McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 2004

This study examines stress and distress experienced by working age individuals in the urban environment. The goals of this research are twofold: (1) to test for a social gradient in stress and distress; and (2) to test for environmental effects on the reporting of stress and distress, specifically focussing on variations in stress and distress across neighbourhoods in Montreal. Montreal was selected as the focus of this study because it is a large metropolitan region with some of the highest income disparities in Canada. Individual-level logistic regression models and multilevel analyses of the 2000/01 Canadian Community Health Survey were applied …  Read more

Water demand management attempts to balance the supply of and demand for water by controlling the competing water demands. It realizes the change by influencing peoples' behavior with respect to water use. Water demand management (WDM) is necessary in water scarce regions like Barbados. The Government of Barbados has recognized the need for WDM as demonstrated by the implementation of measures such as universal metering and water pricing. This research looks at the impact of water pricing and metering on residential water use in Barbados. Econometric demand models of residential water use are developed to assess the potential of pricing …  Read more

Iron is an essential element required by most organisms. To acquire iron, Gram-negative bacteria utilize siderophores; compounds that bind iron and form soluble complexes. Escherichia coli imports siderophores via specialized transport systems. A model siderophore receptor system requires the integral outer membrane (OM) receptor FhuA, which facilitates transport of hydroxamate siderophores ferricrocin (Fc) and ferrichrome. Transport of siderophores by FhuA to the periplasm and into the cell requires energy provided by the proton motive force and delivered by the cytoplasmic membrane protein complex TonB-ExbB-ExbD. Energy is transduced from this complex by protein-protein interactions between TonB and FhuA. Although this system …  Read more

The sharp decline of tariff trade barriers has been one of the achievements of the world trading system. However, the reduction in tariffs has exposed the many non-tariff barriers that remain. As tariffs continue to fall, there seems to be a corresponding reliance on SPS measures as a source of protection for domestic producers. This underscores the need for a legal framework that can address the fundamental issue of whether a measure validly exists to protect consumers or is merely a 'sham' to protect domestic producers. This thesis argues that the protectionist use of SPS measures undermines the promised benefits …  Read more

Suicide is a serious problem in our society with a high emotional, as well as financial, burden. Research has identified a number of risk factors for suicidal behaviour, including the presence of psychiatric diagnosis, and the comorbidity of psychiatric diagnosis. In particular, high lifetime aggression and impulsiveness have repeatedly been implicated as risk factors for suicidal behaviour, and have also been observed to cluster in families. This study investigates the phenotype of suicide completion through exploration of comorbid patterns of psychopathology and seasonality in order to gain a better understanding of possible subgroups of suicide completers, particularly with respect to …  Read more

Semantic trees have often been used as theoretical tools for showing the unsatisfiability of clauses in first-order predicate logic. Their practicality has been overshadowed, however, by other strategies though considerable effort has been made to improve semantic tree theorem provers over the last decade. In this thesis, we propose building a parallel system through the integration of semantic trees with resolution-refutation. The proposal comes from the observations that the appropriate strategy for one class of theorems is often very different from that for another class and many semantic trees tend to be linear. In the linear semantic tree, one of …  Read more

Three different types (A, B, and C) of bile salt hydrolase from different Bifidobacterium strains revealed during the purification study showed the type-specific characteristics in their electrophoretic migration and elution profiles from anion exchange and hydrophobic interaction chromatographic columns. The subunit molecular mass estimated by SDS-PAGE was around 35 kDa and the native molecular mass in all types of BSH was estimated to be between 130 and 150 kDa by gel filtration chromatography, indicating that all BSH enzymes have tetrameric structure. From the isoelectric focusing, pI value of 4.45 was obtained with type B, but type A and C BSHs …  Read more

Among the various fungal strains screened for citric acid production, Aspergillus niger is known to produce considerable amounts of citric acid and other organic acids when cultivated in carbohydrate-rich medium in solid substrate fermentation (SSF). Since A. niger on a solid substrate grows under conditions similar to the natural habitat, SSF is ideal to cultivate A. niger for the purpose of producing citric acid. An initial optimization (study 1) was conducted in batch type fermentation experiments using peat moss supplemented with glucose to simulate an organic waste. The effects of various nutrients (glucose, (NH4)2SO 4, KH2PO4 and NaCl), fermentation parameters …  Read more

