on Clemenceau, but through him, to the available studies on inter-Allied relations on the western front during the First World War.
Structure/function of Munc18-1 in localizing syntaxin1 to the plasma membrane

Dense Core Vesicle (DCV) secretion of chemicals is critical in regulating a variety of physiological processes, such as heart rate and blood pressure. Munc18-1, originally discovered as the syntaxin1 binding protein, is involved in the exocytosis. Our previous studies of stable Munc18-1 knockdown neuroendocrine cells show that Munc 18-1 knockdown resulted in the reduced secretion, reduced syntaxin1 expression and mislocalized syntaxin1 (Arunachalam et al., 2007). However, the relationship between reduced secretion and mislocalized syntaxin1 is unknown. Here, I found that the ability of Munc18-1 mutants to localize syntaxin1 to the plasma membrane (PM) is controlled by their ability to bind syntaxin1 as well as their proper cytoplasmic localization. Furthermore, the ability of Munc18-1 mutants to rescue secretion defects is correlated with their ability to localize syntaxin1 to the PM. Thus, Munc18-1 facilitates the secretion of PC12 cells through binding syntaxin1 and localizing syntaxin1 to the PM.
Decoherence, quantum-classical correspondence, and coherent control in molecular dynamics

Next, quantum-classical correspondence in intrinsic decoherence dynamics is examined via purities and reduced density matrices in both the position and energy representations. Dependence of the correspondence on the nature of the coupling potentials and on the initial conditions are discussed. Decoherence effects on quantum and classical dynamics in reactive scattering problems are investigated. Through the study of dynamics of the isotopic analogues of the collinear H + H2 reaction and transmission over simple one-dimensional barrier potentials, the role of decoherence in improving quantum-classical correspondence is identified with suppressing resonance and tunnelling. Finally, the efficiency of 1+3 photon phase control in the presence of decoherence effects phase is carefully examined in several model cases which include from a population inversion in a two-level bound system to IBr photodissociation. Further, the ways to overcome the control loss caused by dephasing are discussed.
Body, burning and cremation: cremation and body burning practice of five Dynasties China

This paper is an attempt to explicate cremation in Five Dynasties China particularly focusing on its historical identity as a transitional stage bridging cremation of Tang and Song dynasties and its cultural identity as a practice intricately related to ancient body burning practice. Cremation in Five Dynasties was an outcome of interplay between ethnic minority culture, Buddhism, Confucian and Daoist traditions, positive body burning and practicality. The successful integration of various views of body, the improvement on existing burial custom by introducing a new possibility of dealing with distant death, and the continued affirmation of Confucian and Daoist views of body were key factors that contributed to the rapid increase of cremation. The development of cremated body as an alternative representation of whole body reflects the maturation of cremation into a custom openly consented and widely practiced among the Han Chinese due to religious and cultural preference.
Knowledge, attitudes, and use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine among psychology students in Canada: a national survey

This study examined knowledge, attitudes, and use of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) among psychology students in Canada. A total of 208 participants were recruited from a purposive, cross-sectional sample of approximately 1200 student members of the Canadian Psychological Association. An online survey was administered to gather data regarding students' awareness and use of 15 TCAM modalities, their attitudes toward TCAM use in psychology, previous training in TCAM, perceived training needs for TCAM in psychology, as well as demographic characteristics. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlations, and t-tests were conducted to summarize responses and provide insight into potential relationships between variables. Results depict students' awareness and attitudes about the use of TCAM in psychology. This will inform the development of curriculum and resources for training programs offered in psychology departments across Canada. Further, this research can stimulate discussion around ethical and professional guidelines for incorporating TCAM in psychological research and practice.

Keywords: Traditional medicine
Alternative medicine
Psychology, Study and teaching
Psychology, Canada
College students, Attitudes
College students, Canada
Mental illness, Alternative treatment
Associations between leisure physical activity participation and bone geometry at the radius and tibia in a Canadian cohort of postmenopausal women

