McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 2007

This thesis examines the theology of pregnancy within the Eastern Orthodox Church. In particular, it explores the understanding of the pregnant body as an image of the church, as well as the Orthodox view of biological pregnancy. Drawing upon some patristic sources, as well as the writings of contemporary Orthodox theologians including John Zizioulas, John Breck and Vigen Guroian, it reveals that, though the Orthodox Church opposes abortion, this opposition cannot be grounded in an appeal to the idea of the "rights of the foetus." This is because an emphasis upon the individual's "rights" undermines much of the Eastern Church's …  Read more

Cette thèse contribue à l'explication de l'autoritarisme égyptien et moyen-oriental. Elle avance deux arguments : un sur le développement, et un sur l'État.Quand la libéralisation économique mit terme au socialisme arabe, les membresdu secteur privé réalisèrent leurs intérêts économiques en collusion avec l'Étatautoritaire. Ce trajet de développement étatique maintint le soutien du patronat àl'autoritarisme persistant. L'Égypte exécuta un programme de libéralisation lentequi fractura le contrat social populiste-autoritaire nassériste tout en créant unenouvelle base d'appui pour le régime. De cette façon, elle abandonna le secteurpopulaire et fractura les relations étatiques-sociales. Des zones d'informalité sedéveloppèrent, et la société civile intervint pour fournir …  Read more

In experimental membranous nephropathy, complement C5b-9-induced glomerular epithelial cell (GEC) injury leads to breakdown of glomerular peimselectivity and proteinuria. This study addresses mechanisms that limit complement-mediated injury, focusing on Ras. Complement-mediated injury was attenuated in cultured GEC expressing a constitutively active form of Ras (V12Ras), compared with Neo (control) GEC. V12Ras GEC showed constitutive activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase and extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathways, but inhibition of these pathways did not reverse the protective effect of Ras. V12Ras GEC showed smaller and rounder morphology, decreased F- to G-actin ratio, decreased activity of the Rho GTPase, Rac, and decreased Src activity. In …  Read more

Education is the area most conducive to fostering the dispositions that are intrinsic or instrumental to liberal democracy, structuring relations both between citizens and with the state. Indeed, citizenship theory has become increasingly concerned with the normative force attributed to political sociology. Such theories attempt to reconcile individual autonomy with the promotion and flourishing of collective identities, as expressions of popular sovereignty and as legitimating principles for liberal frameworks. The study introduces multinational democracies as a challenge to liberal justificatory frameworks; and as associations that more easily lend themselves to case-specific, historical and contextual analysis. Through the normative lens of …  Read more

The present study analysed the use of hedges in English medical research articles written by Japanese and American researchers. The study also examined the relationship between Japanese medical professionals' employment of hedges and their writing process. Sixteen English medical articles: eight written by Japanese and eight by Americans were examined. Four of the Japanese authors discussed their writing process through questionnaires and telephone interviews. The overall ratio of hedges in articles written by the two groups differed only slightly; however, analyses revealed a number of specific differences in the use of hedges between the groups. For example, Japanese researchers used …  Read more

This dissertation presents a new perspective on the history of conservation in North America. In contrast to historiography that locates conservation-oriented approaches to the North American environment as the product of late-nineteenth-century concerns within Canada and the United States, this study links wildlife conservation in Quebec directly to longstanding European land tenure, estate management, and associational strategies. Through a range of materials including state documents, associational records and personal and family papers, I show how advocates of fish and game protection in the province drew heavily on Old World customs and traditions, particularly those of British landowners, who displayed in …  Read more

Cet essai examine le recrutement par les principales sociétés protestantes de missionnaires de femmes britanniques célibataires au cours de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle et du début du vingtième. Il cherche à comprendre ce qui motiva les femmes à postuler, ainsi qu'à découvrir la formation et les qualifications exigées d'elles avant qu'elles ne soient envoyées en mission. Les candidates célibataires qui furent acceptées comme missionnaires eurent à affronter les barrières de classe et de genre, et travaillèrent à redéfinir leurs positions au sein des missions religieuses, se professionnalisant graduellement au fil des ans. Cette thèse porte un accent particulier sur …  Read more

