VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Age-related Effects in Adult Second Language Acquisition, a Study of Mandarin-speaking Learners of English

One of the assumptions, of the critical period hypothesis (Lenneberg, 1967) as interpreted by Bialystok and Hakuta, (1994) is that there should be no continuing age effect in second language (L2) acquisition after maturity at puberty: that is, there should be no systematic age-related differences in 12 proficiency outcomes among adult learners. In this thesis, I examine this assumption by comparing the oral L2 proficiency of two different age-of-arrival (AOA) groups: one group of 15 learners whose AOA in Canada was between 25 and 35, and another group of 15 learners whose AOA was between 40 and 55. AD were female Mandarin-speaking learning English as a second language. The two AOA groups were similar in terms of length of residence in Canada and years of first language (L1) education, but the later AOA group had the advantage of receiving more English instruction than the earlier AOA group since their arrival in the L2 environment. These adult learners were tested for accuracy of production of six basic morphosyntactic features of English via two speech tasks: an elicited imitation test and a guided oral interview. Excerpts taken from all of the guided oral interviews were also rated for fluency in English. Results demonstrated consistent advantages for the earlier arrivals over the later arrivals on the two summary measures of morphosyntactic accuracy on the measure of oral fluency, although this effect of AOA did not appear on every morphosyntactic feature tested. The overall results indicate that among these adult learners, differential L2 proficiency outcomes continue, as in prepubertal learning, to be related to learners' AOA in the L2 environment, thus posing an empirical challenge to the assumption implied by the critical period hypothesis. A further comparison of the two AOA groups on the measures of learner variables that may underlie the effect of AOA on L2 proficiency outcomes highlights the importance of fluid intelligence, variety of L2 contact, and amount of L2 daily use. On these learner variables, which correlated positively with learners' L2 proficiency outcomes, the earlier AOA group had an advantage over the later one. Finally, the learners' account of their experiences and perceptions of learning English as a second language reveals the complexity of adult L2 acquisition, which involves factors pertaining not only to the learners themselves, but also to the social context in which the L2 is learned.
The modeling of short wave radiation transfer through the canopy of a mixed forest wetland

Modeling the transfer of short wave radiation through a mixed forest canopy has received very little attention and as a result, land surface models such as the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) have produced mixed results. Improved understanding of the leaf phenology of wetland hardwood species and the incorporation of solar zenith angle dependent canopy extinction coefficients, significantly improved modeling results. Mean bias errors (MBE) in the modeling of total short wave transfer for the new radiation model were approximately 5.85, $-$6.72 and 0.90% as opposed to $-$22.98, $-$20.79 and $-$52.70% for the CLASS model for the leaf emergence, summer and leaf fall period respectively. Canopy parameters obtained at one site were equally effective across the wetland. The MBE for the sampling of 20 sites were approximately 6.82, 5.11 and 19.07% for September 05, 21 and October 05 respectively.
Microencapsulation of PC12 cells and delivery in a hemiparkinsonian rat model

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive, neurological disorder characterized by a severe loss of dopamine (DA) in the brain. Conventional treatment involves replacing the lost DA by administering oral doses of L-DOPA, a DA precursor. This treatment loses effectiveness over time. Recent research has focused on delivering DA directly into the brain by implanting DA secreting cells lines encapsulated in a polymer membrane. In this study, PC12 cells were microencapsulated in a 75:25 HEMA-MMA copolymer. In vitro studies showed that the cells remained viable for up to 42 days post-encapsulation and were able to release DA when exposed to K$\sp+$/Ca$\sp{2+}$ release medium. A modified delivery technique provided a reliable and reproducible method for implanting 40, 80 or 120 capsules into the denervated caudate putamen (CPu) of 6-OHDA unilaterally lesioned rats. Binding studies showed significant decreases in D$\sb1$ receptor density and significant increases in D$\sb2$ receptor density in the lesioned CPu of all animals as compared to the non-lesioned side of the brain. Both PC12 and Ficoll (control) capsule implants reduced the decrease in D$\sb1$ receptor density compared to lesion only animals but had no significant effect on D$\sb2$ receptor density. Tyrosine hydroxylase (TH; the rate-limiting enzyme in the synthesis of DA) immunohistochemistry revealed darkly labelled cores of TH inside the PC12 capsules. No labelling was seen in the Ficoll capsules. This strongly suggests that viable PC12 cells were present inside the capsules up to three weeks following implantation. Attempts to determine in vivo DA levels by microdialysis were unsuccessful. Additional studies are necessary to quantify in vivo DA release and to determine the feasibility of using microencapsulated DA producing cell lines as a treatment for PD.
Lives in changing contexts, a life history analysis of Latvian-Canadian women's stories about being Latvian

