Digital Commons Network^™

Genome Profiling Of Two Strains Of The Green Alga Chlamydomnas Raudensis, Rajesh Kumar Gupta

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Chlamydomonas raudensis Ettl consists of two strains, SAG 49.72 and UWO 241. They have identical Internal Transcribed Spacer sequences and are thus considered to belong to the same species, even though they are geographically separate and physiologically and biochemically very distinct. Using the technique of random amplification of polymorphic DNA to measure the extent of genome polymorphism, the aim of this research was to estimate the similarity of the nuclear genomes of the two strains. The analysis shows that the two strains only share approximately 10% of the total number of amplicons. Surprisingly, the data also indicates, indirectly, that the …

Characterization Of The Circadian Properties Of Runt-Related Transcription Factor 2 (Runx2) And Its Role In The Suprachiasmatic Nucleus, Meghan E. Reale

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Circadian rhythms orchestrate physiological, behavioral and cognitive processes in order to anticipate and adapt organisms to key environmental cues. These endogenously driven oscillations are generated by a network of interlocked auto-regulatory transcriptional-translational feedback loops driven forward by the Bmal1/Clock heterodimer transcription factor. Given the ubiquitous and dynamic quality of circadian rhythms, the identification of factors involved in the coordination and regulation of the endogenous oscillations is central in broadening our understanding of biological timing systems. In an examination of gene expression in the mammalian central circadian pacemaker, the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), revealed a previously unreported rhythmic expression of runt-related …

The Effect Of Dendritic Cell Mobilization On Cd8+ T Cell Responses To Influenza A Virus, Adil N. Shivji

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Influenza A viruses (IAV) cause respiratory infections with potentially catastrophic consequences. Neutralizing antibodies towards surface proteins of IAV prevent reinfection. However, mutations in these proteins allow the virus to evade these antibodies. Enhancing cytotoxic T cell-mediated immunity has been proposed as an attractive strategy to combat flu. Recombinant human FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (FL) is known to mobilize dendritic cells (DCs) in mice. Given that DCs are the most potent antigen-presenting cells, I hypothesized that their mobilization by FL will improve the CD8+ T cell response to IAV. Quantification of CD8+ T cell responses to IAV epitopes by intracellular …

Self-Reported Racism, Transphobia, Their Intersection And Impact On Past-Year Hiv Related Sexual Risk Behaviour, Roxanne M. Longman Marcellin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Background: Studies examining HIV prevalence and risk behaviors within trans subgroups have identified them as high risk. Yet few studies have addressed how discrimination impacts this prevalence. Minority stress theory suggests that there is a relationship between minority stress and HIV-related risk behaviour. We hypothesize that multiple minority statuses may result in discriminatory experiences, specifically self-reported transphobia and racism in synchrony with other attributes, that interact to alter past-year HIV-related risk behaviour.

Methods: Data came from the Trans PULSE project, a mixed-methods, community-based research study that used respondent-driven sampling to access 433 trans Ontarians, between May 2009 and …

Upheaval Buckling Of Offshore Pipelines In Homogeneous And Layered Soils, Porang Deljoui

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Offshore oil and gas pipelines are commonly buried below the seabed to provide environmental stability and protection. Many of these pipelines are prone to upheaval buckling following burial. Soil failure mechanisms can extend to the surface (shallow) or remain localised within the soil body (deep); the exact conditions that cause this transition are currently unclear. In very weak soils, rock fill or sand berms are added to the surface of the completed trench after burial, to increase the required pull-out capacity. Despite a relatively large body of research existing in the literature, much confusion still exists as to the appropriate …

Phosphotyrosine Recognition Domains: The Typical, The Atypical And The Versatile, Tomonori Kaneko, Rakesh Joshi, Stephan M. Feller, Shawn S.C. Li

Paediatrics Publications

SH2 domains are long known prominent players in the field of phosphotyrosine recognition within signaling protein networks. However, over the years they have been joined by an increasing number of other protein domain families that can, at least with some of their members, also recognise pTyr residues in a sequence-specific context. This superfamily of pTyr recognition modules, which includes substantial fractions of the PTB domains, as well as much smaller, or even single member fractions like the HYB domain, the PKC and PKC C2 domains and RKIP, represents a fascinating, medically relevant and hence intensely studied part of the cellular …

