2021 Doctoral Sustainability Thesis Inventory
The Sustainability Doctoral Thesis Inventory was developed by the Committee on the Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainability (CECCS). It gathers information about all doctoral theses with sustainability content at the University of Toronto since 2009. It includes 1,921 sustainability-oriented doctoral theses, representing approximately 20% of 9,627 doctoral theses since 2009. The purpose of the sustainability thesis inventory is to increase the visibility of such work, making it more accessible for the U of T community to access sustainability related scholarly work.
The approach to sustainability we take here addresses both human and environmental wellbeing (instead of simply focusing on reducing environmental damage), in accordance with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs were chosen as a basis for the inventory due to their comprehensiveness and widespread usage in the sustainability field. The inventory was created based on keywords from the SDGs, as shown in this table.
These SDG-related keywords, also used to develop the Sustainability Undergraduate Course Inventory, were developed in 2017 by the Expanded Student Engagement (ESE) Project in consultation with CECCS. SDG 17, “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the goal partnership for sustainable development,” was excluded from the methodology, as it encompasses the act of achieving the other goals rather than bringing a new perspective to sustainability.
Using these keywords, titles and abstracts of doctoral theses were searched. Since 2009, the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) requires doctoral and masters graduates to submit a thesis to TSpace, a free research repository hosted by the U of T Libraries to disseminate and preserve the scholarly record of U of T faculty and graduate student research. SGS intends to house all available digitized Doctoral and Masters theses by U of T graduate students on TSpace. Thesis metadata was exported by a TSpace administrator and shared with CECCS in July 2020.
The search results were then manually reviewed for quality assurance by CECCS. Any output deemed irrelevant to the particular SDG based on the abstract has been removed. The following information was documented in the inventory: Author, Advisor/Supervisor, Title, Department, Date Issued, Abstract, Degree, Subject and the SDG(s) to which the thesis is related.
If you are an author or supervisor at the University of Toronto and think that a thesis should be included in or removed from the inventory, please contact ayako.ariga@utoronto.ca.
| Author | Advisor | Title | Department | Date issued | Abstract | Degree | Permanent URL | Subject | Keyword(s) | SDGs Covered | SDG1 | SDG2 | SDG3 | SDG4 | SDG5 | SDG6 | SDG7 | SDG8 | SDG9 | SDG10 | SDG11 | SDG12 | SDG13 | SDG14 | SDG15 | SDG16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Levinsky, Zachary | Hannah-Moffat, Kelly | ‘Don’t Under React’: The Limits of Compassion and Risk Management in Toronto School Safety from 1999-2007 | Criminology | 2020-11-01 | The purpose of this dissertation is to situate school safety policies within the emergence of organizational risk management. I argue that the turn to a risk management of everything re-shapes safety and discipline in the school system. Concomitantly, the compassionate and pastoral aspects of schooling re-shapes risk management. This is important because risk management and school discipline practices are often described as cold exclusionary turns whereas my research shows that the inclusionary pull and dream of mandatory education, if never fully realized, impacts how risk management is achieved in the school system. The main question addressed by this dissertation is how does the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) manage risk to students, educators and its reputation by looking at three distinct areas: 1) the disappearance of zero-tolerance policies; 2) the role of the centralized Safe Schools Office in handling student discipline; and 3) the organizational responses to school shooters via lockdown and threat assessments. As part of this turn to risk management, institutions are becoming insular to external research so I had to rely on creativity to collect data. I attended training seminars and received resources normally reserved for school principals and conducted by senior administrators in the TDSB. I augmented the data from the training materials with TDSB policy and procedural memoranda; debates by politicians (School Board Trustees and Members of Provincial Parliament) and the work that emerged from two TDSB led task forces on discipline and safety. The research provides greater nuance to the literature by focusing on how inclusivity and compassion have implications for risk management strategies. The research also suggests how to approach and stifle purely exclusionary policies. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103761 | compassion||pastoral power||risk management||school lockdowns||school safety||zero-tolerance | institut, inclusiv, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Freitas, Danielle | Gagne, Antoinette | “It Kind of Made Me Think: Is This the Real Me? Is This Really Who I Am?” A Mixed Methods Investigation of Teacher Learning and Teacher Development in CELTA Courses | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2021-03-01 | Every year, tens of thousands of English language teachers worldwide graduate from the University of Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English to Speaker of Other Languages (CELTA). Despite the significant impact this pre-service certificate exerts in the English language teaching (ELT) profession, research on Language Teacher Education (LTE) has traditionally relied on studies conducted in academic-based programs at higher education institutions. This mixed methods research investigates what it means for student teachers to learn how to teach and develop as English language teachers in CELTA courses. It also investigates the nature of such learning and development, and the ways in which student teachers learn how to teach and develop as teachers in CELTA. A three-phased “enhanced” exploratory sequential mixed methods research design was employed. In Phase 1, data from semi-structured interviews, course documents, classroom observations, field notes, diaries and a WhatsApp group chat were collected at 2 CELTA programs: one in the US, where the researcher co-taught the course, and the other in Canada. Findings showed that student teachers learned teaching knowledge and skills and that, through this learning, they interacted with teacher educators, peers and ESL students, interactions which influenced and were influenced by their emotions and teacher identity. In Phase 2, these findings were used to develop the teacher learning and development (TLD) Scale. Data collected from CELTA graduates and student teachers (N = 880) from 78 countries were analyzed and a novel TLD construct was identified. In Phase 3, mixed methods synthesis occurred, and findings revealed how, by self-regulating and being regulated by teacher educators and peers through the use of course activities, artifacts and concepts, student teachers internalized teaching knowledge and developed pedagogical content knowledge. Findings also showed how student teachers developed as individuals and teachers by resolving the dialectical contradictions that constituted the moving force for their teacher development as well as the forms of their teacher development. The importance of perezhivanie (commonly translated as “lived experience”) as a lens to explain teacher development in LTE is discussed, and the concepts of teaching knowledge as praxis (TKP) and teacher’s teaching knowledge as praxis (TTKP) are proposed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105042 | CELTA/TESOL/TESL/TEFL||Language Teacher Education||Mixed Methods||Perezhivanie||Sociocultural Theory||Teacher Learning and Development | institut, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Helferty, Anjali Tara | Restoule, Jean-Paul | “We’re really trying, and I know it’s not enough”: Settler Anti-pipeline Activists and the Turn to Frontline Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | The logics and worldviews of settler environmentalism perpetuate settler colonialism and white supremacy; settler environmentalism has consistently failed to work in relation to Indigenous peoples in a good way. This research engages with the efforts of settler anti-pipeline activists in Canada to solve these problems of environmentalism by turning to frontline solidarity. Frontline solidarity relies on systems of power; the framework hinges on a solidarity group making use of their privileges to support the struggles of a frontline group while simultaneously attempting to de-emphasize this privilege through, for example, following frontline leadership. Frontline solidarity does not solve settler environmentalism; it does not enable settler environmentalists to become the “good ally.” However, this framework at times enabled settler anti-pipeline activists to productively support Indigenous-led legal battles and land defence. Separating the goal of stopping pipelines from the goal of supporting Indigenous self-determination has the potential to clarify roles for settlers on Indigenous land. Layered onto the contradictions of frontline solidarity, many of the settler activists worked at environmental organizations and were funded to stop pipelines through a collective campaign. Like frontline solidarity, philanthropy hinges on white settler power and fails to address systemic injustices. The organizational requirements of funded campaign engagement and the campaign absorbing solidarity goals into an “outreach” model worked primarily to maintain settler power. At the same time, the flexibility of campaign networks provided opportunities for relationships and learning between settler activists and Indigenous peoples; while not themselves decolonizing, the relationships provide an opening to work together against climate change and colonial power. Settler anti-pipeline activists are steeped in multiple oppressive systems and were at times “called out” for racist or colonial actions. Narratives of Indigenous trauma and white fragility led to the creation of a feeling rule in which settler activists did not allow themselves to feel the pain these callouts caused. This contributed to burnout and limited opportunities for learning and healing. This dissertation contributes to the literatures on solidarity, social movements, critical philanthropy, and politics of emotion. As an activist researcher, I am also motivated to contribute to the transformation of my own movement. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103742 | activism||critical philanthropy||environmentalism||feeling rules||solidarity||whiteness | justice, environment, climate | SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Mandair, Sharon | Karney, Bryan W | 1D and 3D Water-hammer Models: The Energetics of High Friction Pipe Flow and Hydropower Load Rejection | Civil Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Hydraulic systems are a critical part of modern infrastructure. In systems such as water distribution and electricity generation, perturbations in operations and therefore transient flow conditions are unavoidable. In light of the potential damage they can inflict, the study of hydraulic transients remains an important field of interest; one in which numerical methods play a key role. Numerical techniques are therefore at the heart of this investigation, applying the one-dimensional Method of Characteristics (MOC), and the three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using finite volumes. These two models are complementary. MOC is simple and cost effective but only applicable to pipe systems and networks; whereas CFD has a more native representation of the physics, and can model multi-dimensional features, but at a steep computational cost. The MOC and CFD models are applied to two case studies of water-hammer hydraulics. The first is high shear pipe flow, looking closely at the fundamental physics of water-hammer, acoustic wave propagation and reflection, and dissipation. The physics are explored in energetic terms, applying the integral total energy analysis. In a context where MOC solvers are ideal, CFD is used to evaluate potential gaps in these simple models. The second case study is a load rejection at a large hydropower station. In the context of a changing electricity supply, which includes more variable renewable sources, the inherent dispatchability of hydropower begins to play a new role. Consequently, the underlying mechanical infrastructure is being exposed to damaging transient hydraulics. In this case study, MOC and CFD solvers are coupled to study the influence of a long penstock during a load rejection. MOC is used to represent the penstock, while CFD represents the turbomachine from the spiral casing to the draft tube. The study identifies the risk for severe wear and tear on the machine blades; however, importantly the role of the penstock seems to be limited to the determination of the background flow and pressure seen by the machine. The analysis shows that vortex circulation within the runner is the source of high amplitude pressure loading, while compressibility have a limited effect. Les systèmes hydrauliques sont des composantes critiques des infrastructures modernes. Les systèmes de distribution d'eau et de production hydro-électrique subissent inévitablement des changements de leur mode d’opérations, et doivent par conséquent composer avec des écoulements transitoires. Puisqu’ils peuvent endommager les machines et les structures, les transitoires hydrauliques constituent un domaine d’études important, où les méthodes numériques jouent un rôle clé. Les techniques numériques sont donc au coeur de cette étude qui utilise la méthode des caractéristique (MOC) uni-dimensionnelle, ainsi que la dynamique des fluides numérique (CFD) en trois dimensions avec des volumes finis. Les deux modèles sont complémentaires. Le modèle MOC est simple et efficace, mais c’est une approximation qui ne s'applique qu’aux systèmes et aux réseaux de conduite. La CFD utilise une représentation plus proches des lois de la physique, et permet de modéliser les phénomènes multidimensionnels, mais au prix d’un temps de calcul important. Ces modèles, MOC et CFD, sont appliqués à deux cas de coup de bélier. Le premier est l'écoulement dans une conduite avec un fort cisaillement. L’étude se concentre sur la physique du coup de bélier, la propagation et la réflexion d'un front d’onde acoustique, et sa dissipation. Ces phénomènes physiques sont explorés en termes énergétiques, en appliquant le concept d'énergie totale intégrée. Dans un contexte où les modèles MOC sont idéaux, la CFD est utilisée ici pour évaluer les limitations de ces modèles simples. Le deuxième cas est l’étude d'un rejet de charge dans une grande centrale d’hydro-électricité. Dans un contexte où la production électrique change pour inclure les énergies renouvelables et variables, la flexibilité intrinsèque de l’hydro-électricité commence à jouer un rôle nouveau. Par conséquent, les transitoires hydrauliques sont une source de dommages potentiels aux infrastructures mécaniques. Dans cette étude, les modèles MOC et CFD sont couplés afin d’évaluer l'importance de la conduite forcée lors d'un délestage. Un modèle MOC est utilisé pour simuler la conduite, et un modèle CFD pour simuler la turbine, de la bâche spirale à l'aspirateur. L'étude identifie des risques d’endommagement sur les aubes. Le rôle de la conduite semble limité à la détermination du débit et du niveau de pression moyens vus par la machine. L'analyse démontre que les vortex qui circulent entre les aubes de la roue créent de grandes fluctuations de pression; toutefois le rôle de la compressibilité est limité. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103197 | hydraulic turbine||hydro power||pipe||transient flow||unsteady friction||Water-hammer | production, infrastructure, renewabl, energy, water | SDG6, SDG7, SDG9, SDG12, SDG14 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Do, Minh Thuy | Olive, Andrea||Schertzer, Robert | A “Consultation Dance” for Legitimacy: The Supreme Court and The Duty to Consult in B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Process | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | The duty to consult is an Aboriginal right under s. 35 of Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982. Under the duty, the Crown must consult with Indigenous nations if their asserted or recognized rights may be negatively impacted by a proposed Crown action. The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has explained that all parties in consultation need to act in good faith and that the Crown is expected to act honourably in order to discharge the duty. This dissertation posits a framework to evaluate whether the Crown upholds its honour throughout decision-making. The framework of input, throughput, and output legitimacy can demonstrate whether the Crown is acting legitimately towards Indigenous peoples’ and their concerns throughout various stages of decision-making. The dissertation then applies this framework to B.C.’s Environmental Assessment (B.C. EA) process in order to assess how the duty to consult is implemented. I find that the Crown does not attain some key aspects of input, throughput, and output legitimacy. In particular, Indigenous parties perceive that they do not have adequate resources to participate effectively in consultation activities; there is a lack of accountability and transparency regarding the Crown’s decision-making throughout the EA process; and the Environmental Assessment Office does not sufficiently explain how its preferred course of action provides superior protection for Aboriginal rights over alternative actions. The Crown exhibits these shortcomings because it prefers to fulfill the duty in a way that is least disruptive to existing norms and practices, even when doing so increases the risk of Indigenous peoples pursuing litigation to challenge the Crown. Consequently, contentious politics and expensive, time-consuming legal challenges continue, ultimately casting doubt on the duty to consult’s ability to advance reconciliation between the Crown and Indigenous peoples. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103299 | Aboriginal rights||Canadian constitutional law||Duty to Consult||Indigenous politics||Public Policy | rights, environment, consum | SDG12, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Ma, Jennifer | Alaggia, Ramona | A critical analysis of the overrepresentation of First Nations children and families in the Ontario child welfare system and disparities in providing ongoing child welfare services | Social Work | 2018-11-01 | First Nations children are chronically overrepresented in the child welfare system in Canada. This is largely a result of the effect that colonization has on Aboriginal peoples, but also evidence of colonialism being reproduced through current discriminatory legislation and practices. This three-paper dissertation employed a secondary analysis of data to examine the extent of the overrepresentation of First Nations children involved with child welfare in Ontario. Moreover, this study critically examines investigations of reported maltreatment to understand what is driving the overrepresentation of First Nations children. The results show that overrepresentation is a predictable outcome in a system predicated on assimilative objectives. In Ontario, First Nations children represent 2.5% of the child population; they represent 7.4% of child maltreatment-related investigations. For every 1,000 First Nations children in Ontario, 160.3 were involved in investigations compared to 54.4 per 1,000 White children. Overrepresentation was most pronounced for investigations of neglect. Rates of substantiation (3.4 times), ongoing services (4.2 times), child welfare court (5.7 times), and child welfare placement (7.5 times) were higher for the First Nations child population and disparities increased as children moved further into the child welfare system. Caregiver concerns were the main drivers of transfers to ongoing services for both First Nations and White children. For investigations involving White children, after controlling for caregiver concerns, workers were more likely to transfer a case for ongoing services when child psychological harm was present. While the proportion of children identified with psychological harm was similar across both groups, workers placed more weight on a White child experiencing psychological harm. The notion that workers might have different standards for decision-making for First Nations children compared to White children is concerning. Overall, the findings indicate that structural risks have not been addressed, putting First Nations families at risk for child welfare involvement. Structural issues such as chronic poverty and systemic racism are indicative of the legacy of the residential school system and produce the conditions that result in children coming to the attention of child protection services. Overrepresentation will continue unabated if the immense social inequities for First Nations children are not addressed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102934 | aboriginal||bias||child welfare||decision-making||first nations||overrepresentation | worker, poverty | SDG1, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| DuBois, Denise | Gibson, Barbara||Nalder, Emily | A Critical Interrogation of Inclusion in the Context of Residential Service Provision for Persons with Developmental Disabilities in Ontario | Rehabilitation Science | 2021-06-01 | In an occupationally just context, people can experience social inclusion through enablement of occupation. Thus, social housing provision has power to shape occupational possibilities and inclusion of residents. Despite the goals of deinstitutionalization, persons with developmental disabilities continue to experience social exclusion (e.g., in terms of quality/quantity of available social housing). In Ontario, Canada, thousands of persons with developmental disabilities are inadequately housed. In order to surface occupational injustices experienced by persons with developmental disabilities in social housing, I adopted a critical occupational science (COS) approach to consider discourses (e.g. what is said) and practices (e.g., what is done) that constitute an ‘inclusive home’. I aimed to problematize inclusion shaped and was shaped within the situation (i.e., sociopolitical, economic, cultural, and material) of residential service provision in Ontario by considering the complex transactions amongst discourses about inclusion, everyday practices, and macro-level forces.I conducted a community-based, multimethod qualitative study. I interviewed 9 agency directors from five housing agencies and 18 residents with developmental disabilities across 14 residences. Each resident was interviewed twice using participatory (i.e., go along and photo elicitation) methods. In Session 1, we toured their residence while I interviewed them about daily life and how they are or want to be included in it (or not) and took photos with them. In Session 2, we explored the photos to deepen conversations about inclusion and home. Interview data (N= 42.5 hours) were audio recorded, transcribed, and abductively coded. Drawing on COS, I wrote analytic summaries for each participant to ‘interrogate’ the data with problematizing questions. I attended to rigour through prolonged engagement, multiple data sources, and extensive field/reflexive memos. I linked participant accounts to five interlinked dimensions of inclusion (Mainstream to Specific; Far from to Near Others; Private to Collective; Transient to Stable; and Unsupported to Supervised) each of which had effects on inclusion (e.g., through available resources and practices). At one extreme, the accounts echoed neoliberal notions of personal responsibility and individualism. At the other extreme, the accounts included types of resistance about intentional community and disabled spaces. From these accounts, I interpreted an inclusive home as accommodating diverse needs through spatial flexibility, balancing private/communal spaces, intentionally considering disability-specific needs/choices, and having stable connections to meaningful community networks that may open up occupational possibilities for residents through inclusion. These culminated in five principles of an inclusive home: Fluidity of Design, Flexibility of Space, Proximity to the Centre, Stable Connections to Varied and Active Networks, and Building Opportunities for Active Involvement of Residents in Housing Planning. By applying the socially transformative COS lens, these findings contribute to a richer understanding of assumptions and ideologies that underlie occupation in residential service provision for persons with developmental disabilities, and potentially, other disabled populations. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103579 | Critical studies||Developmental Disabilities||Home||Housing||Occupational Science||Social Inclusion | justice, institut, inclusiv | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Mickleborough, Timothy | Muzzin, Linda | A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of the Construction of Canadian International Pharmacy Graduate (IPG) Professional Identities and Subjectivities | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | This research explores the construction of professional identities and subjectivities of former international pharmacy graduates or IPGs. It is a study of the reprofessionalization of pharmacy practice in the Canadian context and the resocialization of IPGs into a profession that is in transition. My thesis adopts a bricolage approach in which I theorize professional identity construction through the theoretical lenses of Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, Judith Butler and the race and space literature. These related theories facilitate the understanding of professional identity construction through the take up of professional discourses and the ‘translation’ experiences of internationally-trained professionals navigating discursive border crossings while integrating into the host country’s labour market. A Foucauldian governmentality approach was employed to analyze an archive of professional journals to determine how the profession governs its members to become the ‘right’ type of pharmacist at this time in the profession’s history. I also analyzed interview data from 17 participants examining the multiple discourses that former IPGs adopt to construct their professional subjectivities. The study reveals that former IPGs readily take up professional discourses in becoming a ‘Canadian’ pharmacist and that the process of identity construction for racialized professionals requires conducting oneself ‘professionally’ when managing racist encounters in the workplace. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103378 | Foucault||immigrant||international pharmacists||pharmacy||professional identity||resocialization | labour | SDG8 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Schranz, Kristen Michelle | Levere, Trevor H. | A New Narrative for “Keir’s Metal”: The Chemical and Commercial Transformations of James Keir’s Copper Alloy, 1770–1820 | History and Philosophy of Science and Technology | 2018-11-01 | In the 1770s, the chemist and industrialist James Keir (1735–1820), along with the English manufacturer Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), developed an alloy of copper, zinc, and iron that became known as “Keir’s metal”. The material was initially marketed for ship parts, but later became the “Eldorado metal” of Georgian windows and décor. Production of Keir’s metal ceased in the 1820s, which has led to the assumption that it was a failed material of the early Industrial Revolution. Seemingly short-lived materials, however, can still be important inroads for histories of chemistry, consumption, and technology. Upon closer inspection, “Keir’s metal” is a label that has been applied to iterations of the same substance. Because the material was a product of different sites of inquiry and industry, the alloy had unique functions and meanings imparted to it over several decades. Hence, the alloy is a multifaceted material in need of a new historical narrative. I argue that Keir’s metal is a complex substance whose nuanced identities resulted from movement between sites of production and application, where chemical, social, and technological factors shaped the alloy’s properties and purposes. This new narrative for Keir’s metal unfolds in three parts. The first chapter demonstrates the centrality of Matthew Boulton’s Soho Manufactory in producing, protecting, and promoting the new material. The second part analyzes the collaboration of Keir and the London-based coppersmith William Forbes as they improved Keir’s metal between two different sites of industry and reintroduced it to the Navy Board for ship bolts. The third chapter examines the intentional transformation of Keir’s alloy into the Eldorado metal of neoclassical architecture through a new name, location, and marketing strategy. As an object on the move, Keir’s metal prompts analyses of the perceptions of eighteenth-century materials, the influences of place and space in material production, and the interface of science and technology (knowledge of the head and hand). Investigating the provenance and use of this metal reveals a wealth of relatively underexamined sources on James Keir and is important for present-day conservation of period buildings by restoration architects and decorators. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102952 | alloy||chemistry||industry||James Keir||Keir's metal||metallurgy | conserv, production, consum, buildings, industr, labor, wind | SDG7, SDG8, SDG9, SDG12, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Schumacher, Charles John | Friedland, Martin L||Roach, Kent | A Paper Examining Reactive Attachment Disorder and the Canadian Criminal Justice System | Law | 2016-06-01 | Reactive attachment disorder (“RAD”) is a recognized behavioural disorder arising from the failure to develop an “attachment” to a primary caregiver in early childhood. RAD can most often be traced to neglect or abuse or both in a child’s first 5 years of life. Some relevant symptoms are incessant lying, a lack of conscience and often a complete inability to have or to show empathy or remorse. The relevance to the operation of our criminal justice system is that the impressions left as a result of these traits are critical to the eventual outcome. From the moment the accused is interviewed and then throughout the process, their demeanor is being scrutinized. Their level of emotion and the “correctness” of that emotion and especially their ability to express empathy and remorse are judged during each phase. The problem is that these behaviours can lead to wrong impressions and, therefore, mistakes and injustice. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105874 | justice | SDG16 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Balter, Alice-Simone | Pascal, Charles E | A Study of Ontario Full-day Kindergarten Educators’ Responses to Children’s Emotions | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2021-03-01 | It is well documented that children’s negative behaviours and emotions are stressors for educators (Jennings Greenberg, 2009). The ways educators respond to children’s dysregulation are dependent, in part, on their social emotional competencies (SECs) (Jennings Greenberg, 2009) and a contributing factor in socializing children’s emotional development (Morris et al., 2013). In this dissertation, I examine the relationship between Ontario Full-Day Kindergarten (FDK) educators’ emotion regulation strategies, dispositional mindfulness, and their contingent responses to children’s negative behaviours. A total of 47 FDK educators, both Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) (n=13) and Ontario Certified Teachers (OCTs) (n=34) working within a large school board in Ontario, completed an online survey measuring two emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression), dispositional mindfulness, and their positive and negative responses to children’s negative emotions. The descriptive statistics show educators used more cognitive reappraisal than emotion suppression strategies and also reported a lack of both pre-service education and professional development training in relation to stress and coping in FDK classrooms. Regression analysis resulted in a significant relationship between educators’ cognitive reappraisal and their positive responses to children’s negative emotions. Dispositional mindfulness was an insignificant variable within the model of educators’ emotion regulation and contingent responding. The relationship between educators’ cognitive reappraisal and their positive responses to children’s negative emotions is addressed within the broader literature on educators’ SECs, and within the prosocial classroom model (Jennings Greenberg, 2009). I re-examine psychometric and Buddhist conceptualizations of dispositional mindfulness to explain its non-significance within this study. The implications of the study findings are discussed within their practice and policy implications, specifically around pre-service education and professional learning opportunities, and future research in both education and parenting fields is addressed. Understanding educators’ SECs, and specifically cognitive reappraisal as skills that underlie mental health in general, which contribute to socializing children’s emotions, drives the need for more research and skill building in this area. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104899 | children's negative emotions||dispositional mindfulness||emotion regulation||emotion socialization||mental health | educat, health | SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Vallejo Toledo, Esteban | Sanderson, Douglas | A Theory About Indigenous Taxation Powers | Law | 2018-11-01 | This paper proposes that taxation powers are culturally specific constructs by analyzing the content and underlying values, social organization, customs and institutions determining how Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Northwest Coast communities) understand taxation and exercise their taxation powers. The first chapter examines the non-monetary socio-economic organization of Northwest Coast communities to determine whether or not these communities practice taxation and exercise taxation powers. The second chapter analyzes, from a tax law perspective, the socio-economic characteristics of Northwest Coast communities to identify the criteria of legitimacy, limits and principles that inform how these communities understand taxation and exercise taxation powers. The final chapter explains why the emergence of market economies and monetary exchanges has not changed how Northwest Coast communities understand taxation and exercise taxation powers and explains how Northwest Coast taxation systems function according to kinship values, organization, customs and institutions. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102849 | Indigenous Peoples||Northwest Coast||Taxation||Taxation Powers | institut, taxation, socio-economic | SDG1, SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Nicholls, Rachael Marlene | Flessa, Joseph | A Walk Around the Lake: Critical Reflections on Place of Identity, Equity, and Inclusion in a Rural Ontario School Board | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | Although issues of equity and inclusion in schools have been discussed in academic discourses for decades, the nature of the exploration of these ideas has remained vague and uncritical (Gérin-Lajoie, 2008; Solomon et al., 2011). In 2009, the Ontario Ministry of Education released Realizing the Promise of Diversity: Ontario’s Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy, demonstrating a shift that appeared to signify a renewed effort to address inequities in education. Within rural school settings, this shift towards equity comes with unique challenges. My doctoral research analyzes how one rural school board interprets and administers equity-related policies. The study delves into how educators’ ideas impact the implementation process, contributing to the development of equitable policies across the province, particularly in rural settings. Current literature often conceptualizes rural classrooms as homogeneous, in contrast to diverse urban school classrooms (Corbett, 2006b; Solomon Sekayi, 2007; Tuters, 2009; Wallin Reimer, 2008). Since the majority of Ontario citizens live in urban centres, teachers are not taught ways to address to conceptualize how place impacts their teaching. Education policymakers, through centralization and standardization, have often failed to consider the lives of rural students and communities as shaped by, and within, their natural and cultural landscapes. To address this disparity, my key questions are: How do rural educators create relevant, equitable, and inclusive schools? What are the barriers to teaching and developing rural school environments where all individuals are respected or represented? This qualitative research, drawing on case study and portraiture methodology, included fifteen educators, who were members of a rural school board’s Equity and Inclusivity in Education committee. Data were collected between January and June of 2014. After developing themes, I crafted a portrait of how rural educators’ engage with ministry-directed policy, and work as a driving or restraining force for institutional change. This work contributes to discourses of equity in education with a focus on the perspectives of those teaching in rural Ontario. The work will play a role in teachers’ professional development, and will aid both new and experienced rural teachers in the ongoing struggle to create relevant and respectful curriculum for all students. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103318 | Case Study||Equity||Identity||Inclusion||Ontario||Rural Schools | institut, environment, rural, urban, equitable, inclusiv, educat | SDG4, SDG11, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| McEwen, Karen Dewart | Keilty, Patrick | Actuarial Bodies: Data, Value, and Fairness in Insurance and Workplace Wellness Programs | Information Studies | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation examines the data practices of personalized interactive insurance (PII) and workplace wellness programs (WWP) in the Canadian and American contexts. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with PII and WWP industry professionals and participants, direct observation at industry events, and analysis of industry documents, I analyze the logics and data practices of PII and WWPs. I argue that the insurance industry’s historical methods of valuing human life, with their raced, gendered, and classed notions of financial value, inform PII’s and WWPs’ data practices. I show how PII and WWPs deploy actuarial data practices to identify ‘burdens’ and ‘crises’ amongst policyholders and employees, frame ‘lifestyle’ and ‘behaviour’ as sites of investment for insurers and employers, and establish rewards as means of activating the future value of health and wellness. I also show how, in the face of uncertainty or doubt around their efficacy, PII and WWPs reorient the way they articulate the value of their services.I analyze the broader power dynamics in these programs, showing how industry actors position themselves as data curators who can facilitate ongoing experimentation on policyholders and employees. I argue that PII and WWPs demand datafied performances of value in the form of ‘healthy behaviour’ and ‘engagement’ from participants. I show how PII and WWPs frame ‘personalized’ data profiles and rewards as a way of increasing actuarial fairness, and argue that ‘fairness’ operates as a strategy of power that plays on an individual desire to control how we are perceived as different than or similar to others in an effort protect social status. Finally, I show how PII and WWPs continue the long-established practice of mobilizing both care and neglect for corporate profit, and argue that the actuarial logic of allocating costs, burdens, and (potential) value creates investable and disposable populations. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103614 | Data||Insurance||Personalized Interactive Insurance||Self-Tracking||Workplace Wellness | industr, gender, health | SDG3, SDG5, SDG9 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Killackey, Tieghan | Peter, Elizabeth | Advance Care Planning in Advanced Heart Failure: A Relational Exploration of Autonomy | Nursing Science | 2020-11-01 | Advance care planning (ACP) is the process of understanding and sharing personal values and goals to ensure people with serious illnesses receive healthcare and treatment that is consistent with their goals and preferences. With the increasing number of treatment options available to patients living with advanced heart failure (HF), ACP is regarded as a means of preserving individual autonomy throughout the illness trajectory. Despite significant public awareness campaigns, research and interventions developed to increase participation in ACP, this practice remains severely under-utilized by those who are chronically ill. This gap in practice highlights the need for further exploration of how patients, families and healthcare providers (HCP) engage with ACP as a practice that is intended to promote patient autonomy. Therefore, the aim of this research was to gain an understanding of how patients, families and healthcare providers (HCP) understand and express their autonomy within the process of ACP. Critical qualitative multiple case study methodology, guided feminist ethics and relational autonomy, was used. Patients with advanced HF were purposefully recruited from two sites; cases were constructed using data from 19 interviews with seven patients, eight caregivers, and nine HCPs. Constructions of autonomy were developed using within and across-case analysis, guided by relational conceptualizations of autonomy. There were three key findings that resulted from this study. First, ACP is understood as external to treatment decision making within the current biomedical landscape, with a specific focus on the power of the legal model. Second, the experience of autonomy in advanced HF is incongruent with the dominant individualistic approach and instead, is a relational experience that is based on relationships of trust. Finally, ACP is influenced by interpersonal relationships and responsibilities as well as interpersonal and social power dynamics. Although ACP is considered a practice that preserves individual autonomy, interpersonal, institutional and societal level relationships were all heavily influential in this practice. Future research and practice endeavors should consider the advancement of ACP (and the enactment of autonomy) using a relational framework that acknowledges autonomy is experienced within the context of institutional, social, and interpersonal relationships. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103128 | advance care planning||autonomy||bioethics||end of life||heart failure||qualitative research | institut, health | SDG3, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Lortie, Marie | Harney, Elizabeth | Afrique en Créations 1990-2011: Transnational Patronage in the Francophonie | History of Art | 2018-11-01 | This dissertation analyzes Afrique en Créations, a French government patronage program devoted to contemporary arts from Africa and the diaspora. Established in 1990 as a foundation, Afrique en Créations operated at arms length from the French government until 2000, when it was placed under the purview of the French ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs. Afrique en Créations is best known for its high-profile biennials on the continent, the “Bamako Encounters: African biennial of photography” held in Bamako, Mali since 1994 and “Dance Africa Dance!” an itinerant dance biennial established in 1995. However, it has also funded and organized residencies, workshops, exhibitions and touring programs for artists working in various media in France and Africa. My project examines Afrique en Créations in relation to French post-colonialism, the globalization of the contemporary art world and the growing presence of contemporary arts from Africa and the diaspora within it. It argues that Afrique en Créations, controlled primarily by members of France’s elite political class and later embedded in the French bureaucracy, has been strongly informed by the continuing legacies of primitivism in France, French politics in the Francophonie and neoliberal business practices, particularly “vertical integration.” While this may be the case, my dissertation also contends that curators and arts administrators from the diaspora working for Afrique en Créations have challenged primitivistic stereotypes and improved the relevance of its initiatives to artists and audiences on the continent. It also argues that several artists patronized by Afrique en Créations in the diaspora have made works that encourage the recent re-appraisal of French culture and identity from a post-colonial perspective. Thus, while specific to France and the Francophonie, this study sheds light on the role of institutions such as NGOs, foundations and government cultural agencies in the art world and therefore, its workings in our contemporary, post-colonial era. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102955 | African Arts||France||Francophonie||Globalization||Patronage||Primitivism | institut | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Fan, Jonathan | Smith, Peter M | Age-related Differences in Work Outcomes: Developing a Better Understanding of Variations in Return-to-work, Wage-replacement and Retirement Outcomes using Better Methods and Data | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2020-11-01 | Background: Age-related differences in work outcomes, such as return-to-work after work injury (RTW) and early labour market exit, are of renewed interest because they can impact organizational planning and worker well-being. Yet, age-related variations in work outcomes have yet to be fully understood. While existing data sources often do not contain items specifically intended to measure other age dimensions (e.g., functional, psychosocial, organizational, life-stage), they can contain items that could be used to assess these dimensions. If age dimensions could be assessed using existing data sources, which also contain relevant work outcomes, this can provide a feasible and efficient approach to examine the relationships between chronological age, age dimensions and outcomes of interest in existing large samples. Objectives: 1) Better understand the overall association between chronological age and wage-replacement duration, RTW and retirement expectations; 2) demonstrate a methodological approach that could be used to create indices of age dimensions using existing data sources; 3) examine the extent to which each age dimension explains the overall relationship between chronological age and work outcomes. Methods: This research used a combination of survey and administrative data collected from samples of working-age individuals across Canada and Australia. Regression and path models examined the overall relationship between chronological age and work outcomes, and the proportion mediated via age dimensions. Results: Older versus younger age was associated with greater wage-replacement duration, non-RTW and earlier retirement expectations. Differences in wage-replacement duration and non-RTW also varied as a function of follow-up time. Path models found that 25-30% of the overall relationship between older chronological age and work outcomes was mediated through functional age, life-stage age and RTW status at earlier time points (for non-RTW) and through life-stage and organizational age (for earlier retirement expectations). Conclusions: Findings indicate that both individual and contextual factors play a role in explaining relationships between older age and work outcomes. We derived novel measures of age dimensions using a variety of existing data sources and demonstrated the utility of an analytic approach to examine the relative contribution of age-related factors. This approach can be employed in future studies, although conceptual and measurement work needs to be refined. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103580 | wage, worker, labour, well-being | SDG3, SDG8 | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| Larratt-Smith, Charles | Handley, Antoinette | Agrarian Social Structures, Insurgent Embeddedness, and State Expansion: Evidence from Colombia | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | In the context of civil war, the efficacy of counterinsurgency strategies varies dramatically across space and time. While this process of state expansion produces different outcomes between different national level cases, it also engenders diverging results at the sub-national level. Counterinsurgent responses can lead to notable reductions in violence, an achievement mirrored by improved stability and order in contested zones. Quite frequently, however, violence will increase as stability and order worsen. The fact that state expansion into contested spaces produces such different results across areas of extremely close proximity begs the following questions: How is the state able to establish control, and by extension order, in some contested spaces more easily than in others? Conversely, what enables armed non-state actors to withstand and survive this massive onslaught in some cases, while failing elsewhere? Since 2002, the Colombian state has embarked upon a massive state expansion project in many volatile areas of the country that were previously controlled and governed by armed non-state actors. This projection of military, bureaucratic, and economic power into these contested spaces has not always brought peace and stability with it, casting into doubt the efficacy of the central government’s larger attempt at state expansion. This dissertation explores the above research puzzle through a comparative historical analysis of two sub-national counterinsurgency laboratories in rural Colombia which demonstrate enormous variation in counterinsurgent outcomes: Montes de María and Arauca. I provide a longitudinal qualitative model that highlights the importance of pre-existing agrarian social structures on the process of insurgent institutionalization in these spaces, or the ability of these armed non-state actors to embed themselves in rural civilian communities. I find that those actors that are better able to appropriate local cleavages in favor of specific constituencies will achieve a higher level of embeddedness in these spaces and thus possess a higher level of populational control over civilians. These advantages are crucial for insurgents during periods of state expansion, as they are better equipped to protect civilian populations from counterinsurgent violence and to prevent potential defection to their rivals. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103670 | Civil War||Colombia||Counterinsurgency | peace, institut, rural, labor, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG11, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Haller, Sarah | Goldstein, Abby L | An Examination of Instagram Use and Body Image in a Sociocultural Model of Disordered Eating | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2020-11-01 | Instagram has been identified as a particularly problematic social media site for emerging adults and has been linked to body image concerns (Fardouly, Willburger, Vartanian, 2018) and disordered eating (Holland Tiggemann, 2017; Turner Lefevre, 2017). There is limited research on the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between the use of image-based social networking sites, such as Instagram, and disordered eating. Phase I of the present study assessed thin-ideal internalization, appearance comparison, and body dissatisfaction as mediators of the relationship between frequency of overall Instagram use and disordered eating. One hundred and sixty women (ages 18-24) completed questionnaires regarding frequency of Instagram use, thin-ideal internalization, trait appearance comparison, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating. Frequency of Instagram use and thin-ideal internalization were directly and separately associated with body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. The proposed mediators were not found to underlie the relationship between Instagram use and disordered eating. To date, there is limited research on how Instagram use impacts daily experiences of mood and body dissatisfaction, which has important implications for capturing potential negative effects of Instagram use on women’s lives. Daily changes in mood and body dissatisfaction might influence decisions to engage in weight control behaviours and cannot be fully captured through retrospective assessment. In order to make research-based recommendations regarding Instagram use, we need to know more about how it impacts users daily. In Phase II of the present study, ninety-two women (ages 18-24) who completed Phase I were randomly assigned to an experimental (Instagram) or control (Reddit) condition and completed daily measures of mood and body dissatisfaction pre- and post-Instagram (or Reddit) use. Body dissatisfaction increased significantly post-Instagram use. In addition, participants low on trait appearance comparison experienced greater positive affect post-social media exposure. Findings from the current study reveal the potentially harmful impact of brief exposures to Instagram use, specifically on how women feel about their bodies and, more broadly, how they feel in general. Policy implications include social media companies ensuring safer online platforms and educational initiatives aimed at increasing young women’s body satisfaction and reducing tendencies to engage in appearance comparisons while online. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103680 | body image||disordered eating||emerging adulthood||Instagram||social media||thin-ideal internalization | women, educat | SDG4, SDG5 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Shuh, Janet Joanne | Jones, Glen | An Examination of Institutional Structures, Policy, Narratives and Professorial and Other Stakeholder Perceptions and Experiences vis-à-vis Academic Integrity | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2021-03-01 | An Examination of Institutional Structures, Policy, Narratives and Professorial and Other Stakeholder Perceptions and Experiences vis-à-vis Academic Integrity Janet Joanne Shuh Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education University of Toronto 2020 Abstract This study explores the academic integrity mandate of a large multi-campus University in Ontario, Canada through the examination of faculty, staff, and administrator perceptions and experiences as well as the institution’s structures, policies and narratives. The study analyzed findings from three discrete data sources: institutional documents and structures; key informant interviews; and a faculty survey. The research questions and methodology drew from an emerging body of literature that has challenged researchers and practitioners to reframe their understanding of academic integrity from a “student” to an “institutional” (Bertram Gallant, 2016); “educational” (Bretag, 2016a; Fishman, 2016); and “academic literacy” (Howard, 2016) issue. Bolman and Deal’s (2003) four-frame model was used to explore the University’s approach to academic integrity through the structural, human resource, political, and symbolic “frames” as lenses for understanding organizational emphasis and leadership change vis-à-vis academic integrity. Faculty members’ experiences and perceptions were assessed, for the: prevalence of student dishonesty; salience of the underlying factors (individual student versus institutional/situational); and the impact of eroding integrity on core University functions, and the value of the four frames. The survey data were also analyzed for significant differences across the respondent characteristics of: academic discipline; primary campus of teaching; and length of teaching career.The study found that the University’s responses to academic integrity as well as the importance of approaches and considerations as assessed by faculty members were largely reflective of a structural lens. This was expected in that the structural frame (Bolman Deal, 2003) includes the central components of organizations, including “roles, goals, policies, technology, and environment” (p. 16) that are foundational to the post-secondary sector’s response to academic integrity concerns and/or opportunities. Key recommendations include creating more fulsome opportunities for academic integrity dialogue especially with students; acknowledging and mitigating inherent power imbalances; and incorporating symbolic and values-based strategies. The study also recommends aligning academic integrity more closely with the University’s quality assurance, research mandate, and institutional purpose; and fostering a commitment to continuous improvement of academic integrity policy, procedures, and governance. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104858 | academic integrity||academic policy||higher education||institutional analysis||organizational theory||pan-organizational | governance, institut, fish, environment, educat | SDG4, SDG13, SDG14, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Ryu, Grace Hojung | Childs, Ruth | An Exploration of the Experiences of Post-secondary Education for Ontario’s Multi-barriered Female Mature Students | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | This study explores the experiences of multi-barriered mature students in Ontario’s colleges, specifically female students that have been out of school for at least 10 years attending post-secondary education (PSE) through the Government of Ontario’s Second Career program. Having qualified for the Second Career program means, by definition, these women have recently been laid off, have low socio-economic status, and for most, this is their first time attending PSE in Canada. Informed by the intersectionality and capabilities approach frameworks, the study considers the multiple and complex dimensions of marginalization, as well as the real opportunities and freedoms the participants have in pursuing the lives they find reason to value. Through a series of in-depth interviews with 12 students, using a life history methodology, this study investigates the following research questions: how do mature students embodying various marginalities experience PSE and how do they understand the difficulties they encounter? This study also inquires why the students think they are facing the stated difficulties, how they have come to make sense of them, and how they have been coping with or managing the difficulties. Findings show that most had positive memories of their earlier schooling experiences. The participants viewed the opportunity to begin PSE as ‘a way out’ of their current situations by enhancing their capabilities for education and work. The participants also reported feelings of great anxiety and fear about entering PSE. Some of the difficulties they experienced in PSE were low English proficiency skills; an age gap; and being time poor. Some attributed the difficulties they faced as being signs of personal failure, while others saw barriers embedded in the systems. Support from family, friends, and other mature student peers, and finding their own ways to cope were described as important in helping to overcome the difficulties or to at least ‘get by.’ Two sub-groups of participants are identified, with very different needs, suggesting that a one-size-fits-all model of supporting multi-barriered mature students is not appropriate. Based on the findings, recommendations for future research, PSE institutions, and policy and government are provided. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103549 | Capabilities approach||College||Intersectionality||Life history||Mature students||Second Career | institut, women, educat, socio-economic | SDG1, SDG4, SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Boakye, Priscilla Nailatu | Peter, Elizabeth H | Analysis of the Moral Habitability of Obstetric Settings in Ghana | Nursing Science | 2020-11-01 | Morally habitable workplaces are essential for enhancing the ability of nurses and midwives to meet their caring responsibilities and to limit the experience of moral distress and other work-related adversities. Morally habitable places are those that promote recognition, cooperation, and shared goods as compared to those that create suffering, distress, oppression, and violence. While there have been studies exploring moral habitability or moral climate and its impact on nurses in Western countries, little is known about the moral habitability of the workplaces of nurses and midwives in resource-constrained settings. The purpose of this research was to examine the moral habitability of the work environment of nurses and midwives and its influence on their moral agency. The philosophical works of Margaret Urban Walker and Kwame Gyekye were used as interpretive lenses. A critical moral ethnography was conducted with 30 nurses and midwives working in obstetric settings in Ghana. Data were collected through interview, observation, and documentary materials. Five themes were identified reflecting the moral habitability of the obstetrics settings and moral agency including: 1) holding onto the values, identities, and responsibilities of being a midwife/nurse; 2) scarcity of resources as limiting capacity to meet caring responsibilities; 3) gender and socio-economic inequities shaping the moral social context of practice; 4) working with incoherent moral understandings and damaged identities in the context of inter- and intra-professional relationships; and 5) surviving through adversity with renewed commitment and courage. The nurses and midwives work in a context dominated by the scarcity of resources, overwhelming incoherent moral responsibilities, oppressive conditions, and workplace violence that constrained their moral agency, endangered patient lives, and provoked suffering and distress. Nurses and midwives negotiated their practice and adversity through the influence of their moral values. Creating morally habitable workplaces through a collaborative effort from institutional managers, nurse leaders, doctors, and policymakers may promote a culture of ethical and ideal nursing and midwifery care for childbearing women and professional well-being. Given the ethically laden nature of the work environment, there is a need for an enhanced ethics education and consultation to help the nurses and midwives confront the issues with confidence. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103662 | Ethics||Midwives/Nurses||Moral agency||Moral Habitability||Moral Identity||Resource constrained settings | institut, environment, climate, urban, labor, women, gender, educat, well-being, socio-economic | SDG1, SDG3, SDG4, SDG5, SDG8, SDG11, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
| Pacholik-Samson, Katrina | Flessa, Joseph | Approaches to Leadership Development and Succession Planning in Canadian Accredited Independent Schools | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | Despite the significant research on succession and leadership development in the management literature, similar research in K–12 education is limited, including very few studies on Canadian K–12 independent schools. Meanwhile, Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS) face a significant wave of leadership change, with 6 out of 10 CAIS leaders citing plans to leave or retire from their current school within five years, and board chairs citing leadership succession as a top concern facing their schools. This study examines how CAIS school leaders are approaching leadership development and succession planning in their organization, via qualitative interviews with 20 leaders (heads, HR leaders, board chairs) in seven CAIS schools. An analysis of these interviews reveals significant variation in the sophistication of these schools’ leadership development and succession planning processes. Additionally, from these interviews, six key findings emerged: (1) succession practices across schools are varied, and most of what is being done across schools is replacement rather than succession planning; (2) organizational elements that inhibit or support succession planning and leadership development include: presence of strategic HR, a culture of professional development, access to stretch opportunities for emerging leaders, and the tenure and career stage of current head; (3) succession efforts need to be driven by the head and board chair to be successful; (4) governance succession processes in CAIS schools are strong, if not always well-executed; (5) heads feel that search committees’ reluctance to appoint first-time heads has limited leadership development efforts within CAIS schools, and they raise concern over the rise of international head appointments to CAIS schools; and finally, (6) sponsors who advocate for high-potential leaders are important. The recommendations from this research highlight the desire CAIS school leaders have for more support in structuring succession and leadership development processes in their schools, as well as a call for a national body, like CAIS, to promote the leadership training programs they operate with school boards and executive search firms. This research establishes the groundwork for future, further examination of leadership and succession pathways in Canadian independent schools. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103604 | Independent school||Leadership||Leadership development||Private School||Succession||Succession planning | governance, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Ahn, Ju-Hye | Gérin-Lajoie, Diane | Artistic Identity and Space: The Journey of a Group of Graduates from an Arts High School | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | While there is an abundance of information about how the arts are used to express and explore identity among at-risk or underprivileged youth, the relationship between school contexts and artistic identity is not well documented. This study aims to address this gap by investigating how artistic identity is shaped through the experiences students encounter in school settings. This narrative research examines the ways in which the notion of artist is conceptualized and explores how artistic identity is constructed in the discourse of participants. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, I explored the perception of the schooling experiences of 24 graduates from one arts high school in Toronto to better understand how these graduates, with the distance of time, perceive this experience in the context of their lives. The descriptive accounts provided in the graduates’ narratives unearthed the artistic identities that emerged from their early childhood experiences, in addition to revealing a sense of belonging they fostered at school that helped to shape their artistic identity. A major finding of this research is the process by which participants began to understand themselves as artists in relation to others, and within the social milieu of the arts high school. The research findings showed that the school shaped and reinforced the very concept of what it means to be an artist. Understanding the various paths that students take after graduation will shed light on the role of the arts in schools, and provide further understandings of the drives and motivations of the graduates who choose a career in art (or not) and how these factors challenge preconceived notions about what it means to be an artist. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103226 | Art Education||Artistic Identity||Arts High School||Identity||Space | educat | SDG4 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Millares, Myrtle D. | Dolloff, Lori-Anne | Artistic Knowledge and Performance Identity Formation in Toronto's Hip-hop Communities of Practice | Music | 2020-11-01 | This research project illustrates, through the voices of Toronto hip-hop artists, how the complex, mutually influential interactions between individuals and their communities shape and create knowledge, while encouraging the articulation of difference through unique performance identities. Their learning spaces are not institutional classrooms, but rather public spaces such as community centres, church basements, and concrete city squares, where the line between teacher and student is crossed and blurred. I employ narrative methodology as a means of obtaining the rich accounts necessary to illuminate these community-based learning processes. Hip-hop’s history is passed on orally and aurally as artists cultivate their craft. Artists’ personal stories are essential to the way hip-hop’s history, together with its teaching philosophies, are internalized and passed on in community spaces. Narratives elicited through interviews, conducted as dialogue, have the potential to more respectfully trace these individual-communal relationships. As such, the body of my data consists of the narratives of three Toronto hip-hop artists – B-boy Jazzy Jester, DJ Ariel, and MC LolaBunz – presented and interpreted according to the themes or moments that they have voiced as significant to the development of their skills and of their performance identities. The narratives presented here show the dialogic relationship between musical creativity and identity-building, resulting in embodied, performed expressions of an engagement with the tensions of lived experience. Each artist reveals their personal engagement with layers of normative discourses that are constantly at play, accepted, rejected, and creatively manipulated to fashion one’s own performance identity expressed as style. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103655 | hip-hop||informal learning||narrative methodology||performance identity||performativity and Signifyin(g)||Toronto hip-hop | institut | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Harripaul, Ricardo Simeon | Vincent, John B | Autosomal Recessive Variants in Intellectual Disability and Autism Spectrum Disorder | Medical Science | 2021-03-01 | The development of the nervous system is a tightly timed and controlled process where aberrant development may lead to neurodevelopmental disorders. Two of the most common forms of neurodevelopmental disorders are Intellectual Disability (ID) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These two disorders are intertwined, but much about the etiological relationship between them remains a mystery. Little attention has been given to the role recessive variants play in ID and ASD, perhaps related to the ability of recessive variants to remain hidden in the population. This thesis aims to help determine the role of recessive variants in ID and ASD and identify novel genes associated with these neurodevelopmental disorders. Technological advancements such as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and large population-scale sequencing reference sets have ushered in a new era of high throughput gene identification. In total, 307 families were whole-exome sequenced (192 consanguineous multiplex ID families and 115 consanguineous trio ASD families), representing 537 samples in total. This work identified 26 novel genes for ID such as ABI2, MAPK8, MBOAT7, MPDZ, PIDD1, SLAIN1, TBC1D23, TRAPPC6B, UBA7, and USP44 in large multiplex families with an overall diagnostic yield of 51 %. ASD often has other comorbid features and the connection with ID and ASD has been observed in literature with an estimated 40-70% if ASD probands also have comorbid ID. Extending the use of consanguineous families in autosomal recessive variant identification in ASD, the diagnostic yield for this ASD trio cohort was ~26 %, with 28 of the known variants coming from previously known genes. This study identified putative variants with functional mouse models that display behavioural and nervous system abnormalities involving genes such as EPHB1, VPS16, CNGA2 and EFR3B. Of the neurodevelopmental genes from this cohort, ZNF292 is the most associated with ID with or without syndromic features and ASD. The overall body of work highlights the clinical and genetic heterogeneity in neurodevelopmental disorders and demonstrates the important role that recessive variants have in neurodevelopment disorders, including ASD. The identification of novel genes will hopefully provide better diagnosis and clinical management for patients. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104939 | Autism||Autosomal Recessive Variants||Bioinformatics||Intellectual Disability||Mental Health||Neurodevelopment | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Retrouvey, Helene | Zhong, Toni||Baxter, Nancy N | Barriers to Access to Breast Reconstruction in Ontario | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2019-11-01 | Background: Breast reconstruction (BR) surgically restores the breast mound and provides long-term quality of life benefits. Despite these benefits, BR fails to be consistently integrated as part of the treatment of breast cancer (BC) patients, in part due to inequitable access to BR. Methods: I first performed a systematic review of the literature to comprehensively summarize the known barriers to BR. Access was defined as “the degree of fit between the [patient] and the system”. The access to care framework by Penchansky served as mid-level theory to inform this research. Then, in order to extend knowledge of barriers to BR access in Ontario, I performed semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders (BC patients as well as providers and administrators responsible for the delivery of BR) to explore their perceptions of BR access. Qualitative descriptive methodology guided this research. Results: The systematic review identified 99 articles published between 1996 and 2016 discussing barriers to BR access. Barriers were related to the six Penchansky access to care domains: accessibility, availability, awareness, affordability, acceptability, and accommodation. Interviews with 28 patients, 22 clinicians and 8 administrators (58 total) revealed two novel barriers to BR access in Ontario. Barriers were lack of BR acceptability to patients and lack of interprofessional collaboration among physicians. For BC patients, the main barrier to BR access was their lack of acceptability of the procedure. Although patients could recognize the value of BR, many felt judged when thinking or selecting to undergo BR. These negative perceptions of BR as a “vain” or “cosmetic” procedure could impact access to BR. For providers, ineffective interprofessional collaboration amongst the interprofessional BC team was perceived as a barrier to BR delivery. No clearly identified clinician leader as well as tensions regarding the role of plastic surgeons negatively influenced collaboration. Without effective collaboration between physicians, the delivery of BR could be adversely affected. Conclusions: This research improves our understanding of barriers faced by BC patients when attempting to access BR. Future studies that engage with key stakeholders are needed in order to develop targeted interventions which will facilitate BR access for all BC patients. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102768 | Access to Care||Breast Cancer||Breast Reconstruction | labor, equitable | SDG4, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Smitka, Julie A. M. | Springgay, Stephanie | Being Within and Without: Cases of Phenomenological Embodiment in Art Education | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2018-11-01 | Intrigued by the body’s place within education, I investigate the diverse ways that embodiment manifests in secondary school visual arts classrooms. This thesis presents a multiple case study analysis of two school residency projects, which were part of a multi-year research-creation project, The Pedagogical Impulse (TPI) led by Dr. Stephanie Springgay (PI) and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The data used in this thesis was generated within the larger TPI project. The two case studies were conducted in two different visual arts classrooms in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) during the 2012 academic year. I was the lead research assistant at the two school sites. TPI engaged with transpedagogy, a term noted by Pablo Helguera (2011), meaning that the focus of the study is not on the refinement of artistic techniques but on the creation of artwork through processes and experiences. The research-creation projects worked with social practice artists, Hazel Meyer and Sarah Febbraro, who took up residency in two secondary schools. Students from grades 10, 11, and 12 and their art teachers participated in these case studies. For my thesis research, I focus on delineating elements of embodiment experienced throughout the case studies. I observe a time lapse/incubation period in the development of certain embodied processes in myself, the teachers and the students in the two cases. Using various theories of embodiment, phenomenology and practitioner research, I develop a theory of embodiment, body-in-the-making, to support my analysis. I engage in and examine the inside and outside spaces that enfleshed the TPI study, and how they have interjected themselves into spaces in teaching and learning systems. Although there have been numerous studies related to the phenomenology of embodiment within arts education, there is a lack of clarity about what embodiment looks like in visual arts education from the perspective of the visual arts teacher. My study demonstrates the many intricacies that exist in education as an institution and how making changes to the concept of the body in schools may alter the many institutional structures that exist around the Cartesian divide in schools. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102907 | Art Education||Embodiment||Phenomenology of Embodiment||Teacher Research | institut, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Whitney, Ryan Anders | Hess, Paul M | Best Practices, Trendy Urbanists, and Hybrid Policy Mobilities in the Laboratory for the City in Mexico City | Geography | 2020-11-01 | In this thesis I explore the referencing of mobility and urban sustainability best practices by decision makers who are working within the asymmetrical institutional power dynamics of Mexico City’s government. Specifically, I use the Laboratory for the City to emphasize the assumed equitable outcomes of best practices by decisions makers versus their actual outcomes during and following implementation. I conceptualize the Laboratory for the City, designed to translate transnational best practices to Mexico City to foster urban livability, as representative of how the policy making process can be inadvertently skewed to favor the values of the already privileged. I pay special attention to the race and class of the Laboratory for the City’s employees to illustrate how privilege manifests itself through connections to transnational knowledge networks that celebrate best practices as local solutions to urban sustainability issues. I argue that best practices are given preference in neighborhoods ripe for economic development and, when implemented in economically marginalized neighborhoods, tend to reflect the needs and values of decision makers. I conclude that the ad hoc adoption of best practices within Mexico City is perpetuating an established history of elite-based decision making by inflating the urbanism desires of the already privileged. I call for equity to be conceptualized based on the local context as opposed to within the transnational knowledge networks influencing the global urbanism agenda. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103550 | innovation laboratories||Mexico City||policy mobilities||sustainability||urban equity | institut, urban, innovat, labor, equitable | SDG4, SDG8, SDG9, SDG11, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Kriger, Debra Anne | MacNeill, Margaret | Beyond the Present: Risk and Body Stigma in Public Health | Exercise Sciences | 2018-11-01 | Risk is a quotidian concept in public health, but how do individuals make sense of it as an embodied phenomenon? What does a present, embodied stigmatized relationship have to do with risk and health? This research brings together public health, sociology of risk, and sociology of the body theories to answer these overarching research questions. Using a post-structural, interpretive research paradigm, 13 participants sculpted, life-lined, and were interviewed to share their understandings of embodied health risk. Key findings from this research include that sculpting and life-lining are useful in critical qualitative research methods; normality and health identity can be de-stabilized when temporality is introduced to understanding embodied health risk; and there are multiple approaches to understanding risk. There are four risk approaches outlined in this thesis: (1) the ‘shit happens’ approach, (2) the sequelae approach, (3) the risk as heuristic approach, and (4) the knowledge approach. These findings have implications for the fields of qualitative methodologies, physical cultural studies, and public health. Methodologically, absurdity, creativity, imagination and embodiment/tactility are proposed as important characteristics of critical qualitative health research. The innovative methods of sculpting and life-lining in health research can facilitate further research of complex social phenomena, and imagination can be explored as an integral piece of health justice. In physical cultural studies, understandings of the relationship stigma represents between normality and identity is extended by including considerations of risk and temporality to questions of biopedagogy. For public health, this research opens new ways of making sense of risk, and new ideas on how individuals’ everyday experiences relate to population-level health statistics. The findings foster development of a public health ethic that is sociologically informed, and can be used to inform future ideas on health risk communication. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102936 | critical||embodiment||health||qualitative||risk||stigma | justice, innovat, health | SDG3, SDG9, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Diloreto, Zachary A. | Dittrich, Maria | Biogeochemical Investigations of In-Situ Dolomite Formation: Providing New Insights into an Old Enigma | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2021-03-01 | temperature dolomite has remained an enigmatic mineral for over a century. The formation mechanisms have been controversial debated as there are large abundances of low-temperature dolomite in ancient rocks, but a continual decrease as time progressed with little to no low-temperature dolomite forming today. Indeed, the mechanisms controlling ancient abundances of dolomite can still not be explained. Recent laboratory experiments have shown that dolomite can be mediated by functional groups along cell surfaces and excretions referred to as exopolymeric substances (EPS). It has been theorized that biologically formed functional groups of EPS act as nucleation surfaces which reduced the energy required to form dolomite. Although, the formation of low-T dolomite in association with EPS has been shown in the laboratory it does not explain observations in the rock record. It also remains unclear why many modern environments do no host dolomite despite its supersaturation. Thus, this thesis aimed to examine in-situ formation of dolomite from a select modern environment, the hypersaline sabkhas of Qatar, and to provide new insight into an old enigma. Through a series of field and laboratory investigations this thesis shows that specific environmental drivers, such as salinity, facilitated a particular microbial community dynamic that produced EPS specifically suited to nucleating dolomite. The microbial community dynamics were represented by fluctuations in oxygenic and anoxygenic phototrophs which appear to have become sparse through geologic time due to the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere. This connection provided a possible explanation for the decreased abundance of low-T dolomite in the rock record. Furthermore, this work has shown through laboratory experiments that natural extracted EPS achieves rates of carbonate/dolomite nucleation at many times the rate of abiotic surfaces, such as clays. Additionally, the presence of carotenoid pigments associated with these dynamics provide potential targets for biomarker analysis, which have implications for astrobiology as well as oil and gas exploration. Overall, these findings help improve established models of dolomite precipitation and highlight the importance of considering microbe communities-mineral interactions with regard to global bio-geochemical cycles. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104876 | Biomineralization||Dolomite||Environmental Microbiology||Global Biogeochemical Cycles||Microbial Mats | environment, labor, energy | SDG7, SDG8, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Wong, Mabel T | Master, Emma R||Edwards, Elizabeth A | Bioprospecting Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes in Lignocellulose-Degrading Microcosms Enriched from Pulp Mill Anaerobic Granules and Digestive Microbiomes of Canadian Beaver and North American Moose | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2018-11-01 | Lignocellulosic biomass, including wood fibre, is an abundant resource for biorefining; however, the structural heterogeneity and occurrence of inhibitors present challenges to corresponding bioconversion technologies. In an effort to identify carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) with potential to transform wood-derived feedstocks, multiple lignocellulosic microcosms were established from pulp mill anaerobic granules, beaver droppings and moose rumen and cultivated for over 3 years on (i) cellulose, (ii) cellulose + lignosulphonate, (iii) cellulose + tannic acid, and (iv) pretreated poplar. Microbial community analysis of 16S rRNA amplicons revealed post-enrichment decrease in species richness and substrate-induced convergence. Amendment with added inhibitors (ii, iii) or pretreated poplar particularly enriched known biomass degraders along with microbes belonging to poorly-described lineages including BSV26, SJA-28, TG3 classes, OPB54 and Cloacamonales orders. Comparative metagenomics targeting cellulose- and pretreated poplar-fed microcosms revealed CAZyme profiles that converged based on substrate for gut microbiomes, while a separate cluster for anaerobic granules revealed the impact of inoculum. Compared to the cellulose-fed microcosms, the pretreated poplar-fed counterparts were enriched with reported broad substrate families with cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic activities (GH2, GH3, GH5, and GH43), as well as putative β-L-arabinofuranosidases (GH127), glucuronoyl methylesterases (CE15), and pectinases (PL1, GH28, CE8, and GH105). While no major differences emerged from the profiles of proteins with unknown function within the 416 predicted polysaccharide utilization loci and catalytic cellulosomal subunits, 2 carbohydrate-binding proteins with domains of unknown function (DUF3459-CBM48-GH13_10 and DUF5011-CBM4) were consistently present in pretreated poplar-fed microcosms only. Metasecretomes from the microcosms at ~50% and ~80% g COD substrate to biogas conversion were functionally characterized. Despite the similar saccharification capacities of different enrichments, protein profiles of the pretreated poplar-fed microcosms observed by SDS-PAGE were distinct from the cellulose-fed ones. Moreover, the emergence of new bands and greater activity on pectin, xylans and mannans from secretomes at the later stage implied a succession of enzymes that hydrolyze β-(1→4)-glycosidic bonds in cellulose before other polysaccharides. Collectively, putative lignocellulolytic proteins specialized for processing forest fibre were revealed via comparative meta-analyses for downstream characterization. Also, the potential of the microcosms serving as a repertoire of biocatalysts for developing wood specific-enzymatic cocktails was confirmed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102953 | amplicon sequencing||carbohydrate-active enzyme||lignocellulose degradation||metagenomic||metasecretomic||microbial enrichment | forest, cities | SDG11, SDG15 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Klass, Keren | Lehman, Shawn M||Teichroeb, Julie A | Black Howler Monkey (Alouatta pigra) Demography and Behaviour in Unprotected Forest Fragments around Palenque National Park, Chiapas, Mexico | Anthropology | 2020-11-01 | Habitat loss and fragmentation are urgent threats to primate species worldwide. Species’ responses to these threats are mediated by many factors, and there remains an urgent need to generate species- and habitat-specific knowledge to better understand their effects. I examined how living in unprotected forest fragments shapes Endangered black howler monkey (Alouatta pigra) demography and behaviour in a single fragmented landscape around Palenque National Park (PNP) in Chiapas, Mexico. I surveyed 34 fragments and collected demographic and behavioural data on the black howlers inhabiting them (62 groups, 407 individuals). I collected data on fragment size, shape, isolation, and forest composition. I found that the demographic population structure of the black howler population in the fragmented landscape has been stable over the last 17 years, while patch occupancy and ecological density have increased. Compared to the PNP black howler population, the study population was denser, and differed mainly in a lower proportion of adult males and fewer adult males per group. I then examined how variation in fragment isolation and habitat characteristics affected the population composition of black howler monkeys within fragments, and whether this variation differentially affected adult males and females. My results showed a significant effect of fragment variables on population demography in fragments. Population size increased with fragment area while density decreased, and the proportion of adult males and females, and their average number per group, were differentially affected by variation in fragment characteristics: there were more females in larger, less isolated fragments, and more males in more isolated, secondary-growth fragments. Lastly, I analyzed how variation in fragment habitat shaped time budgets and group movements of black howler monkeys in the study fragments. Fragment habitat variables significantly explained over half of the variation in these behaviours. Results showed that black howlers employed variable strategies (energy-minimizing or energy-maximizing) in response to variation in fragment habitat quality. Taken together, my results indicate that habitat loss and fragmentation are affecting the study population via demographic and behavioural changes simultaneously, with implications for the likelihood of long-term persistence of black howlers in unprotected forest fragments around PNP. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103447 | animal behaviour||conservation biology||demography||endangered species||habitat loss and fragmentation||primates | ecolog, forest, conserv, energy | SDG7, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Meyers, Alice L | Restoule, Jean-Paul | Blossoming Multiliteracies: Stories of How W̱SÁNEĆ, Quw’utsun, Gitga’at, and Líl̓wat Nations Reclaim Indigenous Languages and Food Systems through Pedagogies of the Land | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | Indigenous languages are windows into a myriad of worldviews (Simpson, 2011). They are repositories of botanical, environmental, and kinship knowledges, and, perhaps more importantly, are central to Indigenous identity (McCarty et al., 2018). As W̱SÁNEĆ, Quw’utsun, Líl̓wat and Gitga’at communities (re)inhabit social, physical, spiritual, and emotional spaces to speak their languages of SENĆOŦEN, Hul’q’umi’num’, Ucwalmícwts, and Sm̓algya̱x, respectively, they use pedagogies of the land. Teaching styles are grounded in Indigenous land education (Calderon, 2014; Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, 2013) and decolonizing botanical knowledges (Geniusz, 2009) as (w)holistic curricula, upholding ontologies of lands and waters. As a settler researcher on these lands, I engaged in conversations with nine Elders and educators from Coast Salish (SȾÁUTW̱, W̱JOȽEȽP, W̱SÍKEM, Quw’utsun), Gitga’at, and Líl̓wat First Nations, and two settlers. Research questions inquired into how youth and Elders approach language reclamation. I learned pedagogies of the land are a return to ancestral ways of being, counter-hegemonic actions that pull children and adults towards nature-based spaces, nurturing whole beings. Conceptual frameworks integrate anti-colonial (Carlson, 2016), Indigenous-centred methodologies (Smith, 2012). Conscious of “unsettling” (Regan, 2010) my positionality as active witness (Atkinson, 2001), I gathered knowledges through conversational interviews (Kovach, 2010) and storywork (Anderson, 2011; Archibald, 2008), contributing through eco-cultural restoration. Knowledge Keepers shared stories of teaching on the land, drawn to sacred places through keystone food systems, interweaving Oral Histories with Indigenous languages. Stories are linked thematically through an iterative framework, and shed light into how Indigenous languages are transmitted intergenerationally, grounded in local epistemologies. Findings show how first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition connects with ethnobotanical knowledges; blending mariculture, prayer names, traditional practices, and songs. Foods and medicines are harvested in reciprocal acts of gratitude. Through this work, multiple layered literacies develop, with students learning and speaking Indigenous languages through (w)holistic, land-centred education (heart- and community-literacies), while regenerating lands, waters, and medicines (food- and ecological-literacies). Languages grow as part of linguistic ecologies (Twitchell, 2017), thriving within the seen and unseen, more than human world. This thesis may interest those in the fields of language revitalization; food sovereignty, security, and native plants; language policy; eco-justice; and land-based Indigenous pedagogies. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105826 | Education||Ethnobotany||Indigenous||Land||Language||Reclamation | justice, ecolog, environment, wind, water, educat, food | SDG2, SDG4, SDG6, SDG7, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
