VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Studying Physical Properties at the Nano-scale: Thin Films, Nano-particles and Molecules

Nanomaterials have been shown to be useful for many applications. The characterization of nanomaterials is a crucial step in understanding how to control their performance to tailor their properties for desired applications. In this thesis, several nanomaterials were studied using various methods, in an effort to characterize their properties. In the first chapter, the initial growth steps of nanometer thick polyelectrolyte film, grown layer-by-layer, were studied using Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy. The initially small domains grew with each added layer. Surface potential contrast enabled the visualization of these domains far beyond the point where no topographical variation was visible. In the second and third chapters, the potential of using collapsed-polymer nanoparticles as a carrier platform for active chemicals was studied using dye molecules as probes. Two methods were implemented, spectroscopy and isothermal titration calorimetry. Following the measurements, a binding model was proposed, which also provided thermodynamic quantification of the binding process. In the fourth chapter, an atomic force microscope probe holder was custom designed and built to enable characterization of the probes using scanning electron microscopy in an effort to facilitate specific identification of composite collapsed-polymer nanoparticles using tip-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy. In the fifth chapter, an ultra high vacuum gas dosing attachment was custom designed and built to enable a study of self-assembly of organic molecules on silicon surface. Pulse dosing was found to affect the self-assembled pattern on the surface. In the final chapter, the surface halogenation of copper surfaces was studied using a scanning tunneling microscope. The reaction was induced by an electron pulse. The scattered halogens, dissociated from the initial molecule, provided information regarding the reaction dynamics of the process.

Keywords: isothermal titration calorimetry
layer by layer film
nanoparticles
polyelectrolyte
scanning force microscopy
spectroscopy
Advisor: Goh, Cynthia
Developmental Control Throughout the Budding Yeast Life Cycle by Jhd2, a JARID family Histone H3 Lysine 4 Demethylase

Histone H3 lysine 4 methylation (H3K4me) is a well-studied chromatin modification that is associated with active transcription; however, its physiological roles are not well understood. The importance of maintaining proper H3K4 methylation dynamics is underlined by the fact that H3K4 methyl transferases and demethylases control the balance between pluripotency and differentiation across eukaryotes, and their misregulation is associated with oncogenesis in mammals. My research contributed to the conclusion that the budding yeast JARID1 family H3K4 demethylase, encoded by

Keywords: chromatin
gametogenesis
histone methylation
mitochondria
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
transcription
Advisor: Meneghini, D Marc
Characterizing the Role of Nanoparticle Design on Tumor Transport and Stability in the Extracellular Environment

Nanotechnology has emerged as an exciting strategy for the delivery of diagnostic and therapeutic agents into established tumors. Advancements in nanomaterial synthesis have generated an extensive number of nanoparticle designs made from different materials. Unfortunately, it remains impossible to predict a design's effectiveness for

Keywords: Aggregation
Cancer Cell
Microfluidics
Nanoparticle
Protein Corona
Tumor-on-a-Chip
Advisor: Chan, C.W. Warren
Post-Conflict Afghanistan: A Post-Colonial Critique

AbstractThis dissertation responds to a growing body of literature that points to a crisis in post-conflict aid interventions. These complex, costly and risky international undertakings have not only failed to produce desirable results, but have left efforts to effectively and successfully restructure post-war states and societies an elusive goal. Focusing on Afghanistan, I offer a postcolonial analysis to unmask and interrogate the underlying knowledge base and institutionalized sets of power relations that govern post-conflict reconstruction and statebuilding interventions in the country. Therefore, this study is preoccupied with not only what we in the west are doing wrong in Afghanistan, but why we are there, how we perceive ourselves and Afghans as well as the way we work and the kinds of relations that are fostered.This study argues that one can detect the continuity of a colonial worldview in modern statebuilding practices in Afghanistan. As such, interventions primarily rekindle and reassert the west's own sense of meaning and purpose in the country, ensuring that westerners, and not necessarily Afghans, are the primary beneficiaries of post-conflict interventions and that westerners are never made to feel `out of place' in Afghanistan. Interventions, therefore, construct an outwardly oriented state, responsive to the desires and needs of the international community, rather than being inwardly oriented and responsive to the needs, expectations and lived realities of the majority of Afghans. To substantiate this claim, this dissertation focuses on the concepts of colonial ambivalence and mimicry as well as terra nullius in order to unmask some of the hidden, obscure and implicit assumptions, ideas, values and relations that underpin externally facilitated interventions in Afghanistan.