Automatic Assessment Of Cardiac Left Ventricular Function Via Magnetic Resonance Images, Mariam Afshin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Automating global and segmental (regional) assessments of cardiac Left Ventricle (LV) function in Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) has recently sparked an impressive research effort, which has resulted a number of techniques delivering promising performances. However, despite such an effort, the problem is still acknowledged to be challenging, with substantial room for improvements in regard to accuracy. Furthermore, most of the existing techniques are labour intensive, requiring delineations of the endo- and/or epi-cardial boundaries in all frames of a cardiac sequence.

On the one hand, global assessments of LV function focus on estimation of the Ejection Fraction (EF), which quantifies how …

Stable Isotopes And Xrd Investigation Of Gold Mineralization At The Syenite-Hosted Young-Davidson Deposit, Matachewan, Ontario, Niloufar Naderi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Young-Davidson mine is a syenite-hosted orogenic gold deposit at the western end of the Cadillac-Larder-Lake deformation zone in the southern Abitibi greenstone belt, Canada. This study utilized oxygen isotopes to assess the sources of the fluids and evaluate the role of magmatic and metamorphic fluids in gold mineralization. XRD analyses completed on whole-rock powder samples combined with petrography provides a better understanding of the distribution, timing, and nature of alteration patterns and their relationship to gold mineralization.

Temperatures calculated from mineral separates oxygen isotope thermometry indicate the fluids ranged from approximately 322 ± 25° to 431 ± 30°C. The …

Estimating Subsurface Anisotropy: Combining Waveform Tomography And Simulated Annealing, Michael Victor Afanasiev

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Crosshole seismic tomography has been used by Vale to provide geophysical images of mineralized massive sulphides in the Eastern Deeps deposit at Voisey's Bay. High resolution seismic images are presented by applying acoustic waveform tomography to these data. In waveform tomography, an initial model is required which predicts the first arrival traveltimes to within a half-cycle of the lowest frequency in the data. Because seismic velocity anisotropy can be significant, the initial model must quantify the anisotropy, as well as the velocity, in order to meet the half-cycle criterion.

In our case study, difficulties were encountered in generating an accurate …

Structural Insights Into Group 14 Compounds From Solid-State Nmr Spectroscopy, Margaret A. Hanson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, the potential utility of solid-state NMR spectroscopy to provide insights into the structure and bonding of organogermanium and tin compounds is examined. Germanium-73 is an extremely challenging nucleus to examine due to multiple unfavourable NMR properties. However, the great utility of silicon-29 NMR spectroscopy suggests that ⁷³Ge could be a valuable tool for structural characterization.

Initial investigations focused on a series of simple organogermanes as benchmarks for future investigations. Compounds with known X-ray structures were used to determine an effective method for density functional theory calculations. That methodology was then further employed to propose structures for …

Near-Wake Flow Dynamics Of A Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine, Pooyan Hashemi Tari

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Experiments have been conducted in a large wind tunnel set-up in order to study the flow structures within the near-wake region of a horizontal axis wind turbine. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) has been employed to quantify the mean and turbulent components of the flow field. The measurements have been performed in multiple adjacent horizontal planes in order to cover the area behind the rotor in a large radial interval, at several locations downstream of the rotor. The measurements were phase-locked in order to facilitate the re-construction of the three-dimensional flow field. Acquiring uniform particle distribution in the measurement planes as …

Properties And Applications Of Sensory Outcome Measures In Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Derek Km Cheung

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis aimed to determine the psychometric properties and applications of sensory threshold tools and outcome measures in patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). The first chapter is a psychometric study that defines clinically important difference (CID), construct validity and responsiveness of touch and vibration threshold tools and in the Symptoms Severity Scale (SSS). The study found the CID for the PSSD and for the SSS was 0.15g/mm² and 0.50 respectively. The study also found that the Vibrometer was more representative of hand function and responsive compared PSSD. The second objective of this thesis was to determine the feasibility …

The Role Of Aldhhicd44+ Cells In Breast Cancer Metastasis And Therapy Resistance, Alysha K. Croker