Land-use change, and in particular tropical deforestation, is the leading cause of species extinctions globally, and is the second most important source of CO2 emissions after fossil fuel combustion. I examine two policy-relevant questions that relate to tropical deforestation and land use change: (1) At regional scales, what biophysical and infrastructure-related factors are associated with deforestation? and (2) At a local scale, what are some of the impacts of land use change on above- and below-ground carbon stocks and on tree-species richness? The first question was examined for the Brazilian Amazon through spatially-explicit correlation analyses of deforestation and a series …  Read more

The dissertation examines the establishment and strengthening of constitutional democracies during democratic consolidation from an institutionalist point of view. Focusing on Hungary and Poland, it examines how the right institutions can advance the creation and strengthening of a constitutional order. Among the institutions special attention is paid to the constitutional courts. The establishment and prominence of constitutional courts in most new democracies in East Central Europe fits into the general trend that was perceivable throughout Western Europe after WWII. The main rationale of these new institutions was to safeguard the democratic order from the return of authoritarianism. The main practical …  Read more

An increasing amount of evidence suggests that both cerebral hemispheres contribute to the comprehension of semantic relations. A literature review of language abilities after right hemisphere (RH) damage reveals abnormalities in the interpretation of lexical items that have alternate meanings (Chiarello, 1991). Two major theories have been proposed to account for the lexical-semantic deficits observed in RH damaged (RHD) individuals, namely the "suppression deficit" and the "coarse semantic coding" hypotheses. By exploiting the theoretical linguistic distinction of lexical ambiguity into homonymy, metaphor and metonymy, the present investigation attempts to directly contrast the predictions of the two hypotheses. To this end, …  Read more

Following the admonition to "think globally, act locally" has proven difficult. Discussions of sustainability often remain at a local level without addressing global sustainability and yet the need for local engagement is well demonstrated. Using the case of Montreal's West Island, two environmental information tools were created and then evaluated on their ease of development, ability to be publicly engaging and ability to link the local and global scales. The first tool was a GIS visualization of sub-municipal ecological footprints and the second was a more conventional GIS 'atlas'. Focus groups were used to test the two tools. The atlas …  Read more

Two issues related to osteoporosis are addressed. (1) To estimate the prevalence of osteoporosis in Canada. (2) To estimate the effect of initial bone mass on bone mineral density (BMD) decline rates over a period of three years. We employ data from the Canadian Multicenter Osteoporosis Study (Cantos), a prospective, fixed cohort study comprised of 9,423 randomly selected subjects from nine different regions in Canada. For the first objective, Cantos had a relatively low participation rate (42%), so that selection bias is a concern. The Cantos study design, however, included a brief risk factor questionnaire for those invitees that declined …  Read more

High temperature ultrasonic transducers (HTUTs) have been developed for non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of metals and on-line monitoring of industrial polymer processes at elevated temperatures. Developed HTUTs are two types; one is sol gel sprayed HTUTs and the other is a crystal of high Curie temperature permanently bonded onto a steel substrate by brazing or diffusion bonding. In sol gel method, piezoelectric powders were dispersed into sol gel precursor. Sol gel precursor of Al2O3, PZT or BIT, serves as adhesion material between powders, LT, PZT or BIT and a substrate to be coated. Spray technique was used so that thick films …  Read more

A number of conducting gesture analysis and performance systems have been developed over the years. However, most of the previous projects either primarily concentrated on tracking tempo and amplitude indicating gestures, or implemented individual mapping techniques for expressive gestures that varied from research to research. There is a clear need for a uniform process that could be applied toward analysis of both indicative and expressive gestures. The proposed system provides a set of tools that contain extensive functionality for identification, classification and performance with conducting gestures. Gesture recognition procedure is designed on the basis of Hidden Markov Model (HMM) process. …  Read more

In this thesis we study the simplest types of generalized Grassmann varieties. The study involves defining those varieties, understanding their local structures, calculating their Zeta functions, defining cycles on those varieties and studying their cohomology groups. We begin with the classical Grassmannian G( d, n) and then study a special type of the Grassmannian, namely the Lagrangian Grassmannian. For a field k and a subring R ⊂ End(kn) we study the generalized Grassmann variety G(R; d, n) which is the set of all d-dimensional subspaces of kn that are preserved under R. We study the local structure of the generalized …  Read more

This inquiry explores six Greek trilingual adults' perceptions about becoming and being trilingual. The six participants are "children of Bill 101", that is, as allophones (speakers of other languages than English and French) they were formally schooled in the French public school system. The participants received English instruction taught as a second language and attended Greek heritage language schools. I adopted a socio-cultural approach to learning, language and literacy and embraced the tenets of activity theory to describe the participants' development of culture and a trilingual identity. To understand how they came to develop cultural and linguistic skills in English, …  Read more