Keywords: Afghanistan
Peacebuilding
Post-Colonial Theory
Post-Conflict Reconstruction
Statebuilding
Advisor: Mojab, Shahrzad
Personal and Social Responsibility Through Game Play:Utilizing the Teaching Games for Understanding Teaching Model

The Teaching Games for Understanding instructional model (TGfU), which was specifically created for physical education, enables students to explore their understanding of game-like situations and the tactical decisions they will have to make within game play. Thus, this learner-centred approach to games within physical education teaches students not only to understand how to be physical game players, but also how to execute appropriate decisions cognitively. With affective research lacking within the TGfU forum, it is the intention of this research study to directly embed a specific affective instructional model within a game-based TGfU context. Using Hellison's Levels of Personal and Social Responsibility (PSR) within the context of the TGfU instructional model, the purpose of this qualitative multi-case study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a hybrid instructional model on the development of personal and social responsibility behaviours (Respect, Participation, Self-Direction, and Caring) in grade seven students within an invasion/territory games environment. Three grade seven classes from a large middle public school in lower mainland British Columbia were invited to participate. A total of 58 students, 30 males and 28 females, were taught an 8-lesson invasion/territory games unit through one of three instructional models (hybrid, TGfU or Mr. A's way). Through analysis of student journal entry responses as well as observational field notes and unstructured interviews with the physical education teacher, all three cases provided six meaningful findings: developing personal and social responsibility behaviours, perceived responsibility, all about the game, irresponsibility in action, a positive learning environment, and a learned response. Based on the study's findings, recommendations for future research include studying the longitudinal impact hybrid instructional games teaching could have on our students' lives and studying the impact on effective questioning within our physical education environments.

Keywords: Adolescence
Affective Domain
Invasion Games
Personal and Social Responsibility
Teaching Games for Understanding
Advisor: McDougall, Douglas
Sub-Diffraction Imaging using Superoscillatory Electromagnetic Waves

This thesis presents an investigation on imaging beyond the diffraction limit with superoscillatory electromagnetic waves. It begins with a survey on sub-diffraction imaging, which motivates the need for a new sub-diffraction imaging device which is free from drawbacks in devices which have heretofore been proposed. This work addresses this need through the design and demonstration of superoscillatory wave-based focusing and imaging devices. Through establishing a relationship between superoscillation and superdirectivity, a design procedure is formulated whereby antenna array theory is leveraged to design 1D and 2D superoscillatory waves. These waves are then physically synthesized or implemented as a filter in focusing and imaging systems at frequencies ranging from microwave to optical. Experimental characterization of these systems has led to successful demonstrations of sub-diffraction focusing and imaging, with working distances orders of magnitude farther than most other electromagnetic wave-based sub-diffraction imaging devices. In particular, the Optical Super-Microscope which achieves far-field sub-diffraction focusing has attractive merits to become a tool for general-purpose sub-diffraction optical microscopy. An investigation has also been conducted on superoscillatory waves in the time domain, which has resulted in the first reported demonstration of a superoscillatory temporal waveform, as well as a demonstrated improvement of radar range resolution beyond the Fourier transform limit.

Keywords: Antenna Arrays
Electromagnetics
Imaging
Microscopy
Superoscillation
Superresolution
Advisor: Eleftheriades, V. George
Understanding the Experience of Mentor Teachers as Teacher Leaders in a Secondary School Context

Recognition that beginning teachers require ongoing support in their first year of teaching gave rise to Ontario's New Teacher Induction Program which started in September of 2006. This program created a new role for classroom teachers to become informal teacher leaders as they support beginning teachers. Although numerous studies explore pre-service candidate experiences and responses to their induction, few examine the perspective of school-based mentors who repeatedly support novice teachers following the pre-service program. This study focuses the lens on mentors and gives voice to their experiences and perspectives. In so doing, it explores supports that influence mentor understanding and enactment of their role as teacher leaders, describing mentor orientations towards learning to teach, and illustrating how mentors interpret and implement this induction policy. It highlights mentor practices including the costs and benefits of performing their role as educational companions, decoders of instructional practice, local and transitional guides, professional interpreters, and agents of change.This qualitative study explores educational reform through the lenses of teacher leadership, mentoring, and educational change implementation through semi-structured interviews with 17 secondary school mentors who support beginning teachers as part of this provincial new teacher induction program in one urban district in the province of Ontario, Canada. Findings from this study inform policy developers, teacher educators, school and district leaders, and researchers providing insight into mentor interactions and contributions as participants in the induction of new teachers.