| Smither, Devon | Cheetham, Mark | Bodies of Anxiety: The Female Nude in Modern Canadian Art, 1913-1945 | History of Art | 2016-11-01 | Bodies of Anxiety: The Female Nude in Modern Canadian Art, 1913-1945 Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Devon Smither Department of Art, University of Toronto Often censored and much debated, the female nude in Canadian art has held a contentious position since the early twentieth century. In 1927, Canadian artist John W. Russell was driven to return to Paris following public outcry over his nude paintings. In 1931, Bertram Brookerâ s Figures in Landscape was removed from an Ontario Society of Artists exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto and in 1933 Lilias Torrance Newtonâ s painting Nude was deemed too immodest and censored from a Canadian Group of Painters show. The nude garnered moral criticism from conservatives; yet, according to critics and artists, it remained central to the development of modern art in Canada. While the nude in Europe has been the subject of both theoretical and historical studies there exists to date no scholarly study of the nude in Canada. The historic focus within Canadian art history on the landscape painting of the Group of Seven has meant that themes concerning the figure and the nude have largely gone unexamined. This study examines the female nude as an artistic genre in Canada from 1920 to 1940 in an effort to understand how it became the site of moralizing discourse, as well as attending to the reasons for the disenfranchisement of the genre in Canadian art history. It is important to read the nude in modern Canadian art for what it reveals about concerns over gender, class, race, and national identity. I address how masculinity was central to the historic emphasis on the Group of Sevenâ s work, an emphasis that has meant that predominantly urban themes concerning the figure and the nude have been censored and repressed. In my analysis of a selection of artworks by Canadian artists from the interwar period I contend that the nude was a nexus point for the often diverse, and at times incompatible, ways that artists and the public responded to the development of modern art and the conditions of modernity. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103117 | Canada||canadian art||modernism||nude||painting||photography | conserv, urban, gender | SDG5, SDG11, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Steele, Sarah Elizabeth | López-Fernández, Hernán | Body Size Evolution and Diversity of Fishes using the Neotropical Cichlids (Cichlinae) as a Model System | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2018-06-01 | The influence of body size on an organism’s physiology, morphology, ecology, and life history has been considered one of the most fundamental relationships in ecology and evolution. The ray-finned fishes are a highly diverse group of vertebrates. Yet, our understanding of diversification in this group is incomplete, and the role of body size in creating this diversity is largely unknown. I examined body size in Neotropical cichlids (Cichlinae) to elucidate the large- and small-scale factors affecting body size diversity and distribution, and how body size shapes species, morphological, and ecological diversity in fishes. Characterization of body size distributions across the phylogeny of Neotropical cichlids revealed considerable overlap in body size, particularly in intermediate-sized fishes, with few, species-poor lineages exhibiting extreme body size. Three potential peaks of adaptive evolution in body size were identified within Cichlinae. I found freshwater fishes globally tend to be smaller and their distributions more diverse and right-skewed than marine counterparts, irrespective of taxonomy and clade age, with a strengthening of these trends in riverine systems. Comparisons of Neotropical cichlid body size diversity and distribution to this broader context shows that body size patterns are largely abnormal compared to most freshwater fishes, particularly those of the Neotropics. This implies that small body size is rarer in Cichlinae, despite several independent cases of body size decrease in this lineage. I found that these small-bodied lineages are miniaturized cichlids, exhibiting strong reduction in body size, as well as paedomorphic characters and ontogenetic truncation compared to their sister taxa. Further examination of ontogenies across Neotropical cichlids found considerable shape conservatism over ontogeny and phylogeny, with cichlids following similar ontogenetic trajectories. Therefore, ontogenetic pathways do not contribute considerably to morphological divergence seen in adults, with divergence likely occurring in the larval stage or perhaps during embryology. The evolution of ontogeny, body size, and shape did not correspond to a unique adaptive peak in miniatures, or three body size optima predicted from the distribution of size across the phylogeny. Rather, it is complex and, like early trait divergence previously seen, diversifies early in the phylogeny across the major lineages of Neotropical cichlids. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101664 | Allometry||Cichlids||Geometric Morphometrics||Ontogeny | ecolog, fish, conserv, marine, water | SDG6, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Lord, Elizabeth | Boland, Alana | Building an Ecological Civilization across the Rural/Urban Divide and the Politics of Environmental Knowledge Production in Contemporary China | Geography | 2018-06-01 | Over the past four decades, China’s environment has been transformed markedly, both in terms of pollution and degradation, but also through protection initiatives. This dissertation draws on political ecology, including theories of environmental knowledge production, and uneven development, to examine how China’s ‘green’ turn unfolds onto, and through, rural/urban inequalities, and how it reconfigures this profound divide that organizes society. This dissertation examines how these two ‘crises’ — one environmental and the other socio-economic — are in conversation with each other, and in many ways, build off each other. My analysis is based on first-hand research in the Qinling Mountains (Shaanxi), interviews (including with academics, officials and villagers), participatory observation, as well as on secondary literature on rural-environmental questions. Based on this data, I identify two paradoxical processes transforming rural environments: the ruralization of pollution and the mobilization of rural efforts to ‘green’ the nation. I propose the concept of socio- environmental reproduction as a useful lens to understand this paradox. This concept illustrates how the rural/urban divide is constitutive of the environmental project; it also helps to understand the mechanism by which national greening initiatives further re-assert rural/urban differences. This dynamic appears most clearly when examining the politics and logics of environmental research including limits on fieldwork, pressures to commercialize research and political decisions about what is, or not, acceptable environmental knowledge. This study therefore analyzes institutional, political and discursive frames that regulate rural-environmental research to explore the parameters that shape what is known, or made invisible, about rural-environmental realities. I suggest that the political and economic context shaping environmental research in contemporary China is productive of the invisibility of urgent rural-environmental questions — a process which contributes to reproducing rural/urban inequalities, and illustrates one of the new ways through which uneven development unfolds in contemporary China. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101633 | China||environmental protection||knowledge production||rural/urban inequalities | institut, ecolog, pollut, environment, production, rural, urban, socio-economic | SDG1, SDG11, SDG12, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
| Nay, Eric | Bakan, Abigail | Canonizing Le Corbusier: The Making of an Architectural Icon as Colonial Hegemony | Social Justice Education | 2018-11-01 | In 2016, it was announced that iconic Franco-Swiss modern architect, Le Corbusier, and his nearly complete oeuvre of seventeen buildings, would be enshrined on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s World Heritage List. With this notable decision, Le Corbusier, the figure, moved from beatification as a “modern master” to achieving the architectural status of canonical sainthood. No other architect had been so completely enshrined on UNESCO’s list. The discussions and debates centered on this landmark decision provide evidence regarding how and why Le Corbusier’s figuration persists and is sustained. The Corbusiern figure remains foundational in architectural pedagogy, modern architectural history text writing and in the imaginaries formed in aspiring students of architecture as a global project that is both colonial and hegemonic. How this decision to reify Le Corbusier came about after a decade of debate and deliberation provides the basis for this project. The argument suggests ways to explain how we continue to tell and perform the history of modern architecture today, using Le Corbusier as a figure, as well as the legacy of the Bauhaus and International Style modernism, as pedagogical tools to perpetuate an ongoing hegemonic colonial regime situated in architectural knowledge production and pedagogy. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102946 | Colonialism||Hegemony||Le Corbusier||Modern Architecture||Pedagogy | production, buildings, educat | SDG4, SDG9, SDG12 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Kokorelias, Kristina Marie | Kokorelias, Jill I | Caring for the Caregiver: An Examination of Support Needs and Service use across the Alzheimer’s Disease Trajectory | Rehabilitation Science | 2021-03-01 | Background: Many family caregivers support individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) from symptom onset to death. Caregivers often require their own support from family, friends, health care professionals, and service agencies. Currently, we know little about how caregiving support and service needs change from symptom onset to the later stages of disease. Additionally, it is unclear how caregivers decide which services to use to better support themselves. It is also not clear whether caregiver gender and relationship type influences evolving experiences.Objectives: This study aimed to generate a conceptual framework to illuminate caregivers’ needs for support and the decision-making process regarding use of supports from family, friends, health care professionals and services across the disease and caregiving trajectory. Methods: A constructivist grounded theory methodology guided this research. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 40 spousal and adult children caregivers. Topics explored included experiences and responsibilities of caregivers across the disease trajectory and the services used to help them in their caregiving role. Data were analyzed using a constant comparison method. Results: Participants described five phases related to their caregiving responsibilities including monitoring initial symptoms, navigating the diagnosis, assisting with instrumental activities of daily living, assisting with basic activities of daily living, and preparing for the future. The phases are described in the Caregiver-Identified Phases Across the Alzheimer’s disease Care Trajectory (CIP-AD) framework. Key support and service needs were often specific to phase of care. AD caregivers made service use decisions to sustain care in the community, but factors that influenced service decision-making evolved over the CIP-AD, including the goals of caregiving and the practicalities associated with accessing services. A gender and relationship type analysis found that the evolving caregiving experience cannot be described by gender or relationship type alone. Conclusion: This thesis enhances our understanding of the complexity of providing care throughout the AD trajectory from the perspective of spousal and adult children caregivers. The CIP-AD can inform best practice and clinical guidelines related to caregivers evolving needs for support and services. The timely delivery of supports and services can improve the quality of life for family caregivers. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105010 | gender, health | SDG3, SDG5 | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| Lwin, Kristen | Mishna, Faye||Fluke, John | Challenging Assumptions: Using Research to Evaluate Child Welfare Worker Qualifications | Social Work | 2018-06-01 | Child welfare workers are the conduit between child welfare systems and children and their families. Required qualifications for practice include certain educational and practice experiences, skills, and knowledge. The overall goal of this dissertation is to increase understanding of the child welfare workforce. To meet this goal, the objectives of this dissertation are: 1) to assess the evidence for the necessary education and training qualifications required for child welfare practice; 2) to examine how worker qualifications have shifted in response to changes in child welfare system mandates and child and family needs; and 3) to contribute to the understanding of the role worker characteristics play in the ongoing services provision. Three studies were undertaken to meet the goal of this dissertation. The first paper is a synthesis of a portion of the child welfare workforce literature and reveals a lack of evidence regarding the specific educational background, skills, and experience that best equip child welfare workers for the demands of practice. Paper two is the first provincial study in Canada to examine how the profile of workers who conduct child maltreatment investigations has changed alongside shifts in child welfare legislation and mandate. Ontario data over the past 20 years illustrate changes in caseload size, training attendance, pre-service education, ethnicity, and years of child welfare worker experience. Paper three, the final study of this dissertation, uses multilevel analyses to examine the decision to transfer a family for ongoing services. Findings reveal that clinical and organizational characteristics predict this service provision, whereas worker characteristics (i.e., education, training attendance, experience, age, position, caseload size) did not. Overall findings suggest that there is little empirical evidence to suggest that valued qualifications actually equip workers with the skills and knowledge for effective child welfare practice and that the efficacy of these qualifications are based primarily on assumptions. Recommendations for future research and practice are provided. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101625 | child welfare||child welfare worker||qualifications||workforce | worker, educat | SDG4, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Ghoussoub, Mireille Fleury | Ozin, Geoffrey A. | Characterization and Modelling Studies of Turanite for the Catalytic Conversion of CO2 to Methanol | Chemistry | 2021-03-01 | Capturing and converting greenhouse gas CO2 into carbon-based fuels and chemical feedstock offers a sustainable substitute to fossil resources in chemical manufacturing and a means to remove excess carbon emission from the atmosphere. This work offers a comprehensive study into the structural, chemical, and thermal properties of turanite, Cu5(VO4)2(OH)4, a naturally-occurring mineral, relevant to its catalytic activity towards methanol production from CO2. Activated Cu5(VO4)2(OH)4 is demonstrated to exhibit significant catalytic activity towards methanol formation at relatively low temperatures and ambient pressure conditions. The reduction of nanostructured Cu5(VO4)2(OH)4 by hydrogen is investigated using a combination of diffraction, microscopy, in situ spectroscopy, first-principles calculations, and kinetic analysis based on thermogravimetry. A two-step mechanism is proposed, in which Cu5(VO4)2(OH)4 is first reduced, following exponential growth kinetics, to form a stable intermediate consisting of a mix of Cu3VO4, Cu2O, and CuV2O5. The intermediate phase is then subsequently reduced in a diffusion-limited process to form two segregated phases consisting of Cu metal and V2O3 particles. Results obtained from in situ infrared spectroscopy and first-principles calculations suggest that the reaction pathway for methanol production involves a formate intermediate. This study demonstrates the importance of using combined in situ characterization techniques to study heterogeneous metal oxide catalysts and the potential for employing naturally-occurring minerals that contain earth-abundant metals for the conversion of CO2 to value-added products. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105054 | greenhouse gas, production | SDG12, SDG13 | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| Varmuza, Petr | Perlman, Michal | Child Care Utilization and Stability of Quality: Implications for System Management and Oversight | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2020-11-01 | Child care can be a public service tool capable of supporting multiple social and economic goals including improving gender equity and reducing inter-generational transfer of poverty through high quality early learning and care for all children, but especially those in low income families. Recent estimates indicate that almost 60% of preschool-aged children regularly spend time in non-parental care (Statistics Canada, 2019b). Yet, Canadian families also rank very low on the OECD’s measures of child care affordability and access to licensed care. This means that families must use unlicensed care which receives virtually no government oversight. Current government statistics provide accurate counts of child care centre capacities. However, little is known about licensed home child care (HCC). Even less is known about the families who utilize unlicensed care, or do without any non-parental care. Beyond access, with very few exceptions, little is known about quality of care most families can access. Such data must form the basis for a social investment strategy that reduces existing inequalities. The dissertation consists of three papers that address gaps in our knowledge of child care in Canada. The first study, used data from the 2011 General Social Survey of Canada. Study findings show substantial heterogeneity in usage rates across the country as well as inequality whereby the families with the fewest resources are more likely to use unlicensed care or to have no care at all. The second study outlines a model for individually licensing and ensuring quality in HCC providers, including requirements for annual health and safety inspections, independent quality assessment and a wide-ranging system of quality supports and enhancements. Cost estimates are provided which are substantially lower on a per provider basis than the current agency-based licensing approach to HCC used in a number of provinces. Using administrative data from the City of Toronto the third study investigated the stability of quality ratings of 1,019 preschool classrooms over a three year period. The results show significant levels of instability suggesting that the frequency of ratings cannot be reduced. Implications for service oversight, system management and further research are discussed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103445 | Child care||Early childhood education and care||HCC licensing||Quality assessment | cities, inequality, equality, gender, educat, health, poverty | SDG1, SDG3, SDG4, SDG5, SDG10, SDG11 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Eisazadeh, Nazila | Stagg Peterson, Shelley | Children’s Literate Identities: Exploring the Literacy Discourses That Permeate the Lives of Two Young Children | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | This thesis reports on a multiple case study in which I explored the literate identities of two children. I examine how the literacy values, beliefs, dispositions etc. of family members, as well as those enacted during tutor sessions with me as their tutor, support or constrain children’s positive literate identities. Two children, their parents and siblings, who reside in Ontario, Canada, participated in this study. Participant observations, informal and semi-structured interviews, videos of children during tutor sessions, pictures of children’s communicative artifacts and my reflective diary, were the sources of data. Informed by Ivanic (2004) and Wohlwend (2009), I analyzed 372 interview responses for literacy discourse. I then analyzed 9853 meaning-making acts across videos for social purpose, which was informed by Peterson et al. (2019). I also coded meaning-making acts for literacy discourse. I coded 29,559 literacy discourses in total. Patterns of discourse were identified by first making comparisons across participants’ interview responses, then making comparisons between the two children’s tutor sessions. Social purpose and activity/task were also included in the comparisons between the children’s tutor sessions. I found that restrictive views of literacy, such as those pertaining to the skills-mastery discourse, were more likely to constrain children’s (re)construction of positive literate identities. I also found that participants’ interview responses predominantly reflected the skills-mastery discourse. Furthermore, children’s schools often assigned homework that enforced such restrictive views of literacy, influencing the discourses taken up during tutor sessions. I as the children’s tutor, however, played a significant role in exposing children to alternative views/discourses of literacy. My findings point to the need for tutors to move beyond a “shadow education” service model, where tutors closely follow the curricula of schools – private or public – by providing homework or test preparation support no matter the messages about literacy homework tasks enforce. This study advances research in this field by describing the connections between tutors and families’ perceptions of literacy and by highlighting how tutors can open up reflective dialogues with families, with the goal of encouraging broadened notions of literacy. My study contributes to improvements in teaching, particularly for tutors, and children’s literacy development. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103663 | discourse||identities||identity||literacies||literacy||tutor | educat | SDG4 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Budak, Turkan Gulce | Green, Andrew J | Climate Clubs: Minilateral Approach to Climate Change | Law | 2020-11-01 | The global challenge of climate change can be solved with effective mechanisms. In this context, commitments for combating climate change should be scrutinized with high deterrent sanctions or strong incentives. This thesis explores climate clubs, which is offered as one of the solutions to climate change, and how to encourage and accommodate countries with different concerns into this mechanism. The paper first addresses the issues of free-riding, carbon leakage, and competitiveness, which are the problems of current climate change mitigation efforts. Then, it examines which trade tools can be employed as a linking instrument within the climate clubs to achieve effective results and encourage the membership of various countries. Subsequently, the compatibility of these linking tools with WTO law was researched. Finally, the structure of climate clubs is evaluated in the context of developing countries. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103478 | Climate Clubs||WTO Law | climate, trade | SDG10, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Kim, Yangsook | Cranford, Cynthia J||Chun, Jennifer J | Competing Subjectivities: A Comparative Study of Low-paid Care Workers in Greater Seoul and the Los Angeles Koreatown | Sociology | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation examines how low-paid care workers, who are stratified into different sectors of the care labor market along gender, ethnicity, migration, and citizenship, form agentic political subjectivities. Through a comparative analysis of four different groups, I analyze how low-paid care workers who do similar work but are unequally positioned within social contexts give meaning to their work and cultivate a sense of worth, entitlement and dignity in relation to other care workers as well as vis-à-vis the state. Through multi-sited ethnographic research, including 98 in-depth interviews with workers in domestic service and eldercare sectors in Greater Seoul, South Korea and the Koreatown community of Los Angeles, California, I find that care workers develop distinct political subjectivities in response to their continuing precarity. This subject formation is a multi-level process that is mediated by three contexts: policy regimes, labour markets, and organizations, such as labour unions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). At the policy regime level, state policies sort and channel marginalized women into the low-paid care market through targeted forms of recruitment that rely on discourses such as “co-ethnics,” “self-sufficient women,” and “care experts.” These discourses define the kind of care that different groups of workers are expected to provide, yet workers complement and further articulate the meanings of policy discourses through their own re-interpretations of policies. In doing so, they contribute to and reinforce the structure of inequality that hierarchically divides care workers along ethnicity, migration and citizenship. In this process, organizations play a significant role in translating state policies in different ways, providing workers with sources of pride, alternative language and sense of entitlement as legitimate right-bearers. Each empirical chapters of the dissertation focuses on a specific care worker group to elaborate how divergent configurations of state policies, labour organization and labour market dynamics shape multi-level processes of subject formation. By analyzing distinct subjectivity building projects, this dissertation shows that care workers’ struggles for survival and dignity are often linked to boundary drawing practices against other care workers, limiting the possibilities for cross-ethnic solidarity and the emancipatory potential of their struggles. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103502 | Care work||Domestic service work||IHSS||LTCI||Subjectivity||Women's labor | inequality, worker, labor, labour, equality, women, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG10 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Wei, Mingyang | Sargent, Edward H. | Composition and Dimensionality Engineering of Perovskite Materials for Photovoltaic Applications | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2020-11-01 | In recent years, metal halide perovskites have attracted research interest due to their remarkable optoelectronic properties, including strong optical absorption and long carrier diffusion lengths, combined with low-cost fabrication. As soft ionic solids, metal halide perovskites exhibit versality in chemical composition and structural dimensionality: this enables tunable bandgaps and luminescence. In this thesis, I focus on engineering the composition and dimensionality of metal halide perovskites with the goal of advancing photovoltaic applications. I begin by developing and investigating a cation-engineering strategy that enables wide-bandgap perovskites to show high defect-tolerance. Cation-engineering increases the device performance of wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells to exceed 20% PCE. I attribute the excellent performance to the reorientation of MA dipoles, which heals deep-level defects. Next, I study carrier diffusion in mixed-cation perovskites. MA-based perovskite thin films exhibit a high carrier diffusivity of 0.047 cm2s-1, whereas CsFA films show an order of magnitude lower carrier diffusivity. Experimental characterization suggests that the graded composition of CsFA films curtails electron diffusion. The incorporation of MA leads to a uniform composition of CsMAFA films, giving rise to a diffusivity of 0.034 cm2s-1. I then explore dimensionality engineering in narrow-bandgap perovskites. I develop a processing approach that enables the passivation of 3D perovskite surfaces using ultra-thin 2D perovskite passivants. The 2D layer retards the oxidation of 3D perovskites while maintaining their charge-transport properties. This enables a certified PCE of 18.95% and a 200-hour operating stability for narrow-bandgap perovskite solar cells. Lastly, I study perovskite nanoplatelet (PNPL) synthesis and phase-control, as well as energy transfer within mixed-phase PNPLs. I find that tuning the phase-distribution of PNPLs engineers their photoluminescence quantum yield and Stokes shift, allowing the corresponding perovskite luminescent solar concentrators to exhibit low optical loss. This work showcases the crucial role of composition and dimensionality in extending the applicability of perovskites to tandem and building-integrated photovoltaics. It concludes with a discussion of paths towards the eventual commercialization of these PV technologies, in light of the need to improve their efficiency and stability, to achieve up-scaling, and to address concerns regarding material toxicity. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103473 | Composition engineering||Dimensionality engineering||Luminescent solar concentrators||Metal-halide perovskite||Photovoltaics||Tandem solar cells | solar, energy | SDG7 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Tihanyi, Deborah V. | Pietropaolo, Domenico | Conceiving Dramaturgical Practice in English Canada: Histories, Methods, and Models, Post-WWI to the 1990s | Drama | 2018-06-01 | The thesis provides both a historical exploration and a theoretical model of the practice of developmental dramaturgy in the 20th century in English-speaking Canada. From the end of WWI to the 1990s, the notion of the importance of a uniquely Canadian drama took hold, and institutions and practices arose to achieve that end. However, much of what has been documented and analyzed has focused on the period roughly following Canada’s centennial, when the formalization and funding of those institutions and practices took place. As a result, the purpose of this work is two-fold: first, to reclaim the voices of early practitioners and the historical record of dramaturgical practice, and second, to bring these voices into the contemporary discourse of developmental dramaturgy to create a working model of dramaturgical practice. Through an examination of a series of case studies, including the Art and Little Theatres, educational theatre, radio, and professional theatres, a consistency of practice across time and contexts is evident: the impetus to create an original body of Canadian drama (the meta-dramaturgical project), as well as the institutions and practices (macro- and micro-dramaturgy respectively) that arose to carry it out. What emerges through this examination is the recurrence of meta-dramaturgical questions—and macro-dramaturgical models and micro-dramaturgical strategies to address them—which serve as a starting point for a discussion of dramaturgical practice in Canada. That discussion includes, first, an examination of the influences, especially from the United States, in shaping dramaturgical practices—and the reciprocal emphasis Canadian practices had south of the border; second, the common elements—including the importance of encouraging playwrights and the need to educate audiences in the intricacies of new play development—and the varying contexts that led to the prioritization of the playwright or the production; and third, the cycles of articulation, negotiation, and concretization through which a play or theatrical event emerges, as well as notions of (shared) authority made possible by the creation of group language and governing structure of the piece. What is remarkable is that, despite instances where there is no connection between persons or resources, or, indeed, a knowledge of historical practice, the same strategies, the ways of doing the work, exist. This repetition serves to highlight the recurrence of micro-dramaturgical practices in the creation of individual works, macro-dramaturgical institutional models within which those works emerge, and the meta-dramaturgical frameworks that create the environment for them to exist and thrive. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101654 | 20th century||dramaturgy||English Canada||new play development | rights, institut, environment, production, educat | SDG4, SDG12, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Baird, Stephanie Lynn | Alaggia, Ramona | Conceptualizing and Responding to Trauma Among Women Who Have Experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) | Social Work | 2018-11-01 | Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prevalent worldwide problem with devastating outcomes. Trauma is one particularly concerning outcome of IPV that requires further understanding. Despite a growing recognition of the traumatic impacts of IPV, there is scant research investigating how women who have experienced IPV understand and experience trauma, from an intersectional perspective. In response, this dissertation explores women’s views of IPV-related trauma in connection to other experiences in their lives. Methods: This dissertation employed an intersectional, qualitative design, using a constructivist grounded theory approach to address the following over-arching research questions: 1) How is trauma conceptualized and experienced among women who have experienced IPV; and 2) From the perspectives of women who have experienced IPV, how do counselling services respond to IPV and IPV-related trauma? Fifteen women who experienced IPV and had attended one or more related counselling session at social service and/or counselling settings in southern Ontario, Canada participated in in-depth individual interviews. Theoretical sampling ensured a diverse sample (range of IPV experiences, geographic/service locations, social locations, identities). Interviewing continued until the identification of theoretical saturation, when no new themes were identified. Memoing, reflexive journaling, and iterative stages of coding (line by line, initial, focused) formed the basis of data analysis. Results: The results of the study produced this three paper dissertation: 1) constructing theory on women’s intersectional experiences of trauma and IPV; 2) developing knowledge on how service providers can better meet the needs of IPV survivors and respond to trauma; and 3) providing implications for future intersectional and trauma-related research. Implications: This dissertation provides important practice, policy, and research implications. First, this dissertation provides an in-depth understanding of IPV-related trauma from an intersectional lens. Second, it provides guidance to service providers on responding to IPV and trauma in ways that address the complexity of women’s lives. Third, it demonstrates that an intersectional lens is long overdue in trauma-related and other social work research. From the perspectives of women affected by IPV, this dissertation illustrates the complexity of experiences of IPV-related trauma, and the next steps needed to address this trauma in more comprehensive ways. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102860 | Intersectionality||Intimate Partner Violence||Qualitative Methods||Social Work||Trauma | women | SDG5 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Danyluk, Martin Andrew | Cowen, Deborah | Conflict at the Crossroads: Redrawing Global Supply Lines in the Age of Logistics | Geography | 2018-06-01 | This dissertation examines the landscapes of logistics, the fast-growing industry responsible for managing the movement of goods, materials, and related information in the global economy. As commodity flows increase in volume, velocity, and distance, they depend on increasingly large-scale transformations of the physical and social environment. How is space being refashioned to accommodate new methods and patterns of circulation? And how do popular forces intervene in these processes? This research employs a multi-sited, relational methodology to investigate how the circulation of commodities is influencing the production of space at multiple scales. Its empirical focus is the recent expansion of the Panama Canal, a logistics megaproject with global reverberations, and the consequent rivalry among North American ports seeking to attract a new generation of oversized container ships. Drawing on a year of mixed-methods fieldwork in Panama City, Los Angeles, and New York, the dissertation analyzes competitive efforts to remake space in the image of smooth, efficient circulation and the struggles that have ensued over land, labour, and the environment. I argue that the landscapes of logistics are contradictory and conflictual spaces: even as global supply chains deliver the material provisions that make possible the reproduction of contemporary life, their development and functioning are undergirded by violent processes of community dispossession, labour exploitation, and environmental degradation. These impacts are disproportionately borne by poor and racialized residents and workers, whose struggles play a fundamental role in shaping corporate production and distribution networks. The research offers a critical reappraisal of the prevailing view that logistics provides a progressive and sustainable path to economic development. It shows that, as logistics has become increasingly vital to the operations of capitalism, the circulation of commodities exacts a heavy toll on those who live and labour in the arteries of global trade. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101607 | Globalization||Logistics||Urbanization | environment, production, urban, trade, industr, worker, labour | SDG8, SDG9, SDG10, SDG11, SDG12, SDG13 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Aylward, Erin | Hoffman, Matthew | Contested Rights: Abortion and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the United Nations | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation examines how contentious issues emerge as norms within international organizations (IOs). To do so, I use the case studies of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) and abortion in the United Nations (UN) from 1994 to 2019. I develop a theoretical model that addresses how normative claims experience contestation during the process of emergence within IOs. This model demonstrates how differences in the breadth of state support required by different venues influence how, whether, and where a norm emerges. These structural factors also present norm entrepreneurs and norm “antipreneurs” (opponents) with different strategic choices and trade-offs. This research is informed by 59 elite interviews, participant observation at various UN proceedings, and archival research. I demonstrate how the differences in abortion’s emergence and SOGI’s non-emergence in consensus-driven UN conferences in the 1990s was partially a result of abortion entrepreneurs’ greater willingness to compromise their proposed norm’s clarity, strength, and scope. I then demonstrate how normative gains related to SOGI (but not abortion) have become more attainable in contemporary vote-driven UN venues as a result of differences in how these two issues map onto pre-existing normative communities/negotiating blocs and as a result of abortion’s greater vulnerability to “framejacking” on the part of antipreneurs. Turning to UN agencies and mechanisms, I highlight how SOGI and abortion can attain a surprising degree of support within the technical/expert-driven components of IOs – irrespective of state support – when norm entrepreneurs link their prospective norm with agency-relevant issues and objectives. This research advances the literature on norm emergence by conceptualizing the early stages of emergence and contestation, and by specifying how a norm is likely to change in the process. My research also contributes to the IO literature by demonstrating how decision-making rules and norm entrepreneurs’ and antipreneurs’ strategic choices influence a contested norm’s trajectory. Empirically, my research offers detailed analyses into the often-inaccessible nuances of UN negotiations and venues. Finally, this dissertation provides in-depth insights into the trajectories of abortion and SOGI within the UN over the past twenty-five years. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103590 | abortion||contestation||norms||sexual and reproductive health rights||sexual orientation and gender identity||United Nations | rights, trade, gender, health | SDG3, SDG5, SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Salehizadeh, Mohammad | Diller, Eric | Control of Multiple Magnetic Microrobots for Biomedical Applications | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2020-11-01 | My PhD dissertation takes an innovative approach to using the fundamental tools of robotics and control to solve the underactuated control problem of multiple magnetic microrobots for biomedical applications. The ability to use a team of microrobots to run a task can offer many advantages. However, the integration of on-board powering and sensing circuitry has not yet become possible at the microscale. Therefore, all magnetic microrobots (micro-agents) of the team have to share a single driving signal, whereas the system has multiple states to be independently controlled. Another major challenge with magnetic team control is that when multiple magnetic microrobots work together in close proximity, the agents tend to irreversibly stick together due to strong magnetic inter-agent forces. Previous studies either ignored the inter-agent forces by simply assuming their robots were far apart or treated these forces as disturbances without verifying the stability in close proximity. I solved for the first time this problem for a pair of magnetic agents in close proximity in 2D (and later in 3D) by making full use of inter-agent forces to control the motion of agents. In my approach, the positions of microrobots were controlled independently. As a practical demonstration, I showed for the first time that the motion of two functional magnetic microrobots as microgrippers can be controlled in 3D to run a task. Subsequently, to generalize the inter-agent force control to more agents, I introduced two solutions: 1) via optimization-based control (as a control technique), and 2) via motion planning and tracking (as a robotics technique). My PhD research enabled for the first time the collision-free autonomous navigation of a team of magnetic microrobots in close proximity. This solution allows magnetic microrobots to potentially act in a cluttered environment, such as the human body or microfluidic channels. To this end, I employed rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) motion planning. I further incorporated the idea to run two practical demos that could be applied to cell testing/manipulation. The results of this PhD work can be applied to actuation and sensing, especially in the design of field-activated medical devices and for localized targeted drug delivery. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103685 | 3D micromanipulation||Medical robotics||Microrobotics||Multi-agent control||Targeted cargo delivery||Underactuated robotics | environment, urban, innovat | SDG9, SDG11, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Weiler, Anelyse | Johnston, Josée | Core Values: Cider Production, Agrarian Livelihoods and Tuning Tastes in the Pacific Northwest | Sociology | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation draws on a case study of emerging craft cider production in the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Northwest. It is guided by the overarching question: To what extent has the contemporary craft cider industry in the Pacific Northwest constrained or enabled agrarian change in land, labour, livelihoods and consumer embodiment? Through a regional analysis encompassing British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon, I draw on ethnographic data from participant observation and in-depth interviews with actors across the craft cider industry from 2017-2019. This dissertation is organized into three distinct analytic chapters. First, I find that while craft cider has helped buffer some farm producers against the volatility of selling raw fruit to large commodity markets, the benefits of this value-added niche market do not widely support continued primary production or farm succession. Some young cidermakers wish to maintain a connection to agrarianism but are shifting away from full-time farming due to lifestyle preferences and political-economic constraints, as exemplified by token forms of on-site production that carry great symbolic weight. Given the craft industry’s emphasis on elevating performances of manual labour intensity and ethical ingredient sourcing, a second analytic chapter focuses on how cidermakers account for the labour of predominantly racialized (im)migrant farmworkers. I find that actors in the craft cider industry engage with inequalities affecting farmworkers through structural obfuscation, ideological justification, and ambivalence or critique. This analysis illuminates both barriers and opportunities to strengthen equity for farmworkers as part of movements to advance food system sustainability. Third, I investigate how actors who are attempting to “tune” people’s tastes away from industrial-scale production navigate the contradictions of their simultaneous dependence on an industrial food system. I find that cidermakers attempt to re-tune consumers’ tastes by appeasing consumers, whose bodies reflect the influence of food system industrialization in the form of taste preferences. Simultaneously, cidermakers endeavour to ease consumers into more diverse possibilities for taste and ecologically resilient farming. Taken as a whole, this dissertation advances scholarly understandings of rural livelihoods, labour in alternative food initiatives, and embodied social change. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103208 | Agrarian||Craft Cider||Farmworkers||Food and Agriculture||Pacific Northwest||Rural Sociology | ecolog, production, consum, rural, resilien, industr, worker, labour, food, agricultur | SDG2, SDG8, SDG9, SDG11, SDG12, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Vanderhout, Shelley | Maguire, Jonathon L | Cow’s Milk Fat and Child Growth, Development and Nutrition | Nutritional Sciences | 2020-11-01 | Background: Health Canada and the Canadian Paediatric Society suggest that children over age 2 years transition from whole (3.25%) to reduced fat (0.1-2%) milk in effort to lower dietary fat intake and reduce the risk of overweight and obesity. However, observational studies have demonstrated that higher milk fat intake is associated with lower child adiposity. The optimal milk fat for child growth, development and nutrition is unknown. Objectives: 1) Determine the relationship between milk fat and child adiposity among existing literature, 2) Understand parent and physician perspectives about milk fat for children, 3) Evaluate the relationship between milk fat and child zBMI among children aged 9 months-8 years in the TARGet Kids! cohort, and 4) Design and launch a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine the effect of recommendations for whole vs. reduced fat milk on zBMI among children aged 2-4 years. Methods: 1) A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted, 2) A qualitative study which sought to understand current practice, attitudes and preferences about milk fat for children aged 2-5 years, 3) A prospective cohort study was conducted using linear mixed effects models, and 4) A RCT protocol (Cow’s Milk Fat Obesity pRevention Trial or CoMFORT) was developed to be embedded in TARGet Kids!. Results: Among 20,897 children aged 9 months-18 years, those who consumed whole milk had 0.61 (95% CI 0.52-0.72, p | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103556 | milk||obesity||paediatrics | consum, health, nutrition | SDG2, SDG3, SDG12 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Naimi, Kevin | Farmer, Diane | Creativity as Intra-action: Relational Entanglement and Creative Becoming within the Space of Schooling | Social Justice Education | 2021-03-01 | This thesis explores creativity as a relational process of entangled becoming and develops a relational theory of creativity as intra-action (Barad, 2007) which is then put to work to conduct an analysis of everyday creation within the space of schooling. Engaging with central debates in new materialism and posthumanism this thesis explores the intra-active entanglements at the heart of everyday schooling. An intra-active approach to creativity foregrounds how the material and the discursive, the human and the nonhuman, are ongoingly entangled in processes of co-creation and attunement (Ingold, 2017a) throughout everyday life culminating in larger processes of worldmaking (Goodman, 1978).This perspective is developed in contrast with the prevalent view of creativity as a human-centred ability or instrument for success; a view that is central to both human capital and neoliberal approaches creativity. This prevalent view, I argue, ultimately distorts and obscures the rich creative dynamism at the heart of everyday intra-active entanglements. Integrating classroom observations, interviews, and a craft activity, in this research I seek to better understand What types of intra-active entanglements characterize the space of schooling? How are students intra-actively entangled in the material-discursive reconfiguration of the world within the space of schooling? And what kinds of new and alternative realities become possible as a result of these differential entanglements? Through a meticulous analysis of the intra-activity central to schooling, this research illustrates that young people participate in significant intra-active processes of co-creation renegotiating the basic outlines of the material-discursive in subtle ways. Equally, however, despite this rich intra-activity, the participants in this study consistently characterized their own creative processes as relatively inconsequential, failing to measure up to the standard of ‘real’ creativity. This analysis demonstrates how the radical reimagination of everyday space as relational and intra-active can reveal important processes that often remain unheeded. It suggests the need for an alternative discursive framework that challenges the individualistic and instrumental while forefronting the powerful possibilities of everyday becoming latent in the material-discursive entanglements central to schooling. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105011 | Creativity||Ethnographic Research||Philosophy of Education||Relational Sociology||Social Justice Education||Social Theory | justice, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Fusco, Leah Marie | Prudham, Scott | Crude Regulation: Environmental Assessments and the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Oil Industry | Geography | 2020-11-01 | This research examines the role that environmental assessment and strategic environmental assessment processes play in the commercial development of oil in the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) offshore. It draws on the Regulation Approach as a way of examining the geographical and cultural specificity of the oil industry and environmental regulation in NL and how this ties to broader questions of development and capitalism, specifically the development and perpetuation of petro-capitalism in NL. Through document analysis, meeting observation, and interviews, this work examines environmental assessment processes in two locations. First, in offshore eastern NL, where all commercial offshore oil development and a significant amount of exploration has taken place. Dozens of environmental assessments have been done in the region but there has been little public contention or opposition to oil. The second location, the west coast of the island of Newfoundland, has far less experience with environmental assessment processes and oil activities. However, overlapping assessments for offshore drilling and fracking, as well as a strategic environmental assessment, led to the mobilization of communities in five provinces around the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Examining the history, current experiences, and outcomes of environmental assessments and oil industry activities in these locations illustrates the somewhat contradictory role that environmental assessments play in both supporting and challenging oil development in the province. The overarching emphasis on oil as a source of jobs and revenue in NL, especially since the cod fishery moratorium in 1992, has meant that environmental assessments often support and facilitate oil development and thus help to maintain provincial petro-capitalism. They help to contain and diffuse contention that could, if not addressed, lead to disruptions in oil-based accumulation. Yet at the same time, environmental assessments are also a space of contention where there are opportunities to challenge development projects and potentially question the province’s dependence on oil. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103718 | Canada||environmental assessment||Newfoundland and Labrador||offshore oil||regulation approach||strategic environmental assessment | fish, environment, industr | SDG9, SDG13, SDG14 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Hathaway, Mark D. | Scharper, Stephen B. | Cultivating Ecological Wisdom: Worldviews, Transformative Learning, and Engagement for Sustainability | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2018-06-01 | The ecological crisis—encompassing interrelated challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, and the widening gap between rich and poor—threatens the future of entire species, ecosystems, and human civilisation. This crisis is not only a political, economic, and technological challenge, but also has roots in the way that people—particularly those living in industrialised, affluent societies—perceive their relationship to other humans, living beings, and the Earth itself. Therefore, a shift towards more ecological worldviews and the cultivation of an ecological wisdom that enables persons to perceive reality relationally and discern ecologically-appropriate actions for the common good can play a key role in addressing the crisis. Based on in-depth interviews with 24 ecological educators and activists and extensive biographical and theoretical research, this inquiry examines how ecological worldviews and wisdom may be cultivated in practice. To do so, it explores both the nature, meaning, and manifestations of ecological wisdom as well as how different significant life experiences contribute to the cultivation of ecological wisdom. Using an organic, thematic-narrative approach, the stories of the research participants are presented and analysed, endeavouring to maintain the narrative gestalts to communicate the experiences in a way that is meaningful and transformative. Ecological wisdom may be understood as a process of perceiving reality as relational and interconnected; attuning oneself to the wisdom of other beings and Earth itself; and acting cooperatively and co-creatively to bring forth an ecologically regenerative, socially just, and meaningful way for humans to live harmoniously within specific contexts. Transformative ecological learning—which reshapes consciousness, feelings, thoughts, relationships, and actions to cultivate ecological wisdom—involves a variety of processes. Primary is practicing mindfulness—while letting go of destructive habits and mentalities—to enable one to connect and relate to other beings, learn from them, and work co-creatively with them. Other key processes involve immersions into novel cultures, ecosystems, states of consciousness, and Indigenous wisdom; concretely practicing new ways of perceiving and acting; exercising imagination, art, and responsive creativity; sharing stories embodying ecological wisdom; analysing the crisis and seeking insights from scientific and traditional knowledge; and organising with others to effect transformation. La crisis ecológica no es solo un desafío político, económico y tecnológico, sino que también tiene sus raíces en la forma en que las personas - particularmente aquellas que viven en sociedades industrializadas y prósperas - perciben su relación con otros seres humanos, otros seres vivos y la Tierra misma. Por lo tanto, un cambio hacia cosmovisiones más ecológicas y la cultivación de una sabiduría ecológica que permita a las personas percibir la realidad relacionalmente y discernir acciones ecológicamente apropiadas para el bien común puede desempeñar un papel clave al abordar la crisis. Basado en entrevistas profundas con 24 educadores y activistas ecológicos, esta investigación examina cómo las cosmovisiones y la sabiduría ecológicas pueden cultivarse en la práctica. Para hacerlo, explora tanto la naturaleza, el significado y las manifestaciones de la sabiduría ecológica y al mismo tiempo cómo las diferentes experiencias de la vida significativas contribuyen a la cultivación de la sabiduría ecológica. La sabiduría ecológica puede entenderse como un proceso de percibir la realidad como relacional e interconectada; sintonizándose con la sabiduría de otros seres y la Tierra misma; y actuando de manera cooperativa y co-creativa para generar una forma ecológicamente regenerativa, socialmente justa y significativa para que los humanos vivan armoniosamente dentro de contextos específicos. El aprendizaje ecológico transformador - que transforma la conciencia, los sentimientos, los pensamientos, las relaciones y las acciones para cultivar la sabiduría ecológica - implica una variedad de procesos. Primaria es la práctica de la atención plena, mientras se libera de hábitos y mentalidades destructivas, para permitir que uno se conecte y se relacione con otros seres, aprenda de ellos y trabaje de manera cooperativa con ellos. Otros procesos claves incluyen inmersiones en culturas y ecosistemas nuevas además de estados de conciencia alternados y la sabiduría indígena; practicando concretamente nuevas formas de percibir y actuar; ejercitando la imaginación, el arte; compartiendo historias que manifiesten la sabiduría ecológica; analizar las causas profundas de la crisis; contemplando ideas del conocimiento científico y tradicional; y organizándose con otros para efectuar la transformación. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101632 | ecopsychology||environmental ethics||phenomenology||sustainability||transformative learning | ecolog, biodivers, environment, climate, industr, educat | SDG4, SDG9, SDG13, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Barnes, Claire | Moodley, Roy | Cultural Diversity and the Treatment of Trauma | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2020-11-01 | The current study sought to address a concerning treatment disparity within the psychological profession. While cultural minority groups are more likely to experience trauma and psychological distress, they are less likely to access and benefit from mental health services. Furthermore, it is clear that cultural meanings and practices shape how trauma is experienced and understood. There remains critical need for culturally competent trauma services in Canada. The current study sought to address this need by exploring the broad research question: how do therapists take into account cultural diversity in their treatment of trauma? The aim of this study was to understand how trauma therapists working with culturally diverse clients conceive of trauma and culture, and how they employ interventions in order to deliver culturally sensitive and effective trauma therapy. The participants were comprised of ten registered psychologists who identified as working with culturally diverse trauma clients for at least one year and who agreed to partake in an in-depth interview about their clinical practice. Qualitative methods were used to develop a rich understanding of the process of delivering culturally sensitive trauma therapy. The data was analyzed thematically using grounded theory methodology and an integrative model of culturally competent trauma therapy was proposed. The study findings revealed three key ideas: developing self-awareness, contextualizing trauma and outside the therapy room. These themes suggest that therapists begin with themselves: they develop self-awareness about how their personal history and social position informs their perspectives, biases and therapeutic approach. They also conceive of trauma and trauma responses as shaped by sociocultural context. Despite therapists’ attempts at providing culturally sensitive care, external structural barriers often prevent culturally diverse trauma clients from the receiving the mental health services they need. This study suggests that truly providing culturally sensitive trauma therapy requires structural changes within the field of psychology and society. To that end, therapists working at the intersections of trauma and diversity are broadening the scope of their practice to include advocacy and activist efforts. The broad implications of these findings for research, education and clinical practice are addressed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103542 | cultural competence||culture||diversity||therapy||trauma | educat, health | SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Dyer, Julian | Blouin, Arthur||Bobonis, Gustavo | Culture, Institutions and Development in Africa | Economics | 2020-11-01 | In my dissertation I explore the economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa with a particular focus on the role played by institutions and culture. In the first chapter, The Fruits (and Vegetables) of Crime, I provide experimental evidence that weak institutions that are unable to provide full protection of farm output causes distortions to agricultural production and reduced output as well as imposing social costs through local disputes. In the second chapter, How Cultures Converge with Arthur Blouin, we show, using a novel empirical approach identifying loanwords among languages, that the rate and direction of cultural convergence is endogenous to economic incentives and is shaped by strategic decisions reflecting these incentives. Finally, in the third chapter, Pumps, Prosperity and Household Power with Jeremy Shapiro, we provide experimental evidence that distributing small-scale irrigation pumps to women in farming households is an effective intervention to increase incomes and empowerment of women, in a context where institutional capacity has long constrained the adoption of large-scale irrigation investments. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103267 | agriculture||culture||development||institutions||security | institut, production, women, agricultur | SDG2, SDG5, SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| St-Laurent, Julie | Havercroft, Barbara | D’un corps à l’autre, le genre sexuel en question dans les poésies française et québécoise depuis 1990 | French Language and Literature | 2018-11-01 | Cette thèse étudie la représentation du genre sexuel et sa mise en question dans six œuvres poétiques contemporaines québécoises et françaises. Elle expose comment le motif du corps constitue dans le poème l’empreinte à la fois d’une chair modelée par l’identité sexuelle et d’un corps neutre, signe de déprise lyrique. Le premier chapitre interroge l’articulation entre poésie et genre sexuel dans une approche féministe et poétique, visant à comprendre selon quelles modalités l’émergence d’un sujet éthique – fidèle à une circonstance d’écriture (Jarrety, 1996) – est possible en poésie et à montrer que le corps en signifie l’expression sensible (Pinson, 1995 ; Collot, 1997 ; Maulpoix, 2009). La performativité du poème (Rabaté, 1996 ; 2013 ; Combe, 1996) répond à la performativité au coeur du constructivisme social (Butler, 1990 ; 1993 ; 2004) : le corps genré se matérialisant dans le poème est redevable à un processus énonciatif imprégné de normes, que l’écriture poétique cherche à resignifier. À ce parcours théorique succèdent trois chapitres d’analyse de textes. Les corps masculins dans Peau d’Antoine Emaz (2008) et dans Des ombres portées (2000) de Paul Chanel Malenfant témoignent d’une délicate perméabilité, qui octroie la réalité la plus tangible à l’émotion. Les écritures des chairs au féminin de Dormans (2006) de Marie Étienne et de Musée de l’os et de l’eau (1999) de Nicole Brossard engagent un mouvement existentiel qui dépersonnalise l’écriture et invite à toucher l’intime porosité du soi. Enfin, Cœurs, comme livres d’amour (2012) d’Hélène Dorion et en laisse (2005) de Dominique Fourcade présentent des corps qui empêchent la cristallisation de l’ordre binaire de la différence sexuelle. Cette thèse met en valeur la tendance de la poésie contemporaine à mettre en dialogue la pensée de l’identité, ici figurée par le genre sexuel, et la recherche d’intersubjectivité. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102901 | Body||Contemporary poetry||France||Gender||Lyrical enunciation||Québec | gender | SDG5 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Anderson, Vidya | Gough, William | Deep Adaptation: A Framework for Climate Resilience, Decarbonization, and Planetary Health in Ontario | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2018-11-01 | The focus of this doctoral thesis is the development of a comprehensive framework for Deep Adaptation in Ontario through the implementation of green infrastructure. Green infrastructure may be described as a series of networks of green space that provide various ecosystem services. Examples of green infrastructure include green roofs, growing roofs, green walls, urban vegetation and forestry, wetlands, stormwater and retention ponds, rain gardens, bioswales, hedgerows, riparian buffers, woodlots, and tree-based intercropping systems in agricultural settings. This research provides a clear understanding of how green infrastructure works as a complex intervention, its characteristics, the metrics for performance and regulatory enforcement, and the multiple co-benefits that can be leveraged if green infrastructure is strategically applied. This framework for Deep Adaptation has been developed using an interdisciplinary approach supported by systematic review: health equity impact assessment, regulatory impact assessment, controlled field study, and logic modelling to demonstrate green infrastructure as a complex adaptation intervention that moderates harm and capitalizes on beneficial opportunities, in addition to evaluating its capacity as an intervention to perform the dual function of both climate change adaptation and mitigation. This Deep Adaptation framework has the potential to mainstream complex adaptation by examining green infrastructure as a complex intervention using the multiple lenses of urban design, land-use planning, public policy, and public health. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102855 | adaptation||climate change||green infrastructure||health equity||mitigation | forest, climate, resilien, urban, infrastructure, water, health, agricultur | SDG2, SDG3, SDG6, SDG9, SDG11, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
| Mohamad Alizadeh Shabestary, Soheil | Abdulhai, Baher | Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach to Multimodal Adaptive Traffic Signal Control | Civil Engineering | 2019-06-01 | With perpetually increasing demand for transportation as a result of continued urbanization and population growth, it is essential to increase the existing transportation infrastructure. Optimizing traffic signals in real time, although is one of the primary tools to increase the efficiency of our urban transportation networks, is a difficult task, due to the non-linearity and stochasticity of the traffic system. Deriving a simple model of the intersection in order to design an appropriate adaptive controller is extremely challenging, and traffic signal control falls under the challenging category of sequential decision-making processes. One of the best approaches to resolving issues around adaptive traffic signal control is reinforcement learning (RL), which is model-free and suitable for sequential decision-making problems. Conventional discrete RL algorithms suffer from the curse of dimensionality, slow training, and lack of generalization. Therefore, we focus on developing continuous RL-based (CRL) traffic signal controller that addresses these issues. Also, we propose a more advanced deep RL-based (DRL) traffic signal controller that can handle high-dimensional sensory inputs from newer traffic sensors such as radars and the emerging technology of Connected Vehicles. DRL traffic signal controller directly operates with highly-detailed sensory information and eliminates the need for traffic experts to extract concise state features from the raw data (e.g., queue lengths), a process that is both case-specific and limiting. Furthermore, DRL extracts what it needs from the more detailed inputs automatically and improves control performance. Finally, we introduce two multimodal RL-based traffic signal controllers (MCRL and MiND) that simultaneously optimize the delay for both transit and regular traffic, as public transit is the more sustainable mode of transportation in busy cities and downtown cores. The proposed controllers are tested using Paramics traffic microsimulator, and the results show the superiority of both CRL and DRL over other state-of-practice and state-of-the-art traffic signal controllers. In addition to the advantages of MiND, such as its multimodal capabilities, significantly faster convergence, smaller model, and elimination of the feature extraction process, our experimental results show significant improvements in travel times for both transit and regular traffic at the intersection level compared to the base cases. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102563 | Deep Reinforcement Learning||Multimodal Traffic Signal||Reinforcement Learning||Traffic Signal Control | urban, cities, infrastructure | SDG9, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Vatankhahghadim, Behrad | Damaren, Christopher J. | Deployment Dynamics and Stability of a Boom-supported Solar Sail | Aerospace Science and Engineering | 2021-03-01 | The deployment dynamics and stability of a flexible space structure, namely a solar sail consisting of membranes attached to booms, are considered. The assumed deployment is achieved by extending the booms—modelled as Euler-Bernoulli beams with no axial deflections—at a constant rate. The overall approach involves obtaining the system's equations of motion using a time-varying generalization of the extended Hamilton's principle. These equations are then discretized upon expressing the relevant deflections as truncated series involving time-varying generalized coordinates and both time- and space-varying basis functions. The basis functions are selected based on the eigenfunctions of a cantilevered beam and a clamped membrane, but given the time-varying sizes of the components involved, they are termed "quasi-modes" and viewed as snapshots of the system's modes at given times. Two models are developed: a linear model that only accounts for the out-of-plane deflections, obtains the stress field by assuming a linearly increasing pretension at the boom-membrane interfaces, and reaches discretized equations of motion that are linear in the states (generalized coordinates); and a nonlinear model that accounts for the deflections in all directions, assumes plate strains and a suitable constitutive relation to obtain the stress field, and features nonlinear terms in its discretized equations of motion. To increase the computational efficiency, coordinate transformations and linear algebraic manipulations are performed to render all necessary spatial integrals time invariant. The extension of the linear formulation from a quadrant to a complete sail is also discussed. The linear model is used for stability analysis using two approaches: by obtaining a simple analytic expression for the rate of change of vibration energy in a quadrant, which implies decreasing energy during extension and increasing energy during retraction; and using a "frozen" eigenvalue study—assuming instantaneously constant lengths—on a complete sail, which indicates possibility of divergence depending on the extension rate and the pretension. The nonlinear model also attempts to provide wrinkling predictions using the Miller-Hedgepeth model: a coarse mesh is used, the instantaneous state of each region is determined using a wrinkling criterion and averaged principal stresses, and each region's constitutive relation is adjusted based on its wrinkling state. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104961 | axially translating continua||deployment dynamics||solar sails||structural dynamics||vibration stability | solar, energy | SDG7 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Memarian , Bahar | McCahan, Susan | Design for Assessment of Engineering Problem-solving Skills | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2021-03-01 | Problem-solving is central to engineering education and assessment has been identified as a weak link in learning to problem solve. Our goal in this research is to improve feedback provided on problem-solving activities in engineering courses. I first examined how teaching assistants (TAs) perceive marking using a typical freeform approach to marking problems. Surveying 30 participants I identified seven themes that represent challenges with freeform feedback delivery. Insufficient time and lack of assessment guidance were noted most frequently. I also found that the efficiency and consistency of freeform feedback delivery were highly correlated. To examine conventional marking practice more fully, I propose a novel classification scheme to code notations on problem solutions. I then analyzed the feedback notations TAs provided in 440 problem solutions in three undergraduate circuits courses. Findings revealed that failing solutions on average received a lower and less consistent degree of elaborating feedback in comparison to passing solutions. Further, both the total mark and granularity (i.e., marking breakdown) set by the instructor significantly correlated with the quantity of TA feedback. These gaps motivated us to design a new instrument called the Constructive Alignment Integrated Rating (CAIR) system. CAIR enables a theory-informed connection between the type and depth of errors made in engineering problem-solving. Teaching Assistants (n=52) were tasked with marking student solutions from three electrical engineering courses: two first-year circuits, and one second-year electromagnetics course. The participants marked the solutions in a three-part study using either CAIR or a conventional grading scheme in each part. Factors such as apparency (e.g., descriptive quality and quantity of feedback), consistency (e.g., consistent speed and frequency of feedback delivery), and usability and mental workload were examined. The CAIR tool significantly improved the apparency and consistency of feedback delivery. However, the usability of conventional practice was rated significantly higher. This motivated us to offer a novel conceptual design of a display to situate CAIR in a digital space and improve its usability. Future work should focus on testing of CAIR with students, TAs, and instructors using the digital display. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104881 | Assessment||Display||Feedback||Information Visualization||Problem Solving||Usability research | labor, educat | SDG4, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Soberman, Mark | Farnood, Ramin R||Tabe, Shahram | Design, Characterization, and Performance of Composite Electrospun Nanofiber Membrane Adsorption Systems for the Removal of Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Products from Water | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2021-03 | The contamination of water bodies by pollutants such as pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) is a globally widespread phenomenon resulting mainly from incomplete removal in wastewater treatment. Several technologies exist to remedy this problem, among them adsorption onto micro- and nanoparticles. However, a disadvantage of treatment by adsorbents such as powdered activated carbon (PAC) by dosing is the requirement to remove them in a subsequent step. A system capable of anchoring adsorbents onto a membrane to prevent leaching into treated water has the potential to present significant advantages in the field.Electrospun nanofiber membranes (ENMs) are a new generation of membrane with a large void fraction and interconnected pore structure. Although often used as size-exclusion membranes, they can also be used as adsorptive membranes. It was found that carbonaceous adsorbents can be successfully immobilized by ENMs either in sandwich membrane or co-electrospun configurations. In this study, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and PAC were sandwiched by two superimposed ENM sheets, which prevented the adsorbents from leaching into the permeate while achieving high removals of the 6 tested PPCPs. PAC was also successfully co-electrospun into an adsorptive ENM. To maximize their exposure, two aspects of ENM design were addressed: controlling fiber diameter via the addition of salt and controlling particle diameter by sieving the PAC particles into different size bins. Addition of salt produced PAC-ENMs with thinner fibers and enhanced surface area. This resulted in an enhancement of adsorption capacity, faster adsorption kinetics, and delayed breakthrough behaviour of a model contaminant. Electrospinnig membranes with different PAC size fractions showed that surface area, adsorption capacity, and adsorption kinetics were strongly correlated to the external surface area of PAC particles, and were thus maximized for the smallest size fraction of PAC. A model representing the initial fractional removal as a function of residence time in dynamic filtration was developed, and an exponential relationship was elucidated. In static adsorption, the correlation between the kinetic constants and the surface area of the adsorptive ENM was modelled by the predictively accurate Active Layer Diffusion Model (ALDM). | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104854 | Adsorption||Electrospinning||Environment||Membrane||Nanofiber||Pharmaceutical | pollut, environment, waste, water | SDG6, SDG12, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Udugama, Buddhisha Nayanthara | Chan, Warren CW | Developing Equipment-free Tools to Improve Accessibility of Diagnostics to Resource-limited Settings | Biomedical Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Diagnostics play an important role in the management of infectious diseases, from factoring in on the treatment of patients to responding to a worldwide pandemic. Point of care diagnostics are especially important to conduct diagnoses near patients to facilitate rapid responses. This allows for early detection, treatment, surveillance and containment of infectious diseases. In order to develop diagnostics that are amendable at the point of care, they need to be less reliant on expert training and infrastructure. The goal of my thesis was to develop equipment-free tools to improve the accessibility of diagnostic assays to the point of care, specifically in resource-limited settings. My thesis focuses on building a toolkit to help conduct assays outside of centralized labs. The first project focuses on developing a tablet to provide thermal stability to diagnostic reagents, allowing for transporting and storing reagents without the need for refrigeration. The second project focuses on building a multi-layered tablet to time-programmatically release reagents to conduct a diagnostic assay, minimizing the need for manual intervention and technical expertise. The last project focuses on building an electricity-free and portable heater to provide tunable and precise temperatures for conducting multi-step assays. Together, these tools can be used in the future to conduct diagnostic assays at any location, outside of centralized labs. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103167 | Diagnostics||Instrument-free||Low-cost||Point-of-care||Portable | infrastructure | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Xiao, Sarah | Tourangeau, Ann | Development and Evaluation of an Instrument to Measure Discharge Planning Processes in Mental Health Care | Nursing Science | 2020-11-01 | Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and test an instrument to measure and evaluate the quality of discharge planning processes in mental healthcare settings. Methods: Three major study phases were involved in the development of the instrument: 1) conceptualization of discharge planning, 2) item development, structure, and format, and 3) pilot testing of the instrument. Phase I comprised three components: a concept analysis and literature review to identify domains and indicators of discharge planning, focus groups with key informants to validate these findings, and a two-round Delphi study with a multidisciplinary expert panel to determine which indicators were most important for measuring the quality of discharge planning processes. In Phase II, indicators that reached expert consensus in Phase I were formatted into instrument items. In Phase III, the instrument was pilot tested through chart reviews and cognitive interviews. Results: The concept analysis and literature review yielded 73 quality indicators in six domains: Comprehensive Needs Assessment; Collaborative, Patient-Centered Care; Resource Availability Management; Care and Service Coordination; Discharge Planner Role; and Discharge Plan. Following the focus groups, two additional domains were created (i.e., Information Gathering and Synthesis, Patient Capacity Assessment), nine indicators were added, and three indicators were removed. In the first Delphi round, 37 panelists rated the importance of 79 quality indicators. Fifty-four indicators were retained and the Discharge Planner Role domain was removed after this survey round. In the second Delphi round, 36 panelists rated the importance of three new indicators. Two indicators were retained, resulting in a final set of 56 indicators. In Phase II, each indicator was assigned an item response option. In Phase III, the instrument was pilot tested and revisions were made to the instrument items, response scales, and overall format and instructions. These refinements resulted in a 57-item instrument. Conclusions: The instrument developed in this study can be used by healthcare providers to provide insight into practice and knowledge gaps in care, organizational leaders to inform process and structural improvements in mental healthcare settings, and policymakers to design more effective policies and practice guidelines for safer care transitions from hospital to community. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103423 | discharge planning||instrument development||mental health||nursing research||quality indicators | labor, health | SDG3, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Wang, Liping | Mrad, Ridha Ben | Development of a Variable Displacement Electric Oil Pump | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Power savings and CO2 reduction are prominent issues that continue to be a major focus in the automotive industry. Both in internal combustion engines and electric vehicles, it is important to reduce the power consumed by any of the auxiliary devices causing parasitic loss. An oil pump is one such device, used for lubrication, cooling and actuation purposes, and which consumes high power. In this work, a novel approach to reduce power consumption is proposed by regulating the displacement of the electric oil pump (EOP). This approach includes an advanced soft magnetic composite (SMC) motor, a Field Oriented Control (FOC) vector motor controller, a pump, and developing and testing a piezo motor used for pump displacement regulation in a closed-loop configuration. Variable displacement electric oil pumps (VDEOP) can potentially deliver flow rate to meet the oil requirements in the transmission and engine systems while enhancing system overall efficiency and overcoming the high torque at cold start. Piezo motors are well known for their excellent performance in terms of large load capability, fast response and accuracy. In VDEOP development, an actuation stroke of several millimeters is needed to regulate the displacement of the pump in real-time. For that purpose, a piezo motor is developed to generate such a stroke to regulate the pump’s flow rate. Modern cars have 40 electric motors or more, with varying requirements. The novel SMC structure Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motor is developed to drive the oil pump to meet different system requirements. The FOC algorithm controls the pressure, which provides signals for the closed-loop control of the piezo motor position. This dissertation introduces a novel design of a VDEOP with a compact structure based on a single piezo stack, which regulates the displacement of the pump. The simulation and experimental results indicate that the piezo motor can regulate the pump displacement based on achieving the stroke requirement while meeting the pump dynamic response requirements of minimum to maximum pump flow rates within 2 seconds. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103326 | Displacement||Electric||Oil||Pump||Variable | consum, industr | SDG9, SDG12 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Shorten, Andrew William | Ng, Wai Tung | Digital Control for Switched Mode Power Supplies with Improved Power Device Behaviour and Reconfigurable Functionalities | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2020-11-01 | A segmented gate driver IC for mitigating the unwanted current overshoot during the turn-on of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) is presented. The proposed IC is fabricated using TSMCs 0.18μm BCD Gen-2 process. Unlike existing collector current (IC) over-shoot reduction techniques, the proposed technique does not require significant additional external components or any increase in turn-on energy (EON ). A 37% reduction in IC overshoot (2.1 A to 1.3 A) is achieved while maintaining the same EON . A 54% reduction in EON (405 nJ to 185 nJ) is achieved for the same IC overshoot. A 15.5 dBm reduction in Conducted Electro-Magnetic Interference (CEMI), is observed when compared to operation with a constant ROU T and similar EON . In order to reduce the complexity of implementing the proposed gate drive technique (and other intelligent power module control techniques), an embedded stack based processor is developed. This processor is implemented in TSMCs 0.18 μm BCD Gen-2 process on the same die as a segmented gate driver. The compact design of the SPRUCE (Stack Processing Unit For Controlling Energy) processor allows reprogrammable functionality to be easily added to Intelligent IGBT Power Modules. A power consumption of 120 μA/MHz is achieved for SPRUCE. SPRUCE is used to develop a novel duty cycle correction technique. The proposed technique is shown to reduce the harmonic distortion in the output current of an IGBT based Intelligent Power Module by 13.1 dB. SPRUCE enables the logic of the proposed technique to be fully integrated within the Intelligent Power Module with no external controller needed. This completely integrated approach drastically improves the practicality of the proposed technique. Finally, SPRUCE is used to develop a programmable over current protection circuit for a boost converter. Further applications of SPRUCE as well as potential future enhancements to the design are presented in the final chapter. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103145 | BCD||Gate-Driver||IGBT||IPM||SMPS | consum, energy | SDG7, SDG12 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Smirnova, Yulia | Kerekes, Julie||Rehner, Katherine | Discoursal Identity Construction in English Language Learners’ Graduate Personal Statements | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | The graduate personal statement (GPS), one of the key components of a graduate school application in Canadian universities and thus a high-stakes academic genre, is neither explicitly taught in writing classrooms nor practiced by applicants. Since it is a self-promotional genre, positioning of self in discourse, or discoursal identity construction, is crucial in a GPS. Discoursal identity construction may pose a particular challenge to English language learners (ELLs) crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries as they write their GPSs in their non-dominant language, English. Although this genre has been examined by scholars for about two decades, studies exploring identity construction in the ELLs’ GPSs are scarce. This is particularly true for the research set within Canadian educational institutions. My qualitative multiple-case study aims to fill this research gap by analyzing the GPSs written by ELLs who have applied to social science master’s programs in Canadian universities. In particular, the study explores (1) the ELL applicants’ understandings of the genre of a GPS; (2) the most salient identities constructed in their GPSs; and (3) the discourse resources and rhetorical organization employed by the ELLs for self-positioning in their texts. Part of my understanding is gained through a comparison with the GPSs of English-dominant individuals (EDIs) who also submitted a GPS as part of their application to social science master’s programs in Canadian universities. Drawing on questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and successive drafts of the participants’ GPSs, I analyze the data using a social constructionist view of identity (Bucholtz Hall, 2005), Ivanič’s framework of writing as enactment of identity (Burgess Ivanič, 2010; Ivanič, 1998), and two genre theories, Hallidayan systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1985) and Swalesean English for specific purposes (Swales, 1990). My key findings related to the participants’ understandings of a GPS as a genre include, among others, perceived major purposes of a GPS (such as self-introduction and self-promotion) and different assumptions about self-promotion linked to the participants’ (lack of) exposure to Canadian/Western beliefs and values. I also uncover the writers’ assumptions about the program gatekeepers, their perceptions of the requirements for a GPS, and their metalinguistic awareness as reflected in the content and textual features of their GPSs. Emphasizing the emergent, dynamic, multidimensional, yet relational and partial nature of discoursal identities, I identify and describe, across the GPS drafts, eight salient aspects of the ELLs’ and EDIs’ identities and demonstrate multiple identity shifts (and role shifts within the applicants’ academic identities). Finally, I identify and illustrate a wide range of salient discourse resources employed by the writers for their identity construction, along with seven broad genre moves that support the participants’ self-positioning. This dissertation also provides theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications of the study and outlines a genre-based workshop series that can be designed and implemented to teach students how to write a GPS in the Canadian post-secondary context. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103334 | Discoursal identity construction||English for specific purposes||English language learners||Genre-based writing instruction||Graduate personal statements||Systemic functional linguistics | institut, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Borwein, Sophie Elizabeth | Haddow, Rodney | Distant Neighbours: Social Distance, Mobility Prospects, and Government Redistribution | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation is about income inequality – how it shapes preferences for redistribution, whether governments are responsive to these preferences, and whose preferences matter most. Income inequality has become a salient topic in recent decades, as the gap between rich and poor has widened across advanced industrial economies. Models of rational self-interest would predict that the increased concentration of income at the top of the distribution would increase public demand for government action to redress this inequality, yet public support for redistribution in many advanced economies has remained constant or even declined. At the same time, governments have often pursued greater redistribution in low rather than high market inequality settings. How can we understand these trends? This dissertation addresses this question by focusing on the Canadian provincial context, examining both demand for, and supply of, government redistribution. On the demand side, I argue that social distance – perceptions of similarity or difference among groups – affects how people think about their own economic prospects, in turn shaping their preferences for redistribution. Demand for redistribution depends not only on an individual’s position in the income distribution; instead, the distribution of income within neighbourhoods, among income groups, and across ethnic groups all influence preferences for government inequality reduction. On the supply slide, this dissertation also examines how micro-patterns of preferences and inequality are translated into government supply of redistribution, and in particular whether governments are more responsive to middle- or high-income groups. Despite concern in recent American politics research about the outsized influence of high-income voters on government policy, I show that provincial governments are responsive to the economic conditions of the middle class. However, high-income voters are often as – or more – responsive than middle-income voters to shifts in the income position of the middle class, suggesting that governments can respond to the middle class without opposition from higher-income voters. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the relationship between group membership and redistributive preferences, the other-regarding versus self-interested bases of support for redistribution, and research on unequal government responsiveness to the public’s preferences. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103207 | inequality, industr, equality, income distribution | SDG1, SDG5, SDG9, SDG10 | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Oleschuk, Merin | Johnston, Josée | Domestic Foodwork in Value and Practice: A Study of Food, Inequality and Health in Family Life | Sociology | 2020-03-01 | This dissertation explores home-cooked family meals – the ideals and expectations around them, as well as how they are navigated by parents in diverse social positions. This exploration assesses how discourses and practices surrounding family foodwork reflect and shape inequalities in a variety of realms including gendered labour, economic disparities, health outcomes and consumer politics. It utilizes diverse methods including a discourse and content analysis of North American news media, as well as qualitative interviews, cooking observations and food recall conversations with parents in the Greater Toronto Area who are primary cooks in their families. These varied methods facilitate investigation into how home cooking is publicly presented, automatically understood, and emotionally experienced by parents from diverse backgrounds. The dissertation explores these ends in three analytically distinct chapters, offering three key insights. First, the media analysis reveals that public discourse promotes a complex allocation of responsibility for family meals that recognizes multiple structural conditions constraining meals (such as unhealthy food environments and inflated normative standards), yet assigns responsibility for resolving them to individuals (i.e. parents should work harder to combat these constraints and cook more at home). These findings apply to family meals but can also be extended to consider responsibility for social problems within neoliberalism more broadly. Second, interview analysis identifies the ubiquity of a cultural schema of “cooking by our mother’s side”: an automatic, semi-conscious understanding of learning to cook that privileges culinary knowledge acquired during childhood through the social reproductive work of mothers. Analysis of this schema reveals its role in reproducing gendered inequalities and obscuring diversity in food learning, especially by overemphasizing the importance of childhood and masking learning later in life. Third, I qualitatively analyze how socio-economic disadvantage (alongside its intersections with gender and race/ethnicity) negatively impacts the emotional experience of foodwork but does not necessarily predict cooking pleasure. In identifying and exploring five conditions of cooking pleasure, I examine how certain conditions can operate relatively independently from class and facilitate cooking enjoyment for low-income groups. Collectively, the dissertation advances scholarly understanding of the ideals, meanings and emotions encompassing family foodwork, their embeddedness with social inequalities, as well as opportunities for resistance and social change. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103986 | Cooking||Culture||Family||Food||Gender||Health | environment, consum, inequality, labour, equality, gender, health, food, socio-economic | SDG1, SDG2, SDG3, SDG5, SDG8, SDG10, SDG12, SDG13 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