Background. Hospital performance indicators serve as a mechanism for making health care providers accountable to their patients. One indicator adopted by several jurisdictions is hospital mortality rates among patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Despite potentially serious repercussions poor results can have on how a hospital is judged, there remains considerable variation in the methods used to measure and compare this indicator. The purpose of this study is to estimate the extent to which methods used to define AMI mortality outcomes and to deal with transferred AMI patients impact on hospital performance ratings. Methods. Using Quebec's Med-Echo hospital discharge records …  Read more

The use of block codes is a well known error-control technique for reliable transmission of digital information over noisy communication channels. However, a practically implementable soft-input soft-output (SISO) decoding algorithm for block codes is still a challenging problem. This thesis examines a new decoding scheme based on the soft-output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) applied to a sectionalized trellis for linear block codes. The computational complexities of the new SOVA decoder and of the conventional SOVA decoder based on the bit-level trellis are theoretically analyzed and derived. These results are used to obtain the optimum sectionalization of a trellis for SOVA. The …  Read more

This thesis explores image compression based on visual information contained within the edges. This work is based on an observation that not all the information contained within an image is used by the human brain. Previous works demonstrate methods for reconstructing images adequately using edge information. We exploit the fact that some components of the image can be removed while having little effect on human perception: this is the key basis for the compression developed in this thesis. We first construct compression preserving all the edge information extracted from the image. We then consider the impact of removing some of …  Read more

Heme oxygenase-1 is a 32 kDa protein that catalyzes the degradation of heme to biliverdin in brain and other tissues. Our laboratory had previously reported significantly decreased HO-1 protein levels in AD plasma and CSF and HO-1 mRNA in AD mononuclear cells (which may be chemically unstable relative to the levels seen in normal elderly control (NEC) subjects). We hypothesized that there exists a heme oxygenase-1 suppressor (HOS) factor in the plasma of AD patients. Using a novel, glial-based bioassay, we showed that plasma HOS activity was detected in 23/24 AD patients, 3/8 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients and in …  Read more

The digestion (dehydration and dissolving), in a molten salt containing MgCl2, of partially hydrated MgCl2 in the form of 'prills' was visually observed. The 'prills' were prepared by Magnola Metallurgie Inc. Pictures of the digestion are presented and two types of bubbling behaviours were observed. It was concluded that the digestion process occurred in two steps: (1) dehydration/hydrolysis of prills in the solid state and (2) dissolution of the dehydrated products. Each step was accompanied by a distinctive bubbling behaviour as the gas products of the step were evolved. The type of bubbling behaviour associated with the first step was …  Read more

We study the polynomial solutions of the Lame differential equation Azy'' z+2Bz y'z+C zyz=0 where A(z), B( z), C(z) ∈ C [z] are polynomials of degree N + 1, N and N - 1 respectively. We review classical results concerning the location of the zeros of y(z) and C(z) and their electrostatic interpretation. Asymptotic distribution of the zeros as the degree K of y(z) approaches infinity is then discussed. We also derive numerical methods that allow us to compute solutions of high degree K and present a variety of new fine experimental results such as the asymptotic nearest neighbor spacing …  Read more

From our everyday life, we know that our hearts beat with a rhythm which is not perfectly periodic. Even an isolated spontaneously beating cardiac cell, devoid of neural, hormonal, and intracardiac regulatory input, does not beat perfectly regularly. I investigate the hypothesis that the beat-to-beat fluctuations in transmembrane potential of spontaneously beating cardiac cells are due to stochastic gating of the ionic channels in the cell membrane. Recordings of transmembrane potential from small clusters of spontaneously beating 7-day-old embryonic chick ventricular cells were analyzed to characterize the voltage waveform and the regularity of beating. I constructed a deterministic Hodgkin-Huxley-type ionic …  Read more

An exploratory, qualitative study on the experiences of Polish older adults who made a transition from independent living to an ethno-specific residential care facility in Toronto is presented. Using the framework of Continuity Theory of Aging, the impact of ethnic/cultural identity on the process of relocation and subsequent adjustment to a nursing home environment was investigated. A purposive sampling strategy was used to select 2 male and 4 female participants. The data was collected using long interviews that were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. The findings of this study indicate that the subjects employed specific coping strategies that stem from …  Read more