Keywords: Educational Change
Education Policy
Mentoring
New Teacher Induction
Teacher Leadership
Advisor: Anderson, Stephen
Understanding The Teacher Performance Evaluation Process From The Perspective of Jamaican Public School Teachers

UNDERSTANDING THE TEACHER PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROCESS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF JAMAICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS Teacher performance evaluation continues to be one of the most contentious processes within the formal education system. Through its dual purposes of development (formative evaluation) and accountability (summative evaluation), many teachers still express fear and anxiety of the process, while others are welcoming of a standard process of evaluation and the ability to receive feedback on their work. Before 2004 there was no official system of teacher performance evaluation in Jamaica. Many principals had created their own system of evaluation and others had used bits and pieces of programs they got from textbooks printed either in the United Kingdom or North America. Many teachers and school administrators had no idea as a new teacher, what teacher evaluation was used for, who should do it and how it should be done. In 2004 the Ministry of Education introduced a standard teacher performance evaluation system to be used in all public schools. This study investigates teachers' perceptions of and experience with the Jamaican Ministry of Education, teacher performance evaluation process established in 2004 to determine the effectiveness of the system. This qualitative research engaged fifteen (15) trained teachers from across the island of Jamaica teaching in various public schools. The data was gathered through face-to-face interviews. Analysis of the data revealed that teachers see the value in teacher performance evaluation. They understand that teacher performance evaluation can provide both opportunities for individual teacher growth and development, and at the same time holding teachers accountable. The present teacher performance evaluation system is being performance with high levels of variation in schools. The cycle/steps are being adjusted, modified, simplified, ignored, and changed by individual school administrators based on their understanding of the process, dedication to the process, ability to conduct teacher performance, training received and time constraints. Teachers revealed the ways in which the present teacher performance evaluation system have obstructed or supported their work, the problems they have with the present system and the implications for teacher growth and development. The present Jamaican teacher performance evaluation system does have the potential to impact teacher development, support teachers' work, holding teachers accountable, and influencing student achievement and school-wide effectiveness, if carried out properly by administrators who are equipped with the necessary skills, if teachers are educated on the purpose of teacher performance evaluation and how it can support their work and if done in an environment that trust, collegiality and collaboration.

Keywords: Evaluation
Evaluators
Feedback
Jamaica
Jamaican
Performance
Advisor: Ryan, Jim
Transgenic Expression of Accessory Hemicellulases in Arabidopsis and Impact on Fibre Chemistry, Fibre Processing, and Plant Gene Expression

Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin are the main structural biopolymers in plant cell walls. Intermolecular linkages between these biopolymers contribute to the recalcitrant nature of lignocellulosic biomass, which reduces the economic feasibility of producing renewable fuels, chemicals, and biomaterials from this resource.The overall aim of the current Ph.D. thesis was to constitutively express microbial hemicellulases that targets linkages between cell wall components in Arabidopsis thaliana, and evaluate the impact of transgene expression on fibre chemistry, processing, and plant transcript profiles. In total, 24 microbial transgenes encoding 10 enzymatic activities were transferred to arabidopsis. Transgenic arabidopsis expressing a Phanerochaete carnosa family 15 glucuronoyl esterase (PcGCE) was selected for detailed characterisations.Transgenic plants that constitutively expressed PcGCE consistently displayed a leaf yellowing phenotype. The cell wall in the interfascicular fibre of the transgenic line was thinned by approximately 50%, and the glucose and xylose content of the transgenic lines were reduced by as much as 30% and 35%, respectively. Histological and FT-IR microspectroscopy analyses revealed altered accessibility of xylan binding antibodies and less cross-linked lignin. Xylan recovery from transgenic stems also improved up to 15%.The transcriptome of arabidopsis transgenic lines expressing PcGCE revealed elevated transcript abundance of genes associated with plant defense response. In contrast, overall, the transcript abundance of secondary cell wall biosynthesis genes were similar between wild-type and transgenic plants.

Keywords: Arabidopsis thaliana
Cell wall
Glucuronoyl esterase
Hemicellulose
Transgenic expression
Advisor: Master, R Emma
Dissolution of Si in Molten Al with Gas Injection

Silicon is an essential component of many aluminum alloys, as it imparts a range of desirable characteristics. However, there are considerable practical difficulties in dissolving solid Si in molten Al, because the dissolution process is slow, resulting in material and energy losses. It is thus essential to examine Si dissolution in molten Al, to identify means of accelerating the process.This thesis presents an experimental study of the effect of Si purity, bath temperature, fluid flow conditions, and gas stirring on the dissolution of Si in molten Al, plus the results of physical and numerical modeling of the flow to corroborate the experimental results. The dissolution experiments were conducted in a revolving liquid metal tank to generate a bulk velocity, and gas was introduced into the melt using top lance injection. Cylindrical Si specimens were immersed into molten Al for fixed durations, and upon removal the dissolved Si was measured. The shape and trajectory of injected bubbles were examined by means of auxiliary water experiments and video recordings of the molten Al free surface. The gas-agitated liquid was simulated using the commercial software FLOW-3D. The simulation results provide insights into bubble dynamics and offer estimates of the fluctuating velocities within the Al bath.The experimental results indicate that the dissolution rate of Si increases in tandem with the melt temperature and bulk velocity. A higher bath temperature increases the solubility of Si at the solid/liquid interface, resulting in a greater driving force for mass transfer, and a higher liquid velocity decreases the resistance to mass transfer via a thinner mass boundary layer. Impurities (with lower diffusion coefficients) in the form of inclusions obstruct the dissolution of the Si main matrix. Finally, dissolution rate enhancement was observed by gas agitation. It is postulated that the bubble-induced fluctuating velocities disturb the mass boundary layer, which increases the mass transfer rate.Correlations derived for mass transfer from solids in liquids under various operating conditions were applied to the Al-Si system. A new correlation for combined natural and forced convection mass transfer from vertical cylinders in cross flow is presented, and a modification is proposed to take into account free stream turbulence in a correlation for forced convection mass transfer from vertical cylinders in cross flow.

