VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Nontechnical Skills in Postgraduate Surgical Education

Background: Surgeons’ nontechnical skills are critical for patient safety in the operating room (OR) and have been included in resident training requirements. The optimal approach to their training and assessment though is unknown. The goal of this thesis was to develop a structured approach to the training and assessment of nontechnical skills in surgical education. Methods: Objectives were: (1) to establish the prevalence of nontechnical training components in postgraduate curricula; (2) to develop a reliable tool for the criterion-referenced assessment of residents’ nontechnical performance; (3) to determine surgical residents’ innate nontechnical skills and how these relate to personality; (4) to evaluate the effectiveness of a strategy for competency-based training of nontechnical skills in surgical residency. Results: (1) One-third of responding residency programs reported nontechnical training components; (2) the Objective Structured Assessment of Nontechnical Skills (OSANTS) tool was developed to assess resident-specific skills. Good psychometric properties were demonstrated, both in simulation and in the real OR; (3) large inter-individual differences in nontechnical performance were found among 31 junior surgical residents. Some variability could be explained by personality traits; (4a) a basic skills curriculum was evaluated in a randomized trial. Curriculum trained first-year residents (n=11) outperformed conventionally trained peers (n=11) in knowledge and attitudes about nontechnical skills. Curriculum-trained residents’ performance in a simulated OR improved significantly from baseline to post-training (OSANTS: (median 23(interquartile range 17-28) vs. 31(25-33), p=0.012), while conventionally trained residents did not improve (OSANTS, 26(24-32) vs. 24(23-32), p=0.713); (4b) In an interrupted time-series study, observed nontechnical performance of senior residents (n=11) in the OR improved significantly following one debriefing and feedback session. Conclusion: Based on the results, a combined approach to nontechnical education in surgical postgraduate education is proposed, with a basic skills curriculum in the first year, and debriefing and feedback in formative assessments throughout residency training.

Keywords: competency-based education
Nontechnical skills
patient safety
surgical education
teamwork
Advisor: Grantcharov, Teodor P
The Influence of Nonverbal Communication Processes in String Quartet Performance

The Influence of Nonverbal Communication Processes in String Quartet Performance Caitlin Boyle Doctorate of Musical Arts Graduate Department of Music University of Toronto 2015 Abstract Nonverbal processes play a significant role in the musical communication that takes place between ensemble musicians during performance. This dissertation focuses on players in professional string quartets, whose artistic goal is a collective interpretation of a pre-composed musical score. In this study I focus on nonverbal communication realized through physical gesture, eye contact, breathing, and sound as fundamental aspects involved in string quartet coordination of synchronization and expression. As such, I position various forms of nonverbal communication as foundational to string quartet interaction and also draw from theories of interaction and gesture to enhance and support my investigation. The purpose is to isolate specific qualities and functions of these various nonverbal modes, and analyze how they are influenced by one another and how they work together or independently from one another. Some primary issues that are addressed include: the nature of the information being shared between co-performers; the correlation of nonverbal processes to those of “spontaneous musical variation” during performance; the impact of familiarity between players; examination of the reception of nonverbal communication as a competence; and how leadership is navigated in the context of string quartet performance. In order to help address these issues I draw critically on my own experiences as a string quartet performer, record and analyze videos of professional string quartet performances, and interview members of the groups. Key findings are the importance of the different levels of perception within vision and sound, and their interaction with breath and gesture in helping instigate sound and movement within this context. Understanding the complex interactions of elements was aided by theorizing the idea of the different functions of modes and channels of sensory reception utilized in nonverbal communication, and the application of concepts such as multi-functionality, anticipatory auditory imagery, inter-reaction, and empathetic creativity as a means of coordinating and inspiring players during performance. This thesis hopes to increase the chamber musician’s understanding of the multiple ways in which these processes can be used, and outlines the most useful ways in which these processes can be applied during the moment of performance.

Keywords: gesture
interaction
leadership
nonverbal communication
performance
string quartet
Advisor: Packman, Jeff
Elliott, Robin
LegUp: Open-source High-level Synthesis Research Framework