This study examines how changing contexts impact on people's lives. The purpose of this study is to document the life history experiences and perspectives of second-generation Latvian-Canadian women in the wake of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Latvia's regained independence, and the end of the Latvian community in exile era in the West; and to present a contextual analysis of these life histories. The life stories of the six women presented in this study provide a rich tapestry of individual experiences of growing up Latvian in Canada, living in two cultures, and adapting lives in changing contexts. These stories reveal the diversity of the lived experiences of women from socially and culturally similar yet different backgrounds. The life history analysis of the stories explores the impact of changing social-political contexts on their lives. The contextual analysis of the themes which emerged from these stories gives insights into the shared experiences of the participants, illustrates the complexity of living in more than one culture, and brings into focus the important role that familial, social, historical, political, cultural, and psychological contexts play in understanding lives. The common threads weaving through these six stories are explored under the following common themes: 'Where I Come From and My Inherited History'; 'Who Am I'? ' What Does' "'Being Latvian'" 'Mean '?; 'Leading a Double Life and The Awareness of Difference ', 'Finding My Place and Facing Challenges within the Latvian Community', 'My First Encounter with Latvia and My Relationship with Latvia Now', 'Where Do I Belong'? and ' Where is Home'? The universal themes which emerged in this study are the conscious and the hidden legacies of 'inherited history', the multiple layers of us and them struggles and conflicts in the West and with the homeland; and the powerful impact of 'losses' and 'gains' on the intra-personal, the inter-personal and societal relationships, and how all of these come into play in changing times and contexts. These themes reflect the interconnected undercurrents which add to the complexity of our perspectives and experiences. Furthermore, they suggest potential lenses through which to interpret and bring insight to people's experiences in other cultures and other contexts.
Flow visualisation of natural gas fuel injection

Increasingly, research in the field of engine design has focused on the potential use of alternative fuels. Natural gas has always been a favourite choice, and recently there has been considerable interest in making use of this fuel in a direct injection stratified charge (scDISC) engine. Previous research has shown that ignition in such an engine can only be made possible with the use of some method of ignition assist (e.g. a glow plug). Optimisation of a glow plug assisted scDISC engine chamber requires knowledge of gaseous jet properties and their relative implications on ignition and combustion. More precisely, understanding of the gaseous jet properties is needed to aid in determining optimum placement of the ignition assist device (glow plug). Extensive experimentation was carried out involving the injection of two different gases through four different nozzles into a pressurised, heated combustion chamber. Data obtained from these experiments was used to show the self-similarity of injected gaseous jets. The concept of jet self-similarity demonstrated that jet shape could be predicted for any combination of nozzle exit conditions, chamber conditions and nozzle orifice dimensions. This provides a useful tool for determining optimal glow plug placement in a natural gas fueled scDISC engine. Tests were also carried out in which the interaction between a methane jet and an activated glow plug was studied. Results from the study have shown that under the right conditions the gaseous jet is deflected towards, and eventually attaches itself to, the glow plug. This behaviour is promising, because it provides favourable conditions for ignition of the fuel jet. Knowledge gained from the results of these experiments can be used in the future design of a natural gas fueled glow plug assisted direct injection stratified charge engine.
Mindful subjects, classification and cognitive disability

This dissertation is a call for a philosophical reorientation regarding a particular classification of human beings: mental retardation. Generally, individuals with mental retardation are only discussed in philosophy as moral problems to be solved: are they persons? do they have rights? how ought they be treated? I depart from the traditional approach, and ask a different set of questions about the nature of classification, the effects it has on classified subjects, and the power relations involved in the process of classifying. This project operates at three theoretical levels: it is at once a philosophical study of classification, an alternative history of mental retardation, and a discussion about the modes and effects of power. In the second and third chapters, I analyze the development of mental retardation as an object of knowledge, and outline a theoretical framework from which to discuss classification generally. A feminist re-examination of this history exposes the power dynamics involved in definitions and practices associated with mental retardation. In identifying five roles that women played in this history, it becomes evident that the development of this classification was inextricably bound with social and political factors, and involved multiple layers of oppression. In the final chapter, I present a critique of philosophical discourse about cognitive disability. The preceding historical analysis serves as an important backdrop to understand current discussions about the "mentally retarded", and reveals that many philosophers neither address this history, nor have they escaped it. In applying the analytic approach to classification and power relations developed in earlier chapters, it becomes apparent that many moral philosophers do not address the socially and historically determined nature of mental retardation as a classification. Rather, they assume a medical model which views it as an unproblematic "natural kind". After addressing the problem of philosophical language and definitions, I turn to one argument in particular: the case against speciesism. I argue that the treatment of persons with cognitive disabilities in arguments concerning the moral status of animals relies upon a kind of discrimination I call "cognitive ableism". I conclude by exploring future directions for philosophical work on cognitive disabilities.
Fine drop recovery in batch gas-agitated liquid-liquid systems