DNA is a remarkable material that is both an inspiration for polymer nanotechnology and a versatile building block for assembling well-defined nanostructures. To create polymeric materials that would be useful in nanotechnology, we synthesized block copolymers containing thymine and diamidopyridine side chains. These DNA-mimetic polymers self-assembled into spherical aggregates in solution, held together by hydrogen bonding interactions. We have reported the first example of a block copolymer micellar aggregate that is capable of selective recognition of small-molecule guests, with concomitant changes in its aggregation behavior. In the field of DNA-mediated materials, the ordering of gold nanoparticle (AuNP) arrays can be …  Read more

Nck is as an adaptor protein previously implicated in actin cytoskeleton reorganization and by our laboratory, in translation and cell response to stress. Our primary objective was to determine the expression levels of Nck isotypes (Nck-1 and Nck-2) during cancer progression. We have performed western blot analysis of the Nck isotypes expression levels profile in various human cancer cell lines, at different stages of progression. Our data show significantly higher expression levels of Nck-2 protein in metastatic melanomas compared to non-metastatic melanomas and normal melanocytes. Using semi-quantitative RT-PCR, we demonstrated that this increase in Nck-2 expression can be also seen …  Read more

Entamoeba histolytica, etiological agent of amebiasis, continues to be a significant threat to human health worldwide. The disease affects 10% of the world's population and leads to an estimated 100, 000 deaths a year. The parasite's surface Gal-lectin is an immunodominant protein that also mediates colonization and pathogenicity. The Gal-lectin is the most promising vaccine candidate against amebiasis. However, the immune mechanisms involved in protection against disease remain unclear. The objective of this study was to characterize the immunological basis of the host defense mechanisms using a Gal-lectin based vaccine. Exposure of the Gal-lectin with immature dendritic cells increased cell …  Read more

This study with young adult learners of French in foreign language classrooms examined the effects of multimedia instruction on the acquisition of a difficult area of second language (L2) grammar in French, namely, the use of the perfective (passe compose) and imperfective ( imparfait) to mark past tense. In particular, the study investigated the impact of two aspects of multimedia instruction on the target grammar development: (a) the type of past tense targeted in instruction, prototypical (i.e., emergent perfective and imperfective forms) and non-prototypical (i.e., advanced perfective and imperfective forms), and (b) learners' readiness for non-prototypical past. The questions were: …  Read more

In the inflammatory brain lesions characteristic of multiple sclerosis (MS), both infiltrating macrophages and their central nervous system counterparts, the resident microglia, are present in large numbers and, along with reactive astrocytes, are implicated as potential antigen presenting cells (APC)s. The demyelinating pathology associated with the infiltration of self-reactive T cells in MS requires local antigenic re-stimulation in the context of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. Human microglia and, less commonly, astrocytes, have been found to express APC molecules in MS brains. This, combined with the potential for production of immunomodulatory and toxic mediators upon activation, highlights the central role …  Read more

L'abus physique et sexuel est un problème qui traverse toutes limites ethniques, raciales, géographiques, et socio-économiques. La littérature a régulièrement montré que les victimes les plus éminentes de violence dans les familles sont les femmes, les adolescent(e)s, les enfants et les personnes âgées. Il y a des preuves croissantes pour les différences ethnoculturelles, dans l'expérience d'abus physique et sexuel, les femmes aborigènes se faisant abuser plus souvent que leur homologues non-aborigènes. Cette étude a exploré la santé physique et mentale d'un échantillon de 172 femmes aborigènes et non-aborigènes dans Montréal qui cherchaient un abri et des services sociaux. Les inégalités …  Read more

The central role of Src in the development of several malignancies including breast cancer and the accumulating evidence of its interaction with receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK), integrins and steroid receptors have identified it as an attractive therapeutic target. In the current study we have evaluated the effect of a Src/Abl kinase inhibitor SKI-606, on breast cancer growth, migration, invasion and metastasis. Treatment of human breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 with SKI-606 caused a marked inhibition of cell proliferation, invasion and migration by inhibiting MAPK and Akt phosphorylation. For in vivo studies MDA-MB-231 cells transfected with the plasmid encoding green fluorescent protein …  Read more

This thesis is an empirical assessment of the readiness of The Gambia for regional integration and is presented in two studies. The first is on the optimality of the Sene-Gambia sub-region as a currency area and the second is on trade facilitation effects of the Sene-Gambia Confederation on The Gambian economy. The first study uses three methods to determine the optimality of the Sene-Gambia as a currency area. The first method is a reduced VAR to examine the response of the Senegalese and The Gambian economies to external shocks emanating from France, the United Kingdom (UK) and United States of …  Read more