In this inquiry, I used a qualitative-portraiture approach to examine the social, cultural, and psychological influences on piano students' decisions to continue taking piano lessons. I collected data between 1997 and 2002. Data types included field notes, interpretive memos, audiotaped and videotaped piano lessons, audiotaped one-on-one interviews and retrospective interviews, email messages, and written documents. The main sources of data used for analysis were transcribed videotapes of piano lessons in the music studio and interviews with the teacher and three of her promising students. I drew on Vygotsky Halliday, and Wenger's theoretical frameworks to conceptualize my understanding of the social, …  Read more

Women made, and continue to make history in Point St. Charles, and in doing so, transform selves, groups and community. Building on the literature on class and gender in community organising, read through the conceptual lens of "translocational positionality" (Anthias, 2002a), I tell a story of the journeys of a group of ten women activists through four decades of neighbourhood organising. I show that although all the women were first involved in citizens' committees around practical needs such as housing, welfare, urban renewal and education, most of them, stimulated by feminist agitators in their midst, came to new awareness about …  Read more

We conducted a molecular epidemiologic study of tuberculosis (TB) transmission during the years 1996--98 on the Island of Montreal. By combining public health data on the 528 reported cases with IS6110 DNA fingerprints for 430, we detected an overall low frequency of transmission manifesting as secondary cases of active disease. We also identified an important sub-group of TB patients who harbour isolates with matching patterns. Depending on the matching criterion used we attributed between 6% (95% CI: 4, 9%) and 22% (95% CI: 18, 27%) of TB cases to recent transmission; the vast majority of active TB disease reflects infection …  Read more

A meaningful item, such as a word, object or face, that is unexpected in a given context, elicits the N400, an event-related potential (ERP) thought to index the amount of effort applied to integrate the item in its context. This N400 has repeatedly been found to be abnormal in schizophrenia (Sz) patients. Meanwhile, these patients are also deficient at maintaining context in mind, which, like the inability to integrate an item, can cause a comprehension deficit. The maintenance of context can be assessed by measuring another component of ERPs, the contingent negative variation (CNV). The CNV is evoked by a …  Read more

This study investigated the effects of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) therapy following partial arthroscopic meniscectomy surgery on swelling, perceived pain, range of motion at the knee joint, isokinetic strength, and leg function. Subjects were 8 males and 1 female with an acute tear to the meniscus. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a control group (n = 5) or an HBO2 treatment group (n = 5). The HBO 2 group received 5 HBO2 treatments at 2.5 ATA for 90 minutes at 95% O2 beginning 24 hours post-operation. Both groups were tested pre-operation (day 0) and on days 1, 2, 3, 4, …  Read more

This thesis proposes a software model for a multiprocessor system, which is targeted for SoC implementation. The proposed design is based on the two-level ring architecture adopted in the NUMAchine multiprocessor developed at University of Toronto. The proposed system reconsiders the interconnect design alternatives for smaller design area and energy consumption. The system uses an alternative memory architecture to reduce logic complexity, as well as a different deadlock prevention scheme to reflect changes in memory architecture. The software model is implemented in the SystemC modeling language, which allows high-level behavior modeling to reduce both the development time and the simulation …  Read more

This thesis examines the predictive ability of models for forecasting inflation and financial market volatility. Emphasis is put on evaluation of forecasts and the usage of large data sets. Variety of models are used to forecast inflation, including diffusion indices, artificial neural networks, and traditional linear regressions. Financial market volatility is forecast using various GARCH-type and high-frequency based models. High-frequency data are also used to obtain ex-post estimates of volatility, which is then used to evaluate forecasts. All forecast are evaluated using recently proposed techniques that can account for data snooping bias, nested, and nonlinear models.  Read more

Kura clover was successfully established via sod-seeding in different environments. Its establishment and yields were initially inferior to that of red clover and white clover. But, its presence slowly increased in the sward and, by the first harvest of the second post seeding season, it was yielding significantly more than the legume species presently recommended for pastures. Clover establishment increased with increasing intensity of herbicide suppression. Best overall results were obtained with glyphosate at low rate (0.8 kg a.i. ha-1). Paraquat (0.9 kg a.i. ha -1) did not suppress sufficiently the grass population for clovers to establish while glyphosate applied …  Read more