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Breast cancer is a leading cause of death in women, due primarily to ineffective treatment of metastatic disease. Despite being a lethal process, metastasis is surprisingly inefficient, with less than 0.5% of cancer cells able to successfully navigate the metastatic cascade, indicating that only a small proportion of cancer cells possess the necessary characteristics to establish metastases. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have recently been identified in leukemia and solid tumors; however, the role of CSCs in breast cancer metastasis and therapy resistance remains poorly understood. Sub-populations of cells demonstrating stem-cell like characteristics (high expression of CSC markers and/or high ALDH …

Peptide-Mediated Targeting Of Angiogenesis For Molecular Imaging And Treatment Of Cancer, Choi-Fong Cho

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The development of screening approaches to identify novel affinity ligands has paved the way for a new generation of molecular targeted nanomedicines. To identify novel targeting ligands, several studies have demonstrated the advantages in screening one-bead-one-compound (OBOC) libraries. Conventional methods typically bias the display of the target protein to ligands during the screening process. We have developed an unbiased multiplex ‘beads on a bead’ strategy to isolate, characterize, and validate high affinity ligands from OBOC libraries. In addition, due to the advantages associated with screening OBOC libraries directly against living cells, we sought to combine cell-based screen methods with automated …

Comprehensive Assessment Of Cnv Calling Algorithms: A Family Based Study Involving Monozygotic Twins Discordant For Schizophrenia, Sujit Maiti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Genetic variability is essential to human individuality. Genetic variation includes differences in sequence at the single nucleotide level to structural variations of large segments of DNA called copy number variations (CNVs). CNVs within a genome can be identified using microarray technology; however, the analysis of microarray results resulting in the “calling” of CNVs is not always precise. The research included in this manuscript describes the identification and analysis of CNVs using three commercially-available packages, Affymetrix^® Genotyping Console^TM, Partek^® Genome Suite^TM and PennCNV, that are most commonly used in the analysis of SNP and CNV data. …

Effect Of Liquid-Solid Contact On Thermal Cracking Of Heavy Hydrocarbons In A Mechanically Fluidized Reactor, Mitesh C. Chaudhari

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The aim of the thesis was to study the effect of liquid-solid contact on the thermal cracking of heavy hydrocarbons carried out in Fluid Cokers. The research has been carried out using a Mechanically Fluidized Reactor (MFR) in which the operating conditions of the Fluid Coking^TM reactions can be simulated and monitored. The first part of the research, aimed at investigating the effect of agitation on liquid-solid contact, which was carried out by changing the rotation speed of the agitator of the MFR for both non-reactive as well as for reactive systems. In both situations, it was observed that …

Association Between Corticosteroids And Infection, Sepsis, And Infectious Death In Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia (Aml): Results From The Canadian Infections In Aml Research Group, David Dix, Sonia Cellot, Victoria Price, Biljana Gillmeister, Marie Chantal Ethier, Donna L. Johnston, Victor Lewis, Bruno Michon, David Mitchell, Kent Stobart, Rochelle Yanofsky, Carol Portwine, Mariana Silva, Lynette Bowes, Shayna Zelcer, Josée Brossard, Jeffrey Traubici, Upton Allen, Joseph Beyene, Lillian Sung

Paediatrics Publications

Background. Infection continues to be a major problem for children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Objectives were to identify factors associated with infection, sepsis, and infectious deaths in children with newly diagnosed AML.Methods. We conducted a retrospective, population-based cohort study that included children ≤18 years of age with de novo, non-M3 AML diagnosed between January 1995 and December 2004, treated at 15 Canadian centers. Patients were monitored for infection from initiation of AML treatment until recovery from the last cycle of chemotherapy, conditioning for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, relapse, persistent disease, or death (whichever occurred first). Consistent trained research associates …

Reduced Translocation Of Cadmium From Roots Is Associated With Increased Production Of Phytochelatins And Their Precursors, Mst. Fardausi Akhter, Brian Mcgarvey, Sheila Macfie