The rhythmic expression of an autoregulatory loop of circadian clock genes underlies the intrinsic circadian rhythmicity in the central circadian pacemaker of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Clock genes are also known to be rhythmically expressed outside the SCN and outside the brain. While these peripheral circadian oscillators are functional, their expression is chiefly coordinated by the central circadian pacemaker of the SCN. This thesis presents the first evidence of a functional circadian oscillator in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Measuring levels of RNA transcripts in PBMCs sampled throughout specific behavioural protocols permitted the characterization of these peripheral circadian oscillators …  Read more

Between February 1940 and June 1941, in four major deportations Soviet authorities moved Polish citizens to work-colonies in the Soviet interior and detained others in various prisons and camps. Based on war-time information, works on the deportations published in the West during the decades of communist rule in Eastern Europe and since reported figures of over 1.5 million deportees, of whom as many as half reportedly died in the USSR. These works held a prevailing view that Soviet intentions towards the deported Poles were genocidal. Recent work with Soviet archival materials has led Polish and Russian historians to revise the …  Read more

We produce a nonpositively curved square complex, X, containing exactly four squares. Its universal cover, X̃ ≅ T4 x T 4, is isomorphic to the product of two 4-valent trees. The group, pi1X, is a lattice in Aut (X̃) but π1X is not virtually a nontrivial product of free groups. There is no such example with fewer than four squares. The main ingredient in our analysis is that X̃ contains an "anti-torus" which is a certain aperiodically tiled plane.  Read more

The goal of the present research was to provide a structure for understanding the combinations of client attachment concerns, therapist interventions, and therapist interpersonal qualities that facilitate the development of strong therapeutic relationships by drawing upon the propositions of attachment theory and interpersonal theory. The first study supported the hypothesis that relationship incidents provide the relational information required for the client to feel secure enough with their therapist to explore in session. Following their third session, thirty volunteer clients seen by therapist trainees nominated an incident they felt was important to the development of their therapeutic relationship. General attachment was …  Read more

The prevalence in psychotherapy research of studies conducted with European-American clients has created a need for research on the impact of ethnicity and culture on the process of psychotherapy. This study tested a model examining the impact of client acculturation, individualism-collectivism and match in worldview between client and counsellor on the development of the therapeutic alliance and premature termination. Client openness was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between the cultural variables and the working alliance. Therapist multicultural competence was tested as both a mediator and a moderator of the impact of the independent variables on client openness and the working …  Read more

Cooper, Vincent Anthony (Supervisor2)  Read more

There is experimental evidence suggesting that ethanol alters the activity of the endogenous opioid peptide systems in a dose and brain region dependent manner. These ethanol-induced alterations in opioid activity may influence the processes of ethanol reward and reinforcement. However, the precise nature of the link between ethanol-opioid interactions influencing reward and reinforcement is not clearly understood. Thus, it was the objective of the present study to investigate the response of the three major opioid peptide systems (endorphins, enkephalins, and dynorphins) to acute ethanol administration, at the level of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a brain region important for drug, …  Read more

Background. In children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), sensori-motor development and functional skills in activities of daily living (ADL) remain little explored in comparison to the other domains of development. Objectives. To determine the impact of sensori-motor skills on functional skills in ADL of preschool children with ASD, and to examine their type of sensory responses, their motor skills and their functional skills in ADL. Methods. This project is a pilot and cross-sectional study. Thirty-five children with ASD, three to four years of age, have been recruited and assessed. Control groups are also included: eight children with developmental delay (DD) …  Read more

The requirement for lighter, safer and fuel efficient cars has created a major stir in the steel research society to develop advanced automotive steels. Since there is a trade off between strength and ductility, most of the conventional high strength steels do not address the strength-formability combination. With the realization of the TRIP phenomenon first in austenitic stainless steels, a new generation of advanced steels called TRIP steels were realised with an inexpensive and easier to process C-Mn-Si chemistry. TRIP or TRransformation Induced Plasticity is a phenomenon where the timely strain induced transformation of Retained Austenite (RA) to Martensite locally …  Read more

Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) is one the major crops produced worldwide. However, soybean is susceptible to many diseases. Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR) disease caused by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary is considered one of the most important fungal diseases of soybean. It can be controlled by chemicals (e.g. fungicides), by breeding cultivars with disease resistance and by cultural control (e.g. increasing the width between rows, reducing plant populations). A promising and complementary method of controlling SSR disease in the field is the application of biological control agents. Biological control agents introduced in a soil environment will interact with other …  Read more