The rate of increase in computing performance has been slowing due to the end of processor frequency scaling and diminishing returns from multiple cores. We believe the industry is heading towards heterogeneous computing, an accelerator era, where specialized hardware is harnessed for better power efficiency and compute performance. A natural platform for these accelerators are field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are integrated circuits that can implement large custom digital circuits including complete system-on-chips. However, programming an FPGA can be an arduous undertaking even for experienced hardware engineers. We propose raising the abstraction level by allowing a designer to incrementally move their design from a processor to a set of hardware accelerators, each automatically synthesized from a software implementation. This dissertation describes LegUp, an open-source high-level synthesis (HLS) framework that enables this new design methodology. We further present novel improvements to the quality of the synthesized circuits when targeting FPGAs. First, we present the LegUp high-level synthesis framework with an overview of our design flow. The software is unique among academic tools for offering a wide support of the ANSI C software language, for targeting a hybrid processor/accelerator architecture, and for being open-source. We also show that the quality of results produced by LegUp are competitive with a commercial HLS tool. Next, we present an FPGA architecture-specific HLS resource sharing approach. Our technique multi-pumps high-speed DSP blocks on modern FPGAs by clocking them at twice the system clock frequency. We show that multi-pumping can reduce circuit area without impacting performance. Following this, we describe a novel loop pipeline scheduling algorithm. Our approach handles complex constraints by using a backtracking method to discover better scheduling possibilities. This scheduling algorithm improves throughput for complex loop pipelines compared to prior work and a commercial tool. Finally, we examine LegUp's target memory architecture and describe how to partition memory within the circuit hierarchy using information from compiler alias analysis. We also present a method to efficiently use the block RAMs present in modern FPGAs by grouping memories together. These techniques decrease memory usage and improve performance for our HLS-generated circuits.

Keywords: Computer Aided Design
Electronic System Level Design
FPGA
High-Level Synthesis
Loop Pipelining
Multi-pumping
Advisor: Anderson, Jason H
Brown, Stephen D
Victorian Girls and At-­home Theatricals: Performing and Playing with Possible Futures

During the long nineteenth century, amateur, juvenile at-home theatricals were a popular pastime in English middle-class homes. The scripts, the process of “getting-up” a play, and opportunity to perform a variety of historical, fairy tale, and “Oriental” characters offered young people, especially girls, opportunities to act agentically, to explore alternate identities, and to imagine possible futures for themselves that went beyond the conventional expectations for Victorian girls. These performances were especially potent in the mid- to late- nineteenth century because at that time social, political, legal, education, and career opportunities for girls were frequently challenged and gradually changing: at-home theatrical experiences encouraged and enabled girls to push at the increasingly porous boundaries that contained their daily lives. I focus on English scripts (1850 and 1910) published for the young people’s home market, related fiction and newspaper articles, and a range of diaries, letters, memoirs, playbills, and juvenile newspapers written by children for their families. Methodologically, following Doreen Massey (2005) and Rebecca Schneider (2005), I adopt a fluid conception of space and time in order to employ late twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship on girls, especially in drama education settings (Gallagher 2001; Hatton 2013; Neelands and Nelson 2013). Although girls today cannot speak for located Victorian middle-class girls, recent experiences help to inform how nineteenth-century girls’ performer and spectator experiences might have stretched their imaginations regarding desirable identities and futures. I lean on the following theoretical lenses: Jill Dolan’s “utopian performatives” (2006); object and thing theory (Robin Bernstein 2011; Bill Brown 2001; Andrew Sofer 2003); feminist reinterpretations of Orientalism and connections between adolescence and race (Nancy Lesko 2012). The analysis demonstrates that playwrights used their scripts as vehicles to challenge and discuss contemporary socio-political issues, and through theatricals girls could expand their imaginations regarding their identities and their own futures.

Keywords: Amateur Theatre
Girlhood
Hope
Identity
Juvenile Theatre
Nineteenth-Century Theatre
Advisor: Gallagher, Kathleen M
Professional Learning in Informal Online Environments: Examining Elementary Teachers’ Cognitive Processes and Learning Experiences as They Navigate a Professional Development Website

This thesis is comprised of two studies. The first is a mixed methods study comparing three types of think aloud methods for examining elementary teachers’ cognitive processes as they use a multimedia professional development website. Forty-five elementary teachers were assigned to one of three think aloud conditions—concurrent, retrospective, and virtual revisit. Participants in the concurrent condition verbalized their thoughts while simultaneously navigating the website for 20 minutes; participants in the retrospective condition verbalized their thoughts immediately following their 20-mintue navigation without any aids; and participants in the virtual revisit condition verbalized their thoughts while viewing a screen recording of their 20-minute navigation. Results revealed differences (p

Keywords: online professional development
teacher cognition
teacher learning
teacher professional development
think aloud methodology
Advisor: Willows, Dale M
Identification and Validation of Candidate Soluble Biomarkers for Psoriatic Arthritis Using Quantitative Proteomics

