The Distal-less homeobox (Dlx) genes encode homeodomain transcription factors found in all animals of the phylum Chordata. These genes are involved in early vertebrate development of limbs, sensory organs, branchial arches and the forebrain (telencephalon and diencephalon). The mouse and human genomes each have six Dlx genes organized into convergently transcribed bigene clusters (Dlx1/2, Dlx3/4 and Dlx5/6). In the forebrain, Dlx1/2 and Dlx5/6 genes play essential roles in GABAergic neuron proliferation, migration and survival. Each bigene cluster includes a short intergenic region (~3.5-16kb) harboring cis-regulatory elements (CREs) that control expression of the Dlx genes. The Dlx1/2 intergenic region harbors the I12b/I12a CREs, while Dlx5/6 includes I56i/I56ii. In determining the regulatory roles of the CREs on Dlx activity and forebrain development, I have characterized the phenotypic changes that occur in mice that have an I56i enhancer deletion. I have also characterized mice with double deletions of I56i and I12b as well as mice that harbored an I12b deletion and have a SNP in the I56i enhancer (vI56i). Mutant mice with a single targeted deletion of I56i are viable, fertile and do not show obvious developmental defects. These mice have significant decreases in Dlx5/6, Gad1/Gad2 and Evf-2 expression in the forebrain and have defects related to GABAergic neuron development. The ΔI56i mutants demonstrate a behavioral phenotype related to anxiety and learning deficits. Mice that lack the I12b enhancer and have the vI56i do not show morphological abnormalities but have severely disrupted Dlx expression. When mice are homozygous for the I56i and I12b enhancer deletion, they do not survive past post natal day 5 and exhibit a dwarfed body size. These mice look weak and seem to have limited motor ability. In characterizing mice with targeted deletions of highly conserved Dlx enhancers, we will have a better understanding of forebrain development.

Prior research has shown that negative attitudes toward mathematics are linked to decreased achievement and participation, but it is unclear what factors influence children’s attitudes toward mathematics. Thus, the overarching goal of this study was to understand the relationship between outside sources and children’s views. Specifically, this study investigated elementary students’ experiences with and views of mathematics and mathematicians, and the ways that their views may be influenced by popular media representations, parents’ views, and teachers’ views of mathematics and mathematicians. Additionally, the study examined whether there were differences between girls’ and boys’ views and between younger (Grade 4) and older (Grade 8) elementary students’ views of mathematics and mathematicians. Framed by a social constructivist and feminist epistemological stance, the study employed a multi-method framework comprised of questionnaires (n = 156), drawings of mathematicians (n = 94), and focus group interviews (five interviews, involving 21 participants) with students; an analysis of children's media (43 examples across five media types); interviews with parents (11 interviews, involving 13 participants); and interviews with teachers (nine interviews, involving 10 participants). In terms of their relationships with mathematics, the student, parent, and teacher participants’ views were encouraging, both in terms of perceptions of themselves as learners of mathematics and of the utility of mathematics. However, the manner in which the participants conceptualized mathematics tended to lack breadth, often focusing on arithmetic and financial mathematics. Similar conceptions of mathematics were evident in the media representations. Moreover, media portrayals of mathematicians and mathematically proficient people tended to perpetuate stereotypes. Despite their awareness of these stereotypes, the participants often lacked alternative representations to challenge these views. Indeed, the lack of exposure to a variety of representations of both mathematics and mathematicians contributed to the participants’ reliance on views that were often narrow and stereotypical.

Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated as one of the primary causes of Parkinson's disease (PD). The proteins PINK1, a serine-threonine kinase, and Parkin, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, are mutated in many genetic cases of PD. In healthy individuals, Parkin is recruited to damaged mitochondria and leads to autophagic degradation of mitochondria in a process termed mitophagy. Following depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane, PINK1 is stabilized on the outer mitochondrial membrane, and triggers Parkin translocation from the cytosol to mitochondria. Precisely how this phenomenon is regulated is still unclear. We employed RNA interference (RNAi) technology in a 384-well format to identify novel genes that are required for Parkin recruitment to mitochondria. We identified ATPase inhibitory factor 1 (IF1) as the strongest hit required for Parkin recruitment following treatment with the protonophore CCCP. We show that IF1 is upstream of PINK1 and Parkin, and required to sense mitochondrial damage by allowing the loss of membrane potential. In cells treated with CCCP, the absence of IF1 permits the ATP synthase to run freely in reverse, consuming ATP to maintain potential across the inner mitochondrial membrane, thus blocking PINK1 and Parkin activation. Interestingly, Rho0 cells, that lack mitochondrial DNA, have downregulated endogenous expression of IF1 in order to maintain mitochondrial function. Overexpression of IF1 in Rho0 cells results in the depletion of mitochondrial membrane potential and the initiation of mitophagy. These data demonstrate a unique role for IF1 in the regulation of mitochondrial quality control that has not been explored in the etiology of PD.

This thesis argues that how-to manuals and cue sheets are indicative of ideal performance practice amongst musicians from the silent film era. Pre-scored music was widely practiced amongst musicians. How-to manuals and cue sheets helped the musician accurately and consistently accompany a film. Authors of period manuals include W. Tyacke George, Edith Lang and George West, Ernst Luz and George Tootell. Compilers of cue sheet include James C. Bradford, Ernst Luz, Edward Kilenyi and Michael P. Krueger. Cue by cue analyses of The Cat and the Canary and The Gaucho show a high repetition of music, establishing continuity between the music played and the image on the screen. This shows how compilers associated music and film. These manuals and cue sheets prove that the musician community strove for a close connection between the image on screen and accompaniment. By 1920, arbitrary improvisation was unacceptable.

It is well established that acquiring large amounts of range data with vision sensors can quickly lead to important data management challenges where processing capabilities become saturated and pre-empt full usage of the information available for autonomous systems to make educated decisions. While sub-sampling offers a naïve solution for reducing dataset dimension after acquisition, it does not capitalize on the knowledge available in already acquired data to selectively and dynamically drive the acquisition process over the most significant regions in a scene, the latter being generally characterized by variations in depth and surface shape in the context of 3D imaging. This thesis discusses the development of two formal improvement measures, the first based upon surface meshes and Ordinary Kriging that focuses on improving scene accuracy, and the second based upon probabilistic occupancy grids that focuses on improving scene coverage. Furthermore, three selection processes to automatically choose which locations within the field of view of a range sensor to acquire next are proposed based upon the two formal improvement measures. The first two selection processes each use only one of the proposed improvement measures. The third selection process combines both improvement measures in order to counterbalance the parameters of the accuracy of knowledge about the scene and the coverage of the scene. The proposed algorithms mainly target applications using random access range sensors, defined as sensors that can acquire depth measurements at a specified location within their field of view. Additionally, the algorithms are applicable to the case of estimating the improvement and point selection from within a single point of view, with the purpose of guiding the random access sensor to locations it can acquire. However, the framework is developed to be independent of the range sensing technology used, and is validated with range data of several scenes acquired from many different sensors employing various sensing technologies and configurations. Furthermore, the experimental results of the proposed selection processes are compared against those produced by a random sampling process, as well as a neural gas selective sensing algorithm.