Iron is an essential, yet highly reactive, metal that needs to be tightly regulated. Excess iron in the central nervous system (CNS) can lead to free radical formation and neurodegeneration. My Ph.D. thesis work is focused on two animal models of neurodegeneration: one uses a null mutation of ceruloplasmin (CP), which in humans causes iron accumulation and neurodegeneration in the CNS; and the other is a gain of function mutation in the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), which causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in mice/humans. CP is a ferroxidase that converts highly toxic ferrous iron to its non-toxic ferric form. A …  Read more

The Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are the most pronounced modes of extratropical atmospheric wintertime variability in the Northern Hemisphere. This thesis investigates different aspects of the AO and NAO on the in traseasonal and seasonal time scales. First, the question of how the differences between the AO and NAO are influenced by the choice of the definitions of the NAO and to what extent the AO and NAO differ from each other is investigated using the daily NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data spanning 51 boreal winters. One AO index and four different NAO indices are used in …  Read more

Humans live in a world rich in multisensory information. Often information reaching one sense is completely unrelated to information reaching another sense; that is, they are spatially and temporally incongruent. The goal of the research presented in this thesis was to elucidate the behavioral and neural bases of attention to incongruent audiovisual information. Five issues were addressed: (1) developing an appropriate behavioral paradigm to test bimodal attention, (2) understanding the role of crossmodal suppression in unimodal attention, (3) exploring the interaction of auditory and visual sensory cortex during bimodal selective attention, (4) exploring the role of fronto-parietal networks in bimodal …  Read more

Sodium/proton exchangers (NHEs) are secondary active transporters that catalyze the electroneutral exchange of Na+ and H+ down their respective concentration gradients using the inward electrochemical Na+ gradient established by the plasma membrane Na+ /K+-ATPase. NHEs play a fundamental role in maintaining the intracellular pH (pHi) homeostasis and cell volume which are required for stable protein activity, and ultimately cell survival. To date, nine NHE isoforms (NHE 1-9) have been identified, and are expressed in a tissue/cell specific manner, which indicates a degree of specialization in their respective cellular functions. NHE1 through 5 are plasmalemmal-type exchangers, whereas NHE6 and 7 accumulate …  Read more

Asthma is a respiratory disease that affects 2.5-3 million Canadians. This condition is characterized by a Th2-driven immune response that implicates the infiltration of eosinophils and remodelling of the airways. In the last decade, airway smooth muscle cells (ASMC) have became the subject of intense research in the field of inflammatory lung diseases including asthma. It is known that ASMC respond to a wide variety of inflammatory mediators such as cytokines and chemokines. Function of ASMC in the context of asthma has extended beyond its traditional role of a structural cell. Indeed, it is believed that they can participate in …  Read more

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that is characterized by widespread focal areas of inflammation and demyelination. Although the exact cause of the disease is still not known, myelin-reactive T cells that enter the CNS trigger the disease and lead to the recruitment and activation of macrophages and other immune cells. One set of candidates that could serve to mediate these CNS changes is the family of phospholipase A2 (PLA2) enzymes, which consist of secreted (sPLA2) and cytosolic (cPLA2) forms. These enzymes hydrolyze membrane phospholipids to release free fatty acids (arachidonic acid) that …  Read more

This study investigates L2 pragmatic performance of EFL learners in an English immersion program in Japan. More specifically, the study examines whether the leamers are able to express appropriate politeness when making a request in English. Participants were 28 Japanese-Ll English immersion students and 4 native speakers of English at high school level (Grades 10, 11 and 12). Data collection was completed using role-play tasks, entailing the use of polite requests to a person of higher status, to elicit speech samples from participant dyads. Classroom observations, interviews, and a written questionnaire, involving 10 teachers and 42 students, were also conducted …  Read more

Confocal microwave imaging (CMI) has recently been suggested as a screening method for early detection of cancerous breast tumors. This recently proposed detection and imaging method relies on the dielectric properties differences between malignant and healthy breast tissue at microwave frequencies (1-10 GHz). A pulsed signal is launched by a transmitting antenna on the skin surface to penetrate into the underlying tissues. As the pulse encounters the tumor, it reflects off the malignant lesion and the reflection can be collected by a receiving antenna on the skin surface. The narrower the pulse signal used, the smaller the detectable tumor would …  Read more