The hydrodynamics of batch gas-agitated liquid-liquid dispersions has received comparatively little attention in the open literature even though such systems arise in diverse contexts: batch pyrometallurgical processes, radioactive extraction processes and oil spills. Initially the two immiscible liquids form stratified layers. Liquid from the lower phase is then entrained into the upper phase in the form of small and large drops by gas bubbles passing through the liquid- liquid interface. At the end of a batch, gas agitation is stopped and the lower liquid phase drops suspended inside the upper liquid phase, separate under the influence of gravity. Fine drops separate slowly and consequently a small amount of the more dense liquid phase remains dispersed in the upper phase. For pyrometallurgical processes such as slag cleaning, long settling periods reduce equipment productivity and metal drops entrained in slag reduce metal yields. Both of these effects have sparked interest in slag cleaning and other remedial measures. In this work, mechanisms for the recovery of fine water drops suspended in a sunflower oil + decane solution by injecting large nitrogen gas bubbles into the dispersion at a low flux rate are assessed and it is shown how net rates of fine drop recovery can be enhanced by imposing circulation loops within the upper liquid phase that are oriented perpendicular to the liquid-liquid interface. Such loops are best generated through gas injection at or above the liquid-liquid interface. The primary mechanism for enhanced fine drop recovery, resulting from bubble injection, arises from improving drop liquid-liquid interface coalescence. Large drop-small drop coalescence is shown to be a secondary drop recovery mechanism. Bubble injection below the liquid-liquid interface, a frequently used industrial practice is not an optimal design option for exploiting these effects. Measurements of drop concentration in the upper liquid phase reveal that there is an optimum gas flux corresponding to the best fine drop recovery rate and that the optimum gas flux is a function of fine drop concentration. At the optimum gas flux 20-100 [mu]m diameter water drops are recovered at the approximately same rate. The overall rate of fine drop recovery is up to 4 times the rate obtained by gravity settling. The physics of fine drop movement and capture in the experimental flow field are modeled numerically. Key features such as the spacial distribution of fine drops and the evolution of a complex concentration distribution pattern over time are modeled qualitatively. The model provides clear explanations for the drop concentration maxima arising remote from the bubble street and near the centroid of the circulation loops, and provides a basis for the development of a more general fluid mechanic model for such flows. The importance of mixing in the bubble street, and the flow profile adjacent to the liquid-liquid interface is also elucidated.
Memory and justice in Argentina's dirty war, reading the limits of national reconciliation

The thesis considers the limits of the legal representational strategy in post-dictatorship Argentina. It sketches the ethical consequences of the seemingly benign suggestion, that the retelling of a traumatic event through the protocols of the law can provide a lesson that fosters national reconciliation. The apparent pedagogical "soundness" of transmitting the traumatic event, through legal commemoration, will be complicated by considering how the law is employed as a mechanism for bounding knowledge. Hence, the thesis will explore how in its desire to limit its own loss of legitimacy, the nation attempts to transcribe the traumatic event into a contained and exemplary legal narrative that privileges national reconciliation over all other concerns. A fundamental concern for the thesis is with how to pay attention to what remains on the way to reconciliation. This concern with what has been excluded, or repressed by the legal-narrative of the event, points to an ethical reading practice which is able to read the limits of representation. The thesis will unfold how this reading of the limits introduces a notion of "justice" which always exceeds and exposes the lack in any present norms or laws. Consequently, the thesis will ask what does this reading of the limits imply for the writing and transmission of history.
As we were, the force of memory, the requirements of allegory, and the conduct of time in Henry James