Keywords: Al-Si alloys
Dissolution
Mass transfer
Single-phase flow
Two-phase flow
Advisor: Bussmann, Markus
Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, Deviations: The Fictitious Letter used as a Tool to Provoke Erroneous Interpretations in Seventeenth Century Novels and Plays

This thesis studies the role of fictitious letters in seventeenth century theatrical plays (Bajazet, Iphigénie, Bérénice, Dom Garcie de Navarre, L'École des femmes, Le Misanthrope) and novels (La Princesse de Clèves, Les Désordres de l'amour, Le Portefeuille). The role of letters is influenced by a number of factors that further modify the interpretations made by readers both fictional and empirical. By retracing the paths travelled by letters from their authors (senders) to their desired readers (receivers), we focus on studying the contents of the letters, paying close attention to the functions of language with which they are associated. We then analyze what we have termed the reception of these letters, showing the multiple ways they are diverted from their original paths, which then play a decisive role in creating miscommunication, misunderstandings and erroneous interpretations of their contents.This study highlights the dramatic force of fictitious letters which cause misunderstandings and confusion amongst characters when they are deviated from their desired paths. We then examine how interpretations are made based on the idea that a reader has of the known author, or that the author has of their intended reader, which we correlate with two fundamental concepts: the prisms of writing and reading, which seem to be the source of miscommunication and misunderstandings that arise amongst characters. This confusion is often due to missing elements in the composition of a letter, such as the name of the sender or the name of the intended receiver. Finally, we show that these letters are most often written by women as a means of expression, which then puts into question their privacy.The use of a fictional letter as a device to create misunderstandings within works momentarily threatens classical ideological factors such as the clarity of language, rationality and reason; however, in the cases we analyze, it does not prevent the eventual triumph of order.

Keywords: erronée
fictives
interprétation
lettres
péripéties
quiproquos
Advisor: Elkabas, Charles
Pre-service and Experienced Early Childhood Educators' Perceptions of Their Work with Families.

Family involvement in children's early education has been associated with advantages for both children and parents (Corter Pelletier, 2005). Although the outcomes of family involvement in child care settings have not been documented to the same extent as in school settings, there is growing evidence to suggest that children, families and childcare staff all benefit from these partnerships (Ghazvini Readdick, 1994; Owen, Ware Barfoot, 2000). Early childhood educators (ECEs) in Canada and around the world are expected to establish partnerships with families and family involvement in child care has been extolled as a pillar of high quality child care (Mathers, Eisenstadt, Sylva, Soukakoukou Ereky-Stevens, 2014; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2006; 2012). In spite of this, there is evidence to suggest that these partnerships may not be routinely established (Howe, Jacobs, Vukelich Recchia, 2013; Perlman Fletcher, 2012). While it seems reasonable to suppose that the challenges of establishing partnerships between child care staff and families are multiply determined, the two papers presented in this dissertation focused on the prior experiences, perceptions and motivations of 432 pre-service and 30 practicing ECEs. The first study examined the influence of pre-service ECEs' biographical experience of parent involvement on their perceptions of parent and ECE knowledge, the importance and feasibility of variety of family involvement activities and their level of preparation for these activities. The second study explored soon-to-graduate ECE students' and experienced ECEs' motivation to work with families, the qualities and skills they valued and what, specifically, they thought parents and ECEs knew about child development and learning. Results indicated that pre-service ECEs' biographical experience of parent involvement was related to their perceptions of parent knowledge, and their cohort (beginning or graduating) was associated with their perceptions of the importance of parent involvement activities. Although virtually none of the participants' motivation to enter the field was directly related to supporting families, the qualities and characteristics they generally valued were those necessary for establishing partnerships with families. These findings underscore the need for further research on the influence of ECE training in relation to services for families.

Keywords: biographical experience
early childhood educators
family involvement
parent-teacher communication
pre-service training
prior beliefs
Advisor: Corter, Carl