In this study, we have analyzed the steady-state kinetics of B lymphocytes in mouse and rat bone marrow using previously published experimental data. Over many years, Prof D.G. Osmond and his colleagues have built up a scheme of B cell development in mouse bone marrow based on the sequential expression of markers associated with the B lineage. The earliest precursor B cells comprise three populations of proliferating pro-B cells, i.e. early, intermediate, and late pro-B cells. The subsequent populations comprise pre-B cells that give rise to nondividing B lymphocytes expressing surface IgM. In our analysis, we have checked the available …  Read more

Ash'arite theology in and after the 7th/13 th century has received little attention in studies of Islamic theology and philosophy. Works like the commentary of the Moroccan ṣufi Aḥmad Zarruq (d. 899/1493) on the creed found in the Iḥya' 'ulum al-din of Abu Ḥadmid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) are unknown to historians of Sunni theology. A close analysis of the sources used by Zarruq in his commentary reveals a unique concern with mystical as well as theological subjects. As a result, Zarruq displays an anachronistic preference for early Ash'arite themes while also shying away from involved philosophical discussion which typifies later …  Read more

This thesis comprises three essays that explore several theoretical and empirical features of affine term structure models. In the first essay, we focus on the ability of continuous-time affine term structure models to capture time variability in the second conditional moment. Using data on US Treasury yields, we conclude that affine term structure models are much better at extracting time-series volatility from the cross-section of yields than argued in the literature. These models have nonetheless difficulty capturing volatility dynamics at the short end of the maturity spectrum, perhaps indicating some form of segmentation between long-maturity and short-maturity bonds. These results …  Read more

The kinetics and mechanism of the place exchange reaction(PER) of alkylthiols with alkylthiol-protected gold nanoparticles(AuNP) are investigated. Using chemically similar alkylthiols it was possible to study the reaction in the absence of perturbing factors, enabling detailed mechanistic and kinetic studies to be explored. It is found that the reactions are zero order in incoming ligand and overall follow a second order diffusion limited Langmuir rate law. In the case where there is little chemical distinction between the incoming and capping ligands, the reactions proceed to an endpoint consistent with a Keq=1. The rate of the reaction is dependent on the …  Read more

A novel way of producing nanostructures in the past decade has been through the use of an anodized alumina template. This template has dense, self-ordered nanometric pores that grow in the oxide as the aluminum is being anodized. This technique is a fairly new method of processing nanostructures, and much study and research is presently being done to understand the formation mechanisms of the highly ordered pores. Ultra-pure aluminum foil and pure aluminium single crystal plates were anodized to create porous anodized alumina, and using it as a template to electro-deposit Nickel nanostructures. The effects different anodizing parameters have on …  Read more

Bcr-abl expression being associated with anti-apoptotic signaling and expression of DNA repair enzymes, we surmised that single molecules capable of blocking abl tyrosine kinase (TK) function and damaging DNA should lead to compounds with potency superior to that of GleevecRTM. To this end, we designed novel agents termed "combi-molecules" programmed to not only behave as bcr-abl inhibitors on their own, but also to further degrade to another inhibitor and a DNA damaging species. The released inhibitor was designed to sustain bcr-abl inhibition following degradation of the combi-molecule and the DNA damaging species to activate pathways leading to apoptosis. To model …  Read more

There is often a need to interpolate data that is obtained through experiment or computational analysis, because the data is difficult or expensive to obtain. An example is the scattering parameters of microwave devices, obtained through computationally intensive finite element (FE) analysis. Cauchy interpolation is an established solution to this problem. In this thesis it is extended to interpolate data over a multi-parameter space, when the data available includes not just the function to be interpolated, but also its derivatives with respect to each parameter. The finite element method (FEM) provides such derivatives. The new algorithm is applied to a …  Read more

The aim was to compare the movements of the mandible during chewing different food types. We hypothesized that the mandibular movements would vary significantly between the food types. For each participant, we built and affixed the dental appliances and attached infra red emitting diodes to record the mandibular movements using a 3D motion capture device (Optotrak). Participants chewed on four test foods that varied in texture: Italian bread stick, dried beef stick, carrot and cheese. Results indicated greater amplitude of the lateral displacement of the mandibular movements when chewing cheese. The velocity of the lateral displacement was greater for soft …  Read more

