To identify the risk factors being associated with aetiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a series of systematic reviews based on existing observational epidemiological studies identified through searching of bibliographic databases were conducted. Associations between ALS and a number of genetic and environmental risk factors were examined using meta-analysis. Specifically we found that previous exposure to lead, pesticides, solvents, experience of trauma and electric shock were associated with relative increased risks of developing ALS of 86% [odds ratio (OR) =1.86, 95% CI: 1.39-2.48], 57% (OR=1.57,95% CI: 1.19-2.08), 47% (OR=1.47, 95%CI: 1.13-1.80), 64% (OR=1.64; 95%CI: 1.36-1.98), and 2.27% (OR=3.27, 95%CI:1.87-5.73) respectively, compared to their corresponding controls. The presence of intermediate CAG repeat expansion in the ATXN2 gene was associated with a 4.4 -fold increase in the risk of ALS (OR=4.44, 95%CI: 2.91-6.76). However, the attributable risk associated with each identified risk factor was estimated to be less than 5% of all ALS cases. These results confirm that ALS is a rare multifactorial degenerative condition of motor-neurons.

The ability to identify germplasm and select traits accurately is fundamental to successful plant breeding. Pedigrees and molecular markers facilitate these processes; however misleading experimental results can occur when incorrect relationships and/or cultivar names are recorded. Molecular markers can identify these inconsistencies, and with advances in genotyping technology these diagnostics can be done faster and more objectively. This study aimed to develop molecular marker assays and graphical genotyping methodologies for cultivar identification, seed purity assessment and trait selection in oat (Avena sativa L.). KBioscience’s Allele-Specific PCR (KASP™) and genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) technologies were applied to a set of current Canadian oat cultivars to evaluate their utility for identifying cultivars and detecting intra-cultivar variation. Both KASP™ and GBS detected different extents of heterogeneity among a set of 160 seeds that originated from four seed sources of four cultivars. In both cases, the detected variation did not appear to be limited to a specific cultivar or seed source, reinforcing that all cultivars are heterogeneous. Graphical genotyping localized heterogeneity to specific chromosome regions, thereby distinguishing physical contamination from true genetic heterogeneity and heterozygosity. Pre-existing genotype data for 700 oat cultivars and breeding lines were also used to construct graphical genotypes for pedigree validation and discovery of potential sources for favourable quantitative trait loci (QTL) alleles. This methodology used historical QTLs and anchoring markers to identify 25 putative “high oil” allele carriers. The results from this study will provide diagnostic tools for cultivar identification and pedigree validation, in addition to meaningful information about existing heterogeneity and possible QTL locations in current cultivars.

There is an increasing movement recognizing LGBT rights in the international arena. In China, “tongzhi” (a Chinese term for LGBT) still face massive discrimination due mainly to the Chinese government’s repressive indifference policy. This thesis follows Kees Waaldijk’s developmental pattern theory of the recognition of gay rights, starting from decriminalisation, anti-discrimination, and reaching partnership legislation. It examines this theoretic pattern in relation to the development of sexual minority rights in the United Nations (UN), European and Canadian human rights law systems. Although every jurisdiction has its own unique aspects, each basically followed Waaldijk’s pattern. The thesis concludes that the application of privacy, equality and non-discrimination principles have helped sexual minorities to achieve equal rights in a variety of fields. The thesis further examines whether the experiences within these three human rights systems can be adopted in the Chinese context. Since the UN laws are soft laws, they will help influence legal reform for tongzhi rights in China but will not be a decisive factor. With regard to the regional human rights model, unlike Council of Europe and the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is unlikely to push the development of human rights in China due to the lack of a strong tie between China and ASEAN member states. The Canadian experience is inspiring but will not be easily duplicated due to the lack of democratic institutions and the absence of an effective judicial review system and judicial independence in China. It is anticipated that the Waaldijk pattern cannot be reproduced in the Chinese context. China will take a top-down reform route in terms of the tongzhi rights development. The central authorities will likely adjust relevant policies to the tongzhi group once a crisis has generated sufficient social pressure that would influence the central authorities to consider changing their repressive indifference policy. Same-sex marriage law is anticipated to be the first tongzhi human right legislation in China due to the Chinese traditional culture of tolerance, the support found among academics, and the current political environment.