Proteins and the formation of large protein complexes are essential parts of living organisms. Proteins are present in all aspects of life processes, performing a multitude of various functions ranging from being structural components of cells, to facilitating the passage of certain molecules between various regions of cells. The 'protein docking problem' refers to the computational method of predicting the appropriate matching pair of a protein (receptor) with respect to another protein (ligand), when attempting to bind to one another to form a stable complex. Research shows that matching the three-dimensional (3D) geometric structures of candidate proteins plays a key role in determining a so-called docking pair, which is one of the key aspects of the Computer Aided Drug Design process. However, the active sites which are responsible for binding do not always present a rigid-body shape matching problem. Rather, they may undergo sufficient deformation when docking occurs, which complicates the problem of finding a match. To address this issue, we present an isometry-invariant and topologically robust partial shape matching method for finding complementary protein binding sites, which we call the ProtoDock algorithm. The ProtoDock algorithm comes in two variations. The first version performs a partial shape complementarity matching by initially segmenting the underlying protein object mesh into smaller portions using a spectral mesh segmentation approach. The Heat Kernel Signature (HKS), the underlying basis of our shape descriptor, is subsequently computed for the obtained segments. A final descriptor vector is constructed from the Heat Kernel Signatures and used as the basis for the segment matching. The three different descriptor methods employed are, the accepted Bag of Features (BoF) technique, and our two novel approaches, Closest Medoid Set (CMS) and Medoid Set Average (MSA). The second variation of our ProtoDock algorithm aims to perform the partial matching by utilizing the pointwise HKS descriptors. The use of the pointwise HKS is mainly motivated by the suggestion that, at adequate times, the Heat Kernel Signature of a point on a surface sufficiently describes its neighbourhood. Hence, the HKS of a point may serve as the representative descriptor of its given region of which it forms a part. We propose three (3) sampling methods---Uniform, Random, and Segment-based Random sampling---for selecting these points for the partial matching. Random and Segment-based Random sampling both prove superior to the Uniform sampling method. Our experimental results, run against the Protein-Protein Benchmark 4.0, demonstrate the viability of our approach, in that, it successfully returns known binding segments for known pairing proteins. Furthermore, our ProtoDock-1 algorithm still still yields good results for low resolution protein meshes. This results in even faster processing and matching times with sufficiently reduced computational requirements when obtaining the HKS.

As one of the top topics in both scholarly and practical fields of sport sponsorship, ambush marketing research usually focuses on protection of the sports sponsor’s rights. Since five years after the 2008 Games, how China performs sponsor protection record after the Olympics should be evaluated. In response to the question, the investigator conducted a qualitative study involving 11 semi-structured interviews of subject-matter experts from various types of organizations in China and an archive content analysis. The interviews aimed at revealing further insights into how ambush campaigns are perceived within China as well as to further its possible sociological and economical causes. Results revealed that although ambush marketing was regulated during the 2008 Olympics, it is still common in China. The current situation of ambush marketing in China is shaped by five factors including: (1) media, (2) legal system, (3) government relationships, (4) event organizers’ experience, and (5) contemporary culture.

This thesis seeks to examine what cultural work is done on behalf of the state by the Safe Third Country Agreement and Bill C-31’s designated country of origin policy? I will be drawing on the work of Critical Race feminists and Critical Security Studies theorists to examine the concept of safety, systems of domination, and the parameters of national belonging. I will be performing a discourses analysis of the government’s and the Canadian Council for Refugee’s year one report of the Safe Third Country Agreement. I will also be performing a discourse analysis of the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website’s discussion of designated countries of origin. I will argue that state exaltation constructs the state, refugees, and safety in a way that reifies systems of domination.

Girls’ withdrawal from school is posing a major challenge to female literacy in Afghanistan. The aim of this research was to examine the influence of Afghan traditions and cultural norms on girls’ school withdrawal by parents or guardians in Khinjan District of Baghlan Province. To achieve this aim the accounts of 12 mothers with daughters pulled out of school were obtained through semi-structured interviews and analyzed via the theoretical lens of Existentialist Feminism and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Model. The findings suggest that in order to address the problem of girls’ withdrawal from school in Khinjan, the informal communication networks that reinforce the tendency of parents/guardians, especially male ones, to withdraw the girls from school should be influenced by communication channels in the district. Grounded on Paulo Freire’s concept of dialogue for liberation, it is recommended that credible members in the community should initiate and engage in a transforming dialogue about education of girls, with Khinjanis.

This study is a mixed methods investigation, based on a case study of The Ottawa Hospital’s recent and ongoing implementation of an integrated performance management system (IPMS). It is the first empirical investigation to identify the reasons why Canadian healthcare leaders choose to implement an IPMS in a hospital setting, the core components of hospital-based IPMSs, the challenges that senior leaders face when implementing such systems, and how these challenges might be mitigated to increase the likelihood of a successful implementation. Key findings include the need for senior leaders to carefully consider organizational culture prior to fully implementing an IPMS, engaging physicians early in the journey, and coordinating the implementation so that knowledge, skill, and expertise, as it relates to the IPMS, are distributed across the organization in tightly knit waves. Recommendations for future research include the development of frameworks for the design, implementation, and use of IPMSs