My interest in studying neurodegenerative models of illness lies primarily in the need to define human personhood over the progressive and often irreversible experience of dementia. Here, I analyze, challenge, and ultimately move beyond purely functional theories of personhood, which are necessarily exclusive in their reduction of the human person to a mere demonstration of capacity (for rationality, self-consciousness, suffering, or otherwise) that is inversely proportional to neuropathology. Bringing to the fore important contributions from both secular philosophical thought and the Abrahamic faith traditions, I argue that functional perspectives neglect the psychosocial, spiritual, and biographical dimensions of personhood, which must …  Read more

The main goal of this thesis was to enhance understanding of potentially offensive sexual behaviors that occur among adolescent peers. Sexual behaviors were divided into three categories: moderate---did not involve physical touching; severe non-coercive---involved physical touching without the use of coercion; and severe coercive---included physical touching that involved the use of coercion. The first manuscript examined the incidence and tolerance of potentially offensive sexual behaviors and results were comparable to those found in previous studies on peer sexual harassment among adolescents. Boys tended to perpetrate moderate behaviors to both boys and girls, whereas severe behaviors were perpetrated by other-sex peers. …  Read more

The Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (1609, 1611, 1612, 1617, 1618) by Marc Lescarbot (v. 1570--1641) is read as a symbolic foundation for the young colony of Port-Royal, Acadia (Annapolis, Nova Scotia), a construct which functions as a valid genesis for French America (thus, "New France" in the title refers specifically to this habitation as well as to the men who contributed to its making). Chapter I is devoted to a reading of the work's abundant paratext and identifies the topics at stake in the unfavourable rumours about the Acadian expeditions as well as about the lieutenant of Port-Royal, Jean de …  Read more

This master's thesis is entitled "Nietzsches Philosophie der Dekadenz in Thomas Mains Roman Der Zauberberg. Zu Rationalitat, Metaphysik and Erziehung." It focuses on Mann's treatment of Nietzsche's critiques of rationality, metaphysics and education. It is argued that the characters Settembrini and Naphta, who attempt to educate the main character, Castorp, personify Nietzsche's critiques of rationality and metaphysics, and their interweavement, as both rely on a common feature: belief. As a reaction to this confusion, the relativistic approach of Castorp increases and leads him to passivity and indifference. The failure of his education evokes Nietzsche's critique of an education which does …  Read more

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent form of arthritis. It is a disabling condition that mostly affects the elderly with huge costs to society. Estimating the prevalence of OA is important for planning health services, for creating programs aimed to prevent OA disability and for assisting patients living with these disabilities. Several authors have attempted to estimate the prevalence of OA using data obtained from self-report questionnaires or administrative databases. Self-report questionnaires are prone to recall bias and estimates from administrative databases have relied solely on diagnostic codes, that can sometimes be inaccurate. If data from three presumed conditionally independent …  Read more

Parison length control in extrusion blow molding of plastic parts has been studied and attempted for the past quarter-century. Most methods used involve cycle-to-cycle control where the next part shows an improvement over the previous one using either weight measurement of the part or a simple photocell initiating the cutting of the parison. In the present thesis, plant models are developed using a control engineering technique called system identification. Since the process model thus determined is based on experimental data, sag and swell of the parison are implicitly taken into account. Furthermore, an in-cycle robust controller is designed and simulated …  Read more

Co-channel interference is the main source that limits the performance in a cellular network. Accurate interference estimation is useful for resource allocation, network planning and performance assessment in cellular systems. If the individual interference power caused by a single interferer can be approximated by a lognormal distribution due to the predominant effect of shadowing, evaluation of the total interference distribution boils down to the problem of the sum of lognormal distributed random variables. However, the problem of the sum of independent lognormal distributions is well known to be difficult due to the non-existence of closed form expressions. Many approximation methods …  Read more

This project examines the 'mother-writer problem' within contemporary Canadian fiction by women. Using three novels that tell the story of a mother who is also a writer, Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, Audrey Thomas' Intertidal Life and Carol Shields' Unless, I will outline the manner in which the roles of mother and writer are negotiated by the authors and their central characters. Further, I will investigate how creating a narrative about a female artist who is also a mother challenges and changes the structure and content of the standard female kunstlerroman. Finally, this thesis will attempt to determine how or if …  Read more

Climate change and warming have been linked to enhanced coastal erosion in the arctic. Specifically, permafrost is believed to be thawing at greater rates, and wave dynamics are expected to increase in intensity. As a result, thermokarst activity, which includes the occurrence of retrogressive thaw slumps, will be more frequent along arctic coasts. The availability of airborne and spaceborne imagery in the arctic over the last fifty years has made possible the temporal analysis of permafrost and ground ice-related erosion. The objectives of this thesis are (1) the creation of a large scale database for horizontal coastal retreat on Herschel …  Read more