| Lumactud, Rhea Amor | Fulthorpe, Roberta R | Ecological, functional, and genomic characterization of the bacterial endophytes in plants growing in a hydrocarbon contaminated oil field site | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2018-11-01 | In the last decade, there has been an increasing awareness of the plant microbiota’s role in plant growth and fitness. Of particular interest is the plant-bacterial endophytes’ partnership to degrade organic contaminants. This thesis assessed the ecological diversity and function of bacterial endophytes (BEs) in pioneer plants growing in highly contaminated soil around the vicinity of a crude oil pump in Oil Springs, Ontario, Canada. This study focused on the bacteria in the stem endosphere, an understudied ecological niche in the plant-bacterial system. The plants are not only exposed to both soluble petroleum hydrocarbons from the soil, but also to volatile atmospheric hydrocarbons in the ambient air. BEs were isolated and analyzed through culture-dependent and -independent means. 16S-based terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis revealed significant differences between the endophytic bacterial communities, showing them to be plant host specific. Culture-dependent analyses revealed predominance of Actinobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria in the spring and summer seasons, respectively. Notably, there was a >50% taxonomic overlap (genus level) of 16s rRNA high-throughput amplicon sequences with cultivable endophytes. BEs demonstrated hydrocarbon degrading and plant growth promoting potential. Interestingly, our findings revealed that functional capabilities of bacterial isolates being examined were not influenced by the presence of contamination, and that the stem endosphere supports the same predominant BEs in all plant hosts in both contaminated and noncontaminated sites. Genomic analyses of BEs that were present in all the plants sampled in Spring–Plantibacter flavus 251 and Microbacterium foliorum 122 revealed absence of known hydrocarbon degrading genes despite demonstrated utilization of hydrocarbon substrates, indicating potentially novel hydrocarbon degrading genes. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102937 | ecolog | SDG15 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Kamiya, Tsukushi | Mideo, Nicole | Ecology of Vector-borne Diseases at the Interface of Theory and Data | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2020-09-01 | Infectious diseases continue to impact human lives. However, surprisingly little is known about the fundamental biology of disease-causing organisms and their interactions with the host. This thesis focuses on vector-borne diseases which account for 17% of all known human infections and put more than half of the global population at risk of infection. An overarching focus of the work presented is heterogeneity within species, which is ubiquitous and fundamental to biology, yet has often been neglected outside of evolutionary biology. In infectious disease biology, a better understanding of individual heterogeneity is needed across scales. At the within-host level, infection dynamics and health outcomes are highly variable between hosts. Therefore, a single clinical intervention strategy will likely not achieve the desired cure in all individuals infected with the same parasite. At the between-host level, it is important to map the consequences of heterogeneity because a small fraction of the host population contributes disproportionately to disease transmission and determines the fate of an epidemic. By combining mathematical modelling and empirical data, this thesis develops conceptual and methodological frameworks that are rooted in ecology, but shift away from the strict focus on the average often found in biological sciences, dubbed the “tyranny of the golden mean”. This thesis uncovers within-host origins, and explores the between-host consequences, of heterogeneities in vector-borne diseases. In the first half, I outline how differences in within-host ecological processes generate variation in parasite population dynamics and health outcomes of malaria infection across inoculum sizes and host genetic backgrounds. In the latter half, I present host population-level consequences of variation generated by tri-trophic interactions be- tween parasites, hosts, and arthropod disease vectors, and of temperature-dependent heterogeneity in within-vector processes that govern the timing of infectivity. Overall, this thesis showcases the synergistic benefit of combining mathematical and computational modelling with empirical data to achieve better understanding and management of infectious diseases. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103245 | Computational biology||Dengue||Disease ecology||Malaria||Vector-borne disease | ecolog, health | SDG3, SDG15 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Meredith, Christina Elizabeth | Portelli, John P | Enacting Social Justice Leadership in the Division of Student Affairs | Social Justice Education | 2020-11-01 | Heads of Student Affairs in the Ontario College sector are leaders who hold responsibility for services and programs designed to serve diverse student populations, outside of the classroom. In the College of Applied Arts and Technology system, these administrators are typically VPs of Student Affairs and Services, Deans of Students or Executive Directors of Student Services. Given their location in the institutional hierarchy these leaders can play a significant role in challenging and disrupting policies and procedures that reproduce dominance and oppression yet how they express and enact social justice leadership is significantly understudied in the higher education and student affairs literature. Grounded in two large bodies of literature in higher education, and informed by critical theory, eleven student affairs leaders were asked to reflect on ways their work related to social justice and then to discuss when and how their work reflected social justice; the central research question was: How do Heads of Student Affairs enact social justice in their leadership practice? The findings from this study reveal how student affairs leaders, who self-identified as leading from a social justice perspective, enacted social justice in their leadership practice as they attempted to transform student operations, policies and structures of power, by calling into account, seemingly unproblematic practices in efforts to reveal problems, strengths, and possibilities for sustainable change. The data also highlights that those leaders who were able to articulate a deeper understanding of how their identity impacts and informs their leadership practice tended to be more critical in their approach and, as a result, were more likely to face barriers and consequences to enacting social justice leadership. As a result, this study has the potential to provide timely insights for current and emerging leaders to develop robust policies and programs that advocate, and transform educational spaces, for our increasingly diverse student populations from a social justice perspective. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103575 | Community College||Educational Leadership||Social Justice Leadership||Student Affairs | justice, institut, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Acosta Mejia, Camilo Andres | Baum-Snow, Nathaniel | Essays on the Spatial Organization of Firms and the Effects of Land Use Regulations | Management | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation is composed of three chapters that explore different issues within urban economics. The first two, jointly authored with Ditte Lyngemark from the Kraks Fond Institute for Urban Economic Research, focus on the spatial organization of firms, while the third one studies different effects of land use regulations within cities. The first chapter studies the spatial structure of firms by considering the location and occupational composition of establishments within firms. Using Danish employer-employee data, we document that the average number of establishments per firm increased by 36% between 1981 and 2016. Moreover, the average distance of establishments and workers to their headquarters (HQ) increased by more than 200%. These changes are mainly driven by the decentralization of production and business services. Finally, HQ establishments have become more manager intensive, despite increasing wages in their locations. The second chapter investigates the forces governing the previous facts, especially the roles of regional wage differences and communication costs. Our study proceeds theoretically and empirically, concluding with the first structural analysis of this issue. Using immigration shocks as the source of identifying variation, our estimates indicate that increases in the wage of managers at HQ relative to non-HQ explain 50% of the increase in HQ managerial intensity. Increasing demand for headquarter services as satellite establishments become larger is the main mechanism behind this effect. Wider wage gaps across locations also lead to more establishments per firm, and this effect strengthens as communication costs fall. In the last chapter, I study the incidence and general equilibrium effects of land use regulations. I use detailed geographic data for Chicago in 2016, together with a quantitative model with worker heterogeneity and real estate developers facing regulations. For identification, I use the 1923 Zoning Ordinance. I find that an increase of 10 percentage points in the share of residential zoning in a location leads to a 1% decrease in housing prices, a 15% decrease in wages and a 2.5% increase in amenities. I find that more residential and mixed-use zoning lead to welfare gains for both types of residents, but increase welfare inequality. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103779 | communication costs||firm fragmentation||regional wage differences||spatial organization of firms||welfare||zoning | institut, land use, production, urban, cities, inequality, wage, worker, equality | SDG5, SDG8, SDG10, SDG11, SDG12, SDG15, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
| Serhal, Eva | Kurdyak, Paul | Evaluating System-level Implementation of Telepsychiatry in Ontario from 2008-2016: Implications for the Sustainability and Growth of Telepsychiatry | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2020-06-01 | Objectives The objective of this thesis was to understand the implementation of clinical telepsychiatry in Ontario. To do this, paper 1 described the characteristics of psychiatrists who delivered and patients who received telepsychiatry, calculated how many in-need patients received telepsychiatry, and identified trends in the distribution of telepsychiatry (where care was delivered to and from). Paper 2 described characteristics and predictors of family physicians who referred patients to telepsychiatry and paper 3 compared the costs of telepsychiatry with other traditional models of psychiatric outreach. Study Designs This thesis employed several study designs, including a serial panel study and retrospective cross-sectional studies using linked data from ICES, as well as a cost-minimization analysis. Results Paper 1 found that, in fiscal year (FY) 2012, a total of 3,801 people had 5,635 telepsychiatry visits, and 7% of Ontario psychiatrists provided these visits. Of 48,381 people discharged from a psychiatric hospitalization, 60% saw a local psychiatrist, 39% saw no psychiatrist, and less than 1% used telepsychiatry within 1 year of discharge. Paper 2 showed that the number of patients using telepsychiatry, and the number of family physicians referring to telepsychiatry increased fifteen-fold and nine-fold, respectively, from FY 2008 to FY 2016. 32% of Ontario family physicians referred to telepsychiatry in FY 2016, however, less than 1% of their rostered patients used telepsychiatry (n =12,449/3,513,638). Family physicians that referred to telepsychiatry were more likely to be from a rural residence, to have more nurse practitioners in their practice, and to be part of a Family Health Team, while their patients were more likely to live in rural areas, have increased complexity, and higher rates of mental health service utilization. Paper 3 found that costs per visit were lowest in telepsychiatry ($360), followed by travelling physicians ($558) and patient reimbursement for travel ($620). Conclusions This dissertation has demonstrated that while telepsychiatry has been increasingly adopted by providers, adoption by patients remains fairly low. Telepsychiatry is less costly than other in-person outreach models and shows signs of sustainability, such as the persistent increase in adoption and penetration throughout Ontario over the study period. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104110 | Adoption||Implementation Science||Telehealth||Telemedicine||Telepsychiatry||Virtual Care | rural, health | SDG3, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Williams, Gregory Evan | Uliaszek, Amanda A | Evaluating the Construct of Emotion Differentiation: Methodological Considerations and Extension of Current Theory | Psychological Clinical Science | 2020-11-01 | Emotion differentiation is a multifaceted construct, referring to the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between emotional experiences as well as the ability to describe individual emotional experiences with a high degree of nuance and specificity. Studies to date have demonstrated that emotion differentiation is associated with indices of psychological well-being, such that greater emotion differentiation performance is presumed to be adaptive. Theory posits that emotion differentiation functions as a precursor to more successful emotion regulation by providing the experiencer with more precise information to contextualize their emotional experience and respond to it more optimally, but this relationship needs further empirical support. Several other issues persist with the construct as currently operationalized, including: (1) it is unknown how the underlying construct empirically relates to similar constructs in the literature, and if it uniquely relates to psychological well-being incrementally beyond these other constructs; (2) it is unknown if emotion differentiation can be measured via self-report and do such measures correlate with performance-based approaches; and (3) emotion differentiation lacks measures in the context of individual emotional experiences, suggesting the full theoretical construct is not being captured. This research was therefore undertaken with the goal of systematically addressing each of these lingering issues. Results of Study 1 suggested that emotion differentiation is best conceptualized as an aspect of emotional complexity, separate from emotional awareness, and that it does not uniquely relate to psychological well-being after accounting for empirical overlap with awareness. Study 2 results indicated that a coding-based measure of differentiation within individual emotional experiences related to indices of psychopathology but did not relate to emotion differentiation between emotional experiences. All associations between indices of emotion differentiation and psychopathology were accounted for by mean affect intensity. In Study 3, those who were instructed to appraise their emotions with less nuance reported more emotion regulation success following one negative emotion-inducing video, and those from this group who reported high trait emotional awareness reported the greatest emotion regulation success following the other negative video. Collectively these results highlight continuing concerns with emotion differentiation theory and measurement. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103199 | emotion differentiation||emotion regulation||emotional awareness||emotional complexity | well-being | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| de Almeida Gutierrez, Eduardo | Chang, Belinda SW | Evolution and functional specializations in nocturnal environments: insights from visual pigments in Chiroptera | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2018-11-01 | Sensory systems act as a direct interface between organisms and their environment, constituting an ideal model to investigate how diverse evolutionary pressures shaped sensory adaptation. At the molecular level, vision is initiated through activation of visual pigments, light-sensitive complexes expressed in photoreceptor cells in the retina that have been shown to evolve in response to changes in ecology and light environment. In this thesis, I employ molecular evolutionary analyses and experimental characterization of visual pigments to study the molecular basis of visual system specializations in bats, one of the most striking and ecologically diverse mammalian radiations. In Chapter 2, I review recent work on the ecological and evolutionary pressures mediating sensory adaptation in vertebrates, including remarkable specializations of bats. In Chapter 3, I use comparative sequence analysis to test whether ecological factors known to influence bat visual ecology mediate shifts in evolutionary pressure in cone opsin genes, Lws and Sws1. I find significant evidence that long-term shifts in selection constraint in cone opsins occur in response to ecological factors underlying reliance on visual information and exposure to varying light environments. In Chapters 4 and 5, I focus my study on the evolution of the dim-light visual pigment rhodopsin (Rh1) in response to echolocation, a remarkable sensory adaptation of bats. In Chapter 4, I experimentally characterize rhodopsin of several bat species and find that changes in kinetic properties that influence dim-light visual performance are associated with differing echolocation abilities. In Chapter 5, I reconstruct and experimentally resurrect the ancestral rhodopsin pigment of Chiroptera and Scrotifera. I find that changes in rhodopsin kinetics occurred during the evolution of bats are likely associated with the origins of echolocation. This thesis combines in vitro and in silico approaches to investigate visual pigment evolution in Chiroptera. More broadly, this thesis also discusses the role of diverse ecological pressures in shaping visual gene evolution, the molecular underpinnings of visual pigment function and adaptation to light-limited environments as well as the complex interactions between sensory specializations. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102871 | Evolution of bat vision||Evolution of opsin function||Likelihood codon-based models||Molecular evolution||Sensory systems||Visual ecology | ecolog, environment | SDG13, SDG15 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Micsinszki, Samantha | Stremler, Robyn | Examining Factors Associated with Sleep Quality in Parents of Children 4-10 Years with Autism Spectrum Disorder | Nursing Science | 2020-11-01 | Background/Rationale: Sleep quality is an important health indicator, yet parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often report poorer sleep compared to parents of typically developing children. When parents do not obtain enough good quality sleep, health and daytime functioning may be compromised. This means that the onus of care is placed on already stressed and exhausted parents. Although poor sleep quality may lead to significant negative health consequences, it has been remarkably understudied in parents of children with ASD. Purpose: This study examined the prevalence of poor sleep quality in parents of children 4-10 years with ASD and tested a model of parent factors (i.e., resources, appraisals, and coping) expected to moderate the relationships between child sleep problems, parenting stress, and parent sleep quality at a single point in time. Methods: In this cross-sectional observational research, 214 parents of children with ASD completed the study. Parent sleep quality was examined using survey methods. Sleep measures included the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) (parent sleep) and the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) (sleep in children of parents in this study). Six regression models were tested using multivariable linear and moderated regression. Results: Mean (SD) PSQI scores for parents in this sample was 8.81 (3.76), with most parents scoring above the clinical cut-off of >5 (152, 77.6%). Mean (SD) CSHQ scores for children of the parents in this sample was 54.03 (8.32), which exceeds the clinical cut-off of >41, with most parents scoring their child above the clinical cut-off (182, 96.3 %). Overall, when parenting stress, child sleep problems, and all expected moderators were modelled together with parent sleep quality, child sleep problems was the only significant predictor (Beta = 0.081, p = 0.031). Significance/Implications: Findings from this study suggest that children’s sleep problems was the single most important factor when considering what impacts parent sleep quality. However, both parents and their 4-10-year old children with ASD experienced sleep disturbances. Although the expected moderators help to explain the variance in parent sleep quality, their buffering effects may not be enough when parents sleep poorly. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103482 | ASD||Parents||Sleep Quality | urban, health | SDG3, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Luu, Kien Nam | Flessa, Joseph | Experiences, Challenges and Preparation of Instructional Coaches | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | This study explored the professional experiences and challenges of instructional coaches in one Canadian educational jurisdiction. While school districts throughout North America build the instructional capacity of teachers through summer institutes, professional learning communities (PLCs), and additional qualification courses (AQs), instructional coaching is a recent addition to this repertoire. There is abundant instructional coach (IC) research that is situated in the USA. Instructional coach studies conducted in Ontario, Canada are salient but are limited. This study investigates the perspectives of ten instructional coaches employed by a large, urban Ontario school district. The data collected from these participants led to five major findings: (1) Instructional Coaches were not fully aware of their roles and responsibilities; (2) Instructional Coaches supported educators on many levels: facilitated professional learning, provided resources, collaborated on school improvement planning and trained other IC colleagues; (3) Instructional Coaches were not fully prepared for the role and duties of instructional coaching; (4) Instructional Coaches identified a lack of clear communication among various stakeholder groups; and (5) Instructional Coaches suggested preparation planning for aspiring ICs. These included enrolling in additional qualification courses, developing sound instructional skills, being flexible, being able to handle resistance and being able to build professional rapport with other educators. Instructional coaches carried out a multitude of responsibilities while providing pedagogical support to educators and navigating complex environments. This study will inform decisions on implementation of IC support in school districts and provide further insights into the training, preparation and support for ICs. 摘要本研究旨在探討加拿大某教育管轄區教學指導員的專業經驗、面臨挑戰及準備狀況。在加拿大安大略省進行的教學指導的相關研究是突出，但依然有限的。摘要本研究以安省市區某大型學區為研究對象，對十名教學指導員的觀點進行調查。從這些參與者收集的數據導致了五個主要的發現:(1)教學指導員沒有充分意識到自己的角色和責任;(2)教學指導員在多個層面支持教育工作者:促進專業培訓、提供資源、 協作學校改進計劃和培訓其他教學指導組同事;(3)教學指導員對其角色和職責沒有做好充分準備;(4) 教學指導員發現各教育參與方群體之間缺乏清晰的溝通;和(5)教學指導員建議為有抱負的準教學指導員提供準備計劃，包括參加額外的資格認證課程，發展良好的教學技能，靈活，能夠處理阻力，能夠與其他教育工作者建立專業的融洽關係。 教學指導員承擔了大量的責任，同時為教育者提供教學支持，並在復雜的環境中為教學領航。本研究將為學區實施教學指導支持的決策提供依據，並對教學指導員的培訓、準備和支持提供進一步的見解。 | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103789 | Educational Leadership||Instructional Coach||Preparation||Professional Learning||Teacher Leaders | institut, environment, urban, labor, educat | SDG4, SDG8, SDG11, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Massey-Garrison, Angela Michelle | Geva, Esther | Exploring Latent Profiles of Writing in Linguistically Diverse Students in the Middle School Grades | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2021-03-01 | This thesis consists of two studies that investigate longitudinally narrative writing development and factors that lead to low performance in writing in the middle school grades with native English speakers (EL1) and English Learners. The first study consists of two parts. Part A examined writing profiles in Grade 4 and 6 and the resulting relationships to reading outcome measures as well as the effect of language status and gender. Three distinct writing profiles were found in Grade 4 and 6 (low performing, average, and strong writers) which corresponded to similar ability levels on the word reading and reading comprehension outcome measures. There was no EL-EL1 effect on the writing profiles, however there was a gender effect showing that boys were more at risk for writing difficulties than girls. Part B investigated the transition patterns of these writing profiles between Grades 4 to 6. The writing profiles were fairly stable across the middle school grades with a high proportion of students remaining in the same latent profile across time (76.4%). Differences were noted in the transition profiles of boys and girls with more boys remaining in the low performing group over time.The second study investigated the contribution of oral language (vocabulary and syntactic skills) to low performing writing status, beyond that of a base set of predictors, that included rapid naming, working memory, and spelling. In Grade 4, both vocabulary and syntactic skills contributed independently to low performing writing status beyond the base measures. By Grade 6, only syntactic skills were found to be a unique predictor of low performing writing status beyond the base measures. Overall, this thesis provides support that distinct and stable writing profiles can be recognized by the middle school grades in EL and EL1 students and offers insight into the characteristics of low performing writers. The implications of these findings for assessment and intervention and directions for future research are discussed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105068 | English Learners||gender||literacy||narrative text writing||predictors of at-risk writing | girl, gender | SDG5 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Pulver, Ariel | Urquia, Marcelo L | Exploring Maternal Birthplace and Child Gender Disparities in Markers of Neglect and Maltreatment among Young Children of Immigrants | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2019-06-01 | Significant immigration to Canada has brought many cultures and parenting practices together, highlighting differences in child health and wellbeing. Given the increasingly large amount of migration from countries with high gender inequality, it is unknown how parental immigration interacts with child gender to affect healthcare and wellbeing in early childhood. In this dissertation, I present four studies regarding variation in routine preventive health care and maltreatment in very early childhood by maternal birthplace and child gender. The first study is a scoping review where I mapped the use of gender-based analysis in research on the health of children in immigrant families. I found that child gender is an understudied aspect of immigrant children’s health, thereby presenting an opportunity for further research. Next, in three population-based retrospective cohort studies, I compared the risk of three markers of child health care and well-being across immigrant maternal birthplaces in comparison to mothers born in Canada—immunizations, well-child visits at 24 months, and early child maltreatment at five years of age. To explore whether son preference affects child routine preventive care and maltreatment, I also compared outcomes between daughters and sons within families. I demonstrate that children of immigrants are well cared for concerning routine immunizations and are less likely to experience maltreatment in early childhood than children of non-immigrants. Maternal birthplaces associated with high levels of gender inequity do not seem to place daughters at risk of adverse outcomes compared to sons, except for a select case. Results support addressing vaccine hesitancy and child maltreatment in the general population to promote well-being in early childhood, as well as select targeted approaches among specific immigrant groups. My studies provide a model (including data sources, study design, and analytic techniques) to monitor and detect gender inequality in the general population as well as among minority groups. My research adds to the evidence around gender equity, which will hopefully ensure girls continue to achieve the same level of health care and well-being as boys. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101749 | inequality, girl, equality, gender, well-being, wellbeing, health | SDG3, SDG5, SDG10 | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Ho, Bernard | Pedretti, Erminia | Exploring Students’ Perspectives on Critical Thinking Integration in College Pre-health Science Education | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | Educators and healthcare practitioners increasingly recognize the importance of critical thinking (CT) in health sciences education. CT encompasses knowledge, its evaluation/synthesis, and habits of mind. Perspectives from scholars emphasize features that inform a range of theories on CT integration. This research foregrounded the perspectives of college pre-health science students. A case study was conducted to address three research questions: What are the students’ perspectives on 1) what constitutes CT; 2) its role as integrated in pre-health science courses; and 3) the challenges experienced with CT integration? Quantitative/qualitative data was gathered from survey questionnaires at the start of the program. Qualitative data was collected from classroom observations during CT-integrative activities, and individual semi-structured interviews. Inductive-deductive content analysis revealed several themes. Students collectively characterized CT as habits of mind, content and processes aimed at comprehensively, objectively, rationally and normatively ascertaining “truth”. During integrative science activities, students applied CT to learn science content intuitively or consciously depending on their prior science knowledge. CT’s amenability for integration within subjects depended on the students’ prior subject knowledge and perceptions of the comparative nature of subjects to that of CT. Furthermore, how students anticipated CT in healthcare framed their beliefs on CT integration into science curriculum. Challenges with CT integration stemmed from incongruencies between its expected manifestations in healthcare versus its portrayal in education. In education, formalized CT and subject-specific incompatibility felt inauthentic, and risked undermining the learning of science content. A lack of socialization to ambiguity due to CT integration begged more guidance from professors to provide definitiveness over scientific claims. Therefore, authentic CT integration that resonates with students hinges upon a threshold of prior knowledge in individual subjects and CT. Acclimation to CT that is simultaneous with building foundational scientific knowledge might reveal opportunities for conscious and complex integration. Sustained opportunistic integration leveraging natural intersections might acclimate students to CT as part of their education, and further reveal its relevance in healthcare. This thesis concludes with recommendations for theory and practice. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103132 | Case Study||Critical Thinking||Curriculum Integration||Post-Secondary Education||Pre-Health Science Education||Qualitative Research | climate, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Orlando, Elaina | Baker, G. Ross | Exploring the Connection between Physician Involvement in Quality Improvement and Medical Engagement | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2020-11-01 | Substantial efforts are required to improve the performance of healthcare systems, however, healthcare organizations tend to have structures and cultures that are highly resistant to change. Though such resistance will make significant changes in healthcare challenging there has been a call for reform in Canada’s healthcare system (e.g. Atkinson et al., 2011; CMA, 2012; Clark, 2012; Denis et al., 2013; Dickinson Ham, 2008; Dickson, 2011; Gosfield Reinertsen, 2007; Kirby, 2002; Romanow, 2002; Tuohy, 1999, 2002; Willis et al., 2012).Medical engagement has been suggested as one means of achieving this desired reform and overcoming the challenges of resistance to change (Baker Denis, 2011; Singer Shortell, 2011). Similarly, the involvement of physicians in quality improvement has been purported to contribute to improved health outcomes and decreased costs (Peterson, Jaen Phillips, 2013). Baker Denis (2011) note that many of the growing efforts to engage physicians in leading change are focused on changes in organizational structure and in broader system-wide leadership; however, there have been few studies examining the extent to which these changes have resulted in the enhanced levels of engagement. Similarly absent is empirical work examining the role of physician involvement in quality improvement in building medical engagement, despite suggestions that both will contribute to enhanced organizational and systems outcomes. The role that organizational commitment has on medical engagement is also of interest, given the recognized theoretical links between commitment and engagement. This thesis reports a mixed methods investigation to explore the connection between physician involvement in quality improvement, organizational commitment and medical engagement levels in two healthcare organizations in Ontario. In the first phase of the inquiry, organizational commitment and organizational support for quality improvement were quantified in a survey to determine the relationship among these concepts. The secondary, qualitative phase, allows for a deeper understanding of physicians’ perspectives regarding the connection between quality improvement, organizational commitment and medical engagement while exploring the results of the survey. Overall, this dissertation furthers our knowledge of how Canadian healthcare organizations can effectively work with physicians to drive changes to improve healthcare. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103511 | health | SDG3 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Serenko, Natalia | Fang, Lin | Exploring Therapists’ Use of Creativity in Direct Practice in Social Work | Social Work | 2021-03-01 | This study employs constructivist grounded theory to explore the experiences of direct practice social workers who use creativity, their perceptions of creativity, their individual characteristics, the role of the external social environment, the factors impeding and facilitating their use of creativity, and the benefits of creativity. To fill the research gaps above, this study applies an interdisciplinary approach by using four relevant theoretical perspectives: practice wisdom, the componential theory of creativity, systems theory, and four Ps theory. Twenty-one registered social workers who were employed in direct clinical practice in Ontario, Canada participated in semi-structured interviews. This study clarifies the definition of creativity relevant to the field of social work direct practice. Creativity is defined as synergetic interconnection of usefulness, novelty, and ubiquity, which may be accompanied by the state of creative flow. Similar to a magic cauldron that must be constantly stirred to preserve a high temperature, ubiquity refers to a constant presence of creative intention, an enduring commitment to discover useful and novel solutions. It represents the tension, consistent effort, or necessity that therapists experience to address their clients’ issues. Clients provide context for creative therapeutic flow when therapists and their clients are engaged in the process of discovery and healing. The findings reveal that creativity contributes to the essence and identity of the social work profession. Specifically, Pro-C (professional creativity) influences therapists’ professional identity. This study extends the list of Pro-C characteristics by identifying four important elements that must be present in Pro-C: 1) intentionality, 2) the use of the self and intuition, 3) mastery, and 4) practice wisdom. The use of creativity may be considered a scientific art that may be taught through best creativity practices. This study also presents a new theoretical framework of creativity in social work direct practice. This framework explicates the notion of creativity, best creativity practices, factors fostering and impeding the use of creativity, and creativity benefits for clients and therapists. It is concluded that creativity is a domain-specific concept, and it requires the active engagement of both a therapist and a client during a therapeutic process. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104913 | counseling||creativity||grounded theory||scientific art||social work||therapy | environment, worker | SDG8, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Wang, An | Hatzopoulou, Marianne | Extending Boundaries of Emission and Dispersion Modelling with Uncertainty Analysis and Data-Driven Models | Civil Engineering | 2021-03-01 | Urban transportation systems are undergoing revolutionary changes, including vehicle automation and electrification, and their environmental impacts remain uncertain. Can existing emission and air quality modelling techniques adequately perform in the face of these drastic changes? How can we extend the capabilities of current physical emission models and empirical air quality models? This thesis addresses these questions focusing on two themes: 1) regional traffic emission inventories; 2) data-driven models for local emission and air quality characterization.In theme 1, we first developed a modelling approach to generate a regional emission inventory of passenger transportation (public transit and private household vehicle trips) in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). When including only public transit and private household vehicle trips, the latter contributed 96% of regional GHG emissions for passenger transportation. With the introduction of AVs, additional private household vehicle kilometres were expected. Moreover, the GHG emission reduction potential of EVs was highly dependent on the GHG emissions of the local power grid. We identified various sources of uncertainty in current vehicular emission models and quantified these sources of uncertainty with a Monte-Carlo approach. Vehicle operating emissions dominated the total GHG emissions and dominated the uncertainty from other sources. The introduction of EVs also reduced emission uncertainty. Theme 2 focuses on local scale emission and air quality modelling. Noticing the importance of uncertainty in operating emissions, we proposed a novel modal emission modelling approach for vehicle hot stabilized running emissions, based on measured emissions. Our approach can effectively balance computational complexity and accuracy by tuning the resolution of explanatory variables. The last part of this thesis explored the use of a traditional empirical air quality model compared to novel machine learning techniques. Both empirical models were applied to air quality data collected during a mobile sampling campaign in downtown Toronto. We explored their application boundaries by contrasting how explanatory variables were expressed in these data-driven models. We concluded that machine learning could perform better with abundant data, and the prediction power of the traditional empirical model was dependent on the monotonic relationship between explanatory and response variables. 城市交通系统的发展日新月异。首当其冲的是车辆的自动化和电动化。然而相应的环境和能源影响尚未被人们所了解。现行的汽车尾气排放和扩散模型是否能充分捕捉到交通系统变化带来的影响？我们如何能够拓展这些模型的应用范围？本文主要从以下两个主题入手解决这些问题：1. 区域交通排放清单的建立；2. 数据驱动模型在本地尾气排放和扩散模型中的应用。在第一个主题中，我们首先设计了大多伦多和汉密尔顿地区内的客运排放清单的计量方法（包括公共交通和私人交通）。我们发现私人交通产生的温室气体排放占到了客运交通排放的96%。自动驾驶车辆的引入导致了更多的私人交通出行里程。同时，我们观察到电动车带来的温室气体排放减少受到本地电网清洁性的影响。我们进一步确定了数个在现行车辆排放清单模型中的不确定性因素，并将它们用蒙特卡洛方法进行量化。车辆运行中的排放不但占据了区域内燃油生命周期排放的主体，还对区域内车辆排放清单的不确定性产生了主要影响。推行电动车可以减少区域车辆排放清单中的不确定性。 主题二主要探讨了多伦多本地背景下的车辆排放和扩散模型。注意到运行中排放对于区域排放总量和不确定性的影响，我们对此提出了一种新型的排放模型，并用本地采集的排放数据进行开发。我们的方法可以根据具体应用条件来有效平衡计算复杂度和模型准确性。这主要是通过调节解释变量的解析度来实现的。本文的最后一部分探讨了传统的污染物扩散模型（土地利用回归）和机器学习经验模型的比较。我们使用了在多伦多本地采集的空气质量数据来训练这两类模型。通过揭示自变量（空气质量）和因变量（土地利用，交通，天气等）在不同模型中是如何进行表达的，我们探索了不同模型的应用范围。我们发现机器学习模型在有充足数据的情况下可以达到较高的准确度，传统回归模型的鲁棒性需要依靠自变量和因变量之间的单调性关系来保证。 | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104940 | data-driven modelling||dispersion modelling||emission modelling||life cycle assessment||machine learning||uncertainty analysis | environment, urban | SDG11, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Schumann, Rachel | Kruttschnitt, Candace | Extending Carceral Control Pre-conviction: the Reception, Resistance, and Repercussions of Being Legally Responsible for People Accused of a Crime | Sociology | 2020-11-01 | In Canada and the United States, the control, supervision, and rehabilitation of criminalized people often falls on the shoulders of non-state agents and organizations. Surety bail releases are a seemingly clear embodiment of this trend as the courts call upon relatives, friends, and employers to supervise the pre-conviction activity of people accused of a crime. The resulting diffusion of responsibility is said to increase the penal state’s power and control over criminal justice involved individuals while minimizing reputational risks. However, by analyzing data from a year’s worth of bail court observations from a mid-sized jurisdiction in Ontario and interviews with sureties, I find that how friends and family assume the role of surety varies considerably and regularly diverges from court expectations. Because sureties are not legal professionals, their understanding of and ability to enforce court-ordered conditions and report bail violations is primarily shaped not by court instructions and legal mandates but by their ever-changing relationship with the accused, existing biases towards the law, and extenuating life circumstances. In this way, carceral control is not just assumed by sureties but also resisted, ignored, and subsequently transformed in the context of their everyday lives. Under surety bail releases, the governance of accused individuals therefore represents a patchwork of different and sometimes competing modalities that are stitched together by both state representatives and ordinary citizens. Yet, for accuseds and their sureties, this involvement can come at a cost. While surety releases have the potential to improve the accused’s relationship with their friends and family and increase their surety’s willingness to continue their support, the rules of the court are like an omnipresent force that continually threaten to disrupt the ties that bind. Indeed, the constant pressure of having to enforce court-ordered conditions subjects sureties to a more punitive experience, demonstrating punishment drift in action. The results of this study inform a series of recommendations geared towards offsetting the pains of pre-conviction for accused and their loved ones. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103577 | Bail||Community supervision||Punishment||Social Support||Surety | governance, justice | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Williams, Dinsie | Kohler, Jillian C | Facilitating Sustainable Access to Medical Devices in Sierra Leone and Ghana through Transnational Funders: Challenges and Opportunities | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2018-06-01 | Background Transnational funders provide up to 80% of funds for medical devices in resource-limited settings where an estimated 72% of medical devices are reportedly abandoned. This means that for every dollar that funders spend on medical devices, 65 to 90 cents are wasted. The objective of this study was to inform public health care policy reform to facilitate sustainable access to medical devices by characterizing current transnational funding policies and practices from the perspectives of recipients and funders. Methods A case study was developed in March 2016 involving a review of policy documents; semi-structured interviews of frontline and administrative public health care staff, and representatives of funding organizations; and direct observation of medical devices in Sierra Leone. Subsequently, case study was conducted in Ghana between January and April 2017 using the same research instruments. Following thematic analysis, the data from the interviews were cross-referenced with information from the document reviews and direct observations. Results The national governments of Sierra Leone and Ghana have guidelines on donating medical devices; however, neither are linked to enforceable regulations nor are they promoted among frontline health care staff. Study participants in Sierra Leone underscored the importance of communication and collaboration; quality, functionality and appropriateness of medical devices. In Ghana, interviews revealed that donation guidelines were obscure and that there were technical leadership gaps in government hospitals. Conclusion To ensure sustainable access to medical devices, the national governments of Sierra Leone and Ghana, must establish coherent and enforceable policies that foster the development of a cohesive network of funders, medical device manufacturers and distributors, and service providers; mandate purposive funding of medical devices; foster technical leadership on hospital management teams; and establish a comprehensive device acquisition and management framework. To complement the efforts of recipient governments, funders should proactively incorporate principles of good governance such as collaboration, transparence, and accountability into their practices. By being more purposive, funders may finally achieve a worthwhile mission of sustainably enhancing the medical device capacity of health care providers in government-owned facilities in Sierra Leone and Ghana. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101658 | Access||Health care||Health care services||Medical devices||Philanthropy||Policy | governance, waste, labor, health | SDG3, SDG8, SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Matheson, Justin | Brands, Bruna | Factors Influencing the Acute Subjective and Cognitive Effects of Smoked Cannabis in Young Adults | Pharmacology | 2020-11-01 | Cannabis is associated with acute and chronic harms, including cognitive impairment and addiction. Legalization of non-medical cannabis led to increased number and diversity of cannabis products and users, challenging the generalizability of previous human laboratory studies of the mood and cognitive effects of cannabis. Study 1 examined the acute and residual effects of higher-potency smoked cannabis (12.5% THC vs. placebo) on mood and cognition in 91 young adults (cannabis use 1-4 days/week). Cannabis had acute effects on mood, with minimal evidence of cognitive impairment, and little evidence of a “hangover” effect 24 or 48 hours after exposure. Study 2 used data from this sample (26 females, 64 males) to examine sex differences in the acute subjective, physiological, and cognitive effects of cannabis, as well as THC concentrations and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationships. Females smoked less of the cannabis cigarette and reached lower blood concentrations of THC and metabolites than males, yet experienced similar acute effects, suggesting sex differences in the relationship between peripheral THC concentrations and pharmacodynamic outcomes. iii Study 3 explored relationships between gender and cannabis use in qualitative interviews conducted with two men and one woman who identified their cannabis use as problematic. We identified numerous relevant themes, including the greater masculine presence in the cannabis community, increased stigma faced by women cannabis users, and the important relationship between initiation of cannabis use and affiliation with same-gender peers. Study 4 examined the acute and residual effects of alcohol (target breath alcohol content of 0.08%) on mood and cognition in 30 young adults. Alcohol had acute effects on all cognitive tasks, yet no significant effect on mood, and no residual effects 24 or 48 h after alcohol consumption. The acute effects of alcohol were nearly opposite to the cannabis effects in Study 1, which likely relate to differences in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. These findings highlight the importance of cannabis potency, smoking behaviour, sex, and gender as factors that contribute to variability in the acute mood and cognitive effects of cannabis, and caution against straightforward comparisons of the effects of single doses of cannabis and alcohol. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103603 | Alcohol||Cannabis||Cognition||Gender differences||Residual effects||Sex differences | consum, labor, women, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG12 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Drake, Laurie | Jennings, Eric T | Feeding France’s Outcasts: Rationing in Vichy’s Internment Camps, 1940-1944 | History | 2020-11-01 | During the Second World War, Vichy interned thousands of individuals in internment camps. Although mortality remained relatively low, morbidity rates soared, and hunger raged throughout. How should we assess Vichy’s role and complicity in the hunger crisis that occurred? Were caloric deficiencies the outcome of a calculated strategy, willful neglect, or an unexpected consequence of administrative detention and wartime penury? In this dissertation, I argue that the hunger endured by the thousands of internees inside Vichy’s camps was not the result of an intentional policy, but rather a reflection of Vichy’s fragility as a newly formed state and government. Unlike the Nazis, French policy-makers never created separate ration categories for their inmates. Ultimately, food shortage resulted from the general paucity of goods arising from wartime occupation, dislocation, and the disruption of traditional food routes. Although these problems affected all of France, the situation was magnified in the camps for two primary reasons. First, the camps were located in small, isolated towns typically not associated with large-scale agricultural production. Second, although policy-makers attempted to implement solutions, the government proved unwilling to grapple with the magnitude of the problem it faced and challenge the logic of confinement, which deprived people of their autonomy, including the right to procure their own food. Although Vichy bears full responsibility for the hunger it thrust upon thousands of inmates, the absence of a clear hunger policy created room for the development of schemes, programs, and plans that allowed camp administrators, internees, and aid organizations to implement solutions to stave off the threat of starvation. Administrators developed agricultural projects which yielded grains and vegetables, while internees relied on friends and family for money and provisions. At the same time, Vichy officials urged camp administrators to work closely with aid organizations able to donate foodstuffs. Despite these efforts, nothing could fully alleviate the myriad problems that plagued the camps, and internees remained hungry. Still, these programs, projects, and partnerships helped stave off death in many cases—at least for those who escaped eventual deportation. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103784 | Food History||International Aid||Internment Camps||Vichy France | production, food, agricultur | SDG2, SDG12 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Charania, Gulzar R. | Razack, Sherene H. | Fighting Feelings: Racial Violence in Everyday Life | Social Justice Education | 2015-11-01 | This dissertation explores how women of colour live with and learn about racism. Through interviews, I mine microsites and memories of early racial aggression to examine their enduring effects and the varied meanings and practices that they produce. Integrating insights from feminist, critical race, queer and Foucauldian analytics, I trace understandings of racism formed under pressure from neoliberal interpretations of racial oppression and its attendant remedies. Principally, this study gives an account of racism and its effects and traces the accounts of racism that it is possible for people of colour to give. Women of colour are often caught between feelings and experiences that materialize oppression in their daily lives—and dominant postracial and neoliberal horizons that evacuate collective histories, politics and a public language with which to name racism. In other words, racial injury is privatized. I explore the tensions that they negotiate, of becoming entrepreneurs of the harm and pain that racism deposits in their lives and throwing responsibility for racism back to the people and conditions that produce it. Fighting Feelings: Racial Violence in Everyday Life renders a social, historical and structural account of encounters with racism, the harm that it leaves behind and the divergent orientations to racial politics that it engenders. Attending to women of colour’s everyday lives reveals and challenges the power of standardized accounts of racism that spatially and temporally contain racism to other times, places and people. In harder to find moments, racial and social justice materialize as a possibility and aspiration. I consider the conditions that cultivate it, the openings that it affords and sometimes, how hard it is to hold onto. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103118 | Canada||multiculturalism||emotion and affect||race||racism||anti-racism||racial neoliberalism||schools||higher education||social justice||queer||feminist | justice, queer, women, gender, educat | SDG4, SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Lumsden, Daniel George | McDougall, Douglas | Flipping The Secondary Mathematics Classroom: Teachers’ Perceptions on the Use of Video Instruction | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2018-06-01 | The Flipped Classroom is an instructional strategy that reverses the traditional classroom that is more teacher-directed learning, to an environment where it is more student-centred and the instructor acts a facilitator. This is achieved through technology, where students can access teacher instructional videos online through different media sources. Four secondary school mathematical teachers took part in the initial stages of the research study, where I conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Out of the four participants, one participant went further with this research study, that included observing his class, viewing his videos, post interviews after each class, and perceptions of student surveys once the observation period was completed. The observation period took place over five months, which included reviewing instructional videos used in the participant’s flipped classroom along with in-class observations of the participant’s teaching. At the end of the observation period, students took an online survey based on their engagement and experiences regarding the flipped classroom. An exit interview was also conducted at the end of the observation period with this participant, in order to get a better understanding of their experiences and challenges within the flipped classroom. The themes reported as strengths of video instruction included: flipped classroom engagement, student interactions, and mitigating learner challenges. However, when identifying challenges, themes included: technology, lack of student engagement, time, and buy-in. The main four findings of this research are: (1) students were in favour of shorter video instruction; (2) videos that provided multiple examples with different levels of difficulty helped with learning; (3) students preferred a blend between the non-flipped classroom as well as a flipped classroom format; and (4) students benefited from having teacher-directed instruction at the beginning of class as a way to engage with the material. The flipped classroom is a model of teaching that could help teachers implement strategies that hold students accountable for their learning. The flipped classroom can provide opportunities for students to become more familiar and comfortable with the use of technology. Flipped learning can provide students that may struggle with mental health, like student anxiety, a pathway to learning through a combination of independent learning and reflection, collaboration, active learning and one-on-one conversations with their teacher. | Ed.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101636 | Flipped Classroom||Mathematics||Secondary School||See regulated Learning||Student Engagement||Video Instruction | environment, labor, health | SDG3, SDG8, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Schwartz, Naomi | Buliung, Ron||Wilson, Kathi | Food Access and Insecurity in Adults with Mobility Disabilities | Geography | 2020-11-01 | People with disabilities experience greater risk of food insecurity compared to people without disabilities. Lower incomes and higher relative expenses are often understood as the major causes of this inequality. Some scholars have also posited that people with mobility disabilities (PWMD) experience greater difficulty procuring or preparing food. Yet, limited research examines upstream factors related to food insecurity risk, lived experiences of food access, or environments that present access barriers among PWMD. Responding to these knowledge gaps, I sought to examine place-based influences on the relationship between mobility disability and food insecurity, questioning environmental, political, and institutional contexts that impact economic and physical access to food. Throughout my work, I use different theoretical approaches to conceptualize disability including, the social model, a critical ableist perspective, and an assemblage perspective. In adopting these perspectives, I challenge how bodies and mobility are typically understood in the food desert literature. My dissertation contains a scoping review followed by a series of empirical chapters set within a mixed-methods research design. In my scoping review of the literature, I discovered an important and widespread association between disability and food insecurity. In an analysis of microdata from the Canadian Community Health Survey, I examined sociodemographic and geographic risk factors of food insecurity among people with mobility impairment. Across Canada, I found an important inequality in food insecurity between people with and without mobility impairment. Province was associated with risk of food insecurity among people with mobility impairments, potentially reflecting different political and institutional contexts. I then conducted a qualitative study, using mobile go-along interviews with PWMD in Toronto, Canada, to understand lived experiences of food access. I found that food access was often restricted for PWMD related to different systems (e.g., social assistance) and places of access, on food trips, at home, and in food destinations. In subsequent research, I showed how the home acts as an important site shaping physical, social, and economic access to food. Together, my findings suggest the need to address socioeconomic disadvantage among PWMD while considering disabling contexts that limit access to functional housing, outdoor environments, transport systems, and food destinations. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103340 | Disability||Food access||Food insecurity||Mobility | institut, environment, inequality, equality, health, food, socioeconomic | SDG1, SDG2, SDG3, SDG5, SDG10, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
| Fearon, Stephanie | Flessa, Joseph | For our Children: Black Motherwork and Schooling | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | Ontario’s Parent Engagement Policy (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010) compels school officials to identify and remove discriminatory practices and structures to ensure the full participation of all parents in their children’s schooling. Yet Canadian literature and media highlight ongoing challenges faced by Black mothers in their relationships with their children’s schools. This arts-informed study uses storytelling to investigate the relationships between Black mothers and school officials. The study presents insights obtained from 10 in-depth interviews with African Caribbean mothers living in Toronto. Participants shared personal stories to articulate their understanding of Black motherwork and its impact on their relationships with school officials. Data collected from these oral recounts, along with the review of the literature, addressed the questions: What is Black women’s motherwork? How does Black women’s motherwork shape their relationships with school officials? How do Black mothers draw on communities of support to respond to challenges and successes encountered in their relationships with school officials? This research draws on African Indigenous, Black feminist and Black maternal theories to investigate Black women's motherwork and their relationships with one another and school officials. Using a comprehensive analytic process, participants' oral accounts are compiled into interconnected creative non-fiction stories. These stories are informed by African storytelling traditions like call-and-response, improvisation and audience participation. This structure prioritizes Black mothers’ voices and honours arts-informed methodologies, all while illustrating links to previous scholarship. The personal/self-stories, cultural stories, and metanarratives presented in this arts-informed study uphold Black mothers as educational leaders in their homes, communities and schools. The study revealed Black Canadian motherwork as a form of activism that is integral to the health and wellbeing of Black women and children. Black mothers understand their motherwork as collective action involving community parents. For Black mothers, school officials do not always fulfill their roles as community parents. Black mothers work with members in their women-centred networks to affirm their leadership and safeguard their children’s rights to safe, inclusive schooling spaces. This arts-informed study contributes to a deeper understanding of the ways that Black mothers practice educational leadership amongst themselves and with school officials. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103353 | Arts-based research||Black families||Motherwork||School-family partnership | rights, women, inclusiv, educat, wellbeing, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Boza Troncoso, C. Americo | Acosta, Edgar J | Free Energy Models for Surfactant-Oil-Water Systems | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2015-11-01 | This work introduces thermodynamic free energy models to predict and explain the behavior of surfactant-oil-water systems based on molecular and functional group approaches. Using a functional group approach, the Universal Functional Activity Coefficient (UNIFAC) was modified for use with surfactant-oil-water systems. Temperature dependence was provided to the interactions of functional groups known to establish hydrogen bonds. This UNIFAC version predicts the partition coefficient of alkyl and alkyl phenol ethoxylate surfactants in the excess alkane-water phases of middle phase microemulsions, alkane-water systems at equilibrium and bioconcentration factors. The molecular approach consists in estimating the free energy of transferring oil from its continuum liquid phase and surfactants from empty micelles to form oil-swollen micelles. The lipophilic and hydrophilic energetic contributions to this process are balanced to evaluate the extent of the solubilization of non-polar oils in micelles of non-ionic surfactants. This framework was implemented in the so called Integrated Free Energy Model (IFEM). The lipophilic contributions arise mainly from van der Waals (VDW) molecular interactions estimated with the microscopic approach of Hamaker using either classical or Lifshitz-based Hamaker constants. To estimate these interactions, VDW sphere-shell and cone-shell interaction potentials were introduced and validated with the concepts of surface tension and cohesive energy. The hydrophilic energetic contributions to oil solubilization were estimated considering conformational changes in the hydrophilic shell of the micelle during the solubilization of oil. IFEM`s oil solubilization predictions considering variations of alkane, surfactant tail size and headgroup size agree well with experimental data. A comparison between IFEM and the semi-empirical Hydrophilic-lipophilic-difference+Net-Average-Curvature (HLD-NAC) revealed that both oil solubilization prediction trends agree. In addition, IFEM predicts the Equivalent Alkane Carbon Numbers (EACNs) of aromatics and cycloalkanes, a parameter that was only experimentally measured before. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102976 | interactions||Microemulsion||oil||solubilization||surfactant||water | energy, water | SDG6, SDG7, SDG14 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Mak, Joyce Yan Lok | Geva, Esther | Friendship Across Cultures: Supporting Unaccompanied, International High School Students with Intercultural Friendships | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation examined the characteristics and socio-emotional needs of international Chinese students in Canadian high schools and evaluated the outcomes of a program designed to reduce acculturative stress, provide social support, and promote intercultural friendship between international and Canadian students. Twenty-four international students from China (mean age = 16.25 years), eight Canadian students (mean age = 15.56 years), and four teachers from two schools in a large Canadian multicultural metropolis participated in this research. Students participated in the Friendship Across Cultures program in one of two groups: monocultural (international students only) and intercultural (both international and Canadian students). Qualitative and quantitative data were collected pre- and post-intervention on language/literacy skills, acculturative stress, and intercultural and psychosocial functioning. Data on pre-intervention cognitive skills were also gathered. Study 1 examined the needs and characteristics of international, Chinese high school students in Canada from student and teacher perspectives. Most students demonstrated low levels of English ability, wished for more Canadian friends, and did not appear to have clinical levels of mental health symptoms and acculturative stress. They participated in the 10-session Friendship Across Cultures afterschool program, which focused on psychoeducation and social support. Study 2 provides the results of the program evaluation. While comparisons of pre- and post-intervention data were not significant, effect sizes suggested unexpected trends: decreased self-reported intercultural communication competence and increased acculturative stress. Trends were more heightened for intercultural group participants than monocultural group participants, perhaps due to increased self-awareness from cross-cultural contact. Nevertheless, participants in the intercultural group tended to rate the program more positively and did not demonstrate a corresponding increase in psychological symptoms, in contrast to the monocultural group. Exit interviews illustrated that intercultural participants made Canadian friends, increased their understanding of Canadians, and practiced English. Monocultural participants endorsed more knowledge-based aspects (e.g., learning about mental health, how to make friends, and how to adapt to Canadian life). Canadian students endorsed increased understanding of international students, increased empathy for their needs and challenges, learning how to befriend international students, and the value of reaching out. These findings warrant further study. Clinical and educational implications are discussed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103329 | acculturation||acculturative stress||Chinese international students||intercultural friendship||intercultural intervention||international secondary students | educat, health | SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Birze, Arija | Einstein, Gillian | From Behind the Scenes to Under the Skin: The Social Bodily Experiences of Stressful, Gendered Work in Police Communicators | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2019-11-01 | Gender and work are complex social determinants of health. Little is known about how they intersect to shape health inequities. Differences in the acute strains and chronic stressors of particular occupations are systematically related to other socially structured categories, such as gender. Physiological representations of social structures like gender can be discerned through acute and chronic stress responses at work. The body cumulatively records the complexity of the social world, like work, translating gendered work into health inequities. Police communications (911 call-takers/dispatchers) is a gendered, high-stress occupation that requires intense emotion work and persistent social interactions. Engaging in this type of high-stakes emotionally demanding work – that I hypothesize is embodied – has the potential to shape health along gendered divisions of labour. Allostatic Load (AL) – a framework used to assess physiological dysregulation due to prolonged secretion of stress hormones – represents a construct through which the material embodiment of social life can be demonstrated. Long-term dysregulation, however, is the accumulation of repeated short-term responses that have become dysfunctional. Thus, acute physiological responses and AL, as biological registrations of social life, are used to examine how gendered work shapes health. Eighty-one communicators were individually observed as they worked. Participants wore a heart-rate-variability (HRV) monitor and received take-home questionnaires and salivary cortisol kits. Blood and physiological markers were collected for AL scores. A subset of 25 acutely stressful events also occurred, after which, saliva samples were collected for cortisol and oxytocin responses. Results indicate gender plays a role in the relationship between emotional labour and AL. Furthermore, the experience of posttraumatic stress is associated with increased AL. During acutely stressful events, changes in cortisol, oxytocin, and HRV are evident. Central to social stress responses, these physiological changes are differentially predicted by gendered workplace stressors. Findings suggest that gender structures might influence health through conformity to norms and the associated stress these relational beliefs/acts provoke. Furthermore, associations between physiological and subjective stress also point to mechanisms through which cumulative exposures to stressful events might increase the risk of stress-related disorders. Implications for future research on this biological embedding of gendered social experiences are discussed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102707 | Allostatic Load||Emotional Labour||Gender||Occupational Stress||Police Communicators | labour, gender, health | SDG3, SDG5, SDG8 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Noone, Rebecca Jane McGuire | Hartel, Jenna | From Here To: Everyday Wayfinding in the Age of Digital Maps | Information Studies | 2011-11-01 | These days, navigation is often associated with “asking” Google Maps for directions. Over one billion people per month use Google Maps and Google estimates that one-in-three mobile searches are location-related. What do spatial information practices look like in these everyday information contexts? To explore this question of street-level wayfinding, I used exploratory performance-based and drawing-based research. I approached people in the streets of Toronto, New York, Amsterdam and London, and asked for directions, requesting they draw directional instructions for me. In total, I collected 220 sets of drawings, corresponding observational fieldnotes, and 20 interviews. Following collection, I used visual grounded theory and situational analysis to assess the data from the interdisciplinary theoretical perspective of everyday life information seeking and critical information studies research. Findings show the complexity of everyday wayfinding, negotiated through the tacit and material forms of technological interventions, urban configurations, and information affects. I present the findings through a qualitative account of these modalities at play on the ground. The empirical findings build a theoretical framework to evaluate Google Maps’ affordances and discursive framings. In addition to establishing a critical information framework, my work contributes methodologically to the study of spontaneous and ad-hoc drawings in information studies. My research follows a trajectory of emerging critical internet scholarship in information studies, positioned in the context of everyday information practices. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103740 | arts-based research||critical information studies||digital maps||everyday information practice||visual grounded theory||wayfinding | urban | SDG11 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Park, Jiwon Tina | Bothwell, Robert | From Strangers to Partners: Canadian-Korean Relations (1888-1978) | History | 2018-06-01 | From Strangers to Partners: Canadian-Korean Relations (1888 – 1978) Jiwon Tina Park Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto 2018 Abstract This dissertation focuses on the transformation of Canadian-Korean relations between the 1880s and the 1970s. Drawing on archival materials from both Ottawa and Seoul, the study approaches the bilateral relationship primarily through the lens of Canadian attitudes, priorities and policies. Canadian missionaries, who first travelled to Korea in 1888, established the earliest bridges between the two countries. Canada’s official engagement with Korea began with its participation on the UN Temporary Commission on Korea (1947-48), followed closely by the Korean War (1950-53), which elevated South Korea’s geostrategic importance for Ottawa. Over the course of the Cold War, these humanitarian concerns soon blossomed into significant commercial and political interests, a change aided by South Korea’s remarkable economic growth under President Park Chung Hee’s leadership. By the 1970s, Canada and South Korea saw each other as significant partners and allies, marked by a rapid expansion in trade and immigration. Shifting alliances and geopolitical interests of the Cold War had important consequences for bringing the two nations together, as South Korea searched for new partners to counterbalance American dominance and expand into new markets. From Seoul’s perspective, Canada, in addition to growing commercial interests, was an important ally for its diplomatic competition against North Korea. The case of the CANDU nuclear reactor sales to Korea at the height of the détente era clearly demonstrate the shifting dynamics in Canadian-Korean relations. Ultimately, this study concludes that comprehensive study of the evolution of Canadian-Korean relations enriches our understanding of Canadian history, Canadian-Asian relations, and international history. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101639 | Canada-ROK Trade||Canadian-Asian Relations||Canadian foreign policy||Canadian-Korean Relations||CANDU||Missionaries | trade, economic growth | SDG8, SDG10 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Abdel-Latif, Sara | Saleh, Walid | Gendering Asceticism in Medieval Sufism | Religion, Study of | 2020-11-01 | Medieval Sufis reoriented the practice of Islamic mysticism away from asceticism and towards a structured program of inner cultivation under the guidance of elite male teachers. This dissertation argues that this inward turn represents a key historical moment in which Sufi identity was deliberately constructed upon idealized elite masculinity to combat rival groups in fifth/eleventh-century Nishapur. While previous scholars suggest medieval Sufism arose out of the Baghdadi context, an examination of the writings of two influential Nishapuri authors, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) and Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1074) reveals sociopolitical conflicts unique to Nishapur that provoked the formation of an urban institutionalized Sufism that excluded all but the male elite. The gendered consequences of this institutionalization is explored through the legacy of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī and the reproduction of their gendered discourse in the writings of Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and Abū al-Faraj b. al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200). Through a gender-sensitive critical re-reading of asceticism in historicizations of medieval Nishapur, I demonstrate the role of opposition to rival ascetic groups in the institutionalization and perpetuation of elite androcentric Sufism. This study investigates shifting gendered discourses in representations of four early ascetic practices: bodily mortification (zuhd), wandering without provision (siyāḥa), sexual abstinence (ʿuzla, ʿafāf), and excessive voluntary fasting (jūʿ, ṣawm). The decline in popularity of these exercises came with increasingly more obvious language of gender differentiation in the writings of Sufi authors. Through an intersectional gender analysis that compares elite male depictions of women to those of youths, the enslaved, and racialized individuals, I problematize modern scholarship on Sufism and Islam that employs gender binaries without considering other social markers of difference in Islamicate literatures. I conclude that authors of medieval Sufism reinvented asceticism to oppose those they deemed deviant to their own hegemonic masculinity. Understanding that elite social actors negotiate orthodoxy and regulate practice through the language of gender demonstrates the usefulness of gender analysis as a method of exposing discourses of power in the formation of religious identity. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103530 | Asceticism||Gender analysis||Nishapur||Qushayri||Sufism||Sulami | institut, production, urban, women, gender | SDG5, SDG11, SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Blanchard, Rebecca | Tcheuyap, Alexie | Griots de la banlieue. Représentations de la périphérie française dans le roman contemporain | French Language and Literature | 2019-11-01 | Depuis 2005, la scène littéraire en France s’est largement enrichie de textes qui présentent des portraits alternatifs aux représentations médiatiques dénigrant systématiquement les banlieues françaises. Cette thèse examine la représentation romanesque de ces périphéries urbaines et les stratégies de subversion mises en récit par ces écrivains, notamment Thomté Ryam, Insa Sané, Abd al Malik et Kaoutar Harchi. Ce travail s’articule autour de cinq chapitres qui examinent la cohabitation d’une écriture souvent dite « engagée » avec une esthétique innovante qui se révèle grâce à une écriture intime et percutante. Empruntant des concepts de la géocritique (Westphal), de la théorie postcoloniale et des diaspora studies, notre étude débute par une réflexion sur la banlieue en tant qu’espace littéraire. Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous nous penchons ensuite sur l’emploi de stratégies narratives tels que le témoignage fictif et la polyphonie afin d’examiner l’évolution des récits de banlieue. Le troisième chapitre étudie l’intertextualité en tant qu’outil incitant dès lors à la réévaluation des relations binaires et dialectiques ainsi que des constructions sociales fondamentalement artificielles associées à l’altérité. Le quatrième chapitre se penche sur la thématique polyvalente du « retour » ainsi que sur la poétique de l’appartenance et du dépaysement. Afin de mettre en valeur l’hétérogénéité de ces représentations littéraires, le cinquième chapitre est consacré aux romans qui s’inspirent de l’uchronie, du roman d’anticipation et de l’écriture dystopique. La dimension transgressive de ces romans s’opère à deux niveaux, par la diversification des représentations littéraires des banlieues ainsi que par la remise en question de l’identité nationale et de la citoyenneté telles qu’on les conçoit aujourd’hui en France. Cette thèse détermine ainsi les modalités par lesquelles la littérature produite en périphérie s’insère dans la littérature « diasporique », révélant les aspects transnationaux d’une culture nationale devenue globale. Since 2005, there has been an increase in literary texts presenting alternative portraits of the French banlieues. These new depictions provide a counterpoint to media discourse that often vilifies the neglected urban peripheries of French cities. Through an examination of novels written by Thomté Ryam, Insa Sané, Abd al Malik and Kaoutar Harchi, this thesis examines the subversive strategies employed by these writers in their literary representations of the banlieues. This study is structured around five chapters which examine the coexistence of politically ‘engaged’ writing alongside innovative aesthetic techniques in intimate and powerful literary texts. Drawing on concepts from geocriticism (Westphal), postcolonial theory and diaspora studies, this analysis begins by reflecting on the banlieue as a literary space. The second chapter explores the evolution of these fictions and the use of narrative strategies including fictional testimony and polyphony. The third chapter focuses on intertextuality as a tool that encourages the re-evaluation of binary and dialectical relationships as well as the fundamentally artificial social constructs associated with otherness. The fourth chapter then considers the multifaceted theme of origins and homecoming as well as the poetics of belonging and displacement. Finally, in order to highlight the heterogeneity of these literary representations, the fifth chapter analyzes novels inspired by uchronia, the roman d’anticipation and dystopian fiction. The transgressive nature of these texts operates on two levels: the diversification of representations implicitly calls into question the compartmentalization of banlieue literature, while the novels themselves deconstruct traditional conceptions of national identity and citizenship in France. In sum, this thesis examines the ways in which a literature produced on the margins engages with ‘diasporic’ structures, thus revealing the transnational dimension of a national culture that has gone global. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102712 | Banlieue||Citizenship||Diaspora||France||National identity||Postcolonial | urban, cities, innovat | SDG9, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Maier, Katharina | Gartner, Rosemary | Half Way to Freedom: The Role of Halfway Houses in Canada's Penal Landscape | Criminology | 2018-11-01 | Each year in Canada, roughly 6,500 individuals are released from federal prisons. Ex-prisoners face a range of challenges as they rejoin the community, including finding employment, reconnecting with family and friends, receiving care for physical and mental health issues, and navigating parole conditions. Not surprisingly, former prisoners tend to identify the weeks and months immediately following prison release as particularly overwhelming and daunting. The Parole Board of Canada often mandates that federal prisoners (i.e., those sentenced to a prison term of at least two years) spend the first six months of release at a community-based residential facility, commonly known as a halfway house. These transitional, NGO-operated institutions are officially tasked with providing reentry support (e.g., basic social services and rehabilitative programming), as well as ongoing supervision of individuals on conditional release. Despite their central role in ex-prisoner reintegration/supervision, little is known about how these penal institutions work and operate in ex-prisoners’ lives, and the role they occupy in broader penal processes. I seek to fill this gap by examining the perceptions and experiences of halfway house residents and workers in a north-western Canadian city. My analysis focuses on how halfway houses workers seek to govern halfway house residents during the early stages of reentry, and how former prisoners, in turn, experience, navigate, and make meaning of their time at the halfway house. I show that the diverse, and sometimes conflicting, perceptions of both halfway house residents and workers call for varied conceptualizations of halfway houses as penal sites. Specifically, I propose three ways to think through the role of halfway houses in Canada's penal system; those are (1) halfway houses as liminal sites; (2) halfway houses as mobility-producing sites; and (3) halfway houses as open prisons. These conceptualizations provide a more nuanced understanding of the different ways in which halfway houses impinge on ex-prisoners’ lives in both repressive and productive ways. Drawing on studies of punishment and prisoner reentry, I reflect on what these conceptualizations reveal about the lived realities of ex-prisoners and workers of the Canadian penal state. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102913 | Prisoner Reentry||Punishment||Reintegration||Supervision | institut, worker, employment, health | SDG3, SDG8, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Cheng, Richard Yi-Hsiu | Guenther, Axel | Handheld Microfluidic Bioprinter for In Situ Delivery of Skin Tissue Constructs | Biomedical Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Full-thickness burns where both the epidermal and dermal layer of the skin are destroyed lead to high patient mortality due to complications like dehydration, infection, and shock. The current standard of care involves isolating healthy skin from uninjured regions, followed by meshing and grafting onto the debrided wound site. However, this approach is not appropriate for patients with large area burns covering over 40% of the total burn surface area as insufficient quantities of healthy skin remain. Although many bioprinting approaches have been developed to meet this demand by converting biopolymer solutions, or “bioinks”, into three-dimensional tissue structures, current bioprinters are primarily designed for laboratory use and allow only small, centimeter-sized tissues to be prepared. Here, a novel handheld bioprinting system for in situ delivery of cell-containing biomaterial constructs was designed to deliver a variety of cell types embedded in alginates, collagens, or fibrins, accounting for unique physical properties and gelation mechanisms of each biomaterial. This technology was shown to be compatible with primary keratinocytes, dermal fibroblasts, and mesenchymal stem cells, allowing cell organization into distinct patterns such as stripes, spots, and bilayers using a microfluidic printhead. To enable conformal and consistent biomaterial construct delivery onto physiological substrates, a two degree-of-freedom rotational printhead and a compliant silicone wheel was integrated into the printhead setup. A fibrin-hyaluronic acid bioink composition was optimized to promote the formation of tissue constructs on tilted surfaces, balancing appropriate enzymatic gelation times with resistance to material drainage. In a case study to determine the utility of this approach, mesenchymal stromal cells delivered using the handheld bioprinter were shown to improve wound healing outcomes on four porcine models of full-thickness burn. Lastly, the capabilities of the instrument were further developed by implementing active and passive temperature control to allow consistent deposition of collagen-based bioinks, and by integrating disposable thermoplastic printheads fabricated using silicon wafer-based thermal embossing to enable sterile operation in a clinical setting. Taken together, this handheld bioprinter enables the conformal delivery of cell-containing extracellular matrix bioinks in situ and lays the foundation for future human clinical trials for the treatment of large-area, full-thickness burns. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103689 | Biomaterials||Bioprinting||Medical Devices||Microfluidics||Tissue engineering | labor, health | SDG3, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Oneka, Goldameir | O'Campo, Patricia | Health in all Policies (HiAP): A Realist Multiple Explanatory Case Study Examining the Implementation of HiAP | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2020-11-01 | Health in All Policies (HiAP) is a health promotion strategy that aims to improve population health and equity through a whole-of-government approach to the development and implementation of public policy. This dissertation tests the hypotheses about factors that shape implementation of health in all policies in multiple jurisdictions. The study: (1) through a narrative review, reviewed public health perspectives on HiAP, focusing on the role of politics in implementation, (2) using a single explanatory case study, advanced theory about buy-in for HiAP in California, and (3) through a multiple explanatory case study, advanced theory about the influence of non-state actors in HiAP implementation in a number of jurisdictions, namely, California, Norway, Ecuador, Thailand, and Scotland. Data for the narrative review were obtained from the peer-review literature and data for the explanatory case studies relied on primary data collected during 2012 to 2015 and secondary data extracted from the HARMONICS (HiAP Analysis using Realist Methods On International Case Studies) study at the St. Michael’s Hospital Centre for Urban Health Solutions. The narrative review provided broad perspectives on political considerations in the HiAP literature, while the realist explanatory case study methodology advanced theories of the mechanisms involved in the implementation of HiAP in multiple jurisdictions. These methodologies were complemented by the systems framework which serves as a heuristic tool to aid policy makers and HiAP researchers better understand how government sectors implement HiAP initiatives, and how non-governmental actors shape implementation. Primary findings are multifaceted. First, the narrative review revealed a paucity of political considerations in the public health literature on HiAP implementation. Second the findings revealed strong evidence on the factors that contributed to buy-in in California. We found buy in for HiAP occurs when: 1) there is a history of prior experience, 2) governments employ knowledge translation, 3) governments employ sectoral language, 4) governments use dual outcomes, 5) governments use expert advisors and, 6) governments employ consensus building. Third, the findings of the cross-case analysis of non-state actors influence on HiAP implementation found weak support for the influence of supranational institutions, medium support for private sector, low support for civil society. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103752 | institut, urban, health | SDG3, SDG11, SDG16 | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Noumi I Tchoula , Gides Christian | Jones, Glen A | Higher Education Policymaking in Africa: The Role of National Actors in Senegal and Ghana | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | Abstract While there is a considerable body of research on the role of international actors in higher education policy in Africa, this thesis explores the role of national actors in higher education policymaking in Senegal and Ghana. Specifically, it examines the nature of national higher education policy actors, their role and strategies to influence policies, as well the factors that influence their role in the policymaking process. The study uses a qualitative case study research approach to collect and analyze relevant data. Neo-corporatist policy network and postcolonial theory were adopted as analytical frameworks. Findings of this study revealed that in addition to the state, faculty, students, and higher education institutions were active policy actors in Senegal. While these constituencies exhibited different levels of organization, they were able to influence policies using several strategies, including expertise and strike actions. The policy network in Senegal pointed towards neo- corporatism, with the multiplication of functional groups representing specific constituencies, and the positioning the state as a facilitator of the policy process. In Ghana, faculty, students, and higher education institutions were similarly actively involved in the policy process. In contrast to Senegal they had a higher level of organization, with more formal and institutionalized involvement in policymaking. The policy network in Ghana was comparatively more neo-corporatist than that of Senegal, as illustrated by the presence of highly organized interest groups, but also by the role of the state that actively positioned itself as neutral in the policy process. In both countries, various factors influenced the role of national actors in the policy process, including a tradition of consultation reinforced by the recent democratization. In addition, the development of the state’s financial capacity to implement reforms was found to be a determinant in achieving policy autonomy. While the colonial legacy of each higher education system influenced the nature and involvement of policy actors, in both countries, there was a trend towards exploring other higher education models. Overall, national actors expressed strong agency in the policy process, suggesting a postcolonial approach to policymaking that criticized aspects of Western influence while embracing the potential for modernization of higher education. Résumé Au-delà des travaux de recherche considérables qui existent sur le rôle des acteurs internationaux dans les politiques publiques d’enseignement supérieur en Afrique, cette thèse explore le rôle des acteurs nationaux dans l’élaboration des politiques d’enseignement supérieur au Sénégal et au Ghana. Spécifiquement, cette thèse examine la nature de ces acteurs nationaux, leurs rôles et leurs stratégies d’influence, aussi bien que les facteurs qui influencent leurs rôles dans le processus d’élaboration des politiques publiques. Cette étude qualitative utilise l’étude de cas comme approche de recherche pour collecter et analyser les données pertinentes. Le réseau de politique néo-corporatiste et la théorie postcoloniale ont été adoptés comme cadres analytiques. Pour le Sénégal, les résultats de cette étude démontrent qu’en plus de l’État, le corps professoral, les étudiants et les institutions d’enseignement supérieur étaient des acteurs politiques engagés. Malgré le niveau varié d’organisation de ces différents acteurs, ceux-ci étaient néanmoins capables d’influencer les politiques en utilisant plusieurs stratégies, notamment leur expertise et les grèves. Le réseau de politique au Sénégal s’orientait vers un néo-corporatisme, avec la multiplication des groupes fonctionnels représentant des acteurs spécifiques. L’État se positionnait également comme facilitateur du processus de développent des politiques publiques. Au Ghana, le corps professoral, les étudiants et les institutions d’enseignement supérieur étaient également activement impliqués dans le processus d’élaboration des politiques publiques d’enseignement supérieur. À l’inverse du Sénégal, les acteurs au Ghana avaient un haut degré d’organisation et leur implication dans le processus était plus formelle et institutionnalisée. Le réseau de politique publique au Ghana était comparativement plus néo-corporatiste qu’au Sénégal, comme l’illustrait la présence de groupes d’intérêt très organisés, mais aussi par le rôle que jouait l’État, qui se positionnait de manière active comme neutre dans le processus de développement des politiques publiques d’enseignement supérieur. Dans les deux pays, plusieurs facteurs influençaient le rôle des acteurs nationaux dans le processus de développement des politiques publiques d’enseignement supérieur. Parmi ces facteurs on peut citer une tradition de consultation nationale renforcée par la démocratisation récente observée dans les deux pays. Par ailleurs, le développement de la capacité financière de l’État pour implémenter les réformes était considéré comme déterminant pour atteindre l’autonomie nationale dans le développement des politiques publiques. Alors que l’héritage colonial de chacun des deux systèmes d’enseignement supérieur influençait la nature et le niveau d’implication des acteurs nationaux, il y avait une tendance dans les deux pays à l’exploration d’autres modèles d’enseignement supérieur. Généralement, les acteurs nationaux des deux pays exprimaient leur sentiment profond d’action dans le processus de développement des politiques publiques. Ceci suggère une approche postcoloniale du développement des politiques publiques, qui critique certains aspects de l’influence occidentale tout en reconnaissant le potentiel de modernisation que représente l’enseignement supérieur. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103658 | Ghana||Higher Education||neo-corporatism||Policymaking||Postcolonialism||Senegal | institut, labor, educat | SDG4, SDG8, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Skolnik, Terry | Thorburn, Malcolm | Homelessness and the Commons: A Theory of Expressively Egalitarian Regulation | Law | 2019-03-01 | This doctoral thesis examines homelessness and the regulation of public property from the perspective of the republican theory of freedom (or republicanism). Republicanism construes freedom as non-domination, meaning the absence of others’ power to interfere with an individual’s actions and purposes. Expressive egalitarianism is a political ideal whereby the state expresses equal respect for individuals. This doctoral thesis advances A Theory of Expressively Egalitarian Regulation. Its central claim is that republicanism provides new insight into the reality of homelessness and how the regulation of public property undermines homeless people’s liberty in ways that existing theories ignore. Republicanism also serves as the foundation for a theory of how laws that govern public property in Canada and the U.S. can operate in a more expressively egalitarian manner, by mitigating domination and treating homeless people with greater respect. This project culminates with concrete proposals that aim to eliminate the most egregious forms of domination that homeless people experience from those laws. A Theory of Expressively Egalitarian Regulation elucidates why laws that govern public property subject homeless people to two distinct forms of domination. First, others can exert control over homeless people’s opportunities to obey laws that regulate public property. Second, homeless people must make non-egalitarian sacrifices to their basic interests to obey laws that manage public property. A core tenet of A Theory of Expressively Egalitarian Regulation is that the justifications for regulating public property result in two fundamental problems for homeless people that are elucidated by the republican theory of freedom: the non-egalitarianism and entrenchment problems. The non-egalitarianism problem implies that the state has a greater capacity to regulate and police homeless people’s basic human acts (e.g.: urinating, defecating, sitting, sleeping, etc.), whereas people with access to housing are meaningfully protected against such regulation and its enforcement. The entrenchment problem implies that the state possesses the power to entrench people in the condition of homelessness, where individuals will continue to be subject to domination that stems from the non-egalitarianism problem. Certain practical limitations (both constitutional and political), however, currently stand in the way of eliminating the domination to which homeless people are subject exclusively through the allocation of resources and entitlements by the state. For that reason, it is necessary to consider how laws that govern public property can subject homeless people to less domination and express greater respect for homeless people. This thesis concludes by offering concrete proposals for how the state can strive to achieve those aims. | S.J.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105129 | Homelessness||Law||Legal theory||Poverty law||Public property | poverty | SDG1 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Kumar, Pradeep | Kant, Shashi | Households' Preferences, Strategic Interactions, and Joint Forest Management outcomes | Forestry | 2017-06-01 | Joint forest management (JFM), which seeks to involve local communities in the management of state-owned forests, was started in India in 1990. One of the prime objectives of JFM was to restock degraded forest areas, which has not been uniformly achieved across the country. Variation in the success of JFM has been attributed to several socioeconomic and organizational factors. Existing literature, however, has ignored the role of intracommunity strategic interactions in JFM outcomes. Similarly, roles of social preferences and individual time preferences have also been overlooked. In this research, JFM outcomes have been analyzed through the lens of intracommunity strategic interactions, social preferences, and endogenous and good-specific time preferences. A model of strategic interactions among households of a village has been developed, and it has been shown that in JFM households play a public goods game. Equilibrium of the game has been analyzed, and effects of various model parameters on equilibrium participation have been investigated. An empirical study has been carried out in five villages in central India to observe the role of social preferences in JFM outcomes. It has been found that the presence of social preference is strongly correlated with success in JFM in the village. Since in JFM households incur costs in the beginning and get benefits later, individual time preferences are crucial for JFM outcomes. Time preference analysis is usually done using Samuelson’s discounted utility (DU) model, which expresses individual time preference by a unitary construct – discount rate, and does not consider endogenous and good-specific time preferences. In this research, a theoretical model is developed, and an empirical study is used to show that households’ time preferences are endogenous and good specific. A model for the evolution of other-regarding preferences in JFM has also been developed, and it has been shown that other-regarding preferences may evolve in JFM provided a stimulus is given, community’s dependence on the forest is high, and alternatives to forest resources are available. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101652 | Evolution of Social Preference||Game Theoretic Modeling||Joint Forest Management||Social Preference||Time Preference | forest, socioeconomic | SDG1, SDG15 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Tao, Ye | Murphy, Jennifer G | Identification of Major Factors Influencing Aerosol pH and the Quantitative Relationship between pH and Ammonia Gas/Particle Partitioning | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2020-11-01 | Aerosol pH is a crucial parameter controlling the gas-particle phase partitioning of semi-volatile species, the formation rate of secondary organic matter, and the health effects of inhalable particulate matter. In order to understand the dominant factors influencing aerosol pH and its quantitative relationship with the phase partitioning of total ammonium (NHx), I studied the 10-year record of aerosol pH at six Canadian urban and rural sites which revealed that meteorological conditions, especially temperature, strongly influenced the variability of aerosol pH. The pH sensitivities to changes in chemical composition were also distinctly different in different seasons. A simple calculation framework shows the quantitative relationship between NHx phase partitioning and aerosol pH, which can more quantitatively express the influence of different factors on pH sensitivities, values and variations. The seasonal variation of aerosol pH also led to a seasonal oscillation of PM2.5 oxalate and water-soluble Fe concentrations, which suggested complex interactions among aerosol pH, organic acids phase partitioning and particulate metal dissolution. The potential contribution of other organic acids to NHx phase partitioning was also studied. By using a custom designed sampling apparatus, I found a significant amount of organic acids balancing particulate ammonium but both of them evaporated during collection as sampling artefacts. Chemical reactions of low-volatility organic acids producing formic and acetic acid were very likely involved. I derived a double phase partitioning method that can calculate pH based on the observed ammonium and nitrate phase partitioning behavior to evaluate the impact of particulate organic ammonium. This approach can also be used to evaluate the extent to which non-volatile cations are participating in the phase partitioning of nitrate. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103788 | rural, urban, water, health | SDG3, SDG6, SDG11, SDG14 | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Williams, Vanessa | Scholey, James W | Identification of Novel Therapeutic Approaches to the Progression of Chronic Kidney Disease | Medical Science | 2020-11-01 | Progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) to renal failure is a substantial international public health problem. Existing treatments have limited effectiveness as they slow, but do not prevent, progression. This is particularly true for rare forms of CKD. Accordingly, we sought to identify and test new therapeutic approaches to Alport syndrome (AS), a rare genetic condition characterized by progressive CKD. AS is caused by mutations in the genes encoding collagen, type IV, alpha (COL4A) chains present in the glomerular basement membrane. Mutations interfere with normal assembly of the COL4A network necessary for maintenance of the glomerular filtration barrier, leading to glomerular injury, proteinuria, and interstitial fibrosis. We studied Col4a3–/– mice, an experimental model displaying these hallmarks of AS. We have reported that intrarenal expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a peptidase that catalyzes conversion of angiotensin (Ang) II to Ang-(1–7), is decreased in Col4a3–/– mice. We therefore examined effects of recombinant ACE2 (rACE2) administration on kidney injury in Col4a3–/– mice. Treatment with rACE2 affected turnover of renal ACE2 likely through suppression of tumor necrosis factor alpha-converting enzyme. rACE2 also mitigated kidney mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation, fibrosis, and oxidative stress. Utilizing an unbiased approach, we defined a disease progression signature reflecting transcript-level expression patterns detected in Col4a3–/– kidneys during development of CKD. We performed computational drug repurposing by querying the Connectivity Map for potential compounds to reverse signature gene expression. Vorinostat, a lysine deacetylase (KDAC) inhibitor emerged as a potential treatment. Vorinostat reduced tubulointerstitial fibrosis and prolonged survival of Col4a3–/– mice. In tubular epithelial cells, vorinostat prevented Ang II- and albumin-induced MAPK phosphorylation and activator protein 1 activation. Taken together, this work identified two novel treatment approaches to AS: rACE2 delivery and KDAC inhibition. These studies also demonstrated that regulation of Ang peptide metabolism and lysine acetylation via ACE2 and KDACs, respectively, are important determinants of disease progression in experimental CKD, at least in part, due to their impact on MAPK signaling and evolution of interstitial fibrosis. This dissertation provides a rationale for rACE2 therapy and KDAC blockade in humans with CKD. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103336 | Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2||Chronic kidney disease||Drug repurposing||Interstitial fibrosis||Lysine deacetylase||Proximal tubule cell | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Elbayoumi, Usama | Austin, Zubin | Identifying the Perceived Factors Affecting Career Transition Among International Pharmacy Graduates (IPGs) Who are in the Process of Obtaining Their License in Ontario | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2021-03-01 | Every year, Canada welcomes thousands of Internationally Educated Health Professionals (IEHPs), including International Pharmacy Graduates (IPGs). While many IEHPs integrate into their career of choice, many others face challenges that make it difficult to enter the workplace in the profession for which they have qualified. Those in the latter group tend either to accept low-paying jobs or leave Canada to return to their home country. Accepting a low-paying job or returning to the origin country are true examples of “brain waste” and “brain drain” respectively. The cost of brain drain and brain waste is significant. To minimze the economic impact, many initiatives have been launched to support career transition among IEHPs. The literature discusses many determinants of career transition, yet it falls short on identifying factors that influence career transition among IEHPs who cannot get into the career of their choice. The purpose of this qualitative research is to identify the factors that affect career transition among IPGs. Twenty-five English-speaking IPGs who are in the process of obtaining their licence and living in Ontario were interviewed. Participants’ responses were analyzed deductively, using a set of integrated-model-of-career-transition-derived codes, as well as inductively. Motives and three categories of factors affecting career transition among IPGs were identified. The categories include person/career correspondence, personal factors, and availability of alternative career. The identified factors appear consistent with the integrated model for career transition. Three new factors—professional identity, culture, and knowledge—were identified. To better theorize the factors affecting career transition among IPGs, a model was proposed to describe these factors and their interaction. The findings of this research and the proposed model are a step toward building a body of knowledge about factors affecting career transition among IEHPs, yet more studies are needed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104956 | Career change||Career transition||Immigrant pharmacists||IPGs | waste, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG12 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Relucio, Maria Angelica de Leon | Bakan, Abigail | Identities-at-Intersections: The Case of Racialized Female Migrant Teachers in Canada | Social Justice Education | 2018-11-01 | This research focuses on the unemployment and underemployment of racialized female migrant teachers in Canada, particularly in Ontario. It investigates how the social categories of the identities of female migrant teachers affect their access to the labour force. Identity is conceptualized as produced by the meanings of difference placed upon these social categories, through the power relations one navigates. The research asks: how have the identities of racialized female migrant teachers in Canada, as embedded within the social categories of race and ethnicity, sex and gender, economic class and political status, language/s spoken and linguistic accents, affected their access to the Canadian teaching workforce? The main argument is that the racialized female migrant teachers’ identities are identities-at-intersections. These identities greatly affect their access to the teaching workforce, place them in politically challenging positions, and are produced by and through their navigation within the intersections. Intersections are the created, perceived, visible, and invisible links between and among the social categories that form an identity. The social spaces within the intersections affect the positioning of minoritized subjects, such as racialized female migrant teachers, within education as a polity and other structures of hegemony. Narratives of 17 female migrant teachers, registered with the Ontario College of Teachers, from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Ontario, are utilized as standpoint epistemologies to support the main argument. In examining how racialized female migrant teachers face barriers in their access to the teaching workforce and political contexts, the conceptual analysis draws on the concept of identities-at-intersections to consider: (1) the global process of feminization of migration instigates social reproduction mechanisms and inequality; (2) the practices of racialization in societal structures, in education as a polity, in the labour market, and within Canadian nation-building, further complicate the exercise of employment and citizenship rights of minority groups, such as racialized immigrant women; (3) the persistence of neo-colonial and capitalist practices results in the continuous segregation and racialization of immigrant women; (4) despite the structural forces that work against racialized female migrant teachers as identities-at-intersections, their lived experiences manifest the use of agency and forms of resistance. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102902 | Education as a Polity||Marxian Analysis of Labour||Migrant Teachers in Canada||Teacher Employment in Ontario | rights, production, inequality, labour, employment, equality, women, gender, educat | SDG4, SDG5, SDG8, SDG10, SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Wan, Yuchao | Diamond, Miriam L.||Siegel, Jeffrey A. | Impacts of Household Characteristics, Activities and Building Characteristics on Indoor Concentrations of Semi-volatile Organic Compounds | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2020-11-01 | When compared to outdoors, the indoor environment often has higher concentrations of some SVOCs, such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs), organophosphate esters (OPEs) and phthalates that are used as additive flame retardants and plasticizers from consumer products and building materials. Some outdoor SVOCs, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), can be transported into indoor environments, increasing indoor exposures to these compounds. With the increasing concerns about the implications of exposure for human health, attention has turned towards concentrations of SVOCs in indoor environments, particularly in residential dwellings where North Americans spend more than 60% of their time. This thesis documented concentrations of these SVOCs in residential buildings, focussed on the exposure disparities in SVOCs according to socio-economic status (SES), and developed SVOC sampling methods in low-SES homes. Quantitative filter forensics (QFF) was extended to portable air cleaners with portable filters to quantitatively estimate indoor particle-bound SVOCs, overcoming the limitations of traditional QFF requiring forced-air heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, while also improving indoor air quality by removing particular matter (PM). This thesis also advanced knowledge on the impacts of household characteristics, activities and building characteristics on indoor SVOC concentrations. The research found SVOC exposure disparities according to SES in Canada, reinforcing the importance of better understanding of the intersection between contaminant exposure, housing quality, household characteristics, and activities that can elevate SVOC levels, and SES, with the aim of reducing exposures from residences in an equitable manner. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103465 | environment, consum, buildings, equitable, health, socio-economic | SDG1, SDG3, SDG4, SDG9, SDG12, SDG13 | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Sun, Christopher L.F. | Chan, Timothy C.Y. | Improving Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest Outcomes and Automated External Defibrillator Placement Guidelines through Optimization and Predictive Modeling | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2019-11-01 | Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is an often fatal, time-sensitive emergency event. OHCA survival decreases significantly for every minute without treatment. Defibrillation, an effective means to resuscitate OHCA victims, can be safely delivered by untrained bystanders using an automated external defibrillator (AED). The dissemination of AEDs in public areas for bystander use has been shown to reduce the time to defibrillation and triple OHCA survival. However, bystander AED use and OHCA survival remain low despite the increasing amount of resources dedicated to AED placement. Identifying the limitations of existing AED network design and exploring new strategies for AED deployment are crucial to ensure efforts and resources spent on AED placements directly translate to improved OHCA outcomes. To address these questions, this thesis focuses on increasing the understanding of spatiotemporal OHCA risk and developing novel tools to improve the assessment and design of AED networks, using optimization and machine learning techniques, with the ultimate goal of increasing bystander AED use and OHCA survival. Specifically, we analyzed AED placement guidelines, existing AED networks, bystander response records, and real OHCA patient data from Toronto, Canada, and Copenhagen, Denmark and identified limited temporal AED accessibility as a key factor responsible for low AED use rates. Motivated by this finding, we developed a spatiotemporal AED placement optimization model that maximizes spatial and temporal AED accessibility. We showed our model reverses the effects of limited temporal AED accessibility in both Toronto and Copenhagen, two vastly different cities with distinct geographies, populations, and EMS systems. This demonstrated the effectiveness and generalizability of our optimization approach. To validate the clinical value of our optimization model, we developed a novel in silico trial framework that computationally evaluates AED networks in a real-life deployment situation. Using this framework, we conducted two in silico trials and established the superiority of optimization approaches to current practices and established placement guidelines, which represent the gold standard of evidence-based AED placement recommendations, in improving estimated OHCA outcomes. In conclusion, our findings identify the importance of temporal AED accessibility, data-driven AED placement optimization models, and centralized decision making in improving AED use and OHCA survival. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102846 | Automated External Defibrillator||Emergency Medical Services||Machine Learning||Optimization||Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest||Public Health | cities, health | SDG3, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Toukan, Elena | Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén | In Search of Community: A Comparative Case Study of Education-for-development and Local Community Ownership in Chile and Central Africa | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | Education evokes a powerful promise in development discourses. However, the role of local communities within these discourses has been unclear––often either romanticized or relegated to a passive context. In this comparative case study, I examine the role that local communities play in two transnational education-for-development projects: in the national capital region of the Central African Republic (CAR) and in the Williche territories of Chiloé, in Southern Chile. I examine the limitations of predominant theories of education in development and indicate how concepts of development are being redefined by populations and communities reading their own material, social, and spiritual realities in a given time and place. I draw on concepts from community studies and social solidarity to conceptualize “community” along several dimensions: place, structure and process, meaning, and time. To these, I suggest an additional dimension of capacity for protagonism. Empirically, I employ ethnographic and participatory methods in this study, building on participatory program evaluations solicited from funding partners in Luxembourg and Canada. I analyze the cases comparatively along three axes: horizontal, vertical, and transversal. Data from this study illustrate multifaceted ways that local communities respond to distinct conditions. Communities express ownership, capacity, and agency in the CAR in the midst of civil conflict to raise a network of community schools from grassroots neighbourhood and village settings. In Chiloé, communities prioritize the resurgence of Indigenous patterns of community life and systems of knowledge. In these two contexts, communities re-evaluate and reform curriculum and pedagogy according to local frameworks and exigencies: gradually in the case of the CAR, and through the creation of entirely new curriculum and pedagogical approaches in Chiloé. In conclusion, my findings indicate the importance of shifting conceptions of community away from a passive context to that of a protagonist in education-for-development discourses. The cases in this study illustrate how, when empowered through the development of capacities and abilities, communities stimulate educational development according to distinct needs, exigencies, and conceptual frameworks. As protagonists of their own paths of development, communities employ education to mobilize other vital community processes including agricultural development, cultural production, family health, and environmental protection. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103354 | Community Development||Comparative case study||Education||Education for Development||International Development||Participatory research methods | environment, production, cities, educat, health, agricultur | SDG2, SDG3, SDG4, SDG11, SDG12, SDG13 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Jamieson, Jack Robert George | McEwen, Rhonda | Independent Together: Building and Maintaining Values in a Distributed Web Infrastructure | Information Studies | 2021-03-01 | This dissertation studies a community of web developers building the IndieWeb, a modular and decentralized social web infrastructure through which people can produce and share content and participate in online communities without being dependent on corporate platforms. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how developers’ values shape and are shaped by this infrastructure, including how concentrations of power and influence affect individuals’ capacity to participate in design-decisions related to values. Individuals’ design activities are situated in a sociotechnical system to address influence among individual software artifacts, peers in the community, mechanisms for interoperability, and broader internet infrastructures. Multiple methods are combined to address design activities across individual, community, and infrastructural scales. I observed discussions and development activities in IndieWeb’s online chat and at in-person events, studied source-code and developer decision-making on GitHub, and conducted 15 in-depth interviews with IndieWeb contributors between April 2018 and June 2019. I engaged in critical making to reflect on and document the process of building software for this infrastructure. And I employed computational analyses including social network analysis and topic modelling to study the structure of developers’ online activities. This dissertation identifies how values of import to IndieWeb’s community are employed in designing its material architectures as well as community policies. This includes an ongoing balance between supporting individuals’ agency over personal design decisions and a need to maintain commensurability for the sake of interoperability. In many cases, early decisions about this balance have contributed to barriers for certain types of participants. Yet, those who can cross those barriers experience a lack of stabilization in IndieWeb’s infrastructure as a means of achieving richer engagements with technology. By studying design activities as longitudinal and situated within broader infrastructures, this dissertation describes how changing situations and a variety of influences affect possibilities for articulating values through material engagement, offering insights about how to support positive and healthy relationships with technology. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104867 | Decentralization||Design||Infrastructures||Internet||Values||World Wide Web | infrastructure, health | SDG3, SDG9 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Scribe, Megan | Tuck, Eve | Indigenous Girlhood: Narratives of Colonial Care in Law and Literature | Social Justice Education | 2020-11-01 | As Canada assumes legal responsibility over an unprecedented number of Indigenous girls entering carceral facilities, educational boarding arrangements, and foster care, it is important to examine how the state is implicated in harming these girls. While these institutions ostensibly exist to provide Indigenous girls with care, they actually place Indigenous girls at greater risk of violence, disappearance, and death. Rather than focus on children or women more broadly, this dissertation considers how Indigenous girls' unique social location and legal minor status subjects these girls to greater state surveillance and management. What’s more, this analysis establishes connections between state violence against Indigenous girls and Canada’s settler colonial regime. This dissertation is organized into two parts. In part one, I examine the production of colonial narratives about violence against Indigenous girls through the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix Sinclair (2013) and the Inquest into the Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth (2016). In part two, I shift my attention toward Indigenous feminist literature on Indigenous girlhood. Through a close reading of Tracey Lindberg’s Birdie (2015) and The Break (2016) by Katherena Vermette, this study considers the theoretical and methodological possibilities of Indigenous feminist storytelling. Through an extensive examination of legal processes and Indigenous feminist literature, this dissertation offers innovative theoretical and methodological tools for addressing settler colonialism and other structures of oppression targeting Indigenous girls, as well as paths forward. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103368 | Child Welfare||Education||Indigenous||Indigenous Feminism||Indigenous girls||Settler Colonialism | institut, production, innovat, girl, women, educat | SDG4, SDG5, SDG9, SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| van den Boogaard, Vanessa | Prichard, Wilson | Informal Revenue Generation and the State: Evidence from Sierra Leone | Political Science | 2020-11 | How states raise revenue is critical to understanding how they govern. Orthodox analyses of the state, however, have tended to focus only on formal taxation, formal budgets, and formal revenues. I correct his bias by extending the analysis of taxation and the state beyond formal tax systems, capturing the informal dynamics of public finance that affect the majority of citizens in low-income countries. By examining informal revenue generation in the context of formal taxation, I shed light on the how and why of the state and institutional development. This study presents a new approach to understanding formal–informal institutional interactions and offers insight into a set of tangible issues of critical importance to the citizens of modern states. Classic theories of statehood anticipate that the state should always seek to control informal revenue generation. In practice, states often coexist with this informality. Informal taxing actors can reinforce state authority in unexpected ways and the relationship between the state and informal taxing actors is not necessarily zero-sum. State engagement with informal revenue generation is not always driven by a desire to gain a monopoly on taxation and authority. Instead, informal revenue generation may align with or even underpin the state’s governing strategy. Informal revenue generation can also have counterintuitive effects on statebuilding. Though informality is usually seen as detrimental to statebuilding, I show that informal revenue generation can strengthen state institutional capacity. The politics of statebuilding are, at least in part, played out at the local level in conjunction with informal institutions. It is in these local processes where informal revenue generation and informal taxing actors can reinforce modern statehood and statebuilding processes. The state that emerges may not look like a rational, Weberian institutional model. Nevertheless, it may prove more resilient and dynamic than expected. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103437 | informality||mediated statehood||Sierra Leone||statebuilding||taxation | institut, resilien, taxation | SDG10, SDG11, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Lancia, Gabriella E. | Woodruff, Earl | Instructor’s Emotional Responses during Online Asynchronous Teaching | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2021-03-01 | Online instruction is becoming a more dominant method of instruction; over 69% of higher education institutions now say that online learning is a critical part of their long-term strategy (Allen and Seaman, 2017). The expansion of online education can create multiple challenges for educators due to a lack of resources, time, training, and experience. Faculty are faced with learning curves around course content and delivery while simultaneously adapting to new technologies (Keengwe Kidd, 2010; Rehfuss, Kirk-Jenkins, Milliken, 2015). Therefore, online instructors' emotions are of central importance, as the well-being and general demeanour of instructors, even behind the computer, can impact their relationships with their students. Students and instructors in online learning should develop a reciprocal relationship where both understand and communicate effectively to prevent negative emotions, such as frustration and contempt. However, little is known about instructor emotional experiences in online learning, and most studies on teacher and instructor emotions are done through self-report. Survey results showed a high level of well-being and positive emotions across all instructors. Open-ended responses on the emotional profile were coded into four themes, technical and organizational, communication, instructor experiences and attention and engagement. Instructors expressed that their online learning emotions were largely dependent on student attention and engagement, with achievement specifically being the prime influence in their emotions while completing instructional activities. Further investigation of four instructors in IMotions, all of which chose to complete student feedback activities as their filmed task, highlighted the use of comments on student assignments as a means of communication between instructor and student and a method of understanding student profiles. This task proved to be a highly emotional experience, with frustration and contempt being the two most consistently reported emotions in IMotions throughout each recorded task.. Therefore, this study highlights the importance of capturing instructor emotions in real-time and through self-report. Each method captures a specific point of the instructional experience and instructors' expressed emotions during instructional tasks and their emotional state while completing these tasks. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104980 | Case study||Emotions||Higher Education||IMotions||Online Instruction | institut, educat, well-being | SDG3, SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Meshel, Tamar | Knop, Karen | International Law and Transboundary Fresh Water Resources: A Dispute Resolution Perspective | Law | 2018-11-01 | Transboundary fresh water resources are rapidly depleting while human dependency on them continues to grow, suggesting that disputes between states over such resources are increasingly likely to arise. Whereas the dominant focus in the literature is on preventing transboundary fresh water disputes, this thesis addresses the complementary need for effective resolution of such disputes if and when they do arise. Scholarship and practice tend to belittle the utility of international law principles and dispute resolution mechanisms in this context. After identifying possible extra-legal reasons for the limited role of international law in the resolution of transboundary fresh water disputes, the thesis turns to the possible legal reasons. It examines, first, the applicable principles of international water law and, second, the available dispute resolution mechanisms. Findings from an original database of transboundary fresh water disputes that arose between 1920 and 2017 around the world lead to a conceptual reassessment of the roles that the principles of equitable and reasonable utilization and no significant harm are conventionally understood to play. The thesis proposes a reformulation of these two principles, together with the duty to cooperate, that might better guide states in the resolution of transboundary fresh water disputes. The thesis then canvasses the types of dispute resolution mechanisms available to states, and argues that restoring an earlier form of arbitration as a quasi-diplomatic process would increase the appeal and potential effectiveness of this mechanism, given the unique character of transboundary fresh water disputes. Finally, the ongoing Nile River dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt is used to illustrate the difference that the proposed reforms might make in the resolution of this, and other, transboundary fresh water disputes. | S.J.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102926 | water, equitable | SDG4, SDG6, SDG14 | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Chang, Chi-Dan Vicky | Cotterchio, Michelle | Investigating the Association between Iron and Breast Cancer Risk and Factors Associated with Iron Status among Canadian Women | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2020-11-01 | Iron is an essential nutrient but also a potent contributor to oxidative stress. Changes in iron status across reproductive stages may have important implications for women’s health. This dissertation investigates the role of iron as a potential risk factor for breast cancer and assesses determinants of body iron status among Canadian women. First, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate associations between iron and breast cancer risk. When comparing the highest vs. lowest category, heme iron intake and serum iron, but not other measures of iron intake or body iron status, were positively associated with breast cancer risk, with pooled relative risks of 1.12 (95% CI: 1.04–1.22) and 1.22 (95% CI: 1.01–1.47), respectively. Nonlinear dose-response was also observed. Second, in a population-based case-control study of Ontario women (3030 cases, 3402 controls), iron intake was not associated with overall breast cancer risk. Among premenopausal women, higher intakes of total, dietary, and dietary nonheme iron were associated with increased risk of hormone receptor-negative breast cancer. Among postmenopausal women, heme iron and supplemental iron were positively and inversely associated with breast cancer risk, respectively. Among women providing DNA (1696 cases, 1761 controls), those with genotypes resulting in reduced antioxidant capacity, particularly glutathione S-transferase deletions, were most susceptible to the effects of higher dietary iron intake. Third, based on nationally representative data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey, iron deficiency affects 16% and 4% of pre- and postmenopausal women, respectively, whereas 21% of postmenopausal women have elevated iron stores as defined by serum ferritin levels. Age, East/Southeast Asian (vs. White) race/ethnicity, alcohol consumption, and red meat (main source of heme iron) consumption were positively associated with serum ferritin in both pre- and postmenopausal women; aspirin use and dairy consumption were inversely associated with serum ferritin in postmenopausal women. Overall, these results suggest that heme iron may be a major contributor to body iron stores and a potential risk factor for breast cancer, especially among postmenopausal women. This dissertation provides additional insights into iron’s role in breast cancer etiology and highlights the importance of considering elevated iron stores in addition to iron deficiency. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103665 | breast cancer||heme iron||iron intake||iron status||serum ferritin | consum, women, health | SDG3, SDG5, SDG12 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Rosevear, Evan | Hirschl, Ran | Judicial Interpretation of Social Rights: The Rights to Education, Health, and Housing in Brazil and South Africa | Political Science | 2021-03-01 | This work examines how legal education, the organization of the legal profession, and the structure of the judiciary shape and reproduce jurisdiction-specific judicial logics of appropriateness—judicial cultures—in Brazil and South Africa and the impact of the jurisdiction-specific judicial cultures on the interpretation of constitutionalized social rights. I argue that variation in the pre-existing judicial culture of the two countries is key to explaining their different interpretations of the rights to education, health, and housing entrenched in both of their constitutions. My findings suggest that social rights jurisprudence tends toward one of two ideal types. Countries with a diffuse system of judicial review, a large and relative inexperienced judiciary, and an approach to legal reasoning emphasizing theoretical consistency with a limited role for stare decisis will tend to develop an individualized social rights jurisprudence that focuses on remedying specific harms suffered by individuals. In contrast, countries with a more centralized system of judicial review, characterized by a small number of experienced judges operating in a system which has a strong adherence to stare decisis, will develop a more policy-oriented social rights jurisprudence that emphasizes the importance of addressing structural problems faced by groups or classes of people. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104904 | Comparative Law||Judicial Politics||Law and Politics||Social Rights | rights, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Flaminio, Anna Louisa | Nedelsky, Jennifer | Kiyokewin: Urban Indigenous Kinship-Visiting Methodology Approach for Urban Indigenous Youth | Law | 2018-06-01 | My research presents urban Indigenous kinship-visiting as a methodology, analytical lens, a deliberative approach and forum. An Indigenous kinship-visiting approach emphasizes the second step of R v. Gladue: how the legal community responds to the collective harms against Indigenous peoples and the present-day rehabilitative healing needs that colonialism has created. My research demonstrates an urban Indigenous kinship-visiting approach is beneficial to ensure a more thorough implementation of the Gladue decision and the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In bringing to bear an Indigenous kinship-visiting approach, I focus on Cree, Métis, and Saulteaux laws including: wahkotowin (laws of kinship relationships) and kiyokewin (laws of visiting). Through these Indigenous legal principles, I suggest a viable urban Indigenous kinship-visiting procedural and deliberative approach. An Indigenous-led kinship-visiting approach assists urban Indigenous youth to connect and build kinship relationships with the urban Indigenous community. My case study focuses on urban institutions serving Indigenous youth in Toronto: Aboriginal Legal Services and the Aboriginal Youth Court. They represent two institutions that are visiting with each other to improve the healing services to urban Indigenous youth. Both urban institutions respond to the unique needs of urban Indigenous youth and both are committed to connecting urban Indigenous youth with Indigenous-led talking circles and wellness programs. The intention is for urban Indigenous youth to feel a sense of belonging within the urban Indigenous community. The success of the Aboriginal Youth Court lies in the healthy partnership with, and informal transfer of jurisdiction to, Aboriginal Legal Services to provide Indigenous-led consensus-based deliberation and healing options. Finally, based on the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I consider future Indigenous Law Institutes where unique Indigenous juridical systems and urban Indigenous kinship-visiting approaches can be respected. | S.J.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101621 | Criminal||Gladue||Indigenous||Kinship||kiyokewin||wahkotowin | rights, justice, institut, urban, health | SDG3, SDG11, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Sinke, Mark | Restoule, Jean-Paul | Learning to settle: Young students learning Indigenous and Canadian histories in the figured worlds of social studies classrooms | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | This research study is an investigation into how children in public elementary schools are educated through social studies curricula into ways of understanding themselves and their relationships to the nation-state, the land, and people with whom they share the land. The questions that have driven this research are these: 1) How do young students construct and negotiate the figured worlds of a social studies classroom where they engage in inquiry-based learning about settler colonialism? 2) What do students connect with, and what are they doing with the stories they hear about Indigenous and Canadian history in public school classrooms? 3) How do students in public school classrooms take up or reject settler colonialism in their learning about history? Examining these questions through the theoretical frame of figured worlds and employing a post-structural ethnographic methodology, the author relies on the fields of curriculum studies and settler colonial studies to ground this study into the experiences of young students in public schools. The frame of figured worlds allows the author to examine the ways that students talk about and enact identities-in-practice as they learn stories about Canadian and Indigenous histories. This thesis sheds light on the specific ways students configure, negotiate, and enact their own subjectivities as they learn about the settlement and growth of Canada on the Indigenous territory it now occupies. Data for this study were gathered through research groups, interviews, and classroom observations at two elementary schools in Hamilton, Ontario. Analysis and discussion of these data reveal the complex ways students both take up and\or reject discourses and narratives about settler colonialism, Indigenous resurgence, and reconciliation. The stories and experiences of students in this research reveal ways that education works to maintain settler structures of inequality and elimination through the teaching of social studies. This work also points to ways this can be challenged, and how counter-narratives and discourses are being taken up by students as they navigate their identities-in-practice in response to what they learn, who they learn it with, and the multiple voices that they listen to for guidance. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103158 | Canadian history||Figured Worlds||Indigenous History||Reconciliation||Settler Colonialism||Social Studies | inequality, equality, educat | SDG4, SDG5, SDG10 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Fried, Audrey | Hadfield, Gillian K. | Learning to Think Like a Lawyer: Solving Ill-structured Problems | Law | 2020-11-01 | Law schools often say that they aim to teach students to think like a lawyer. But what it means to think like a lawyer has never been static. Modes of legal analysis and argumentation have changed over time. Now, social and technological changes have transformed what it means to think like a lawyer once again. This time, though, thinking like a lawyer has expanded beyond different modes of analytical thinking to include judgment and creative thinking as well. Thinking like a lawyer in this more expansive sense increasingly involves solving complex, ill-structured problems, which have unknown elements, multiple solutions paths, vaguely defined goals, and for which the concepts, principles, and rules needed to reach a solution are uncertain. To prepare students, law schools should adopt a curriculum that emphasizes both a deep conceptual understanding of the law and opportunities to solve a wide variety of complex, ill-structured problems. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103483 | future of law||ill-structured problems||law school||legal curriculum||legal education||thinking like a lawyer | educat | SDG4 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Lowe, Julie | Fadel, Mohammad||Moumtaz, Nada | Legal Conceptions of Sexual Violation in Late Islamic Law and Modern Jordan | Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations | 2020-11-01 | Despite the miscarriages of justice that occur when modern governments purport to implement Islamic laws on rape, and despite continuing interest among some Muslims in present-day applications of Islamic law, not enough research exists on the approach to sexual violations in Islamic jurisprudence. Further, little is known regarding the legal approach of most Muslim-majority countries to sexual violence. Therefore, this dissertation addresses two main questions: First, how does Islamic law, as conceived by the Ḥanafī, Mālikī and Shāfīʿī schools from the 15th CE/9th h century onward, conceptualize sexual violence? Second, how does the law in Jordan conceptualize this issue? Based on analysis of fiqh and fatwās, and building on Hina Azam’s work, Muslim jurists primarily conceive of rape as a moral transgression against God rather than a crime against an individual victim. The association of rape with zinā (illicit intercourse), where jurists aim to cover the sin, precludes prosecution and compensation in many rape cases and impacts related issues such as reporting of sexual violence and standards of coercion. Further, alternate approaches to rape under usurpation (ightiṣāb) and banditry (ḥirāba), as well as tort compensation for injuries from sexual violence, are intertwined with moral considerations. Moreover, the moral framework combined with gendered concepts leads to additional difficulties for male victims. Analysis of criminal legislation, commentaries and a sample of court decisions indicates that Jordan has adopted a secular system for criminal law that contains little direct relation to Islamic jurisprudence. However, despite largely treating sexual violence as a crime against an individual victim, Jordan maintains a partially moral notion of sexual offences. While the moral slant has decreased in recent years, and although court judgments do not explicitly incorporate notions not found in the Criminal Code, there is some indication of non-written social mores guiding aspects of judicial proceedings. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103492 | Islam||Jordan||Rape||Sexual assault | justice, gender | SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Edwards, Joan Elizabeth | Howell, Doris | Life After Colorectal Cancer: A Qualitative Study of Health and Illness Post-treatment | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2020-11-01 | Approximately 1 in 14 Canadians will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) in their lifetime. Physical, psychosocial, and practical issues are experienced post CRC treatment. Given the rise of chronic disease, “health” can be defined as the ability to adapt and self-manage in the face of physical, emotional, and social challenges (Huber et al., 2011) and “cancer survivorship” has been reframed as a public health issue (CDC, 2004). The objective of this study was to explore, through the lens of Structural Interactionism (Eakin MacEachen, 1998), how individuals who have completed curative treatment for early-stage CRC understand, experience, and respond to health, illness, and recovery. The methodological framework of Critical, Post-structural Interaction (Sundin Fahy, 2008) facilitated the examination of the interplay between individual and structural factors in participants’ post treatment experiences. Despite the presence of debilitating and potentially stigmatizing post treatment side effects, participants (n = 16) generally characterized their current state as one of “health” versus “illness.” Significant effort was exerted to minimize the impact of CRC on daily life. Participants appeared to preserve a strong identification as “healthy” through involvement in valued roles and activities; however, this was threatened by worry about the return of cancer. Self-taught cognitive and behavioural strategies were used to maintain this balance. Participants generally disagreed with and actively distanced themselves from the term “survivor.” Study findings are organized into three major themes: (1) “Cancer is an inconvenience,” (2) “I am healthy,” and (3) “I am not a cancer survivor.” The interaction between and among themes is illustrated in a conceptual model that depicts the core process of “working hard to minimize illness.” This study highlights the complexities inherent in CRC recovery and contributes to the body of knowledge from which initiatives to improve the health of this population may be derived. Collectively, study findings highlight the importance of considering both individual and structural factors to advance research and programming to support those recovering from CRC. Rethinking the cancer survivorship discourse, as well as the organization of survivorship care, may be important first steps in efforts to support this growing population. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103319 | cancer survivorship||colorectal cancer||public health||qualitative research | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Bonin, Pierre-Olivier | Cochrane, Christopher B | Linguistic Asymmetries, Relative Deprivation, Discrimination, Cosmopolitanism, and Localism Among Official Language Minorities: Three Studies on the Anglo-Quebecer and Franco-Ontarian Communities | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation comprises three studies on the Anglo-Quebecer and Franco-Ontarian communities using original survey data collected in 2017. The first study assesses Canada’s two official languages with updated census data, then compares how their status is perceived. Evidence reveals that, while Canadian society is becoming increasingly multilingual, and while English and French are both losing ground as mother tongues and languages used most often at home, both are not equally used at work. English is making progress in the province of Québec as a language of work, whereas French is only rarely used by workers outside the province of Québec and is becoming increasingly marginal in the province of Ontario. A group comparison shows that Franco-Ontarians are much more likely than Anglo-Quebecers to judge that the language of the outgroup (or the language of the majority group) is “useful”. Conversely, Anglo-Quebecers are much more likely than Franco-Ontarians to judge that their own language, or the language of the ingroup, is “useful”. The second study finds that there is evidence of a state of relative deprivation among Anglo-Quebecers respondents. The latter judge that their group is at a disadvantage in comparison with francophones and consider their minority group to be the victim of discrimination in the province of Québec. Updated census data on family income of the majority and minority groups reveal that Anglophones are over-represented in the lower income brackets and under-represented in the middle categories, thus challenging conventional wisdom about Anglophones being a wealthy class of citizens in Québec. Predictive models show that, contrary to expectations, the higher the state of relative deprivation and perceived discrimination, the lower the likelihood of being an organizational activist. The third study compares the strength of local, provincial, federal, and global affiliations of Anglo-Quebecers and Franco-Ontarians and examines whether organizational engagement is a determinant of belonging. Results reveal that organizational activists among both minority groups are less likely to identify as cosmopolitan than rank-and-file members and more likely to identify with other, more local types of affiliation. As a whole, the dissertation highlights the relevance of language in understanding Canadian politics. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103557 | cosmopolitanism||identities||minorities||official languages||participation||survey methods | worker | SDG8 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Krenca, Klaudia | Chen, Xi Becky | Literacy Development in Canadian French Immersion Students: The Role of Oral Language | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2020-11-01 | The overarching goals of this dissertation were to examine the extent to which lower-level oral language skills facilitate phonological awareness and to investigate the importance of higher-level oral language skills in the development of reading comprehension among children enrolled in Canadian French immersion programs. The first study investigated how lexical restructuring can stimulate children’s phonological awareness in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Sixty-two emerging English (L1) – French (L2) bilingual children were taught new English and French word pairs differing minimally in phonological contrast. The results indicated that lexical specificity in English at the beginning of Grade 1 mediated the relationship between English vocabulary and English phonological awareness both concurrently and longitudinally. Furthermore, a longitudinal relationship was established among French vocabulary, French lexical specificity, and French phonological awareness at the end of Grade 1. Notably, cross-language transfer from English was a better predictor of development in French phonological awareness, especially for words that contained phonological contrasts common to both languages. The second study was designed to understand the extent to which second graders’ comprehension monitoring predicts reading comprehension in the third grade. The ability to monitor one’s comprehension was assessed by the proficiency to detect internal inconsistencies in orally presented stories among 115 emerging bilingual children. The concurrent results revealed that in Grade 3, children’s comprehension monitoring served as a unique predictor of reading comprehension within English and French, over and above the contribution of word reading and vocabulary. This relationship was not observed in Grade 2. Moreover, the longitudinal analyses indicated that Grade 2 children’s comprehension monitoring in English made a significant contribution to English reading comprehension in Grade 3, even after controlling for word reading, vocabulary, and the autoregressor variable. However, this relationship was not established in the L2. Overall, the results from this study lay the groundwork for the development of screening measures that can be used by educators to support phonological foundations of literacy. Furthermore, the findings suggest there is a need to include support for higher-level language skills, such as the ability to monitor one’s comprehension, in the early stages of bilingual reading instruction. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103401 | Bilingualism||Comprehension monitoring||French immersion||Lexical specificity||Phonological awareness | educat | SDG4 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Ozonder, Gozde | Miller, Eric J. | Longitudinal Analysis of Out-of-home Activity Generation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area | Civil Engineering | 2020-11-01 | “Activity generation” is a critical component of any agent-based, activity-based travel demand model since it determines the overall activity/travel levels, which are then utilized for answering various transportation-, land use- and environment-related research/policy questions. This thesis reports on significant progress in three research areas regarding activity generation modelling with a focus on activity participation/frequency and timing (start time/duration) decisions. The analyses cover investigating the behaviour associated mainly with work- and school-related activities, in addition to shopping and other activities, in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area over a 20-year period between 1996 and 2016. First, cross-sectional models and four types of “joint/pooled” models of activity/trip generation are estimated for various activity purposes to examine changes in behaviour over time. Strong temporal stability is observed in utility-based econometric model parameters when the parameter estimates of cross-sectional and joint models are statistically compared. This major contribution supports the development and use of robust parametric joint models for forecasting applications in the region utilizing full information accrued over the years. Second, to explore the interpretability of machine learning models and to inspect how these powerful tools can be leveraged within a microsimulation framework, longitudinal models of work and school activity participation are developed using a diverse set of algorithms, which are compared to microeconomic models. Remarkable parallelism is detected between microeconomic models and machine learning algorithms in terms of activity frequency model specifications. This notable finding encourages researchers to benefit from both modelling domains, integrating their strengths. Third, joint models of activity start time and duration are built adopting a copula approach for work and school activities of agents/individuals from mutually exclusive population subsamples: “worker”, “student”, and “both worker and student”. Simultaneous activity episode start time and duration simulation models show that complex timing behaviour can be captured with relatively parsimonious models. Each of these three modelling applications additionally demonstrates the significance of establishing a comprehensive disaggregation structure for the analyses, since considerable differences have been observed across distinct agent classes and activity types. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103452 | Activity Generation||Activity Participation/Frequency||Activity Timing (Start Time and Duration)||Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area||Longitudinal Analysis | land use, environment, worker | SDG8, SDG13, SDG15 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Hamlyn, Erin Grace | Munjic, Sanda | Magic Mirrors: Body Politics and Representations of Femininity in Contemporary Hispanic and French Caribbean Women’s Writing | Spanish | 2021-03-01 | This dissertation examines femininity as mythological imagery, historical narrative, cultural cornerstone, and physical entity, both sexual and sexualized in a selection of short stories by Caribbean women authors who consider the French and Spanish Caribbean home. This study aims to unpack ways in which women are re-creating femininity through writing and story-telling, and how they are challenging pre-existing structures of “History” and institutionalized metanarrative as a community of writers, while also addressing corporeality on individual and personalized levels. This project positions this type of writing as an emerging genre that pushes for open dialogue surrounding conceptualizations of femininity and women’s sexuality as intrinsic components of identity. Comparative readings of experience-oriented literary texts with critical theory, developed by female scholars and writers, show that sharing and participation establish a platform for dialogue from which socio-historical change may ensue. The first chapter utilizes theories of corporeality and writing, and themes of sexual fluidity emerge in the study of female-authored short stories, traditionally disseminated in the Caribbean through orality and periodical-style publications. Within the framework of feminist theory, the writing female body is posited as a surface of inscription and projection, but also as a site of production and revolution. The second chapter focuses on ecofeminism as a theoretical mechanism that may bridge the gaps between socially constructed notions of femininity and living women. The importance of physical experience and relationships with the natural world are prominent here, as explored through texts that tie environmental preservation to corporeal ideology through supernatural aspects of being. The third and final chapter highlights the role of collective consciousness and memory-keeping in the creation and development of history and human narrative, where femininity and desire are positioned on an energetic continuum rather than a purely gendered abstraction. The overarching scope of this project is to explore a body of work that is novel, subversive, specifically female-produced, and of critical importance in an ever-globalized world, and that reveals the power of the personal in the collective, and of the collective in the personal. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104879 | Caribbean||Cuentos||Gender||Women | institut, environment, production, women, gender | SDG5, SDG12, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Li, Yi | Jones, Dylan B | Mainland Southeast Asia Precipitation: Natural Variability, Teleconnection, and Response to External Forcing | Physics | 2020-11-01 | Mainland Southeast Asia (SEA) has been considered to be a particularly vulnerable region to climate change. Reducing uncertainty in future projections of changes in SEA precipitation requires a better understanding of the processes that drive variability in present day SEA precipitation. Here we examined the impact of natural climate variability and anthropogenic forcing associated with anthropogenic aerosols on precipitation in SEA. We also investigated the resolution dependence of modeled precipitation extremes in SEA using the Community Earth System Model (CESM). The sources of moisture for local precipitation over mainland SEA and the interannual variability in precipitation during the Indian summer monsoon period were examined using a version of CESM with water tagging capability. We found that interannual variability in precipitation over mainland SEA during the monsoon onset is associated with an El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) induced shift in the Indian summer monsoon onset, whereas variations in precipitation later in the monsoon period reflect variations in the monsoon circulation and tropical cyclonic activity. We examined the capability of a variable resolution version of CESM to simulate regional climate features in SEA, especially extreme precipitation events. Compared to coarse-resolution versions of CESM, we found that variable-resolution CESM (VR-CESM) significantly improved the tail distribution of precipitation, with smaller biases in N-year-return-period events with respect to the reference data sets. In addition to a more accurate representation of the topography, the better resolved vertical moisture flux in VR-CESM increased resolved-scale precipitation, leading to better simulation of the precipitation extremes. The impact of anthropogenic aerosols on regional climate over the Asian monsoon region was also examined using VR-CESM. It was found that anthropogenic aerosols tend to cause an overall reduction in the summer mean and extreme precipitation over the Asian continent through a weakening of the Asian summer monsoon circulation. The decrease in the precipitation over mainland SEA was due to an ocean-mediated response to the aerosol forcing, whereas the reduction in precipitation over East Asia was likely caused by a direct atmosphere adjustment to the aerosol forcing. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103406 | ocean, climate, water | SDG6, SDG13, SDG14 | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Yu, Leqian | Boland, Alana | Making Rural Finance in Contemporary China: National Policies, Local Practices, Geographical Embeddedness | Geography | 2020-11-01 | Since the 2000s, the changing global financial landscape has attracted increasing attention from geographers, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis. China’s rural banking sector, still a marginal site in research on the geographies of finance, is a fast-growing financial frontier. In the decade since 2008, bank credit issued to the rural sector has increased six fold to 4.6 trillion USD in 2018. The rapid expansion of this financial frontier owes much to ongoing reforms led by the Chinese state. Since 2003, the Chinese government has been initiating a series of market-based reforms aimed at building a “modern rural financial system” to better support farmers, agriculture and rural development. This dissertation explores the changes that have reshaped the banking system in rural China as a distinct case of financialization. Building on economic geography scholarship that argues the need for financialization to be understood as place-specific social processes, this research adopts a multi-scalar approach. I link a macro-level political economic analysis of China’s rural financial policies with ground-level observation of financial practice. Primary research methods include ethnographically-informed research in a rural bank in Greater Chengdu Area (Sichuan Province), and textual analysis of policy documents and historical archives. The research finds that the transformation of the banking system in rural China that began in the early 2000s has an internal logic shaped by the political economic conditions of contemporary China, with traces of the ideals and practices of socialist development in China. Given such, China’s rural financialization cannot be framed as following a straightforward neoliberalization process, the often-applied meta-frame for financialization. Rather than providing a local variant of neoliberal globalization, I argue that financialization in rural China needs to be understood as a localized, contextualized process – the trajectory of which is shaped by contested logics operating at multiple scales. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103495 | China||Polanyi||rural development||rural finance||social studies of finance | rural, agricultur | SDG2, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| French, Sarah Kathryn | McCauley, Shannon J | Mechanisms Structuring Dragonfly Communities across Canopy and Forest Cover Gradients | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2018-11-01 | Forest regrowth, which is occurring across North America, may have large impacts on the structure of larval dragonfly assemblages. My thesis examined how habitat selection, movement behaviour, and species-sorting shape aquatic larval dragonfly assemblages in response to landscape heterogeneity, including forest cover in the landscape and canopy cover over ponds. The mechanisms structuring aquatic communities across environmental gradients are often difficult to distinguish, so I used multiple approaches to assess the contributions of different mechanisms to these observed patterns. Firstly, I tested the role of adult habitat selection versus larval species-sorting in structuring larval dragonfly assemblages across a canopy gradient using artificial aquatic habitats (i.e. mesocosms) placed across gradients of artificial shading and of natural canopy cover. Adult dragonflies preferentially visited aquatic mesocosms situated under open canopy. I tested for species-sorting effects by placing larvae in mesocosms across a natural canopy cover gradient, but found no evidence of differential mortality or growth. Secondly, I examined the effects of forest cover in the terrestrial landscape on adult dragonfly movement. Adults showed preferences for open field environments rather than closed forest environments, moving marginally more often in fields, more often towards fields, and flying longer in fields. However, adults’ direction of movement also depended on what environments they were released in, and their flight times were species-specific. Lastly, I investigated how forest cover in the landscape and pond canopy cover affected the distribution of larval dragonflies, as well as their reassembly in ponds following a drying event. Both local (pond canopy cover, permanence, and area) and landscape (pond connectivity based on distance and amount of forest cover between ponds) heterogeneity affected species diversity and recovery following a drying event. My thesis work provides new insights into how aquatic communities are structured by forest and canopy cover, and how they might respond to forest regrowth. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102862 | Aquatic-terrestrial linkages||Behaviour||Canopy cover||Community assembly||Forest cover||Odonata | forest, environment | SDG13, SDG15 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Goel, Mukesh | Childs, Ruth | Mental Health Literacies of Secondary School Teachers in Ontario: A Mixed Methods Study | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | The purpose of this mixed methods study is to investigate the mental health literacies (MHL) of secondary school teachers in Ontario – specifically, how they understand and address the mental health (MH) challenges of students. Over the past decade, the Ontario Ministry of Education (MOE) has encouraged the improvement of teachers’ MHL; this study, therefore, also investigates what opportunities teachers have access to and what barriers they face in supporting students’ MH. A total of 211 secondary school teachers completed an online survey and 21 teachers participated in one-on-one interviews. Approximately three-quarters of the interviewed teachers showed little interest in advancing their knowledge and understanding; the ones who showed interest either had someone in their family, extended family or friends’ circle impacted with MH challenges or their school had a strong focus on MH. Based on the 211 survey respondents, survey results showed that 61.1% of teachers did not support students with MH challenges in the academic session 2017-2018. For the interviewees and survey respondents who participated in the study, the study also showed that teachers from Co-op Education, Special Education, and Guidance Departments were more aware of MH challenges and had more confidence in assisting students with MH challenges. Analyses of the interview data suggest that motivation and exposure to opportunity are the two factors that could drive a teacher’s interest in learning about MH challenges. If a teacher with high intrinsic or extrinsic (administration driven) motivation is provided with many opportunities and/or resources, she or he will take interest and learn about MH of students. However, based on the survey results of survey respondents, only 24.6% of the teachers surveyed in this study worked in schools where principals were attempting to make teachers aware of MH resources. This study has implications for the MOE and the school boards. It is imperative for the MOE to ensure that the school boards provide consistent and continuous professional development to improve educators’ MHL so that they are able to assist students with MH challenges. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103619 | Barriers||Help-Seeking Efficacy||Mental Health Literacy||Ontario||Secondary School Teachers||Stigma | educat, health | SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Peat, William George | Joshee, Reva | Mind the Gap: How Economically Disadvantaged Students Navigate Elite Private Schools in Ontario | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | “Mind the gap” is a qualitative study rooted in the sociology of education, dealing with educational inequality in Canada. It asked: what is the experience of working-class students in elite secondary schools, and are the benefits of achieving social mobility worth the costs? In a country whose populace has long seen itself as middle class, but where social inequality is a growing concern and social mobility increasingly rare, the study examined the journey of three working-class students seeking to become upwardly mobile by attending elite private schools in Ontario. The study examined their experiences, and employed a combination of semistructured, in-depth interviews, and follow-up conversations. It also drew on relationships that formed as a result of them, as well as on the researcher’s knowledge of the culture of the schools the students attended. In addition, it drew upon the lived experience of the researcher, who shares similar elements of the participants’ socioeconomic background. The data produced was used to develop literary and visual portraits. The process was collaborative and enabled the participants to become co-creators in the creation of their portraits, which were subject to analyses. More broadly, the study examined the ways in which the participants acquired social capital, and the role this capital played facilitating the acquisition of the Three C’s (credentials, connections, confidence), and personal agency. It explored the ways the participants’ social networks evolved. It revealed that the unconditional support of the participants’ families mediated their experience of habitus clivé, and that elite private schools provided a pathway to become socially mobile. The study affirmed that the benefits of achieving social mobility outweighed the costs, whether they were psychic, social, or financial. It also identified trace elements of class status that endured, and demonstrated that elite schools served as incubators of innovation. It revealed that the policies, practices, and cultures that characterize elite private schools in Ontario are worthy of consideration for policy makers and practitioners, as they seek to assist students to become socially mobile, wherever they may be. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103123 | educational inequality||elite private schools||personal agency||social capital||social class||social mobility | inequality, innovat, labor, equality, educat, socioeconomic | SDG1, SDG4, SDG5, SDG8, SDG9, SDG10 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Lee, Michael | Koga, Midori | Mindsets: Case Studies on Incremental and Entity Theories in Undergraduate Music Students | Music | 2021-06 | American psychologist Carol Dweck coined terms for two dichotomous theories of intelligence––entity and incremental theories––which depict the general trends of learners. Fixed mindset learners internalize entity theories and view their intelligence or ability as a fixed, stable unit that is incapable of growth past the individual’s own genetic limitations. Growth mindset learners believe in incremental theories and see their intelligence as dynamic, wherein their abilities are a direct product of their efforts. Dweck argues that adopting an incremental theory of learning (a growth mindset) can be beneficial to the learning process. Combining this body of psychological literature with auxiliary areas of psychology (e.g. self-determination theory), I conducted two case studies to analyze how these beliefs manifested in second-year instrumental music majors at Canadian post-secondary institutions. Through a six-week research period of one-on-one lessons, independent practice sessions, and interviews, I investigated the participants’ respective upbringings, their methods of framing goals, and their responses to challenges and criticisms with the aim of understanding how music students’ beliefs about mindsets affect their learning, as well as how music teachers may be able to maximize growth-oriented thinking in their interactions with students. After an analysis of the data, I concluded that the nurturing of growth mindsets had a positive effect on the students’ respective levels of patience, self-compassion, and resilience in dealing with the learning challenges inherent in music performance. The data highlighted how the participants’ implicit theories of intelligence were instilled in them by their parents and educators throughout their childhoods, and how growth-minded beliefs may be further nurtured through empathetic and process-oriented guidance. | D.M.A. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103803 | Fixed||Growth||Mindsets||Music||Pedagogy||Piano | institut, resilien, educat | SDG4, SDG11, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Marcel, Faith | Piccardo, Enrica | Mobile Mixed Reality Technologies for Language Teaching and Learning | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | Mobile learning technologies have become ubiquitous, accessible tools for many teachers and learners in higher education contexts across the globe; however, the uptake of emerging, innovative mobile applications is not always reflected in their implementation in language learning classrooms. Mixed Reality (MR) applications, which include both Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) represent examples of such largely unexplored, state-of the art, immersive technologies in language education. Recent literature suggests the use of MR technologies can offer benefits to language learners in enhancing vocabulary development (Godwin-Jones, 2016; Liu Tsai, 2013), motivation and engagement (Ibáñez, Kloos, Leony, Rueda, Maroto, 2011; Liu, Tan, Chu, 2010; Dunleavy Dede, 2014) and collaborative, multimodal meaning-making (Ho, Nelson, Müeller-Wittig, 2011). Despite these advantages, there has been limited empirically-based research which explores specific benefits and affordances in language learning. Research revealing the advantages of AR and VR exists, however, in other educational settings, including: Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, Business, Law, Science, Engineering and Health (Lok et al., 2006; Bacca, Baldiris, Fabregat, Graf, 2014; Marcel, 2019). Through the implementation of VR in a quasi-experimental, mixed-methods research study in a college in Canada, with teachers and learners in a multi-level English for Academic Preparation (EAP) program, this study explores benefits, challenges and affordances of MR technologies within a Canadian higher education context. The analysis of data from EAP students (N = 95) and instructors (N = 6) includes vocabulary assessments, surveys, Nearpod data, VoiceThread reflections, interviews, and classroom observations. Results reveal trends in learning gains by the experimental groups in vocabulary scores and a number of benefits and affordances of the VR technology implementation reported by both students and instructors. While the main goal of this research was to explore how mobile MR applications could be used in language learning contexts in higher education to improve learning outcomes through experiential learning activities with these innovative technologies, it is hoped that this research will also serve to inform practice for educators in their selection and use of educational learning technologies and contribute to the growing body of knowledge and research in this field. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103360 | Education||Experiential learning||Language||Mixed Reality||Virtual Reality||Vocabulary | innovat, labor, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG8, SDG9 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Sato, Hiromitsu | Cowling, Sharon A | Modeling Neotropical Ecosystems during the Last Glacial Maximum | Earth Sciences | 2019-11-01 | Rich biodiversity and biogeochemical significance has long motivated research on Neotropical ecosystems, though regionally-focused modeling studies remain relatively sparse and limited in scope. Three individual projects were performed to address potential issues in the modeling of Neotropical ecosystems in past and present contexts with particular emphasis on the Last Glacial Maximum. The first project was focused on discerning the effects of low atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature on the carbon exchange of a well-watered tropical forest using a canopy-scale ecophysiological model. The radiative transfer regime and canopy energy balance were used to interpret the effect of environmental variables on carbon fluxes, as well as the reproduction of an observed phenomena where leaf temperature drops below air temperature. The second project was an analysis of a four-year data set of ecosystem fluxes designed to assess the seasonal patterns of carbon uptake and the impacts of drought from a tropical dry forest site in Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica. A hyperbolic light response function was used to partition net ecosystem exchange into gross primary productivty and ecosystem respiration, while extracting estimates of ecosystem-level photosynthetic radiation and saturated rates of uptake. Bursts of carbon dioxide were observed at the onset of the rainy season suggesting the occurrence of the `Birch Effect' within tropical dry forest ecosystems. The third project was a regional-scale modeling study of vegetation cover in the Neotropics during the Last Glacial Maximum, focusing on the individual and interactive effects of fire and low carbon dioxide on biome distribution and tree cover. Inclusion of fire and the effects of low carbon dioxide improved agreement with pollen records and suggest the past prevalence of grassier, more open ecosystems. Modeling evidence was found to support the existence of hypothesized routes and barriers to dispersal during the Last Glacial Maximum, bolstering theories of range expansion and diversification over Pleistocene climatic oscillations. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102769 | biodiversity||ecology||palaeoecology | ecolog, biodivers, forest, environment, production, energy, water | SDG6, SDG7, SDG12, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Liu, Xingchen | Behdinan, Kamran | Modelling and Experimentation for Temperature Prediction of a Serpentine Belt Drive System | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2020-11-01 | The scope of this thesis includes the development of three thermal models that can predict thermal distributions in an arbitrary serpentine belt drive system. The wide use of fibre-reinforced polymers (FRPs) pulleys in transmission systems has improved the systematic dynamic respond time and efficiency but also increased the possibility of pulley thermal destruction. To overcome this issue, this thesis presents three innovative and advanced thermal models for efficiently and accurately calculate temperature distributions. The first model uses the classical heat partitioning equations and analytically develops ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to calculate the thermal distribution inside irregular geometric structures of a pulley in the pulley thermal analysis. The second model adds a new set of analytical equations to determine the thermal flows of each pulley and belt temperature and integrate the pulley thermal analysis in the first model to calculate the temperature plots of pulleys. The third model replaces the previous analytical pulley thermal analysis with an innovative analytical-numerical method. It modifies pre-calculated numerical thermal simulations based on baseline conditions to deliver temperature plots for pulleys in working scenarios, so that it could maintain the fast solving speed and high accuracy. The substantial advantage of these models is that the time currently consumed by existing methods can be reduced to a few seconds without compromising the accuracy of the results. Validation experiments were conducted to obtain temperatures in the test cases, and these results demonstrate good agreement with the calculated temperatures. The temperature deviation between the calculated and experimental results are below 20% of absolute temperature rise and the solution time is less than ten seconds, making these models presented here successfully applicable for belt system design and materials research for pulleys. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103462 | analytical algorithm||numerical simulation||serpentine belt drive||thermal analysis | consum, innovat | SDG9, SDG12 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Hammadi, Ayad Ali | Miller, Eric J. | Modelling Transportation System Impacts of Housing Supply Dynamics | Civil Engineering | 2020-11-01 | This thesis investigates housing supply dynamics in the City of Toronto and the related transportation impacts in two parts. In the first part, the dynamic temporal interaction of housing starts, public transit ridership, and national/regional socioeconomic factors is investigated using a multichannel singular spectrum analysis (MSSA). Recognizing the importance of a holistic view of the relationship between the interacting variables temporal movements supports research to integrate methods from different analytical domains, or “silos”. The research strategy is to fuse the nonparametric MSSA analysis of the variables series collection with Granger bidirectional/bivariate causality and feedback tests to build a statistically significant causal loop that can empirically explain the oscillatory components in the system. A system view of the temporal interaction of the variables is constructed from the MSSA analysis spectrum decomposition and Granger causality tests. The system’s nonlinear dynamic fingerprint is identified using cause-effect diagrams of the system’s components. Stock components are introduced to absorb the interactions’ lags and to actuate the system’s dynamical behaviour. In the second part of the thesis a traffic impact sketch planning (TISP) model is developed and implemented for estimating the likely travel demand and behaviour generated by Bayside mixed-use development (MXD), a major land development project at Waterfront Toronto. TISP model deploys the operational TASHA-based GTAModel V4.1 travel demand model system for a detailed transportation impacts assessment of the proposed precinct development. To enable the use of an agent-based microsimulation (ABM) model, a population synthesis procedure is developed that converts the architectural design of the development; that is, number and type of dwellings by number of bedrooms and non-residential floorspace into relevant attributes of households, persons, and employment that are likely to occupy the units. Datasets of different geographic areas of Toronto, with some common control variables, are synthesized and cascaded into a disaggregate population of residents and non-residents for Bayside MXD. The diurnal peaking travel times trips estimated by TISP model are compared with the peak period trips shown in the project’s traffic impact study and the Trip Generation Manual peak-hour weekday trip rates of relevant land uses. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103441 | Causation analysis||Housing supply||Population synthesis||Singular spectrum analysis||System dynamics||Travel demand forecasting | land use, employment, water, socioeconomic | SDG1, SDG6, SDG8, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Ross, Megan | Cossman, Brenda | Morality Police: Sexuality Governance at the League of Nations | Law | 2020-11-01 | During the interwar period, the international community was zealously involved in the regulation of sexuality and vice under the auspices of the League of Nations. The roaring twenties had ushered with it a revival of morality policing in Europe and North America. The League of Nations Sex Trafficking Committee, led by social purity reformers and religious organizations, operated to create policy aimed at eliminating vice districts, music halls, and cabarets. Once this international policy was issued, volunteer organizations (spread literally around the globe) would carry out the carceral policy directives. Morality Police is the first genealogy of this remarkable period, providing an “ontology of ourselves” that seeks to expose the disreputable origins of anti-sex trafficking campaigns. This project narrates how the international community policed morality, following the twists and turns as they occurred on the Sex Trafficking Committee and at local levels from France to India. Drawing on over 10,000 archival documents collected from the League of Nations archive, this project argues that rather than being primarily concerned with abolishing state regulated prostitution, the Sex Trafficking Committee more insidiously engaged in a campaign of sexuality governance. While this campaign to halt changing sexual and cultural norms was ultimately unsuccessful, it was remarkably effective at repressing and disciplining sexual outlaws during its tenure. This project concludes with a stark reminder that while the campaign to stamp out vice and immorality in the interwar period was ultimately a failure, its legacy is still with us. Arguing that the laws and propaganda campaigns during this period created stories of international trafficking that were so powerful, the narratives became folklore that survived generations awaiting another eruption of moral panic. | S.J.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105827 | Interwar Period||Magdalene Asylum||Moral Panic||Morality Police||Surveillance||Women's History | governance, women | SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Ghaffari Mosanenzadeh, Shahriar | Naguib, Hani||Park, Chul B | Multifunctional Polyimide Aerogels with Tailored Nanostructure Assembly and Enhanced Properties | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Aerogels are highly porous solid materials with more than 80% porosity and the cell size in mesoporous, 2-50 nm, range. The nanostructure assembly and high porosity provided the aerogels with unique electrical, thermal, physical, and mechanical properties. With respect the fast development of the modern technology and the need for the metamaterials with improved performance, recently the aerogels are received significant attention from the scientist. Based on the previous studies among the aerogel types, the polyimide aerogels presented the capability to achieve high mechanical flexibility in thin film geometries as well as moisture resistance. These along with the higher service temperature over the other organics, presented the potential of polyimide aerogels to be used in wide range of industrial applications. However, with respect to the very sensitive relations between the aerogel nanostructure configuration and its properties, the lack of control on aerogel nanostructure formation significantly reduced the possibility of tailoring polyimide aerogel properties to fit with in the industrial requirements. Given this background, the focus of this research is to design and develop robust methods to tailor the aerogels nanostructure configuration to achieve the aerogels with optimum performance. From the results four different successful strategies in tailoring the aerogel nanostructure assembly and controlling its properties are implemented in this work, and the properties of the fabricated aerogel prototypes are characterized through fully parametric studies. The capability of tailoring and improving the properties of polyimide aerogels may warrant their penetration in wide range of industrial applications. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103795 | Bimodal Aerogels||Mesoporous Solids||Organic Aerogels||Polyimide||Super Thermal Insulation||Tailored Nanostructure | industr | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Rauen Firkowski, Carina | Fortin, Marie-Josée||Cadotte, Marc W | Multi-trophic Metacommunity Responses to Disturbances in a Heterogeneous World | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2020-11-01 | Environmental heterogeneity is a fundamental component of ecological systems, shaping patterns of diversity and stability through dispersal, across space and time. However, intense anthropogenic activities undermine the ecological mechanisms that maintain diversity and the resilience of ecological systems. Although the influence of environmental heterogeneity, dispersal, and species interactions on disturbances have been extensively studied in isolation, a unified approach is needed to understand disturbance and post-disturbance recovery when all these ecological mechanisms vary or are themselves influenced by anthropogenic activity. The objective of my thesis is to evaluate the role of environmental heterogeneity, dispersal and trophic structure in influencing the response of multi-trophic metacommunities to disturbances. In Chapter 1, I offered an introduction to the metacommunity concepts of environmental heterogeneity, dispersal, species interactions, and disturbances, summarizing how metacommunity studies have addressed their relationships. The results of a literature review show that metacommunity studies are greatly skewed to evaluate the various roles of dispersal in homogeneous environments. I explicitly discuss how future metacommunity studies can incorporate further complexity to address the interactive effects of environmental heterogeneity, dispersal, species interactions, and disturbances. In Chapter 2, I evaluated the effects of temporal environmental heterogeneity on metacommunity synchrony, stability and diversity, using a complementary simulation model and microcosm experiment. Environmental fluctuations resulted in greater asynchrony and regional stability, through increased species richness and compositional heterogeneity. For Chapter 3, I investigated the contributions of spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity to buffer the impacts of a local disturbance of direct mortality, using a model and microcosm experiment. While spatial or temporal environmental heterogeneity allowed for greater metacommunity biomass recovery following disturbance compared to homogeneous environments, spatio-temporal heterogeneity led to the greatest recovery potential. In Chapter 4, I contrasted the contributions of spatio-temporal heterogeneity and dispersal to the simulated impact of different sources of disturbance: connectivity loss, habitat destruction, patch depletion and metacommunity depletion. Results highlighted the importance of maintaining multi-trophic interactions, environmental heterogeneity and species dispersal abilities for heightened resistance to disturbances. Altogether, the findings of my thesis underscore the value and importance of evaluating ecological responses through the interaction of key ecological processes. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103616 | Competition||Disturbances||Environmental fluctuations||Food-web||Metacommunity | ecolog, environment, resilien, urban, food | SDG2, SDG11, SDG13, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Cherry-Reid, Katharine A | Goldstein, Tara | Music to our Ears: Using a Queer Folk Song Pedagogy to do Gender and Sexuality Education | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | This study is situated in current social-political conversations in Canada about how to do gender and sexuality education, and what content should and should not be included in Ontario’s Health and Physical Education curriculum. This research documents a 2 and a ½ month study in which a queer folk song pedagogy was used to conduct gender and sexuality education with 13 students, ages 16-20 years old, in an alternative secondary school classroom in Ontario. Using a practitioner research methodology, the students, the classroom teacher, and the researcher listened to a set of queer folk songs previously composed from interviews with LGBTQ2S+ families and queerspawn; wrote journal reflection responses to each song; and then participated in sustained, engaged dialogue with one another about a wide range of subject matter related to gender and sexuality. Analysis focused on three main themes. The first key theme was that LGBTQ2S+ individuals and queerspawn are often not expected in certain spaces and have to explain their identities, bodies, and relationships to others. The second key theme was that LGBTQ2S+ individuals often begin making sense of and orient toward their own queer identities in relation to queer and trans others they encounter. The third key theme was that LGBTQ2S+ individuals also make sense of themselves and navigate their own identities in relation to various discourses about gender, sexuality, bodies, and relationships, whether this discourse is positive or harmful. Overarching conclusions from this study include the following: a queer folk song pedagogy opens up generative dialogic spaces creating an effective learning environment; students seek and construct much of the knowledge they have related to gender and sexuality outside of schools; queer teachers make a difference in delivering queer pedagogy; and queer curriculum and pedagogy can help orient LGBTQ2S+ students and queerspawn in schools. This research makes a case for listening as an important pedagogical strategy in classrooms, and a queer folk song pedagogy as an example of queer caring that has the potential to move students toward alternate possibilities for learning, relating, and living. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103774 | curriculum||gender||listening||pedagogy||practitioner research||sexuality | environment, queer, gender, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG5, SDG13 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Lavergne, Sophia | Boonstra, Rudy||McGowan, Patrick | Neurobiology of Predation Risk and the Inheritance of Stress in Snowshoe Hares (Lepus americanus) | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2018-11-01 | The population dynamics of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) are fundamental to the ecosystem dynamics of Canada’s boreal forest. During their 8-11 year population cycle, hare densities can fluctuate up to 40-fold. Predators in this system (lynx, coyotes, great-horned owls) affect hare demography not only through direct mortality but also through non-consumptive effects on reproduction that are mediated by chronic stress. There is strong evidence for the acute physiological sensitivity of snowshoe hares to fluctuating predator pressure, characterized by major shifts in glucocorticoid profiles, energy mobilization, immunity and body condition under situations of extreme risk. This thesis aimed first to determine whether the predator-induced variation in hare stress physiology seen across the cycle is associated with predictable neurobiological changes in transcriptional activity and the expression of corticosteroid receptors in key limbic regulatory regions of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and second, whether predation risk has intergenerational impacts on offspring phenotype that may act to prolong the lag in population recovery that follows the decline phase of the cycle, even though food resources are plentiful and predators have all but disappeared. I found changes in the expression of gene networks that mediate hormone responses and hematological condition, and in the expression of glucocorticoid-sensitive receptors that regulate the HPA axis as a function of increasing predation risk in the natural population. During the increase and peak phases of the cycle, predator-induced maternal stress programmed for a neuroresilient offspring phenotype characterized by key transcriptional changes that allow for sensitive physiological responses to environmental stress through activation of the amygdala, balanced by gene activity that confers neuroendocrine resilience and maintains basal HPA function in the hippocampus. Offspring stress physiology was associated with a number of anti-predator behaviours that could confer an initial survival advantage in risky environments, but become maladaptive when conditions change. Taken together, these results provide support for predator-induced maternal stress effects on offspring phenotype that could become important mediators of the lag in population recovery under conditions of chronic maternal stress. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102942 | Boreal||HPA axis||Maternal effects||Neurobiology||Predator-prey||Stress | forest, environment, production, consum, resilien, energy, food | SDG2, SDG7, SDG11, SDG12, SDG13, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