There is a high prevalence of undiagnosed PsA in psoriasis patients; therefore identifying soluble biomarkers for PsA will help in screening psoriasis patients for appropriate referral to a rheumatologist. Potential PsA biomarkers likely originate in sites of inflammation, such as inflamed joints and skin, and subsequently enter systemic circulation. Therefore, we aimed to discover novel biomarkers, to facilitate PsA recognition in psoriasis patients. To achieve this objective, quantitative proteomic analyses of synovial fluid (SF) samples and skin biopsies obtained from PsA patients were performed. SF was obtained from swollen knee joints of 10 PsA patients, and age/sex matched early osteoarthritis (OA) controls. Likewise, skin biopsies were obtained from involved and uninvolved skin of 10 PsA, and 10 age/sex matched psoriasis patients without PsA (PsC). Using strong cation exchange chromatography, followed by tandem mass spectrometry, we characterized the proteomes of pooled SF and pooled skin samples. Extracted ion current intensities were used to calculate protein abundance ratios, and utilized to classify upregulated proteins. Selected reaction monitoring assays were developed to quantify these potential PsA markers in individual patient samples. Verified markers were subsequently measured in serum samples from 100 PsA, 100 PsC patients, and 100 healthy controls, using commercially available or in-house developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. We quantified a total of 443 and 1922 proteins in SF and skin extracts, respectively, but only 17 proteins represented upregulated proteins in PsA SF, while 47 proteins were specifically elevated in PsA-derived skin. SRM verification confirmed that 12 and 8 proteins were indeed elevated in an independent set of PsA SF and involved PsA skin, respectively. Based on the fold change between PsA and controls, the associated P-values, and the cellular localization, we ranked the proteins, and selected the following putative markers for validation in the serum - M2BP, CD5L, MMP3, CRP, MPO, and ITGB5. Increased levels of CRP, M2BP, MMP3, and ITGB5 were independently associated with PsA, when compared to PsC. ROC analysis of this model showed an AUC of 0.851 [95% CI (0.799, 0.904)]. Thus, serum CRP, M2BP, and ITGB5 are potential biomarkers of PsA in patients with psoriasis.

Advisor: Diamandis, Eleftherios P.
Changing Behaviors One Passionate Conversation at a Time: How Speakers’ Passion about Issues Influence Listeners’ Support

My dissertation investigates how and why passion helps people obtain support from others for issues that are important to them. Passion is an intense positive feeling about a specific issue that is important to an individual’s identity. I argue that speakers’ passion increases listeners’ support (i.e., listeners’ active participation and involvement in the issues that speakers promote) when the listeners’ epistemic motivation is lower, because listeners catch and subsequently act on the passion that speakers express. I also propose that passion decreases listeners’ support when the listeners’ epistemic motivation is higher, because listeners pay close attention to arguments, and arguments are less compelling when speakers feel passion. I test the propositions in observational and experimental studies. In Study 1A, I test whether passion exhibited by entrepreneurs on the television show Dragons’ Den is associated with venture capitalists’ investment in their companies, and find that the association between speakers’ passion and listeners’ support is positive, and only when listeners’ epistemic motivation is lower rather than higher. In Study 1B, I explore mechanisms that may explain the results in Study 1A and find that perception that speakers stand for their principles mediates the conditional association between speakers’ passion and listeners’ support. In Study 2, I test the causal effects of speakers’ passion and listeners’ epistemic motivation in a 2 x 2 between-person experimental design. Contrary to expectation, there were no effects of the interaction between speakers’ passion and listeners’ epistemic motivation on listeners’ support or on perceptions that speakers stand for their principles. Overall, my dissertation suggests that speakers’ passion does not always result in positive outcomes and identifies when speakers’ passion facilitates listeners’ support and when it does not. Contributions to the literature on passion in organizations and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: Emotions
Entrepreneurship
Epistemic Motivation
Passion
Positive Affect
Advisor: Côté, Stéphane
Jacques Derrida and the Theologico-political Complex

This dissertation investigates the relationship between the theological and the political in the contemporary predicament by exploring the undervalued political thought of Jacques Derrida. It examines the complex interaction between religion and politics, especially as it relates to political authority and community by also paying attention to the conceptions of language and time at work in the political understandings of and normative responses to cultural and religious diversity. Through a close reading of Derrida’s work on language, time, religion and politics, I argue that his political thought offers significant resources to re-think the theologico-political relationship in more complex and critical ways, especially beyond the radical separation between religion and politics so common in the classical modern paradigm. The project’s central aim is two-fold: first, to offer a theoretical response to the empirical significance of religions in the public sphere by seeking to further the understanding of how the political and the theological interacts in politics; and second, to contribute to current debates on religion and politics in political theory as well as to Derrida scholarship by offering a politico-philosophical analysis of how his view of the theologico-political relates, in its various ramifications, to political foundations.