Second Nature: American fiction in the age of capitalist realism During the 1990s the global triumph of capitalism has made it, paradoxically, all the more difficult to see. Not only is capitalism increasingly derealized (e.g. cyber-capital), its very ubiquity renders it unremarkable, to the point that it appears a neutral part of objective reality. This dissertation examines how American writers have responded to the 'spectrality' that results from the mediation of everyday experience through the market. I discuss formal strategies in the work of Bret Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Don DeLillo, William Gibson and others to represent the unrepresentable: what Slavoj …  Read more

Two identical experiments were conducted to evaluate the combined effects of arginine (AR), vitamin E (VE) and vitamin C (VC) on cardiopulmonary performance and ascites parameters of broilers reared under cold environmental temperature. One d old male broilers were fed a basal corn-soybean meal diet (CTL, 1.2 % AR and 40 IU VE), the basal diet supplemented with 1% AR and either 200 IU VE (AE group), or 500 mg of VC (AC group), or a combination of VE and VC (AEC group) at the same level per kg of feed. Pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) …  Read more

Dans ce projet, nous nous intéressons aux propriétés asymptotiques de la fonction empirique de distribution et de l'estimateur de Kaplan et Meier pour des données en grappes. En supposant que le nombre d'observations par grappes est identique et fixe, nous démontrons que, quand le nombre de grappes tend vers l'infini, les deux estimateurs mentionnes ci-dessus sont consistents et asymptotiquement gaussiennes. Nous élaborons aussi sur des méthodes d'estimation de la variance asymptotique dans chaque cas.  Read more

Human growth hormone (hGH) plays an essential role in growth and metabolism and its effectiveness depends on the presence of a functional human growth hormone receptor (hGHR) in target cells. My research has focussed on several aspects of hGHR regulation: hGHR expression and signalling in fetal life, influences of common polymorphisms and cis- and trans-regulatory elements. My lab has shown that embryonic tissues express hGHR by the 3rd month of gestation. Although fetal serum hGH levels are 10x higher than postnatal GH levels, hGHR levels are 4-6x lower in fetal liver compared to postnatal. I examined whether there are also …  Read more

Hyperflares from Soft Gamma Repeaters have revealed quasi-periodic oscillations, suggested to be torsional modes of the neutron star crust produced during starquakes. We study how a magnetic field affects these modes. We make a plane-parallel model of the neutron star crust with a vertical and non-vertical field and solve for the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions. In the vertical field case we find a discrete set of modes comparable to the observed frequencies giving evidence for this theory. We find that the lower order modes do not depend on B while the higher order modes do when the field strength is low …  Read more

This study examines how changing notions of literacy are translating to curricula in the teaching of English. Two tasks are undertaken: the first is to survey the literature that has informed the ongoing evolution of the concept literacy with the specific goal of highlighting recurring themes in an effort to determine what a New Literacy curriculum would look like in practice. The second part of this study is a document analysis of the Secondary English Language Arts (SELA2) Program for Cycle Two students. The analysis attempts to determine the degree to which the SELA2 document has been informed by new …  Read more

This thesis addresses the general problem of maintaining robust automatic speech recognition (ASR) performance under diverse speaker populations, channel conditions, and acoustic environments. To this end, the thesis analyzes the interactions between environment compensation techniques, frequency warping based speaker normalization, and discriminant feature-space transformation (DFT). These interactions were quantified by performing experiments on the connected digit utterances comprising the Aurora 2 database, using continuous density hidden Markov models (HMM) representing individual digits. Firstly, given that the performance of speaker normalization techniques degrades in the presence of noise, it is shown that reducing the effects of noise through environmental compensation, prior …  Read more

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing is now widely used in biosensing applications. There is significant scope to reduce the cost and complexity of existing commercial devices by increasing the level of optical integration. This thesis presents an SPR sensor that utilizes a diffractive optical element (DOE) which is integrated directly into the sensor-head and which significantly reduces the optical complexity. This design is intended for eventual mass replication via a suitable molding technique. This system is designed to be used within an angular sensing scheme and the DOE delivers the required 15º angular beam divergence. The beam-steering optics are modeled …  Read more

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. Despite recent advances in screening and early detection, breast cancer continues to result in a high incidence of morbidity and mortality. In its late stage the majority of patients exhibit signs of destructive skeletal metastasis. This complication is promoted by the production of growth factors by tumor cells which can induce tumor cell proliferation via their interaction with their respective receptors to initiate the vicious cycle of bone resorption. Inhibition of growth factors signaling through their receptors can therefore serve as a useful therapeutic approach to block bone metastasis. The …  Read more