Research examining the relationship between physical activity (PA) and bone geometry in North American postmenopausal women is scarce. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine if there were associations between the level of leisure PA and bone geometry at the radius and tibia in 234 Canadian postmenopausal women. Level of PA was assessed using the Minnesota Leisure Time PA Questionnaire and by generating a total activity score (TAS). Linear regression was used to determine associations between TAS and bone geometry. TAS was positively and significantly correlated with cortical area (R/T beta=0.02/beta=0.07), polar moment of inertia (RIT (3=0.83/beta=7.32), polar section modulus (R/T p=0.08/beta=0.46) and polar stress-strain index (R/T beta=0.09/beta=0.43) at both the radial and tibial shaft (p
Towards a complete intervertebral disc: modulation of the biochemical and mechanical properties of in vitro formed nucleus pulposus tissue

This study aims to improve understanding of the intervertebral disc (IVD) as a complete unit. The influence of circumferential constraint provided by the annulus fibrosus is examined. Cultured bovine nucleus pulposus (NP) cells are allowed to form tissue and subjected to different degrees of circumferential constraint. As constraint increases NP cells increase gene expression of degradative molecules and decrease gene expression of matrix molecules. This leads to significantly decreased accumulation of extracellular matrix and inferior mechanical properties. Constraining NP tissue may be used as a model for IVD degeneration. Development of in vitro IVD models will lead to better understanding and treatments for disc degeneration. Creation of a novel triphasic structure consisting of calcium polyphosphate (bone substitute), cartilage, and NP tissue emulates in vivo structure by inclusion of a cartilage end plate. The structure is more adherent than NP tissue alone as demonstrated by improved tissue attachment.
CMOS wireless phase shifted transmitter

Fourth generation (4G) wireless mobile phone systems must achieve spectral efficiency from a wide bandwidth required to support voice, data and video multimedia applications. These systems generate varying envelope signals and require linear transmitters to preserve the signal integrity and prevent spectrum regrowth. To achieve single chip implementation, the power amplifiers (PAs) in such transmitters must be designed in CMOS which is the technology of choice in realizing the digital baseband processors. To allow the integration of highly efficient power amplifiers in 4G transmitters, a novel phase shifted (PS) architecture is presented in this work. The PS transmitter achieves a high level of linearity by using outphasing. It adjusts the phase of the two constant envelope RF signals using phase shifters and amplifies these two RF signals using switching class F power amplifiers to achieve a high level of efficiency. The two constant envelope, varying phase RF signals, are finally added together using a wideband combiner to produce an amplified linear replica of the RF signal. The transmitter front-end prototype presented in this work is designed in a standard 0.18æm CMOS technology. It occupies an area of 5mm 2, operates from a 1V supply and provides better than 42dBc adjacent channel power ratio with an output bandwidth of 50MHz at 8GHz. It also provides 22dBm average output power with a power added efficiency of 38% for a 60ʻ outphasing angle. The PS transmitter front-end is the first fully integrated CMOS wireless implementation to operate at 8GHz from a 1 V supply. It does not require mixers and hence provides an intermodulation distortion free output spectrum, making it a suitable choice for 4G mobile communication systems.
Spatio-temporal modelling of housing starts in the greater Toronto area

This dissertation offers a spatio-temporal analysis of housing starts in the GTA. Informative and revealing results were obtained when housing units were disaggregated by structural type (i.e., detached, semi-detached, apartments, and others [link/row] housing). This dissertation also found that high development charges in the suburbs encouraged low-rise, low-density development. In addition, it was observed that recently built residential units and planned residential construction were located along the major transportation corridors in the GTA. This dissertation discovered that the post-1991 housing market is significantly more restrained, and has adopted a self-correcting regime in which prices and construction activity remained very close to the aggregate trend. Furthermore, the GTA remains a mono-centric region, where accessibility for most activities declines with distance from the CBD. The temporal autocorrelation structures differ by housing type. The OLS-based distributed lag models offer reliable out-of-sample forecasts. This dissertation also found that both short and long time series returned very comparable results. Time series models revealed that statistically significant variables explaining the variance in the number of housing starts differed by housing types. Similarly, model fits differed by housing type. While detached starts returned the best fit, apartment starts offered the poorest fit. Spatial choice models show that the spatial choices of real estate developers differ by housing type. The location patterns of apartment housing are different from the other three housing types. Consider, for example, the fact that variables serving as a proxy for built urban form returned negative coefficients for detached, semi-detached, and others housing, while the same variables returned positive coefficients for apartments. The choice of housing type is conditional upon the location of new housing. It appears that the location and type of housing decisions feed off of each other. Attributes of the neighbourhood or zone can help determine what type of housing is more likely to be built there. This dissertation also presented the concept of spatial inertia in housing markets, which implies that the existing stock of a particular type of housing attracts more housing of that type to the vicinity.
Low-power hardware implementation of sound localization and speech separation