This thesis presents a novel approach to active visual recognition whereby a sensor is guided towards the acquisition of a small set of observations from which to perform a recognition task accurately. The key contribution of the proposed approach is that the computational cost of observation selection is significantly lower than with current approaches presented in the literature. First, a probabilistic approach to the fusion of data obtained from multiple observations is presented. This approach works by recursively updating probabilities associated with each hypothesis, taking into account the different sources of uncertainty as well as the dependencies between the observed …  Read more

Any attempt at extracting information about a three dimensional scene from an image or image sequence is inherently ill-posed. This is due to the large amount of information that is lost in projecting a three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional sensor. One way to retrieve some of this lost information is to have many cameras covering overlapping regions of the scene, in the hopes of retrieving complementary information, which can be combined to form a more accurate whole. However, as the number of cameras grows, it becomes infeasible to have all the raw video feeds treated by a central processor. Our …  Read more

Trans-activation response (TAR) RNA-binding protein (TRBP), is a cellular protein that binds to the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) TAR RNA and activates viral expression. TRBP also binds the interferon induced, double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase, PKR, that exerts antiviral activities. Activated PKR inhibits translational initiation by phosphorylation of the alpha subunit of the eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIf-2alpha). TRBP blocks the inhibitory effects of PKR, whereas PKR activating protein (PACT), another cellular protein, heterodimerizes with and activates PKR in vitro and in vivo in the absence of viral infection. TRBP and PACT are highly homologous but have opposite effects …  Read more

During recent years, industry has increasingly focused on knowledge processes. Similar to traditional or manufacturing processes, knowledge processes need to be managed and controlled in order to provide the expected results for which they were designed. During the last decade, the principals of process management have evolved, especially through work done in software engineering and workflow management. Process monitoring is one of the major components for any process management system. There have been efforts to design process control and monitoring systems; however, no integrated system has yet been developed as a "generic intelligent system shell". In this dissertation, an architecture …  Read more

Mutant quaking viable mice (qkV) develop a tremor phenotype in their hind limbs 10 days after birth, likely resulting from severe myelination defects. Genetically, quaking viable mice contain a deletion in the promoter/enhancer region of the quaking gene. The quaking gene is alternatively spliced, producing QUAKING isoforms that differ in their C-terminal amino acid sequence. The QKI-5 isoform is nuclear, whereas the QKI-6 and QKI-7 isoforms are predominantly cytoplasmic. The QKI isoforms contain a single KH RNA-binding domain, which suggests a role in RNA metabolism. Although the dysmyelinating phenotype of the mutant mice suggests a role in myelination, the function …  Read more

Collector interaction with mineral surfaces has long been studied. Little work has been done, however, on directly quantifying reagent adsorption, certainly under industrial process conditions. The use of a novel surface analysis technique, Headspace Analysis Gas-phase Infrared Spectroscopy (HAGIS), is suggested for quantification of adsorbed reagents in mineral processing. As a first exercise, a test system of xanthate adsorption onto lead sulphide minerals was studied. A survey of possible calibration standards (pure xanthate, a synthetic lead-xanthate, galena (PbS) and a lead sulphide ore conditioned with xanthate) resulted in linear curves for all four cases. The quantification of isopropyl xanthate adsorption …  Read more

Research into the divergent results achieved by developing countries has traditionally been separated into two distinct approaches. While some scholars have attributed failures to weak governance at the national level, many others have criticised the pursuit of a narrow set of pre-defined liberal market reforms. Using the experiences of China and Botswana as case examples this research moves beyond the limitations of existing explanations to examine the necessity for both national accountability and contextualised policy making. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the connection between good governance and substantive human development indicates that while national accountability is vital, the individual circumstances …  Read more

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children and adolescents with a family history of premature cardiovascular disease (CVD) and/or parental total cholesterol (TC) ≥6.2 mmol/L be screened for hypercholesterolemia. Questionnaires (from children and parents), clinical and blood sample data were collected in a provincially representative sample of 9-, 13-, and 16-year-olds (n = 2217) in Quebec to evaluate the usefulness of parental history (PH) of CVD and/or parental hypercholesterolemia to screen youth for raised low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Mean bias assessed by an external laboratory gold standard ranged from 1.0% to 2.1%, -0.4% to 5.1%, and -1.4% to …  Read more