Keywords: democracy
Derrida
messianic
secular
theologico-political
translation
Advisor: Cahmbers, Simone
Word Order and Information Structure in Finite Verb Clauses in Hellenistic Period Hebrew

This study investigates the relationship between word order and information structure in finite verb clauses in three ancient Hebrew texts from among the Dead Sea Scrolls—the Community Rule, the War Rule, and the Habakkuk Pesher. An excursus provides a separate treatment of Daniel 8–12. The theoretical linguistic foundations of the study are rooted in generative linguistics, especially the work of J. Uriagereka and N. Erteschik-Shir. The Early Immediate Constituent Theory of J. Hawkins also plays an important role. The emphasis is on syntactic structures where word order is flexible in order to investigate the effect of variation on information structure. The basic word order of subject and verb is indeterminate, and therefore it is not possible to know whether SV or VS order is marked (although the tendencies of each order are nonetheless clear). However, it is simple to determine that the basic word order of verb and object is VO. Deviations from the basic VO order can be explained using three structures: left-dislocation of a shift topic; fronting of a Topic (whether a shift topic, contrastive constituent, or restrictive constituent); and fronting of a non-Topic (whether a cleft constituent or a constituent that opens the clause-final attentive focus position for a different constituent). The largest clause-level constituent is normally placed in clause-final position in order to satisfy the EICT.

Keywords: dislocation
fronting
Hebrew
linguistics
Qumran
syntax
Advisor: Holmstedt, Robert D
The Role of Rac and Filamin A in Osteoclast Function and Osteoclast Heterogeneity

Osteoclasts are multinucleated cells that resorb bone and carry out their function via a dynamic actin cytoskeleton that is regulated by Rho GTPases. Rho GTPases function as molecular switches that regulate the actin cytoskeleton in osteoclasts and many other cell types. A Rac GTPase validation experiment was used to prove that osteoclast function is best characterized through three-dimensional (3-D) volumetric analysis of resorption pits (Rpits). The success of this method prompted us to measure Rpits in osteoclasts lacking actin binding protein Filamin A (FLNA), which interacts with Rho GTPases to regulate osteoclast formation (osteoclastogenesis (OCG)) and function. It was observed using this technique that FLNA-knock-out (KO) osteoclasts were smaller and produced shallower Rpits compared to WT osteoclasts. Using an osteoporosis model as well as in vivo techniques measuring bone material, structural and mechanical properties, it was demonstrated that FLNA knockout (KO) bones were protected from post-menopausal osteoporosis associated with estrogen depletion. FLNA-KO cortical bones were also found to be more ductile than WT cortical bones. The discrepancy between bone behavior in vertebrae vs. femora in FLNA mice triggered the question as to whether osteoclasts behave differently depending on the skeletal site from which they originated. The osteoporosis model, resorption pit method and aforementioned in vivo techniques with the exception of bone mechanical properties were used to determine whether osteoclasts and bone turnover differed between the cranial and appendicular skeletons. Calvarial bone displayed higher turnover rates compared to long bone and mandibular bone. The novel in vitro 3-D method, characterization of FLNA in vivo and the assessment of osteoclasts arising from different bone locations were executed to provide more insight into the development of pharmacotherapeutics to better manage pathological bone loss.

Keywords: Bone
Mice
Osteoclasts
Advisor: Glogauer, Michael
Grynpas, Marc
Factors Motivating Sikh Canadian Youth to Become Involved in the Khalistan Movement

The purpose of the study was to catalogue and analyse factors that motivate Canadian Sikh youth in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to become involved with the Khalistan movement. Two research questions were posed: (1) How does the Khalistan movement serve to order and manage intra-Sikh relationships, primarily those involving young people, in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario? (2) How does the Khalistan movement manage the Sikh identity vis-à-vis the non-Sikh realities of India and Canada? Using the theoretical frames of symbolic interactionism, functionalist homeostasis, and, to a lesser extent, postcolonial theory, applied through a case study method, three main conclusions were reached. The first finding of the study was that family influences solidified Khalistan-involved youth’s attitude of differentiation from other Canadians. Personal identity interpretations led Khalistan-involved Sikh youth to develop and reinforce a sense of differentiation from other Canadians. Khalistan thus provided an important pivot of differentiation for these participants. The second finding of the study was that participation in Khalistani movements was discovered to be a means for men to build a masculine Sikh identity in interaction with each other, women to build a general social identity based on interactions with each other, and men and women to interact with each other on the basis of collective socio-religious identity exploration and affirmation. Participation in Khalistani movements also came to be understood as a means of expression and differentiation for Sikhs that identified as Sikh only, or Sikh and Canadian, or Canadian only. The study presented a general sociological model for understanding the politicised actions of immigrant youth in Canada.

Keywords: Khalistan
Sikh Youth
Advisor: Olson, Paul