This thesis investigates the ways in which select groups and their advocates interpret and seek to address the Indian Residential School (IRS) experience and legacy. It also considers the extent to which their aims are being realized through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) and other components of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA). Through the qualitative content analysis of data gathered from four organizations, and in-depth interviews with six of their representatives, this study has uncovered that despite the somewhat diverse methods used by these organizations and advocates to address the legacy of IRS, perspectives were nonetheless based on the same fundamental notion: the need to incorporate and pursue decolonizing principles and aims. Moreover, it found that while some goals were being forwarded by the TRC and IRSSA, in several ways, the official process underway in Canada has failed to incorporate the needs and aims of these organizations.

Given the volatile, generally high price of crude oil, as well as environmental concerns associated with its use as a fuel, development of alternative energy sources is currently of considerable interest. Lignocellulose-derived energy has the potential to supplant traditional fossil fuels in the future because of its economic and environmental advantages. Lignocellulosic biomass is abundant and renewable. Lignocellulose is primarily composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, which can be converted by acid hydrolysis to simple sugars used in fermentation to produce biofuels. In this study, hemicellulose was hydrolyzed with different concentrations of hydrochloric acid at different temperatures. The resulting components were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The hydrolysis of cellulose was similarly characterized, with two additional parameters, the degree of polymerization (DP) and the crystallinity index (CrI), which were analyzed by Ubbelohde viscometer and X-ray diffraction respectively. The experimental results indicate that the hydrolysis rate of hemicellulose and the generation rate of furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) increased with increasing hydrochloric acid concentrations and reaction temperatures. In the selected five monosaccharides, xylose, glucose, mannose, arabinose and galactose, xylose has the highest hydrolysis rate and the accumulation of furfural during xylose hydrolysis is also the highest. Moreover, the hydrolysis rate of cellulose and the generation rate of glucose also increased with increasing hydrochloric acid concentrations and reaction temperatures. DP and CrI, both decreased when the cellulose was treated in concentrated hydrochloric acid. The rate of change of DP increased with the concentrations of acid and the reaction temperatures. The change rate of CrI increases by increasing concentration of acid and the temperature when it is above 0℃, while the CrI index decrease sharply when the reaction temperature was kept below 0℃. Experimental results also show that the hydrolysis rate of cellulose is much lower than that of hemicellulose.

This thesis is about the causal relationship between interest rates. In chapter 1, with the help of time-series econometrics and by applying linear Granger causality tests based on the Toda-Yamamoto approach, the linear causality directions between the federal funds rate and five different interest rates during the last seven business cycles in the U.S. are investigated. We also examine the linear Granger causality directions between the overnight rate and five other interest rates during the last three business cycles in Canada. In chapter 2, the Diks and Panchenko Granger causality test is applied to explore the nonlinear causality effects between the short-term and long-term interest rates. By combining nonlinear causality effects with the linear ones which are found in the first chapter, it is seen that during the related periods in the U.S. and Canada, the most common Granger causality direction between short-term and long-term interest rates is a bidirectional one. Moreover, our findings show that during recent periods, the federal funds rate and overnight rate Granger cause other interest rates significantly. In chapter 3, the rolling window strategy is employed to detect the linear and nonlinear Granger causality relationship between the federal funds rate and the 10-year government bond rate, during different time horizons, investigating whether these causalities change with the passing of time. Our findings show that during different time horizons, there is a significant two-way Granger causality relationship between these interest rates. Although we have a different interpretation of the existence of bidirectional causation between short-term and long-term interest rates, this conclusion provides some support to some post-Keynesian structuralists viewpoints like Pollin (2008). However, Pollin's claim indicating that with the passing of time the significant causality effects of the federal funds rate to the market rates becomes insignificant is not supported by the current thesis findings because our results demonstrate that these causality effects have not been diminishing over the most recent business cycles.