| Massaquoi, Notisha | Bisaillon, Laura | No Place Like Home: African Refugees and the Making of a New Queer Identity | Social Justice Education | 2020-11-01 | For reasons of necessity, urgency, and sometimes choice, queer Africans cross borders and find their lives unfolding in diasporic spaces. Refugee claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity persecution make up 12% of all refugee cases in Canada, with queer African refugees constituting the largest group within this category. With this in mind, we now have to ask, “what kind of history will be written about the collision between queer Africans dislocated from post-colonial nations and the Canadian settler nation?” In this study, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the individual lived experiences of queer African refugees, with a focus on the intricate realignment of sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual politics, and sexual desire that inevitably emerges through forced migration and the refugee process in Canada. The deep meaning of life experiences is captured in the participants’ own words, providing detailed, in-depth insights into the complexities of their lives, their reflections, and their subsequent responses. These narratives call attention to the specific features of queer African refugees, who test the limits of the current homonational refugee apparatus. Participants’ experiences of resisting social roles, structures, identities, and expectations that limit queer African refugees and keep them “in their place,” both in their countries of origin and in Canada, are interrogated. The construction of boundaries that decide who belongs and deserves protection within Canada and who does not provides a foundation for engaging in research as a practice of freedom, in order to counter the global narrative of refugee life that excludes queer Africans. The findings in this research require us to look at practices of exclusion and inclusion in the Canadian refugee system and the tensions that emerge for queer African claimants. In the end, we are left with strategies for how to engage with the politics of knowledge production and advocate for an agenda of social justice and transformation for queer Africans globally. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103314 | African Studies||Anti-Oppression||Black Studies||Migration Studies||Queer Studies||Refugee Studies | justice, production, queer, gender | SDG5, SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Berryhill, Ryan | Veneris, Andreas | Novel Approaches to Hardware Safety Checking and Certificate Minimization | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Verification is an ever-growing challenge in hardware design due to the complexity of modern designs. As a result, formal verification methodologies are seeing rapid adoption in the industry. Formal verification of safety properties is an essential verification task and a key component of algorithms that verify other types of properties. Due to the computational resources required, scalability is a significant concern in this area. Additionally, when a safety property passes verification, safety verification algorithms return only a machine-checkable certificate, which may leave the user with little confidence that the property passes for the “right” reasons rather than, for instance, because the property itself is written incorrectly. This dissertation presents contributions aimed at improving the scalability of formal safety verification algorithms and addressing the lack of feedback from such algorithms. The first contribution is an algorithm called Truss that extends the state-of-the-art safety verification algorithm IC3 with novel heuristics and reasoning capabilities to achieve better runtime performance. Experiments demonstrate a significant speedup relative to the state of the art. The second contribution is a set of techniques to minimize machine-checkable certificates of safety produced by IC3 and similar algorithms. Given such a certificate represented by a Boolean formula, the algorithms find minimal subformulas that are also valid certificates, called minimal safe inductive subformulas (MSISes). Experiments are presented comparing the techniques and demonstrating theireffectiveness. The third contribution is a set of techniques to produce and minimize inductive validity cores (IVCs), which are abstractions of the circuit that are sufficient to prove the given property. Several techniques are presented to compute all minimal IVCs for a safety property and are evaluated experimentally. The final contribution is a set of results related to the computational complexity of the certificate minimization problems noted above. Results are presented showing that two decision problems related to MSIS computation are D P -complete and Σ P2 -complete, respectively, while similar problems for MIVC computation are in PSPACE. The results are also extended to cover a more general class of problems related to finding minimal subsets subject to a monotone predicate (MSMPs). | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103653 | Model Checking||Safety Checking||Verification | industr | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| You, Shenglong | Bussmann, Markus||Tran, Honghi | Numerical Modeling of Recovery Boiler Deposit Removal under Sootblower Jet Impingement | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Deposit buildup on heat transfer surfaces in recovery boilers is undesirable as it lowers the overall boiler thermal efficiency and can result in unscheduled boiler shutdowns. To prevent excessive fouling, sootblowers are used to remove deposits by blowing supersonic steam jets onto them. However, sootblowing is not very effective and can be very expensive, as it consumes 3-12% of the total steam a boiler generates. This thesis aims to better understand the sootblower jet impingement process, and to suggest means of lowering the cost of sootblowing. A numerical model is developed to simulate sootblower jet impingement, and to predict the resulting deposit internal stress by coupling Computational Fluid Dynamics and Finite Element Analysis modeling. The removal mechanism is postulated to be due to the tensile stress induced at the deposit-tube interface. The simulation results are used to evaluate the effectiveness of different sootblowing operating conditions. In addition, a geometric model is developed to assess sootblowing efficiency over the full working cycle. Based on the results on a predefined deposit geometry and tube layout, the maximum possible sootblowing efficiency is calculated to be less than 10%. One reason for the low efficiency is the large gap between tube platens in the superheater, because most steam is wasted by blowing into space. The other reason is that the removal mechanism of using compression to induce a tensile stress is very inefficient. More efficient sootblowing could be achieved by dynamically changing the sootblower translational velocity or steam flow rate based on local sootblowing effectiveness. However, such changes will add significant complexity to the mechanical design of sootblowers. Finally, the overall modeling approach is a framework for analyzing sootblowing effectiveness and efficiency, and can be used to evaluate different sootblowing configurations, deposit geometries and tube layouts. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103384 | Deposit removal||Fluid structure interaction||Recovery boiler fouling||Sootblower||Supersonic jet impingement | waste, consum | SDG12 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Gunn, Virginia | Muntaner, Carles | Nursing Professionalization, Gender Equality, and the Welfare State: Identifying Macro-level Factors that Advance Nursing Professionalization | Nursing Science | 2019-11-01 | Nursing professionalization has important benefits for the nursing workforce, patients, and health systems. Given the large number of associated goals, the process is ongoing and of continuous relevance to all countries where nursing is practiced. Although the body of research focusing on this topic is vast, the macro-level structural determinants of this process are currently less understood. The objectives of this thesis were to examine the effects of (a) welfare state and gender regimes and (b) measures of education, health, family, labour market, and gender policies on nursing professionalization in high-income countries. The literature review conducted synthesised health and socio-political studies, bringing attention to key links between nursing professionalization and welfare state policies. The empirical analysis consisted of two studies, the first one focused on the welfare state and the second one on gender equality, both using a time-series, cross-sectional design and fixed-effects linear regression models. The analysis covered 16 years and 22 countries. The findings suggest that both the average regulated nurse and the nurse graduate ratios differ among welfare state and gender regimes. In addition, the following policy measures were found to be predictive of (a) the regulated nurse ratio: total government expenditure on education, total and public health care spending, length of paid paternity leave, female share of tertiary education graduates, female share of employment in managerial positions, gender wage gap, and female share of seats in national parliaments; and of (b) the nurse graduate ratio: total government expenditure on education, total health care spending, length of both paid maternity and paid paternity leaves, female share of employment in managerial positions, gender wage gap, female share of seats in national parliaments, and female labour force participation rate. This study’s findings could add to existing upstream advocacy efforts to strengthen nursing and the nursing workforce through healthy public policy. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102761 | gender equality policies||nursing human resources||nursing professionalization||structural political and economic factors||time-series cross-sectional design||welfare state regimes and policy | wage, labour, employment, equality, gender, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG5, SDG8 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Ly, Lynn | Yoneyama, Lisa||Diaz, Robert | Ocean of Storms: Vietnam War Photography and Queer Transpacific Critique of Militarized Intimacies | Women and Gender Studies Institute | 2021-03-01 | This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study into Vietnam War photography as a site of relational struggles that exceed the vision of violence, freedom, and humanity currently normalized by liberal humanist imaginaries of war. It forwards what I am calling a “queer transpacific critique”, which disrupts normative Cold War epistemologies by interrogating the Pacific region as a place of relations, connections, desires, and racial and sexual formations that are disciplined by and diverge from liberal humanist thought. It examines disciplinary, historical, conceptual, social and intellectual connections that are made possible by the war, but are masked under liberal narratives of progress and freedom. The radical relationality the Vietnam War’s visual archive performs makes visible the co-implication of settler colonialism, mass incarceration, and racial-sexual violence in overseas war, and relatedly, the co-constitution of Asian, Black, Indigenous, and queer histories. The Vietnam War’s visual archive brings into relation often separated histories of colonial and racial subjection, and opens a discussion about how these entangled histories might found the basis of another collectivity beyond Man and its inhuman Others. Indeed, the Vietnam War was made possible by the violent, militarized intimacies of contemporary life, and but was also a site and moment of collective refusal of the liberal humanist episteme that mandates such violences. It is my hope that this work can announce a different politics of “being with” in the world. That is, a desiring orientation towards one another, and an elsewise possibility for modern relationality grounded in the struggles and joys of those who exist outside of state-organized human life. It is these intimacies between those struggling against imperialism that offer possibilities of new ways of being with each other without conquest. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104885 | Asian diaspora||liberal humanism||militarism||queer diaspora||transpacific studies||visual studies | ocean, queer | SDG5, SDG14 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| McKnight, Scott Christopher | Breznitz, Dan | Oil-sector Strategies of States in the Global South: Comparing State Involvement in the Oil Sectors in Brazil, China and Mexico | Political Science | 2021-03-01 | Oil-producing states in the Global South adopt different strategies to influence and control their oil sectors. Why does an oil-producing state choose one approach over others? Why does a state change its approach? This dissertation argues that a government’s ideological orientation and a country’s oil balance combine in different ways to generate an oil-sector strategy that is either closed, mixed or open. While the variable of orientation represents the degree to which the government wants to intervene in the economy, the variable of oil balance constrains, facilitates or moderates a government’s preferred oil-sector strategy, depending on the interaction effects that occur from the specific aligning of these independent variables.This research presents four key findings. First, the strategy that immediately follows oil-sector nationalization sets the parameters for politically acceptable oil-related policies going forward. This original strategy often has lasting effects. Second, these constraints allow for change to occur but often limit the extent of that change. Third, a radical change in a government’s orientation or oil balance opens space for major change to an oil-sector strategy. Fourth, the new strategy that comes after this critical juncture sets new parameters for oil policy. This argument emerged inductively from intensive study of ‘big’ Global South oil-producing countries of Brazil, China and Mexico, which included elite interviews as well as studying relevant works in political science, especially historical institutionalism, constructivism and certain theories of public policy. The methods of process-tracing and comparative historical analysis helped uncover the causal variables of government orientation and oil balance, and to identify the processes and logic that ultimately produced this mid-range theoretical argument about oil strategies. The need to identify causes and systematize explanations for a state’s choice of oil-sector strategy stems from the fact that an oil industry is often the most capital-intensive, largest tax contributor and employer in an oil-producing country of the Global South with far-reaching impacts on governance and policy, as well as on political institutions and economic development. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105038 | China||Global South||National oil companies||Oil||Policy||Strategy | governance, institut, industr | SDG9, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Miltenburg, Mark Benjamin Adrian | Seferos, Dwight S | Organic Materials for Energy Generation and Storage | Chemistry | 2020-11-01 | In this thesis, I describe my efforts in developing organic materials for energy storage and generation. Chapter 1 introduces the broad classes of organic materials that are the focus of the thesis, including graphene, small molecules and conjugated polymers. It provides background into the principles of energy storage in supercapacitor devices, including the mechanism, performance metrics, and common materials. It provides a brief overview of energy generation in photovoltaic devices, with a focus on the electron transport layers of perovskite solar cells. Chapter 2 explores synthesis of a graphene quantum dot/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) film for application as a supercapacitor electrode. I demonstrate the first electrochemical polymerization of functionalized graphene quantum dots. I determined that the graphene quantum dot/PEDOT films have significantly higher capacitance than control films, but reduced cycling stability. Chapter 3 investigates a polymer comprising PEDOT with tetrachlorinated perylene diimide pendant units. This polymer was designed to serve as a stable ambipolar electrode for application in symmetric type III supercapacitor devices. It demonstrates moderate capacities, but the donor-node-acceptor architecture grants it extremely good charge cycling stabilities in both positive and negative regions. In Chapter 4, I examine a graphene quantum dot/perylene diimide material for application in perovskite solar cells. This material was demonstrated to successively quench the fluo- rescence of a perovskite material, indicating its potential as an electron transport layer. It is hoped the graphene will facilitate electron extraction at the electrodes, in addition to providing improved stability to ultraviolet, thermal and chemical degradation to perovskite solar cell. Chapter 5 examines the potential to dope graphene with tellurium for use as a non-precious metal catalyst for the electrochemical reduction of oxygen in basic aqueous medium. It was demonstrated that graphene oxide could be simultaneously thermally reduced and doped with tellurium, and the resulting Te-doped graphene showed potential as an electrocatalyst. The doping was unable to be suitably controlled and resulted in inconsistent Te-doping, tellurium oxidation states and oxygen content within the Te-doped graphene. In Chapter 6, I detail a simple microwave-assisted synthesis of carbon nanodots, and screen potential precursors to allow the controlled doping of carbon nanodots with heteroatoms. It was demonstrated that the carbon nanodots could be rapidly synthesized, and heterogeneous mixtures of precursors allowed modification of the optical properties of the synthesized carbon nanodots. Chapter 7 serves to summarize the thesis, provides future outlooks on the topics covered, and proposes future research directions in the field to generate high performance organic ma- terials for energy storage and generation. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103422 | Energy Storage||Graphene||Polymers||Supercapacitors | cities, solar, energy | SDG7, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Inoue, Carlos | McGahan, Anita | Organizational Governance in the Public Interest | Management | 2020-11-01 | This thesis examines how the interaction between organizations, institutions, and key stakeholders shapes organizational performance. It includes three studies, each of which examines in detail the relationship between actors engaged in promoting the public interest. The first study investigates how elected state officials shape the performance of government-controlled organizations over time. This study argues that the political incentives of state officials create systematic trends in the behavior and performance of government-controlled organizations, which are particularly common in industries such as power distribution, transportation, and water and sanitation. State officials seeking votes manipulate government-controlled organizations to boost employment just before elections. As a result, these organizations exhibit both higher employment levels and lower financial performance in election years. Data from Brazil’s water sector—an industry managing a crucial societal resource—support these predictions. The second study investigates how the engagement of highly productive workers affects the operational performance of organizations. The research isolates these workers’ direct contributions to organizational performance from their indirect contributions—i.e., the influence on the performance of coworkers in the organization. Exploiting the temporary absences of high-volume physicians, I find that in-hospital patient mortality increases during these absences for two reasons: first, because the physician is absent; and second, because of the impact of the absence on the performance of colleagues. This second pathway—the role of indirect contributions—accounts for about 38 percent of the overall increase in patient mortality. This research shows that highly productive workers have sizeable influence on the performance of organizations, but this influence occurs, to a large extent, through peer effects. The third study investigates how the implementation of strong intellectual property rights for pharmaceuticals in emerging markets influences the strategy of pharmaceutical firms. Prior research suggests that patents shape the behavior of firms by affecting prices. This study argues that patents can shape the market strategy of firms through mechanisms other than price. The results show that patent holders modify their product market strategy despite little changes in drug prices. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103432 | rights, governance, institut, industr, worker, employment, sanita, water | SDG6, SDG8, SDG9, SDG14, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Rice, Joanna Magdelana | Jung, Courtney | Pardoning Profit: Neoliberal Transitional Justice in Côte d’Ivoire | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation builds on an emerging critical literature that contends transitional justice aligns with neoliberal governance by overlooking socioeconomic harms and by protecting elite interests. Using Côte d’Ivoire as a case study, the dissertation argues that contemporary transitional justice does not merely align with neoliberalism in postwar contexts; it advances this reordering of governing and social order by limiting the moral obligation on government and society to respond to structural injustices. By restricting the moral obligation to address the suffering of others to a limited set of human rights violations, transitional justice establishes a new moral order where harms caused by individual rights violations are recognised as intolerable and demands justice, but the suffering caused by grave inequality, deprivation and other forms of structural injustice are implicitly tolerated and hence more easily overlooked by the state and by fellow citizens. Transitional justice institutions thus shape post-conflict justice into a process that protects elite interests and excludes transformative reforms or more radical demands such as wealth or land redistribution. The national reconstruction process that followed Côte d’Ivoire’s decade long civil war combined neoliberalisation and transitional justice as core priorities of the post-conflict regime. This dissertation shows that transitional justice in Côte d’Ivoire had the dual function of reinforcing neoliberal reforms while also legitimizing this reordering of governance as just and democratic. As such, it served as the ideological foundation for President Alassane Ouattara’s expansive and market-oriented governance reform agenda while simultaneously advancing a discourse domestically and abroad about the rights-respecting and liberal democratic nature of the new government. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103127 | Côte d'Ivoire||Peacebuilding||Transitional Justice||Truth Commissions | rights, peace, governance, justice, institut, inequality, equality, socioeconomic | SDG1, SDG5, SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Azim, Muhammad | Bova, Francesco||Mohanram, Partha | Passive Demand but Active Pay: The Effect of ETFFlows on CEO Stock Option Compensation | Management | 2020-11 | The rising prominence of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the past decade has resulted in a non-fundamentals driven demand for stocks held in ETF baskets. Prior research on ETFs finds both ETF-related stock price mis-valuation and ETF-related increases in the co-movement of stock prices. Separately, prior research on CEO compensation suggests that firms should use less stock option compensation when stock prices are less informative about firm performance as it becomes more difficult to mitigate the moral hazard problem, but more stock option compensation when there is increased co-movement, as stock options become a more effective tool for retention. Motivated by the fact that stock prices play a key role in CEO compensation decisions, this study tests the effect of ETF flows on CEO stock option compensation. I find that stock option compensation is increasing with ETF flows. Further, I find that the positive relation between stock option compensation and ETF flows is prominent in cross-sections where there is an ex ante motivation to compensate executives with options for retention purposes. Additionally, I do not find a positive relationship between risk-taking or firm performance with ETF flows, but do find a decrease in CEO turnover with increased ETF flows. The combined results suggest that: 1.) ETF flows may have affected firm incentives to compensate managers with stock options for retention purposes, and 2.) incentive alignment does not appear to be a prominent factor in awarding CEO stock options. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103701 | CEO compensation||ETFs||governance||Stock Options||stock price informativeness||stock return co-movement | governance, trade | SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Lapointe-Shaw, Lauren | Bell, Chaim M | Patient Readmissions After Hospital Discharge | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2019-06-01 | Many readmissions after hospital discharge may be preventable through improved transitional care. This thesis seeks to inform clinical practice and policy development to reduce avoidable readmissions. The three included projects use health administrative data to examine the post-discharge care processes and outcomes for patients hospitalized in Ontario, Canada. In the first study, we compared the outcomes for patients discharged during the extended December holiday to outcomes for patients discharged from hospital at other times, over a 14 year period. We found that December holiday-discharged patients were at greater risk of 30-day death or readmission, while also being less likely to have outpatient physician follow-up within 14 days of discharge. The second study evaluated the effects of a physician financial incentive (an additional billing code) on timely follow-up after discharge. Despite physician uptake of the incentive code, there was no change in 14-day follow-up rates after incentive introduction, suggesting that it was not effective in changing physician behavior. In our third study, we compared the outcomes of post-discharge patients receiving a community pharmacy-based medication review to those not receiving one. Among older adults filling a prescription in a community pharmacy, receipt of a medication review was associated with a reduced rate of 30-day death or readmission. These thesis findings provide evidence to support decision- and policymaking relating to the clinical care of patients transitioning home from hospital. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101752 | Health services research||Pharmacy services||Primary care||Readmissions||Transitional care | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Hay, Stephanie | Kushner, Paul J | Pattern Scaling Methods for Understanding the Response to Polar Sea Ice Loss in Coupled Earth System Models | Physics | 2020-11-01 | The response to polar sea ice loss is separated, using dedicated coupled modelling experiments and multi-parameter pattern scaling, from the response to tropical warming and from general greenhouse warming. In the first chapter, the motivation for this work is presented with an overview of the existing literature and knowledge gaps. The second chapter presents a cross-comparison of the atmospheric near-surface sensitivity of two coupled models to Arctic sea ice loss and to low-latitude warming. The models agree well with more similarities found in the sensitivity to sea ice loss than to low-latitude warming. Warming and moistening of the Arctic, a dipole of sea level pressure between Eurasia and North America, and an equatorward shift in 850 hPa winds is found to scale with sea ice loss. In the third chapter, a larger pool of coupled experiments are used that largely confirm the results of the previous chapter. This chapter also covers the sensitivities of the zonal mean atmospheric circulation. Two-parameter pattern scaling of the surface ocean is carried out for the first time, and, unlike the atmosphere, the sensitivity to low-latitude warming is more robust than to sea ice loss. The subpolar North Atlantic is found to be a region of poor inter-model agreement due to complex dynamics and non-linearities, but qualitatively consistent signals can be found in response to sea ice loss; deep water formation decreases in the Labrador Sea and the meridional overturning circulation weakens. In the fourth chapter, the focus is expanded to include the impacts of Antarctic sea ice loss. New simulations are carried out to assess the response to sea ice loss in either hemisphere separately or coincidentally under different albedo parameter settings. Contrary to expectations, the response to Antarctic sea ice loss, mediated by tropical warming, is non-negligible in the Northern Hemisphere. With these new simulations, three-parameter pattern scaling is derived and we simultaneously compute the sensitivities to Arctic sea ice loss, Antarctic sea ice loss, and tropical warming, with a focus on the Northern Hemisphere's response. Finally in the fifth chapter, the results are summarized and remaining knowledge gaps are highlighted alongside suggestions for future work. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103633 | climate||polar climate||sea ice | ocean, climate, wind, water | SDG6, SDG7, SDG13, SDG14 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Ratnapalan, Savithiri | Lang, Daniel W | Perceptions of Change Among Emergency Department Staff in a University Teaching Hospital in the United Kingdom | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2019-03-01 | University teaching hospitals provide acute and emergency care in most healthcare systems. One of the priority areas in hospitals are emergency departments (ED) where practice changes are the norm due to the unpredictable and open “public good access” nature of service demands. At present changes to EDs are implemented to improve efficiency and reduce costs in the United Kingdom (UK) and other developed countries. Also, at present, there is limited evidence on how or why change is successful in some instances and not in others. The objective of this research was to study staff perceptions of change and the factors influencing the implementation of changes at a university teaching hospital in the UK. A modified grounded theory methodology was used to perform a secondary analysis of 41 interview transcripts to answer the research questions. Interview transcripts from participants consisted of 20 physicians, 13 nurses, two support workers and six managers involved in paediatric emergency care at the hospital. Data analysis provided answers to the first research question of how changes happen in the emergency department by identifying triggers and barriers to both planned and emergent changes. The second research question of what factors impact change identified three themes; communication, education and leadership. The concept that permeated all identified themes was that change provokes emotional responses at individual, team, and organizational levels. Good communication leading to staff involvement, education about new processes and credible trusted leadership, encouraged positive emotions and reduced negative emotions. In this study, negative emotions stemmed from a perceived inability of healthcare professionals to function effectively and efficiently to ensure safe patient care with changes. Professional values dictated the actions or inactions that transpired either as a result of these emotions or despite these emotions in health professionals. The study findings illustrate an emerging concept of emotions in change and the importance of acknowledging the reasons for negative emotions and fostering positive emotions in individuals and groups through communication, education and good leadership. I hope this concept will ultimately advance the theoretical understanding and practical strategies to help the process of change management in healthcare organizations. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105121 | change management||continuing education of health professionals||hospitals||organizational change||organizational learning||staff attitudes | worker, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG8 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Ortuzar, Jimena | Quayson, Ato | Performing Invisible Labour: The Globalization of Care in Aesthetic and Everyday Practice | Drama | 2019-03-01 | This thesis examines how labour associated with the reproductive sphere—labour historically consigned to women and continually undervalued yet needed to sustain and reproduce daily life—is politicized or made visible through aesthetic and social practices. Tracing the transformation of reproductive work from an unpaid and unrecognized duty shouldered by housewives to a feminized, racialized, and globalized form of waged labour performed by migrant women, I explore the entanglements between labour, gender, migration, and performance in the context of post-Fordist, neoliberal, advanced capitalism. Through close analysis of artistic production, political struggles, commercial interests, market forces, and urban practices that reveal distinct ways of rendering the private public, I show how domestic labour has changed in site, character, and value, and argue that current efforts to theorize, analyze, and valorize such work must respond to shifting divisions of labour and changing social relations of value production. This project begins with social feminist and artistic efforts to visibilize and politicize women’s hidden labour at key moments in the development of global capitalism. It is followed by close readings of gendered labour and durational performance in narrative films that query cinema’s capacity to render visible the otherwise invisible labour of women through its explorations in extended duration and everyday spaces. Next, I explore the affective performances of transnational domestic workers captured in audition videos by online employment agencies. I argue that mobility for these migrant women is dependent on their performances of servility, and that the circulation of these videos on YouTube reproduces the ‘foreign maid’ as a global commodity. I then turn to Filipina domestic workers occupying public spaces in Hong Kong. Considering their increased visibility, their community-building efforts, and their growing awareness of the social and economic value of their labour, I explore the possibilities of transnational domestic labour as a site from which political subjectivities might be constituted. These various case studies, while operating along different aesthetic categories, social registers, and geopolitical contexts, are key sources of analysis for understanding social reproduction and provide distinct perspectives from which to theorize care work, its value and meaning, in the twenty-first century. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105132 | affective labour||gender||migration||performance studies||social reproduction||transnational domestic workers | production, urban, wage, worker, labour, employment, women, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG11, SDG12 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Cossette-Lefebvre, Étienne | Katz, Larissa | Personality, Privacy, and Property: Trans-systemic Perspectives on Self-ownership | Law | 2020-11 | In this Thesis, I supply a conceptual foundation for an understanding of the “rights of the personality” at civil law and of the “right of privacy” at common law as expressing the fundamental idea of self-ownership. While this is not an uncontroversial proposition, a conceptualisation of personality as an object of property, and of the “rights of the personality” and the “right of privacy” as property rights, yields at least three conceptual and doctrinal advantages: first, it may serve as a legal justification for the recognition that personality should be protected by property rules, and not by mere liability rules; secondly, it may explain why personality rights at civil law and privacy rights at common law should be understood as protecting non-economic as well as economic interests; and thirdly, it may bring coherence to the law governing the status of the human body. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103039 | ownership||personality||personality rights||privacy||property||self-ownership | rights | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Asgarian, Ali | Chattopadhyay, Kinnor||Bussmann, Markus | Physical and Mathematical Modeling of Water Atomization for Metal Powder Production | Materials Science and Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Water atomization (WA) of a molten metal is a well-established and cost-effective industrial approach to producing low-reactive metal powders. However, WA powders are characterized by a wide spread of particle size unsuitable for certain powder metallurgy applications. To address this limitation, this thesis examines some of the poorly understood fluid mechanics phenomena involved in WA, to develop fundamental knowledge that describes the relationships between the design and operating conditions of a water atomizer, and the particle size distribution (PSD) of the resulting powder. In the first part of the thesis, a flat fan water spray is studied by experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The disintegration of a liquid sheet into a spray is examined, an optical technique to measure a multi-range droplet size distribution (DSD) in a developing spray is presented, and an enhanced model to quantify the momentum flux of a spray where it impinges a melt stream is proposed. The model suggests that the momentum flux of a spray, and thus the atomization capacity, increases with spray pressure and decreases with the travel distance of the spray from the nozzle to the impingement point and with the spray spreading angle. In the second part of the thesis, the above findings are examined via production of a low melting point alloy (Bi-42% Sn) powder using a laboratory-scale water atomizer that was designed and built for this work. The effects of various design and operating parameters, including water pressure, melt superheat, apex angle, and spray configuration on the mass median size (d50) and standard deviation (SD) of the powder PSD are investigated, and correlations proposed. These correlations can be used to control the size features of water atomized powders produced at industrial scale, by engineering various design and operating parameters, and thus expanding the market for water atomized powders. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103711 | Computational Fluid Dynamics||Metal Additive Manufacturing||Metal Powder||Optical Imaging||Powder Metallurgy||Water Atomization | production, industr, labor, water | SDG6, SDG8, SDG9, SDG12, SDG14 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Yan, Shu Liang Karl | Pauly, Louis W.||Falkenheim, Victor C. | Planning Like a State: Railway Modernization in China | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | Railroads in China represent something special. As China enters the third decade of the 21st century, one of its hallmark achievements has been the remarkable modernization of its railway system. However, post-1949 sectoral modernization did not occur in a linear fashion. The Party-state failed to develop this critical sector, both during the 27 years of the Mao era (1949 to 1976) and the first 25 years of Deng’s reform and opening (1978 to 2002). China’s railway dream—sustained rapid development—only took off in the early 2000s. Against such a backdrop, my research questions are as follows: 1) Why did China’s railway dream only take off in the early 2000s, despite five decades of centralized Party rule? 2) What were the obstacles to sectoral modernization, and how were they finally overcome? 3) What political and economic factors, both internal and external, most decisively shaped the evolution of China’s railway system? 4) Finally, what do the distinctive patterns of railway development tell us about the broader political economy of industrial development in China? This dissertation argues that the practice of “concentrating powers to accomplish big things” was the principal reason behind sustained rapid modernization, and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization provided the crucial catalyst. I define “power concentration” as an institutionalized and centralized means of shaping and supporting a particular approach to sectoral development in order to meet the broader developmental challenges of the time. Power concentration manifested as the alignment of a clear developmental approach, professionalized and institutionalized macro-economic planning agencies and strategic industrial policies with restrictive targets that focus on overall planning and top-level design. In the absence of such policy guidance and environment, railway development was meagre as during the Mao era and early periods of reform and opening. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103656 | Chinese Political Economy||Development||Highspeed Rail||Railway Politics | institut, environment, trade, industr | SDG9, SDG10, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Gute, Ellen | Abbatt, Jonathan PD | Pollen Ice Nucleating Particles and Their Response to Atmospheric Processing | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2020-11-01 | Clouds are crucial to life on Earth as they help regulate temperature and distribute water resources. Yet, large uncertainties exist around cloud development and evolution with many open questions about processes spanning from micro- to macro-scales. On the micro-scale, ice formation contributes to precipitation formation and cloud radiative properties; yet our understanding of this process is limited. This thesis assesses the ice nucleating (IN) ability of pollen and subpollen particles (SPPs) under mixed-phase and cold cloud conditions. In a first step, pollen IN activity was investigated under mixed-phase cloud conditions where IN activity was found to vary between pollen types and that submicron SPPs drive pollen IN activity. Additionally, one pollen type, grey alder, was identified to initiate freezing above −10°C, thus contributing to a small set of highly active ice nucleating particles (INPs). In a second step, atmospheric processing of SPPs was investigated, as SPPs can experience atmospheric transport and exposure to varying environmental conditions. Several processing pathways were found to compromise pollen IN activity. The largest impacts were observed for the most IN active pollen by exposure to simulated solar radiation. Under cold cloud conditions, chemical oxidation negatively impacts the IN activity of silver birch and grey alder pollen, occurring on a similar timescale as changes to the molecular structure were observed. The findings from laboratory INP measurements were translated to parametrize INP concentrations from SPPs, indicating INP concentrations below 10-2 m-3 in one modeling scenario. To overcome potential barriers in detecting such low INP concentrations by commonly used INP instruments, a Portable Fine Particle Concentrator was evaluated for INP measurements in the field. Enrichment factors are found to be particle size dependent while an INP enrichment factor of 16±5 was achieved in a mountain-top field study. The insights gained from this thesis will help assess the importance of pollen as INPs and reduce uncertainties that cloud processes currently impose on weather and climate predictions. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103722 | Atmopsheric processing||Continuous Flow Diffusion Chamber||Droplet Freezing Technique||Ice nucleation||Particle enrichment||Primary Biological Aerosol Particles | weather, environment, climate, labor, solar, water | SDG6, SDG7, SDG8, SDG13, SDG14 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Ball, Christopher | Smith, David G | Princess Point: Inter-community Variation and Localized Settlement-subsistence Practice | Anthropology | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation examines Princess Point macrobotanical remains as a means of identifying and exploring the nature and extent of inter-community variations in local subsistence practice, small-scale habitat production, and the operation of settlement-subsistence based communities of practice in Early Late Woodland Period (AD 500-1050) southern Ontario. The Princess Point Complex is one of a number of pre-contact cultures that existed throughout South-Central Ontario during the Early Late Woodland period and are likely ancestral to later Iroquoian societies (Saunders 2002). By employing multi-scalar, comparative analyses of eight Princess Point botanical assemblages, this project seeks to identify the critical similarities and differences between them as a means of better understanding to what extent Princess Point communities were either characterized by a strict adherence to a single, uniform settlement-subsistence strategy or differentiated from one another by variations in localized human-environmental relationships as evidenced by a reliance on differing suites of target resources. This study is also concerned with generating understandings of the social dynamics and environmental factors which may have underlain Princess Point settlement-subsistence decision-making processes. This study also explores the relative importance of localized subsistence-based communities of practice among the Princess Point and the degree to which Traditional Ecological Knowledge may have either been shared via cooperative action or developed in relative isolation via the independent operation of otherwise neighbouring or spatially affiliated pre-contact communities. Beyond the identification of significant inter-community variability in localized subsistence practice and site-level subsistence-based communities of practice among the Princess Point, this study also identifies a number of broader trends in Princess Point human-environmental relationships and highlights the flexible, often idiosyncratic, nature of localized Princess Point settlement-subsistence decision-making processes. Evidence presented in this study also suggests the parallel operation of a broader, more regionally consistent community of practice at the regional level. This study also engages more directly with questions pertaining to the organization of Princess Point community social dynamics. In this regard, Princess Point subsistence-based communities of practice appear to have represented largely autonomous social units within a broader, overarching cultural landscape characterized, in part, by an adherence to a shared set of traditional subsistence practices. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103731 | Communities of Practice||Environmental Archaeology||Northeast Archaeology||Palaeoethnobotany||Princess Point | ecolog, environment, production | SDG12, SDG13, SDG15 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Karanicolas, Michael | Su, Anna | Privatized Censorship – Developing Solutions to the Increasing Role of Platforms in Moderating Global Freedom of Expression | Law | 2019-11-01 | This paper addresses the challenges in online content moderation by private sector platforms, proposing an approach rooted in international human rights standards as the only legitimate source for defining the contours of global speech, and the best potential bulwark against platforms being subverted as tools for abusive government censorship. The paper begins by introducing freedom of expression as an international human right, and discussing its applicability to online speech, and the challenges in enhancing freedom of expression protections among online platforms. The paper then discusses the evolution of platforms’ content policies, and the role of global governments and their growing demands for aggressive moderation. The paper introduces a proposed solution, whereby international freedom of expression rules are adapted to create general standards for private sector content moderation structures, which may be interpreted and enhanced through a self-regulatory system. The paper ends by addressing potential challenges in implementing this system. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102977 | Censorship||Digital Rights||Freedom of Expression||Hate Speech||Internet Governance||Online Platforms | rights, governance | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Modupe, Oluwasegun | Diosady, Levente L. | Process Development for Quadruple Fortification of Salt | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2020-11-01 | This process was developed to simultaneously deliver iron, iodine, folic acid, and vitamin B12 for holistic prevention of anaemia and other risk factors for prenatal complications in vulnerable populations. Salt was chosen as the ‘vehicle’ for the micronutrients because ‘doses’ of the micronutrients can be predicted. The process was based on a cold forming extrusion-based microencapsulation (for making premix) that ensures that added micronutrients are stable, indistinguishably mixed with salt, do not segregate, and do not cause changes to the sensory characteristics of salt and foods. The dusting of the micronutrient premix with titanium dioxide masked its brown colour while its coating with soy stearin prevented the adverse moisture aided interaction between iron and iodine. The hydrophobic nature and the initial amount of soy stearin used for coating caused the micronutrient premix to float; contamination of TiO2 due to its recycling caused dark spots on the surface premix. Double coating with 5% hydroxypropyl methylcellulose and 5% soy stearin solved the floating problem; coating with a mixture of 15% TiO2 and 10% soy stearin solved both problems. The required pH (≥ 8) for full dissociation of folic acid, its solubility, and stability caused vitamin B12 instability; hence, both micronutrients cannot be added to salt through a solution. In salt, they were lost through oxidative degradation. The coextrusion of folic acid and vitamin B12 with ferrous fumarate (a reducing agent) minimized the oxidative degradation of the micronutrients. The colour masking and coating of the premix ensured that the micronutrients did not affect the colour of the salt. Also, the coextrusion prevented the micronutrients from photodegradation. The salt samples can deliver 50-200% recommended dietary allowances of the micronutrients based on the consumption of 10g of salt per day. The micronutrients were very stable in the salt and met the set target (70% retention after 6-month storage). Over 85% of the micronutrients were retained in salt after 6-month storage, even at 45 oC/60-70% RH. The micronutrients were stable in cooking and did not cause any changes to the sensory properties of the salt or food. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103198 | Folic Acid||Iodine||Iron||Process Development||Salt Fortification||Vitamin B12 | recycl, consum, food | SDG2, SDG12 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Davies, Adam | Sykes, Heather | Queering App-propriate Behaviours: The Affective Politics of Gay Social-sexual Applications in Toronto, Canada | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2021-03-01 | In conversation with affect theory, queer theory, and relevant social scientific literature, this thesis investigates the affective and feeling politics of gay socio-sexual applications (GSSAs). Specifically, this thesis investigates how GBQ men’s understandings of emotional connections—a term used in GSSAs, such as Grindr, to advertise the potentialities of such applications—are involved in the socio-sexual politics and constitution of normative gay men’s sexual subjectivities online and how online outreach workers and social service workers are implicated in and involved with such politics. Applying a feminist poststructural affect theory lens, this thesis uses Jackson and Mazzei’s (2011) process of “plugging-in” with different poststructural theories, such as Michel Foucault’s (1991) governmentality, Julia Kristeva’s (1982) abjection, and Sara Ahmed’s (2004a, 2004b, 2010a, 2010b) affective economies and promises of happiness to analyze what I term “fractions” of data. In the first data chapter, I apply Foucault’s theorization of governmentality to argue that subjects learn to navigate GSSAs through discourses of emotional regulation and restraint, while analyzing the politics of “emotional risk.” In the second data chapter, I apply Kristeva’s (1982) theorization of abjection to argue that the abjection of others and the abjection of the “self” take place within GSSAs through the rejection of emotional dependency upon others, romantic love, as well as the aspiration for neoliberal norms of individuality. In my third data chapter, I apply Sara Ahmed’s (2004a, 2004b, 2010a, 2010b) work on the promises of happiness and affective economies to argue that GSSAs promote certain affective economies of confidence and self-assuredness whereby subjects are encouraged to perform neoliberal subjectivities through promises of self-pleasure. In particular, I note how GSSAs, such as Grindr, hold differing “promises” for individuals that keep subjects bound to them and using them, even if they might seek to disconnect from such applications. Within each data chapter, I write a Deleuzian “intermezzo” section in reflection on my experiences in what I term “thinking/feeling/writing” within the affective assemblages of my research project. I close with a very un-final not-conclusion that articulates some further thoughts for online outreach as well as my own becomings within my research. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105012 | affect theory||gay men||internet||poststructuralism||queer theory||socio-sexual applications | worker, queer | SDG5, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Fontaine, Kathryne | Riendeau, Pascal | Raconter la Guerre dans la Littérature Contemporaine : éthique d’une poétique | French Language and Literature | 2021-03-01 | Cette thèse étudie la poétique instaurée par le récit littéraire pour raconter la guerre telle qu’elle se déroule à l’époque contemporaine. Les textes de théâtre Littoral (1999) et Incendies (2003) de Wajdi Mouawad et Cendres sur les mains (2002) de Laurent Gaudé, et les romans Zone (2008) de Mathias Énard, Les Événements (2014) de Jean Rolin et Écoutez nos défaites (2016) de Laurent Gaudé permettent d’y explorer quelles stratégies la fiction déploie pour surmonter les difficultés que suscite le thème de la guerre, qui renvoient toutes de près ou de loin au danger de fausser la mémoire d’un événement historique traumatisant pour des collectivités. L’objectif de cette étude est d’offrir une description et une analyse des univers sémiotiques créés par ces constructions narratives et de commenter leur valeur éthique et heuristique. Le premier chapitre fait ressortir le caractère interrelié des considérations narratologique et philosophique qui sous-tendent l’ensemble de la thèse, soit l’esthétique du récit, suivant des théoriciens comme Gérard Genette, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Michael Riffaterre, Jean-Pierre Esquenazi, Dominique Maingueneau et Paul Ricœur, et l’éthique, de Wayne Booth à Martha Nussbaum, en passant par Jacques Bouveresse et Pierre Macherey. Les trois chapitres subséquents rassemblent autour d’axes directeurs l’analyse narratologique, thématique et stylistique des œuvres du corpus. Le premier axe est celui de la transmission, explorée dans le chapitre 2. L’épistémologie des sciences historiques, le devoir de mémoire, des tactiques d’immersion fictionnelle et des indices de réflexivité y apparaissent comme autant de façons pour les récits de guerre d’assumer leur fonction indéniablement transitive. L’axe de la transgression est appréhendé au chapitre 3 sur le plan narratif, occasion de mesurer la portée du comique, de l’euphémisme et de l’horreur pour parler de la guerre, sur le plan institutionnel, où est jaugé le poids de tradition littéraire et de l’éthos auctorial, et sur le plan moral, où est effectuée une réflexion sur la responsabilité et sur la culpabilité. Le chapitre 4 porte sur la transposition. Il examine la façon dont les œuvres manient les récits traditionnels, les symboles, l’agentivité et la question des morts pour traduire l’expérience contemporaine de la guerre dans le langage. This dissertation studies the poetics established by the literary text to narrate war as it unfolds in contemporary times. Through the plays Littoral (1999) and Incendies (2003) by Wajdi Mouawad, Cendres sur les mains (2002) by Laurent Gaudé, and the novels Zone (2008) by Mathias Énard, Les Événements (2014) by Jean Rolin and Écoutez nos défaites (2016) by Laurent Gaudé, the study explores the strategies employed in fiction writing to overcome the difficulties inherent to the subject of war, which always, directly or indirectly, risks the danger of distorting the memory of a historical event which was traumatizing to a collectivity. The objective of this study is to provide a description and an analysis of the semiotic universes created by these narratives constructs, and to comment on their ethical and heuristic value. The first chapter explores the interrelated nature of the narratological and philosophical considerations underlying the study, namely the aesthetics of narrative, as theorized by Gérard Genette, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Michael Riffaterre, Jean-Pierre Esquenazi, Dominique Maingueneau and Paul Ricœur, and ethics, from Wayne Booth to Martha Nussbaum through Jacques Bouveresse and Pierre Macherey. The three subsequent chapters contain detailed narratological, thematic, and stylistic analyses of the primary works under consideration along three main axes. The first axis is that of transmission, examined in Chapter 2. The epistemology of historical sciences, the concept of the “duty to remember,” fictional immersion tactics and reflexivity indicators all appear in this chapter as ways for the war narrative o acknowledge its undeniable transmissive function. Chapter 3 analyzes the axis of transgression on the narrative plane to measure the possibilities of comedy, euphemism and horror to tell the story of war; on the institutional plane to gauge the weight of the literary tradition and of the author’s ethos; and on the moral plane to reflect on responsibility and guilt. Chapter 4 is about transposition. It details the way in which works of fiction employ traditional stories, symbols, agency, and matters surrounding the dead to translate the experience of the contemporary war into language. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104921 | Ethics||Fiction||History||Memory||Narratology||War | institut | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Da Silva, Michael Edward | Flood, Colleen M | Realizing the Right to Health Care in Canada | Law | 2018-06-01 | International and domestic laws increasingly recognize health rights; international law clearly recognizes a right to health that includes health care entitlements and approximately 69% of domestic constitutions include a right to health care. Recognition of a positive right to health care has been slower to emerge in Canada, but there are nascent signs that the judiciary is receptive to the idea in principle. Challenges nonetheless remain – existing articulations of rights to health care do not easily fit the traditional ‘claim-right’ model of rights and questions remain over how to operationalize health rights, including how to do so without overwhelming the public fisc. It is difficult to resolve these issues in a manner that accounts for the structure of health rights in domestic constitutional laws, international human rights law, and philosophy. This work addresses these challenges and offers an account of the right to health care that is philosophically sound and operationalizable by courts and policymakers. I argue that a positive right to health care is best understood as a set of claims to related morally important goals. This pluralist understanding of the right can fit a modified version of the claim-right model and is independently justifiable. It is also consistent with the structure of health rights in international human rights law and some existing positive constitutional health rights. I next explain how to measure compliance with this pluralist right, providing an account of what the right to health care must accomplish in concrete terms. I then apply the metrics that I developed to the Canadian health care system and explore how three branches of public law (constitutional law, human rights law, and administrative law) can improve Canada’s scores on those metrics. I ultimately argue that all three branches can be reformed to better realize the pluralist right to health care. | S.J.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101640 | Economic||social||and cultural rights||Health law||Health rights||Human rights||Philosophy of law||The right to health care | rights, health | SDG3, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Feinig, Nicholas | Satsuka, Shiho||Bamford, Sandra | Rearing the Family, Moving Society: Rethinking Gender, Kinship, and Work through Japan’s Fathering Movement | Anthropology | 2020-11-01 | Based on fieldwork conducted in Tokyo from 2015 to 2016 around the non-profit organization “Fathering Japan”, this ethnography follows the practice of fatherhood among participants of ikumen movements. Often translated as “childrearing man”, ikumen refers to fathers who actively engage in chores and childcare. Ikumen movements emerged as Japan’s powerful corporations weakened following the economic downturn of the early 1990s. Neoliberal restructuring across the following decades has further undercut the financial stability of households as secure fulltime positions with a “family wage” are replaced by precarious contract work. With dual income homes becoming the norm, ikumen have become a key figure in the renegotiation of the gendered division of labour. While originally a grassroots effort led by activist fathers campaigning for the recognition and legal protection of paternity leave, the ikumen concept has since been adopted by the state and industry. Recent state initiatives promote ikumen as national heroes shoring up the nation’s sagging birthrate and economy, while branded “masculine” lifestyle publications hail ikumen as fashionable consumers. In this context, how do ikumen movement participants negotiate the existing middle-class masculine norm of the salaryman – a salaried corporate worker – and this emerging model of nurturing fatherhood? By closely attending to the complexities and nuances of the everyday practice of fatherhood among ikumen, this dissertation documents how these men weave their experience as fathers and employees together with family history and memory. In this process, they cultivate diverse forms of relationality beyond the parent-child bond. By enacting caring fatherhood in their homes, communities, and workplaces, they also compose fluid and flexible masculine identities. The dissertation argues that the “fathering” or “rearing” of a child is a practice that not only changes men’s relationship with children and spouses, but also forges new kinds of relationships with neighbors, “papa” friends, co-workers, and society. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103308 | Care||Fatherhood||Gender||Japan||Kinship||Masculinity | consum, industr, wage, worker, labour, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG9, SDG12 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Ellis, Adam R | Wortley, Scot | Reconceptualizing Urban Warfare In Canada: Exploring the Relationship between Trauma, Post-traumatic Stress, And Violence Among Male Combat Soldiers and 'Street Soldiers' | Criminology | 2020-11-01 | When we hear the word “trauma” we often conflate this term with the experiences of combat soldiers returning from war. While the current state of the art on trauma/Dissociation and PTSD has predominantly focused on the traumatic experiences of combat soldiers, less is known about other vulnerable populations who are exposed to similar types of war-related violence, including gang members (or street soldiers). Drawing on a multiple-case study approach, including, in-depth qualitative interviews, my study compared and contrasted the experiences/stories of combat veterans with those of ex-gang members as a way to understand the psychological sequelae of “gang violence”. Building on the knowledge on combat trauma, I sought to develop a Trauma-Based Theory of Gang Violence that identifies how pre-existing (i.e. poverty, masculinity and exposure to “pre-war” violence), peri-traumatic (i.e. indoctrination and exposure to violence) and post-traumatic factors (i.e. transition stress, post-traumatic stress and the reenactment of trauma) may contribute to gang membership and the cycle of violence that permeates marginalized/gang-dominated communities. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103501 | Gang Violence||PTSD||Trauma | urban, poverty | SDG1, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Orr, Krystn | Arbour-Nicitopoulos, Kelly P | Recreational Sport Programs for Emerging Adults with a Disability: Exploring Quality Experiences and the Social Environment | Exercise Sciences | 2020-11-01 | Recreational sport provides leisure and community opportunities to many individuals. Specifically, recreational sport can provide continuity during the transition from adolescence to adulthood when many life changes occur (e.g., school, work). For individuals with a disability, this transitional period (ages 18 – 25 years) may be extremely important as there is an abrupt ending to community programming after adolescence. This doctoral research program explored the social and transitionary experiences of emerging adults with a disability in recreational sport programs. Study 1, a scoping review of the peer-reviewed literature, identified limited research and a lack of explicit discussion of peer interactions in recreational sport programs for emerging adults with a disability. Study 2 used a mixed methods approach to observe and explore the peer interactions that occur for emerging adults with a disability within recreational sport programs. Conducted in communities across Ontario (two women, six men, and three sport programs), Study 2 combined dynamic systems and qualitative approaches to highlight the non-normative ways individuals with a disability may interact and achieve a sense of belonging on a recreational sports team. Finally, Study 3 presents a case study of a recreational paddling program for individuals with an intellectual disability. All persons involved in the program (i.e., administration, coaches, athletes, and parents) engaged in a multi-method, two-month case study of the social environment, development, and experiences of participating in such a program with attention focused on the role peers may (not) have. Study 3 highlights issues of disablism – socially-imposed barriers to full participation – that occurred within the paddling program and the necessity of coach training regulation to ensure coaches understand foundational coaching strategies along with disability-relevant knowledge (e.g., communication strategies). Overall, this doctoral research program highlights the individuality in social experiences within recreational sport contexts, the extended role of parents in their adult children’s lives, and the role that recreational sport can play on the transitionary experiences of emerging adults with a disability. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103755 | Disability||Participation||Peers||Qualitative||Recreational Sport||Social Environment | environment, women | SDG5, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Guzman, Igor | Papangelakis, Vladimiros G||Thorpe, Steven J | Redox Potential Measurements of Aqueous Systems at High Temperature and High Pressure | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2018-06-01 | Redox potential is an essential variable for characterizing aqueous systems. Its measurement can be beneficial in providing insight into hydrometallurgical processes. An Ir electrode was validated for redox potential measurements at high temperature and high pressure. Measurements were performed using two different flow-through electrochemical cells (FTEC): one with a Ag/AgCl flow-through external pressure balance reference electrode (FTEPBRE), and the second one was a linear FTEC with an Ir quasi-reference electrode. The potential was measured for the H2SO4-FeSO4-Fe2(SO4)3-H2O system for concentrations of 1 M H2SO4, 10-2 M Fe(III), and 10-4–10-2 M Fe(II) at 34 MPa, up to 200 °C, and, for the linear FTEC, at flow rates of 0.2–1.5 mL/min. The change in potential measured with the Ir electrode behaved according to the Nernst equation upon changes in the test solution, and were consistent with the corresponding estimated potential variation predicted by the Aqueous model from the OLI® System software. The Ir working electrode combined with the Ir quasi-reference electrode were fit into a 2 L autoclave to measure the solution potential during pressure oxidation (POX) of two sulfide materials, pyrite and a refractory gold ore, at 200–230 °C, 345–760 kPa O2 overpressure, and, for the refractory ore, 10–30 wt-%, conditions found in the industry. The measured potentials were related to the ratio [Fe(III)]/[Fe(II)], indicating that the mixed potential in solution is dictated by the Nernst potential of the Fe3+/Fe2+ half reaction. An acidic solution is necessary to sustain soluble iron and therefore accomplish meaningful potential measurements; the Ir electrode operated properly at concentrations 0.3–100 mM for Fe(II) and Fe(III). The measured potential, together with the oxygen consumption during POX of the refractory ore, were used to identify the moment when maximum conversion of sulfide material was achieved. Most POX processes operate at conditions that allows the implementation of the developed sensor and the measured potentials could be used to optimize these processes. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101630 | aqueous solution||flow-through electrochemical cell||High temperature / high pressure||Ir electrode||pressure oxidation leaching||Redox potential | consum, industr | SDG9, SDG12 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Tersigni, Elisa Maria | McLeod, Randall | Reforming English: English Catholic and Protestant Propaganda, 1526–1563 | English | 2018-11-01 | The ecclesiastical and political reformations of sixteenth-century England were paralleled by an English linguistic reformation, during which the language itself was reformed to have Protestant associations or erase perceived Catholic bias. To illustrate this thesis, I move from micro- to macro-analysis of language. Chapter One examines the relationship between a woman writer and a male editor of Protestant propagandist literature: Anne Askew and John Bale. With his interventions in The Examinations of Anne Askew, Bale not only controlled a woman’s language, but also altered it to have her speak in a Protestant register. To complement this chapter, I append three editions of works edited by Bale—The Examinations of Anne Askew, The Examinations of John Oldcastle, and Princess Elizabeth Tudor’s Glass—which I prepared to allow readers to grasp the scope of Bale’s editing. Chapter Two identifies Catholic and Protestant vocabularies, located by searching Early English Books Online for phrases I argue served as intra- and inter-textual techniques for marking the “common” tongue, with which Catholic words are associated, and technical registers, one of which is Protestant. The chapter also suggests that the change in English of the period might be understood as a “lexoclasm” that mirrored the iconoclasm of the period. Chapter Three uses a corpus I developed of 43 English letterwriters from 1450 to 1730 to situate the linguistic reformation within what is recognized as the transition from pre-modern to early-modern English. I identify six registers (men’s and women’s, early and late, rural and urban). I then return to the issue of gender, to argue that men’s editing of women’s early-modern English writing erases some feminine qualities of their English. This erasure of feminine qualities paradoxically has the effect of promoting these women in the long run by reducing spelling variation and thereby making their texts more searchable in databases. The project concludes with a reflection on the difficulties of historical research amid a shift towards digital technologies. Here, I detail my struggles to produce a project within a shifting body of evidence, and I liken it to the struggles of English propagandists writing within a linguistic reformation. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102943 | Digital Humanities||Early Modern English||Early Modern Literature||Textual Studies||The English Reformation||Women's Writing | rural, urban, women, gender | SDG5, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Cameron, Geoffrey | Hansen, Randall | Religion and Refugees: The Evolution of Resettlement in the United States and Canada | Political Science | 2018-11-01 | This dissertation compares the evolution of refugee resettlement policy in the United States and Canada between 1945 and 1980. The contingent responses of both countries to displaced people after the Second World War evolved in the context of subsequent refugee crises during the Cold War, generating institutional configurations that became formalized in major refugee legislation passed in 1976 (Canada) and 1980 (United States). The mobilization and engagement of religious groups with the policy process was a central dynamic over time. In the United States, their interaction with Congress produced a corporatist structure of cooperation that persists to this day; nine voluntary groups implement the entirety of the United States’ annual resettlement program. In Canada, decision-making was centred in the bureaucracy, where a reluctant partnership with religious groups produced privately-funded refugee sponsorship as a complement to government-managed refugee programs. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102868 | Canada||Cold War||Immigration Policy||Refugee Policy||Refugee Resettlement||United States | institut | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Shickluna, Dawn Marie | Mojab, Shahrzad | Remembering as Praxis: Reconceptualizing Structural and State-sanctioned Violence, Oppression, and Trauma through Radical Survival Narrative Pedagogy | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | This study looks at women’s narratives as entry points to understanding the gendered and racialized nature of the experiences of violence, oppression, trauma, resistance, and survival, and their connections to patriarchal capitalist relations of imperialism and colonialism across national and cultural boundaries. The first section establishes the theoretical and epistemological framework of transnational feminist theory and Dialectical Historical Materialism, forming a praxis that posits the need to examine macro structures such as imperialism and colonialism, in ways that forefront the material realities of women’s lives and the historical, material conditions that have produced their experiences and stories. The second section presents a narrative analysis within this theoretical framework. The data include narratives by Indigenous survivors of Residential Schools in settler colonial Canada, testimonios of revolutionary struggle from Central America, and political prisoner memoirs from the Middle East. The analysis traces threads of violence, trauma, resistance, and survival which emphasize the connections between the personal and the political, and between private and public memory, and call us to consider how we may challenge, decolonize, and confront dominant ideologies and collective post-trauma/survival subjectivities and solidarities. From this analysis and a critique of mainstream conceptualizations of trauma and the concept of ‘trauma texts,’ I offer the concept of ‘radical survival narratives,’ informed by the narratives themselves, as well as by the concept of ‘radical vulnerability’ from Social Justice and Critical Disability Studies, and the Indigenous literary theory concept of ‘survivance.’ The third section is the development of an arts-based pedagogic framework for community-based and formal education settings. Through both its content and process, this pedagogy of the radical survival narratives is aimed at developing learners’ understanding of the social relations of colonialism and imperialism within patriarchal capitalism and reframing our understanding of violence and trauma through a pedagogy of these narratives. The pedagogy further highlights resistance and survival, pushing back against capitalist, colonialist, imperialist structures and agendas, and building strength and solidarity. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103221 | Dialectical historical materialism||Life Narratives||Pedagogy||State-sanctioned violence||Structural Violence||Trauma | justice, women, gender, educat | SDG4, SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Tarhan, Mumtaz Derya | Vieta, Marcelo A | Renewable Energy Co-operatives and the Struggle for “Critical” Energy Democracy: The Case of Ontario | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2020-11-01 | The introduction of the Feed-in tariff (FIT) program in Ontario in 2010, with specific considerations for community-owned renewable energy (CE) initiatives, was a turning point for renewable energy co-operatives (RE co-ops) in the province as their numbers jumped from only two to 111 by 2016. RE co-ops, along with other CE initiatives, are considered to be important actors in the democratization of electricity systems by a growing body of activist and, recently, a field of scholarship called “energy democracy”. In the light of this recent surge of RE co-op activity in Ontario, I ask: In what ways did RE co-ops democratize Ontario’s electricity system and what are their limitations and future potential in doing so? In order to answer this question, I develop a theoretical framework called “critical energy democracy”, rooted in critical theories of capitalist political economy, technology, and democracy. Through this lens, I assess RE co-op activity in Ontario by deploying a novel combination of three research methods: (1) A political economy analysis of the history of electricity governance and infrastructure in Ontario, based on a combination of literature review and documentary research. (2) Semi-structured interviews with what I call “leading RE co-op members”, or those closely involved in the governance of their co-op, to reveal the experiences of RE co-ops in Ontario. And (3) semi-structured interviews with what I call “investor-members”, based on a social learning theory and method, to reveal instances of nonformal, informal, and tacit member learning. Overall, this study reveals that market-based policies under capitalist social relations severely constrain the application of community energy models to affluent communities. Given their inaccessibility to marginalized community members and lack of an explicit anti-capitalist social justice agenda, RE co-ops’ impact and potential in advancing a critical form of energy democracy in Ontario has been limited at best. Further, Ontario’s experiment serves as a lesson to policy-makers, academics, and social movements alike that public policies and programs should by design prioritize the immediate energy-related needs of marginalized communities. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103798 | Co-operative studies||Community energy||Critical technology studies||Critical theory||Energy democracy||Social learning | governance, justice, infrastructure, renewabl, energy | SDG7, SDG9, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Hepburn, Shamette | Coloma, Roland S. | Residential Selection at Retirement: A Visual Ethnography Exploring the Later Life Mobilities of Jamaican Canadian Transmigrants | Social Justice Education | 2018-06-01 | This thesis focuses on the migratory life course and everyday life geographies of Jamaican Canadian older adults in order to document, analyze, and share how they sustain their social and economic wellbeing. My research questions are: What are the experiences of Jamaican Canadian transmigrant older adults who live in and across Canada and Jamaica? As racialized older adults, what factors determine their geographical options at retirement? How do systemic barriers stemming from intersections of age, race, gender, and class impact their mobility strategies and decisions? My research is informed by my preliminary empirical studies (Hepburn, 2011; Hepburn et al., 2015) and by my five-year professional background as a gerontological social worker in Toronto. To understand the life course of racialized transmigrant older adults, my study utilizes visual ethnography, operationalized as photovoice in conjunction with constructivist grounded theory methods, to advance a new theoretical framework propitious for social work practice. To address the study’s central questions, my data collection took place in Toronto, Canada and in Trelawny and Manchester, Jamaica. I examined the lives and living conditions of 12 Jamaican Canadian older adults categorized into three groups: those who decided to stay in Canada permanently; those who reside in both Canada and Jamaica; and those who returned to Jamaica permanently. For feasibility, data from five participants who represented information-rich cases were selected for this thesis. In what is largely a critique of mainstream social gerontology and migration studies, I propose a “critical transnational ethnogerontology framework” based on the ways in which Jamaican Canadian older adults navigate transnational spaces. This framework is generative for social work because it broadens the gerontological imagination and revises social work’s theoretical, methodological and practice models that are bounded within the nation-state and linear conceptions of the life course. Transmigrant mobility presents social workers with challenges, such as how to deliver services to older adults who move between countries, what their needs are, and how to develop support networks beyond a singular state. My study provides a new theoretical framework, relevant empirical data, methodological innovation, and policy and practical recommendations for the later life adaptations of transmigrant racialized older adults to an increasingly insecure, globalized world. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101610 | Ageing||Jamaican Canadian||Migration||Older Adults||Transnationalism||Visual Ethnography | innovat, worker, gender, wellbeing | SDG3, SDG5, SDG8, SDG9 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Banerjee, Kiran Meisan | Carens, Joseph||Bertoldi, Nancy | Rethinking Membership: Statelessness, Domination, and the Limits of Contemporary Citizenship | Political Science | 2016-11-01 | This dissertation examines the politics and ethics of forced migration from both a conceptual and normative perspective. The dissertation does so by focusing on the phenomenon of what Hannah Arendt referred to as ‘statelessness’—a term which is deployed in this project in an extended sense that includes all persons who might be in need of international protection because their own state is unable or unwilling to effectively secure their human rights. In approaching statelessness from the perspective of political theory, the primary task of my dissertation is to offer a novel conceptual account of the harm that is done by statelessness or the de facto loss of membership within a political community and what this entails for how we ought to respond to the global reality of forced displacement. In doing so, this project challenges conventional approaches and intuitions regarding our ethical responsibilities to refugees and others categories of displaced persons. The goal of this critical reconstruction is to recast the nature of our responsibilities as obligations of justice, as opposed to those of humanitarian assistance. At the same time, this account also foregrounds the importance of constructing fair and effective responses to these forms of exclusion that attend to the role of agency in remedying the loss of membership. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101659 | Forced Migration||Global Justice||International Ethics||Political Theory||Refugees||Statelessness | rights, justice | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Shoikhedbrod, Igor | Chambers, Simone||Kohn, Margaret | Rights Discourse and Economic Domination: Thinking Beyond the Narrow Horizon of Liberal Justice | Political Science | 2018-06-01 | This dissertation offers a theoretical reconstruction of Karl Marx’s materialist conception of right through a re-examination of his critique of liberalism. The liberal conception of justice regards individuals as equal rights-bearers in abstraction from material circumstances and asymmetries of economic power. The dominant interpretation among leading Marxist and Anglo-American political theorists is that Marx’s critique of liberalism culminates with the “withering away” of right and rights in post-capitalist society. Explanations for this view have been framed around the postulation that communist society transcends the “circumstances of justice,” and that the end of class domination would pave the way for the disappearance of juridical relations. The first part of the dissertation questions this longstanding interpretation by reconstructing Marx’s materialist conception of right. The central thesis of the dissertation is that Marx regards right as an essential feature of any mode of production, including the future communist society, and that standards of right undergo transformation throughout history. The historical expansion of human freedom also provides Marx with a normative basis for assessing between higher and lower standards of right across different modes of production. The second part of the dissertation tracks the enduring legacy of Marx’s critique of liberal justice by examining how leading contemporary political theorists have responded to Marx’s challenge in the face of global financial capitalism and the hollowing out of democratically-enacted law. The dissertation also reconsiders the relationship between Marxism and the idea of the rule of law in the current era of neoliberal hegemony. Taken together, the dissertation aims at reconstructing Marx’s views on right and rights in ways that resonate with ongoing debates in political theory and the broader public sphere. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101656 | Justice||Legality||Liberalism||Marx and Marxism||Rights||Socialism | rights, justice, production | SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Aitken, Craig | Stern, Simon | Rights to Confidential Information at Private Law | Law | 2020-11-01 | This thesis explores what it means to control, own, or have a proprietary interest in information. The Anglo-American civil litigation system rejects property as an actionable basis to assert rights over secret or confidential information. Simultaneously, other components of our legal system allow private actors to treat confidential information as intangible property, at least in the sense of constituting a controllable asset. We explore the melange of legal doctrinal developments that have allowed firms to commodify information, including trade secrecy law, the breach of confidence action, intellectual property law, and certain contractual mechanisms. Within legal theory this question is wound up in the information-property debate and the Legal Realist bundle of rights depiction of property. We use a Hohfeldian-Honoré analytical lens to untangle this perspective, and to articulate the contours of the zone of control that information rights holders wield over informational assets. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103508 | Confidential Information||Jurisprudence||Ownership||Property Theory||Proprietary Rights||Trade Secrets | rights, trade | SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Chien, Yi-Chun | Wong, Joseph||Peng, Ito | Rights to Settle? —Comparing Migrant Care Worker Policies in Taiwan and South Korea | Political Science | 2019-03-01 | Industrialized countries around the world are facing rapid demographic changes, including declining fertility rates, greater longevity, and an aging population, and these are creating unprecedented challenges in care provision. Many East Asian countries have used migrant care workers to solve the challenges of labour shortages in the social welfare sector. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand why East Asian countries have adopted different policy approaches to recruit migrant care workers. Specifically, it investigates why Taiwan’s policies are designed to recruit “household care workers with a temporary contract” while South Korea’s policies focus on “institutional care workers with access to long-term settlement”? The dissertation explores this question by probing the politics of eldercare and care migration and tracing the development of migrant care worker policies. By employing a framework that intersects care, employment and migration regimes, it highlights the institutional contexts that shape how a country designs its migrant care worker policies. It argues that migrant care worker policies manifest how care work, citizenship, and gender equality are defined and contested by the receiving society. It also demonstrates how the development of migrant care worker policies reflects the legacies of earlier policy decisions, by illuminating the political actors with access to the policymaking process. Based on archival research and 53 personal interviews with government bureaucrats, policymakers and migrant worker activists, the dissertation maps out the political mechanisms that determine the levels of rights, labour mobility, and access to membership rights for migrant care workers in Taiwan and South Korea. It challenges conventional understandings of policy as formal and static and posits the formation of migrant care worker policy as an organic process which is modified and contested as part of a political process. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105130 | Care Migration||East Asia||Eldercare||Migrant Care Workers||Migration Policy||Welfare State | rights, institut, industr, worker, labour, employment, equality, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG9, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Khoo, Yishin | Khoo, Yishin | River Flowing and Fire Burning: A Narrative Inquiry into a Teacher’s Experience of Learning to Educate for Citizenship — from the Local to the Global — through a Shifting Canada-China Inter-School Reciprocal Professional Learning Landscape | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2018-11-01 | Situated within a Canada-China Reciprocal Learning Partnership project (2013-2020) funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, this four-year study adopts practical narrative inquiry as its theoretical and methodological framework to explore how selected Toronto-based teachers developed their storied experiences and knowledge to educate for citizenship, while teaching in their globalized professional settings shaped by Canada-China Sister School reciprocal learning partnerships. By restorying and inquiring into the curriculum-making experience of one particular teacher, Ann Barton, on her evolving Canada-China Sister School landscape, this study engages the metaphors of river flowing and fire burning to illustrate how a teacher becomes a more globally oriented and informed citizenship educator, through telling and living, and retelling and reliving her stories of building a democratic classroom community on a changing Sister School landscape. It also repositions “narrative inquiry” as an educative and generative Way that could be practiced and engaged to nurture a collaborative professional reciprocal-learning community on a Canada-China inter-school landscape that supports teachers in their effort to retell and relive their cultural and historical narrative of educating for citizenship in the midst of their daily classroom-curriculum making. Such a collaborative reciprocal learning community has the potential to transform teachers’ classroom/school into a space where in-service citizenship professional learning can take place within a global-local dialectics, and where practicing teachers can not only educate for citizenship from the local to the global, but also learn to develop their passion, integrity and identity as citizen-teachers in a globalized, multicultural, still problematic and fragmented world. The study ends with an invitation for educators and learners to rethink and reimagine citizenship teaching and learning using the paired imageries of river flowing and fire burning, and through personal and collective storytelling and reflections, across geographies, boundaries and differences. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102932 | Canada-China||Citizenship Education||Global Education||Narrative Inquiry||Professional Learning||Reciprocal Learning | labor, educat | SDG4, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Dai, Changsheng | Sun, Yu | Robotic Cell Manipulation for Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2020-11-01 | Infertility is a global health issue and affects millions of people. ICSI is the most commonly used technique for infertility treatment, and it achieved higher live birth rate than artificial insemination. ICSI involves the injection of a single sperm into an oocyte with a sharp glass micropipette. However, manual operation of ICSI suffers from inconsistency and potential damage to the cells. This research has addressed these two limitations by developing techniques of automation and less invasiveness for ICSI. Automated system was developed for measuring both motility and morphology of individual live sperm, to provide quantitative data for embryologists to select a single sperm for ICSI. The system has been validated to be highly reproducible and reliable. With customized design to add rotational degree of freedom, robotic micropipette alignment was developed based on kinematics modeling and controller design. The accurate alignment helped increase the success rate of sperm immobilization. Automated sperm aspiration was also proposed by establishing a nonlinear dynamics model and an adaptive controller to achieve high positioning accuracy within micropipette. To reduce cell damage during ICSI operation, robotic orientation control of deformable cells was developed. Polar body needs to be rotated towards 12 o'clock orientation before injection to prevent damaging the spindle. Deep neural networks were trained for robust detection of polar bodies to provide visual feedback. By force modeling and optimal control, an oocyte can be effectively rotated while consistently maintaining minimal cell deformation to avoid cell damage. Oocytes also suffer large deformation during injection, and cytoplasm needs to be aspirated into the micropipette to break oolemma. A new piezo drill was designed to penetrate the oocyte with less deformation and without cytoplasm aspiration. Robotic techniques were also developed to minimize the disturbance of piezo drill to cytoplasm. These techniques of robotic cell manipulation for clinical ICSI can achieve consistent outcomes independent of operator training and experience, increase operation safety by removal of human errors, and improve outcomes by reducing cell damage. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103532 | Automation||In Vitro Fertilization||Robotics||Sperm | urban, health | SDG3, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Vedadi, Farhang | Valaee, Shahrokh | Robust Egomotion Estimation for Automatic and Crowdsourcing-Based Indoor Localization and Tracking | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2018-06-01 | Indoor localization has been an active research in recent years. Among many different algorithms proposed, fingerprinting-based methods have found a great popularity due to ease of deployment and high accuracy. A major disadvantage to fingerprinting-based methods, is the burden of the training phase in which fingerprints of a certain type of a signal are recorded in many known locations inside the indoor environment. The collected dataset of fingerprints and corresponding locations is then used to model the relationship between fingerprints and locations in order to use that model to localize future queried fingerprints. This process is usually time consuming and requires considerable human effort and expertise. To overcome the burden of the training phase, in this thesis, we discuss two different perspectives towards solving these problems. We refer to these perspectives as: automatic fingerprinting and, crowdsourcing-based fingerprint-location dataset generation. The former, aims to reduce the time and effort put by an expert to generate the fingerprint dataset by automatically estimating the location of the collected fingerprints while the expert walks in the environment, hence reducing the training time from typically several hours to a few minutes needed to walk in the target indoor area. The latter method, aims to approach the problem by leveraging the shared data from the users in an indoor environment, hence eliminating the need for an expert to repeat the training process to update the dataset of fingerprints. Both perspectives above can expedite the widespread use of fingerprinting-based methods of localization for indoors by alleviating the burden of the training phase which currently seems to be the major drawback for this popular category of indoor localization systems. We will propose, design and validate algorithms for each of these methods. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101662 | Crowdsourcing||Egomotion||Fingerprinting||Indoor Localization||Indoor Tracking||Stereo Vision | environment, consum | SDG12, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Bejan, Raluca | Tsang, A. Ka Tat | Sameness and Difference in Canada and the UK: Interrogating whiteness as a categorical marker within interpretative matrices of inclusion and exclusion | Social Work | 2018-11-01 | This dissertation contests the ontological social work interpretations addressing issues of societal inclusion and exclusion for migrant populations. Outcomes of societal advantage and disadvantage, of privilege and oppression, as the colloquial social work jargon designates, resulting from distributive inclusionary-exclusionary processes, are generally abstracted on identitarian categorical markers (i.e., gender, class, race) and subsequently interpreted through intersectional matrices of analysis. Categorical whiteness, taken as a fixed classification to denote fair skin colour possessed by those originating from Caucasian racial ancestries, particularly from European ethnic backgrounds, has grown to represent the universal marker grounding analyses of privilege. Yet the assumption that whiteness is the same (i.e., European, biologically marked by skin colour and privileged) across the globe, in every social circumstance, and universally traversing national communities of value, is highly problematic, since interpretations of categorical markers depend on particular geo-political and national referential frames. In comparing and contrasting the inclusionary and exclusionary logic determining aspects of societal marginalization for two populations, skilled migrants to Canada, and Romanian and Bulgarian migrants to United Kingdom (UK), this dissertation demonstrates that: 1) a universal taxonomy of whiteness as explanatory for outcomes of inclusion and exclusion does not hold within transnational contexts; 2) current understandings of ontological whiteness are constructed on a false epistemological presumption of equivalence that synonymizes colonialism with Europeanness, Europeanness with whiteness, and whiteness with colonialism; 3) the theory of intersectionality, generally used to contextualize particular outcomes of privilege and oppression, is limited in analyzing inclusionary-exclusionary processes; and it proposes, in turn: 4) the adoption of a sameness-difference dialectical reasoning to guide inclusionary/exclusionary analyses for transnational migrant populations. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102854 | Exclusion||Identity||Inclusion||Migration||Nationality||Whiteness | gender | SDG5 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Ross, Timothy Paul | Buliung, Ronald | School Travel for Families Living with Childhood Disability | Geography | 2019-06-01 | The rise of automobility during the past century has contributed to children becoming more sedentary and isolated from public life and, correspondingly, exhibiting reduced independent mobility and a troubling range of chronic health problems. Concern over these issues has led to an increase in attention to school transportation among planning scholars and practitioners. School transportation has come to be regarded as an opportunity for creating change since converting sedentary trips to and from school into trips involving active modes could help to mitigate the children’s health issues. Unfortunately, the increased attention to school transportation has come to pass with little regard for childhood disability. This dissertation engages school transportation’s childhood disability gap. Using a critical ableist studies perspective, attention is given to questioning and unsettling the ableist normative ordering of childhood disability as excludable within the planning and design of school transportation and school sites. A systematic review of disability’s treatment in the active school travel and children’s independent mobility literatures demonstrates and offers insight into the childhood disability gap. Following this is a presentation of an ethnographic research design that used photovoice, institutional ethnographic conceptual tools, and numerous inclusive measures to study how families living with childhood disability experience everyday school travel across Ontario, Canada’s Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Pilot study findings are then presented and discussed to demonstrate the value of piloting qualitative research designs involving disabled children. Lastly, findings about how families of disabled children experience parking at school are considered. The findings show how the families are expected and relied on to take on various types of inequitable work (e.g., work that is social, physical, and temporal in nature) to overcome normalized, ableist school site designs. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101746 | childhood disability||critical ableist studies||inclusive design||photovoice||pilot study||school transport | institut, equitable, inclusiv, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Sperling, Erin R. | Gagné, Antoinette | ScienCivic Literacy: An Ethnographic Case Study of Food Justice Education Through an Ecojustice Lens | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | In a time of crisis, during a global pandemic, climate change and racial unrest, access to food is a heavily pressing issue, impacting and impacted by overlapping social, cultural, sustainability and physiological spheres. This dissertation presents an ethnographic case study, as a participant-observer, of community-based research with teenage women and adult facilitators in an afterschool program of a food justice organization in an urban centre in Canada over the course of a year. It is guided by the overarching question of what are the envisioned, enacted and experienced curricular moments in a community-based after school food justice education program. It examines the factors that impacted the envisioned and enacted curriculum as developed and delivered by adult facilitators, as well as the factors that influenced the youth experiences of the enacted programming, and the nature of those impacts. Sources of data included field notes, interviews, documents and artefacts. Ecojustice education is presented as an integrated conceptual framework for analysis through overlapping fields of environmental education as a subset of science education, citizenship education and social ecology theory, all within a critical pedagogy of place, highlighting both the potentials and challenges encountered in this case of food justice education. The findings show facilitators provided insight to the mainly structural challenges that may have inhibited deeper experiences for the youth, such as access to and continuity in the program, staffing, and space constraints. Notably, youth expressed an increase in their leadership capacity and desire to make changes for themselves and their families in relation to food. As an interdisciplinary topic, food justice education offered participants a means to the integration of narrative, agency development, and community building for individual and social change. Ultimately, this research articulates the reciprocal relationship of learning through food and learning for food justice as a space for the development of ‘ScienCivic’ literacy, the development of knowledge and skills for engagement with complex socioscientific issues. | Ed.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103331 | Ecojustice education||Ethnographic case study||Food justice education||Interdisciplinarity||Non-formal education||ScienCivic literacy | justice, ecolog, environment, climate, urban, women, educat, food | SDG2, SDG4, SDG5, SDG11, SDG13, SDG15, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
| Loiacono, Matthew M | Grootendorst, Paul||Chit, Ayman | Seasonal Influenza Vaccine: Factors of Uptake and Interventions to Increase Coverage | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2021-03-01 | Seasonal influenza vaccines (SIVs) are the most effective means of reducing influenza associated morbidity and mortality, conferring both substantial public health and economic benefits to society. Yet, SIV coverage remains suboptimal and stagnant across many jurisdictions. Effective policy and strategies to improve SIV coverage are built upon a sound understanding of the underlying determinants of SIV uptake. Further, there is an apparent need to develop and assess of innovative, low-cost, scalable interventions so as to increase coverage.Accordingly, there are two primary objectives we aim to accomplish in this Thesis: 1) investigate the factors of SIV uptake among an age-stratified at-risk adult population, and 2) develop and assess innovative, scalable interventions to increase SIV uptake. 1. Investigate Factors of SIV Uptake among an Age-Stratified At-Risk Adult Population Using a large primary care database from England, we investigate patient-, practice-, and season-level factors associated with SIV uptake among an age-stratified population of at-risk adults. With this study, we aim to not only identify uptake determinants, but also identify factors that are differentially associated by age, as these findings may help inform policy and the design of targeted interventions. 2. Develop and Assess Innovative, Scalable Interventions to Increase SIV Uptake First, leveraging big data and predictive modeling, we develop and validate a clinical prediction tool for seasonal influenza vaccination. Based solely upon patient characteristics identified in a primary care database, we train and validate models to predict patient-level SIV uptake among a population of at-risk adults. With HCPs under increasingly restrictive time constraints, timely identification of patients likely to miss influenza vaccination may help HCPs tailor services and to improve efficiency.Second, in collaboration with a national network of retail pharmacies (Walmart, US), we design, implement, and evaluate a multimodal approach to improving SIV uptake during the 2019/20 influenza season. Specifically, we assess the impact of a randomized Peer Comparison (PC) intervention and a previously developed relational communications training on pharmacy-level SIV uptake across more than 4,500 retail pharmacy sites in the US. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104920 | determinants||influenza||influenza vaccine||vaccine coverage||vaccine uptake | innovat, labor, health | SDG3, SDG8, SDG9 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Eaton, Andrew David | Craig, Shelley L||Walmsley, Sharon L | Selecting Interventions, Engaging Community, and Implementing a Pilot Randomized, Controlled Trial of Group Therapy for People Aging with HIV-associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND) | Social Work | 2021-03-01 | Cognitive impairment is an important comorbidity for people aging with HIV. Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and its associated medical complications are common causes for cognitive impairment, termed HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND). Up to 30-50% of those living and aging with HIV may experience some form of HAND, primarily its mild-to-moderate form. The symptoms of HAND may increase stress and anxiety and impede coping, yet practitioners lack non-medical techniques to address these psychosocial factors. Exploratory research and a stated community need point towards the potential role for group therapies that integrate the complementary intervention strategies of mindfulness and brain training strategies as promising ways to support emotional and practical coping with cognitive challenges. This dissertation is comprised of an introduction, three distinct papers, and a conclusion. Paper 1 is a realist review of mindfulness and cognitive training interventions that social workers have used to address cognitive challenges in older adults, forming the background to consider implementation of these techniques for people aging with HIV. Paper 2 discuss the importance of community-based participatory research (CBPR) through the author’s previous CBPR studies and a description of community engagement in the development of a pilot study of group therapy for people aging with HAND. Paper 3 describes the design, conduct and implementation of a pilot randomized, controlled trial that compared feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and exploratory outcomes of a novel Cognitive Remediation Group Therapy (CRGT) to an active control of Mutual Aid Group Therapy for people aging with HAND. As the first exploratory trial of group therapy for people with cognitive impairment related to HAND, this dissertation provides insight into designing and implementing psychosocial supports to address the complexity of aging with HIV who experience cognitive challenges. Results demonstrate that combining mindfulness and brain training may ameliorate symptoms of cognitive impairment in people aging with HIV. An important lesson learned was that limiting study criteria to a formal HAND diagnosis may be unnecessary for group therapy; a briefer test of cognition may be more preferential for screening. Implications for social work are proposed and directions for further research in this area are recommended. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104900 | Aging||Cognitive Health||Community-Based Participatory Research||HAND||HIV/AIDS||Social Work | worker, health | SDG3, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Hauser, Frances Elisabeth | Chang, Belinda SW||Lopez-Fernandez, Hernan | Selection, Constraint, and Adaptation in the Visual Genes of Neotropical Cichlid Fishes and Other Vertebrates | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2018-06-01 | The visual system serves as a direct interface between an organism and its environment. Studies of the molecular components of the visual transduction cascade, in particular visual pigments, offer an important window into the relationship between genetic variation and organismal fitness. In this thesis, I use molecular evolutionary models as well as protein modeling and experimental characterization to assess the role of variable evolutionary rates on visual protein function. In Chapter 2, I review recent work on the ecological and evolutionary forces giving rise to the impressive variety of adaptations found in visual pigments. In Chapter 3, I use interspecific vertebrate and mammalian datasets of two visual genes (RH1 or rhodopsin, and RPE65, a retinoid isomerase) to assess different methods for estimating evolutionary rate across proteins and the reliability of inferring evolutionary conservation at individual amino acid sites, with a particular emphasis on sites implicated in impaired protein function. In Chapters 4, and 5, I narrow my focus to devote particular attention to visual pigments in Neotropical cichlids, a highly diverse clade of fishes distributed across South and Central America. In Chapter 4, I find accelerated evolutionary rates in RH1 are associated with cichlid colonization of Central America. I experimentally characterize a South American cichlid rhodopsin pigment and assess the functional consequences of a unique amino acid variant. Finally, in Chapter 5, I examine diversity in UV, violet, and blue-sensitive opsins across the Neotropical cichlids. I identify several putative pseudogenization events in the UV opsin, as well as complete loss of this opsin in several South American cichlid species. Conversely, the UV opsin was under strong purifying selection in Central American cichlids. My results also indicate a burst of episodic positive selection in the blue-sensitive opsin at the base of an ancient adaptive radiation in South American cichlids. This thesis combines computational and experimental work investigating visual pigment evolution in Neotropical cichlid fishes. More broadly, this thesis also considers the evolutionary forces governing visual gene loss and inactivation, as well as the molecular mechanisms mediating visual protein function and adaptation. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101627 | fish evolution||molecular evolution||opsins||sensory systems||visual ecology | ecolog, fish, conserv, environment, wind | SDG7, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Albanese, Carolyn A | Flessa, Joseph | Sensemaking: How is the Equitable and Inclusive Education Policy Understood, Explained, and Implemented by School Administrators in Ontario? | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | The Ontario Ministry of Education’s policy related to equitable and inclusive education (PPM 119) has been in existence for some 25 years, starting from what was called the Antiracism and Ethnocultural Equity Policy (1993) up to the 2013 version, which includes additional marginalized groups as well as strategies and timelines to support these groups. This study examines, from cognitive and social identity perspectives how secondary school administrators in a school board near Toronto, Ontario, make sense of their school board’s complexly-encoded policy and how it works with various stakeholders to explain and implement two areas of that policy: a) curriculum and assessment and b) school climate and the prevention of harassment and discrimination. Composed of 10 qualitative interviews with self-identifying equity-minded secondary school administrators, as well as analysis and synthesis of the policy and literature, this study investigates the interaction between these administrators’ familiarity with a school board’s version of the Ministry policy and their individual cognitive and social identities as they are situated in the sensemaking of this policy. While the findings reveal a strong commitment from all participants to engage in this work to better support and serve their communities, there are wide and varying understandings of the policy, how sense is made of it, conceptions of what the policy asks administrators to consider, and how personal and social experiences, values, and beliefs inform their work in these two areas. The findings support discussion in terms of creating specific professional development opportunities for administrators—including fostering a knowledge of the historical understandings that underlie the policy—with the goal of moving towards centering the work of equity and inclusion on improved student support in this area, as part of a social determinant of a person’s health and life outcomes. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103166 | Administrators||Equity||Inclusivity||Policy||Secondary Schools||Sensemaking | climate, equitable, inclusiv, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Sivak, Kristin | Sakaki, Atsuko | Serving Stories: Servant Characters in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature | East Asian Studies | 2020-11-01 | While the servants who appear in twentieth-century Japanese literature are often minor characters, they are far from insignificant. Rather, these servant characters in fact play a vital role in the narrative discourse seemingly out of proportion with the attention that their class, gender, and employment status—as well as a surface reading of the story—might lead us to expect. By exploring some of the different kinds of structural ‘work’ they do, then, as well as the ways in which their very literary nature grants them a degree of authority beyond that of their real-life corollaries, this dissertation aims to construct a narrative about a type of character whose impact on literary fiction well exceeds the bounds of the textual space they occupy. With this in mind, I take up an examination of servant characters in the works of three canonical authors who themselves experienced life with servants, Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916), Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886-1965), and Mishima Yukio (1925-1970). An analysis of servant characters offers an opportunity to explore issues of representation, power, and authority in modern Japanese fiction. From the ethical question of how to acknowledge those we cannot speak for, to examining the connections between domestic spaces and literary spaces, to uncovering the latent power of traditionally undervalued forms of labor, this dissertation proposes a narratological examination of the role of servants in twentieth-century Japanese fiction as a means for rethinking questions of representation and the plurality of perspectives in literature. Over three chapters, I discuss questions of literary ethics and what it means to respect and acknowledge the blind spots that always accompany difference, how servant characters share and construct the domestic space with their employers, and how the embodied intimacy and unbridled access afforded servant characters might empower them even to take control over their employers’ narratives. In doing so, I argue for a reconsideration of what it means for the minor to assert itself from within the canon, proposing new ways of thinking about the structural dimensions of representation, power, and authority as revealed through the roles of minor servant characters. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103576 | Character||Japan||Literature||Narratology||Representation||Servant | labor, employment, gender | SDG5, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Ho, Emily S | Wright, Virginia | Shared Decision Making in Youth with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury and Their Families | Rehabilitation Science | 2019-06-01 | Introduction: This dissertation used an overarching interpretivist qualitative framework in the development of a patient decision aid (PtDA) for youth with brachial plexus birth palsy (BPBI) and their parents when making preference-sensitive decisions regarding rehabilitation and surgical treatment options for an elbow flexion contracture. The objective was to develop a tool containing evidence-based information and a values clarification method to help these youth (ages 8 and 18 years) and their families discern what they value most related to their options. Methods: PtDA development was guided by a conceptual framework built on existing PtDA models and standards. A philosophical hermeneutic approach combined with arts-based methods was used to conduct a decisional needs assessment based on two qualitative sources: in-depth interviews with 5 young adults and 14 youth-parent dyads, and 15 participant observation sessions of families and clinicians in the clinic setting. These qualitative findings were integrated with evidence from knowledge synthesis methods on elbow flexion contractures and its treatment options to develop the PtDA prototype, which was in turn field-tested with 17 youth via cognitive-based interviewing. Results: Several substantive contributions to the fields of BPBI and pediatric shared decision making were achieved through the process of developing this PtDA. A PtDA for youth with BPBI was created and an arts-based qualitative approach provided a unique way to interpret and understand the family-team clinic experience. Overall, the shared decision making in youth with BPBI was influenced more by a family’s appearance-related concerns and the strength of their trust relationship with clinicians, and less by their activity and participation concerns. Although decisional conflict in these families seemed rare, once rehabilitation treatment was initiated, decision regret was sometimes expressed. Regret was associated with youth-parent decision discord that was influenced by parental emotions, youth’s response to external pressures, and experiences with treatment adherence. Conclusions: By revealing the complexities of shared decision making in youth with BPBI, this research reflects the real-world concerns of these families in the design of this PtDA. The insights gained offer guidance for future PtDA implementation that optimize its potential to promote positive health outcomes in youth with BPBI and their families. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105122 | Adolescent||Brachial Plexus||Children||Decision Making||Decision Support Techniques||Elbow Contracture | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Demidov, Valentin | Vitkin, I. Alex | Shedding Light on Radiotherapy: Quantifying Radiiological Response of Irradiated Tissues with Functional Optical Coherence Tomography | Medical Biophysics | 2021-03-01 | Radiation therapy (RT), alone or in combination with other therapies, is one of the most commonly used treatment strategies for managing cancer. Recent advances in RT delivery and monitoring of radiobiological tumor effects have led to the development of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) with improved local control and lower damage to surrounding normal tissues. Despite the rapid dissemination of this tremendously advanced technology in the community to manage many disease sites, it remains somewhat ‘blind’ – its relative success and outcome are often not known for weeks or months following treatment. As well, there are indications that the radiobiology involved in the SBRT regime may be different from the conventional 2Gy/fraction RT, specifically with respect to its effect on microvascular response. This thesis investigates optical coherence tomography (OCT) as an imaging modality for the detection and quantification of early (days to weeks) and late (months) tissue changes induced by radiotherapy. Innovative methods are developed to apply non-invasive, depth-resolved and label-free OCT technology for in-vivo assessment of tumor microvascular and microstructural response to radiation and evaluation of late radiation toxicity to normal tissues at resolution approaching optical microscopy. Pre-clinical models of human tumor xenografts subjected to 10-30Gy single doses are investigated for vascular remodeling following RT. Texture analysis of volumetric OCT images of tissues is performed to delineate irradiated tumors and detect subtle changes within the first weeks after 15Gy single-dose irradiation with RT-response metrics. An OCT-based method for in-vivo assessment and quantification of radiation-induced fibrosis-associated microvascular changes in tissue is proposed and tested on murine models 6 months after a 40Gy single dose irradiation. Finally, a label-free lymphangiography / neurography method is developed and validated with histopathological studies, opening new exciting ways for assessment of tumor lymphatics and nerves development and response to RT. These innovative methods build a solid foundation for future studies that will aim to discover fundamental insights into SBRT radiobiology after specific dose-fractionation schedules (e.g., 8Gy per fraction at 5 fractions delivered within two weeks) and correlate the outcomes with clinical treatment and imaging protocols, in an effort to better understand and improve the SBRT treatment strategies. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105062 | Biomedical Optics||Biophotonics||Imaging||Optical Coherence Tomography||Radiotherapy||Tumor Control | innovat | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Shibaike, Takumi | Wong, Wendy H | Small NGOs in Global Governance: Agenda Setting in the Governance of Biodiversity and Wildlife | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | International relations theories have conceptualized nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as, inter alia, agenda setters for global governance. To date, existing research on NGO agenda setting has overwhelmingly focused on how advocacy is supplied by well-established, leading NGOs, but overlooked how and why advocacy is demanded in the first place. Contrary to the assumption that small NGOs are "bandwagoners," I argue that small NGOs substantially influence the variation of issue salience in a given issue area due to the interdependence of demand and supply in the advocacy market. Drawing on the insight of public opinion research, I argue that the demand for advocacy is concentrated in a small segment of the public, referred to as the issue public. Leading NGOs cannot target their advocacy to the issue public alone because they cannot maintain their social and economic resources with a small segment of the public. By contrast, small NGOs can frame their advocacy to resonate with the identities and shared values of the issue public. The stability of attention from the issue public legitimates small NGOs' agenda and allows them to exercise influence over policymakers with expert knowledge. The implications are important: the existing literature overestimates the agenda-setting power of leading NGOs while trivializing small NGOs' issue entrepreneurship. I evaluate my theory in the issue area of biodiversity and wildlife conservation to overcome a persistent problem in the study of NGO agenda setting: selection bias. As NGOs cannot advocate for non-existent species, all conservation issues are observable regardless of the outcome of advocacy work. Three empirical tests were conducted. First, I quantitatively explored the relationship between small NGOs and issue salience among Northern publics, leveraging the computational text analysis of 20,000 newspaper articles and 350,000 mission statements. Second, I analyzed the causal linkage between types of NGOs, locational issue characteristics, and their interaction with survey experiments in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Finally, I qualitatively investigated the recent case of issue emergence, pangolin (scaly anteater) conservation, through in-depth interviews. I conclude with the reviews of my overall findings and contributions and potential applications for future research. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103645 | advocacy networks||agenda setting||civil society||conservation||global governance||nongovernmental organizations | governance, biodivers, conserv | SDG14, SDG15, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Ramraj, Chantel | Siddiqi, Arjumand | Socioeconomic Inequalities in Distributions of Birth Outcomes: A Cross-National Comparative Study of Canada and the United States | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2018-11-01 | Background: Despite well-established associations between entire distributions of birth outcomes (i.e., birth weight and gestational age) and health outcomes across the life course, the extant literature on socioeconomic inequalities has focused almost exclusively on examining inequalities in their high-risk range (i.e., low birth weight and preterm birth). Objective: To examine if, and why, socioeconomic inequalities in low birth weight and preterm birth extend to inequalities over the entire distributions of birth weight and gestational age, in Canada and its peer nations. Methods and aims: A scoping review was conducted to understand how researchers have conceptualized and analyzed social inequalities in distributions of birth outcomes (Aim 1). Data from the U.S. 2006 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) (N=892,635) were used to measure and explain socioeconomic inequalities across distributions of birth outcomes (Aim 2). Harmonized data from the 2006 U.S. PRAMS and the 2006 Canadian Maternity Experiences Survey (MES) (N=61,230) were used to examine whether socioeconomic inequalities in distributions of birth weight and gestational age vary between two comparable countries, Canada and the United States. Results: This dissertation uncovered the presence of socioeconomic inequalities not only in low birth weight and preterm birth, but also over the entire distributions of birth weight and gestational age. Compared to the United States, Canada was characterized by more favourable birth-outcome distributions (i.e., a greater proportion of infants weighing between 2500 and 4000 grams and born between 37 and 41 weeks of gestation), both for the full populations and between similar socioeconomic groups. Observed individual level characteristics could not fully explain cross-national disparities, pointing to the explanatory power of unobserved (and perhaps structural) factors. Conclusions: Applying a distributional lens to investigate health inequalities within and between societies provides further insights regarding the population-level scope of the problem of health inequalities. Socioeconomic inequalities are present over the entire birth outcome distributions, which have implications both for clinical guidelines and population health prevention strategies. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102923 | health, socioeconomic | SDG1, SDG3 | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| Feng, Ying | Yoon, Albert | Special Judicial Treatment on Sensitive Cases: Institutional Judicial Deviation from Law in China | Law | 2020-11-01 | Sensitive cases exist in different historical periods, and they are closely linked to the economic and social environment of the times in China. For now, sensitive cases are those involving group disputes that may affect social stability. Special judicial treatment on sensitive cases is the embodiment of the social governance model with a preference for stability in the judicial system. In China, judges are responsible for assessing social risks of all the cases in their hands in China. There are a series of institutions with regard to how to handle sensitive cases within Chinese judicial system, including judges’ preliminary screening, judge meetings and judicial committee. This special treatment to sensitive cases manifests the institutional excessive defense in the judicial system, might legalize some judicial results that violate laws and legal logic, and would damage public trust in and respect to the rule of law and the judiciary in China. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103596 | China||Rule of law||Sensitive cases||Special judicial treatment | governance, institut, environment | SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| MacKinnon, Kinnon Ross | Ross, Lori E | Standardizing Injustice in Transition-related Medicine?: An Institutional Ethnography of How Assessment Protocols Coordinate Inequitable Access to Hormones and Surgeries in Canada | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2019-11-01 | Transgender (trans) people experience barriers to transition medicine such as cross-sex hormones and sex reassignment surgeries. In response, standardized care protocols, such as the World Professional Association of Transgender Health standards of care (WPATH-SOC), are recommended to improve gaps in care. To better understand how standardized care protocols shape access to transition medicine in Canada, I draw on institutional ethnography as a critical research strategy. In this dissertation I thus explicate how the main protocols used to assess trans people’s psychosocial readiness for hormones or surgeries serve a powerful coordinating function. Although significant advocacy targets the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders for pathologizing trans identity through the gender dysphoria diagnosis, my research demonstrates that the WPATH-SOC standardizes an entire model of care based in pathologization. This research project uses data obtained through talking with twenty-two trans people, clinicians, clinician-educators, and hospital administrators, observing clinician-education workshops, and analyzing pertinent assessment protocols and healthcare policy texts. My dissertation makes three substantive contributions to the areas of public health, trans studies, and health professions education research. First, I show that standardized readiness assessments previously understood as innocuous instead contribute to inequities and further pathologize trans people. Second, I argue that in the absence of trans health in the formal health professions education curricula, standardized assessment protocols serve as a form of curriculum, coordinating how health professionals learn and teach this clinical sub-specialty. Third, the results of this research hold the potential to bolster trans health advocacy efforts by identifying how assessment protocols rule health professionals’ and trans people’s resistance practices. In the spirit of activist institutional ethnography this dissertation concludes with a discussion on recommended future advocacy and systems change in the areas of policy, education, and practice. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102765 | health professions education||hormone therapy||mental health||transgender studies||transition-related surgery | justice, institut, gender, equitable, educat, health | SDG3, SDG4, SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Pant, Vikram Aditya | Yu, Eric | Strategic Coopetition - A Conceptual Modeling Framework for Analysis and Design | Information Studies | 2021-03-01 | In complex socio-technical multi-agent systems, agents cooperate and compete simultaneously to increase combined welfare through cooperation while maximizing individual gains through competition. Coopetition requires agents to adopt strategies that maximize benefits and minimize costs from concomitant cooperation and competition. Analyzing coopetition can be challenging since cooperation and competition are paradoxical social behaviours that are undergirded by contradictory logics, hypotheses, and assumptions. Therefore, the ability of systems designers to represent and reason about coopetition in a structured and systematic manner can benefit their efforts to design win-win strategies.This thesis proposes an approach for modeling and analyzing strategic coopetition. This approach was developed by following three main steps: (i) first, we identified primary characteristics for modeling and analyzing strategic coopetition (complementarity, trustworthiness, interdependence, and reciprocity) by surveying scholarly literature; (ii) second, we developed requirements for articulating and assessing these characteristics; and (iii) third, we constructed a framework comprised of artefacts for expressing and evaluating these characteristics. This framework consists of a modeling language, analysis techniques, knowledge catalogues, and a method. It is used to discriminate among alternative coopetitive strategies, and to generate strategies in search of positive sum outcomes. We combine and extend extant modeling approaches including strategic actor modeling, value modeling, and game-theoretic modeling to represent and reason about strategic coopetition. Strategic actor modeling, based on i* (iStar), is used to articulate and assess interdependence among actors as well as trustworthiness of actors. Value modeling, based on e3value, is used to express and evaluate the complementarity between actors as well as synergy among activities. Game-theoretic modeling, specifically Game Trees, is used to articulate and analyze reciprocity of actions by actors. This modeling framework is supported by catalogs of design knowledge that include: (i) generic strategies for competing and cooperating; as well as (ii) targeted approaches for information-sharing and assessing trustworthiness. We evaluated the usability and usefulness of this modeling framework by applying it to: (i) a published case study of coopeting mega-vendors in the global software industry; and (ii) an empirical study of startups under coopetition in the market of data science professional development. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104895 | Conceptual Modeling||Coopetition||Knowledge Representation||Multiagent Systems||Software Ecosystems||Systems Analysis | industr | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Swyer, Ian | Wheeler, Aaron R | Strategies for Interfacing Digital Microfluidics with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy | Chemistry | 2019-06-01 | Digital microfluidics (DMF) is a fluid handling paradigm wherein minute droplets (with volumes in the range of 100 nL - 1 mL) are actuated through electrostatic forces over an electrode array. The discrete nature of DMF makes it a perfect fit for delivery of samples and other reagents to microcoil sensors used for high field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. This thesis describes the outcome of several years of work towards the development of a DMF-NMR interface. Chapter 2 considers a one-plate DMF design with a 1 mm outer diameter (OD) planar microcoil and demonstrates how the system can be used to manipulate, mix, and sense droplets within the NMR spectrometer. Chapter 3 is motivated by the need to ensure reliable droplet movement in an NMR spectrometer (where there is no visualization of droplet movement). This section evaluates how to determine best practices for droplet manipulation on the basis of the relationship between applied force and droplet velocity. Chapter 4 describes a two-plate DMF device configuration, enabled by altering the microcoil substrate to include a copper grounding plate to serve as the DMF counter-electrode. The increased droplet control of this design allows for better spectral resolution and better time resolution when studying reacting droplets. Finally, chapter 5 proposes a method to overcome the space limitations within the NMR spectrometer that limit the DMF device size by mindfully engineering the electrodes to allow for continuous forward motion using only two electrical channels. I propose that these innovations establish DMF as a useful new tool sample handling in conjunction with micro-NMR detectors like the planar microcoils described here, with potential extension to microslots, microstriplines, and other geometries in the future. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101753 | Digital Microfluidics||Force Velocity||Nuclear Magnetic Resonance | innovat | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Gardhouse, Katherine | Ruocco, Anthony | Stressed, Sick, and Sad: A Transdiagnostic Investigation of the Translation of Stress into Depression through Neuroendoimmune Disruptions | Psychological Clinical Science | 2020-11-01 | Depression is a prevalent and disabling form of psychopathology that is frequently precipitated by experiences of stress. Disruptions in stress-sensitive biological systems, notably the immune system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, are strongly implicated in depression, and disturbances in these systems could reflect potential pathways through which experiences of stress are translated into depression. These systems, broadly subsumed within the neuroendoimmune system, may be highly responsive to stress and cognitive abilities related to stress management. To characterize the links between stress and depression and the potential influence of immune activity, the present study investigated the following: (1) the associations among perceived stress (across different time periods of life), proinflammatory immune markers, and depressive symptoms; (2) whether neuroendoimmune activity mediates the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms; and (3) whether perceived stress and immune activity mediate the relationship between cognitive control and depressive symptoms. Fifty-nine medically healthy adult females with varying levels of depression participated in the study. Participants provided dimensional ratings of their depression symptoms and perceived life stress, and they completed a neuropsychological test of cognitive control. Plasma biomarkers of stress, including pro-inflammatory cytokines, C-reactive protein, and free cortisol, were assayed following a fasted morning blood draw. Consistent with hypotheses, both greater perceived stress and higher concentrations of the proinflammatory immune marker, interleukin-6 (IL-6), were associated with greater depressive symptoms. Although levels of IL-6 alone did not significantly mediate the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms, when considered together, elevated concentrations of IL-6 and lower free cortisol mediated the relationship between severity of childhood stress and current depressive symptoms. Contrary to expectations, cognitive control was not significantly associated with stress, immune markers, or depression. The findings are interpreted in the context of a potentially long-term reduction in glucocorticoid tone triggered by early life stress that curbs cortisol output, produces chronic low-grade immune activation, and leads to depression vulnerability later in life. Overall, the study provides new insights into potential pathways among stress, the neuroendoimmune system, and depression, shedding light on how early life stress may be translated into depression in adulthood. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103287 | depression||HPA axis||neuroendoimmune||proinflammatory immune | urban, health | SDG3, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Jia, Yongfang | Sawchuk, Peter | Struggles between Rural and Urban Ways: A Qualitative Study of Informal Learning amongst Female Migrant Domestic Workers in China | Social Justice Education | 2018-06-01 | There are existing researches regarding the subject matter of Chinese rural migrant workers, mainly focusing on economic and social effects of migrant workers, instead of regarding their thoughts, feels and needs. To fill these gaps, this dissertation conducted in-depth interviews involving 30 interviewees as a kind of primary research. It answers three research questions on barriers women migrant domestic workers face, with solutions, informal learning they obtain in workplace, and suggestions to governments, agencies and communities in facilitating their migration process. The thesis presents findings which shed lights to the related researches on the Chinese female rural migrant domestic workers, including the changing requirements as the globalization and urbanization deepen in China, the rural migrants’ active participation into urban life and their enhancing themselves for social upward mobility. The primary focus of analysis in this research is on women’s informal learning that stems from their economic migration between rural and urban areas as well as their work as domestics in the latter. Therefore, this informal learning takes place across a number of locations: within their workplaces (i.e. the homes of employers) but also extends beyond the workplaces (e.g. in discussions with family members or the community). Since this informal learning stems from the relationship of economic migration and domestic work specifically, the learning content is quite diverse. It involves content directly related to work tasks, skills and knowledge as well as relationships with employers (and their families), but it also includes learning content implicated by the context of rural-urban economic migration, such as effects on a worker’s children, husband or parents, aspects of urban living as well as the pendulum swings between their rural and urban lives, and much more. In keeping the type of observations that Malcolm, Hodkinson and Colley (2003) that aspects of informality and formality are likely part of all learning, we will also see how certain aspects of training and even educational attainment of these workers does shape how informal learning occurs, and vice versa learning done informally shapes interest and activity related to training interests, goals and practices as well. | Ed.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101606 | rural, urban, worker, women, educat | SDG4, SDG5, SDG8, SDG11 | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Rousseau, Rodney Kyle | Kaul, Rupert | Suboptimal Immune Restoration in People Living with HIV | Immunology | 2020-11-01 | Despite antiretroviral treatment (ART), people living with HIV continue to have a reduced life expectancy compared to the general population. During HIV infection, non-AIDS health burdens, such as cardiovascular or liver disease, are explained only in part by lifestyle factors, and are thought to be driven in part by chronic systemic immune activation. Moreover, immunologic non-responder (INR) individuals are a subset of people living with HIV who, despite virally suppressive ART, do not achieve optimal CD4+ T cell numbers in blood (typically to >350 cells/mm3); these individuals are at increased risk of adverse health events, and are a worthy target of interventional studies, including those of popular alternative therapies. First, I hypothesized that HIV-positive INR individuals would have increased peripheral CD8+ T cell activation, as measured as percent co-expression of HLA-DR and CD-38, a combination of markers that is linked to disease progression in untreated HIV infection. In a cross-sectional study I confirmed that INR individuals had elevated peripheral CD8 activation and also increased CD4+ T cell activation, measured by the percent expression of HLA-DR. Using validated markers as an outcome, I next assessed whether a complementary therapy intervention reduces these parameters. In a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled phase 2b clinical trial, I assessed whether 48 weeks of probiotic supplementation reduced systemic immune activation in the INR context. Not only was no reduction observed in association with probiotic supplementation on CD8+ T cell activation, but in fact CD4+ T cell activation actually increased in the active drug arm. Finally, I assessed whether probiotic supplementation improved markers of gut immune function. Nested in part within the clinical trial, a predefined mucosal sub-study observed no changes associated with probiotic supplementation in gut T cell function or subset composition. Nevertheless, INR individuals had a unique gut immunopathologic profile, including, surprisingly, an upward skewing in the Th17 cell proportion and an increase in the Th17/Treg ratio. These findings emphasize not only that systemic immune activation during HIV-associated suboptimal immune restoration is a persistent problem, and that probiotic therapeutics are unlikely to confer a benefit, but also that gut immunopathology in INR individuals remains insufficiently understood. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103630 | Clinical Trials||HIV||Immunologic Non-Response||Inflammation||Probiotics | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Lokku, Armend | Pullenayegum, Eleanor M | Summary Measures for Quantifying the Extent of Visit Irregularity in Longitudinal Data | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2020-11-01 | A common feature of observational longitudinal data is variability in the timings of visits across individuals. Irregular visits merit careful scrutiny as they can be associated with the outcome trajectory and lead to biased results if not properly addressed. Similar to missing data, exploring the extent of irregularity is important because it can help determine whether specialized methods for irregular data are needed. However, there are currently no measures for quantifying the extent of irregularity. This thesis proposes visual and numerical measures of irregularity which are based on bins constructed across the study duration. To visually assess the extent of irregularity, the bin widths are varied and the mean proportions of individuals with 0, 1, and >1 visits per bin are plotted. With perfect repeated measures, the mean proportions of individuals with 1 visit per bin are 1, and the mean proportions of individuals with 0 and >1 visits per bin are 0. Missingness leads to individuals with 0 visits per bin while irregularity leads to both individuals with >1 visit per bin and individuals with 0 visits per bin. To numerically assess the extent of irregularity, we use the area under the curve (AUC) of the mean proportions of individuals with 0 visits per bin plotted against the mean proportions of individuals with >1 visit per bin. To be an effective measure of irregularity, the AUC should increase with increasing irregularity, be intuitive, and be invariant to sample size and follow-up length. Ideally, the AUC should be invariant to missingness, but the AUC increases as the level of missingness increases due to increased proportions of individuals with 0 visits per bin. To allow judgement solely on irregularity and not missingness, likelihood-based estimation will be used to derive an AUC assuming no missingness. Simulation results demonstrate that the AUC increases with increasing irregularity and is invariant to sample size and the number of scheduled measurement occasions. Overall, these measures can lead to an improved quality of statistical analyses by informing the modelling approach. Health administrative data are increasingly available, but are susceptible to irregular visit timings. It is thus crucial to assess the extent of irregularity to inform the need for specialized methods for irregular data that minimize the potential for biased results. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103739 | Inverse-Intensity Weighted Generalized Estimating Equations||Irregular Visits||Longitudinal Data||Missing Data||Repeated Measures||Summary Measures | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Xu, Yi | Sinton, David | Systems for CO2 Utilization: Property Measurement and Electrocatalytic Conversion | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2021-03-01 | Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions account for approximately 80% of anthropogenic contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and there is a growing need for CO2 utilization strategies. CO2 at supercritical conditions can be employed as a green solvent for extractions and separations, or can be injected in the subsurface for storage. CO2 can also be used as a reactant, a raw material to be converted into valuable chemicals via electrocatalysis. It is likely that all such approaches are needed, and more, to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The study of the physical and chemical properties of CO2 informs these climate-critical CO2 mitigation approaches. Understanding the CO2 phase behavior of complex fluid mixtures – liquid, gas, supercritical – at different thermodynamic conditions is essential to many industrial and chemical processes. In this work a phase behavior measuring chip was developed that can simultaneously determine the phase behavior of fluids at multiple combinations of temperature and pressure within the application’s scope. This phase chip testing method demonstrated a hundredfold decrease in the processing time comparing to the current industrial testing processes while maintaining experimental resolution and high accuracy (Chapter 3). At the same time, this work provides a platform for exploring CO2 mixture phase behavior, interface behavior, and mass transport. Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to valuable liquid fuels and chemical feedstocks is a sustainable approach to intermittent electricity utilization. Gas diffusion heterogeneous reaction electrodes facilitate effective CO2 mass transport to the catalyst, enabling electrolyzers to operate at the current densities required for industrial deployment. However, the complex interactions between a solid catalyst, liquid electrolyte, and gas reagents of heterogeneous electrodes significantly influence the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) performance. This work focuses on CO2 local availabilities/pressure (Chapter 4), microstructure wetting capabilities (Chapter 4), pH distribution (Chapter 5), and electromigration (Chapter 5) with the goal of improving the performance of the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) in practical systems. Together these efforts improve efficiencies, selectivities, and current densities of CO2 electrocatalytic systems, and advance the field of CO2 utilization more generally. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104997 | Carbon dioxide utilization||CO2 reduction||Electrocatalysis||Microfluidics||Phase properties||Renewable energy | greenhouse gas, climate, industr, renewabl, energy | SDG7, SDG9, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Whitmell, Theresa Elizabeth | Campbell, Carol | Teachers Navigating Their Experiences of "Going Gradeless" in Ontario, Canada | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of Ontario secondary school teachers, navigating conceptual, pedagogical, cultural and political challenges as they shifted their practice from marks to "gradeless". Twenty-eight teachers from fifteen schools in seven school districts in the province of Ontario in Canada participated in semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. The 28 teachers in this study shared complex journeys of growth and innovation, providing feedback and supporting student learning through use of clear goals, and explicit communication of success criteria. The study provides models of gradeless classroom assessment that range from hidden or deferred marks to four-level rubrics to single-point rubrics to rich descriptive feedback, and from task criteria to curriculum expectations to overarching learning goals. The interviewees described concepts of assessment that centre on the learner, and pedagogical approaches that support student voice and choice. They experienced challenges from the cultural expectations of students, parents and colleagues, but none of the interviewees were restricted by policy requirements from making the changes in assessment practice that they identified as "gradeless", and which serve to support the learning of their students. This study suggests that teachers' conceptual understanding begins with their personal experiences of assessment, is developed through the pedagogy they employ, the cultural influences on their professional and school community, and the policy that underpins their practice. The study demonstrates that when teachers discover processes that improve the achievement of their students, they will persist with the new process even if faced with strong cultural pressure. It suggests that greater communication to, and education of, the school community, parents and students is needed to shift cultural expectations of assessment. The study reveals that given clear policy, grounded in research, teachers can develop stronger conceptual understanding of assessment, and are empowered to move forward, even in the face of strong cultural pressures. Implications for future research in classroom assessment, teacher change, and 21st century learning are further discussed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103679 | assessment||competency||feedback||gradeless||Growing Success||teacher | innovat, educat | SDG4, SDG9 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Gordon, Kayleigh Helen | Seto, Emily | Telemonitoring for Patients with Complex Chronic Conditions in Nurse-led Integrated Care | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2021-03-01 | Patients with complex chronic conditions (CCC) represent a significant challenge to the Canadian health care system. The heterogeneity of patients with complex and multi-morbid conditions does not align with current models of care delivery. The system of health care delivery in Canada is built on a foundation which continues to be focused on single chronic conditions. These single silos do not effectively bridge sudden, and frequent episodic health encounters to broader care plans impeding the delivery of person-centered care overall. This dissertation explores a nurse-led integrated chronic care delivery model, using telemonitoring (TM) as an intervention to facilitate better information sharing, improved patient self-care and needs-based clinical care practices. A multi-method study was conducted in three phases to determine 1) what are the opportunities of nurse-led models of care in complex chronic disease management, 2) to explore the needs and perspectives of patients and providers to inform the development of an innovative integrated model of care and the needs of TM for patients with CCC, and 3) to determine the feasibility of implementing a smartphone-based TM system into a nurse-led integrated care model. This work details how TM can be introduced and embedded within the processes of everyday clinical work for clinicians caring for this complex chronic patient population. Patients demonstrated high adherence rates and perceived the smartphone-based TM platform for CCC as useful in managing their everyday routines. The nurse-led team successfully embedded the technology into their regular clinical work as TM aligned well existing complex chronic care delivery practices and could facilitate the high-touch care requirements as a co-located interdisciplinary team. TM-enabled nurse led care models were viewed as a ‘wedge' to fill the growing gap between primary and acute care, fulfilling a need care for complex chronic patients. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate feasibility of TM in this novel nurse-led integrated care model for patients with CCC. This thesis lays the foundations for future research to improve implementations of nurse-led integrated care models as well as outline opportunities which evaluate efficacy and health utilization of TM in this high-risk and high-needs population. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104869 | Health informatics||Health information||Health services research||Telemonitoring | innovat, health | SDG3, SDG9 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Sun, Zhuolu | Coyte, Peter | Temporal Trends in Home-based Palliative Care: Evidence from Ontario, Canada | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2018-11-01 | With health care restructuring in Canada and a general preference by patients and their families to receive palliative care at home, attention to home-based palliative care continues to increase. However, little is known about the changing temporal trends in home-based palliative care in Canada during the past decade. This dissertation assessed three aspects of the temporal trends of home-based palliative care: the use of formal palliative care service, the relationship between informal and formal care, and place of death among patients receiving palliative care. The dissertation focused on informal care provided by relatives and friends, and three types of home-based formal palliative care services: home-based palliative care physician visits, nurse visits, and care by personal support workers. Using survey data collected in a home-based palliative care program by the Temmy Later Center for Palliative Care in Ontario from 2005 to 2016, a two-part utilization model was built to analyze home-based palliative care service utilization and the relationship between informal and formal home-based palliative care. A multivariate logistic regression model was used to assess the temporal trends in the place of death. The findings demonstrated increased use of home-based palliative care and a shift (or substitution) in care away from nurses to less expensive care provided by personal support workers over the last decade. Informal care was a substitute for care by personal support workers, but a complement to home-based physician visits and nurse visits. In the case of nurse visits, an increased complementary effect was observed in more recent years. The place of death for patients receiving home-based palliative care changed over time, with more patients dying at home over 2006-2015 when compared to 2005. Understanding the temporal trends in home-based palliative care is essential for effective improvements in home-based palliative care programs and the development of palliative care policies. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102905 | Formal care||Health service use||Home care||Informal care||Palliative care||Place of death | worker, health | SDG3, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Kopack, Robert | Lewis, Robert||Farish, Matt | The Afterlives of Soviet Secret Cities: Environment and Political Economy in Kazakhstan's Defense Industry Sites After 1991 | Geography | 2020-11-01 | During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built a number of military industries and secret defense sites in the vast Kazakh steppes. These included the world’s first space complex, large nuclear and biological weapons production and test sites, and massive ballistic missile research areas. These sites and their adjacent bedroom communities have experienced enormous stress resulting from large-scale political economic transformations due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Environmental destruction is a common and troubling legacy from the past for all of these sites. In this dissertation, I examine the political, economic, and environmental afterlives of Soviet governance and Cold War defense investments in Kazakhstan through a study of three formerly secret military installations: Baikonur, Priozersk/Sary Shagan, and Stepnogorsk. My research shows how the destabilizing political economic rupture of the early 1990s was driven by both new market-based opportunities, such as commercial space endeavors, mining, heavy industry, tourism, and renewed forms of closure and secrecy in order support them. In what follows, I explore how these military assets, their industrial landscapes and their dependent communities have been reorganized and drawn into new business ventures across national and global economic networks, how the Russian Federation has played a partial role in governance at the national and local scale, and how the politics of environmental degradation has shaped the course of development. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103799 | Baikonur||Cold War||Environmental Justice||Kazakhstan||Sary Shagan||Stepnogorsk | governance, justice, environment, production, cities, industr | SDG9, SDG11, SDG12, SDG13, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Hrdina, Amy Irene Hiromi | Murphy, Jennifer G | The Characterization of Ammonia Sources in Forested, Urban and Agricultural Areas | Chemistry | 2019-11-01 | To better characterize NH3 sources, field campaigns were conducted in a Colorado montane forest, the Salt Lake City urban area, and an agricultural field south of Ottawa. An Ambient Ion Monitor coupled with Ion Chromatographs (AIM-IC) was utilized in two campaigns to measure gas phase NH3 and particle phase NH4+ (pNH4+), in addition to other significant gases and PM2.5 chemical components (e.g. HNO3, SO2, HCl, pCl-, pNO3-, pSO42-, pNa+, pK+, pCa2+, and pMg2+). Measurement-based estimates of NH3 fluxes in the montane forest showed the soil is the predominant NH3 source. The changes observed in soil NH4+ content implied the indirect role of soil microbial processes on soil NH3 emissions. In Salt Lake City, where wintertime pollution is dominated by NH4NO3, my observations revealed the potential impact of mineral dust on the HNO3 availability, which was examined by thermodynamic aerosol modeling. Surface footprints derived from a Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport (STILT) model indicated that area sources are responsible for 78 % of the total NH3 emissions impacting the measurement site. Observed tracer relationships of NHx (NH3+pNH4+) with CO and NOx for each emissions sector (area, mobile, nonroad, and point) showed NH3 emissions from all source sectors are underestimated. To directly measure the surface-atmosphere exchange, i.e. flux, a continuous online Relaxed Eddy Accumulation coupled with Ion Chromatographs (REA-IC) was developed. The REA-IC was deployed in a urea-fertilized corn field in 2017 and 2018. Developments following the 2017 deployment led to improved 2018 flux measurements, in which the flux detection limit ranges ± 2 ng m-2 s-1 to ± 137 ng m-2 s-1. The REA-IC measurements showed average NH3 emissions of 39 ± 12 ng m-2 s-1 from August to October 2018 indicating that NH3 emissions can also occur later in the growing season. Afin de mieux caractériser les sources de NH3, des campagnes sur le terrain ont été menées dans une forêt de montagne du Colorado, la zone urbaine de Salt Lake City et un champ agricole au sud d’Ottawa. Un moniteur d’ions ambiant couplé à des chromatographes ioniques (AIM-IC) a été utilisé dans deux campagnes pour mesurer le NH3 en phase gazeuse et le NH4 + en phase particulaire (pNH4 +), en plus d’autres gaz importants et de composants chimiques contenant de la PM2.5 (HNO3, SO2, HCl, etc.) , pCl-, pNO3-, pSO42-, pNa +, pK +, pCa2 + et pMg2 +). Les estimations des flux de NH3 basées sur la mesure dans la forêt de montagne ont montré que le sol constituait la principale source de NH3. Les changements observés dans la teneur en NH4 + du sol impliquent le rôle indirect des processus microbiens du sol sur les émissions de NH3 du sol. À Salt Lake City, où le NH4NO3 domine dans la pollution hivernale, mes observations ont révélé l'impact potentiel des poussières minérales sur la disponibilité de HNO3, qui a été examiné par modélisation thermodynamique par aérosol. Les empreintes de surface dérivées d'un modèle de transport lagrangien à inversion temporelle stochastique (STILT) ont indiqué que les sources locales étaient responsables de 78% des émissions totales de NH3 ayant une incidence sur le site de mesure. Les relations observées entre les traceurs de NHx (NH3 + pNH4 +), de CO et de NOx pour chaque secteur d'émissions (zone, mobile, non routier et ponctuel) ont montré que les émissions de NH3 provenant de tous les secteurs sources étaient sous-estimées. Pour mesurer directement l’échange surface-atmosphère, c’est-à-dire le flux, une accumulation continue en ligne de tourbillons décontractés couplée à des chromatographes à ions (REA-IC) a été développée. Le REA-IC a été déployé dans un champ de maïs fertilisé à l'urée en 2017 et 2018. Les développements consécutifs au déploiement en 2017 ont permis d'améliorer les mesures de flux en 2018, dans lesquelles la limite de détection du flux se situe dans une plage de ± 2 ng m-2 s-1 à ± 137 ng. m-2 s-1. Les mesures REA-IC ont révélé des émissions moyennes de NH3 de 39 ± 12 ng m-2 s-1 d'août à octobre 2018, ce qui indique que les émissions de NH3 peuvent également se produire plus tard au cours de la saison de croissance. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102757 | ammonia||surface-atmosphere exchange | forest, pollut, urban, agricultur | SDG2, SDG11, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Hamandi, Bassem | Papadimitropoulos, Emmanuel A||Grootendorst, Paul | The Clinical and Economic Burden of Infections in Hospitalized Solid Organ Transplant Recipients in Canada | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2020-11-01 | To date, there has been limited literature describing the epidemiology, healthcare resource utilization, and economic burden of infections in hospitalized solid-organ transplant (SOT) recipients. The first study reports on the rate and timing of these syndromes and describes the associated microbiological epidemiology in a single-centre cohort. Infections were the most common (43%) complication among the 603 hospitalizations at a rate of 0.43 episodes per 1000 transplant-days, with 85% occurring greater than 6 months post-transplantation. The most frequent infection involved the respiratory tract (27%), with 53% of patients presenting without fever, 45% having no pathogen isolated, and multi-drug resistant organisms being isolated in 27% of cases. The second study reported on measures of clinical and economic burden, along with the impact of infectious disease specialist consultation. After propensity score matching, infectious disease consultation resulted in greater 28-day survival estimates (Hazards ratio (HR) =0.33, log-rank P=0.026), and reduced 30-day rehospitalization rates (16.9% vs. 23.9%, P=0.036). The median length-of-stay and hospitalization costs were increased for patients receiving an infectious disease consultation (7.0 vs. 5.0 days, P=0.002, and $9652 vs. $6192, P=0.003). However, the median length-of-stay (5.5 vs. 5.1 days, P=0.31) and hospitalization costs ($8106 vs. $6912, P=0.63) did not differ significantly among those receiving an early ( | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103504 | costs||health outcomes||infection||mortality||pharmacoeconomics||transplant | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Lau, Clarissa Hin-Hei | Jang, Eunice E | The Complexity of Young Learners: Rethinking Assessment Methodologies to Model Cognitive, Metacognitive, and Psychological Traits | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2020-11-01 | Rapid changes to student demographics and learning environments call for reconceptualization of what and how we assess. There is growing consensus on the importance of assessing students’ growth in multidimensional traits such cognitive, affective, metacognitive, and psychological characteristics. However, traditional assessment methods rely on selected-response formats, which are poorly equipped to support valid interpretations about complex learner traits. This dissertation seeks to address methodological challenges with multimodal data sources by probing ways to profile students’ reading competencies with fine-grained processing skills, track changes in self-regulated learning behaviours over time, and model students’ writing competence as a function of reading comprehension and self-efficacy. These issues were addressed through three distinct empirical studies. The first study explored the potential of cognitive diagnostic modelling for profiling students’ reading achievement focusing on cognitive reading processes instead of aggregated total scores. Five core reading processing skills were identified through the content analysis of the curriculum expectations and subsequently were mapped onto assessment item specifications called a Q-matrix. Results demonstrated the prospective of profiling using processing skills. This calls for further research on the appropriate granularity of processing skills to maximize their interpretability and pedagogical usefulness for teachers and students. The second study examined the dynamic nature of self-regulated learning in a technology-rich learning environment. Latent transition analysis was employed to investigate how self-regulated learning progressed across two time points. Findings showed that learners displayed different combinations of judgment of learning and content evaluation to regulate learning at different times, revealing the transitory characteristic of self-regulated learning. The third study approached a long-standing challenge of utilizing written responses for assessment by investigating the potential of machine learning applications for automated scoring. Multinomial naïve Bayes was applied to investigate whether this method can accurately evaluate written responses. Results demonstrated that reading ability and self-efficacy could be accurate classification labels of written responses. Collectively, this dissertation explored the utility of multimodal data including responses to reading items, process data of self-regulated learning strategies, and written responses of reading comprehension. By applying measurement-modelling approaches on multimodal data, this dissertation demonstrated a broader capacity to understand multivariate learning characteristics. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103311 | Assessment||Cognition||Innovative Methodologies||Metacognition||Multi-modal Data||Self-Efficacy | environment, innovat | SDG9, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Janzwood, Amy Alexandra | Neville, Kathryn J.||Bernstein, Steven F. | The Contentious Politics of Mega Oil Sands Pipeline Projects | Political Science | 2021-03-01 | While the vast majority of oil pipeline projects in Canada have been successfully built, several mega oil sands pipelines within and passing through Canada have been cancelled or significantly delayed. In recent years, oil sands pipelines have received intense scrutiny from a variety of actors. While there has been significant contestation in response to a wave of pipeline proposals, scholars have not yet understood the linkages between social movements and the outcomes of pipeline projects. I identify the causal influence of social movement campaigns, what I call campaign coalitions, against new mega oil sands pipelines. Considering the power and momentum of the oil and gas industry in the early-2000s, this movement’s success in frustrating pipeline development has been truly remarkable. I first use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to understand combinations of causal conditions that co-occur across cases of proposed new oil pipelines and pipeline expansions. The findings from the QCA lead me to focus on campaign coalitions, which involve sustained cooperation and communication between resisting groups. I then use in-depth case studies of contested proposed mega oil sands pipeline proposals—the Northern Gateway Pipelines and Trans Mountain Expansion Project—to understand the strategies the anti-pipeline coalitions employed to influence project outcomes and the conditions that produced the project outcomes. I argue that campaign coalitions strongly shaped the project outcomes in both cases. In the NGP case, the alignment of the political and legal opportunities, with the 2015 election and a federal court of appeal ruling, resulted in the project’s cancellation. In the TMEP case, sustained opposition, in combination with a powerful new political ally with the 2017 provincial election in British Columbia created multiple, mutually reinforcing risks that made the project unviable for Kinder Morgan. In understanding the influence of campaign coalitions, I contribute to public policy and social movement scholarship in three ways. First, I refine our understanding of the processes and conditions that facilitate campaign coalition formation. Second, I identify important linkages between the processes of coalition building and mechanisms of influence. Third, I identify how coalition strategies and conditions interact to influence pipeline outcomes. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105021 | comparative politics||contentious politics||energy politics||environmental politics||political economy||public policy | environment, industr, energy | SDG7, SDG9, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Tatangelo, Mark | Bombardier, Claire | The Costs and Clinical Consequences of Rheumatoid Arthritis: Applying Novel Causal Attribution Methods to a Complex Chronic Disease | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2020-11-01 | Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a lifelong chronic disease affecting about 300,000 Canadians (1% of the population). The complicated treatment pathways and patterns of care for rheumatoid arthritis combined with a high burden of disease make RA a fascinating candidate for testing new methodological approaches to measure the clinical and economic impact of chronic diseases. The treatment pathway for RA involves patients presenting with potentially non-specific symptoms (fatigue, unspecified joint pain etc.), receiving a diagnosis, then being treated with 1 of 4 conventional synthetic disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs (csDMARDS) or 1 of 10 biologics (bDMARDs). Treatment changes in drug regimens are common when medications fail to control disease activity, or initially control disease activity but eventually fail to control disease activity. The treatment structure is unique because csDMARDS (500-900 CAD/yr), can be prescribed in combination with each other or biologics (15,000-30,000 CAD/yr) which can only be prescribed 1 biologic at a time, resulting in thousands of potentially unique treatment pathways. Furthermore, the clinical paradigm of RA has shifted to target inflammation reduction to reduce the direct effects of RA and the systemic inflammatory effects of the disease through adequate control with medications. This unique clinical pathway has led to several important questions. These questions centre around what the true costs and comorbidities attributable to RA are, what proportion of costs and comorbidities are attributable to RA related inflammation, and how have the introduction of biologic medications affected costs and comorbidities over time. This thesis applies causal attribution methods that have not been used in the field of RA, while also utilizing best-practice methods in longitudinal study1-4 design by carefully considering the selection of matched case-control cohorts over time. We used all available follow-up and disease history and available covariates to implement a data-driven approach to case-control matching. Using the population of Ontario RA cases, we applied these methods to determine the associated attribution RA to the acquisition of health care costs and comorbid conditions over a 22-year time horizon. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105507 | chronic diseases||computational methods||data driven analysis||mahalanobis distance||rheumatoid arthritis||statistical methods | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Nguyen, Christine | Stewart, Bryan A | The Electrophysiological Characterization of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Using 3D Human Bioengineered Skeletal Muscle Tissue and Neuromuscular Junctions | Cell and Systems Biology | 2020-11-01 | Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most severe and common form of inherited muscular disease, affecting 1 in 3,500 boys. Patients with DMD experience progressive muscle weakness, where most children with DMD are subject to a wheelchair by age 13 and eventual fatality occurs during their third decade of life. More than 25 years ago, mutations in the Dystrophin gene were found to cause DMD. Dystrophin is an important cytoplasmic protein in the Dystrophin-associated glycoprotein complex (DGC) that underlies the plasma membrane of skeletal muscle. The lack of Dystrophin in the DGC causes muscle cells to be susceptible to muscle membrane damage. My view is that there is a problem with skeletal muscle homeostasis in DMD, where the balance between muscle damage and muscle repair strongly favours damage. One area of DMD research which appears understudied is the pathophysiology of the DMD neuromuscular junction (NMJ). In this thesis, I use a 3D culture system to model skeletal muscle and the neuromuscular junction, using immortalized muscle cell lines from healthy and DMD patient biopsies, as well as human embryonic stem cell (hESC) derived motor neurons. The findings of my thesis provide a comprehensive analysis of muscle cell physiological of healthy and DMD skeletal muscle tissue, and provide preliminary synaptic physiological data for in vitro NMJ. The results lead me to conclude that DMD muscle alone-constructs as well as DMD NMJ co-cultures have a more positive resting membrane potential, and a lower muscle membrane resistance when compared to healthy muscle and healthy muscle co-cultures. DMD muscle alone-constructs were unable to achieve muscle excitability, and all DMD co-cultures had varying recordings of spontaneous muscle excitability. Furthermore, DMD muscle membrane fragility is an aspect that can be studied further using my 3D muscle culture system. All together my thesis provides the first comprehensive analysis of muscle cell physiology of engineered muscle, and I provide the first report of a human NMJ that shows successful innervation seen through synaptic physiological recordings. The results of my research contribute to the basic biological role of dystrophin, and provides a characterized 3D muscle culture system that could be used for disease modeling and drug screening. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103746 | bioengineered||Duchenne muscular dystrophy||electrophysiology||Muscle||Neuromuscular junction | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Mersereau, Michel | Shade, Leslie | The Essential Internet: Locating Internet Contingent Practices Activities at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation | Information Studies | 2021-03-01 | This doctoral dissertation examines household internet use amongst residents of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), North America’s second largest social housing undertaking, comprised of 60,000 residential units that provide housing for more than 100,000 low-income individuals. Primary data was collected from rent-geared-to-income residents at three facilities characterized by elderly, single, and family occupancy. The research methodology utilizes a Social Systems Theory framework which situates household internet service as a technical resource employed by residents in the course of their basic needs undertakings. Five basic needs activity areas were investigated in order to ascertain the extent to which internet services facilitate and support household routines: education, health, childcare, nutrition, and finances. The results of the study suggest that household internet services can elevate the productivity of residents by multiplying the volume of tasks they are able to perform, and with greater efficiencies across interconnected basic needs activity areas. As internet use becomes normalized within the household, basic needs activities and routines that are arranged around household internet services can become contingent on access to the technology, and are consequently at risk of being destabilized during periods of long-term internet service disruption. This precarity is heightened by the experience of fixed and limited income resources liminal to the poverty threshold in TCHC households. The data collected in this study suggests that traditional policy approaches to remediating digital exclusion, such as retail market incentives and investment in community intermediaries, are insufficient to support the internet needs of the TCHC households who participated in the study. First, income to expense ratios in family households further tension the affordability constraints associated with maintaining their retail internet services. Second, the temporary access facilitated by community intermediaries, such as public schools and public libraries, is insufficient in supporting household routines which have been patterned on household internet services, and should not be situated as proxies for fixed at-home internet services. The results of this study broaden the scope of scholarship concerned with issues of digital exclusion, as well as public policy interested in ameliorating digital divides and fostering digital inclusion. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104984 | Community informatics||Internet policy||Social technology studies||Technology inclusion||Telecommunications policy||Universal broadband | educat, health, nutrition, poverty | SDG1, SDG2, SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| De Mello, Tanya | Childs, Dr. Ruth | The Fit Interview and Cultural Matching: Examining Equity in Hiring Processes in Law Firms in Canada | Social Justice Education | 2020-11-01 | When someone says, “This person is a perfect fit for the job,” I find myself asking, “what does it mean to fit?” and “who fits and who doesn’t?” In many interview processes, recruiters assess a candidate’s fit, that is how well suited they believe the candidate is to a given workplace. Big law firms in Toronto have developed a structured interview process that formalizes the practice of assessing candidates for fit, which is referred to in this study as the fit interview. This study examines how racialized candidates are affected by the fit interview, documenting their stories to understand how they made meaning of their experiences. Semi-structured narrative interviews were conducted with 25 racialized interviewees and 5 recruiters, two of whom were racialized, who have participated in recruitment in big law firms in Toronto. The participants’ narratives were interpreted using critical qualitative analysis, rooted in critical race, feminist, and intersectional theories. All participants described experiences in the fit interview as consistent with cultural matching, that is recruiters tending to hire candidates similar to themselves in terms of personal interests, values and backgrounds, which are often linked to social identities (i.e., race, gender, class, etc.). Participants confirmed that cultural matching was more determinative in assessing candidates than competence, skills, or professional background. Participants believed that their race, gender, and class affected recruiters’ perception of whether they were a cultural match. In general, interviewees found the fit interview alienating, invalidating, and traumatizing. This study suggests that the fit interview may serve as a barrier to racialized candidates’ entry into law firms. I conclude by making recommendations for operational change, informed by the participants’ experiences and suggestions, the literature, and my experience consulting on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The theories in which this study is rooted call on researchers to catalyze systemic change by conveying findings to those who have the capacity to enact change and transform systems. Although this study is focussed on experiences of racialized people in big law firms, my hope is that the findings prompt other businesses and organizations in Canada to critically re-examine their recruitment and retention practices. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103497 | bias||cultural||fit||interview||law||matching | gender | SDG5 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Caterini, Jessica Elizabeth | Wells, Greg D | The Impact of CFTR Modulator Therapy on Exercise Intolerance and Oxygen Transport Metabolism in Cystic Fibrosis | Exercise Sciences | 2020-06-01 | Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a fatal autosomal-recessive genetic disorder with multiorgan effects. Exercise intolerance is a common symptom, and exercise capacity is an important prognostic indicator in CF. Some CF patients now have access to novel pharmacological “modulator therapies” that improve pulmonary function by directly targeting the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) protein defect. However, the impact of these therapies on other organ systems and exercise tolerance remains unknown. This is compounded by the ongoing debate related to the pathophysiological impact of CF on central and peripheral contributors to oxygen transport metabolism that determine exercise tolerance. The purpose of this research was therefore to explore central and peripheral contributors to exercise tolerance in healthy controls, patients with CF, and CF patients treated with modulator therapy using non-invasive magnetic resonance-based assessments. Thirty-two participants were included in the study: 10 healthy non-CF controls, 10 CF controls naïve to modulator therapy, and 12 CF patients on long-term CFTR modulator therapy. Participants completed resting and exercise MRI testing to quantify quadriceps blood flow, mitochondrial metabolism, and oxygen extraction. Results showed that there were no differences in pulmonary function and central cardiac limitations at rest. However, there were differences in peripheral factors of the oxygen transport chain in patients taking modulator therapies. Peripheral arterial blood flow in participants on modulator therapy was significantly increased at rest versus healthy controls (healthy control: 120.4±24.8 mL•kg-1•min-1; CF Control: 135.5±45.3 mL•kg-1•min-1; CF Orkambi: 171.2±45.3 mL•kg-1•min-1, p=0.016). CF controls naïve to modulator therapy had a significantly slower recovery of muscle metabolism post-exercise measured by tau of phosphocreatine recovery (healthy control: 28.5±9.2s; CF Control: 41.0±9.4s; CF Orkambi: 36.0 ±9.7, p=0.025). Aerobic muscle metabolism measured using MR spectroscopy was correlated with resting arterial flow in modulator-naïve CF participants (r=0.78, p=0.013), but was not correlated in healthy controls or patients on modulator therapy. Results suggest that there are peripheral limitations to exercise capacity in patients with CF that may be alleviated by CFTR modulator therapy. These include a) blood flow delivery of substrates to tissues, and b) improvements in muscle metabolism. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103987 | Exercise||Pediatrics||Respiratory Physiology | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Fontenelle de Araujo Freire da Silva, Joao Pedro | Lovejoy, Nathan R | The Influence of Environment, Landscape and Paleogeography on the Evolution and Diversification of Two Neotropical Fish Groups | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2020-11-01 | Different factors drive the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Although much debate around this topic exists, the importance of the environment in shaping diversity and evolution is undeniable. Changes in environmental properties, from connectivity to physicochemical factors, play fundamental role in diversification. In this thesis, I use two distinct groups of Neotropical fishes as model groups and use different molecular techniques to explore and characterize their molecular diversity. Using traditional and high-throughput sequencing, I have generated thorough phylogenies for the Neotropical freshwater stingrays and the barred knifefish (genus Steatogenys). Combining molecular and environmental data, I explore how geology (paleogeography) and physicochemical factors (water-types) have influenced their evolution across different time scales. Using paleogeographical evidence and fossil data, I generated a continental-level biogeographical hypothesis for the diversification and distribution of the Neotropical freshwater stingrays. I proposed that the evolution of this subfamily is related to changes in the connectivity of bodies of water in the last 20 million years, particularly in paleo mega wetlands in the Amazon region. I then discussed their diversification patterns, identifying an under-estimated diversity for this group and that recent diversification events, mostly related to changes in environment connectivity, are reflected in the incomplete sexual isolation between morphospecies. Using genomic evidence, I identified hybridization between species and proposed a scenario of serial diversification events. For the genus Steatogenys, both mitochondrial and genomic datasets highlighted the under-estimated diversity of this group. Using environmental data and multivariate statistics, I tested for the effects of different water types over diversification and distribution patterns. I proposed that environmental gradients affect population distribution and composition, and that confluence areas act as genomic interchange regions between populations. I found evidence of different species occurring in sympatry, but isolated sexually and with similar patterns of partial gene flow disruption between water bodies with different water types. My thesis combines computational and experimental work investigating the effects of the environment over the diversification of distinct fish groups. Broadly, I highlight the importance of the environment for evolutionary patterns, and that understanding environmental patterns is fundamental in the investigation of diversity and evolution. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103439 | Amazon||Biogeography||Marine Incursions||Phylogenetics||SNPs||Water Types | biodivers, fish, marine, environment, water | SDG6, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| LeMesurier, David | Lemmens, Trudo||Lessard, Michaël | The Law Society of Ontario’s Assessment of Capacity in Relation to Mental Illness: A Critical Analysis | Law | 2020-11-01 | Over the past 20 years, a number of studies across the globe have found that mental health issues—including substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and other forms of psychopathology—are especially acute in the legal profession. The Law Society of Ontario (“Law Society”), the regulator of the legal professions in the province, has a role to play in addressing these issues, particularly due to its statutory jurisdiction over the capacity of lawyers and paralegals (“licensees”). In this paper, I review in depth the Law Society’s current approach to licensee capacity concerns in its applications before the Law Society Tribunal. My critical examination of the current coercive processes is informed by their impacts on the autonomy interests of licensees. Ultimately, I argue that in light of these impacts, the Law Society’s authority with respect to licensee capacity must be strictly and narrowly interpreted, to the greatest benefit of the individuals at issue. | LL.M. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103241 | Capacity||Illness||Licensee||Mental||Regulatory||Society | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Chen, Yin Yuan | Flood, Colleen M | The Law, Policy, and Ethics of Migrants’ Health Care Entitlement | Law | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation examines laws and policies in Western receiving countries concerning migrants’ health care entitlement and queries their defensibility. Using Canada as a case study and drawing international comparisons where appropriate, it is shown that Western receiving countries often provide migrants with a level of health care coverage inferior to what is bestowed on their respective citizens. Proponents of such unequal health care entitlement between migrants and receiving-country citizens have commonly rationalized it as a measure to reduce public spending and to deter immigration-related fraud. Available evidence, however, challenges the validity of these claims. Instead, migrants’ lesser health care entitlement is more appropriately understood as a product of their social exclusion in receiving societies. To characterize all migrants as “others” fails to appreciate the reality that certain migrants constitute rightful members of receiving communities according to the theory of social membership. Like their citizen counterparts, migrants who are ordinarily resident and those whose establishment of ordinary residence can be confidently foretold are closely linked to Western receiving countries given their communal affiliations, involvement in social cooperation, self-identification, and subjection to the relevant state’s coercive authority. As their members, Western countries ought to afford these migrants the same extent of health care entitlement as they do their citizens in order to satisfy the dictates of equality and reciprocity. In contrast, differential health care entitlement between citizens of Western receiving countries and migrants whose residence therein is not ordinary in nature is morally permissible. In a world that largely depends on broad-based, ongoing resource redistribution within each nation to realize individuals’ right to health care, membership in these political communities is key to generating the solidarity needed to sustain such communal resource sharing. The inclusion of migrants who are not members of receiving societies in these redistributive processes raises concerns about illegitimacy. Nevertheless, given their territorial presence, pursuant to the principles of causation and remedial capacity, even non-member migrants should be entitled to a basic set of health care rights in Western receiving countries, including, at minimum, coverage for primary care and provision of medical treatment that cannot be deferred. | S.J.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103595 | entitlement||health care||international migrants||membership||solidarity | rights, equality, health | SDG3, SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Li, Constance | Boutros, Paul C | The Molecular Associations of Host Characteristics in Cancer Genomics | Medical Biophysics | 2020-11-01 | Epidemiological studies have identified myriad differences in cancer burden between people of different sexes, ancestries, and ages. Male individuals are more likely to develop most cancers and die of their disease. While overall cancer incidence is comparable between individuals of African vs. European ancestry, cancer mortality is higher in those of African ancestry. Increasing age is a well-known cancer risk factor, yet there are exceptions such as in pediatric cancers. These are only a few examples of epidemiological differences associated with fundamental characteristics of the cancer host. Since cancer is driven by genomic alterations, it is likely that epidemiological differences can be explained by differences in the cancer genomic landscape. I assessed this by performing a comprehensive pan-cancer analysis of sex-, ancestry-, and age-associated differences in 12,774 tumour genomes across 33 tumour-types using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and the International Cancer Genome Consortium. I investigated genome-wide and localized phenomena including measures of mutation density and tumour evolution, mutational signatures, and the frequency of single nucleotide variants and copy number aberrations. I used multivariable methods to identify sex-, ancestry-, and age-associations that persisted even after adjusting for confounding factors such as smoking history and tumour stage. Sex-, ancestry-, and age-associations span the spectrum of somatic genomic features across all except three tumour-types studied. While some genomic associations were detected in pan-cancer analysis, many others were tumour-type specific. Finally, I leveraged sex-, ancestry- and age-biased genomic features to identify functional associations. Using transcriptomic data, I found that many sex-, ancestry-, or age -biased mutations were themselves associated with changes in mRNA abundance. Some mRNA abundance changes were also dependent on the context of sex, age, or ancestry. Similarly, I identified biased genomic features that were associated with survival. Some genomic features were only associated with survival in one sex or age group, suggesting host characteristics influence the prognostic potential of genomic features. Ultimately, my findings suggest that tumour genomics are biased to host characteristics, that there are many underlying sources for these genomic differences, and that they can be leveraged to improve biomarker design. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103434 | Age||Ancestry||Biomarkers||Cancer||Health Disparities||Sex | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Kristalovich, Katherine Ann | Campbell, Elizabeth | The Moral and Ethical Dimensions of Dialogic Critical Literacy Learning | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-11-01 | Dialogic learning is an essential element of the high school English language arts (ELA) classroom and the foundation of critical literacy. Critical literacy dialogues explore controversial and conflictual issues of social justice, including topics of power, race, gender, and politics. However, while the examination of power and social justice that promote reflection and understanding is an objective of critical literacy, some dialogues may become contentious and raise ethical issues for teachers who acknowledge the importance of critical literacy but are pedagogically unprepared for dialogical conflict. Teachers must recognize their ethical role in determining the quality of students’ education and the ethical concerns of politicized classroom dialogues. Notwithstanding the Manitoba English language arts (ELA) curriculum’s promotion of critical literacy praxis, only a limited examination of the ethical complexities within critical literacy research has been conducted. In response, this philosophical inquiry examines the theoretical foundations of critical literacy and dialogic learning, their respective moral and ethical dimensions, and explores the ethical implications teachers and students face when engaged in conflictual dialogic learning in the ELA classroom. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103474 | critical literacy||dialogic||ethics||moral | justice, gender, educat | SDG4, SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Marsella, Riccardo | Bartel, Lee | The Musical Playground as a Vehicle for Community-building | Music | 2021-03-01 | This study hovers around one central problem: the struggle between structured and unstructured learning models in education, the creative arts and community building. In this research study, I sought to outline how an alternative music education site, such as a musical playground can positively impact creative expression, music education, and community. An instrumental case study was conducted on the Music Box Village (MBV) in New Orleans, Louisiana as run by the collective and not-for-profit organization, The New Orleans Airlift. Through interviewing over 20 related stakeholders, observing grade four students playing for three consecutive days in the space, and analysis of secondary data, I learned that a musical playground itself can act as a co-composer (Morgan, 1980), a third teacher (Gandini, 1998), and a conduit for social change. The MBV is a stage for creative expression, supporting exploration, improvisation and composition through its aesthetics and design. The post-modern space celebrates rebellion in music, while honouring New Orleans tradition at the same time. As a music education environment, the MBV celebrates free play, physical and musical risk, and unstructured learning models. MBV embraces the tenets of community music (Higgins, 2012) in that it is a space outside of traditional music education which coalesces the New Orleans Bywater neighbourhood in the Upper Ninth Ward. A meta-theme of radical collaboration emerged, which was prevalent in many of the working relationships fostered by the New Orleans Airlift organization, who founded and run the MBV. An exemplar for this model is explored, as well as educational curricular development ideas. Keywords: architecture, community, community music, design, experiential learning, experimental music, free play, mechanical music, music, music education. | D.M.A. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104917 | architecture||community||community music||experiential music||free play||music education | environment, labor, water, educat | SDG4, SDG6, SDG8, SDG13, SDG14 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Pue, Kristen | Breznitz, Dan | The Nonprofitized Welfare State: Examining the Relationship between Social Welfare Nonprofitization and Service Expansiveness in Canada and the United Kingdom | Political Science | 2021-03-01 | When governments reach out to nonprofit organizations to provide social welfare services, a common argument posits, service expansiveness is weakened: either contracting out is an explicit abdication of public duty or it creates incentives that undermine service expansiveness over time. And yet the evidence does not seem to support this simple explanation of welfare state nonprofitization. This dissertation presents a comparison of nonprofitized welfare in two countries – Canada and the United Kingdom – and two policy areas – homelessness and emergency management. It argues, first, that there is no necessary relationship between the level of nonprofitization and social welfare expansiveness. Nonprofitization occurs within a context where the public duty is being continuously renegotiated, meaning that the boundaries of the welfare state are always in flux. Two pathways to nonprofitization result from the different directions of these fluctuations: cost-cutting and co-optation. While the cost-cutting pathway is linked to service contraction, co-optation is linked to the expansion of public duty. Thus, there is no single overarching relationship between welfare nonprofitization and service expansiveness: nonprofitization operates in both directions. However, this dissertation also argues that the choices that governments make about how to institutionalize nonprofit social welfare can influence whether welfare expansiveness erodes over time or, indeed, actually increases. Service expansiveness is undermined when institutions of acquisition embed values of free-market competition, rather than collaboration or service stability. Service expansiveness is facilitated where the policy structure offers opportunities for nonprofit voice through advocacy, shaping the service, and piloting. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104871 | Comparative politics||Nonprofitization||Political economy||Public policy||Social policy||Welfare state | institut, labor | SDG8, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Sadovina, Irina | Jagoe, Eva-Lynn | The Nonsovereign Subject and Sexual Violence in Contemporary North American and Russian Culture | Comparative Literature | 2018-11-01 | Through stories about sexual violence, societies confront the condition of nonsovereignty that underlies the reality of suffering, self- and other-inflicted, in the lives of sexed beings. Analyzing theoretical, fictional, and popular media texts, written in the United States, Canada, and Russia from the 1980s to the 2010s, this dissertation formulates a structural approach to narratives about sexual violence and nonsovereignty. This approach avoids naturalizing the opposition between the “progressive” West and “traditional” Russia, enabling more informed discussions of cultural narratives about sexual violence and a more critical use of the discursive tools available for dealing with it. I identify three modes of approaching the problem of sexual violence: reparative, radical and prosaic. These modes shape subject positions and patterns of power relations. Each chapter analyzes the structure of a particular mode, its manifestations in cultural myths and in specific texts, and ultimately, its limitations. Chapter 1 discusses the reparative mode, which aims to heal the subject or the world, and its manifestations: the Western speakout model in Sapphire’s Push (1996) and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999), and the Russian ideal of kenosis in Viktor Astafiev’s “Lyudochka” (1989) and Guzel Yakhina’s Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes (2015). Reparative projects can be totalizing and easily appropriated by neoliberalism and conservative nationalism. The radical mode, discussed in Chapter 2, seeks to avoid appropriation by foregrounding identification with trauma. I analyze its manifestations in North American discourses of feminist and queer negativity and the Russian “literature of evil.” Reading Kate Zambreno’s Green Girl (2011) and Vladimir Sorokin’s Marina’s Thirtieth Love (1987), I argue that the radical mode reinscribes abjection as a source of empowerment and supports identity politics and structures of inequality. Chapter 3 formulates the prosaic mode, which focuses on processes of adaptation and survival without resolution or liberation. Reading Lyudmila Petrushevskaya’s The Time: Night (1992) and Tamara Faith Berger’s Maidenhead (2012), I articulate a prosaic vision of the subject as headquarters for self-maintenance in a world both sustaining and hostile. Understanding the three modes as at once fundamental and mutable, I argue for their critical and pragmatic use in debates about sexual violence. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102921 | feminism||negativity||psychoanalysis||queer theory||sexual violence||trauma | conserv, inequality, queer, girl, equality | SDG5, SDG10, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Bolton, Elizabeth | Piccardo, Enrica | The Poetics of Postpartum: Dwelling in Poetic Space to Parent the Self | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2021-03-01 | Explorations of how expressive writing improves physical and psychological health began with Pennebaker’s expressive writing experiments in 1986. Pennebaker found that the association between nonfiction writing about trauma and improved health was strong enough to warrant continued research on the practice. Since then, no studies on the health benefits of writing have yet been carried out that examine the efficacy of writing that is not trauma-centered, nor have any studies analyzed data using a poetic phenomenological method. This project asks whether a reflective, nonfiction writing practice that prioritizes rigor of craft and poeticization of language has similarly transformative effects on the writer, and offers a poetic response to the phenomenological question of what it is like for a body to dwell in the psychic, poetic space(s) opened up in the act of reflective writing. The project combines prose-poetic data on the experience of postpartum depression with poetic phenomenological analysis in the style of Bachelard (1969; 1994) to offer a poetic presentation of results indicating the supportive, consciousness-ordering sensations experienced by the writing, reflective body which contribute to an overall urge to move through life with intention and purpose. While conclusions offer no concrete guarantee that reflective nonfiction writing consistently amounts to any sort of “writing cure”, the results embody an enactment of a creative writing practice that pertains directly to the literacy-based, empowered development of the self in times of emotional need. The project suggests various focal points for replicating the practice and applying it in educational and personal settings. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104897 | creative writing||education||expressive writing||literature||phenomenology||poetry | educat, health | SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Gagne, Marie | Teichman, Judith | The Politics of Large-scale Land Acquisitions: State Support, Community Responses, and Variations in Corporate Land Control in Senegal | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | Over the last two decades, Senegal has experienced an unprecedented wave of large-scale land acquisitions. Despite the apparent surge, however, many of the reported spectacular land deals never materialized, have been facing major operational difficulties, or collapsed altogether. This observation was the starting point of this doctoral investigation, which asked: What factors explain the variations in the capacity of external investors to acquire and maintain control over land for the conduct of their agribusiness projects in Senegal? It is the primary contention of this dissertation that central state responses to investors critically shape corporate land acquisition and control. The governments of both Presidents Abdoulaye Wade (in power from 2000 to 2012) and Macky Sall (in power since 2012) have encouraged private investments in the agricultural sector and extended help to facilitate corporate land acquisition and control. But, contrary to expectations, state support for seemingly powerful investors has not been systematic and steady. In particular, the government has to a large extent been responsive to social opposition and has ended controversial land projects even though they squarely aligned with government priorities. If, among the myriad actors involved in land deals in Senegal, the central government has the greatest capacity to guarantee corporate land control, state behaviour is itself moulded by social interactions and political struggles that take place within interlocking arenas of power at the local, regional, national, and international levels. The combination of actors’ normative positions, objectives, resources, and strategies define their bargaining power, that is their capacity to affect land control outcomes. Based on a documentary analysis of private collections and public materials, 309 in-depth qualitative interviews with key actors, and sustained field observations in Dakar and the countryside, this dissertation advances an original analytical framework that takes into consideration the multilayered configurations of power shaping corporate land control. By grasping how external investors handle their insertion in complex arenas of power, this dissertation reframes our current understanding of the so-called “scramble for land,” and illustrates that Africa is not as amenable to corporate takeover as usually pictured by both proponents and critics of industrial agriculture. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103184 | Agribusiness||Corporate land control||Large-scale land acquisitions||Senegal||Social movements||States in Africa | industr, agricultur | SDG2, SDG9 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Fender, Jennifer Mae | Teichman, Judith | The Politics of the Middle Class and the Left in Uruguay: Feelings of Insecurity, Solidarity, and Support for Redistribution | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation explores the relationships between the middle class and the Left with a specific focus on attitudes towards redistributive policies. The work is based on an examination of the social attitudes and political propensities of the Uruguayan middle class during the Left governments of the Frente Amplio (FA) (2005-2014) including the lead up to their re-election in 2014. In investigating the attitudes and political proclivities of members of the Uruguayan middle class, I incorporate a consideration of the significant political and economic changes that occurred from the middle of the twentieth century onward. The work combines historical analysis and analysis of in-depth interviews conducted by the author. I argue that the presence of two sets of factors that shape individual’s senses of insecurity and solidarity help to explain middle class support for, or opposition to, redistributive policies. One set involves the presence or absence of a complex of insecurity mitigating factors; the second involves socialization processes that inculcate support for the social norms of equality and collective responsibility. I argue that a combination of insecurity mitigating factors and exposure to socialization processes that inculcate norms of equality and collective responsibility, producing social solidarity, tends to contribute to middle class support for the Left and the redistributive measures it stands for. On the other hand, the absence of these two sets of factors increases feelings of insecurity and erodes social solidarity. Particularly when combined with economic and political uncertainly, this tends to result in middle class resistance to redistributive measures. This complex of factors is therefore important in contributing to the necessary cross-class coalition of support required for the election of Left governments and ensuing redistributive measures. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103695 | Insecurity||Middle Class||Political Left||Politics of Inequality and Redistribution||Solidarity||Uruguay | inequality, equality | SDG5, SDG10 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Jamal, Alainna J | McGeer, Allison J | The Prevention and Control of Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacterales (CPE) in Ontario, Canada | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2020-11-01 | Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales (CPE) are an important threat to human health. CPE spread appears to occur primarily in healthcare facilities, and transmission is usually patient-to-patient but can sometimes be from contaminated hospital drains to patients. The extent to which community transmission occurs is unknown. This thesis aimed to inform CPE infection prevention and control (IPAC) measures in Ontario, Canada. First, we surveyed all acute care hospitals in Ontario to determine whether their CPE IPAC practices were in accordance with provincial guidelines. Only 60% of hospitals screened patients with prior healthcare abroad or high-risk travel on admission, despite guidelines recommending this. Even fewer hospitals (20%) screened patients with prior hospitalization in Canada on admission, possibly because guidelines do not recommend this despite recent evidence revealing considerable local CPE transmission. Second, we cultured all hospital drains previously exposed to inpatients with CPE at ten hospitals in Southern Ontario (N=1,209) and used whole-genome sequencing to determine whether drain CPE could be linked to patient exposure. Drain contamination was uncommon (53, 4%) but dispersed across 7 (70%) hospitals, and only 4 CPE-contaminated drains could be linked to prior patient exposure. This suggested contamination of drains by prior room occupants whose CPE was undetected, further highlighting insufficient patient screening practices. Finally, we examined risk of CPE household transmission. Of 177 household contacts, only 5 (3%) were detected as colonized due to confirmed or probable household transmission, suggesting little community transmission. Given that screening is cost-effective in low prevalence populations, household contacts of known CPE cases should be included in hospital admission screening programs. In summary, this thesis revealed an urgent need for methods to improve uptake of provincial guidelines for CPE prevention and control in Ontario hospitals, particularly with respect to admission screening. This thesis also shone a light on aspects of provincial guidelines that require updating, such as recommendations for admission screening to include patients with prior hospitalization in Canada and household contacts of known cases. We should continue to focus our IPAC efforts for CPE in healthcare facilities, where most transmission appears to occur, as opposed to the community. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103263 | health | SDG3 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Lapp, Jessica Margaret | MacNeil, Heather M. | The Provenance of Protest: Conceptualizing Records Creation in Archives of Feminist Materials | Information Studies | 2020-11-01 | Archives of feminist materials are unique material and affective assemblages that represent, condition, and constrain the lives and experiences of those who identify as feminist. Occupying a distinct corner of the community archiving universe, feminist archival projects have been taken up intellectually by scholars located in both archival studies and feminist cultural studies, offering an opportunity for conceptually rich cross-disciplinary insights. Simultaneously memory and aspiration, the feminist archive is a site of knowledge generation, meaning making, political organizing, public history, collectivity, speculation, and desire. Despite a fascination with feminist archival practice across both archival studies and cultural studies disciplines, the acts of archival creation that constitute these materials and sites remain, for the most part, undertheorized. This dissertation studies the acts of archival creation occurring in aggregations of feminist materials in order to better explicate and understand how feminist movement materials are generated, used, preserved, and re-activated over time. Focusing on five archives in the United States and Canada ranging from the institutional to the community-run, I weave together the acts of creation identified through site specific examples and interviews with archivists, volunteers, and archival collaborators, in order to demonstrate how feminist archival materials push archival creatorship, and traditional understandings of provenance, to their theoretical limits. I argue for understanding creation in archives of feminist materials as an iterative and ‘heavy’ feminist process; as digitally attenuated and fabulatory; and as marked by boundary breaching, presence and absence. In doing so, I question, challenge and explicate what it means to ‘do feminist archiving,’ while at the same time, suggesting that a feminist orientation towards archival practice has the ability to elaborate the core principles of the archival field to better enunciate the complexity of records creation. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103124 | Archival Studies||Feminist Archiving||Provenance Theory||Records Creation | institut, labor | SDG8, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Koester, Carolyn Elizabeth | Krementsov, Nikolai | The Public Good: Eugenics and Law in Ontario, 1910 to 1938 | History and Philosophy of Science and Technology | 2018-11-01 | In the early twentieth century, interest in eugenics swept the world. Seen as a scientific solution to social ills of the day like prostitution, venereal disease and the supposed rise in “feeble-mindedness,” its principles were based on the notion that humanity could be improved through selective breeding, as was already being done with plants and animals. Many jurisdictions, including thirty American states as well as Alberta and British Columbia in Canada, implemented legislation which required certain “unfit” individuals to undergo reproductive sterilization. Others passed legislation requiring pre-marital certificates of medical “fitness.” Surprisingly, Ontario never followed suit. This has led to the assumption that “not too much” of a eugenic nature happened in that province. However, by investigating the relationship between eugenics and law using primary sources relatively unknown to historians of medicine, science and technology, I have found evidence of considerable eugenic activity in Ontario. This dissertation focusses on the period from 1910 to 1938 and three specific legal processes. First, I examine the story of Dr. Forbes Godfrey, MPP, who, between 1910 and 1921, introduced eight private members’ bills in the legislature, four to implement sterilization and four to implement marriage restrictions. All eight failed to pass. Second is the story of three Royal Commissions, established in 1917, 1929, 1938, which all recommended eugenic solutions to the problems they were set up to consider. Once again, none of their proposed eugenic solutions were adopted. Third is the story of industrialist A. R. Kaufman and the Parents’ Information Bureau he incorporated to promote birth control and sterilization. This work led to a 1936 criminal prosecution now known as the Eastview Trial in which the judge determined, partly because of an argument based explicitly on eugenic principles, that distributing birth control information and devices served the “public good.” | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102928 | birth control||eugenics||marriage restrictions||Ontario||public health||sterilization | industr, health | SDG3, SDG9 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Chan, Aaron Lorheed | Gazzarrini, Sonia | The Role of the Transcription Factor FUSCA3 in Reproductive Development of Arabidopsis thaliana | Cell and Systems Biology | 2019-03-01 | Reproduction is a fundamental stage in the cycle of life. In flowering plants, this begins with flowering and ends with seed setting. Although extensive work has been done on these complex processes, there are many gaps in our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and genetic networks. The B3 transcription factor FUSCA3 (FUS3) plays a key role in controlling seed maturation processes and developmental phase transitions through the modulation of hormone levels. Many downstream targets have been identified through transcriptomic and chromatin immunoprecipitation studies, however, the regulation of FUS3 activity is poorly understood. Recently, it was shown that FUS3 interacts with and is phosphorylated by AKIN10, a kinase subunit of the Sucrose non fermenting 1 (Snf1)-RELATED KINASE 1 (SnRK1) complex. SnRK1 is a central regulator of carbon levels and stress response that is conserved among eukaryotes. This opens the possibility that stress signals working through SnRK1 may regulate seed development through FUS3 phosphorylation. In this study, I investigated the function of FUS3 phosphorylation in Arabidopsis thaliana. The SnRK1 phosphorylation site of FUS3 is embedded in the basic B2 domain, which is strongly conserved among eudicot species. Characterization of the loss-of-function fus3-3 mutant, as well as transgenic fus3-3 lines carrying phosphonull and phosphomimic FUS3 variants, showed that FUS3 phosphorylation does not affect seed maturation, but regulates reproductive and early seed development, uncovering novel roles for FUS3. FUS3 was found to regulate pollen viability and the developmental rate of the endosperm, integument and embryo. Fertility was reduced in fus3-3 as a result of both pollen defects and maternally-derived post-fertilization seed abortion. Intriguingly, pollen and seed abortion in fus3-3 were higher under heat stress compared to the wild type. Except for pollen defects, all these novel fus3-3 phenotypes were rescued by wild type and phosphomimic FUS3 variants, while the phosphonull FUS3 variant enhanced them. Together, these findings demonstrate that FUS3 phosphorylation plays an important role in reproductive and early seed development, and that FUS3 regulates adaptive reproductive responses by acting downstream of stress signals in Arabidopsis thaliana. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105123 | FUSCA3||Reproduction||Seed Development | conserv, production | SDG12, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Mecija, Casey | Georgis, Dina||Diaz, Robert | The Sound of Queer Diaspora: Sonic Enactments of Filipinx Desire, Loss and Belonging | Women and Gender Studies Institute | 2020-11-01 | In this dissertation, I foreground Filipinx cultural production in building an aesthetic archive of transpacific aesthetic expression. From this point, I listen for its queer sounds. My research draws on queer theory, performance studies, and Filipinx diaspora studies to suggest that sound offers a methodological framework that can uniquely register modes of collectivity and desire that may otherwise go unrecognized. I also deploy psychoanalytic concepts of mourning and reparation to elaborate a definition of sound that explains its material and metaphorical force as it creates conditions for new relational possibilities. Broadly, I suggest that sound has an affective quality that capaciously allows Filipinx diasporic subjects to create forms of home, desire, and belonging that defy racialized ascriptions born from racism, colonialism, and their gendered dimensions. This dissertation includes four chapters, each offering a critical reading of an aesthetic object. The objects that I have assembled in this dissertation include videos that feature performances by Filipinx children, visual art and music by Filipinx artists, and a film that expresses the queer dynamics of sound. By critically listening for queer sound as it is produced by these aesthetic objects, I hope to contribute a theory of diaspora that may otherwise be rendered unintelligible due to hegemonies of vision, empire, and heterosexuality. Ultimately, this project seeks to expose how sonicity can inhabit the affective force of desire, loss, and belonging in queer, transpacific representation. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103430 | Aesthetics||Diaspora||Filipinx||Media||Queer||Sound | production, labor, queer, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG12 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Tam, Derrick Y | Fremes, Stephen E. | The Surgical Management of Severe Aortic Stenosis In the Era of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2020-11-01 | Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has emerged as a treatment option for severe and symptomatic aortic stenosis across the spectrum of surgical risk and has potentially transformed the surgical management of aortic stenosis. The objectives of this dissertation were: (1) To determine if the widespread introduction of TAVR had an impact on valve selection trends in those undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR); (2) To compare valve-in-valve TAVR to redo surgery for a failed biological prosthesis; (3) To determine the safety and efficacy of adjunctive aortic root enlargement (ARE) to SAVR; (4) To determine the impact of various hypothetical scenarios of TAVR valve durability on the life expectancy of low-risk patients. Our piece-wise regression of 214,390 patients undergoing isolated primary mechanical or bio- logical SAVR from 2004-2016 in the United States estimated that the proportion of mechanical valves was decreasing more quickly during 2004-2009 (-2.81%/year, 95% confidence interval [95% CI], -3.03% to -2.60%), compared with 2010-2016. This suggest that the widespread introduction of TAVR did not, in of itself, accelerate the decline in mechanical valves. In a propensity-score matched analysis of 131 patient-pairs undergoing either valve-in-valve TAVR or redo surgery for a failed biological prosthesis, 30-day mortality (absolute risk difference: -7.5%; 95%CI: -12.6% to -2.3%), permanent pacemaker implantation, and blood transfusions were significantly lower with valve-in-valve. A multi-institutional propensity-score matched analysis showed that the addition of ARE to isolated SAVR was safe and did not confer additional early mortality or morbidity in 809 matched patient-pairs. Overall, these two analyses suggest ARE should be performed when necessary and may facilitate future valve-in-valve procedures, which may be the preferred approach for a failed biological prosthesis. Finally, in our discrete event simulation model, the durability of TAVR valves must be 70% shorter than that of surgical valves to result in reduced life expectancy in patients with similar demographics to those enrolled in the low-risk trials. However, in younger patients, the threshold for TAVR valve durability was substantially higher. These findings suggest that durability concerns should not influence the initial treatment decision regarding TAVR versus SAVR in older low-risk patients based on current evidence. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103298 | aortic stenosis||aortic valve replacement||decision analysis||discrete event simulation||health technology assessment||transcatheter valves | institut, health | SDG3, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Antonacci, Gina Marie | Wheelahan, Elizabeth | The Transformation of Three Colleges to Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning in Ontario | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | This qualitative, exploratory study focuses on the transformation of three of Ontario's public colleges as they became Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning (ITALs) with the capacity to offer up to 15 percent of their programming as baccalaureate degrees. The data were gathered through interviews with 11 past and present policy and institutional leaders, as well as 21 current ITAL administrators and faculty members. In addition, a document analysis provided insight into the manner in which the transformation was reflected through publications and documents. The theoretical framework that grounds this study includes historical institutionalism, legitimacy theory, as well as Burton R. Clark’s theory related to hierarchy and power in post-secondary institutions. These theories provide a view to understanding the incremental manner in which the ITALs changed and offer insight into the challenges that the ITALs face as they build legitimacy related to their new degree offerings This study found that as the ITALs transformed incrementally, there was a shift in their institutional identities. As they began to offer degrees, in addition to their traditional credentials, the ITALs changed. They introduced new regulations, policies and processes, resulting in a change to the manner in which the institutions operated on a daily basis. In expanding their degree provision, the ITALs were required to create a degree culture, including the introduction of an applied research infrastructure, a staffing policy for the hiring of PhD-prepared faculty and a rigorous degree quality assurance framework. The study found that the ITALs continue to address challenges related to building legitimacy among internal and external stakeholders, critical to the persistence and success of degree offering. As they transformed, the ITALs experienced challenges as the new rules, regulations and responsibilities of degree offering were introduced and layered on to their traditional program offerings. At the same time, the transformation provided meaningful opportunities for the ITALs as their mandate evolved to include degree offerings. This study addresses the transformed mandate of the ITALs and contemplates the possibility of an alternate post-secondary system design in Ontario. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103309 | college||degrees||Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning||Ontario||post-secondary||transformation | institut, infrastructure | SDG9, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Byun, Eunji | Finkelstein, Sarah A||Cowling, Sharon A | The Underestimated Role of Temperate Wetlands in the Late Quaternary Terrestrial Carbon Cycle | Earth Sciences | 2020-11-01 | Organic matter stored in wetlands constitutes a globally significant terrestrial carbon pool interacting with atmospheric carbon via unique ecological processes that release CH4 but take in CO2. Efforts are ongoing to quantify the role of wetlands in terrestrial-atmosphere carbon exchanges, but observational data are unavoidably limited. Wetland drainage and losses have been profound in many countries, particularly in temperate latitudes; these losses took place prior to any eld measurements of carbon stocks or fluxes. Temperate wetlands have often been assumed to accumulate little to no peat, and thus, have had minimal importance in wetland carbon inventories. This thesis aims to point out the underestimated role that the temperate wetlands have played in the terrestrial carbon cycle, by conducting three case studies during the Anthropocene, the Holocene, and the late glacial period. First, the distribution of pre-settlement wetlands in southern Ontario was reconstructed using geospatial map overlays—the locations, peat depths and carbon densities from extant wetlands were used to assign pre-settlement wetlands to wetland types (bog, fen, swamp or marsh). More than half of the pre-settlement wetlands disappeared with potential carbon release up to 2 Pg since the early 19th century. Second, southern Ontario's largest swamp was investigated for paleoecological history using peat coring and pollen counting. This analysis indicated that the swamp established by about 8000 years ago, perhaps in response to the intensification of lake-effect snow, and it has accumulated thick organic-rich deposits since that time. Third, a model-simulated peatland expansion in the American Midwest was linked spatially to the distribution of enigmatic "no-analog" pollen assemblages during the last deglaciation. Estimates of early settlement era forest composition were used in conjunction with wetland simulations and machine learning algorithms to reconstruct natural wet forests in the deglacial landscape. These results show that wetland extent exceeded that of uplands, and this explains the key components of the no-analog pollen assemblages. During the Bølling-Allerød period, rivers transporting ice-sheet meltwater may have increased wetland cover across the region, causing the unprecedented dominance of wet forests, which potentially contributed to the northern hemispheric CH4 source enhancement. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103365 | carbon||Great Lakes||peat||pollen||swamp||wetland | ecolog, forest, water | SDG6, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Barth, Lauren Emily | Sprules, W Gary||Shuter, Brian J | The Utility of Zooplankton Size Spectrum Parameters as Ecological Indicators | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2020-11-01 | The overarching goal of this thesis is to assess the sensitivity of the zooplankton community size spectrum to ecosystem change in lakes. This was accomplished using two large-scale datasets to investigate the temporal and spatial patterns of the zooplankton normalized abundance size spectrum (NASS). First, using a 30-year time series from eight lakes (Dorset lakes) I characterized the range of variability in the zooplankton NASS associated with among-lake differences and long-term environmental change and documented its common seasonal pattern. The slope (relative abundance of small and large organisms) was a relatively stable feature of the zooplankton community compared with the height (total abundance). I detected a relatively strong seasonal signal in both the slope and the height, with an overall decline in height and increase in slope over the ice-free season. Second, I used the Dorset lake dataset to investigate the among-lake and among-year drivers of variability in the zooplankton NASS and its responsiveness to invasion by Bythotrephes, a spiny water flea. Morphometric characteristics were the best predictors of both the slope and the height. Temporal variability in the slope was related to changes in lake phosphorus levels, while in the height it was related to dissolved organic carbon and ice duration. The NASS changed in both central tendency and variability after Bythotrephes invaded, demonstrating its usefulness as an indicator of a top-down perturbation. Last, I used a diverse group of Ontario lakes to better understand the drivers of among-lake variability in the zooplankton NASS. Consistent with previous results, morphometry was a strong driver of variability. Additionally, there was a strong spatial signal in the slope and seasonal signal in the height. Once these factors were controlled for, I was able to detect an influence of the fish community and anthropogenic stressors. Taken together, the zooplankton size spectrum is responsive to both bottom-up and top-down factors, with unusual size spectrum slope values potentially indicating a strong perturbation. I have offered some recommendations for continued development of the zooplankton community size spectrum as a universal tool for lake monitoring. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103232 | body size||environmental change||indicator||invasive species||size spectrum||zooplankton | ecolog, fish, environment, water | SDG6, SDG13, SDG14, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Roderique, Hadiya | Casciaro, Tiziana | The Workplace Social Networks of Professional Parents | Management | 2020-11-01 | Social networks provide several benefits related to ascension and success at work. In this dissertation, I investigate the impact of motherhood and fatherhood on the characteristics of two types of social relationships: instrumental relationships, which provide job-related inputs required for job performance and career advancement; and expressive relationships, which provide emotional support and friendship that support professionals in the workplace. I take the position that relative to the image of an ideal worker, negative implications of motherhood and positive implications of fatherhood have different impacts on the formation and maintenance of social relationships. Specifically, I propose that fathers can use their parenthood as a source of similarity distinctly from mothers, resulting in different effects on gender homophily, relationship closeness, frequency of contact, multiplexity, the number of internal and external ties, and the perceived resources gained. I investigated this hypothesis with two studies—a network survey and qualitative study of lawyers working at large law firms. The results did not support any effects of fatherhood on instrumental and expressive relationships. Instead, I found an effect of motherhood on expressive relationships with other mothers supported by qualitative evidence of mothers forming closer connections with other mothers and relying on them for instrumental advice and expressive support to navigate being a working professional mother. Despite signaling strong work commitment, the challenges of dealing with persistent stereotypes of conflict between the ideal mother and ideal worker images described by mothers appeared to translate into a higher need for such homophilous expressive support. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103337 | Gender||Homophily||Motherhood||Parenthood||Social networks | worker, gender | SDG5, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Bachour, Mary-Kay | Silvey, Rachel | Toronto's Housing Crisis: An Intersectional Politics of Housing and Settlement Services for Refugees | Geography | 2020-11-01 | In this dissertation, I unpack the intersectional politics of the housing crisis in Toronto through the perspectives of frontline staff working in non-profit organisations. Two critical questions frame this study. Firstly, how have service providers addressed the housing and settlement needs of refugees in the context of Canada’s housing crisis? Secondly, how are race, class, language and citizenship status tied into the politics of housing and settlement service provision in Toronto? Utilising semi-structured interviews with frontline staff employed in various non-profit across Toronto, this research identifies and analyses systemic barriers to housing access among newly arrived refugees in Canada as they cut across race, class, language and citizenship status. This study interrogates the disjuncture between immigration and housing policies, programs and procedures and access to rental housing among refugees in Toronto. I draw on antiracist feminist frameworks, particularly intersectionality and theories of home-making, to enrich current conceptualisations of housing access and inequality in Canada. I unpack barriers refugees face when accessing the private rental market in Toronto, to reveal the multilayered ways in which marginalized communities experience housing inequality in Canada. In doing so, this dissertation reveals the limitations of the reliance on private housing stock for housing refugees as they face barriers, including lack of Canadian references and credit scores, lack of employment, language barriers and housing discrimination. Additionally, this study underscores the limitations of settlement and housing service provision available to vulnerable populations, such as refugees in Toronto. By engaging with the voices of frontline staff who consistently interact with refugees, this study sheds light on the intersectional praxis of service provision and the limitations service providers confront when administering programs for vulnerable populations in Toronto. Finally, this study unveils the roles community and grassroots organisations, such as the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, and Parkdale Organize!, play in (re)imagining housing justice in Toronto. This study identifies and contributes a novel methodological and conceptual approach to housing research in geography by bringing to the fore frontline staff as a key category of analysis seldom featured in studies on Canada’s housing system. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103572 | Housing access||Intersectionality||Refugees||Toronto | justice, inequality, employment, equality, poverty | SDG1, SDG5, SDG8, SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Murphy, Stephanie Miranda | Orwin, Clifford | Toward an Understanding of the Novelistic Dimension of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | The multi-genre combination of philosophic and literary expression in Rousseau’s Emile provides an opportunity to explore the relationship between the novelistic structure of this work and the substance of its philosophical teachings. This dissertation explores this matter through a textual analysis of the role of the novelistic dimension of the Emile. Despite the vast literature on Rousseau’s manner of writing, critical aspects of the novelistic form of the Emile remain either misunderstood or overlooked. This study challenges the prevailing image in the existing scholarship by arguing that Rousseau’s Emile is a prime example of how form and content can fortify each other. The novelistic structure of the Emile is inseparable from Rousseau’s conception and communication of his philosophy. That is, the novelistic form of the Emile is not simply harmonious with the substance of its philosophical content, but its form and content also merge to reinforce Rousseau’s capacity to express his teachings. This dissertation thus proposes to demonstrate how and why the novelistic dimension of the Emile belongs to it not mechanistically, but integrally. To illustrate this central idea, this dissertation is divided into three sub-themes, each of which is motivated by a corresponding major research question: (1) Rousseau as a writer of a novel: What is the function of the novelistic structure of the Emile? (2) Rousseau as an appropriator of a novel: To what end does Rousseau use (and abuse) novels in the Emile as part of Emile’s and Sophie’s pedagogical programs? (3) Rousseau as a fictional character in a novel: What is the function of Rousseau’s fictionalized self-representation in the Emile as Jean-Jacques the tutor? The findings of each chapter prompt a re-thinking of Rousseau’s novelistic technique in the Emile as it relates to the substance of his broader philosophical teachings. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103760 | eighteenth century||Enlightenment||politics and literature||Rousseau||state of nature||theories of education | educat | SDG4 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Belford, Liora | Legge, Elizabeth | Toward Listening as a Curatorial Method: Histories, Methodologies, Propositions | History of Art | 2021-03-01 | From the 1960s through the 1980s, an ever-expanding exploration of sound occurred within the visual arts field, helping give birth to sound art (and its exhibition) as a unique genre. The number of sound art exhibitions has grown exponentially over time, reaching into major art institutions. Building on information gathered about more than 250 sound art group exhibitions from the 1960s to the present, involving works made by a number of artists/musicians, I recognized three main approaches for curating sound: The sonic image, the exhibition as spatial music, and musical composition for visual objects. This dissertation follows these three sound curating methodologies, their histories, and the propositions and influence they have contributed to the production, positioning, and reception of sound in art today. I start with a question: Why does the most common method for displaying multiple sound works (or works with sound) within the same gallery space invariably involve constraining these sounds with acoustic barriers to keep them separate? I maintain that this separation of sounds in museums follows how we see, and not how we hear. I argue that this method, which I have termed the “sonic image,” is made in order to ‘help’ us experience sound works as we do visual objects—to hear a sound only when we see it. Since the sonic turn of the 1990s a few composers curated sound art group shows demonstrating an auditory approach to sound curation: the “exhibition as spatial music.” Composing exhibitions as spatial music means addressing sound’s materiality and applying listening philosophies into the intricacies of the exhibitionary. In doing so, these composers composed exhibitions which—like music—stimulate an inner subjective space within the listener. The third methodology—the “musical composition for visual objects”—belongs to John Cage, who composed three compositions for museum later in his life. By relating to objects as musical notes, and curating by using a musical score, Cage’s exhibitions demonstrate that listening should not be limited to the sphere of sound, and thus methodologies informed by auditory perception can stimulate multiple layers of perception in the gallery. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104976 | Composition for Museum||Exhibition History||John Cage||Sound art||Sound Curation||Spatial Music | institut, production | SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Suraweera, Dulani Pradeepa | Mojab, Shahrzad | Towards Integrating Antiracism into Teaching English as a Second Language Training Programs in Ontario | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | The adult English language education sector in Canada has gained momentum as a revenue-generating service ostensibly designed for new immigrants and international students in Canada. However, ESL teaching approaches and theories reproduce unequal power structures underpinned by settler-colonial mindsets that devalue and marginalize non-White and non-native speakers in the ESL/TESL sector. In this study, I argued that current ESL curricula, assessment, and classroom management procedures in Canada do not adopt antiracist pedagogies, even though many ESL learner and ESL/TESL teacher populations in Canada are racially diverse. Although ample research looks at how ESL curricula and teaching and hiring practices exclude and devalue ESL learners and non-native speaker ESL teachers in Canada, not many critical studies have explored TESL training programs in Canada. The twofold purpose of this study therefore was to: (a) investigate how 3 TESL Ontario accredited programs address race, racism, and antiracist praxis in their TESL curricula; and (b) explore how the experiences of TESL Ontario accredited ESL/TESL practitioners may inform the development of an antiracist TESL curriculum that addresses race and racism more effectively, explicitly, and practically. The qualitative inquiry comprised a content analysis of 3 TESL curricula, 3 focus group discussions with ESL teachers, and 8 semi-structured interviews with TESL trainers, curriculum developers, and program coordinators. I used a theoretical framework derived from multiple theories and debates around the issues of race, class, gender, Whiteness/White power, postcoloniality, neoliberalism, culture, cultural difference, and treatment of culture to analyze my data. Study findings identified problems at practical and theoretical levels for ESL teachers, TESL trainers, and curriculum developers seeking to identify, analyze, and act upon perceived social exclusions related to racism. Through their experiences and analysis, I identified the challenges, strengths, and gaps of current TESL programs in addressing social exclusions, particularly racism. Finally, the pedagogical and theoretical suggestions put forward by ESL teachers, TESL trainers, program coordinators, and curriculum developers can help create an antiracist TESL curriculum that will be pragmatic and effective in explicitly addressing and minimizing existing power hierarchies associated with the process of learning and teaching English as a second language in multicultural Canada. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103775 | Antiracism||Canada||ESL||Immigrants||Racism||TESL | gender, educat | SDG4, SDG5 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Alawattage, Udeani Prasanga | Dei, George | Transcolonial Politics of Poverty: Educating the Civil Society and Creating Neoliberal Citizenship in the Periphery | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2020-11-01 | Transcolonial Politics of Poverty: Educating the Civil Society and Creating Neoliberal Citizenship in the periphery Ph.D. -Social Justice Education, 2020 Udeani Prasanga Alawattage Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) University of Toronto Abstract Microfinance has been one of the most extensive social engineering programs in less developed countries (LDCs). It entails a “credit plus” approach of neoliberal development constituting a massive civil society education program that links the grassroots poor with the neoliberal development doctrines and ideologies through a well sophisticated institutional infrastructure of development education. In this institutional setting, microfinance education is projected to the grassroots poor as an emancipatory form of education, especially capable of liberating the poor women. The existing research on microfinance has often been functionalist and managerial which lopsidedly concentrated mainly on the assessment of the efficacy of microfinance with very little attention on the ‘neoliberal politics’ of microfinance’s educational and discursive elements. There has been no substantive ethnographic study that attempts to offer a critical theorization of the ways in which microfinance subjugates the lives of the peripheral poor. As such, this study offers a critical theorization of the ‘neoliberal politics’ embedded in microfinance education. It reveals the ways in which microfinance creates a new form of neoliberal citizenship through the discourses of financial inclusion, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship and how it connects the grassroots poor with the intensification and acceleration of the circuit of the global financial capital. Methodologically this thesis draws on an ‘extended case study’ of Sri Lankan microfinance industry covering nine villages in six districts. It extends its micro ethnographic data to its macro-political, historical, and institutional contexts to explain the transcolonial political character of microfinance pedagogy. Theoretically, it draws eclectically on several Foucauldian, postcolonial/anticolonial frameworks to relate such ethnographic data to underlying structural and discursive apparatuses of global neoliberalism. In this manner, the thesis provides a theoretically informed rich empirical narrative of how the microfinance subjugates and objectifies the grassroots poor through its pedagogy of financial literacy, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship in order to place them within the circuit of global capital. It reveals not only the transcolonial nature of microfinance discourses but also the ways in which the poor accommodate and resist such discourses. Keywords: Microfinance education; Sri Lanka; transcolonialism; civil society education; neoliberalism; ontological politics and poverty | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103526 | Civil society education||Microfinance education||Ontological politics||Poverty||Sri Lanka||Transcolonialism | justice, institut, industr, infrastructure, women, educat, poverty | SDG1, SDG4, SDG5, SDG9, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Allen, Shannon Melissa Jean | Gough, William | Trends in the Frequency of Extreme Temperatures for Canadian Urban Centres from 1971 to 2000 | Geography | 2020-11-01 | Extreme temperature trends for Canadian urban centres during the latter portion of the 20th century were explored in four complementary research studies. The analysis used a novel methodology of frequency of extreme occurrences using extreme temperature records as the metric. A second methodological innovation, day-to-day temperature variability, was used to characterize climate stations as urban, rural and peri-urban. The first study examined extreme temperature seasonal trends for five stations in the Greater Toronto Area over a 30-year period. This analysis also completed a 50-year annual extreme temperature analysis for two of the stations. Statistically significant decreases in extreme minimum temperature counts annually and seasonally, in the spring and winter months, indicated localized urban heat islands were present. The second study characterized urban-rural station pairings for Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal and Halifax using day-to-day temperature variability. A subset of the urban stations were identified as peri-urban using this analysis. The third study using these characterizations examined annual extreme temperature record counts for 14 stations across four urban centres in Canada. Urban and peri-urban stations had statistically significant decreasing extreme cold temperature record counts while rural stations tended not to. The coincident increase in minimum temperatures was indicative of urban heat island development. Montreal experienced statistically significant decreases at all stations that likely indicated an underlying localized climate change signal or nascent urbanization at the local rural station. Edmonton experienced an above average warm 1980s and thus net temporal trends in extreme temperature record counts were not evident. In the fourth study, the results of the frequency of occurrence analysis for Halifax were compared to standard climate extreme indicators. The comparison of the results determined that the frequency of occurrence methodology aligned with the more generally used climatic indicator findings. These studies have indicated that the extreme frequency of occurrence and day-to-day variability methodologies could be effectively used in climate data analysis. These studies have also shown that trends in extreme minimum temperatures have decreased more rapidly than extreme maximum temperatures have increased for multiple urban centres across Canada for the latter portion of the 20th century. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103647 | Canada||Climate Change||Extremes||Temperature||Trends||Urban Heat Island | climate, rural, urban, innovat | SDG9, SDG11, SDG13 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Yao, Yao | Verma, Anil||Gomez, Rafael | Uberizing the Legal Profession? Three Essays on Lawyers in Digital Platform-based Legal Services | Industrial Relations and Human Resources | 2021-03-01 | Using a set of data from an Internet-based legal service platform in China, this thesis examines the impacts of digital platform-based legal services on lawyers and their work. With interview data with lawyers actively working on this platform, Chapter 1 finds that supplementary income and flexibility are the two major motives for lawyers to engage in platform work. Nevertheless, when working online, lawyers face lower intra-professional status and lower professional autonomy. Despite its growth, the digital legal market is imposing a minimal threat to the traditional legal market due to the lack of interference in labour supply and demand between these two markets.Building on the concept of “counter-institutional identity”, Chapter 2 uses a grounded theory approach to develop a theoretical model that explores the processes of the emergence of identity threats and lawyers’ coping tactics as they work on this platform, a work setting that opposes the dominant norms in the legal field. I find that identity threats emerge when lawyers’ existing professional identity is challenged by counter-institutional work features. Moreover, some lawyers are able to restructure their professional identity to adapt to the counter-institutional work, while some are prone to protect their old identity and resist changes. Individuals’ belief in professional dynamism, the belief that the legal profession is and will be experiencing constant changes, underlies the divergence between identity restructuring and protection. Chapter 3 examines the ways in which technology-driven innovations impact professional stratification in digital platform-based legal services. With topic modeling to uncover the platform work content and thereby locate the involved lawyers’ market positioning, this study finds that digital platform-based services are dominated by low-status personal legal work. No evidence is found for higher levels of activity among young and female lawyers on this platform, suggesting that digital platform-based practices may not enlarge the disparities between demographic groups of lawyers. Moreover, digital legal work provides more equal opportunities for disadvantaged lawyers: young lawyers have earnings advantages over older lawyers and a gender earnings gap is not observed. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105014 | lawyers||online gig work||professional autonomy||professional identity||professional status||professional stratification | institut, innovat, labour, gender | SDG5, SDG8, SDG9, SDG16 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Tong, Fei | Christopoulos, Constantin | Uncoupled Base Rocking and Shear Mechanisms for Controlling Higher-mode Effects in High-rise Buildings | Civil Engineering | 2020-11-01 | While modern seismic design philosophies prioritize life safety under major earthquakes, structural damage is not precluded. As for high-rise buildings, earthquake-induced damage can be rather extensive and exacerbated as a result of higher-mode effects. This may lead to repair and replacement being infeasible or uneconomical. A large body of research has been conducted on low-damage systems for high-rise buildings. Concepts involved in these systems essentially fall into three categories including rocking mechanisms, seismic isolation, and the combination thereof. While rocking systems have limited efficiency in limiting higher-mode effects, , base isolation can also be challenging for high-rise buildings due to base isolators being overloaded axially while undergoing significant lateral deformations. Combining both concepts by allowing base-isolated structures to rock at the base as well cannot fully resolve all these problems, leading to design and implementation challenges. This dissertation proposes a novel system consisting of uncoupled rocking and shear mechanisms incorporated at the base of RC core-wall buildings. Acting in parallel, the dual mechanism allows for an independent control of the flexural and shear responses of structures and an effective mitigation of the higher-mode response. A physical implementation is developed for the proposed system after the fundamental kinematics defining the system are understood. This physical embodiment is then designed, detailed, and numerically validated using a reference 42-storey benchmark building. Results of extensive nonlinear dynamic analyses indicate that the proposed system is efficient in mitigating higher-mode effects and minimizing damage to RC core-wall high-rise buildings. To generalize the design of the proposed system, closed-form analytical studies and parametric nonlinear time history analyses are conducted. Based on these analyses, general procedures are developed for the preliminary design of the proposed system. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103749 | High-rise buildings||Higher-mode effects||RC walls||Rocking mechanism||Seismic resilience||Shear mechanism | resilien, buildings | SDG9, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Sawan, Joseph Eli | Sawchuk, Peter H | Understanding (De)alienation in Social Movements: Resident Activism and Anti-poverty Organizing in the Toronto-area | Social Justice Education | 2020-11-01 | This study revisits Marx’s theory of alienation, primarily through a sociological and adult learning theory lens, emphasizing how collective activity is a means to overcome structural and systemic forms of alienation. This study is theoretically-driven and makes use of empirical materials to examine the forms and dynamics present in social movement activity as they relate to overcoming alienating conditions. The empirical observations uncover how an analysis of social movement activities through a lens of learning de/alienation allows for a unique contribution to the literature on social movement learning. In exploring motivational dimensions of social movement activity, this study demonstrates how a conceptual framework centred on recovering Marx’s theory of alienation can contribute a unique understanding of the learning processes in social movement activities. In exploring indicative narratives from a case in the Toronto-area, this dissertation examines; 1) how learning de/alienation can be identified as motivation for activist engagement, and 2) the role of movement organizations in facilitating learning de/alienation. The operationalization of Marx’s theory of alienation is furthered by integrating key concepts from Bourdieu’s theory of practice as well as Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) in order to emphasize a dialectic approach to examining the forms of learning and activity that take place in the sites examined. The indicative narratives selected for both analytic chapters are presented to demonstrate how a recovery of Marx’s theory of alienation can prove fruitful in understanding the underlying dynamics of movement participation as well as the opportunities for emphasizing use-value mediated activities that relate to broader struggles for critical social change. The contributions of this dissertation are three-fold in its examination of movement activity and activist learning; 1) a recovery of traditional conceptual ideas surrounding human de/alienation in dialogue with the literature in social movement learning, 2) an examination of how habitus mediates learning de/alienation in community activism with particular attention to Marxist CHAT concepts as a multi-dimensional approach, and 3) an empirical demonstration that dialogues with first two areas in order to better understand opportunities for identifying activist learning and engagement for critical social change. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103362 | everyday activism||social movement learning||sociocultural learning theory||theory of alienation | poverty | SDG1 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Lacombe-Duncan, Ashley | Newman, Peter A | Understanding access to HIV-related and gender-affirming healthcare for trans women with HIV in Canada: A mixed methods study | Social Work | 2018-11-01 | Background: Trans women living with HIV (WLWH) have lower access to HIV care compared to cisgender (cis) people living with HIV. US-based research describes barriers (e.g., trans stigma) and facilitators (e.g., integration of gender-affirming and HIV care) to HIV care engagement among trans WLWH. Scant research has explored factors associated with HIV or gender-affirming care access among trans WLWH in Canada. This three-paper dissertation aims to expand an intersectional and social ecological understanding of the experiences of trans WLWH in Canada accessing HIV, gender-affirming, and other types of healthcare. Methods: A transformative, convergent parallel, mixed methods design was used whereby quantitative and qualitative data were rigorously collected and analyzed, then purposefully merged. Quantitative data was drawn from baseline cross-sectional survey data collected 2013-2015 from the Canadian HIV Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Cohort Study (CHIWOS) (n=54 trans WLWH/n=1422 participants) and analyzed using descriptive statistics and bivariate analyses. In-depth semi-structured individual interviews (25-100 minutes) were conducted with a purposive sub-set of trans WLWH (n=11) 2017-2018 who completed the baseline CHIWOS survey, analyzed using framework analysis. Qualitative and quantitative results were merged by comparing data and considering how results converged, diverged, or expanded understanding. Inequities were highlighted and recommendations made, consistent with a transformative design. Results: Three empirically-based chapters report on: (1) the HIV care cascade and factors associated with HIV care cascade outcomes (ever accessed HIV care, received any HIV care in the past year, currently use antiretroviral treatment (ART), ART adherence, and virological suppression); (2) transition and gender-affirming healthcare experiences of trans WLWH; and (3) resilience and empowerment exhibited by trans WLWH as they navigate intersecting stigmas in healthcare settings. Conclusions: Findings suggest a need for multi-level interventions to address barriers to accessing care. Intersecting stigmas were a pervasive barrier to accessing multiple types of healthcare. Trans WLWH resist and reduce stigma in healthcare settings; however, widespread stigma-reduction training for providers, administrators, and students is recommended. These findings inform a trajectory of social work research, theory development, and practice at policy, organizational, and individual levels, all of which may further contribute to health equity for trans WLWH in Canada. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102924 | gender affirmation||healthcare||HIV||stigma||transgender | ecolog, resilien, women, gender, health | SDG3, SDG5, SDG11, SDG15 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Pinsker, Ellie B. | Beaton, Dorcas E. | Understanding and Measuring Self-perceived Outcome following Ankle Reconstruction | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2021-03-01 | The importance of capturing the patient’s perspective of the impact of their health condition and treatment is well-recognized. This information is often collected using patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs); however, such measures may overlook the patients’ perspective in favour of clinician or researchers’ opinions. The literature lacks sufficient evidence for the conceptual foundation and content validity (i.e. how well an instrument reflects the target construct) of existing PROMs used to assess ankle reconstruction (total ankle replacement and ankle fusion) based on patients’ lived experience. Guidelines for PROMs recommend qualitative research with the target population to support their conceptual development and establish content validity. This thesis investigates outcomes that are important to end-stage ankle arthritis patients who have undergone ankle reconstruction, and lays the foundation for their measurement. This is examined, first, by comparing the contents of commonly used PROMs to issues raised by patients. Broad domains (e.g. pain, physical function) were found to be important, but there were gaps in content, casting doubt on the comprehensiveness of these measures. Subsequently, an in-depth qualitative study explored patients’ experiences with ankle reconstruction. Two new concepts were identified that have not been previously described in the ankle literature. Recovery describes patients’ perception of ‘being better’, involving a series of appraisals and coping efforts based on the presence and importance of ongoing issues, sufficient resources for coping, and whether coping efforts are viewed as satisfactory. Vigilance represents patients’ perceived need to focus attention on their environment and ankles. These concepts offer a new understanding of how ankle reconstruction affects patients’ lives. This thesis then models a rigorous method for operationalizing these novel concepts for development of future PROMs for ankle reconstruction. A conceptual framework for vigilance is presented, which preserves the meaning of the qualitative data and grounds content- and format-related decisions necessary for PROM development in patients’ experiences. Measuring these outcomes is necessary and worthwhile to capture all meaningful outcomes to patients. These findings broaden the medical community’s definition of a ‘successful outcome’, and improve clinicians’ ability to communicate with individuals who have undergone ankle reconstruction or are considering the procedures. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104947 | Ankle arthrodesis||Ankle arthroplasty||Conceptual framework||Patient-reported outcomes||Recovery||Vigilance | environment, health | SDG3, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Fajber, Robert | Kushner, Paul J | Understanding the Role of Latent Heating in the Heat and Mass Transport of the Global Atmospheric Circulation | Physics | 2020-11-01 | Almost one quarter of the insolation from the sun evaporates water vapor at the surface, which adds thermal energy to the atmosphere through latent heating. The main goals of this thesis are to diagnose and quantify the role that this latent heating plays in atmospheric transport and the global general circulation. Using the equivalent potential temperature ($\theta_e$) as a variable to study the circulation implicitly accounts for the effects of latent heating on the dynamics, suggesting that tropospheric transport should follow these surfaces. In chapter 2 this idea is heuristically tested using an idealized moist general circulation model with perturbed midlatitude surface temperatures; the atmosphere responds by transporting warm air along climatological $\theta_e$ surfaces. In chapter 3 we study the mass transport of the general circulation projected onto $\theta_{e}$ surfaces using the Statistical Transformed Eulerian Mean (STEM), which parameterizes this circulation using zonal mean statistics. The functional dependence of the STEM is exploited to understand the response of the circulation on $\theta_{e}$ surfaces to climate perturbations, by calculating the functional derivatives. One key finding is that the sensitivity of the circulation is inversely proportional to the zonal mean standard deviation of $\theta_{e}$. The preceding analysis using $\theta_{e}$ is complemented in chapter 4 by a novel heat tagging method developed in this thesis which allows us to attribute the potential temperature ($\theta$) content of the atmosphere to specific diabatic processes. The heat tags includes both locally produced and remotely advected tagged tracer content, providing insight into regions which may be sensitive to remote diabatic processes. This method is applied to an idealized moist general circulation model. The majority of $\theta$ in the troposphere is from latent heating, even in the poles here where there is no latent heating. The variability of the heat tags, their use in decomposing heat transport, and the response to a CO$_{2}$ doubling experiment are also studied. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103725 | Atmospheric Dynamics||Climate Dynamics||Fluid Mechanics||General Circulation Modelling||Global Circulation||Thermodynamics | climate, energy, water | SDG6, SDG7, SDG13, SDG14 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