Biology Publications

Cadmium (Cd) is a non-essential trace element and its environmental concentrations are approaching toxic levels, especially in some agricultural soils. Understanding how and where Cd is stored in plants is important for ensuring food safety. In this study, we examined two plant species that differ in the distribution of Cd among roots and leaves. Lettuce and barley were grown in nutrient solution under two conditions: chronic (4 weeks) exposure to a low, environmentally relevant concentration (1.0 μM) of Cd and acute (1 h) exposure to a high concentration (5.0 mM) of Cd. Seedlings grown in solution containing 1.0 μM CdCl …

Fast Absolute Quantification Of In Vivo Water And Fat Content With Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Yifan Cui

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Quantitative water fat imaging offers a non-invasive method for monitoring and staging diseases associated with changes in either water or fat content in tissue. In this work absolute water and fat mass density measurement with in vivo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is demonstrated. T₁ independent, T₂^* corrected chemical shift based water-fat separated images are acquired. By placing a phantom with known mass density in the field of view for signal intensity calibration, absolute water or fat mass density can be computed, assuming the B₁⁺ (transmit) and B₁^- (receive) fields can be measured. Phantom …

Automatic Classification Of Epilepsy Lesions, Junwei Sun

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Epilepsy is a common and diverse set of chronic neurological disorders characterized by seizures. Epileptic seizures result from abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Seizure types are organized firstly according to whether the source of the seizure within the brain is localized or distributed. In this work, our objective is to validate the use of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) for localizing seizure focus for improved surgical planning. We apply computer vision and machine learning techniques to tackle the problem of epilepsy lesion classification. First datasets of digitized histology images from brain cortexes of different patients are obtained …

Crystal Structure And Al/Si Cation Ordering In "Fassaite": A Combined Single Crystal, 27al And 29si Nmr Study, Monika M. Haring

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Al-,Ti-rich diopside, referred to herein as fassaite, occurs in both terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. The composition of fassaite, Ca(Mg,Al)(Si,Al)₂O₆, makes it ideal for Al/Si cation ordering studies. In this study, crystal XRD, ²⁷Al and 29Si MAS NMR as well as ²⁷Al 3QMAS NMR is used to study cation ordering in extraterrestrial fassaite from Allende CAIs and a terrestrial analogue from Fassa Valley Italy. From ²⁷Al and ²⁹Si spectroscopy, fassaite from Allende CAIs is found to have more local Al/Si cation ordering than terrestrial Fassaite. Both terrestrial and extraterrestrial have C2/c …

Interpretation Of The French And Spanish Subjunctive By L1, L2, And L3 Speakers: Contexts Where Mood Can Alternate Without Ungrammaticality, Audrey K. Restorick Elordi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis looks at how factors such as cross-linguistic transfer affect the degree of attainment of one morphosyntax-pragmatic interface phenomenon in particular: the subjunctive in French and Spanish in contexts where mood can alternate without ungrammaticality.

According to Quer (1998), such contexts present variation amongst native speakers (NSs). In order to identify the external and internal factors that govern this variation, we asked our control groups, 43 NSs of French and 22 NSs of Spanish, to fill out a linguistic profile and a scenario selection task. 36 L1 English speakers completed these same tasks in addition to a linguistic background …

The Cost Of Ethanol Synthesis During Recovery From Exhaustive Exercise In Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon Idella), Simon A. Bradford

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) reduce white muscle glycogen (~14 µmol glucosyl units/g wet tissue) in response to exhaustive exercise. This reduction results in a small increase in muscle lactate (~9 µmol/g wet tissue) and a larger increase in muscle ethanol (~30 µmol/g wet tissue). Tissue-specific and whole-body measures of glycogen, ethanol and lactate confirm that ethanol is the major “anaerobic” glycolytic end-product. Additionally, while peak muscle and blood ethanol levels occur immediately post-exercise, the excretion of ethanol to the environment is delayed, occurring over a 30-minute period beginning ~105 minutes following exercise. As the total amount of ethanol …

Examining Assistive Technology Use, Self-Concept, And Motivation, As Students With Learning Disabilities Transition From A Demonstration School Into Inclusive Classrooms, Gabrielle D. Young

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Provincial demonstration schools provide specialized programs for students with learning disabilities and provide a supportive environment where students learn about their learning disabilities and how they learn best. Embedded within subject area instruction, these schools provide intensive training on the use of assistive technology. This mixed methods study followed 12 students (8 males and 4 females between 14 and 16 years of age) and their parents in order understand students’ transition from a demonstration school into high schools, their assistive technology use in both school environments, and how these environments may have impacted their self-concept and school motivation. Participants reported …

System Of Terrain Analysis, Energy Estimation And Path Planning For Planetary Exploration By Robot Teams, David C. Michel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

NASA’s long term plans involve a return to manned moon missions, and eventually sending humans to mars. The focus of this project is the use of autonomous mobile robotics to enhance these endeavors. This research details the creation of a system of terrain classification, energy of traversal estimation and low cost path planning for teams of inexpensive and potentially expendable robots.