Recent advances in cellular reprogramming have enabled the generation of embryoniclike cells from virtually any cell of the body. These inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are capable of indefinite self-renewal while maintaining the ability to differentiate into all cell types. Nowhere will this technology have a greater impact than in the ability to generate disease and patient-specific cell lines. Here we explore the capacity of human iPSCs reprogrammed from peripheral blood endothelial progenitor cells lines to differentiate into atrial myocytes for the study of patient specific atrial physiology. Methods and Results: Late outgrowth endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) cultured from clinical blood samples provided a robust cell source for genetic reprogramming. Transcriptome analysis hinted that EPCs would be comparatively more amenable to pluripotent reprogramming than the traditional dermal fibroblast. After 6 passages, EPCs were transduced with a doxycycline inducible lentivirus system encoding human transcription factors OCT4, SOX2, KLF4 and Nanog to permit differentiation after removal of doxycycline. The high endogenous expression of key pluripotency transcripts enhanced the ease of iPSC generation as demonstrated by the rapid emergence of typical iPSC colonies. Following removal of doxycycline, genetically reprogrammed EPC-iPSC colonies displayed phenotypic characteristics identical to human embryonic stem cells and expressed high levels of the pluripotent markers SSEA-4, TRA1-60 and TRA1-81. After exposure to conditions known to favor atrial identity, EPC- iPSC differentiating into sheets of beating cardiomyocytes that expressed high levels of several atrial-specific expressed genes (CACNA1H, KCNA5, and MYL4). Conclusions: EPCs provide a stable platform for genetic reprogramming into a pluripotent state using a doxycycline conditional expression system that avoids reexpression of oncogenic/pluripotent factors. Human EPC-derived iPSC can be differentiated into functional cardiomyocytes that express characteristic markers of atrial identity.

Objective: The increased survival rate amongst female breast cancer survivors creates a need for an understanding of chronic disability after surgery. The objective of this study is to explore the association between impairments (e.g., pain, mobility, strength) and the personality trait, fear of physical activity, and chronic daily activity limitations for women who had their surgery at least six months prior to the study. Hypothesis: The study hypothesis is that women with high levels of physical impairments and the personality trait of fear of physical activity will also have higher levels of daily activity limitations six months or more after their breast cancer surgery. Design: A cross-sectional design. Outcome Measures: Disabilities of Shoulder, Arm, and Hand (DASH), Visual Analog Scale for Pain (VAS-Pain), Fear Avoidance Belief Questionnaire – Physical Activity (FABQ-PA), and objective measures of shoulder mobility and strength. Participants: Women who had been diagnosed and undergone surgery for breast cancer, stage 1-3. They must have had their surgery at least six months previously and have completed chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Both English- and French-speaking women from the Ottawa-Gatineau region were eligible. Results: Data from twelve women were analysed with a mean age of 58.0±8.9 years and post-operative time of 4.0± 2.8 years. DASH scores mean was 12.2 ± 11.38. VAS-Pain (rs=0.819; p<.001), FABQ-Physical Activity (rs=0.746; p<.005) were significantly associated with DASH score, whereas non-significant associations were found with supraspinatus strength (rs = 0.182; p < .572) or infraspinatus strength (rs=0.553; p<.062) using the Spearman Rho test. Also, no significant relationships were observed between range of motion (hand-behind-back; p =.366; hand-behind-head; p=.390) and DASH scores using a Kruskal-Wallis test. Conclusion: The results of this exploratory study suggest that the reported daily activity limitations of women who have had breast cancer surgery may be related to the participant pain perception and/or fear of physical activity.

Secure wireless communications among sensor nodes is critical to the deployment of wireless sensor networks. However, resource limited sensor nodes cannot afford complex cryptographic algorithms. In this thesis, we propose a low complexity and energy efficient reconfigurable feedback shift register (RFSR) stream cipher, link layer encryption framework RSec and authentication protocol RAuth. RFSR adds one new dimension, reconfigurable cipher structure, to the existing stream ciphers. The proposed RFSR is implemented on a field programmable gate array platform. Simulation results show that much lower power consumption, delay and transmission overhead are achieved compared to the existing microprocessor based cipher implementations. The RSec framework utilizes RFSR ciphers to guarantee message confidentiality. By comparing with other encryption frameworks in terms of energy efficiency, RSec achieves the best benchmark. The RAuth protocol is designed on top of RFSR and RSec. It provides excellent authentication speed and security level by comparing with other authentication protocols. / Graduate / 0544 / 0984 / zggyzz@gmail.com

Young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience significant delays in their fundamental motor skills (FMS) yet, FMS are virtually ignored in the intervention literature as traditional therapies focus on the core challenges in the social, communicative, and behavioural domains. This study sought to examine the effectiveness of a FMS intervention at improving the motor skills, adaptive behaviour, and social skills of 4 year old children with ASD. Motor Outcomes (Manuscript 1): Results demonstrated significant improvements in motor skills following the intervention; these improvements were retained at the 6-week follow-up. Adaptive Behaviour and Social Skill Outcomes (Manuscript 2): Results demonstrated individual gains in adaptive behaviour and social skills; although no significant group improvements were found. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that a FMS intervention can be effective at improving motor skills, and may result in individual behavioural improvements. These findings warrant further research with a larger sample.