Henry James renders the crises that charge his late fiction in specifically temporal terms. Yet, while his most devoted readers' accounts of Jamesian time generally submit to the seductive appeal of linear, biographical, or aesthetic-spatial models, the texts themselves uniformly challenge the validity of these explanations. James may seem to direct us to heed the stark linearity of past, present, and future, to normalize fictional life so that it conforms to a biographical progression from birth to death, and to circumscribe the fullness of time's awful immensity with aesthetic metaphor. However, the challenge for James's readers is to recognize that such gestures are scrupulously subverted by the terms of their articulation, which insist that textual time operates allegorically. The force of memory relentlessly alienates James's characters, from origin and from intent, and inspires them to hope for the disjunction's resolution. Time, the force of this estrangement, demands patience and activates vexed faith, upon which allegorical meaning depends, as its only recompense. This study proceeds as a series of close readings of three major novels--' The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove' and 'The Golden Bowl'--in which James figures time's conduct as the inexorable activity of a memorial force and the performance of allegorical rhetoric. The dissertation engages James's writing in the light of structuralist and post-structuralist considerations of allegory, temporality, and mourning. Chapter One charts Isabel Archer's emergence as James's figure of the promise, strenuously resistant to time, transfixed by the purity of her potential. Chapter Two traces Kate Croy's blighted struggle--as the final word of her familial sentence, the figure of that sentence, and its grammar's victim--to fare down memory's force, to escape the inexorable haunting of a familial hex. Kate resolves to rescue 'Croy', a name meaning both faith and debt, itself an allegory of Jamesian time. The ultimate financial generosity of Milly Theale gives way, in this reading, to the dying American's ample power of temporal explanation. Chapter Three interrogates Maggie Verver's failure to disperse the claims of memory despite the destruction or suppression of its allegorical tokens.
Features of help and dyadic characteristics influencing the quality of helping relationships between older mothers and their adult daughters

The present study examined ideas about the help that adult children give to their parents, and investigated three aspects of the interpersonal relationship believed to promote positive helping exchanges. Participants included 44 older mothers and their adult daughters. The initial part of the study concerned mothers' and daughters' views about two features of help. First, participants were asked about the areas in which the mother would be open to receiving more help. Both mother and daughter reports suggested that mothers were more comfortable receiving social support than either advice or physical help. Second, participants were asked to evaluate how comfortable the mother would be with three ways of initiating help (mother asking for help, daughter offering help, daughter imposing help). Both groups of women reported that mothers would be most comfortable with the daughters offering help. However, mothers indicated they would be just as comfortable with the daughter imposing help as with an offer, but that they would be less comfortable with asking for help. In contrast, daughters felt their mothers would be just as comfortable asking for help as they would be with an offer, but stated their mothers would be less comfortable with them imposing help. The second part of the study investigated three interpersonal characteristics thought to be linked with positive helping relationships. The first was interpersonal control. It was found that mother and daughter feelings of lacking control were negatively correlated with both own and partner satisfaction. The second characteristic under study was perspective taking. Results indicated that for daughters, good perspective taking was associated more strongly with their own satisfaction than their mothers'. The opposite pattern was found for mothers: good perspective taking was linked to daughter satisfaction rather than their own. The third characteristic under study was attributional tendencies. In both a positive and negative ambiguous helping situation, dispositional and situational attributions for self and other were examined. Correlations indicated that attributions made about the partner were more strongly associated with mother and daughter satisfaction than attributions about the self. In particular, dispositional attributions made about the partner during negative situations showed strong relationships with both own and partner satisfaction.
Quantitative genetics of male-haploid organisms used for biological control

The theories and approaches in traditional quantitative genetics were expanded using the male-haploid parasitoid, 'Trichogramma minutum ' Riley (Hymenoptera, Trichogrammatidae) to address the observation that male-haploid species have low heterozygosity and a high evolutionary rate compared to diploid ones. Tile work demonstrates that 'T. minutum ' performs both out- and in- breeding but prefers to inbreed when free access to mates is provided. Both theoretical and empirical studies showed that genetic variability and evolutionary rate of male-haploid and diploid species is comparable, depending upon the founders, mating types, degrees of dominance, and allelic distributions. The adult females contributed more to the evolution of 'T. minutum' than haploid males, due to gene dosage compensation in the males, deleterious dominance in the females, and the selective disadvantage of heterozygous females. Polygenes, contributed to adult female longevity, fecundity, and sex ratio of the offspring by an additive-dominance or incomplete digene model, depending on founders and scales. Dominance was incomplete and unidirectional for shorter adult female longevity and lower fecundity but bidirectional for sex ratio of the offspring. Male-haploid organisms may evolve and maintain genetic variation in a population by the codominance fitness model with deleterious dominance. The quality of mass-reared parasitoids was measured and improved by a fitness component index and was not decreased inbreeding, natural selection, or random drift. Adult female longevity, fecundity, emergence, the number of females, the number of males, and sex ratio of the offspring were genetically correlated with each other. Genotypic stability varied over heterogeneous environments, genotypes and ages. Finally, maternal effects were shown for both fecundity and sex ratio of the offspring. Implications of the findings for massrearing of parasitoids in applied biological control programs are also discussed.