The first stage of this project was the creation of a model which estimates the energy requirements of the traversal of varying terrain types for a six wheel rocker-bogie rover. The wheel/soil interaction model uses Shibly’s modified Bekker equations …

Parents' Perceptions Of Activity Restrictions In Children With Epilepsy: First Two Years Post-Diagnosis, Nathan C. King

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Children with epilepsy are less physically and socially active than their peers. The objective is to explore whether parents represent a barrier to children’s activity, by examining associations between child and family factors and parents’ perceptions of epilepsy-related activity restrictions. Data were from the Health Related Quality of Life in Children with Epilepsy Study, a longitudinal study of children 4-12 years old with new-onset epilepsy. Parents reported on activity restrictions and family factors and neurologists reported on epilepsy-related characteristics at baseline, 6, 12, and 24 months. Linear mixed models were used to model relationships among child and family factors and …

Cerebellar Degeneration In Harlequin Mice Is Associated With Inflammation Unaltered By Low-Dose Phenobarbital Treatment, Anita Prtenjaca

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Canadian population demographics are shifting to an increase in aged individuals and an increase in the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases. The post-mitotic nature of most neurons highlights the need to understand the etiology and early mechanisms in neurodegenerative diseases and design targeted therapies. Currently, the etiologies of neurodegeneration are poorly understood but oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation are early mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. An anti-aging strategy that can be adapted for use in neurodegeneration is hormesis, where repeated low-level exposures to stressors are beneficial to the cell. Hormesis has demonstrated efficacy in inhibiting …

The Role Of Ca2+/Calmodulin Dependent Protein Kinase Ii Alpha In Group 1 Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Endocytosis And Signalling, Stephanie C. Kulhawy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Group 1 metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR1 and mGluR5) are G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) activated by glutamate. mGluR1/5 couples to Gα_q/11 and releases Ca²⁺ from the endoplasmic reticulum. Ca²⁺/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II alpha (CaMKIIα) can be activated by Gα_q/11-mediated Ca²⁺ release through binding of Ca²⁺/calmodulin. Results from a proteomic screen identified CaMKII as a novel mGluR-interacting protein. Therefore, we hypothesized that CaMKIIα associates with group 1 mGluRs and this association alters mGluR1/5 signalling and internalization. Firstly, we demonstrated the novel association between CaMKIIα and mGluR1/5 by co-immunoprecipitation of transiently transfected proteins in …

Automatic Foreground Initialization For Binary Image Segmentation, Wei Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Foreground segmentation is a fundamental problem in computer vision. A popular approach for foreground extraction is through graph cuts in energy minimization framework. Most existing graph cuts based image segmentation algorithms rely on user’s initialization. In this work, we aim to find an automatic initialization for graph cuts. Unlike many previous methods, no additional training dataset is needed. Collecting a training set is not only expensive and time consuming, but it also may bias the algorithm to the particular data distribution of the collected dataset. We assume that the foreground differs significantly from the background in some unknown feature space …

An Outcome-Based Approach For Ensuring Regulatory Compliance Of Business Processes, Quanjun Yin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In service industries, such as healthcare, catering, tourism, etc., there exist regulations that require organisations’ service comply with the regulations. More and more regulations in the service sector are, or are aimed to be, outcome-focused regulations. An outcome prescribed in the regulation is what users should experience or achieve when the regulated business processes are compliant. Service providers need to proactively ensure that the outcomes specified in the regulations have been achieved prior to conducting the relevant part of the business or prior to inspectors discovering noncompliance. Current approaches check system requirements or business processes, not outcomes, against regulations and …