| Kepkiewicz, Lauren | Wakefield, Sarah | Unsettling food sovereignty in Canada: Settler roles and responsibilities; tensions and (im)possibilities | Geography | 2018-06-01 | Critical Indigenous food sovereignty activists and scholars have called settler food sovereignty movements to complicate our understandings of food and food systems in so-called Canada (Coté, 2016; Morrison, 2011; Manson, 2015). These calls include requests for settlers to rethink interrelationships between land, food, colonialism, and Indigenous sovereignty. Learning from these calls for change, I examine whether and how settler food activists are responding. I do so through a series of five independent papers framed by an introduction and conclusion, which make up this dissertation as a whole. First I outline the methodological and theoretical frameworks and implications of this dissertation. Next, I outline three main themes that arose from the interviews and participant observation I conducted. First, interviewees emphasized that settler food activists need to self-educate about Canadian colonialism and Indigenous struggles for land. Second, interviewees talked about settler food activists’ visions for future food systems that perpetuate colonial food systems. Third, interviewees highlighted the importance of changing settler food activists’ relationships to land, including returning land to Indigenous nations. Based on interviewees’ experiences and insights, I argue that settler food sovereignty movements have not adequately responded to Indigenous critiques and requests and that, through this lack of response, settler food sovereignty movements reify colonial logics. At the same time, interviewees’ experiences also demonstrate that a small number of settlers have begun to engage with Indigenous critiques around Canadian food sovereignty narratives and praxis, and through this engagement are working to support Indigenous food sovereignty. Lastly, I argue that if food sovereignty is a movement rooted in addressing systemic inequities, it cannot be achieved without radically transforming Indigenous-settler relations. It is therefore essential that settler activists are aware of whether and how we are responding to Indigenous calls for change and what work still lies ahead in order to support Indigenous resurgence. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101616 | Canada||food movements||food sovereignty||Indigenous food sovereignty||settler colonialism | educat, food | SDG2, SDG4 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Li, Yanfei | Meng, Yue | Urban Writing on Disappearing Alleyways and Courtyard Houses, Beijing, 1950-2008 | East Asian Studies | 2018-11-01 | Beijing has transformed tremendously in the recent four decades, and the decline of the signature residential space, alleyways and courtyard houses, is at the center of social and cultural debates. For some, it is an outcome of a profit-driven real estate market that favours international capital rather than local communities. For others, marketization and globalization have otherwise created a niche for the gentrified and commercialized vernacular space as a cultural selling point of Chineseness. This project poses the question differently: what is the role of the cultural intermediaries in this picture of decline with the market and capital on the one hand and the physical changes on the other? This project investigates the cultural intermediaries formed by the architectural trends, planning thoughts, policy tendencies, and heritage system that the capital and market depend on to concretely shape the cityscape. Focusing on multiple genres of texts in urban writing from the 1950s to the 2010s, this project examines them through metaphors. Urban amnesia reveals an architectural forgetting system that marginalizes alleyways and courtyard houses in the fifty years of architectural discourse. City tank provides a cautious approach to housing, land, and demolition and relocation policies that demonstrates how difficult it is for the vernacular space users to cultivate a long-lasting connection with their living environment. The city as organism shed light on the alternative planning practice to preserve vernacular space. Its adaptation into heritage policies in the context of cultural and historical city preservation ironically illuminates on the limitations of organic renewal. The meanings of these metaphors collectively present a complicated picture of how cultural intermediaries promote, oppose to, and negotiate with the erasure of vernacular space in urban redevelopment. To trace these meanings opens up new space to test ideas and practices that emphasize both architectural preservation and social preservation. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102935 | Heritage preservation||Urban regeneration||Urban writing||Vernacular architecture | environment, urban | SDG11, SDG13 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Yasseen, Abdool Shafaaz | Crowcroft, Natasha S||Kwong, Jeff C | Viral Hepatitis Among Immigrants: A Population-based Comparison using Linked Laboratory and Health Administrative Data | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2020-11-01 | Viral hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) are two of the most common causes of hepatitis disease and are among the most burdensome infectious diseases in Ontario, Canada. HBV is found predominantly among foreign-born individuals, whereas HCV is more of an issue among long-term residents. The health administrative data provides a potential avenue for identifying disease incidence and prevalence that can be leveraged as a public health assessment tool. In this dissertation, I examine whether it is appropriate to use the health administrative data for this purpose and then quantify the population-level cascades of care for HBV and HCV, in Ontario, Canada. Through a validation study, I found there to be few health administrative diagnosis codes for HBV/HCV infections, and the diagnostic performance of these codes were sub-optimal for population-level health assessment. Expanding on these conclusions, through a data mining study, I included additional health administrative data and developed case finding algorithms for the identification of laboratory confirmed HBV/HCV infections. This exercise showed that the additional information improved diagnostic performance, but was still sub-optimal for use as a population-level health assessment tool. I quantify the HBV cascade of care and show that HBV was predominantly observed among immigrant groups, more specifically those from HBV endemic countries. Additionally, I present estimates of the population level HCV cascade of care and show that HCV is more prevalent among long-term residents, but those from HCV endemic countries were important to consider since they represent a non-negligible portion of the population. These findings show that diagnosis and engagement with care is an issue experienced in both cascades of care and that there is significant heterogeneity between and within immigrant subgroups. I commented on the incremental contribution of this dissertation and the general use of health administrative data as a health care assessment tool for viral hepatitis in Ontario, Canada. Future work should be aimed at improving the Ontario’s health care diagnosis and fee management system. Both cascades of care models outline provide population-based benchmarks for future work geared at evaluating the efficiency and uptake of policies and initiatives for reducing HCV burden in Ontario. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103602 | Health administrative data||Immigrants||Infectious diseases||Sexually transmitted and blood borne infections||Viral Hepatitis | labor, health | SDG3, SDG8 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Awad, Yomna Reda | Bickmore, Kathy | Voluntary Teacher Professional Learning: To Educate for Democratic Peace in Egypt and in Canada | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2018-11 | Education for democratic peacebuilding citizenship includes four essential components: encounters with conflict, practice of dialogue, recognition of diversity and building pedagogical community. Teachers can help one another to interpret, to learn, and to implement these pedagogical practice dimensions, in order to equip their students with democratic agency and values to participate in peacebuilding social change. This comparative case study research examines how two groups of private school teachers—four of mixed faith in a Muslim-majority context (Cairo) and three Muslim teachers in a Christian and secular-majority context (Toronto)—voluntarily embarked on two journeys of non-formal professional learning to improve their teaching for democratic peace. The researcher developed and facilitated a six-session reflective and dialogic professional learning course for democratic peacebuilding, and studied how each group of teachers understood and taught democratic peacebuilding and how they participated in the learning processes of this course. Data included asynchronous discussion transcripts and semi-structured interviews before and after course participation. The teachers in both contexts described using similar dialogic pedagogies to teach for democratic peacebuilding citizenship (including constructive communication, active listening, discussions and debates), while addressing different types of conflicts relevant to each political-cultural context. In Egypt, a relatively authoritarian country, teachers chose to emphasize conflicts pertaining to inclusion and re-humanization of diversity and identity recognition, within and beyond their school communities. In Canada, a relatively democratic country, teachers chose to discuss one conflict issue with which they all particularly identified— Islamophobia—from the viewpoint of Muslim minoritized communities in Canada. Other conflicts they addressed were broad current and historical issues such as Syrian refugees and colonialism. Participating teachers’ dialogic interactions evidently promoted their understandings of and engagement with democratic peacebuilding. In particular, all seven teachers in both groups apparently gained awareness of how they could infuse conflict (resolution) and peacebuilding pedagogies into their entire interactions with students, including their students’ own roles and involvement in the classroom, versus limiting peace education to teaching discrete lessons. This comparative inquiry contributes to understanding the principles of quality teacher education and peacebuilding education practices, relevant both to conflict zones and to democratic, culturally diverse settler societies. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102866 | conflict||cultural diversity||democratic citizenship education||dialogue||peacebuilding||teacher professional learning | peace, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Young, Mischa | Farber, Steven | What Happens when the Uber Tailpipe Smoke Clears: An Examination of the Impacts of Ride-hailing in Canada | Geography | 2020-11-01 | Despite starting as a more convenient way to hail taxis, ride-hailing services (e.g. Uber and Lyft) have rapidly evolved into much more with the introduction of their peer-to-peer services in 2014. By no longer confining their algorithms to matching passengers with taxis, and allowing private vehicle owners to also serve as drivers, ride-hailing companies drastically expanded their pool of available drivers and experienced monumental growth in the process. Ride-hailing services have now become ubiquitous in the urban mobility landscape of cities worldwide, and have rapidly positioned themselves among the most valuable companies within the transportation sector. Yet, despite their growing role within cities, the impacts of this mode remain contested and largely misunderstood. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore several of the key impacts of ride-hailing on existing transportation systems and their users within the Greater Toronto Area and assess whether policies should be developed to encourage or deter its usage. In Chapter 2, I identify potentially marginalized groups – both socioeconomically and spatially – that may be excluded from ride-hailing, and define improvements to the data collection process that must take place to ensure ride-hailing limits transport inequalities. I further expose how the benefits of this mode may not be distributed equally in Chapter 3 by exploring the socioeconomic and trip characteristics of ride-hailing users. In Chapter 4, I show that ride-hailing behaves both as a substitute and supplement to transit, and demonstrate the need to consider trips individually. Chapter 5 focuses on shared ride-hailing services, and identifies factors that influence the matching propensity and detour penalty associated with shared trips. Lastly, Chapter 6 is my attempt to partake in the broader ride-hailing regulation discussion, as I caution against the premature legalization of this service. Together, the results of this research substantially improve our understanding of the many ways in which ride-hailing services impact our cities, and offer a practical contribution to policymakers seeking to properly regulate this service. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103636 | Emerging transportation technologies||Ride-hailing||Shared mobility||Sustainable transportation||Transportation policies||Uber | urban, cities, socioeconomic | SDG1, SDG11 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Houtman, Eveline | Simon, Rob | What Shapes Academic Librarians’ Teaching Practices? A Holistic Study of Individual Librarians, their Contexts, and their Professional Learning Activities | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2021-03-01 | For academic librarians, teaching is often a core part of their work, but they typically receive limited preparation for this role in their professional education. The literature on librarians’ development as teachers generally stresses their professional development opportunities. This qualitative study explored the range of experiences, professional contexts, and professional learning activities that shape 12 academic librarians’ teaching practices. As both librarian and researcher, I was positioned as an insider-outsider. I took a bricolage approach that combined narrative, case study, and analysis based on an a priori model that situated the individual librarians in their local, professional, higher education, and societal contexts. I recruited 12 teaching librarians from Canada and the United States and conducted two semi-structured interviews with each. I stitched together a composite picture of the participants’ unique, varying experiences, with rich examples of the ways they understood and developed their teaching roles in relationship to their varied contexts, and in relationship to their own values (e.g., a commitment to social justice; an ethic of care), identities, and prior experiences. I identified two stages in their learning: 1) an initial “learning to teach as a librarian” stage, in which they required (but did not always receive) greater support, and 2) lifelong learning. Librarians in both stages were strongly self-directed and employed a variety of strategies. The professional context served as a broad community of practice that supported their development of a teacher identity and provided them with norms and guidelines. The individuals and their contexts varied enough, however, that no single picture of librarians’ teaching could emerge. This holistic approach to studying librarians’ development as teachers suggests new approaches for practice as well as new questions for research. In particular, the initial “learning to teach as a librarian” stage demands more attention. More broadly, studying and valuing the librarians’ experiences provides important and often absent perspectives on the work of academic librarians in the United States and Canada. It positions librarians as practitioners with important emic perspectives that enable them to generate knowledge that is both local and public. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104868 | higher education||librarians||narrative||professional learning||qualitative||teaching | justice, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Rayment, Erica Jane | Bashevkin, Sylvia | Women in the House: The Impact of Elected Women on Parliamentary Debate and Policymaking in Canada | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | This study examines the impact of elected women in Canada on patterns and processes of parliamentary debate and policymaking from 1968 to 2015. It argues that women’s presence in parliament matters for the substantive representation of women, particularly under conditions of threat to women’s equality. The study refines core concepts in the literature on women’s political representation to explain how the substantive representation of women occurs in Canadian parliamentary institutions. It disaggregates the concept of substantive representation and expands the scope of the critical actors framework to include actions that defend women’s equality against regressive policy initiatives. Building on these refinements, the study argues that gender is a key factor in determining whether an MP will represent women in parliamentary debate, but the institutional role MPs occupy and the political context in which they operate influence the mechanisms they use to advocate for women’s equality in policymaking and their chances of success. Through an automated analysis of the content of nearly 50 years of parliamentary debate, the study finds that women MPs, regardless of party affiliation, are consistently more likely than their male colleagues to make representative claims about women. Using supervised and unsupervised machine learning to analyse the content of these representative claims, the study finds that parliamentary speeches about women focus almost entirely on issues relating to women’s equality and autonomy. The analysis of parliamentary debate shows that the number of speeches about women spiked during parliaments when governments initiated policies that threatened women’s equality. Qualitative case studies examine these two instances of policymaking, focusing on the actors involved, the processes through which they advocated for women, and the impact of their actions. The study finds that women MPs led the charge against hostile government policy initiatives but their varying ability to influence policy outcomes was shaped by their institutional positions and the political conditions under which they operated. The study concludes by suggesting the presence of women in Canadian politics matters as a tool for guarding against policies that would roll back previous equality gains. Efforts to increase women’s presence in electoral politics in Canada therefore remain important. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103258 | institut, equality, women, gender | SDG5, SDG16 | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| Hwang, Christina J. | Hayhoe, Ruth | World Mission and Higher Education Internationalization: A Comparative Study of Christian Universities in South Korea and Canada | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2020-11-01 | This thesis explores the nature of internationalization activities at two Christian higher education institutions comparatively—one in South Korea and the other in Canada. A qualitative study, it examines the question of the extent to which an institution’s internationalization policies and programs reflect the core values of the evangelical Christian faith stated in their mission and vision statement. A conceptual framework was created using Jane Knight’s (2004) framework for internationalization and the concept of Holistic Christian world mission found in the Lausanne Covenant. This enables understanding of how the current theories of Christian world mission and the secular ideas of internationalization come together to influence the institutional mission. The history and context of each school also were studied to see how much they influence the internationalization strategies. The study found the evangelical core values of the Christian faith in the mission statements at each of the Christian higher education institution are strongly reflected in internationalization policies and programs. They are the driving force behind what they do in terms of internationalization ‘at-home’ and abroad. This is due to underlying motivation for the strategies of internationalization being the scriptural calling of Holistic Christian world mission. Consequently, a new values-based conceptual framework for internationalization emerged. The study revealed there are several intersections between the secular notions of internationalization and the values of Christian world mission in the precepts of the Lausanne Covenant. The socio-cultural rationales of Social and Community Development fuse closely with the motivations of Christian Social Responsibility which are tied with values of compassion, justice, reconciliation and mercy. Knight’s (2004) rationale of global citizenship development also intersects with the Great Commission’s calling to reach out to all nations. It is also linked to the Second Greatest Commandment of love and service for others and building of community through Christian discipleship and mentoring. The secular political rationale of technical assistance alongside peace and mutual understanding has values in common with those of the Lausanne Covenant, including Christian and Social Responsibility, Churches in Evangelistic Partnership, and Cooperation in Evangelism. However, context does affect the degree and types of engagement in internationalization programs. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103472 | Canada||Christian higher education||Christian world mission||comparative education||internationalization||South Korea | peace, justice, institut, educat | SDG4, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Grinberg, Amit Omri | Kalmar, Ivan||Paz, Alejandro | Writing Rights, Writing Violence: The Bureaucracy of Palestinian Testimonies in Israeli Human Rights NGOs | Anthropology | 2019-03-01 | This dissertation is an ethnography of Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs), that document the violations of Palestinians’ human rights (HR) perpetrated by Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Israeli anti-occupation NGOs rely on a rigid bureaucratic logic in their processing of testimony – a written-down narration of a subjective experience of violence into a coherent narrative in document-form: violence is translated into a written text that can be used for legal-action purposes, research, media circulation, and is eventually archived. By anthropologically examining bureaucratic lugubriousness in NGOs, I theorize HR as a project of documentation and archiving that legitimates itself as a subversive bureaucracy. Simultaneously, this project’s own critical authority is undermined since it relies on colonial modes of knowledge production and representation. Based on 18 months of participant-observation in four NGOs, I trace the trajectory of Palestinians’ testimonies as NGOs’ main source of data and as HR’ dominant genre of representation. NGO practices are considered against the backdrop of growing disdain in Israel/Palestine towards HR, not only in the populist rhetoric and efforts of anti-liberal politicians, but also amongst activists, critical scholars, Palestinians living under the occupation, and within NGOs’ own staff. The main recurring critique is that HR fail to protect Palestinians or curb Israel’s settler-colonialism. Some detractors claim that NGOs are complicit with Israel’s violence. This study explores why Palestinians continue to testify for Israeli NGOs that, in turn, persist in documenting Palestinians’ testimonies. I suggest that HR are a genre of anti-colonial historiography that is itself based on colonial reason, mainly genealogies of surveying and bureaucratic writing: NGOs rely on what I term as “frames of in/validation” - phases of incessant verification and adaptation of Palestinian experiences of violence into simplified narrative structures, that conform to legal-moral discourses and definitions of HR. While the strictures of documentation and writing problematically limit the moral claims and political clout of NGOs, HR paradoxically remain relevant through the relational foundation affirmed by frames of in/validation, namely: between a violent past written as a bureaucratic document, and a distant future in which imagined publics make moral-political judgments based on NGOs’ archives. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105119 | Bureaucracy||Human Rights||Israel/Palestine||NGOs||Violence||Witnessing | rights, production | SDG12, SDG16 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Constantinof, Andrea | Matthews, Stephen G | Transgenerational Effects of Antenatal Synthetic Glucocorticoid Exposure on Transcription and Methylation in the Developing Brain | Physiology | 2018-06-01 | The early environment has long term influences on future health that are heritable over multiple generations via maternal and paternal lineages. Antenatal synthetic glucocorticoids (sGC) are administered to women at risk for pre-term delivery because they reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with newborn respiratory distress syndrome. However, the administration of multiple courses of antenatal sGC results in long-term programing of behavioral and physiological responses to stress. In this research, we performed transcriptomic and epigenomic analyses to ascertain the long-term programming effects of antenatal sGC in the brains of first generation (F1) juvenile males and three generations of juvenile female offspring of the paternal lineage. We hypothesized that antenatal sGC exposure results in transgenerational changes in transcription and DNA methylation in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN), prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus, due to their role in the regulation of the HPA-axis. We observed that antenatal sGC results in generation-, sex-, and brain region-specific changes in gene expression and DNA methylation in three generations juvenile female offspring of the paternal lineage. In the PVN, exposure to sGC programmed large transgenerational changes in gene expression, including type II diabetes, thermoregulation, and collagen formation gene networks. The PFC was the only brain region to show overlap in the significantly differentially expressed genes across all three generations of juvenile females and F1 males. In the PFC, the expression of four genes that were significantly decreased in sGC offspring explained 20-29% of the variability in locomotor behavioral phenotypes. Epigenetic analyses of the hippocampus identified significant changes in CpG methylation in regulatory regions of small non-coding RNAs involved in transcription and splicing. These findings may implicate alternative splicing as a mechanism involved in the transgenerational transmission of the effects of antenatal sGC. This is the first study to show that antenatal sGC exposure, a clinically relevant treatment, results in transgenerational changes in gene expression, and methylation over three generations, via paternal transmission. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101626 | Epigenetics||Neural Development||Prenatal Glucocorticoids||Transgenerational Transmission | women, health | SDG3, SDG5 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Largo, Marissa | Coloma, Roland S | Unsettling Imaginaries: The Decolonial Diaspora Aesthetics of Four Contemporary Filipinx Visual Artists in Canada | Social Justice Education | 2018-06-01 | In the dominant Canadian imaginary, Filipinx subjects are largely seen as serving the neoliberal priorities of the nation’s economy, which figure the Filipinx as always on the periphery of full national belonging. As a counternarrative, this study examines the practices and oral histories of four Filipinx artists in Canada: Leslie Supnet, Marigold Santos, Julius Poncelet Manapul, and Kuh Del Rosario. To understand the ways in which these racialized and diasporic artists respond to nonbelonging, the researcher utilizes contextual analysis that weaves together interpretations of the artists’ work and their oral histories, which are read through the lens of contemporary art criticism and cultural studies. Key findings reveal that these artists activate their discontent in productive ways that disrupt normative notions of whiteness, sexuality, gender, nuclear family, and nationalisms. Their subject positions are in excess to the dominant stereotypes that persist in the midst of racist and colonial discourses enmeshed in the political, social, and cultural dimensions of Canadian society. Further, this study suggests that Filipinx artists in Canada are complicating visibility politics by adopting non-objective and feminist self- representations. Taken together, this research evidences what the author calls a “decolonial diaspora aesthetic.” Ultimately, they are unsettling dominant conceptions of Filipinx-ness that work to manage difference within the nation’s white settler colonial dominance. The study capaciously draws implications for pedagogy, as this project offers new imaginaries that take into account race, diaspora, and difference in ethical ways that promote antiracism and decolonial relations in Canada. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101617 | antiracism||art criticism||Decolonial Diaspora Aesthetics||Filipino Canadian Studies||Filipinos in Canada||Filipinx diasporic art | gender | SDG5 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Liu, Celina | Lanctot, Krista | Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to Improve Cognitive Function in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia | Pharmacology | 2020-11-01 | Introduction: Cognitive deficits are key clinical features of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Current first-line pharmacotherapies demonstrate only modest efficacy in AD and lack efficacy in MCI. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive neuromodulatory technique, has been used to improve cognitive functions with positive results, but with wide variability in response. This research aims to optimize tDCS for cognition by evaluating the effects of electrode placement, the efficacy of exercise primed tDCS, and examining mechanistic correlates of tDCS response in MCI and mild AD patients. Methods and Results: Study 1. To evaluate the effects of electrode placement on cognition, MCI and mild AD participants (n=17) received a single session (2mA, 20 minutes) of bifrontal (F3/F4), bitemporal (T3/T4), and sham stimulations. There was a significant effect of stimulation condition on working memory (F(2,28)=5.28, p=0.01, ηp=0.27), with greater improvements following bitemporal tDCS compared to bifrontal and sham stimulations. Study 2. To investigate the efficacy of exercise primed tDCS on cognition, MCI and mild AD participants (n=19) were randomized to either exercise primed tDCS, exercise primed sham tDCS, or treatment as usual (exercise education only) with tDCS. Ten sessions of bitemporal (T3/T4, 2mA, 20 minutes) or sham tDCS were applied following personalized moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (30 minutes). The trial is ongoing and to maintain blindness, the treatment groups are named as Group A, B, and C. There was a significant effect of time (F(1,14)=11.40, p=0.005), but no group by time interaction on recognition memory (F(2,14)=1.00, p=0.38). However, post hoc analysis revealed significantly greater improvements on recognition memory over time within Group A only (t(5)=-3.70, p=0.02). Study 3. To examine mechanistic correlates of tDCS response, serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and endostatin concentrations were analyzed from participants who completed Study 2 (n=18). After controlling for diagnosis, lower VEGF concentrations at screening predicted greater improvement in recognition memory following tDCS treatment with or without exercise priming (b[SE]=-0.66[0.004], p=0.03). Conclusion: Single-session and repeated-session exercise primed bitemporal tDCS may be effective at improving specific cognitive domains in MCI and mild AD patients. Angiogenic mechanisms may underlie tDCS-induced cognitive improvements in these patients. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103255 | educat | SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| McLaughlin, Kelsey | Parker, John D||Kingdom, John CP | Vascular Effects of Low-Molecular Weight Heparin in Pregnant Women at High-Risk of Preeclampsia | Pharmacology | 2017-06-01 | Preeclampsia (PE) is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy characterized by new-onset hypertension with evidence of organ injury. Women with severe PE demonstrate cardiovascular impairment during pregnancy and are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease postpartum. There is currently no effective therapy for the prevention of PE in high-risk pregnant women. Low-molecular weight heparin (LMWH) has been investigated for the prevention of severe PE, although the underlying mechanisms of action are unknown. The objective of the first experiment was to assess cardiovascular function in pregnant women at high-risk of PE compared with low-risk pregnant controls at 24 weeksâ gestation. High-risk women demonstrated a lower cardiac output, higher resistance hemodynamic profile with impaired radial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD), compared to controls. Baseline plasma and urine levels of placental growth factor (PlGF) were significantly lower in high-risk women compared with controls. These findings demonstrate that pregnant women at high-risk of PE exhibit impaired endothelial function prior to the clinical presentation of PE. The acute cardiovascular effects of LMWH in pregnant women at high-risk of PE were then investigated. LMWH significantly increased FMD in high-risk women and maternal plasma levels of PlGF, suggesting that LMWH may exert beneficial effects on maternal endothelial function. To further elucidate the effects of LMWH on the maternal endothelium, the effects of patient serum and LMWH on in vitro endothelial cell function were investigated. Serum from high-risk women impaired angiogenesis and increased PlGF-1 and PlGF-2 expression compared to serum from low-risk subjects. Co-exposure of high-risk serum with LMWH improved the angiogenic response, such that it was equivalent to that of low-risk serum, and promoted PlGF secretion from endothelial cells. These observations provide further evidence that LMWH modifies endothelial cell function, possibly through enhanced PlGF bioavailability. In conclusion, the present experiments indicate that LMWH improves endothelial function in pregnant women at high-risk of developing PE, possibly mediated through increased PlGF bioavailability. These findings are consistent with previous clinical studies in non-pregnant populations and animal studies in which LMWH improved endothelial function. Future trials are needed to assess the effectiveness of LMWH for the prevention of severe PE in high-risk women. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105842 | women | SDG3 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Mohabeer, Amanda Lakshmi | Bendeck, Michelle | The Role of Type VIII Collagen in Carotid Artery Stiffness and Physiology | Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology | 2021-03-01 | Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Over the last decade, arterial stiffening of conduit vessels has emerged as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease development and mortality. In elastic arteries, stiffening refers to the gradual loss and fragmentation of elastic fibers, with a progressive increase in collagen fibers. Type VIII collagen (Col-8) is dramatically upregulated in aged and diseased vessels characterized by arterial stiffening, yet its biophysical impact on the vessel wall remains unknown. The purpose of this thesis was to test the hypothesis that Col-8 functions as a matrix scaffold to maintain vessel integrity during extracellular matrix (ECM) remodelling. In my first study, I determined a novel interaction between Col-8 and elastin. Mice deficient in Col-8 (Col8-/-) had reduced blood pressure and increased vessel compliance, indicating an enhanced Windkessel effect. Differences in both the ECM composition and VSMC activity resulted in a Col8-/- carotid artery that displayed increased diameters with pressure, but enhanced catecholamine-induced VSMC contractility to compensate. In vitro studies revealed that the absence of Col-8 dramatically increased tropoelastin mRNA and elastic fiber deposition in the ECM, which was hindered with exogenous Col-8 treatment. These findings suggest a causative role for Col-8 in reducing mRNA levels of tropoelastin and the presence of elastic fibers in the matrix. In my second study, I tested the hypothesis that Col-8 deficiency would improve carotid artery compliance in two murine models of vessel stiffening, ApoE-/- and Eln+/-. I determined that the reliance on Col-8 was model dependent since there were no differences in vessel stiffness between Col8+/+;ApoE-/- and Col8-/-;ApoE-/- mice. In contrast, Col8-/-;Eln+/- mice had increased carotid artery compliance and reduced blood pressure indicative of an rescued Windkessel effect. These results further potentiate the inverse relationship between elastin and Col-8. In summary, the research presented in this thesis outlines a novel role for Col-8 in regulating elastin which impacts on vessel stability and function. These studies further our understanding of Col-8 function and open a promising new area of investigation related to elastin biology. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104872 | Arterial Stiffening||Cardiovascular||Collagen||Elastin||Extracellular Matrix||Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells | wind | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Soedirgo, Jessica | Bertrand, Jacques | The Threat of Small Things: Patterns of Repression and Mobilization against Micro-sized Groups in Indonesia | Political Science | 2020-06-01 | Why do very small groups become targets of mobilization and repression? Given their economic and political insignificance, most theories of ethnic and religious conflict expect groups that are less than 1 percent of the population—what I call micro-sized groups—to be ignored. Yet, micro-sized groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Eastern Europe and the Baha’i in Iran have been targets of high levels of state repression and collective mobilization. I argue that the threat of micro-sized groups is linked to fears about group boundaries in flux. When micro-sized groups challenge the institutions, routines, and practices that form the foundations of group belonging through the marking of public space (“visible constitutive threat”), it is seen as a danger to the larger group’s continued existence. Micro-sized groups thus become seen as a perceived threat to the larger ethnic, religious, or national group when: 1) they present a visible constitutive threat; and 2) political entrepreneurs are incentivized to amplify these visible constitutive threats for their own interests. Using archival data, a geo-coded events dataset, and over 135 interviews collected over 17 months of fieldwork, I develop my argument through a study of the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia. I show that Ahmadis were a constitutive threat to Muslims in Indonesia because their practices challenged those that allowed a diverse people to belong to a single category. However, Ahmadis were only seen as threatening when these constitutive challenges were publicly visible. When electoral reforms increased the relevance of local clientelist networks, political entrepreneurs were incentivized to exploit and amplify the Ahmadiyah threat. Rates of anti-Ahmadiyah activity consequently multiplied. By identifying why and how micro-sized groups come to be seen as threats, my work challenges longstanding assumptions about the necessary material dimensions of threat. It instead suggests that threat construction and perception is not just driven by concerns around access to resources, but is shaped by a group’s public visibility. Broadly, understanding how visible constitutive threats operate can shed light on political phenomena that appear to be costly, inefficient, and irrational. Finally, my work speaks to the burgeoning literature linking clientelism to conflict. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105133 | Ethnic Conflict||Indonesia||Qualitative Methods||Religious Conflict||Southeast Asia||Symbolic Politics | institut | SDG10, SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Au, April | Einstein, Gillian | The Effect of Bilateral Salpingo-Oophorectomy on Cognition in Women Prior to Natural Menopause | Psychology | 2018-06-01 | In this dissertation, I examined the effects of 17β-estradiol on cognitive functioning in middle-aged women, using a model of ovarian removal. Women with a BRCA1/2 mutation who have undergone bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO) for cancer prevention prior to natural menopause were enrolled in an accelerated longitudinal study designed to examine cognition up to 10 years post-surgically. The literature has found that women who have experienced an iatrogenic loss of estrogens following BSO are at increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia. The objective of my dissertation was to characterize two periods that have not been previously studied: up to 10-years post surgically and the timeframe leading up to dementia. I present here findings from the first year of cognitive testing in an accelerated longitudinal study, and retrospective analyses using the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. I examined the effects of oophorectomy on verbal memory (Chapter 3), and executive functioning (Chapter 4) based on localization of estrogen receptors in the hippocampus and frontal cortex. In Chapter 5, I explored the interaction between a BRCA mutation and BSO on spatial memory. In Chapter 6, I examined if elderly women (aged >55 baseline) with a history of oophorectomy and mild cognitive impairment were at greater risk of conversion to Alzheimer’s disease using the ADNI database to understand the trajectory leading up to dementia. Overall, results indicate that performance of women with BSO were similar to controls except for a measure of verbal, episodic memory. In addition, a number of factors within the BSO group modulate cognitive functioning. This included levels of endogenous estrogens, the age at surgery, time since surgery, hormone therapy and education attainment. Results suggest that there are protective factors that modulate the risk of cognitive decline post-BSO, and more generally, underscore the complexity of the relationship between estrogens and cognition in middle-aged women. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101611 | women, educat | SDG3 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Patel, Shaista | Tuck, Eve | THE "INDIAN" OF FOUR CONTINENTS: READING FOR HORIZONTAL RELATIONS OF VIOLENCE, COMPLICITY, AND THE MAKING OF WHITE SETTLER COLONIALISM | Social Justice Education | 2018-11-01 | This research study asks: How do we theorize the place of non-Black people of colour vis-à-vis Indigenous peoples and Black people in North America? Paying attention to transnational power relations, and colonial entanglements of differential racialization, I particularly inquire into the place of South Asian diaspora in North America. This study draws upon critical Indigenous, Black, anti-caste, and transnational feminist theories to argue for the urgent need to place analyses of white settler colonialism here in conversation with other entangled histories, presented through discrepant spatialities and temporalities, in order to examine what we know and have yet to learn about entanglements of race, Indigeneity, gender, sexuality, caste, and relations of labor. My “unlikely archive” (Lowe, 2015) of complicity consists of a wide array of legal, representational and cultural artifacts. Drawing upon Edward Said’s contrapuntal reading of texts, and Lisa Lowe’s methodology of paying attention to past conditional temporality, this study travels from analyzing lingering coloniality in a series of photographs titled An Indian from India by a contemporary South Asian artist to Bengal of 19th century where I study Neel Darpan, an anti-colonial protest play. In both these chapters, I show how anti-colonial resistance narratives can often replicate the logics of Empire and leave the very people who are the most marginalized subjects of history as subaltern, silent, and vestigial. My chapter on the figure of the wide circulation of the "Indian Queen" in 18th century Europe examines how she is formed at the nexus of race, coloniality, and capitalism but also understudied or suppressed histories of Europe's Crusades against its Muslim Other. This analysis places anti-Muslim sentiments of the Old World into a much- needed conversation with conquest of the New World. In my last chapter, I study "Indian Arrival Day" a national holiday in the Caribbean celebrating the first arrival of Indians as indentured laborers. This chapter adds to the growing scholarship that moves us away from binaries of free versus unfree or coercive labor and towards more complex readings of modern racialized division of labor. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102929 | complicity||immigration||indentureship||race||settler colonialism||South Asians | labor, gender | SDG10 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Moody, Lesley | Deber, Raisa||Longo, Christopher J | Preferences for the Role in Making Treatment Decisions: A Comparison between Patients and Patient Advocates in the Neuroendocrine Cancer Population | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2020-11-01 | Background: Patient engagement has become a common focus for healthcare organizations in the last decade and is a priority in Canadian healthcare policies and research strategies. Objectives: The objective of this thesis was 1) to examine the association between the preferred role in treatment decisions that adult patients and patient advocates with a rare cancer, neuroendocrine (NETs), wish to play in their care, and 2) to test the hypothesized relationship with ehealth literacy, trust in physician, information seeking behaviours and sociodemographic variables within and across both groups (patients and patient advocates). Design: A cross-sectional survey design was used to measure preferred roles in problem solving and decision-making. Methods: Preferred roles were measured across two health vignettes: ‘current health condition’ and ‘chest pain’. Bivariate analysis was conducted to determine associations between socio-demographic variables and preferences for problem solving (PS) and decision-making (DM). PS is preference-independent and relates to tasks in determining the nature of the problem, structuring the decision tree and determining probabilities, such as who should determine the risks and benefits of different treatment options. Conversely, DM tasks relate to determining patient preferences (including risk attitude) and making the decision, considering what matters to you as an individual. Associations between the eHealth literacy score, Trust-in-Physician score, information seeking behaviour and continuous socio-demographic variables were calculated. Results: There were significant differences between preferred roles and trust in the physician and whether a participant was a patient or a patient advocate. There are three main categories of preferred roles: passive, shared and autonomous. The results of this research showed that most patients preferred a passive or shared-leaning passive role, had a high level of perceived health information literacy, and had high levels of trust in their physician. Patient advocates more often preferred a shared role, had a lower trust in their physician and lower perceived ehealth literacy compared to patients. Results of the binary logistic regression showed that trust in the physician predicted respondents of both groups’ preferred roles for both vignettes; chest pain and neuroendocrine treatment decisions. Conclusion: This study provides new knowledge that advances the understanding of the association of preferred roles of problem solving and decision-making for patients as well as patient advocates with a rare cancer. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103183 | Decision Making||Health Policy||Patient Engagement||Person-Centred Care||Problem Solving||Trust | health | SDG3 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Iankilevitch, Maria | Chasteen, Alison L | Perceptions of Individuals in Mixed-race Relationships | Psychology | 2020-11-01 | Although the number of mixed-race couples is increasing at an exponential rate in North America, these couples continue to experience stigma and discrimination, which can have deleterious effects on the physical and mental health of the individuals in these relationships. Given that first impressions of individuals can be formed instantaneously and that these first impressions can greatly influence subsequent attitudes and behaviours, in three studies I examined perceivers’ first impressions of targets in mixed-race romantic relationships when viewed on their own versus with their romantic partners. In three studies, I examined perceivers’ first impressions of targets in mixed-race relations when viewed on their own versus with their romantic partners, including perceptions of targets’ warmth and competence (Study 1), global morality (Study 2), and sub facets of morality (i.e., likelihood to betray, to conform, and prejudice level; Study 3). I found that perceptions of warmth and competence did not differ based on whether targets were viewed alone or with their partners, however, perceptions of morality did. In particular, all targets viewed with their partners were perceived as more moral and less likely to betray close others than when viewed alone, however, individuals with same-race partners were perceived as most moral and least likely to betray. Furthermore, individuals in mixed-race couples were rated as less conforming and less prejudiced than individuals in same-race couples when viewed with their partners. In sum, when viewed with their romantic partners, individuals in mixed-race dyads were perceived less favourably than those in same-race dyads in terms of morality, betrayal likelihood, and conformity. However, individuals in mixed-race dyads were perceived more favourably than those in same-race dyads in terms of prejudice. These results were largely driven by the presence of romantic partners given that perceptions of global morality, betrayal, conformity, and prejudice were similar across targets viewed alone. Together, these studies suggest that evaluations of targets’ morality are affected by whether their romantic partner is same- or other-race. These studies lay the foundation for understanding the unique challenges faced by members of mixed-race couples. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103209 | Intergroup Relations||Mixed-Race/Interracial||Person Perception||Relationships||Stereotyping | health | SDG10 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Qian, Longhao | Liu, Hugh H.T. Prof. | Path Following Control for Multiple Quadrotors Carrying A Rigid-body Slung Payload | Aerospace Science and Engineering | 2021-03-01 | Novel robust path-following flight controllers for quadrotors carrying a tethered payload are extensively studied from the perspective of dynamic modelling, control design, and experimental verification. By using multiple quadrotors to cooperatively carry a payload, their payload capacities can be significantly boosted. The number of vehicles can be adjusted according to the weight of the payload, resulting in a flexible and efficient use of drone resources. The presented model development starts from a single quadrotor with a point-mass payload to multiple quadrotors with a rigid-body payload. The payload is towed by quadrotors with cables. The systems are decomposed into the payload subsystem and the quadrotor attitude subsystem by assuming the cable is tethered at the center of mass of each quadrotor. The controller designs are then developed for a single quadrotor with a point-mass payload, followed by controller of multiple quadrotors with a rigid-body payload. Both controllers resemble a cascade form in structure. The outer loop offers a robust path-following controller that stabilizes the payload subsystem by assuming the lift vector of each quadrotor can point instantaneously to a given direction. An uncertainty and disturbance estimator is designed to estimate and eliminate the lumped disturbances caused by exogenous wind and parameter imperfection. The inner loop, on the other hand, is an attitude tracker implemented on each quadrotor to follow a reference attitude generated by the outer-loop controller. The overall stability of the complete system is proven using the Lyapunov method and the Reduction Theorem. Aside from the analytical control law, a model predictive controller (MPC) method is also studied and implemented on quadrotor for cooperative slung payload delivery. The MPC method utilizes the equivalent damping force from the previous controller as the baseline stabilizing inner loop. The linearized closed-loop model is then calculated. Finally, the optimum controller is calculated after a prediction horizon and a cost function are defined. The MPC scheme achieves better performance and requires less parameter tuning. Extensive simulations and experiments show that the controller designs are capable of stabilizing the payload under model imperfection and exogenous disturbances simultaneously. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104991 | Multi-body dynamics||Nonlinear control||Quadrotor||Robust control | urban, cities, wind | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Bryant, Katelyn | Willows, Dale M. | Parent Concern About Children's Reading | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2018-11-01 | This dissertation used mixed methods to explore the phenomenon of parent concern about children’s reading. In Study 1, an existing database was used to consider the value of parent concern as a predictor of, and screening measure for, word-level reading difficulties. Parents of grade 2 children (N = 294) responded to the question “Have you ever been concerned about this child’s ability to learn to read?” and their children completed a timed test of word-level reading skills and a test of sentence memory. A subgroup of children (n = 91) received additional reading-related tests, including tests of phonological awareness, rapid naming, language, memory, and verbal IQ. In the overall sample, 23% of parents responded affirmatively to the parent concern question. Parent concern was a significant predictor of reading skill, and, for some outcomes, added value beyond the other reading-related predictors. It identified children with word-level reading difficulties with acceptable specificity but not always with adequate sensitivity. When parents appeared inaccurate, this corresponded with variation in children’s reading-related skills, as well as their time of birth relative to the school year. Study 2 elaborated on these results by asking a new group of 70 parents the same question. Eleven of 17 concerned parents who met study criteria were interviewed and their children received a battery of reading and reading-related tests. Similar to the results of Study 1, parent concern was reliably accompanied by reading and/or reading-related difficulties. Factors that appeared to influence parent concern included feedback from others, comparisons parents made (between the child and others, their own development, and standards), and children’s emotions and behaviours. Parents doubted their concern and were uncertain about what constituted normal reading development. However, they reported many signs of reading difficulty, including poor word reading, reading fluency, comprehension, spelling, and writing, as well as difficulties with work completion, lack of interest in reading independently or reading challenging material, and negative emotions related to reading. The results from both studies are discussed and practical implications are provided. Overall, this dissertation provides support for the value of parent concern in identifying children with reading difficulties. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102869 | early identification||literacy||parent concern||reading difficulties||school psychology||screening | labor | SDG4 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Luk, Annie | Joshee, Reva | Only in a Collective: A Narrative Inquiry into Leadership in a Collective Organizational Structure | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2021-03-01 | Parkdale Project Read (PPR) has been providing adult literacy programming in the Parkdale neighbourhood west of Toronto, Canada since the 1980s. The staff at PPR work as a collective in which everyone shares the same title and pay rate as part of a commitment to equality, democracy and collaboration. The collective structure serves as an alternative to hierarchical models. Three research questions guided this study to understand leadership in a collective structure: (1) How do the staff members who work in a collective organizational structure share the work of leadership as a group; (2) What is considered the work of leadership in a collective in terms of the staff members’ day-to-day work; and (3) How does the collective organizational structure influence the staff members’ understanding and performance of the work of leadership as individuals and as a group. Using narrative inquiry as methodology which included interviews, observations and a group writing exercise, I worked with eight participants representing all four of the current collective members at PPR (at the time of the study) and four former collective members. The participants told their stories of working in the collective and of sharing leadership with others in the collective. In retelling the stories shared with me by the participants and drawing from Bourdieu’s thinking tools of habitus, capital and field, I discuss how the collective structure influences the understanding and performance of leadership by the collective members as individuals and as a group through the way they relate to each other. At the same time, the collective members change the way the collective operates with their actions and relationships. The results from this study highlight how a collective shares leadership among its members and challenge how we typically conceptualize leadership by illustrating the dynamic interactions between agency and structure. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104951 | labor, equality | SDG4, SDG8, SDG10 | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Calderon Peralvo, Francisco Fernando | Miller, Eric J | Modelling On-demand Mobility Services with Agent-based Travel Demand Model Systems and Implementation of a Ridehailing Case Study | Civil Engineering | 2021-03-01 | This thesis develops a comprehensive framework for modelling on-demand mobility service provision within large-scale, multimodal, long-term Agent-Based Microsimulation model systems of person activity and travel. Conventional model systems lack the required flexibility to accommodate operations and spatiotemporal features of highly dynamic mobility services. This gap is addressed by formally introducing service provision as a major generic model component within such models. The generic framework developed is demonstrated through an extended ridehailing case study.A comprehensive literature review addresses existing ambiguity in on-demand mobility service definitions and characterises their operational activities (matching, rebalancing, dynamic pricing). Focus is shifted from modelling individual services in isolation towards key generic operational activities integrated into a generic service provision process. This supports modelling a range of on-demand mobility services as well as service-specific configurations (within-service variation). Current modelling efforts have predominantly been conducted for autonomous vehicles (AVs), creating a gap in modelling human-driven vehicle fleets. Given the high degree of uncertainty regarding AV adoption timelines, formal representations of drivers’ activity and behaviour are required to model many current services. This gap is addressed by developing explicit models of drivers’ decision-making processes. Moreover, the proposed modelling framework is flexible enough to seamlessly accommodate AV and non-AV services, by representing vehicle technology as an attribute of vehicle fleets. The flexible framework can also accommodate a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) environment, which is not constrained to operate in a centralised manner, as direct interactions among users and service providers are supported – the model system is fully functional without MaaS. Applicability of the framework is demonstrated through extensive implementation efforts for a ridehailing case study, namely: data mining methods to infer supply levels and driver activity logs; in-depth analyses of generic operational tasks (matching, rebalancing, and dynamic pricing); driver activity models of key decisions of independent human drivers (entry/exit/re-entry to the system); and a model implementation of a holistic ridehailing service provision process with human-driven vehicle agents, designed to circumvent data scarcity challenges. Future work involves testing the framework through implementation of other on-demand mobility services in addition to the ridehailing use case (bikeshare, demand responsive transit, etc.). La presente tesis reporta el desarrollo de un amplio marco conceptual para el modelamiento de procesos de provisión de servicio de servicios de movilidad en-demanda, en el ámbito de sistemas de modelamiento de viajes y actividad, y enfocados en microsimulación basada en agentes a larga escala, multimodal, y a largo plazo. Actualmente, los sistemas de modelamiento convencionales carecen de la flexibilidad necesaria para acomodar operaciones y aspectos espaciotemporales de servicios de movilidad cuya naturaleza es altamente dinámica. Esta brecha se puede cerrar al introducir la provisión de servicio formalmente, como un componente principal y genérico dentro de modelos de viajes. El marco conceptual desarrollado, y su generalidad, son demostrados por medio de un caso de estudio de servicios de movilidad tipo “Uber”.La ambigüedad existente respecto a las definiciones asignadas a servicios de movilidad en-demanda se esclarece mediante una extensa revisión de literatura, caracterizando actividades operacionales de dichos servicios (emparejamiento de vehículos y usuarios, rebalanceo de la flota y precios dinámicos). Esta tesis se aleja de un enfoque de modelamiento de servicios de manera individual, para dar lugar a la definición de actividades operacionales genéricas y su integración dentro de un proceso de provisión de servicio genérico. Dicho enfoque permite modelar un amplio rango de servicios de movilidad en-demanda, así como configuraciones específicas de cada servicio individual (variaciones de un mismo servicio). Los esfuerzos reportados en materia de modelamiento en la actualidad se han enfocado predominantemente en vehículos autónomos (AVs, por sus siglas en inglés), creando una brecha en la literatura en lo que respecta a flotas operadas por conductores humanos. Dado el alto grado de incertidumbre que existe respecto al tiempo que tomaría una adopción masiva de AVs, se necesita representar formalmente los patrones de actividad y comportamiento de los conductores en los servicios de movilidad pertinentes. La presente tesis cierra esta brecha al desarrollar modelos explícitos de los procesos de toma de decisiones de conductores. En este sentido, al representar la tecnología como un atributo de la flota vehicular, el marco conceptual de modelamiento propuesto es lo suficientemente flexible como para acomodar servicios basados en AVs, así como en conductores humanos. El marco conceptual es también lo suficientemente flexible como para acomodar escenarios de Movilidad como un Servicio (MaaS, por sus siglas en inglés), los cuales no están limitados a operar de manera centralizada. En específico, se permiten interacciones directas entre usuarios y proveedores de servicio – el sistema de modelamiento es completamente funcional en la ausencia de MaaS. La aplicabilidad de esta tesis se demuestra por medio de una extensa implementación enfocada en un caso de estudio de servicios de movilidad tipo “Uber”. Incluyendo métodos de mineo de datos para inferir niveles de oferta y registros de actividad de conductores; estimación de modelos de actividad de conductores que capturan decisiones clave tomadas por conductores humanos independientes (entrar/salir/regresar al sistema); y la implementación de un modelo holístico del proceso de provisión de servicio de un servicio de movilidad tipo “Uber”, el cual opera con flotas vehiculares conducidas por agentes humanos – dicho modelo tiene la capacidad de superar las barreras impuestas por la falta de disponibilidad de datos. Trabajo futuro involucraría la puesta a prueba de el marco conceptual de modelamiento propuesto para la implementación de varios modelos de servicios de movilidad como bicicletas compartidas, sistemas de transporte público en demanda, etcétera. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105015 | Agent-Based Modelling||Human drivers||Mobility Services||Ridehailing||Ridesourcing||Service Provision | environment | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Ferreira, Tadeu Augusto | Jaimungal, Sebastian | Machine Learning in Algorithmic Trading leading to Reinforced Deep Kalman Filters | Statistics | 2020-11-01 | In this thesis, we develop machine learning frameworks that are suitable for algorithmic trading, where environments are volatile, heteroscedastic, and driven by latent factors. The thesis contains two main parts increasing in the complexity of the frameworks we develop. In the first part, we model the dynamics of ask-bid prices using and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) and compare its performance against First Order Markov Models (MM). A supervised learning method is developed for making binary (buy or sell) market order predictions using Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBMs). The RBMs are adapted to Gaussian-Bernoulli (GB-RBM), and later to discriminative GB-RBMs (DGB-RBM). The algorithm's performance is compared to predictions made using the industry standard of naive bid-ask depth imbalances. We demonstrate that the DGB-RBM outperforms the industry standard by up to 18% increment in the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). In the second part, we use traditional reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms to solve an optimal execution problem – where an agent seeks to optimally sell stocks to simultaneously mitigate the risk of price movements and price impact in a stochastic environment. We develop optimal policies using variants of Q-Learning, DynaQ-ARIMA and DynaQ-LSTM algorithms, which are used as benchmarks. The analysis shows that idiosyncrasies of the optimal execution problem require delicate treatment of data inefficiency and model bias issues, which we address next. We propose a model-based RL approach, coined Reinforced Deep Kalman Filter (RDKF), designed to integrate desirable properties of a reinforcement learning algorithm acting as an automatic trading system. The network architecture allows for the possibility that market dynamics are partially visible and are modified by the agent's actions. The RDKF filters incomplete and noisy data to create better-behaved input data for RL planning. The policy search optimisation also properly accounts for state uncertainty. We perform ablation studies to understand the contributions of individual components of the RDKF. The experiments show that the RDKF is data-efficient and provides financial gains compared to the benchmarks in the optimal execution problem using real data sets from the limit order book of Facebook, Intel, Vodafone and Microsoft. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103243 | Algorithmic Trading||Artificial Inteligence||Finance||Machine Learning||Reinforcement Learning||Statistics | environment, industr | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Lengyell, Marguerite R | Moodley, Roy | Interracial Couples and Parenting: An Exploration of Interracial Couples’ Experiences with Parenting Mixed-race Children in the Greater Toronto Area | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2020-11-01 | The number of interracial couples in Canada continues to rise, particularly in metropolitan regions such as the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with a consequent increase in the number of mixed-race children. The importance of fostering positive racial identities in mixed-race children is well documented. However, there is little research investigating the processes through which interracial couples parent their children together or how they make meaning of their parenting experiences. To address this deficiency, the purpose of the current study was to explore the joint experiences of six interracial couples who were negotiating the parenting process of their school-aged mixed-race children. By employing interpretative phenomenological analysis, in-depth interviews were used to generate descriptions of the interracial couples’ experiences across three relationship phases (i) courtship and early stages of the interracial relationship, (ii) becoming parents and early parenting experiences, and (iii) experiences with co-parenting school-aged mixed-race children. Across these relationship phases, this analysis yielded three core transecting themes that reflected the experiences of jointly parenting mixed-race children. First, participants described how relationship and parenting experiences led to transformative racial identity experiences, both as individuals and couples. Second, experiences with their racially different partner, their mixed-race children, and the external world, led to the realization of their unique experience as interracial couples and mixed-race families in the context of a racially stratified society. Third, in terms of parenting, all six couples described the process through which they framed their interracial status as a strength for their mixed-race children, referencing the benefits of dual racial exposure. Parenting had clear impacts on the racial identity formation processes of the six interracial couples which manifested differently across different phases of their interracial relationship. Generally, the needs of mixed-race families are unique and in the context of a rapidly shifting sociopolitical climate, the perspectives of these families need to be understood to ensure the provision of culturally sensitive and competent practice and pedagogy. Although the findings of this study are an important contribution, more extensive research is needed to further understand the strengths and needs of interracial partners and their journeys of parenting their mixed-race children. | Ed.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103743 | interracial couples||mixed-race identity||parenting | climate | SDG10 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Rwigema, Marie-Jolie | Williams, Charmaine | Fragments, Webs and Weavings: Rwandan-Canadian Perspectives on the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi | Social Work | 2018-11-01 | Since 1994, many survivors of the Rwandan genocide against Tutsi have migrated to Canada to re-build their lives. The literature has established that a large proportion of the Rwandan population suffers from post-traumatic stress and depression. However, there is also a large body of ‘psycho-social’ and ‘anti-colonial’ literature that problematizes ‘Western’ mental health constructs such as post-traumatic stress and depression. Similarly, anti-oppressive social work theories argue that social workers need to recognize the politics of suffering and helping in order to practice effectively. Some have argued that ‘Western’ approaches (namely: bio-medical), that are harmful, continue to dominate work with survivors of mass violence, whose own views are rarely heard. To address the lack of Rwandan voices in the discourse about the genocide, I conducted 1-on-1 interviews with 9 members of Rwandan-Canadian survivor communities to find out what they have to tell us about their perspectives on genocide survival and healing in the Canadian context. My findings identified a total of eleven interrelated themes re: how Rwandan-Canadian survivors are affected by, deal with and make sense of the 1994 genocide. Ultimately my research supported the findings of psycho-social and anti-colonial frameworks that link individual mental health ‘healing’ to political resistance. My research, integrating literature reviews with the interviews and critical discourse analysis concluded that trauma among Rwandan-Canadian genocide survivors is an individual and collective process rooted in a history of anti-Tutsi systemic discrimination borne out of colonialism. Thus, I argue that supporting survivors requires collective politicized processes of recovery. For Rwandan-Canadians, these collective processes of recovery would include addressing ruptures within Rwandan communities and supporting survivor communities in processes of remembering and authoring Rwandan histories in resistance to ongoing structural and epistemic violence, including genocide denial. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102940 | worker, health | SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| Yoshinari, Mary Ann Hiloko | Tavakoli-Targhi, Mohamad | Economic Sovereignty in Iran vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, 1921-1946 | History | 2018-11-01 | My dissertation analyzes Iran’s national economy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and global conditions. In Chapter I, I elucidate the importance of legislation enacted by the Iranian Parliament in preparation for studies of the country’s economy and subsequent measures for the establishment of state economic institutions during the second half of the 1920s. At the same time, I discuss ongoing trade relations with the Soviet Union and their impact on Iran’s economy. In Chapter II, I link the formation of domestic monopolies and other enterprises with state banking institutions and corporations. Moreover, I show how fundamental shifts in trade relations with the Soviet Union had shaped these developments in the early 1930s. In Chapter III, I demonstrate that changes in the Iranian government’s political landscape and the further capitalization of national banks resulted in the expansion of industrialization from 1934 onwards, as well as the fusion of the trade monopoly system with the corporations, and the increasing centralization of domestic capital. Finally, in Chapter IV, I explain how the foreign occupation of Iran, including that of the USSR, had been preceded by the consolidation of state institutions, and then led to increasing cooperation between disparate Iranian statesmen in an effort to regain autonomy over the country’s economic affairs in 1941-46. Conversely, there were a promising signs of regeneration during this tumultuous period, particularly with regard to Iranian industry and the monopoly system, which were both indicative of future developments in the postwar period. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102911 | economy||foreign trade||industrialization||interwar||Iran||Soviet Union | institut, trade, industr | SDG9, SDG10, SDG16 | X | X | X | |||||||||||||
| Hassan, Samah | Stevens, Bonnie | Development and Initial Evaluation of a Novel Pain Competence Assessment Tool | Medical Science | 2020-11-01 | Many primary care practitioners lack the knowledge, and the interprofessional skills needed for treating chronic pain patients. Competency-based interprofessional education is currently the key educational approach, especially for continuing professional education on the topic of pain. This type of education necessitates a competency-based assessment tool to show learners’ progression and to evaluate the impact of these educational interventions. This research aimed to develop and initially evaluate the psychometric properties of a new Pain Competence Assessment Tool (PCAT) designed to assess the core competencies for pain management relevant to primary care practitioners involved in managing patients with chronic pain. To develop the PCAT, case-scenarios were created reflecting real-life chronic pain situations commonly seen in primary care. Each case was followed by key-feature questions. The tool was uploaded on a custom-designed online web interface. To assess its content, pain experts representing different professions, reviewed the PCAT, and reached consensus on the most appropriate questions using the modified Delphi technique. Then a small sample of primary care practitioners, representing the target population, completed the PCAT to assess the response process through a cognitive interview study. Finally, a representative sample of practitioners and trainees completed the PCAT to preliminary evaluate the internal structure and the relation of the PCAT scores to other variables in separate pilot studies. After a series of refinements, the PCAT consisted of five cases with 17 questions. Through preliminary evaluation, the results showed that the PCAT questions reflected the specified construct intended to be measured and their relevance to the target population. Apart from six questions, the PCAT questions demonstrated homogeneity and acceptable reliability. The PCAT showed substantial stability and excellent preliminary validity. The PCAT scores reflected the participants’ expected level of competency defined by their previous training and current practices. The PCAT is the first competency-based assessment tool that has the potential to assess the core competencies for pain management among primary care practitioners. Critical next steps are needed for further validation and adaptation for the assessment of pain educational outcomes. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103151 | Competency||Education Assessments||Interpofessional||Pain | educat | SDG3, SDG4 | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Carianopol, Carina Steliana | Gazzarrini, Sonia | The Role of Sucrose Non-fermenting Related Kinase 1 (SnRK1) in Abscisic Acid and Abiotic Stress Response in Arabidopsis thaliana | Cell and Systems Biology | 2020-11-01 | Environmental stress greatly affects plant growth and reproduction, posing challenges to food security. The yeast SNF1 (Sucrose non-fermenting1), mammalian AMPK (5' AMP-activated protein kinase) and plant SnRK1 (-Related Kinase1) are highly conserved heterotrimeric kinase complexes, which are activated under metabolic stress to re-establish energy homeostasis in eukaryotes. Despite the pivotal role of SnRK1 in plant development and stress response, only few SnRK1 targets have been identified so far. In plants, the hormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a crucial and well-known role in stress response. Activation of SnRK1 or ABA signaling results in overlapping transcriptional changes, suggesting that these two important stress pathways share common targets. To investigate how SnRK1 and ABA interact to regulate stress responses in Arabidopsis thaliana, the six SnRK1 complex subunits were screened by high-throughput yeast two-hybrid against a library of 258 proteins that are transcriptionally regulated by ABA and enriched for the SnRK1 phosphorylation motif. A set of 125 SnRK1-complex interactors were uncovered, which included ABA metabolic and core signaling components, suggesting that SnRK1 may modulate the ABA response pathway at multiple levels. Network analysis indicates that a subset of SnRK1 kinase interactors, which are highly interconnected and coexpressed under stress, form a signaling module in response to osmotic and salinity stress. Functional studies using T-DNA insertion mutants show the involvement of the catalytic SnRK1a2 subunit and four interacting partners in salinity stress responses. Furthermore, the characterization of SnRK1-ABI5 BINDING PROTEIN2 (AFP2) interaction elucidated a role for SnRK1a1 in inhibiting AFP2-induced cell death when overexpressed in Nicotiana benthamiana. This targeted approach uncovered the largest set of SnRK1 interactors identified so far in plants and highlights an important role for SnRK1 and its interactors in ABA and stress response. The ABA-responsive SnRK1 interaction network identified in this study can be used to further characterize the role of SnRK1 and its ABA-responsive partners in plant survival under stress. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103317 | ABA||abiotic stress||Arabidopsis||salinity||SnRK1||Y2H | conserv, environment, production, energy, food | SDG2 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Gibson, Erin Alexandra | McIntosh, Randy | The States and Traits of EEG Variability | Medical Science | 2021-03-01 | The States and Traits of EEG VariabilityErin Gibson Doctor of Philosophy Institute of Medical Science University of Toronto 2021 Neurons in the brain are seldom perfectly quiet. They continually receive input and generate output, resulting in noisy, highly variable patterns of ongoing activity. Yet the functional significance and behavioral consequences of this variability remains largely unknown. We hypothesize that brain signal variability is tightly coupled to the processing of task-relevant information and serves as an important indicator of cognitive function. To test this, we examine EEG activity in young, healthy adults as they perform a cognitive skill learning and resting state task. Several measures of EEG variability and signal strength are calculated at multiple timescales, or in overlapping time windows that span the trial interval. We perform a systematic examination of the factors that most strongly influence the variability and strength of EEG activity. Study 1 examines the relative sensitivity of each measure to trait-level variation across subjects and state-level variation across task blocks. We find that EEG variability is most sensitive to trait-level differences across individuals that remain relatively stable across blocks. Study 2 examines the sensitivity of each measure to different sources of state-level variation across task blocks. We find that key task-driven changes in EEG activity are better reflected in the strength, rather than the variability, of EEG activity. Study 3 examines trait-level variation in each measure and its relationship with behavior. We find that differences in learning speed and acquired skill across individuals are better reflected in relative changes in the variability, rather than the strength, of EEG activity. These results demonstrate that EEG variability is particularly sensitive to stable trait-level variation across individuals and relative changes in EEG variability around a particular level, rather than the level itself, are a strong indicator of behavioral performance in young, healthy adults. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104994 | institut, wind, health | SDG3 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Hamid, Usman | Subtelny, Maria E||Ruffle, Karen | Tracing the Footsteps of the Prophet across the Indian Ocean: The Materiality of Prophetic Piety in Mughal India | Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations | 2021-03-01 | This dissertation adopts theoretical and methodological insights from the study of religious materiality to explore how Indian Ocean travel gave rise to religious discourses and practices in South Asia. It traces how the circulation of people, objects, and knowledge between North India and the Hejaz led to new forms of Muslim piety in the imperial centers of the Mughal Empire. A characteristic feature of this piety was belief in the auspicious nature of the Prophet Muḥammad’s body. This belief was expressed both in scholastic discourse and ritual practice as evidenced by the history of Prophetic relics and tradition examined in this dissertation.The introduction lays forth the concept of Prophetic piety and outlines what it means to study it from the perspective of material religion. It draws attention to the way material culture has been mobilized to preserve the memory of the Prophet Muḥammad. Chapter one looks at the arrival of a qadam or footprint relic associated with the Prophet to the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605), and focuses on the religious debates and royal rituals of veneration it engendered. The analysis offers insight on the practice of religious inquiry at the Mughal court and its role in the performance of sovereignty. Chapter two looks at the development of two monumental reliquary shrines, one in Delhi and the other in Ahmedabad, whose central relics shared a connected history. By focusing on the religious economy of the shrines, the chapter looks at how various actors invested in the shrine, including the Mughal court, Chishtī Sufis, and Sayyids, and how their interventions may have shaped devotees’ relic practices. Chapter three contextualizes these ritual practices at the reliquary shrines within new scholastic discourses that began circulating in seventeenth century Delhi. These discourses are found in the scholastic writings of North Indian Sufis who expressed a strong devotion to the Prophet and who had travelled to the Hejaz for pilgrimage and studying hadith. It is in their writings that we see clear expression of the belief in the auspicious nature of the Prophet’s body. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/104969 | Indian Ocean||Mughal Empire||Prophet Muhammad||Qadam||Relics||Religious Materiality | ocean, gender | SDG10 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Tong, Zhichao | Balot, Ryan K | The Imperative of Competition: Epistemic Democracy in the International Context | Political Science | 2020-11-01 | This dissertation offers an epistemic theory of democracy from an international perspective. Generally speaking, an epistemic theory of democracy can take two possible forms. One is a purely normative investigation focusing on whether the justification of democracy includes an epistemic dimension in addition to traditional considerations of procedural fairness, consent, and political equality. The other is a more practical inquiry that regards political decision-making partially as an epistemic endeavor oriented toward identifying and advancing certain interests commonly shared by members of a political community, and which further explores how and under what conditions democracy can outperform other, non-democratic alternatives with respect to the pursuit of those common interests. The epistemic theory that I lay out in this dissertation bears more resemblance to the second, more practical, body of work. In particular, I provide a realistic defense of three key assumptions of epistemic democracy that distinguish it from procedural democracy: (1) the existence of certain interests that are commonly shared by members of a political community, and which are not reducible to their subjective preferences, beliefs, or judgements; (2) an independent standard of good decisions, which can be used to identify those common interests and the better policies aiming at their advancement; and (3) an epistemic account of democracy as an effective regime in advancing those common interests. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/103634 | equality | SDG16 | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Nouemsi Njiké, Elvis | Tcheuyap, Alexie | Polars Africains et Enjeux de Justice | French Language and Literature | 2019-11-01 | Cette thèse traite des enjeux de justice dans la fiction criminelle en Afrique subsaharienne francophone. Elle examine plus précisément les questions terminologiques (1), les problématiques inhérentes à la nouvelle criminelle (2), le caractère participatif de la criminalité en postcolonie (3) et la concurrence de légitimité à laquelle se livrent justice d’État et entités non étatiques (4). La nature protéiforme de la fiction criminelle a conduit les critiques à une certaine généralisation terminologique. Voilà pourquoi, dès le premier chapitre, la thèse questionne des expressions telles que « roman policier » aujourd’hui considérées comme des évidences alors qu’elles ne tracent pas toujours efficacement les contours d’une littérature qui n’a jamais dérogé à son engagement à dire le crime, mais qui s’est si souvent éloignée de la police. L’expression « roman policier » fait en plus l’impasse sur l’existence au sein de la fiction criminelle, en Afrique notamment, d’un important corpus de nouvelles criminelles qui traitent des questions sociétales avec une efficacité qui n’est en la matière pas celle du roman criminel. C’est la raison pour laquelle le deuxième chapitre est consacré à la nouvelle criminelle. Le troisième chapitre utilise le néologisme criminofiction (fiction criminogène) pour établir le fait que l’environnement postcolonial secrète le crime en abondance et contraint de ce fait les personnages à la violation des lois. Cette abondante criminalité débouche sur une concurrence de légitimité entre un État postcolonial délinquant et des individus – ou des entités non étatiques – auxquels les populations font appel. Des exemples de vengeance pure et de vindicte populaire se multiplient dès lors, comme le montre le quatrième chapitre. En définitive, la thèse établit que dans la fiction criminelle postcoloniale la justice s’émancipe des canons de légitimité en vigueur dans le droit dit positif, ces canons qui sont également à l’œuvre en métropole. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102771 | Crime||Fiction||Justice||Polar||Polarovelle||Policier | justice | SDG16 | X | |||||||||||||||
| Goel, Sachin | Ramchandran, Arun | The Roles of Dissolution, Coalescence, and Interfacial Tension in the Formation and Stability of Extremely Fine Water Drops in Concentrated Bitumen Solutions | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2019-03-01 | In this thesis, we investigate the formation and stability of extremely fine water drops (<10 m) in the final diluted bitumen (dilbit) product as the existence of these emulsions is highly undesirable for the oil sands industry due to their negative economic impact. There are three primary objectives of this thesis: to comprehend and characterize the solubilization process as a potential emulsification mechanism to produce the most stubborn extremely fine water drops in bitumen, to measure the interfacial tension behavior of the water-bitumen system, and to understand the practically-relevant parameter regimes for which the concentration of these small water droplets could be minimized. In pursuit of achieving these objectives, novel microfluidic platforms have been developed in-house. Our shallow channels have enabled us to conduct studies at the industrially-relevant solvent-to-bitumen (S/B) ratios (0.5 to 2), which is a major improvement over most studies conducted to date. iii A microfluidic extensional flow device (MEFD) is employed to examine the solubilization of water in concentrated bitumen solutions and to measure the interfacial tension of the water-bitumen interface. One of the key outcomes of these studies is that the behavior of the water-bitumen interface appears to be fundamentally different under flowing conditions as compared to stagnant conditions. Moreover, a modified micropipette technique is implemented to carry out the coalescence of water droplets in dilbit. Our study shows that the coalescence of water drops in concentrated bitumen solutions is possible, unlike most of the previous studies, provided that the right combination of the contact time and the contact pressure is available. These microscale results are also used to predict coalescence regimes on a map of drop radius vs strain rate (or power dissipation) in a mixer. Besides the experimental studies, a theoretical study is also performed to examine the stability of water-in-bitumen emulsions. Overall, this thesis is a step towards the ultimate objective of mapping the regimes of operating parameters that could circumvent the formation of sub-micron droplets, or, in the event of the absence of such a regime, propose a way to remove them. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/105126 | Asphaltene||Bitumen||Coalescence||Interfacial Tension||Microfluidics||Oil Sands | water | SDG9 | X | |||||||||||||||
| McGee, Meghan | O'Connor, Deborah L||Hamilton, Jill | The Effect of Donor Breastmilk Compared to Preterm Formula on Body Composition in 5.5-Year-Old Children Born Preterm | Nutritional Sciences | 2019-11-01 | Background: Infants born very low birth weight (VLBW, <1500 g) have an increased risk for cardiometabolic diseases in early childhood and beyond; the etiology of this increased risk is poorly defined. Early nutrition and physical activity are modifiable risk factors in term-born individuals, but their impact on body composition and obesity risk in early childhood among those born VLBW has not been thoroughly investigated. Objectives: (1) To determine the effect of supplemental nutrient-enriched pasteurized donor milk (DHM) compared to preterm formula (PTF) and; to determine the associations between (2) dietary intake and quality and (3) physical activity, sedentary time, and sleep with body composition in 5.5-year-old children born VLBW. Methods: This was a 5.5-year follow-up (NCT02759809) to the Donor Milk for Improved Neurodevelopmental Outcomes double-blind randomized controlled trial, where VLBW infants were randomized to receive either DHM or PTF when mother’s milk was unavailable. All 316 participants who completed the trial were invited to attend a study visit at the Hospital for Sick Children at 5.5-years-old. Child’s diet quality (Healthy Eating Index-2010 [HEI-2010]) was iii calculated from two parent-reported 24-hour dietary recalls (ASA24), physical activity and sedentary time were measured using 7-day accelerometry, and sleep was parent-reported. Body composition outcomes were BMI and waist circumference z-scores, skinfold thicknesses, and total fat and fat-free mass (air displacement plethysmography). Results: At follow-up, 158 (50%) children (53% male) participated. Mean (SD) age was 5.7 (0.2) years, birth weight was 1013 (264) grams, and gestational age was 27.9 (2.5) weeks. Average HEI-2010 score was 58.2/100 and 27% of children consumed poor quality diets (scores ≤50). Only 52% of children achieved the recommended 60 min/day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. In-hospital DHM had no effect on growth or body composition at 5.5 years. HEI-2010 scores and fruit/vegetable intake were inversely associated with several measures of adiposity and light physical activity was positively and sedentary time was negatively associated with fat-free mass. Conclusions: Results indicate supplemental DHM supports growth and body composition comparably to PTF. Increasing diet quality and physical activity may be important strategies for improving body composition and mitigating long-term cardiometabolic disease risk in individuals born VLBW. | Ph.D. | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/102767 | body composition||donor milk||nutrition||physical activity||preterm||very low birth weight | nutrition | SDG2, SDG3 | X | X |