This thesis presents a low-power (3.45 mW) hardware implementation of a sound localization and speech separation system. Sound localization is the process of estimating the location of a sound source using information gathered by two or more microphones. Speech separation is the process of extracting a speech signal of interest from a noisy recording. For the sound localization sub-system, low power consumption is achieved through a power analysis of an earlier design. This analysis shows that almost 75% (21.65 mW) of power is spent by the repetitive evaluation of cos(o) during the sound localization search. We have reduced this power consumption by quantizing the cosine function to seven levels; a power savings of 98.75% is achieved with insignificant change in localization error. For the speech separation sub-system, low power consumption is achieved by sharing common processing blocks with the proposed sound localization sub-system. Moreover, by taking advantage of the leniency in the chosen speech separation algorithm (time-frequency masking) significant power savings are achieved through the use of a relatively coarse approximation of this algorithm. The proposed speech separation architecture performs similarly to the ideal (algorithmic floating point) implementation, in both noise reduction and speech recognition experiments.
Pharmacological and functional differentiation of dopamine D1c and D1d receptor subtypestwo novel members of the D1-like receptor family

To date, two distinct functional dopamine D1-like receptor subtypes D1/D1A and D5/D1B have been identified in both mammals and vertebrates. Vertebrates, however, express additional members of the D1 receptor family, termed, D1C receptor in (f)frog (Xenopus laevis) and the DID receptor in (c)chicken (Gallus domesticus). While fD1C and cDID receptors are distinguishable from each other and from vertebrate and mammalian D1A/D1B receptor genes by virtue of their nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequence, tissue specific mRNA distribution, and distinctive pharmacological profiles the pharmacological, functional or evolutionary relationship between fD1C and cD1D receptors is still unclear. In an attempt to further define and classify these receptors as distinct subtypes we searched for unique pharmacological and functional attributes that can differentiate these receptors. We characterized the selectivity and affinity of 12 new benzazepine derivatives (NNC series) to determine if any of the compounds could pharmacologically differentiate between the four D1-like receptor subtypes (D1/D1A and D5/D1B, fD1C and cD1D). We assessed whether all four D1 receptor subtypes exist in a single species by sequentially screening genomic chicken and frog libraries with D1/D5 receptor probes under reduced stringency conditions followed by high stringency hybridization of fD1C and cD1D receptor probes, respectively. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
The cutting stock problem with setup

When stock-material is available as a continuous stream coming out of a production facility, the length of stock-material is virtually infinite and trim waste is never made regardless of patterns used and minimizing the trim waste seems meaningless. Cutting machines however, have a limited width, limiting the maximum length of stock-material that can be cut with one stroke and the production manager may be interested in minimizing the number of strokes in order to achieve the maximum production rate. Mixed integer linear formulations for the continuous stock cutting problem with two different machine configurations are developed. Computational results demonstrate that operating an open-ended cutting machine would result in up to 82% productivity increase compared to operating a closed-ended cutting machine. The cutting stock problem with setup and the cutting stock problem with knife-dependent setup cost are also introduced. Mixed integer linear formulations and computational results are available for these problems.
Individual differences in time of day preference, cognitive performance and behavioral problems in early adolescence

A growing literature from the adult research suggests that performance is at its peak when there is synchrony between chronotype and task demands. This is the first study to assess the importance of synchrony for cognitive function, specifically for intelligence assessment and Executive Function (EF) in young adolescents. 11 to 14 year olds were initially classified as Morning or Evening types and then assessed at either optimal or non-optimal times of day on subtests of both crystallized and fluid intelligence, as well as on four EF measures. Also behavioral adjustment of Morning and Evening types was assessed using the Child Behavior Check-List (CBCL) and a self-report sleep questionnaire. Performance on fluid intelligence tests and most EF-measures of working memory, affective decision-making and response inhibition showed a synchrony effect; performance was substantially better at optimal compared to non-optimal times of day. In addition, adjustment ratings suggest increased levels of maladaptive behavior for adolescents who are Evening types, relative to adolescents who are Morning types. In conclusion, adolescents tested at their non-optimal times of day may be at an increased risk for poor academic performance, and Evening-type adolescents may be at an increased risk for poor behavioral adjustment.